#just you wait until i post my detailed timeline of their entire relationship from meeting to …. present i guess

[marsbotz]

Don't wanna go off anon yet but i feel you so hard on geode dying out. I went inactive in the fandom for 3-ish years and suddenly it was NOWHERE and it made me so mad since it's like..... Well i hate to participate in "shipping wars" but it's the best relationship in ninjago and it makes me so sad to see since they're so entertaining. #BRINGGEODEBACK2023

THISSSSS. they have literally so much chemistry and balance each other out so well… AND ITS INTERESTING and complex….. and just so so good. i miss them. it rlly is interesti g how the fandom consensus shifted seemingly out of nowhere for which ships r popular. learn ur history btw new fans vvv

[beepboop358]

Anti-Byler Argument Refuttals

Although I discussed all of this in my Byler Proof master slides post, I wanted to do a separate post specifically just refutting the most common anti-byler arguments.

1. "Mike and El's relationship is too developed" and "They have been through too much together to break up now!"

This is probably the thing I hear the most when people argue that Byler will never happen. The weirdest part of this argument is that people assume that they will never drift apart, and that they will never ever break up, as if we didn't just see them drift apart, break up, and not officially get back together in S3? Yes, they have both been through a significant amount of trauma, but their relationship is not as developed as people think it is, they barely even know each other really. They spent a week together in S1, then El was gone for a year. Mike and El don't reunite until the very end of S2, probably a few days after halloween. If we work out the timeline between Halloween of 1984 and July 4th of 1985 in S3, that's 246 days, so it's actually less than a full year they have spent together, getting to know each other.

The “development” people argue that Mike and El have just doesn't stand up. Mike and El do not have intimate conversations, their conversations are incredibly awkward, and they just kiss frequently in the beginning of S3 before they break up. That's not development. Hopper even refers to their constant kissing as "not normal and not healthy." Mike couldn't tell El he loves her to her face, which is a parallel to the failed relationship of Stancy where Nancy couldn't tell Steve she loved him, and we later find out it's because she doesn't, which all happens during the blank makes you crazy scene that is extremely similar to Robin's coming out scene. And yes, Mike and El have endured a lot of trauma together, but so has the rest of the group and people don't seem to use this argument the same way with the other couples, or between the friendships. History doesn't determine the future if there's no feelings involved, things can always change. This is idea of staying in a relationship where there is no real love but there is history/benefits is hinted at in S3 when Mike dresses almost identically to both of his parents.

2. "Look at how much Mike cares for El! They're in love!"

No, they're not, and how they treat each other proves that they're not. I firmly believe neither Mike nor El is seriously, romantically in love with each other.

If Mike was really deeply, romantically in love with El, why did he treat her like he did in S3? If he really cares about her that much, why did he wait for Lucas to guide him at all times in matters regarding his relationship with El, instead of just taking initiative, but he does take initiative with Will? Why can't her apologize to her? Why wasn't Mike more upset about El dumping him? Why couldn't he tell El he loves her to her face? Why did he consistently lie to her throughout the whole show? Why did he stop calling her in S2? Why did he give up and say she was dead, but never gave up on Will? Why did he scream in her face in S1? And no - it isn't because he's just shy or awkward. Mike doesn't act like he is truly in love with El because he isn't. He is projecting his feelings for Will onto El, and he is deeply in denial about his sexuality due to his internalized homophobia and hasn't fully processed how he feels about Will throughout the series (up until the ending of S3). And why does Mike have such an odd reaction to El saying she loves him if he does love her? If he loves her that should be exactly what he wants to hear, so why does he look so confused and scared? And why doesn't he just say it back right then?

El isn't seriously, romantically in love with Mike. They meet in S1, and he immediately takes her in, saving her life. He looks out for her, and actually cares if she is okay, and no one has ever done that for her before. El was abused her whole childhood until Mike lets her live in his basement. He was the first person to treat her like a human being, and show her compassion, which she has never experienced before. It makes total sense that she would cling to their relationship like a security blanket. Mike is an emotional attachment for El. He makes her feel safe, because of how he saved her life previously. El has very limited knowledge of love, life, friendship, relationships, and social behaviors since she was locked in a lab for over a decade of her life, she was never truly exposed to these concepts like the other kids in the party were. Everything El thinks she knows about love she learns from watching soap opera's alone in Hopper's cabin. Of course her perception of what romantic love is, is warped. If El was seriously romantically in love with Mike, why was their break-up no big deal to her? Why was she smiling, laughing and looking at pictures of boys with Max right after she supposedly dumped the love of her life? Why did she not seem even the slightest bit upset about it the entire season?

If they're both seriously in love, then why are their interactions so awkward to watch and why does it feel so unnatural and forced? Why don’t Mileven’s interactions feel romantic? The official released scripts on 8flix describe several Mileven scenes as "awkward". It's no coincidence that detail was included in the script.

3. "But they already have Robin"

I mean this comment basically means that sense the show already has one confirmed lgbtq+ character, there can't possibly be any others. What?! There isn't a "one gay character limit per TV show". This comment really bothers me because it reeks of homophobia. If you don't ship Byler that's fine, but refusing to even explore the possibility there could be more than one lgtbq+ character in a TV show just because one already exists? Yeah no. Queer people existed in the 80's, definitely more than just one, so capping out the amount of queer characters in the show is just icky.

Also, Robin was not originally written to be a gay character. It was decided during the filming process that Robin should be a lesbian, because Maya Hawke and Joe Keery were not getting romantic vibes between their characters. Just because the show introduced a new gay character in S3, it does not mean the queercoding of Will and Mike is erased to make room for Robin, and keep Mileven together. Making Robin a lesbian, does not cancel out Mike and Will being gay/liking each other, and the show's future plans for byler.

4. "Mike's not gay."

Does this seem straight to you?

Giving your girlfriend a drawing of your male best friend, that was drawn by him, but telling her it's your drawing so she'll hang it up on the wall you coincidentally face while you make out with her, to remind you of him.

Taking your girlfriends hands off of you while you're making out with her, and keeping your hands folded in your lap away from her.

Only being able to apologize to said male best friend and being more emotionally invested in that relationship than your relationship with your girlfriend.

Mike is the only other person besides Will pictured in close up shots with rainbow and fruit imagery.

Even the die-hard Mileven fans have to admit that's more than a little coincidental, and if we know anything about the Duffer brothers, it's that they love incorporating intricate details in their show to reveal things about the characters/plot.

If you want more examples, some images, or just a more in-depth analysis of byler throughout the series, I suggest you check out my Byler Proof master slides :)

[banigarubug]

Boys (Corpse x MALE!Reader)

VERY excited for this prompt! here is where i acknowledge corpse irl is straight: (pause to acknowledge). and here is where i write a piece of fiction that corpse has expressed he’s ok with!

-

Please do a Corpse x male!reader - if you write for males but if not then GN will be okay ^^ - where reader is very edgy, wears techwear 24/7 and is taller than Corpse.

I’m not seeing enough male reader/GN fics where the reader is just as edgy if not edgier than Corpse—

you met corpse at a gas station, but he’s still cute. no corona ;)

warnings: minimal food talk, maybe swearing but i can’t remember lmao

-

The day you met Corpse had you both stopped in your tracks.

Well, admittedly, Corpse was more so. You pride yourself on being able to keep it together, but Corpse has always been a dweeb who just tries his best - and often fails - to play it cool. This was obvious from the moment you’d met him, literally bumping into him at a gas station as you were both on your phones walking towards each other.

Your phone survived the accident, but Corpse’s clattered to the floor. You tore your eyes away from your screen as soon as your bodies made contact and immediately picked up his phone from the floor. “I’m so sorry,” you said, inspecting his phone. It’s fine, save for one long crack across the top left, thankfully missing the front camera entirely. You handed it to him, and finally noticed him staring up at you with wide eyes. “I’m sorry,” you repeated, confused.

He cleared his throat. “All good,” he replied, voice muffled just slightly by the fabric mask over his mouth. It’s deeper than you’d expected, and you startled a little at it, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Uh, it’s my fault too.”

“Well, you know,” you replied, shrugging. “There’s no place like twitter dot com.” You quirked a smile as you flashed your phone, displaying the Twitter timeline open on the screen. 

He laughed, opening his phone to show that he’d been on Twitter too. “Uh, I’m Corpse,” he said.

You smiled at him, maybe more bashful than intended. “Y/N,” you replied, sticking out your hand to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he said, and as your hands met, a blush threatened the outer corner of your cheeks. His hands were… really nice. “Even if you broke my phone,” he teased.

You laughed, already feeling the tension between you two melt. “You’re just as much to blame here, Corpsie.”

As it turned out, your cars were parked next to one another’s at the pumping station, so you walked there together. You talked the whole way through picking up an armful of candy as he got a collection of energy drinks apparently for him and his friend Dave, and you kept talking while you finished putting gas in your car. And then you kept talking afterwards too, until Dave reached over and shouted out the open car window, “Dude, just ask for his number already!”

You grinned and Corpse blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning to you, but you shook your head, still smiling at him happily. It was cute. “Look, if it’s too forward, I’m really sorry, but - I don’t usually get along with people this easily. Maybe we could… do this again?”

“Sure,” you agreed easily. You told yourself it’s only because you didn’t mind it, not that it was too hard to say no to that hopeful look in his eyes and that you didn’t want to forget how cute he sounded when he laughed. “Give me your phone.”

“You might crack it again,” Corpse replied, but he handed you the phone anyway. You rolled your eyes as you typed in your number, adding a heart next to your contact name.

-

A week later, after texting and calling and FaceTiming nonstop, finally he asked you out. He took you to get boba, and you had dinner at his place, and when he dropped you off at yours, he stood on the front porch, only a few inches between you.

“I had fun tonight,” you said. There was something exhilarating about it, how he craned his neck to look at you, eyes scanning over your face nonstop like he was trying to read something off of your skin. To break the tension, you softly added, “Even if you did keep making fun of my pants.”

Corpse laughed, a breathless thing. He reached out to pull at one of the straps hanging down, letting it fling back gently against your leg with a dull smacking noise. “I just don’t get why there’s so many straps. And pockets.”

You leaned in. You told yourself - and later, him - it was because you wanted him to shut up about your stupid pants, but you and Corpse both knew the truth.

-

When Corpse asked if you would be his boyfriend, you got the upgrade: access to the streamer room. You’d known, in your dating period, that he was an ‘internet personality’, as he very vaguely described it, but the lack of details he was willing to share discouraged you from sleuthing around on the internet. Of course, when he finally let you in a little more, thanks to his million followers, you blended in. Nobody knew that you, the random account simping in his replies, was the same guy whose hand made its way into Corpse’s Instagram stories more than once.

Your favorite thing maybe ever was seeing when Corpse posted pictures of him holding your hand. Most of the time, you didn’t even notice him taking the photos, but it was sweet, how your nails matched and he had sweater paws while you had tattoos. Even as a faceless YouTuber, it meant something to you that he was still proud of your relationship. His fans got a kick out of it too, nicknaming you Corpse Boyfriend.

But now, the real boyfriend test. He invited you to stream with him while he played Phasmophobia. You would talk to chat and ghosts as needed, and Corpse would do most of the heavy lifting. Of course you were nervous, but you never let on about it.

Well, Corpse knew you pretty well. When he asked if you were sure you were ready, and you said duh, bro, of course, he said, “Don’t bro me.” (He still kissed you though.)

“Corpse Husband, did you bring Corpse Boyfriend?” Corpse read aloud from the chat while they were waiting to get started with the game. “You guys have been hearing rumors? Well, lucky you, I did! I want you guys to meet N/N.”

“Hey,” you said, smiling at Corpse. “I wanna start my presence on this channel by telling all two hundred thousand of you that I’m taller than Corpse.”

“That’s the most important thing?” Corpse laughs at you. “You’re like, maybe two inches taller.”

“Don’t lie to your fans, Husband. You’re at least three inches shorter.”

“Two,” he insists playfully. “And that’s the hill I’ll die on. Boyfriend.”

-

A few days later, when Dave comes over to hang out, you make him measure the two of you and force Corpse to post the lines on the wall as evidence. Three inches, he captions. Boyfriend wins :(

[tessisawriter]

Invisible String, Part 1 (Colton Parayko)

Request: Can you write an imagine where the reader is John Krasinski’s [niece] but she’s dating Colton Parayko and like she has to breaks the news and John acts mad or something and scares them but then he says he’s joking and he’s fine with it? Thanks

***NOTE***: I changed some details in the last scene b/c I moved the timeline up from October 7 to September 14.

A/N: I’m back! The protagonist is an OC but I decided to call her Y/N instead of giving her an actual name b/c John Krasinski has nieces and/or nephews irl. I already planned the entire plot but idk whether the series will be 2 or 3 parts—I’ll post an update when I know more. This series takes place from March 2018 to June 2019 and is loosely based on Taylor Swift’s “Invisible String.” Here is the playlist.

Warnings: Six swear words, rough breakup, alcohol, loneliness & homesickness

Word Count: 3.4k

March 21, 2018

You were impervious to the mix of pitying and derisive glances from passersby as you sat on the curb. You knew you looked like a cliché, crying in front of a restaurant because your boyfriend broke up with you on your 22nd birthday, but you didn’t care. One question gnawed at you: how had six words upended your seemingly perfect day and relationship?

Your brain was buzzing with activity, wondering if Max had given you any clues that something was amiss. This morning, you woke up in his Cambridge apartment to him singing “Happy Birthday” while kneeling at the side of the bed. As soon as Max finished singing, he kissed you before grabbing his backpack and hurrying out of the room. That didn’t mean anything, though: Max was one of the only seniors to have the misfortune of taking all morning classes because his major was Theater, Dance, and Media. He was also (as usual) running late.

The rest of the day unfolded like any other Wednesday as you followed your schedule of lounging in bed, studying for an hour, going to the sandwich shop across the street for lunch, and heading to campus at 1PM for your classes. Afterwards, you went back to the apartment to find Max waiting there, already dressed for dinner. You quickly showered, curled your long (Y/HC) hair, and changed into a dark green dress and black booties before taking his hand and going to an Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End.

There were no warning signs at dinner, either. In fact, everything was perfect until you were waiting for the check and Max said with a detached look in his eyes, “I think we should break up.”

You didn’t want to relive what happened next, but the images of you acting like Elle Woods when Warner broke up with her in Legally Blonde popped into your head unbidden. You closed your eyes in humiliation and shame as you remembered Max, the man you dated for three years, abandoning you at the table and fleeing the restaurant. The other customers stared at you, some sympathetic, others scandalized, and the rest in pure shock.

You snapped out of the flashback when you felt a large hand rest on your shoulder. You whipped your head around to find a young man with blonde hair and black rimmed glasses squatting next to you on the curb.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The panic faded as you took in the man’s features. He was definitely in his 20s, probably a few years older than you, and his blue eyes were filled with concern. Something about that concern, though, made you snap.

“Do I look like I’m okay? I mean, come on, look at me!” you demanded while pointing at your face, which you (correctly) assumed had giant black streaks of mascara on it.

You fully expected the man to walk away and leave you be, but he sat down on the curb instead and said, “My bad, that was a stupid question. I’ve got some tissues if you want them?”

That made your attitude soften. He was only trying to help, so you nodded and he handed you a pack of tissues from his pocket. You smiled at him, took the tissues, and wiped your eyes and face. As soon as you were satisfied that they were clean, you broke the silence. “Thank you…?”

“Colton, and it’s no problem. What’s your name?”

“Y/N.” You held out your hand for him to shake, which he did. After a pause, you asked: “Why did you stop? Surely you have somewhere better to be tonight.”

He chuckled, and the sound of it made your heart flutter. “I was just heading back to my hotel when I saw you, and I figured I’d stop and make sure you get home safe. That is, assuming you live here?”

“Yeah, I live in Cambridge.” As soon as the words left your mouth, you realized they were no longer true, so you amended your statement. “Well, I lived in Cambridge until about 15 minutes ago when my now ex-boyfriend dumped me. On my fucking birthday.”

“Shit, that sucks. I’m really sorry.” He paused before adding, “I’m assuming he isn’t here.”

“Nope. He hightailed it out of the restaurant as soon as he got his credit card back.”

Colton shook his head. “What a jackass.”

“I know, right? I wasted three whole years with someone who not only broke up with me in a very public setting on my birthday, but also couldn’t be bothered to ask where I would go! He probably assumed I’d go to my parents’ house, but still.”

“Your parents live here?” Colton asked as he fished his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it.

“Yeah, right by Boston Common, why?”

“I’ll get an Uber and drop you off before going back to the hotel.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to do that,” you protested while going through your bag for your phone. “We just met! I’ll pay.”

“Nonsense. You’ve been through a lot tonight. Let me take care of it.”

You stared into Colton’s eyes and realized he wasn’t going to back down. It took everything in you to suppress your pride, thank him, and provide the address. Colton typed it into his phone, waited for a moment, and said, “The closest one is around the block.”

“That’s good.” Your burst of energy dissipated as quickly as it came, and you fell silent. From the corner of your eye, you saw Colton open his mouth as if to say something before the headlights of a car momentarily blinded you.

“That’s the Uber.” Colton stood up and offered his hand, and you took it. You couldn’t help but notice how well they fit together as he pulled you up and off the curb, but after regaining your balance, something else grabbed your attention: his height.

“Gee, how tall are you? No one’s ever made me feel like a dwarf before,” you joked as he led you to the car, your hands still intertwined.

He chuckled and opened the door for you. You let go of his hand and slid into the car. After Colton slid in next to you and shut the door, he replied, “I’m 6’6” and no one’s ever made me feel like I’m not a giant before. You’re what, 5’10”?”

“6 feet, actually,” you corrected him. “So, where are you from, Colton?”

“St. Albert; it’s just outside Edmonton in Canada, but I’ve been in the States for a while. I went to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks before moving to, uh, St. Louis.”

You noticed Colton’s hesitancy and the fact that he lowered his voice when saying “St. Louis,” and you were about to ask why when you thought better of it. You were protective of your privacy, too, especially whenever people commented about how funny it was that you shared the same last name as John Krasinski. It wasn’t a coincidence—he was your uncle, and the two of you were extremely close—but you went along with it and never corrected them because it wasn’t their business. So, you let it go. “And what brings you to Boston?”

“Work,” he said before changing the subject. “What do you do? Are you still in school or—”

“I’m a senior at Harvard,” you cut him off. You generally didn’t drop the “H-bomb,” as you and your friends called it, with people you didn’t know well, but this was a special case. Colton just confirmed he was hiding something, and after looking at him in better lighting, his face seemed familiar, which weirded you out. You had to get back on equal footing, and the H-bomb almost always unsettled people.

“Wow, you must be really smart,” Colton said, seeming impressed but unphased. You couldn’t help yourself from raising an eyebrow as he asked, “What’s your major?”

“Government. What was yours?”

“Business administration.”

“Ah.” You fell silent again, this time on purpose, as you racked your brain for where you might have crossed paths with Colton. He wasn’t from Boston, not even close, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that you’d seen him before, and recently.

Colton didn’t let you ruminate for long before reviving the conversation. “What do you want to do when you graduate?”

“I’ll be a lawyer one day, but I have to be a paralegal first. I’m looking for jobs right now.”

Before Colton could reply, the car came to a stop. You looked out the window and saw your parents’ townhouse and your childhood home.Your time in the car had flown by, a sensation you rarely, if ever, experienced. And there was something between you and Colton, a connection you couldn’t quite describe, that made you want to spend more time with him. But your time was up. “This is me. It was nice to meet you, Colton, and thanks again for the ride—I really appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem,” he replied. “I’m glad I found you.”

You were overwhelmed by an intense desire to ask for his number. If only he lived in Boston or somewhere in the Northeast. But he lived in St. Louis, so you moved to open the door, only to feel Colton’s hand wrap around yours and hear him say: “Y/N?”

“Yeah?” You turned around and locked eyes with him. It was like being in a trance, and your heartbeat thundered in your ears.

It felt like years, but it was more like a few moments before Colton let go of your hand. “Good luck with the search. I’m sure you’ll find a good job.”

You wanted to let out a sigh of disappointment, but you just said, “Thanks,” and smiled at him before getting out of the car.

***************

The smell of bacon finally lured you out of your bed at noon the next day.

It had been a rough night. The reality of the breakup hit you like a ton of bricks when you rang the doorbell and all but collapsed in your mom’s arms when she answered the door. She brought you over to the couch, where your dad was waiting anxiously. As soon as you sat down, you grabbed your mom and cried for an hour straight as she held you and stroked your hair. You knew Max wasn’t worth your tears, but it had more to do with you. Despite his major, he wasn’t that good of an actor, and yet, he fooled you into thinking he could be your person. You took immense pride in your instincts, but they failed you with Max. How could you have possibly fallen in love with such a heartless person? More terrifying, would you have ended up marrying him a few years down the road if he hadn’t broken up with you?

You didn’t know the answer to either question, so you stopped crying and began venting about how the breakup went down. Your dad almost hit the ceiling after hearing that Max left you at the restaurant, and you had to talk him out of driving to Cambridge to “give that little shit a piece of my mind!” That wasn’t to say you weren’t thinking about revenge, but your dad potentially getting arrested was not helpful. After that, you started crying again, only this time out of frustration, and didn’t stop until you practically passed out on the couch. The last thing you remembered was your parents guiding you up the stairs to your bed.

Thankfully, you had no classes on Thursdays, so you were able to sleep in and be, if nothing else, well-rested. Your stomach rumbled when you smelled the bacon, so you got out of bed and made your way down the stairs to the kitchen, where your parents were sitting at the table and watching the television.

“Ugh, why are you watching the news?” you said as a way of greeting while making a beeline for the bacon.

“Good morning to you, too, sweetheart,” your dad replied. “I’m waiting for the sports report. I missed the game last night and Uncle John wouldn’t tell me the score. He said he’s sorry about, I quote, ‘the scumbag’ and he’ll call you tonight.”

“God, I miss him. And you,” you addressed your mom as you shoveled a load of bacon onto your plate, “are the best.”

“See, honey? I knew bacon would cheer her up,” she said to your dad.

