#just bam bludgeon them

[macksartblock]

something something four horsemen something

(bonus goof below, courtesy of my friend)

me n the boys hitting up Papa J's

[fangisms]

wish it on your worst enemy

A/N: if you see me butchering british slang 🤨 it never happened 🤫

Pairings: George Weasley x Fem!Reader

Summary: Your worst nighmare takes a nasty spill during a scrimmage because he was distracted by you. It’s only right you go and check on him. 1.9k words

Warnings: violence by bludger, description of injury, cursing, lovesick losers, enemies to lovers???? ‘enemies’ to lovers but really idiots to lovers

George taking a bludger to the face was not the kind of news you would have liked to wake up to. Something had gone wrong during an emergency weekend scrimmage. He was laughing at something Fred said or shouting at Ron or maybe he was just distracted by his own thoughts and hadn't noticed the pesky bugger barreling towards him with every intent to bludgeon him unconscious. So he took a nasty spill from a considerable height and has been passed out in the hospital wing since six forty-five.

You rush down the hallway in your pajamas, cursing under your breath, face scrunched into a scowl, dead set on your target. Bloody quidditch. A few first years watched you nearly trample a group of girls in the hall. They were traumatized. It was bad.

"He's gone daft! This is absolutely mental—nothing is that distracting!" you shout at Ron who is actively trying to defend himself against you. He stopped you at the door because he heard you storming down the hall a full minute before you arrived.

"Calm down! He’s still alive isn't he?" he says.

"Not for long if I have anything to say about it—"

"Oi," Fred shouts, lounging in a rickety chair beside George's cot, "would you wait 'till he's at least cognizant to threaten him?"

"You!" you fume, "why didn't you warn him!" Ron has given up trying to stop you at this point. You push past him, headed straight for Fred.

"I did! I shouted for him three times. The git was proper distracted. Must've been dreaming of something really special." He winks at you, and you think you could ring his neck right about now.

"I think you mean someone," Ron teases.

Both of them. You'll ring both of their necks.

"What the hell are you two chittering about?" you hiss.

"Oh, nothing at all, your graciousness. We'll leave you two lovebirds"—Fred clears his throat, standing and nodding to his youngest brother—"I mean friends... to it."

You grumble and flip them both off as they leave. You plop down into the chair just in time for Madam Pomfrey to come fluff the pillow propped beneath his left leg. She catches your weary glance over his limp body.

"I wouldn't worry too much, dearie. Nasty spills are what young men are made for. He just needs a little rest. Time to recover," she coos, smiling up at you from the base of the cot. You briefly worry the back of your neck before managing a nod.

"Thank you, madam. I appreciate it."

She grabs a quilt from the stack she had brought to his bedside and flattens it across his torso. You tug the side to even it out, a hitch in your breath when your fingers brush his cold knuckles.

"You know, when I attended Hogwarts, the quidditch boys were all the rage. My boyfriend was a Beater as well—"

"Oh, George—! He's not my..."

"He was wonderful. But of course, he was always getting into spills. It drove me mad to see the boy I loved in so much pain. In the end, I told him he'd have to be more careful or I'd call it quits. He told me he had to focus on his career anyway." She stands silently for a moment. Solemnly.

"That's terrible. I'm so sorry."

"You live and you learn. Boys will be boys, I suppose." Out of her trance, she shrugs and gestures to the clipboard sat on the desk. You hand it to her.

"May I ask... what became of him?"

"He retired from Quidditch very young. Only a few years in and, bam: traumatic brain injury. Some people can't be helped!"

You can't help but snicker at her frankness. She smiles, pats your shoulder, and sighs.

"You just have to love ‘em while you can."

"Thank you, Madam Pomfrey."

"Of course, dear. You let me know when he wakes up." She scuttles away.

You take the silence of the moment to look at him. While you can. You prop your elbows on the edge of the cot and rest your head in your hands.

"Not sure how I feel about all of that information. Not sure how much I trust that advice." You tell him like it’s a secret, nose scrunched like there’s anyone else within earshot.

How fragile he seems laid flat atop this plastic wrapped bed. How rich the watercolor purples and yellows of his bruise. Down his neck, out across his jaw. The subtle swoop of his lashes, the rosy bridge of his nose. Then down to his bird bone fingers, your heart skips at the thought of tracing over the delicate skin.

He twitches, and you startle and sit pin straight. His muscles relax, though yours refuse to. You notice a rip at the hem of his folded quidditch robes and perk up.

Eight minutes later, you’re tugging just the edge of his robe into your lap while the rest is feathered out across the linoleum floor. Your emergency sewing kit is perched on your other thigh as you thread your needle and begin stitching.

George blinks the ache from his eyes, finally awake just to find you with a thin string caught between your teeth, your brow furrowed, and your fingers pinching fabric together. He reaches up and presses the heel of his palm to his forehead.

"Thank Merlin I wore something under my uniform today—"

"George!"

The sewing kit clatters to the floor along with the robe and thread. Hopefully that needle will be easy to find. But you smile for now, and it’s one of the sweetest things he’s ever seen. No wonder he took a bludger’s hit. You’re bloody distracting. Even when you’re not around.

“I’ll go get Madam Pomfrey, she said—"

"Were you... stitching up my quidditch robes?” he says, just a hint of teasing in his hoarse voice.

You look down and gape at the mess.

"There was a tear in—when you fell, the bottom—there was a rip! I had a sewing kit on me, I was just... helping a friend."

He blinks. If he wasn’t completely crushing on you before, it’s safe to say that was the nail in the coffin.

"That's adorable," he warbles.

You look cross and put your hands on your hips and scoff.

“Well, you can’t very well play with a rip in your uniform!"

"No. No, of course not,” he mumbles, “Silly me.”

Usually, you’d mock him. You’d call him names and tease him for getting knocked on his ass by and inanimate object. But that smirk has you incapacitated. He's making this very difficult for you.

"Well!” he chirps, “Don’t let me bother you, I’ll just be lying here."

"But Pomfrey—"

"I'll live. My mind is alive, the neurons are firing. All is well, it can wait,” he says, “Please.”

Goddamn you, George Weasley. You muster up a pathetic sigh and sit back on the stool, getting back to work on his robe.

But he’s back to grinning like a fool, admiring the way your tongue pokes the corner of your mouth when you focus. It’s incredibly endearing.

"You're very beautiful."

Daggers. “Shut up.”

He chuckles. "What? I find you to be very agreeable, poppet."

"Gee, thanks, Weasley,” you huff, “Do you want this stitch fixed or not—"

"Don’t get your dear panties in a twist, I’m only trying to compliment you. Would you just take it while I’m too ill to make fun of you properly?"

But he finds you very agreeable. And now you know that out loud. More than an inkling. More than friends. Oh, he’s awful.

"Quit staring."

"Sincerest apologies."

You roll your eyes and glare at him while the needle punctures the thick fabric.

"Why don’t I just tell Madam Pomfrey—"

"And ruin a moment? Come on, let me get a good look at you, you're the reason I’m in this mess,” George mumbles.

"Me?"

"Yes, you! Your stupid face won't get out of my head."

"Be serious, Weasley—"

"I am! You’ve cursed me, poppet, can't think straight unless I’m thinking of you."

"That's not fair!" you say.

"No, it’s not," he huffs, "I love you."

Shock. From both of you. More than friends, and more than a simple crush, now. But love. Love, for Merlin’s sake! Do you love him?

"You're being idiotic—”

"No. I'm not. I've thought long and hard about it, and I love you, and you can't change my mind—"

"George, quit it,” you say.

"Everyone knows it, poppet, I adore you, and—"

"I love you, too, George, now would you shut up!"

Well, then. Secrets out, no holds barred.

And he’s smiling all smug to himself, even though his left side is a bit swollen. And you’re back to fiddling with the stitched up tear in his robe. You’ve got crazy eyes. He thinks you might murder the stitched up tear in his robe. Or confess your love to it.

You groan.

"Stop smiling like that. You look crazy."

He shrugs. "I am crazy…"

"Do not—"

"… Crazy in love."

"I hate you"

"I know."

You look at him. And he’s looking back at you terribly fondly. As fragile as he seems now, he feels invincible. You fold up his fixed uniform and set it on the desk.

"George,” you sigh, “you have to stop getting hurt."

He nods curtly. "Okay. I’m sorry."

You squint at him, suspicious and expecting just a little pushback.

"... It's... okay, I just worry about you. I don't like seeing you like this." The stool scrapes against the floor, and George reaches for your hand.

"I know you don't, poppet. It won't happen again,” he says.

"Good. And if it does, then—"

"Then I’ll quit the team.”

"What!"

"I’ll do it. I’ll quit for you. I’ve got other things to worry about anyway. More important things than some silly sport where balls fly at your face."

Your eyes sparkle. For him, and it makes him absolutely giddy. He presses his thumb to the back of your hand and cocks a brow.

"Now,” he sighs, “would you come here and give me my hard won kiss?"

"Oh, so you won a kiss.”

"Nobly so. Dutifully and honorably. Nothing less than the best for your highness."

"Fine, whatever, only because you think I’m beautiful.”

You lean over his arm, trying not to nudge any of his tender injuries. While you’re being so careful, he’s straining for your kiss, jutting his neck out and shuffling under the quilt. He grunts at the overexertion, and you sit back before he gets his kiss.

"Nope! I’m getting Pomfrey!"

"One peck! Swear, I won’t move an inch!"

"Madam, he's awake!”

"Wonderful news, darling!" she calls from the other side of the wing, preparing a jug of water and a two glasses.

"You're horrible, and you torture me. You don’t love me at all, witch!" he whines, voice low

"On the contrary, I love you a good deal too much, which is why I’m so horrible."

He grumbles something under his breath.

Then chirps: "Be my girlfriend.”

You fold your hands in your lap. "If I must"

"And let me be your boyfriend,” he pleads.

"Well, what else would you be?"

"Your servant, your house pet. A footstool if you needed it.”

“George Weasley, you’re a fool,” you tease, reaching over to fix a strand of hair behind his ear.

"Yes, I am. A fool who loves you very much.”

“Sap.”

masterlist

[brimbrimbrimbrim]

i really miss your eddie fics ))):

You’re both laying perpendicular across Eddie’s musky, unmade bed, legs hanging off the edge at the knees, passing a joint back and forth with a coffee can ashtray nestled at your hip. Eddie’s curls are a damp tangle around his head after his midnight shower, tickling your bare shoulder in a chilly itch heightened by the fuzzy sensitivity of the weed. It’s a chill Saturday night, not too different from all the rest, except tonight, you got stood up by your date and elected to hit Eddie’s place earlier than intended, bereft of a good dicking (or any dicking).

And as usual, with the weed mixing messily with pent-up hormones, you both end up complaining about your sex lives. You didn’t have much of one, and Eddie… Well… He never got further than one-night stands.

“I dunno…” you muse over his last comment, “I feel like it’s common knowledge that every dude regularly gets morning wood. You’re not special.”

“Other dudes don’t get them like this,” he complains, taking a hit off the joint before talking through the lungful, “I swear to Christ, I could bludgeon an ogre with. One roll and BAM! Crit hit.”

“Okaaaay, so they’re big beefy boners. So what?”

Eddie releases a bullish exhale of smoke, snorting quietly, “So what is that my hand just doesn’t cut it. I need some succubus to suck me off before I wake up, or… uh, scratch that, you don’t wanna hear about this shit. Sorry…”

You shrug, elbow knocking his own, “No, it’s cool. Makes sense you’d fantasize about getting woken up with a blowjob. I wouldn’t mind the same most morning… of course, by that, I mean a dude eating me out and not sucking my dick since… ya know, I don’t have one of those.”

“I’m well aware of that, baby. I’ve shared a bed with you hundreds of times.”

“Not hundreds…” you mutter, “and what does that even prove?” 

Eddie breaks out in a cheshire grin. “Cause if you had a dick, I’d have felt it already. You cuddle when you're stoned, and the shit you say in your sleep? Fuck, you’re a total deviant.”

You don’t deny the deviancy part but give his profile a glare; his face is still cracked in a big smile, eyes closed as he sneaks in another hit before blindly wiggling the half-smoked joint for you to grab. He’s disgustingly pretty at this angle, with pink puffy lips, a kissable nose, and heavy lashes teasing his flushed cheeks. Shame he’s not into you, ‘cause you’d straddle him in a heartbeat rather than waste anymore effort on Hawkins’ bachelors. There may have been a decent supply of single men around town, but none of them were like Eddie—none of them liked the same music you did, appreciated your weird art, or could quote-converse Tolkein with you as he could.

Frowning, you take the joint Eddie waves in your direction and suck in a lungful of earthy skunk, “So, hang on… you’re saying I’ve been a perv in my sleep, and you never said anything?”

“I’m a gentleman.”

You scoff, “Yeah, tell that to the boners I’ve had to bat away while you’ve been dreaming of… what, cheerleaders? No, I bet money on Madeline Kahn.”

“I haven’t had a wet dream about cheerleaders since middle school, and who doesn’t find Miss Scarlet hot? Calm your tits, princess—and I woulda known if you were swatting at my dick. Liar.”

You shrug, ignoring his snicker at your lack of any witty retort. The smug bastard probably would wake up the second a feather ghosted over his dick, given how fast he came when he popped his cherry a year ago. Eddie really screwed up confessing that one ‘cause you quickly buried down the heartache by calling him a two-pump chump for a whole month afterward.

“Man,” Eddie sighs dramatically, “waking up with lips around my dick sounds like heaven.”

��No, shit. That’s what I’ve been saying all night! Where have you been?”

“High. But seriously, men are horn dogs; that is common knowledge. It’s just like… I dunno; the mechanics are different than waking your girlfriend up with head, or a good dick down. It’s way easier to sneak attack a dick than some girl’s pussy.”

“Pff,” you blow out a burning hit and roll over on your side, facing Eddie’s curl-smothered profile. He’s staring up at the ceiling now, looking stoned and relaxed, something that brings you all the happiness in the world after the better part of the year bringing so much chaos and stress. “So you’re telling me if your girlfriend wanted it, you wouldn’t give her a down-low kiss good morning.”

His devious grin is absolutely infectious. 

“Oh, I’d do more than that…” 

“Hot,” you deadpan, taking a second hit since he snuck two in on his pass, then rest your hand on his chest, joint perched between thumb and forefinger.

Eddie pushes his chin to his chest, brows raised, and takes the splif, hitting it with a fizzle of burning paper. His gaze drifts to you when he exhales the smoke, glassy chocolates gleaming with affection. “You're crashing here tonight, right?”

“If you’ll have me,” you whisper, eyes fluttering sleepily in a way that have you missing the blush that stains Eddie’s cheeks at your words. “I’m waaay too high to drive home.”

“You live next door, dumbass,” it’s said with a smile that makes you snuggle up until your nose touches his arm.

“Must have forgotten how to walk then,” you laugh, then sit up on an elbow, looking down at Eddie’s dopey expression. “Hey, you got something clean for me to sleep in? I don’t wanna wear this stupid dress to bed.”

His eyes rake down the tight, leather-buckled dress like he’s seeing it for the first time. It doesn’t escape your notice the way his gaze lingers on the hem digging into your upper thighs, then the dip where it shows off a light swell of cleavage, but… he’s a man, and men are horn dogs like he said.

