#just been real busy lately and will be busy until the end of april

[descendantstale]

Happy Valentine’s Day from Frisk❤️ and sans💙

[bengiyo]

BL 2023 Review

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to write about BL for this year. I was originally going to do a The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly framework for it, but that feels meaner than I actually am about it. Instead, I think I’ll just write out some sections and unpack some things I felt along the way.

I Watched Too Much Again

Last year I engaged with about 92 productions around the world. This year it was 99 (I tracked stuff I completed here). Sure I dropped 18 of them this year, but goddamn. The problem with watching as much as I did this year is that I worked full time this year and also maintained a separate hobby. I also continued my twice-weekly watch sessions with my friend Emily, so there are an additional 100-ish watch sessions in here of rewatching, plus a few other rewatches (Theory of Love and My Ride most notably).

One of my struggles at this point is I’m far too familiar with the genre, and find myself feeling impatient and irritable with shows that aren’t to my taste the way I used to. Throughout the late summer and fall I found myself increasingly grumpier about the genre, and it didn’t get better until I had a holiday and basically slept a day to get some energy back. I also found myself growing apart from fans I’ve known and followed a long time. It’s been a difficult year for me as a long-time fan because my tastes, habits, and friendships in the genre have changed even if the amount I watch hasn’t really.

I Wrote a Lot This Year

I recently converted my watch tag away from my gaming internet persona to just my shortname, so all near-1000 of my Stray Thoughts posts can be found under #ben watches now. I’ve also been going back and adding #ben writes to some of the standalone pieces that I really liked. In reviewing them, the pieces I’m happiest about are my ode to Framboise from Kabe Koji Nekoyashiki-kun Desires to Be Recognized, my post begging everyone to watch La Pluie, my post about what it means to actually like queer men, my SBS ep 10 post that ended up being wrong, my post about the Lavender Scare and Be My Favorite, my Tokyo in April is… post about the breaking of the BL line,

However, the two posts I am most proud of is my half-joking response about why I think tagging each other back and forth across Tumblr in our writing is so important. and The Knowing: Being Queer in BL because I had so much great conversations with folks as a result of both of these posts.

Looking back at my own blog, this is probably the most active I’ve been in my entire time on this website, so thank you to everyone who interacted with me this year, because it really is people talking to me that gets me most inspired to write things down. Big shout out to @lurkingshan who will bug me repeatedly until I blog something that I said in passing.

We Started a Podcast!

After hanging out with @shortpplfedup since Bad Buddy, she got inspired and really wanted to bring something different to the BL podcasting sphere. I had time, and liked talking with her enough, so we started @the-conversation-pod. Now we’re a full year into it and planning out future stuff. It’s been so much fun being able to get things off my soul and break poor NiNi in our recording sessions.

From this year, I think my favorite episodes we did were The Moonlight Chicken Episode, the Eighth Sense episode, the ITSAY Anniversary Episodes,  The Wedding Plan episode, , and The Holiday Clip Show. Huge shout out to @ginnymoonbeam for anchoring the transcription process, and @lurkingshan for editing.

The VIIB Awards will begin airing soontm so look forward to that.

Favorite New Term: Business Gay Performance

Let’s be clear, Bump Up Business is not good. It is an obvious BL cash grab from OnlyOneOf that seeks to comment on the fake nature of BL while doing everything it can to trick the audience into believing that the BL pair is real.

Before we got deeper into this year, I was a big fan of a certain pairing, and then their fans took it too far and it affected the way I engaged with their performances and their work. I like that we have a new term for “fanservice” that communicates that you understand that this is for work. (thanks to NiNi for this comparison) I can look at the latest behind the scenes video from Last Twilight and say that I think Sea really understands the work they’re doing, and he and Jimmy have a very relaxed and mature version of BGP without feeling like I’m feeding into shipping.

Do I think they’re dating? No. Do I like the way they fake it? Absolutely!

I can look at one of @respectthepetty posts about Yin and War having personalized, color-coded mics, and we can talk about the next level BGP between the two and both communicate that we know that this is a performance.

It actually makes the extra PR work fun for me again, because now I can just shout “BGP! BGP! BGP!” and it not feel like I’m giving myself brainrot.

Thai BL Needs to Finish Stronger Next Year

Let’s get into some of the show stuff. This year was defined for me by Thai BL starting strong with good premises and then squandering them by not focusing on the details that mattered or leaning into baseless melodrama. Time for some reads. Some of these shows were generally good, but they failed at these things:

609 Bedtime Story: The world building crumpled in the back half and both endings are flat.

A Boss and a Babe: Cher is a pro gamer who worked for a gaming company and there was no plot point about this at all, or collaboration between the two groups.

Bake Me Please: Why was a show about cake so lacking in flavor?

Be Mine SuperStar: You had a real opportunity to explore a fan and idol romance and had Punn show so little growth. I hope the footage of First’s range is helpful now that Ja is out of BL.

Be My Favorite: You redid that whole amusement park date and muddled so much of what the hell happened on that day.

Between Us: You had years to make this interesting. Why are there five pairs and why is the end of this a JC Penny catalog photoshoot?

Dangerous Romance: What the fuck happened to the Sailom we had in episode 1 and 2 before that gun incident?

Hidden Agenda: Tee, what the hell was this? Twelve weeks of this?

I Feel You Linger in the Air: You may be the most beautiful show, with some of the most impressive performances of the year, but you absolutely botched this ending. Finish the goddamn season next time.

Love in Translation: I love you, but that whole kidnapping plot was so stupid at the end.

Low Frequency: I like your OST. That's about it.

My Dear Gangster Oppa: No examination about how gaming friendships become close quickly because of the combination of anonymity and teamwork (shout out to @twig-tea for this excellent summation).

My School President: Saving your gay commentary for the final episode felt like a conservative choice. I want more from you next time.

Naughty Babe: You retconned your own characters to tell a worse story. Unforgiveable.

Never Let Me Go: You didn’t know if you wanted to be a high school BL or a mafia story. It was difficult to watch.

Only Friends: I cannot believe you did Boston like that at the end. Either give Force’s character a clear personality next time, or keep him enigmatic; half measures make him and Book look worse. Sand was absolutely embarrassing. Boeing was a waste. Ending on all of them paired like that felt so unearned.

Step By Step: You forgot to ground Jeng’s external dreams at the end, so the final two episodes are just frustrating.

I’m glad I got that off my chest. We can go into the next year now.

Korea Put in the Work This Year

I really like the efforts from the various Korean studios this year. I really hope we get a Strongberry joint next year, but I want to acknowledge that we had 18 Korean BL dramas I watched this year, and at least three of them I think are must watches: Our Dating Sim, Sing My Crush, and The Eighth Sense. Beyond that, I think Love Tractor, Unintentional Love Story, and A Breeze of Love are easy recommendations.

It’s really impressive how the complaint for me this year with Korean BL is not about them using their time poorly. It’s more about normal drama concerns, where I think characterization is a little weak, or a theme doesn’t land squarely. This rapid iteration from the Korean studios is really impressive to watch, and I’m excited to see what some of the recognized players do next year.

Taiwan and The Philippines Have Been Quiet for Me

I wasn’t really able to connect with much from the Philippines this year except for The Day I Loved You. I never wrote about The Day I Loved You, but this beautiful and heart wrenching show is one of my favorites from this year. I wasn’t too keen on the Oxin Films offerings of this year, and I’m still chasing down the ones from The IdeaFirst Company.

As for Taiwan, this new BL project from the end of the year just isn’t hitting. Kiseki: Dear to Me also ended up really hurting me with the way they used Wayne Song and Huang Chun Chih. I love that angry little man with the white hair, but I’m still salty about Wayne and the general mess of that show.

Japan was Busy This Year

I watched 16 new shows, a few older ones, and a few movies this year from Japan. We haven’t gotten this much from them ever. I continue to love the Drama Shower project from MBS, and my beloved What Did You Eat Yesterday? returned this year. We had pretty stellar outings with Our Dining Table, If It’s With You, and I Cannot Reach You.

I think a third of the Japanese BL I’ve tracked on MDL actually released this year. That’s huge.

Still, I am going to side eye Minato’s Laundromat 2. You were the show that let me down the most this entire year. More than Only Friends, more than Step By Step, and even more than Kiseki. You absolutely blew it. You were telling a great story about a man with an acute case of internalized homophobia coming out of his shell and learning to love his younger partner and you blew it for stupid amnesia nonsense. I will never forgive you for this.

Where Were All the Uncles This Year?

Really, without Jim from Moonlight Chicken, and without the men from What Did You Eat Yesterday? we had an alarming dearth of older gay characters passing on knowledge and wisdom to the youngsters this year. What the hell happened?

Rare Dynamics Won: Second Chance Romance and Friends to Lovers!

We had so much second chance romance this year. It’s really my favorite version of gay romance because gays don’t always have ideal settings when they’re young. We had Our Dating Sim, Individual Circumstances, Jun & Jun, The End of the World With You, Tokyo in April is…, Be My Favorite, Love Class Season 2, and A Breeze of Love. I am satisfied.

Friends to Lovers is actually so rare in romance and we have so many to choose from this year! The best examples are I Cannot Reach You and Sing My Crush, but we also have one of the pairs in Love Class Season 2.

Gay Thoughts

I had a couple of ongoing thoughts this year about queerness in BL.

First, I want to return to my post about Sing My Crush and La Pluie, and how I assert that Men Need to Be Angry Sometimes. More than giving men grace to be righteously angry or upset about things, along with letting them express it in ugly ways, I really want to get into how we engage with these shows. I will stop engaging with moralistic reads on characters in 2024. I will no longer engage with asks, reblogs, or meta gripping the fandom where we're judging the moral fiber of the character.

The question that really only matters for me at this point is: Is this act from the character justified from their characterization, the narrative, or genre conventions; and is it interesting? Whether or not the character is good or bad reeks of the lame arguments about good and bad representation, and I am not watching BL like I’m being graded in Sunday school.

The second thing I really want to acknowledge at the end of the year is that the gay sex is finally getting better again. I watched The Novelist this year, and we have taken so long to get back to the space that show took us on the portrayal of male-male intimacy. We are in the genre about people with dicks. It should feel like it. There should be a masculine component there that feels specific to queer intimacy.

I will acknowledge 2 Cutie 2 Pie, A Boss and a Babe, Be Mine SuperStar, Bed Friend, Candy Color Paradox, For Him, I Cannot Reach You, Kiseki: Dear to Me, La Pluie, Love Class 2, Love in Translation, Love Mate, Middleman’s Love, Naughty Babe, Only Friends, The End of the World With You, Tokyo in April is…, and Wedding Plan for your contributions.

Final Thoughts

I like how broad the genre felt this year, and I enjoyed how much speculative fiction is entering into the conversation. I don’t know how I feel about there being five vampire stories in the works next year, but overall I’m glad that we’re getting more experimental concepts. I’m burnt out on the college engineering BL, and would like to see more shows about working adults.

Despite how grumpy I was for at least three months, I think this has genuinely been one of the best years we’ve ever had in the genre. I made a lot of new friends in BL this year, and I’m excited to see what comes next. Thank you all for spending some of your time with me this year and I’ll see you in the next one.

[ice-ice-lizzie]

Translation of the Thomas Bordeleau interview on episode 329 of the Sans Restriction podcast hosted by Kevin Raphael. Bold text was originally in English and translator's notes are in brackets. Additional notes are at the end.

Host: Tommy B on the podcast. Tommy B, do you have a new tattoo?

Thom: Mmmm. No. No. Not so far.

Host: It's the same? I haven’t seen [unintelligible].

Thom: (shows him the tattoos on his shoulder)

Host: Okay, ehhhhh.

Thom: I’ve got ‘Bordeleau’ like that (shows tattoo on his bicep) and ‘Bordeleau’ over here as well (shows tattoo on the back of his arm).

Host: Ohhhh. Ohhhhh. It’s like La Valle*. How’s it going Big Dog? Happy to see you, happy to see you, man. How’ve you been spending the summer? You’ve been training here [in Montreal]?

Thom: I’m doing alright. I haven’t seen you too often lately.

[both talking at the same time]

Host: We should go to L'Alliance. I have tickets. I have tickets for L’Alliance.

Thom: Yes, yes.

[both talking at the same time again]

Thom: But ummm, no, it’s going well. Just taking a break and then training. Our season ended early in (he pauses to think) mid-April?

Host: Yo. That’s on paper. (Laughing) Your season ended in mid-February. 

Thom: Exactly. Yeah, unfortunately. [Making playoffs] was not in reach that early in the season, but, uh, no, it is what it is. I took a month off.

Host: What did you do? When you were in San Jose and the season ended, you guys had your meetings or whatever the next day I guess?

Thom: Mmm yeah. On the next day maybe, or to give it some time, two or three days later.

Host: So you take care of business and then you come here?

Thom: They can ship your equipment.

Host: Oh! They ship your equipment?

Thom: It’s the teams who do it. It depends on the equipment manager and what they want. We’re lucky. But uhh I ship my car and I keep my equipment in my car so it doesn’t really matter.

Host: So you put your gear in your car and you send it all in a boat?

Thom: No, it’s just on a truck that drives it across country.

Host: Shit, Quebec is [unintelligible] man.

Thom: It’s expensive. Really expensive.

Host: Oh yeah? It’s bad eh?

Thom: It’s a little insane. Having two cars might be worth it. It’s a shit show shipping everything across the continent.

Host: Because you ship everything before [the season] and after [the season]?

Thom: Yeah. Now the team helps but at the beginning, (giggling) at the beginning I did it all.

Host: What’s the thing, that right now, you know, there’s the team, but did you ever think to yourself did I really pay for all of that at the beginning, for real man?

Thom: Oh

Host: There’s plenty of things in this job that I have to do myself, there’s a lot. There’s a lot.

Thom: Sometimes, just for simple things, like food or supplements anyways, like [unintelligible] for nothing. It’s funny I was talking to my dad and he said ‘when you’re playing everyone wants to give you everything for free but you don’t appreciate it until after your career is over because that’s when you need the paid promotions but no one wants to give them to you.

Host: My method is to buy clothes that I like, but after I put them on, I take a photo, or someone takes a photo, it’s on Instagram, put it on Instagram stories, and it’s like yo Kev’s wearing these clothes.

[both taking at the same time]

Thom: For free.

Host: I’m like I ain’t no bitch. Send the goods!

[both talking at the same time]

Thom: It helps to wear the clothing that they give you. Shout out Elwood. They sent me-

Host: Who?

Thom: Elwood.

Host: Where are they from?

Thom: L.A. It’s a brand from L.A. They’re good.

Host: Shout out. (looking into the camera) Yo Elwood! (looking back at Thom) Elwood?

Thom: (laughing) Elwood.

Host: (looking into the camera) Elwood L.A. Yo yo yooooooo. Sans Restrictions podcast needs some Elwood. 

Thom: Thanks guys.

Host: Tommy B needs some Elwood.

Both: (laughter)

Host: Ok, so the season ends and you come here but you’re not on vacation.

Tom: Yeah, I had to stay here for a bit because my grandmother has health problems that made it so we needed to stay here with her and my grandfather, then three weeks after we came here, we took a little trip to South Carolina to golf. It was nice. Incredible temperatures.

Host: It’s only me who can say ‘that shit white.' [Host is black]

Tom: Oh yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Real white.

Host: South Carolina, bro? Like the people there are called Corwin. There’s no Mustafas, there’s no-

Tom: Yeah, there’s not a lot.

Host: There’s like ‘John’

Tom: (snorts) Richard.

Host: Richard. Paul.

[both giggling too much to say anything]

Host: But how’s the golfing down there?

Thom: Insane.

Host: You’ve seen my swing, man?

Thom: On the ice, we’d call it a slapshot, but that’s- that’s not-

Host: It goes straight.

Thom: Yeah, yeah it goes straight.

Host: I can still hear the sound of it-

Thom: But it can actually go too far. It can go too far.

[both talking at the same time]

Host: What’s your [furthest distance]**?

Thom: Not too far. 250? 300?

Host: That’s a lot. That’s a lot. What’s your problem?

Thom: Well, you’re right. I [unintelligible] yesterday. At the tournament, I mean not tournament, at the Benjamin Saint Just Foundation ummmm yeah. They did 400 for the longest drive of the day.

Host: You’re shitting me. This guy is fucking with us. Josh, we invite him on the podcast and he’s fucking with us a little. It’s laughable, Josh. Ok. So the season ends and you’re training how many times a week?

Thom: Everyday.

Host: Every day on the ice?

Tom: No, everyday in the gym. On the ice at the beginning, two times a week, later in the summer three, four, five times a week.

Host: Then how… The season is long. Bro, I listened to the games. I looked for you. 

Thom: (laughing through his nose)

Host: Shit, it’s long bro. How is it so long?

Thom: The hardest game of my life was the one that was 10 to 1 against the Oilers at the end of the year. 

Host: It was 10 to 1?

Thom: It was bad in every sense of the word. They were just getting through us all over the place.

Host: Oh shit.

[Both laugh]

Host: Ok admit it, admit it, it was 7 to 1 there, and-

Thom: No, but it was 4-0 after like five minutes and we were like oh my god.

Host: How does that happen? 4-0 after five minutes.

Thom: Well, we had a lot, we had a lot of our players who weren’t playing.

Host: Bro, 4-0 after five minutes is classic but [something I can’t make out about comedians in the NHL]

Thom: Yeah, It was tough. It was tough. A tough game. I think that-

Host: When it got to 9 to 1, was there any chatter on the bench? 

Thom: Well, no.

Thom: Well, no.

Host: Was anyone talking?

Thom: No. We were trying to do something. We were trying to play well. We were trying. The worst thing, I think, was, if I can remember, I think I’m right, but I think, it was 9-1 at the end of the second.

Host: Impossible.

Thom: Or maybe the beginning of the third, because I remember there was a good moment at the end of the game where we didn’t score but, like, we could have had, we could have had it.

Host: Bro. Did you ever have a game this shitty at Michigan or..? (trails off laughing)

Thom: Yeah… I’m sure. I’m sure. It’s tough. You don’t want to get into the habit of losing. You don’t want to develop that kind of mindset. I’ve never had that mindset. Each loss really pisses me off***. It happened so often, but it’s hard to develop an ‘ok, onto the next day’ mindset when it really pisses you off, when you want to win.

Host: At least this year they played you more.

Thom: Yeah, they used me a lot at the end of the year. I really, I found my game in the NHL. I found the optimal place for me, how I see the game, how I think about the game. It clicked.

Host: What was your favorite moment from this year? Not necessarily a goal but like was there a moment there that made you go nice?

Thom: Damn. Umm there’s a lot. Well, at the beginning of the year when we took our team trip to Napa, when I made the team after camp, after I made the team at the beginning of the year, then we took the team trip to Napa. It was my first team trip in the NHL. It was fun. I found it really fun. Ummm, then another moment, another good moment, it was really nice. it was one of those games where I scored twice.

Host: ‘One of’ (laughing).

Thom: No, but it was against Chicago and it was really nice because it was rare this year. It was tough for the fans because of how often we lost and even at the end of the year they showed up. It was really packed. It was a nice feeling, especially at home.

Host: Tell me about the Connor Bedard effect. You’ve played two games against him, right?

Thom: Yeah, two games.

Host: So what’s it like, the Connor Bedard effect?

Thom: It’s crazy. Everyone is already a fan. He’s like the next big thing****, he started with fans, like he already has a fan base. I guess everyone is talking about him, even the journalists.

Host: So, when you see him you want to give him [unintelligible but he does a hand motion like a punch].

Thom: (laughing) No, well, we have lots of friends in common.

Host: You have friends in common? 

Thom: Kent Johnson, who I played with in Michigan.

Host: Ohhhh, true. So you’ve already seen him.

Thom: We’ve crossed paths at NHLPA events and things like that.

Host: There’s going to be rumors, you know. They’re going to say ‘Yo, Tommy B is boys with CB’.

Thom: (laughing) No, no, we’re not boys. 

Host: No, but do you have boys, besides Kent Johnson, that play with you guys, that you play against in the NHL? You know, a lot of the time in basketball you play against someone a little and there’s a respect that develops and he becomes your boy, right?

Thom: Yeahhh, uh, not lately, just because I was moving up and down between the AHL and the NHL.

Host: You were up more than you were down this year, right?

Thom: I didn’t play badly, but I did play more down than I did up. I spent a little over half the season down [in the AHL]. They brought me up just before the deadline. [Unintelligible] playing with all these teams like that. In the AHL, the players, the roster changes so often. It’s really the guys from Quebec that stick together. 

Host: Do you talk to each other very often on the ice?

Thom: Yeah, sometimes. It depends on how you know each other, but there’s even times when you know each other really well but you won’t talk on the ice, just before or after.

Host: In San Jose, you’re the Barracudas?

Thom: Yeah, Barracuda. Yeah. It’s a really good place for the AHL. A new arena, a new dressing room. Listen, for me, the jerseys are good quality, everything is beautiful.

Host: Did you keep a jersey? Did you keep a Barracuda jersey?

Thom: I have a couple, I think.

Host: So you went to Napa, and you also played in the opening game.

Thom: It was a good moment, the opening game. 

Host: They said your name!

Thom: It was nice. My first opening game in the NHL. It was really cool.

Host: What do you say, [unintelligible] up in the NHL?

Thom: Uhhhh yes. Yes, but it’s just… It was the first time that I really did that up in the NHL and I want to appreciate it as much as possible.

Host: Were you able to sleep before the opening game?

Thom: Yeah, yeah I had a nap, yeah. Each game day I take a nap. We had a morning skate that morning, after that I went back to our house. I made myself eat. A lot of the time I’ll do normatec^, like I do a lot of things for my legs, just for recovery things for my legs, then I make myself eat. Just pasta all the time before I go to sleep.

Host: The same thing?

Thom: Bolognese. All the time.

Host: All the time?

Thom: Spaghetti Bolognese.

Host: You eat that before going to sleep, bro? That’s the sort of thing my coach told me never to do in gym class. Here comes Kev, you’re already a fat fu-

Thom: It’s a forty minute nap. 

Host: A forty minute nap?! [He says something about 20 minutes that I can't make out because they're talking over each other]

Thom: Quick, quick, quick. 45 is perfect for me.

Host: Now we know the demands of the NHL. Pasta and then sleep!

Thom: No, but everyone sleeps before they eat. Everyone has a pre-game meal in the NHL. I’ve done it ever since I came to the NHL.

Host: Oh, yeah?

Thom: Like, the pre-game meal is at one in the afternoon, two in the afternoon. You eat, you take your nap, you have a snack.

Host: Do you have a place far away from the arena or are you close?

Thom: Close. Just beside it. I live downtown. Right there in the middle of it. 

Host: Are there guys who stay there because they live too far away?

Thom: Where? At the arena?

Host: Yeah.

Thom: Oh, no, no. Morning skate is over at ten in the morning and we don’t have to be there for the game until 4:35.

Host: So your favorite game was the first game, but you had two goals against Chicago and then who else?

Thom: Ottawa.

Host: Ohhh, but Ottawa… [trails off with the implication that he thinks that Ottawa won the game].

Thom: Oh but us (starts laughing).

Host: (laughing harder) 

Thom: Like, we really played well that game, like we were good in that one^^.

[talking over each other]

Host: My guy said ‘us’. (lots of laughing) What song would you choose to put over your goal highlights when you put them on insta reels?

Thom: Damn. Right now-

Host: Not Like Us, by Kendrick Lamar. Yes!

Thom: (laughs) One of Wun.

Host: What’s that, One of Wun?

Thom: From Gunna’s new album.

Host: Oh.

Thom: Mmm-hm.

Host: Oh, yeah?

Thom: Mm-hm.

Host: Okay. That’s not North Carolina. [I think he’s trying to reference earlier when they were talking about South Carolina].

Thom: Nope. Not at all. Not at all. It’s far away.

Host: (mimes playing a banjo) Dinga-linga-a-ling, dinga-ling-a-long. Banjo! 

[both giggling]

Host: So, do you celly? When you-

Thom: I could but no. I don’t really do a big celly.

Host: You do the- (badly mimes the heart breaker celly)

Thom: Not really, no.

Host: Who does that one?

Thom: Kane.

Host: Ohh, it’s Patrick Kane who does it.

Thom: Yeah, the heart breaker (mimes the heart breaker celly very small).

Host: Yeah. Ohhhh, you know the name?

Thom: Yeah, you make the heart and then you break it after. (mimes the heart breaker celly).

Host: It’s a heart, bro?

Thom: Heart breaker. (mimes the heart breaker celly).

Host: I thought he was swimming!

Thom: No, no, no, no.

Host: I swear to you, no one knows that.

Thom: Well, that’s what it is. The celly is called the heart breaker.

Host: That’s a team USA thing.

Thom: Everyone who plays hockey knows about it.

Host: (to the producer) Bro, did you know about that? No one knows that it’s called the heart breaker.

Thom: Wow.

Host: We’re going to put that on tiktok. Who knew it was the heart breaker? What’s your favorite celly?

Thom: The heart breaker is beautiful. I’ve never done it but I think it’s great. When someone does it, it’s hockey. But it’s Kane who came up with it.

Host: Oh, he came up with it?

Thom: [He says something about Kane and showtime that I cannot make out]

Host: I like it when you jump. When you jump in your cellies, it’s nice. It makes for good photos. But do you guys celly after every goal?

Thom: A lot of the time I lift up one leg or go to my knees.

Host: Ok, that’s a celly. When someone scores and doesn’t even raise their arms, I’m like, man why don’t you, it’s fucking difficult in the NHL.

Thom: Yeah. Sometimes I do that, but it also depends on the goal and the game.

Host: Even if it’s 10 to 1-

Thom: I guarantee you when Edmonton was beating us 6 to 0 and we scored, I did not celebrate much.

Host: Ok. Are you satisfied with your season? What’s your evaluation? Your first real season.

Thom: My second. For the first one, I spent the majority of the year in the AHL. That was my first real pro season. 

Host: So it’s your third year?

Thom: My second full year. My second year that I finished. So I burned that first year when I signed after Michigan and played some NHL games and then after summer.

Host: Oh, it was games at the end of the year.

Thom: Yeah. Games at the end of the year.

(Both laugh)

Thom: Prime time! Prime time!

(they toast with their mugs)

Host: [He says something in English but I can not understand him] (pointing at Thom) He has good people giving him advice! He burned a game!

Thom: No, well, when you sign your contract after you’re 20 and you play a game in the NHL you burn a year.

Host: Mmmm.

Thom: But if you sign before you’re twenty, it’s ten games.

Host: Oh, so you did ten games.

Thom: No, for me it was one game.

Host: Yo, that’s crazy bro. I need your agent in my life, man.

Thom: Pat Brisson. Shout out.

Host: Yo, shout out Pat. Okay, there are lots of comedians who listen. Do you have some advice for them, because I have a problem with you. You, you’re so chill until the third period and then you go crazy. You go crazy! If there’s only 5 minutes left, we’re still sitting on the bench because we can’t play without you. What advice do you have, not for me, because I have a good shot like Antony Duclair, but if you had one piece of advice to give, what would it be?

Thom: Find… umm… the spot on the bench that’s the most comfortable.

Host: (shocked laughter) WOW.

Thom: I’m sorry. (big laughter)

Host: WOW. You there on the ice, such trash talk.

