#literally after school ran to my room and watched a full ass episode

[crystal-clear-crystalline]

I don’t think I ever realized the missions the Kratt brothers go on as potentially being dangerous, even when it first debuted. I remember the debut episode and literally any episode that had the villains showed up but never really processed how dangerous/violent they are.

I woke up from a nightmare last night (well, very early morning technically) and I watched an episode to help calm me down. It was specifically the hawkmoth turtle episode and then the shark encounters popped up and it was like “OH”. I never watched National Geographic but I assume it is basically similar but more toned down for kids

[nakachuchu]

Chocolate Pocky | Fushiguro Toji

SYNOPSIS: A day in your life with a freeloader.

READER: female

WORDS: 1209

WRITTEN: 04/10/2021

NOTES: Thank you for requesting from my event! "Let's get married." Okay, this was really fun to write and I'm tooting my own horn, but this is so cute and it's my fav. Sorry I couldn't mention chocolate pocky more. I got distracted lol

You came from a rich family that didn't expect you to run the family business because you weren't the male firstborn.

All that was expected of you was to marry someone and have children, but you didn't like the idea of giving in to what your controlling family wanted.

Because of your upbringing, you connected with Toji. The two of you met in school and the first moment he saw you was when you were tilting back on your chair, eating chocolate pocky with a deadpan expression on your face.

After learning of each other's circumstances, you two naturally clicked with each other. And although you enjoyed how free-spirited he was, the fact that he was a freeloader was getting on your nerves.

You straddled his hips, smacking him repeatedly with a cushion from the couch he was laying on.

"Get a job!" you exclaimed.

He reached forward and engulfed your face with his large hand, pushing you away. Your arms flailed around, unable to reach him anymore.

"I do have a job."

"Freeloading is not a job!"

"You're rich," he retorted.

"That doesn't mean I like having you in my apartment all the time!"

You wrapped your hands around his wrist and pulled his hand off his face. You huffed and looked down at him as he picked his ear while watching television.

"You're literally so gross," you muttered.

In the past, Toji would come by from time to time, but he never stayed this long before. At first, you didn't mind but you would have appreciated if he at least did the chores if he was going to stay at your apartment for free, especially with his kids.

You knew about Tsumiki from his first lover and you had met her before, but when Toji suddenly showed up with not only Tsumiki but another child, you nearly strangled him.

"Let's get married," Toji suddenly said.

You stared at him. The man had the audacity to bring up marriage with you and wouldn't even look at you.

"No."

"Why not?"

"You just want to marry me because I'm rich," you retorted.

"Okay, and what's your point?"

You rolled your eyes. "Get on your knees and maybe I'll say yes."

Toji stopped picking his ear and turned to look at you, ignoring the romantic drama on the television.

"I'm not doing that," he said.

"If I give you fifty bucks, would you do it?"

"Hell yeah."

You snorted. "Always the gold digger, Toji."

"Obviously."

You opened your mouth to respond but noticed Megumi peeking at you from behind the doorway. Even Tsumiki was right behind him.

"Are you two hungry?" you questioned. "I'll start dinner in a sec."

"I'll help," Tsumiki chimed.

"Thank you, sweetheart," you said. "Megumi?"

He said nothing, but you could see him shuffling around. You smiled at how cute and shy he was, and you swore he was your favorite 7-year-old you have ever encountered.

You climbed off Toji's lap and ignored the way he ogled your ass. He had done it so many times that you had gotten used to it.

Tsumiki followed you into the kitchen, leaving Megumi to shuffle out and sit on the couch with his father.

While you and Tsumiki prepared dinner, Toji was telling Megumi about the romantic drama he was watching.

"So the mother is cheating on the father with his brother and the daughter is dating her math teacher who also happens to be her older sister's fiancé."

Megumi blinked at the television screen.

"Toji, what the heck are you teaching your son?"

"The complications of family," he answered.

You sighed.

"I finished chopping the carrots," said Tsumiki.

"Thank you."

Once the two of you finished preparing dinner, you forced Toji to get off his ass to set the table. You even stood behind him, refusing to help as he set the table begrudgingly.

When he was finally done, the four of you sat down at the dining table to eat. Megumi was a bit of a messy eater, but he tried his best to create the littlest amount of messes possible.

You would often wipe his mouth with a napkin and tell him it was okay to be messy, then you would turn to Toji and say, "Stop being a slob."

For dessert, you allowed the children to have chocolate pocky since it was a bit late for ice cream and you knew any cold desserts always gave Megumi a brain-freeze.

"Hey, let's play the pocky game," Toji suggested.

"Get your gross face away from me," you retorted.

Once the four of you were full, you cleaned the table and stood next to Toji in front of the sink—you were forcing him to wash the dishes.

"Look, I'm just saying. You already cook for me and provide for me, so we should just get married," he said.

"I don't hear anything."

"Bad hearing must come with the age, huh?"

You glared at him. "You di—" You glanced at the children. "Delightful person."

Toji sent you an amused glance to which you rolled your eyes at. You slapped the towel you were holding against his ass before placing it on the counter.

"Where are you going?" he asked as you turned around.

"I need to poop," you said in an obvious tone. "Don't miss me too much, loser."

While you walked away into the bathroom, he was staring at you the whole time while absentmindedly washing the dishes. Once you were gone, Toji turned toward his children and noticed Tsumiki was looking at him with a grin on her face.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're in love with her," she said.

He scoffed. "I'm not."

"Whatever you say, Dad."

He scoffed and finished washing the dishes and when you came back after your business, you tucked Megumi and Tsumiki into bed.

"Good night, Megumi. I love you," you said as you kissed his forehead. You walked over to Tsumiki who was in the next bed over. "Good night, Tsumiki. I love you," you said as you kissed her forehead.

You turned the lights off and left the room, quietly closing the door before walking back into the living room to see Toji watching his romantic drama again.

"Is the episode not finished?" you questioned as you sat next to him.

"Sweetheart, it has fourteen seasons," he retorted.

"And what season are you on?"

"Two."

"I'm going to die before you finish this damn series," you retorted.

You said that yet you still sat next to him, side pressed against his while his arm splayed behind you on the back of the couch.

Eventually, you fell asleep in the middle of the third episode that had just started. Your head was resting on his shoulder. He stared at you and faintly smiled before picking you up to bring you to bed.

While walking to your room, he ran into Megumi who had woken up to use the bathroom. He was simply standing there silently with a stuffed dog in his hand.

He was looking at his father, blinking at the sight of you in his father's arms and all Toji said was, "I know what you're thinking and it's not like that, you brat.

[himbo-kuto]

i saw this screencap from the manga and knew IMMEDIATELY that i would have to write a lil headcanon of aone and his turtle. he is literally the most precious person who deserves the whole entire world.

i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i did writing it!

genre: fluff, wholesomeness, a whole baked bean, college!au pairing: aone x gn!reader word count: 2k warning: language

okay so you ended up being roommates with aone, futakuchi, and mai when you ended up transferring colleges last minute and needed housing

you saw that they had an empty spot and with time not being on your side, you decided to take the opportunity!! apt 205 squad!!

at first you kind of felt left out since they all knew each other from date tech but you soon warmed up to futakuchi since you had a few classes with him and mai because well-- you guys shared a room

HOWEVER!! one person you couldn’t seem to get close to was a man by the name of takanobu aone-- lemme tell u sumn about this Baked Bean

whenever you tried to interact with him, all he would do is 👁 👄 👁  or just Grunt in response

you were a bit discouraged because you thought he didn’t like you so you shied away from talking to him again :(

but futakuchi was quick to ensure you that was just his way of communicating and that he was actually really engaged in the conversation 

“oh yeah, he’s a great listener-- i talk to him for hours and he just sits and listens”

“ok futakuchi-san, but have you considered that you talk Too much for your own good?”

he gave you the finger for that one

but omg the first time aone Spoke to you????? rocked ur mf world-- what the Heck!!

you were in the mood to bake some cookies and were looking for the big mixing bowls but you just remembered that futakuchi used it to try and make a baking soda volcano 

why??? who knows but all you do know is that he put it ALL the way on the top shelf-- and for what????

but u know-- bein dumb as dirt u tried to use a swivel chair to try and reach for them

and of course it was all the way in the back like wtf curse these tall men-- 

and so you got on your tippy toes and right as you were about to reach it, Of Course the chair decided to turn 

and u were 🤏🏼 this close to eating shit but thanks to the one-- the only-- tol angel baby aone, he stopped the chair dead in its tracks just in time for you to regain your balance

“are you okay?”

you were so shook (one from almost breaking your face and two-- AONE JUST SPOKE AND SAVED YOU!!!) 

at first you just stood there blinking down at him with the bowls in your arms like hinata season 4, episode 15 - 15:37

he held up his arms to you and you blushed so hard because was he really about to carry you down????

but before your mind had anytime to roam, he pointed to the bowls and you realized with your real eyes that you were not the one to whom he was referring to 

it wasn’t long until you got over your initial iron wall with aone (…. 😏)  and he actually ended up being someone you hung out with on a regular basis

mai was always out studying for her practicals in the library while futakuchi… well.. who even knows what the heck that man is up to..

but ANYWAYS!! you guys would hang out mostly in the living room to watch TV, do homework and eat meals-- he always helped you with your math homework and you helped him with his architecture models!! 

you didn’t really know what he liked to watch but he didn’t seem to oppose whatever you had on-- however, you Did notice that whenever you put on volleyball he stared very intensely at the TV only stopping when commercials came on

aone Always ate your home cooked meals without fail

literally such a sweet and appreciative boy as opposed to futakuchi who would complain but one time aone gave him That Look™️ and he shut right the fuck up

that day forward futakuchi ate all your meals like a good boy

aone has also become very protective of you-- in high school, he may have locked onto the aces of the other teams, but in college he locked onto his close friends to make sure they were safe

one time you guys got onto a cramped bus to go grocery shopping and all it took was this creepo man to just Look at you the wrong way for aone to stand right in front of you and shoot this man a death glare that said “if you even think about touching her i’ll put you into the ground” 

HE MAY HAVE A HEART OF GOLD BUT DONT MESS WITH THE PEOPLE HE CARES ABOUT OR ELSE IT’S HANDS 

but know this ladies, gents and my non-binary friends, we MOST DEFINITELY sit next to aone on the bus and engage in the best of conversations because tHATS WHAT THIS MAN DESERVES!!!!!!!!! 

not to mention all the times he has saved you due to your clumsiness and overall single brain cell fueled activities 

one fateful day you were sitting in the living room as you saw aone come home with a whole bag of groceries

he didn’t put them into the communal fridge so you were a bit confused as to why he took them straight into his room

you weren’t one to just bust in there to try and find out so later when you guys were eating dinner you asked him what he bought at the store

he listed off a bunch of produce and then said that they were for his turtle!!!!

you were all !!?!?!??? 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 TURTLE?????? WHERE??? HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN HERE??? CAN I SEE THEM?

he goes on to tell you that he’s had the turtle ever since they all moved in!! but it never came up in conversation so you never knew until now

him and futakuchi rescued the turtle but when they tried to let them go, they didn’t go anywhere so they kept them!! 

so after dinner you both quickly washed the dishes, and he brought you into their room to show you his turtle

you were honestly a bit nervous going into their room-- like what were you to expect??? was it going to be messy?? stinky?? clean??? were there any secrets????

but to your surprise it was fairly clean and simple-- even futakuchi’s side (which you assumed was aone’s doing)

you looked around his room to find all these old pictures of date tech on the wall, many of them with futakuchi and mai

there was even a photo of all the third years clinging to aone like koalas on a tree and though his expression was faint, you could tell that he was happy

it warmed your heart to see that he got along with his teammates and held these memories close to him-- they accepted him for who he was and that was more than enough for you

he also had plethora of architecture books on his shelves which made you wonder why he picked that major in the first place

but you shrugged it off as you looked over to his desk

there was a table next to it with an enclosure and a cute little turtle sunbathing underneath a lamp inside

you scurried over to the tank, getting down on your knees to get eye level with the animal while you slowly brought your face to the glass  

the turtle was half curled into its shell, looking up at you as he gave you a slow blink

you could’ve sworn you felt your heart explode and melt all at once in that Exact moment

you looked up at aone with 🥺 eyes before looking back to reptile to see them poking their head out to fully greet you 

you squealed internally as you wiggled your finger as your salutations

“do they have a name?” 🥺 

“ichigo-desu...” (strawberry)

you thought your heart exploded before?????????????

oh bitch you felt like you were about to go into full blown cARDIAC ARREST MY G O D!!!!!!

“did futakuchi name them?”

