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howrry · 6 years ago

Text

friendship bracelets, firecrackers, and far too much sunscreen

a/n: here it is! this was supposed to be a one shot but i got WAY too carried away with it so its a full blown fic now! i kept getting too immersed while writing it so if you’ve never been to summer camp... it’s gonna feel like you did after reading this. grab a snack kids cause this is a doozy

w/c: 13.1k holy sHIT

warnings: lotta smut, alcoholism

Your alarm jerked you awake at 7 am sharp, and when you shot up onto your elbows, the humidity of the morning air made your pillowcase stick to your cheek for a moment. Yuck. That's why you insisted on showering in the morning, since the sticky, hot air would make you sweat all night anyways. You popped your neck to release the tension that sleeping at a weird angle caused.

Mornings were so peaceful; if only you liked them. The air was a little thick, but the birds didn't seem to mind as they chirped and tweeted at the beautiful sun-shiny day.

"What craft are we doing this morning?" you grumbled to Kathia, another counselor who was getting up and stretching her arms. Of course you'd share a cabin with the biggest morning person you'd ever met.

"Leather crafts. Hammering designs into bracelets and luggage tags. Some of the older girls get to do belts since their hand eye coordination will help them finish quicker," Kathia explained, going into the sun salutation poses. The first morning you two had spent together, she claimed it's how she stayed flexible even after quitting cheer. You weren't sure how some yoga related to the strength to do flips, but she still impressed campers year after year with her refined tumbling skills.

"That doesn't seem too bad. You just have to make sure the little girls don't hammer their fingers into ground beef," you reasoned, getting out of bed and finding clothes to wear that day along with your shower caddy.

"Yeah, but it'll get boring after twenty minutes," Dani, your other cabinmate, complained. Dani hated mornings as much as Kathia loved them, and typically stayed in bed until the very last minute. It was quite common for her to show up to breakfast still in her pajamas, and sneak back into your cabin to change during the camp announcements.

"Not everything in life has to be wild and exciting, Dani," Kathia tsked while bent in half at the hips, with her head between her knees. "This camp is for the girls, not us."

"Kat is right," you agreed, pushing the screen door out to leave for the shower units. "Try to be in day clothes at breakfast, Dani, please?"

She barely made a noise before plopping back down into her pillow as the door swung behind you. You played some music on your phone, and the shuffle put on some old Arctic Monkeys. You tried to keep the volume low, since the camper cabins are not far from yours and you weren't exactly allowed to have phones around campers.

You hummed Knee Socks to yourself as you turned on the water, waiting for it to get warm. You'd gotten your shower routine down to a science, proving that the past few months of learning when to turn on the water and exactly which degree to turn the knob to for the ideal temperature had been worth it. Since you were the only person up and at 'em this morning you thought nothing of taking your musty t-shirt and shorts off, leaving you in your underwear in the shower units.

It wasn't the most exposed structure, since the whole thing was made of concrete. Concrete floor, concrete walls, concrete stalls between each shower and toilet. The only thing missing was a concrete ceiling, but it actually didn't have a ceiling at all; only a wire fence stretched over the top to keep out leaves and sticks from being blown into the showers. The toilets were covered by a tin roof, but if it rained during your shower, you were doubled soaked. And probably frozen.

Still waiting for the water heater to kick in, you danced along to the guitar solo in the song. You swayed your hips, banged your head, and spun around the concrete in your shower shoes until a big hand clasped over your mouth. You freaked the fuck out until the mystery person started shushing you and turned you around, revealing himself to be your boyfriend, Harry.

"Well, aren' you adorable. Dancin' around in your knickers to good ole Alex Turner. I quite like him m'self, but clearly not as much as you do," he teased, kissing your cheek and letting his hand fall off of your mouth.

"Shut up, you scared the hell out of me! What are you doing here anyways?" you asked, noticing how little he was actually dressed. He was only in red plaid boxers, looking honestly delicious with messy hair and still-tired puffy eyes.

His shoulders lifted to his cheeks and dropped. "Woke up a little earlier than my alarm and decided to surprise you."

You laughed hoarsely. "And surprise me you did. I nearly screamed."

"Well what 'm gonna do next is really gonna surprise you, then." Before you could ask when he meant by this, he grabbed you by the back of your head and yanked you into the shower you'd been warming up.

You gasped, choking on some shower water. "Harry! I'm in my underwear!" you sputtered stupidly, unsure of what to say.

"So what? Y'were gonna change into new ones anyways. We should make out," he decided, and frankly he was right. It was just water, and you should make out. It wasn't often that counselors had alone time, so you shrugged and tossed your arms around his neck and kissed his smiling mouth.

"Y/N? Are you up already?" a voice from outside the showers asked. You and Harry separated and you gasped softly when you realized the voice belonged to Cricket, the middle aged camp director who ruled with an iron fist.

"Uh, yeah!" you blurted, unsure of what to do. Harry awkwardly backed into the corner of the shower as you popped your head out of the curtain, trying to hide the fact that you still had a bra on. Cricket was brushing her teeth in the trough sink, orange hair pulled up out of her face into a bun.

"Morning, hon, I was heading back from getting the campers' mail and figured I'd brush my teeth real quick since I had my toiletries on me," she explained, wetting her toothbrush in the water.

You nodded and dove back into the shower to find Harry confusedly waving his arms around as if to ask what to do. There was no way to leave the shower units unnoticed until Cricket left, so Harry simply had to wait to make his escape.

You grinned. "Better finish this shower before I lose the hot water," you said aloud, as if you were talking to Cricket, but really you were playing a game with Harry. You popped the hooks on your bra open and shimmied your underwear down your legs, leaving you naked in front of your boyfriend.

"I know what you mean," Cricket responded around a toothbrush in her mouth. "You have to learn to love the cold water."

You seductively combed some shampoo through your hair before lathering yourself up with body wash, running your fingers over every square inch of your tanned body. Harry was watching in awe at this explicit dance you were performing for him, with the camp director not even fifteen feet away completely unaware of what was happening.

Soon you heard the sink shut off and Cricket spit out the toothpaste down the drain. "I'll see you at breakfast, Y/N dear!" she called before walking away.

When the crunch of the leaves under Cricket's footsteps subsided, Harry let out a breath. "You're a menace! How 'm I gonna walk back to m'cabin with a hard on like this?" he gestured to the obvious tent in his boxers.

You giggled, rinsing out the last of the shampoo in your hair and squeezing out the water. "Shame. You should've worn real pants. I think I can help you, though," you offered vaguely, making Harry perk up thinking about the possibility of a good morning handy. Instead, you twisted the shower knob all the way to the coldest setting and pointed it at the corner Harry was huddling into.

The shriek he unleashed when the freezing water touched his skin was unlike any other you had ever heard. You'd been a counselor at summer Camp Jalita for two years now and had heard the screams of girls who thought they were drowning, of girls who were actually drowning, girls who saw huge bugs and lizards and once an armadillo, girls who tripped and fell, and once a girl who thought her cabin was haunted because the wind was moving the canvas flaps that hung over the screens, but this one cry released by your grown ass boyfriend pierced your ears like a knife.

"Shhhh, quit it! We just avoided getting caught by Machiavelli herself and I don't want your sissy ass to get us busted now," you reprimanded, shutting off the water entirely so that the two of you could leave. You started to get dressed as he scampered away, with one less hard-on than he had five minutes ago.

Harry was one of two male counselors at your summer camp. The other male counselor was this nice, older gentleman named Paul, who was an expert at archery and taught classes to the campers. Harry was one of the lifeguards and taught swim lessons. The other counselors (all 15 or so), counselors-in-training, members of the general camp staff, and the director were women and had a certain responsibility, and it was expressly forbidden for a counselor to date other counselors, regardless of gender.

You were never clear on why this was a rule in the first place, but you couldn't have imagined it would be a problem when you applied to be a counselor a couple years ago. Until this summer, the camp had only hired Paul and female lifeguards, so the dating policy wasn't a problem for you. Then, one of the old lifeguards got engaged and then pregnant, they needed a replacement, and they hired Harry.

You met him at a meeting long before setting foot on the campgrounds that summer, in an air-conditioned office room in the city. It was almost as opposite from actual summer camp as one could get; the humidity controlled office, the hushed tones used, the blouses and slacks worn could never prepare a newcomer for what camp was like. Harry was the relaxed vibe in a building full of squares and you couldn't help but be attracted to him.

You were a little dazed the morning of that meeting, and accidentally followed Harry into a bathroom, not realizing that A) he wasn't a girl and B) that it was a solo bathroom that lacked stalls. When it dawned on you what you'd just done, you backed out of the room stammering out an apology, but Harry had thankfully found it much more amusing than embarrassing.

"I love the enthusiasm, darling, but I think I've got it from here m'self," he joked before closing the door. You were officially too mortified to pee and scampered back to the meeting room. Afterwards, he formally introduced himself as Harry and your relationship blossomed from there.

Except, again, dating was super duper not allowed. Cricket drilled it into your heads a million times during the meetings and during on-site orientation. But you and Harry persevered and had managed to sneak around the first five or six weeks of the summer without anyone catching on. It wasn't easy, but the two of you figured out ways to be subtly romantic and also found times to get busy.

As for being romantic, it was done in the fashion that anything you did for each other could be easily explained by normal events. Harry would leave you a beautiful wildflower on your pillow for you to find at the end of the day and you told your cabinmates you'd picked it yourself; you would slip a bag of his favorite kind of chip you'd swiped from the kitchen into his swim bag, and he acted like he'd known it was there the whole time. A few love letters here and there, some sneaking out at night to gaze at the beautiful stars, one too many joints shared at the riverbanks, and you had yourself a full-swinging summer romance.

As for getting it on... well, that took a bit more work. See, the cute little gifts and notes you leave for each other can be just in passing should one of you get caught. "Oh, did I drop that paper into Harry's bag? My mistake. No harm done, he's busy teaching little kids how to tread water." But sex, simply put, required both of you to be there. Two missing counselors to be accounted for rather than one.

Fortunately, there was one golden opportunity each week. New sets of campers and counselors-in-training cycled in week by week, arriving Sunday morning and departing the following Saturday evening, giving the counselors one night each week to themselves. The counselors were permitted to do whatever they wanted, so long as it wasn't dangerous or meant leaving the camp grounds.

So that gave you and Harry your time. You still weren't completely out of the woods, since the no-dating policy was still in effect even on counselor Saturdays, so the excuses for your locations basically got whackier and whackier throughout the summer. Once, you left the cabin at 10:30 pm, telling Dani and Kathia that you were going to find some glitter for an arts and crafts event you didn't have planned until Wednesday. By the time you got back with tangled hair and your underwear in your pocket, Kat was already asleep and Dani was too busy being high to even notice your return.

Harry was so passionate during sex. He was just naturally a really handsy guy and you chalked it up to him not being able to touch you at all during the day, but he was all over you when you were intimate. He kissed and bit and grabbed and stroked and pulled, anything to get a physical touch with you. It was always mind-blowing, and his giving-to-receiving ratio was unlike anyone else you'd met or had relations with.

He'd scampered out of your shower only minutes ago and you already missed him. You mozied your way back to your cabin where Kathia was also already dressed and Dani was practically dragging herself out of her bed.

"What was that scream from earlier? Did a camper see a snake or something?" Kat asked, sitting on her knees on your bed with two hair ties and a brush.

Dani plopped down on the bed in front of her, and you sat on the floor in front of Dani. The two girls behind you started braiding the hair of the girl in front of them, a system you three had been doing for weeks now. Kathia was too neurotic to wear her hair in any fashion other than a sleek ponytail and your fingers were too shaky and unskilled to properly French braid hair, thus the perfect set up was discovered.

You paused a little. Kat tended to be a bit of a rule-follower and you'd carefully kept the fact from even your cabin mates that you were dating Harry. "Nope, I just got in the shower a little too early and the cold water unlocked an ancestral scream from me." Not bad, you thought to yourself. You were never super great at holding a bluff... but you'd gotten better over the summer.

Kathia made a little noise. "Weird, you're usually pretty good at that." She breathed for a moment while braiding back Dani's wavy hair. "Oh, well. I guess it's a good way to wake up. What do you think they're gonna be serving for breakfast?"

***

After eating breakfast tacos, cleaning up the Great Hall where the camp eats every meal, and going over camp announcements, it was over to the art pavilion. You spent the day demonstrating wetting the leather, hammering in the designs, and chatting with your counselors-in-training about you were going to do later in the day.

Your group of girls this week consisted of ladies age 13-15, which was your personal favorite age group. They were too young to be edgy and mean, too old to be crybabies about everything that wasn't perfect or what they were used to, and they were really, really funny. And frankly, the more freedom you gave the girls, the more likely they were to listen to you. The camp understood this and gave the older girls the least strict schedule of all the campers. So long as you made it to each meal and were in bed at a godly hour, you were pretty much free to do whatever you wanted for the remaining time during the week.

"I was thinking of tubing," one of the CITs suggested. "When I put up the poles after fishing, I saw the storage unit was full of these industrial sized tubes. Wouldn't it be fun to float the river on our last day here?" she gushed.

"That's not a bad idea. I'd need to make sure no one is fishing today," you thought aloud, scratching your head and trying to avoid the braids becoming loose. It was finally Saturday and the campers were kind of bummed that they had to leave that evening anyways, so maybe this was just the thing to lift their spirits. "Oh, and I'd need a lifeguard." Your finger shot out towards the CIT who'd suggested it. "After crafts, you're excused to go find me a lifeguard to accompany us. We'll probably tube backwards since the river doesn't move super fast and we get less exercise if we just sit in a tube and float." The girls nodded together in agreement, excited that they now had an excuse to wear their cute bikinis they'd packed.

See, that's how you remained off the radar with Harry. If the CIT just happened to pick him for the tubing, that's nobody's fault except chance. If he'd been your first pick, some alarm bells were bound to go off in the heads of other counselors and CITs.

"Could we ask Kathia's group to join us?" another CIT asked. "They're the same age as us and I don't think they have any plans either."

"Great idea! Hand me the walkie so I can ring her up," you ordered, pointing to the walkie talkie on the table next to the first CIT. "Tubing party later today!" you announced to your campers, who also cheered at the fun final adventure.

When everyone was waiting down at the riverbanks later that day holding their big tubes, Harry strolled down wearing a tan fishing hat, bright orange swim trunks, and a ridiculous amount of white sunscreen slathered on his nose. Black sunglasses sat on the brim of his hat and a red whistle hung around his neck, resting daintily between his chest muscles. If the campers weren't so intimidated by his size and attractiveness, they probably would've laughed at him.

The group felt no need to waste time and immediately started their way up the river. Some girls sat in their tubes and paddled their way upstream, while some girls planned to drag another and switch off who got to sat in the tube. Kathia ran a timer on her watch to tell girls when to trade places. Harry carried one girl in his tube at a time and some campers were practically tripping over the river rocks to get to be the one H pulled. He played this game with some of the girls where he would yank the rope attached to the tube until it slipped out from under the camper and she dropped into the river. They would come up laughing and squealing until Kat reprimanded him.

"Aren't you supposed to be the lifeguard?" she prodded jokingly. "Some girl is gonna get a concussion from that."

Harry sighed. "All you do is nag, Kathia dear. That's why Y/N is my favorite counselor." He nodded his head over to the side where you were pulling a girl using a camp brochure as a fan. You stuck your tongue out.

Kat feigned being insulted. "Hey! You can't have a favorite counselor!"

"Relax," he waved a hand to deflect Kathia's words. "Watch this." Harry turned to the group of girls in tubes. "Raise your hand if Kathia is your favorite counselor." A majority of the hands shot up. "Raise your hand if Y/N is your favorite counselor." Another majority of hands lifted, and Harry winked to both of you. "Now... raise your hand if I'm your favorite counselor." Every single one of the hands raised, including yours, Kat's, and Harry's. He always was quite the narcissist. "See ladies? Favorite counselor isn't a person; it's a tier."

Your group finally reached the end of the tubing trip, since the point of the river furthest north was at the Great Hall and it was already in sight. Everyone started dragging their tubes out of the water to carry back to the storage unit. You put your tube in the unit last, and when you turned to go back to your group, Harry slapped your ass on the way out. He'd been holding the door and probably waited for the opportunity to do that. You tried to glare at him but he had such an excited grin you couldn't even pretend to stay mad at him.

By this point, the group was grouchy from either having to wash off the river water with a garden hose, excess sun exposure, or both, so Harry decided to cheer everyone up. "Hey, when everyone's changed and back from their cabins, how about we all have some ice cream?" he suggested when the group was huddled in their towels outside Great Hall, and their general mood instantly lifted. He leaned to you and whispered, "I bought a ton of weed from one of the cooks, so I get special food privileges. Gotta learn to network." He clicked his tongue and shot a finger gun at you, making you roll your eyes and laugh.

***

Saying goodbye to your campers each week was hard and didn't get easier no matter how long the summer went on. You got seven days of living with strangers and by the time they leave, they're like ten new sisters that you'll never see again. The campers would start to look up to you and they'd be just as bummed as you. If it weren't for their faces brightening when they saw their parents or older siblings arriving to pick them up, you'd think it wasn't worth it.

When the last girl was picked up, the sun was already setting. The lifeguards began slathering aloe vera on each other's shoulders, the cooks were lugging boxes of food for the week into the kitchen, and the remaining counselors were drawing broken toothpicks to see who got to use the washing machines first. You, however, were plotting your escape to Harry's cabin for that night.

When Dani and Kat weren't around to see, you kicked out a path leading up to your cabin so your feet wouldn't crunch the leaves. You sprayed a coat of sunscreen onto the spring that pulled the door shut so that it wouldn't creak. Some trial and error led you to learn that the humid air only allowed this to work for about 12 hours until the sunscreen melted off, so you did this as late as possible.

Harry also took some precautions. The frames that the mattresses sat on were super old and made a ton of noise when you two were, you know, on it, so he dragged it (with the sheets and blankets and pillows still on it) down to the ground. Concrete floors can't squeak when you're getting fucked into it. Fortunately, since he was a guy and the other lifeguards were girls, he got his own cabin to stay in, so cabin mates were one less factor to worry about on his end.

When you arrived at his cabin that night, you used your special knock that you two agreed on to eliminate Harry opening the door in his underwear when it was really Cricket or Paul or even worse, a lost camper. H opened the door wearing shorts that rode low on his hips and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt draped over his shoulders.

"Hey, princess," he murmured, pulling you into his cabin and kissing you.

"Morning, babe," you joked. "Has it been lonely waiting for me all by yourself?"

He took two steps backwards and sat back, landing with a thump on the mattress. His arms shot back and he balanced himself by leaning on his palms. "Terribly so. Almost thought you weren't comin'."

You followed him down onto the mattress. "As if I would skip out on this." Harry scooted back and you climbed over him, straddling his hips. You already could feel his semi pressing against your core-- only a few thin layers separated you two.

Even the slight pressure of him brushing up against your center had soft gasps slipping from your lips, and Harry's first two fingers slipped between them. "Haven't even done anything yet and 've already got you whimperin'. Don't think I'll ever get over how responsive yeh are."