Thom: No no no. (laughing)

Host: It’s impossible. It’s impossible that you don’t trash talk. First of all at Michigan, you trash talked.

Thom: Oh totally.

(both laughing)

Host: Ok. Ok there. We’ve got to be PG, but what is your best trash talk? Your best PG trash talk?

Thom: The best trash talk was our student section at Michigan. They’d look for the families of the players, and they’d get their pictures and social media, ex girlfriends, tinder profiles, all of that.

Host: Shit. You dodged the question by saying that.

Thom: (laughter)

Host: It’s good, it’s good, it’s good. You’re nasty, man.

Thom: PR trained.

Host: You’re nasty. That’s how- no one was talking about it when you came into the league. You explained that it’s not a big deal, but after that, after three years, how do you manage the PR and all of that?

Thom: Uh, well for me, I’ve been lucky with my agent, Pat Brisson. The year before the draft, he had a camp in L.A. We did a practice draft. He made us watch a practice about the news about new supplements and then someone caused a concussion and at the same time-

Host: I caused a concussion..

Thom: (laughs) And at the same time there was an actor from Grown Ups-

Host: Oh yeah?

Thom: -who did our PR training about how to like, show your personality, without putting yourself in a bad spot. He prepared us really well. And then there was a little bit about how to do social media.

Host: It’s not a big deal but that’s not what Jean Sebastian [Dea] said. [Jean-Sebastian Dea's NHL contract was terminated shortly after he appeared on the Sans Restrictions podcast].

[both laughing]

Thom: No comment.

Host: I’m the only one that’s going to lose his job after this podcast. (laughing) Oh man. Okay. It’s true [unintelligible] after the podcast.

Thom: I don’t know about that, but I’ll be surprised if that’s what happens.

Host: Bro, man, [Jean-Sebastian Dea] texted, bro bro [Dea] goes all out for the podcast, okay? Then me, each time I feel like going all out-

Thom: Did you fact check it?

[I’m omitting like three sentences here that make no sense to me]

Host: He came on the podcast.

Thom: He came on the podcast at Christmas?

Host: No at the end of the year. The end of the year. Anyways, he said things, bro. I said what am I going to do with you, man. I said to Bruno [the producer], can we do that? Is that something we can put out? And he said yeah, we can put that out, so I did it and he lost his job. I felt so bad. They said terminated or whatever. I felt bad. I panicked. I texted him, not at the beginning, I texted him two days later, I said yo, my bad, man, he said no, it is what it is, I wanted it. I wanted to sign with the KHL. I said Man, fuck this mother fucker, man. I couldn’t sleep!

Thom: I felt bad!

Host: I couldn’t sleep, bro! But he comes on the pod all the time. He’s welcome to go all out on the pod, the Russians don’t blink, you can say whatever you want^^^. Ok, so what’s been the hardest thing for you right now during your transition from your first year as a pro to your second year? What was the hardest thing, apart from losing 10 to 1?

Thom: Getting sent down to the AHL in my second year.

Host: Oof.

Thom: Yeah, that felt bad.

Host: Did they call you? (mimes putting a phone up to his ear)

Thom: No, it was- At training camp, I made the team, and then I played, mm (he’s counting in his head) eight games? Nine games?

Host: But that went well, didn’t it?

Thom: Personally, I thought it did, but we went zero for ten in the first ten games.

Host: (giggling).

Thom: Something had to give. But you know, obviously, I was the youngest on the team, besides Eklund. And it was me, then Eklund. They wanted me to go back to the AHL. They called me on a road trip that was like seven games, which is a long time to be on the road. We went from California to Florida with stops in Nashville, the Hurricanes, all that. We were on game seven of the road trip and there was a rest day after game six, but before the morning of game seven, at the hotel, the GM called me and came and met me in the lobby. I’d been in the middle of taking a walk, because when we stay in Washington, it’s really beautiful in Georgetown, like around the Four Seasons. It’s really cute. So I was taking a walk, and I was like 15 minutes away from the hotel and he called me and I turned right around and I had a 15 minute walk back and I called my dad because I was sure they were going to send me down. They had just scratched me the game before. I played like 6 games, then I was scratched, then they put me back in the line up for two games, then my last game in the NHL before they sent me down, I remember it was against the Tampa Bay Lightning, we lost, like 8-0. We were more dominated than the game where we lost 10-1. It was horrible. I can’t remember anything except for one zone exit. I think that for me, that was a traumatic NHL game.

Host: He was traumatized!

Thom: One of the things that made me like that, [the zone exit] didn’t bother me until they sent me down.

Host: But that’s crazy, you didn’t have a chance-

Thom: Oh, no, no. Not at all, they tried things-

Host: But that’s not what you told yourself because, for me-

Thom: There was nothing to do, I was just trying to grind it out.

Host: I coach soccer. When the other team drives the ball to us there’s a moment where someone gotta do something.

Thom: Yeah, but…

Host: Hey. Hey.

Thom: But we didn’t necessarily have the tools to-

Host: There wasn’t someone to do something. 

Thom: We had Hertl, who did everything for us, but-

Host: Yeah, yeah, but he was all alone.

Thom: Yeah, and Couture was injured the entire season. He had a rough year, unfortunately. He came back for seven games. The seven best games for the Sharks by far. He’s a big piece.

Host: His impact is crazy.

Thom: He’s incredible, a great guy. The best dude ever. He’s really [unintelligible] you can’t replace him. He’s just there to help. He’s like another coach. If you have a question about anything you can ask him and he’ll answer you. He’s my go to when I have a question about anything, it’s him that I ask. He gives me an answer every time with pleasure. He really comes in clutch.

Host: Ok. You lost 8 to 0 and you were at the Four Seasons…

Thom: Yeah, 8-0 and we were at the Four Seasons, I took my walk and they called me, and when I got back then they started talking to me, and I said I think I know where this is going, eh they said unfortunately-

Host: That’s how they welcomed you?

Thom: Well, you know. I didn’t want… I didn’t want… There were other, really good players in the NHL, it’s a tough league. I didn’t want to seem like I had a bad attitude especially because I wanted them to call me back up as fast as possible. Just like, I wanted to play in the AHL and play good minutes, the power play, 5 on 5, and I did that, and when they called me back up to the NHL I wasn’t sent down again because at the end of the season I was playing my best hockey.

Host: And how did they announce that you were being called up again?

Thom: My AHL coach called me and told me, yeah you’ve been called up, you’ll practice with the others tomorrow.

Host: Ok, but talk to me about how it felt! When you were sent down you went from taking the jet to taking the bus.

Thom: Yeah. Yeah.

Host: What takes 2 hours in the NHL takes 12 hours in the AHL.

Thom: Exactly, yeah. It wasn’t that bad but my back did hurt.

Host: So they called you and told you you’re going back to the NHL. How did you react?

Thom: Ah. I was miserable because it was late at night and I just wanted to go back to bed, so I was miserable, but then they told me and I was really excited. And then I didn’t want to go back to bed because I, like, wanted to enjoy it as much as possible before going to bed because I knew as soon as I woke up in the morning it would be like boom business, so I went to bed trying to savor it.

Host: (pretending he’s Thom) Yay! They called me up! [unintelligible]

Thom: Yeah. You switch to a different mode. You enjoy each day. I spent a lot of time with the boys, all of them, even the older guys. It was good to see them again.

Host: So how does like, you’re the smallest one there, right?

Thom: Mmm hmm.

Host: You play like (gestures and makes zooming noise). I have season tickets for the Rocket [the Canadiens AHL affiliate]. Jesus Christ, those guys don’t look where they’re going. I said to Jean-Phillipe Vautier at the celebrity game when he landed a big hit on me, you saw that?

Thom: No.

Host: When he hit me?

Thom: Oh yeah, I think I did see that.

Host: He laid me out, I was like disrespect.

Thom: Me, I’m lucky. I have a guy called Bokondji Imama who changed division.

Host: Oh! You played with Boko?

Thom: Well, I played against him in the AHL.

Host: You played against Boko? Toughhhhh. Was Boko still there when you got sent back down?

Thom: (laughing) Oh, Boko, he’s my boy.

Host: he said, ohh, Boko he doesn’t fuck with me.

Thom: I hope. [unintelligible because he’s laughing so hard]

Host: I know that Boko switches.

Thom: Oh yeah, you see it. Alright, I remember looking for someone else and then, next thing you know, he’s suspended for three games. Damn. Boko’s a different beast.

Host: The toughest guy that I’ve ever met is Boko Imama.

Thom: He skates really fast, he’s the whole package. Shout out Boko Imama.

Host: I saw him at a Rockets game and he was punching guys. Everyone was like eh I’m good. He was pulling on their jerseys like this (pulls the collar of his shirt away from his body). I’m good, I’m good. You’ve never fought, right? You’ve never dropped gloves?

Thom: Me? No, never. I’ve never fought.

Host: You don’t have the taste for it? What’s the closest you’ve ever been to fighting?

Thom: Ah, uhh, there was a moment in the AHL during a back to back where I threw a punch but I didn’t finish it.

Host: It’s what you’ve got to do. I don’t want you to fight because it’s dangerous. (Looks to the camera, pointing) [unintelligible] you ain’t doing this shit. (back to Thom) But you’re capable and say you’re on a team and everyone is squaring off with someone, ok?

Thom: (barely holding back laughter)

Host: Do you look for the smallest guy? Do you scan the crowd or is it really-

Thom: It’s really- It’s the closest guy and if the closest guy is the biggest, you’re like fuck. If the closest guy is the biggest one I just try to keep- I just try to-

Host: What do you guys say to each other when you’re squaring off like that? Like, yo, We’re not the same weight class. You’re heavyweight, I’m lightweight. Do you say, 'it’s not my problem, it’s not your problem, we good? We good'.

Thom: A lot of the time, a lot of the time it’s like that, except for when the other guy did something cheap.

Host: Right, except for that.

Thom: Then there’s no choice. But like if a guy comes out of the penalty box, for something like a back check [laughing too much for me to understand him] (makes a fist and mimes punching someone)

Host: I have a concussion guys! Zach Patterson gave me a concussion. Ok ok. So the AHL, is it, I won’t say easier because there are people who don’t give full respect to the league, but-

Thom: It’s harder.

Host: Yeah. Oh It’s harder, eh? A guy like you has a good way of seeing things. You have good hands. Do you feel like you have more of a place in the NHL than the AHL?

Thom: A little. In a sense, yes just because there’s more finesse in the NHL. In the AHL I’m not a playmaker, I don’t decide games, whatever. There’s less control, it’s just less of a league, but at the same time, there’s enough skills guys on each team, it’s a very good league, but it’s a war every game. Fist after fist.

[someone off screen says something]

Host: You won’t watch AHL games?

Thom: It’s scary.

Host: Oh yeah, it’s more scary.

Thom: Yeah.

Host: Even when I watch the boys play, I text them during the game. (points towards the camera) Yo, by the way, if you play professionally, and you text me back while you’re playing you are a vagabond, ok? 

Thom: Yeah that’s weird.

Host: Yo there are so many guys. Yeah! You don’t do that in San Jose?

Thom: No.

Host: You better not.

Thom: (laughter) Put your phone away for the whole period.

Host: I won’t say who it was. I’m not going to snitch, but there was a guy who was texting me for two periods, who is in the NHL, during a very important game. I was working and then I saw a text from him and I was like, are you insane? And then he stopped responding. Do you get on your phone [during a game]?

Thom: No, but there are guys who listen to music on their phone, but no one is like texting (mimes holding a phone in front of him). Maybe sometimes there’s a guy who’s checked out of the game because he wants to text someone.

Host: Oh, huh. Are you going to go to Michigan?

Thom: No, but I went back at the end of last summer. It was really nice to skate with them, they’re a good group to skate with. I’m going to go back before the end of the year.

Host: But you’re not going for a game, for a presentation or anything like that?

Thom: No. No. Michigan, the regionals are in Saint Louis.

Host: Oh, yeah, I saw that.

Thom: We won against North Dakota.

Host: You won a national championship, right?

Thom: No.

[talking over each other- I can't make out what they're saying]

Thom: We lost the frozen four. Yeah. Tough game. One and done man. Tough game. All our season for one game, man.

Host: With all the talent you guys had?

Thom: Yeah.

Host: When you went back to the room and looked around you at all the talent-

Thom: Yeah.

Host: -did you say the fuck happened?

Thom: There were a lot of things expressed in that dressing room by the players there, unfortunately.

[both laughing]

Host: Yes! This is just for me. This is my overtime. What are you watching at the moment to relax?

Thom: I started-

Host: Rookie?

Thom: Alice in Borderland.

Host: What’s that?

Thom: (asking someone off screen) It’s what, Chinese? It’s like, like the same type of thing as Squid Games, but different.

Host: Would you do the Squid Games?

Thom: No, are you insane? It’s too much up to chance.

Host: But the game show version, would you do that?

Thom: Oh, the fake one? Oh yeah, well sure, I would do that. Will there be a Squid Games Quebec?

Host: Don’t give them the idea, man. They’re always looking for ideas. They have 100 USD hidden, what game do you think, without a team, which game could you do?

Thom: I’m trying to remember what the games were.

Host: There’s marbles, the one where you lick a cookie, there’s the, uhh, ice that you have to jump.

Thom: For me, I think the cookie one, or the first one where you have to turn around.

Host: Oh yeah.

Thom: It’s easy.

Host: Really, the cookie one?

Thom: Yeah, the cookie one.

Host: You’re not meticulous enough for that bro.

Thom: I’ll manage.

[both laughing. The host stands up and doubles over]

Thom: I have a wet mouth.

[both laughing more]

Host: Wooo. The podcast is almost over. The podcast is over, huh? Oh shit. I try to talk about business, because that’s what the podcast is for, but I also try to discover the person.

[Both of them laughing too hard to talk]

Host: You can’t make this shit up.

Thom: (takes a sip of water)

Host: I’m trying to reflect. I’m in a wedding, ok? (starts laughing again because Thom looks at him) Hold on, I’m trying to tell you. I’m in a wedding, and it’s all the same people together, and I’m in their wedding and at their wedding they have so many hockey players and I didn’t really know what was happening in the conversation but they explained to me, you know do your thing. Come on, Kev, do your thing, and after that I had 20 pros who were coaching me. Bro.

Thom: Like uncles.

Host: Best moment of my life. Best moment of my life. So I took their advice, you understand? It was theoretical, it was practical, right?

Thom: Yes.

Host: I did my thing, bro.

Thom: So you’re a pro now, or?

Host: No, no, no. My lady and me. She did my thing, bro. It was totally crazy. I woke up and I went to hide in the bathroom, and I texted my people like ‘yo, that worked!’

Thom: No way.

Host: Bro, since that day, bro, my game is at another level bro.

[both laughing]

[both talking over one another]

Host: (pointing at someone offscreen) You go out there (pointing at the door) and I’ll tell you (looking at Thom) something after.

Thom: Okay, okay.

Host: Okay, to finish, if they made a movie out of your life, what type of movie would it be? A romantic comedy, a thriller, what type of movie would it be and who would play you?

Thom: Damn.

Host: And don’t say Tom Holland, you’re too beefy for Tom Holland.

Thom: I don’t know, Tom Holland is pretty beefy.

Host: He goes to the gym?

Thom: Yeah, have you seen him?

Host: Tom Holland does not go to the gym.

Thom: He goes in Spiderman.

Host: Bro, that’s the wish version of Spiderman.

Thom: [unintelligible] Spiderman.

Host: Tobey McGuire is Spiderman bro. What are you talking about? I watched Endgame.

Thom: I have a special love for Tony Stark. I don’t know why, because Spiderman [unintelligible] Tony Stark.

Host: Really, Tony Stark?

Thom: Yeah.

Host: Really?

Thom: Yeah. Iron Man is just a different breed, different aura.

Host: Iron Man’s a little bit of a bitch.

Thom: You think so?

Host: Out of all the superheroes he’s the least powerful.

Thom: The least powerful?!

Host: Bro, he’s a robot.

Thom: But at the end- did you watch the movies? It’s because of him that everything works out! 

Host: It might be because of him that everything works out but-

Thom: The technology is insane. Insane.

Host: Alright, moving on.

Thom: He was able to beat Hulk.

Host: Hulk? Hulk isn’t that strong by himself.

Thom: Iron Man isn’t in the same division as the ones that can change reality-

Host: Oh those are whack, those are whack, man, Dr. Strange is a bitch, the day he’s not happy with the way things are he fucks off. The best one is Black Panther.

Thom: Dope. Dope.

Host: Wakanda! My king!

Thom: (into the camera) RIP. RIP.

Host: Ok so who would play you in the movie?

Thom: What type of movie?

Host: Clearly it would be a superhero movie.

Thom: Oh well, maybe. [unintelligible]

Host: [laughing too much for me to understand him]. Ok, so who would play you?

Thom: Who would play me? Uh, I like…

Host: (pointing at someone off screen) Help him.

Thom: The guy that played Harvey Spector, but like in a comedy movie.

Host: Harvey?

Thom: Harvey Spector.

Host: That guy is like 45.

Thom: You want someone that’s my age?

Host: Oh no, but I didn’t expect to hear ‘Harvey Spector’.

Thom: Okay but I don’t know actors that are my age. I think, in the world, like-

Host: Harvey Spector could work.

Thom: Yeah, I think for an adult me.

Host: Like a future you?

Thom: Yeah.

Host: And what would the title of your book be?

Thom: The title of my book? Damn. 

Host: I wrote a book, you know.

Thom: Oh really?

Host: I wrote a real book.

Thom: Nice. Is it good?

Host: This book is insane.

Thom: What’s it about?

Host: I can’t say.

Thom: Oh, so it’s not out yet. I’m sure I would have seen it otherwise. You made me think I missed it.

Host: Have you seen the Stanley Cup?

Thom: Seen?

Host: Yeah.

Thom: In my life, I think, yes? But I was young. As for my book, I’d call it bwater^^^^.

Host: bwater?

Thom: (holds up his glass of water) Bwater.

Host: Be water?

Thom: Be water. 

Host: Why?

Thom: Adapt. Change form according to your container.

Host: That’s fucking nice. Bwater I like that.

Thom: With a little b-

Host: Like a type of water? That’s great.

Thom: Marketing.

Host: Marketing, yo bwater. That’s a classic, you take off your jersey and underneath (he mimes opening up his shirt) bwater. Okay, last thing. Why are you wearing that hat? Are you a 49’ers fan?

Thom: Yeah, in San Francisco, San Jose-

Host: But are you a fan of the team?

Thom: Of course. I went to two games this year.

Host: A fan of the team for real?

Thom: Yeah.

Host: Y’all like to lose, huh?

Thom:  (laughter) It was a strong year for them.

Host: A strong year?

Thom: We’re doing good over here.

Host: You had two super bowls but you’re not in the Stanley Cup finals, you understand, so what are your extension requirements.

Thom: I remember we watched [the Superbowl] live in a restaurant as a team. We watched the TV like (leans forward and stares, eyes wide) what’s happening. I didn’t come back after they lost like that. But shout out to their insane season.

Host: Have you already told the guys on the team?

Thom: I haven’t said anything. I’ve seen Deebo [Samuel] at a shopping mall.

Host: You just crossed paths?

Thom: Yeah. He had shopping bags. He was with someone else.

Host: Did you say ‘What’s up’ to Deebo?

Thom: No, I didn’t say ‘What’s up’ to Deebo at that time. He was on a mission.

Host: In and out. (Laughter). I pass through that neighborhood sometimes.

Thom: Oh really?

Host: There’s [an In-N-Out Burger] in Montreal, did you know?

Thom: Is it uptown?

Host: No, it’s like, on Mansfield. There’s one over there.

Thom: But, no. The guys on the 49’ers I don’t know where they live, because the stadium is ten minutes from San Jose. It’s not in San Fransisco. 

Host: I don’t know where the guys are, but the stadium is insane, for example-

Thom: The stadium is sick but it’s ten minutes from San Jose, so it’s 35 minutes from San Francisco, you know?

Host: Have you had any other encounters with celebrities during the season?

Thom: During the season? Who have I met… (thinking)

Host: You don’t have a lot of celebrities in San Jose.

Thom: Uhhh, no we don’t have a lot in San Jose. At times at games we’ve had a couple.

Host: [something about Montreal]

Thom: We only come to Montreal once a year.

Host: Oh poor guy.

Thom: We come in the night before a game, maybe like 1 am and after we play, we leave.

Host: Tommy B?

Thom: Yo.

Host: Thanks a lot for coming on the pod. Do your thing. Off season. There’s no reason to work too hard.

Thom: Yes sir.

Host: Don’t say anything (turning towards the camera) PAY THE MAN.

Thom: (giggles)

Host: PAY. THE. MAN. Put the cash in his account! That’s all I’m asking! Lots and lots of cash! Alright. Pay the man.

Thom: Help your employee.

Host: (laughter) Help your employee. I said not to say anything and you say ‘help your employee’. [unintelligible] the poor thing. Shit.

Notes: *I'm not sure what La Valle is, or if I'm spelling it right. **I'm not sure how to translate this because I'm not familiar with golf terminology in English. ***The french phrase I’m translating as ‘pisses me off’ literally translates to ‘makes me shit myself’. Just a little french lesson for you guys. ****Thom said ‘le nouveau Kid’ like referencing Sid the Kid but translating it to ‘the new kid’ has different connotations in English than it did in French. ^a type of compression therapy ^^The score of the game that Thom is talking about was San Jose 2, Ottawa 1. Thom scored both of San Jose’s goals. ^^^The host is probably unaware but Dea’s KHL contract had already been terminated by the airing of this podcast. ^^^^This is probably a pun. L’eau is the French word for water, like in Bordeleau.

[torque-witch]

Anywho I have definitely left everyone here out of my life over the last few months so here are some highlights of my big accomplishments/adventures recently.

Buffalo Oddities Expo - Aug 3/4

Because my husband got in a wreck a few weeks before, I was able to snag my Bumble BFF along for the ride to Buffalo AND DC, which was such a blessing. Two traveling disabled enby’s was difficult but so so easy at the same time and I am very grateful for them!

Buffalo as a city was super weird bc everything closed at 5 on the weekends (?) but it ended up being the best show record so far for me! And that helped a ton going into our next leg of the trip. We also found this super cute boba place that uses loose leaf tea, real honey and mini boba (but we really just wanted the bottles!). Also Buffalo hotels are super expensive??? We stayed at a Red Roof and it cost almost as much as our DC hotel that was leagues better??

Then we drove home and immediately left again the next day for DC for my first Kpop concert 😬🥹

I was having an absolutely terrible flare up from traveling and vertigo in the hotel, but a couple sets in to the concert I felt like all the pain and yucky feelings went away. This was a birthday present from April to myself as a kind of, “I’ll probably never be able to do this again” that I had to wait until August for. ATEEZ came into my life at a really hard point last year and they have been an inspiration to me to keep going, so it was really an amazing experience to see them in person. Idc how cringey that may seem, but music is healing and the crowd was at 100% the whole show. The rafters were BOUNCING.

Now did I feel awful all the way home? Yes. But truly it made me so happy and my friend had a lot of fun too (so much that they said they will pay for their tickets next time 😂).

So now, late August I also have a few things on the agenda.

1. Pittsburgh Oddities & Curiosities Expo at the David G Lawrence Convention Center Aug 24th and 25th. I think its $10 entry online or $15 at the door?

2. I got accepted into the GROTA Envisions magazine for my Hel Mary pieces! So I've been working on a new one that fits their requirements for the last month or so. Will update when that is available to the public!

I think that's really it for now, but I do have a lot of shows in October, which is to be expected. September, hopefully I can work on these areas that need help in my business. And, more art has already dropped!

You can follow me elsewhere at

Instagram/Threads - dhdivination (where I post most often)

or join the Discord! https://discord.gg/3jrzh9V2Qc

[astrangetorpedo]

CATHERINE MARKS: BOYGENIUS, MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA, AND FINDING EMOTIONAL FREEDOM

by Daniel Gumble | 4/22/24

Award-winning producer Catherine Marks sits down with Headliner to reflect on a whirlwind start to 2024, the magic that went into boygenius’s the record, and how her enduring relationship with Manchester Orchestra has taught her the importance of unlocking true “emotional freedom”in the studio…

“It’s been a crazy start to the year,” Catherine Marks exhales as she joins us via Zoom from her London home on a bright, early-Spring morning in late March. “I keep thinking it’s September or something.” In reality, it’s a month to the day until the 2024 MPG Awards ceremony, which will see Marks fighting on three fronts for a trio of highly coveted gongs. This year she’s up for Producer of the Year (an award she won in 2018) and Mix Engineer of the Year, while the record by indie rock ‘supergroup’ boygenuis, produced by Marks, is shortlisted for Album of the Year. Taking place on April 25th at The Troxy in London, the night will provide the Australian-born, London-based producer a rare moment to reflect on what has been one of the busiest and most fruitful spells of her career so far.

In the first quarter of 2024, she’s been hopping between continents to work across a number of new records, while also squeezing in a visit to the Grammys and the Resonator Awards, where her work on the widely lauded the record was deservedly recognised. At the Grammys, boygenius won Best Alternative Music Album, as well as Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for Not Strong Enough, while the band themselves presented Marks with the Powerhouse Award at The Resonator Awards in recognition of her work on the album. “I definitely felt like I was invited to the cool kids’ party by accident,” she laughs.

As those who have spent time with Marks will attest, she is excellent company. In conversation she is entertaining, thoughtful, and insightful, not to mention generous with her time, as evidenced by her almost apologetic disclaimer at the start of our conversation that she is battling through illness to talk to us. Still, she’s happy to speak at length about the year she’s had and what’s been keeping her busy in the first quarter of 2024.

“I started an album at the end of December with a band called Divorce and the day after we finished, I flew to LA, and the Resonator Awards were the day after that,” she says. “It was this intense period, and I don’t feel like I’ve really taken stock of that week in LA and meeting all those amazing people. And having already done a full album, it’s crazy! “It’s been a real whirlwind.”

The recognition Marks has received not just in the US but around the world for her work with boygenius certainly appears to have shifted the dial on her career. She was already a highly sought after, multi-award-winning producer and engineer, having cut her teeth with studio icons Flood and Alan Moulder and cultivating a client list that includes, to name a few, the likes of Foals, Alanis Morissette, Wolf Alice, Frank Turner, The Big Moon, and Manchester Orchestra, with whom she has become a regular collaborator.

We were both holding back tears… it was one of those magic moments.

However, when three of indie rock’s most celebrated songwriters, Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus decided to join forced under the boygenius moniker, few could have predicted the extent of acclaim and success their debut album the record would achieve. Their self-titled 2018 EP was met with critical acclaim, but offered little indication that their first full-length release five years later would go on to top multiple charts, scoop a raft of awards, and make the upper reaches of countless 2023 album of the year lists.

The iconography of the trio also elevated the record beyond the realm of the side project. From the album artwork, through to their already legendary take on Nirvana’s 1994 Rolling Stone magazine cover, which saw the band kitted out in pin-striped business suits, everything about the project felt synonymous with a bona fide band, rather than something that existed on the periphery of each member’s full-time solo career.