“no i did…”

you literally hunched over, and leaned onto the desk for support as your heart was filled with his soft boy energy because there was no wAY!!! DID AONE JUST NAME THIS TURTLE ICHHHIGOOOO BITCHHH AHHH

but lowkey aone was also being filled with your soft energy and got all blushy-- but thank god you were too occupied by his turtle to notice

“do you want to feed him a strawberry? it’s his dinner time too”

you could not have said yes faster to this man 

he went into his personal fridge and there you saw all the groceries he had earlier that day!! he pulled out a single strawberry before handing it over to you

he walked over to the tank and cautiously pulled out ichigo before placing them on the ground

HOWEVERRRRRR!! what came next you didn’t expect at all

he walked around so that he was behind you, gingerly reached for your hand and guided you to hold the strawberry out for ichigo 

ichigo craned their neck in the sight of the fruit and started chowing down

and by God you hoped that aone could not hear your loud ass heartbeat and see your red ass face-- (you were surprised that ichigo wasn’t going after you since your face might as well have been a strawberry)

you two sat in a comfortable silence as you watched the little reptile enjoy his dinner 

as ichigo drew closer to the leafy bit, you wanted to ask aone if he was allowed to eat that part 

so you turned your head to the side to speak but immediately closed your mouth as aone’s face was only centimeters away from yours 

you thought you were red back then???? bitch buckle up cause we’re reaching a new LEVEL of red

at that moment you were no think, no thought, head EMPTY as you just stared at his profile 

all of his features were strong... the bridge of his nose, his jawline, his expression-- he himself was a strong man and you just wondered how all this soft, fluffy, wholesomeness was packed into this 192cm man

and just as you relaxed into this position

FUTAKUCHI BUSTS THROUGH THE DOOR WITHOUT ANY KIND OF WARNING JUST TALKIN OUT OF HIS ASS 

at first he’s so absorbed into his own conversation that he doesn’t even notice you guys in that position

but when he does??? it’s like those moments in animes where you’re all chibitized and you just have circle eyes and a blank expression o_o

you IMMEDIATELY come to your senses, releasing the rest of the strawberry and aone’s hand

if you could peace fade in this moment, you would’ve definitely flashed futakuchi a duces

but alas, you could not..

so you scrambled to your feet-- but not before thanking aone for letting you meet his turtle-- and RAN out TF of that room heart a BEEATTINN

from that day on, you visited aone and his turtle a lot more-- even going so far as buying things for ichigo!!

“hey aone-san, did ichigo like the squash i cooked?”

“mm.”

“hey aone-san, does ichigo like the new hide?”

“mm.”

“look aone-san! he can’t grip onto the cherry tomato!! it keeps rolling around!”

“mm.”

many of your conversations went along like that and he always appreciated the amount of effort you put into them

he wasn’t a man of many words but did his best to make sure you knew that he was listening and engaged

at one point mai and futakuchi said that “he has spoken more words to you in these past few months than he has with us in 3 years”

you were surprised but also flattered by the fact that aone was comfortable enough to open up and have conversation with you 

although it was a bit of a rough patch in the beginning, you were glad that you became a part of the 205 squad! it was you, aone, futakuchi, mai and ichigo against the world!!

[medea10]

My Review of Flowers of Evil

How did I get into this anime? Because Flowers of Evil is something no one says, “Oh I want to see that, this looks like a masterpiece”! Oh, I was well familiar with the rotoscope nightmare stories from this and hoped to God my randomizer wouldn’t curse me with watching Flowers of Evil. I was however intrigued to learn that there was a yandere in this anime that’s on Yuno Gasai AND Shion Sonozaki levels. But intrigue can only get me so far when you spend 13 episodes watching…

THIS!

No this is not an exaggeration. Everyone has this kind of cringe face throughout the entire anime series. Be afraid children.

So the story is about this guy named Takao Kasuga. He loves to read and he loves the class smarty-pants Nanako Saeki. He doesn’t just love her, he sees her as his muse and his Venus and all that bullshit. But this is an admiration from afar. Pretty sure Saeki doesn’t even know he exists! One day, Kasuga forgets his book in his classroom. And on the ground, he notices a gym bag that belongs to Saeki. Oh come on, he’s not gonna go down the perverted route and steal a girl’s gym…

So he steals Saeki’s gym uniform. And surprise, one person knew what happened. The class loner, Nakamura! She forces Kasuga to form a contract with her. It wasn’t written or anything, just verbal. However, that doesn’t stop Nakamura from forcing Kasuga to do whatever she wants. But does Nakamura really like Kasuga or is she just into torturing this shit-faced pervert?

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: You know, I’m too thrown off by the animation here that it has temporarily paralyzed me from catching voices or even giving a damn. I’m familiar with only two of the cast mates and the rest is literally my first time hearing it. Okay, I have one comment here. I often forget Mariya Ise could do some damn-ass scary characters like Nakamura. And when she does those murderous screams, forget about it! Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Kasuga is played by Shinichirou Ueda

*Saeki is played by Yoko Hikasa (known for Bea on Pokemon Journeys, Rias on High School DxD, Mio on K-ON!, Hina on Domestic Girlfriend, Kirigiri on Danganronpa, Frieda on Attack on Titan, and Diana on Little Witch Academia)

*Nakamura is played by Mariya Ise (known for Bonnie on Pokemon XY, Levy on Fairy Tail, Ray on The Promised Neverland, Stocking on Panty & Stocking, Mika on Durarara, Dorothy on Black Clover, and Yuuko on Yuri on Ice)

SHIPPING: Oh please, anime Gods, do not turn this into another School Days fiasco. I find myself praying for this a lot these days. But in this anime’s case, please do not go down that route!

So, it was clear from episode one that Kasuga had a crush on Saeki. But this got very perverted very fast when he stole her gym clothes and that lead to the contract with Nakamura. Now is Nakamura romantically invested in Kasuga or is she just a crazy bitch. Let’s chalk this up to a 50-50 split here.

It wasn’t until the fourth episode where Kasuga and Saeki actually spoke to each other. And one episode later, they go on a date and end up in a relationship. One has to wonder if Kasuga would have one day acted on his own and ask Saeki out. All of this happened because he was being forced by that psychopath Nakamura. She tortured this kid and forced him to do so many unethical things. Stripping him naked and putting Saeki’s uniform on him for one! Who does that? So would Kasuga have done these sporadic actions if Nakamura wasn’t in the picture? After he stole that uniform, anything is possible. Now here’s the crazy shit here, Saeki loves Kasuga and she doesn’t care that he stole her gym uniform and did fuck-knows-what with it. She’s mad that Kasuga hid it, but still loves him.

Girl, the fuck is wrong with you?! You must be some special kind of crazy!

By the end of this series, you do see a shift in Kasuga and who he wants to chase after. Saeki or Nakamura?! Let’s just say that during a running away scene, Kasuga was going to go home with Saeki until he saw Nakamura and he chases after her. That’s a pretty good sign that Kasuga has switched gears on who he likes. I won’t delve any further than that as the anime only gives us so much and the rest of this love turmoil between these three characters is covered only in the manga. Probably a sign I should read the manga!

LOOOOOONG NO DIALOGUE MOMENTS: Dude, I know you’re trying to set the mood for certain moments, but I think you can dial it back a bit. This complaint isn’t just what happened at the beginning of episode 9; it took forever to get the main gist of this story in the very first episode. I had no idea what the main premise of the story was until the last five minutes of the first episode when Kasuga stole Saeki’s gym uniform.

Now I’m not knocking serious moments where there is no dialogue between characters for a long period of time and we just watch the animation of them walking or doing something. Hell, Neon Genesis Evangelion had famous scenes like that. But the elevator scene didn’t last six fucking minutes. Neither did the scene where Shinji kills Kaowru. In episode 9, we watch Nakamura and Kasuga walking from the school to home and watch the whole walk after destroying the classroom. I guarantee you, you could leave this episode running, fix yourself a bowl of cereal and toast, eat it up, go to the bathroom to have a good yank, then finish it off with watching a Che Guevara documentary…and Nakamura and Kasuga would still be walking home! I’m exaggerating and I don’t care. I feel like being an asshole here.

OH DEAR GOD, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!: Very rarely will I ever look at an opening or ending theme song in literal fear. In fact, the last one to be so morbid was with Attack on Titan’s second season ending. I mean, the imagery alone should tell you that this is full of spoilers and possessed by the devil itself. Now that I think about it, that’s still undefeated. But Flowers of Evil’s ending theme is a close fucking second. Have you heard this thing? It sounds like Bjork singing in Japanese, synthesized, while a cat walks on a keyboard and having a seizure at the same time. Thank God there are no actual visuals for this other than the flower featured on Kasuga’s book. I don’t think we can handle anymore animation from this nightmare fuel.

ENDING: The writing is on the wall!

And the floor, the ceiling…that classroom is just a fucking mess!

Kasuga’s one bad deed led to another and another in a domino effect. And instead of a little devil on his shoulder, he has a classmate that’s a sociopath. Kasuga has guilt about hiding so much from Saeki in this relationship and he wants to tell her everything he did. Nakamura says, “Nah, you’re going to write it all over the classroom and let the whole world know what a piece of shit you are”. Let’s just say Nakamura and Kasuga went overboard and completely destroyed their classroom. Kasuga gets a bit of a lucky break as the other vandalism covered up his name on the chalkboard confession. But two people have caught onto Kasuga’s crime, Saeki and Kasuga’s mother.

Saeki put two and two together when she noticed the ink smearing on the ground resembled the flower art work on Kasuga’s book “Flowers of Evil” and her stolen gym uniform was placed right there. As for Kasuga’s mother, she put two and two together when she heard what happened to his classroom and noticed Kasuga’s behavior and dirty clothes from the night of the crime. Won’t be long before everyone knows what Kasuga did.

What now, shit-face?

Run away with Nakamura to the next town. Yeah, why the fuck not?! Saeki ends up tracking them down and tried to convince them to come back and for Kasuga to be truthful. Saeki wants Kasuga and I almost want to say the same, except hanging around this psycho-bitch for a while has caused him to try to stop Nakamura from leaving. Having Saeki see Kasuga go after Nakamura isn’t really a good look! At this point, it really feels like his love for Saeki was nothing more than lust.

Dude, isn’t there a rule about not messing with crazy…like, don’t stick your dick in crazy?! This dude has got one crazy bitch on psycho-yandere levels and the other that’s about to turn into Kotonoha from School Days in about five seconds. Well, no one left town today as the police were called to look for Saeki because her parents are overprotective types and they take the other kids in.

We get a small time-leap of one month after the night in the police station. Nakamura’s been ignoring Kasuga and Kasuga ends his relationship with Saeki. Dude, stop trying to stick your dick in crazy! Kasuga tries to speak to Nakamura again and it fails. So he visits her at home and meets Nakamura’s father and grandmother. Then, he sneaks into her room and reads her private journal that talks about Kasuga a lot. Dude, you are stepping in uncharted territory! Drop the journal and get the fuck out before Nakamura comes home. So Nakamura comes in her room and finds shit-face reading her journal.

*sighs*

First, I would like to acknowledge that Mariya Ise has one hell of a throat to scream as much as this crazy bitch does. Second, the fuck did I just say, ya dumbass?! Here we get another chase scene between Kasuga and Nakamura. What follows is…I can’t place my thoughts on this. Weird imagery, out of place dialogue, and possible scenes of future stuff to happen! A rape scene involving Saeki, a festival, a hideout, a knife, and fire! Thanks for the cryptic message guys, really appreciate it! Either the anime ran out of money or they’re fucking with the audience. Kasuga says he wants to form a contract with Nakamura and that’s the end!

Hmm, this anime came out in 2013 and it is now 2021. All the buildup and no word on a sequel! We all know that sequel ain’t ever coming. You have a better chance of a continuation to Haruhi Suzumiya than you do with this hunk of shit.

Okay, maybe ‘hunk of shit’ is too mean. This wasn’t a terrible anime. It was weird as fuck, the animation leaves a bad impression, but overall it wasn’t that bad. Now the manga to Flowers of Evil is a favorite to many. Probably because the characters don’t look like a cringey meme and there aren’t so many awkward pauses with no dialogue. Unless there’s a whole volume of Flowers of Evil out there where we just look at pictures of Nakamura and Kasuga walking home where they don’t say a fucking thing! I am not letting that go! Charlie Brown movies didn’t go to that level you guys did!

I was interested with each passing episode to see what Nakamura was going to do next and what she was capable of. I couldn’t make out if she was going to be homicidal or suicidal or just impact psychological warfare on her prey. It was the latter for this series, but I heard of some attempted seppuku going down in the manga. I’d like to think maybe one day a different studio would pick up this series, but I seriously doubt it with the rotten reception this adaptation received. It was said that the director to the anime saw this more as a live-action series than an anime and that’s why we have the rotoscope animation. It wasn’t until 2019 that we got a live-action adaptation to Flowers of Evil. Not sure how people felt about that adaptation, but even I have a feeling that it was much better than the anime. Hell, a Netflix adaptation probably would have turned out a better product. It would be nice for this to get a reboot, different studio, different director, and smash everything that has the word ‘rotoscope’ on it

Yeah, if you can get over watching the animation, give it a watch. Episode one drags, but it picks up the second Nakamura confronts Kasuga.

If you would like to watch Flowers of Evil, Crunchyroll and Hidive have all 13 episodes available for streaming.

Okay, now that I’m finished with that sociopathic nightmare let’s pick another Sentai Filmworks anime.

HELL NO! I am not reviewing, “My Teacher Accidentally Made Me Horny”. That’s what I’m calling it and you should all do the same. NEXT!