You giggled, or at least as much as you could with two fingers in your mouth. Your eyes fluttered shut as your lips closed around him and you sucked gently, making him twitch beneath you.

"Oh, you're playing dirty tonigh'," he noted, pulling his hand from your lips and flipping you over so that you were below him. He pulled your shirt off and licked at your now-exposed nipples. A wandering hand of his discovered that you were soaking wet. "M'so glad you make it easy for me, pet." He flipped you onto your stomach and yanked your shorts down, giving him easy access to slip his cock into you.

Having sex only once a week made it difficult to stay accustomed to his size. He wasn't like, a monster or anything, but he was bigger than average and having cabin mates eliminated the option of touching yourself. So every week, when you and Harry got together, he had to re-fuck you open to handle his width.

Before the burn from the stretching had quite subsided, Harry let his carnal side out and started pounding into your mercilessly, assaulting your delicate and sensitive walls. His fingernails dug into the soft skin above your hips and his balls slapped your clit, stimulating you from the inside out.

"Someday, I'm gonna fuck yeh in private, and I won' have to cover y'mouth. I wanna hear every moan, whimper, and gasp I can get out of yeh," he punctuated his statement by bottoming out all the way, the head of his cock pressing against that spongy spot inside you, and your jaw dropped open. Harry, thankfully, was quick and had a hand smacked against your mouth before any noise slipped out. "Bet it sounds like heaven when you get fucked hard."

You were getting close to coming really fast. At this point, Harry had one arm snaked around the front of your body pulling you as close to his chest as he could, and the other hand was clasped around your mouth, forcing you to pant through your nose as he fucked you harder and faster. You clenched your walls around his pulsing cock and he moaned into your ear, and you finally hit your peak. Harry followed soon after, pulling out and painting your back with thick white ropes.

After you both came down from your highs, Harry got to work cleaning you off and helping you get redressed. As much as the two of you would love to spend the whole night talking and cuddling and, y'know, having more sex, it was imperative that you go back to your cabin before anyone could notice you were missing.

"Love the glow you've got," Harry mused, leaning against the cabin wall and looking down at you laying on the mattress. "You're the most beautiful woman I reckon 've ever seen."

You sat up, tucking your knees to your chest and covering your face with your fingers. "Making me blush. I love you, Harry, but I've gotta get back to my cabin." You checked your watch. "T minus eight hours until we get new campers, and I haven't slept a wink yet."

Harry smirked. "I'd apologize but I know yeh enjoyed it." You stood up to leave, leaving a fat smacking kiss on your boyfriend's cheek. "I love y'too, babe, get back t'bed safely."

And off into the night you went.

***

The departure of your campers was obviously immediately followed by a new set of bright young faces ready to have the most fun week of their summer. When new girls checked in, they were separated by which counselor would be responsible for them during the week, all of which waited on the courtyard right outside Great Hall. As each camper joined your group, they sat in a circle with you talking about themselves.

"Y/N? Do you mind speaking with me for a moment?" a voice behind you called. It was Sydney, a girl your age who was essentially Cricket's right hand man.

Sydney had blonde hair with a thick dark chunk of roots on her whole head. Her jaw was unnaturally square and nose turned up, looking like one of the wicked stepsisters. She stood with her arms crossed above her camp shirt, pinning her lanyard to her body.

You wobbled to stand up and bounced over to her. "What's up?"

Her eyes dropped to your shoes, a pair of light blue Chacos strapped over your feet. "You're not supposed to be wearing those. The camp rulebook says close-toed shoes only on campgrounds."

Your hands found your hips and you narrowed your eyes. "Really? You mean, the rulebook that pretty clearly states that only campers have to wear close-toed shoes." God, this was such a stupid thing to be arguing over. Didn't Sydney have better things to be worrying about?

"You should at least try to set a good example for your girls," Sydney seethed.

"Just like you're doing with that beer breath before it's even noon?" you bit, not in the mood for such a petty argument. If she wanted smoke, she'd get smoke. Her face contorted a little, but you shut her up before she could retaliate. "Yeah, I thought so. Let me deal with my girls as I see fit, and I'll leave you to yours. Oh wait! You were deemed not responsible enough so now you're a jealous lapdog. Mind your own, Syd."

You trudged away from her and rejoined your group where they were all chatting about new movies they were gonna see when camp ended. "Hey girls!" you started, sitting back down. "So, who would play you in a movie about your life?"

***

The week rolled along without making much of an impression until smack halfway in the middle of it, when the day was so violent it demanded it left an impact on you.

That Wednesday, the sun was over-the-top vicious. The members and attendees of your camp were no strangers to hot and humid weather, but when the first sunburn was reported at the modest hour of 10 am, nobody complained when Cricket ordered for minimal sun exposure and forbade swimming until the temperature cooled back down.

The lifeguards were bored silly since their number one purpose became obsolete. Two of the lifeguards opted out of taking up any new responsibility, and spent the day washing their laundry in the counselor's quarters, playing Super Smash Bros in the office building, and enjoying indoor weather wherever they could find it.

Harry was much too in love with the campers to shut himself in, however. He floated around the camp from group to group, joining in with the kids making crafts, cleaning up the campgrounds, and playing games. In fact, you didn't even see your wanderer boyfriend for most of the day anyways.

After lunch, everyone has a mandatory thirty minute "resting" time after eating. They claimed that it was to prevent campers getting stomach cramps while swimming or running around, but even as years went on and that myth was debunked, nobody really suggested the rule get thrown out since it was a half hour of just chilling and not having to work. (Plus today, one of the most sweltering of days, nobody was exactly itching to go run laps immediately after consuming tons of lasagna and garlic bread).

You were laying in bed during your rest hour, and most of your girls were in their cabins doing fuck-all. You chose to read, and picked one of your favorite books, The Duff.

Dani's girls were always really young, so she spent her rest hour getting her girls in bed for a nap. They were allowed a longer resting time since this was the time of day was the hottest (even on regular days when records weren't being broken), and them napping was better than them being out in the sun. Today, Kathia's group had the chore of cleaning up Great Hall after lunch, so you were in your cabin alone when someone knocked at the door.

"Come in," you called, and placed your book down holding your finger in the spot you left off at.

The door swung open to reveal one of your campers, a 13-year-old girl named Paige. "Hey, Y/N. I had a question." She stepped in and sat on one of the empty beds, pulling her Chaco-adorned feet up with her.

"Shoot."

"How mad would you be if we were out a little later than lights out tonight? We're older, so we're more responsible than the young girls, and we'll all be together so it's like ultra buddy system."

One of your eyebrows shot up. "Is that really what you're asking me?"

Suddenly the cabin door swung open, and Kathia entered. She yanked her ponytail out of its tie and immediately brushed it out with a comb, waving to Paige.

The camper sighed and dropped a dark piece of hair she'd been playing with. "Okay. I'll level with you. One of the girls in my cabin brought an iPad and never turned it in, and we wanna see if we can find the office's WiFi password to watch a music video that just came out."

You couldn't help but let out a laugh. "I have so much faith in the youth of today. When I was a camper here, I missed out on watching the music video for 5SOS's Amnesia."

Kathia chimed in. "I missed a Hoodie Allen concert with my friends. Not that I could've done anything about that."

"You liked Hoodie Allen?" you balked, making the blonde girl laugh and nod. "Anyways," you continued, turning back to Paige. "I'm proud of you guys solving problems together. What music video are you gonna watch, anyways?"

She looked down, almost embarrassedly. "Have you heard of Billie Eilish? It's one of hers."

"God, how old do you think I am?" you rolled your eyes. "But listen to me extremely carefully." Paige leaned in, gripping her ankle. "If you get caught, I'm 100% throwing you under the bus. Cricket will unleash hell upon you and your cabin, and I won't lose a blink of sleep over it. Am I clear? Do. Not. Get. Caught."

The camper nodded vigorously, jumped off the bed, saluted, and took off out of the cabin. Huh. You liked her style.

"I can't believe you let that slide," Kathia spoke up, plopping down onto her bed to enjoy what was left of her rest hour.

"Are you criticizing my parenting skills?" you asked, picking your book back up as Kat chuckled to herself and shook her head.

One problem with the camp was its lack of cell service. Even if you and Harry managed to check your phones without getting in trouble with camp staff, there isn't enough service for miles to communicate. So even now that you had an opportunity to see Harry tonight without disturbing your campers, the info would have to be relayed to him in person.

When your rest time finished up, you popped over to your girls' cabin and poked your head in.

"Hey ladies! I don't feel like planning out more stuff to do inside for the rest of the day. Does anyone object to just chilling in our cabins for an hour or so?" When this was met with silence, you continued, "Great! Will anyone back me up when I say one of my campers didn't feel well so we didn't plan any afternoon activities together?" Two girls raised their hands. "Our cup runneth over! Rock, paper, scissors for who gets to be my scapegoat and I'll catch y'all later!"

You practically skipped to Harry's cabin, but when you got close you slowed your roll to be conspicuous. You opened the door to find that he wasn't in there, so you made yourself at home on his bed, kicking your feet up on the bedpost and sniffing his pillow.

Your timing was golden, since H came back shortly after you got comfortable. "Well, I see you have no intention of moving," he noted, wiping sweat off his face with a white rag.

You sat up. "I'm not staying forever. Just wanted to let you know we should meet up tonight. Maybe... the abandoned cabins?"

Harry's head reared back a bit. The abandoned cabins were a grouping near the riverbanks that got destroyed in a flood. Fortunately, the flood happened when there were no camps in session, so no one was hurt. Some were rickety and damaged, some only had walls left, and some were nothing more than concrete slabs jutting out of the dirt. The bathroom structure was still standing but gutted, missing a roof and donning big padlocks on the toilet stall doors.

"Tha's a new spot. What made you think of it?" he questioned, grabbing a water bottle and taking a few drinks from it.

"Overheard a group at lunch talk about hiking near there and how eerie it was. I think sneaking around there would be exciting and... I don't know. Kind of sexy," you admitted, rolling your head to the side almost to hide your face.

"Now yeh're speaking my language," he chuckled, pointing a ringed finger at you. "I'll meet you tonight, then?"

"Yessir," you affirmed, jumping up to wrap your arms around his neck. "Did you have a fun day doing nothing?"

"Nothing?!" he cried, almost choking on his water. "I spent the whole day givin' girls piggy back rides. Being charming and fun and popular isn' always easy, Y/N." He kissed your forehead to show he was kidding, but you still rolled your eyes.

"You joke, but that kinda talk is in your nature, Styles," you poked, heading towards the door.

"'f tha's true, then you really can't be mad at me for it, huh?" A little dimple popped out at the corner of his smile and he held his arms out in a lazy shrug.

"Watch me," you winked, and shut the door behind you.

God, the rest of the day crawled on painfully. The indoor rule which stretched until just before dinner, and after dinner the whole rest of the day is automatically planned out through Taps, camp announcements, evening games, and lights-out. Your options when it came to activities were pretty limited, so you spent the remaining hours before the last meal letting the girls check out the library that was adjacent to the Great Hall. Of course, the books hadn't been updated since 1996 and the 14 inch TV didn't have any cables to plug into the walls, so that day honestly kinda sucked.

Your girls had good spirit, though, and honestly seemed kind of excited for their own risky night they planned ahead. You wondered which out of the set you got that week were going to sneak out and which ones were gonna stay back and hold down the fort. Paige seemed like exactly the type to stage this kind of rebellion. Whatever.

So that evening, you waited on your bed, wringing your hands in anticipation. Dani was exhausted from her long day wrangling kiddies, and Kathia was always in bed early anyways. Before you knew it, you were the only awake person left in your cabin and had to patiently wait to leave so that you wouldn't be waiting on Harry.

Even with your worrying, you still overshot your departure and were left to kill time before he got there. Which cabin would you two go in? Only two had a roof left, and one of them literally shifted in place when you pulled on the door handle. The alternative was totally missing screens over the windows, and they appeared to have been cut out with a knife. Weird.

You heard the crunch of the leaves Harry was stepping on before he had any opportunity to scare you, so you quietly called him over to your cabin of choice.

"Well, hello there, beautiful," H flirted when he got to you, pulling you into his arms and spinning the two of you around. "You come 'ere often?"

You squealed a little before he steadied you again. "No, actually, this is my first time. Care to show me around?"

"Nope," he responded. "Was a hike getting here. Let's sit." He plopped down to the concrete floor and pulled you onto his lap, lazily tossing an arm around your waist and pressing kisses to the spot where your neck met your shoulders.

That was a sensitive spot for you, and you let your head roll to expose more skin for Harry to kiss and your jaw hung open. His free hand snaked down into your shorts, petting around to get inside your underwear and feel your folds.

"Fuck," he groaned, "You're always ready for me. Are you always this ready to get fucked?" His fingers just barely dipped inside you, not even past the second knuckle.

You nodded, one hand flying back to grab his hair and pull on it. H always loved when you got a little rough with him despite your meek nature, and he moaned breathily as you tugged at his curls. He also shoved his fingers all the way inside you and hooked them to brush against your G spot. His calloused palm grinded against your clit and he bit at your jawline, ear, and neck.

The pumping motion of his fingers created this delicious wet noise, and that combined with the moans and gasps of you coming on his fingers did a great job of covering the footsteps of someone approaching the abandoned cabin.

Harry slipped his hand out of your shorts and brought his fingers up to your lips to suck them clean. You were just getting ready to hop off his lap and give him a quick blowie when you heard the unmistakeable crack of someone stepping on and breaking a branch.

You and Harry's heads snapped towards the outdoors and then back to each other, wordlessly deciding that it was time to get out of there and it was every man for himself.

Jumping up from the floor, you two simultaneously realize that the door was not an option and the only way out was through where the windows used to be. You scrambled over gracelessly (while Harry leaped, rolled on the ground, and took off like a bullet) due to your jelly legs and landed on your back in the leaves. Adrenaline made you shoot back standing, and you darted towards the faint sound of the running river.

In the dark, you struggled to find the path that ran alongside the river for the whole stretch of camp since you didn't have a phone or a flashlight to help you see. Eventually, the caliche-lined footway was under you and you slowly walked back to your cabin.

You were terrified, of course, but you didn't have any other choice. You'd never had a call that close before; how could this happen? Could someone else have known about your plan? If it were Cricket, she would've stopped the two of you, right?

Your legs were still pumping with adrenaline and carried you back to main camp in no time. You crept back into your cabin to find both of your roommates sleeping soundly.

Well. Guess there's nothing left to do but sleep and see what the next day would bring. You sure hoped Harry made it back safely as well.

The next morning, nobody acted weird. Kat did her stretches, Dani complained about having to teach elementary aged girls to tie-dye shirts later that day, the cooks barely paid attention to the girls they were giving food to, Harry merely shrugged to you when your eyes widened at him during breakfast, and the staff was just as boring and predictable as always. Nobody acted as if you or H were busted.

You decided to let yourself relax. Maybe it was one of the campers who went hiking near there the day before. Maybe they were looking for something and got lost. No harm, no foul. To ease your stressed mind, you told your group they were going to weave friendship bracelets that day. You hoped the repetitive and soothing motion would loosen the knot in your stomach.

Things were actually going quite great, until your walkie-talkie hissed alive. "Cricket to Y/N. Please come to my office A-S-A-P." Fuuuck.

You simply nodded to your CIT, who understood you had to go. The walk to the office was like heading to a slaughterhouse and you could barely even feel your legs. You imagined how badly this meeting could possibly go (which really wasn't a great idea. You were practically sweating buckets) and pushed the door to go inside.

The office building was a modest shack, with loud air conditioning and painted concrete floors and doors with that arm that shuts them behind you to keep the cool air from escaping. One half of the building was individual offices, while the other half was an open area with chairs, tables, and spare storage for decorations. Sydney sat at one of these tables and her nose wrinkled when she saw you.

Syd gestured to the hallway leading to the offices and you quietly opened the door to Cricket's office. The older redheaded woman glanced up from her computer and nodded at a chair, not saying anything for several moments after you sat down.

She finally took off her glasses and folded her hands on the desk. "Y/N, I needed to talk to you about something quite important that's come to my attention," Cricket began. Here it goes. Your stomach was already twisted up in fear.

Be cool, you thought to yourself. "Uh, what's going on?" you asked, just barely avoiding your voice cracking. You were sure your hands were still trembling, so you sat on them.

"We, at Jalita, greatly value our rules and regulations we've set in place for our counselors, as they directly reflect on the safety of our campers. A direct violation of these rules shows you just don't care about that safety." Man, Cricket was really laying into you. "This is, however, your first time breaking the rules..."

You couldn't keep it in anymore. "And I promise it'll be the last!" You weren't sure if saying that would do you any good at this point, but it had to be worth something to get that across.

"... I should hope so. I mean, letting your campers run around the grounds after lights out and take twenty-so cartons of orange juice?! Were they raised by wolves?" Wait. What? This is about the stupid orange juice cartons? You and Harry hadn't been caught? "You're quite lucky we accidentally over-ordered juice this month, and now our numbers even out, or you'd have some thirsty campers by the end of the summer."

So... Cricket was mad because your campers had stolen a bunch of OJ for their Billie Eilish watch party. You couldn't help but feel like Paige was behind this tomfoolery and were again intrigued by her style. You sucked a big breath in through your nose before speaking again. "I'm so sorry, Cricket. You're right. I-I should've kept a better eye on my campers and I won't let this happen again." Your hands folded in your lap, suddenly not shaking anymore.

"I'm very glad to hear that. And since, like I said, this is your first time getting in trouble, all's well that ends well. You're free to go, Miss Y/N. Don't let me see you in here again, but I will see you at the fireworks show tonight." Oh fuck, right, it was the Fourth of July and time for the annual fireworks show. Cricket slid her glasses back on her nose, pushed the sleeves of her cardigan up her forearms, and turned back to her laptop.

Thankful for your easy out and the opportunity to leave, you nodded curtly and bolted out the door and down the hallway, back in the office's main room. Sydney sat at a big table sorting sparklers into cups that would go on the tables during dinner before the fireworks show, and merely turned her nose up at you. The blast of the A/C unit felt like it was getting louder so you ran out the doors to the familiar heat and humidity.

The pressure was starting to crush you. Sneaking around, making out in closets, flirty notes, brief touches that left you wanting more, wanting more in general and not being able to have it, it was maddening! You wanted Harry, and you wanted all of him, and the summer wasn't over yet.

You knew that you probably should've gone back to your campers, but your CIT could handle them and you needed to see H. Where could he be? It was just before three o'clock, his last class of the day was the advanced class at 1:30, and it lasted an hour. Knowing Harry, he'd probably left immediately after to go take a shower and would be out by now, probably getting dressed in his room, so you went there first.

You threw open the door to his cabin without thinking to knock or otherwise announce yourself. Harry was in the middle of the room facing away from the door, one towel wrapped around his body riding dangerously low on his hips and another on his head to dry his hair. He spun around, shocked at the sudden intruder but quickly relaxed when he realized it was just you. "Hey, pet. I heard the radio, what did Cricket w--" he was cut off by you marching up and pulling him down to you for a kiss.

The chlorine smell lingered on his skin even after the shower, creeping up and burning your nose a little bit. The towel on his head fell to the floor as he grabbed your waist with damp hands. You popped off his mouth as quickly as you'd started, creating a juicy noise when you separated.