“Why?” Eddie asks, genuinely confused, “Afraid it’s gonna ride up in the night, and you’ll wake up with your best friend’s boner in your ass?”

“… no?” Though you wouldn’t mind in the slightest. “But it’s sorta tight and… ugh—“ you toss yourself on your back with a bounce, groaning into the hazy bedroom, “—can you believe I got stood up after putting on makeup AND this dress?” 

You turn your head and huff indignantly. “All this effort for no beef. I swear my luck is total dog shit.”

“Well,” Eddie shrugs, “it’s his loss.” 

He smiles, rolling to face you. “I’m the one with a hot babe in his bed, not what’s his name.” Eddie wags his brows, earning him a jab in the shoulder that he takes like a total bitch, rolling over melodramatically until his back hits the headboard, clutching his shoulder with a hammy grimace of pain that’s too fucking cute. Stop being so cute, Munson! 

“Quit being a chode and get this hot babe something to wear or she’s dragging her fine ass home,” you threaten, then add with your limp hand poised over your forehead, “through the cold!—and rain!—and five feet of snow or whatever! If I get the sniffles, you know I’ll kill you.”

“I’m too cozy,” Eddie hugs himself in his nook against the headboard, mimicking your earlier pout, “Just grab whatever’s in the laundry basket.”

“I’m not wearing your dirty clothes, Munson.”

“They’re clean. Relatively,” he adds, “just didn’t wanna fold clothes on a Saturday.”

“More like ever. But, whatever. Fine.” You wiggle off the bed, absentmindedly tugging the hem of your dress back down the exposed curve of your ass cheeks, totally oblivious to your best bud Eddie nearly biting clean through his tongue to hold down a groan at the sight. Not like he hasn’t seen you in a bikini or your panties a few times. Plus, the two of you had a bad habit in senior year (all three of his) of letting your laundry pile up until you were hanging wet clothes in your last pair of underwear behind his trailer. So, yeah… you don’t think about whether the dress or its relative shortness has given him a boner or not.

It totally has…

“Oooh, found the best one!” You triumphantly hold up his Hellfire shirt, turning around to find him gripping a pillow in his lap, glaring at you beneath his frizzy bangs. When his eyes shift to the shirt in your hands, he does a double take and blushes. Weird. 

“Can you crank up the heat, Dungeon Master?” You snicker, wiggling his infamous shirt for emphasis before fishing for some clean boxers only to find none. Panties it is then, you shrug, waltzing out of his bedroom without a single thought to the human tomato white-knuckling his pillow on the bed.

You and Eddie have always been close, almost obnoxiously so, in a way that was meant to make everyone else around you hem and haw. This wasn’t any different from your usual, but Eddie gulps once you peace out of the room to the bathroom, wondering how the fuck he’s gonna sleep without duct-taping his dick to his stomach…

You’re rubbing lipstick off when the rattle of the heater kicks on, making more than warmth rise up from the floor grate, kissing your ankle and your heart. It’s the little things someone does that always hit the hardest, you think. 

After getting most of the cherry stain off, leaving your lips raw, you yell ‘thank you’ through the wood panel door, smiling when Eddie hisses like Gollum on his way back to the bedroom. Dork.

His Hellfire shirt sits on your upper thighs, just below your ass, the same as the dress had, except it’s not pinching your ribs or tits. The well-worn fabric smells like him… with the barest hint of detergent, but mostly him. Honestly, whether he actually washed it or not is up for debate, but it still smells good… like really good—good enough that your pussy pulses. 

You take a moment to lift it off your soft tits and give it a whiff. The aroma of weed, old spice aftershave, and fresh linen makes you wet, panties going damp. For a moment, you pretend to be wearing his shirt under a different, more sexy scenario just to feel your heartbeat kick up in your clit. It’s always been wild how horny Eddie makes you… but alas, you talk a good game but are a coward at heart. It would take a single honest question to figure out what he feels for you, but the idea terrifies you like nothing else. 

After readjusting your panties and Eddie’s shirt, you decide to save the eye makeup scrubbing for the morning. Not like your best buddy hasn’t seen you with raccoon eyes a few times, or the rare teary-eyed mascara streaks.

Back in the musky bedroom, Eddie is already in bed, arms behind his head, one leg propped up under the covers… and he’s fucking whistling like the epitome of cartoon innocence. Seriously, Jerry Mouse was more saint-like than Eddie looked right now…

“What did you do?”

Eddie’s eyes twitch but doth move from whatever stain on the ceiling has his attention, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never done a wrong thing in my life.”

You exhale a sleepy laugh and dive into his cramped bed, immediately digging beneath the covers. Eddie makes a sound—a low whine—and snatches his half of the covers before they can slide off his waist. It’s toasty warm now, thanks to the rattling heater, but you figure he’s still acclimating like a weirdo. Sometimes the dude runs way too hot, while other times, it’s like his body goes into dormancy, and he’ll try to suck up as much heat as possible, even if it means jamming his icy toes behind your knees. Thankfully, it seems he’s just being greedy about the blanket this time, so you relent and throw yourself on your back, trying to find the gestaltism in the water stain above the bed.

Eventually, Eddie drops his knee and deflates, hands on his chest, fingers tapping a tune into his ratty Megadeth shirt. 

“So…” he hollows out the word, “… you gonna give Brandon another shot?”

“Huh?” You turn your head, finding Eddie still gazing up at the ceiling. Is he serious? “Umm… fuck no. I have some standards. Besides, I’m not hurting that bad for dick.”

“... no?”

“Well, it’s been a… while, but—anyway, my hand works just fine for now,” you blush a bit, still feeling that throb between your legs, which only gets worse when you realize Eddie is literally right next to you, in bed… while you’re in your panties and his shirt and nothing else, “... anyway, I’d sooner have you drive me to Fort Wayne for a vibrator. They have a sex shop there, right?”

“Pretty sure they got one on the thirty before Columbia,” Eddie says, the words coming out a little high despite him being… well, high. Despite the giddy pulse of arousal still wetting your panties, you're far too tired to wonder what his deal is.

“Well, whatever…” you yawn and cuddle into one of two lumpy pillows laden with Eddie’s aromatic shampoo and sweat, “as long as I’ve got you, some weed, and my health, I’m fine.”

“Me?” He gulps. 

“Mhm,” you nod, eyes closed, nosing his pillow, “Yeah, you, ya freak.”

Eddie doesn't say a word, which is sorta weird cause he never shuts up, but you're warm, stoned, and happy, which are things almost impossible not to feel with your very best friend in the whole wide world. Regardless of how bad you wanna fuck him, this is the best; just cuddling up with the soft bandana high surrounding you, absorbing all the faint and strong smells stuck in Eddie’s bed… wrapped in his shirt. 

“Now,” you sigh, smiling, “if only you were into me, then I’d be set.”

The metalhead beside you clutches his shirt in your hazy view, chest coming to a halt as you murmur, “I’d have you, dick, weed… and like, all the hit points,” another yawn, “… might even improve my questionable mental health too.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s warm in here.” You kick the blanket down your shoulders, letting in a little more air, and sigh into sleep. “Don’t worry; you don’t have to crush my dreams, m’just gonna… pass out… night, Eddie.”

(I tease...)

[hannahwatcheshorror]

THE WOLF MAN (1941)

The special effect makeup is actually pretty good. I laughed when I saw our Wolf Man because when he just stands in the middle of the forest, completely visible, he sticks out like a sore thumb. Most other classic creature features have their little quirks that you can get past and enjoy the rest of the movie but there was just so much about this film that was wild and hard to justify as a good choice.

⭐⭐.5

So a dude sees a lady through his telescope and instead of being a regular human being about it he shows up at her house/place of work and hits on her. WILD. She has a fiancée and everything (whom she won’t bring up til later, which is wack) and this dude is super pushy, I’m talking Ryan Gosling in The Notebook pushy (yeah, I didn’t like how he threatened to jump off a Ferris wheel if she wouldn’t go out with him, it was creepy, okay?). When he shows up later that evening to take her out he is even more creepy and I don’t get the chemistry between them (but I also didn’t enjoy or finish The Notebook so, maybe I’m not a true lover).

A friend tags along and the non-couple go to get their fortunes told in the most date-like scene ever but suddenly the friend is missing. The dude goes into the woods and finds her getting used as a chew toy by a wolf! He beats the beast to death with his silver cane… In the morning the corpse of the wolf is none other than a human and our main man is the leading suspect but he only remembers killing a wolf, and being bitten by it… But where the bite was, only a star shaped scar remains (which was adorable because it was freeform and not like a pentagram). Some stuff happens and bam, our boy is The Wolf Man.

Attempts to confide in the people around him about his hairy problem are made, but even though his town is flooded with rumors of werewolves and lycanthropy no one believes his cries. It isn’t until he sees the mark of death (hilariously) on his own beloved that things become too dire and grim so he does the exact same things he was doing before. His lady love goes to look for him in the woods, at night, alone, in the middle of a hunt, while a wolf is loose. Wild. Anyway the father ends up bludgeoning the were-son to death, to his horror, but he saves the girl. The townsfolk just think that our dude died fighting the wolf off the girl. No one will ever know or believe the truth of the matter.

This movie was rough, between the creepy plot of a man after a woman in a relationship and everything happening right at the very last moment. They really waited until the final moment of the film to resolve things which they did in a troubling but clever way, but there was a lot of space in the beginning of the movie that lacked purpose and movement (or so it felt, which is hard because this is a very short film at only one hour and ten minutes).

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

The Immovable Monokub.

REAAAAAAAAAAGGHH!

*Kanade screams a shrill scream, grasping both her weapons with a firm grip and running straight for Kaede and her ursine companion!

AAAKAAMAAATTTSSSUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

OOTOONOKOOJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!

*SLLAAAM!*

GUHUGH! RRGH!

GRAGH!

AGH! HMPH!

*Kaede and Monodam rush forward in unison for a counterattack. Upon collision, Kanade strikes Kaede and Monodam’s faces with the blunt side of her axe and her chainsaw guitar. In turn, Monodam and Kaede both get a good hit in on her stomach.

HRUAGH! DIE! BITCH!

*KER-WHAM!*

GUHGUGH! RRAAGH!

!!??

HIYAH!

*BAM!*

AAGCHCK!

*Kanade swiftly recovers, then counterattacks with a gut punch on Kaede. However, Kade grapples her arm and holds her there, while Monodam flies forward and slams his small metallic body straight into Otonokoji’s face!

UGH! DAMN ROBOT!

HAIYAH!

GAH! WOAAHAAAAAAAAH!

HOOORAGH!

*WHOOSHWHOOSHWHOOSHSLASHSLASHSLASH!*

GUHUAGH!

*Kanade tries to attack again, but Kaede throws her spear straight at her in bludgeon mode. Kanade blocks with her arms, but the momentum pushes her down the hallway all the way to the back wall. Kaede and Monodam run down the hallway after her, but Kaede also maneuvers her spear so that it rotates in midair. She switches it into default slasher mode, and attacks Kaede with what is effectively a telekinetically controlled helicopter blade!

*CRAAASH!*

RUAAGH!

*The force carries on, and with gash marks all across her front, Kanade smashes straight into the wall!

LET’S FINISH HER!

KAEDE! WATCH-IT!

Huh!?

*WHOOOOSH!* *SLAAASH!*

JAAHAAGH!

KAEDE!

YOU’RE NEXT BEAR!

!!!??

*Kanade catches their siege, and before they have a chance to approach her and deal the final blow, she executes her plan. Having dropped her hatchet on purpose as she was getting attacked, she recalls it as Kaede and Monodam run towards her, managing to graze Kaede’s hip and knock her to the floor! She then grabs her flying axe and jumps high into the air, dropping it and grabbing the chainsaw.

*BRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUMRUM!!”

YOUR LIFE IS MINE, URSINE! DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEE!

*SHUNK!* *DGADGADGADGAGDGDADGADGADGADGADGADGADGADGADGA!!!*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!!

MOONOODAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMM!!

*Kaede screams in desperation as Kanade rams her chainsaw once again straight through Monodam’s body, proceeding to cut him wide open with a malicious smile on her face!

GRRRR! AAAAH...B-...BOOOOOST!

*WHOOOM! BANG!*

AAGHCK!

RAAAAAAAAWWWRRRR!!!

*WHHHAAAAAMMMMM!!*

GIHAAHAAAGH!

*Despite his body being torn apart by the second, Monodam refuses to succumb! Instead, he catches Kanade off guard by boosting himself into the air! With the chainsaw still wedged in his body, Kanade is lurched upwards with him, and when he gets to the perfect height, Monodam kicks her in the face! The impact dislodges the chainsaw, and he collapses to the ground as Kanade rolls backwards down the hall.

Why won’t you just FUCKING DIE!?

MONODAM, NO!

*Kaede gets to her feet and frantically scrambles towards her badly injured ally. However, despite his interior mechanisms being basically destroyed, Monodam still forces himself to stand.

SHE-IS...RGH...COMING-BACK...!

Huh!?

*PANT!* *PANT!* *PANT!* *PANT!* *SLUURP!* *PANT!* *PANT!*

*Kanade, literally foaming at the mouth, rushes back towards them like a wild, bungry and desperate predator.

...FLING-ME...!

Wh-What?

FLING-ME! USE-YOUR-SPEAR-AND-FLING-ME-TOWARDS-HER-LIKE-A-GOLF-BALL!

But...Your wounds! You’re-

DO-IT-NOW! WE-DON’T-HAVE-TIME!

...!

Alright...! HRGH!

*Kaede switches her spear into kill mode and doubles the length of the blade. She then takes a big swing, and as she does, Monodam jumps at the same time, pointing both his arms forward.

FOOOORE!

*WHACK!*

PERISH-OTONOKOJI!

!!!???

*WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMM!!!*

*Monodam hits Kanade dead on, and crashes on top of her! He then continues to boost himself forward with all his strength, and rams Kanade down the hallway, tearing up the lab floorboards!

NO! NOOO! I WILL NOT BE KILLED BY A TEEEDDYYYYY BEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRR!

*CATCH!* *CHUUNKKK!*

GRRAAGGHK!

*CRAAASSH!*

*With a shriek of defiance, Kanade retrieves her hatchet and lodges it into Monodam’s body, near severing his head! She shifts it’s position, and grinds the both of them to a halt!

HRRUGH! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

!!!!!??

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

!!!!????

*SLAM!* *SHUNK! *BASH!* *BASH!* *BASH!* *BASH!* *BASH!* *BASH!* *BASH!* *BASH!* *BASH!*

*Kaede soars forward at blinding speed using her spear to propel her, and she slams her whole body into Kanade and flies forward! She repeatedly slams her head into the ground as they fly!

HRRRUAAAGH!

!!!??

*BOOST!* *WHACK!*

!!!??

*Kanade once again tries to recall her hatchet as Kaede smashes into her, but as it flies backwards, Monodam soars forward with his boosters and smacks it away!

TOGETHER!

Yeah...!

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

*KER-WWHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!*

*With Monodam being propelled by his boosters, and Kaede being propelled with her spear, the two of them ram Kanade to the other end of the hallway, and SMASH her into the wall! The impact is so fierce, the framing of the hallway end gives way, and a ton of rubble falls on Kanade and buries her!