Okay…I have no idea what the hell this anime is, but it looks harmless enough.

[wooyunhwa2]

𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒛𝒚, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 | 𝑱𝒀

Genre: fluff, smut

part 1 | part 2

Pairing: yandere!Yunho x fem reader

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: choking, crying, hair pulling, rough sex, oral (giving and receiving), dom!yunho, general posessiveness, yunho is generally just kind of insane

Synopsis: He was tall, charismatic, and had a smile that could outshine the sun, but your fun date with Yunho soon proved to be more than you bargained for.

“Hey!” 

You looked around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. As you turned, you noticed a tall figure trotting up to you, waving a hand to get your attention. 

“Hey, you’re Y/N, right? I’m Yunho, Yeosang’s friend. Sorry, I kinda ran here. I was really worried I was gonna be late,” he said, looking a little winded, though still sporting a beaming smile. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” you said, tilting your head way up to be able to make eye contact. Holy shit, he was tall. Yeosang had mentioned that, but for some reason you underestimated him a little.  

“Awesome! I mean, I’ve seen pictures of you, so technically it’s not a blind date, but close enough, right?” he laughed. 

“It’s ok, I cheated too. Yeosang showed me your Facebook profile, so I guess we’re even.” 

Though, you had to admit, he was way cuter in person. He had fluffy, platinum-blonde hair and a dark undercut, and big, friendly eyes. He was wearing a giant sky blue sweater, and it looked so soft that you kinda wanted to ask if you could touch it. Would that be weird?

“That bastard!” he faux-growled, shaking his fist at the sky. He seemed like kind of a dork, but in a cute way. He had a smile on his face that could only be compared to the literal sun. You laughed, and followed him as he walked up to the ice skate rental booth. 

“I’ll get your rentals, ok?”

“Oh, actually, I uh…” you held up the tote bag you’d been carrying. “I kinda brought my own.” You smiled sheepishly when he looked impressed. 

“Really? Do you skate a lot?”

“A little,” you said. Maybe more than just a little. You’d been skating since you were a kid, and the ice was practically your second home. You’d even won a few medals at a local figure skating tournament some years ago, but you felt a bit shy about bragging on a first date. 

“Well, you know what that means,” he said seriously. 

“...What does it mean?”

“We can race, duh!” 

He paid for his skates and grabbed them off the counter, gesturing to a bench over by the frozen lake. You sat on it and began lacing up. It was always the most annoying part, but it would be worth it once you finally got out onto the ice. He hummed while he did up his laces, taking a little longer than you to get everything tightened. You’d had plenty of practice, so it didn’t take you nearly as long as it once did. 

You glanced over at him as you waited. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were starting to turn pink from the chilly air. Wow, he was really, really cute. He caught you looking and smiled, and you quickly looked away, a little embarrassed. 

“Phew! Ready.” Yunho stood up, swaying his ankles a few times to make sure his skates were secure. “Don’t fall, ok?”

“Ha, no promises,” you said as you moved your feet onto the lake, feeling the blades slide over its frozen surface. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you do!” He glided backwards a little, holding his arms out for support if you were to fall. You weren’t worried at all about falling, but his sweater looked so soft and inviting that you couldn’t help but to fake losing balance just a little bit as an excuse to hold onto him. You let your hands rest on top of his forearms, and you were pleased to note that his sweater was even softer than it looked. He gently held onto your arms, pulling you forward with him as he moved across the ice. 

You have pretty small arms to begin with, but his hands were huge and easily wrapped around your wrists, keeping you steady. He wasn’t half bad at ice skating, and you were a little impressed. 

“You’re pretty good at this!” you said. 

“Thanks! I played some hockey in high school. I’m a little rusty, though.”

He carefully let go of your arms, spinning around so that he could skate beside you. His long legs allowed him to easily set a fast pace, and you found yourself having to work a little to keep up with him. 

“Not fair! You’re taller, so I’m at a disadvantage!” you whined playfully. 

He stuck his tongue out, giving you a cheeky smile as he took off ahead of you. Not to be bested, you dug your blades into the ice, propelling yourself forward to catch up. 

You skated until your legs were about ready to fall off, having way too much fun to stop. Yunho was a formidable opponent, nearly skating in circles around you at times. It seemed like both of you had downplayed your skills a bit. “Rusty” my ass!

“Ahh, I’m so tired. I feel like I could eat an elephant,” you panted, hands on your knees, breath forming little clouds around your head. 

“Isn’t it ‘horse?’ Like, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse?’”

“I guess that just means I’m really hungry. It sounded right in my head.” 

Yunho laughed, and his eyes scrunched up a little. He really reminded you of a giant human puppy. 

“Sorry if this is kinda sudden, but… I could make you something for dinner? I’m not much of a cook, but I make a mean frozen pizza.” He looked at you sheepishly, the corners of his mouth turning up into a shy smile. 

Your mouth watered a little at the idea of carbs. You really were starving, and Yunho seemed like a total sweetheart, so why not? 

He drove you back to his place, and got to work right away on the pizzas. He had you do the honors of picking the flavors, and you chose one with pepperoni and one with chicken and veggies. He made a big deal about being impressed with your exquisite taste in cuisine, but you’re pretty sure he was just being a dork again. 

You watched Friends on his couch while you ate, laughing with your mouth full of pizza on more than one occasion. He almost choked once, which made you laugh even harder. Every now and then he’d look over at you and smile, eyes bright and cheerful, and your heart would skip a beat just a little. He had to be the sweetest guy you’d ever met in your life. Like, he was practically a ray of sunshine on two legs. 

You helped him rinse off your plates in the sink after the episode finished, wanting to be a little helpful at least since he made you dinner and all. You accidentally splashed him at one point, and he declared war, getting payback by dipping his hand under the faucet stream and flicking droplets all across your face. You yelped, squeezing your eyes shut and laughing as drops of water assaulted your cheeks. 

You stumbled back a bit, and he moved his hands up to your waist, keeping you steady. When you opened your eyes, he was right in front of you, eyes flickering down to your lips. You placed your hands against the soft fabric over his chest, feeling the warmth of his body beneath your palms. Your heart fluttered a little, watching how his long eyelashes moved as he took in the details of your face from up close. His hands slid around to your back, gently holding you there. 

“You’re so cute. Can I kiss you?” Yunho said, tightening his hands around your waist, pulling you close against his body. His face was so close to yours, and you balled your hands up in his sweater and pulled him closer instead of answering with words. Everything about him was soft and warm, and you melted against his lips as he kissed you sweetly. 

When you were this close, it became apparent just how small you were next to him. He had to bend over to be able to reach you, and you stood on your tippy toes to gain some height. This worked a little, but it was still a bit of a pain on both ends. Suddenly, you yelped in surprise as you felt your feet leave the ground. With his large hands gripping your waist, he effortlessly lifted you up and set you onto the counter. 

Yunho laughed, guiding your legs around his waist as he went to kiss you again. It was easier that time, and you wrapped your arms around his neck as you found a comfortable rhythm. He slid his tongue into your mouth, and you welcomed it, eagerly reciprocating his motions. You felt his hands drop from your waist down to your thighs, giving them a sudden squeeze. 

“God,” Yunho said, pulling back from the kiss and leaning into your ear. “You’d look so cute choking on my cock.” 

A chill ran down your spine. His sudden change in attitude stunned you, and you gasped as he sank his teeth into your neck, leaving a bruise just beneath your jaw. Your legs involuntarily tightened around him, pulling his hips closer, and he took it as an invitation to pull you against his crotch. He kissed you again, but harder this time, and you felt yourself getting lost in the moment. The room was suddenly much too hot. 

You fisted your hands in his hair, tugging it with your fingers, and he groaned into your mouth, squeezing your ass hard. You could feel his cock getting hard as he grinded his hips against yours, any shred of his gentle demeanor from earlier having gone right out the window. How the hell was this the same cute guy from earlier? 

His fingers slipped underneath the hem of your shirt, pushing the fabric of your sweater up to your chest. He yanked down one side of your bra and leaned down, his warm breath fanning over your breast. You couldn’t help the moans that spilled from your lips as he swirled his tongue in circular motions, flicking and sucking at your nipple. You cried out as he bit down, but despite the pain, your panties were starting to feel damp. 

He moved to the other side, pulling your bra down to do the same to the other nipple. That time, though, he ran a hand up your leg until it came to rest on your pussy, thumb rubbing circles over your clit on top of your leggings. 

“Fuck,” you moaned, overwhelmed by both sensations at once. He pulled back, removing his hands for a moment to pull your shirt all the way off and roughly threw it to the floor. He practically ripped your bra off, clearly not having it anymore. You held yourself up with your hands, lifting your ass up off the counter so that Yunho could slide your leggings and panties off, dropping them on the floor with the rest of your clothes.  

“Fuck, you look so good,” he said against your lips, pushing your legs farther apart. “Wanted this from the moment I saw you.”

He left a trail of wet kisses down your neck, leaving bruises along your throat as he stopped to suck and bite at the skin. He continued licking down your chest and stomach, then settled down on his knees, moving your legs to rest on his shoulders. He licked along your inner thigh, teasingly slow, and he looked up at you with a smirk like he knew he was driving you crazy. 

You squirmed helplessly as he chomped down on the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and it was clear he enjoyed dragging out this teasing as long as possible. 

“A-ah,” you said, half because of the pain, and finally, finally, he was dragging his tongue over the folds of your pussy. He gave his tongue a few swipes, then circled it around your clit, kissing and sucking on it with more intensity until he had you pushing your hips against his face for more. 

Just when you felt yourself starting to approach the brink of a climax, he pulled back, smiling devilishly. “Aw, sorry, did you want to cum?” 

You were too flabbergasted to speak, panting heavily as you looked down at his face between your legs. You were stuck somewhere between confused and angry, and still very horny. 

“You’re gonna have to earn it,” he said, punctuating the thought with a deceptively sweet peck. 

He grabbed you by the waist and hoisted you up, and you scrambled to wrap your legs around him to keep from falling. He carried you to his room and tossed you into the bed, less than gentle about it, and quickly discarded his clothes. 

It was fairly dark in the room, with only the light from the hallway creeping in from the door, but you could clearly see the outline of his cock as it popped free from his boxers. You felt your jaw drop a little bit. Big? Fucking understatement. 

“Come here,” Yunho said, gesturing with his finger. “On your knees.”

You obeyed, and scooted off the bed and sank to your knees in front of him. You swallowed, feeling intimidated at the prospect of fitting all of that in your mouth. 

“Be a good girl for me and you’ll get to cum later, ok?” He looked down at you, his gaze dark. 

He cupped your chin in his hand, making you look up at him from your somewhat degrading position. You nodded, and wrapped a hand around the base of his cock. 

You gave the tip of it a conservative lick, sucking lighty to test the waters. He made a noise in his throat, and you took it as encouragement to take more of it into your mouth. You opened wider, squeezing your eyes shut as you took in as much as you could without gagging. 

He only gave you a second to adjust before fisting his hand in your hair and shoving your head forward, making you gag as you took more than you could handle. You pulled back, gasping for air, but his hand was still tangled in your hair, forcing you back onto his cock. Your scalp stung as he moved your head back and forth, and you did your best not to choke as the tip hit the back of your throat again and again. 

“That’s good, baby,” he moaned. “Fuck, yeah, take it all.”

There were tears streaming down your face as you fought hard against your gag reflex, and you focused on breathing through your nose for air. Finally he let you go, and you pulled off, breathing hard, bringing a hand up to your face to wipe away the tears.

He brought both hands up to your face, caressing your hair and brushing his thumbs over your cheekbones, helping to wipe away the wetness. You were sure you looked wrecked, with swollen lips and mascara smeared to all hell across your face. 

“Fuck, you look so pretty. I wanna make you mine so bad.” Yunho guided you up, having you sit on the edge of the bed. He kneeled in front of you once again, and shoved your legs apart, forcing you to fall back clumsily onto the bed. 

He ate you out again, more hungrily this time, and you really hoped he planned on following through with his promise. He slid one of his long fingers into you, twisting and crooking it, making lewd wet sounds as he used it to fuck you. He slid it out, and dipped his tongue into your pussy, fucking you with his tongue as he used his thumb to play with your clit. He didn’t relent, going harder as he sensed you were getting close, and you couldn’t stop the way your hips instinctively bucked up onto his face as the pleasure overwhelmed your whole body. 

“F-fuck, Yunho!” you cried, hips twitching and arching up off the bed as you came. Your legs felt shaky, and you needed a second to take a breather, but Yunho was straddling you, trapping you with his body against the bed, bringing a hand up and squeezing it around your throat. He placed a finger up to your lips--the one that had been inside you--and pushed it into your mouth, running it along your tongue. You instinctively sealed your lips around it, meeting his lusty gaze as you sucked it clean. 

The way he was looking at you was kind of scary, eyes fixed on your lips and hand getting tighter around your throat. You coughed as breathing started to get difficult, and he let go of you, hopping off the bed. 

He grabbed both of your ankles and flipped you over, making you land breathlessly on your stomach. You could hear his footsteps as he walked somewhere in the room, then came the sound of a drawer opening and closing, and in a moment he was straddling you from behind, tearing open a condom and rolling it onto his cock. 