“I didn’t doubt it. Y/N, we have to figure out a time to get your stuff from that piece of shit’s apartment. I’m not letting you go by yourself, but do you want to let him know ahead of time or just show up?”

“Who did the B’s play?” you sat down at the table and changed the subject immediately. You didn’t care about sports, but your dad and Uncle John were major Bruins fans and the mere mention of Max gave you a headache.

“The Blues.”

“Where do they play again?” you asked as you ate your bacon. It had to be a team from the Western Conference, but the only teams you knew there were the Canucks and Blackhawks because they were on your dad’s shit list.

“St. Louis.”

You almost choked on your food. “What?”

“St. Louis, sweetie. You know, the Gateway Arch—”

“Yeah, I know, Mom,” you recovered. “That’s the team Jenna likes, right, Dad?”

“Yes. Shh, here it is!” He didn’t need to tell you twice; you doubted Colton was a professional hockey player, but your curiosity won out as you intently watched the television.

The score flashed on the screen—an OT loss for the Bruins—and your dad groaned. “Ugh, I’ve got to turn this garbage off.”

And suddenly, a few Blues players, including one that looked awfully similar to Colton (albeit without glasses), flashed onto the screen. You didn’t get a good enough look at him to be sure, though, because your dad changed the channel. You let out a noise of frustration.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” your mom asked, and your dad looked like he had the same question when he turned away from the television.

“I’ll text the scumbag and tell him I’m coming this afternoon, if that’s okay with you, Dad,” you said. “I want to get it over with and besides, I need my laptop and textbooks.”

“That’s perfect, sweetheart. The office doesn’t need me today, anyway.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back; my phone’s upstairs,” you called out behind you as you raced back up the stairs. You did not want to text Max, but it was better than telling your dad that the man he praised for making sure you got home last night was potentially part of the team responsible for his beloved Bruins’ loss.

You locked your bedroom door and grabbed your phone to pull up Google and the St. Louis Blues roster. Part of you thought there was no way a professional hockey player actually cared enough to bring you home, but the Blues being in town and one of its members resembling Colton were too many coincidences for your liking. You tapped your foot impatiently as the phone loaded the roster, and you scrolled through the list until you found a name of interest.

“C. Parayko, 55, R, 6’6’’…”

It cut off after that, so you scrolled sideways to see the other information. It left you without a shadow of doubt, but you clicked on the name anyway to view a picture. Colton’s headshot and full first name stared back at you as if they were looking into your soul.

It really was him. You had to have seen him on the little television at the sandwich shop’s register yesterday.

But what did this information mean for you, really, besides discovering his identity? It was nice to know his full name because it confirmed that he was a real person instead of a delusion your reeling mind made up, but it didn’t change one important fact: you lived in Boston and he lived in St. Louis. Barring a radical change in one of your lives, which you didn’t see happening, that was the reality of the situation. It was time to stop dreaming and confront your immediate future.

You pulled up Max’s number and began composing the text which, after several drafts, read: “I’ll be at the apartment today from 3 to 5. My dad’s coming with me, so make yourself scarce. I want my shit back.”

***************

6 months later: September 14, 2018

You were miserable only two weeks after relocating to St. Louis.

It was funny how one phone call could completely change someone’s life. In your case, said phone call involved an extremely attractive job offer with a clear path for advancement within one year. The offers you had received from legal firms in Boston, New York, D.C., and Philadelphia were underwhelming, to say the least, and you were only a week away from graduation. You had already endured a lot of change this year, so why not one more?

After nearly giving your parents a heart attack but ultimately receiving their blessing, you accepted the offer and moved to St. Louis on September 1st. Uncle John had been especially supportive, enlisting Jenna (known by the rest of the world as Pam from The Office) to fly out from L.A. and show you around the city last week. She made sure you knew the ins and outs of the city, which you really appreciated. You also loved your job. You were doing important work every day, and your boss was already hinting at giving you the promotion you wanted. 

So, why were you unhappy? It was your social life, or rather, lack of one. You didn’t know anyone in St. Louis, and while your coworkers weren’t mean, they didn’t make you feel welcome, either.

That seemed to have changed earlier today when two of your desk neighbors who were around your age, Harper and Ellie, invited you out for drinks after work. You couldn’t have been happier. You went home after work, did your hair and makeup, put on your favorite royal blue mini dress, and met them at the dive bar you recommended. You were so excited on the way over that you could barely sit still; maybe you’d make friends with these girls and finally feel like you fit in in this city.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Harper and Ellie abandoned you within less than five minutes after two guys came over and asked them to dance. You were now sitting at the bar alone, nursing a cocktail and despairing over your situation.

It was times like these when you thought about Colton. It had been six months since you’d met him in Boston, and you didn’t want to risk looking like a lunatic by slipping into his DMs on Instagram, but you were getting desperate. It was bad enough that being from the Northeast made you stick out like a sore thumb, but the loneliness was eating you alive, and the combination made you feel unmoored. Maybe a familiar and friendly face could change that.

As if God had answered your prayers, you heard a commotion near the entrance. You swiveled your stool in that direction and saw a group of tall, good-looking men in their 20s entering the bar. The tallest one had blonde hair and black rimmed glasses.

It was Colton.

Your brain screamed at you to look away and approach him after he settled in, but you couldn’t take your eyes off of him as he laughed at something one of his friends said. It was as if he felt your stare because he suddenly looked in your direction and appeared to gasp.

It was only then that you turned away and faced the bar, drinking the rest of your cocktail in a few gulps. You were so embarrassed; he probably thought you were a stalker or something. You were about to flag down the bartender for another drink when you felt that familiar large hand rest on your shoulder.

You turned your head and found Colton staring at you, his blue eyes full of incredulity and…happiness?

“Y/N. It’s really you,” he breathed.

[carmenxjulia]

Another Duane interview transcript, coming at you! This one was from a smaller Carmen Sandiego chatroom. There were several interviewers, so that’s why the name of the question asker changes. Get the details below the break! Stay tuned, more interview transcripts coming soon.

Duane Capizzi:

HI EVERYONE! I'M IN!

Sorry I'm late, I got lost on the way haha. Then got lost trying to change my PFP

Thanks for gathering! Shall we get started? Let's do some Q&A!

(as long as they are not geography questions haha)

Fuel:

What characters or plot points were cut from the final product?

Duane Capizzi:

Ooo, starting with a right hook to the jaw!

Let me think about that for a moment: I'm hesitant to give too much away because I'm really hoping we can tell more stories in this world at some point

Which is to say, we tend not to waste anything: if we don't use it when we originally planned, we usually find a way to use something later - and there's usually a "karmic" reason that we waited.

I'll also preface by saying this: I know season 3 was more of a mini-drop and some felt season 4 was rushed. But I wish EVERY season were longer. Season 1: ideally, i wanted the Pilot to be its own event and 10 more episodes after that (but we had to tell the post-Pilot story in 7. At the end of the day, that had its benefits: we got to the Shadowsan turn earlier and I think that's when a lot of viewers realized the ride they were truly in for). Season 2: we initially figured we'd need 5 episodes to have Carmen doing the ACME dance with Chief, and wound up doing it in 3 - mostly because it quickly became clear that Rio needed to be a 2 parter, and the Zack and Ivy backstory a rough 2 parter. So we squeezed 3 episodes worth of plot into 209. It was exhilarating!

So, we had hoped to have more episodes for Season 4 of course. We had a ton of ideas and had to compress things a bit. But honestly in many ways it was for the better. I know we all wanted to live in this world longer, but I think sometimes the flip side is true - when you have big ongoing storylines, it can get frustrating when some things drag out too long. But, we got all the "story" we wanted to tell in Season 4 - we just lost some "incident" if that makes sense. We would have taken longer to get there.

So, all that preface to answer the question: we wanted to do more musical numbers! We had a Bollywood dance sequence in a return to India caper with Paperstar. We wanted to do a famous Elvis suit theft in Las Vegas during an Elvis impersonator convention (Shadowsan's an early elvis guy; Brunt likes the Vegas "jumpsuit" era). We also wanted to do a thread where Gunnar gets captured by ACME so that Julia could interrogate him and he could play mind games with her a la Hannibal Lector and Clarice. CAVEAT TO ALL THIS: these were some ideas that were bouncing around, that may not have seen the light of day if we couldn't get them to work. But they were on our wish list.

re: "other stories" - I could live with these characters for another 32 episodes easily and there have of course been discussions. But alas, that is up to the powers that be. Let's keep fingers crossed - and keep the Carmen love alive online so that someone up there takes note

There is more of course, but those are some things that spring to mind.

Fuel:

Were there any scenes cut for time that were your favorite?

Duane Capizzi:

Not much springs to mind: our directors were amazing at getting everything in the scripts to fit naturally (and in fact, I was the one who was usually suggesting trims to let other things breathe, etc). We were limited to 22 minutes of episode time, NOT counting front and end credits so a little longer than the average show. We have a pretty good idea when the SCRIPT is too long, so the cutting usually happens at script stage before it gets to the board crew so that they don't waste efforts over-boarding material that won't be used.

We had hoped to build out Chase and Carmen teaming up for the first time, meeting at Carmen's hotel lobby etc for more scenes of them together; but had to reduce that to get that all to fit in the VERY packed episode 406. But again, tighter was fine considering. That's one area that leaps to mind. (note that when I say packed, I don't mean that in a bad way: we spend a lot of time pouring over details in editing to make sure everything gets its due).

If I think of anything, I'll circle back at a later point. But the simple answer is that scenes were usually trimmed or compressed at script rather than board or animatic. So nothing comes to mind. I know it's hard to believe, but "shorter is usually better."

except for my answers to fan questions of course

Fuel:

We saw that in s4 episode 6 that Julia's mother(?) is wearing a necklace remarkably similar to the one Julia wears all the time. Is this the same necklace and if so, why was it given to Julia?

Duane Capizzi:

Just when I thought I was detail oriented! Wow! You guys blow me away

I can't take credit for that: it was either the board artist or director who added that. They do slip things in! As I've said before, EVERYONE on the crew really brought their A-game and were as deep thinking and as passionate as I was/am about the show.

It's a nice detail and I would say your interpretation works!

It took me three or four reviews before noticing that the team had slipped in baby Carmen near the play set in Mom's front yard at the end of 408. When I caught it, I was like: bravo!

Fuel:

When they first met, Zack and Ivy said to Carmen that they were the only family they had, do you know what happened to the rest of Zack and Ivy's family?

Duane Capizzi:

I don't. At least, I don't yet until such a time that I might have the opportunity to explore that. It was important to their relationship with Carmen that they be orphans, so they had that common bond (aside from being "thieves who steal from bad guys" - even if it was only gonna be one time for Zack and Ivy).

I know there are writers out there who like to do entire bio's for characters up front but i'm not one of them. It could be a trap in many ways. I like to have a general idea but be open to the demands of the ongoing storyline. You discover things along the way - it's like you're taking a journey with the characters by writing them, and the longer you spend, the better you get to know them (that was not a prepared statement by the way - I just made that up but I'll have to use it again :). So in Z/I's case it wasn't important to the story or Carmen's relationship, we felt. Conversely, we STARTED with Shadowsan's family backstory with 203, but more important to me was that we use it as a platform to explain why he stays with Carmen and crew. He really has no home at that point, so it was relevant to the present ongoing story. Which is what made that especially powerful to me.

Also, there's always a push-pull between telling character back stories while balancing them with ongoing episodic plots. You have to service both. If you just tell back story, then you're writing a biography

Arden:

What was the biggest challenge when designing these characters, especially the pre-existing characters from the series in the 90's?

Duane Capizzi:

This is probably more of a question for Chromosphere, re: challenges. But from my standpoint overseeing that process, the first thing I'll say is that we weren't necessarily trying to be "true" to those characters since we reinvented nearly every one from the ground up. (with the exception of Carmen of course - her trademark red hat/coat weren't going anywhere! But mostly the update with Carmen was in the styling of her "outerwear"

ALTHOUGH: I will admit that I was pushing for Carmen to have shorter hair as Carmen. I thought it would be a cool update. Chromosphere were really passionate about giving her long full hair and I have to see that they were right. The short tomboy cut worked so well for Black Sheep anyway. We had a different hair style for each of her ages.

So about the reinventions: Gunnar is in spirit a similar character to the original (old colleague in Vile and an early mentor if I remember), but his presentation completely different. We weren't trying to be "in canon" with the original. The beauty of CSD is that every incarnation has been its own entity so that freed us to reimagine the characters. THE CLEANERS, for instance: gimme some Cleaner love! There were a pair of janitors from the original game named RICK AND NICK ICK. They were literally janitors, it was too silly for our purposes. But, it's one small step to make them "Cleaners" (in the sinister hit men sense) - and lo, our reinvention.

So to summarize the answer to your question, they weren't really challenges to me so much as FUN to creatively reinvent the original characters (many of which were from the game, so not really "characters" per se with dialogue and inner lives). Whenever we could, we tried to use character names from the originals and update their looks and personalities. Where we couldn't find an equivalent for what we needed, we created characters from whole cloth. For instance, it seemed a miss to do a heist show without a tunnel guy and a high rise climber guy. Hence, LC & ET, everyone's favorite taco truck vendors!

(yes, i've seen some short hair carmen fan art on Twitter - someone did a great one recently!)

Arden:

Are there plans to give us more of the characters in, say, novel/graphic novel form?

Duane Capizzi:

I know HMH has done a bunch and no doubt have more in works. There's currently a novelization of the Pilot with some additional material if anyone's interested. I consulted on the second one, Clue for Clue, because it falls in the timeline while Chase was still Interpol/pre-Acme so was tricky.

And depending on whether another series in this canon makes it to air, I may just approach them about writing one or two myself to get some "further adventures" our there. Anything is possible!

Arden:

If you could go back and change anything about the series, what would it be?

Duane Capizzi:

File under anecdote, but there was what I felt was an important expression on Gray that kept me awake at nights, from his graduation ceremony at Vile. When we revisited those flashbacks in the Gray arc in Season 4, I had them change his expression there (to be more evil less innocent). We had it corrected in 404 so was able to get permission to have Netflix "fix" the Pilot by adding that shot in. I am tenacious!

We really poured over everything, it's the series that I have virtually zero complaints with the end product to be honest. But the simple answer is: I would have gone back to 106 and "un-greek'd" Gray's nametag. It's sort of a rule for international that we scramble signage (which is weird for a show that takes place in many countries/languages, I know I know). It's mostly for localization/translation reasons. And I'm sure there are some countries where Gray's name might be spoken differently. But as a proper name, I think we could have made an exception and seen "Gray" on his name tag. See? Details! But that's about the worst of it

there's also like one small line from Chief in 208 where she indicates she knows Carmen is a good guy (something to that effect) which I felt was too absolute and would have tweaked the line to temper it a bit. It's tiny, but looking back it sort of bugs me and I kick myself for not catching it. But this is absolutely the series I wanted and couldn't be happier.

Carmen:

How did Carmen know she could trust Julia? As far as we know, she has not seen or heard Julia defending her, and in the Fashionista Caper, Julia even held up her gas gun to her, saying she was under arrest. Do you have any opinions on this? Was it just intuition?

Duane Capizzi:

I'm gonna go with intuition

Carmen was raised on an island with some hardened criminal types. I think she's a pretty good judge of character. Poor Julia, trying to be tough with Carmen didn't suit her.

But, great observation! I'd have to mentally step through everything to see if Carmen had any earlier indication but i think you're right there.

Yes, sometimes you just gotta follow your heart

Carmen:

Are there any characters that didn't actually interact that you think would get along well?

Duane Capizzi:

Amazing question! First, I'd have to think more about who DIDN'T meet - you're asking the hard questions haha. But "get along well" is very specific! Hmmm, care to volley anyone?

I'll also add that so many smaller moments get lost in the "binge" of it all, but I am surprised how few fans have noted the first meeting between Player and Julia. THAT was a good one IMO! Very sweet!

Before getting back to your question, I also want to add that we were originally going to find a way for Carmen to lose her earring in Stockholm so that Julia could pick it up and be communicating with Player. BUT, I cut it at treatment stage because I knew we didn't have room in that episode to service it. Circling back to questions 1 & 2, another case where it turned out better saved for later IMO (saving Player meeting Julia, not to mention the earring business in 402 with Ivy).

Oh of course, Julia and any of the other Vile members. It would have been Gunnar for my vote, as mentioned earlier. We probably would not have had Julia meet anyone else and mixed it up more. I like that Cleo sort of became J's personal nemesis.

YES, SONIA & XIFENG (and LUPE PELIGRO, if I can add). The intent was (and is, if we ever get to revisit) to see them again in Carmen's travels. We started to expand Carmen's world but when we finally learned the finite number of episodes we had to finish the story, we drilled back down into the essentials. Would love to see them some day!

I'm hesitant to share too many things I have in mind in this forum for hope that they will see the light of day one day. You know, "spoilers"

Julia:

Do you have any opinions on Zari? Just in general? Some thoughts on her backstory would be nice if possible

Duane Capizzi:

I love Zari! I really don't have any back story on her at this point. She was originally just "Agent B" but when the need arose to give story points to another agent, we chose her because she looked so awesome! And Sharon Muthu gave voice to her so wonderfully.

I love when we finally teamed her with Chase. Hopefully the anticipation was that she would give him a hard time. I love that we defied expectation (organically, of course) and had her respect him by the end of that episode (for believing that he foiled Carmen!)

Julia:

Do you have any thoughts on small facts about any character, major or minor, that you think are fun/interesting to think about, but don't necessarily add to the plot itself?

Duane Capizzi:

Bellum, like myself, likes cats. But you knew that!

I try to put everything pertinent on screen, doing double duty to service any given episode's story but also the overarching story. That "journey" thing I mentioned earlier - we had no idea Chase falling on his own car would be a thing when I first came up with it. But as other characters refer to the incident, it took on a life of its own and made the characters feel more real.

Sorta kinda related to this question and some earlier ones, I will say that I DO think there's more to learn about Shadowsan's past vis a vis Lady Dokuso: it's clear to me that they have a history together, and it's something I hope to explore someday soon (maybe in a book if not another series

Julia:

Are the Carmen Sandiego books a part of canon?

Duane Capizzi:

I only consulted on the first two or three (too busy with series!) and have not read them, so hard for me to answer in a definite way. They are definitely in the universe we've created, but not in the timeline that I know of (which would have been too hard to pull off with our script development running concurrently). But do know that the book team at HMH pays close attention to the series and world so they should be perfectly compatible. Look no further to their clever social media on the series for example.

Kenz:

We saw in season 4 that Julia and Carmen helped each other mid to long term; would there ever be a possibility that Julia would permanently or semi-permanently join team Red?

Duane Capizzi:

Of course there's a possibility. But in a sense, with ACME now finally on Carmen's side, in a sense if Carmen were back in the game Julia, Chase, Zack and Ivy would ALL be an extension of Carmen's crew. But, would J remain with ACME or literally come to Carmen's team at her HQ? As they said in an old radio show: "Only The Duane Capizzi knows ..."

Kenz:

Where do you see Carmen in her retirement (if she retires)? Do you think she would still travel the world or settle down somewhere? Similarly, do you have any thoughts on what some other characters could be doing years down the line?

Duane Capizzi:

That is a big question, and one difficult to answer without some potential future spoilers (and yes, I really want to tell more Carmen stories if you can't tell But I'll answer by giving you one "read" on our open-ended ending as seen in 408 (read no further if you haven't seen it - yeah, right haha). The ending suggests to me that Carmen settled down for a spell to forge that relationship with her mother, to make up for lost time. But, if that is indeed Carmen that we see on the rooftop, I think the ending suggests that Carmen doesn't stay still for very long. If Vile is back, there is work to be done! Carmen has a life mission - she's one determined lady.

But of course, it's deliberately ambiguous: "anyone with your heart, wisdom and courage can be Carmen Sandiego." Is it Carmen? Sonia? Someone we haven't met? I think both endings resonate: Caroline and I always said "Carmen is bigger than a person, Carmen is a movement" would be a great message to end the series on. And I think our ending resolves this chapter of Carmen's journey as a person, but also elevates her to mythic status. Which is why I love it!

And, that seems to me a pretty perfect question and answer to end our chat on. Thanks everyone! Again, I cannot tell you how moved I am to see that we have such a passionate, intelligent and talented fan base. THANK YOU.

Take care guys, thanks again for having me! 'night!

[meloncubedradpops]

Repo! The Corona Opera

For every rotation that Earth has completed around the sun since the dawn of humanity, humans have created art to cope with the realities surrounding our everyday life. We weave stories in songs, movies, plays, books, paintings, and so forth, that help digest the world around us and provide an entertaining escape from the cruelties we endure. Some stories take place in abstract universes or in the future, and we rely on what we know in our present reality to build upon these fantasy societies. My favorite movie, Repo! the Genetic Opera, certainly makes this list. We are currently experiencing perhaps the most surreal year of our collective lives, and with each passing day I argue that we find ourselves closer to the world crafted in Repo. I have seen this movie, at least 20 times. If you haven't watched Repo! the Genetic Opera or you haven't seen it in a while, I recommend giving it a view. The movie is unique in that it falls under three distinct genres: musical, horror, and sci-fi. And while the jury is out on whether our future society is going to go full on gothic aesthetic, I can say that the Repo! movie experience offers a glimpse into a dystopian fascist post-plague world wrapped in unapologetically hilarity with a heaping side of camp. It doesn't offer any spiritual cleansing that our souls collectively need, but it does show us what a new normal could look like if we really go off the rails.

As things stand, right now, so much of our daily lives and culture are impacted by the coronavirus. All of our institutions have been impacted, from school, to work, to family, to the way we interact with strangers, and especially our economy. We have all felt the effects in one way or another, and honestly? Most the impacts are of our own undoing, for better or for worse. I am going to write three pieces analyzing Repo! the Genetic Opera. First I will create the foundations that bridge our contemporary life and the world of Repo! Second I will explain how the Repo! universe operates under the definitions of fascism. And third I will weave together parts one and two into our contemporary world (particularly in the context of the United States) to highlight the dark path we heading towards. My viewpoints are of mine, and my own alone. Let's dive into part one.