“They wanted me to mix their first EP, but the timings didn’t work out, as I was working with Manchester Orchestra,” Marks explains, recalling the origins of her relationship with the group. “And they reached out to me because of my work with Manchester Orchestra. There was a lot of mutual love and respect for those guys. But I had a meeting with them via Zoom and that was the first time we’d seen each other’s faces, and that was when we spoke about making an album together.”

While the ‘supergroup’ concept that shrouds the boygenius project is something that Bridgers, Baker, and Dacus were acutely aware of, Marks says that there was no discussion of the matter in the studio. As she puts it, the sessions were very much akin to recording a band, as opposed to three solo artists coming together.

“I don’t think that the ‘supergroup’ aspect was ever a real consideration, as they are all just really great friends and love each other very much,” Marks affirms. “As far as songwriting is concerned, they had written individually but had also gone away to work on them together before we started making the album. They treated it very much like a band where three people were bringing songs in, and they were critiquing each other’s music and lyrics. There was a lot of collaboration.”

Despite the collaborative spirit that fuelled the sessions, the task of weaving a cohesive whole from three distinct creative voices was one that hung heavily on Marks’s shoulders.

“We all knew it had to be a cohesive album,” she states. “That was something that was on my mind, but I don’t think it was ever articulated. Somehow the aesthetic of the album feels really consistent, yet each of their individual identities still shines through. It weighed heavily on my mind, but through the power of magic it turned out to be a cohesive record [laughs]. A lot of the other collaborators and musicians that worked on the album also helped to create this consistent sonic thread that runs all the way through it.

“We spent the first three- or four-days doing pre-production and working out how wanted everything to feel, so we were collectively conscious of making sure there was a flow to the album,” she continues, describing how they set the tone for the sessions. “We had a ‘wall of dreams’ that we would throw ideas at and we would write down particular influences and then see if there were other songs that fitted that aesthetic. There were relationships and interconnections between each song. That’s something I do on other records too. But they were so militant I don’t think they would have let anything veer off track.”

They were the toughest customers I’d worked with. I underestimated the challenge.

When reflecting on the most memorable moments shared between herself and the band (“there are too many to mention”), Marks is reminded of an especially poignant moment shared with Dacus when working on one of the album’s many highlights, We’re In Love.

“Lucy and I arrived the night before everyone else to start work on the album, and she played me this song,” says Marks. “There wasn’t really a structure to it, but there was this stunning, gorgeous melody that I was so moved by. Throughout the course of the time we were at the studio she carried on working at it. I had been saying I think it absolutely needs to be on the album, but it doesn’t feel finished yet. So, she worked really hard at it and performed it for me, and I thought it was beautiful.

“Anyway, on the day that we ended up recording it, it was still light outside and it was just her and I in the studio, and she played it just on the acoustic guitar in the control room. I had a couple of mics set up, and there was this beautiful light streaming in, and you can sort of hear at the end she chokes up, as I did. We were both holding back tears… it was just one of those magic moments. It was all about the performance, not recording the guitar and then adding the vocals over the top. She just put everything into this performance, and it was magical. That’s a really strong memory. But there were so many of those moments.”

As to whether or not the sessions offered any indication as to the rapturous response the record would be met with upon release, Marks takes a moment to consider her answer.

“I mean [pauses] it’s been next level,” she says. “I knew it would be significant. There are moments when you think back and get butterflies, like, I’m really a part of something special here. So, there is a kind of instinctive but intangible knowledge that you’re working on something special. And they are incredible characters. They are three of the best songwriters that exist today, so something had to go right!”

In looking back at the process of making the record and the spotlight it has drawn towards Marks and her oeuvre, our conversation gravitates toward some of the other records that have moved the needle on her career.

“Every record feels like that,” she states. “One of the most significant moments was engineering the Foals record (Holy Fire, 2013) with Flood and Alan Moulder. I was known within the industry from assisting in studios, but the success of that record put me on a lot of people’s radars. It was the next step from engineering into production on a commercial level.

“And there have been moments like working on Wolf Alice’s first EP (Moaning Lisa Smile, 2014), The Big Moon’s first record (Love In The 4th Dimension, 2017). And all the work I’ve done with Manchester Orchestra. I love working with them, and it seems like every band I work with LOVES Manchester Orchestra. My relationship and work with them has allowed me to learn so much and has enabled me to work with so many other artists.”

Marks’s work with Manchester Orchestra has undoubtedly been one of the defining features of her career. After producing the US rock outfit’s fifth album A Black Mile To The Surface (2017), she has become a regular and much loved collaborator, yet the harmonious relationship that has flourished between band and producer since was initially born from more tempestuous circumstances.

“On the first record we made together we were really at loggerheads,” she reveals. “They were the toughest customers I’d ever worked with. I underestimated how much of a challenge it would be. It was their fifth record, and I thought they’ll be very well versed in the process of making album, and it’ll just be really enjoyable and different to a lot of the first album projects I’d been working on. But I was really wrong, because they were putting so much pressure on themselves to make it the best album, they’d ever made, otherwise they were going to stop what they were doing. I didn’t anticipate that. Also, they are really polite, so it took about two weeks to get to the bottom of what needed to be done, and that really opened the floodgates.

“The way we communicate is so much freer now, which means it’s more about the creativity and the collaboration rather than the psychology. There are no minds games or personality challenges, we just accept each other for who we are and want to make amazing music.”

As we bid our farewells and allow Marks to return to nursing herself back to health before another imminent trip to LA to produce the new Rise Against album in April and another Manchester Orchestra record starting in May, she is keen to point out that those early moments of friction can not only yield positive results but can be essential in unlocking a project’s potential.

“I actually encourage that kind of discourse in the studio,” she signs off. “I want people to feel free to be however they want to be in order to express themselves. There should be chemistry and conversation. And those little tussles you have can reaffirm what you believe in. Obviously, I wouldn’t encourage aggression, but frustration and anger can be a part of that, and there is something exciting about that level of emotional freedom.”

(x)

[moldy-mold]

Hey, long time no update! We’re almost halfway through the year and I’m only just recovering from February. :’)

I got into two car accidents (no one was hurt) back-to-back in February where I was not at fault for either, and sadly, one was a hit-and-run. Due to just… tons of issues with insurance, I am finally getting my car fixed. It was a struggle, but now we can have a happy ending!

We formed a hiking group in the spring when the weather was nice. I won’t lie, it was a really great decision. We’ve been trying to go to a new place each month to see the sights.

So random, but my mom back in FL found a pigeon chilling in the garage, so she picked him up and took care of him. His name is Jorge. Birds are my true love so I am very excited to meet him!

Work is fine and more stable now, compared to 2021 when the struggle was real. I have more freelance work on top of office work that I am kept busy 24-7. It’s been tough trying to draw fanart at home when you’re already drawing at work haha. Last month, I went a little too hard and injured my wrist and had to keep it in a brace for a few weeks. I still have to be careful, even now.

In other news, my roommate of 10 years is finally moving out to discover her life’s calling. It is a bittersweet feeling, kind of like a breakup haha. As a creature of habit, I had resisted the change. It took some time, but I’ve come to accept it. Money is still kind of an issue though (a single person apartment? in this economy?), so I’ve been trying to find a new roommate! With NO LUCK! :)

On a whim, I finally started Xenoblade 3 in April after my 31st birthday. My brother had gifted it to me for xmas, but I didn’t want to open the black hole (or “The Hole” as my friends lovingly call it) until I had drawn all that I wanted to draw for YGO. To be honest, I didn’t end up drawing all my ideas but I hit a road block in my creative drive. Well now I’m in the hole AND I have to find time to draw stuff! I have this dilemma every single day.

My friend and I booked tickets to see our friends in Mexico this October! I haven’t been abroad for 15 years, so I’ll have the pleasure of going to the beautiful city of Monterrey as my first international trip without my parents. I’m so ready…! Let me out…! *rattles the cage*

The Plant Saga

I took this photo a few months ago when the sun was finally coming out and my plants were in bloom again. I was afraid Lorenz (miniature rose) was going to die because he had spider mites… every single year. I managed to fend them off and now he’s doing quite well!

I’m most proud of my handling of MOMO (moth orchid) who is blooming again! I heard it was challenging to get orchids to rebloom, but I honestly didn’t have to do anything?

Other plants include: Zeon (taro) and Gimli (mint) and Shouyo (hens and chicks succulent) with the weird antennae.

The weather in GA has been really temperamental, and it hasn’t been as warm in May as it was last year, so some of my tubers haven’t regrown yet. Guess I’ll take more pictures in the late summer!

[scribbleseas]

The Indignant Pawn, Chapter XV: The Hand Of Karma

Description: You are Y/n Y/l/n- formerly known as Princess Helena, the runaway princess.

You're an assassin for hire who only agrees to find the worst of London's criminals at the business end of your knife; until a mysterious woman hires you to end the likes of Ciel Phantomhive, the King of the Underworld. You find yourself trading your weapons for your abandoned family crest in order to infiltrate his home as none other than Princess Marie-Louise, your twin sister. What's to happen when you find that the young Earl is more than a callous businessman?

OVERALL STORY WARNINGS: sexual assault (once in the prologue), objectification, misogyny, death, detailed description of blood/gore, detailed description of murder, lying, impersonation, theft, weapons, detailed panic attacks, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, kissing

CHAPTER WARNINGS: insinuated sexual assault, drug addiction (opioids)

Author’s Note: Happy Holiday Season, everyone! I’m sorry this was so late. Final exams and final research papers actually obliterated all of my time and creativity. However, I was determined to finish this chapter and get it out before the New Year. I hope it was worth the wait-- I’m thinking this will be the longest you will have to wait for a while. I should be able to go back to my previous semi-regular updating schedule (like every other week).

ps. i had more than half of this chapter formatted before tumblr decided to not work and deleted my progress. fuck.

Happy Reading!

- Dan

⇠ PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER ⇢

MASTERLIST

APRIL 13TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

“Ciel, what do you mean you were unaware that it is Marie’s birthday?” Lizzie’s smile faded, replaced by frustration in her eyes. In times like these, she most resembled her mother, attempting to keep a placid face despite her growing frustration. “Please, tell me you’re playing with me; you absolutely cannot be joking about this.”

When did Y/n decide to allow Lizzie to refer to her so casually? Ciel mused, but that was beyond the point. What mattered was that he now had to waste a day in celebration of a woman he had no desire to celebrate in the first place. He knew it was coming, more than aware where Princess Marie’s birthday appeared on a calendar. Unfortunately, that would be the same date as her vindictive twin, who had been impersonating her all this time.

Besides, Ciel had no way of knowing if Y/n even liked celebrating her birthday; he knew nothing about her childhood and teenage life. She could detest her birthday as he did his for all he knew. In all likeliness, he would never understand, given how closely she guarded her life’s complexities.

After all, Ciel’s birthday was the day of the fire that ruined his life, killing his family and destroying his home. The only present he received that year was a demon butler that he summoned from the pure hatred that poisoned his soul. Maybe Y/n’s birthday reminded her of the palace that was abusive enough to cause her to run away twice. 

“Lizzie, what I mean is: I have much more important things to worry about. Such as keeping her alive,” Ciel replied, sighing at the drafted letter in front of him. He was in the middle of penning a response to the man he put in charge of the hiring process for all of his new steamship fleets. Each ship needed a captain, a sufficient number of workers to load and unload heavy cargo boxes, and operators to keep the vessels working. Ciel had just finished reviewing each of his manager’s selections and was writing to approve each one. 

He lied, considering there was no real threat toward anyone besides himself. After all, the real Princess Marie was already dead, and all Ciel was “protecting” was her lying and bloodthirsty counterpart, sent to him as part of a ploy for his life. However, Ciel still had to remain consistent with each pretense. No one else could know the truth. 

“How could you be this obtuse?” Lizzie asked incredulously, with a newfound bluntness to her words. Ciel appreciated her more for it. “It’s the woman you love’s birthday today! You cannot sit idly by! I allowed our engagement to go to rubbish; don’t you waste that by not making her feel loved!” Lizzie exclaimed, quick hands pulling the half-written letter from Ciel’s focus to force him to focus on her. 

“Love her?” Ciel couldn’t fathom the idea of liking Y/n, much less loving her after gleaning the truth. It was a weakness, and if he hadn’t let himself grow so attached, he would not have needed the phone call to show him that Y/n was not Princess Marie of Schleswig-Holstein. There were too many signs that he let go because she made his heart drum in his chest with such ferocity he could hear it in his ears. “I don’t--” 

“Yes, you do love her,” Lizzie said with the same gumption Ciel noted during their private discussion at the wedding. They had a similar exchange; his cousin insisted he loved the princess, and he assured her he was incapable of all love. 

“One moment of her dancing with another man drove you half-mad,” Lizzie said, laughing sadly, despite the tears in her eyes. She dabbed at them with a napkin carefully. “I could only wish you would care for me that much.”

“I do care for you.”

“It’s not the same. Think about it.”

And he had thought about it. 

Y/n drove him half mad with her constant mimicry and her instantaneous sarcasm. Her relentless mind that formed such witticisms and strategy that either left Ciel defeated in a game of draughts or lying on the floor, writhing in pain. She hurt him. It was her mission to hurt him.

And yet, it was Ciel’s instinct to care for her-- beyond keeping her alive. Her smile painted his world. Her lips lit a fire in his stomach. When she laughed, shivers rolled down his spine. Even worse, Ciel would smile in response before he understood what he was doing. 

While it was his duty to care for both Lizzie and Y/n, he never found himself searching for ways to go out of his way and bring a smile to his formerly betrothed’s lips. Ciel never found himself thinking about Lizzie so much he felt deranged. He never would have offered an extension of his first kiss to his cousin in a fiery moment of unconstrained passion. A culmination of his frustration and the sheer depth of what he felt for the woman who both drove him beyond insanity and pulled him back into what felt like the body of a living human being.

He’d been a corpse. And she’d brought him back to life, forcing him to feel emotions he’d never-

Enough. 

He’d made himself blush. Damn it all. 

Ciel groaned, hiding his face in his hands. Days ago, he would never have allowed his cousin to see him so…vulnerable. But if not his cousin, who else? Ciel clearly couldn’t work through his emotions himself. Sebastian detested Y/n, and it didn’t take a genius to know why. If Ciel could feel himself changing, indeed, his soul was changing. It was brightening, and that wasn’t the sort of taste that lured a demon.

“Fine, fine,” he surrendered, ignoring his cousin’s delighted laugh. While he wasn’t sure he loved Y/n, there was some driving passion behind his feelings for her…despite her litany of deception and lies. “What do you reckon I do, then?” 

A half-decent Guard Dog would do nothing of this sort. He should have been writing detailed reports of his findings over the past several months to turn Y/n into the Queen, torturing her to find the name of her employer. It wasn’t possible for her not to know. He needed to understand the whole of this ploy she’d forced him through like a pathetic chess piece. 

But apparently, Ciel Phantomhive was ignoring his duties. He’d drafted that letter to Her Majesty over and over but discarded each attempt, unable to scribble the right words down. The right words to send Y/n to a probable execution.

Grinning broadly, Lizzie exclaimed, “we celebrate her birthday! You buy her a cake and presents, and make her feel like the most important person in your life, of course! I had Nadia make her the cutest dress,” she gestured to the delicately wrapped box in Paula’s hands. The pink bow atop the box bounced in the handmaid's hold. 

“I will inform Sebastian to stop at the jeweler’s,” Ciel said as if he were making funeral arrangements rather than planning a birthday dinner. He shouldn’t be celebrating this woman. He should have her tortured by Sebastian until they could extract the answers they required from her: who wanted him dead, and why, and how did she survive all of this time? Was everything she said to him a lie?

Ciel was weak, and for that, unsure if he could forgive himself. But he could live with that sort of hatred. He’d lived with it every day for years. Besides, for every bit Y/n weakened him, he had the same impact on her; he was sure of it.

That being said, he had the perfect gift for Y/n; a far cry from a dress or jewels Marie would desire. Sebastian could quickly stop at the bladesmith’s while he was out. Ciel began to sketch. 

. . .

Sebastian decorated the gazebo delicately, per Lizzie’s direction. Plush pink roses and vines twirled around each column supporting the roof, adding a graceful ambiance to the scene. The air smelled of flowers and sugary frosting as the demon walked the hitwoman’s birthday cake from indoors to the dining table; Y/n sat at the head, Lizzie forced Ciel to sit at her right hand, and she sat across from him. His servants filled the rest of the table, an oddity, but Lizzie wanted the celebration to be as meaningful as it could be on such short notice. 

“Happy Birthday, Marie!” Lizzie was the first to cheer as Sebastian approached with the dual-layered cake decorated with intricate frosting patterns Ciel struggled to see in the dim light. A half dozen candles sat around each layer, each lit, casting an orange glow over Y/n’s face as Sebastian placed the dessert before her. 

“Happy Birthday, Your Highness!” Mey-Rin, Baldroy, and Finny echoed, a little more reluctantly than Ciel would have liked. However, Lizzie failed to notice their hesitation, more fixated on the opulence of the frivolous cake Sebastian whipped together. 

Y/n merely offered a strained smile in response, her eyes searching. He could tell; she was wondering why they celebrated her birthday after Ciel condemned her to her fate. She wanted to be anywhere else. She distrusted Sebastian, such was evident by the way she flinched at the miniature, yet brilliant, flames atop each candle.  

Ciel had to admit, they made him a bit apprehensive as well. He focused elsewhere, returning his attention to Y/n’s skeptical expression as she listened to the exchange between Lizzie and Sebastian.

“Sebastian, this cake looks lovely! I cannot believe you’re such a talented baker,” Lizzie gushed, squinting at the complex designs, swirled eddies, and flowers made of frosting, all measured and perfectly symmetrical. 

“You are simply too kind, my Lady. I’m no one deserving of such high praise; I’m simply one hell of a butler,” Sebastian simpered, basking in the complimentary glow Ciel’s cousin cast all around her. He never received such praise from Ciel simply because his ego was so inflated it hardly fit in the manor, to begin with. 

“You really outdid yourself this time, Sebastian, yes you did!” Mey-Rin added, vehemently staring at her lap to avoid looking the butler in the eyes. Her face flushed red.

“Thank you, Mey-Rin,” the butler grinned slyly and bowed at the waist. He began preparing the Green Tea for the table, strategically picked to pair with Y/n’s favorite cake flavor. Or was it Marie’s favorite cake? 

“It would be a shame to keep everyone waiting any longer. This cake does look divine,” Y/n puckered her lips to blow out each candle. Thankfully, the scent of smoke dissipated quickly-- it was causing Ciel’s heart rate to steadily rise. He swallowed the lump in his throat, soothing his stress with a short breath. Once again, he caught the overwhelming scent of sugar and roses. 

The table broke out into applause and cheers, to which Ciel was late to engage, slowly clapping. Out of rhythm. 

Across from him, Lizzie sent him a vexed look, purposefully looking between him and Y/n, who plucked each candle off the cake to keep the wax from dripping onto the frosting. She hardly flinched at any unbearable heat from touching the hot candles. A princess would have asked a servant to do this for her, unwilling to put her fingers at risk of burning.

These slight hints should have exposed Y/n ages ago had Ciel not been so utterly daft.  

Wish her a happy birthday, you heartless fool! Lizzie widened her eyes at him, gesturing with her head.

Could she be more obvious? She might as well speak her mind at this point. 

Ciel felt his cheeks warm as he returned his focus to Y/n, trying to create some semblance of fondness to appease Lizzie. He was a brilliant liar; smooth lying should’ve come easy, but the words died on his tongue.

With a final withering look Ciel’s way, Lizzie carried the table’s happy atmosphere. Clearly, she was the only one invested in the celebration-- Y/n looked like she was considering several exit strategies, and Ciel’s servants were still reeling from the brawl she brought to them over a week ago. She was a force to be reckoned with, indeed. Much like Finny had a bruised abdomen to show for it, the discoloration under Ciel’s eyes and wrist had only cleared up a few days prior. 

“And Marie, did you know that it’s good fortune for you to make the first cut?” Lizzie asked, gesturing to the elegant, serrated knife Sebastian left aside the cake on the platter. 

“I did not,” Y/n lied with a tactful smile, meeting Ciel’s eye as her nimble fingers wrapped around the knife’s handle. She was mocking him, reminding him of the damage she could do with such a blade. His stomach lurched in response to both Y/n’s sardonic look and the sense of dread that came from witnessing her with a knife.

Y/n used two hands to wield the knife handle and force the blade into the cake’s bottom tier. She made a show of pretending there was notable resistance from the layers of cake, frosting, and filling. Please, she was strong enough to nearly have broken his wrist. And his nose! Who the devil did she think she was fooling?

Be honest, Ciel. A few days ago, you might’ve been fooled. 

After Y/n made the first cut into the cake, Sebastian did the rest of the hard work, cutting slivers for everyone at the table. The servants excused themselves to ‘help’ Sebastian with the cleaning. 

Lizzie hurried everyone through inhaling their cake because she wanted Y/n to open her gift: a complex aubergine dress with puffy sleeves, understated and graceful. The deep shade of purple complimented Y/n’s sharp eyes. 

Y/n didn’t have to pretend to be impressed by the dress; it was a decent selection. It showed ample thought on Lizzie and Nadia’s part, analysis of the deep and studious color palette Y/n favored, simple lace embellishments of the same shade, and a back that closed by a complex tying mechanism. 

“I love it, Lizzie, thank you,” Y/n said, running her fingers over the expensive satin. So as not to ruin the dress, she folded it neatly in the box, for the most part, tugging a sleeve out of it to get a better look. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Nadia is brilliant.”

“I’m so pleased that you like it,” Lizzie grinned, “but I think Ciel might outdo me tonight. That’s why I saved him for last.” She smiled, but her eyes threatened him: you did get her a gift, did you not?

“I’m not sure I would say that, but I did pick something for you, Your Highness,” Ciel admitted, setting aside his pride for the sake of his plan. He needed to act seamlessly to keep his cousin satisfied and unsuspicious. If Lizzie suspected something was wrong, she would never leave and, inevitably, find out the truth. After all, he was a skilled liar, but not even he could keep his frustration at bay. 

He pulled the velvet box from his pocket, the moment feeling annoying reminiscent of his impromptu ‘proposal.’ By the brief grim look on Y/n’s face, she drew the same connection but accepted the little box nevertheless. To her apparent relief, it wasn’t another ring but a pair of pearl drop earrings set in gold. Ciel didn’t know the intricacies of jewelry; he merely had his butler go to the jeweler's and pick something passable. Much like him, Y/n wouldn’t see the difference between freshwater cultured pearls from China (which they were) and glass imitation ones.  

“Those are incredible!” Lizzie gushed, gaping at the earrings with approval. 

“They are, yes,” Y/n agreed wryly, shutting the box with an air of finality. “Thank you,” she shifted in her chair as if she was fighting a suffocating desire to leave.

“My pleasure,” Ciel responded mechanically.

Naturally, Lizzie disapproved, watching the exchange with a frown. Of course, she was dissatisfied. And she wouldn’t leave if she was dissatisfied.

Ciel cleared his throat, “Your Highness, I actually…have another gift for you. But…I would prefer to show it to you…” it was excruciating to formulate each word. Alone. Without meaning to, he looked at his cousin pointedly. 

Catching his accidental look, Lizzie took it as a cue to act. She forced a yawn, dramatically pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips. She rolled her shoulders back in an exaggerated stretch. “You know, I am actually rather sleepy,” she said unconvincingly, “I shall go find Paula…and… take my leave! Goodnight, Ciel! Happy Birthday, Marie!” She said, slowly rising out of her chair, only to scamper away when she got to her feet. 

“-- Lizzie!” Ciel protested, feeling as if his cousin had left him abandoned at sea. Left adrift without a lifeboat to take him out of uncharted territory: facing Y/n in  disquieting neutrality. He stood to get a better look at his cousin as she grew further from his vision, calling for Paula. 

“I’m retiring for the night,” Y/n lied, finally standing. “You didn’t have to do this. I’ve never cared much about celebrating my birthday,” she took a step away, but before she could continue, Ciel stopped her, his hand nearly missing the back of her shoulder. 

“I had no choice. You know that.”

Y/n turned on her heel, combat-ready by instinct. “You did. She’s only your cousin now, it’s not like you have to maintain her happiness,” she shrugged her shoulder, frowning at Ciel’s hand. He refused to let her leave before he could finish his piece.   

“No, I—” he started to explain.

“You, what? Did you have more questions to solicit me with? I’ve told you everything I know about the woman. I’ve given you my bloody word, what more can you possibly want from me?” She raised her chin, daring him to challenge her. 

But Ciel knew what Y/n’s word was worth; he couldn’t trust her more than he could hope to fight her and live. Besides, the Undertaker said Y/n liked to have the complete picture of everyone she worked with; a sense of their backgrounds, grievances, and why they wanted someone dead. Without knowing the whole picture, she would not take on a mission like this. 

Ciel couldn’t even recall killing a natively Spanish household and leaving a pregnant woman alive. Could Y/n’s employer be lying?

“Just…” stop being so bloody stubborn and come with me. “...I decided to get you another gift. For you. Not who you pretend to be. Do you want it or shall I have the bladesmith melt it down and use the materials for something else?” Ciel demanded, letting his extended hand drop back to the side. Y/n’s mouth opened to formulate a response, but he wasn’t finished yet: “I will be waiting in the drawing room. Meet me there, or refuse. Your childishness is not my concern,” he feigned aloofness as he passed her, showing himself back inside. 

Ciel would have taken pleasure in saying that he genuinely couldn’t care if Y/n joined him. He wished his ego and heart were that fortified, but if he had claimed they were, he would’ve been lying to himself.

Instead, Ciel spent the next two hours glancing at the open door, using a copy of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil to keep himself from staring at the door like an overattentive dog. 

Even worse, he wished he could say he was comprehending the German words he was reading, but that would be another lie aimed towards himself that was simply too far. Lying to someone else was excusable-- Ciel did it all the time, every day, every hour. 

Lying to himself would be weak. He was not weak. 

He could acknowledge that as he waited for Y/n, she was in the front of his mind. Not Nietzsche’s thinking, not his responsibilities as a good and vicious Guard Dog. No, he was wondering if she would show. If she would like his gift. What she might say. 

Perhaps he was weak. 

“I would’ve assumed you retired by now,” her voice made Ciel straighten his back, tense. His mouth felt dry. He fought his instinct to stand as he would have for an active royal. She wasn’t Princess Marie. He knew that, yet his muscle memory preferred treating her as so.

“I am aware of how stubborn you are. My only option was to simply withstand your thickheadedness and you would eventually surrender,” Ciel responded coolly, satisfied with the way he kept the quiver out of his voice. 

“In that case--” Y/n started, turning to leave. She’d hardly stepped foot through the threshold. 

“Y/n,” he interrupted her with a cutting stare. One might think he was urging her to drink a poison chalice rather than sit and open a birthday gift from him. On the couch in the drawing room…where they haven’t been together in what felt like ages. It was only a little over a week, but when Ciel thought of how things were before the phone call… it could have been a decade’s difference.

“Fine,” she snapped, taking a seat on the other end of the couch. As far as she could get. 

Really? She was the one who attacked him and nearly broke his nose! 

“I thought you might like something more to your tastes,” Ciel said, reluctantly offering the pristinely wrapped box to her. 

“You didn’t have to,” she inspected it before tearing the paper along the taped seams as if she wanted to preserve the wrapping. 