He grabbed your hips and roughly yanked you up, backing your ass into him and making you sit on all fours. 

“God, you’re so hot,” he gritted, digging his nails into your ass as he lined himself up with your pussy. With hardly any warning, he pushed his cock in, and the size of it nearly made you scream. Yunho groaned as it entered you, pushing until it was in all the way. You couldn’t help any of the sounds you were making, it was all too overwhelming in that moment. 

He started thrusting slowly at first, but the thrusts quickly grew faster and harder, pounding you so hard you could barely breathe. And then you really couldn’t breathe--his hand had come up and clenched over your throat, cutting off your screams. His other hand tangled in your hair, yanking your head back with a choked cry. All concept of pain or pleasure sort of started to fade away, your vision going fuzzy and your ears ringing over the sound of him fucking you. 

For a second you thought you might actually pass out, but luckily he let go just in time. You gasped for air, hands fisting into the sheets. Yunho grabbed onto your hip bones with almost bruising force, digging his nails in as he came, spitting profanities as he gave one last hard thrust. 

You collapsed to the bed, limbs feeling totally useless. Your back was drenched in sweat--whose it was, you weren’t really sure--and you felt like you could probably sleep for ten years or so. Yunho left the room for a second, then came back with a towel. He ran it along your back and your legs, wiping up the sweat and whatever other body fluids were present, placing gentle kisses along your shoulder as he did so. 

He ran his hands through your hair, combing out the tangles, and it was soothing enough to push you over the edge of exhaustion into the realm of sleep. As you drifted off, you could feel Yunho wrap his arms around you, his warm skin pressing against yours underneath the blanket. Like a switch, he went back to being the sweet person you had met earlier at the lake. Like he hadn’t just done some kind of Jekyll and Hyde kind of shit. 

As you fell asleep, you could only vaguely form one coherent thought.

What the fuck just happened?

[steve0discusses]

S4 Ep 39: Pharaoh Can Fly (Selectively)

Guys, they’re back

Best storyboarder is back, and the visual difference between last episode and this episode is like when your art teacher picks up your charcoal and just fixes everything wrong with your gesture drawings. It’s like...I mean look at this:

I just really love and appreciate how illustrative this storyboarder is. And I say just storyboarder because this had about the same budget as the last episode--there wasn’t that much actual animation as per usual. But, all of the scenes were drawn so well, like panels out of a good manga. They just...they always nail it when they’re at the helm and I don’t know why they’re on Yugioh, but bless this storyboarder.

Plot wise, everyone got pulled into the dragon by gooey tentacles that came out of it’s stomach, don’t think about it.

Meanwhile, all of the minibosses could communicate with them and beg for help, yes, even the same miniboss who may have dressed up like Pegasus and catfished Seto Kaiba.

(keep reading under the cut)

The whole process of getting absorbed into the Orichalcos demon was a whole lot of symbolism and it was...kinda gross. Also kinda sketch. Also, for Kaiba it is a neat little nod to S1 when he had a vision that his brother was absorbed into a dragon mass.

I don’t think that the makers of the show remember S1, but either they just really like goopy dragons, or it’s a coincidence or I dunno, on purpose? Probably a coincidence.

And like I made this joke and realized...what if they actually meant to make that parallel though? This is the America crossover season, and they have referenced America’s love of trickster rabbits before with Pegasus but do they know about Br’er rabbit in Japan? Do they know? It’s a pretty Americana Deep-cut, and I have no idea how common this folktale is outside of the states.

I see anime busting out absorbing goopy masses all the time so I’m gonna assume that there might be a Japanese folklore I don’t know about which uses a similar structure (although I’m also assuming it has an extremely different history and association ((which I won’t be going into because I don’t feel like putting a trigger warning on this recap)).)

And looking at Wikipedia, there’s people that think the original reference to moist, absorbing creatures could have even come from as far as India. Which is...fascinating to how it also developed in Africa, and then the Cherokee also made the same story independently and then it fused together here in the States to make it what was eventually made into a Disney movie that will never be released again--this is just a really old ass story, all in all, possibly like over a thousand years old.

And a FASCINATING google deep dive I won’t go into for obvious reasons but knock yourself out.

Also, lets get distracted for a sec and see how well this storyboarder drew a fitted jacket at that angle. Dear Lord, did they get reference for that or did their brain just already know that those folds would be there? You can even tell that Pharaoh has just a little bit of padding at his shoulders. Ugh. Guys this storyboarder is so freakin good at these little fitted jackets.

So, once Yugi and his friends are absorbed into the mass, where they should have died...and maybe some of them did, but I don’t know if I should add that to the Death Count because like...they could have held their breath in the amount of time they were stuck in there...maybe...Anyway, they are saved by being tossed into the figurative briar patch--by the souls all hanging out in the Leviathan’s stomach--which again makes me wonder...did they pull a folklore on us? Again, I have no idea.

Like a lot of the people in this dragon have been thorns in their side this entire season, they’ve all tried to kill them at one point--all the minibosses, Mai, Pegasus--but now they have decided to team up with Pharaoh (along with the rest of the human race) and offer whatever they can to free them from the grip of the gross dragon mass.

And like, the ending of the folk tale is that the thorny ass briar patch is also where the rabbit lives usually. It hurts everyone else, but the rabbit--the rabbit can deal with it. And likewise, Pharaoh is freakin dead. He’s at home here. He’s surrounded by spirit power, his friends and their friendship power, this is like his zone, and now he’s crazy powerful for it and will be for the rest of the episode.

And like Yami is a very trickster God (especially Season Zero Yami) so like...it does make sense that he would mirror a folk tale based on trickster Gods, even if it is by complete accident.

So Pharaoh imagines everyone’s tears as individual drops in a glass or something--it’s not a literal glass or anything--it’s just there because the only thing actually happening on screen was his hand hanging out of this dragon’s weird puss skin.

And he’s now a fully charged Sonic the Hedgehog and no longer needs Kaiba or Joey at all. Just gonna grab his God card demons and take charge of everything else from here on out.

By first exploding his buddies right the hell out of this lizard and across hundreds of feet of open ocean.

Joey decides to remind Kaiba that he lost the Battle City tournament.

Seto’s roast was actually in the show, PS. He is not super excited to be reminded that Yugi owns every card that he spent 2 seasons failing to get.

And then Pharaoh did something really, really...

...just really really wild.

OH OK.

YEAH JUST TAKE OFF.

GO AHEAD THERE’S NO REASON THIS WOULD BOTHER ME.

I mean he IS super powered right now but like...

Like...WTF?

4 SEASONS. 4 SEASONS I thought this guy was glued to Yugi like Peter Pan’s Shadow and apparently--he can bounce.

Can Pharaoh do this every time Yugi asks Tea out on a date and tries to instead make the ghost in his head do all the work now? Can Pharaoh just be like “NOPE” and then phase out of the house, leaving Yugi to actually do the hard stuff?

It really adds a level of complexity to their relationship if Yugi can get a room.

(If not a room for romance, but at the very least a room to poop in.)

OR has he been able to allow Yugi to wicked poop in peace this whole time, but the show just never felt like telling us because they felt like it wasn’t important (although it is crazy important)?

Either way I am just...floored at this character development.

Yami just let Yugi out of his sight for like...I want to say 8 full minutes. Just incredible amount of trust on Yami’s part. Incredible. Knowing Yugi’s track record, he should have died in those 8 minutes but...he was being babysat by both Kaiba and Joey.

So Yami summons the Gods and they shoot lasers--you kinda expect this sort of thing.

And this is...probably...the real reason why Dartz didn’t bother trying to attack Pharaoh 5,000 years ago.

I can still think it’s because of Bakura but like...this is probably the real reason. It felt pretty chump to just shoot a laser at the bastard. Pharaoh just had to be reminded that this is a thing he can just do. If he felt like it.

Which he never feels like doing, because he’s too busy watching Yugi’s every move, and getting distracted by High School shenanigans.

After this happens, the giant snake falls to the ocean, splitting into just sooooooo many ghosts.

Over 7.8 billion ghosts, if we’re to assume that this is most of the population on Earth.

(thinking the weird-o in the hat is probably a Duel Monsters card? The duel monsters were throwing themselves into the Leviathan at one point so this is probably like a dark magician boy or something...I just don’t get very attached to the monster cards so it was like...whatever. The cards die like constantly so who cares?)

It is a pretty set dressing. Like Christmas lights but...dead people.

We also find out that the lost family of our minibosses Alister and Raphael, have indeed spent the last many years inside the Leviathan stomach, which is pretty tragic. We get a bitter sweet conclusion to Alister and Raphael’s story--although it’s not a full on ending for either character. Their life still hella sucks, they are in therapy for basically forever.

Where is Gurimo?

I don’t know what sort of job or life these two are qualified to have now, but youknow...Marik’s boat probably has jobs available.

Hold up. Can we talk about the windows?

I know absolutely none of you care about this, but I do, not to be picky or condescending to an overworked art team, but because I just want to know what they were trying to aim for.

There’s an iron stained glass style windowpane thing going on and that’s what’s really getting me. Like...I know these guys were technologically advanced, but why did you use this WW2 background? What happened to Ancient Greece that you were doing before?

Like doing a super past with future tech is so cool to me--I love that sort of concept art. That’s going into like Black Panther stuff where you’re referencing the earliest stuff in Africa and then blending it with stuff beyond our science. But Atlantis is a real big shrug and a “listen we ran out of time and had to press print,” and it’s such a shame. It feels less cohesive than even when this show does Egypt.

And yo this show and how it draws ancient Egypt--I feel like I’ve already talked about that. I have a feeling I’m going to talk a lot more about it next season. I’ll get to it when we get to it. I’m hoping that they have more time and budget to actually DO Egypt for once. (I say knowing they won’t)

Like it’s one of those things where this isn’t a history show, like at all, and it’s very much a fantasy. I’m not going to be like those sewing people on youtube that get annoyed because their TV show doesn’t have handsewn stitching in their Victorian bodices they rented from the costume department from an LA discount warehouse. Because, yo, it’s TV, and I can stretch my own imagination because it’s acting. (although I confess, I watch every single one of those videos).

But...the potential, y’all...the potential.

Anyway, Dartz isn’t dead. He was just taking his toot sweet time getting down the steps of his Gazebo.

This is where things get very anime. I get this problem a lot with anime, I really do--and maybe it’s just me. But like...sometimes it feels like anime changes the rules during the boss fight.

That happens a lot, right? Where suddenly the final boss reveals something that like...should have been addressed way earlier? And he’s alive but you don’t get why?

Anyway, Pharaoh reacts by getting maybe way too attached to his newfound independence.

Which like...I can understand Tea forgetting that Yugi is one people that is two people all the time, but the writers as well?

And what’s kind of great about this scene is that Dartz does see Yugi as two people here. He doesn’t look at Yugi, he looks at both. When Pharaoh is like “Leave me, Yugi!” Dartz heard all of that.

Just kind of a neat thing that we finally have a dude that can just...see Pharaoh for what he is, but it probably won’t matter because there’s like only one more episode left of this season.

Anyway, Pharaoh and Dartz have a chat about where evil comes from...and like...it’s some Yugioh lore, all right.

So before the show decides to give us the Genesis on Yugioh and reveal where the evil of the Orichalcos comes from, or if all evil was created by Orichalcos itself (which is IMPLYING stuff about Orichalcos) the snake shuts him the hell up.

As it should. Leave that Pandora’s box freakin closed. That’s going into extended universe of Star Wars books territory (RIP.)

As an aside--pretty sure that Yugi is standing outside that tornado. Maybe it was just the editing of the episode but like...

Yo I’m pretty sure Yugi is just standing there. For the first time, it’s not his nuts getting roasted. Wow. Tables have turned so much since he was dead.

Anyway, here’s the link for new people so you can read these in order

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

There’s only one left! We can do it! We can finish this season in 2020! And actually get back to recapping Full Metal Alchemist! ~~Woooo~~

Oh man that movie better still be on Netflix or I’ll have to buy it lolol.

[royallyprincesslilly]

Title: Partners {2}

OA Zidan/Zeeko Zaki x Reader

Warning⚠️: Cursing, Small Angst, Slow Burn

Words: 5.1k

Summary: You’re a damn good FBI agent in your own right. It is definitely partly to do with how well you’ve been trained and partly to do with you not letting anything or anyone distract you. You have a six-year plan that you’re fast-tracking for four. After being transferred from your office in Tampa you’ve been sent to New York which you’ve labeled the “big leagues”. On your first day there you were introduced to your new partner OA Zidan. It was then you realized you’ve moved out of the frying pan right into the pot of distraction. A year later and your rising attraction for your partner still hasn’t been snuffed out.

Note: If you’re thirsty and you know it clap your hands. Clap-Clap. If you’re thirsty and you know it clap your hands. Clap-Clap. I have no shame. This is a first for me writing about a TV show and interjecting into it. Let’s see how this goes. I hope you guys enjoy this mini-series.