Part I Repo! the Genetic Opera takes place in the year 2056. Humanity was on the brink of collapse as a result of a medical crisis that caused massive organ failure.

I never gave the premise much thought, at least not until recently. We aren't given much detail beyond the fact that entrepreneur Rottissimo "Rotti" Largo solved this crisis through his company GeneCo. GeneCo provides organ transplants that can be repaid through a payment plan. Witnessing the coronavirus unfold in real time and seeing its wrath, particularly on severe cases, honestly makes me wonder if the writers had some sort of "super plague" in mind when creating this universe. For the purpose of this analysis, I will assume that humanity suffered at least one infectious disease crisis. And just to reiterate covid-19 particularly, we really *don't* know what it's going to do to us long-term. Let the parallels begin. 

The world in Repo! the Genetic Opera, operates as normally as the citizens possibly can, which appears to be quite limited. I have noted how dated some the technologies look.

For a world 30 years in the future, it lacks cell phones and easy access to internet. When we enter Shilo's world (aka her bedroom!) she watched Blind Mag sing on a busted up tiny ass TV and the program itself looks like an ad on Home Shopping Network.

The Graverobber is shown reading headlines on a newspaper. The news reporters shown in the ribbon cutting ceremony during the 1st Italian Post-Plague Renaissance have old school cameras with flashbulbs.

The most contemporary technology appears to be a Wish.com version of an Apple watch, and even that looks like a leftover prop from Spy Kids.

Obviously the people who made this movie intentionally inserted these anachronisms, but why? This is a science fiction movie after all. I speculate that they reverted back because the impact from humanity's crisis resulted in an overall professional "brain drain" from the sheer volume of professionals that dropped dead. In fact every scene depicting medical procedures looks dimly lit and lacking in sanitation. We will see this as we struggle to contain the coronavirus, at least in America. Healthcare workers have already died from this thing, and I am sure many prospective college students will have second thoughts about a career in healthcare. I mean hell, look at no other than GeneCo itself. That company employs workers called "Genterns" who are most definitely not in full PPE. I don't doubt their medical expertise, but they appear to be disposable (please see: that time Luigi killed one for NO REASON in "Mark it Up").

On that note, it really was quite incredible how China built the pop-up hospital in Wuhan in under 4 days, but it was also not the most safe or structurally sound building by far (it collapsed, people were hurt!). Maybe at this point, the people in Repo! don't have much of a choice. I am sure there were likely legit hospitals, but the fact that the Renaissance had gross surgery tents is a bit unsettling.

This is a world that is completely built upon the social more of valuing your health above all else. There had to be a turning point in the GeneCo business model where they really played on up-selling organs for the benefit of "genetic perfection". "I needed a kidney transplant desperately. GeneCo showed this single mom sympathy. This makeover came for a small added fee. Now I look smashing on live TV!" Imagine signing the documents for your power of attorney while actively going into renal failure, when your doctor chimes in with an up-sell for breast implants. When all is said an done, your body is now not only functioning again, but you're hot! Even in a post-plague dystopia we are still holding value to having a nice rack. What's not to love about GeneCo? Obviously we know right away that GeneCo has a dirty side. Rotti Largo personally lobbied to make organ repossessions legal, and he does not hesitate to recollect his property. The concept itself is, of course, wild. In America, our healthcare system is incredibly broken and expensive.  You would wonder how it could get worse without us backpedaling many steps on the industrialization timeline. And in a lot of ways, I could see a company like GeneCo thrive here. We already hate the poor, and we have political think tanks that salivate over the idea of cutting social programs that keep people alive. Our president has wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act while many people are unemployed during a pandemic. In Repo! we hear about those who don't pay, but obviously there are plenty of people who do. Those who can will happily pay, either for vanity reasons or to stay alive.

And while society cites Rotti as being a "hero" for humanity, we see more and more evidence that the crisis is both not under control and life is cheap.

His son murders multiple people, in front of others, with seemingly no repercussions. In the scene where Shilo meets the Graverobber for the first time, adjacent to the graveyard and tombs owned by wealthy families who could afford grave markers, lies a poorly constructed wall hiding thousands of corpses piled on top of one another. We even get a glimpse of a truckload pouring more onto the pile. I would not be surprised if there is a disinformation campaign there keeping the public in the dark (although you'd think the smell would be unbearable at this point).

There are multiple indications that propaganda works in society (still), and no one is getting the full picture of how much of a raw deal the people in Repo! have. We see poster after poster about GeneCo, in the literal absence of other corporations. 

And a lot of them bear resemblance to 20th century Russian propaganda. It would be a real shame if the goals outlined The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia were actually realized. Imagine going to visit your mother's grave and hearing commercials for hardcore analgesics play through the cemetery. Also, there's a police presence too. Apparently the police are called Genecops and have authority to execute any assumed graverobbers on site.

Imagine the hellscape it would be to live in a world where your loved ones may have died from a terrible pandemic, and you face a non-zero chance of an over zealous cop murdering you thereafter, and because their qualified immunity bypasses the judicial system entirely...oh wait. Anyways let's circle back to the Graverobber character.

Graverobber's role in Repo! appears to be minor on the surface. Rotti's daughter, Amber Sweet, appears to almost despise her relationship with him. And that relationship involves him supplying Amber with what he describes as the "21st Century cure". This cure you ask? A super effective painkiller with the clinical use to accompany GeneCo surgeries. This drug is called Zydrate, and it has a street version that he acquires and sells, with clients including Amber Sweet.

Graverobber makes his living sucking the glowy blue brain corpse goo and injecting them into people on the streets. Yum!

Not everyone who needs an organ transplant can pay for it all upfront. Luckily for them, GeneCo provides payment plan options! The caveat to this is if you fail to make those payments, legally GeneCo can come and repossess your newly acquired organs. If you find yourself past due, you will soon see the last face before your doom, the Repo Man. He will harvest GeneCo's property, and it won't matter where you are or what you are doing. There is no anesthetic, and you will likely die! This was all made legal through Rotti's lobbying efforts.

Society, as it's set up today, allows for property repossessions. This can be as straightforward as a repossession of your vehicle to as heartbreaking as a foreclosure on your home. At the end of the day, the impacts of that are difficult and life changing. Currently millions of people in America are out of work, and the threat of losing everything is at stake for many. We could lose our homes, our vehicles, and our sense of purpose. And while many government bodies have created temporary moratoriums, they have not provided any substantial financial relief to keep the proverbial repo man at bay. What went wrong in this dystopia to normalize the concept of death due to nonpayment? Fascism! Ah yes, the dreaded f-word. In my next essay, I will outline the 14 characteristics of fascism and how it relates to the universe in Repo! After I will relate that to our modern world so that we can try and stop this from becoming our reality.

[artbysarah98]

Because of You - BTS SOPE One-shot

Masterlist

A/N - I wanted to test out something new aside from my When we're young... series and came up with this idea. This is a one-shot about Sope from BTS. It's not a BOY x BOY relationship, but a story about their friendship.

How J-Hope actually ended up here, he didn't know or at least not all the details. Neither did he know what had actually happened in the last few months. What he did know is that it all changed when he met him and that his name is Suga. The events between them happened so fast that he couldn't explain it, but he didn't want to either. They went from complete strangers to best friends in a matter of hours. On top of that, he was glad that after months of being alone he had finally gotten himself a friend again. Why he was alone you wonder? Or why did he think he was alone? What made him think that?

Well, J-Hope had somehow ended up on different planet Earth. The timeline of this version of Earth was completely different from the timeline of the version that he knew. The planet Earth he was on now is set in a post-apocalyptic world somewhere in or after 3047, which J-Hope had seen on a rather old-looking newspaper. The newspaper, however, didn't describe what had happened to the Earth that he was on now, but there was one thing very clear to him for as far his eyes could see on that first faithful day. He was all alone in the once busy city streets of Seoul. Not one sign of life was to be seen on the streets.

There was one thing that confirmed to J-Hope that he was on a different planet Earth and that was a news item that kept replaying on all the billboard screens, or at least the ones that were still working, throughout the shopping center of Seoul. This news item showed a very long list of all the victims that he died on the first day of the BTN13 virus, which he then found out was the cause of the state the city was in. To his shock, his own name, Jung Hoseok, was on this list. Even though he was very much alive at that moment. After J-Hope had overcome the shock of that, he tried to think back to what had exactly happened to him as few things flashed through his mind.

What J-Hope could remember from the travel between the different planets Earth is a very blinding white light and feeling like he fell down for miles but never hit the ground. One moment he was walking through the busy city streets of Seoul and the next he was on a deserted copy of the scenery where he just had been. He remembered that he had seen schoolkids running past him, probably on their way back home since that was 3.30 pm, and an elderly woman who needed help with crossing the street. Being the helpful young man he was he had offered the elder his help before continuing on his way to a friend of his, Namjoon. He knows now that Namjoon is a friend who he would never see again. J-Hope hadn't seen the traffic lights going to red and was shaken up from looking at his phone by a honking horn from a car. His fight or flight reaction made him freeze up in fear. He saw the car getting closer and closed his eyes waiting for an impact that never came. When he opened his eyes again he was completely shocked by his surroundings. He was no longer about to get hit by a car but in a completely white endless space. He felt like he was floating for a second before he realized that he was actually falling down.

Since the white light was so bright and he wanted to brace himself for the impact of falling on the ground he closed his eyes again. After a few minutes, he again didn't feel the impact he expected to come. So he opened his eyes and was shocked once again. Now he was back on the street he was on a few minutes before, however, when he looked around to take in what has happened he was greeted by the most awful and devastating sight he had seen in his life. Windows were smashed in and billboard screens were flickering because of the fact that they had been smashed in as well. Busses and cars all stood empty on the street and some were stripped of almost every part that they had. The city looked like a ghost town everywhere he went that day in his search for answers as to what has happened and if he had a way of going back. His search for answers was cut short as soon as he had found that newspaper, but his search for other humans always continued. He hoped that someday he would meet someone who might be able to help him. That turned out to be Suga.

The first week he had very high hopes of meeting someone else again and started his days cheerful, but as the weeks turned into months he lost his hope and cheerfulness. After a good three months, he stopped his entire search for other human life and focused entirely on his survival in what he called his new home. As days turned to nights and back to days again he traveled through Seoul in search of something to eat and a new place to spend the night. Today he ended up in a hotel in the shopping center of Seoul. To his surprise, the elevator was still working. He had grabbed a random key from behind the reception and went to the room that the key belonged to. On the way to his room, he passed a cabinet with a vase on it.

'What an ugly vase,' thought J-Hope before continuing to his room. He opened the door and didn't even look around the room. He went straight to the bed and as soon as he laid down he fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, J-Hope was wakened up by a loud crash and sat up straight in bed. Even though he expected it to be an animal like all the other times he heard sounds in a building. Despite knowing that, his curiosity got the better of him and he decided to check out what it was. He took his key with him as well as his self-made 'flashlight' and went onto the hallway. He looked first to the left, nothing was wrong there, and then to the right. There something was off. The vase that had stood on a cabinet he passed earlier that day lays broken on the floor.

Next to the vase were a pair of feet. He followed to feet all the way to the face of the person they belonged to. J-Hope was so shocked that he let the flashlight in his hands fall and lost his ability to speak. After three months of searching through Seoul for human life, he stood face to face with a young man around his age. The man also wore a look of shock on his face.

"So I'm not alone after all," said both men at the same time.

They looked at each other before speaking up at the same time again, "What do you mean alone?"

They both laughed awkwardly and warily the young man extended his hand for a proper introduction which J-Hope hesitantly, but gladly accepted.

"My name is Min Yoongi, but you can also call me Suga," said the young man is now known as Suga.

"Jung Hoseok, but my friends call me J-Hope. Or at least they used to call me that," said J-Hope sounding hopeful and sad at the same time while shaking hands with Suga.

After the introduction, J-Hope proposed to go back to his room and turn in for the night as they would talk more in the morning. Suga was hesitant as first feeling uncomfortable with sleeping in a room with a man he didn't know, but something about the hopeful smile on J-Hope's face made him accept. The next morning they woke up and again were quite shocked by the fact that there was another human in the same room as them. Not another new human but each other. They both had some food left to make some sort of breakfast off and started talking. J-Hope first told Suga his story and how he can to be here. Suga didn't believe him at first, which was completely understandable, and J-Hope showed him proof in the form of a photo that he had taken of the screen that showed his name as one of the first deaths caused by the BTN13 virus. Somehow electricity still worked due to windmills and solar panels in some places so J-Hope used those facilities to charge his phone with his charger. A charger that still worked after traveling from one world to another. Suga looked at him in shock and said that he found it impossible.

"So am I, but yet here I am in a world in which I'm supposed to be dead," said J-Hope. Suga couldn't deny that fact and accepted his explanation. Suga started telling his story, "The BTN13 virus came somewhere in the winter of 3046 and very quickly infected the whole world. People who were infected were recognizable by coughing, fevers up to 40 degrees and higher, very shallow breathing and pain on the lungs, and these are just some of the symptoms. People had to start working from home, in the beginning, to slow and stop the spread of the virus, but after three months even that didn't help anymore, and slowly the numbers of deaths rose to millions across the world. The world fell into a total panic and started stealing to survive. In hopes of being safe from the virus. None of that mattered now as I look back on it. After three more months, I was the only one left alive in the world, well, until today."

J-Hope could see that Suga was starting to cry and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. Suga was startled at first by the hug but soon cried his eyes out on J-Hope's shoulder. After he calmed down a bit he picked up his story and told how he saw all his loved ones, family, friends, die one after another. Yet he had gotten none of the symptoms and felt healthy while others were slowly dying. He came to the discovery that he was immune to the virus and that has saved his life. Suga also told how he had spent his time traveling through Korea for other humans who were also immune. J-Hope was impressed and at the same time devastated by his story. The biggest shock of Suga's entire story was how he wanted to kill himself on this day, tired of being alone in the world, but that meeting J-Hope had saved him from doing so.

That day was almost three months ago now. The men were now the best of friends and they discovered that J-Hope was also immune to the BTN13 virus because Suga was a carrier of the virus and J-Hope never showed any signs of being affected in the first days after their meeting. A fortunate discovery as they feared he would meet the same fate as his other self that belonged to this world, originally. Suga even vowed to J-Hope in the first few weeks after their meeting to die with him when the moment would be there.

They were now on their way back to the hotel they met at. It took J-Hope some convincing, especially since Suga wanted to kill himself there, but gradually finally accepted his request to watch the sunset from the roof of that hotel. J-Hope laughed while thinking back to that day. Suga noticed his laughing and asked, "What is so funny?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking back to the first day that we met and how scared you were to spend the night in my room." Suga stopped in his tracks making J-Hope turn around. He looked at Suga who looked a little grumpy. Suga tried to defend himself and said, "I was not scared. I was uncomfortable with sharing a room with a man I didn't know at all."

"Luckily that changed. Now you can't seem to let go of me while we're sleeping. I always need to break myself free in the morning," said J-Hope smiling a smile so bright that he showed all of his pearly whites and looked at the sun. He changed to a very hasty expression, "We have to run now otherwise we will miss the sunset."

J-Hope started running to the hotel leaving Suga, who was flustered by his companion's suggestive comment on his sleeping habits, behind. Suga grumbled when he noticed that J-Hope ran off and chased after J-Hope while calling out to him, "Wait up, you know I can't run that fast."

After running three blocks they finally arrived at the hotel. Suga took this at a time to catch his breath while they were waiting for the elevator to come down. They waited and waited but the elevator didn't come down. J-Hope came to the realization that the power had gone off and they didn't have time to put it back on if they could.

"Probably a fuse in the fuse box. We'll check that later. Come on, we have to take the stairs," said J-Hope and started running up the stairs three steps at the same time. Suga grumbled even more now and let out a sigh before going after J-Hope. Totally exhausted Suga came up onto the roof and said, "Why did we have to meet in a hotel with over 50 floors?"

"Don't be such a grumpy grandpa and look up," said J-Hope, "We are still on time for the sunset."

Suga looked up when he heard that and saw the most beautiful colored sky. He could see that the sun was almost ready to set. Suga looked around and saw two chairs tucked away in a corner.

"What are you doing?" asked J-Hope looking confused at Suga as he walked in the opposite direction of the sunset.

"Well I am not going to stand while waiting for the sun to set," said Suga to him as he walked up to him with the chairs in his hands. J-Hope laughed and took the chair that Suga extended to him. They both took place on the chair and looked at the sun while enjoying the warm evening breeze.

The men were sitting and watching in silence waiting for the night to start. The silence between them was not uncomfortable anymore as it has been in the beginning. Back then they didn't know what to say or do in a situation like that but know they knew it didn't matter as long as they enjoyed their time together. Sometimes a silence like that said so much more than a conversation that continued for hours.

They enjoyed the last rays of sunlight comfortably in each other's company. They both looked at each other and knew that they were glad to have found each other. Exactly at the same time, they said, "You know, because of you, I'm not alone anymore."

They looked at each other in shock and fell silent. They couldn't believe their thoughts were still so in sync as the day they first met. After that, they both started laughing and J-Hope said, "I'm glad that you didn't kill yourself that day," making Suga look at him with a warm smile. "Me too," said Suga, "Otherwise I would have never met such an amazing friend again and I'm glad that you are immune to the BTN13 virus like me. I don't think I could have watched another friend die without killing myself the second he died."

"Well, luckily you don't have to do that," said J-Hope, "What do you want to do tomorrow? We could go to the beach!" Suga laughed and turned back to the sunset and said, "We'll see that tomorrow. For now, let's just enjoy this moment."

J-Hope also turned back to look at the sunset and with a smile on their face knowing that they had gained a best friend for life in this strange post-apocalyptic world with them as the only two humans left alive.

A/N - I hope you enjoyed this Sope one-shot as the word says this story will not get a sequel.

[ohstardust]

Rose Coloured Boy - [4/11]

Summary: Sebastian Stan & Eleanor Egan spent the better part of six years being the European outcasts of Rockland Country Day School. Despite growing through their teens as best friends, college soon broke down their friendship until nothing remained. Ten years later, a turn of events in a city as large as New York City, finds them running in the same social circles once again with nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Pairing: Sebastian Stan x OFC Word Count: 3.5k Masterlist / Story Background / Playlist / AO3   A/N: Apologies for how long it’s taken to post this, it’s been sat in my drafts for a few weeks but part 5 isn’t quite finished and I vowed I wouldn’t post this until it was. I’m planning to upload a timeline to accompany this series too which will be updated after each part to allow the readers to keep up with what has happened so far.  Part 3 // Part 5

Sebastian had often dwelled on the ‘non-committal’ ending to his friendship with Eleanor in the years that followed their high school graduation that summer of ’01. He refers to it as non-committal simply because it faded and fizzled, like the flickering flame reaching the end of a match or the disintegration of a sunset haze into the night air. It hadn’t seemed as life changing back then, at least not on a scale either of them would have anticipated, he hadn’t thought much about her not being by his side during his college graduation or when he got his first television gig. He’d moved on and made new friends by then despite the friendship they’d both carried with them through their teens.