I know that; I don’t have to do anything. I wanted to. Don’t ask me why.

She opened the box to reveal a dagger, the blade sharp and forged from steel. The handle was made of white marble, its quillion sculpted into gold swirls, matching the bottom of the handle. 

This was one of the first times Ciel rendered her speechless, but her face told him everything he cared to know. Her eyes were wide as she took in the dagger’s every detail. Her face reddened, matching the soft pink roses Sebastian used to decorate the gazebo. Like one of Lizzie’s gowns.

Her dexterous hands tested the dagger, determining its weight and how the handle fit in her calloused palms. Ciel would know they were calloused-- he’s had the pleasure of holding them while waltzing. At the time, he’d presumed they were callused from the harp, not the everyday labor of an acting commoner and… the general toil of murder. 

“I’ve always preferred to use daggers. Ever since I started…” she began, her words something adjacent to a thank you. His neutral frown nearly cracked.

“What caused you to start?” Ciel asked before he could help himself. For a moment, Y/n looked like she was considering turning her new blade against him and slitting his throat, but instead, she merely sighed. She watched her reflection in the flawless blade, her face clear of makeup, her hair out of its sophisticated braid. 

Y/n moistened her lips, finally bringing herself to look at Ciel. Her thumb caressed the handle as she spoke, describing a day that took place… five years ago. March 1888. 

She was a poor 16-year-old, homeless and alone. Entirely out of stolen jewels from the German royal family, starving. It was pouring rain, and she had no other choice but to huddle under the scaffolding outside the Undertaker’s shop. Cold, wrapped in tattered blankets, watching the world continue without her. 

Nobody cared about her or the other homeless children living on the streets.

“My William did not deserve this. He was a good man. A good and honest man,” a woman’s insistent voice shook. Four children and another lady around the same age accompanied her. She cradled a baby in her arms while the other woman held an umbrella over her head as they left the Undertaker’s shop.

 “I know, Edith. I know. It was a terrible accident-” the other woman began, only to be cut off.

“It was no accident! Armed bank robberies are not accidents,” Edith refuted, allowing one of her daughters, presumably, to hold her hand while she used her occupied arm to cradle the swaddled infant. “William, the father of my children, was murdered. And you don’t understand what I would do to his murderers if I--” she whispered forcibly. 

“Those are not Christian thoughts,” her sister gasped, “you mustn’t think of the world in such a manner. God always has a plan, have faith in Him,” she urged, walking along Edith’s two sons. 

Y/n listened intently, studying Edith, listening to her. Her husband was probably William Wagner, one of the four tellers murdered in a violent bank robbery the other day. Established newspapers printed their names and obituaries alongside their portraits.

William Wagner: survived by his wife, Edith Wager, two sons, and two daughters, William Jr., John, Victoria, and Ava. 

The man had kind eyes and smile lines. Y/n couldn’t imagine the loss the family suffered…any more than she could imagine letting the scum who murdered him (and the other three men) live. 

Edith wanted to cleanse the world of evil, a Christian thought, and you wanted to afford a loaf of bread. And, of course, be the hand of karma. Justice itself-- if all the government wanted to do was hold prisoners in jail cells for the rest of their lives, wasting tax money on food to keep them alive. Meanwhile, they ignored the homeless children on the street, refusing them any money or food.  

Y/n could dispatch bank robbers for Edith and William. And she did, that night, using a trusty dagger that wasn’t much different from the one she held in her hands. She snuck into their holding cells under the guise of being one of their relatives, wanting to say goodbye. If they knew better, their guards didn’t care enough to stop her from killing them. 

Afterward, finding Edith’s home was simple. Dodging her grateful hug was not.

“I am not a senseless killer, Ciel,” Y/n said starkly, practically challenging Ciel to second-guess her. He was reluctant to. “You are the King of the Underworld. Not many people know what that means. I do, and in my professional opinion, you need not think long and hard about why someone called me to kill you.”

Ciel frowned. He thought about his Madame Red, all of the broken children he ordered Sebastian to incinerate each time his finger pressed into his shotgun’s trigger. 

She was a serial killer, Jack the Ripper. They were too traumatized to ever live a happy or decent life. Every time he shot, his bullet lodged itself into a criminal. 

They weren’t the same. They couldn’t be the same.

. . . 

APRIL 15TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

Ciel started his work day writing a letter to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Y/n and Princess Marie’s grandmother. His sovereign and employer. This was not the sort of inquiry he thought he would have to pen to the Queen of all individuals, but it was more time-efficient than sending postage to Germany. After all, the royal twins’ mother, Queen Helena, tended to spend most of her time racing around Europe to open charities. Any letter addressed to Queen Helena and sent to Germany would take ages to reach her desk. 

Besides, no reasonable Queen would allow her daughter to marry below her social caliber and outside the royal family. No sensible Queen. Ciel stood a fighting chance, seeing as the Phantomhive family was in Queen Victoria’s service for generations. 

Ciel’s bloodline was the closest to the monarchy without genuinely being a part of it. Queen Victoria would consider how valuable the Phantomhive line might be to her family-- particularly when she was already the Grandmother of Europe. A branch of her family tree ruled every established European country; there was no tactical advantage in Princess Marie marrying another German prince. 

Thus, he reached above Queen Helena’s authority. If Ciel could gain Victoria’s approval, he would be unstoppable-- no one would undermine her authority, not even her own daughter.

Ciel uncapped his pen and began to write, his handwriting pristine through balanced lines and even loops:

Your Majesty, 

I write to you with a request that might seem unfounded, but in truth, it has been months in the making. 

As you are aware, I was previously betrothed to my cousin, Elizabeth Cordelia Midford, since childhood. Though recently, she has opted to end the arrangement with her parents’ consent as a result of my untimely courtship. 

During my time as your granddaughter, Princess Marie-Louise of Schleswig-Holstein’s supervisor and protector, I feel that my…

The ill feeling in Ciel’s stomach stirred once more, threatening to reach his throat. He rubbed his forehead in a weak attempt to dispel his forming headache. 

He detested almost nothing more than expressing his feelings and asking for permission. To have to do both in one letter was almost more than he could manage.

Almost.

He picked up his pen again:

…emotions towards her have grown much more intense than I might have anticipated, from a respectful acquaintance that a guard might have to a feeling much more intense than such professionality. I feel that my connection with Her Highness has grown undeniable; to the extent there is too much intensity to deny both in public and…

Ciel hesitated.

to ourselves. While I could never presume to ask for Her Highness’s hand while she is promised to His Highness Prince Aribert of Anhalt, I do feel it is sensible of my station to first appeal to you. 

As per usual, I shall only act at your will and discretion. I am your Guard Dog, and I do put my duties to the Crown above all, including my personal feelings.

With Gratitude, 

Lord Ciel Phantomhive

With that, he folded the stationary into itself and fit it into an envelope. He poured wax over the envelope’s opening and pressed his family cress into the steaming liquid, immortalizing his family crest: the widespread two-headed eagle with a shield in front of it. Under this shield was a banner with the Latin for power and rule. Potentia and Regree, respectively. 

“Sebastian,” Ciel said, calling his demon back from the short errand he sent him on. His butler needed to deliver his outgoing postage and this newly drafted letter to the castle. Beyond that, Ciel was impatient to reap the results of Sebastian’s trip. And admittedly, he craved a decent parfait. 

Without wasting a moment, Sebastian breezed through Ciel’s office door, holding a sterling silver tray with a notebook the size of a dictionary and, of course, the parfait that occupied Ciel’s mind. The demon’s expression was as placid as ever. A surprise, considering he’d spent his morning investigating Y/n, someone he may detest more than Grell Sutcliff. Or even Pluto, the demon dog Ciel took in with the sole desire to bother him. 

“Yes, my Lord?” Sebastian chirped as he put a napkin on Ciel’s desk to avoid scraping from the glass's bottom. 

“Tell me about your findings,” Ciel responded, trading the stamp with his family seal for the small spoon to dig into his snack. He gestured to the notebook with his spoon as Sebastian unloaded it from his tray, placing it on Ciel’s side.

Ciel opened the notebook, scanning over the first page. Sebastian filled every line with the victim's name in chronological order. He started at the top, looking for the first name he did not directly recognize.

Cooper Finley

Amelia Dyer

Felix Keating

“Tell me about Felix Keating,” Ciel ordered, vaguely recalling the headline that appeared in the paper several months previous. Shortly before Y/n arrived at the estate. The businessman’s servant found him stabbed in the back of his carriage. Ciel didn’t mind the death, considering he was visiting London to see a play. Any commoner’s rage might have been provoked at the sight of a rich man amongst them-- Ciel had disregarded the murder. 

Sebastian obliged. “Mr. Felix Keating, a prominent iron manufacturing owner. Found murdered the night of December 17th, 1891 by his longtime coachman, Horace McLaughlin. Cause of death, blood loss due to a stab wound between his fourth and fifth ribs. All of this occurred several days after a legal court found Keating innocent of all dangerous workplace and child labor charges, following the death of Margaret Calvert, a young girl working in one of his factories. Poorly built machinery malfunctioned, causing it to combust and-”

“I understand,” Ciel interrupted firmly, having no desire to hear the gruesome details of a young girl’s demise. “And her parents?”

“Yes, I spoke to them. They were quite stubborn, but eventually, they came around. The husband, Eric, confessed to everything-- meeting Y/n, attempting to pay her, saddling themselves with an alibi-”

“Attempting to pay her?” Ciel said, ignoring Sebastian’s vaguely irritated look. The demon disliked when he interrupted him. 

“She refused to take the full sum of her pay,” the butler clarified. “Quite…merciful of her, considering their living conditions,” he continued, as if the compliment was difficult for him to admit.

Well, of course. They are factory workers who live in Birmingham. They could use all the money they could get. If they were affluent, they would not have had their daughter working at such a young age in the first place.

“I never requested your opinion, Sebastian,” Ciel chastised, only to further irk his butler, “now tell me about her first murder.”

While Ciel already knew about her first paid killing, one could only assume Y/n’s first murder had to be a different circumstance. No one decided to make a hobby out of slaughtering others without having done so successfully beforehand. 

“Gladly, my Lord. Investigating her first murder took me to the Dowager Baroness, Lady Cecilia Wright.” The demon smiled again, the look somewhere between fond and malicious. The same expression he wore after he extracted information from certain women. Like Beast. And that nameless nun. “Though we did have a meaningful discussion, she did insist on speaking with you, my Lord.”

Ciel fought the bile that threatened to rise up his throat. “Fine.”

“I thought you might agree, so I told her we would make a private appearance at her soirée tomorrow evening.”

. . . 

APRIL 16TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

When Ciel considered Lady Wright’s history, it made sense that Sebastian’s investigation of Y/n’s early life led him to her. The late Lord Steven Wright was murdered the morning of February 3rd, 1888-- four years ago and a month before Y/n’s first paid murder.

There was a suspicious amount of mystery surrounding Baron Wright’s death. From what Ciel recalled, an armed thief broke into the Wright estate, resulting in the Baron’s murder. While the paper prided itself on the specific details it published, this case was particularly vague, leading the public to suspect there was something…more to it. However, it didn’t concern the Queen, and evidently, what was no concern to Her Majesty, was no concern to Ciel. 

Besides, Cecilia Wright’s estate was now a popular destination for elegant and frequent parties-- no one missed the Baron, an avaricious man known for toeing the law with technicalities. Perhaps, Her Majesty was pleased with his demise. 

“You’ve put together a lovely party downstairs. People seem to be enjoying themselves,” Ciel broke the leisurely silence between him and the Baroness. She led him from the intense party to a room that seemed to be converted from an office to a sitting room. Sebastian waited outside the door because Ciel could hardly tolerate the evident flirtation between Lady Wright and his butler. It was tough to watch, and Ciel had withstood even the most gruesome sights.

“It truly is amazing when your imbecile of a husband dies and you have no children to continue his ridiculous legacy?” Lady Wright’s smile spread slowly, a little deranged. Her forehead creased as she grinned, matching the smile lines on either side of her lips. Despite being a noblewoman, her cheeks were sunken in, matching the deep bags under her tawny eyes. Her pupils practically swallowed her brown irises, making them appear like twin black abysses. 

Ciel’s first instinct would have been to express his condolences for her lack of children, but her maniacal smile said otherwise. 

“Everything he owned is mine. All the money, the property… I love my life,” she rambled, her gloved hands fiddling with her gold bangles until she stopped abruptly, staring into Ciel’s gaze. Her smile melted. “And I did not murder my husband to achieve this life if that is why you are paying me this visit, Queen’s Guard Dog.”

Ciel found her face disarming whether she smiled or not. Her eyes still shone with a certain lack of sanity, whether she looked like the party’s hostess or a manic killer. He straightened his posture in response to her change in demeanor.

“Of course not. I know your husband’s killer, and I know you know her as well. I wish to question you about her.” Ciel corrected her, his words causing her to relax once again. “Y/n Y/l/n,” he added to prompt her into speaking since the girl probably asked (threatened) her to keep her mouth shut.

“Yes, that was her name,” Lady Wright hummed, a hyperactive hand coming to twirl at one of the adlib strands of hair that framed her face. Her auburn hair was graying at the roots. 

“Would you tell me exactly what happened the night of the Baron’s murder?

She raised a thin eyebrow, “and why would you need that sort of information? Are you meaning to apprehend her for a murder carried out four years ago?” 

“Not at all. I would only like to…understand her history more,” Ciel answered truthfully. If he was to live with someone who lied to his face repeatedly, slowly reeling him into an inappropriate relationship without imagining a bullet between her eyes, he had to understand who she was. He deserved to understand who she was. In total-- beyond what she chose to disclose. 

Lady Wright was unconvinced.

Ciel took a hurried breath in, growing frustrated with the Baroness. What else was he supposed to say?

I need to know everything about her. She’s an unending mystery, and I want to understand her. Put all of the pieces together. I need to justify not turning her into the Queen for who she is. I need to justify why I thought to press my lips against hers when I had a knife to her throat. 

He must have looked more tortured than he meant to because Lady Wright smiled. She laughed warmly, a quivering hand settling over her heart. 

“I understand, Lord Phantomhive,” her eyes sparkled. “Your face tells me everything I need to know. You love her.”

“Love is not an emotion I understand nor feel,” Ciel’s frown deepened. Y/n drove him to the very brink of sanity. He detested her, yet, he could never force himself to drive her away. Love couldn’t be this maddening. An emotion made to bring people together couldn’t hurt this much. 

“My Lord. No one understands love,” Lady Wright corrected. “Stop fooling yourself trying to understand it. You must be wiser than that.”

“Fine,” Ciel mumbled, his gaze casting off to the side. “I understand.”

“Now let me tell you about the girl I met four years ago,” Wright started, sitting back in her chair. “Y/n broke into this estate through the servant’s entrance and found our quarters in the early morning. I only caught her when she started crying afterwards, wailing on our carpet…getting blood all over it.”

“And the sound of Baron Wright bleeding out next to you failed to-”

“Yes,” Lady Wright interrupted Ciel crisply, “I am a heavy sleeper. Your darling butler knows this. Now would you let me speak? Incredibly rude to interrupt a lady.”

Ciel nodded once, fighting the temptation to roll his eyes.

“I asked her why she killed him and she told me he sent men to her home and they killed someone important to her over an inane plot of land. Then they tried to…hurt her,” Lady Wright said meaningfully, her fingers returning to the gold bangle that hung around her skinny wrist. “She killed all three of them. And my husband, which I took no issue with- I was sure that the bastard was cheating on me, anyhow.”

He considered her words: three men dead, a close friend dead. From conning Steven Wright for over some land. The most common land scam in the business world was claiming to have purchased over acres within a foreign country, making a fake contract, and selling it for money before the buyer could go overseas and validate the claim made. Ciel imagined something of that caliber took place. It would have been much too easy to pull off, considering Y/n was fluent in German. 

“She took me to that shack of hers and it was truly gruesome,” Wright reminisced with the same sick grin. “Four men. Dead. I had to ask my most loyal staff to help us clean. You know, I wanted to take Y/n in and raise her, but she refused me. Heaven knows why.”

Because you are 59 and wearing elbow-length gloves to hide the wounds from your opioid addiction. What 16-year-old in their right mind would want to be ‘taken in’ by you?

“And you are certain that your husband caused harm to her and killed her friend?” Ciel asked, holding onto his very last shred of hope that Y/n was a serial murderer with no motivation. They simply could not be of the same occupation because that would mean Ciel had significantly less of a reason to dislike her.

“Yes, completely,” Lady Wright answered. “Insurmountable proof of personal violation and her friend…I believe his name was…Bernard? Benjamin?” she hesitated, unconvinced by the names that surfaced to mind before her face lit up, “Baxter! Was a corpse on the floor. She was clearly distraught over the man.”

And that revelation nearly made Ciel the same level of ill that he felt when he stared into Amelia Dyer’s dead eyes. When he realized that the girl he knew as Princess Marie was a killer set to make him his next target. 

Only now, he realized that perhaps…this killer might have been better than he was.

After all, Ciel dispelled evils that worried Her Majesty. Y/n worked to dispel evils that caused direct harm to the underrepresented- a pair of factory workers from Birmingham. For less than half the sum of her pay! Ciel took generous compensation from the Queen, no matter how insistently he told her he required no payment for her bidding.

Y/n was correct to say it didn’t take a lot of thinking to understand why someone might wish Ciel dead. 

In truth, she was better than him.

. . .

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[taytayb1993]

My Review of Snowfall Series Final

Hey, guys, so, I watched the final episode and season of the TV crime drama series Snowfall, and I decided to share my thoughts on it on my blog. First, I going to give my positive review on the show Snowfall, and I considered one of the best crime drama series in the late 2010s and early 2020s, if not, all times. This show is well written, the directing is great, and the character development is incredible. John Singleton, who passed away on April 28, 2019, brought this show to the upper level where there are other TV shows became popular, especially in this timeline, and I’m glad they paid homage to John Singleton at the end of the final. The cast and crew did great for making this show that it deserved to be praise positively from viewers. The actors and actresses should be awarded, too. 

Now, here’s my review on Snowfall final, and, speaking to those who haven’t watched it, there’s going to be some spoilers. I think it’s great, but it’s depressing, but it’s great. Damson Idris, who played as Franklin Saint, did an amazing job with this performance, he should be awarded for this acting. The protagonist and anti-hero, Franklin Saint, he gone from being a good kid at the very first season of the show to a drug dealer, to a drug lord, and consequently, to a homeless drunk. So, yeah, Franklin ruined his own life, ended up like his father, Alton, whom Franklin saved at the very early seasons, and now, he don’t care about him at the series final. All that over fucking 73 million dollars. Franklin should have taken his mother’s, Cissy, advise, just walk away from all this, away from the drug trade and the money they made from trafficking drugs. Cissy got involved in it, too, but at least she made a choice on walked away to Cuba with Alton, never look back. It was great for them until Teddy killed Alton when he told the truth about the CIA, who Teddy is a member of, involved in drug trafficking, especially flooding the black neighborhoods, such as in Compton, LA, with crack cocaine; destroying people lives and homes. Yes, it happened in real life and they still doing it. How? Because there are black crooks (I’m saying this as a black man) facilitates the drug trade in the black community. That’s right, there are black scumbags in the black communities helps the system(government) bring the drugs and guns into the communities; they provide the drug dealers with narcotics, distributing them to the other dealers and the peddlers selling them on the streets, alleys, and inside their house or trap house. They’re destroying their own community and still are.

So, yeah, Teddy is based on that fact, he’s a CIA, a U.S. government agency, made deal with a lower level drug peddler, Franklin, after Teddy kidnapped him and Leon. This is the first time they met. Now, after all the money they gained by ruined innocent lives with drugs, they lend themselves to their downfall. This is all Teddy’s fault, he’s one of the main substances of consequently actions that led to chaos that is inevitable. I’m glad Cissy killed him, because he’s one the courses of all this. And this is also Franklin’s fault, too, but it’s also his family and friends’ fault, included Cissy. Think about, even if they never met and deal with Teddy, they would have still deal drugs, and there probably are other drug dealers out there, in or outside their neighborhood. Saint’s family should have been walk away from the drug trade, at least they should have have invest their money into properties and businesses, make sure they’re legit. At least Alton came to his conscious and realized they’re destroying their community. At least he tried to reason with Cissy, Franklin, and the rest of the family and encourage them to leave the drug trade, leave this life. At least Cissy listened to him, but most of them got too greedy and they ended up divided among themselves. Franklin regretted hitting his father when he tried to get them out of the crime life, Frank loved his father back then, now, in the series final, he doesn’t care about him, at all. He doesn’t care that either Teddy killed him or not. Cissy cares about Alton, she wants to know what happened to him as she wants revenge on Teddy for have something to do with Alton’s missing. She even tried too encouraged Franklin too leave the drug trade and drug money that he wanted. But Franklin had lost it. He let his greed, pride, and paranoia consumed him, which it led to his downfall. 

It is sad that things ended this way, at least, fortunately, two of the main characters made it out. Cissy is in jail for killing Teddy, which I believe Teddy deserves it, it’s his fault; Gus finally got out of the grip of the DEA, CIA, Cartels, and Franklin, and gone to live his life and see his girlfriend and kids; Aunt Louie is still being chase by the fed; Leon went to Ghana with his girlfriend; and now, Franklin is homeless, drunk, and I think he’s becoming a junkie. So, that’s how it ends for the protagonist, eh? Even he’s an anti-hero. I felt sorry for Franklin, and I’m sure most people who watched this series final do, too, but he chose and continue this life that ruined himself and his family. At least, Leon came to visit him and check on him, as well as he tried to help him. It shows that Leon is a true and best friend of Franklin. Leon is sad that he sees what Franklin had become, and he wouldn’t be able to help him. That ending in very end of the episode is sad. 

So, yeah, that’s the end of Snowfall, very sad one, too, and I think it’s shows you that getting involved in the drug trade is not worth it. It’s not just a crime, it’s an evil crime. Yes, it’s an evil thing to do. Drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, destroys people’s lives, communities, killing people, and it most likely destroy those who deal with them. It’s a curse as well as it’s like a Pandora’s box. I think series is showing you that it’ would make you think “was all that worth it”. Yeah, the series shows you what consequences drug trafficking will lead to, and we all know, it’s chaos. 

I would consider Snowfall as one of the best crime drama TV series along with Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, The Sopranos, and The Wire. This show should be at least nominated as it deserves the awards because the cast and crew did great with series and these characters developments are amazing. Franklin Saint is a well written character and Damson Idris did wonderful for portraying the character. I would rate Snowfall 8 out of 10 and Damson’s performance top notch. This is the best series John Singleton had ever created. Hope you all like my review. Oh, man, what a show.

[foxgloveinspace]

witchy Sleep Token experiences? 👀 it's my new fixation

(Edit: sequel to this ask)

Hi there! I debated for awhile about answering this, just because some of it is still so weird to even think about, talking about it was an interesting experience in itself. But I’m gonna lol.

I wanna start off by saying I think most of it heightened adhd symptoms, and my own witchy-ness. I don’t really think Sleep Token as anything going on (except maybe Vessel has some withy knowledge.) I also wanna say that I am a baby witch. I don’t practice often and most of my practice is gathering knowledge. I don’t live in a safe place to practice more then that. I’m almost more of an herbalist, then anything else. I firmly am of the opinion that Sleep Token is about personal experiences told through Story/Made up scenarios. I also think all of this is the universe bopping me over the head with a paper towel roll like ‘these guys are important to you, have some witchy stuff with them’ cause it knows I’ll like that. But now I have some weird witchy experiences to talk about lmao. There’s little ones I’m leaving out, and all of this is real, even tho it sounds Fake As Fuck.

This one I think is heightened adhd symptoms and my own woo woo stuff. I have this smell that I have up my nose sometimes it either happens when I’m minding my own business, and I’ll smell a light floral scent which makes me go ‘oh sleep token?’ And I either have to stop what I’m doing and listen to them or just think about them for a moment. Or it happens when I think about them deeply for long periods of time. It was very strong when I was writing on of the fics I wrote, like someone has stuck flowers under my nose. It’s an unknown floral scent to me. But I’m chalking this one up to mostly my adhd (with a bit of witchy thrown in) as I have physical things that happen to me when it comes to other special interests. (I feel like I’m getting hugged when I read the end of AftG, ect). But it’s just weird in they way it happens, and how heightened it is and since I can’t place the smell if I find out it it’s the light scent of for-get-me-nots I’m gonna flip my lid lol.

This next one is the strangest one. I remember it very clearly and I still kinda get a little freaked out. The day that I first listened to The Summoning was not long after it came out, I remember finding it through instagram and all the people making jokes about how Sleep Token where insuring that metal heads where gonna have a great Valentine’s Day and babies in November. So I go over to my music app, and I start it up, and immediately I’m like ‘is this even the same song?? Idk I love it tho.’ And then of course it gets to the end and yeah it’s that song. Instantly in love with it and start playing it on repeat but decided I’d wait until I had more spoons to listen to the rest of their discography, and I never look at what bands look like anymore? I let go of looking into bands when I let go of kpop and of course I didn’t end up having the mental energy for looking into a new band until April when I became a changed person lmao. I remember this so clearly, it was a Saturday, I was out shopping late with my family, I was already overstimulated, and this happened in a run down Dollar Tree parking lot with overcast sky’s as it started getting dark out. I listened on repeat while we started heading home. I got a migraine on the way home, not a bad one, (and at the time I didn’t even know that’s what it was, I’ve only recently been like ‘oh I get migraines??’) and so I sat there with my eyes closed, and in the visual disturance/aura, I saw Vessel. And it’s still freaky to think about, I get slight chills up my spine. I don’t normally have figures in my auras, it’s usually just splotches of flashing green and purple. But in the middle of my vision, was a hooded man, and only the lower half of his face was visible and his eyes. It was…. Really fucking weird, and when I put two and two together I just kinda had to be still for awhile (I think I was doing the dishes??) yeah, that was the big one that I’ve had, and it sounds so fake, oof.

I think I’ll leave it there, I’ve had some other small ones that could be chalked up to adhd but I like to think of them as witchy. I might talk about them some other time tho.

[kennexara]

9 People You Want to Know Better

Thanks for the tag, @mandaloria314!!

LAST SONG: "No Glory In The West" by Orville Peck 

Tired of begging them just to compete Shoot to win can feel so bittersweet But you take what you can get 'Cause there ain't no glory in the west

Just discovered this yesterday, second line (with third line in parentheses) definitely going in my ‘list of possible titles for spyscrapper fics’ file.

CURRENTLY WATCHING:  Selfie. YES I’m nearly a decade late and YES it’s only 13 episodes but I’m watching it slowly to pace myself. Like, great writing but also John Cho AND Karen Gillan holy SHIT. I don’t watch much DW and wasn’t sold on her there but that must’ve been Moffat’s writing because I ADORE her in the Jumanji movies. . And John Cho? That #StarringJohnCho project from like 2015 still lives in my mind rent-free. Like hey Paramount now your movie cash cow Mission: Impossible is ending and you’re trying to go back to AOS Trek despite most of them being too busy, let me give you a suggestion: Sulu solo movie. make him captain of his own ship or just have him separated on an away mission i do not care just put him on my screen.