 ***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

~~~~~~~~~~~

-Three Days Later-

 You weren’t supposed to be back at work until the following Monday, but you’d gotten tired of sitting on your ass and pacing your apartment. You’d watched all the Netflix and Hulu you could stand. You’d gone through episodes you were behind on and even gone through several movies you’d missed in theaters because you lived, ate and slept the bureau. You were so antsy that you’d even begun watching cop shows like Law and Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, and even a show called FBI. That was the only show that actually calmed your angst to return to work.

 On several occasions, you’d ignored the orders of the doctors aside and worked out much longer than thirty minutes. It hurt yeah but you also knew codling yourself would make recovery a lot longer. It wasn’t a full-on shot to the gut, but it was a deep enough graze to keep you in the hospital for two days.

 In those two days, you’d had plenty of time to think. Plenty of time to replay your conversation with OA. The thing with having nothing but time on your hands was that you were able to look at every interaction and conversation in a different light. After going over a year’s worth of endless time spent with OA you’d zeroed in on a handful of them that your imagination was working overtime seeing something that possibly wasn’t there.

 He’d always been kind to you, always gentle and helpful. He took his time teaching you the ropes of how New York ran, tricks of the bureau he’d picked up since he’d been out of Quantico. When you were in the thick of things he always looked out for you. In the moment and thereafter you always deduced it for him looking out for his partner. Who wanted to live with a dead partner on their conscience? You’d thought it was him acting normal.

After a few months he’d started bringing you coffee in the mornings, each time it was something different, a vanilla latte, black coffee, cappuccino. You thought maybe he was bringing you whatever he got that day. When you thought about him giving you your exact coffee order your imagination began to think he’d done it all these months trying to figure out how you liked your coffee. When you thought that everything was under analysis.

 You panted out as you bent forward trying to catch your breath. Today you’d run five miles and you were already feeling the pain in your stomach. It was four miles more than you’d been given the okay to do.

 “Shit!”

 It took you a good five minutes to catch your breath enough to keep going. After four days, you were now in that weird limbo place, where you were fifty percent sure and fifty percent thinking you were crazy. You didn’t know what to think. You did know that this was not what you were supposed to be thinking about. You didn’t leave Miami for a better opportunity to fall for your partner, especially not when you were so close to possibly a promotion. Still, it didn’t stop the butterflies in your belly every time you replayed his words in your head.

 “I thought I’d lose you. I thought that was it and I lost my shit, Y/N.”

 “I don’t want to lose you.”

 The way he’d said them with a quiver in his voice and the wild look in his eyes. The look of a man at his wit’s end. You’d seen the look before, several times, but on perps who felt they’d lost everything and were out of options. He had that look because you were hurt. More butterflies filled your stomach and you hated it.

 “Shit, Y/N. Get your shit together. Do not make this a thing. It is not a thing,” you drilled out loud as you stared at yourself in the mirror. Your words were full of firmness and authority, but your face was anything but. You didn’t even believe your own words. Deep down you knew it was a thing because you’d fallen for your partner months before he’d spoken those words.

 “Shit!”

 An hour later you were walking into the office. A few people saw you and gave you a welcoming but concerned smile. You nodded your head and walked toward your desk. OA’s desk was empty as was Kristen’s. Oddly enough the office was quiet, or quiet compared to normal. Once you put your things away it began to bug you. even this was strange for the office.

 “Hey Scott, where is everybody?”

 “Emergency briefing in the boss’s office.”

 You nodded, grabbed your coffee cup and made your way to Isobel’s office. Through the glass, Isobel saw you and beckoned you in. Once you stepped inside all eyes fell to you.

 “Y/N. What’re you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here until Monday,” Jubal inquired.

 “Yeah I know but I’m good. I am literally going insane at home.”

 “I get that, but we have these rules in place for a reason. You need to heal,” Isobel protested.

 “Isobel I’m good, I swear. My doctor even said I can go back to work when I felt ready. I’m ready,” you hammered home.

 Kristen looked at Jubal and Isobel waiting for their response while they stared you down. When their eyes met they exchanged brief nods.

 “Okay. Glad to have you back,” Isobel said as she signaled toward a seat. You sat and made sure to keep your eyes firmly away from OA.

 Isobel continued to speak about a new case, an abduction. She gave all of you the details of the case and how they wanted to play it. You tried to focus on the case and not the sexy ass man that was in the room. It was difficult especially since you could feel his eyes on you and the unspoken tension in the room. You flipped through the composed file and familiarized yourself with the victim, a seventeen-year-old girl, daughter of one of the richest men in the city who’d been abducted in an alley in Hell’s Kitchen.

 After the briefing, everyone poured out of the room off to their assignments. When you got to your desk you took up your lite FBI jacket ready to get a move on. When you turned, OA was right there. The two of you stared at each other for what felt like a minute but was only seconds. Neither of you spoke.

 “You guys good?” Jubal stood to the side watching the two of you. You cleared your throat and side-stepped OA.

 “Yeah, yeah, all good,” you stuttered.

 “Good, get to the family’s house, see if they can shed some light on this.”

 “Got it.”

 You felt like driving so you’d have something to busy yourself with, but you knew OA liked to drive so you sat in the passenger side and skimmed the file again. When he got into the truck he hesitated for a few moments.

 “Y/N--,” OA began before he paused. He turned the car on but didn’t pull out.

 “Are you sure you’re good? I need you to have my back.”

 Half of you was annoyed at him implying that you didn’t have his back, you’d always had his back.

 “I always have your back. That’s what partners are for.” His eyes met yours for a second before he gave his signature tight-lipped, clenched jaw scowl and pulled out of the parking spot.

 The forty-five-minute drive out of the city and into Hudsons on Hastings was relatively quiet. Besides the talk about the case, the two of you were silent. You wondered what he was thinking especially since that scowl didn’t slip once. He focused on the road and never geared his eyes off of it. Every so often your eyes skimmed his frame beginning at his tightly clenched hands on the steering wheel along his muscular arms and down to his bulky thighs. God, he was crafted to be a distraction, you thought. He was good looking to a fault, tall as hell, muscular like a God and was from what you could tell a great guy. He was a good catch—a great catch.

 “All right we’re here.”

 The two of you walked up the pristine walkway to the palatial house that was literally at the top of a hill.

 “What’s a seventeen-year-old girl doing all the way in Hell’s Kitchen from here?” OA’s question made sense. What was she doing so far from home?

 “Are you the FBI agents?” A redhead woman in a multi-colored wrap dress asked as she stepped out onto the porch with a taller gentleman with blonde hair on her heels.

 “Yes. I’m special agent OA Zidan and this is my partner special agent YFN/YLN.”

 You greeted the couple as they ushered you into their home.

 “You have a beautiful home. You’re quite a far way outside the city,” you audible observed.

 “Yes, we think it’s great to be outside of the madness that is Manhattan,” the blonde gentleman said.

 You looked back to see OA scanning the interior of the home. He’d nonverbally given you the cue he was going to be the observer during this visit. The coupled showed you to another large room with matching seats. The home looked perfect as if it was magically created to be perfect. From experience, you knew impressions of perfection usually always came with deep dark secrets. You spent the next several minutes going through questions with the couple about their daughter, her home life, and school life. They candidly answered your questions and gave no hints to them being anything but deeply concerned parents of a missing child.

 “Do you have any idea what your daughter was doing in Hell’s Kitchen?”

 The couple looked between each other but neither spoke. OA asked the question again.

 “We don’t know. Her school is here, it’s a private school. I don’t know,” the father said.

 You believed him.

 “Can we take a look around your daughter’s bedroom?”

 The couple showed you to the room and you and OA slowly went around to find anything you could.

 “I don’t know what to make of the mom,” OA voiced in a whisper.

 “Why?”

 “Too perfect. Did you see there was nothing out of place? Not on her and not in the room. Anyone who appears too perfect always has something to hide. You get that, right?”

 Something about what he said rubbed you the wrong way. Turning to him you watched him moving from bookshelf to desk.

 “What do you mean by that? Why would I get it?”

 “You know, from experience.”

 He definitely meant something by that. “If you have something to say OA, say it.” He turned to you but didn’t respond. He just had that scowl on his face.

 “Nothing. Let’s go, found what could be our smoking bullet.” He held up two cell phones before he dropped them in Ziploc bags and walked out of the room. You were now annoyed.

 ~~~~~~~

Two hours later you’d spoken to the victim’s friends and checked the crime scene. Now you were at headquarters waiting for Kristen to come back with whatever was in the phones. You couldn’t get OA’s words out of your head. He was purposely digging on you. he thought you were too perfect, thought that you had something to hide. You didn’t know if you were more annoyed that he could see through you to figure that out or the fact that he could say that to you.

 “You okay?”

 Kristen walked beside you in the break room and placed her hand on your back.

 “Yeah. I’m good. Thanks.” Kristen nodded and made a move to walk out.

 “Kristen wait.” You sighed and shook your head before you began again. “Do you think I’m boring or too perfect?”

 Kristen smirked and took you in for a few moments.

 “Why?”

 “No reason just—something someone said. Am I boring?”

 “I don’t think boring is the right word. Maybe—focused.” You gave her a cold glare that she laughed at.

 “Really? Focused is the best you could come up with?”

 “Yes. Okay look, you are focused. It is clear to see you take the job seriously and have goals and a plan for yourself. There is nothing wrong with that. You take the job so seriously that you come off standoffish and—serious.”

 You scoffed and shook your head. “Ah-ha, so not only am I boring but I’m a bitch.”

 “No, no one thinks you’re a bitch,” Kristen corrected. You shook your head and rubbed your forehead.

 “What does it matter what people think about you?”

 “I don’t want people thinking I’m boring and a goody two-shoes who is this perfect straight arrow. I’m not perfect, I’m not a goody two-shoes either. I’m a mess, I--,” you stuttered.

 “Y/N, calm down.” You took some deep breathes and composed yourself.

 “Okay. Thanks, Kristen.”

 “Y/N, we got a break,” Jubal informed peeking his head from around the corner.

 Thirty minutes later you and OA were in a seedy part of town hunting down a lead in the abduction. CCTV caught images of the potential suspect. You could see movement at the front of the restaurant and saw your suspect walk out. He was laughing and talking as if he had no care in the world. In the back of the truck, you and OA were strapping on your protective vests getting ready to approach. You flinched as you came back up from your hunched over position and sucked in a breath. Looking over, you saw OA watching you with concerned eyes.

 “You up for this?”

 “Yep.” You pulled on your shirt over the vest and then your jacket.

 “Y/N, before we head out there maybe we should talk,” OA began.

 “No time.”

 “Just like last time, no time?”

 Your eyes met and again there was so much to say and no time to do it. Even if you wanted to talk you had no idea what to say.

 “OA--.”

 “I’ll take lead.” OA was the first to climb out of the truck and begin his slow walk to the restaurant. You followed behind making sure to check behind you. The two of you walked inside the restaurant, him surveilling around while you made it to the counter.

 “What can I get ya?”

 “A number seven, two and two number nines. Hmmm, what else, anything Pablo?”

 OA looked at you with a “really” look. You knew he hated the name Pablo because of a case you worked with another agent who kept calling him Pablo since OA wouldn’t tell his whole name.

 “Add a number ten on there, I love that garlic sauce.”

 You nodded and looked back to the man behind the counter. He didn’t move, he just stared at the two of you until he made a move to throw a metal napkin holder to you. Ducking out of the way you reached across the counter to grab his head and bang it onto the counter. You heard the scuffling behind you and knew OA was taking on the two creeps that were sitting at the table to the door.

 “I’m never talking!” You shuffled over the counter and kicked the perp sending him a few feet back. The fight was a dirty one, he threw things at you and was clearly out for blood. When he pulled a gun you kicked it out of his hand and brought his head to your knee. He groaned and got in a punch to your gut before sweeping his leg under you making you crash to the floor. The pain in your midsection distracted you long enough for him to make a run for it. OA was beside you a few seconds later checking if you were okay.

 “Go after him, go!”

 You still tried to catch your breath and get the pain under control as you secured the two idiots that dared fight a man that was clearly well over six feet tall and two hundred pounds. Every second that passed you worried about OA. You should have been with him running down the asshole, but you couldn’t. You were supposed to be watching his back and you felt like shit that you couldn’t. It didn’t take you long to recognize that the reason why wasn’t because he was your partner and you were supposed to be with him but because you were worried about his safety, you were scared for him and it went way beyond platonic.

 When backup came around they loaded the idiots in the car. The bulletproof vest you wore felt restricting, so you peeled off the jacket and the vest to reveal your white tank underneath with a fresh coating of blood. A paramedic took you to the back of an ambulance and cleaned your wound that was now bleeding again.

 When you walked back to the sidewalk it was then OA came around the corner carrying a young girl—the victim.

 “Medic, I need a medic!” You hurried over to him; his shirt was covered in blood. You didn’t know if it was the girl’s or his. Panic set in again.

 “OA, what happened? Are you okay?”

 Two paramedics rushed over with a gurney in time for him to place her on it. once his arms were free you proceeded to check his body for wounds. You touched all over his chest, abdomen, and arms before circling his back to scan even more.

 “Hey, hey, I’m fine.”