The fade just happened with dwindling phone calls and visits until suddenly there was nothing left but hazy teenage memories that Sebastian thought of too often in his late twenties.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* 2001 By the time October had rolled around, Sebastian had settled in very well at Rutgers University; he was full of energy, wide eyed eagerness and the prospective thrill of an opportunity to study in London during his degree. Being surrounded by so many likeminded people, striving for the same goals him, had been far less nerve-wracking and competitive than he’d anticipated, and far more exhilarating and stimulating. In a nutshell, Sebastian was happy, more than happy. He’d checked in with Eleanor biweekly since the start of the semester, not wanting to miss a detail of her own college experience, despite the small distance separating them both. They may have been living in the same state, the same city for that matter, but it may as well have been the other side of the country for the lack of free time they both seemed to have. It had been a conscious decision for Sebastian to remain living in New York during his college studies, the commute to New Jersey was small enough for him to not have to leave the state behind, he wanted to experience life in the thick of the city, the place he knew he was likely to get his big break. If he ever did that is. The moment they’d both received their acceptance letters, they’d begun weighing up the pro’s and con’s of living together, we’d get to see each other more often and spend more time together versus I don’t want you to grow sick of me or to cause any fights. We don’t have to live with someone we don’t know versus it might do us good to know more people and make more friends. We can study together and run lines without having to leave our own apartment versus I won’t be able to look you in the eye the mornings after you have sex. The prospect of sharing their college experience together, living under the same room, behaving like they were in some mediocre sitcom, sounded fun, of course it did, what best friends didn’t want to live together? But they’d spent the better part of the last five years in each other’s pockets, eating lunch, studying, making friends with the same peers, attending acting camp. College was a time for new experiences, new friends, new traditions, and neither of them were prepared to put their own wants, and needs, above doing what was right for the other. Sebastian knew Eleanor would flourish at Tisch in the theatre program, she’d dazzle everyone like she’d dazzled him back when he was a naive thirteen-year-old, you’re gonna make it big time he’d told her in a silly blanket fort in her bedroom the evening before they moved into their new apartments. He wasn’t standing in her way, he wasn’t going to be the reason she didn’t thrive on her own. His heart was too full of love to keep her from achieving what he knew she could. And Eleanor? Sebastian may not have known it, but she made the decisions she did, from long before college, to many months down the road, simply because she felt just as he did, she wasn’t stopping him from doing anything she knew he was capable of. And their biggest fear of all? It was the thought of putting an irreparable strain on their relationship and causing resentment somewhere down the line. Everything was fine the way it was, so why jeopardise that? Oh, the irony of their eighteen-year-old decision. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* October 2001 Fall had never looked as beautiful as it had done at that point in time. It had very little to do with the surroundings of campus, or this side of New Jersey, and more to do with the feelings and emotions fall brought with the changing times of this point in Sebastian’s life. Browning leaves crunched under foot and the air was cooler than it had been a few weeks prior, the humidity had dulled to nothing, allowing for an extra layer to be worn, yet warm enough to forgo a coat. Fall had settled a content feeling in his bones, like the warmth of a coffee shop on a rainy day, the ending of a good novel, a cuddle on the sofa during a film. Sebastian hadn’t felt this good in a long while. He could still remember that day he walked out of his campus building and saw his best friend standing there with an enormous grin and two coffees in hand. She was a breath of fresh air, even on a great day. He’d scooped her up into his arms, mindful of the beverages she tried to angle away from him, and he held her there for a minute or so. It had been a month of texting and calling, when they had the time, but christ had he missed having her right there in front of him. She squeezed him a little tighter and then let go, her hand outstretched to offer him a cup. “Just how you like it, at least I hope it still is,” she teased. “You shouldn’t have, but thank you, I really need this. All of this” “Long day?” “I guess you could say that, although I don’t know how, it’s barely four.” Eleanor hummed in agreement, and gulped a mouthful of her drink, “I hear you, it can be so draining, I’m pretty much sleeping every chance I get.” “Sleep? Sorry, no clue who, or what, that is.” His eyebrows scrunched, and he laughed, trying to make light of the fact he was beyond exhausted this early into the semester, even though he knew classes weren’t entirely to blame. Instead of joining in the humour, her face appeared more concerned, she always worried about him, no matter what, “You better be taking time for yourself, and resting, Stan.” “Yes mom.” “I see Rutgers haven’t taught you any manners yet, you heathen.” That ridiculous smirk had been perfected on his face throughout his mildly growing confidence, “They’ve taught me plenty, I just don’t want you thinking they changed me too much.” “Yeah, yeah. Whatever helps you sleep at night, honey.” “Hey, so I know this was supposed to be just us, but my friends kinda wanna meet you so I said they could join us,” he scrunched his face and clenched his teeth in anticipation, “is that okay?” If she wasn’t okay with it, she didn’t let it show, instead she nodded with a smile and continued to drain her coffee, “Of course it is, the more the merrier, eh?” Eleanor kicked up the leaves in his direction and laughed as he retaliated. Yeah, they were just fine. *-*-*-*-*-* No time had been wasted that afternoon, he’d found Eleanor’s eagerness for being shown around the Mason Gross campus all too endearing, wanting a peak into his lecture rooms and seeing where he spent his time. She’d wanted to absorb everything about this place and what it was offering her friend. She’d made no secret of her curiosity and vast interest in the space around her. Later that afternoon, on the train journey they shared home, she rested her head on his shoulder and told him how she couldn’t wait to return the favour and show him her grounds sometime soon. Eleanor wanted to link arms with him and point to every new room that had become her life and share that special place with him too. She’d been hesitant to admit it aloud, but there were times she really wished they’d applied for the same colleges. As for his classmates, they were the friendliest and most welcoming bunch, well mostly, which had been a shock to him in the beginning. He’d been expecting far too many loud personalities that clashed, and a bucketload of bitchiness to boot, but thankfully everything was travelling smoothly in that area and along the way he’d made a good group of friends, bold hard workers. There were just four of them, but it was an equal and fair number, there was no shouting to make your voice heard, but enough to bounce off each other and bring out the best in one another. He’d been excited, and nervous, in equal measures, to introduce them to Eleanor. What if they didn’t like her? Unlikely. What if she didn’t like them? Would that change his opinion towards them too? He feared it would. Watching them interact had quelled his anxiety regarding the situation, quick to realise there had been nothing to worry about. As usual, she looked comfortable and natural being a part of their group and he couldn’t refrain from wondering if she’d always look so at peace in every area of his life. Would she always fit in? Was this how life would be? What happens if it isn’t? What happens if she stops being able to slot herself into his life? Where does that leave him? He left all of these questions unanswered for the time being and decided it wasn’t worth thinking about when everything was still as he knew it should be. He’d like to bury his head in the sand a little longer. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* New Year’s Eve, December 2001 Finding yourself blind drunk on a Monday night was never a recipe for success, no matter how good the last vodka tasted as he knocked it back. He’d promised Eleanor a night with his new college friends though, and let it be known, Sebastian Stan is a man of his word. He distinctly remembered being a little too insistent that his flatmate Jared celebrated the New Year with them after sinking a few glasses of something positively vile tasting. It was all Eleanor’s fault really, she had a penchant for drinking anything she could get her hands on, no matter how cheap it was or how much it tasted like paint stripper. Sebastian remembered all too clearly how lovely she looked that evening, Tisch was treating her very well indeed and that smile on her face seemed more permanent than he’d ever recalled seeing it. She was radiant, and it was screwing with his head a little too much. He hadn’t been able to dwell on it for long though, four of his new peers had loudly come knocking on his apartment door, arms laden with alcohol he didn’t even question them procuring. He figured he didn’t need to know. The last to arrive had been his girlfriend, Katy, an average height, fiery red headed, girl he’d met in class. He’d been hesitant to invite her along for the celebrations, no one knew her all too well, but she was alone in the city and he couldn’t bear to let her spend the holiday alone. He wasn’t that kind of guy. So, she’d joined in, making nice with everyone occupying the apartment, charming those she hadn’t met and acquainting herself further with those she had. Katy was radiant, and Sebastian’s feelings were a little off kilter when he saw how well she was getting along with Eleanor. Perhaps this all had been a little too much for him to handle. Instead of openly acknowledging it, he turned the music louder, grabbed a few more bottles from the seemingly endless collection on the kitchen counter, and began offering it around like the kind host he had convinced his friends he could be. The night had whirled by in a blur, all knocking back drink after drink, whilst trying to perform (mostly) godawful renditions of mixed compilation CD’s Jared was powering through. Eleanor had collared Sebastian the moment he tried to sit down on the sofa, he really ought to have known he wouldn’t be able to escape at least a duet throughout of the course of the evening, she was certainly one to make sure of that. And for all of Sebastian’s make-believe confident facade he boasted to his friends from time to time, he was very thankful for all the vodka in his system that baited his anxiety of singing in front of his friends. He still made a mental note to plan his payback when she was least suspecting. Eleanor pressed next on the CD player and threw her head back in amusement as the opening bars of Billy Joel rang throughout the apartment. Like a rehearsed collaboration, they took the song line by line, alternating the parts like they’d done many times over the past few years, with earphones stuffed in their ears, listening through Eleanor’s walkman in a fort of pillows and blankets. He could at least be grateful she’d chosen something he knew like the back of his hand. Sergeant O'Leary is walkin' the beat At night he becomes a bartender He works at Mr. Cacciatore's down on Sullivan Street Across from the medical center Yeah and he's tradin' in his Chevy for a Cadillac You oughta know by now And if he can't drive with a broken back At least he can polish the fenders Humoured cheers and claps and yells filled the ending of the song and the pair laughed into each other necks at how silly they enjoyed being together. “C’mon guys, the countdown!” There was no feeling of justification when the knot in Sebastian’s stomach tightened upon seeing them together. It didn’t matter who kissed who, who was sleeping together or who were friends or not, it wasn’t his business. It shouldn’t matter that, through a drunken chorus of Auld Lang Syne, Eleanor & Jared hadn’t stopped for air despite their sloppy, giggly mouths barely keeping in sync. There were catcalls and jeers, but they were blissfully unaware, seemingly unaware of whatever was happening, or falling apart, around them. He was sobering rapidly, or at least he felt as though he was, until Katy hesitantly pulled him in for a kiss and he felt like his knees were ready to give way. And they did, his body momentarily slumped in his girlfriend’s arms before he righted himself and held onto her, wanting to keep her safe from the betrayal of his body and confused thoughts that were rushing through his mind at a mile a minute. Pull yourself together, Sebastian. Don’t do this again. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* May 2002 ‘I’ve got the lead role!!!’ Sebastian was ecstatic  when he’d received the news that he’d been cast as the leading role in a college production, this was his time to prove his worth, and his talent, to more than his classmates, it was something to be proud of. The moment he’d heard, he couldn’t resist texting Eleanor to inform her, she’d hyped him up so much prior to his audition, and the evening before the cast was schedule to announced, it meant a lot to share this with her. ‘I knew you’d do it, superstar! Don’t forget me when you’re famous. So proud of you’ Little did he know, a few hours later, no amount of lead roles could stop him from the hollow feeling that was about to settle in his stomach. “Seba,” that was all Sebastian could make out from her broken sobs on the other end of the telephone line. “You’re scaring me, El. What’s happened?” “I’m leaving next week.” “Leaving where?” “New York, - America. I’m going back to England.” And just like that, the bottom of Sebastian’s world just about gave way. He almost couldn’t breathe at the thought of her leaving, the thought of her, not only not being in the same state, but not even the same country. Most of all, he noticed how she’d stopped referring to England as home, like she viewed her place in the US as her home now, right where he was. “What- I don’t understand, why? You can’t just leave.” “My grandfather’s too ill, Seb. The doctors don’t think he’ll last the summer, and we can’t sit thousands of miles away waiting for him to go, we need to be with the family.” “I’m really sorry - I didn’t - I knew he was bad, but I didn’t think it would be so soon, I thought you all had more time.” “We did too, but he can’t hang on forever. Everyone needs us more than ever.”

“When will you be back?” “When he’s gone, I presume. God, I feel sick even thinking about it,” she choked out a sob and sniffled, her throat cleared to try to keep her emotions under control, but it was useless, Sebastian could hear her heartbreak as clear as day. And he couldn’t do a thing to help her. Being back in her home country felt more foreign than America ever had despite the years she’d spent growing up there. The world there felt so small, she’d outgrown it all and it was borderline suffocating. She missed New York more than she has anticipated. But she was right where she was supposed to be, this she had told Sebastian a few times over the past two weeks. He could hear the exhaustion in her voice every time they spoke, despite how limited, and short, their calls were. Everything about this situation was draining. “Stay safe, okay? I can’t look after you when we’re an ocean apart.” However, the more weeks that passed, the less their contact remained, which in itself had become a drain on them both. Calls full of sadness, missing each other, hating how life was panning out around them. The calls became less frequent, proving to be far too expensive to keep up with, and poor timing played a part too, mostly when Sebastian was out with his other friends, creating a situation too loud and disruptive to hold a five-minute conversation. And even when they did try to reach one another, they were mostly met with voicemails which turned into multiple missed calls. Emails became few and far between and Sebastian was beginning to lose all hope in any remaining contact. It felt like a lost cause. She’d been away two months when all communication ceased. His calls remained unanswered, emails ignored, text messages unread and then he realised she wasn’t coming back home any time soon. It was the not knowing what was going on with her that caused him the most stress and upset. Was she okay? Has her grandfather passed? Was she grieving? Has she given up on me? He didn’t want to think selfishly, but he was confused and hurt by her radio silence. By the time late August rolled around, college had started again, and he poured himself into his studies and his friends, hoping she would give him a sign sooner or later, but he’d somewhat resigned himself to the fact this was it. At least for now. So, he’d stopped hovering his thumb over the call button on her contact, he’d caught himself walking in the direction of her apartment and stopped and turned the other way, he tried to continue with his life like she was taking a very long leave of absence, which in a way, he supposed she was. But for how long, he didn’t know. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* “Eleanor.” “Hi, Sebastian,” there had been hundreds of things he’d wanted to ask her over the years, with a hundred more answers he’d anticipated, but he was at a loss for words. His mind was blank. How was this possible? Eleanor’s expression left him feeling uncomfortable and he couldn’t move, nor look away. Instead, she dropped her head and her eyes lowered to his shoes before closing. He could still read her just as well as he could a decade ago, and that was a far odder thought than he thought it would have been. The thought that had sent his head reeling was, despite all that had happened, and how much he had missed her terribly, he didn’t know how he felt seeing her again. Was he happy? Was he sad? Was he angry? Was he relieved? Or had he reached the ambivalent stage? Whatever he deduced his feelings be, either tonight or years down the line, he’d have to get used to having her around again even if for the sake of his friends. That was if she’d even stick around this time. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Rose Coloured Boy tags: @lovingfionn​, @lowdenglynnstyles, @outofworkactress, @prettyboytgc, @ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes, @kyber-hearts-and-stardust-souls

[marta-bee]

A Scandal in East Anglia

(in which Marta tries to read "DANC" without shipper's goggles firmly in place, and only half succeeds)

Let's talk about Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" (DANC). It's... quaint. By all measures it really shouldn't' work for this modern reader; its conflict relies too much on a sense of reputation and honor that's just not that accessible to me. The victim Elsie Cubbit is what the kids today would call "problematic" (when she's not entirely out of control over her own life, she's not exactly acting in a way that encourages my sympathy). There's not much of a mystery for the reader to solve because we don't have the evidence Holmes does until rather late in the story, and we don't even get the fun tension between Holmes and "official" detectives (a favorite part for me).

And yet, and yet. Somehow DANC manages to be charming. I love it.

Spoilers...

(If you’d like to read the original without being spoiled, you can read it here first. I’ll wait. But as I said, the things I love most about this story aren’t so plot-based.)

I'm going to basically give away the ending here: DANC ends with Hilton Cubbit, dead on his parlor floor with a bullet through his chest, and his wife Elsie suspected of putting him there.

A little context: About a year before his murder, Hilton Cubitt, a "simple Norfolk squire," had come to London to celebrate the Jubilee. He'd married and fallen deeply in love with an American woman, Elsie, had married her and taken her home to Norfolk. Shortly before their wedding, she confessed to him that she "[had] had some very disagreeable associations in [her] life" though she "had nothing that she need be personally ashamed of", and she insisted that before Hilton marry her he promise never to ask her about her past. He promised, so they were married and lived happily until the dancing men began to appear around their estate.

Hilton would be content not to pursue the matter for his own sake; he thinks the drawings are odd but unimportant (Holmes agrees at first). But Elsie is unnerved by them, and Hilton believes they're connected to her past. He can't question her directly about it; as he says, "A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. [...] But I am justified in taking my own line—and I will.”  

(Yes, this bothers me, too. By modern sensibilities, clearly it would have been better to break a promise than what comes after; and in any case, he's only adhering to the letter of the law here, if that.) 

But enter Holmes, stage right, pursued by bear. Hilton brings the drawings to Holmes who after some delay cracks the code and concludes they're connected those "very disagreeable associations" of Elsie's, confirmed by a telegram from some of those official detectives I mentioned above. But in the meantime, Hilton's own nerves are fraying at being kept in the dark, and where he at first seemed to trust her completely, more and more he pushes her about her past and tries to discover it on her own. He even suspects she might be meeting up with the mysterious picture-drawer, for all he unnerves her. Holmes figures out the truth behind the code too late, and though he races to Norfolk, by the time he's arrived he's left with Hilton Cubbit, dead on his parlor floor with a bullet through his chest, etc.

The Deduction Seduction

As I mentioned, this story really isn't about the mystery. The dancing men are a cypher, one figure for each letter, and the Chicago police should be embarrassed they weren't able to crack it years before. (Elsie is from America, and those disagreeable associates are Chicago criminals). The evidence Holmes uses to connect the code to the Chicago mobsters isn't presented to us until the denouement, so there's not much for the reader to solve; at most we could have the fun of working out the code. But if you know your Doyle story, you'll know they usually begin with a domestic moment, where Holmes deduces something about Watson. DANC is no exception.

“So, Watson,” said he, suddenly, “you do not propose to invest in South African securities?”

I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes’ curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable.

“How on earth do you know that?” I asked.

He wheeled round upon his stool, with a steaming test-tube in his hand, and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.

“Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback,” said he.

“I am.”

“I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect.”

“Why?”

“Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly simple.”

“I am sure that I shall say nothing of the kind.”

“You see, my dear Watson”—he propped his test-tube in the rack, and began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class—“it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one’s audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did not propose to invest your small capital in the goldfields.”

“I see no connection.”

“Very likely not; but I can quickly show you a close connection. Here are the missing links of the very simple chain: 1. You had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. 2. You put chalk there when you play billiards to steady the cue. 3. You never play billiards except with Thurston. 4. You told me, four weeks ago, that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month, and which he desired you to share with him. 5. Your cheque-book is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. 6. You do not propose to invest your money in this manner.”“How absurdly simple!” I cried.

“Quite so!” said he, a little nettled. “Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you."

.... at which point he hands Watson a copy of the dancing men, sent by Hilton Cubitt in advance of his first consultation with Holmes, and the proper story begins.

This particular deduction is fascinating on its own, though. Not because Holmes is being particularly clever (as Holmes points out the logic is plain once you see the intermediate steps), but because the details are so intimate. Holmes keeps Watson's checkbook in his desk drawer. Holmes knows Watson; he knows how he chalks up his billiards-cue and that he only shoots pool with Thurston. Maybe this is my own bias playing into it, but I'm really struggling to imagine Holmes actually going round to the pool-halls with Watson. More likely he's just observed all this, maybe asked a key question here and there, but put it all together because Watson matters.

Which gives that same frisson as BBC-Sherlock's side comment in A Scandal in Belgravia, that John is wrong to think he doesn't understand the biochemical processes of love, which of course means they've discussed it, and....

Yeah.

Holmes has been studying Watson so intently he just knows all this, and he's laying that bare to Watson, either because he wants Watson to know or he doesn't even think to stop himself, and I'm honestly not sure which tickles my fancy more.

I also can't quite get past the fact that Watson is keeping his checkbook in Holmes's desk-drawer. Remember that Watson is a published writer, and (depending on the timeline, which depends on which Jubilee you think this story is based around) quite possibly managing a successful medical practice. He certainly has a desk at Baker Street, and there's no real reason for its not to have its own locked drawer. It seems odd that a desk wouldn't have that. So either Watson has given up all pretense of keeping anything locked away from Holmes, or else Holmes is keeping the checkbook not so it can be locked up but so Watson himself doesn't have as easy access, because he's actively helping Watson manage his (their?) finances.

I did warn you at the top of this post: This is me trying not to let my shipper's goggles rule the day here, and failing.

Holmes & Watson vs Hilton & Elsie: The Parallels Continue

I'm actually hoping (a bit) that Watson has just given up the ghost on holding things back from Holmes because it feeds into a much larger point. There are a lot of parallels going on between Holmes and Watson (Holmes/Watson?) and that Cubitts, and even if without getting into the shipping questions, I think it helps to appreciate where and why the Cubitt relationship went wrong. Also why Holmes was able to both avenge Hilton and save Elsie from her own execution when the local constabulary was so ready to hang her. (Again, spoilers: it's not a brute application of reason.)

And really, there are a lot of parallels here. Hilton is a Norfolk squire, and Holmes (in "The Greek Interpreter") describes his own family as descending from country squires. And Holmes takes up rooms with Watson without knowing much about him. The Watsons are hardly as scandalous as Elsie's family, but they were hardly above reproach. Watson was living around layabout soldiers known for hard living and, if Holmes's deductions about his father's pocket watch in The Sign of Four are to be trusted, his brother wasted the family fortunes and was a drunkard beside. 

If Holmes was at all concerned about the "conventional" life of the country squire his ancestors enjoyed (he isn't), taking up with Watson is hardly prudent. In fact, I'd argue it's a move not unlike Hilton's marrying Elsie -something he fully admits is shocking: "You’ll think it very mad, Mr. Holmes, that a man of a good old family should marry a wife in this fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people, but if you saw her and knew her, it would help you to understand."

The parallel ends here, though. Elsie has a real history of scandal in her history; she begs Hilton not to pry and he promises not to. With Watson's lesser scandal, Holmes can't help but see, and he really doesn't need to ask him for the details. But it's worth noting that while Hilton chafes against the restrictions Elsie put on him and does everything he can to find a loophole, eventually comes to question her faithfulness, Holmes recognizes there's such a thing as knowing too much. He treated Watson's pocket watch like a purely academic problem. He tries (not entirely successfully) to respect Watson's boundaries. 

Hilton and Elsie are both very aware of the Cubitt family. When Hilton tries to push Elsie for details about the mysterious message-drawer, she seems preoccupied with not bringing scandal down on his house. She's given up her past for the future she thinks he can provide. She tries to pay the message-writer off if he'll just leave using £1,000 of Hilton's money. (That’s a huge amount of money for the period!) Hilton, for his part, thinks about their relationship as a mad thing for someone in his situation, and when Elsie wants to leave Norfolk, he refuses. A wiser man might have trusted his wife understood the real dangers and taken some sort of trip, without pressing to know exactly why.

Holmes, on the other hand, is pointedly not living the conventional life of his country-squire ancestors. He is urbane, one might even add bohemian (without necessarily importing the sexual connotations that term implies, though equally without necessarily excluding them). Watson's less well-off and established background isn't a challenge precisely because he has little interest in a life Watson would not fit well with. That's not who he is, so he and Watson are allowed to just be.

Que Saber, Saber...

Reading DANC, I was strangely reminded of a vocabulary lesson from high school Spanish. If someone asked me where my roommate was, I might say something like No se exactamente, pero yo se que ella fue a la supermercado antes. (I don't know exactly, but I know she went to the supermarket earlier.) "Se" (the conjugated form of "saber") means know, as in how we know facts. It's tied to the Latin verb scire, from which we get science, scientific, etc. But if you asked me if I knew her well, I wouldn't say solo se un poco (I only  know a little, as in I only know a few things) - you're really asking if I'm familiar with her, which requires an entirely different word, something like solo la conozco un poco. That’s conocer, implying a familiarity more than factual knowledge.

When Holmes makes his deductions about Watson's finances, he's not just relying about observed facts about Watson; he's also pulling from his familiarity, the fact he knows him.

And the same thing happens with the Cubitts.

"Two [bullets] have been fired and two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be accounted for."

“So it would seem,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you can account also for the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the window?”

He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to a hole which had been drilled right through the lower window-sash, about an inch above the bottom.

“By George!” cried the inspector. “How ever did you see that?”

“Because I looked for it.”

“Wonderful!” said the country doctor. “You are certainly right, sir. Then a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third person must have been present. But who could that have been, and how could he have got away?”

“That is the problem which we are now about to solve,” said Sherlock Holmes. “You remember, Inspector Martin, when the servants said that on leaving their room they were at once conscious of a smell of powder, I remarked that the point was an extremely important one?”

“Yes, sir; but I confess I did not quite follow you.”

“It suggested that at the time of the firing, the window as well as the door of the room had been open. Otherwise the fumes of powder could not have been blown so rapidly through the house. A draught in the room was necessary for that. Both door and window were only open for a very short time, however.”

“How do you prove that?”