CURRENTLY READING: Also a lot of Jedi Survivor fanfic haha. Like I loved the first game already but then the second game was like. here have this absolute unit of an attractive man with a fascinating storyline, dark hair, a real nice voice, AND shoulder holsters and I was lost. something something history repeats itself *flashbacks to 2013 and Karl Urban with the shoulder holsters in Almost Human*

CURRENT OBSESSION: currently Jedi Survivor but it feels like i’m speedrunning obsessions this year. I watched 911 on a whim in March/April and was obsessed. until Jedi Survivor came out. And Mission Impossible 7 comes out next month so who knows what’ll happen then. I watched MI Fallout like. an entire year or two after it came out because no Brandt. But i’m sorta hyped for this one because they’re bringing back freaking Kittridge.

No pressure feel free to ignore tags: @tiltingheartand, @brevityis, @darkwingdukat, @spyscrapper​, @niqoole, @impishtubist, @13wyvern7, can i second tag people from og post? lol DOING IT, again feel free to ignore @paper-crane-castles, @iwishtocountthestars, also anyone who wants to be tagged consider yourself tagged. 

[pwblogarchive]

April 2006

April 6, 2006

hindsight is always 20/20 - in retrospect:

stitch was one of my favorite cartoon characters ever.

the teeth, the extra arms, the meanness.

and always with the best intentions.

thats all.

- petey

4/08/06 Q&A

question

What is the one song you did not write that you wish you had?

answer

young turks by rod stewart - for real.

question

are you going to on one tree hill alot now?if you are you could be asked to be in movies and get to busy with all of that and then end up leaving your band.

answer

no- theres nothing but fob for a long time now.

question

Hey Pete ive been hearing alot of rumors about Fall Out Boy touring with The Academy Is & Panic at the Disco and I was wondering if it was true? and when? because if it is im totally there;^D

answer

we will be touring the uk with the academy later this spring. we are doing reading and leeds with patd- and for those over here in america- keep your eyes peeled because its gonna be secret-

question

Last year you pulled out of reading and leeds now your only playing reading, i live in leeds and am very upset. WHY WHY WHY???

answer

dear angry, we are playing reading and leeds. i am not sure why they haven’t announced the leeds date. please send this angry letter to that person and just come have a good time with us at the show.

question

Pete, waz up? so ya how u like one tree hill, i think ur totally awesome on that show and i hope u stay for a while, how long r u on it?

answer

the cast was absolutely amazing. but i wont be on anymore episodes. i feel like we need to concentrate on fob right now. we all have fun doing other stuff. but my best adventures ever have beenw ith fob and thats where i want to be.

question

I Havent Heard From You In A While. Hows Your Life Been?

answer

up and down. been writing alot lately. tired. but smiling. i love being on tour- i am pretty homesick right now. getting ready to record a new record this summer. i miss roxy and bonnie jane. how are you

question

pete your such a freakin perv my god who talks pictures of them selves naked i guess really desprite guys yuo are GROSS next thing we know you video taped your self doin g it and it got stolen too i dont love you any more

answer

hahahaha. i dunno how to respond. im a dirty regular “desprite” boy- the truth is- go listen to fuct- i told you everything about me on it. i cant help it- go “brook yourself”- ooh classic burn- kinda on myself mostly.

question

Im proud of fall out boy and how successful you guys have gotten.

answer

thank you very much. i wish you werent anonymous cause this one meant alot when i read it

question

pete,ur hilarious.where did that come from?

answer

my daddys zygote- i think. maybe some of you in sex ed could correct me.

question

where can i get tickets for the 2006 Nintendo Fusion Tour if they are on sale if not when will they be on sale

answer

i dont know. we aren’t on that tour.

question

Okay so i was wondering …If p!atd are nice to thier fans cause i know theyre on tour and all and its really hard not to be bitchy,but from what ive heard brendon and brent are jackasses and i know not to believe every thing i hear but are they nice with some really horrible days that just make them seem like theyre bitchy?or are they just bitchy? xoxox courtney

answer

please dont believe what you hear or read on the internet. there is no iq test to go on the internet so unfortunately people can write whatever they want. ive learned from experience. wait until you meet us to pass judgment on how we behave- patd are really good kids i promise you. i wouldn’t work with them if they werent.

question

thankyou for writing all your words and lyrics, they comfort me and make me realize that Im not the only one who feels what I feel. your lyrics are as if you felt the exact same way but worded it beautifully.thank you so much from the bottom of my broken heart.

answer

thanks. that is how the writers i read every single night make me feel. you made my day a bit better. just saying.

question

cheez-its or cheese nips?

answer

cheez-its - nips are total ripoffs. they suck. cheez-its are like new york while cheese nips are like hoops. come on now.

question

First off, may I compliment the genius of this band. i must. my question: will Clandestine publish any non-Pete-Wentz books in the future, or are they limited to just your books?

answer

id love to publish a book of someone else wrote… its got to be words i love though…. we’ve got some things in the works.

question

Dear Pete, I know that tons of girls adore you and go crazy for you, but have you ever encountered gay guys going crazy for you?

answer

i think more boys like me than girls. i think its because i come off pretty flamboyantly.

question

what is the last song you listened to?

answer

dont be long by jaz and the notes.

question

at the albany show at the pepsi, i heard that four people died, is this true? and if it is, how did they die?

answer

tyson ritter was so handsome that they broke their eyes and their hearts stopped. actually wait nobody died.

question

go to quizilla .com search patrick stump and theres this gross story about patrick………..um….yeah

answer

patrick doesnt do gross things. his body is made up of kittens, saturdays, 70 degree weather, first kisses and butterflies. trust me, i cut that bitch open once to check.

question

How do you keep track of your journals? Id lose my head if it wasnt connected. Whats your favorite song that you have written so far? “I read your lyrics like a book, I never get tired of the same sad story.”

answer

well in the foe.com, i realize that people are going to respond so i try to write things where people will be opinionated, fbr i write things that are a bit more abstract, fob one i try and use in an informative way because i know the most people will read, and the livejournal existed for one person and them alone- and they stopped being interested in reading it. - and there is not a single thing i have written that i feel is worth remembering years later- but i am striving towards writing something that will change my mind.

question

Wat iz wrong with u took my word i did not spend the last 2 years watchin Family Guy,so u culd steal my word!!!.Dood ur a bad person!! y do ppl say ur hott ur just a “Bastard”. thatz my word!!

answer

ding ding ding. cue the balloons. this is definitely the funniest question of the week, though im not sure it was intentional. tears in my eyes. step up on the platform and make your speech:

April 18, 2006

“from 36,000 feet above the earth:”

wahahahaha. the boys in the bled made a pretty hilarious parady of my sidekick debacle. look around you can find it im sure. i got a trick or two up my sleeve to make you laugh at me even more than you can make me laugh at me. get ready. its gonna be big.

speaking of we have a couple of big magazine stories coming out soon hopefully they will not cover the same couple stories that tend to get focused on. some of the journalists seemed to go a bit deeper so who knows?

charlie is out next to me. snoring. i want to draw a bomb in his mouth and get him in trouble with the airline. that sounds a bit crazybrains though.

keep it up over at TRL. its amazing that a video that feels so out of place there amongst all the pretty people is sticking around. thats right i said we we'ren't pretty. sorry. i wasn't counting patrick. but technically he is handsome, not pretty- just in case you're keeping score.

laughtrack.

i cant wait to see my dogs and go home for one minute before milwaukee. i know my boy dog is gonna wake up and try to hang out but be way too confused to know whats going on. good times.

roll the credits.

love, the fancy kid

currently reading: the green hills of africa

currently watching: the squid and the whale

currently wishing i was: you

posted by: PETERputyourPANtson

4/18/06 Q&A

question

I was on “your myspace” . and it says your dating a girl named autumn and shes pregnet with your kid and its due in 8 months, is this true?

answer

totally. file this under: i do not have a myspace. how much you wanna bet that some people read the totally and didn’t even read the rest?

question

hey so i just read your interview from absolutepunk.net and it says that you are ready to move out of your parents house and possibly somewhere new. I always thought that the reason you stayed in wilmett was because bands that move to big citys can loose that feel to their music? Is this true that you could move to LA?? I really hope if di that you still drive your sisters purple escort and stay the same old peter because thats what makes you amazing

answer

trust me, i was alot more amazing when i rode a powder blue girls predator bike. you would have asked me for a zillion autographs back then.

question

what happened to the Clandestine wallet?

answer

i hated how the sample looked so it went back to the elves in the factory. it should be done in the next month or so. (the very first part and the very last part of the answer was true- not the middle. wed never trust those damn elves again).

question

My friends have decided that every true rock fan can be divided into two catagories. Someone is either a Korn fan or a Slipknot fan. Which are you?

answer

uh.

question

Peter, Peter, People eater… i just want to thank you for your bad fashion. because of you horrible sense in style you have inspired me to give fashion another try… so thanks again on helping me find my dream when i thought all hope was lost for it…

answer

hahaha. thanks i guess. clash away.

question

i love the song i slept with someone in fall out boy and all i got was this stupid song writen about me…so did u actually sleep with someone in fall out boy?? Who??

answer

did i sleep with someone in fall out boy? no way! those dudes are sell outz! once i fell asleep watching weekend at bernies two cause it was so boring. its no captain ron.

question

Im going to the UIC pavillion concert and i was just wondering if you had to have a pass or anything to get into the meet and greet or if its for every1, b/c i relllly wanna mee you guys

answer

we do meet and greets every night- it depends on the night how many kids and who get in- after the show if we dont leave right away, do interviews or have to watch out for curfew we try and meet kids waiting around. it all depends. we do our best.

question

Fall Out Boy performing at a Sox game? Whhhat?! Two of my favorite things in the world and Im not going, because I dont have tickets Wednesday. *Cries*. National league huh? So you might be doing something involving that other Chicago team whos name I wont mention for I fear I might gag. You should consider giving us more notice next time so I can come. Mhmm.

answer

they asked us to play yesterday. they should consider giving us more notice. Haha.

question

how good is petes and pats friendship??? Just wondering

answer

good enough to know that he would lose his crackers if he heard you call him pat.- just kidding. he is like lays potato chips. i blah blah blah (forgot the slogan that goes with it) cant stop eatin em or something.

question

Pete I would give anything to play mini golf with you. Plus im legal way legal five seven three six eight six three zero five five

answer

i typed your number into my code and it did not make my robot butler bring me a peanutbutter and honey sandwich. you are fucking fired. but i do love minigolf. me and joe would destroy you at it.

question

Pete, is it true that you are mormon? We saw you here at the show in Utah and have been debating it ever since…

answer

no i am not a mormon. i try my best to be respectful of everyones beliefs.

question

Whats up with the red arm bands in the Saturday video?

answer

le revelucion has begun. get your mustaches. prepare to take to the streets.

question

me and other boardies want to know if you could fund an all boardie school just for us?

answer

so you could sit around and write about how i smell like poop and i taste like poop and look like poop. then we could teach microsoft paint and you could draw me with super extra big teeth and my big dumb head. i think ill pass. see me after class, troublemaker.

question

peter, what did you get for easter? Serisouly.

answer

two plane trips and a headache.

question

How are you today?

answer

sunny and 65

question

I cant wait to see you guys on SNL this Saturday feel free to shout out my name (Lindsey Webber). haha. i love you guys!

answer

its a re-run but you could stick a sticky note on your tv that is a speech bubble coming out of my mouth (ill be on stage left, in case you are trying to figure out where to stick the note).

question

Pete, What was it like Being on one tree hill? That was how i found out about Fall Out Boy…You Guys ROCK!!!

answer

i loved the cast they were amazing. i got to be close friends with some of them- there are somethings about it i wish had gone a bit differently but over all it was an a great learning experience. mark schwan is a rad dude.

question

Pete, Why do you go offstage to change, when everyone had already seen you naked?

answer

your parents and doctors saw you naked does that mean you walk around your house naked and go to the doctors office naked? cause thatd be pretty weird dude. im just sayin…

question

why didnt you guys hang around after the show at chain reaction? do you have to be an OCK now to meet you guys at shows?

answer

because we wanted the show to be about our friends in the hushsound, not us.

question

Hey Pete, so, when can we can expect the new record to come out? Can you give us any information about it?

answer

late fall- info- there will be at least three love songs on it.

April 29, 2006

im pretty much just a lawyer with the way im always trying to get you off

i dont mean to have you worried or troubled. its the last thing i want. never take anything i ever say too seriously. youd need a search party to track my moods. who knows where they went? i guess this doesnt make sense. but in some strange way this is me saying thank you for always being there on the other side of this monitor.

i am watching reality bites right now.

the most exceptional thing about you is how ordinary you believe you are.

i want to be kept.

i am a bull.

she is a china shop.

Posted by xoat 2:24 AM

[gyuphorias]

mixtape: on track — y. jeongin

synopsis → you've been yang jeongin's best friend for your entire life until you confess your feelings for him in your senior year of high school and he rejects you, leaving you devastated. in an attempt to move on, you agree to help your mutual friend kim seungmin with his student film, even though you know jeongin is involved in the project too. jeongin might swear up and down the wall that he's not jealous of how close you're getting with seungmin, but everyone else knows the truth.

pairing → yang jeongin/gn!reader/kim seungmin

genres → angst, fluff, hurt-comfort, high school au, love triangle au, unrequited love au, best friends to enemies to friends au

warnings → jealousy, swearing, crying

word count → 6.7k

note → thank you all for being so patient with me while i worked to release this fic for you guys. i posted the teaser several months ago, incredibly proud of the fact that i'd cranked out 4k words in less than two hours. however, afterwards, i was feeling burnt out and busy with school, spring break, and life. i couldn't bring myself to write anymore and the draft has sat in my drive since february. it's finished now, though, and i'm really excited to release it. i hope you enjoy it and think that it was well worth the wait because i do.

this is part of @planetdream and @hwaflms' universe collab!

KIM SEUNGMIN IS UNDENIABLY the sweetest person you’ve ever met in your entire life. he’s funny and kind and incredibly thoughtful, one of the best classmates you’ve ever had in any of your years at school. truthfully, he’s the first person you’ve really let into your life in a while and he hasn’t made you regret it (at least so far). in fact, he proves every day that he’s worthy of being in your life, even if he doesn’t know it, even if he’s completely unaware of the falling out you had with one of his friends, yang jeongin, months ago.

jeongin had been your best friend for years, the only thing from your childhood kept intact as you grew up and changed. you’ve been neighbors your whole life, your mothers are best friends, so it naturally followed that you and jeongin would be best friends too. and you had been from the time you could talk up until… well… recently.

you remember the exact day you’d realized that you had feelings for yang jeongin, real romantic feelings, and what he’d done to make you realize them because you’d written it down in your journal after you’d gotten home from school that day. it’d been a tuesday in april right after you’d started your first year of high school and you’d stayed after school to help clean up the classroom and as you were heading out, you realized it had started raining. there’d been nothing in the forecast about rain that morning, so you hadn’t brought an umbrella or anything. about to resign yourself to waiting for the rain to stop, jeongin, braces and all, bounded up to you, an umbrella in hand.

“crazy random storm, huh?” he’d asked, looking down at you, a goofy smile on his face. “anyways… you wanna walk home together?”

you’d told him that it was fine, that you’d wait out the storm, but he’d insisted. there was no telling when the storm would end and he didn’t want you getting home super late, especially in the dark. so, like a scene straight out of one of your favorite dramas, he’d opened the umbrella and held it up between the two of you, shielding the both of you from the rain. you’d looked up at him at one point and taken in his profile: his sharpening jaw, the easy slope of his nose, the soft expanse of his cheek. in the milky, paling sun, his skin glowed, blended into the background, made him look like he could have just walked straight out of a renaissance painting. it was the first time you’d thought that yang jeongin was absolutely gorgeous.

more so than that, you remember the exact day and the exact moment that you’d promised yourself that you would never again in your life call him your friend. you’d put off telling him your feelings until just a few months ago, halfway through your final year of school, because you were worried it would change everything between you; for better or worse, it didn’t matter. but you’d gotten to the point where you couldn’t hide it anymore: your heart ached when you were around him, your fingers itched to feel his own between them. you wanted so desperately to know what it was like to call him yours.

you’d accidentally confessed to him on a monday during your lunch break, lounging in the sun on the rooftop, your own private little paradise. it had been the rooftop where he’d comforted you through your first breakup, though he hadn’t known that you’d been dating the person in an attempt to get over him. it had been the rooftop where he’d held you for days on end as you struggled through personal issues, through academic stress, through just about everything. and vice versa, both of you unwilling to let the other suffer alone.

and it had been the rooftop where your relationship with jeongin had come to its untimely, explosive demise. unable to hold back any longer, you’d simply blurted it out during a stretch of silence, your eyes fixed unwaveringly on your food, refusing to spare him even the smallest glance. he’d choked a bit on his drink and had to take a few seconds to recover, coughing loudly, but when he’d finally started breathing properly again, you’d heard him as he turned to look at you, the uncomfortable sound of fabric sliding against fabric.

“you… what?” he’d asked and you could tell then and there that this was not going to turn out well. you didn’t have to repeat yourself and he didn’t need to say anything else because it was all right there in his voice, in the way he’d spoken to you just then.

“nothing… never mind,” you’d mumbled, picking at your food. “forget about it.”

“no,” he’d replied, turning entirely towards you, a hand coming out to grab your shoulder. “you don’t just get to drop something like that and then take it back.”

“okay, well i am, jeongin, so just forget it.”

when you finally turned to look at him, you couldn’t figure out why he looked so mad. was it because you liked him or was it because you were taking it back and closing off the subject, not willing to have a conversation? but did it really matter? he was angry regardless of the reason and you really didn’t want to find out.

“how the fuck am i supposed to just forget that my best friend just confessed to having feelings for me?”

you refused to say a single word, instead moving to gather up your things and leave. your stomach was turning something awful, the uncomfortable, chilly feeling of dread creeping into your veins. you needed to get out of there and fast, not prepared to deal with the situation that you’d caused.

“i don’t know, but figure it out,” you’d replied, voice quiet and faltering with the beginnings of tears. “i know you don’t like me back anyways and that’s fine, so just… just forget it. seriously.”

his hand closed around your upper arm and turned you to face him, his fingers twisted up in the sleeve of your blazer. his eyes were burning fiercely and you swear you’ve never seen him look so wild and upset about something before.

“how do you know that? you didn’t even give me a chance to respond.”

you shook your head, trying to pull yourself out of his grasp. “i didn’t need to. your voice gave it away and you basically just admitted it. just let me go, jeongin. please.”

you could tell you’d backed him into a corner, that you really had picked up on the final word in his last question, the damning that. he’d let your arm go, his jaw set and his eyes darkening into something akin to boredom. he didn’t need to say anything else because, like you’d said, it was plainly written on his face; whatever the reason was, you just weren’t ever going to be his.

you’d gone through the rest of your day practically comatose, having spent your remaining energy crying in a bathroom stall for the rest of the lunch period. your friends (bless them) had tried desperately to figure out what was wrong with you, why your face was swollen and your eyes red, but your muted mutter of “nothing” was enough. they’d told you he didn’t deserve you anyways because you were destined for someone better and he didn’t know what he was missing out on.

except that he did know and he’d known for years. you’d spent the most formative parts of your lives attached at the hip and he knew every little secret, every tiny dream, every minuscule thing about you. he knew you more intimately than anyone had ever known you before and now, that was ruined. he was no longer yours to call best friend, no longer yours to meet up with on the roof to have lunch, to hold and comfort through terrible times.

and still yet, you’d forget what had happened, that jeongin was the one you’d had a falling out with, and you’d find yourself wanting to reach out to him, missing the warmth of his arms around you as you cried. you’d find yourself with the beginnings of his name or the nicknames you’d given him on the tip of your tongue. and then you’d remember and it would come flooding back again, the pain renewed and the wounds reopened.

and no matter how much your other friends tried, they would never replace the hole left in your life. you loved them, but they weren’t him and they never would be him.

but now you have seungmin, or at least, you’d like to think you do. he makes you laugh and you love the way he smiles, his eyes aglow. he waits for you before and after school at the front gate so you can walk to and from school together, as far as your paths will allow. he buys you snacks and makes sure you’re drinking water throughout the day. perhaps most importantly, he’s become your designated lunch buddy, shacking up in an empty classroom to chat and laugh and share meals. 

presently, you’re sitting together, sharing the lunch that his mom packed for him today, and he’s reading the synopsis of the short film he’s working on. he’s told you before that he’s always wanted to make a short film during his final year of high school, like a send-off for him and his friends, and now he’s in the works to accomplish that dream. he’s in the process of finalizing the script and he’s already got his other friends involved.

“so minho’s character has a crush on this girl and jeongin’s character is getting left behind by him.”

he keeps talking, but when you hear jeongin’s name mentioned, you freeze. it’s been months since you’ve spoken a word to him, but you think about him every single day. you almost forgot that you’re no longer friends and haven’t been for at least two months, and you definitely glossed over the fact that seungmin is still friends with him. that entire group is.

but because seungmin shows no reaction to the way you react, probably too caught up in his explanation of plot details and breaking off into a tangent, you’re sure that he still has no idea. why would he? jeongin introduced you to his group of friends and after you had that fight, you still hung out with them like there wasn’t any issue at all. and because there’s never been any mention of it, you assume that he never told them and you definitely haven’t because you like his friends a lot and you’re worried that admitting to it means they’ll take jeongin’s side and stop hanging out with you.

“anyways, i was wondering if you’d wanna help out with it,” seungmin says, breaking you out of your reverie. “most of the roles are covered, but… i don’t know. you don’t come around as much as you used to and it’d be fun to hang out again, all nine of us. you could be my personal assistant or something. we can find something for you to do.”

when you look up at him, you’re met with his eyes, deep and dark and so, so soft. he’s looking at you and if you were stupid, you’d think he’s looking at you a little hopefully. there’s some part of you that thinks it’s just as he says: he wants the group to hang out again like you used to just a few months ago. but there’s another part of you that desperately wants to believe that he wants to spend more time with you personally.

“are you sure? i don’t really have any experience with film and stuff. i wouldn’t want to be stepping on anyone’s feet or ruin the project…”

seungmin shakes his head, a comforting smile on his face. “we’re all amateurs and we’re all learning, so you wouldn’t even have to worry about it. jisung’s still struggling with working lights and stuff. really, i’d love for you to join the team. we all would.”

he looks at you so earnestly, his doe eyes bright and round and (you’re still thinking) hopeful, and you can’t find it in yourself to deny him. you’re apprehensive, of course, but with seungmin seemingly so excited about the idea of getting to spend time with you again, you don’t want to say no. out of everyone from that group, you’ve definitely missed him the most. with him being jeongin’s closest friend (once having been second only to you), you just couldn’t bring yourself to be around him, knowing that you’d have to see jeongin too.

calming yourself with the idea that you won’t have to spend any one-on-one time with jeongin, you smile back at seungmin and nod. “it sounds like a fun time, minnie. i’m in.”

“JEONGIN, STOP PEEKING THROUGH the window like that. you look like a creep,” hyunjin scolds, leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the hall. he’s too entranced with his phone, not even bothering to look up at his friend. he doesn’t need to though because he knows exactly what jeongin’s doing.

“when did seungmin and [name] get so close?” the younger one asks, stepping away from the door and leaning on the wall next to it. he tilts his head back against the cinderblock and closes his eyes, trying to clear his mind. “i mean, really. we stop being best friends, so they move onto my next closest friend? it’s like… what the hell, you know?”

“he asked them to help on the film as his personal assistant. of course they’re getting close,” hyunjin answers, though not at all rudely. rather, his voice carries more of a matter-of-fact tone. “besides, you guys stopped being friends months ago and you haven’t tried to reach out since then. i don’t really think you have the right to be jealous.”

“how many times do i have to tell you i’m not jealous, hyunjin?” jeongin questions, his voice carrying some bitter heat. “i’m just feeling a little… i don’t know! it’s just not fair that they’re spending all their time together.”

hyunjin finally looks up, but jeongin wishes he hadn’t because he’s raised one of his eyebrows and his eyes hold some of that all-knowingness. hyunjin is too smart to let jeongin pull the shade over his eyes and make him believe his lies, no matter how small they might be. he catches onto all the little meanings of things, a lot more observant than people tend to give him credit for.

“i hate to break it to you, kid, but that sounds a lot like jealousy to me.”

jeongin groans and tips his head forward, burying his face in his hands. he knows hyunjin is right because hyunjin is always right, most times almost infuriatingly so. however, hyunjin is the only one who he’s explicitly told what happened, but only because he’d picked up on the tension between you two and had questioned him about it. he’s also the only one who knows that since you stopped being friends, jeongin has come to realize a lot about himself and the role you play in his life, how he’s been hollow since you left him alone on that rooftop.

“you’re right, i know. i just… i don’t know how i can get them back. they’re moving on with seungmin and maybe that’s for the best. he’d treat them better than i ever could, than i did.”

his friend crosses the narrow hall in three long strides and rests a hand on his shoulder, fingers curling almost comfortingly into his arm. “this is the perfect opportunity to at least try. it might be your only opportunity. if you want them back that bad, then you’ll make it work, but you’re going to have to prove it to them.”

jeongin nods, looking down at his feet, scuffing the heel of his sneaker against the floor. once again, like always, hyunjin is undoubtedly, entirely correct. he thanks hyunjin for the advice and then they turn to head down the hallway together. as they round the corner, the classroom door slides open, and you and seungmin walk out together, his arm slung over your shoulders as you laugh at something he said. jeongin stops for a moment, watching you wistfully as you look up at your new best friend like you used to look at him. he starts moving only because hyunjin tugs on his sleeve.

when you left jeongin on that rooftop just a few months ago, he’d been angry with you at first. who knew how long you’d been harboring feelings for him, how long you’d been hiding them. you were his best friend, for fuck’s sake. you had always told each other everything, so for you to hide something that big from him for so long was… upsetting, to say the least. he didn’t return your feelings (at least, not then), but for you to drop such a secret on him and then refuse to have a rational conversation with him about it… how else was he supposed to feel?

and for a long time after that, he’d held a grudge against you. but eventually, anger melted into melancholy and then into desolation. his mornings and afternoons felt empty because you weren’t there with him, laughing at his jokes and playfully bickering with him about which street vendor sold better tteokbokki. he missed your texts in the middle of class when you couldn’t focus and in the middle of the night when you couldn’t sleep. and what it all boiled down to was the fact that he just missed you. he missed everything about you and when he caught himself thinking about how much he missed your laugh and your smile and your carefully placed attention, he realized that he was suddenly returning those feelings and it had taken your sudden departure for him to realize how much you really meant to him.

but he’d been too proud weeks ago to reach out to you and ask to talk about things. you’d really hurt his ego and he wasn’t looking to start another fight because he’d also come to realize that he hated fighting with you too. it took a lot of self reflection to come to the fact that he had probably hurt you way worse than you had hurt him. 

and then seungmin had announced that you’d be joining the team for his short film and jeongin’s heart had just about stopped. he was literally being handed the opportunity to make up with you and confess his feelings, but the idea of being face to face with you again after months of radio silence was daunting. still, he wanted to talk to you, but every chance seemed to slip through his fingers because you’d dash away the second he started approaching or seungmin would call you over for help with something.

now, having conducted some spy work, he’s got the reason why: you’re moving on or seem to be, at the very least. he should be glad that you are because you were sad for so long after your falling out and he knows that seungmin is a good guy, that he’d take such good care of you. but there’s some part of him that just can’t get behind the idea because he likes you and you liked him before you liked seungmin. 

all he knows is that before this project wraps, he has to get you back.