 “You’re bleeding,” you frantically announced.

 “It’s not my blood, I’m fine.” Your eyes met and his words finally broke through. You felt his hands on your arms steadying you.

 “Are you sure?” He nodded and you finally felt like you could breathe. You dropped your head and took several breaths. OA’s hand fell to your waist, you flinched then groaned. When he saw why his eyes were piercing into yours.

 “Are you hit?”

 “No, stupid stitches busted. I’m fine.”

 “We have to get her to the hospital,” one of the paramedics announced. You watched as they wheeled the seventeen-year-old girl away.

 “How did you--?”

 “He led me right to her. He was trying to move the truck she was cuffed inside. Turns out her mother is her stepmother and she wanted her out the way so she arranged all of this,” OA informed.

 “What?”

 “Yeah. I told you behind perfection lies secrets. Come on, let’s get you checked out.”

 An hour later you were back in the hospital getting checked out. This time OA didn’t let you out of his sight. Thankfully they allowed you to go home that night and OA was right there to take you. The two of you were in the elevator riding up to your floor in silence. When the doors opened, slowly led the way.

 “You don’t have to do this. I’m a big girl, I can get myself home.”

 “Yeah, I’m sure you can but I’d feel a lot better knowing I saw you get inside,” OA answered. Nodding you continued walking. You knew better than to try to argue with him. he was just as stubborn as you.

 You unlocked your door and walked inside and turned to face him. “Safe and sound.” OA stood there silent just watching you. you watched as he sucked in his bottom lip and nodded.

 “I’m sorry.” Confusion decorated his face.

 “What? For what?”

 “I didn’t have your back. You had to chase him by yourself. I was so winded I couldn’t—I should have had your back and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

 “Y/N, it’s fine. You got knocked on your ass. You needed a minute.”

 “I needed a minute because I probably shouldn’t have been out there.” You groaned and rubbed your forehead.

 “You felt ready, I’m not going to argue with you about it. I’m fine.”

 “What if you weren’t? I thought that blood was yours and I was scared,” you admitted. Silence fell between you and the butterflies in your belly picked up.

 “Why were you scared?” His voice dropped a few octaves and it made goosebumps tickle your skin. God, it was sexy.

 “Because.” It was a whisper; it was all you could muster. Lowering your head, you averted your eyes. OA took a step to you, but it wasn’t enough to crowd you.

 “Tell me.” You took a deep breath and began.

 “I thought you were hurt, and I was worried, really worried.” Your eyes met again and neither of you spoke for a few moments.

 “Did it feel like your heart was being squeezed? Like no air could come in and because of it there was a burning sensation but also a sharp pins and needles feeling? Did you feel like your life was slowly bring drained?” Every word he spoke fit how you felt to a T.

 “Is that how you felt?” Slowly you nodded even though right now you felt overwhelming fear.

 “Yeah, I felt it too. I felt it when I saw you take that bullet and every second until you spoke in the hospital. I felt it and so much more, Y/N.”

 You had no words, so you remained silent. You just stood there staring at him and listening to your pounding heart.

 “Jesus I don’t know how much more I can take,” OA began before he took another step to you. “For a whole year, I’ve tried to keep a wrap on this and remain professional with you. For a year I’ve had to pretend as if I don’t watch you in awe and amazement every day you do something incredible. For a year I’ve had to be this whole different way with you when all I want is the opposite.”

 With every word, your breathing became even more erratic. You couldn’t believe he was saying what he was.

 “You’re the crazy thing, Y/N. I know the rules and what I’m feeling are definitely against them, but I don’t care. I care about you.”

 You plastered your hand across his mouth to shut him up. “Stop, don’t. Just don’t. We can back away from this night and pretend like it never happened and move on and keep things status quo. We can stop right now, and no one would have crossed any lines. We can do that just—don’t say those words.”

 From the look in his eyes, you could tell he was not going to back down. He was going to commit and commit fully. Using one of his colossal hands he took your hand from his mouth, but he held on to it.

 “I don’t think I can keep pretending. I’ve always known life is fleeting being in the military and in Iraq I saw how tangible life was and come here doing what we do day in and day out, I know life is precious. Seeing you hurt hammered it home. I don’t want to pretend anymore. I don’t want to leave anything unsaid, or anything undone. I want to do the crazy things I dream of. I want to live—but only with you. So I can’t keep things status quo and if you were honest with yourself you don’t want to either.”

 Damn it, you thought. He’d spend a year learning you, reading you, doing everything they’d taught him at Quantico. He knew you; you didn’t want him to, but he did. Since he did he took another step to you. There was no professionalism between you now, that last step erased it all.

 “I have feelings for you, Y/N, feelings I’ve held on to since damn near the day you walked in and brought Florida sunshine with you. I can’t go back,” OA confessed. In the process, he took your breath away.

 The day you met him you knew he would be a distraction. You’d put up a good fight, but it was always a losing one. You saw that now, in this moment, with him less than a foot before you, waiting patiently for you to say the words he knew you felt.

 “Tell me. Say the words,” OA whispered.

 “This is crazy.” OA smirked and nodded. His hand fell to your waist and rested there barely touching you.

 “Be crazy with me. Be imperfect with me.” His encouragement made the butterflies in your belly flutter more erratically. It was useless to fight it and fight your increasing feelings.

 “I—have feelings for—you too,” you whispered. He searched your eyes as if trying to make sure there was no lie behind the words. Slowly he pulled to you him closing the gap between you. Your bodies barely touched but you could feel the heat coming off of him. slowly OA inched his head closer to yours until his forehead rested against yours. He released a relieved breath before taking another deep one.

 “I have feelings for you, real ones that I’ve never felt before,” OA added. You nodded agreeing fully. “You too?” Again, you nodded. His smile was beautiful, it was the first thing that you fell for.

 Slowly your lips move closer until they touched, but neither of you moved. You just remained still taking it in. After a few seconds OA was the first to really kiss you. The kiss was slow, timid and exploratory and you reciprocated every second of it. His hand on your waist held you tighter until your bodies were touching. The hardness of his muscled torso against your soft one had you moaning on his lips. OA mimicked the moan which had you both intensifying the kiss. OA’s free hand cupped your cheek before you felt his tongue delve into your mouth. It was like a dam broke. You passionately kissed him, holding onto his waist with one hand and gripping his back with the other. The feel of his moan against your lips made you want more. Slowly you pulled away.

 “I’m not boring.” OA smiled.

 “I know.”

 “I can do crazy,” you continued. Again, he smiled and nodded.

 “I bet you can.” You smiled and kissed him again while gripping his tie holding him to you. The two of you stood in your doorway full on making out not caring who saw. Every second that went by the more you wanted him and the more you were tempted to pull him inside your apartment. OA’s hand slid to your hip where he squeezed sending a fresh wave of arousal to sweep through you. Before the kiss got any more carried away OA pulled back from you.

 “Wow. That’s what I’ve been missing.” You smirked and pinched your lips.

 “I don’t want to rush you or take advantage. I’m not after just this, I want more.”

 “How much more?” Again, his smile took your breath away.

 “Everything.”

 His confession brought you back to reality. While it was sweet it was also an awakening. He was your partner. Was everything possible? The bureau had rules, regulations, and policies. Dating your partner was strictly frowned upon. This could break your career and set you back years. Both of you must have thought the same thing because he even nodded his head while he looked down. He didn’t move though, he still held you to his body.

 “So many nights I’ve had this dream. So many nights I’d stare out my window over the horizon and think about you here wondering what you were doing. I want this Y/N. I want you.”

 Your eyes met again, and it was like looking through glass, his feelings were so evident so transparent. It spoke to you. you softly caressed his bearded cheek then kissed him while pulling him into your apartment. Reality could wait until sunrise.

 You dropped onto the couch in your living room and made out for hours. His hands explored your body while remaining respectful as he got familiar with your lips and the sensitive skin of your neck. In between kissing, he confessed his true thoughts of you when he first met you, confessed how beautiful he thought you were. It was then he made you confess your thoughts too. From there the two of you went through your interactions together that both of you thought your feelings were so obvious.

 It made you feel closer to him and even more attracted than ever. To think you both had felt this way from the very start and had denied it for so long was insane. Everything between you felt as natural as breathing, it never felt weird. You just fell into step like it made sense—you made sense. When talking was pointless you allowed your lips and hands to take over in the conversation. Of course both of you were tempted to go further but neither of you did. Besides dry humping on each other and kissing over places of each other’s bodies everything remained very tame.  Every time you felt his hardness you were even more tempted than you ever imagined you would be. From what you felt you knew he was blessed in more ways than just appearances.

 By the time you finally pulled apart from each other and stopped whispering, giggling and cuddling together it was nearing four-thirty in the morning.

 “I’m going to leave to let you get a little bit of sleep,” OA whispered in between kisses.

 “Okay.” Your response should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. you kept kissing and caressing each other until another five minutes passed and you were back on the couch. This happened four times without accomplishing anything.

 Finally, he walked to the door alone thinking it would be smarter for you to stay on the couch. When he turned to look at you again he smiled softly. “We’re doing this—you and me?”

 You didn’t know what to say so you smiled like a schoolgirl making him smile widely. “All right,” OA said before he walked through the door only to come back to kiss you once more before hurrying out.

 “See you soon.”

 When he was gone you couldn’t stop smiling for a good ten minutes. You squealed in your couch and giggled like an idiot. It was impossible to stop. It was also disgusting how bubbly you felt. You felt lite and full of energy. It wasn’t until you’d managed to take out your badge and place it on your nightstand did reality come creeping back in. For the first time, your bubbly feeling slowly faded leaving a very sobering feeling that was very similar to dreadful worry.

 “Fuck!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[arthurjdrake]

Water Works : Notia & Arthur

TIMING: Present LOCATION: Drake Residence  PARTIES: @arthurjdrake and @humanmoodring SUMMARY: Notia needs tears and she’ll go to any lengths to get them. TW: Injury / Violence

The ride to Arthur’s wasn’t exactly comfortable, and Nadia ended up getting lost a bit along the way. Sue her, she’d only been there once, to go to a party full of people she didn’t know and didn’t care to, not really. She hadn’t meant to to tell the man that she didn’t exactly care to stick around town for much longer, but, hey, she could tell him she wanted to take a business trip and hope for the fucking best. She’d tell him anything he wanted to hear as long as he gave her some phoenix tears. She’d have to shmooze him for a bit, win him over again and promise to be a good little research assistant or whatever it was that Nadia did. She’d get the tears, sell a bottle or two, and be on her merry way, not looking back on the shitstain that was this town and everything that it had to offer. Every nosy medium and hunter and witch and banshee, every overly concerned zombie, could kiss her ass. She didn’t want to deal with them and their desires to take what was hers away from her. But she couldn’t show that, could she? Instead, Nadia put on a smile and hopped off her bike, stuffing her hands into her jacket pockets and walking over to Arthur’s door. She gave it a knock and waited, hoping this wouldn’t last too long.

For once the house was absent of noise, save the soft whir of the fan oven as Arthur slouched on one of the countertops staring absentmindedly out the kitchen window. His phone lay open on the countertop, Nadia’s message left on read. A sticking point on which his focus was intently hooked. She needed to get out of town? It was strange. Ever since he’d first met her Nadia had seemed so keen to take up the job he’d offered her, eager to get a new start in a position that asked no questions. Which after hearing the horrific tale of everything that she had been through in her relatively short time on this earth was understandable. In a way partly influencing the reason why Arthur had continued to pay her position despite the time she’d taken for personal matters. They were on good terms but sometimes there were boundaries that needed to be respected. But leaving? Leaving the only place that might be able to provide a solution and modicum of safety to her? It didn’t make sense. Pulling his phone off the counter he peered at the message again, attempting to read between the lines to understand what would make Nadia bolt to this degree without asking for some kind of help. He was broken from his musings by the echo of the bell and quickly hurried to get the door. “Hey! Gees it’s been so long!” he greeted opening his arms and stepping out to wrap Nadia up in a warm and tight hug.

Of fucking course the bird man was a hugger. Nadia couldn’t help the way she tensed up as he grabbed her, his too warm body far too close for far too long. Fuck, the man was a desert. She’d thought she left that kind of heat behind in Arizona. She hadn’t expected to lose control of her body and watch as her host made friends with a literal fucking phoenix. She’d just have to deal with it. Plastering on a gentle, easy smile, she said, “Arthur! God, it really has been. Since your birthday.” Surrounded by people she didn’t know and could only hope didn’t know Nadia that well, it had been one of the more anxiety-inducing times here in White Crest. She hated intimate get-togethers. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been meaning to get in touch. I’ve just had a rough time of it, recently.” She flinched a bit, sighed. “I got kicked out of my apartment a few months ago, and it’s been a bitch finding a new place and I’m just... “ she ran a hand through her hair, a bit of genuine frustration showing through. “...tired.” She laughed self-deprecatingly, shaking her head. “But you! How have you been?” What had he and Nadia been working on, again? Nerdy school stuff, probably. “How’s the semester gone for you?”