“Because the candle was not guttered.”

“Capital!” cried the inspector. “Capital!”

“Feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of the tragedy, I conceived that there might have been a third person in the affair, who stood outside this opening and fired through it. Any shot directed at this person might hit the sash. I looked, and there, sure enough, was the bullet mark!”

Taken out of context, this reads like saber-knowledge. Holmes observes that the candle was not guttered. He suspects based on the fact that the household staff smelt gunpowder almost immediately (from an earlier discussion of the crimescene) that a draft blew it throughout the house. Ergo: a window was opened, but not for long. Elsie probably wouldn't have closed it just after her husband was shot, so a third person was probably present; and so forth. 

But this is Elsie. Holmes knows, conocer, her reasonably well. He's seen Hilton's devotion to her, and his trust. (Yes, a modern might go further, but most Victorian men would probably have been much less indulgent!) And he knows that strangers with relatively unknown pasts aren't necessarily tainted by them and that they have a right to keep some things to themselves without that making them suspicious. The Norfolk constabulary has identified two possible interpretations of the crime scene: either Hilton tried to murder Elsie then committed suicide, or Elsie successfully shot Hilton before turning the gun on herself. Neither fit the people Holmes has come to know so he finds a third option. He sees the bullet because he was looking.

Granted, Holmes has connected the cipher of the dancing men to a Chicago street gang and he knows a lot more about Elsie's past than Hilton does. But we the readers aren't privy to all that, and even with that, Holmes equally knows that Elsie has been sneaking around, that he husband suspected she was being unfaithful, that both of them had nearly reached the end of their emotional endurance between all the secrets and the strange events. Again, he knows this better than the local investigators. Logically, it's not such a great leap that one might have shot the other. Sometimes clients aren't unbiased even when they're not outright culpable; look at how the King of Bohemia presented his dealings with Irene Adler, for instance.

So there's a leap of faith, to borrow Kierkegaard's concept, an act of will more than knowledge, in believing that neither Hilton nor Elsie would act the way Inspector Martin thinks they did. When I first encountered Doyle's stories decades ago I tended to accept Holmes as more or less a cold reasoning machine, something I'm unlearning as a more adult reader, and this story seems to require that revised understanding. Because the Holmes who was so reticent to theorize before facts in A Study in Scarlet, who Watson famously described as a scientific instrument without grit on the lens in "A Scandal in Bohemia," might well investigate all the options but he wouldn't be looking to confirm a hypothesis based on emotional impression. 

But the Holmes I've come to love more deeply would, I think, particularly a Holmes growing more comfortable with his emotional intelligence in addition to his facility with actual facts. Here's hoping that's not my own act of will laying its thumb on the scales here.

~*~*~*~*~

I'll close by sharing a favorite scene, not from Doyle but from the Granada adaptation. Not because it's relevant, but because it's too endearing not to. Having arrested the true criminal, Watson asks Holmes how he drew him back to the scene of the crime, and Holmes shows him the note he used as bait, written out in the code of the dancing men -- giving them (and us) their own lovely moment of conocer, starting around the 2:15 mark. Enjoy!

[christinaroseandrews]

Part 5

*Crawls out of her weekend writing binge* What do you mean I haven’t finished with this yet?  *Cries* 

This is the last actual post where I sum up the most egregious offenses Faleena Hopkins committed, and then there will be a masterpost linking to all of the posts related to this travesty of a book.

There are a lot of little things that went wrong. Things that would have dropped stars on their own, but nothing I haven’t seen a million times before. Things like bad proofreading, weak heroes and heroines, bad sex scenes, lack of research. Ultimately if those had been the only problems with this book, it would have been rated two or three stars. Mediocre and unmemorable.  Not throw the book across the room worthy. 

This book is.

I’m still angry at it.

And that’s a problem.

So what are the things that on their own make this a one star?

For starters: Sean.

“Wait!” I hear you say, “But you liked Sean. He was your favorite character.” And he was. I’m not about to deny that, but the problem with Sean is several-fold.

His story arc of coming out to his family wasn’t relevant and is part of what made this book Not A Romance.

His POV wasn’t needed and again is part of what made this book Not A Romance.

His being gay was not handled well and featured some very hurtful stereotypes.

Once he was out in the book, his entire character changed. And he became sex-obsessed and attention-whoring. Gone was the empathetic generous man. He became Jack... only Gay. And we all know my feelings about Jack.

I’ll cover points one and two later when I get to the part about how this book wasn’t a romance. 

I wish Sean had been openly gay from the start. Not because we needed another hurtful stereotype of the “Sassy Gay Friend” which BTW we totally got. But because it would have been better than what we did have.  Which to refresh your memory, is this:

So why is this so wrong? Because it contains the following harmful implications:

Queer people must be either completely celibate or...

Queer people must fuck everything that lives.

Never being in love at the ripe old age of 23 is a problem.

Being a virgin at that same age is a problem.

Celibacy is unnatural and wrong.

The first is a huge problem. Currently in the Mormon community, this is the official stance. LBGT+ people must either choose to live a heterosexual life or be completely celibate... no kissing, hugging, or touching of anyone of the same sex. This is leading to a huge rise in Mormon LBGT+ youth in Utah committing suicide because they feel that their families and community won’t love and accept them. There was a whole documentary about it recently on HBO called “Believer.”

The second is a problem because it reinforces the stereotype that all homosexuals are raging sex fiends and unable to be in long term relationships. Or form long term bonds.  It’s one of the excuses used by adoption agencies when denying same-sex couples. And worse, it’s why those in the LBGT+ community were blamed for contracting HIV/AIDS and it was seen as divine retribution for the disease, which can affect anyone.

The third is an issue, because it unreasonably puts pressure on young people to hurry up and find love. Love, real love, not infatuation, can happen at any time. That’s part of how love works. I have friends who didn’t find their first love until they were in their thirties or forties. While I know others who found their someone when they were children (a friend met their now spouse when they were in nursery school - they grew up as friends and eventually fell in love). People should be allowed to look for love at their own pace and when they are ready. Not by some arbitrary due date.

The fourth is a huge issue because of the implication that virginity, especially male virginity, is a problem. This thought is one of many that leads to toxic masculinity and the culture where men are predators and women victims. It leads to young men and boys shooting up their schools and workplaces because they were rejected by a woman and couldn’t deal with the repercussions. This thought, that male virginity is bad, is deadly. There is nothing wrong with being a virgin. There is nothing wrong with waiting until you’re ready to have sex. You don’t owe any partner anything. You don’t owe society anything. Male virgins can be awesome lovers.  I know. I’ve had two myself.

Finally, there is nothing wrong with celibacy. No one owes you sex. If someone doesn’t want to have sex, then they don’t have to. There are even some people out there who find the whole concept of sex off-putting and there is nothing wrong with that. There are victims of abuse who find sex triggering.  Celibacy can be a choice. And if if people are “involuntarily celibate” there is always something called masturbation, and in some places prostitution is legal. No one owes you sex, even if you want it. Period.

It’s really that easy.

The second reason this book would get one star is what is essentially plot-whiplash coupled with an unsatisfying ending. The antagonist doesn’t get his comeuppance and doesn’t actually apologize for what he did. In fact, Jack gets off scot-free because of plot whiplash.

There’s an art to telling a good story. You need to have a good hook early. The longer the story, the more concurrent plots you need juggle. And you need to have a good sense of pacing. Draw things out too long, and your readers will lose interest. Wrap things up too quickly and you leave your audience reeling.  Faleena Hopkins manages to do both. 

She drags out plots that have no reason being strung along for as long as they are. Things like Rue’s parentage.  You told us this in the summary, why does it take you over 6 chapters to get to it in the book?  Or Sean’s sexuality - which really shouldn’t have been central to the overall plot of the book yet somehow took it over (when it’s the last line of the book, that means that is also the core plot, FYI endings matter).

But for the most part, Hopkins suffers from plot-whiplash. AKA moving from plot to plot so fast that your head goes back and forth like you’re at a tennis match.

Seriously, the whole novel takes place in less than a week. It took me going back and making a timeline to realize that no really the whole thing takes place that quickly.

The problem with doing things too quickly is that you don’t give the audience time to process what happened. Crucial details get left out. Continuity gets ignored. The whole thing feels rushed. It’s like the author is afraid that if they doesn’t resolve the subplot or conflict quickly they’ll lose readers.

But here’s the thing. Readers don’t want instant happy endings. They want the happy ending to be earned. And that is true in romance as it is in other genres. If, for instance, Poirot immediately solved the Murder on the Orient Express, the story wouldn’t be nearly as iconic. 

You’d feel cheated.

As Hitchcock said - "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."

The same is true in romance. Or any story. It’s the journey that’s important, not the destination. 

Which is why I got so angry when I reached the end. Jack hadn’t gotten a valid redemption arc and he’s still the same awful person that he was at the beginning of the novel. Sean actually got worse and his story ended up overshadowing what was ostensibly the more important of the plots (give him his own book, don’t shoehorn it into what is supposed to be a het romance). The Romance wasn’t really resolved in a positive manner.  And the answer to the overarching plot -- will success ruin Rue Calliwell? - was an overwhelming yes. It may be realistic.... but it’s not satisfying.

The third and biggest reason why this book is deserving of a one-star (I’d give no stars if possible) is because it isn’t a Romance, yet it bills itself as such. I know there’s a lot of problem with Authors miscategorizing their works in order to get that elusive “Bestseller” tag. But this isn’t that.  This is the author falling into the pitfall of “Trying to change romance” and ending up not being a romance at all.

Interestingly, Hopkins does miscategorize her book... but in a weird way.

Her book is not an inspirational romance. That category is reserved for “wholesome, faith-filled stories that enrich the lives of readers” - that definition is straight from Harlequin. That means no sex. No swearing. And lots of references to religion (it can be any religion but Christianity is most likely).  This is why there are a lot of reviews angry about the sex and the language.

So how did I come to the conclusion that this wasn’t a romance?

To make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s RWA’s definition of Romance.

1. The over-arching plot.

The plot of the story is pretty much spelled out in the summary. “How will fame and fortune change Rue Calliwell as well as how will she handle finding out about the family she never knew she had?”

The romance is secondary. It’s part of how she handles fame, fortune, and her family. Her brother puts his best friend up to seducing her (amusingly I wrote a fanfic with this EXACT plot 14 years ago). The brother is testing his new sibling. The fact that his BFF and sister fall in lust is a side-effect. Not the main plot.

In order for this to be a romance, the characters falling in love and making the relationship work has to be the main focus. And in this book, it just isn’t.

2. The Points of View.

The book is 52 chapters long. Jack, the antagonist brother, has 8 POV chapters. Sean, the sympathetic brother, has 7 POV chapters. Alec, the love interest, has 7 POV chapters. While the rest are in Rue’s POV.   What does that indicate?

Well, that the author considered the brothers equally or more important than the love interest. We don’t even meet Alec until page 60-something out of 300 pages. That’s waaaaaay too long for a romance novel.  The love interest needs to be introduced quickly. Not a fifth of the way through the book.

3. The “I Love You’s”

You know there’s something wrong with a romance novel when the heroine says “I love you” to all of the other main characters other than love interest. Rue says “I love you” to Jenna. To Sean. To Jack. But not to Alec. Nor does he say it to her. 

4. No actual relationship.

The story between Alec and Rue is a pure Lust and Erotica story. It’s a story of obsession. Of possession. The characters don’t talk. They don’t date. They just engage in tonsil hockey and longing looks.

And the way it’s written is about as sexy as that gif.

The thing is, there is a relationship story in this book. But it’s between Rue and her brothers. In fact, everything with Alec can be seen as supporting that story, not the other way around.

5. The ending.

Again the ending needs to be emotionally satisfying and optimistic. To her credit, she kind of gets the optimistic. Rue and Alec are going to try to make things work on a long term basis and he’s going to go public about liking her.

Sounds good, right?

Except that’s not the actual ending of the book. The ending of the book focuses on the siblings and nothing is resolved there. I was left going “is that it?”

I wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t happy.

I was angry.

Each of those things would make this book ranked one star.  (So would the fact that stalking is portrayed as romantic, but I’ve gone into that before so I don’t need to go into it here.)

So it should come as no surprise that this book gets:

One star

You can read the hot mess for FREE here.

If you’re enjoying these reviews, you can buy us a kofi.

[grimmseye]

The Only One — Part 3

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou, Bakusquad

Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Kirishima Eijirou, Kaminari Denki, Ashido Mina

Other Tags: Mental Health Issues, Sickness, Mineta Exists So That I Can Express How Much I Despise Him, Canon and Post-canon Timeline, Jealousy

(Chapter One) (Previous Chapter) (Read on Ao3)

— — — —

There’s an acrid stench in his nose and something battering his ears when he wakes. The last dredges of sleep cling to his eyelids, vision unfocused as he pushes himself upright. Tiny holes are burnt into his sheet. They form a speckling of smoking dots, presumably the source of the smell.

He belatedly registers the pressure on his ears as noise. Specifically knocking, sharp and rapid. Bakugou huffs out a sigh and shakes his head, sitting upright. One hand automatically covers the blemishes in his sheets, feeling the heat of their seared edges. “Yeah,” he calls, voice hoarse

There’s too long of a pause before the door creaks open. Bakugou’s eyes shift thoughtlessly away, more concerned with how oddly bright it is in his room, like he’d left the lights on.

When no voice greets him, no floorboards creak under tiptoeing feet, his gaze flicks back to the door. He expects bright red and a toothy smile, and gets Kaminari’s cautious face peering at him instead.

“What.” His tone is dull, but still cracks. He clears his throat angrily to finish the thought, “The fuck.”

Kaminari seems to fight to find his voice before he speaks: “Uh, class starts in, like, fifteen minutes, man.”

“What?” Still bleary, Bakugou struggles to locate his clock. He curses at the time it reads. “Shit — out, just get out, Sparky!”

Kaminari rolls his eyes and flicks a salute in farewell. The moment the door clicks shut, Bakugou shucks the blankets off of his body and fumbles over to his closet. He wrenches open the door, snags his uniform, glad now that he doesn’t bother with all the extraneous details the others do.

It takes too damn long to find his shoes — he drags them out from under the bed, cussing as though they could hear him. He considers skipping the bathroom before thinking no, he refuses to let bacteria fester between his teeth.

He falls into his seat in the same instant in which the clock clicks to the final minute. The rest of the class is present as well, all at their desks, but they’re all still chattering — Aizawa is late.

A breath that sounds like a growl grinds out of his throat. He digs the heel of his palm into his eye. He’s still foggy with exhaustion, can’t even muster up anger — at Aizawa for being late, at Kaminari for waiting so damn long to wake him, at himself for sleeping in. Did he forget his alarm?

Deku is side-eyeing him. Bakugou sneers back, “The hell are you staring at?”

For a moment, it seems Deku will just avert his eyes and back off. Then he sighs, goes, “You look like you haven’t slept, Kacchan.”

There’s a retort, or a threat, on the tip of his tongue. But Deku had been correct — he fell asleep somewhere around two hours before class, the last portion of which had apparently been plagued by dreams. The new holes in his sheets were testament to that.

Which means he’s too damn tired to waste his breath on Deku, just curls his lip before he drops his head to his folded arms and shuts his eyes.

A second later, Aizawa’s voice breaks in. “There was a meeting that ran late — Bakugou, head up — now all of you put your stuff away, you’re getting a quiz.”

The class erupts into groans, loudest of all being Kaminari’s. Bakugou’s fingers tighten. He lifts his head, turning it automatically to spy Kirishima. For once, the fucker doesn’t look petrified by the announcement of a test, but has steeled determination on his face.

So their study sessions were paying off at least. Bakugou turns back, snagging one from the stack of papers and chucking the rest behind him without care. It’s nearly impossible to focus, but he reads each word one by one and forces them to make sense to his foggy brain. He knows this shit. It’s easy .

Aizawa’s brows raise when Bakugou turns his quiz in — not the first, or even the third, but the tenth to do so. Bakugou meets his gaze, two sets of bloodshot, shadowed eyes regarding one another.

A sudden burst of humor wells in him, and he turns away before the twitching of his lips can be seen, dropping into his desk and wondering what the consequences would be if he just left right then and there.

When he hears Kirishima’s voice, his ears immediately perk. It’s irritating, because the two of them are decidedly not talking, but he can’t make himself tune it out.

“How d’you think you did?” He’s asking, the words hushed.

“I’m just screwed, man,” is Kaminari’s reply. “How ‘bout you?”

“I dunno.” Bakugou has to restrain himself from swiveling towards Kirishima at that. “I think I did alright? Like, I answered everything, at least.”

He eases, letting his focus drift again. Kirishima is losing confidence, because he’s an idiot who relies too much on other’s opinions on him. Bakugou isn’t sure how hard he has to hit him to get it through his skull, but it seems nothing can convince the asshole of his own worth for long.

“I don’t think I can keep it up, though,” Kirishima murmurs. “Bakugou’s still…” An airy sigh brushes his ear.

There’s a pause. A shift. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kaminari glance at him, and Bakugou is quick to close his eyes, pretending to be drifting. It works: he hears him say, “He was way out of it this morning.”

“I bet… Thanks for that, by the way.”

“So long as he doesn’t blast me, it’s no problem, man.”

Their conversation tapers off as Aizawa collects the last paper. Bakugou opens his eyes, shoving his hand beneath his desk to mask the sound of his palms popping. He needs to burn it off because his hands are abruptly sweaty, a flush of anger and humiliation sweeping over him and shoving everything else aside.

It simmers within him, and the moment class is dismissed, he’s on his feet. Kaminari starts when he seizes his shoulder in the hallway, jerked from his conversation with Sero.

“Whoa, little rough there, buddy!” Kaminari forces a grin, but not-to-subtly tries to extract himself from Bakugou’s hold.

He ignores it, leveling his glare with Sero over Kaminari’s shoulder. “Beat it, Soysauce,” he growls. Sero raises his hands in a placating fashion, giving Kaminari a flash of a grin as he backs away.

“O- kay,” Kaminari mutters, watching him go. “That’s not concerning in the least. You burying a body?” There’s a beat, then his eyes widen. “Oh shit, I’m the body.”

“God, shut the fuck up,” he snaps. “Kirishima made you wake me up, didn’t he?”

“Uh —”

“Don’t try to fucking cover for him!” He bares his teeth. Bakugou releases Kaminari, realizing how heated his palms are getting. “That shitty-haired bastard can’t keep his nose out of anyone’s business.”

Kaminari’s expression hardens. He regards Bakugou critically, a breath dragging out of his throat. “Okay man,” he says, “I’m gonna have to be straight with you.” He crosses his arms, standing up straight to look Bakugou dead in the eyes. “Quit being such a fucking ass. Yeah, Kirishima put me up to it, but it’s cause you’re not letting him do it himself. And, frankly, he’s not the only one who’s worried!”

Bakugou squares his shoulders, looming over Kaminari. “You trying to fucking say something, Sparky? Think I need you pathetic fuckers to watch after me? Get the hell over yourself.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Kaminari glowers. “Cause you know what? I do! I think you need someone to look after you, like every other human being on this planet! Everybody needs friends, even pieces of human garbage like you.”

His eyes feel too wide, his jaw is clenched. He’s seething. “You better start reconsidering, cause I don’t need or want you clinging to my fucking boots, got it?”

“Oh, but you want Kirishima to, right?” Bakugou inhales sharply, and Kaminari pounces on it. “You let him help you, until you realize he’s not a dog trotting after your heels and get pissy about it. So you need to get two things in your head: he doesn’t belong to you, and he sure as hell isn’t the only one you can lean on!” There’s a pause, and something shifts in his expression, almost wry. “I get you’re not a genius when it comes to interpersonal connections, but just cause you don’t want to screw the rest of us doesn’t mean you can’t depend on us.”

Bakugou snaps. He slams his hand against the wall, setting off an explosion right next to Kaminari’s ear and making him flinch. “If you don’t shut your damn mouth, it’ll be your face next,” he snarls. The plaster is smoking and crumbling beneath his palm.

Hands smack against his chest before his entire body light up. He goes rigid, flesh crawling up and down and an ache seizing his entire body. It’s over in a second but he’s left staggering from Kaminari’s shock. Bakugou feels ready to collapse, and he’s panting as Kaminari spins to stride down the hall, flipping a finger behind him.

He pushes himself upright against the wall. There’s a scream in his throat and fury in his eyes, but he has no breath and Kaminari does not look back.

He catches a cold.

The first few days he straps a sick mask over his face and sits out battle training — pushing himself only leads to a disgusting coughing fit, and he’s more concerned with recovering than trying to blow his classmates up with sub-par explosions. The nitroglycerin in his sweat is diluted, each burst sputtering like water in hot oil.

The benefit of being constantly exhausted is that he actually gets some sleep — this runs itself dry when he wakes up at noon, head pounding and almost unable to breathe.

Without thinking, he grabs his phone to ask Sero or Kaminari or someone to bring him some water, and maybe enough medicine to knock him out for the next three days. Then he remembers his argument from days before, and drops the phone off the side of his bed. He’ll take care of himself, even if he coughs his lungs out of his chest doing so.

The thought sends a fit over him, hoarse coughs rattling out of his mouth, the kind that leaves the throat sore and the chest burning. He coughs until he’s gagging, spit dripping from his lips, and collapses against the pillows when it’s over.

Bakugou decides medicine alone does not count as ‘help.’ When he gets out of bed, his head swims, and Bakugou has to sink back onto the mattress. Sweat breaks out over his body. So, he’ll just have to make do without.

That’s fine. He can deal with that.

He spends the next several hours in bed, curled around his pillow, sleep denied to him by a plugged up nose and an aggressive cough.

He thinks it’s sometime after dinner when there’s a knock at his door. At first, Bakugou believes he’s only hearing things. Then the door opens and a far too jubilant voice carries forth.

“Bakugou~ Guess who — oh my god you’re dying.”

It’s Ashido, gawking at him from across the room. Bakugou unwinds from his pillow, sitting up so quickly that his vision goes briefly dark. “The fuck are you — ” he breaks off with a cough, “ — doing here?”