...GAGHCK!?

!!!??

*However, the victory is short-lived, as Monodam suddenly keels over and collapses to all fours.

OH-DEAR...

Monodam...!

...I...I-AM-FINE. 

No, you’re not! Come on, let’s go! We need to-!

*SMAASH!*

!!!??

*The rubble suddenly explodes, and the small, but menacing frame of the enemy bursts out, and starts to trudge down the hallway.

You’re not going ANYWHERE...!

Ugh! Why won’t you just STAY DOWN!

HAHAHAHA...! Never...Hibiki...still needs me...

Hibiki...HIBIKI...! HIIIBIIIKIIIIIIIIIII!!

SHE...IS...INSANE...WE-CAN’T...STOP-HER!

...

HIIIBIIIKIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!

!!!??

*Kanade powers up both her weapons and flies at Kaede, who braces for the inevitable impact...But then...

NOT TODAY, DUMBSHIT!

*WHAAAAMMMMM!*

GAHAGH!

!!?

*Kanade is punched dead in the face, and once again, flies backwards down the hallway, as a fist of justice nails her!

Phew...That was close...

Kuripa...!?

Akamatsu!

KURIPA!

*Tears stream uncontrollably from Kaede’s eyes, as she grabs her mentor and hugs him tightly. Kuripa returns the hug, but gently, as to be mindful of her wounds.

I’m so glad you’re alright...!

I’m so glad you’re here!

*As they embrace, Kaede hears more footsteps down the hallway, as she sees a large assortment of Future Foundation and Kisaragi Foundation soldiers accompany them, all armed and ready.

Yeah...What say we get you out of here? I mean...you look trashed...

...!

...*CO-UGH!*-Ugh...

...

No! Kuripa, DON’T!

*Kaede tries to stop him, but halts as Kuripa reaches down, and gently picks Monodam up. He then holds the bear gently, and takes him over to Kaede.

He, however, is in worse shape. He needs help, and badly.

You...You’re not gonna...?

I...don’t know what’s going on here, but...I saw this thing fight by your side back there.  If you wanna save him, you’d better hurry. He’s not doing so hot.

W-WRONG...I-AM-FINE...I-HAVE-BEEN-FINE-THIS-WHOLE-TIME.

Don’t lie.

I-CANNOT-LIE. CURRENTLY, I-AM-FINE. I-AM-STILL...ALIVE.

Oh yeah? Then how about in a few minutes? Will you be fine then?

...

*Monodam doesn’t respond.

Monodam...!

Heh...No different from your daddy. You looove your wordplay...

*Kuripa gently hands Monodam to Kaede, who cradles him.

RAAAAAAAAAAAGGGH!!

!!???

!!!??

HIIBIIKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!

GO! We’ll take care of this bitch! GET OUT OF HERE!

KAEDE...WE...MUST-GO!

Right! Hang in there Monodam!

Thank you Kuripa! Thank you, all of you!

*Clutching her dying friend, Kaede turns around and runs as fast as she can down the hallway, in an attempt to escape the lab.

HIIBIIKIIIIIIIIII!

Shit...she’s lost her mind...Oh well...!

*Kuripa grabs his sword, and the rest of the soldiers ready their own weapons, preparing for the final assault.

Let’s have fun with this while we can!

[adamwatchesmovies]

Agatha and the Truth of Murder (2018)

Watching Agatha and the Truth of Murder you’d never guess that 1) it debuted on TV and 2) was not endorsed by Agatha Christie’s estate. This works as a great companion piece to the author’s famous works or as a keep-you-guessing mystery on its own.

In 1926, crime writer Agatha Christie (Ruth Bradley) disappeared for 11 days. This film imagines she vanished in order to help solve a real-life murder. Mabel Rogers (Pippa HaywoodPippa Haywood) approaches Agatha. Her partner, Florence Nightingale Shore (Stacha Hicks), was bludgeoned on a train and later passed from the injuries. Under a pseudonym and false pretences, Agatha and Mabel lure the primary suspects to a remote location where they hope to prove the murderer was either Daphne Miller (Bebe Cave), whose nursing career would’ve been ruined by Florence, Randolph (Tim McInnerny), the cousin who inherited Florence’s money, Zaki Hanachi (Luke Pierre ), a soldier treated by Florence shortly before her death, Travis Pickford (Blake Harrison), the police’s prime suspect or Mrs. Pamela Rose (Samantha Spiro), the only person who knew where Florence was sitting.

Right away, the film endears you to Agatha. Her husband is having an affair and readers are calling her writing predictable. She’s a woman in a man’s world, and suffers from writer’s block. You want her to succeed, even more when you hear the details surrounding Florence’s murder. Solving the case might even be what she needs to reinvigorate her creativity. Unfortunately, she’s not a real detective; she merely writes about them. You have a feeling she’s got what it takes to crack this mystery but it’s going to be tough. As we’re reminded multiple time, this is not a “fictional case”. In a novel, you want to keep the audiences guessing by making the culprit the least likely suspect. In “real life”, the principle of Occam’s Razor usually applies, which means the murderer is most likely…

BAM! Crash! Gasp!

Just when you thought you had it figured out, Agatha and the Truth of Murder throws a wrench in the equation and piles suspense upon suspense. Now, we have to worry about Agatha’s true identity being revealed by Detective Inspector Dicks (Ralph Ineson) before the crime is solved. It’d be bad, but another incident tells us Agatha’s life may be in jeopardy too. It keeps the momentum going and gets you so wrapped up in this new business you no longer have the brainpower to figure out both what’s happening right now and the case we came here to see. Even if you do, we all know part of the fun of this kind of story is figuring out not only who, but how and why before seeing justice dispensed.

The eclectic array of characters to interrogate and cross off the list are enjoyable to see. Ruth Bradley is charismatic. You wouldn’t mind seeing her again in another similar movie as long as it’s as smart as this one. By subverting your expectations but also keeping in mind what we love about Agatha Christie’s stories, you get the best of both worlds. A little bit of Ralph Ineson goes a long way too.

While the story is set in the early 20th Century, many aspects of Agatha and the Truth of Murder are modern. The cast is enjoyable and the premise appealing, particularly if you're a fan of Agatha Christie. While the film may not blow your socks off, that’s its only flaw. (September 4, 2020)

[alectology-archive]

The approaching refugees would soon discover that they’d been marching toward danger. It was not surprising. Danger was in all directions. The only way to avoid walking toward it would be to stand still.

I'll be doing just fine and then bam if I actually start focusing on sanderson's prose I feel like banging my head against a wall because it's so utterly lacking any grace and style and is amateurish to the core. The only other thing that annoys me more is his sheer lack of subtlety - he just straight up bludgeons the readers on the head and tells them what they're supposed to feel instead of trying to construct a work that allows for different interpretations and lets the readers actually engage with the text in a meaningful way instead of spoon-feeding everything to them.

[lapuslazulli]

Chapters: 14/18 Fandom: Sherlock (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Sebastian Moran, Colonel James Moriarty, Mycroft Holmes Additional Tags: Angst, Betrayal, Loss, Case Fic, Trust, Revenge, Rebirth, And now for a few words from our beta, bam - right in the angst-guts, HURTS SOOOO GOOOOOOOOD, Oh that's like the biggest British f-you I think there is, the balls on this guy - lol, Oooh Sherlock - do not poke that bear ... not right now, WAIT WHAT WAIT WHAT WAIT WAIT WHAT?, BRB just need to go explode in an apoplectic rage for a mo, JOHN HAMISH WATSON THIS IS NOT THE SOLUTION, SIR THAT IS WHY YOU HAVE A THERAPIST, NOOOOOOOOO :sob:, Ah our boy Johnny - great at the self-flagellation, And now a few more words from our readers, Fuck fuck fuck fuck john what are you doiiiiiing, at what cost to my perforated heart?, well I am just about bludgeoned, Is it salt in the wound? sea water? lemon juice? rubbing alcohol?, these daft men, And so you should ya noodle, Mary's dirty flirty opportunistic datenapping --oh, that cow, Jim Moriarty - Freeform, POV Sherlock Holmes, POV John Watson, Grief/Mourning, the meaning of love, Extortion, Entrapment, it's never twins, until it is, Blood and Torture Series: Part 5 of Forethought and Fire Summary:

However inconvenient. However improbable. Could be dangerous. SH

John had stared at those two lines of text for far longer than was necessary. In seven words, in an instant, his life had both been given back to him and at the same time, altered irreparably. Of course, he had gone. Had he ever not followed wherever Sherlock had led? And he had watched, silent, still, gun pressed solidly to the back of Moran’s head as Sherlock had faced down Moriarty and Moriarty had … well, done the unthinkable. Not that he’s not grateful to the depths of his being for Sherlock’s return and Moriarty’s demise. He is just, well… most probably he is in shock. When Sherlock had ‘died’, John’s world had fallen apart. Cracked, shattered into pieces, been obliterated. And now that Sherlock is back, living, breathing, sitting calmly across from him in the living room of 221B, he is … numb, furious, deliriously happy and devastatingly betrayed—all at the same time. He’s fucked up in a hundred thousand different ways. And Sherlock ... The fact that their chairs now face the hearth rather than each other is an indication of just how large the gulf that has opened up between them really is.

[castillon02]

5 Chefs Bond Has a Crush On and One He Loves

Also on AO3 

The first time it happened, Bond stumbled into the yacht’s galley without knowing what he was in for. In his mind, Mr. Cacao Thumb was simply a smuggler who specialized in exotic cocoa beans and had a trade in bio-weapons on the side in order to finance his chocolate habit. 

And then Bond went looking for a snack (e.g., snooping) and saw Jacques Torres, renowned French pastry chef and chocolatier, sculpting a chocolate molecule in the kitchen. “Bonsoir?” the chef asked, raising his eyebrows in a way that somehow shouted, IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE NOT-EVIL, M’AIDEZ, S’IL VOUS PLAIT. He had a cumbersome gadget on his wrist that was probably a detonator, which meant he had probably been made to swallow an explosive.  

Bond said, “What the fuck?” 

Jacques Torres gestured at the chocolate molecule and said, “I have been told that my chocolate infographics are an essential part of Mr. Thumb’s presentation to his clients. He was, eh, quite passionate about the subject.” 

Thumb was a kidnapper as well as bio-terrorist. Brilliant. “Tell me what his plan is, and I’ll get you out of here,” Bond said. 

Jacques Torres shrugged and delivered a copy of Thumb’s planned monologue with the help of the chocolate infographics as visual and gustatory aids. “You can see that the liquified brain is still in the planning stages,” he added a trifle apologetically. “It is a very complex organ.” 

“Right,” Bond said numbly. “Unfortunate; love to have seen it, big fan of your work. I’ll be right back. You stay here and incapacitate anyone who tries to make you leave.” 

“What, what? Incapacitate? Moi?” 

When Bond came back, having killed Thumb, torched his laboratory, and discovered that the whole detonator thing was a bluff, Torres nearly brained him with his marble cutting board. A glance behind Torres showed that at least two other men had fallen prey to his bludgeoning. “Nailed it,” Bond said, and didn’t understand why Torres snorted. 

“Chef tip: the muscles are essential for good pastry!” Torres said. “Or at least, they are when you do not have accessibility devices!” He clutched the marble cutting board in his hands and only let it go once he had been delivered safely back to his New York apartment. “Take this,” he told Bond on his doorstep, shoving it into Bond’s arms. “I do not need the reminder.” 

Bond had been hoping that he’d be invited in to lick some chocolate off of Torres’ adorable French body, but he was trying to be better about not having sex with traumatized people anyway, so he took the cutting board and left. 

---

“Why does it have to be marble?” Bond asked Q on the way home, and in his ear, Q told him a lot of things about the importance of temperature control and how fussy chocolate and pastry dough could be. 

Q turned out to be incredibly passionate about the proper ways to make a pie crust. It was cute. 

--- 

Bond started to sense a trend when he encountered Emeril Lagasse making shrimp creole for a KKK-based villain who called himself Mr. Medium and claimed to be able to speak to dead people. 

Emeril stared at him, looking from his kitchen captors, who had holes in their heads, to Bond, who had his Walther in his hand. “You just blew them away! Bam!” 

“It’s a risk when ‘terrorist’ is your profession,” Bond said dryly. 

Emeril’s eyes flicked behind Bond’s back and one of his hands dipped into a mortar filled with spices. 

Bond ducked, missing the Cajun spices that Emeril threw in Medium’s face, and used the distraction to shoot Medium dead. “Follow me. And bring the spices,” he told Emeril. He had a feeling that chefs felt better when they had something in their hands. 

Emeril nodded. “Let’s kick it up a notch,” he said, and they fought their way through the remaining Klan members and out of the old plantation house, escaping in a 1969 Dodge Charger that they found in the garage. 

When Bond pulled up in front of the nearest hospital, Emeril said, “Thanks. Let’s never do this again,” and left the mortar and pestle in the passenger seat for him. 

Shame. Bond definitely could have kicked Emeril’s sex life up a notch, too. 

---

“Why the hell does a twenty-first century chef have a mortar and pestle?” Bond asked Q after Emeril was out of the car. 

Q talked about muddling and natural oils, but he also said that pestling took forever and he was quite happy with his spice grinder for a lot of the traditional mortar and pestle applications.  

“Of course, you can’t stick a spice grinder into someone,” Q said. 

“What?” Bond asked sharply. 

“Pestles are just the right shape, you know,” Q said, a wicked smile in his voice. “Maybe Emeril wanted you to have more fun than you thought.” 

“You minx,” Bond said admiringly.  

---

Rachael Ray’s kidnapping made the news, so Bond wasn’t actually surprised to find her in Mondo Mammary’s lair. The two women were shouting at each other, and Bond paused in the air vent above the kitchen to listen. 

“Look, I said I wanted ‘cock oh von,’ you’re a chef, so make some goddamn VON COCK! I have twelve different gangs at this meeting tonight, and they want to be wowed, you hear me?” 

There was the sound of a pan banging against the stove. “I don’t know why you expect me to cook gourmet! I specialize in thirty-minute meals that are accessible for home cooks! You should have kidnapped fucking Cat Cora, you dumb fuck!” The distinct noise of a skillet impacting someone’s skull resounded through the kitchen. 

After a moment, Mammary laughed. “What the fuck? Your stupid frying pan is so lightweight that you can’t even knock me out with it!” 

“It’s ACCESSIBLE and EASY TO CLEAN, and I was distracting you from the E-V-O-O, you bitch!” 

A bottle shattered. Another pan crashed into Bond’s air vent. Time to intervene, he decided, kicking the bottom panel until it opened into the kitchen. 

“And coq au vin is the wrong thing to make for a bunch of gangsters anyway!” Ray was saying. “Make them some fucking burgers!” On one side of the kitchen island, she wielded a sheet tray like a shield, a butcher’s knife in her other hand. 

On the other side of the island, Mammary was in the process of lighting the rag she’d stuffed into a wine bottle.   

“You’re meant to let the wine breathe,” Bond told her, and then they were going at it, Mammary’s mixed martial arts skills against his long career of killing people. Unlike with Rachel Ray, Mammary had zero incentive to keep him alive, and Bond found himself dodging a flurry of brass-knuckled punches and kicks from her pointed heels. She cornered him between the refrigerator and the dishwasher, but a sheet pan to the back of her head knocked her off balance for just long enough that Bond could brain her with a knife block. 