Nadia tensed as she was pulled in, strange, on all the other occasions that he’d given her hugs she’d always reciprocated with appreciation and a joking remark of his space-heater nature being a reminder of home. So Arthur had made a mental note to always do his best to make her feel welcomed and comforted. “Uhuh, a long while back that- too long” he stepped back, but his attention lingered on her features head cocking ever so slightly as though trying to decipher something that just didn’t sit right. But he couldn’t pinpoint it and shook the feeling away for now, reading too much into it probably. “Rough time of it?” he echoed as he wandered down the corridor assuming she would follow while the empathetic nature of his concern quickly overtook any doubt for the time being though. “Kicked out of your apartment? The hell Nadia?” the words were a little incredulous stopping and turning back to her just inside the kitchen, more irritated by the thought of someone having the audacity to do something of the sort to a person he cared about “why didn’t you… You could’ve come to stay here. You know you’re always welcome. Granted… Things are a bit arctic right now...” The uncertainty about just what was going on lingered, it had been a week or that he’d first noticed the instance that he was sucking the very heat out of every room he walked into. It was fine for him, but it had left the house in a practically arctic state. “What the hell’s been going on?”

“Way too long,” Nadia said, giving the man a smile, though she didn’t necessarily mean it. She knew she had to keep up appearances, though, knew that he was observing her, sizing her up, though that wasn’t the right word for it. People didn’t size Nadia Diaz up because they just didn’t perceive her as a threat. She was a decent person, a weak person. He was simply trying to figure her out. And she couldn’t let him. “Yeah, just… things kind of, like, suck.” Nadia laughed and rubbed at the back of her neck, those kinds of self-deprecating actions that Nadia was known for. She just needed to act like Nadia long enough to get some tears, get this guy off her back, and then she could start planning a way out of town, out of this life. Start over in a new place where no one knew who the hell Nadia Diaz was. “I, fuck. I had a disagreement with some of my neighbors.” As in, she wanted them dead, and they disagreed. “They’d been living there longer, so of fucking course it didn’t matter who was right and who was wrong. I ended up getting kicked out.” She flinched a bit, wanting to lash out against his tone but knowing that was the wrong fucking move. He didn’t feel mad, just shocked, the spike of it working its way through her system in a way that she figured she could still make it out of this. “I know, Arthur, I know, but you’ve already done so much, and I just-- I didn’t want to bother you.” She smiled at him slightly. “It’s really not that bad, in here.” Truthfully, she hadn’t noticed the cold. She kind of always felt cold, liked feeling cold. It was better than his overwhelming heat. She sighed. “A lot. I don’t know. I don’t feel safe in this town anymore. I just want to get out. Not for-- Just for a bit, you know? Just a bit.”

More often than not Arthur found himself studying the people around him, sometimes unintentionally other times quite deliberately; an attempt to decipher ulterior motives or passive deceptions. The reasoning and understanding as to why often only came with an episode of hindsight, the realisation of just what set him into this strangely rational state of being. “Oh gees, in that case you need to tell me everything that’s been going on hm? Maybe we can see about making some amends… come, come” he waved her in encouragingly and set about moving some cups onto the counter and pouring out the hot-chocolate that had been simmering on the stove. His expression one of concern at the mention of disagreements. “You live near Regan don’t you? But what happened? Surely it can’t be bad enough to warrant getting evicted.” That didn’t make sense. Pushing the mug across the counter he returned to the oven and pulled out the tray setting the cookies to cool on the airing rack while he worked. “ Nadia,” there was a long and slightly drawn out sigh while he pushed his glasses up his nose with the tip of his thumb and leaned on the counter. “How many times do I have to tell you, you’d never bother me. Ever.” His eyes narrowed a fraction, the dark grey clouding in his eyes as he looked at her intently for a long moment. “You can’t keep running away from whatever’s bothering you. Now, how about you tell me about whatever’s going on. What’s got you so spooked?”

“It’s--” Nadia cut herself off, running a hand through her hair. “Where to even begin, you know?” She laughed and followed after Arthur, wrapping her arms tight around her. She didn’t want to sit down and drink hot chocolate and play act with this phoenix who didn’t really know shit at all. She just wanted to get some tears and be on her way, Maybe she could give him a sob story, and he’d cry. That’d be really fucking nice, wouldn’t it? She took the hot chocolate and wrapped her hands around it. “Yeah, yeah. Did. I just got into it with the landlord. You know how rent is. I felt like I was getting jipped, and I was, the fucker. So I packed up, moved somewhere nicer. Got a chill roommate. It’s all good, now.” She raised her mug to him in a salute and took a drink. The liquid burned on the way down. “I know, I know, but… I’ve just been trying to, like, find myself, these last few months. It’s been hard.” What was she running from? Nothing. Everything. A buncha charges and a buncha people that wanted her gone, vanished, destroyed. All so that some little bitch that had rolled over without fighting until it was far too late could have back a life that Nadia had made. No, thank you. Not gonna happen. “There are people here,” she said quietly. “People that knew the ghost that possessed me. People that want me to do things I’m just not fucking comfortable with, and-- and I just-- I don’t want to be that person. I can’t be her, don’t want to be the person that she was. I want my own fucking life.”

“Really?” for some reason Arthur found that hard to believe, considering the amount of incidents that had happened at that building, if anything the landlord seemed like a pretty fair guy by all accounts. “You know that’s weird - he seemed pretty forgiving considering the amount of glass incidents that I heard happened while other residents were there.” His head tilted a little, tightening his hands a fraction around the mug as he levelled her with a flat and searching look. Not the first that had come tonight because something about the weight of the conversation didn’t flow in the way they normally spoke. “Right, but those ghosts aren’t here are they? I mean they got exorcised you told me the story yourself and you’ve got all the protection you’d ever need to stop that from happening again. Heck, we’ve got enough people in this town that could keep you safe from that… Who are these people? What are they asking you to do?”

“Yes, really,” Nadia said, her eyes hard as steel. She could feel him doubting her, and she could tell this situation wasn’t going the way she wanted. She could still try to turn it around. She knew she could. She at least had to try. “Honestly, I’m just as surprised as you are. Thought he was a pretty cool dude until he spiked up my rent for no fucking reason. I wasn’t the one breaking all the glass. But, hey, it’s over now. I’m getting settled in somewhere else.” She smiled at him, despite his intense stare, with that easy, self-deprecating Nadia Diaz grin that she’d perfected over the years. The only thing that gave away her frustration was the slightest flickering of the lights. “Huh, that’s weird.” She wished she had a better handle on that shit, especially when she was trying to shmooze people, but what could a girl do? “They never got rid of them, not properly,” she said quietly, wrapping her hands around her mug and making herself small. “And I’m not safe, not here.” She made her eyes panicked. “They’re criminals, Arthur, and I’m not putting anyone else at risk because of me.” There. That was a pretty Nadia statement. “I just-- I’m so tired. I’m tired of what they want me to do. I’m tired of always looking over my shoulder. I’m fucking exhausted. I just need to get away.”

“That doesn’t really make any sense… And I mean you’re right, if you weren’t the one behind the glass and you were covering the cost of fixing it anyway then really he wouldn’t have any ground to stand on.” Nadia of all people was hardly a disruptive renter, it didn’t really track that Nadia had gotten herself kicked out of her apartment over something that was definitely not her fault. It wasn’t impossible, but the story didn’t entirely add up. Arthur looked at her, and the steeliness in her gaze struck him as strange. Nadia never typically looked at anything with such an intense level of seemingly calculated determination. Yet as he was about to ask another question, the lights flickered and his eyes tracked up quickly. “Uh… yeah.” Considering he’d changed those lightbulbs the week prior they definitely shouldn’t be on the way out. He tried to keep the level of his voice neutral, but even years of experience couldn’t entirely maintain his decorum. “You aren’t putting anyone at risk of doing anything they aren’t willing to do themselves, Nadia, you can’t control the decisions of every person in your life.” As much as it would have made life so much easier, that simply wasn’t how things went. “What do they want you to do?” Maybe then this sudden skittishness would make more sense. “How though? Tell me how running is going to help though? What’s to stop these people finding you somewhere that there aren’t people that in all honesty are pretty well equipped to keep you safe.” If anything despite the lurking dangers, there was more benefit to staying.

“It’s human nature, Arthur. Sometimes things don’t make sense.” Nadia raised an eyebrow at the man, wishing he’d just fucking let this drop. He was pushing her, and she hated being pushed. She watched him, getting as much of a read off of him as she could. He seemed unnerved. Good. Maybe this would stop him from digging too deep. She couldn’t even pull from Nadia anymore, something that was wonderful when she was working but was an absolute bitch when she was trying to deal with Nadia’s supposed friends. She sighed, looking away and biting her lip. “I know, but people shouldn’t have to do that. Not for me.” There, that was very Nadia Diaz of her. Devaluing herself was practically the little empath’s trademark. She’d get herself killed if it meant someone else didn’t have to get hurt. “I’ve-- I’ve had to start committing crime. Small robberies. Shit like that. And I don’t want to, but they’re-- they’ll rat me out to the-- I don’t want to go to jail, but they’ll turn me in if I don’t.” She sniffled a bit. “Sorry. It’s just… If I run, they’ll have a harder time finding me. White Crest just isn’t safe for me. Not with that ghost still hanging around. Not with these people breathing down my back.” Not with everyone wanting to bring Nadia back.

“Sometimes no, but when you’ve lived as long as I have you can often get a gauge on how a person’s going to act based on interacting with them.” So that didn’t entirely track, nor did Nadia’s current attitude towards the topic. “Bullshit,” Arthur interrupted without warning his frown deepening “that’s bullshit and you should know by now that’s now how this works. You don’t call the shots on what someone else wants or is going to do for you, you know why?” There was an ironclad sternness in his voice, “it’s because you’re deserving of people that give a shit about you. People might’ve let you down before - you’ve been through hell and come out the other side of it but this time you aren’t alone. So no more, no more saying people shouldn’t. They can and they will because you deserve people that care enough to step out and call time on the shit that you’re being put through.” His mind was turning over the information, processing and trying to come up with a plan that they could put into action. “Then we find evidence that you’re being blackmailed, there are plenty of people on the force who are in the know. Heck I even know an FBI agent that’s catching up on the run of this town… The law can work for you Nadia - there’s no need to run. A ghost is definitely something that we can handle.”

Nadia gritted her teeth so hard that her jaw hurt, and the lights flickered again. She took a deep breath in, let it out, and turned to Arthur, her face devoid of emotion. “Do you know what’s bullshit? This conversation. I’m not in the mood to play pretend anymore.” She stood up, leaving her mug. “I do call the shots, and I’m done here. Sorry, prof. But I don’t have time for this.” Even if he had tears, those fucking tears that she needed desperately. She almost wanted to stop, to backtrack and make try to get some of them out of him again, but she couldn’t keep this up. She’d admit it: she was losing her Nadia Diaz touch. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing. Time for a reinvention, anyways. Nadia Diaz was a ghost, unimportant and useless. She didn’t matter. She laughed at him, though. “You’re funny. People ‘help,’” she made air quotes, “because they’re nosy, or because they want to make themselves look good. It’s not because they care. Not when there’s nothing worth caring about.” She started walking away. “The law is useless, but it’s fairly easy to evade, I won’t lie. I don’t want them to work for me. Me and the cops, we’ve never exactly seen eye to eye.” She stopped though, all smiles, all teeth as she turned to look at him. “Oh, I think this ghost is far more than you can handle, Professor Drake.”

The change was practically instantaneous and Arthur truly wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. Didn’t Nadia understand that he was just trying to help her see that her best option of getting out of this was staying right where she was. But the words were spoken with such a degree of scorn and intensity that in all honesty, Nadia wasn’t capable of. Not the Nadia he knew. So why was she acting this way? Things were bad but there was always some modicum of hope no matter how dark it might seem. He blinked, mind processing the information and strange behaviour and by the time he realised she was already halfway to the door. He shifted in an instant, hand going for the nearest iron implement on the countertop - a cast iron skillet and he barely noticed the rising warmth in his hand, starting to heat the iron in his grasp “rich talk coming from someone that that clearly doesn’t understand the meaning of caring for another person’s life… Especially her life.” His eyes narrowed at the threatening demeanor she adopted, it was jarring, to see someone you cared a great deal about acting in a way that was so out of character. His fingers tightened on the skillet, half torn between seeing Nadia and having to remind himself that this was some interloper hijacking his friend’s body. He advanced slowly reeling through his options, he didn’t want to hurt her, hell he didn’t want to hurt anyone but if this was for the greater good of getting that spirit out of her… Sometimes you had to suck it up and make the hard choices. “You’re hardly the first ghost I’ve ever had to deal with…” he paused half a metre or so away, studying and assessing her expression hoping to see some kind of recognition. Where his uncertainty lingered before a low burning anger steadied his voice and his hand, half tensed and ready to swing if she made any move he didn’t like. “Is she in there?”