“Well, it would have been Kirishima,” she tells him, lips tilting. “He was gonna go look for you at lunch. But then Kaminari called you a piece of garbage with all the charm of a fly-infested carcass and said you don’t deserve him. ‘Course, even he  started worrying, so they tried to send Sero — and you apparently told him to fuck off already so I’m the final candidate.” She finishes with a saccharine smile.  

Bakugou grimaces back at her. “Well you can fuck off, too. And tell them to mind their own business.”

She snorts, closing the door behind her and sauntering in anyway. “You won’t want me to go when you see what I brought you… ah! Here!” She yanks a bottle of Ny-Quil out of her bag, brandishing it in Bakugou’s face. “So? Ready to apologize?”

He eyes the medicine. Sleep is within grasp, and yet… “In your fucking dreams.”

Ashido’s eyebrows raise. “So you’re not gonna take it?”

“Nope.”

“Even though you’re sick.”

“Yep.”

“And look like you’re dying.”

“Yes , Black-eyes.”

She blinks. Then laughs, but it’s incredulous and maybe even despairing. “You are a piece of work, Bakugou. What’s your deal?”

“My deal,” he grits out, “is that I’m constantly swarmed by little pebbles that aren’t worth my fucking time.”

“Uh- huh.” She sits on his bed, ignoring his growl. “And it’s not just because you have a huge crush and Kirishima is breaking your heart?”

Bakugou’s jaw clenches tight. “You’ve been listening to Sparky’s bullshit,” he says. “Are you two even aware of the shit that comes out of your —”

“ — Please, Bakugou, we both know I’m right.” The weirdest part is, she doesn’t even sound smug. “Don’t worry, you’re really not obvious about it. But I do like to think I know my friends. I also know what it looks like when you’re hurt and lashing out.”

Her smile is sad, a look that he’s seeing way too often lately. With nothing to say, Bakugou only watches her.

“I could tell you about Kirishima,” she says suddenly, lifting her eyes. Only the bright gold of her irises tell him she’s looking directly at him. In his dim room, they seem to glow. “From before. That’s why you’re upset, right?

Bakugou frowns, wary. He asks, “Why the fuck would you do that? You’re supposed to be shitty-hair’s friend.”

“Both of you are my friends,” she sighs, “and I’m tired of you two acting like this. I was always the problem solver in middle school, you know. So if it gets you two to make up, I’ll tell you.” It’s very simple, all laid out and bared for him to take.

They hold each other’s gazes. And the truth is, he’s tempted. He wants to know everything about Kirishima. His past. His family. His fears. His hopes. What he looks like when he’s furious, when he’s overjoyed. When he's breathless from laughter. When he’s just been kissed.

He says, “If I’m going to know this shit, it’ll be because Kirishima tells me his damn self. Get outta here with that shit.”

And to his surprise, Ashido lets out a long breath, and then breaks into laughter. “Oh thank god,” she giggles, all breathy relief, “I don’t know what I’d do if you said yes. Good job, Bakugou.” He pats his head, and it’s only because he’s too sluggish and confused that he doesn’t jerk away.

Humming to herself, Ashido uncaps the medicine. “Just take this, okay? If you’re so worked up about getting charity or something, know that Shouji will haul you to Recover Girl’s office if you keep him up with your coughing.”

She pours a capful of medicine and leaves it on his nightstand. Out of the bag comes two more items: a binder full of the day’s note and a thermos full of soup.

When Ashido leaves, Bakugou stares at the door a while. Then he groans, rolls over, and downs the medicine in a single gulp. The soup, he tells himself, is just  to chase away the awful flavor.

    Recovery comes on a triumphant morning when he wakes with the capability of breathing through his nose again. He’s furiously energized, ready to slam his work down on Aizawa’s desk and shovel down the spiciest meal the cafeteria has to offer — fuck he’ll be able to taste his food again. He’s ecstatic. 

Even seeing Kirishima can’t dampen his mood. The redhead perks up at the sight of him, then immediately droops, but Bakugou shoves down the prickle in his chest. He’s reveling in freedom, eager to blow something up, to move and fight and feel his blood pulse.

He could fucking sing when Aizawa announces a joint lesson with class B. A training simulation — enduring when outnumbered in battle.

“You will be working in small groups against the opposite class,” Aizawa explains. “Remember, class B is as familiar with one another as class A is — they know how to work with each other.

“First, class B will act as the attacking villains. The goal is for the defending team to endure the full time limit without capture — assume that backup will arrive at that time.”

It’s a grossly unfair setup: twenty-on-five, no holds barred. But that’s the point. They have to overcome impossible odds.

It’s not like they haven’t before. He vividly remembers USJ, the gang of thugs he’d taken out with Kirishima. Those would be the majority of “villains” they’d be facing in the future, lowlives that barely posed a threat beyond being born with a lucky quirk.

And that makes something stir within him. It’s almost a pleasant memory. He remembers tossing the villains aside, his first thought about the redhead he got trapped with was that he was at least gutsy for jumping in beside him. Strong, too, if lacking finesse — but he figured out quickly that Kirishima didn’t need style.

Respect. That was what he’d felt for Kirishima. Now it’s this twisted amalgamate, made up of bitterness and joy and longing.

Their names are drawn at random to make up the teams. He’s with Tokoyami, Iida, Jirou. And Kirishima. They converge in the middle of the room, given five minutes to organize while class B begins their own plotting.

“We have to keep an eye on each other," Kirishima says, directed more to the others than Bakugou. It doesn’t sit well with him, the way he refuses to so much as look at him. But it's been a regular thing lately, so he's at least used to it.

“Kirishima and I are best for defending,” Tokoyami chimes in. “Though I request I be shielded from Bakugou — his quirk is detrimental to my own.”

Bakugou ends up being flanked by Kirishima and Iida, their larger bodies able to block to light of his explosions. “We’re allowed to defend however we want,” Bakugou notes. He eyes the crowd of class B, all of them raring for a chance to tear into their self-proclaimed rivals. A savage grin pulls his lip wide. Like he’ll let them take a single bite. “I’ll just kill them, then.”

The others look among themselves. They quit acting so astonished a long time ago. “You would expose yourself,” Iida begins, sounding like he's ready to argue.

“No, I think it could work.”

He didn’t expect Kirishima to cut in. But it’s undoubtedly him who’s speaking, back straightened. He flashes Iida an apologetic look, “Sorry to interrupt. But it makes sense to reduce their numbers. Eventually we’ll be overwhelmed, especially if they work together. But I can guard Bakugou, and he’ll be able to take them out.”

His eyes shift from the group to Bakugou. They’re resolute.

Jirou nods to herself. “And with him distant, Tokoyami will be able to defend us better.”

“I can maneuver the weight of only two people easier than four,” Iida adds, catching on.

And Bakugou is caught off guard. He stares at them all, not quite able to believe what he’s hearing. He expected some form of resistance, or at least resignation. But this is acceptance. They’re accommodating him.

He doesn’t have long to dwell. A whistle blows, and they fall into position.

The simulation is basically a massive clusterfuck, twenty different bodies and quirks coming for them at once. He recognizes some from the festival, the metal freak Kirishima seems to adore, the vine-haired girl that humiliated Kaminari.

“Watch out for the big guy, with the mask,” Kirishima warns, “he’s got this glue that'll  trap you good.” His skin is hardened, though not to its unbreakable state. It’s unlikely he’ll need to push it that far.

They move as a unit, a ring that breaks only to adjust their guard to push attackers away: Dark shadow deflecting vines as Kirishima guards against a girl with horns that are half her own size.

Bakugou keeps his fingers spread, eyes wide as he searches for a good target. They keep shuffling into invisible walls, thanks to that fucker with his solid air quirk. Iida has to abandon his side to kick the wall apart, but another one manifests within moments.

He spots their source, a plain looking guy in the very back, sucking in a gust of air. “Kirishima!” He barks, and they both split off. Bakugou sails over class B’s heads while Kirishima barrels through them, knocking aside the idiots that actually try to step in his path. Bakugou doesn’t even use his quirk to take the fucker down; his boot lands on the asshole’s face and knocks him out cold.

Bakugou rebounds to a beast-quirk user, takes him down with two simultaneous blasts. The sound of his body hitting the floor is immensely satisfying.

Behind him, Kirishima shouts: “Bakugou!” It sounds like a warning. He doesn’t think, just leaps towards his voice. Hard, familiar fingers wrap around his arm and pull him into Kirishima’s chest. He hunkers down, shielding Bakugou with his body as thorny vines lash against his back.

“Hold your breath,” Bakugou warns him. Kirishima’s chest swells and then holds, and Bakugou puts his hands out, the explosions small but brimming with smoke that clouds the area around them, shielding them from view. The attacks grow hesitant, then cease. Waiting, cautious. Good.

“Better regroup,” Kirishima says, and Bakugou nods. They both take off.

Their group rearranges to fit them back in. Dark shadow pulls away, Kirishima taking his burden. Bakugou and Jirou scatter their attackers, throwing them off balance so he can lunge again.

He feels right . He’s one part of a whole, he belongs, he is needed, and Kirishima is by his side.

Of course, it’s too damn good to last.

When class A switches to play the villains, it’s supposed to still feel right. But now there are nineteen bodies he’s not allowed to hit, and no way to distance himself from them all.

He casts his gaze about, searching for red hair, and finds him at Uraraka’s side. Kirishima is guarding her, getting her close to the defenders. Sero has set up a barrier of tape that they're stumbling to avoid, and Uraraka takes that moment to duck under his arm, darts forward. She tags two of them, both yelping as they lift into the air and their team scrambles to catch them.

Like it was planned, Yaoyorozu launches a wire around those still on the ground. One catches it, looking triumphant for a single moment before she hands it off to Kaminari.

And like that, without Bakugou doing a single goddamn thing, they’ve captured all five of the defending heroes.

Uraraka throws her arms around Kirishima and he lifts her up and spins, yelling, “Did you guys see her? Did you see her? That was —” he interrupts himself with laughter, setting Uraraka down and pulling Kaminari into his next bear hug.

Bakugou feels sick to his stomach.

Kirishima’s head is down on his desk. The slow rise and fall of his shoulders tell Bakugou what he’d already guessed: he’s fallen asleep in class.

Kaminari hasn’t noticed yet — his head is bent over his notes, hurriedly scrawling because he always waits for the last second to start writing. It’s a cycle: he zones, refocuses, realizes he has only moments to copy down a whole page of notes, and writes them so quickly he can no longer read them.

Midnight has yet to notice, but she’s strict on paying attention in class. If Kirishima is noticed, he’ll be subjected to the same miserable punishment all of them are: dragged to the front of the class and made to answer about the last five minutes of the lesson he’s missed.

It’s happened to Bakugou once, which wasn’t an issue. He knows the material. She can’t do shit to him.

But Kirishima is a different story. And if he knows him, the stress will be too much for him. He might cry.

Bakugou grabs his phone. He types with one hand beneath his desk, glancing down at the message: ‘Kick shitty-hair.’

Kaminari’s head tips down a moment after it’s sent. This is why he never pays attention in class, but at least it’s useful now. First he looks angry, glaring at Bakugou. Then Bakugou just points, and he glances back at Kirishima’s sleeping form.

There’s a dull thump. Kirishima’s desk shifts, and he jerks upright, automatically holding his pen over his paper in note-taking position. Bakugou rolls his eyes as he turns back to the board. He tries to ignore Kaminari pointing his way, and Kirishima’s stare flickering back to him for the rest of the class.

Kirishima isn't in the boys’ dorm after dinner. A question to Sero and Kaminari is useless: neither of them have seen him. And judging by his adamant silence, Sparky is still holding a grudge.

Ashido is actually worth something. Her text responds, ‘ o hes in the girls dorm’.

So Bakugou goes to the girls’ dorm, because he spent time putting the notes Kirishima missed together — even rewritten and organized for ease of reading — and the fucker is going to take them if Bakugou has to stuff them down his throat.

He doesn’t knock, just opens the door and steps inside. Immediately, he’s assaulted by a camera in his face.

Uraraka cries, “Got y — oh, it’s just Bakugou.”

The last bit is called over her shoulder. He follows her gaze, seeing the other girls relax and go back to their business. Yaoyorozu and Jirou are sharing a set of earbuds, Hagakure is playing on her phone.

Kirishima is there, seated on the floor behind Tsuyu, layers of towels on the carpet beneath them. He looks curious, and confused, but grins at Bakugou and waves in greeting.

“Were you expecting someone else?” Bakugou asks.

A ghastly sensation sweeps over the room. “Mineta.” Uraraka says his name with the particular brand of utter contempt that’s reserved specifically for the rat bitch.

“We’re trying to get him expelled,” Jirou says.

“Cause if we don’t,” Uraraka chimes in, “I’m going to go full Bakugou on him.” She flexes her fingers.

Bakugou's eyebrows raise.

“Meaning she’s gonna murder him,” Kirishima translates. Which Bakugou contemplates, and then decides he approves of such use of his name.

“So why the fuck are you here?” He asks.

“Oh!” Kirishima smiles, and then pulls a lock of Tsuyu’s hair aside. It’s encased in foil. “I’m helping Tsuyu with her hair. She wanted to dye a streak into it.”

“Green,” Tsuyu informs him, looking pleased. It’s not in her face, but her bright posture and the blush on her face says it all. “It’s suiting, with my quirk.”

“It turns out Kirishima is can do more than just spike his hair.” Ashido’s voice carries from the back door as she enters the girl’s common. It’s teasing, and Kirishima sticks his tongue out at her.

“Well one, I tried a couple of different styles before I decided on spikes. And two, my baby sister is getting older, so I’ve gotta learn how to do her hair.” That gets Kirishima an eruption of coos.

Baby sister. One more thing Bakugou hadn’t known about him.

Uraraka drops down beside Tsuyu. “You can practice on me,” she offers. Kirishima seems startled, but he gives a hesitant nod.

“I mean, if it’s okay.” Brightening, he goes, “Thanks! Hey, Momo, can you make me some of those little rubber ties?”

And like that, it’s a whole event, the girls giving him advice on how to weave Uraraka’s hair into a set of braids, both tied behind her head like a circlet. And though Kirishima is finished with her hair, the girls are far from through with him. Momo shyly offers her hair next, and then Ashido claims she wants in on it, too.

They’re completely engrossed in it, not a single set of eyes on Bakugou. He gets up to leave without announcing his departure, only dropping the notes he’d brought into Ashido’s lap and growling, “Make sure shitty-hair gets those.”

The redhead himself doesn’t notice Bakugou leave.

He’s always aware of when Kirishima is touching him. It’s like his skin is wired to be extra-receptive to Kirishima’s, because even a brush of his fingers can leave his hairs standing on end, flesh warming and heart skipping.

They take up sparring as the term comes to an end, the threat of their upcoming exam looming over them. Kirishima forgoes his gym shirt, and that just makes things a few dozen times more frustrating. At least when they fight with their quirks, touching doesn’t matter. Bakugou’s hits are too forceful and too brief for any contact to register in his brain.

But they do hand-to-hand, too. It’s Kirishima’s new strategy: Unbreakable can’t be his only fallback, and freight-training into the villains won’t always work. He needs another way to fight than just punching them in the face.

This leads to two dilemmas. One: Kirishima needs to stretch no matter what, and Bakugou being something of a perfectionist insisted he help. He spends far more time than is good for his health with his hands splayed over Kirishima’s skin, feeling his muscles flex and strain as he eases him deeper into each position.

Two, the sparring itself. Kirishima had been awed by watching wrestling competitions, and their matches often end with Bakugou in a full-body pin. He can't get out of those fast enough.

He thinks Kirishima is noticing his strangeness. Bakugou is too slow to touch him, too quick to pull away. But he’s never been a tactile person, so maybe it won’t register as odd.

Except he has to revise that aspect of himself. When one of those dumbasses — Sparky or Soysauce or Blackeyes — latch onto him, he rarely feels a need to shove them away any more. And with Kirishima…

More and more, he finds himself craving contact. It’s at the point where he clenches his fingers together just to fill the space between them.

This fixation of his isn’t a one-sided issue, unfortunately. It’s not just about Kirishima touching him. It’s about Kirishima being obnoxiously clingy in general.

Everyone is subject to his affections. Claps on the shoulder and fistbumps and full embraces when he feels particularly moved. He links arms with Uraraka and Bakugou bristles. He pulls Todoroki into a hug and Bakugou’s teeth grate back and forth.

The breaking point comes due to a lineup of unfortunate circumstances. He’s dead tired, for one, because he stayed up all night dodging his less-than-pleasant dreams. He’s stressed, because of literally every single thing going on in his life (like Sparky being a child and refusing to look at him, and his mom yelling over the phone because his grades have been slipping, and just Deku as a concept). And he kind of really wants to just drag Kirishima into his bed again, because it doesn’t stop his nightmares or make his worries go away, but it’s calming to wake up with him warm and grounding by his side.

He rolls out of bed as soon as his alarm goes off, no reason to stick around any longer. Iida and Yaoyorozu are already in the kitchen, clean and ready for the day while Bakugou remains in his pajamas. Their distant greetings go ignored as he makes a beeline for the coffee pot — he found out Aizawa’s favored brand and that shit pummels sleep deprivation.

Kirishima must not have slept well, either, because he doesn’t flounce into the kitchen but trudges instead. “Need food,” he moans, eyes nearly shut. His hair is brushed but not yet styled. “And a bed. Mm. This’ll do…”

He stumbles towards Iida and drops himself over his back. Iida doesn’t even bat an eye, just leans forward slightly to better bear his weight.

The mug in Bakugou’s hand shatters.

It falls apart instead of bursting outward, fractured by the small explosion he couldn’t repress. The others all just and swing around, Yaoyorozu reaching for her belly and Iida’s engines rumbling and ridges raising over Kirishima’s skin.

For a moment, Bakugou just stares at his own hand, disbelieving. Then he glances up at Kirishima and snarls, “Would you fucking quit that?”

Kirishima just looks dismayed, stammering, “What — what do you —”

“You’re so goddamn —” Bakugou fists his own hair, pulling at the roots, “— clingy! You just fling yourself all over everyone and it pisses me off!”

Kirishima doesn’t look hurt, or angry. Just sad. Bakugou’s blood boils. Like he has any right to look at him that way.

“C’mon, man,” he soothes, with that placating voice Bakugou despises. “We can talk about this in private, okay?” He reaches for Bakugou, who shoves his arm aside and backs away. He doesn’t want to see the look on Kirishima’s face, so he grits out any excuse he can think of and leaves the kitchen before another word is said.

By lunchtime he’s cooled down enough to allow regret to settle in. It morphs into a sludgy self-loathing, disgusted with himself and even moreso with his inability to get up and do something about it.

He doesn’t expect Kirishima to approach him but, fuck, of course he does. He walks up to the table and hesitates, waits to make sure Bakugou doesn’t want him to leave before he settles down.

“Can we talk?” He asks.

Bakugou can’t meet his eyes. “Yeah. ‘Course.” His voice is rough with shame.

Kirishima takes several moments to gather his thoughts, and Bakugou has to restrain himself from snapping to hurry it up. Anticipation or anxiety, something fluttering and sickening and unpleasant is filling his gut.

“I know you’re not a touchy person,” Kirishima says at last. “So I should have asked your boundaries first. Sorry for making you uncomfortable.”

Bakugou actually looks at him now. He nearly asks Kirishima to repeat what he said, because it doesn’t make sense. “You’re apologizing.”

Kirishima nods. “Of course, dude. I make you upset when I should have known better. So I’m sorry.”

“Fucking hell, you —” Bakugou stops, and then shakes his head because this is incredible. “I’m the one who lost my shit, remember? Why the fuck are you apologizing?”

“Cause I feel bad!” Kirishima plants his hands flat on the table. “I mean, I wish we just talked about it instead of… that. But now I know so I’m gonna respect what you want, okay? I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.”

He’s completely misreading the situation. But it’s an instant fix, and Bakugou doesn’t know how to do it himself. He just wants Kirishima back, for things to be as simple and thoughtless between them as they used to be. So he says, “Okay,” and hates how dazzling Kirishima’s smile is.

[landofsomethingsomething]

your askbox seems crowded with johnroxycallie asks today. welllll sorry im going to add another one to the pile! i am intrigued! i used to ship johnroxy because it seemed real & cute but i moved to roxycallie when it was canon. but this is interesting?? sooo im interested but not sold. give me your best sales pitch for this new ot3 and adopt me into that good good 4 person fold?

Okay here’s why I like it.

To start you have to understand my salty relationship with Roxy’s bisexuality. I basically wrote my own god damn narrative for it in my own head because I am just so over homestuck’s completely unwillingness to give women arcs relating to their sexuality. Womens’ queerness is always something treated by the narrative as obvious and unworthy of commentary or exploration or any element of revelation/self-discovery or even an iota of reflection or struggle, which is especially FRUSTRATING when they’ve been shown struggling with the queerness of OTHERS. It’s that last part that gets me w Roxy -- I especially hate this with Roxy specifically because her relationship with Dirk was so very fucking fraught with her being bitter at him for being gay and thus unwilling to be with her. Roxy was aggressive about her attraction to Jake and Dirk and I would have really liked to see SOMETHING about like. The narrative there after she meets Callie, especially when Callie expressly tells Roxy that her species can’t experience human romance and blah blah blah blah there are so many things I would have loved to know more about re Roxy and her sexuality but this post is already going to be long so enough said about how mad I am about this specifically

The way I’ve settled on it for my own peace of mind is that Roxy went after Dirk and Jake most aggressively because she had the “save the human species” thing held up as the banner of like, the most important thing she could do to the exclusion of most else. Couple that with her being upset at Dirk for being gay and you get a workable explanation for her suppressing her own bisexuality and being so exuberantly performatively straight. 

So. Callie is the only person outside the other alpha kids that Roxy has had this lifelong close relationship/bond with. They have a conversation where they basically gal pal each other aggressively, with Callie saying her species can’t do redrom/human romance and Roxy being cagey about whether she’d reciprocate because Callie is basically telling her there’s no point to the thought exercise and who likes rejection?? but Roxy is the one who brings it up and is clearly fishing to see if Callie likes her likes her and blah blah blah people have been shipping RoxyCallie long before credits video because of all this, the ring, etc. The closeness of their relationship and the mutual “if only this could work it could be so good” narrative there like all right. 