“Jesus Christ,” Rachael Ray said, still holding on to the sheet pan. Then she said, “Fuck, my image contract! If anyone asks, I said ‘Oh my gravy,’ got it?” 

It was such a relentlessly American thing to say that Bond threw his head back and laughed. Ray cooked the burgers she’d wanted while they waited for the authorities to show up, claiming it helped her calm down, and Bond found some candles in a drawer and set them up in little ramekins for ambiance. 

“Good, right?” Ray asked, taking an enormous bite out of her burger. 

“Very,” Bond said, looking at her, even though he hadn’t taken a bite yet. 

“I’m married, Romeo,” Ray said dryly. 

“Just enjoying the look of the dish,” Bond assured her, which made her grin. 

He found a deluxe set of her signature cookware waiting for him at Six when he reported in. 

“A lot of chefs prefer steel and copper cookware for a superior maillard reaction, but there’s something to be said for easy cleanup,” Q told him. He patted the box of pots and pans and sounded utterly condescending and definitely not jealous when he said, “It’s not a bad acquisition, really.” 

Bond rolled his eyes. As long as he could make breakfast foods in them, they were fine. 

---

Aarón Sánchez was doing everything a captive was supposed to do: appeasing, personalizing, making himself a real human in the eyes of Doctor Yea, who had abducted him to feed the workforce in his subterranean lair and, for tonight, had had Sánchez prepare a private meal for himself and his ‘unexpected guest.’ Bond was never going to get a better chance.   

“So you see,” Sánchez was saying in a pre-dinner monologue, “this might seem like a simple braised beef stew, but everything about this recipe is an homage to my grandfather’s heritage, a history of food which has been passed down for generations. And I also need to mention how this works with sustainability and local farm-to-table eating, which---” 

Listening to him, Bond kind of wanted Sánchez to talk to him about food until he forgot what it was like to kill things. What a well-spoken man. Would he talk like this in bed? 

Sánchez glanced at him and the look in his eyes said, ‘Hurry the fuck up.’ 

Bond shook the sentiment from his head, took advantage of Doctor Yea’s distraction, and shoved Yea’s face into the pot of stew until he stopped moving. “It’s done,” he said. 

Sánchez, who had turned away and frozen, unclenched enough to breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” he said. “I was running out of things to say to distract him.”  

“You might still have to do some fast talking around his people,” Bond warned. Yea’s manpower was still around. 

But Sánchez shook his head. “I told Doctor Yea that I needed some maltitol as a special ingredient for dessert, and since things seemed to be coming to a boil with you here, I added it to tonight’s dinner,” he said. 

“Maltitol?” Bond asked. 

“It’s the same thing they put in those sugar free gummy bears that give people explosive diarrhea,” Sánchez said, looking smug. “If they ate their stew, they’ll be incapacitated.” 

Bond abruptly remembered from his dossier that Sánchez had once cooked Masaharu Morimoto to a draw on Iron Chef. Not a man to fuck with in the kitchen.

“It’s important to let yourself be inspired by local ingredients, but don’t be afraid to include that special something either,”  Sánchez said. “Balance.” 

After exfiltrating, they stole a boat and motored away from Doctor Yea’s island and back towards the cursed Florida mainland, where Bond kept Sánchez company in a bar until one of his friends could come get him. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Sánchez said after downing half a bottle of red, “you’re horrifying, but it’s the sort of horrifying I want next to me in case someone wants to get revenge for the shit stew.” 

That was fair. Maybe Bond should put it on a card, get a testimonial for the next kidnapped chef. Fucking bourgeousie criminals with their celebrity food fad. 

---

“That was interesting with the maltitol,” Q told Bond as he was returning his equipment. “I’ve worked with sugar and other sugar substitutes, but I avoided that one for obvious reasons. Should have handed it off to the toxins group.” 

“You belong in the toxins group,” Bond told him, because Q was wearing a hideous jumper with a science pun on it and was somehow still managing to be attractive, which had to be worthy of chemical study. 

Q raised his eyebrows. “If that’s so, then you can walk me there, Double-Oh Horrifying.” 

“Only if you take off the jumper first,” Bond said. “I couldn’t possibly be seen with it.”  

 Q held his eyes for a long moment, and then he pulled the jumper over his head in a smooth movement that ruffled his curly hair. Underneath, he was wearing a lovely tailored shirt that brought out his eyes...and which had also been embroidered with a science pun. If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the precipitate! 

“Diabolical,” Bond said admiringly, and he returned to Q Branch intermittently throughout the day, observing as the knot of Q’s tie slackened, as Q rolled his sleeves up to reveal his well-muscled forearms, as the collar of Q’s shirt loosened enough that if Bond wanted, he could tug it open with his fingers and press a kiss right against the swell of his Adam’s apple.    

And Bond wanted. Increasingly. 

---

Bond’s latest mission had two objectives. First, and most importantly, to stop Honkfeld, who was heading up an organization called Haunter that wanted to implement a virus that had made Q’s face pale when he’d seen the code. Secondly, to “Rescue Gordon Ramsay while you’re at it, Bond, it’s been seventy-two hours and he’s a national fucking treasure.” 

Bond’s mission was helped by the fact that Haunter seemed to be in the middle of a civil war when he arrived at their desert fortification. All of the guards’ attentions were turned inwards, which made it easy to scale the building with his Q-Branch-issued grappling hook and drop into the kitchen through a skylight. 

Ramsay was simultaneously managing dinner prep and rallying his troops. “What do we want?” he shouted. 

“Workers’ rights! Better food! Not to be fed to a shark!” a crowd of people chanted, all of them wearing white aprons over Haunter’s trademark black turtleneck uniform. 

“Why do we want it?” Ramsay asked. 

“BECAUSE WE’RE WORTH IT!” 

“Fuck, yes, we are!” Ramsay said, and then, “Anthony, put that steak in the fucking bin, you’ve overcooked it, you louse’s tit. Try again.” 

Anthony gave Ramsay a simultaneously crushed yet adoring look and hurried to the bin with his skillet. 

“I want dinner service ready in half an hour and the troops ready to rotate in ten minutes!” Ramsay ordered his team. “And YOU!” He pointed at Bond, who,  having ascertained that his secondary target was handling himself, was in the process of sneaking towards a side door, 

Bond froze. 

“Aarón told me about you. I expect you to kill that Honkfeld person,” Ramsay said. “But don’t you dare touch those sharks. As if I’d serve fucking sharkfin soup! What an arsehole!” 

“No dead sharks, understood,” Bond said, and he grabbed a tray of food and fled before Ramsay could think of any other orders to give him. 

The Aprons had secured the kitchen, the mess hall, and the nearby armory, and had erected cafeteria table barricades to defend their position. All of them moved with vigor and determination. The Haunternecks, attacking from the other side, seemed sluggish in comparison. They had littered the battlefield with crisps packets, which seemed to be their only means of sustenance. 

Bond threw the food tray into their midst and ran past them while they fought over the plates of steak. 

--- 

By the time Bond came back from dealing with Honkfeld, Ramsay had already acquired a mobile phone and seemed to be making plans to transport Honkfeld’s tank of sharks to one of his restaurants. 

“They’re all in the kitchen trying to figure out how to make macarons, the poor bastards,” he told Bond in an undertone, waving a hand to indicate the remnants of the apron army. “I told them that whoever does the best job has a chance of working with me after they get out of prison.” 

Competence and manipulating people had always turned Bond on. He said, “Don’t suppose you want to fuck before the shark handlers get here?” 

“Married,” Ramsay said lightly. “Also, Rachel Ray says ‘hi.’” He brandished his mobile. “She just added me to her kidnapped chefs support group and you’ll be happy to know that they all agree that you’re a, quote-unquote, ‘hot piece of ass.’“ He leaned around Bond and snapped a photo. “Jacques wanted a picture of it,” he explained. 

Bond sighed. He knew he was a hot piece of ass, but so far that hadn’t helped him gain access to any of that famous ‘cock au chef.’ 

Ramsay patted his shoulder. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let me know the next time you have a date night, and you can bring them to my restaurant.” 

“What, free?” Bond asked, shocked. 

“Absolutely not,” Ramsay said firmly. “It’s called a fucking profit margin. But I’ll throw in some wine and make sure you get a table.” 

Bond squinted. It felt like Ramsay had found a way to screw him out of hundreds of pounds and make Bond thankful for it, which was sexy but also disturbing. Hopefully the shark acquisition wasn’t a sign that Bond would be seeing him in a professional capacity in the future. 

---

When Bond returned to his flat, the lights were on. An incredible savory scent was wafting out of his kitchen, the likes of which had never before been generated in there except when he opened a take-away box. 

Q stood at the stove, stirring a risotto. Tabby-patterned socks peeked out from under his blue-checked trousers, and he wore a dark apron over his work shirt. “While you were rescuing chefs, I was mastering the culinary arts,” he said, turning, and he lifted the spoon from the pan and held it up to Bond’s lips. “Taste?” 

His green eyes held Bond’s, the cheeky dare in them flickering to uncertainty as Bond stayed silent. 

Bond loved risotto. Among other things. “You have to know,” he said finally, “that I wouldn’t be able to stop at one taste.” 

Q’s red-bitten lips curved in a satisfied smirk. “It’s a good thing I plan to keep cooking for you, then, isn’t it?” He put the spoon back in the pan and leaned in. “Don’t be stupid, Bond. I’m not a meal you can fill up on.” He curled his hand around Bond’s neck and pulled him into a kiss.  

It was true, Bond realized. In some ways, the heart had a much greater capacity than the stomach. “Do you want a chocolate heart from Jacques Torres?” he asked in between kisses. “I can probably make that happen. Just don’t ask for a brain.” 

Q laughed. “The only heart I want is your shrivelled James Bond one,” he said. Then he paused, sniffing the air, and turned back to the stove, picking up the spoon to start stirring again. “And right now I want it waiting for this risotto to be done. You can kiss the cook when dinner’s on the table.” 

Bond had met incredible chefs and he had dined in Michelin-starred restaurants around the world, but it was only with Q’s food that he tasted the best secret ingredient: love. 

[brandstifter-sys]

He Lives In You

Word Count: 1494                (Ao3)

Characters: Roman, Remus, King Creativity

Rating: G

Warnings: violence mention, rough housing, swearing, revenge

Heavily inspired by the song from the Lion King 2

Summary: After DWIT, Roman doesn’t feel all that great, so he decides that he’s gonna go and get a little revenge for the lump on his head, if not maybe make himself the only creativity (revenge is more appealing) Until he finds Remus and has a heart to heart with him about their origins. (A sequel to/continuation of “Aries” which you might want to read before you click the read more...

It was dusk. The kingdom felt dull. Roman stared at the overcast sky, painted bright with oranges and pinks, a far cry from the mood he was in. As he leaned on the white balcony, Roman couldn't help but think of the abrupt reveal that happened. His twin, his brother, the other half—Thomas knew that he was not the only creativity. Thomas knew there was someone before them, a king who was gone forever. 

Roman often felt like a shard of ceramic from a shattered bowl. He couldn't encompass all that he needed to be Creativity. Sure he could come up with ideas—stories, plots, coherent thought—but that took time, and he was sure that no matter how hard he tried he couldn't come up with something practical on the fly. That's where Remus came in. If there were no more Remus, he would be all encompassing. 

Roman shook his head and ran a hand through his hair as the wind tickled his cheek. He didn't want to be rid of Remus. He wanted to feel like he could live up to Thomas' expectations, to his predecessor. He felt so small and weak. Maybe it was he who should be gone, and Remus take over as the stronger twin. 

No! Roman banished his doubts long enough to hop over the edge of the balcony and climb to the ground via a red banner with a golden lion. He landed silently on the pavement and set off. He was not as weak as he thought and Remus would know exactly why he was not going to get away with bludgeoning a prince and taking over! He was going to pay for that transgression!

He trudged through the forest with no light to guide him. He didn't need it in his own kingdom. He needed to have the element of surprise, make use of his ability to conjure what he needed. He was not going to be bested by the duke, he was not going to let his insecurities destroy him. 

He was not prepared to emerge in a strange meadow lit by a full moon and fireflies. The flowers were closed for the evening amid the rolling grass, and the bats overhead were squeaking softly, more so than his birds. But what struck him the most was Remus, sitting at the edge of a pond, calmly staring at the sky. 

"No sword?" he greeted as Roman approached. He glanced at his twin when he got no response.

"Something bugging you Princey?" 

"Why are you on my side?" Roman asked without thinking, too stunned to comprehend the situation.

"I'm not. This is my side. This was his special place. I don't have the power to change it," Remus shrugged, "What do I owe the crowned prince for gracing me with an appearance?" 

"Don't play dumb with me, you should already know why I'm here!" 

"Is this because I knocked you out and raised hell?" Remus pressed, bouncing with glee.

"And tried to kill me!" Roman snarled, clenching his fists.

"Oh no, that's something I never plan on actually doing. I don't want to have to do your job, mine is enough! I just needed you out of the way for a while and I decided to have fun doing it!" Remus said with a giggle at the end and looked up at the sky again.

"You don't?" Roman asked, completely bewildered. Remus sighed and shook his head. He was far too calm and collected, a far cry from the usual. It was as if he could be as much a prince as Roman. Revenge wasn't quite as appealing anymore, still appealing but not in that moment.

"There's a reason why we split beyond just what Thomas decided was good and bad. Plant your ass and let me ramble." Remus hummed. Roman sat down and crossed his legs. He was unused to this calm Remus and should have had his guard up, but there was something in his voice that made him feel like it was safe.

"A king with a kingdom too large to manage, too vast with too many different problems has a heavy burden that weighs on him through his crown. Managing alone drives anyone insane. Do you have any idea how vast the imagination is?"

"It is big enough to split into two kingdoms." 

"Three if you count the small part only Virgil can manipulate. But it's huge. That's what I'm saying. It's too much for one person to manage on top of being available for Thomas and the others." 

"What?" Roman questioned, not quite following.

"You don't remember anything from Marcus' life, do you, Aries? Or how it happened."

"Aries?" Now Roman was really confused.

"We shattered a mirror by pulling out our reflection and then, BAM, the split. I have the memories of King Marcus, you have the grace and charm he put forward. Aries is the name he gave his reflection. Since I remember, you're Aries." 

"You lost me." 

"Patton didn't cause the split, Marcus did, and maybe too soon. Because he was stressed and tired and needed a break that he just couldn't catch. He was terrified that he would never have time for himself, terrified of becoming a plaything for the others, terrified he would always be needed but not wanted." 

"He split into us because he couldn't handle it. He became we. But then why are we incomplete? I know you feel like you aren't enough—" 

"No, that's just you!" Remus cut him off, "I'm enough, I came to terms with my role and being unwanted. I just want Tombo to see me and maybe accept me as I am, whether he likes it or not. You feel like you aren't enough. Less than little Marky and unsure if you have what it takes to live up to him?" He fluttered his lashes at his twin with a wry smile.

"It's so creepy when you read me like that!" Roman huffed and averted his gaze.

"You're just like him. Doubtful but powerful, whimsical with a temper, but you don't remember him and you can't see it."