"We didn't get caught. Yet. She was chewing me out for something else I'd done." You plopped down onto his bed as he dropped the towel on his waist to put on boxers and shorts.

"Tha's good," he mumbled to himself as he pulled up his black shorts and tossed a hole-y t-shirt on. His hair was still dripping wet, but he just pushed it back out of his face before joining you on the bed.

"Yeah," you said emotionlessly and began picking at the threads of your white braided anklet.

Harry's eyebrows furrowed. "Wha's wrong? Figured yeh'd be leaping for joy at th'news." He grabbed the hand doing the picking and lifted it, softly kissing the knuckles.

"The pressure is killing me," you blurted all at once. "I'm so scared of getting in trouble, and I don't want to get kicked out of camp for this, but I really like you and I want to keep seeing you but holy shit I'm not used to this whole forbidden romance thing."

There was a moment of silence between the two of you before Harry let out an adorable giggle. "Oh, my God, tha' had to have been the cutest thing 've ever seen. You're such a doll." He leaned back on the palms of his hands amusedly, dimples popping out of his tanned cheeks.

"Not even you will take me seriously!" you cried, jumping up and heading to the door. Harry quickly followed you and grabbed your arm before you could leave his cabin.

"Whoa, there, kitten. Yeh can't leave right now, Paul's going back to his room after his 2:30 class. Can't have 'im seeing you leave m'cabin. " Sure enough, through a sliver of the window not covered by the canvas flaps, you saw Paul trudging back to his room with a bow strapped to his back. "N'I'm sorry I laughed. What would make you feel better about this? A second opinion? Just telling someone here what's going on? Have yeh even told anyone else about us?"

"No!" Your eyes narrowed to slits. "Why? Have you?"

He snorted. "Yeah, the only male counselor under 25 is dating another counselor, it'd be a great idea to tell a girl counselor, 'cause she certainly won't tell anyone el--"

"Okay, okay, damn, you've made your point," you interrupted, holding a hand to his chest. "What should I do then?"

He shrugged. "Do yeh think telling a trusted friend counselor about us would make yeh feel better?" His big hands rubbed up and down the sides of your arms, oddly enough calming you down. You nodded gently, looking up at him. He responded by kissing you again. "'m sorry we can't be more open, baby, yeh know I want t'be."

You rolled your shoulders back, making his hands drop back down to his sides. "I know, love. We gotta do what we can. I'll see you at the fireworks show." He could barely even wave to you before you fluttered out of his room back into campgrounds.

Who to talk to? You honestly couldn't even think of someone really worthy to tell this big secret to. Your mind went at a million miles an hour, but fortunately your legs did the thinking for you and took you in the direction of the art pavilion.

It had a giant sign over the main entrance with the words Dabbler's Den in yellow paint. As a camper, you once asked why it was named that, and allegedly it was to reference how many art forms you would dabble in while there. Today, apparently, was tie-dye t-shirts, since you found Kathia and a CIT demonstrating to her campers how to squeeze the bottles of runny dye onto their twisted-up and rubber banded t-shirts. While you were lucky enough to snag another older set of girls this week, this time Kat was stuck with 10-year-olds.

"Remember ladies," Kathia cheerfully announced to the group, not noticing your arrival. "When it comes to tie-dye, more is more when it comes to pigmentation, but be realistic about our dye budget!" The campers giggled at her joke and immediately started lunging for ketchup and mustard bottles filled with various colors.

"Kat? Can I talk to you in private for a sec?" you tapped the bubbly girl on the shoulder, making her whip around to face you.

"Sure," she agreed, taking the paint-smeared apron off and hanging it on a brass hook on the wall. "Sierra, make sure no one tries to drink the dye while I'm gone!"

Her CIT flashed a thumbs up, but one of the campers yelled, "We're not four years old, Miss Kathia!"

The Dabbler's Den was divided in half by a craft room in the middle, with a hallway leading to the back of the pavilion. There were steps to this section, and it was only used when the Den was double booked. It looked off into the river and was considerably more quiet than the other half.

"What's going on? What did Crick say?" Kat asked, already hopping onto the battered craft table with wide eyes.

"She got on my ass about letting my campers steal orange juice from the Great Hall. But... there's something else I have to tell you." Your lower belly suddenly filled with nervous energy, and your hands fiddled with each other.

Kathia's head lulled to one side. "What's up?"

"Harry and I are dating. We have been for months now, and I know it's not allowed, but I'm so scared of getting caught and keeping it to myself is absolutely killing me. I've never kept a secret of this magnitude before. I'm so scared Cricket is gonna find out, is my hair going gray? I think I'm barely twenty and already getting gray hairs." You punctuated your wild ramble with your fingers threading through your hair and tilting your whole head forward so Kat could see the strands and check for actual graying hairs.

"Y/N, calm down!" Kathia reassured, grabbing your shoulders and standing you back up. "I already knew."

"And I've been sneaking around for weeks trying to keep it on the down low but it's stressful! I've-- wait." You stopped for a good few seconds, reading Kat's face. It was like she was holding back a laugh. "You already knew," you deadpanned, unsure if it was a question or not.

"Yes, I did!" she affirmed, finally letting out that laugh. "I've been onto you for like two and a half weeks now. Do you think you're secretive? You always get the right shower temperature, Y/N." Kat shrugged and dropped her eyes to the ground for a moment. "When you just let Paige go off at night, I kinda got the idea that it was so you could have some fun of your own but I wasn't sure who with. I severely doubted it being Paul so unless you were gay this whole time, it had to be Harry. Before you snuck out, I pretended to be asleep and followed you to see if I was right and I may have seen something I shouldn't have."

Your eyes widened. "You were the one who caught us?!" Your hands flew up to cover your mouth before you could even stop them.

"Yes! I was as embarrassed as you were afraid, so I bolted to get back to the cabin before you did, but I think I woke up Cricket. I couldn't see super well so I knocked over a box that was by her window. Tell your campers I'm sorry about getting them busted."

You sighed in relief, placing a hand over your heart. "Wow. That's a huge weight off my chest. You're not gonna tell anyone, right? About Harry and me?"

Kathia shook her head. "I don't necessarily approve of it, but I like you. I won't rat you out to Cricket or anyone else here. That doesn't mean someone else won't find out though," she warned, wagging a finger at you. "So be careful. Speaking of your campers, what did you do about them sneaking out and getting caught by Crick?"

You picked at a cuticle. "I kinda... took the fall for it. Promised not to let it happen again."

Kathia shook her head, walking towards the stairs back up to the other side of Dabbler's. "You said you weren't gonna do that. Stand by your own word. Take control of your life, Y/N!" she called after you, grabbing her apron and tossing it back on. You wouldn't have admitted it then, but she was right. You remained speechless for a few moments before turning and going back to your bracelet-weaving campers.

As the evening approached, the weather cooled down, and the sky went a bright pink before darkening altogether, camp went into a frenzy to prepare for the show. Counselors wrangled up their girls and ensured they had towels to sit on and Cricket was occupying all walkie talkie traffic getting staff to move their cars off the field where the fireworks would be launched.

You were minding your own business once you got your more competent girls settled in, and just so happened to be caught in Crick's line of sight when you were looking for Harry just before the show was due to start.

"Y/N!" Cricket snapped, pointing at you.

"Ma'am?" you replied, halting in your tracks and turning to her.

"The show is supposed to begin soon and I haven't seen Sydney anywhere. She's the one who's in charge of the fireworks. Can you go find her? If you need me I'll be in my usual fireworks spot," she tapped the folding chair slung over her shoulder for good measure and went on her way.

Part of you wanted to let Sydney fail, to pretend to have looked for her and just let her be late and take the blame for herself, but you couldn't. Syd had never done anything specifically bad to you other than get on your ass about rules, so you went looking for her.

The first place you thought to try was her cabin, which was empty. Then you went to the office building where Cricket had reprimanded you just hours before. Thanks to the evening weather, when you opened the door, the air inside was actually cool enough to give you shivers and goosebumps.

There was a clattering from one of the storage closets (one you and H hadn't consummated in yet, for the record) and you terrifiedly approached the door. It could be a raccoon, or a small deer, or a huge conglomeration of evolved rats, or a sexual predator. Or... maybe not.

You turned the knob before jumping back, and Sydney bursted out from the closet, dropping to the ground and catching herself on her hands. The infectious reek that followed her out of the room and the clinking of obvious bottles behind her revealed that she was off-her-ass drunk. Sydney looked up through fluttered lashes, clearly amused at herself.

"Oops! How did I end up in the closet, I'm not even gay!" she slurred, giggling and hiccuping around her words.

"Sydney... what the fuck?" you blurted, unsure of what to do in this situation. Sure, you and Harry smoked a little on weekends. And maybe you weren't even supposed to be together in the first place... but you didn't get blackout drunk when you're supposed to be around campers! "You're supposed to be on firework duty in five minutes!" Yeah, as if that's still a viable option at this point. Real Mensa member over here.

"S'no big deal," Sydney countered, wobbling back up onto her feet, only to casually lean on a table. "Just point the lighter, put your right hand in, keep your shoulders straight, HEY MACARENA!" she yelled, echoing in the office building.

"Sydney! Pipe down! I've got to get you to bed, now," you decided while reaching for her, but she jerked away, suddenly angry.

"Don't *hic* touch me!" she coughed. "I don't have to *hic* do what you *hic* say! What are you gonna do? Tell on me? I'm sure once you do that, Cricket will love to know you've been fucking the lifeguard the whole time." She stamped her feet and crossed her arms like a child... like a child with a detrimental secret.

Your breath almost caught. "I don't know what you're talking about." You continued to try to sorta carry Sydney back to her cabin, and she was too drunk and angry to stop you this time.

You managed to guide the intoxicated girl back to her cabin and get her set up in her own bed. You placed a trashcan next to where her head was, poured a glass of water for her to drink when she woke up, and settled her body into the "recovery" position you'd learned in high school. Push them on their side, pull the top knee over to support the position, extend the bottom arm to keep from rolling over, and place the top arm under the chin to prevent choking on vomit. Before you knew it, Sydney was snoozing peacefully. You double checked that she was still breathing through at least one of her orifices (she was, all of them actually) and flipped off the light to her cabin.

What were you going to do about Sydney? She clearly knew about you and Harry and probably had been waiting for a good enough reason to let you know she was onto you. Was she just talking out of her ass, or would she really be willing to take you down with her unless you kept quiet about her drinking problem? You'd never been blackmailed before and frankly you thought that those gray hairs were starting to come in full swing.

No time to worry about that. You, obviously, were going to be late to the fireworks show, but then again, the girl who was in charge of it wasn't even going to be attending. All you had to do was find someone willing to cover for Sydney who wouldn't ask a bunch of questions about her whereabouts.

Paul was the obvious first choice-- you searched around for him and found him smoking a cigarette behind the nurse's office. He saw no problem in working the fireworks stand and didn't really care much about why Syd wasn't available anymore, so all you had to do now was find H and enjoy the light show.

When you finally found him, he was standing on the edge of the field between the campers and the pool holding what appeared to be a quilt. He was scanning around for you, and when he saw you his face lit up and you jogged over.

"What's with the blanket?" you asked breathlessly, pointing at the big red quilt folded up into his arms.

"Was thinkin' we could share it." Harry's hands weren't free to gesture, but he motioned with his chin towards the ground.

You smiled a tiny bit. "Okay. That's cute." You helped Harry unfold the blanket until it was fully opened and laid on the ground to his left.

The fireworks show was now officially overdue, but fortunately nobody had a watch or a phone that could tell them the difference between eight and eight oh five. The camp had a murmur of mild conversation and excited whispers draped over everyone, and it was completely silenced when the first rocket shot into the air.

As soon as the first firework popped and every head of every camper, counselor, and director was pointed up at the sky, Harry reached over to his right and grabbed the edge of the blanket, pulling it over both of your bodies, making a small cocoon of just the two of you. You were out in the open, and nobody was looking.

He gazed down at you like you were the most beautiful artwork he had ever seen, like you were the moon, like you were a fireworks show. He fluttered his eyes shut and so did you, and his lips were on yours.

Sparks were flying through your whole being at this intimate yet critically risky move. Making no noise was the hardest part, because even though the explosions and crowd were loud, there were moments of silence as the fireworks shot up... Silence that would shamelessly reveal the gasps and moans and kissing noises the two of you elicited from the other.

Finally, when the oxygen level got just low enough under the blanket that both of you tapped out, he lifted the quilt up and the two of you sat up and enjoyed the rest of the show, breathless and a little sweatier than everyone else there.

Harry looked at you instead of the sky. He was smiling at you, and when you looked down from the show to meet his gaze, his smile did that subtle change when a normal, closed-mouth smile gets bigger, as if he was too happy to keep his teeth hidden. It was like when you were around, there wasn't a face he could physically make to show how happy he was with you.

After the show, when all the campers were tucked away in their cabins, the counselors (except for Sydney, of course) gathered around the massive fire pit by the riverbanks. Harry brought his guitar and some of the cooks brought s'mores ingredients. The fire was lit up and some of y'all roasted marshmallows while the rest enjoyed the music.

One of the girls suggested singing Country Roads and at first everyone laughed, but when Harry started strumming it out softly, nobody could bring themselves to not sing along. Everyone swayed with full hearts as the fire danced up into the night sky.

"I wanna make a toast," Dani announced, standing up from the log she'd been sitting on. "I've been dealing with seemingly infinite young children for almost two months now in addition to one of the most uptight bosses I've ever had, and I once worked for someone who make you clock out to pee." The counselors laughed a little but died down as she continued. "But you know what keeps me going, week after week? You guys. Getting to have moments like this is what really makes summer memorable. That, and the really good garlic bread the kitchen has. Shoutout to Hannah." More laughter erupted as one of the cooks flipped her hair pridefully. "So yeah. I toast to my fellow counselors. May we all make it out without hurting a fellow counselor, a CIT, camper, or Cricket!"

Not everyone had a whole s'more or a water bottle, so the rest of us had to toast with a dry graham cracker. The resources were lackluster, but it was the words that counted and Dani nailed them.

The next day, when you were walking back from Dabbler's with your group, you got an unfortunate message from your hip.

Your walkie talkie crackled to life. "Cricket to Sydney and Y/N. My office, now."

You froze in place. "Ten-four," you muttered to yourself, not even reaching for the talkie. You barely nodded to your CIT before taking off in the direction of the office.

Sydney was already in Crick's office by the time you got there. The three of you stood in the room together in a triangle formation, and the air in the room was palpably tense with the sound of blood rushing in your ears getting louder and louder. Finally, Cricket spoke up with a simple question.

"Can someone explain to my why Paul was in charge of the fireworks yesterday?"

It was silent, and neither you nor Sydney were quite sure what to say. Not only did either of you want to tell the truth, but you also hated each other too much to construct a safe backup story to cover your asses.

Cricket continued. "Yesterday, I gave Sydney the job of setting off the fireworks, and Y/N the job of finding her before the show started. So... pray tell. Why did Paul ask me this morning where the leftover matches and sparklers go? I would've assumed that since I gave Sydney that job that she would've been the one asking me that." Her tone was condescending and drawn out, as if you were stupid.

"I guess I fell asleep," Sydney finally cooed. Oh my God. She was trying to pin this on you! "When I woke up it wasn't until after the show had ended! I must not have been woken up in time." Her eyes drifted over to you, as if you should be ashamed for letting this happen.

"What?!" you shrieked. "You were piss drunk when I found you! You couldn't open a door let alone handle fireworks! You're lucky I didn't leave your ass in the closet to puke all over yourself, and now you're turning me in as if I got you wasted and I didn't cover for you?!" By now you'd reached the breaking point and decided to really seal Sydney's fate. You marched over to the closet you'd discovered Sydney in and yanked the door open. Sure enough, the smell hadn't gone away and neither had the bottles that noisily rolled out. "How do you explain that? 'Cause I don't drink and I don't think Cricket's sauce of choice is a fucking Four Loko! Are you still drunk now? Can you even defend yourself?" you hissed. Earlier in the summer you probably would’ve let Sydney make whatever accusation she wanted and taken it in stride, but you were done. No more making excuses for other people and being a doormat.

Sydney's face flickered, devastated over her blown cover, but pushed on anyways. "At least I'm not a slut! You've been fooling around with Harry this whole summer!"

It's a pretty good thing your anger totally overwhelmed how bad you were at acting. "You fucking liar! You're making that up so you won't get busted even though you already have been. I don't even like Harry! He's loud and arrogant and narcissistic and irrespon--"

"Y/N, that's enough." Cricket finally chimed in, overwhelmed by what was going on. "Nobody likes being accused of things they didn't do, but it's not an excuse to insult Harry. If you have such a problem with him, take it up with him some other time," Cricket reprimanded, and it took so much in you not to burst out laughing. "And you, Sydney, should be embarrassed. Creating a rumor to deflect off your own alcoholism? At least use something believable next time." Crick rolled her eyes as she talked and Syd's jaw was practically on the floor. "I believe your time at Camp Jalita is over. Get your things packed by tonight or the camp board will hear about this and charges will be pressed."

Unable to do anything else, Sydney complied. When she'd left the room and slammed the door behind her, Cricket stepped forward and placed a hand on your shoulder. "I'm sorry I had to call you in here for that. I figured something was up with Sydney and I knew she would lie to me. But you... you're the most trustworthy counselor here, and I thought you'd give me the truth. So thank you. You're free to go back to your girls and enjoy the rest of your week."

"Any time, Cricket," you replied with a smile. So maybe you were lying to her the whole summer and everything she knew about you was a swindle, but Crick's words still made your heart swell.

"Oh, and Y/N?" she called just before you made it outside. "You should really give Harry a chance. He's actually quite a nice boy if you get to know him!" Cricket offered, sitting down at her desk and slipping her glasses on.

You giggled. "Of course, ma'am, I'll try."

Since your campers were busy getting ready to go swimming, the only place you could think to go was back to your cabin. Dani and Kat were on the brunette's bed, poring over a tabloid Dani's mom sent to her through camp mail.

"Y/N? What's wrong? Why are you out of breath?" the girls asked, concerned over your distraught appearance.

You sat on your bed and sighed. "I just got Sydney fired."

Your cabin mates gasped, demanding to know the whole story. You went over every detail, from her chastising you since the beginning of the summer, to her drinking problem, to her blackmailing you, to the meeting you had only moments before.

"Wait, wait, what was she blackmailing you over?" Dani asked, brows furrowed. Oh, right-- she didn't know about you and H. You explained you and Harry's story including any detail you could remember, and by the end of it Dani was practically squealing in delight. "Oh my God! Y'all are so cute together! I should've known. You always get the right temperature in the shower, there had to have been someone else!" You and the other girls laughed together, and you finally felt something that you hadn't felt since before the summer started. You couldn't quite pin what it was, but it was the feeling of not having to hide anymore.

Acceptance? Safety? Freedom? Whatever it was, you wanted to bathe in that feeling forever.

***

With Sydney out of the picture and your two friends offering to cover up for you whenever they could, the remainder of your summer with Harry blew by without you even realizing it. Something else that happened without you realizing it was the two of you falling deeper and deeper in love than either could have fathomed.