THE SUNLIGHT IS PALE, a product of the sun setting as afternoon fades into evening. school let out about an hour ago, but you’re still on campus, helping seungmin with the to-do list you’d helped him put together during lunch. it’s long, taking up almost the entire memo pad you’d written it on. most of it is gibberish to you because you don’t know many film terms, but it’s completely decipherable to seungmin, so you don’t question it.

instead, you let him direct you on where to go, what to do. you know you’re not well-versed in this kind of work, not like he is or chan and changbin are, but he’s gentle with you, something adjacent to sweet and doting. his voice is even and kind, spelling things out for you in a way that doesn’t make it seem like he’s being condescending, just helpful. with a comforting hand on your shoulder, he tells you that you can always ask him or anyone else for help if you need it, to not be afraid of it because he knows it can be overwhelming.

“it’s nothing super intensive or anything, i promise,” seungmin says, looking over at you. he’s spent the better half of the last few minutes explaining how a gimbal camera stabilizer works. “all you really need to do is make absolutely sure that the camera is secure so that when hyunjin uses it later, there isn’t any chance of it falling or something. also, once i’m done going over the lines with minho and chaewon, would you mind blocking the scene with me? just kind of show them how i want them to move in this scene. words can only do so much, you know?”

with his big, shining brown eyes and his pretty, bright smile, all of his attention focused solely on you, you can’t bring yourself to deny him. even if you weren’t starstruck by how genuinely adorable he is, you wouldn’t say no to him. you’ve really enjoyed working closely with seungmin like this and his love for film has almost rubbed off on you, so any chance to learn a little more (or more a very thinly veiled chance to spend just a moment more alongside him) is welcomed with widely opened arms.

“yeah, of course! no problem, min,” you reply, returning his smile and hoping it is just as bright and pretty as his is.

if at all possible, his smile gets even wider and he reaches a hand up to give you a head pat. before you can protest or try to give him a taste of his own medicine, he dashes away, giggling a little and trying hard to not trip over the cords for the lights and boom mic, glancing back over his shoulder once he reaches minho and chaewon. you’re left in his wake, stifling a giggle behind your hand and rolling your eyes, knowing he can see you.

when you finally turn to the gimbal stabilizer to follow through on what seungmin asked you to do, you can feel a gaze searing into the back of your shoulder. if looks could kill, you’d have been dead weeks ago, all at the demand of yang jeongin. when you agreed to become seungmin’s p.a., you knew it would entail spending extended time around jeongin, someone you hadn’t actively been around for the last couple of months; however, it also meant you would get to spend an extended time around seungmin (and of course, the rest of the friend group that you hadn’t really been around for a while). you didn’t care about how incensed jeongin was about you joining the team; it wasn’t his project, so he couldn’t call the shots and if he was mad about seungmin’s decision to bring you on, then he could complain about it as much as he wanted.

from the very first shooting session you were on, you could see how he was always eyeing you, though the emotion there was indistinct, unclear. you had always made a concerted effort to keep your distance from him. agreeing to be on the team meant that you were going to have to be around him, but it didn’t mean you had to torture yourself by giving him your time of day outside of the singular interactions seungmin asked you to have with him. you never got closer than you needed, never spoke more than you had to, never purposefully looked longer outside of obligatory eye contact and accidental glances. as such, you’ve relegated yourself to becoming used to the glares and the near constant feeling of jeongin’s gaze; as long as he wasn’t trying to speak to you outside of those necessary actions, then you could deal with him.

you check one, two, three, four times that the camera is secure on the stabilizer, knowing you can never be too sure that something is safe and secure (at the beginning of your time as seungmin’s p.a., jisung had looked away for just a couple of seconds and his lighting setup had been knocked over, which you’d helped clean up and fix). as you’re carefully setting the camera back down, you hear the telltale sound of footsteps approaching. you stay hunched over the camera, unwilling to come face to face with jeongin; you know it’s him because he’s tried to approach you several times and you’ve always refused to entertain him and his attention. whatever he has to say, he had the chance to say it in the weeks following your fall out, when you would stay up late just hoping for a text message from him; now, the idea of making up with him just leaves a sour taste in your mouth, either out of anger, spite, or still burning sadness that things with him will never go back to what they were before.

just as he begins the first syllable of your name, seungmin calls you. when you look up, the boy is waving you over to him, minho, and chaewon, no doubt ready to block out the scene with them to make sure his vision was captured perfectly. you smile and stand to your full height, rolling your shoulders back to work the tension out. jeongin attempts to say your name again, but you’re already moving away from him, glancing minutely over your shoulder to see that he was reaching out a hand towards you.

there’s a part of you that wants to make up with him, sure. ever since you walked away from him, there’s been a strange hollowness in your life, unable to be filled by anyone or anything else. you miss him and the things he brought to your life, and you want him and that life back. but you’re also still angry at him for the way he’d treated you, like you’d done something so much worse than just having a crush on him. regardless, the whole thing was irreversible; you’d made a decision (albeit an unconscious one) and you’d blown it all to hell. even if there was a chance at redemption, it was long passed now, a choice that was no longer on the table because of inaction and pride.

the whole time you help seungmin block the scene for the two leads, you’re distracted by jeongin. you can’t even enjoy the feeling of seungmin’s hand resting in your own.

“HEY! COULD YOU WAIT UP for a minute? i wanted to talk to you about something,” seungmin calls after you as you’re walking down the front drive of the school grounds, your backpack slung over your shoulder and your mind deadset on going home and watching some netflix before you get some studying done.

you stop and turn to look at him, watching as he jogs down the brick pavement to catch up. the sun is setting behind the treeline and the way the dying golden rays are hitting him make him look iridescent, like he’s sparkling from the inside out, already gorgeous skin now gilded by the sun. kim seungmin looks absolutely beautiful right now and you’re completely taken by him.

you bring a hand up to fidget with your backpack strap as he finally approaches, his jog slowed into long, easy strides. you finally answer his question. “sure, what’s up?”

the boy scratches the back of his neck and looks down at his shoes as you continue strolling down the walkway together. he’s a nervous guy, but you’ve never seen him quite so on edge and you wonder what’s got him all wound up. though, when you start to wonder if you should as him if he’s alright, he speaks, a jumble of words that takes you a few moments to parse through and unscramble.

“listen, i was thinking… and it’s alright if you don’t feel the same way, i promise… but, i was thinking that since we’ve, y’know… started spending so much time together, maybe we could hang out… without the movie and the others. just the two of us.”

you stop walking and your stomach lurches, completely taken aback by his words. if you read anymore into it, you’d think that-

“it’s just that i really, really like you and i have for a while and i’d really like to take you out on a date some time. but like i said, it’s completely fine if you don’t feel the same way. i won’t be upset or anything.”

there’s some little part of you that feels guilty because seungmin is still jeongin’s friend and it feels a little wrong to agree to go out on a date with him, but still, there’s a bigger piece that likes seungmin so much, that always kind of has liked seungmin. and here he is, confessing his feelings to you, his eyes warring between hope and despair as he waits for you to give him an answer, his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his sweater vest.

you give him your answer.

you turn to leave.

and jeongin is standing at the front gate, his eyes trained on you. 

waiting.

“WHAT WERE YOU AND SEUNGMIN talking about?” jeongin asks as you approach him, his voice light and airy. it sounds too carefree, too easy, like you didn’t stop being friends nearly five months ago. 

“why’s that any of your business?” you ask, not even bothering to stop so he can walk beside you. he doesn’t deserve the honor of waiting for him to catch up like you’d bestowed upon seungmin just a few minutes ago.

“uh… because you’re both my friends and i’m nosy.”

it takes everything in you not to round on him right there and give him the shake down. friends? what the fuck is he talking about? you stopped calling jeongin your friend five months ago and he hasn’t so much as tried to contact you since then. why is he acting and talking like you’re still partners in crime?

“since when were we friends again, yang?” you question, voice laced with as much malice as you can manage. you’re sounding bold, but you feel like you could cry, so many feelings taking over your chest that you feel overwhelmed and nervous. he hurt you bad and he knows that, so why is he trying to slide his way back into your life like nothing fucking happened, especially when he knows how you felt about him? doesn’t that mean anything to him? “we stopped talking months ago and you haven’t tried to even do so much as say hi to me in the hallway.”

you hear him mutter to himself, something along the lines of “i can’t do this anymore,” before he’s grabbing at your arm like he did all those months ago and turning you to face him. the expression he wears is just as wild as it was when you confessed, but this time it’s more desperate than mad. it’s not a look you’ve seen on him in all of your years of knowing him because he’s never been desperate for anything.

“listen, i know… i know you’re still mad at me and i know that i really, really fucked things up that day and then every day after by not reaching out, but… god, my life is so dull without you in it and i should have figured this out a long time ago, but i like you. and i am so sorry about what happened and i should have come to apologize once i’d calmed down, but i didn’t and i’m so fucking stupid for that, i know.”

jeongin’s eyes have gone from desperate to downright sad, tears pooling so much that his eyes have gone glassy. and with the way your vision is going blurry too, you assume you must look the same.

“so just… please tell me i’m not too late… for anything at this point. please. if you’re going to date seungmin, that’s fine. i just need to know that i’m not too late to make things up to you because i need you back in my life. you’re… you’re still my best friend.”

you’re hugging jeongin before you can even realize that the idea had crossed your mind, your arms going tight around his neck as you pull yourself into him. it feels like it takes no time at all for him to return the favor, his own arms wrapping around your back, pressing you against him as one hand comes to cradle the back of your head. his fingers twist into your hair and you feel him sob against your shoulder.

“i told him i’d think about it,” you say, your voice raspy and thick with tears. it’s a struggle to get the words out. “i told him that even though i liked him, i still had feelings for someone else that i needed to work through. he’ll be expecting an answer from me.”

jeongin sobs again, but this time, it sounds more like a laugh than anything. you don’t really care what it actually is because you have him back after months of not talking to him. his arms tighten around you and you rub the space between his shoulder blades, pressing warm lines into him in the hope that it calms him down.

“i’m sorry,” he says eventually, still holding you against him.

“i’m sorry too,” you respond, leaning your head against his before pulling away to look at him. with your vision clear once more, you can tell just how much of a mess your friend looks and you can’t help but laugh a little tearfully, moving your hands to wipe clumsily at his cheeks. “i shouldn’t have hidden my feelings from you and i shouldn’t have left the rooftop like that. i’m really, really sorry, jeongin.”

he shakes his head and mimics your behavior from just a few moments ago, smiling as he wipes your own tears away, his thumbs gently brushing them from your eyelashes. “i shouldn’t have gotten mad at you like that and i definitely shouldn’t have ignored you afterwards. if i could change everything i did that day, i would.”

you nod in agreement, letting your head fall forward to rest against his collarbone, completely exhausted from the amount of emotional turmoil you’ve been through in the last five minutes or so. having feelings for people is so tiring, you conclude, but maybe this is the start of things going back to normal. you’ve missed jeongin so much and even though you’re still very much upset with him, you can begin to feel it ebb away.

“i’m still mad at you.”

he chuckles and your head shakes a little, in tandem with his shoulders as he laughs. one of his hands rubs lines into your back. “i know, but i wanna fix it… if you’ll let me.”

you nod and draw a deep breath, backing away from him a few steps. you can see the way his eyes alight in a fearful way and then soften immediately as you reach up to push his shoulder with one hand while you wipe at more tears with your other, he catches your hand in his, laughing that cute, dopey little laugh of his as he closes his fingers around your palm.

“i don’t know think we can go back to the way things were, but… start by buying me tteokbokki?” you ask, curling your own fingers against his hand and turning, tugging him along behind you. you can hear him laugh a little and you can picture the way he rolls his eyes because he knows you’re going to really play up this “making it up to you” thing.

“i don’t know if it’s worth all of that…” he remarks playfully, finally falling in step beside you. when you look at him, he pointedly turns his head away like he’s upset you even considered the idea that he’d buy you a snack, but you can see the smile he wears, the way the corner of his lips curl upwards. you missed that way more than you’d ever admit.

BONUS

“are you going to go on that date with seungmin?” jeongin asks as you sit at a table across from each other. he pushes a couple of pieces of tteokbokki in the dish towards you. 

his tone is a little indiscernible, wavering strangely between sadness and friendliness. when you said you weren’t sure if things would go back to the way they were, your feelings for each other were included: while time away from each other hadn’t dulled them, you wanted to focus on being friends with him again rather than jump into a relationship. plus, you deserved a chance to see how things could go with seungmin; you had come to like him a lot in the months of jeongin’s absence.

“maybe… i’m not sure yet,” you answer, munching indifferently on the snack he’d treated you to. “do you think i should?”

“as the guy who has a crush on you or as your best friend?”

“both,” you reply, even though you know what he’ll say in both roles. you just want to hear him say it.

jeongin sighs, almost as if he’s deep in thought and pondering his answers. it’s the kind of playfulness you missed in the wake of his (temporary) departure from your life. as upset as he had made you months ago, he had apologized for everything and expressed serious, genuine interest in making things right. when you’d missed him so much, you found that there wasn’t much resistance in inviting him back into your life.

“well, as the guy who likes you, i’d obviously say no because i want the chance to go on a date with you instead, but… as your best friend, i know seungmin likes you and i know he could treat you well. and i know that i don’t really deserve that chance after everything that’s happened, at least not right now, so… i think you should do it.” he pauses, once again playing up the expression of deep thought. “besides i have some insider info.”

you stop midchew, looking up at him so fast, you almost give yourself whiplash. your eyes narrow at him as you stare him down. he has that dumb, shiteating grin on his face.

“what do you mean, insider info?” you ask once you swallow your food.

he turns his nose up and looks away, crossing his arms over his chest. he’s trying so hard to make it seem like he’s not divulging any secrets that seungmin may or may not have told him.

“yang jeongin, so help me god…” you say, lightly kicking his shin under the table.

before you know it, he’s standing up, grabbing his backpack from the ground beside his chair, and taking off. when the hell did he get so fast? you struggle to get up, but eventually, you do and you begin to chase after him. he’s stopped at the corner of the road, waiting for you to catch up to him. your backpack bumps wildly against your side as you run to get him.

“jeongin, what did seungmin say to you!” you call as you close in on him, determined to get the information. instead of answering, jeongin laughs and turns away, once again bolting down the sidewalk.

“if you wanna know, you’ll have to catch me!”

as annoying as he can be, you did truly miss jeongin and the oddly timed spontaneity he brings to your life. even though your chest is heaving and your legs burn with the effort of running, you laugh in spite of it all, glad to have this back, have him back. your life really wasn’t complete without him.

and maybe there is a universe where you remain friends with jeongin and become lovers with seungmin, living the rest of your life in perfect harmony. but that isn’t this universe, you’re sure of it.

© gyuphorias 2022 | do not copy, translate, or repost/reuse my work

[bendy-and-buddies]

To celebrate the Dark Revival... we uncovered something sitting in the archives for quite some time.

This is a script. One for a special that was apparently slotted to be released in the month of April originally. That was all that could be discerned from the documents, what year in specific is still lost. There are even a select number of characters exclusive to this script who appear nowhere else across the Bendy IP prior to the 1990s.

((short version: Here's an "April Fools special" that's been a low effort WIP script for a long, long, LONG time. Enjoy the crack.))

DUE TO THE OUTLANDISHLY VAST FAN-DEMAND, BENDY AND BUDDIES IS NOW PERMANANTLY CHANGED TO SUIT THE HIGH DEMANDS YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS WANTED! SO PLEASE ENJOY THE NEW, AND IMPROVED, BENDY AND BUDDIES AND THE INK MACHINE ADVENTURES!!!

[Bendy and Buddies and Etc. is filmed in front of a fictional studio audience.]

 

Angie; “Bendy! I was hoping that the both of us could visit the beach once more, mayhap we can bring the others as well?”

Bendy; “Ah, sure Anj! Sounds like it’d be fu-“

(Alice walk in and puts her arms around Bendy, very deliberately having his head near her breasts. Cue sitcom audience cheers as Alice enters.)

Alice; “Ohhh, but Bendy just promised to take me out for a date! So sorry, maybe he can play little games with you some other time, sweetums~?”

Bendy; “Alice, c’mon! she was inviting all of us! She wasn’t excluding you on purpose or something, right?”

Angie; “Um... yes, of course she may accompany us! I do not see why Alice canno-”

(Alice and Bendy make quick confused noises at Angie’s response before resuming.)

Alice; “Oh, of course! It is just like privileged little you to try and take Bendy all for yourself! Sorry airhead, but Bendy is far too grown up for a childish little girly-girl like you! A handsome devil like this deserves a real woman like me!”

 

(bouncy sound effects to imply her boobs are flopping around.)

Angie; “But, Lady Alice, I never intended-!”

Bendy; (anxiously, under his breath) “Anj, just grab my arm!”

(Angie tries to reason peacefully until Bendy gestures her to grab hold of one of his arms. Alice has his other arm in the usual love-triangle tug-of-war scenario/trope. Angie looks less “grumpy” and more uncomfortable)

 

Bendy; “Ladies, ladies! Please, there’s plenty of the Devil Darling to go around!”

Angie; “You are in samples??”

(Bendy’s surprised, laughs a bit and is about to correct her until Alice cuts in again)

Alice; “It’s an expression, nitwit! See Bendy? Why bother with this Dumb Dora, when you can have a Darlin Dame~?”

(Angie is saddened by the persistent bullying from Alice’s end)

Bendy; (angrily to Alice, under his breath again) “You’re not helpi-!”

 

(cut to Boris nearby with a banjo)

Boris; “Gee wiz Bendy, quite the heartbreaker lately aren’cha?”

Bendy; (dramatically) “it’s my devilish charms, I can’t help it!”

Boris; “One’a these days it’s gonna be yer downfall, attracting so many-“

(Sammy shows up the hell out of nowhere.)

 

Sammy; “Wonderful Lord Bendy! Let me sniff your holy panties!”

Boris: “Well, if it isn’t that super-wacky Sammy! The head of the Music Department who has no note-worthy character outside of blindly worshiping Bendy! He was never a toon like us, but… um, guess he’s here anyway! Hooray!”

Sammy; “insert anime joke here!”

Bendy; (in pure dread) “Oh no-“

 

(And now Wally shows up, also the hell out of nowhere.)

Wally; “Regardless of how Bendy’s lovelife goes, if it makes another damn tidal wave of a mess I gotta clean up: I’M OUTTA HERE!”

(stupid laughtracks playing)

Alice; “He said the catchphrase!”

Bendy; “Wally the Janitor is just hilarious in everything he pops up in, right everyone!?”

Boris; “Sponsored by the following companies listed.” (onscreen there’s several of the in-universe businesses in the canon-verse. Maybe throw in a reference to other fictitious companies? Acme is a definite one to add.)

 

Bendy; “Actually, Alice… I don’t think you really specified where you wanted to have that date anyway, where were you thinking?”

Alice; “Oh, I thought you’d never ask, my Widdle Debil! Infact, I want all of you to come with, please do follow your angel!”

Bendy and Boris; (failing to see how suspicious that was) “Sounds good to me!”

As Bendy, Boris and Sammy obediently follow Alice, Angie is called by someone else off-screen the opposite way.

 

Angie; “Wait, what was that?”

(murmured gibberish a’la Peanuts is heard)

Angie; “Oh um, alright then.”

 

(The ‘gang’, sans Angie, arrive at Joey Drew Studios. I’ll prolly just take a photo of whatever animation studio or old building from google and slap the JDS logo on top of it. Laziness!) 

 

Alice; “And here we are!”

Bendy; “Uhh… Alice??”

Boris; “Isn’t this the old studio?... Y’know, as in that place where all of us experienced terrible, traumatic pasts involving human experimentation and brutal ritualistic sacrifices that’ve left us all emotionally and mentally scared forever and other dark, gruesome things like that?”

(Bendy is a little taken aback by Boris’ detailed description.)

Bendy; “… Yeah… I thought we all vowed to never come back here…? Wasn’t finally getting out a highly triumphant moment for us or something?”

Sammy; “Lord Bendy, your buttocks is scrumptious like hamburgers!”

 

Alice; “Oh, I assure you! I have very good reasons for why I chose to take you all here! I have one… no, TWO very important things I’ve needed to show you all for a long time!”

Bendy; “Only now this has been brought up??”

Alice; “both are a lot to take in, but I need you to trust me… do you doubt your angel~?”

Bendy; “Ahh… fine then.”

Boris; “I’m ready for anything.”

(Alice looks up and calls to someone)

Alice; “Alright deary-pie, you can come out now!”

(stupid dramatic sound effects as the apparent newcomer is revealed)

Geno-Fur; “Hello, everyone!! It’s me, Geno-Fur!!”

Sudden Narrator; “Thaaaat’s right! It’s Geno-Fur the DemonAngel, the most powerful cartoon character in all of Toon Town! The perky, talented daughter of Bendy the Demon and Alice Angel with the help of the Ink Machine, this cute toon angel demon girl has an inner inky darkness unlike any other! She’s oh-so deep, mysterious and meaningful everyone!”

 

Bendy; (more and more like he’s reading it off a script) “Oh my Satan! Alice, we have a long-lost daughter who is beautiful and an objectively perfect and wonderful blend of who we both are! And will probably easily surpass us in popularity! If I had known we had such a blessing who totally didn’t just fall out of the sky, I would have dropped everything, married you and center my entire life around you both!

Sammy; “Praise be unto the blessed firstborn!”

(Boris is bug-eyed, genuinely dumbfounded by what is happening before him)

Boris; “UM…??”

 

Geno-Fur; “OMG! Mommy, Daddy, thank you so much! You even brought my husband here to see me!

(Geno-Fur hugs Boris hard enough to pop his spine, he’s in pain. “CAN’T… B-BREATHE-!!” his poor banjo has snapped in two. To Boris’ luck, Geno-Fur releases him.)

Bendy; (zero effort on his part) “Don’t go breakin’ my princess’s heart, Boris…”

Alice; “I love beautiful reunions!”

Sammy; “I shall always be a loyal, faithful Side-Hoe willing to pleasure you, your Queen, and your glorious child, my Lord!”

 

Boris; “Guys, none of this is in my copy of the script, what’s going on?!?”

Alice; “I’ll gladly answer that! What’s going on is my second reason…”

(Alice wipes the side of her face to reveal the same gross Scarface thing going on with Susie-Alice. Shock Horror, she’s also Susie-Alice.)

Alice: “As it turns out, I’m still not near as perfect as I’d like to be!! AH-HAHAHA!”

(Alice cackles evilly as she grabs Boris and drags him into the building. Yes, exactly like the end of Chapter 3.)

Boris; (As he’s spirited away) “WHAAAAAT THEEEEE HAYSTAAACK!?....”

 

Bendy; “What!? Oh god, Boris!! Hang on buddy, I’m coming!”

(a panicking Bendy runs in to rescue Boris, Sammy and Geno-Fur follow)

Sammy; “M’Lawd! I will follow you to the ends of the earth!”

Geno-Fur; “Mommy!! Daddy!! Why can’t we settle this like normal people!?”

(Bendy is desperately trudging into the studio, unknowingly he is very slowly melting into his monster-form we are all familiar with as he becomes exhausted)

Bendy; “Boris, please hang on!! I’m coming...!! .. Augh… Maybe… Maybe I should hit the gym? NO!! No, I’m fine!! Goddamned fine!! I just gotta… Gotta keep going… Wait, wait… why is my sweat this… thick and… dark?”

(Bendy’s then surprised upon overhearing something, looking to the side to find Henry somewhere in the distance and humming to himself- probably doing one of the Chapter 3 tasks)

Henry; “Joey Drew he likes big fingers in his ass, Joey Drew he likes big fingers in his ass, fingers in his ass, he likes in his-” (yes. It’s that meme. I have zero shame.)

(Bendy slowly becomes angered)

Bendy; “Henry… Henry!!”

(this gets Henry’s startled attention. As Bendy rants he slowly completes his transformation into Monster-Bendy.)

Bendy; “My old, actual for-real creator, Henry… You left everyone… You left ME! Why didn’t you stay!? Was I just a mistake to you, blaming me for everything Joey did!? Why didn’t you love me, Henry!? Was I never good enough for you!? You LIED to us!! You never stopped Joey from all of the atrocities he committed!! You never came back!! You never played catch with me and called me ‘Sport’!! You never threw me a Birthday!! YOU NEVER BOUGHT ME A HAPPY MEAL!!!”

Henry; “Oh gosh!”

(Henry zooms away as fast as he can, his warped and enraged cartoon-demon son giving chase. Suddenly Geno-Fur to the oh-so convenient rescue.)

Geno-Fur; “Oh my god, daddy!! Izzat you?? Ohmygaww I can see why mommy thot u wer hawt!!”

(Bendy is understandably confused by her appearance and comment.)

Bendy; “huh…what??”

(he looks back to where Henry was initially, however Henry’s already in a miracle station also conveniently nearby)

Bendy; “HE’S GONE!! Where did he-!?”

Geno-Fur; “Ummm like… you know that weird up-and-down door and room thingy with buttons??”

Bendy; (surprised at how goddamn stupid she is) “The… you mean the elevator?”

Geno-Fur; “Yeah!! The escalator! I think Henry’s using it to go down to liiiiike… Level 1000!”

Bendy; “…There is no Level 1000. The building doesn’t tunnel down THAT deep.”

Geno-Fur; “Exactly!! Like, he’s going so deep down he’s trying to get to a level that doesn’t exist! I’m sure that if you go all the way down to the last floor, you’ll find Henry! Good luck daddykins!”

Bendy; (half-assing at this point) “Well, I totally trust my perfect hybrid daughter to never lie to me ever and that alibi is highly convincing. I will go.”

(Bendy exists the scene in his usual spooky way, to which Henry hops back out of the station.)

Geno-Fur; “Hurry Henry!! We gotta save mah Woof Hubby and get out of here!! And bring mommy and daddy back with the power of family love!!”

(Geno-Fur tearfully exists, Henry following her.)

Henry; “This is what I got out of retirement for…”

 

(Cut to Alice’s super-duper evil lab room with Boris strapped to the operating table Frankenstein style. Alice is still acting in-character, in contrast Boris is basically left to ad-lib and isn’t entirely certain on the mood of the scene. Boris scratches at his neck, but quickly puts his arm back in as soon as he realizes they’re rolling.)

Alice; (some obligatory evil chuckling) “… And after I’ve done away with you, Henry AND Bendy, I can continue my makeover with no trouble or interruptions at all! Then I will have the popularity I was always destined for! Now, any last words before you fulfil your purpose, little wolfie~?”

Boris; “is it too early to make a ‘stole my heart’ joke, even though you got the REAL side-splitters, or...?”

(some muffled laughter off-stage is heard, implied to be Rodney behind the camera. Alice is unamused and gestures at Boris threateningly.)

Alice; “Be quiet or I’ll cut you open faster.”