Then, John. There’s an element to Roxy’s attraction to John that’s rooted in that instinctive thing she has going on that you can see on display in their first meeting, where she sees A Dude and immediately does her mental calculus to determine hey here is A Dude, he’s kind of cute, he’s maybe not gay and/or off-limits b/c my best friend has a huge messy crush on him. And it would be real easy to weigh the scales here and go full RoxyCallie if that were the sum and parts of their relationship, but like, here’s the thing -- it’s not. 

I just cannot let go of John and Roxy as the sole survivors of the Game Over timeline. Roxy is Callie’s beacon of optimistic hope, Roxy is the one who acts to save Callie and preserve her in the alpha timeline (with John’s help -- John gives Roxy the ring after all. I like that detail in the full scope of them being a Unit in the future.) But JOHN plays that role for Roxy. Roxy watches Rose die and is ready to sit down and throw in the towel. She tells John straight up that her only plan going forward after this is to accept her fate and bury her mom and wait for her miserable doomed timeline to end and take her with it. John is the one who convinces her there might be a better way, there might be hope. JOHN is the one who acts to preserve Roxy’s existence in the alpha timeline. I really love the parallel between Roxy bringing Callie back from the brink of oblivion and John bringing Roxy back from the same via the same mechanism that allows John to get the ring that allows Roxy to bring Callie back in the first place. That is a really tidy loop and I like it a lot.

So, Roxy in Earth C with a boy she likes and has a connection with that literally no one else can understand because no one else went through Game Over, no one else has this dissonant experiences that might not mesh 100% with the people they love, no one else has this potential imposter syndrome. I love the idea of Roxy and John bonding over that and have never really been willing to give it up. I love the idea of Roxy coming to understand that her infatuation with the idea of A Boy, Any Boy and the future she wanted so bad were products of trauma and really examining that and then realizing she fell for John legitimately, that she genuinely finds him charming

Simultaneously, Roxy in Earth C with the alien girl she’s had a crush on for like probably forever, and now she’s free of the burden she always assumed she had to repopulate the human race. Also her entire family is queer and she’s free to explore her own feelings with that context. Maybe to accept that her feelings for Jane were never purely platonic (and her feelings for Callie certainly never were) and half her frustration at Dirk was that he insisted on being “true” to himself while Roxy never felt she could be and imposed straightness on herself out of obligation to the human race. That could make a girl bitter, right? (I have so many god damn feelings about Roxy and Dirk reconciling post-canon)

And here’s Callie with her insistence that cherubs can’t experience redrom, too. Except now she’s living on Earth C with, for example, Karkat, a troll who absolutely experiences romantic feelings the same way humans do despite all his species lore stating Trolls Can’t Feel Like That. And now Callie has eternity to explore HER feelings -- and we know part of why Callie just accepted that she couldn’t experience flushed/human romance is because she didn’t think anyone would ever love her like that anyway, right? She thought she was hideous and unloveable. Well now she’s here on Earth C and there’s no way Roxy is going to go on letting her believe that. And without that holding her back from exploring the way she REALLY feels, you can see a path to Callie allowing herself to experience emotions she never thought she could. 

And all of these are positive things and wonderful things for these people to learn about themselves and about each other. 

Roxy caught between the boy she fell for on her journey and the girl she fell for long before her journey even started, just having this realization like, everyone is doing what they want here, this is our universe and our earth and our society and our rules, and she’s kind of unofficially dating them both for awhile but not committing labels-wise to either until eventually she’s just like fuck it??? Here’s how I feel, now how about you??? And I cannot imagine Callie protesting Roxy loving them both or someone else loving Roxy as much as she does, and John’s relationship with romance throughout Homestuck is so bemused and ???? and exploratory, I imagine he’s like well this is kinda weird is this like a troll thing and Roxy is like no this is just an us thing and they deal with it

John and Callie have already been spending tons of time with each other throughout and again, as I referenced in an earlier post, there’s some initial awkwardness that settles out into a balanced arrangement and Callie and John both love Roxy and care about each other very much.

Also like, until there actually is some kind of epilogue that does more with John’s current depression arc and ties in the Masterpiece with everything, I like this alternate reality where John has someone who understands him in a way really no one else can there for him when his shit starts to go south, I like the idea of there being an entire long ass subplot where John tries to isolate himself and Roxy is instrumental in not allowing that to happen, I like Callie’s cheer in the face of her own blisteringly unforgiving history and reality being an inspiration for John, I like a lot of things that canon as it stands doesn’t have a satisfying character-driven arc for at the moment.

And, you know, to cap all this off, I really just like JohnRoxyCallie as an acknowledgement that bisexual woman are not “less” for liking boys, that bisexual woman don’t “count” unless they are exclusively with women, and that bisexual people in real life who ship bisexual characters with people of opposite/other genders are not somehow betraying the queer community by doing so, while simultaneously not sacrificing a potential f/f romance for a m/f one.

The LGBT community’s relationship with bisexual women is MY pet issue, because obviously I’m a bi woman, and there’s obviously an element of that going on as well. It bothers me with the treatment of a lot of fandom/homestuck’s bisexual women (this frenzy by queer fandom to erase every relationship a bisexual woman ever had with a man as being not real or not valid for x, y, z reasons while Straight Fandom is over there doing the same thing, but opposite) but Roxy is by far the Homestuck Canon Bisexual Woman I personally care about the most so SHRUG that’s why you get a million words of my feelings

Anyway that’s why I like them

[julianspancakes]

Kitty Fic Recommendations ➸ 1

So, I read a lot of fics and I wanted to share some (!) of them throughout my time here. The fics listed below can be old or fairly new, so this has no timeline. Neither an order of preference.

Part 2     Part 3

Behind Closed Doors by The Purple Warlock

Summary :  Ty manages to get Kit out of his room and to get to know people better.

Understanding by The Purple Warlock

Summary :  Kit and Ty think they understand themselves and their worlds, but life decides to shake everything up, meaning that they no longer understand what they used to. They need each other to work out where they need each other to ease their confusion. Friendships and relationships follow.

Pressure by writeyourheart100

Summary :  (LOS SPOILERS!) Kit wanders into Ty’s room at night, feeling the need to fulfill an unspoken promise to Livvy.

The Lights of the Los Angeles Institute by mrsjulianblackthorn13

Summary :  It starts out with Kit and Ty training together. Soon they realize their feelings for each other. This is my interpretation of how they would end up together. Events take place after Lady Midnight.

Quiet All Away by DAIrinchan

Summary :  Kit does his best to hide from the Shadowhunters in their own Institute. Ty wants to meet him properly.

Mortal Melody by DAIrinchan

Summary :  Drabble. Kit finds out what Ty’s been listening to.

Vast Formless Things by DAIrinchan

Summary :  AU? Maybe? Drabble. Sometimes all you have is the people you care about.

Attack Bear by DAIrinchan

Summary :  AU. Which is worse, a school shooting or a school bear attack? Warning: Flippant treatment of serious issues.

Pacified Psyche by DAIrinchan

Summary :  The story of Ty and Kit’s first (and second) kiss. Posted for Autism Awareness Month in April.

Chemistry and Physics by teamfreewill82

Summary :  He was suddenly the first person, in that way, that Ty could look at with true interest, wonderment. He’d never, ever experienced anything like it.

Closed Doors by shadowhunter167

Summary :  Kit hasn’t come out if that room since he went in. He’s stubborn, but Ty knows he can wait him out.

See the World by Aaron Quinn

Summary :  He didn’t talk like his family. Hell he didn’t even look people in the eyes. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; he looked into Kit’s eyes. Kit Rook. The one person he felt close to.. It was a sense of familiarity and recognition. It was something he didn’t know how to explain. Nonetheless, he knew one thing for sure and that was that he could see the world in Kit’s eyes.

Sadness and Stims by AAThanatos

Summary :  Spoilers from LOS so if you haven’t read it skip this! Kit does his best to comfort Ty after tragedy strikes.

Grey Eyes by Storytelling Penguin

Summary :  A tale of an unlikely friendship that grew into something more. Kit Rook and Ty Blackthorn.

Just Hold Me by the Beauty of Nightmares

Summary :  (SPOILERS FOR LORD OF SHADOWS) Ty isn’t dealing well with his sister’s death, but maybe Kit knows a way he can help. Sad, kinda fluffy one-shot for Kitty.

The Stars Belong In Your Eyes by Malecislifee

Summary :  Kit and Tiberius. Discovery of new feelings, adventure and romance and drama. All about Kit and Ty but not only that, Kit forms bonds with other characters, including Livvy.

Hurricane Boy by Malecislifee

Summary :  KITxTY Fluff. It’s been a month and Ty is always sitting outside Kit’s door. One day he asks him inside and Ty seems to have found some comfort in this new boy. And Kit is trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, and he can’t help but find the Blackthorn boy very intriguing.

There Are Snowflakes In The Sky by Black Rose White Fire

Summary :  Ty took a deep breath. “Okay. Well. If you don’t want a book, I understand that too. Sometimes I just want to listen to music. I don’t know what kind of music you like, but I was looking for songs that talked about people who stayed in their rooms, and other people who missed them and wanted them to come out.”

Too Much by teamfreewill82

Summary :  Friends noticed these things about one another, sure, but they didn’t agonize over them in detail as the last thought before sleep.

True North by teamfreewill82

Summary :  Traveling is harder to do when you have someone you don’t want to leave behind.

Hurt Hands and Salved Sandwiches by teamfreewill82

Summary :  Kit supposed he could have refused to accept the offer, the way he had when Julian had suggesting healing him in the car. But he didn’t.

Bees, High School and Autism by 0010001

Summary :  Ty is starting a new school and is worried that he isn’t going to make any friends and that he will get bullied. Luckily he has Livvy with him.

Challenge the Default by elliptical

Summary : "I’m not normal,“ Ty told him a month later, as the pair of them tried to catch frogs outside. He said it with the casual air of someone discussing the weather, or pointing out that a shoelace was untied.

Kit blinked. "Obviously,” he said.

Blues and Purples by tsukkisdinos

Summary :  When Ty realises that he and his sister both like the same guy, things get complicated.

Kitty’s First Kiss by ShadowHunterOfArtemis

Summary :  Just three different perspectives on Kit and Ty’s first kiss. Going into a battle is a perfect time for rash decisions, right?

Waltz Of The Flowers by Fandom_girl21

Summary :  A bunch of firsts in Ty’s and Kit’s friendship/relationship.

Confessions ( Beginning Of Something Beautiful ) by darkartificies

Summary :  Throughout the past month, he learned many things about Shadowhunters, but three things stood clear: One was that Mark and Emma were definitely in a relationship. Two was that he was getting pretty good at being a Shadowhunter, though he’d never admit it. And the third was Tiberius Blackthorn.

A World In Grey and Blue by TheRedKing

Summary :  Soulmate AU where you can’t see the color of your soulmate’s eyes until you see them. or, the one where Kit can’t see grey until a pair of stormy eyes allow him to see the shining steel of the knife pressed against his throat.

Feels So Right by StarGirl06

Summary : Tiberius Blackthorn and Kit Rook have each been harboring some feelings for one another, but keeping them to themselves. Eventually, it has to all come bursting out.

“Ty didn’t laugh very often, and Kit had learned over the past few months of being at the Institute that his smiles needed to be cherished. Kit felt his heart warm at the sight of laughter in Ty’s normally stormy eyes.”

you make it easy by thankyouforexisting

Summary : Kit feels lost without the dark-haired shadowhunter beside him (and when had that happened, that he’d gotten used to his steady presence? He hasn’t even been here for a whole day!), but the girl bites her lip, “I was just joking,” she hesitates, and then turns a beaming smile at Kit, “I’m Livvy, Ty’s twin sister.” She goes on pointing around the table, “And those are Tavvy,” the smallest of them all, a quiet boy who seems to be clinging to - “Dru,” -a short girl who’s hugging him, “and that’s Perfect Diego, who’s a Centurion.”

‘Perfect Diego’ sighs, “Please, I beg you all, stop calling me that.”

Livvy laughs, “Right! Anyway, Kit, you’re welcome to sit down wherever you want and have breakfast; you’re one of us, now.”

“I’m not a Shadowhunter,” he grunts, but quietly, “I just want to eat.”

“Don’t we all,” Julian agrees easily.

something brewing between us by thankyouforexisting

Summary : “You know,” an amused voice says, and Ty freezes, slowly looking up to meet irresistible blue eyes, “I make my coffee hot, but you may just be hotter.”

From his left, there’s the sound of Livvy choking and dropping a spoon.

He flushes, gritting his teeth, “What would you like to order?”

“A cup of you, to go, please, no sugar, you’re sweet enough,” Kit smirks, and Livvy’s giggling now, not even trying to hide it, “And I would also appreciate if you stopped stalking my coffee shop. It just isn’t good to keep meeting like that.”

Ty narrows his eyes, “This war isn’t over until I say it’s over, you truant. One coffee, black like your soul, coming up.” // The Blackthorns have a coffee shop. There’s competition in town. Detective Ty is on the case.

How Beautiful by TheRedKing

Summary :  Livvy grinned wide, and Kit was suddenly struck with how the smile of one twin could feel so different from that of the other. Livvy’s was bigger and brighter, but it just didn’t hold that spark that made his chest feel warm, and full of light. - Kit is now living at the Institute, begrudgingly training to become a Shadowhunter. He would have left already, but his father was dead, and he has no other place to go. His only solace was a dark haired boy who understands the troubles of being an outsider. Kit wasn’t even looking friendship with the Shadowhunters, but he thinks he may have found that and more.

not all of them are so bad by Nitonami

Summary : Kit definitely doesn’t want to be at the Institute, and he definitely didn’t want the Shadowhunter that stayed outside his door after everyone else had left…

…At first, anyway.

Always Back To You by Kitty_trash

Summary :  Ty leaned forward, touching Kit’s hand. Kit’s eyes shot up, looking into Ty’s eyes. “Where do you go?” Ty asked under his breath. To you, always to you, Kit thought.

The Lovelace Bonds by benjaminrussell

Summary :  Ty and Kit carry out a theft and watch a movie.

‘This isn’t what it looks like!’ by MidnightMew

Summary :  Just a pointless little kitty drabble.

Rain and Glass by MidnightMew

Summary : ( LOS- SPOILERS ) Those were simpler times. Times when his parents were still alive. Times when he had no idea that Mark and Helen were different from the rest of his siblings in any way apart from the fact they were older. Times when he didn’t know he was different either, when he still dreamed of the scholomance. Times when he still had his sister, when he still had Livvy.

A long awaited conversation by MidnightMew 

Summary :  Ty finally comes out.

A flame in the pitch black night by MidnightMew

Summary :  Just a pointless little kitty drabble.

Snow Angels by keiththepaladin

Summary :  In which Kit and Ty are in London and there is bickering and snowball fighting.

Ty and Kit’s First Kiss by olivemartini

Summary :  Exactly what the title says.

Windows by olivemartini

Summary :  Some people say that eyes are the window to the soul. And for once, Ty has to agree.

Apologies by olivemartini

Summary :  Ty apologizes to Kit for holding a knife to his throat when they first meet.

Kit’s Explorations of the Institues, With the Help of Ty by olivemartini

From the Shadow                                                                              Summary :  Kit’s trying to leave his bedroom for the first time since he’s gotten to the Institute and realizes he has no clue where to go. Thankfully, Ty is there to help him.

Pancake Day                                                                                           Summary :  It’s Pancake Day at the Blackthorns, and Kit doesn’t get the whole “family meal” thing.

The Weapons Room                                                                     Summary :  Kit picks out his weapon.

Training                                                                                                     Summary :  Kit and Ty in the training room. Kit learns how to throw knives.

On the Rooftop                                                                             Summary :  There’s not much left that scares Kit, but seeing Ty standing on the edge of the roof and staring down at the ground below has quickly skipped ahead on his list of terrible things.

Melting Wings                                                                                       Summary :  Icarus got too close to things he wanted most in the world, and it killed him. Ty kind of knows how it felt.

Cuddling                                                                                     Summary :  Ty doesn’t really know what to do, but Kit’s fallen asleep on  his shoulder and no one’s here to watch, so he might as well just stay put.

Hypotheticals                                                                                               Summary :  They sleep in the same room sometimes.    Not together.    Just… near each other. It’s easier that way.

Uncle Arthur                                                                                              Summary : Kit had never met Uncle Arthur, but he had gotten the gist of the situation from Ty’s uneasiness and Julian’s hushed explanations. And yet, despite all the whispered warnings, he still did not expect to come face to face with raving lunatic.-or-The story of how Kit saves Ty from Uncle Arthur.

[theonceoverthinker]

My Weekend At Once Con (Part 1)

...All I can say is wow. ...Just WOW. I'm sitting at my desk at work, just trying to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to go back to normal after this weekend. I'm equally parts at peace, freaking out, and so tired that I'm ready to crash and burn. And I'll tell you all why. ()()()()()()()()()()()()() About Me ()()()()()()()()()()()()() Before I start, I feel like to really understand my feelings about this con, you need to know a little bit about me first. That said, I'll make it fast because I know that's not what you're here for. 1. I'm the weirdest mix of introvert and extrovert that you can imagine. I want to talk to everyone, but at the same time, I'm so freaked out by it, but at the same time, I'll actually do it and jump in. 2. I'm what I call an omnishipper. If it's not incestual, I ship it at least a little. That said, I don't love all ships equally. I play favorites, and can even rank them per character. For example, I like Swan Queen, but I like Captain Swan and Dragon Queen a lot more. I like Violet Believer, but I like Henriella more. You get the drift. 3. I'm pretty positive about the show, and unless it's coming from a place of love, I hate saltiness, towards the writers, towards the characters, etc. I have likes, dislikes, and concerns of course, but there’s a line that I just don’t care to cross where it stops being fun, 4. I say I'm sorry way too much. 5. I recorded hours and hours of audio and video footage. It is all pretty flawed, but I promise, it's real. 6. Now, I'm going to reference questions, but I'm going to specifically focus on mine, since this is my con experience I'm reporting about. Look, I'm biased. It's human nature, and I'm literally writing this less than 24 hours after getting back.That said, if another question or comment really spoke to me, I'll do my best to include it here. Also, I'm doing my best to quote my questions from what I actually said, using the questions as I originally wrote them as well as my own memories, but I'm not trudging through my footage to get them. 7. Apart from Once, I've never really seen the special guests in other works. I saw Jen's play, The End of Longing back in May, but that was about it. This convention has convinced me to go forward and watch more of their works!

Okay, no more waiting! Here we go!!!