Every year, at the end of the summer, the camp staff makes a huge banner to hang up in the Great Hall that every counselor that worked that year signed. There are banners dating back to the 80's, and every year had a certain theme. One was fall-themed and all the felt pieces signed by the counselors were orange and yellow and red leaves. One was rain-themed and the signed pieces were raindrops.

This summer it was art-themed. Each counselor was given a splat-shaped piece of felt to sign their name on. You, of course, demanded your favorite color, annoying the girl passing them out.

You took your time to write your name, carefully writing it in pencil first. You poured yourself a second cup of coffee that day in secret and painstakingly traced it out with a Sharpie. That evening, with caffeine still in your veins, you proudly showed it to Harry at the end of the day before Taps.

"'S beautiful, Y/N," he beamed. "Yeh've got magic hands."

You could feel your cheeks heat up even in the slightly chilly dusk weather. "Thanks, love."

"I was wondering if yeh'd want to... I don' know. Add something small? To commemorate our summer together?" he suggested, voice low.

Your eyes flickered up from the felt piece. "What did you have in mind?" you asked warily, not wanting to be completely obvious.

"A small seashell in one of the arms goin' off th'splat. It's an ancient symbol of love, and also was the symbol of Venus, the Roman goddess of love," he explained, his voice still low.

Your heart swelled at this sweet side of Harry. "Oh, my God, H," you said, matching his volume.

"Let's begin Taps, ladies and Harry and Paul!" Rachel, the camper leader, called. Everyone crossed their arms right over left and clasped hands with the person next to them, creating a giant intimate chain while everyone sung.

"I would love that," you whispered to Harry, dropping your head into the crook of his shoulder before singing, "Day is done..."

"Gone the sun..."

"From the lake, from the hills, from the sky..."

#Harry Styles #harry styles writing #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles smut #majorharry #harryforvogue #haroldloverboy #jawllines #i hope you all enjoyed!! this is my pride and joy and baby so be nice to her #i'll make a master list eventually but I'm out i have an 8 am tomorrow PEACE

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ateamforumsfanworks · 5 years ago

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Advanced Guide - Arena Efficiency

06-07-2017, 01:32 AM

Originally Uploaded by Forum User: Shiki

This is a followup from my other guide - https://forum.a-tm.co.jp/forum/valky...ather-diamonds

I`m considering making efficiency guides that cover all aspects of the game - from quests, to onslaught, to scenario, to connects in the future as well. For now tho, I`ll write this one since arena has always been my favorite aspect of the game. On the two accounts that I play(ed) I made over 6000 arena and grand arena matches, so I doubt there is something I havent figured out that would surprise me. So let`s get started. This guide will cover the following: -Things you might or might not know about arena -Underrated heroes/stats/status effects that are hidden op -Advices on how to build your team depending on your Power score -Personal hero tier list and recommended team setups

Things you might or might not know about arena Everyone knows arena is a place where a player can engage in a combat with another player(or CPU controlling the player`s team). You earn diamonds and mana for beating your best rank in arena, and daily diamond reward depending on the rank you have at your reset. The reset is at 5 am local(player time) so it differs for each player. One thing you need to know is, once you create your account, Ateam will store your original account creation location in their database and if you change the place you reside(e.g. move from Europe to America for example), the local time will remain the one of the country where you created your account. Here are few thing you might or might not know about arena. 1. Gear skills and basic attacks can be dodged, but action skills and limit bursts can`t be dodged - rather common fact about arena. 2. When you activate a gear skill, your action skill gauge briefly stops from filling - credits to @GICN for finding it out 3. As of recent update, element limit bursts (earthen breath,ice gorge,flame bulb, black hole, divine wrath) count as pure damage (neither ATK nor MATK), thus they can bypass barriers and reflects that are designed to block ATK and/or MATK damage(luflit skill,glacial cloak etc.). Those can only be blocked by skills and gear skills that absorb or reflect the said element damage(Glimmering armor, Arte, Aegir connect dark reflect etc.). Because they can bypass reflects, stacking mages with black hole vs luflit for example isnt that bad of an idea. 4. Reflected elemental damage amplifies if the attacker is weak to the said element. I cant confirm 100% if defenders resistances affect the damage, but I can confirm for sure that attacker`s resistances affect the damage reflected. So if youre resistant to the reflected damage(i.e. Odin to light) you will take significantly less damage, while if youre weak to the reflected element damage(i.e. Freya casting grimoire of accusation skill) you will take bonus damage. 5. Very few people know about this one - defender`s team has a hidden advantage because defensive gears have higher chance to activate on the defender side. This is one of the main reasons why turtle teams are so good. Defensive gears such as Winged Helm, Glacial Cloak, Urd Staff have increased activation chance when used by the defender. The same does not apply for the attacker, so that puts the attacker in a slight disadvantage. While Ateam probably won`t confirm this, nor does any website affiliated with VC, thus giving room for speculation that it`s purely RNG, I and the few others that know about this can confirm that it exist, due to countless observation of our arena matches. 6. Round 1 hero turn order - as you know, the pace of hero transition between different turns is based on your speed stat. However, something not many people know is that, to compensate the low speed of certain heroes(primarily tanks), at round 1 ALL TEAMS USE THE SAME HERO ORDER PATTERN. The philosophy behind this is to give slower heroes a chance to cast their skills before they can get statused by others(primarily for tanks). The order is the following: First Cast - nearest hero Second Cast - middle hero Third Cast - Farthest hero Fourth Cast - Fourth hero Fifth Cast - second hero How can you use this in your advantage - I can give two simple examples on how you can use this to turn the battle in your favor: 1)Your middle hero is a mage with mani little helper at gear slot 1, while enemy second hero is high attacker(like Thor) with winged helm at slot 1. Your hero will cast their mani helper first, hitting the enemy attacker while they are in mid-animation of casting their skill, blocking them from finishing casting the skill. This way they wont have regenerate skill up for 4 turns which will help you take them down faster. 2)Your highest MATK mage and enemy highest MATK mage both have Valhalla staff at gear slot 1, but your mage is your middle hero and enemy mage is their fourth hero - your mage will petrify the enemy mage first. If your heroes have same gear, same target, and same hero order, speed stat will determine whos skill will fire off first. Additional Note: Gear skills have their own animation speed with Elysian Dress being the fastest, while Mjolnir being the slowest. Some skills activate so fast it technically bypasses enemy turn - example if your Hel is in the middle and cast Elysian dress, because of the animation speed, it will cast BEFORE THE ENEMY EVEN CASTS THEIR SKILL (e.g. tanks casting regenerate or something else). If said scenario occurs, once the enemy is out of the status effect (shade), they will attempt to cast THEIR ROUND 1 SKILL, NOT THEIR ROUND 2 SKILL. So basically you can only interrupt skills if both your and enemy gear skill actually fire off(the yellow window with the skill name pops up) 7. Multi target skills(Ranco, Canon, Wolfgang) can hit the same target more than once depending on your RNG. A fun fact- they can also target dead heroes if they were alive during the skill wind up(cast animation). 8. Gear order determines which gear skill you will cast each turn. E.g. slot 1 will have its skill being cast at round 1,5,9 and so on, slot 2 will have its skill on round 2,6,10 and so on. Underrated heroes/stats/status effects that are hidden op Starting with heroes, there are 3 heroes that come to my mind, which many people consider rather underperforming, that are actually hidden op if used correctly. 1)Loki Considered by many as an utter garbage because his skill and lb are MATK, while he`s a physical damage dealer and there aren`t any hybrid gears, Loki has 3 things that actually make him a viable hero in PvP: -High dark and light resistance - most people heavily focus on these two types of element damage so his survivability is pretty decent, especially combined with his high EVASION -His gear confuses the target with lowest MDEF. Confuse in general is very strong stat and if applied to the person with Highest ATK(which usually happens since those tend to have the lowest MDEF), its even better. -His action skill is direct counter to Luca as it does light damage and confuses humans. The only downside is that its RNG based and might not hit the right target. 2)Michelle Considered an utter garbage, she has 2 things that actually make her hidden op: -Highest evasion in the game -Her gear gives her and the ally with lowest evasion(95% chance its the tank) curse immunity - extremely powerful vs anti turtle teams that rely on curse. 3)Mani While not as underrated as the above, she`s still considered lackluster because she doesnt have charm/petrify/ w/e reliable status to hit the front. However shes extremely strong at dealing with the backline due to the fact that almost all backliners are weak to dark. Strong against turtle teams. Underrated stats that are actually OP The only stat I`ll note is Evasion - greatly helps with survivability because if high enough, you can dodge almost all gear skills and basic attacks, making your enemies waste their turns for nothing. Status effects that are actually OP -Blind - while it doesnt disable heroes from using gear skills and activation skills, it makes them miss almost every gear skill/basic attack during the duration of the effect. Sometimes this can be better even than disabling effects, especially if an enemy uses a 1 or 2 turn buff skill before they use their next gear skill, as it will both waste their buff and their offensive gear skill, thus making them have to wait another 2-3 turns till they can activate them again -Slow - one of the most underrated but arguably one of the best status effects in the game. It severely reduces the pace of transition between hero turns to a point where other heroes will be able to do atleast 2 turns before the slowed hero can even move to their next turn. This alone is a reason you shouldn`t underestimate heroes like Nautica for PvP. -Silence - while not as underrated as the above, theres one thing about silence that not many people know - not only it disables the hero from using action skills, it disables them from using GEAR SKILLS as well

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. Advices on how to build your team depending on your Power score I`m gonna break the Power score into 3 sub types: -Early game - from 0 to 100 000 Arena team Power score -Mid game - from 100 000 to 160 000 Arena team Power score -End game - from 160 000 onwards Early game Early game most heroes are still 3* and unorbed, also lack decent gears. This mean they lack defensive stats as HP, def, mdef and are fairly easy to kill. This is why at this range, heroes with AoE type of attacks (Thor, Amaterasu, Odin etc.), AoE gears(stillwater greatsword, thiazi cape etc) and the limited bursts Fimbulvetr and Thousand tomb are the your best option. Usually you will get carried by your 5* ticket hero at early stages so my best advice is to focus on them(orbing, leveling gear etc.) and give them a good bunch of AoE gear so they can one shot or almost one shot any non tank unit. Two things you need to know here; -Most people pick Thor as their 5* hero because of his overall usefulness at connects,quests and arena so it is good idea to have either Freya or Gullveig(preferably Freya) in your team to be able to status the enemy thor. -Tanks have high DEF and low MDEF due to the lack of orbs and suitable mdef gear. This is why mages are more viable early than melee. Additionally, since tanks are more fragile early due to lack of orbs/gear, they rarely survive more than 3 or 4 turns before they get killed. This is why Staff of Anguish(onslaught 2* gear that applies fear for 2 turns to nearest enemy) is INSANELY good as it can entirely block the tank from filling their gauge and they will most likely die before it wears off, if you have solid DPS. Mid game In midgame your heroes are already orbed or almost orbed. This is where gear plays the most important role. Here, heroes have abit better defensive stats so you can`t one shot easily anymore thats why in this range, status effect inflicting gear plays major role in winning your matches. Focus on gear with status effects - valhalla gear,mani little helper, vigrid, Elysian dress etc etc. while still keeping some DPS and AoE gear to take the enemy down easier. Late game At this point all the heroes are orbed, you have solid gear, skills and LB barely take half or 1/3 HP of squishy targets so everything is about who has the higher power score, luck and the most suitable heroes to counter the enemy. Personal hero tier list and recommended team setups Some heroes are better at early stages but wear off at end game(Thor). Others are weaker at early stages but scale better at end game(Thrud). And third type of heroes are very good all arounders (Odin). Additionally, some heroes have a lackluster skill but extremely powerful gear(Hel). Others are very strong as heroes but their gear is lackluster (Luca). And ofcourse some are both powerful and have strong gear (Odin). This list is solely based on their PvP capabilities and not their connect,quest or other content capabilities. Heres my list of top PvP heroes: SS tier: Luca - while I hate her to the bone and promised that I`ll never use her, shes undoubtfully the best tank in the game and nothing really stands above her. She`s also a human and female so she can wear both purity ring and hardstone, making her resistant to charm and petrify. Urd - the best healer and arguably the best all around hero in the game by far. Odin - his combination of buffing and debuffing along with his strong dark and light resistances and AoE damage make him very formidable mage, especially effective on setups that run 3 mages due to his mdef debuff. Freya - the most reliable status effect inflicting mage. Is tanky, has the best magic limit burst, high MATK. Nothing much to say Ranco - the best all around archer in the game. Her skill does neutral damage so you dont have to worry about resistances. Also applies strong status effects and her gear applies a strong debuff that is useful for connects and boss stages(cough 6-6 Forgotten memories hell mode jormungand). S tier: Thrud - tanky, targets the enemy mages. Nowadays many mages lack water resistance(Odin, Amaterasu, Rin) so shes the most reliable damage dealer from the melee heroes. Thor - while he wears off at late stages, his AoE skill with the paralyze effect can still be solid. Especially if you run abit off meta and use him as a tank - he will be able to cast his skill faster thus blocking enemy humans(beasts and elves) earlier at the battle. Young Ymir and Genesis Ymir - both of them have the same strengths and weaknesses - while they deal high damage and bypass barriers, they dont bring anything else on the table like Odin does(buffs/debuffs) to be considered as good as him. Amaterasu - Highest MATK mage in the game, AoE skill, applies defense debuff and burn. I put her as S tier because her gear is rather lackluster compared to Odin and there are plenty of heroes resistant to fire. Matisse - the MATK ranco. The reason she isnt SS tier is because she hits less amount of targets and doesnt have her own gear. Additionally, shes more of a defensive support type of ranger while Ranco can be both defensive and offensive type. Momiji - shes the hero you can rely the most on taking care of the enemy backliners, her gear is exceptionally good. Hel - main reason she is ranked high is (surprise) her gear. It can however be a double edged sword since it can both help you win or help enemy win by time out. Sif and Zato - situational heroes but they have their use especially Sif since she does light damage and heroes like Skadi and Luca are weak to light. Skadi and Niji - they are very flexible as they can be used both for offense and defense. The main problem about them is due to their flexibility, their skill design is made to be viable for both tank and DPS setup but because of that it is lacking compared to real tank and real dps skills - niji barrier lasts only one turn, skadi can status effect only aesir etc etc. Marmalade - extremely useful turtle team hero thanks to her MATK reduction. Luflit - powerful anti mage hero, sadly she is only viable vs heavy MATK setups thus making her useless against melee Hrungir - the opposite of Luflit, extremely powerful vs melee as his skill paralyzes almost all melee heroes(including non airborne dwarfs like niji). However he is easy to status effect (charm) and only hits the front row so 1-3-1 teams for example counter him hard Best end game setups for every role I can divide the roles into 3: Conventional - all around tanky heroes with good offense Full offense - very strong at offense but also easy to kill Turtle - very tanky, low damage, their goal is to stall the game until you time out Here are my personal best setups for end game: Conventional - Luca, Thrud/Saber, Odin, Freya, Hel Focused primarily towards MATK. With gungnir and good bunch of AoE and status gears it can be deadly. Turtle - Luca, Skadi/Hrungir, Witch Idun, Urd, Matisse For me atleast this is by far the best turtle setup in the game. It has everything - buffs, barriers, status effects etc. If youre gonna build a turtle team I strongly suggest you avoid offensive gears and focus on defensive ones(glacial cloaks,druid cloaks, urd staff etc.). Only exceptions you can make are spine crusher, valhalla staff and gun, and curious mask. Offense team This is all depending on what kind of enemy you face. Not recommended against conventional teams Best if you use one melee, 3 or 2 mages and 1 or 2 rangers. Best melee to use include Mia, Ayame (still unreleased) and Thor Mages - Freya, Odin, Amaterasu, Ymir, Hel Rangers - Ranco, Matisse, Momiji, Canon That concludes this guide, I hope people find it useful. Happy PvPing

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fly-pow-bye · 5 years ago

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Powerpuff Girls 2016 - The Final Stack Up (The Worst)

It’s been a good time, friends, but the time has come. Which episodes managed to be the worst of them all?

This is the final stack up, and it's not just me saying that because the phrase "stack up" just caught on in my vocabulary. Out of all of the episodes, I'm going to make two different stacks of episodes: which episodes were the worst, and which were among the least worst. I would say "best", but I feel like that's a bit overselling even for those episodes. Let's start off with the worst, because I just want to get that out of the way.

Here's the criteria for that list:

It must be an episode of PPG 2016. As much as its quality is rather surprising, I consider TTG v. PPG a Teen Titans Go episode. While it even features one of the crew members, it has the Teen Titans Go animation, the Teen Titans Go theme song, and, for better or worse, the Teen Titans Go humor. Also, the Narrator appears in it for more than 10 seconds, and that’s just not allowed in PPG 2016.

It must be at least an episode of PPG 2016. The shorts are just too short and simple to rate among the full episodes, and I'm not rating PSAs or commercials. If one needs to know, Bubbs and Donny Get The Mail is the worst, and Mojo Builds A Shelf is the best.

In a challenge to myself, I have to say at least one good thing about each episode. I'd like to believe there's at least something good in even the worst of media.

This is my opinion and my opinion alone. There's some universally hated episodes I personally did not hate as much, and I am sure there’s going to be episodes people love that I did not particularly care for. It does not mean their opinion is wrong. In fact, this list is based on my current opinions, so that can even apply to past me's opinions.

Let’s roll.

The Bottom 10:

Without further ado, let's wade through the muck first, starting with...

10. A Star Is Blossom

At first, I didn’t think this episode was particularly horrible; the review even initially had a Neutral Buttercup, the “bad, but not that bad” rating. The more I thought about it, the more I felt this episode wasn’t deserving of it.

The whole episode hinges on Blossom being uncharacteristically evil and jealous of her sister’s success, to the point where she locks her in a boiler room all so she can be the red-haired warrior woman that she wants. It all just turns into this non-sequitur plot with this Viking woman that doesn’t really do much for me. Erica the Red was more annoying than anything, with her being so tough, butch, and not particularly bright being her only character trait. They do try to throw that moral about not being jealous in there somewhere, and it just feels forced.

I would be remiss to talk about one rather infamous aspect of the episode: the way it uses Jared Shapiro, a new “love interest” character. He seemingly has no other character in most of the episodes he appears in than being the love interest of a girl who is barely past the “boys have cooties” age. While this is not the worst episode with him in it, this is the episode where he’s the creepiest. One example is where Jared attempts to kiss Bubbles right on the lips, and Bubbles shouts for her understudy in apparent horror. That was the big joke to end the episode, and all it did was make me feel queasy even when I pretended to not hate this episode.

Good thing: I did enjoy Ms. Moss a little more here than in Drama Bomb, even if Drama Bomb was better in most ways. Maybe it’s because she isn’t entirely the villain of the plot, even if she was the cause of the problem. The viking problem, not the Blossom jealousy problem.