"And you expect to get me to see it?"

"Have a little faith, alright. Look into the water and tell me what you see." Remus snorted. Roman leaned forward hesitantly and peered into the moonlit pond. It was just his face staring back at him. The same brown, tired eyes, the same imperfect, perfectly coiffed hair, the same hairless face.

"That's just me." 

"Hey, listen, look closer into the water, into the truth," Remus said and peered down next to him, "He lives in you, he lives in me." Roman stared hard, amazed at the sudden change when Remus tossed a pebble in the water and laid on his back.

Instead of his face, Roman saw someone familiar and yet a total stranger. Bright hazel eyes stared back at him. He had the same squared posture as Roman normally would, proud and confident. He had stubble and an impish air about him, like Remus, but that man was neither of them.

"In your reflection, he lives in you." Remus said, snapping Roman from his trance. 

"That was—" 

"'King Marcus, if he grew up?' Yeah. He's hot. But he's nicey dicey into two halves! You have enough of him in you to move mountains or rearrange the stars to guide the ship lost at sea, a lighthouse in the densest fog. I am the whirring tempest, thunder and lightning striking the ocean, the albatross flying until I'm shot down to wear around your neck." 

"Albatrosses are good luck if they follow your ship," Roman sneered. 

"I am good luck! Who do you think weasels us out of serious shit? Lying and fight-or-flight only go so far! I'm his Ingenuity, you're his Inspiration. Both Creativity, both himbolicious, but I'm the hot one!" 

"Have you looked in a mirror lately, Buffalo Bill?" Roman scoffed playfully, already plotting to make Remus pay, but in a different way. Remus sat up abruptly and peered into the pond, leaning over it. He winked and blew a kiss at his reflection just to be a little shit.

Splash!

"That's for clubbing me over the head, Dukebag!" Roman laughed after shoving Remus in the water. It wasn't deep or cold, but it was unexpected. 

Remus flailed until he was seated, waist deep with wet hair in his eyes. He spit out a goldfish and some water and smirked. Roman wasn't fast enough.

"This is war!" he cheered and dragged Roman in with him, covering the prince in mud. The splash fight that ensued might have been childish, but it was more fun than Roman had in a while. More importantly, he could understand that maybe, just maybe, Remus wasn’t supposed to be his mirror, the bad twin. Maybe he was simply Remus, a different branch of creativity, and his brother. Who was so getting a face full of pond scum!

[incorrectzombiesrun]

the last one was so long I’m making a part two ;-; sorry

My Runner Five Pt.2:

Her voice is actually first heard normally by Sara, weirdly enough.

They were out on a long run and it started to get dark, they stopped on an open hill to plan their way back as the sun was setting over the moors, microphones down and only Sara could hear Sam

And Five just started singing.

Sara came back from bludgeoning a zombie to find her singing, and she shut Sam off to listen to her.

It wasn’t half bad, and the song was pretty decent too, a good walking song—The Gambler by Kenny Rodgers.

Her husband liked the song. So Sara sits next to her and continues singing, Five’s voice wavering but the two of them sing quietly on that hill.

Ever since then Eight and Five have been pretty tight.

Eugene and Jack were next, broadcasting a song for Five Sam requested it because it was her favorite apparently and bam! there it was. She just started singing to it on one of her routine long runs and they heard it over her transmitter as they called in to it to see if she liked it.

Sam was honestly the last person to hear it.

It was a quiet day in the Comms shack, the two of them having mugs of hot chocolate as Sam saved his digestives up for the occasion.

Five went to go get it and came back singing some old song her dad liked, having it imprinted on her brain since she was two.

It was I’m On Fire by Bruce Springsteen, but a soft cover version so the theme wasn’t blatant and it sounded like a gentle song almost.

Sam looked at her incredulously, shocked at her voice after a few minutes of her singing as she sipped her cocoa and watched the runners go through the cameras.

“Five!” He yells, almost scaring her: “what?” She says, almost instinctively as Sam’s jaw drops further. “That’s you- that’s your voice! You’re talking!” She takes a moment and realised she was, and finds it isn’t too bad.

“Yeah I guess I am,” she’d shrug playfully.

The two of them word talk for days after, Five just letting everything spill out: her old school days, her family, her parents and her friends and the horrible nights alone before Mullins and finding herself so alone and lost.

And Sam comforts her almost everytime, happy just to hear her talking and letting it all out. He’s surprised she didn’t break down from all he’s hearing.

Very wholesome, 10/10 would do again.

She gets very shocked when Sam signs a letter “x, Sam” instead of “Love, Sam” and worries if he actually knows what that means in America...

She hopes it means the same thing in England.

Also, a very Catholic girl. Not like pure chaste saint, she has a mouth dirtier than the Comms Shack when she wants to.

And that’s saying something.

[mimiplaysgames]

A Rush of Blood to the Head (5/6)

Pairing: Terra/Aqua Rating: T Word Count: 8,600

Read on AO3.

A/N: It’s been a long, long time and I’m relieved to be able to give this one to you. It was hard one, for sure. I indulged in just a teeny-weeny bit of Xemqua into it, even though that was never part of the original outline. Nomura just left me really thirsty for it though. XD

I’m Blind to It

“Aqua?”

She recognized the voice before she realized who it was - it sounded like an instinct, which told her to stand down and be safe, to sink into the bed sheets and shut her eyes, forget about the world.

It took a few seconds to register there were window curtains hovering above her. And they were hers, in perfect condition like a memory in a picture book and all she had to do was wake up and make breakfast like any other normal day.

Today was not normal though, with the heaviness in her muscles weighing her down and a pain - tremendous, searing pain - on her chest, right near her heart, which makes it hard to reply to him.

That soft voice. Deep blue eyes which were sunken and tired from many nights of poor sleep, loving and relieved but anxious. Disheveled hair that somehow looked perfect on him anyway.

“Terra,” she said out loud.

Next to her, crouched over on a lounge chair, he shuddered, heaving a dry sob before sitting up to steady himself. “You remember me,” like he’d been expecting, against hope, something different.

Of course she remembered him. Terra, her real, pure-blooded Terra with the right-colored eyes. She didn’t care how painful it was, how much it felt like her heart tore her flesh to shreds, she rolled over onto her hands and managed to crawl to the edge of the bed. To bridge the gap between them. The roar in her ears as her chest screamed was proof enough that this wasn’t a dream.

“Y- you don’t have to do that-” Here he was, with his hands in the air like he didn’t want to be blamed for how awful she felt but that was ridiculous - her pain was a temporary consequence. The breadth of his chest, the warmth of his neck, the smell of his hair - all of it was a worthy cost.

He didn’t hug her back exactly. Not the way she did it, gripped around his shoulders, trembling because she finally came home when she felt his arms around her.

No, he was more limp, a gentle brush of his palms on her upper back like he wasn’t sure how to welcome his best friend back.

How could she blame him, after what had happened…?

“Terra,” she whispered urgently. They needed to talk.

“It’s okay,” he answered, wanting none of the conversation she tried to start. And she saw something she never expected: a lie behind his smile.

To keep her from saying anything further, he searched his pockets and pulled out a brilliantly blue Wayfinder.

“I looked after it for you,” he shrugged, handing it over.

If she expected the feeling that all was right with the world would come the moment the Wayfinder found its home in her palm, she was wrong. What she realized instead was that despite all the heart she put into its creation, that this was hers, she hadn’t earned the right to have it back.

Surely he’d tell her that she was being too hard on herself, so she mentioned nothing.

Still, they needed to clear the air.

“Terra,” she tried again, and she knew (out of habit, even though they spent years apart and who knew if he was the same person) that he listened. Not knowing where to begin, she might as well head straight to the point. “I remember… what you said to me in Twilight Town.”

She must be a hypocrite, considering that she couldn’t even get herself to spell out what he said in Twilight Town, that he loved her -

- and what was she supposed to say or do with the truth after throwing it back into his face?

Would it come across as insincere if she decided now was the time to return his feelings?

The nervous twitch in his gaze and how terribly he was doing at hiding the purse of his lips at the mere mention of what he said in Twilight Town told her that yes, this was the worst time to apologize for her actions.

Part of her was desperate enough to say it, no matter how cheap it sounded in her mind: I love you, too.

And she nearly blurted it out when he kept his hands to his lap and said out loud, “I was desperate.”

Like he was the one apologizing. The face of embarrassment that seeped out of his eyes was so painstakingly obvious.

No you don’t understand, I love you too.

“I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry.” He stood up and shuffled his feet to lean against the backrest, the lounge chair a reliable barrier in between them.

But, I mean it. I swear I do.

“Um…” He cleared his throat, not giving her an opening to say anything, and she cursed herself for ruining it again. “Ven’s here.”

This jolted her. There was suddenly a light to break up such a disappointingly empty room.

“Ven?” Her voice shook.

Terra called out his name, his eyes scattering the floor while a hand raised to his chin, and whatever sinking, sickly feeling that sputtered in her stomach now thrashed in her bloodstream as she watched her open doorway.

There he appeared, hair like the sun, a smile brighter than the first day of spring.

“Aqua!”

She expected several things to come out of Ventus’ mouth, eyes judging with disappointment:

Ah well, didn’t take too long to wake me up just… what, THIRTEEN YEARS? Snoozed on the job? Forgot about me?

Everything’s changed, and I don’t know what to do.

… We had to fight you, and it sucked.

He gave her a hug instead, throwing himself onto the bed with such a force that Terra objected with a warning (“shoes on the bed, Ven”) but she lost herself in the crook of his neck, and couldn’t find the words to explain how sorry she was that it took her so long, and that waking him up was the biggest reason why she survived so long. Maybe that was too dark of a story to tell.

Either way, a hug and the feeling she was wanted was more than enough.

“Be careful with her,” Terra said, and made a face like he regretted saying it. Whether it was because he wanted to pretend he was distant, she didn’t know.

It hurt to hug, yes, but it was wanted. She extended her hand, gracing the bed with her fingers in an invitation so she didn’t seem too pleading in case Terra was uncomfortable. Make it a better pain , she nearly wanted to say. Hug me, please.

But Terra slithered away to the doorframe as Ventus yapped about how frightening she was under Xehanort’s influence, that she was mean, but it was cool, but it was creepy too, but he knew that everything was going to be alright. Terra crossed his arms and nodded to himself as if reassuring his mind that this was the right choice, rubbing his toes against the carpet and softly saying that he had “people to take care of.”

Ironic, since he had her to take care of too, but Aqua remembered that she was capable of looking out for herself and needing him was just a gut reaction to keep him close - something he clearly didn’t want to do.

… Didn’t he cradle her the moment before she fell asleep? Where was that Terra?

“What happened?” she asked when he left them.

Ventus grinded his teeth.

“We pulled Xehanort’s heart out of you…” was the gentle opening to what was going to be a harrowing story. “And Terra tried to crush it.”

“… He touched it?” It was enough of a crazy idea that she withdrew to a whisper, and no matter how taboo it was, it made sense to her nonetheless.

“Yeah, and he almost squeezed the life out of it.” He imitated the gesture, pressuring a fist until his fingers turned red. He let go, humbling himself. “It was disgusting… Remember how the Master used to talk about how we make connections through our hearts when we meet new people? I mean, I’d never wish anything good on Xehanort but… I nearly vomited. It was like suffocating because something smelled really bad except… there was no stench?

"Anyway… Terra couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pull it off, and let it go.”

Whatever lump that lodged itself in her throat fought a hard battle to stay there; part-guilty for putting Terra in such a position, part-proud that he stopped himself from such an extreme. One hundred percent devastated because she couldn’t imagine how furious and bereaved he must have been.

“Where did it go?”

“It floated up to,” Ventus waved his arm into the air, “Kingdom Hearts?”

If they went with what the Master taught them, then yes, Xehanort’s heart wandered to Kingdom Hearts, where all hearts go. But this was a man who cheated death, who wouldn’t have wanted his life’s goal fulfilled in such post-mortem.

“And Terra?”

“He’s grumpy all the time.” Ventus was solemn at first, before gearing himself up for excitement.

“The younger Xehanort was there and when he woke up, Terra just screamed and ran up to him and bam !” He threw his arm back and forth like a bludgeon to tell the rest of the story. “But he got away… The best part was seeing him so scared of Terra, you should have seen his face.” He gave her a stupefied stare and an exaggerated pout, shivering until he was pleased with himself.

Then he nodded toward the lounge chair by her bed, deep creases sunk into the seat from overuse. “He stayed in that chair all day and night. He even used your shower so he wouldn’t have to leave you. I babysat when he had to cook.”

She didn’t miss the sudden softness of his voice when he said that, like he’d been a useless witness to something he couldn’t take care of.

This was the first chance to really look at her room - if there was any indication that time passed by since the incident, there wasn’t much to find here: just a scuffle of clothing and plates, all Terra.

Her corset, in particular, lay neatly folded on her bedside table by an empty plate of abandoned rice.

“Sorry about that,” Ventus said. “We wanted you to be comfortable.”

She cupped his cheek with her hand to say that everything was fine, and seeing her skin on his surprised her - all the scales gone, finally human. But her sleeves, her shirt, her sashes, all ripped to shreds and dyed in a dark, musty ink and she could barely wait to rip off and burn. She had a sewing machine, and could easily make herself a new uniform.

Her legs, though, didn’t give her any confidence. Before there was that blue-purple skin which had nearly taken her over - her thighs now had these thick, disturbing veins that crept from under her stockings reaching out to her shorts, mostly numb and unresponsive.

Aqua had gotten so used to being unable to walk that she forgot this was news to a distraught Ventus. He meant well when he coddled her, and she took no offense when he asked her if she was alright four times in a row. But she went silent when he asked why .

And as young brotherly-figures go, his first thought was to tell Terra right away - he bolted out of her room before she could protest - no, please don’t tell Terra, he’s had enough of me . There was no other objection worth saying without lying to him, so instead she lied to herself.

She was fine. She could walk, even if it meant she had to lean on her table, her dresser, drag her feet just to get to her vanity table. She was fine, even when she collapsed onto her floor; she was plenty strong enough to pick herself up using her chair. She was fine, just look: her reflection in her mirror, where her eyes and hair were back to their natural blue color, just like her mother’s. Sure she was a bit paler, a bit thinner, but that could be fixed with a little bit of food.

She had the experience to know that mirrors didn’t lie, so she was perfectly alright.

The first time she woke up didn’t hurt. Hovering above her was a white ceiling, in a white room in a world that was always night, in a Castle That Never Was. This place wasn’t hers, just a strange twist of the imagination and all she had to do was come back to reality.

Next to her, relaxed and leaning back on lounge chair, he sat with a hand to his cheek. Her open eyes intrigued him, and he leaned forward, as if inspecting.

His voice was deep, eyes an invasive orange and long white hair that fell off his shoulders and it looked perfect on him, with a face she wished she could remember differently.

He slipped his hand out of his black glove, and stroked her forehead as she failed to register where she was and why he looked so familiar.

“The dream is over,” Xemnas had said to her then. And still, she did not understand.

She stood up without a problem. Right across from her was a mirror, a tall voyeur that watched her sleep, and she saw herself, bright golden eyes smirking at how far she had come and looked down on her at where she found herself.

Aqua shot a lightning bolt, shattering the glass into dust and pieces that she refused to clean up afterward.