Boris; “Alright, alright, I’ll shush…” 

The “mysterious” voice who may or may not be Rodney; “Bitter hag-”

 

(because of budgetary, technical, and time-related issues… we already skip over to chapter 4 events because we’re basically haphazardly trying to scrunch in the entire canon-game story, not caring if it makes any sense at all like always)

 

Henry; “Okay, so it’s only now occurred to me to ask; earlier, we were in the show… but as we kept going, all of a sudden we’re in the-?”

Geno-Fur; “YAWN! You’re boring old-man dinosaur talk is super boring, we’re not gonna rescue Boris fast enough if you don’t let me do all of the mouth-stuff! No wonder mommy and daddy wanna murder-fy you, LOL!”

Henry; “I… I don’t even- what the heck is a ‘LOL’, anyway!? Why are you helping me if you’re their daughter or something!?”

Geno-Fur; “Because I’m sooo nice!! :3”

Henry; “How… how do you even work??”

 

(The Butcher Gang mooks appear right the hell out of nowhere without Henry even opening any of the doors)

Charley; (in a grunty, zombie-ish way) “Now’s are time to shine, boys… Lets take all of our pent-up frustrations out on Henry!”

Geno-Fur; “OOOOOH MY GOOOOOOOD!!! SOOOO KAWAII! THESE GUYS ARE SOOO MY HUSBANDS!”

(she hugs all three up to her tumour-tits, immediately all their necks snap.)

Henry: (not even caring anymore) “I thought you said Boris was your husband.”

Geno-Fur; “Ummm, DUH? Of course, he is! You’ve clearly not been listening to me with your senile old-ness! Seriously, I thought the guy who drew ME would be super-hot and NOT some old BOOMER! Isn’t that right, husbands!?”

(she only now realises the 3 are dead and lets out a big Darth Vader “NOOOO!!!”, Henry is unfazed.)

 

(Meanwhile, back at Bendy’s Ink Machine throne room - Bendy was able to hear Geno-Fur’s annoying whine from several of those miles upwards)

Bendy; “the hell…? Ugh… probably my cue… A guy just can’t watch his own show on loop in peace anymore…”

(as Bendy speaks he’s existing his “castle” to return to the higher levels. Sammy abruptly appears again in one of the hallways Bendy passes.)

Sammy; “My Lord! I will always be gleeful and willing to perform any request you-!”

 

(Bendy, not even making eye-contact, clocks Sammy in the head with his “good toon hand” hard enough to put the walking notice-me-senpai-joke out cold, the sound effect a wet and loud POW. Mr Lawrence is unconscious. And maybe missing some teeth.)

 

Bendy; “Fuckin’ punchline…”

 

(Cut back to Henry and Geno-Fur at the carnival prototype area. The poor old man is being ranted at by the annoying Mary Sue disaster for killing her 3 other “husbands”. Even though that was her own fault.)

 

Geno-Fur; “Those valiant gentle-mans meant the world to me and now they’re all gross inky poopy-goop!! This is all YOUR fault, you ugly old murderer-guy, you!! Feel guilty for your evil sins!!”

Henry; “I never even touched them; YOU did that! Please tell me, are you some kinda alien who is trying to mimic what a toon looks and acts like? Because you’re failing miserably.”

Geno-Fur; “I’m young and pretty and you’re a wrinkly old fart!! That means I’m right and you’re wrong!!”

(Henry groans in annoyance, pinching the bridge of his nose)

Henry; “Alright then… Seeing as I’m clearly a hindrance to your ‘noble quest’ or… whatever, how’s about this: you go ahead and complete all of the puzzles needed to unlock the doors, while I search for any clues or another alternate route that could maybe get us into that haunted house faster? I mean, clearly, it’d be my only good contribution to your ‘mission’.”

Geno-Fur; “Pfff, I have a better idea! I’ll go ahead and complete all the puzzles needed to unlock the doors, while YOU search for any clues or another alternate route that could maybe get us into that haunted house faster! I mean, clearly, it’d be your only good contribution to my mission!”

 

(As Geno-Fur sneers she walks to the puzzle-room that has Norman in it, Henry has an expression that all but states he wants to see this obnoxious girl get hit by a truck.)

Henry; “You…go do that.”

Geno-Fur; “YAS! And I’ma doit like a sexy QUEEN~!!”

(As she enters the door shuts behind her, trapping her there until the task would be completed.)

Henry; “Okay then… Better think of something before she gets back. I can only put up with that rotten attitude for so long…”

(Before Henry knew it, he now hears several sounds indicative of clutter and a chase as he sadly must hear Geno-Fur’s voice once more, although muffled through the walls and corridors… There are gradually more muffled sounds of disaster around him, almost impossibly so as Geno-Fur’s whining can be heard amongst it. Sounds range from explosions, to car horns and all the way to an elephant. Henry is utterly lost.)

Henry; “What the devil is that brat doing!?”

(as soon as the noise dies down finally, all the doors and puzzles have spontaneously been completed. Whatever Geno-Fur caused in there, it finished everything for him.)

Henry; “Wait, already?... Huh, that screechy rat-girl helped with progress for once…”

 

(Not wasting any time, Henry hops into the attraction and heads towards one of the carts on the track. Extra sound-effects/in-game audio to indicate the ride starts, as Henry is slowly carted through the tunnel-portion the intercom is switched on, it’s Boris and Susie-Alice mid-conversation. Alice sounds angered with a reasonable Boris.)

Boris; “-I’m just saying, you weren’t part of Henry’s initial vision when making this show, and that isn’t a bad thing! I mean, Lola got popular after Space Jam-“

Susie-Alice; “And popular with who, exactly!? A bunch of perverts who don’t care about character! But as soon as I make it to the big top, the world will know I’m appealing in mind AND sexuality! So, what if I was Joey’s add-on!? I was the best thing to happen to you and Bendy’s sad little circus!”

Boris; “Alice, look, there’s no need to get hostile. I’ve been trying to help you and turn it around into something positive. You’re the one choosing to see it as something wrong. You’re not one of Henry’s characters like Bendy and I. That isn’t an insult, it’s what happened!”

Susie-Alice; “Well! You!... You’re just a sad, stupid mongrel who digs up bones! And your friend is a fat, gremlin slob who’ll never have anything near as wonderful as me!! How do you like that, huh!? What do have to say to that!?”

Boris; “I’d say now you’re just yelling like an angry school-kid ‘cuz you don’t have a point.”

 

(Henry pays no heed to the Halloween-themed pop-ups as he listens in awkwardly)

Henry; “I might’ve jumped in too soon...”

(Susie-Alice and Boris both let out surprised a “huh?”)

Henry; “Oh! Did… did you two hear me? Didn’t think it worked that way.”

Boris; “Howdy Henry! Real quick, was all’a that ruckus earlier from that Jenny-chick? Sounded like a twister full of cats was let loose in here!”

Susie-Alice; “How much did you hear!? Wait, wait!! How do you shut this off!? Can we do this over!? Make the cart stop right now! I was supposed to give a profound and depressing speech--!!”

(the intercom is abruptly cut as Alice panics, likely because she was scrambling on the buttons. Henry’s already at the “house” part of the ride with paintings and such.)

Henry; “… I’ll just tell her I only heard something about bones and gremlins.”

(As Henry is carted across the room, he comments on the environment casually)

Henry; “Wonder who did the paintings in here? I need to ask around when I can. I don’t think the poor fella ever got credit, knowing Joey’s ‘forgetfulness’… Bertrum prolly has the answer, if he’s still nearby.”

(Henry’s about to head into the dark tunnel where Boris *would* be there as a Frankenstein monster to make it stop… but no, he isn’t there. Not to any degree.)

Henry: “Uhh… ‘Oh no! what has she done to you!?’ …”

(He clears his throat, then adds more base to his voice)

Henry: “…’OH NO! what has she done to you!?’ …”

 

(Although Henry’s deeper into the darker portion of the ride than what was normal, his tired prayer is answered as a pair of hands latch onto the cart and force it to stop. They, however, are not Boris’ mega-hands… But Norman’s, as is indicative by what Henry can see as well as the grunts. He has removed the camera-head mask)

Henry: “… ‘Boris! What has she do-!?’ wait… wait, Nor-?”

(Norman, shrouded in shadows, cuts Henry off with a panicked “SHH!!”, then whispers...)

Norman: “Look, Hen, I’m having as hard a time to follow what’s going on as you are. I’m going to push you back and adjust the cart, so it doesn’t keep moving. This did not happen, and you never saw me!”

Henry: “Of course… Highly terrifying Ink-monster who I did not see here…”

Norman: “There we go.”

 

(As the not-Projectionist(?) stated, he shoved the cart back and made quick work to turn it in such a way that it wouldn’t continue onward on the track. Henry is awkwardly left alone waiting for the warped-Boris cue.)

Rodney, undoubtedly the cameraman now and in a snarky mood; “… Isn’t something supposed to happen in this clearly suspenseful climax we’ve been building up to?”

(There is a loud “BONK” sound effect as Rod is clocked on the noggin by somebody else, resulting in an annoyed “OW!! Son of a…!!” from him.)

 

(Susie-Alice enters the room without warning, very blatantly stalling for time with improvisations. Henry hardly reacts.)

Susie-Alice; “We meet again, Henry! You’re trapped in my web, and a little fly like you will have no chance of escape!”

Henry; “Didn’t you already use that spider-web analogy a while ago...?”

Susie-Alice; “Soon! Your face will be an analogy for all the pain and ruin you’ve done unto me which is very clearly your fault as much as Joeys’! But! Unlike your ruined face mine will be fixed and I’ll be the heavenly starlet idol I’ve always deserved to be!”

Henry; “You lost me.”

Susie-Alice; “And I’ll make you lose your head too! Literally, not figuratively!”

(she charges to him dramatically, brandishing a vase prop from the table. Henry leisurely hops out of the cart finally.)

Henry; “a cue to fight and defend myself, alrighty then...”

 

(Before Henry could spring into this on-the-spot “Boss Battle”, a sudden gent pipe whizzes through the air at a beeline to Susie-Alice’s head. It’s only hard enough to make her stop in her tracks with a surprised shriek and grunt to herself for a little in pain. Standing on top of the cart Henry had exited is “Allison Alice”. She’s posed dramatically and without Tom.)

“Allison”; “Please, don’t give up Henry! You’re our only hope!... Don’t know why I said that here and now, but I did…”

Henry; (fake gasp, he’s clearly getting tired) “Oh My Goodness, another Amy the Angel?”

“Allison”; “Um, it’s ‘Alice’-”

Henry; “-Dearie me, given that there have been dozens of Boris copies, does that mean there are just as many of you?”

“Allison”; “Honestly, you’ll love what I still remember about what happened to Lacie.”

(Susie moans about her brow hurting, “Allison” remembers her other lines.)

“Allison”; “OH! Uhh by the way Henry do not be deceived by this awful, evil witch! Even though I look even less like her, I’m absolutely the real and goody-good Alice Angel!”

 

(This accusation catches Susie-Alice’s attention, and she angrily glares daggers at her like a snobby teenaged girl who got upstaged at prom.)

Susie-Alice; “You attention-whore hussy! I’m the REAL Alice Angel!”

“Allison”; “No, I’M Alice!”

Susie-Alice; “I’m Alice Angel!”

“Allison”; “I’m Alice Angel!”

Susie-Alice; “I’m Alice Angel!”

“Allison”; “I’m Alice Angel!”

Susie-Alice; “I’m Dirty Dan!”

“Allison”; “I’m Dirty Dan!”

(they both pause)

Susie-Alice; “…Did that really just come out of our mouths-?”        

 

(explosion and clutter noises, everyone is surprised. It’s Geno-Fur having burst into the haunted house room through the wall.)

Geno-Fur; “Shit! I was so lucky daddy saved me from that creepy camera-head guy! He could’ve grabbed my sexy butt and make it all gross with the weird ink corruption!!”

Henry; (under his breath) “Why did neither of them strangle her…”

Geno-Fur; “Mommy! Stop it! I know you’re like so much more than all this darkness and suffering! I totes forgive you for turning my woof hubby all ugly, because I know we can all fix and love him together! You don’t have to stab anything! You nurtured me and made me the proud, talented, and strong woman I am today!”

“Allison”; “… are you talking to her or me??”

Geno-Fur; “Yes!!”

 

(Monster-Bendy’s signature Ink Aura seeps into the room as he suddenly approaches. Oh, the suspense!)

Henry, actually surprised by this; “Wait a minute, already?? How did he know to come right here!?”

Henry, now grumpily; “... It was that pea-brained banshee, wasn’t it. All of that obnoxious wailing lured him to us!”

Geno-Fur; “Shuttup! I’m legit the reason anything good happened here!!”

Henry, rolling his eyes; “Oh yeah. Sure…”

 

(Boris… Oh Sorry I mean Franken-Boris, finally enters the scene… however everyone is still talking, and he just stands there in the back awkwardly now that any room for his cue to start the monster act is completely null with the current cast ensemble. Once more, none of what is now transpiring was in his copy of the script. He’d be whistling and twiddling his “thumbs” if they weren’t so massive and heavy now.)

 

Monster-Bendy, finally; “Well, I for one can’t wait to make... Whatever her name is stay quiet ONCE AND FOR ALL! But first things first, my bloody and graphic vengeance on HENRY!”

Susie-Alice; “HEY! Wait your turn, fatty! I’m having vengeance on him FIRST!”

Monster-Bendy; “THE FUCK YOU JUST CALL ME!? FINE THEN, MY VENGENCE IS ON EVERY PATHETIC SOUL IN THIS ROOM!”

“Allison”; “I was supposed to get Hen out of here by now??”

Geno-Fur; “DADDYYYYYY! NUUUUUUU! LEMME TOK 2 U!!”

Monster-Bendy; “WHAT!?”

Geno-Fur; “Plz, DADDY!

Monster-Bendy; “I heard you the first time-”

 

Geno-Fur; “If you’re not able to look within your heart and see that this isn’t what you want…

Monster-Bendy; “Sweet Solomon, what am I in for.”

Geno-Fur; “I wrote a song, which was 100% not originally by Christina Aguilera, JUST for you about how killing the people you love is wrong, and that I’m your best daughter ever AND LOVE YOU no matter what! It’s really dope and super cooler than what happened in Goofy Movie and I practiced all of the Fortnight dances and Minecraft stuff for it that I put it to and EVERYTHING! Duncha remember you n mommys wedding?? It was super bomb and I was the best gothic flowergirl in fishnets, leather skirt, midnight black corset and red firey boots EVER! Jus remember all de times we were like the best sexiest fam in da WORLD! And after it’s all done, I can play fnaf games with you! And then later, we’ll have another episode where I’m in highschool and Boris-sempai meets me under the cherry-blossom trees and I made him been-toes n’ stuff, and we’re the best OTP ever and Romeo and Juliet could never hope to compare to how deep we got it! And then in the final season it’ll be revealed yer in love with Uncle Cuphead and mommy is all like-!”

 

Bendy is slack jawed at this stupidity. He finally snaps.

 

Bendy; “F-… Fortnight and..? Did I hear that? Stop the cameras. Hit the brakes. Back up the bus. STOP THE GODDAMN MUSIC! Listen, I’ve put up with a LOT of braindead pandering malarkey this episode, but shit like FORTNITE REFERENCES and other media where they don’t belong are where I’m drawing the damn line. That tears it! I’m leaving! I don’t give a shit about getting a check anymore! I have a cat to feed and play with back at home, and I’m not wasting anymore time or energy on this! I’VE HAD IT WITH THIS TRIPE!!”

 

As Bendy rants, he’s removing his huge monster-self costume. Boris struggles out of the fat-suit and discards the gigantic gloves, whipping one of the X’s off his eyelids. They were makeup.

Boris; “I’m right there with you, Bend. I didn’t spend three years religiously studying musical theatre and drama to be in this piece of cow dung!”

“Allison” removes her wig to reveal it’s been Maria the whole time, because the real Allison wanted no part in this.

Maria; “Personally I’d of taken so many fat ones to stay OUT of the camera.”

Boris; “...’Many fat’ what??”

Maria; “I’ll… say when we’re older!”

Boris; “Mari, all of us are presumed 20-somethings-“

 

Rodney, finally visible as he’s approaching the set: “Rufford could fart on paper, and that’d be better material than this slop.”

Boris; “Who’s to say he isn’t one of the prime suspects? I mean, if it wasn’t Mr. Drew, or Raph-”

Bendy; “I just remembered, where the Blue Hell’s Angie!? She straight-up VANISHED in the middle of act 1!”

Angie, muffled; “Um, I am in here!”

 

They all look to a wooden box nearby. Boris pries it open to reveal Angie squeezed within.

Angie; “Hello, my friends!”

Bendy; “Anj!”

Angie; “I was informed that this would be my best contribution to the project...”

Boris; “… Wait, why put Angie into one of the crates I was s’posed to SMASH to bits, according to my script copy?”

 

(Geno-Fur interrupts like always)

Geno-Fur; “NnnnnOOOO!!! You can’t leave now! It was getting soooo gooooood!! I WANT TO SPREAD THE FEELS OF MY FEELS SPEECH!!”

Bendy; “SHADDAP, you obnoxious personification of preteen fanfiction and anime-base art!! C’mon outta there Angie, Henry promised to take us out for donuts after this.”

Angie, freed from the crate; “Oh, lovely!”

Boris; “I call dibs on the first bear claw.”

Maria; “Oh, I can absolutely go for a cream-filling!”

Bendy; “Maria, just.. don’t..”

 

Alice, trying to get Maria’s attention but ultimately ignored; “Why did the pipe you throw at me SMELL ‘funny’!?”

Dolly enters, just as frustrated about this dumb performance as everybody else.

Dolly; “Ages and ages on EVERYONE’S makeup, and do I get any mention on the end-credits? When I looked them over, NO.”

Rodney, chiming in; “Damn good for a first shot at horror-film sorta faceups, if ya ask me.”

Dolly; “Aw, you!”

Bendy; “Yeah, you got an artists’ hand Dolly! I remember Boris and I having a double-take at how well you captured Alice’s inner evil.”

Dolly; “Spoiling me, every single one of you”

(distant sound of Alice grunting grumpily and walking away from the group.)

 

Norman, somewhere in the distance: “Let’s just wrap this up and go home everybody, Joey can get his ears hollered off later!”

Bertrum, further away: “MY SCENES WERE SKIPPED OVER ALTOGETHER! THE NERVE OF WHOEVER PLITHERED OUT THIS PIGS’ EXREMENT…!!”

 

(Various voices are heard as the entire crew dissipates. Improv whatever.)

 

Henry returns to the remaining “toon crew”, holding a set of car keys

Henry; “Ima’s offered to tag along and pitch in, donuts are our treat fellas!”

 

Bendy, Angie, Boris, and company (not counting Alice or Geno-Fur) cheer in delight as they follow Henry out to grab some good old Shipley’s. Although still close by, the metaphorical camera is on the lady-trio. They momentarily face the audience.

 

Dolly; “Just to clarify, none of that hogwash we trudged through is canon.”

Angie; “We still hope you were entertained, thank you dearly for coming!”

Maria, after blowing a kiss; “Goodnight, everybody!”

 

END.

[livelle]

MY FAVORITE BOY’S 18TH BIRTHDAY!!

a/n: hey guys! Back with another fic, still sorry I’m very inactive, school hit me like a bus lately, but I’m getting the hang of it. Still trying to combinatie it with writing and other hobbies!! Thanks for all still being here, you have no idea how much I appreciate y’all. Love you man. :) now! Take this fluffy Tommy fic for his (late) birthday!!!

summary: you and Tommy are best friends, but you kind of got into a fight since you also had plans on his birthday and couldn’t come. He was upset, since you two planned something. You, however, surprise him. Another surprise comes later in the evening :)

FRIENDS TO LOVERS TROPE??

no pronouns used, Tommy calls you ‘king’ but doesn’t he call everyone that..

fluff, but as I said there’s mentions of like not speaking because you guys got into a fight. don’t think there are any other warnings besides mentions of that, swearing a bit and kissing!!

The phone rang once, then twice, until he heard the voice of his best friend come through. ‘Hello?’

Tommy called you on the 8th of April, at 9 pm in the evening. He was just trying to make sure you would remember the plans for tomorrow on his special day, his birthday. ‘Hey king, you still in for tomorrow?’ he asked, plopping down onto his bed. He laid his head on a pillow, smiling. He most likely expected an answer like ‘of course!‘ or ‘yeah, no doubt!’ or maybe even ‘can’t wait!’.. though he got something very different. ‘Shoot! I totally forgot to tell you that something came up’ you spoke casually, making his smile drop. Something stirred inside of him, since every single one of his friends were leaving to go do something else, and now even you; his long time crush and best friend, was too busy to be with him on the most special day of his life. ‘Something came up? What do you mean? Y/n, I’m turning eighteen tomorrow.’ he said rather venomous. ‘Yeah, sorry Tom, I have to be somewhere’ you answered. He got even more mad at the fact that you sounded so unfazed, so casual about the fact that you just canceled on his birthday last moment, and that you knew damn well that he would be alone the entire day. ‘You don’t even care.’ he spat. ‘Go do your things. I’m gonna be alone in my room the entire day if you think about stopping by. But, you’re too busy I suppose. Good luck.’ he clicked the red button on his phone to end the call, and let out a deep sigh, a distraught expression on his face. He’d never felt this lonely before. That kind of hurt.

You felt bad for making him sad, you really did. But still, you were the one grinning when he ended the call. No, you weren’t a bad friend, because it would all count for the big surprise. The plan was to barge into his house at 6 in the morning, surprise him with doing fun things together all day, and at the end of the day Wilbur would come back from Sneeg’s wedding as quick as possible with Phil, Ranboo, Kristen and other friends, and Tubbo, Freddie and Eryn would come over as well. You would throw a big party for him, not caring about getting any noise complaints, because it was his special day.

Tommy didn’t really care about staying up until twelve to celebrate his real birthday, since he would be alone. And he would be the entire day, well, he thought he would. So he went to bed early to forget about the things he felt for a while.

The sound of keys rustling were heard in the hallway of Tommy’s apartment complex, and softly, you tried to open the door. A creak was heard, a loud one, and you stopped in your tracks. But the only sound in the room was a soft snoring, coming from the bed. You let out a breath you were holding in relief. It was 6 AM, this boy would never be up at that hour anyway. Your plan had been working so far.

You, however, weren’t alone. You were accompanied by Betty and Walter, Tommy’s beloved dogs he loved a lot. You prayed they wouldn’t make a sound, and luckily, they didn’t. They walked in his apartment silently, almost like they understood the assignment. You grabbed the cake that you made last night, and the flowers you bought, because yes, Tommy likes flowers around his room. You were all in place, as you stood in front of him. You let the dogs walk up to him. They jumped happily, now that they saw him as well, and they started licking his face, which obviously made him wake up. His eyes opened slightly, and in instinct, he grabbed the dogs and hugged them. ‘Hello,’ he hummed. But the funniest thing was that he then realized that he didn’t have dogs in his apartment, and that Betty and Walter were supposed to be at home, with mum and dad. He then noticed you.

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!’ You yelled out, putting the cake forward to see for him. ‘Y/N?? WHAT THE—‘ his confused expression was priceless. ‘YOU’RE EIGHTEEN TOM, YOU’RE EIGHTEEN!!’

The dogs had settled on his bed next to him, like they were his children, and he sat up, reading what the cake said. ‘Happy birthday to my best ( adult ) friend!’ he read aloud. And to your surprise, he went all silent. You quickly settled next to him on the bed. ‘Are you okay? What’s wrong?’ you tried, but he hugged you tightly. ‘TOM I CAN’T BREATHE’ You yelled , laughing at how tightly he held you, and he smiled. ‘Thank you so much, you’re the absolute best. What a surprise.’ you smiled at his words. ‘Yes, enough of the sentimental stuff. We have a whole day in front of us with fun things, mr. Simons, so, do you want a slice of cake or not???!’ You giggled. He nodded happily.

As soon as you ate your piece of cake, he got properly dressed, and you locked the apartment behind you, you took the two dogs out for a walk. The day was sunny and bright, just like Tommy. You laughed all of the things that were said on the phone last night off and walked around Brighton with a big smile on both of your faces. As soon as the dogs were tired, the next surprise was coming up. ‘Why are we walking this way? we are supposed to go right here.’ He nudged you. ‘Nope’ you only said with a big smile on your face. He raised a brow, but suddenly a shocked look came over him as he recognized his mother and father in the crowd of people before him. ‘Happy eighteenth, my lad’ his mother came in with a big hug.

As soon as you talked to them and walked around a bit they explained they really had to go now, as they took Betty and Walter back home. Tommy was looking at you like you were the one carrying his world, which you found rather adorable. He again, pressed you in a tight hug, showing his affection and thankfulness for you.

The rest of the day was filled with arcade rides, shopping and ice cream. As much as he wanted to pay for things, you pushed him away and paid for it. ‘We’re basically on a date right now, please let me pay.’ He tried to fluster you. ‘ON A DATE? and, no. No paying for the birthday boy’ you had answered.

But when it was time for dinner, he took your hand and dragged you to your favorite Italian restaurant on the edge of the beach. You ate pasta, while he ate a pizza he finished within 7 minutes. You had the most fun ever, and he now paid, making him happy. You grinned at his face.

When you guys came to his apartment, he plopped onto the bed, holding your hand. He dragged you next to him, and you just looked at the ceiling for a while, panting from the running competition you just did. He squeezed your hand. ‘Thank you so much’ he breathed out. You looked up to him. ‘I had lots of fun. But this isn’t everything.’ You said. He started laughing. ‘WHAaaAaA- why are you laughing????’ You started grinning. ‘Becaaauusee,’ he said, poking you. ‘Because there’s always more. Its shocking me everytime.’ He spoke. You hummed. Your faces were inches apart, and you could see something sparkle in his eyes. His hand came up to brush a lock of hair out your face, and it lingered to brush his fingers against your cheek.

Just as he was about to lean in to connect your lips, a loud bang was heard. There he was, Wilbur, his best friend, barging in, accompanied with the rest of his friends. ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!‘ they all yelled, and filled the room with balloons, drinks, and laughs. ‘NO FREAKING WAY. NO WAY’ Tommy shined, smiling as hard as you’ve ever seen him smile. And it was all because of what you put together.

It really was a big party, Wilbur was making jokes while Ranboo laughed, and Tubbo, Eryn and Freddy were ordering some food. Phil was on the music and Tommy was talking to Kristen. You enjoyed every bit of the moment. ‘I can’t believe this,’ you heard someone whisper in your ear. ‘What?’ You answered. ‘I can’t believe you did all this for me. This is the best day ever,’ Tommy said, and he took your hand. ‘Dance with me.’ ‘What about the noise???‘ You asked. ‘Got that covered’ he spoke. ‘Probably’

And when the time was right, and he leaned in again, you kissed him back.

‘That was the best birthday present though’ he spoke up. You giggled and kissed him again, but really, it was the best present for you as well.

a/n: hey guys!! Hope you like this and it wasn’t all too messy! I missed the Tommy birthday stream😭 I heard it was so messy though but GOOD NEWS!!!!!!!!!

I BOUGHT TOMMY MERCH MAN!!! i got the blue shirt which is seen on top of this post in the picture as well!! Now let’s wait for July for it to come in :) how are y’all? Have a nice day/ night?