9. Snow Month

Snow Month: the episode that aired during Winter that explicitly takes place during Spring. Admittedly, they probably needed an episode to air during Christmas time, and there were no Christmas episodes in Season 1. Airing Twas The Fight Before Christmas was not an option. While I could see showing off the original would confuse viewers into thinking this series was good, it certainly would have been better than this episode.

That screenshot shows the truth, this is an episode where Jared is a major player. This was meant to be his very first appearance, though thanks to the mixup, episodes featuring him as Blossom's fantasy boyfriend have already aired. Here, we get to see him outside of Blossom's fantasies, giving her a note asking if she likes him. This utterly terrifies Blossom, and at least sickened me, and she causes a Snow Month to prevent her from seeing him again. To be fair to Blossom, I would want to avoid Jared, too.

There's a subplot involving this titular snow month causing a bunch of yetis to move into Townsville; yetis that act like rich yuppie tourists that openly discriminate against people that aren't their kind. Either that, or they were terrified people that had to leave the Matterhorn because of butthead yetis who destroy buildings. They can't seem to decide if all yetis are bad.

As for the other plot, it just ends with a total cop-out where Jared didn't really mean anything with that note. Throughout the series, no real progress is made with the Jared and Blossom relationship, even when Blossom just outright blurts out that she's in love with him in another episode. Happening to share the name of a certain spokesperson is only one of his problems...and that's the last I'll say about that.

Good thing: There's a cute sledding scene. I just found it cute, and Blossom even uses her powers at one point. It's good.

8. Professor Proofed

We go from one male character I didn't really like to another, and this time it's a character that is trying to be one character from the original. I'm not saying that the original Professor Utonium was an absolutely perfect father figure with no flaws whatsoever, but the reboot's version of him seems to be written more like a Sitcom Dad most of the time.

While he was making a growth ray, Sitcom Dad gets into an accident thanks to his bumbling and dangerous actions. And by bumbling and dangerous actions, I mean Buttercup shook a pepper cloud in his face. Yet, it's his fault, apparently, and he ends up becoming a man in a protective bubble. Sitcom Dad just goes along with all of this, because he decided he's not going to do anything of worth in this episode other than being. He's more of a prop than anything.

That's it, really, the episode is just a one note premise that doesn't do much with it. There's a giant baby caused by that growth ray, but the most they do with him is have him cover Bubbles with spit. If "kids being overprotective of their parents" is the funniest joke ever, this episode does not prove it.

Good thing: There's some decent commentary on inattentive parents. Oh, not from Sitcom Dad, but from the parent of the baby that becomes a giant.

7. Memory Lane of Pain

If you asked me which of the three Reboot Puffs is my least favorite a year ago, I'd say Bubbles. She's the only one that's inconsistent. Some episodes, she's an insufferable brat and/or crybaby. Other episodes, she's impossibly stupid, and not because she's written with child-like naivety. And in this episode, she's written as if she's the most incompetent superheroine alive.

This is one of those "three shorts" episodes, though it's really two and a really lousy ending. Blossom takes on the Rubber Bandit while Bubbles gets destroyed by a Dali dolly bomb, Buttercup takes on Popsicles while Bubbles gets turned into one of those ice cream bars, and Bubbles gets to learn that she's an everyday hero by a bunch of people talking about how she saved kittens and joined barbershop quartets. What?

I get what the ending was supposed to allude to: you don't have to be especially talented or have superpowers to be a hero. The problem is...Bubbles is a superhero. She has definitely been a major factor in saving the day in several episodes before this one. It just wasn't enough for this reboot to stab Bubbles' original voice actress in the heart, they had to stab all of the Bubbles fans in the heart as well, and that's terrible.

Good thing: The way the Rubber Bandit and Popsicles were taken down were pretty cool, and I would think if they were in episodes that weren't meant to be torture for the poor little blue teddy bear, they may have been okay.

6. Buttercup Vs. Math

As much flack as I gave the idea of giving Bubbles the ability to code in Viral Spiral, especially considering this reboot's constant gag of her misspelling words, at least I can argue that Viral Spiral was a decent enough episode to get girls into a STEM field. This episode, at first glance, appears to have the same mission, except instead of Bubbles and programming, it's Buttercup and mathematics. After watching this, I grew to appreciate Viral Spiral a lot more.

In this episode, we see Buttercup has a knack for math, testing herself into honors math. This gets her the disdain of people she considered her friends, even more jealousy from one of her sisters, and she has to hang out with nerd stereotypes that would make Urkel disgusted that call her a "math queen". It's no wonder Buttercup spends the entire episode fighting against this trait that's just forced upon her. This is the exact opposite of Viral Spiral; it makes math look like something only for super nerds, and people interested in math should be ashamed of themselves.

A special focus should be put on how they treated Blossom in this episode. In Viral Spiral, Blossom was glad to see Bubbles getting into coding. Here, it's A Star Is Blossom times 100, as she gets angry at the thought that the "muscle" of the group tested into honor's math and she did not. In the end, Blossom tries to take on the math-based villain, and ends up getting turned into a literal zero. That's it, really. Only at the very end does this episode give Math the respect it deserves, and it's so tacked on that I wonder if it was all meant to be a gigantic joke. If it was, it was not funny.

Good thing: The battle scene does at least give a good lesson about math: don't just take it all in at once, simplify it! Also, they did a joke involving decapitating Barry. Not that I hate Barry, far from it, but the fact that they even did anything like that is surprising.

5. Horn, Sweet Horn

Bubbles finds a new BFF, a horse with a cardboard tube on his head named Donny. While most horses just whinny, this horse can whine. He can whine about how while the horn he had was mere cardboard, he knows that inside, he's a bonafide unicorn. Since Bubbles really wants to be friends with a unicorn, she takes this wanna-be corn to the lab and tells the Professor to change him with his transmogrification ray so he can fulfill his dreams. Everything goes downhill after that.

With this talk about being a unicorn inside, Sitcom Dad warning Donny that it's his body and it's a serious choice, and a line about "adolescent self discovery" later in the episode, some may believe that this episode was meant to be a gender identity allegory. In fact, that was said to be the case in an interview with the two directors of the show. If that was the case, maybe having that transmogrification ray turn him into an out of control monster was not the best idea. To be fair, one of the writers had come out and said that the allegory wasn't intentional, though they decided to wait until after everyone shared their disgust with this episode to say that it wasn't.

Donny is just a terrible character all around, and he will prove it even more in another episode. Hint, hint. In this one, all he does in this episode is whine. Wah, I'm not a unicorn. Wah, science ruined me. Wah, I hate you for doing this, Bubbles. Slap. Wah, what have I done. The ending is ridiculous as well; it turns out that Donny's hair was hiding a horn this whole time. If I had a horn on my head, I would certainly feel it even if my hooves couldn't reach it.

In the end, Bubbles gets a horn that will summon him, which she will never use. Sadly, it turns out Donny can just barge in at any time without it. Oh well.

Good thing: A coalition of unicorns could have led to more interesting stories. I am really stretching for positives with this episode in particular; the only reason why it's even this high up is that it just didn't offend me as much as the next four.

4. Once Upon A Townsville

The Powerpuff Girls try to make a stereotypical Disney-esque princess into a superhero, something she is clearly not, and, in the end, they learn the lesson that people should accept each other for what they are. On paper, that doesn't sound like a bad episode, but the way this episode handles it is just questionable to say the very least. Simply put, this episode is about the Powerpuff Girls saving a princess from putting herself in grave danger, and they're considered the bad guys.

There's even a whole montage of her putting herself in grave danger, and except for one scene, it's more disturbing than funny. In the end, the episode seems to give the Powerpuff Girls a stern lesson over their actions in this episode, as if they were in the wrong for saving her from what are essentially suicide attempts! What were they supposed to do, let her die? I'm all for letting girls be themselves, but there is a limit to that.

At least they got into the Disney-esque spirit by making this one a musical, and one of the songs, otherwise a complete ripoff of Missy Elliot's Work It, has a Buttercup beatbox solo featuring stock images of the elderly. I wondered if it was meant to be a joke about how these old characters are desperately trying to be hip to the youth that this reboot is supposed to be for.

Oh, Once Upon A Townsville, if only there was someone who loved you. Well, the Emmys did, as they gave this one this reboot's only Emmy nomination. Sometimes, the Emmys are wrong. Either that, or Cartoon Network should have submitted a different episode.

Good thing: I kind of liked the joke where Buttercup keeps swapping away all of the poisoned apples. At least those only put princesses to sleep.

3. Painbow

Here it is, this reboot's most infamous episode. Clips of this episode became infamous overnight, and everyone seems to agree that this is the episode that shows how bad the Powerpuff Girls reboot truly is. While I disagree with the notion that this is the absolute worst, I cannot disagree that this episode deserves to be on this list. The episode involves the Powerpuff Girls having to stop a rainbow that causing everyone to be unnecessarily happy...except them, because they ate anti-mind-control pineapples. Better explanation than the nothing they give in the episode itself.

This all leads to the worst minute in reboot history. While this show's rainbow dimension sears anyone's eyes slightly harder than an episode of Problem Solverz, we get Blossom referencing the "literally can't even" meme of the early 2010s right after hearing Bubbles say "OMG, yas!". Not too long later, we get the scene that most people think about when they think about PPG 2016.

The twerk scene. To be honest, I think people are really overselling this scene. It's bad, it's uncomfortable, and it dates the show, sure, but there's a lot more to hate about this episode. The animation errors that are even more numerous in this episode, Sitcom Dad in a speedo, the fact that Allegro is just a bad Him wannabe, I could go on far longer than I did in my initial review.

There is supposed to be a moral about how there's a time to be serious and a time to be funny, and we know this because Buttercup outright blurts it out near the end of the episode. It's easy to be distracted from that, considering everything else. It's a bad episode that is worthy of the first Disgusted Buttercup. However, it's not the worst episode of Season 1.

Good thing: The way Buttercup punches out Allegro in the end is pretty well animated by reboot standards.

2. Odd Bubbles Out

No, this is the worst episode of Season 1. Because they just knew Horn Sweet Horn was going to be a huge hit, they just had to make another episode featuring this not-so-lovable hell horn, and this one is worse in every possible aspect. The episode involves Donny getting together with Bubbles, even down to going to school with her. Nobody questions why a unicorn is walking around with them, but I can ignore that. He then makes a brand new friend named Chelsea, which makes Bubbles really, really angry because how dare he make another friend. Not to say that there are other reasons, of course.

If I were to give Horn, Sweet Horn one thing; at least I know who was the most annoying character in that episode. Donny just hangs out with Chelsea off-screen, not even talking to Bubbles and treating her like she's not as cool. Bubbles is acting like some crazy ex-girlfriend over Chelsea even existing; it's as if Donny should only have her, and she makes no effort in joining in any of the activities Donny is doing. Maybe the idea was that neither Donny nor Bubbles were in the right, but all this really does is give me an episode where nobody was likable.

...and then Chelsea turned out to be an evil robot made by this show's version of Mojo Jojo, all so Bubbles can look good treating her like an irredeemable enemy. Kind of funny how the "silly monkey with the silly hat" that I call Discount Jojo for various reasons hasn't even appeared in this list until now. Most of his worst moments just aren't in the absolute worst episodes, it seems.

Good thing: ...and honestly, his plan in this episode isn't one of his worst moments at all. Making a fake robot friend was one of the better Discount Jojo plans. Such a shame it was wasted on this episode.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Hustlecup - No episode from Season 3 made the Bottom 10, but that's not to say that Season 3 didn't have any stinkers. In fact, this episode would have been the number 11 pick if I went that far. A sports episode where the sports parts are written very poorly, an ending that does not make sense, and a waste of what should have been a special appearance by one of the Gorillaz.

Quarantine - Quarantine was practically a blank check for what could be a really funny episode: Mojo Jojo and the Powerpuff Girls stuck in a room together. If only it was the actual Mojo Jojo, and the Powerpuff Girls didn't just relegate themselves to just constantly beating him up. It's just a painful episode all around, and could also be a good candidate for a #11.

The Wrinkle-Gruff Gals - Hey kids! Are you being bullied for being different? Why not follow their advice and try being different? I was way too easy on this one.

Tiara Trouble: In theory, an episode that involves the villains participating in a talent show should be a laugh riot. It's too bad most of the jokes are, "tee hee, what if they were dressed in women's clothing?" Also, it gave us the infamous Bubbles No Me Gusta face, which is up there with the you-know-what scene from Painbow.

Presidential Punchout - A really bad version of Impeach Fuzz. The only good thing about this episode is that it shows a universe where the most sane candidate could win an election. If only, if only.

Halt and Catch Silico - The most interesting villain that the reboot managed to cooked up is tarnished by this episode, as we get to hear his very confusing and laughable even in-universe origin story. Anyone's imaginations could have done better; they may as well have kept it a secret forever.

Huh, confusing and laughable origin stories, what does that remind me of? Admittedly, including this episode is a little against the second rule for this list, as it is just one part of a multiple-part special. However, it has certain unique and horrific traits about it that really puts it over the edge. And that episode is...

1. Bliss Reminisce

As a whole, The Power of Four wasn't bad. It had a solid opening, a slightly-less-solid ending, and a rather boring middle part that could have been cut down by an episode. Oh, and there's this part. There is so much I could say about this episode's flaws that I could make a top 10 just of the worst parts in it. In fact...I'll do it right now!

The Top 10 Reasons Why Bliss Reminisce Is The Worst Episode of PPG 2016:

This is more in hindsight, but out of the entire series, this is the only time in the entire reboot that Chemical X is ever mentioned in the episodes themselves. Such an important item in this series, and it's never used outside of what is essentially a joke in this episode.

Discount Jojo adds basically nothing to Bliss' origin story. They could have at least explained that Bliss was the inspiration for him pushing the Professor into the Chemical X, but we don't even get that. All it adds is that Jojo was Bliss's only friend at one point, which has at least one negative connotation.

That face Jojo makes in the middle of the episode, complete with stock image eyes and lips. Eugh.

Her name isn't just Bliss, it is Blisstina Franchesca Francis Mariam Alicia Utonium. Even disregarding that overly long names is a trope associated with overly idealistic fan characters, what the hell is a Blisstina? I know what a blossom, bubbles, a buttercup, a bunny, and a bullet are, but there is no such thing as a blisstina. They could have just stuck with Bliss.

Sitcom Dad is kind of a jerk to the other three throughout this whole episode, which clashes with his appearance in the last episode. There's sort of a reason for this, and I'll get to it a little bit later in the list.

Discount Jojo wants to tell his side of the story, but the Powerpuff Girls make him skip over the whole pushing Sitcom Dad into the chemicals part. I can't help but think this was done to not ruin that "great joke" that appears later in this list, but it also makes me wonder if they were even aware of one of the biggest reasons for Jojo being their arch-nemesis.

Sitcom Dad promising that he'll never leave Bliss, and, a few seconds later, he has to leave to get an reward for "best ham"! Sitcom Dad, everyone!

He even dares to say that Bliss is his favorite of all of his creations, despite ignoring her existence for the past 5 years or however long its been since the Powerpuff Girls were created. Again, seems to be a trope associated with overly idealistic fan characters.

We do learn that Bliss is made from Chemical W. That's fine, it gives an explanation to how she has so many powers that the Powerpuff Girls don't have. What I can't accept is that we learn that he not only accidentally knocked into a vat of Chemical W, but every Chemical from A to V as well! There is no indication whatsoever that this wan't just inspired by someone saying, "Chemical X, what about Chemical A through W, wakka wakka!"

Oh, that whole Professor Utonium making the Powerpuff Girls because he wanted a family, or being inspired by an incident involving time travel? No, silly, it's because he was envious of another scientist who did the same thing! The Reboot Puffs were made out of envy, really good to know. That scientist and her creation will never become important, ever; she's just there to take credit and decency away from the man they dare to call Professor Utonium.

Oh, and I didn't like it.

Good thing: It would be impossible to do a top 10 best things about this episode, but there is a mediocre joke involving a garage door that almost made my constant frown at this episode disappear.

With bad episodes like these, why did I continue to watch the show? I would say it's my job, but I didn't really get paid for this. Turns out, there are some okay to even, gasp, good episodes of this show. Episodes that actually made me happy that I did this experiment. I certainly would have never experienced them if I decided to quit watching the reboot after Season 1, which was my initial plan.

In the end, I felt it deserves to be its own article. See you tomorrow for The Best.

← Sideline Dad ☆ The Final Stack-Up (The Best) →

#fpb ppg 2016 #fpb reviews #ppg 2016 #powerpuff girls #cartoon network

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inappropriatefangirlneeds · 6 years ago

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Gotham s5ep2 “Trespassers” Personal Review

“Maybe there's still good people left in Gotham.” “Some say the darker angels of our nature are unlocked and set free.” Warning spoilers below

JIM GORDON Mainland wants the GCPD to do nothing in the case of the children. “Your dedication to your job is admirable, Captain, but you lack perspective.” Jim Gordon says he needs supplies not opinions but Mainland says, nope. They won´t risk pilots (theirs or Wayne Enterprise´s). “So you can save a few lives for thousands, but I can't?” Touché. Jim got a point there. HARVEY BULLOCK * Shows some (un)healthy pessimism. “IF we get back.” / “Check out the basement in a creepy hotel by myself? Sure. What could go wrong, right?” * Still has the best lines: “Why would anyone be a cop in a world like this?” “Well, the Halloween shop was all out of gas masks, so it was either this or sexy nurse.” * “Oh, my God. Oh. Not good. Oh, God. This This is not good.” And after having swiped through the teeth he still picks up the severed finger that is obviously a severed finger. Honey, what are you doing? The LOGERQUIST HOTEL Scene was awesome. Some reminiscence to earlier season, a side quest that gives you break from the greater mess. More please. > It´s just awesome that they just pulled the leaver and let them slide into a campy/classy horror. You just have to scream at the screen. Don´t leave the kids alone! Don´t split up! Don´t trust the other kid! How about you go for the lamps and try to destroy them instead of banging the door! (Harvey Bullock smashing the windows was a clever moment though, gotta give him that) Just the whole atmosphere of that set alone. Love! > This showed actual detective work and brought the plot and chara points of the macrocosm into this microcosm !!!!!!! It´s not only Harvey Bullock being weary of being sent into the basement (what could go wrong) that ties back to him not being keen to be shot standing next to Jim because Jim got the bounty on his head. It´s going right for the lingering pessimism that Harvey has been expressing (If we get back..) and him lecturing Jim that Jim´s methods (not killing Penguin) aren´t the right way for the mess they are in. They have Harvey Bullock being so perceptive to point out the lit candle right away. “Jim, we're not alone. Someone lit that candle. “ To which JIM GORDON reacts with HOPE! “In the old west, settlers used to leave a candle burning to lead others to safety. Maybe there's still good people left in Gotham.” He´s not only playing the same record that he played the whole last episode (and I´m not shading him there, his attitude is great in that situation, otherwise what would there be left but despair for him and everyone else) but he´s also referencing HISTORY .. and I vaguely remember that this is not the first time he did that [[DOES AYONE have a better memory than I do? PLS tell me]] which brings back memories of early Jim Gordon that solves cases and Ed´s riddles. They at the same time concede hope a victory, they get to save the two kids and Gabriel but Jim Gordon has to leave the other boy behind: “Not everyone wants your help, Jim Gordon.” IVY PEPPER “The plants came to my protection. “ Ivy, how about you asked them to stop. “But this park ever since we were cut off from the rest of the world, it's been behaving differently. There are things growing here I have never seen before.” Okay fucks sake, I so hope that this is not true. First we get Ivy magically aged then we get Ivy stealing some potion aka none of her love for plants and research and experiments that I wanted to see and now she should be afraid of them even? How about no?! Okay, I´m glad they didn´t go there. “You know, I wasn't lying when I said this park is changing.I'm feeding the earth with these wretched creatures. It consumes them, and then it flourishes.” >> Okay I can´t say that I like the “Ivy is a maniacal, cold-blooded killer.” but the mere suggestion of Ivy being intimidated and patronized by her plants scared me enough to be happyish about it. I´d still like to see her be just with her plants. Bring back her mushroom farm! Scratch all that murder business she had going on with Gotham and its people. Give her some space and place to care about her plants and learn more about them and okay if someone disturbs them or tries to harm them, and then bring out the murder. Maybe it might go into a direction like that now..... ? Ivy more and more retreating into the branches of that tree, while talking to Bruce got me intrigued. “Where I'm going is none of your business. Best hurry. That root will die if left out in the open for too long.” Her being so mysterious, and ambiguous about if she can be trusted suits her. Much, much more than a snarly direct threat of murder. She is her own entity, that does as she pleases and everything else if left to wonder what that might be! That would be a good attitude. QUESTION: “One thing is for sure though the seed will alter her forever.” “How?” “Some say the darker angels of our nature are unlocked and set free.” So this “some say” does not sound like a general statement about the nature of humanity it does sound like some people talk about the effects of this particular plant on humans. Which begs the question: Who says this? The plants? Do they whisper to her? Is it meant indirectly as in the research she did told her that? Or are there actually other people with knowledge over matters like this? Are there records, writings, research with footnotes? Did Ivy read them? Did she do her own experiments. Who or what is this referring to. I need answers!!