She had the experience to know that mirrors didn’t lie, and she wanted it to remember as she stepped over its glass every day that she won.

Walking came and went as it pleased.

It came during hours when she felt confident, when Ventus treated her like nothing completely world-destroying had happened to either of them, like she was the same. It left her to be alone when she was frustrated, when he babysat her and fussed over her health.

With Terra gone all the time, the hours stacked on how much time she spent crawling.

He was hyper-focused on a long-neglected list of calls that have built up over the years since Eraqus’ death. Terra, the young hero running around world after world to save others who asked for help and she lost the courage to ask him to stay with her. Not that she would ever stop others from receiving his help, nor did she want to take away the space he obviously needed. When they crossed paths, he’d give her a slight nod and a false smile, and then hurried off. She missed his voice most of all.

If anyone had asked her what the most unnerving thing was, though, was the feeling that someone had lived in the castle while they were gone.

“You’re being paranoid,” Ventus said when she asked him if anyone had stayed in her room.

He was unfolding a yard of soft, willowy fabric that she was going add seams to for her new sleeves. She built enough strength to at least run her sewing machine.

“Then why did someone leave things here?” she asked, making sure he understood how serious the question was.

“What are you talking about?”

“There are dresses in the closet that aren’t mine.”

He cocked an eyebrow and wandered over to open her closet doors. He went through each dress to be absolutely sure she wasn’t crazy, and eventually pulled out a white dress with a blue ribbon sash.

“That one,” she picked. “It isn’t mine.”

“Are you nuts? You wore this to the Master’s party.”

“What party?”

“When you guys passed your preliminaries?” She gave him a blank stare and he finally got concerned. “You bought this dress months ahead of time for the perfect occasion and declared it was your favorite… None of that ringing a bell?”

A whole night and events before, just gone.

“I’m not crazy,” she whispered, turning back to her project and aligning the needle to the folds of fabric.

“I didn’t say you were.”

At this, she couldn’t focus anymore, rubbing her face because it was so damn scary to just not remember her life.

“I’ll never dance again,” she said, refusing to shed tears over it.

“What’s that now?” Most of the time, he was her dancing partner, and he’d never tolerate that.

“Please, I would only be able to roll around.”

“Then I’ll roll with you. We’ll call it a new move.”

A Ventus from another lifetime probably would have tried to brush it off, believing in some magical possibility that she’d get better in no time. This Ventus really grew up, and she didn’t know what she would do without him.

Terra cleared his throat, waiting by her open door - neither of them noticed he was there or for how long.

His hair was so drenched that his shirt was wet. This new Terra really showered too much.

“I’m going to make dinner,” he said, though he refused to look at her so much he might as well have said it to her door frame.

That didn’t matter, because Terra was here, and it was ridiculous how happy it made her and how much she needed their friendship to return to normal.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said, a smile brightening her cheeks.

He glanced and caught sight of it, his eyes so wide and fixated that it looked like it hurt him. It was certainly the oddest rejection she had ever felt when he didn’t return it, and he mumbled “okay” as he left to the kitchen.

Ventus snarled behind her and rolled his eyes. “I’ll lecture him later.”

He and Aqua dominated the conversation during dinner as Terra pretended to inspect his food. At least the boy liked to focus on the happier side of life - Ventus was simply the fresh air they needed to dispel the stuffiness.

Terra answered her questions with brief responses, and at most they spoke for fifteen minutes during dinner: mostly about what he’d been doing, how she was coping. She felt how the seconds ticked, seeing how closed up he became because he sucked at hiding it, and he always broke their one chance at a get-together with an announcement (and a false smile) that he had a big day tomorrow.

Aqua had no idea he was actually preparing something for her until she woke up one morning with two wooden, waxed crutches waiting right by her bedside. He left no note, but she didn’t need one: Terra had roughly carved and sandpapered her name onto each of them, and he made sure the shoulder rest was padded enough so her armpits wouldn’t hate her from too much use. He cared. She couldn’t ask for more.

Master Eraqus taught them that their connections and bonds to other hearts could be expressed through material things, and that was all they were good for - anything else was greedy.

The crutches gave her the gift of freedom, new friends made with the hands and sweat of someone she loved. It gave her enough to really survey the ruins of the castle, and she noted that Terra was home more often than she thought - he just avoided her.

Eventually, blocked hallways opened up and led into the trails behind the academy. Paintings that were toppled over found their way home, like he needed everything to go back as it was. Walls diseased with mold eventually were demolished, rebuilt, and repainted and floors that needed retiling were fixed. Terra worked hard, and that was all he did.

She put herself to work in Eraqus’ beloved gardens, all mudded with overgrown weeds that fought for the right to stay. Sitting on her knees, she ripped them out, the parasites. If ripping a heart out was this easy, she wouldn’t have been in this mess. Dirt was shuffled to breathe, seeds were planted to nuzzle, water was given to spark.

For someone who could not walk properly, this took days, and when the sun started to come down, she would watch Terra through the upper windows of the Master’s office, carrying stacks of books and dusting. He locked himself in that most of his time, everyday, like it was his personal safe haven.

She wished it was safe enough for her to go in there with him, too.

“You’re transforming because your heart is broken. You will find that with time, the exact… reflection… of that darkness will begin to manifest.”

Vexen’s results were conclusive, and strict: if she was ever going to walk again, she had no choice but to swallow her pride and accept what was coming to her. And she was stubborn (annoyingly so), bolting out of the lab as soon as she found out, pretending not to feel embarrassed when stumbled through his doorway.

At least she did not wince when she fell on the way out, holding her head high as always.

But it was hard having to act like she was strong at all hours of the day. When she was truly herself, a girl named Aqua doing her best at keeping Xehanort’s influence suppressed, she honestly needed someone to care when she lost all feeling in her legs and slid down a wall, her hands throbbing. Crawling on her arms was humiliating and undignified, so she sat, alone in a white castle that was as empty as the inhabitants claimed to be.

It was there that Xemnas found her, and she didn’t need to ask him to carry her to a nearby couch, where she could at least sulk in comfort.

If she craned her neck as far back as it could against the backrest, she could see that the very top of the tallest towers had skylights, where one star begged for her attention through the rain clouds.

“He said the harder I refuse Xehanort’s influence, the more I lose the ability to walk,” she spat.

With enough time, she learned that there were certain glints that came to Xemnas’ fiery cold eyes. He was still such a hard case to read, and in this moment, she couldn’t tell if he was pleased or… somber.

Xemnas took a seat next to her after thoughtful consideration, his hands leaning over his knees. “Of course, you will continue to fight.”

His rich voice betrayed him - he was not only stating the obvious with her, but he nearly commanded her as well. This was comforting.

“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked, even though Vexen told her already and the younger Xehanort loved to remind her.

“You would be cast into a remarkable place of oblivion,” he said with a small smile, and she wondered what image came to his mind. “Come to send us deliverance from all the powers that bind you to this state in the first place.”

She scoffed, sharp enough to call out the ridiculousness of his words. “You make me sound like a savior.”

“Hm,” he shook his head. “Something more elegant than that.”

There was nothing about the ache in her hands and how scaly her skin was turning that made her feel sophisticated or beautiful. What a strange man he was not to mind what she was becoming.

“An angel,” she quipped. It was a foolish and pathetic wish, but at least she was honest.

Xemnas’ smiles were never fully pleasant and warm - they spoke of leverage, like he had secret aspirations and whims. “With black wings.”

She pursed her lips. He was absolutely horrible at being endearing, but the image of her gaining freedom in the skies with a pair of black wings was welcome. Maybe she can force Xehanort to grow them for her and she wouldn’t need legs anymore. And then no one, not even him, would dare try to control her again.

It was sickening - she loved and hated how powerful she felt when she was less herself. When she was too tired to care about anyone around her, she felt how much more of a kick her magic received, how strong the pace of her legs were, how confident she was staring down at the things that scared her most (like Terra); it was empowering to let go.

Then the fear settled on the mornings she would wake up and realize that she barely recognized herself, and all over again she struggled to stay standing, and her arms would hurt, and she became meeker as she wondered if she was going crazy. And the cycle started again.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she started in a whisper, expecting him to tell her to give in, let Xehanort take over so she could rest. But he didn’t. “There wasn’t a point to any of it… having a Keyblade, fighting darkness or fighting for the light and losing one battle but winning another - it goes in circles and it never stops.”

Aqua knew she sounded a lot like Xehanort, but this was straight from her heart, and Xemnas nodded in agreement.

“I don’t want to be a Keyblade wielder,” she continued, “and I don’t care to be a seeker of darkness. I want nothing to do with either of them, I just want to live my life peacefully as…”

She paused, her voice getting caught in her throat as she searched for the right word.

Xemnas gave her the gift of the softest smile she had ever seen on his face (a smile for a cost, that gift was never for free), and his was twisted too much to look like Terra’s even though they were so close. But of course he was different. He was a somebody that understood.

“A Nobody,” he answered for her.

“A nobody,” she agreed.

Aqua, truly herself, rolled over onto her hands, black leather gloves squeaking against white, and she crawled over to his lap, resting her head against his thigh, breathing in his cologne - strong, like himself, smelling of patchouli. If he was made of nothing, at least he was warm.

She saw the smirk he undoubtedly wore in her mind, his head resting against his hand looking down on her like he was celebrating a conquest. She let him think he won a game; why bother denying that they both needed a connection to balance out the numbness. One of these days, Kingdom Hearts was going to swallow them both, and she didn’t want to be alone when that happened.

He slipped a glove off, and his fingers ran through her hair, brushing against her scalp. It was soothing, and she figured some part of it was for him, too.

Her knees begged her for mercy but she knew them better, and she took it one step at a time. The crutches were strapped to her back just in case, and her fingers braced against the wall to keep her up. Aqua never recalled a time where her own body felt this heavy, but this, this was good progress.

What tugged her along was the smell of mixed spices. By this time, Terra would have already taken his second shower of the day, and Ventus would be nagging at him to hurry up. How amazed would her boys be once they see her walking through the kitchen door.

She leaned too hard against the doorway for her taste, but damn it all, she was proud of herself too for keeping straight.

“You’re walking,” Ventus exclaimed when he saw her. He was already sitting at the table, his plate and fork prepared.

Terra forgot he was holding a ladle, so freshly showered that his hair was still soaking. He scrambled to pull out her chair for her, anticipating her movements until she sat down.

“Thank you,” she said, relying on the table as a guide so she could bend her knees and sit down without collapsing.

“Mhmm,” he muttered as he scurried back to the stove without looking her in the eye.

Dinner went as always, with Ventus conducting the conversations and working (so hard) on keeping everyone’s spirits up. With how much she had improved, she was really feeling these warmer vibes, and conversations about their memories, even about the Master, didn’t hurt this evening. Healing demanded to take its own pace, but it was the best of friends she could ask for.

They had even caught Terra smirking to himself as he listened to their stories.

“Now that everything’s better,” she said to him, as if walking was still too difficult a word to utter, “maybe we could take a camping trip, like we used to have.”

The look on Ventus’ face said he already started planning what they would do. “I really miss fishing. You would make the best dinner out of that.”

“Yeah! That’s not too hard on the body,” she agreed.

It was a good feeling to look forward to a new day again.

Terra’s smile faltered before picking itself back up again. “Are you sure you’re okay to do that?” he asked her but he really addressed his stew.

“I think so.” She stared hard at his features. His skin was really red from scrubbing, and his eyes scattered so frequently to the point that he was surely talking himself into how to behave. “I think it’s worth it. We deserve to have our lives back to the way they were.”

He drew a sharp inhale and she thought that she hurt him somehow. But he finally, finally looked at her, his eyes searching for a reason to say something. He didn’t have the strength to keep going, shifting between swirling his food and taking glances her way.

“We’ll see.” He stood up and carried his unfinished bowl. “I have to check how many worlds I still need to visit.”

“That’s not annoying,” Ventus said with a tone that clearly told the opposite.

Terra ignored him and scraped his leftovers.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Ventus snapped. “She’s trying to-”

“That’s enough, Ven,” Terra interrupted. That softness in his voice still existed, but it was so much more quiet, exactly the way he would speak when he signaled a warning.

And exactly the way he spoke on that horrid day in Radiant Garden all those years ago. Terra summoned that mythical wall of his to keep the both of them at a distance, and he walked away, his footsteps heavy.

“It’s fine,” she said and it broke the silence.

“No it isn’t.” Ventus stabbed at his food, one hand rubbing a headache off his forehead. “He’s such a knucklehead.”

“Not really…”

“Pssh, he’s worse than you.”

That was mostly untrue, and they both knew it. The smiles they threw at each other were weak but at least they weren’t feeling them alone.

But pleasantries didn’t last, and the isolation Ventus’ smirk cast away would sink back into her bones again as she thought of watching Terra’s shoulders from behind, distancing further and further away from her.

She thought of that late afternoon in San Fransokyo when she asked Xemnas to join her atop a roof where they watched Sora struggle to save civilian collateral. He had said something to the effect that it would all be over soon and she finally decided that she couldn’t go down that route, so she watched his tall, relaxed shoulders for several moments as a silent good-bye before she struck him from behind.

There were a lot of sacrifices she had made in the name of friendship, and now she lost them both.

On her way back to her bedroom, her knees finally gave in. She used her crutches to pick herself up, not letting Ventus provide any help - loss of pride wasn’t something she was willing to deal with right now.

Aqua found herself taking inventory as she sat on her bed, carefully inspecting the furniture and decorations around her, what she did and did not remember.

It was quiet but it was noisy, the wind howling as it rattled the glass on her window and she didn’t want to see how vacant and dark it was outside so she leaned back to close the curtains. It didn’t muffle the sound.

“Come on,” she commanded as she massaged and rubbed her thighs, shaking them to wake the muscles up. Going from a rough grip to a gentle rub, moving from her pelvis all the way down to the knee, flexing her feet so that her calves responded.

There was no tension in her tendons or anywhere that she could feel. She just needed her heart to remember that this body was hers.

She repeated the phrase in between sobs, and after the third time leaned forward to rest her hand on her bedside table. Aqua shifted her weight to her feet, Aqua shook vehemently, and Aqua, the girl with a Keyblade who became a Master and no one was going to steal that memory away from her, stood up.

She was leaning on her fingers against the surface of the table, but still, success.

A knock on her door. It was well past midnight by this point, and Ventus should be putting himself to bed instead of worrying about her.

“Come in, Ven.”

It was Terra, and her heart nearly burst out of her throat. He had a well-lit lantern close to his chest, which couldn’t shine in comparison to how bright her room was but against the darkness of the hallway, it was brilliant.

“Um…” Every word he thought of to say, he rejected, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. He looked utterly defeated, his heart terribly broken and she didn’t know what to do with the pieces. Terra was always the bravest, and with how terrified he was standing right in front of her, she realized she had been watching him try to glue his heart back together by himself.

“I noticed your light was still on,” was what he settled with.

“Yeah,” she said, breathlessly, and as much as she wanted to keep it comfortable for him, she couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear.

“You um, having trouble sleeping?”

“Ah, not always.”

“I heard you crying,” he said softly.

If she wasn’t standing too straight before, Aqua made sure to look like she was now.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing his head down the hallway. “I’ll take your blankets.”