@milofroglover @buggaboosbeehive @oolovebunnyoo @kiss-me-more-whore @woahitsjj @soren-mai @itoku @marsmarsss @ohlovejoy

[writingsfromhome]

Sorry x Rare

A/N: I got two lyric requests for Sorry by Beyonce and Rare by Selena Gomez. They were both sort of two sides of the same coin so I wrote them together it mostly goes from rare to sorry. Thanks for the requests, fingers crossed it lives up to what you wanted! <3

Synopsis: You and Harry have been together for a long time but he’s not the same man you fell in love with anymore.

-----

I move my dinner around on my plate, my gaze on the man pacing outside the restaurant on his phone. My man. But it didn't really feel like that these days. These days, Harry was a stranger to me--late nights, phone calls interrupting dinner, waking up to find him gone and not even sure if he'd come home at all.

I watch him remove the phone from his ear in a rush, stare at it, and then shove it aggressively in his pocket. He walks back in, cheeks pink and huffing.

"Should we ask for the bill?" He sits down in a flurry. I stare at his barely-eaten meal and my own dinner mashed to bits.

"We've barely had dinner."

"Babe, we've been here for over an hour since..." he takes his phone back out to inform me of how much time exactly but something must catch his attention because his sentence dies on his lips. I stare, he was so distant lately. "I'll drop you off at home, I've got to meet the boys they decided to talk business-"

"It's 8pm on a Thursday," I state the obvious. "Can't you catch up with them la-"

"This isn't an argument Y/N," Harry finally looks at me. He was done discussing it. He lifts his hands to the waiter and a minute later dinner's been paid for. He wasn't my baby, I think as we stroll outside to his car. I don't know who this man was.

***

I wake up the next morning with the weight of Harry on the other side of the bed. I could smell him, the booze sitting in his pores.

“Ugh,” I groan, not wanting to smell that first thing in the morning. I get up and start my day before I head to work. Soon, Harry appears squinting as I stir sugar into my coffee.

“I need a coffee,” he says, his voice hoarse. It used to sound sexy but now it was just another reminder that things changed. We lived like roommates and it hurt that he never wanted to talk. Half the time, he acted like I wasn’t even there.

I watch him settle with his coffee, taking the first sip and letting out a deep breath. A memory comes to me suddenly, the first year we were dating,

“I think this is the best coffee I’ve ever had,” it was the first night Harry had stayed the whole night and I’d made him coffee in my outdated coffee maker. It came out burnt half the time but that morning’s cup was decent. We’re swaddled in my blankets--the room I rented back then had poor circulation in the winter.

“I think you’re still slightly drunk,” I lean my shoulder against his and cup the warm drink. “I’ve definitely had better coffees.”

“Maybe coffees are just better the morning after,” he says, glancing at me and I know he can see the flush on my cheeks. He knew I was shy talking about certain things in the light of day.

“We can say that,” I mumble into the cup. “It’s just nice to have a heat source.”

“Here,” he takes the cup from me and reaches over to put both on the nightstand.

“Hey I wasn’t done with that.”

“I know but if you’re cold, I know this other heat source--it even works for hypothermia.”

His statement causes a blood rush that warms me already but I don’t say no to what he has in mind. I could make us another cup later.

Harry catches me staring when he looks over and raises an eyebrow. I snap out of my thoughts and twist my lips into a smile, looking back at my own drink bitterly. Who was this man in front of me? Out loud, I ask: “How was your night? You came in late.”

“I was out with the boys.” he says in a tone that meant he didn’t want to talk about it. “It got late.”

“A text would’ve been nice,” I say, still looking at my cup.

“S’not like you were waiting up,” he turns to walk back towards the bedroom.

“Learned not to,” I mumble but I know he’s heard me with the way he pauses. But he didn’t care enough to argue, dispute it, nothing. He leaves.

***

"Guess who just made a commission that's more than I used to earn in a year?" April walks into the small office, an infectious grin on her face.

"You sold him on it?" I put away the file I'm working on and jump up to hug my friend.

"I had to flirt a little--give him a vivid picture of what he could have there, and he signed! I'm bloody brilliant."

April was my American ex-pat who I met when she was looking for a flat a few years ago. And now here she was, working for me at the small real estate office I managed with a few other people I considered friends.

"Do you know if he was single?" I tune back in to hear Janelle asking.

"No, don't give her bad advice!" I scold Janelle. “We don’t date clients.”

"I'm miserably single," April pouts. "I'll take advice even if it’s bad."

"Bad advice is to stay with your college sweetheart to the point where you're not sure he even cares about you." I say to no one in particular. It was just us in the office today, and they knew everything about my life so I didn't care much. But the pin-drop silence that follows is different. I look up to see my friends eyeing each other. "What?"

"Nothing." They stay tight lipped but I push and they crack. "Well, so...we know things are rocky between you and Harry..."

"Things aren't rocky," I clarify. "They're just...nonexistent."

"Right," April slides closer. "Soo, we saw him at the club yesterday."

I raise my eyebrow, "He told me he was meeting up with his boys."

"Oh!" They sound surprised I know, but they look at each other again so I push them. "He was...there was a girl? Sitting on his lap for most of the night? Like, nothing happened I don't think so?" She turns to look at April at the end of each sentence.

Personally, I feel gut-punched even though I suspected this. I knew he wasn't where he said he was going to be sometimes, or with who he said he was going to be with. But he cut our own dinner short last night to be with strangers yesterday? I grip the pen in my hand.

"Y/N honestly...you know we love you and support you. But, you're a special girl and you deserve better than that sod."

"Yeah," Janelle puts her hand on my shoulder. "You're a gem Y/N. There's someone else out there who's gonna see how rare you are."

"I know," I blow my cheeks out. We'd had different conversations like this before, although never this direct. I guess we'd never had direct proof of what my husband was doing until now though.

"He's an idiot not knowing you're so rare," my friends try to comfort me. I feel my eyes well up and I swipe at them. I wasn't going to cry at work but they must sense the tears because they excuse themselves, "We're going to get you a tea, and some pastries to celebrate April's sale. April?"

I keep my face buried in my hands as they leave, take a few deep breaths. "I am rare," I say to myself but even that makes me laugh bitterly. Harry and I had been together for 5 years and here I was trying to count up all the reasons we should stay together when he didn't even care. He was out with other women, and I was waiting around for him.

"I'm rare," I say again. "I'm special, I deserve better. I...deserve better."

When will u be home tonight? I text Harry before I lose my nerve.

Busy he says. That’s it. And then, Why?

What time? I ask again.

8 or so, he responds.

Okay, we need to talk then. I put my phone away, too scared what he might text back. A tear falls from my cheek onto my keyboard, landing on the letter H. It mocks me. I wipe it off, and before I can think about what I'm doing I smash the letter down with my fist. I stand up and walk to the back of the office, a window overlooks the busy street. I'd had enough, I decide. Fuck Harry.

I’m not sure how long I stand there stewing, but my friends walking in with pastries and tea ends the emotional boiling pot from overflowing.

"Thanks," I take the cup from them.

“So we were talking and...” April looks at Janelle and she nods. “You should come out with us some time. Like...tonight. Dance with us, with other people...”

“I...I’ve got something at 8,” I come up with an excuse. As angry as I was, I wanted to have this conversation. It was long overdue.

***

I check my time again, the last text Harry sent me Ok. But it was 8:25 and Harry still wasn’t home. I’d give him five more minutes, I decide. I’d already tried to ring him with no answer.

I stare at the ring on my finger, it was supposed to symbolize a promise he made to me. What a fucking joke. I should’ve never said I do in the first place.

Was it young love, I wonder. Did we do this too fast and we were just set up to fail? But I remember the good memories, the soft and sweet times between us.

“I-I’ve never done something like this before,” I tell Harry. “I hate heights.”

“Listen,” he crowds around me, blocking my view of his friends who are walking up the narrow trail like it was any old walkway. “You go in front of me, I’ll have my hand on your back the whole time. I won’t let you fall. I promise.”

I look up into those gentle eyes and swallow my fear. “Okay.”

“I promise it will be so worth it,” he gushes, his excitement uncaged now that I’d agreed. “There’s no lights there so the stars are so bloody bright--I know you’re going to love it!”

I can’t help it, my lips crack into a smile at his boyish excitement. He catches it and pauses, a breath in this whirlwind of a night. What started out as a house party turned into a walk to a local beach which turned into a hike into the woods and up a precarious--and very steep--ridge to get to an isolated lookout. Only with Harry did I find myself in these situations. And I loved it. I loved him, I realise then. My expression must change because he tugs on my hand, probably worried I’d change my answer.

“Walk ahead,” he instructs and I nearly tip toe on the ridge that’s at least 30 feet across. But his steady hand on my back pushes me gently and I walk across confidently until I look down 2/3 of the way. I freeze in place but Harry’s ready. “Y/N, you’re safe here. Look at me-look...”

I crane my neck and he grounds me, oh my god how did I just realise now how in love I was with him? He squeezes my hand, asks if I was okay. I had to be, I couldn’t stay stuck in the middle.

Inch by inch we finally make it to the other side and I jump off with a yelp which sets Harry off in a burst of laughter. Pretty soon he’s lifted me over his shoulder and carries me to the lookout on the edge. My feet had been through enough, he’d said.

And he was right--it was so worth it; the view with all the stars laid out. The buildings and their light pollution below were blocked out by the outcrops and it made the stars twinkle in all their glory. It made it the perfect place to be with the person I loved.

“Isn’t it the most incredible view?” Harry whispers in awe behind me, his arms wrapping around my waist.

“I.....I have no words apparently,” I laugh and turn in his arms. “Thanks for pushing me, this...it was worth it.”

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ears and gazes at me in a way that makes me want to squirm. But I hold his gaze.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he asks with a smile.

“Compared to the view,” I glance behind us. “I guess I’m alright.”

“No,” he guides my face back towards his. “This view over that one, any day. M’just that lucky.”

My words die on my lips as I’m overwhelmed by this feeling between us, the one I thought would keep us together like this forever.

He raises an eyebrow when I go silent and I shrug, “I’m all out of words today.”

I close my eyes as he kisses my temple. I turn back around and we spend the moment in silence, drinking in the view. His friends chatter around us but they’re background noise. My life felt like a movie right now.

Before we leave as a group, I tug Harry back. This was a good as place as any to tell him. I press my lips to his, and it takes him a second but he’s kissing me back. Before it can get carried away I push away and tell him what I’d been thinking all night, “I love you.”

He takes a step back, and then he’s grinning and pulling me back. “I love you! I love you listen, I’ve been wanting to say that for weeks!”

“Weeks?!”

“Yeah weeks! My sister said it was too soon, I might scare you off!”

I think about a few weeks ago, I was intensely shy around him even then. Maybe she was right, but the idea that he talked about me to his sister makes me flush. I wrap my arms around his waist “I just...this moment is so perfect. I never want it to end.”

“It doesn’t have to.” he’d promised. “I’m yours forever Y/N.”

When 8:30 comes and goes I call April, she lets me know where they were. “We’re so happy you’re coming! Are you sure you don’t want us to meet you somewhere else?” she shouts into the phone. When I tell her I just wanted to be where they were she reminds me to text them when I was nearby.

I have to dig into the back of my closet, past the pantsuits I wore to work, the casual dresses and loungewear. I still had some of my old party clothes, just a bit tighter than they used to be. But for where I was going, it would fit in.

Before I leave, I take a pen and scrawl a note: “Great talk"

My friends spot me as I walk in. The music is instantly too loud, the lights too bright, and there are too many people. But one of my them shoves a drink in my hand and pretty soon it’s the best place on earth. It was exactly where I needed to be. I turn off my cellphone and enjoy myself.

After a certain point, I don’t even know who I’m talking to, but pressed up against a body, feeling wanted, it drives me to keep dancing all night. Eventually, I crash at April’s and don’t roll out of hers until 11 the next morning. Harry’s barely an afterthought until I’m tucked in the taxicab taking me home and turn on my phone. 8 missed calls, 2 voicemails and 13 texts.

I’m shocked at the volume, Harry hadn’t blown up my phone like this in over a year. I listen to one voicemail: “Where the hell are you? I come home an hour late and you’re bloody gone with this stupid note here. Pick up! I’ve called you a billion times.”

I stare at my phone, I hadn’t heard Harry this passionate since...well it was a long time. And all it took was going out late and not answering his calls, giving him a taste of his own medicine. It almost makes me angrier; I had to partake in this juvenile dance to get his attention, even though we’d been married nearly 2 years.

He’s on a call when I get home, talking numbers or something. I head directly to the shower, clean up, and take my sweet time. It must’ve driven him mad waiting for me because by the time I’m out he blows a gasket.

“What’s this stunt you pulled last night? Wanting to talk and leaving me a stupid sarcastic note just because I’m late? Where were you?”

“Out,” I shrug. “I didn’t know you were late. You didn’t text.”

“I didn’t tex--oh I see, now we’re being petty yeah?”

That irked me, “I’m not being petty. It’s not like I get the same courtesy when you’re out late!”

“I’m busy, I can’t always be texting you!”

Excuses, I laugh and he looks at me like I’m crazy. “Busy what? Screwing other women-”

“Don’t be making shit up-”

“I’ve had people tell me that they see you with other women Harry! S’not a far stretch!”

That quiets him. Finally, he comes forward to stand inches away. “Y/N, c’mon. You and me...this is stupid. Sure I go out to party but I’m not-”

“Stop.” he was actually trying to talk his way out of this. And because I’d rather step in front of an oncoming train than cry in front of him, I head to the front door and walk out. I’d find someplace to crash today, but I wasn’t doing this.

***

“How’re you doing?” Janelle asks. I’d shown up at her doorstep and she set up her guest bed. She had plans so I spent most of my time burying myself in work, trying to get rid of all that angry energy pent up in me. Janelle had just come home.

“I’m just trying to move on. I don’t want to talk about him, I just don’t care at this point--I’m fed up!”

“As you should be,” she agrees. “Listen, I know we had a crazy night yesterday but I’m going out with some friends today and...maybe it’ll help you?”

I think about the killer headache this morning, but I also remember how good it felt to forget for a bit. I agree. Before I know it, Janelle’s found something that fits me and we’re back at a different club than the night before. Her friends are familiar faces but after a few drinks we’re all best friends. It feels great. Until I spot Harry’s face.

“That’s enough,” his face looms over mine as he pushes away the man I’m up against.

“What the fuck Harry...” I trail off as he pulls me away from the middle of the crowd. I try to pry his hand off but there’s too many people and he’s moving too quickly...and I’ve had a lot of drinks. “Let me go!” I say when we finally step away. We’re in what must be a private room. He seemed familiar with it--of course.

“So just because you heard I’m out and about some nights, you decide to come here and fuck around with random men?”

“Excuse me?” I stare at him, he was out of his mind. “I’m out having fun with my friends! I’m not here because of you.”

“Really? You come to the same place I come to all the time and dance with these strangers? And you’re drunk as fuck!”

“Since when did you care?” I ask. “Just leave me alone. You’ve been doing that perfectly fine the last few months.”

“I’m your bloody husband Y/N, you can’t just-”

“Then act like one!” I shout, and in the muffled quiet of the room with the bass thumping through it rings out. “I don’t need you! And you made it clear you don’t need me. These rings are a fucking joke, here-” I take mine off and throw it at him.

“You don’t mean it-”

“I do.” I give him a level stare, suddenly clear-headed. Maybe I’d process it later, but right now I was finally seeing what he’d become. He deserved to feel how I felt, and quite frankly, I didn’t give a fuck. I flip him with both hands, “Quite frankly Harry, you can suck my d-”

“Harry!” A shrill voice rings out from the entrance that now carries the loud beats of the dance floor, swallowing my words. “Liam told me you were here!”

I glance at the brunette in the doorway and back at him. I couldn’t even muster an eye roll; I had enough.

“Y/N!” Harry calls my name as I walk out.

“No it’s me, Becky?!” she tries to correct him. I can’t help but laugh as I make my way back to my friends with a drink in my hand, feeling free.

***

“Y/N, it’s Harry. I don’t know how it got this shite just please call me back. Just give me five minutes that’s all I n--message deleted”

“He’s moved on to the office phone then?” Janelle asks, her desk was beside mine so she’d heard him as I checked my messages. It was two weeks since that glorious night when I’d dumped Harry’s ass. Although a lot of my things were still at our house, I was just staying in a hotel right now while I figured things out. One thing I knew for sure though, I didn’t want to see him again.

“It’s pretty pathetic,” I say. It was also pathetic how long I’d stayed waiting around for us to be magically fixed. But that was something I was working on getting past.

“You’re glowing without him,” April says from where she’s getting her files together. “Haven’t you got that showing out east?”

“Yeah, oh god is that the time?” I rush to get my files in order. “I’ll catch up with you later-”

“We’re still getting drinks after?”

“Yes, drinks!” I call out as I leave the office and head down to the lobby. I don’t expect Harry there, and I barely have time for him as he comes up to keep my pace.

“Harry, I’ve got somewhere to be please leave me alone.”

“Y/N, wait just please listen to me.”

“No.”

“2 minutes!”

“Not even 1,” I spot my cab out front and head towards it. I’m about to get in but Harry holds the door. “Harry let go I’m going to be late.”

“Just let me talk to you, please!”

I finally look at him and he’s quite a sight. His hair is matted and without it’s usual bounce. He’s got a rough look and a 5 ‘o clock shadow.

“You had plenty of time to talk to me for months, you were too busy at the club. Sorry not sorry,” I tug at the door and he lets go, I don’t spare a backwards glance as we drive away.

One of the showings is successful, I manage to sell the family on the home and we set up a meeting to go over details at my office later in the week. I’ve got a bounce in my step as I return to the office. I tell the girls I’d meet them at the bar as I finalize my papers at the office. My bounce falters when I go head out after 5 to see Harry waiting outside the building.

“Y/N,” he calls out when he sees me. “I’m not going to leave until you talk to me.”

“That’s called stalking,” I say. A few people walking past us turn to glance at him and he notices. He moves to the inside lobby and asks me to follow. With a big sigh I do.

“I know what I did.” he begins.

“Congratulations,” I roll my eyes.

“No wait, I know what I did to you. And sorry can’t cover it. Just let me make it up to you, we have history and-”

“You don’t get it.” I stop his monologue from going any further. “I’m gonna be just fine. Without you. You didn’t care about our history until you couldn’t have me. I don’t know what happened to you Harry, but you’re not the man I fell in love with-”

“I know,” he says, tears of frustration coating his lashes. “I fucked up, I-I didn’t see what I had right in front of me and I just-”

“Let her slip away? Is that the best you can come up with?” I scoff. “You know what Harry? I’m done with this! Boy...bye.”

“Y/N just--” he grabs my arm before I can leave and pushes something cold into my palm. My wedding ring.

“I don’t want this,” I push it back in his hand.

“Please just take it--hold onto it,” he pushes it back into mine and closes my fingers over it. “I can’t...I can’t hold onto it just take it! You don’t even have to think about it-”

“Harry,” I soften my tone. He was desperate and even though some part of me thought it was about time he felt this type of way, my heart hurt a little. I didn’t want him to see that though so I just tuck the ring into the pocket of his button up and pat it. “Goodbye Harry.”

I walk away with my head held high even though he calls out to me. I walk the few blocks to where my friends are waiting and their warm smiles are enough to help me push the memory of Harry’s teary eyes, and the real history we did have once upon a time away. I was done with him, no longer thinking about him.

I just kept telling myself, I was rare like a gem and I had to see that. And maybe one day, someone else will too.

[spindlebeforesunset]

Pranksters and the Pranked

(because it is April Fools at my place already)

Ace Trappola - prankster

• got their other two roommates to participate in pranking Deuce

• set the room clock 3 hours later than usual

• while the two roommates were "busy preparing for the school day" at 2 am, Ace flicks open the lights and starts turning them on and off and shouts "OI DEUCE WAKE UP, WE'RE LATE"

• he finally yeets a pillow at Deuce's face to wake him up

Deuce Spade - pranked

• a very confused Deuce wakes up, sees that the three of them are already dressed, looks at the clock, and panic dresses himself

• "wheresmyhomeworkwheresmyhomework-"

• only when he runs out in the rose garden does he finally see that, it's still nighttime, no he isn't late, and yes, his sleep was ruined

• trudges back to the dorm room where he finds them all cracking up

• he chucks a pillow at Ace before promptly flopping back on his bed

• with his shoes on (n a s t y)

---

Cater Diamond - prankster

• has a plastic cockroach toy in his pocket as he is to serve Riddle tea again on this fine day

• Riddle is having a nice time admiring the roses and often sticks his teacup out for Cater to fill

• while Riddle is inspecting a rose, Cater pours the tea and slips the plastic cockroach inside the teacup as well

• he doesn't change his expression when he hands back the teacup

Riddle Rosehearts - pranked

• Riddle sips the warm tea and feels something solid touching his lips

• he looks down

• immediately drops the teacup starts screaming there's a fucking cockroach in the teacup

• he realizes that Cater is doubled over laughing so he takes the opportunity to whoop Cater's head before storming off

---

Trey Clover - pranked

• he's bored and decides to make cookies

• he double checks the chocolate chips bag to ensure that they were not replaced with chocolate covered raisins like what Che'nya did last year

• no raisins, so he shrugs his shoulders that Che'nya had really ran out of ideas after many years

• takes out the ingredients necessary for the cookies and starts to mix the ingredients

• the process is going fine until he cracks an egg

• there's no liquid yolk pouring out

• he looks at the insides and finds that the egg has been fully hardboiled

• "... I should've known better," he sighs

• somewhere in the kitchen, an invisible RSA student laughs

---

Ruggie Bucchi - prankster

• gives Leona a package that appears to be from Cheka as there is a letter written in crayon and with childish handwriting

• stands near Leona's bed when he opens it

Leona Kingscholar - pranked

• he doesn't expect anything except maybe a small zebra toy

• but when he shakes the package and heard nothing he immediately thinks it is sus AF

• he glares at Ruggie, but even Ruggie doesn't appear to know anything

• he tears the wrapper, opens the box, and reads the words written ddirectly at the bottom: when will I get paid :(

• "Nice try Ruggie, I'll think about it."

• before he crashes back to his pillow, he sees Ruggie face droop along with his ears

Jack Howl - the only safe one

• by some miracle, the only student in school who did not fall into a prank

---

Floyd Leech - prankster

• beware Floyd and his pranks, because he will prank just about anybody

• he started with Azul, sneaking in Azul's bedroom (with the latter still asleep) and replacing Azul's glasses with glasses with lens he colored in black marker

• next, while Jade is in the bathroom, he replaces Jade's usual school tie with one that shifts colour and pattern every hour or so (now, it currently looks like the regular school tie)

• set up buckets full of water in the first year classrooms (Epel was dowsed in one, Sebek too, the last being Grim)

• handed Divus a blank assignment (written in invisible ink), but before Divus can even scold him, he passes the paper near a fire where the answers finally appear where Divus takes it with a huff

Azul Ashengrotto - pranked

• he wakes up and puts on his glasses by the bedside table

• how come he can't see

• it takes his sort of sleepy self two minutes to put two and two together

• instantly groans, knowing that Floyd definitely has his real glasses

Jade Leech - pranked

• he puts on his tie as he normally would and walks out the room

• when Ruggie asks him why his tie looked so funky in the middle of the day, he takes it off and finds that it has a silly banana pattern

• facepalms

• h a r d

• that he walked around with who-knows-a-probably-weirder-pattern around the school

---

Kalim Al-Asim - prankster & pranked

• harmlessly pranked by Jamil when he believed the milk was coconut juice (was kinda disappointed though)

• has slapped whoopee cushions everywhere underneath all the seats in Scarabia just for the heck of it to the chagrin of practically everyone

• asks Silver what's up with his blazer because what even is that

Jamil Viper - prankster

• he started with Kalim and the cocount juice

• knew full well that the seats were full of whoopee cushions and avoids sitting on all of them

• managed to trick Grim that he had tuna cans and when he gave Grim one, he excused himself that he had somewhere to go

• he watches hidden behind a pillar as Grim opens the tuna can and finds nothing but sand inside

• has to kick himself to stop his laughter from seeing Grim's disappointed face

---

Rook Hunt - prankster

• he was going to prank both Vil and Epel, but after hearing how the latter was dowsed in water for first period, decides to just prank Vil

• slaps cake icing inside an empty and expensive lotion bottle and wraps it with a ribbon

• he runs to Vil in the dormitory after classes and says it was left near his doorstep so tue sender must've mixed the rooms up

• unfortunately, Vil's door is closed on him

Vil Schoenheit - pranked

• after deciding not to scold Epel with the water fiasco, he takes the lotion bottle from Rook and takes it to his room, not seeing the "and I oop" face

• he squirts out a small amount of lotion on his palm and finds that it smells... weirdly fruity

• suspicious now, he rubs it with his palms and (despite all what he knew about beauty products) licks a tiny bit of it to confirm what it was

• blueberry icing

• "... well, it could have been worse."

• ends up tripping where he uses his hands to break the fall and realizes what a big mistake he's made with his sticky palms

• internally groans

Epel Felmier - pranked (can we get an F)

• as soon as he feels his clothes get wet and the bucket land on his head, he knew he was fucked for the whole day and goes through classes with a sheepish expression

---

Idia Shroud - pranked

• he decides to go outside and get something from the vending machine for once

• takes one step out and slides on a rug by his doorstep that was never there before

• "This is a warning, so maybe I'll just stay inside as always."

• gets back to his room where Ortho asks if he was just pranked as today was April Fools

• "...yep, I'm staying here the whole day."

• "Brother, no."

• unfortunately, they don't know who set up that rug

---

Lilia Vanrouge - prankster

• the only person who can and will prank Malleus Draconia

• he hides a small and cheap speaker at full blast (connected to his phone) inside Malleus' closet the day prior

• plays the end part of In the Hall of the Mountain King in a loop at exactly 3 am and everyone hears it in the halls

• tricks Sebek to believe that his crappily made cake would give whoever ate it additional strength, claiming the recipe was well-known back in his day

• swaps the black coffee powder with powdered chocolate milk just because

• swaps Silver's blazer with a seemingly normal one, but the back reads: If lost, return to Malleus

Malleus Draconia - pranked

• that music is straight up panic inducing and hurries to find it

• ends up finding it half an hour and yeets it out the window because he can't turn it off

• he's annoyed but goes back to sleep

• is huffy that he can't have coffee

• promptly confused why Silver is brought to him near lunch break until he sees what's at Silver's blazer at the back

• "Did he just..."

Sebek Zigvolt - pranked

• additional strength from the cake you say? THE BETTER TO SERVE WAKA-SAMA

• does not see the already facepalming Silver preparing the morning coffee

• takes a mouthful of it and starts chewing it before realizing something was not right

• "Sebek, I didn't think you would actually eat it. I made it bad on purpose."

• now that's a way to add insult to injury

• if he thought his morning was not already humiliating enough, he gets dowsed in water by Floyd's bucket

• him the whole day be like (;*△*;)

Silver

• poor Silver already knew full well of Lilia's antics, yet he still has no way out of it

• he puts on his blazer, not expecting anything wrong

• the powdered milk instead of coffee did annoy him though

• however, when Kalim shoves him to Malleus near lunch, he's shook

• until Kalim tells him to take off his blazer to show the both of them what was embroidered at the back

• "You mean I went out like this?"

• "It appears so," says Malleus

• "Oof," from Kalim