Also: Ivy is so ridiculously overpowered in this show, how the hell did those guys manage to lock her up? Also2: Is the guys story about them coming for their magic and getting killed true? Ivy at first helping people? After all the nurse knew about her and thought she would help? Was she kind and people got greedy, demanded too much, wanted to take advantage of her? Then again she was not known as the helpful fairy but as witch, so there might have been something that got her that reputation .. but there also had to be something that got her a reputation as healer instead of solely being a murderous killer witch? EDWARD NYGMA * How could he believe locking himself up would work if he just had the key in his pocket? This should have been some timed release system that didn´t give him access to the key until after a couple of hours. * Uhm, can TANK from the Street Demonz gang please stick around. I like him. I like those two together. That´s fun. “Did I, uh hit you, et cetera? Any idea why?” * Okay so sleepwalking or for him rather wakewalking Ed has orchestrated the demise of the Street Demonz in order to get some more chaos and war and likely Oswald´s head? Great. * “How did I seem? Was I confident, flamboyant, charisma for days? Or a little more conservative, kind of repressed, a little nerdy?” “You seemed stiff, man of few words. In a daze, actually.” “Interesting.” * “Well, whoever did just started one hell of a war.” Tank can you please stick around, I need a rough biker that gets to the heart of things like that on Eds side. PREDICTION? Oswald put a bounty on Jim Gordan´s head. The criminals want to kill him. “Edward” likely put an indirect bounty on Oswald Cobblepot´s head, ciminals will want to kill them. However it seems Barbara Kean makes this situation less equal with protecting Jim Gordon from criminals and tightening the thumb screws on him in order to get Jim to kill Oswald. It just seems everyone´s best bet is to go get rid of Oswald right now. And I´m gonna be disappointed if Oswald doesn´t change back to his clever self and manipulate the situation in a way that ties his and Jim´s life back together … SET DESIGN Yes this is a character on its own and it´s marvelous. * The Wallpaper in Edward Nygma´s bathroom is pretty. * Is that a can of beer on the window still next to Tank in the bathtub?? * Damn every place Ivy stays at is just eerie, beautiful and just stunning. * The halls of Logerquist Hotel are awesome and the perfect atmosphere. FunFact: John Logerquist founded Gotham in 1635

* Someone had a field trip with the LIGHTNING [Edit: Link] in this. First the bright lights in the conversation with Barbara Kean and Jim Gordon in the Sirens club, then the Lightning used as weapon at the hotel. This all should be super obnoxious, like glaring out a charas whole face during a dialogue .. what .. but it all just works, and works really well. Damn. Honorary mention: The light bulb and welding sparks 11:40 * Those safe houses that Lucius Fox set up looked like a dream again. Just like Lee with that train, or Jim visiting the retired Carmine. I just wait for someone to wake up, shatter the bubble, destroy the niceness. It slightly creeps me out every time they do that. * “What do I do, just swallow it?” Okay Bruce Wayne should have told SELINA KYLE everything that Ivy said about that thing. This is not an informed medical decision: Me not moving vs. probably not me but moving is a relevant thing to know. Not that I think it would change anything for Selina, but they should have laid open all the information and it bugs me. It might kill you is just half of the story. It might change who you are even if it works is a significant thing to know about. * GABRIEL I literarily can´t believe he is still alive. That´s the kind of character that usually has the shortest shelf life. * Also how beautifully phrased was Bruce Wayne´s initial distrust towards Ivy is. “You'll forgive me if I find it hard to do so.” * “God, what have I done” Acting on point, acting over all point, acting is said point .. * “I'll tell you what! I'll take his head, and you can have the rest of him!” I giggled. (Context: He doesn´t need more than Jim´s head to collect the bounty from Penguin)

#gotham #gotham meta #gotham s5ep2 Trespassers #ivy pepper #Logerquist Hotel #mine Gotham full episode reviews

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snapessecretdiary · 7 years ago

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Master Plan

authors note: sooo I know it´s not Christmas, not even near, but that idea came popping to my mind and I couldn´t help myself. Dunno if the end (or everything) might be unrealistic, but I actually don´t know how to let this one end.. + why the fuck have I never seen this gif before? It´s pure gold

The plan they had in mind was quite plain to understand: Make the grumpy Potions teacher with his prominent scowl fall for the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. And the other way too. Ever since Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, had offered the job of the new DADA teacher to [Y/N] [L/N], a young witch who graduated just some years ago, he and Minerva McGonagall used to sit together when all preperations for the soon starting term were done to talk about whom to set Severus Snape up with. And once young Ms. [L/N] agreed to work as a teacher, they had found the one person they were looking for. When she was invited to a interview with both of the Professors, they took it as the opportunity to test her, if she was the right choice for the job, but most importantly, if she would fulfill their expectations in relation to the Potions Professor.

The relieving thing was: [Y/N] [L/N] seemed to be perfect for both. So considered the fact that terms would start in about a month, the two collegues got plenty of time to plan, everything. A plus to their plan was (at least so they thought), that [Y/N] had already moved into the big castle. What wasn´t too apealing was that her rooms were far from Severus´ but as she didn´t really wanted to move into the dungeons, what other options did they got? That was why at first, their hopefully soon-to-be couple only met randomly in the staff room and at meals in the Great Hall. They did what ever they considered as helpfull. Occupying all the seats during breakfast, lunch and dinner, so that only the one next to Professor Snape was free. At first, it seemed to work. [Y/N] sat down next to Severus, smiling at him politely, which he vaguely returned, and started eating. That was it. The conversation soon started, only that it wasn´t [Y/N] and Severus talking to each other, but her getting engaged into a conversation that would last the entire meal by whoever sat next to her, which mostly happened to be Hagrid, the gamekeeper. And he seemed to have taking an immense liking in the new teacher.

To say they didn´t talked to each other would be a complete understatement. Exept for a friendly ´Good morning´ or ´Good evening´ from her side and a barely noticeable nood from his, they didn´t spoke to each other at all. Much to Dumbledore´s and McGonagall´s disapointment. "What else options do we have?", asked the headmaster one day. His face lay tiredly in his hands, his ellbows resting on the desk.

"I´m afraid there aren´t many Albus.", sighed Minerva. "Everytime [Y/N] tries to open up a conversation or ask him a simple question he keeps telling her to bother someone else. It seems those two are avoiding one another at all costs." Lazily, the elderly witch slumped down in the cozy chair that stood nearest to the headmasters desk. "We´ve done everything. Telling them the other one wanted to talk about something, randomly leaving them alone in a room, we´ve tried to put up innuendoes. Nothing worked." complained Dumbledore. For what seemed like the first time, even he didn´t know what to do. He didn´t even had something good to say. He was completelly and utterly exhausted by trying to force ideas to come to his mind - They wouldn´t.

Days flew by, ideas came and left, nothing worthy enough to actually give it a go. Right now, they were both about to enter the staff room, when they could hear two voices arguing loudly behind it. "Just because you didn´t get the job doesn´t mean that the way I handle class is a ´poor attempt´ and completely senseless. I do know what I teach them, has that ever crossed your mind?" "You don´t know a thing about Dark Arts. Am I mistaken in the statement that you have no real practice with such Charms?", growled Severus as an remark for [Y/N]´s former words. Either he got no answer or her voice was too quiet to be heard. "Do you think the same than I do?", whispered Professor Dumbledore. Nooding his collegue answered: "I most certainly do." The opened the door to the staff room, looking straigthly at the Potions Professor who shoot daggers at young Ms. [L/N], who too was glaring at him. Except from them, there wasn´t any other teacher in the room. "Severus, [Y/N], we need your assistance.", Professor McGonagall said in the sweetest tone she had to offer. Hardly ending their staring contest, both growled in agreement. Together with the headmaster, the elderly witch left the room, whispering a small charm that no one (except for the headmaster) could hear. Slowly turning her head away from Severus Snape, [Y/N] made her way towards the door. The only problem was, that once she reached it, she couldn´t move any further. "Move.", demanded the black haired professor, about to walk in her direction. Before [Y/N] could actually get the chance to tell him to stop walking towards her immediately, it was to late. Standing only centimetres apart, Severus got trapped to, another step impossible. Desperatly trying to get away from the young, new DADA teacher, Professor Snape searched the ground for only the tinniest of chance, only to be rudly interrupted by the very woman he wanted to get away from. "By Merlin-", she moaned. "What it wrong now?", Severus wanted to know. "I´m going to kill everyone who was involved in this.", she said, pointing her finger towards the door frame above them. Dangling happily from its place was a small, bright green mistletoe. "Dumbledore..", cursed Snape under his breath. "What are we going to do now?" Fixing her [E/C] eyes back on his face, [Y/N] looked at him with a suprised expression. "Wait, the Great Severus Snape doesn´t know what to do? Damn I thought you were growing up with a Muggle-father."

The Potions Master only rolled his dark eyes. "Don´t you know this tradition?", she asked. Shaking his head barely visibly he waited for her to explain.

"Well in the Muggle words it´s a tradition on Christmas holiday. Once you´ve crossed a mistletoe you have to.. kiss. And given the fact that we´re in the wizarding world I´m afraid there is no other chance to get out of this then by kissing." And within seconds, Severus gulped loudly and went completelly and utterly stiff. He wasn´t going to kiss her.

Sure.. he had to admit that he kind of liked her. A little bit. Only a little. Or better said he disliked her less than the rest of people in Hogwarts. If he would be totally honest, he even liked to argrue with her, because then she would always talk about anything as if her life depended on it, and he liked the passion in her eyes when she did. But kissing her? No thanks.

For [Y/N] the thought wasn´t much easier to handle. He was interessting, she thought. His character seemed to be the most captivating in he whole area. She could listen to him speak about Merlin knows what for hours, she even liked to be near him. She was a little uncomfortable, when she said: "Just kiss me, alright? It doesn´t have to mean anything, I just want to do something else than to stand here for the rest of my life. Besides nobody´s around right now, or do you want the students to see?" Again not answering he nooded in silent agreement. Getting a bit closer (altrough they already were just seperated by less than 20 centimetres, he paused before her, feeling as nervous as ever. Trying to encourage him, [Y/N] smiled at him warmly, then got to the tips of her feet, put her hands on his shoulders for support and pressed her lips to his. Severus was slightly taken aback, he hadn´t thought for her to actually do it. The feeling, however, wasn´t half as unpleasant as the both of them had thought. The kiss took quite a while and even got a little more tender, but soon got interrupted by small whispering voices that obviously belong to the headmaster and Professor McGonagall. Seperating, [Y/N] smiled at him again, then got back down standing fully on her feet again. "See you at dinner.", she said. Taking her hands from his shoulders, she went to leave and soon got out of his sight. Oh how much he hoped to find a mistletoe again soon.

#severus snape x reader #severus snape imagine #severus snape fanfic #severus snape one shot #severus snape #professor snape x reader #professor snape imagine #potions #defense against the dark arts #hogwarts #dumbledore #albus dumbledore #minerva mcgonagall #hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry #hagrid #rubeus hagrid

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yamibts-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Shooting Stars

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: Approx 3300 words

A/N: Okay, so I haven’t wrote a fanfic in almost two years and this is the first time I’ve written a BTS (or kpop) inspired fic. So this is probably far too detailed for your everyday fanfiction, also sorry for any errors in grammar or spelling xD

A soft breeze passes by, providing a brief break from the warmth of the rays that had clung to you like a blanket. As you lay on the field this late Saturday afternoon, you embraced the hazy hum of summer in Seoul, a steady stream of mellow music beating through your earphones. One arm draped across your face to shield your closed eyes from the blinding sun above. The other lazily flung out beside you, occasionally spinning blades of grass between your fingertips. This was the kind of peaceful vibe you loved the most. However, it was one that was short lived. Your music suddenly became duller in volume as you felt your earbud being spontaneously tugged out of your right ear.

“You better not be sleeping” a gentle but deep voice; that you felt more than you heard, whispered into your now empty ear. You lifted your arm from your face slightly, enough so that you could peek one eye open from the cover you created. A familiar set of deep brown eyes; glistening with mischief, greeted your foggy eyes. The pixie like face of the boy mere centimeters away from the side of yours. You could feel a pleasant warmth rolling off him, prickling the skin on your neck. It burned more than the summer heat. You blinked slowly, swallowing your thoughts quickly. “I didn’t think you’d get here so soon” you exhaled softly, releasing a breath you didn’t realise you were holding. “I can see that. When I told you that I’d be a little late, I didn’t think you’d decide to take a nap” the boy quipped back jokingly. “I wasn’t sleeping, I was just resting with my eyes closed” you defended, closing your eyes again in fake exasperation. A more aggressive breeze passed over your face, at least you thought it was a breeze. You heard the boy next to you inhale dramatically, before blowing cold air towards you with such force it made your hair fly across your face, tickling your nose. “Okay, okay” you sighed, placing both your palms flat on the grass as you gradually lifted your shoulders off the ground, shifting your weight onto your forearms. Squinting against the brightness of the setting sun, your sight adjusted to the view of the boy. All wide eyed and pursed lipped, probably caught off guard mid-blow during his mission to irritate you. He was lay on his front; horizontal to you, your bodies shaping a right angle on the grass. Propped up on his elbows, his small chin rested in his palm, your right earphone dangling from his other hand. He looked suspiciously comfortable.

“How long have you been here for?” you questioned him with a raised eyebrow, “Please don’t tell me you’ve been here watching me for the past five minutes because that’s super creepy, and I’m not into it”. The boys’ eyes shined bright with amusement “For the past fifteen minutes actually” he jested, a cheeky grin forming his lips. “TAEHYUNG, YOU CREEP!” you exclaimed, shoving his shoulder not too gently, knocking his arm from under his chin. “HEY! I was joking-” Taehyung protested in fake shock before laughing lightly as he sat up, repositioning into a crouch, elbows now resting on his knees. “Besides, I can’t believe you haven’t asked me why I wanted you to meet me here yet” he said shaking the sides of his jacket and wiping the front of his shirt of grass and dirt. “After 4 tedious years of being friends with you Tae, do you really think I bother to question your motives anymore? For all I know you’re planning on taking me into the woods to murder me in secret and bury me amongst the trees” you joked sarcastically. Taehyung gazed down at you, frowning slightly “Firstly, you hands down win the prize for my most cheerful date yet, so well done for that Y/N ” he mocked as he poked your cheek with his slender index finger. “Secondly, I’m offended that you think I could kill you” his thumb moved up to gently pinch the skin on your cheek, “I need you-, I mean- who else will let me beat them at video games? Who will I watch terrible movies with? I have to keep you around for a while you know ” he teased lightly, standing up to brush his knees off, before turning to walk away. You stared after him, rubbing the spot on your cheek that the boy had touched, hoping that any blush on your face could be mistaken for a mark from the pinch. From the moment you first met Taehyung, it had been painfully obvious to almost everyone that you had a crush on him. Something Tae himself had embarrassingly tormented you over for the first few months of your friendship. It wasn’t until you accepted that any feelings you had were unlikely reciprocated, that you dismissed your crush on him as nothing but childish. However, that did not stop Taehyung from labelling any time you two spent alone together as a date, an inside joke you eventually joined in on. Nor did it stop you from admiring how attractive he was; perhaps in a more than platonic way, especially as he grew taller and broader over the years-. “Hey Y/N, are you hell bent on ruining my surprise? C’mon, let’s go” Tae shouted, breaking you from your thoughts. Rolling your eyes, you got up and followed him.

You and Taehyung wandered around aimlessly, talking playfully until conversation faded into its usual comfortable silence. You admired how the afternoon grew dim and faded into the dusk of the evening. You stopped at the top of a hill overlooking a broad view of the city, standing in awe at the array of colours as the sun set over the urban metropolis. You pulled out your phone from the pocket of your jeans, opening your camera app to snap a few landscape pictures of the view. Taehyung stood behind you, watching you click and zoom to get the focus right. Without warning he tapped the front camera option and instantly both of your faces appeared on screen. Just as you were about to scold him for his cheekiness, Taehyung grabbed your phone from your hand, holding it up at high angle so that both of you were in better shot on the screen. “SELCA TIME!” he exclaimed cheerily. Pouting his lips together cutely, he rested his chin on your shoulder, his fingers making a finger heart next to your cheek as you scowled in annoyance while he snapped a picture. “C’mon Y/N, I know you can smile better than that” Taehyung whined teasingly. Feeling cocky you snatched the cap from his head and placed it on your own. “I wasn’t trying to smile” you shot back with a fake smile, before looking at the camera to fix your hair. You closed your eyes and smiled sweetly into the camera, holding up the peace sign ready for another picture. You felt Taehyung boldly snake his arm around your waist, resting his hand on your hip, as he placed a kiss on the side of your face. By the time you opened your eyes, ready to hit the boy, Taehyung had already taken a step back, fully immersed on what was on your screen. You stalked towards him as he tapped your screen a few times, which he turned and presented to you. A boxy smile lighting up his face. You looked at your phone screen to see that your background was now set as the most recent selca: Taehyung rocking messy hat hair, his eyes squeezed shut, his lips pressed against your cheek as you posed. “Aren’t we so adorable?” he asked in the cutest baby voice he could muster. Rolling your eyes, you snatched your phone from his hands and walked past him, leaving him to chase on after you.