This was certainly familiar - they used to sneak out of the castle some nights to find a spot under the stars. In stormy days, they camped indoors in whatever room they fancied.

Aqua shook her head, the thought of being a burden rising in her mind. “You don’t have to do that-”

“Please,” he stressed, like he didn’t want to hear it.

With that, she agreed, her heart taking somersaults and she swallowed too many times to suppress her smiles. He gave her the lantern to hold for herself in the dark, and he brushed past her to bundle up sheets and pillows - he was even close enough for her to smell his shampoo. She remembered exactly what it was made of: sandalwood and sunflower. Though very pleasant, she wished she could breathe his natural skin.

The lantern created a halo around the two of them as she followed him through the quiet hallways; only a light this bright would be given to her by him. Terra took his time walking, holding her blankets in both of his arms as he allowed her to keep up with him.

She never asked where he was taking her to, basking in the glory of trusting him to lead her well, just like the old days. At least she recognized the doors he opened for her.

“Oh, Terra, it looks great,” she said with a sigh as they stepped into their old Master’s office.

The desk was neat and orderly - too neat for Terra but it was clear that he wasn’t doing this for himself. All of the books were arranged in their shelves. The wardrobe was repainted and rewaxed, its scruffs filled in. The couch by the warm fire was clean and welcoming, decorations repaired and placed back, exactly where they belong.

Terra fixed time in this room, as if the Master had never left, save for the new memorial - the Master’s Defender, hanging sophisticatedly above the fire as if watching over them.

“You did such a good job,” she reiterated, tears almost to her cheeks.

A stack of Terra’s blankets waited for them already (he had really planned to bring her along, she really needed a hug from him now). He threw them into piles to makeshift a mattress on the rug, letting her take the couch for herself. The trees outside rustled violently against the wind, overpowering the cackle of the fire and filling the space between them.

Aqua was finally welcomed into Terra’s safe haven, and it made sense why he chose this room.

It was a room only the Master occupied and there was no way that would change. A framed photo of Eraqus, with a bright smile behind his bushy mustache, watched them from atop a desk right next to her, so they wouldn’t be able to do anything inappropriate, much less talk about romantic and otherwise mixed, hurt, complicated, heavy feelings.

Terra cleared his throat, lifting his blankets up to his lap. “You comfortable?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. He looked far more comfy to snuggle with than the couch she sat on, honestly.

He reached for something dark - a white leather-bound journal, actually, wrapped in a black tarp. “I thought this might help you… you know, remember things.”

A reasonable gesture, except -

“What is this?”

Terra blinked several times as if to stop what he was thinking. “We used to write in it.” He cleared his throat again. “We kept it hidden from Ven, actually.”

The first page donned two dark red fingerprints, smeared a little, with two children’s scrawls; one done in her handwriting, the other Terra’s. They both read ’ Best Friends Forever .’

Here was proof she wrote this, but nothing came to mind.

Something on her face gave that away, because Terra volunteered. “We used to make blood pacts.”

“Why did we stop?”

“They hurt too much.” If anyone could chuckle without smiling, it was Terra.

The next page was a mix-match of scrawls, some words scratched out and replaced, like the authors were in disagreement.

“What’s this?” she asked more to herself, and read out loud:

“ If I ever doubt her again, I will rub mud into my armpits…”

Terra groaned. “I lost a bet and you made me write that.”

Aqua couldn’t help herself except to melt into laughter, and each time she tried to stop, she failed. The greatest blessing was that it was contagious, and he actually cracked a small pull of his lips, his hand rubbing the back of his neck as he watched her struggle to contain herself.

“Which bet did I win?” she managed to ask in between breaths.

“I… don’t really remember.”

“Fair enough.” It was a dead end. Hopefully the other entries would not be fossilized like this one.

She randomly flipped through more pages, coming across a photo of the three of them, wearing formal clothes at a party. There she was, wearing a beautiful white dress with lace, and a blue ribbon sash. It dawned on her - she gave up a memory to wake Ventus up, and it must have had something to do with this journal.

It was excessive though, how these memories were tied to each other like a web and everything related to this journal was now infected. When Vexen said that she would be losing memories connected to whatever she gave up, he wasn’t kidding.

Instead of wallowing in the self-pity that ensued as she thought about it, she decided to go back and see what else their childhood selves came up with.

“What the-?”

Terra actually scoffed, heartily even, his smile showing the faintest of teeth, and it was a beautiful sound.

“A lot of those pages are going to be recipes. We made some up.” It was the way he said it that told her there was much more hiding.

“Terra, these are disgusting ,” she said and her cheeks hurt, reading the lists carefully. These recipes lacked imagination and for that, they must have suffered for trying them. “Most of them are in your handwriting.”

“I like to think I was creative.”

“Or insane.”

He cleared his throat and his face stiffened, calming his smile down, and she hated herself for ruining it. She didn’t mean to - honestly, she was the crazy one between the two of them.

“I hope you’re finding it helpful.” He nodded to the journal.

“… You mean, be more normal.”

“No-”

“I know,” she reassured him. How she hated the feeling of her smile falling. “Thank you, Terra. I’m glad you gave this to me.”

He took too long of a silent moment. “It will be okay,” he said, and maybe it was partly to himself. “Like you said, things will eventually go back to the way they were.”

That wasn’t what she meant. It was impossible, and she was sure he knew it. But kids could dream, right? They found themselves staring up at the Master Defender, watching under the faint glow of the fire beneath it, and the movement of the flames made it look like it lived.

“Is it… off?” she asked. “Dormant?”

He shrugged with one shoulder. “From time to time, but it will help us when we need it. You know, you could take it if you want to.”

“Terra-” she scoffed.

“You’ve been with it for a long time-”

“I can’t even walk properly. How am I supposed to fight?”

“Well, when you get better,” he said, not realizing that she shifted uncomfortably at the suggestion.

Getting better was a guarantee, but what was not was being able to do anything else he assumed: training, traveling the worlds, being a proper Keyblade Master. As much as she wanted this night to be pleasant – to be this close to him again was a gift she shouldn’t take for granted – she reminded herself that telling him was just going to be a few minutes of tension. Hopefully, that would all be what it took before things got better between them.

“I don’t have my Keyblade anymore,” she said flatly, since there was no point in hiding it from him.

He stared first. “What?”

“I-”

“You never told me.”

She had enough of seeing him so upset, and wished she never said anything. “I don’t know where it is. I gave it up… to save you.”

His eyes flickered as hard as the fireplace in front of them, and he didn’t have the will to relax his jaw.

“I’ll find it,” he finally said after a silence that squirmed in between them.

“Terra-”

“I’ll find it,” he snapped and he wanted the final say in this. Any hope she had of laughing with him tonight quickly burned away.

He was softer than that, though, and realized what he had done.

“I’ll find it,” he repeated once again, in a soft whisper like he made a reassuring promise to her.

Promises were normally innocent and full of faith - how unnerving it was to see them lose these qualities, to see him give one to her exhausted, like he had nothing else to lose. The last thing she could do now was take this away from him, too.

“As long as you stay safe,” she whispered, the pain hitting her chest of letting him go like this.

This, she could see, he appreciated. The first genuine smile he gave her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

In this safe space, she pulled the sheets to her chin and watched him sleep, losing the tension in his forehead as he dreamed of a fantasy that kept him safe from the shadows that flickered in the room and danced all over his body. If this was the closest she would ever get to him, she decided she would be okay with that.

Still, she made wishes under her breath.

It was nearly time for Terra to come home and the butterflies in her stomach lurched at not only the thought, but at the nasty smell that came out of her oven. It was simply putrid .

And this made her giggle. Fish were foul when they weren’t seasoned with anything, and the more she anticipated Terra’s arrival, the longer she was able to stand and walk and bake all by herself. Her crutches rested right next to the stovetop, just in case. It was cloudy outside, which kept the summer temperature cool.

The cupcakes were done, fish heads sticking out of the domes with empty eye-sockets - there wasn’t a need to be watched by them. Besides, the recipe specifically called for it.

She had a stack of clean, gutted fish lying on a tray on the counter, where she had also gathered lemon peels, garlic, and basil for a delicious home-cooked meal that she would cook later at a more appropriate time.

When she heard footsteps coming closer, she took a moment to calm herself.

“Aqua, it reeks,” Terra said as he stormed into the kitchen, his hair soaking and smelling so wonderfully shampooed that she realized she would need to wash the fish oils off of her hair soon.

“It does,” she said matter-of-factly.

He blinked several times as he wandered from the grotesque desserts to the open secret journal where his ten-year-old’s scrawls were visibly readable.

“What did you do?”

“I made fish cupcakes - your favorite.”

He rubbed his face. “They look disgusting.”

“You were a pretty gross kid,” she giggled, and relied on the counter to give herself balance. “Just some flour, eggs… that’s it. No sugar, even.”

He leaned on the counter with his elbows, to meet her face to face. “So what do we do with them?”

“We eat them. I added salt to make it easier.”

He lurched back. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.” It sounded sadder than she wanted it to. “I don’t remember us playing with any of this and I thought… why not relive it?”

He studied his palm against the marble of the counter, his fingers splayed out and he took his time to think of his response. When he looked her in the eye, Aqua felt safe enough to smile.

“If you really wanted to know, you could’ve just asked,” he said. “They were nasty.”

“We have to chew and swallow,” she commanded. This was more normal, turning something like this into a competitive game.

He bit his lip and scoffed, pulling a cupcake from its tray. “Good luck.”

She took her cupcake and they stood in silence, waiting to see who would be the first to do it (Aqua, he followed immediately after she started moving). The fish was out of its element, in a crumbly, dry cake that fell apart the moment it hit moisture. It was acidic at best, that odor invading her sinuses and Terra leaned over his knees gagging, all the while keeping his mouth shut and forcing himself to chew. She was more refined, in perfect posture while she used both hands as a barrier to her mouth and let the tears fall proudly.

Terra groaned out loud, gasping for air when he was finished, sticking his tongue out to show his triumph. “I won.”

“Mm-mm.” She jerked her head and chewed the last bits, saying a prayer before that large swallow and the worst was over. She relaxed her jaw as proof. “I swallowed, too.”

“I finished first.”

“That wasn’t part of the game-”

“Bullshit.”

“We only said ’ chew and swallow ,’ not to ’ do it first ’.”

“You’re such a sore loser.”

“What of it?”

He moaned, whining about what was going to happen next as he searched his pockets to free whatever was poking him so he could at least sit comfortably. Out of them were a bag of munny, vials of healing potions, a small hunting knife, and his Wayfinder -

Badly damaged, with cracks in one of the wings and its metal border bent outward in a sharp angle.

“What happened to it?” She cursed herself for asking about a sensitive subject, when they were having so much fun.

Terra stared at it. “Xehanort didn’t take good care of it,” he said flatly, and this was the first time either of them had uttered that name since she woke up.

If anything they were too tired, letting a moment of silence follow that name, because there was nothing either of them could say that would have mended what had happened. They were in agreement anyway: he was a monster, a thief, a demon. He ruined their lives. He used them and left them for dead.

Why bother even venturing into that territory?

She placed her palm over his Wayfinder, its orange glow noticeably less vibrant. And she waited - to see if he would insist on taking it back. She dragged it along the counter, and all he did was rest his chin on his palm, carefully eyeing it as it crawled away from him.

Any moment, he would snatch it back, and she stalked for the opportunity to wrestle it for herself.

But he didn’t, a little smile shyly creeping out of his mouth.

“I’m going to fix it,” she said as she brought it to her chest. “And you can’t stop me.”

“I wasn’t going to.” There, there was a softness she hadn’t seen in years from him and for a second she forgot what day of the year it was.

“Good.” She returned his smile, and the sun shone brighter through the windows. Aqua pulled out two more cupcakes. “Onward then. First one to swallow it wins this time.”

Terra and Aqua were always good sports, whether the game was to win boasting rights or it was designed to make each other miserable. The fish tasted just as badly, but it was actually harder to swallow it this second go-round, their taste buds punishing them for doing it again. They found themselves encouraging each other not to give up.

The castle finally heard its first share of laughter in years, and she felt like she won no matter the results.

[whimpering-hearts]

SASSY-JELLYFISH: Which 2p's in axis and allies would survive a Bird Box or The Happening scenario? Thank you so much, I really enjoy your writing.

So, this is an interesting question, because to me surviving a Bird Box or The Happening scenario is just as much about luck as it is about actual survival skills. It’s not like a zombie apocalypse, where you can theoretically beat the shit out of the monster and survive. Here, all it takes is one asshole removing your blindfold or throwing you out into the garden and, bam, you’re dead.

For the purpose of this question, I’ll use Bird Box as the scenario, because I just watched it this morning just so I could answer this question. For those who haven’t seen the movie, a general idea of what we’re working with:

There are invisible entities terrorizing the world. If you see them, you are either enraptured by them and become a devout slave intent on spreading their image (by removing others’ blindfolds), or you are driven by intense sadness or fear to kill yourself.

Because nations are normally immortal, we will say for the sake of this scenario that death by one of these entities is one of the few permanent deaths a nation can face.

2P America / Jason A. Cardinali: He’s one of the first to die. He might have the survival skills to handle a zombie apocalypse, or a viral outbreak that drives everyone crazy, but this? Invisible entities? Yeah, right, you’re pulling his leg. He’ll tease you for being paranoid, then open the front door despite your begging protests. See? Nothing to be scared - and then he goes quiet, too quiet. You watch from behind your parted fingers as he walks into the kitchen, takes the butcher knife, and slices his own throat open from ear to ear.

2P China / Xiaoyu “Xiao” Wen: Xiao’s answer to stress is to get high - and so he does. He loses himself to the opium, to the cocaine, to the ecstasy, to the hallucinogens, sees the world in a fuzzy haze. He tells you it’s a survival tactic, that if you can’t see them, if you’re so blinded to reality, they can’t get you. And, for a while, you think he’s right. But then one night you’re woken by the screams, his screams, far from you, outside, and without thought you race to him. He’s clawing at his face, at his eyes, digging fingers into his sockets and scraping and pulling. His words are incoherent, terrified, desperate, and when you try to calm him, he turns his fingers onto you. “You can’t see it - you can’t see it. It’s so horrible!”

2P England / Oliver Townsend: He’s managing the lunch crowd at the bakery when it happens. People run down the street, screaming. Cars drive into each other, into crowds, into the brick building across the street. He goes to the front door - glass, all of it’s glass, the windows, the door, everything - and looks out to see what’s causing this mayhem. And see it he does. It’s beautiful, riveting, powerful, how could these fools run from something so glorious? So, he finds you upstairs and takes you by the hand.

“Come here, poppet, I want you to see something amazing.”

2P France / Jacques Girardot: The first person he calls is Oliver. Oliver, who does not answer, who forces Jacques to leave a voicemail telling him Jason is dead. The second person he calls is Beau. So many things he doesn’t say, so many regrets he doesn’t voice. Your hand is a comforting weight on his arm, your face pressed against his shoulder. You have no food. You have no water. You have nothing. Jacques may be able to survive on wine and self-hatred, but you are human, more delicate. So, he braves the mayhem and goes to the store - and he never comes back. He bleeds out on the market floor, his final thoughts of you.