()()()()()()()()()()()()() Thursday ()()()()()()()()()()()()() I drove to the con on Thursday. I took a half day at work to finish packing and wait for my carpool buddy. We'd met on a Facebook page called "Once Upon a Time NJ Con," a Wall Street of sorts for the convention run by two lovely ladies. If you're looking to go next year, I can't stress enough just how good this page was. We arrived that evening for preregistration, and after my own adventures in the hotel down the road, I was all ready to get going. My roommate for the evening and I were on line, and already, there was so much excitement to be had. I met a beautiful young woman with crimson hair and a beautiful Swan Queen necklace who had Steven Universe buttons (A rare crossover of fandoms), and after we talked, I affectionately called her "Buttons" for the entire weekend. I entered the vendors room and took it all in. I immediately scoped out everything that I wanted, promising myself that I wouldn't spend too much money. ...You'll see how that ended up later. Thinking quickly, I immediately bought a Captain Swan shirt. There was a mug that looked like Henry's book that I promised myself I would buy on Sundays, but that was it. Don't get me wrong: I WANTED other stuff. The artwork table looked so nice, but I was sure I'd be selling my life savings for it (Something I was proven wrong about on the car ride home). Also, there was a big model of Emma's bug also available for purchase, but for like $50. It's funny because I was actually about to give my model of the bug (which was about 1/10 of the size of the one available here) to a Tumblr friend who I had grown really close to over the course of six months. Really, there wasn't much to say after that. Once my roommate and I had our fill of the Vendor's Room, we headed back to our room, chilled out, and then went to sleep, eager for the con to truly begin. ()()()()()()()()()()()()() Friday ()()()()()()()()()()()()() I've always been an early bird. That wasn't going to be an exception here. My first event wasn't until noon, but I was up at seven, and out the door by eight-thirty. My roommate, or at this point, ex-roommate, and I parted ways, but promised to meet up during the con. Thankfully, this is one of those stories where that actually happens. She and I at times were each others greatest forces of support and friendship in what was already a really friendly convention. We get there, and bond with a couple of people. Eventually, I ran into my carpool buddy and her friend. We killed time talking, reading books, and examining cosplays. Michael Coleman (Happy) and Chris Gauthier (Smee) passed by the lobby a few times, and I actually said hi to them, one time each. I was totally freaked out, but still, it was fantastic! Eventually, the theatre did open up, I parted ways from my friends, and went to my seat. I gotta say, knowing no one (for the moment, at least), it felt really lonely to be waiting for seatmates. Thankfully, a young teenager who had a GA ticket came by and provided a fun amount of conversation! Creation's house band Samurai Fish, accompanying Michael Coleman and eventually Gil McKinney (Eric) opened up the show. I never expected to like classic rock versions of my favorite Disney songs, but they were a lot of fun. XD Gil McKinney's panel, which I thought would originally set the stage for the rest of them, ended up, while doing it to some extent, being its own separate beast entirely, but in the best way possible. I compare it more to a stand up comedy routine than a proper panel. Gil walked around the room, commenting on guests, guessing kid's ages, losing a $20 bet that he would remember a guest's name, and even Face Timing with one of the guest's friends. I was blown away by how charming he is. There was a bit of a Q&A, but it only took up about the last five minutes of his panel. Fortunately for us con-goers, Gil would show up to a LOT more events and do a full-on Q&A the next day with Lee, Chris, and Michael. After Gil came Chris Gauthier. Let me tell you, I was hyped. I had been preparing questions for NJ con for six months now, but from the second I saw his name on the guest list, I knew what I wanted to ask. Chris' panel was more of a traditional panel with one big twist: Instead of going up to the mic, Michael, dressed as the Evil Queen (Heels included!), was going around with the mic to bring it to guests for their questions. This added a fun level of quirkiness to Chris' panel that I and the other guests really appreciated. Ready for my question? Well, at first, I wasn't. Believe it or not, I was terrified at first. But, I told myself that I wanted this and that I could do it. Michael eventually took a seat in the row in front of me, extended the mic to me, and I started to speak. "The last time Smee and Killian interacted in the present timeline, it was before Smee got his memory back and remembered that Killian sold the Jolly Roger and left his crew to go save Emma. What do you think that Smee and the rest of the crew think of their former captain now? Are they happy for his redemption or are they bitter at him for their abandonment?" Chris' response (To quote the man himself, "A little of both," and was followed by a more thorough explanation of why he thought so) was detailed, charismatic, and spoke of how much thought he puts into his character. By the end of it, I really wanted to see Smee on screen again! After Chris' panel ended, we next went into a Trivia Game. I actually participated in the last set of 30 contestants and made it to the top 15! Not half bad, especially because the question was from "Tallahassee" and Season 2 has always been my weakest season. I actually talked to two of the three winners after the contest, and both were scrambling to use their $200 winnings! XD The panels resumed at three sharp with Michael! Sadly, he was not wearing a costume, but what he lacked in that regard, he more than made up for with a bright and cheeky personality. I actually asked him, while something I never explicitly wrote out, about how he came up with the idea for the "Happy Little" series that he has been putting on for the past few conventions. He explained his reasoning in three parts, but I'll just tell you my favorite: He likes wearing dresses! The final panel of the day was the one and only Raphael Sbarge (Archie). What I like about Raphael is how he answers his questions. I'll demonstrate what I mean by discussing my own. So, my question was "In the Once Upon a Time fandom, shipping to many is as natural as breathing. However, Archie was never brought into a romantic relationship over the course of the series, or at least hasn’t been up to this point. Do you have and ideas of a character who you would have liked for him to chirp off into the sunset with?" Rapahel's response? "Who do you think he should end up with?" Now, it is definitely flustering to be asked a question in response to your own question, but give the man credit, that is brilliant when it come to responses. It does a couple of things. First, it's kind of like having a conversation with him. Raphael gets to react to what you think. Second, it buys him more time to respond, which, for a celebrity being put on the spot, is pretty clever. Now, that was the end of the panels, but not the end of the day, not by far. First came autographs. I'm going to hold all of my thoughts on autographs until the end of this series of posts, but for now, I'll say this: They were LONG. Second came...Dani. So, I've been chatting with a friend on Tumblr for close to half a year now. I always admired her posts, and we actually bonded over convention preparations. And she was coming to Jersey Con for Friday night and all of Saturday! I swear, I was just as excited to meet her as any of the celebrities appearing here. After the autographs, I messaged her to meet me in the lobby, and she responded immediately that she was on her way. And for the first time ever, we met. Readers, it felt like a scene in a movie. As soon as I saw her, I knew her, she knew me, we rushed to each other,...and we hugged. Fiction itself is seldom as beautiful.  We went up to her room, talked about a million and one things, shared stories and pictures, and then... Part three!!! You may have forgotten in all the excitement, but there was a brand new episode of Once Upon a Time!!!! It is incredible watching a show you love with someone who is as big of a fan as you. The episode in and of itself was pretty great! So, the episode ended, and with a million and one thoughts and theories, Dani and I headed down to the final portion of the day: Karaoke! Karaoke was hosted by Michael, Chris, Karen David (Jasmine), Beverly Elliot (Granny), and Gil McKinney. In it, our talented stars sang and danced alongside the lucky people chosen to sing pop, Disney, and rock songs! I had entered for Shut Up and Dance With Me, but sadly I was not selected. That said, the person chosen was quite talented. Some numbers that stuck out to me were "These Boots Were Made for Walking," "Sweet Caroline," "I Want It That Way" (Which my friend performed in), the aforementioned "Shut Up and Dance with Me," and "How Far I'll Go." The energy of the crowd was really something to see. Us Oncers definitely know how to rock a house! I bid Dani adieu and left during the final number because at that point, I was dead tired, and of course, I knew that I'd have to be at my best for everything that was to happen tomorrow... Nice cliffhanger, right? Stay tuned for Part 2!

[percywinchester27]

Before I post the next chapter, I have to thank all of you who’ve left such incredible feedback! I’m honestly humbled! I can never find to make posts like these, but I am gonna sit down and do this today cause I can’t not tell you how amazing you guys are! That was one hell of a chapter to write, and THANK YOU for your kind words!

Stroke of luck

@heavymetalhauswife​ said: Oh man I finally got to dot down and read this! SO GOOD. Can’t wait for more!

Thank you so much, Jess! You are so kind! <3

@ryantherandomhero​ reblogged this from you and added:

Amazing series so far! I can’t wait for Dean to find out Vi’s his kid.

I can’t wait to read your reaction to it!! Hopefully the next chapter will be out by tomorrow :) Thank you so much!

@i-is-for-inspiring said: THIISS!! OH MY DEAR GOD THIS IS PERFECT!!!! I’ve been reading this all day and I CANNOT get enough of it!!! I’m so freaking in love with this fic!!! It’s seriously so perfect and so uggghh that it makes my heart ache but I don’t care!!! I’m a helpless romantic and I WANT MORE OF THIS!!! Thank you for writing something so amazing, even when it’s finally over (and I hope it’s not soon) I won’t get over it! It has a special place in my heart! Now, I CAN’T WAIT FOR MORE!!!!!

I cried when I read this. Legit teared up! I kept seeing you going through the series, liking all the chapters, and crossing my fingers that you like it, and then you gave me this beautiful compliment, so of course I cried! Thank you so much. Really. This mean a lot, and you are a cinnamon roll for all this love. I will be sad to see this series too. I hope you liek the next part too, Darling <3. All the love- Ana <3

@notesfromalabprincess said: Omg it was perfect! It was a twist on it I didn’t even think of and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it like the reader at first and it was such an amazing part! You did an incredible job with it and I can’t wait to see where you take it all next!

THANK YOU!! I really hoped no one would guess it was heading this way. I mean the reader had to have had a solid reason, but this is why I picked the pastor over Bobby. You are lovely, and so very kind, Hon! <3

@its-not-a-tulpa reblogged this from you and added:

Thank Chuck she’s okay and that you Sammy for being there.

Sammy saves the day!! Thank you for reading it <3

@thing-you-do-with-that-thing reblogged your post and added: 

I forgive Y/N and Dean will not see it as there being anything to forgive. He loves them both. Only thing I am worried about is the damn case!

*Smiles evilly* You can keep worrying, Kari! It’s what you get for waking me up and making me beta for you :P 

@yoursmilemakesmeloveyou reblogged this from you and added:

I cried dammit, like q freaking child

Me too!! Trust me! Remember that I love you ;)

@gabavaldman reblogged this from you and added:

Damn it!! It was soooooooooo good!!!! I loved it!

You did? Whoa! Thank you so much!

@caratala reblogged this from you and added:

This is such an amazing story! I love it! I cannot wait for more. So well written and thought out.

Thank you so much!! This really means a lot! <3   

@meeshw777 reblogged this from you and added:

Stroke of Luck Part 11 - has so much going on, you will need Kleenex!  I love the Father Jim part - it tidied up so much of what our heroine was thinking and why she did things the way she did.  I love the interactions between our girl and Sam, sweet and angsty.

I really didn’t want Sam to only be the boyfriend’s brother you know? He had to be close enough to her to consider naming her daughter after him! I am SO HAPPY that you love that part! Because I love her relation with Sam too! I don’t tell you often, but thank you for being so exceptionally kind towards me! I appreciate it a lot. Love <3

@electricroserosie said: Wow! This was truly amazing! I believe you worked out the timeline perfectly and it does make sense! I love the mother-daughter interactions and I cannot wait for Dean and Violet to properly meet each other! Gahh!! I love your work! ❤❤

Yes!! We need more Dean and Violet don’t we? I am going to do what you’re saying! ;) Myabe next chapter <3 You are awesome <3

@mrswhozeewhatsis reblogged this from you and added:

Writing a fic into canon is HARD. Good job!!! 

Thank you so much Michelle! This means a hell lot coming from someone as talented as you <3

@spnfanficfavorites reblogged this from you and added:

Loved it!

Thank you! <3

@alliekay727 said: I am absolutely in love with this entire story!! I just binge read all of the parts and OMG I gotta know what happenes next! You are am amazing writer please give us more!!! ❤❤❤❤

Thank you so much!! You are so very sweet! How about tomorrow?

@jayankles reblogged this from you and added:

Oh my good god. I almost died thinking that something happened to Violet but she’s getting one step closer to being introduced to her father and uncle, right? Until then…

Bailey, I LOVE YOU! That’s all! I’m teasing tonight, posting tomorrow ;)

@kathaswings reblogged this from you and added:

I was so worried about Vi running off like that, I’m glad she’s okay. I’m glad that Sam is Sam, kind and understanding, and it gives me immense pleasure to know that he knows the truth and Dean doesn’t. I can’t wait for the scene where he finds out - that’s gonna be epic… And when Vi finds out! Oh, there’s so much to look forward to. :-)

I love this series. It’s unlike anything else I’ve come across. It’s wonderfully twisted and complex, the relationships between characters seem real and relatable. It’s simply wonderful! I nearly skipped this whole thing when it started, because that was before I fell to the daddy!Dean pit, but I’m so happy I didn’t! This is definitely among my favorite series at the moment! ♡

*Opens and closes mouth like a fish, opens it again and closes it again* That is me EVERYTIME I read your reblogs! Trust me Lina, you are like a gift from the gods or something. I can never find words to thank you enough. All I can say is that I am extremely lucky that you choose to read my stuff, and for that I am so very thankful! Keep being the joy that you are. Much love, Ana <3

@mery-magizoologist reblogged this from you and added:

I’m so happy Violet is alright! I was scared for a moment, thank Chuck Sam for her first. And I’m also happy the reader had the chance to talk to Sam ❤️ hope she gets the same chance to talk to Dean about everything. Can’t wait for the moment she tell Violet everything!

Thank you for those kind words! They are what keep me going and encouraged really. You are awesome <3 And I think it’s all gonna wrap up soon :)

@hillywooddestiel said: OMFG!!!! First I was like omg it’s here! Then I was like oh shit run! Then it was cute. Then it was super sad. And then it got cute again. What a roller coaster of a chapter 😍😍😍

I laughed so hard at your comment! Like that is the most accurate summary of a 7k word long chapter! You are amazing! THANK YOU!!

@shotgunintheimpala​ reblogged your post and added:

this is getting veeerrrryyyyy interesting. not that it wasn’t before!

Thanks Darling! I DO NOT deserve you!

@docharleythegeekqueen​ reblogged your post and added:

Oh my gosh this was so good. You wrapped it up with canon perfectly. Im so happy Sam found Vi. I cant wait for the reunion but this was nice. Im glad Sam has the whole story and that had his own reunion with the reader.

Youre so talented. Great work on this chapter. 💗

You are so nice and pure! Like really! Everytime I see your reblogs, I do this mini dance! Thank you so much Darling! You deserve all the love <3

@sandlee44​ reblogged your post and added:

This was a great part and you are doing a great job with this series can’t wait for everyone to know the truth

Thank you so much! You are so very nice <3

@melonshino​ reblogged your this post and added:

Listennnnn. I have not had the greatest day today, between prepping for this stupid hurricane and a lot of other stupid junk I haven’t gotten done, like… this is the friggin highlight of my day, okay!!

I feel like my skin is clear and my back doesn’t hurt as much and I feel a little bit more hope for my otherwise shitty day!!! So thank you~ I don’t have the energy for proper gushing over this chapter but please know that I love this and you and you’re perfect!! okay byeeee~ 💖🌸💖🌸💖🌸✨

You don’t need to gush over! The simple fact that you even want to read my stuff is the best compliment ever. You know I love you, Tierra! I hope you’re doing well! <3

@mrspadalackles​ reblogged this post and added:

Oh my god so many feels!!!! I loved how Sam heavy it was, and I can’t wait to see how everything plays out.

I love Sam heavy stuff! Like he is important to Dean, so he damn well be important in any series about Dean. Thank you for your lovely words! You are too kind!

@dustycelt​ reblogged this post and added:

All the hair pulling was worth it, you did a great job!

Thank you so much, Darling! I am glad you think so <3

@captainradicalpassion​ reblogged this post and added:

😭😭😭😭😭 this part was so beautifully written Ana!! Oh my lanta. You were right when you said it had all the feels in it. Man. Can’t wait for part twelve!!

Thank you so much, babe! You know your words mean a lot! Love <3

@rhapsody-in-flannel​ reblogged this post and added:

The attention to detail in this chapter was insanely good. Not gonna lie, the reunion between Sam and the reader made me squeal and to a little happy dance. The only thing as good as daddy!Dean is uncle!Sammy.

Isn’t it? I love uncle!Sammy too! Not gonna lie, reading your comment make me squeal and do a little happy dance too, Katie! Love, Ana <3

@shutupiminlooove​ said: I was gonna go to bed. And then this popped up…. It was the perfect way to continue an amazing story!! She still doesn’t know… He still doesn’t know… And I continue to be addicted…

You gave a little sleeping time for the series?? Oh my gosh, that is like the best compliment! Thank you so much for the awesome feedback! You are so nice <3

@earthtokace​ said: Oh my god yes. This was amazing and so beautifully written. I can’t wait for the next part!

Thank you so much, love <3 Maybe tomorrow ;)

@ilsawasanacrobat​ reblogged this post and added:

*HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF* {also the following is full of spoilers}

Oh, Ana, I knew you would fix things with Vi!! And bless you for having Sammy find her safely, you had me holding my breath there for a minute. O'course he’s gonna understand, and forgive, and tease, ‘cause he’s our Sammy. 😍

How you’re going to wind things up with Dean, though - another anxious, patient wait. I haz all the faith in you!

This update is beautiful and twisty-turny and goddamn John for not sharing what he ought and I am so in love with this story.

Okay, you are just too much of a cinnamon roll to be true. Do people tell you that? I think they should, three times, everyday! Thank you for being so kind to me. I’ve at least read you’re reblog 20 times when I was struggling with the last chapter. You kept me going! So thank you for that! <3 You are a lovely bean. Much love, Ana <3

@feelmyroarrrr​ reblogged this post and added:

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh back <3 ;) Love you Roarrry <3

[rudra-writes]

The Jeweled Collar (Part 5)

Part of a roleplay story with Telurin’s player. Back at their inn room, Pallas discovers a jeweled collar Telurin made for him to wear. (Advisory for some themes of consensual dom/sub kink in this story.)

Pallas gladly crawls up to lay upon Telurin's chest, grateful for the undead draenei's coolness against his overheated skin. His breathing evens out into something more regular, and he relaxes into the death knight's touches, so gentle after the firmness of what they had just done. His long white tail twines around the death knight's when he feels it moving to loop around.

Surrendering himself to Telurin's whims in this fashion had been an intense experience and offering of trust for the priest, pushing him to the edge of anything he had ever before attempted in intimacy. Thinking back on everything they had just done causes Pallas to feel emotional -- He's so in love with Telurin, every part of him, even his habits and the things that could be construed as flaws. How fortunate he is to be so fiercely desired and craved by his beloved.

When Telurin works apart the clasp and takes the collar off, Pallas rises on his hands, raising his face to kiss and lick at the death knight's lips, his chin and the tip of his nose. He raises a thin hand to cup Tel's jaw, adoration visible in his eyes.

Telurin looks sated, relaxed and content, and his hands come around to the Anchorite’s back in support as he kisses Pallas in return, a pleased smile pulling up his lips.

"Any concerns?" The death knight asks, looking into Pallas’s eyes directly and sincerely. "I was easy on you for this first time, but I still do not want you to feel you cannot voice your desires or that you have no control over what happens, Kechare."

Pallas raises his head from kissing Telurin's upper lip, meeting the death knight's gaze. His white brows raise a little; this is something he didn't realize. "I can tell you what I'd like?" he asks, "When I'm wearing your collar?"

"You may ask." Telurin replies with a slight frown. "But you must know that when that collar is on, my word is final. You would be better served speaking with me before, when we can discuss what it is you would prefer."

The priest understands that this presumably must be done within the context of Tel being a Dom, meaning he, Pallas, asks for what he wants. He nods, blushing again. "I think I understand. Thank you."

Pallas closes his eyes, snuggling up against Telurin as if there were nowhere else he'd rather be. Even with the current mood as pleasant and floaty as it is, Pallas finds he wishes he knew more about Telurin. He is almost tragically in love with the death knight, yet still knows little about the other man's past.

After they had both rested in the night darkness for a time, Pallas's voice comes again. "I would like to learn more about you," the Anchorite says to Telurin. "I know so little about your life, and where you come from."

He waits before saying more, knowing that Tel's past is a long-standing sensitive issue, and not wanting to pressure him.

Telurin is silent for some time after Pallas's request, his fingers moving methodically up and down the Anchorite’s back, his tail flicking back and forth at the tip as he thinks. He's more inclined to answer now, when he and Pallas have just been intimate and are still relaxed against each other. After a moment he sighs, and brings his hand up to cup Pallas's cheek. "What do you what to know?" He says wearily. "There's too much of my life to tell the whole tale from start to finish."

Pallas looks back at Telurin in the dark.

"I would like to know who you were." He reaches out a hand to stroke down the death knight's neck, studying his expression. His eyes unfocus, and when the Anchorite next speaks, it's within Tel's mind.

-You can show me in visual pictures, instead of words, if you would like. If you can imagine it. I'm able to see such things in my mind, if they are willingly shared.-

Pallas's eyes focus on Telurin's face again, looking curiously at his beloved Knight. "Do you want to try it?" he asks verbally in a quiet voice. Although not sexual, the priest realizes that to share a memory in the way he is asking is a very intimate act. He isn't certain if the death knight will acquiesce.

Telurin snorts, and Pallas may think it's a dismissal until he uses the same method to voice his reply. The Anchorite had left enough of a mental connection that the death knight can use it to speak in the same manner.

-You forget how old I am, little one.- He sends as he smirks. His mental voice is amused, and he reaches up to stroke Pallas’s hair as he continues. -And the sort of Anchorite that came to fetch you at my behalf.- Speaking in this way is a richer method of communication, with meaning layered over and into the words, so that in addition to the words, Pallas also gets that Telurin is talking about Belaar, that the older Anchorite is well accomplished in this sort of communication, as well as Telurin's ease with the method of memory transfer. That he has used it casually with Belaar in the past.

-Belaar was a contemporary of my parents, back on Argus.- and that simple phrase contains within it glimpses of Belaar, Telurin's Belaar, through the millennia they had known each other. How they had spent many evenings in discussion while playing Draenic chess, about anything from Telurin's current assignment to more personal matters. Telurin had trusted Belaar with his life and his mind, and the other man had never betrayed that trust.

-I was a vindicator, once. In charge of a small group, a specialized reconnaissance and first contact team. We were very good at it.- He's being modest, Telurin's 'small group' was a highly desirable post to have, and the handful of times he had lost a member there were many who had sought to be their replacement.

-You've met Telrii, who's so like her mother. We were a close-knit team, they all took to the twins like they were their own. Telrii and her brother never wanted for playmates and babysitters.- The images come now of the twins’ mother, Telurin's wife, Meyruu, and their whirlwind romance, how Telurin was enamored with her and how she had been perfect in his eyes, could do no wrong. His thoughts turn like storm clouds on the horizon.

-Her death, the death of Belaar, the Belaar of our timeline, it was the beginning of the end. It started the events that would eventually lead to my decision to help in the North, and my own death.- Even as long ago as it was, the grief in these words, as well as the starkness that is sent, with no pictures or shared memories, are telling that the death knight is still affected by the events.

-I trust this is enough to sate your curiosity?- His tone is tight, and he lets nothing extra leak through with his question.

Some of the people and events Telurin describes to Pallas, in the dream theater for two of mental pictures and words, are things he had some knowledge of. Others fill in gaps in his understanding like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and still others are completely new.

-Belaar,- Pallas thinks to himself, the full extent of the elder Anchorite's relationship to the once-Vindicator now apparent. To the priest, this is a revelation of grief. What greater tragedy could exist than to lose one's bonded in heart and mind?

-A Vindicator of a small group... Was he a Hand? He lost his family, all except Telrii... He still grieves for everything he has lost. His grief must be profound.-

Even without sharing a single detail of his own death and rebirth, Pallas's colorful imagination unhelpfully supplies its own version of these events: The screams and cries for mercy of the humans he cut down while his mind was glamoured. A lost, lone-wolf Telurin wandering the frozen wastes in blood hunger and confusion after being mentally set free, with not a single friend. The looks and words of horror and disgust from the populace he once gave his entire long life to protect. The Ebon Blade is the only group who might accept him, yet most are morally ambiguous, and all of them terrifying, regardless of their original race.

-My star,- Pallas thinks to himself, keeping his own thoughts private, -How greatly you have suffered. Is there nothing I may do to alleviate this terrible grief.-

It's all too much, and Pallas's eyes moisten as he lays on the bed at Telurin's side. He knows the death knight doesn't want pity, and wouldn't want him to cry. The Anchorite wipes stray tears away with a sniffle.

-It is enough.- Pallas answers Telurin's query.

Telurin catches Pallas's hand before he can reach his face and uses his thumb to brush away the stray tears rolling down the Anchorite’s face. His own expression is unchanged by the memories, having both lived through them and being accustomed to keeping his grief in check.

"Sa, sa, kechaare." He murmurs, "It was a long time ago. No need for tears on my behalf."

Pallas looks up at Telurin's face when the other man brushes away his tears with his thumb. This small gesture is a comfort, and the Anchorite calms down, rubbing the back of Tel's hand in gratitude. He nods slightly, signifying that he is all right now.

Pallas shuffles closer to go to sleep, laying his head down on Telurin's chest. He wraps his thin arms and legs lightly around the death knight's cooler body and entwines their tails, and closes his eyes. If left undisturbed, he passes out quickly to recuperate.