The two of you walked around some more until the sky grew dark and dim. The park seemed to be busier than usual, making you question whether there was a festival or event that you had failed to acknowledge. It wasn’t till you both stopped at a small lake that resided in the heart of the park that you realised that something was different about today. Sure, the park was often popular, but never had you seen this many people walking around or lounging about on blankets with picnics. “Here we are” Taehyung breathed in triumph as he stretched his arms and sat down cross legged, pulling you down with him. Slumping down uncomfortably, you shifted your position next to him, legs stretched out in front of you. You removed the cap you stole earlier, ruffling your hair free before turning to the boy next to you. “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on Tae? Why are we here?” Taehyung craned his neck back, his face pointing upwards, eyes darting at the view above him. Either he didn’t hear your question, or he blatantly ignored it; the delicate smile on his face suggesting the latter. “The sky is so clear, it’s perfect for tonight” he spoke in astonishment. “What do you mea-” you began with interest just as you were cut off by the sounds of excited gasps and babbling around you. Looking around frantically, you noticed almost everybody in the park was staring up at the sky like Taehyung was. Puzzled, you glanced up only to be met with an incredible sight. As Taehyung had pointed out, it was a beautifully clear night, the vast darkness above littered with thousands upon thousands of tiny white specks. A dull glow from the grey half-moon illuminated the inky black sheet above, making the sky appear almost indigo in places. Completely caught up in the wonder of what was in front of your eyes, you couldn’t help but double take when you thought you saw a white dot dart across your vision. Blinking hard to make sure you hadn’t imagined it, you sat up straight completely alert, eyes painfully focused above you. “Tae I thin-” you started to mumble, but just as you were speaking another bright ball sped across the sky, a thin wispy tail chasing behind it. In astonishment you shot up, grabbing hold of Taehyungs’ arm in excitement. “Oh my God! Shooting stars!” you exclaimed as you squeezed his limb absent mindedly. Taehyung chuckled lightly, but didn’t reply, he didn’t need to. A few moments later you relaxed your posture, letting go of the boys’ arm, leaning back slightly. The two of you sat in wonder, watching the lights hurtle in different directions, some burning bright and quick, others twinkling softly and slowly into the cosmos.

After a length of time that felt like minutes but was probably closer to an hour, the silence was broken by Taehyung. “I can’t believe you didn’t know there was a meteor shower tonight. Although I’m kinda glad. It wouldn’t have been much of a surprise date if you knew” he muttered softly, still gaping at the stars. “You’re joking about the date part, right?” you scoffed rhetorically, expecting a witty comeback in response. You felt him tense, a slight seriousness in his voice you didn’t anticipate “Not everything I say or do is a joke you know” he almost sighed. At that you tore yourself away from your dreamy daze of shooting stars to look at Taehyung, almost waiting for him to laugh off his last remark. Searching his features for any sign of suppressed humour, you couldn’t help but admire how magnificent he looked. His soft tousled hair covering his forehead, almost brushing into his warm brown eyes, glittering with interest at the sights above. Your eyes trailed to his side profile, which showed off his sharp jawline, the tight skin on his smooth neck leading to the dip above his collar bone, his chest rising and falling rhythmically under the fabric of his shirt. Taehyung must have felt your stare on him, because when you lifted your eyes from his torso to his face, your eyes were met with his curious regard, the corners of his mouth twitching into a small smile. You looked away far too quickly not to cause suspicion, focusing your attention on a patch of grass in front of you. Suddenly aware of how close you were to the boy next to you, your body froze. Shoulders touching, your arm was still looped under and through his, your hand resting in the space between his thigh and hand. You must have forgotten to move it after you grabbed onto his arm earlier. You probably didn’t think anything of it at the time, too caught up in the meteor shower, but now it felt scarily intimate. A somewhat new atmosphere surrounded you both, somewhere between an awkward tension and uncomfortable silence. You could feel his glare burning into your skin, heating your cheeks. You moved your hands to your lap and anxiously started fiddling with your finger nails in attempt to mask any nervousness you might have acquired under the boys scrutinizing stare. It felt completely irrational to be this nervous, the two of you were no strangers to skinship. The gentle hand-holding during shopping trips, childish playfights that often led to spontaneous naps on the dorm couch, wrapping each other in silent embraces during times of stress of upset. All those moments never felt like anything more than harmless affection between friends. Perhaps you were overthinking things you mused to yourself, romanticizing over a reflex that was intensified by the thrill of shooting stars.

As if reading your thoughts, Taehyung casually moved his hands, placing them over your busy hands to steady them, lacing his fingers warm fingers through yours. A shiver ran through your body at the contact. Swallowing hard, you prayed that it wasn’t noticeable, but of course it was obvious. “Are you cold?” he mused, already moving himself closer to you. Not trusting yourself to speak for fear of a trembling voice you shook your head and looked up towards the sky. Far too distracted to pay any attention to what was happening up there, but hoping you could give off the illusion you were unfazed. Taehyung shuffled a bit, removing his jacket, you considered protesting but thought it would be best to let him believe you were shivering from the cold than for any other reason. Taehyung wrapped the warm fleecy jacket around your shoulders, his palms running up and down your arms, his attempt to comfort you from the cold only made more hairs stand up on the back of your neck. “Feeling better?” he questioned, his breath tickled your neck, his lips dangerously close to your ear like they were earlier. You closed your eyes momentarily, trying to compose yourself. When your lids opened heavily, the view of the sky had become hazy. Out of the corner of your eye you could see Taehyung chewing on his lip; a habit of his when he was deep in thought, as he contemplated a spot of skin under your ear. “How romantic of you” you whispered feebly, trying to sound nonchalant to break the ice but regretting it instantly. You heard Taehyung inhale sharply, and exhale a stifled laugh “You don’t make the romantic moments easy Y/N.” he murmured almost tenderly in defeat, his fingers grazing your jaw as he tucked a few strands of hair behind your ear. Worried about the direction this conversation was taking you hesitantly turned your head to face him, “I was being sarcas-” you frowned as you tried to correct yourself. Instead your words were cut short as Taehyung pressed his soft lips tentatively to yours with an unexpected eagerness. You gasped in surprise, and for the briefest of moments you considered pulling away. But within one achingly heavy heartbeat your eyes closed and your lips automatically began moving against the delicate ones touching yours. Earning a broken hitch in Taehyung breath as a response before he sighed into the kiss. You felt his grip on your arm relax as his other hand ran smoothly along your shoulder, feather light up your neck, finally stopping to cup your face in his palm. He deepened the kiss quickly, almost desperately, running a rough fingertip along your jawline. One of your hands made their way around the back of his neck, your fingers stroking the short hairs at the nape of his neck, urging him closer as you reflexively sucked on his bottom lip, tugging it gently between yours.

As if stung by a static shock Taehyung flinched back, making a low sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan. His hands suddenly placed on each of your shoulders, almost holding you at arm’s length. Opening your eyes in confusion, the sight in front of you was more incredible than witnessing a million falling stars. Taehyungs’ hair appeared more tousled than before, his lips pinker and plumper, panting uneven breaths, dark eyes glazed over in a dreamy daze as they searched your face for any sign of regret. Surprisingly, you were the one to speak first “What’s wrong?” you asked, the confidence in your voice sounding unusual to you. Clearly it surprised Taehyung as well, as his dropped to his lap, his eyebrows raised slightly, blinking at you a few times before laughing breathlessly. You weren’t sure if it was a laugh of relief of nervousness. A wave of embarrassment washed over you. What if he regretted kissing you? A blush crept along your cheeks as you ran a hand shakily through your hair to ground yourself. What if you took it too far? “Oh God, it was a mistake, wasn’t it?” you half choked, half laughed, “I’m sorry, I got very, very carried away” you continued, readying yourself to leave. “Wait, What? Hold on Y/N”. Taehyungs’ voice raised in pitch, eyes wide, and in a flash his hands went to your wrists, pulling you back in front of him, his stare intense. “That wasn’t a mistake. I’ve been tryin-, I’ve been meani-” he cleared his throat, collecting his thoughts, his gaze soft and calm “I’ve wanted to do that for so long, I just wasn’t sure if you would kiss me back. That was until I noticed you staring at me before. I don’t know why but it gave me a boost of confidence, but still-” he paused, “I definitely wasn’t expecting you to kiss me back like that” he confessed coolly, a smug smile replacing any other emotion from his features. Staring at him in disbelief you laughed bashfully, freeing your hands from Tae’s grip to cover your face out of shyness. “I think I’m gonna be the one to kill you and bury you in the woods at this rate Taehyung” you mumbled awkwardly between your fingers. Rubbing your face as if you could wipe away how stupid you felt for jumping to conclusions. “I’d rather you didn’t, I haven’t waited for four years to kiss you only for you to murder me in my moment of bliss”. You looked up at the boy in front of you, his goofy box smile making your heart flutter restlessly, “That’s disgustingly cheesy Tae” you complained, pushing his shoulder. Taehyung simply chuckled and pulled you closer towards him, any awkwardness disappearing as the atmosphere between you two returned to its usual familiarity, just with more affection. “I’ll take that as an acceptance of my confession then” he whispered into the crook of your neck. All you could do was roll your eyes and giggle as he nuzzled his nose against your skin.

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halforc-mercenary · 7 years ago

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Scary story prompt: A four-year-old half-elven boy sits and stares at you as he waits.

Send “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” for my muse totell your muse a scary story or an urban legend.

A heavy frown draw a long line betweenthe Halforcs thick eyebrows, as she looked at the small boy at theother side of the campfire. Around them the merchants and othercivilians she was accompanying as a guard were as busy as bees in abeehive at preparing their camp for the night : „Listen, Child,aren´t you a little too young to listen to scary stories?“

„Just tell him the story, Girl…somaybe the brat will let us sleep“, the other guard grumbleddisgruntled from where he was laying outstretched on the ground on asimple bed of firneedles, with his Helmets Grimme pulled ungainlyover his eyes, to get at least a little sleep before he and Mar wouldstart their guardshift during the night.„Thats nothing a child should hear!“,Mar pinned her ears back and growled at the other guard like aannoyed dog, but the other ignored her simply.With a grunt the young woman turnedback to the little boy, who still waited, quietly, his eyes round andbig and…. very persuasive. By the Light!, she thought as her earsmoved up and down almost panicky, What am I ? A Mercenary or a Mousethat let itself soften up by two big round eyes?!

Apparently the Halforc was a Mouse.

She stood no chance against thosebig round eyes, she noticed, as she eventually started to talk:

„Did you know, child, that the people in myHomeland are usually burned after their death? At least when you arenot a Yarl who thinks they are better than everybody else andtherefor your corpse should rest in a grave for so called Heros torevive you to become a mindless massmurderer.“,the woman scoffedand thought of-Oh No, no , no , no!Heshould not be thought about, not his face thatresembled her own with the hook nose and the dark freckles, not hisloud laughing or his broad hand that ruffled throughher own hair as if she was his little sister and not his youngercousin. Because thinking about him would also meanthinking about his dark skin that had turned ashen in Undeath, itwould mean thinking about his usually warm laughter that had in theend sounded like a part of his spine had pressed against his throatfrom inside, it would mean thinking about that it had been heraxe that had crushed his skull eventually:

„….but the normal people areburned after their death and the ash is either spread in the sea orput in a urn to be buried under a small heap of stones forremembrance. Its more pragtical that way, more pragmatic.For beforethis tradition People were buried under big barrows and that was toomuch work to do, because there could always come a foesttroll or aogre to attack you, when you are in the middle of preparing a burrowand then the burrow would have become the grave of two people. So itwas far more pragmatic to use a simpler burial methode.“TheHalforc looked with a frown that could almost be worried at thelittle Halfelf sitting next to her, but then she forced herself toremember that this was not her child and therefor she had no right tobe worried for him:

„The other reason to change theburial tradition, beside pragmatism, was fear. Fear that those whoare dead could return to the living when their body is still intact.“As they did eventually. Eventually when all the urbanlegends and tales had turned to truth that had held reality in astranglehold with rotten, bony hands. First during the third waras they clashed against Thoradinswall like a stormwave of rottenflesh.

Then, years later, on the other side ofthe great wall, as a Prince who killed those loyal to him to bringthem back as his Forsaken. Those loyal tohim, just like-Oh No, no, no , no!He should not bethought of, he should not be mentioned, he should stay away until hecould reach with his rotten fingers into her nightmares. As her sleepwas the only time when he was able to crawl out of the far away placein the back of Mars head, where she had locked away him and thememory of his freckled laughing face that was to smiliar to hers.

„Fortheir are so many stories of the old days, when the Dead returned tothe living and always they end bad, for the Dead can bring no joy tothe living and the Living could not give what the Dead long for. After all the Dead can no longer feel warmth or joy or love, because all theycan feel is the cold grasp of their graves. And this was also thereason that when someone dies, the family of the Dead would putstones in the doors of their houses for seven days, for when the Deadwould walk again in search of what was once their own- Warmth, joy,love- they could not enter their home again, until their gravefinally calls for them after seven days.

Thisalso happned when a man with the name Sinfjotle died. He was burriedin a burrow and his family, consisting of two servants, his wife andhis unmarried Bother, returned to their home to put stones in theirlonghouses entrance. But when the night came and frost started tocreep over the mountains and over the fields, Sinfjotle woke upagain. He was greeted by a dark place, where he lay on a bed with his shield and sword by his side and pots full of butter, corn, honeyand milk. But he did not wanted those gravegoods. He wanted hisfamily. So he stood up again and walked out of his burrow, over themountains and the fields, towards his old home just to finde the doorblocked with stones. But Sinfjotle wanted the warmth and joy andlove of his family as he had known when he was still alive. So hetried to move the stones away, and when it did not worked, hescratched over them until his nails broke and his flesh started to ripof his cold bones. However, the stones did not moved and when thefirst rays of the sun started to sneak past the mountains, Sinfjotlehad to return to his grave over the day. But this was not theend.“

Evening had started to wrap them in darkness, the working people around the Trio by the campfire was slowly swallowed by the approaching darkness like by a eager mouth.

“Inthe next night Sinfjotle once again woke up and wandered over themountains and the fields to find once again the door blocked withstones, stones that still beared the scratchmarks of his fingertipsthat were this night already worn down to the hard, cold bone. Butthis time he was greeted with the voice of his wife, a voice so sweetit was enough to make him cry, if he would have been still able tocry.´Asbirg!´, Sinfjotle called out with a scratching howlingvoice: ´My Asbirg! Open the door for me, I need your warmth and yoursmile! Please, please! Let me in! Please, my Love!´

Asbirgwas a smart women and knew that there could not come any good fromthe dead, but at the same time she had a tender heart and the howlingand crying of the man she loved sitched through her ears like coldneedles. She was alone in the house, for the Servants and her goodBrother had fled in the morning after they had all heard the lastnight full of the sounds of Sinfjotles bones scratching over thestones. Accordingly there was noone else who could stop her when thewoman removed the heavy stones from the door. But the one who wasstanding at the other side of the door was not her husband, with a warmsmile, the dark hair and the warm, dark skin. But it was a corpse, who wasnot able to smile for smiling and joy was for the Living only, andwhos hair was thin and brittle, and whos skin was skin cold and as pale as hisbones underneath. Sinfjotle hasty stepped inside the house thathad been once his home, to sit down by the fireplace for the gravescoldness was still hoding to his limbs. He asked Asbirg to bring imwater and Food, but when she did so, he drunk two buckets full ofwater and ate a whole pot off stew, but the thirst he felt and thehunger that ached in his guts didn´t go away. For eating and drinkngwere joys only living could have. And even thought he sat so near theflames of the fire, that the flames started to lick over his cloth,he coud not feel any warmth, for also warmth was only for the livingand the grave was cold. ´Asbirg´, Sinfjotle called outeventually, thirsty, hungry and so very, very cold: ´Please my Love,please hold me in your arms lik you used to! I feel so cold!´

AndAsbirg, the smart but tender Asbirg, sat down beside her late husbandto lay her warm arms around him.

´ButI am still so cold…´Sinfjotle then said and held her tighter.

Thewoman huffed a little, for the mans cold hands stitched through herlayers of cloth like needles.´Husband,´she said, shivering: ´Not sotight please…´´But I am still so cold…´Sinfjotle thensaid and held her tighter.

Asbirggasped quietly, for this embrace was so different from what sheremembered was when her Husband had held her when he was still alive.

´ButI am still so cold…´Sinfjotle then said and held her tighter.

Thewoman started to squirm in his grasp, her bones ached under the corpsestrong hold.

´ButI am still so cold…´Sinfjotle then said and held her tighter.

Asbirgstarted to yell as her bones started to brittle.

´ButI am still so cold…´Sinfjotle then said and held her tighter.

Andthen there was a

CRACK!“

Marsaid the last word out loud, so loud the guard who had seemed tosleep jumped up from his bed of pinefirs as if he had been bitten by ainsect. With a calmer voice she continued, after she watched theother guard sitting back on his bed: „Sinfjotle nolonger held hiswarm wife in his arms but a corpse, who was very fast losing thewarmth he had longed for so much. So he waited and when the lastspark of warmth had leaved Asbirg, she opned her eyes again and handin hand, cold to cold, they stepped outside in the frozen night tosearch for all those precious things they have lost: Warmth and Joyand Love, all those things that only belonged to the Living and whichSinfjotle and Asbirg could never have but which they would never stoplonging for.“Those things even he had never stoppe longing for, even when-Oh No, no, no , no!He should not bethought of,not the warmth of his arms around her, not the joy he had brought when he had told her the stories of his Soldierlife, not the love he had made her feel when he had kissed her forehead. But she did thought of him She alwas thougt of him. And the memory lay around her throat like a icecold hand and pressed,pressed,

pressed!

Mar looked down at the child, wordlessly. Then she stubbornly wiped her gloved hand over her eyes and turned back to the campfire: „That was the story. Do not complain when you can´tsleep tonight, child.“

@brashtide-menace

#brashtide-menace #Mar got slayn by a four year old #also yes Mar is SO DONE with the Trollbane family #She is thinking of her secon Cousin Staschko Ansgarsen

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fuckyeahscandalband · 8 years ago

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SCANDAL; in "GiGS" magazine, Mar 2017 issue - TOMOMI Interview

── When SCANDAL was formed, did you choose to play the bass yourself?

TOMOMI: "When we were recommended to play instruments at the start, honestly, anything was fine. The first thing that came to mind was the guitar, which I tried playing, but it was difficult after all (laughs). When we went to the instruments shop to take a look, I was told that there was something that bore a similar shape (to the guitar), but had 2 fewer strings, so I picked it simply. People at the dance school also told me that I'll do well with the bass, so that's how I started off."

── Did you not ever feel that it is more difficult than the guitar?

TOMOMI: "Doesn't playing the guitar begin by remembering guitar chords? However, I started off on the bass by remembering single notes, and it wasn't actually hard to produce a sound. If you pluck it, there's sound. In such a sense, I didn't feel it was hard or that I was poor when I first held onto the bass."

── Did you feel how interesting the bass and being in a band was, being in a world you had not known of before?