2P Germany / Lars Brenner: It was his idea to go on a supply run - a foolish, terrible idea, he realizes now, because you’re both lost on the streets of Munich, hearts pounding and breaths quick, desperate, as you try to find any identifiable landmark. Your hand is warm in his sweaty palm and he squeezes it tight, hangs onto you with a desperation fueled by adrenaline. It feels like you’re going in circles - if he peeked, just for a second, just for one look, he might be able to tell where you are. But the moment he does, his heart goes cold with fear and his mind screams. You feel him pull away, call for him, voice thin, panicked, fall silent when you hear it: the beating thuds of Lars bludgeoning himself to death with the chair leg he’d brought to protect you.

2P Japan / Ren Suzuki: For Ren, the best course of action after witnessing the outbreak of suicides is obvious: if seeing is what drives you to madness, then clearly seeing is the problem. He blinds you first, not flinching at your screams, your pleading tones, blinds you with household chemicals that burn. His care of you after is delicate, apologetic - bandages over your eyes, with a kiss over each socket. After, he blinds himself. It’s the only way to survive, and you will survive.

2P North Italy / Luciano Valentini: “Safe room. Now.” His tone leaves no room for argument. You’re sent scurrying to the deepest, safest parts of the mansion, hidden away from both monsters and men. And he stands at the door, your fiercest, most loyal guard. He kills the men who come to his house seeking refuge, kills the men who come and speak in hushed, reverent tones and tell him to look, just look. Sometimes, in between the killing, he hears the whispers, feels the wind brush across his skin, but he doesn’t give in. Because the moment he gives in you are dead, and you are everything.

2P Russia / Pyotr Ruslyakov: Like everything, it starts in Russia - and Pyotr is not impressed. He watches his neighbors let strangers into their homes and fall prey to their minds, watches as they lay themselves out for death to take, and he shakes his head because fools, they’re all fools. He keeps you close, keeps the doors locked and the windows covered, ignores the pleas for help, ignores the please to let us in, let us in, please, keeps you safe with him because if you’re going to survive this you have to be clever about it, you have to be smart. He doesn’t care if the whole world falls into ruins as long as you are alive.

2P South Italy / Flavio Valentini: He is in a perfect state of bliss. His mind is quiet save for the whispers, the voices, your voice, telling him to spread the vision of these most glorious creatures, telling him to help the rest of the world see. Flavio was, unfortunately, one of the first to fall to the invisible entities. He wanted you to be the second, his second, but when he pried your eyelids open and made you see, you were so overwhelmed by the vision of your new masters. He could only watch, pained, disappointed, a lost part of him screaming beneath the calm, as you poured the wine from dinner onto your clothes and set yourself aflame.

[fishdavidson]

Dream Journal 2019-07-17: Fish Davidson Runs Afoul Of The President And Enlists The Help Of Podcaster Roman Mars To Help Document The Abuses Of The Executive Branch

An individual of dubious financial standing and equally dubious moral integrity scheduled a political rally in a neighboring state a few hours drive from my house. Some people might call this individual the President of the United States, but I refuse to refer to him by name or title and instead prefer to call him an orange-hued temper tantrum in charge of making America a more effective dumpster fire. Anyway, he’s scheduled a rally on the campus of  some university and I’ve taken the weekend off to drive over and protest his policies and general existence.

I didn’t feel like listening to him blather incoherent strings of words, so I opted for a more covert form of protest. I convinced a security guard that I had no morals, loved American racism, and giving extra money to the rich while taking a big dump on the poor. This security guard likes the cut of my jib and invites me to meet the president in a small group setting after the rally. I can be very persuasive when I need to be.

Time passes and I make my way to the top floor of the highest building on campus. Because of course that’s where the evil final boss would be. The Orange One emerges from his lair to greet us, but I quickdraw my big-kid vocabulary and lay into this guy with as many offensive words as I can muster. Very few of them are safe to say on this blog, but please know that my word choice was vicious and creative and particularly offensive to the recipient.

Naturally, this riles him up a bit. Well, a lot. He goes from orange to red and starts shouting about how I’m what wrong with America and that he will personally find me and kill me with his bare hands. I am escorted out of the building by security, but I consider this a victory because I have completely ruined this man’s day.

It’s probably illegal in real life for a political official to make death threats like that, but it’s definitely illegal in the dream world. So I march over to a nearby hotel where Roman Mars is staying. Roman is sort of the godfather of podcasting, and he’s acutely aware of how Constitutional Law works. I inform him of the death threats against me, and he asks if I have any proof of the threat. I do not, but I’m willing to have another showdown with my political nemesis if Roman and his crew want to make a special podcast episode about the event.

They agree, and we all show up in a plane the next day in Washington D.C., ready to capture an epic temper tantrum. Once again, I must ascend the highest tower in the land to meet with my nemesis. Only this time, I don’t have to convince a security guard. I just walk in, take the elevator to the top, and BAM! I’m waiting in a tiny dark lobby for the president to show up by pretending to be part of a children’s tour group who want to meet the president.

How this excuse worked is beyond me, since there were no other children with me and I looked like my regular adult self. The first lady is in the room with me and she is attempting to explain with kid-friendly words what exactly the president does. I am not paying attention, because I am more concerned that the only decoration in this room appears to be a single guitar on the wall and a deflated basketball on a table. My disinterest is finally noticed, and realization creeps across the first lady’s face that I’m The Guy Who Swears At Her Husband.

The Windbag in Chief emerges from the hole where he signs unethical deregulatory bills submitted to him by corporate lobbyists. He is ready to impress some children, but there is only me. His face twists in rage, and he is probably about to literally bludgeon me to death.

At this point, I realize that my phone isn’t recording the evidence that I need. I nonchalantly hold my hand up in front of his face and say “Just a moment.” He is shocked at my lack of anger and stands totally still and bewildered because he relies on his opponents getting flustered.

Then we get to my favorite part of the dream. I don’t record audio on my phone all that often, and apparently that trait carries over in my dreams. It had been so long since I used my voice recording app that I had to install several updates before it was usable in the dream. So I’m just sitting there, cool as a cucumber, holding my hand in front of the president’s face while he gets angrier and angrier that I haven’t engaged with him yet.

After probably about 30 seconds of this awkward exchange, the app gets updated and I start recording. He grabs at my phone and knocks it to the ground. I use a few more choice words to really make him mad, and he punches me in the eye a few times. Perhaps he suffers from osteoporosis, because his punches didn’t do much to me.

He rants and raves about how he will kill me somehow, and that’s my cue. I have the evidence that I need, so I pick up my phone and say “Thanks,” and leave the room.

Roman takes a portrait of me for a news article, and I send him my recordings. This is going to be a newsworthy event heard around the world. Unfortunately, the dream doesn’t end with Lord Diaper Baby getting impeached. But it is the beginning of the end, as far I am concerned.

-----------------------

Photo of Roman Mars taken by Damien Maloney.

[iidsch]

I'm watching jerma play marvel's spiderman and i have sooo many Opinions™ so let me annoying for a sec:

1. why does martin li has like. no personality at all. Like he's the literal main villain of the story but you see him once at the beginning doing nothing meaningful and then BAM he's been the bad guy since the start. no backstory or anything he's just evil? Actually he has a backstory but it's stupid and it comes literally out of nowhere so it's as if he had none

2. okay i get they wanted to put every iconic spiderman villain before they become villains because wooo nostalgia or whatever, but considering that the Demons and Li are the main villains and that the story is focused on them why are they suddenly making Otto evil. His arc literally feels like a Villain speedrun any%

3. The robotic tentacles??? look??? so cartoonishly evil XDDDD????? it's so stupid i hate it

4. Evil russian character with a thick russian accent. Really pulling the

5. Kind of not like the fact that the only non-american characters (the Chinese goons of Martin Li) are the evil ones...? something something American exceptionalism but that's a topic for another time

6. "why are vulture and electro suddenly here??" same jerma same

7. ok so doc is now with the evil guys now?? I'm??????? the reason why doc oc becomes evil is that he's losing motion brain cells so he builds robotic arms and installs a chip to his brain but the brain gives him male hysteria and also he hates osborn so he becomes evil when he sees him on the tv. Amazing spiderman more like amazingly shitty writing

8. Spiderman's strength is so.... inconsistent??? man can hold a whole ass helicopter and then he fails to hold a plank of wood with two people on it, ok

9. Massive pet peeve but if there's one good guy and five very powerful bad guys surrounding him they should all attack at once why there are always like two of them attacking while the other three are standing still with their arms crossed you know the good guy is going to be able to handle two villains so just attack them at the same time????

10. I love the fact that the game needs to have the characters say stuff like "I should go through the vent" "maybe he's at the park" "I might need to pick a document" because a lot of things in the gameplay are not intuitive at all. Kind of a downside of these types of games

11. The nightmare sequence was actually... cool?? Needed a bit of graphic design but that was pog

12. why do so many superhero stories have a guy who's fucked up but he's a politician so the superhero does nothing and then some other guy goes like "this politician ruined my life and many others, I'm going to kill him because there's no other way to stop him" and then the superhero goes like "WOAH I'm beating your ass and sending you to jail". Fucking liberals

12.5. actually I'm not done do you expect me to think doc ock is the bad guy here after showing me so much evidence that osborn is an absolute asshole?? bitch I'm hoping doc ock bludgeons osborn to death. "But he's going to stop being mayor after this and face a tri-" Shut up I don't care he should be guillotined

12.5.5. The frustrating part is that the battle against doc ock is genuinely amazing but is not deserved at all. You ain't winning me over with some dramatic lighting if your writing sucks ass. Hell not even aunt May's death was deserved. "Look! Our hero has chosen to save millions instead of saving a loved one" Oh cool you know what could have saved both? Putting Osborn behind bars from second fucking zero. God forbid a superhero story from teaching people that politicians are evil and that sometimes killing someone is morally okay

12.5.5.5 fucking liberals seriously can't write a goddamn story

13. The gameplay looked fun though, not my kind of game but I'll give that to the game devs 👍

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2019) - #153: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) - dir. Quentin Tarantino

(Warning: a little spoiler-ish toward the end.)

I try my best to be an objective viewer of cinema, but in all honesty I anticipated the possibility that I might hate Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood with a burning passion. With the exception of Four Rooms and Grindhouse, I’ve seen every feature film directed by Quentin Tarantino, so I am well acquainted with his strengths and weaknesses; based on the Cannes reviews that I skimmed in springtime, I was uncertain as to whether Tarantino’s latest flick would be a Pulp Fiction triumph or a Hateful Eight disaster, but critical reaction seemed to lean more toward the latter. Imagine my surprise, then, when a friend and I sat in a nearly full screening at BAM last month - an unusually late one for me, 8:30 PM until at least 11:15 - and I found that I liked Hollywood more than not (more detail on the “not” in a moment).

Tarantino uses his new film to dig into the mythology surrounding Charles Manson, his “Family” of followers and the crimes they committed on August 8, 1969, murdering actress Sharon Tate, hairstylist Jay Sebring, coffee fortune heiress Abigail Folger and writer Wojciech Frykowski. Although Tate is a key part of Tarantino’s story, portrayed sweetly by Margot Robbie, the bulk of the narrative belongs to two fictional characters, washed-up actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). As Rick pogoes between jobs as villains of the week on network TV and villains in Spaghetti Westerns shot in Italy, Cliff divides his time between chauffeuring Rick around town and doing odd jobs for his boss/best friend. In between tasks, Cliff often spots an attractive young woman called Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) on LA’s wide boulevards, stretching her thumb out for rides to a place called the Spahn Movie Ranch. Unbeknownst to Cliff until he picks Pussycat up for a drive, the ranch has been overtaken by the Manson Family and George Spahn (Bruce Dern) is mistreated by the lot of them, most of all by “Squeaky” Fromme (Dakota Fanning in an exceptionally creepy performance). Cliff doesn’t know it yet, but he and Rick are on a collision course fated to intersect with the plans that the gang has for Rick’s next door neighbor, Sharon Tate.

Perhaps it sounds as though Cliff Booth is the most important of the three protagonists, but for sheer entertainment value, Rick Dalton has no peers. He may be a hack in the universe of OUATIH, yet in the real world the role is one of the finest of Leonardo DiCaprio’s three-decade-long career. Tarantino knows how to get performances out of Leo that provoke him to grow as an actor; his work in this film and Django Unchained are much more impressive to me than the nonsense that went on in one of Martin Scorsese’s worst messes, The Wolf of Wall Street. The loudly comedic sides of Rick’s day-to-day routines are enjoyable, but the scene that snuck up on me in OUATIH is the one in which precocious child actress Trudi (Julia Butters) tells Rick how much she respects the choices he made in a scene they had just shot for a TV Western, resulting in tears rolling down Rick’s face after Trudi walks away. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen at the movies this year.

I can’t fault Tarantino for his reliance on star power. Everywhere you look in OUATIH, there’s a recognizable face: besides the aforementioned actors, the cast also includes Emile Hirsch (who I will never forgive for choking and nearly strangling a female film executive in 2015), Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler (he’s excellent as the disturbed Tex Watson), Mike Moh, Luke Perry (RIP), Damian Lewis, Al Pacino (hamming it up so much as a Jewish agent that it’s basically a stereotype), Samantha Robinson, Lena Dunham, Mikey Madison (I kept asking myself “who is that????” until I checked the cast afterward and realized she’s one of the daughters on “Better Things”), Maya Hawke, a very pregnant Danielle Harris, Scoot McNairy, Clifton Collins Jr., Clu Gulager, Rebecca Gayheart, Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Michael Madsen and Brenda Vaccaro, just to name a few. There are plenty of reasons to be interested in such a huge assemblage of talent.

I’ll also admit that there were three scenes that I considered genuinely moving. The incorporation of José Feliciano‘s cover of “California Dreamin’“ and a strings-heavy version of the Rolling Stones song “Out of Time” were highlights of the movie, while the moment when the film’s title slowly appeared onscreen in the final scene actually caused me to cry. It is apparent that Tarantino wanted to construct a tribute to Sharon Tate and her friends, the victims of a hateful group of monsters. I struggle, though, with piecing together the points Tarantino was trying to make besides the obvious one that those innocent people should not have died. What do we gain from the barely-there presence of Tate’s husband, Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha), in the narrative? Is his jerky air supposed to indicate the behavior that would lead to the sexual assault he committed in 1977? And what about the heinous amounts of violence that are perpetrated against women in the third act? Is Tarantino’s vision of retribution one in which it’s OK to hurt “bad” women because he sees it as justified? Is Brad Pitt seriously going to earn a Best Supporting Actor nomination for bludgeoning a female member of the Manson Family - a woman whose beliefs may have stemmed from being brainwashed by the cult leader and his disciples - to a bloody pulp?

Despite the glaring flaws that support my misgivings, I still say that Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is one of the better-crafted films that Tarantino has made in recent years. It has problems for sure, but at least Tarantino’s thesis statement wasn’t “hey, isn’t being nostalgic for the way things used to be in 1960s Hollywood (and, to a larger degree, America) so great?” The film shows the sunny optimism of Sharon Tate, starlet and mother-to-be, but it also depicts the ugliness and sadness of the Dream Factory, where hopes fade and end up in reruns on Saturday night. Of course Tarantino wanted to rewrite the script... who wouldn’t?