TOMOMI: "We're split 2 and 2 between those who lives in Nagoya, and those who lived in the Kansai region. The only times the 4 of us would meet and play together were during weekends. So when the 4 of us finally get to play together, we're also finally able to finish up our songs. 'Ah, so this is how it feels like'. This is true for anyone, but since we really started from zero, I felt that we'll be able to do more and more by each day, and that was really fun."

── In that process, you guys got to do more and more original songs, were you also getting more inspired by the members?

TOMOMI: "On the bass? At the start, I'd sing as I play, and the first song that had a completely different vocal melody and bass melody was "Kagerou", I think. Ah no, I thought that "Kagerou" might be a more troubling song for when I sing as I play. The one that has a different rhythm is "SAKURA Goodbye". We only just started making our own original songs; There were a lot of bass roots, and the phrases weren't that difficult. It was a level for someone like myself, who've just started playing the bass and whom had to sing as I play. But after that, we had even more of our own songs, and after listening to other songs, I got to know the amount of bass riffs that were in them. It's not only a rhythmic instrument, but also a melodic instrument, and it's actually quite deep. I realised that the bass isn't such a simple instrument after all (laughs)."

── With the bass play in your original songs, the hurdle has gone up.

TOMOMI: "Yes, yes (laughs). But as there's no short cut, I practiced earnestly. By playing the bass, I also got to gradually know the system that I like. I would want to play a certain phrase of a song, so I'll copy that. That's how it went, but I think my awareness for bass play increased through it."

── As your favourite bassist, did you often devote yourself to (learning from) the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea?

TOMOMI: "When I had zero idea about the bass at the start, the first thing I watched was Flea's playing. If you'll pluck the bass, there'll be sound, but mine would sound like a cry (laughs). All these ways of playing were shocking. I did have plenty of phrases that I liked, but I didn't feel like they provided any direct influence. A bass play that I really liked all the way, since I started out on the bass, was TRICERATOPS' Hayashi Koji's play. It wasn't super complicated, but he would play a different rhythm on the bass, while singing another during the chorus, and all of that is very technical. His phrases not only left an impression, but they also brought out a lot. As a bassist myself, I thought of wanting to know more of all kinds of phrases."

── Surely, as a bassist for 10 years, you've met with many challenges right?

TOMOMI: "In "Koe", which MAMI is the main vocalist for, I played a bass phrase actively at the bridge. That was extremely new then for me. Up till that time, I'd be singing along either on the chorus or as the main singer, but in "Koe", I practically didn't sing at all, and so, I was able to move as I like, without thinking about having to sing. It was the first time that I was able to play the bass in a bassist-like way (laughs)."

── Other than that song, there was other songs with lines in which you had to move furiously. You're good at that, aren't you?

TOMOMI: "Nah, I don't know about that myself (laughs). If our arranger, Kawaguchi-san arranges it, it does tend to turn out pretty intense on the bass. In the past, I had to practice on that aspect (laughs). When MAMI took to composing songs, and when Kawaguchi-san came in for the arrangement, the rhythmic team would be very intense, as according to MAMI's wishes, and it'll be even harsher on the bass (laughs). There'd be more complicated, technical phrases. Even if they might be hard in the beginning, but it was fun slowly getting used to it."

── As a songwriter, it seems that you gone through a slump about 2 and a half years back. As a bassist, did you not ever go through that?

TOMOMI: "Compared to producing, I never had a point where I felt that terrible about myself. However, I did hit walls too. When I was appearing on "Domoto Brothers" (year 2014), I'd be given the score 2 days before the taping. Whenever I see tough scores, although all the musical notes were written down, I'll be stumped (laughs). Plus, before the taping, Domoto (Tsuyoshi), Shishido Kavka and myself would meet with the audience as the 'Tsuyoshi Man Sisters Band', where we would do a bit of a funk session. I never did a session before then, so at the beginning, I wasn't able to play anything besides the same phrase from start to finish. I was rather down then (laughs). So I went back to listen to Flea's playing once again, and studied the rock phrases by Tower of Power."

── After such intense learning, did you feel a sense of release afterwards?

TOMOMI: "Well, rather than feeling released, I felt it was more like I got stronger mentally (laughs). I would enter the venue feeling like they were pretty much family, plus, I was alone and didn't have all the members of SCANDAL with me. In the beginning, I was very careful, but after half a year passed, I was able to better read the scores gradually, and for our last episode, we did about 17 songs in the style of a live (concert). Still, when I got the score 2 days before, I did think it was insane (laughs), but I also felt that I'll just do the best I can and my heart felt stronger. From then on, whatever happened, I was no longer as scared. Although I don't remember if it was my playing that got better or what it was."

── In these 10 years, you've also gotten much attention as a lyricist. You performed shockingly during the earlier days, and was praised for your lyrics just overflowing with personality.

TOMOMI: "Thank you very much. However, I've been writing lyrics since SCANDAL was formed. I was really happy when I wrote "Switch". Last time, be it when it was sadness or happiness, I'll just write these simple feelings down, simply as they are. But for "Switch", although it was very flat, it obviously moved hearts in its words. Since I wrote this song's lyrics, I also got to gradually understand the system I like to work with. But when I want to turn more delicate feelings into lyrics, they aren't exactly write-able material. Be it sadness or fun, aren't people usually able to tell their feelings at that moment and just write? But whenever I want to record that and turn them into words, my emotions would get all worked up. I'll say that it's nothing, but not write them down as notes, and it's just iffy. That's why, it's easier to give birth to flat lyrics naturally."

── Do you start off your writing by determining a message you'll like to convey first?

TOMOMI: "That'll be something recent. During the earlier days, I'll listen to the tune and just come up with a single word that comes to mind with that sound or melody, then expand from it, as if it were a puzzle, but it wasn't like the song is being pulled by a certain theme we wished to convey from the start. For the ones who've seen the band grow, they'll know this, so I feel a bit responsible (laughs). I begun to think that we definitely do have things to convey to such people too, so then I'll write notes and jot down certain things that the members talked about, and make lyrics out of them. It rings true for "HARUKAZE" too. There was another girls band that was formed at the school, around the same period as us, and that was written for those people. Although we talked about standing on the stage together, but it didn't go as we planned. In the end, the only one that's still persuing his/her music dream is the vocalist. It's not just that person, but there are also people who formed bands after looking at us, and towards those who said they look up to us, I thought that I might have things I want to convey to them too, so I turned those thoughts into lyrics."

Photos and translation by fyscandalband. I'll be translating the personal setlist portions next~

#SCANDAL #scandal band #tomomi ogawa #haruna ono #mami sasazaki #rina suzuki #gigs #magazine #translation

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snarktheater · 8 years ago

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Book review — Stranger Than Fanfiction

After loving Chris Colfer's Land of Stories series, I picked up his latest book without a second thought. What a fool I was.

You know how "don't write a self-insert" is such a common writing advice that it has people arguing against it, and not unreasonably so, on the grounds that any character one writes has an element of oneself, and desperately trying to avoid that only results in trite, flat characters because you have no real experience to ground them in?

Yeah, well this book reminds you why it's a common advice in the first place. Oh, but don't worry, it also does so much more wrong! It's like a massive clusterfuck of "why do you waste my time so?" Really, this could have had its own snark. You've been warned.

Stranger Than Fanfiction is the story of five characters. Or, really, four plus one characters. Four kids just out of high school, who are faced with the dramatic change of going to college, being split from their best friends by virtue of going to live all across the States, and each with one (1) personal conflict. It's paint-by-the-numbers character arc for a coming of age story…or at least, that's the concept. But before I get to the details, we also have our fifth protagonist, Cash Carter, who's an uber-popular actor famous for a series aimed at young adults and totally not the author's avatar. Ahem.

The plot is this: out four kids are Christopher "Topher" Collins (who may or may not be a second self-insert, yes, really), Sam Gibson, Joey Davis, and Moriko "Mo" "I couldn't be bothered to use my Japanese character's full name, and I don't know if that reflects more badly on my characters or myself as an author, but probably both". They're going on a road trip together before college, and Cash crashes the trip after Topher sends him a heartfelt letter (which he has for most of his teenage years). If you have issues with this premise, congratulations on realizing that an actor hanging out with teenage fans is a little bit creepy and not…whatever the book thinks it is, exactly.

Cash is essentially a Manic Pixie Dream…Celebrity, for lack of a better term. His role in the plot is to provide each of our protagonist with an easy out to their issues (and don't worry, I'll get back to that in a moment), while vomiting bitter thoughts about the famous life. Considering his viewpoints are never even challenged by the narrative, it's hard to feel like this is anything but the author's own thoughts. That, or Chris Colfer is actually a mediocre author who got a publishing deal solely based on his pre-established fame, but that could never happen. His style totally doesn't have a million amateur mistakes that a professional should have caught, either.

But really, even if these aren't the author's views and he's just presenting an argument in abstract…he doesn't really do that well, either. Because he lumps together paparazzi and rabid, stalking fans on one hand (which…is a problem) with critics, of all things. How dare people hold you accountable, right? It's not like everyone is accountable to someone, and the only difference when you're a celebrity is scale, because 1) more attention means more people you're accountable to and 2) more influence means your actions have bigger consequences.

And it's really hard to feel sad for Carter who just "can't even be young" (because being young always entails wild partying, sex, and drugs, right?). I'm sorry, but the guy is, in universe, filthy rich and headlining the most popular show on television. And if that doesn't make up for it, keep in mind that he could just…you know, keep it on the down low. What most teenagers who act up have to do anyway, if only because they don't want their parents to find out.

Look, it's not like our society has no legit issues with its handling of celebrities. Yes, privacy is something everyone deserves. Yes, sex negativity is bad, and our relationship to recreational drug use needs a serious change towards a more accepting stance that will lead to more responsible use. But it's really hard to care about any of that when it's presented like…this:

You know it's bad when there's a dead meme that already makes fun of what you're doing.

If you agree with anything I just said, well, your enjoyment of this book is compromised, because Cash Carter rants often, a lot, and keeps using the same talking points. It's almost embarrassing—or it would be if it wasn't so annoying too. If you needed to vent, writing a novel wasn't the solution, Mr Colfer.

Okay, that's one protagonist out of the way. Let's look at our coming of age stories for this book, how our Manic Pixie Dream Whiner comes into them, and why it all fails so, so very hard.

The easiest is Topher, because…well, he doesn't really have a problem. I mean, he does, but it's not an internal problem, because I guess the author knows what a coming of age story is, what a character arc is, but not which character arcs work for a coming of age story. So Topher has a sick younger brother and a single mom to take care of both of them. His "problem", if you can call it that, is that he's staying in his hometown to go to a lesser college to help his mom take care of his brother. Wow.

Next is Sam. Sam is a trans boy in the closet. So far in the closet that, until his gender is "revealed" in his first PoV chapter, he's actually referred to by "she" pronouns (including in said PoV), which I'm fairly certain is a bad idea. You're literally using the narration to perpetuate the idea that being trans is a "twist", a surprise. Or dare I say…a trap? That's probably not the intent, mind you, but it's still what it comes across. Sam also has the distinction that Topher has a crush on him. More on that in a moment.

Joey is our token black gay. I mean, token black guy who happens to be gay. He's gay. That's his conflict. Well, specifically, he's gay and his family is very religious and openly homophobic, but still. Also, he plans to get laid during the road trip.

Finally, we have Moriko. As you might have guessed, I'm already annoyed that the book consistently refers to her as "Mo", because it sounds a lot like Japanese names are just too complicated for this book. As another token (and yes, she and Joey really feel like tokens rather than part of a diverse cast), she also has a pretty weak conflict. Basically, she wants to go to a writing school, her dad wants her to go to a "serious" college instead, to have a career that makes money and stuff. I'm pretty sure it's a racial stereotype of some kind.

So how does this all play out? Well, I'm glad you asked. Three of our protagonists are keeping a secret, and they all eventually confess that secret to Cash, even though Cash proves to be a giant, self-absorbed asshole. That actually sort of works, and even starts like a pretty standard character arc. But then there's the resolution. Which is to say: Cash outs all of their secrets. At once. To everyone else.

Considering two of three secrets are characters in the closet, we already have a very bad start. Outing people is not okay, you guys. Don't do it. Even if you're 1000000% positive that it won't have negative consequences, just…don't do it. If someone came out to you, they trusted you with a very important secret, do not betray that trust.

But on a pure writing level, this is also…very weak. It means the characters don't progress or grow; instead, they're just forced to deal with the consequences of their secret being out in the open. It forces three of your four protagonist to be reactive characters instead of proactive ones; and since the fourth protagonist is completely passive, he's not faring much better.

So after that "climactic" (using the term very generously) reveal, we follow…Topher, the guy who had nothing bad happen to him. Well, okay, his crush on Sam was also put out in the open, but come on, that doesn't count. All he has to deal with is knowing that his crush is a boy, and the book phrases it in the most ambiguous way possible that ends up kind of implying he still sees Sam as a girl, kind of, sort of? He says he wants them to be "gray" (as in, in a gray area) together, even though Sam's gender is pretty clear-cut and there's a word for a person who's attracted to girls and boys. It's "bisexual". It's not used in the book at all.

The rest of the cast? Well, now that their secret is out to their best friends, I guess they're suddenly fine coming out to the rest of the world too. Or, in Moriko's case, to just tell her dad no, and to emotionally blackmail him into accepting her choice. But that's okay, because the end justifies the means?

Meanwhile, Joey's kicked out of his home, but Topher's family takes him in and his mom will still talk to him…just, you know, not at home and while trying to make sure she's not seen by anyone. Yes, this is a thing that happens and it's treated as a joke that Joey's mom is ashamed to meet him. Ha ha ha. Sam's mom (also a single parent, it's kind of weird how three of the protagonists have those) accepts her son, on the other hand. And yes, there's something a little weird about how both white protagonists have wonderful accepting parents and get everything they want, while both the black boy and Japanese girl have awful parents and lose something to get their happy ending. It just reeks of "you didn't even stop to think about it, did you?"

As for the resolution of Cash's character…if you can call if that…well, he was dying of cancer the whole time, and all his acting up was the result of wanting to live his life to the fullest before dying. He also leaves huge sums of money to the protagonist (after they forgive him) so they can all go for their respective dreams (and in Topher's case, abandon his mom and brother guilt-free). A true Manic Pixie Dream Celebrity to the end. And was that really the best use of his money? Just because they were the only four to "see him as a person"? Way to imply the rest of the fandom all dehumanize you.

Problem is: Cash didn't earn his forgiveness. He was horrible, he keeps being horrible, but now we know he's dying and that changes everything? Yeah, no. You can enjoy life to the fullest without being a jackass to everyone around you. Neither did the protagonists earn their happy endings. And if they don't earn it, it means the coming of age…didn't happen, basically.

Oh, and speaking of coming (yes, I had to make that joke). I mentioned that Joey was planning to lose his virginity during the road trip. Yeah, I have to address this separately. See, Sam and Moriko tell Cash their secrets in fairly drama-free circumstances, but Joey doesn't even choose to tell him. Instead, while he's meeting a guy from a hook-up app (who turns him down after puzzling out that Joey is an eighteen-year-old closeted virgin), he just happens to be spotted by Cash.

That scene…drips with good sentiment, but honestly, I hated it. The whole "don't have sex if you're not ready" message is fine, but Joey doesn't feel like someone who isn't ready. He'd been chatting with his date for a while before even leaving, he'd done his research about preparation and safety…he very much sounds ready to me. But no, he's not doing it with someone he's in love with, and therefore it's not good. It ends up reeking of "casual sex is bad", which, considering how much Cash complains when people criticize him for having sex, feels hypocritical. Doesn't help that this is absolutely what the author thinks, since Joey gets that talk from both his date and then from Cash. And after that scene, Joey no longer expresses the desire to have sex at all. This was an informed choice, and it was Joey's to make, so I hate that the book just takes it away from him. Sounds like you need some sex positivity of your own, book.

Stranger than fanfiction is…well, first of all, it doesn't really live up to its title. Oh, we certainly get a title drop at the end, but the events are very much not stranger than fanfiction. If anything, it only highlights another major flaw about this book: that it's clearly written by someone who knows about fandom and fanfiction…but only from the outside, as a celebrity who is the object of both instead of a creator or consumer of either. So not only does it fail at basic storytelling, it also fails at portraying the protagonists for who they're supposed to be.

On the plus side, at least now I'm cured of my ridiculous celebrity crush on Chris Colfer. Hurray for small victories!

#stranger than fanfiction #chris colfer #young adult #ya books #books #young adult books #book reviews #ya #reviews #book #book review #review #st: book reviews

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healthbolt-blog · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on Health bolt

New Post has been published on https://www.healthbolt.net/cooking/how-to-cook-healthy-eggs/

How To Cook Healthy Eggs

Contents

Cabbage soup recipe

Vegetable side dish recipes browse

Night. eggs aren’

1. healthy deviled eggs serves: 6

Healthy deviled eggs serves

As perfect as his egg sandwich might be, his pancakes don’t always gratify; oftentimes they are burned on one side, others tu…

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Lisa Lillien is the author of the popular Hungry Girl website and email newsletter, featuring smart, funny advice on guilt-free eating. She is also the author of eleven books, six of which debuted at …

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But what is it that makes eggs, such a healthy food for weight loss … Some of the most popular ways to cook eggs include ha… Healthy Cooking Oil High Smoke Point But you want to look for oils that are made mostly of healthy fats … Deep frying calls for oil with a high smoke point.

To make Starbucks’ famous egg bites at home … egg bites are a convenient and healthy breakfast or snack. The options to cus…

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sister-nora · 6 years ago

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Nora pulled back slightly, a bit surprised by his words. "I... I love you too Papa" she smiled brightly leaning forward and hugging him tightly. "I love you so much Papa, anything you ever desire, I will do my best to deliver" sitting back she gazed into his milky eyes "anything, I am here to serve you" she held onto him tightly, like she was afraid he was going to escape and leave her alone and scared again.

"You can more than keep up with me, you do every time" Nora snorted, her face immediately going red as she tried to hide it. "I'm glad your back feels better" she nearly whispered "You should make him work on a timer so you don't get so sore during those stupid meetings...I mean, I know they aren"t stupid, its just..." she huffed,upset with herself for blabbering "I think he should think more about your health when it comes to his 3 hour meetings" her hands slid down slowly, stopping on his hip. "especially when you start to get sore after the first thirty minutes or so"

(‿ˠ‿) --Sister-Nora. Text: "I know those meetings can be long and tedious, find me when you are done?". The picture was of a new white and gold lace lingerie set she was wearing underneath her priestess dress, the background of her small office in the library clearly visible.

Nihil was idly browsing on his phone under the table as the Cardinal rambled on about his potential plans to the other leading members of the Ministry. He could only hold his attention for so long. Lucifer, Nihil was thankful his face paint hid the furious blush that burned at his cheeks upon seeing the offer from Nora.

[txt] to Nora: Oh, my love…I will be another half hour yet…unless I can feign feeling unwell to leave swiftly. Did you purchase those just for me…? Gold is my favourite colour x Could you wait for me ;)

#Grand-papa-nihil

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bramanwfericzs25insurance-blog · 5 years ago

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life insurance kids

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life insurance kids

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