“Oh, you caught me on a bad day,” Nadia said pleasantly, looking at the iron skillet in Arthur’s hands and flexing her fingers, the lights flickering again. “Or maybe a good one. See, I’m feeling a little unhinged.” The temperature in the room, already cold, lowered further still. “This is my life, capisce?” She moved in closer, completely unafraid of this man. He wouldn’t hit her because he wouldn’t hit Nadia. For all his righteous fury, there was still a part of him that was apprehensive, thinking that the young woman that he cared about was still bouncing around inside her, trapped and only a moment away from getting out. She softened her expression, schooled it into something hurt and unsure, taking long blinks and shaking her head. “Arthur?” Her voice came out in a quiver. She was close to him now, and she stumbled towards him, but instead of waiting for him to catch her, she grabbed his hand, felt his fragile bones under her fingers, and twisted his arm. She felt it snap. God, these bird people really do have shitty hollowed bones, don’t they? “You’ve never dealt with someone like me, prof. I can assure you of that.” She grinned at him savagely. “No, she’s not fucking in here. You wanna know where she is? Dead.” She laughed. “Some dumbass children playing at exorcists kicked her right out of her own fucking body. It’smine now, and I’m gonna leave this town, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Bullshit,” Arthur retorted coldly as he advanced each step slow and calculated in its placement, an attempt to rotate and get himself between her and the door “you have no right to it. Get out, or I will make you.” Mercy wasn’t the only individual that lived under this roof capable of indecent acts. It had been a long time, several lifetimes in fact since a rage as frosty as this set in. It burned cold, under his control in the face of a friend turned foe. But she was also right, doubt lingered like a clinging thorn riding just beneath the flow of his anger.

Because Nadia was still in there. She had to be.

After all, that’s what ghosts did. They suppressed their hosts. Kept them hostage within their own body.

While he stood braced the logical part of his mind reminded him that this could all be an act, it was too fast, seemed too easy. But a moment’s hesitation was all it took. The opening presented itself and she seized it, yanking his arm with horrific force and the quiet kitchen echoed with the resounding snap of bone. An unforgettable, horrible sound accompanied by a cry of pain and debilitating wave of nausea. He stumbled, catching the counter and steadying himself, cradling his twisted arm close adrenaline pumping through his veins as he rounded on her. “That’s not how this goes,” he ground out flatly, she had the advantage of speed, but he had height and weight on his side. Anger fuelled his movement, hefting the skillet back and swinging hard until it connected with a sharp clang followed up by dropping his weight and charging her with the aim of slamming her back into the counter. If he had to incapacitate her at the risk of his own life then so be it. If it meant Nadia could get her life back, well, it was an easy trade to make.

Crying out as the metal connected with her cheek and caused more than just a physical pain to rip through her, Nadia felt something inside her surge, the light bulbs shattering around them. Her hand went up to touch where the skillet connected with her face, and she was completely caught off guard as the weight of him slammed into her. She kicked out against him. “Fuck you!” she snarled. “There’s no one to give the body back to. She’s dead. She’s dead. You make me leave, and this body becomes a corpse without a soul inside of it.” It didn’t matter, in the end, if Nadia Diaz was still hanging around or not. If Nadia left the body, it would die. Probably. She was sure somebody could put it on life support, but bodies didn’t last that long without a consciousness steering it around. Surely this fool knew that much.

“That’s exactly how this goes,” Nadia snarled. “I’m going to walk out of this house, and I’m going to walk out of this town, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do to stop me.” She looked over to the sink where it was next to her, reached over, and turned the water on. She splashed a bit of it on Arthur to get him off of her, a threat. She’d drown this fucker if she had to. She knew all about how little birds just hated getting wet. With a shove, she said, “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I only came to get some tears, huh?”

“You’re lying,” Arthur hissed as he slammed her into the countertop not caring about the glass that littered the surfaces or the painful throb of his arm. He had one good hand and it was already going for her throat. He had no intent to kill, even if he knew how this was way more important than that he just needed to incapacitate her long enough to try and figure out what the hell the next step was. How they were going to get Nadia back where she belonged. So a choke until she passed out was the most rational option right now. The one thing he couldn’t allow was for her to get out of here. If she did… He didn’t want to even entertain the notion.

His fingers clamped down, squeezing tight against the tension in her neck his teeth gritted as he fought to hold her still. “And even if you’re not, then we’ll just figure out how to get her back. Either way your time’s up.“ But it was easier said than done, and with an arm out of action he couldn’t pin her as effectively as he would’ve liked. The intent was broken momentarily as he felt the scalding pain across his face; the skin blistering red and raw in seconds where the water had come into skin-contact. It wasn’t much and so he battled through the pain, resisting the shove and grimacing as he shoved her back just as hard going once more for the throat. “Fuck you. You’ll get what you deserve… One way or the other… She’s coming back.”

“I’m not,” Nadia snarled, though her words were cut off effectively by the hand wrapped around her throat. The water in the sink splashed about and the electrical appliances started going haywire, and she looked at him with other contempt. Her eyes stung as tears started to stream down them, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Again, she stuck her hand in the water, spots dancing around her eyes as she brought her fist up and punched him hard in the nose. There was no holding back. She would kill him if it meant that she walked out of that door and into freedom. She jerked her knee up, and, with Arthur well and truly distracted, punched him again for good measure. Gasping, she brought a hand to her throat, wiped at her nose a bit. “You think you can do what an exorcist couldn’t? Face it, bird brain, you’re as useless as your hollowed bones in this kinda situation. Just accept defeat.” She shook the remaining drops of water collecting on her fingers onto him and headed for the door. “I’ve already gotten what I deserve, and it’s this.” She shrugged, gave Arthur a shiteating grin. “She’s not. And you’re useless to me. If I see you again, you’re gonna get to see your next life a lot quicker than expected, pal.” She flipped him the bird (enjoy the pun, asshole), and left, still rubbing her sore throat. That was gonna bruise, wasn’t it?

[penniesforthestorm]

“Never trust a man with three first names”: ‘Justified’ Season Two, Episode One

That’s right, I’m still doing these! Before we start, a few procedural notes-- the premiere and finale episodes will be given the typical essay-style treatment, the rest recapped 3 at a time, according to whatever I jot down while watching. This particular season has a relatively self-contained narrative, so if you were only going to watch one season of Justified, this might be the one to choose-- I like S1 a lot, obviously, but after the pilot, it takes a rocky road for a few episodes (though the final six are pretty uniformly riveting). My thoughts on S1 can be found by clicking through (pilot, Episodes 2-5, Episodes 6-9, Episodes 10-12, finale), or you can search the tag ‘#did you miss my heart on purpose’ on my blog. Read on for my thoughts on S2:E1: “The Moonshine War”.

This episode begins with a refresher, taking us back to the chaos of “Bulletville” (S1:E13)-- Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is taking shelter in a cabin somewhere in Harlan County, Kentucky, with his former coal-mining compatriot Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), and Boyd’s sister-in-law Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter), facing fire from two emissaries of the Miami drug cartel, Ernesto and Pilar, who want revenge on Raylan for killing one of their own. Raylan manages to give Ava and Boyd the chance to escape, and shoots Ernesto. Pilar flees, and Boyd offers to track her down, making another claim to the old friendship between himself and Raylan, who allows him a head start.

We pick up with Raylan’s boss, Deputy Chief Art Mullen (Nick Searcy), and his team in the woods, questioning Ava. He asks, “Where’s your boyfriend?”, referencing Raylan and Ava’s brief affair (which compromised the initial investigation into Boyd Crowder’s criminal activities), and Ava replies, “Which one?” I think, in the moment, this is just Ava being flip, but in light of later developments, it caught my attention. After that, Boyd and Raylan catch up to Pilar, and Raylan delivers her (quite literally) to the home of Miami cartel boss Gio. Raylan’s former boss, Deputy Chief Grant, arrives, and the business between them is concluded with a pointedly off-the-record conversation. Following that, Grant tells Raylan that he’s welcome to return to Miami-- in fact, that Art Mullen wants him gone. Raylan, typically, takes this with the utmost maturity and declares that he just wants to go home (i.e., his motel room in Lexington) and go to bed. This is one of numerous examples of my favorite bit of characterization: Raylan Gives is handsome, funny, good at his job, and generally a good guy to have in a crisis. He’s also kind of an asshole. There’s the hoary stereotype of “yeah, but he gets results!”-- the renegade cop who is nevertheless always right. Raylan Givens is a great illustration of what a pain in the ass someone like that is for his colleagues.

One of those colleagues, Deputy Rachel Brooks (Erica Tazel), asks for Raylan’s assistance tracking down a sex offender who’s been spotted in Harlan: Jimmy Earl Dean. On the way, Rachel confesses that, as an African-American woman, she feels uncomfortable around the local white population, and since Raylan is a native Harlanite, she thought having him along would smooth the way. Rachel, from what we’ve seen so far, is tough and competent-- she’s not asking for a babysitter, she’s just being cautious. She can’t afford to be as reckless and nonchalant as Raylan is, and I like that the show calls our attention to that. And, likewise, that Raylan helps out.

It turns out that Dean is currently in the employ of the Bennett family-- matriarch Mags (Margo Martindale), and her “tads” Doyle, Dickie, and Coover--who run what appears to be a sizable marijuana operation. Dean attempts to menace a young girl, Loretta McCready (Kaitlyn Dever), whose father Walt (Chris Mulkey) has been growing his own bud on Bennett land, but Loretta’s a tough customer, and she’s able to get away. At home, Walt tells her that he called the tipline set up to catch Dean. Loretta realizes that this was a mistake-- the Bennetts won’t appreciate outside attention being brought to their business-- and goes to apologize to Mags.

The Bennett family is about as colorful a batch of characters as we’ve seen on the show so far. Mags seems every inch the jolly Southern lady, and her concern for Loretta is genuine, but her frank conversation with Raylan, when he and Rachel arrive at her general store, establishes her as a shrewd operator. She might ply him with her famous “apple pie” moonshine*, and warmly boast of his high-school athletic prowess to a seemingly starstruck Loretta, but she knows what his presence means. Likewise Doyle, who we’ve just seen interrogating Walt at the McCready home-- Doyle jokes with Raylan and demurs that he’s ‘not involved with the family business’, but even if we hadn’t seen evidence to the contrary, we’d know from the way he and Raylan size each other up that something’s fishy.

Which brings us to Coover (Brad William Henke) and Dickie (Jeremy Davies). Coover doesn’t appear to have much going on upstairs, but his sheer size and dull aura of menace mark him instantly as trouble. Dickie, on the other hand, is scrawny and frail-seeming, with a bad limp and a soft voice, but he quickly takes control of the situation when Raylan and Rachel arrive for a chat. It’s heavily implied that he and Raylan share a history, and, retrospectively, knowing what that history is makes their first encounter even wilder to watch-- Davies’ line readings are so thrillingly weird, it’s no wonder both Raylan and Rachel seem unsure what to do.

Fortunately, their immediate problem proves easier to dispel: Dean kidnaps Loretta, but State Trooper Tom Bergen (in what I believe is his first major appearance) alerts Raylan, and they catch up to him at a gas station. Raylan, in an inspired bit of improv, squirts Dean with gasoline, and then warns him that if he fires his gun, he’ll explode. (I’m not sure this would work, but neither is Raylan, so I’ll accept it). Raylan gallantly rescues Loretta, and Dean is taken away in cuffs.

Unfortunately, Loretta’s prediction about Mags’ ire proves true: as punishment for trying to poach Mags’ business and for telling the authorities about Dean instead of going to Mags directly, Walt gets a glass of poisoned “apple pie”. This scene is haunting-- the fear and surprise on Walt’s face, the way Mags’ voice never rises above a gentle croon as she scolds him, the way Dickie holds Walt’s hand and strokes his head as the poison takes effect. In the first season, Justified’s setting seemed a little haphazardly chosen-- the action could have taken place in any number of out-of-the-way places. But this scene, and the episode around it, show us that this season will be taking full advantage of the Appalachia featured in Leonard’s novels and stories. (Despite being filmed in Southern California. No, this will not be the last time I complain about that.)

*I have two notes about the moonshine: 1) Rachel refusing a sample, while it makes sense for her by-the-book character, is, in my opinion, a grave mistake of politesse. 2) My great-uncle, who ran a small, but successful cattle ranch in north-central Montana for most of his life, was famous for giving away jars of something we all called “cherry-bounce”. I’m a little sorry I never had the chance to try any. (He did teach me how to dance the polka, though. He was a cool guy.)

[rowanfoster]

{ odeya rush ♔ twenty-three ♔ she/her } well, well, well if it isn’t rowan foster running around peach hollow. legend has it, she comes from tangerine towers and has lived here her entire life. if you’re wondering what she’s been up to, i hear she’s a make up artist / freelance musician for a living. she has been known to be impulsive yet insightful. a word of advice to her, always look over your shoulder. you never know who is watching.

why yes, it is i, admin kim, with another character that should’ve been kept in the drafts of my mind. if you’ve not met daysia or serenity, here’s a lil low down on me. i’m 26, i use she/her pronouns, and live on the east coast. i thrive on writing angst and my animal crossing villagers being happy. also caffeine. i luv chris klemens. most likely to have a mental breakdown on twitter. meet rowan! trigger warnings for mental illness, bipolar disorder specifically, and inpatient treatment

have a playlist and a pinterest board dedicated to her

rowan celeste foster was born may 27th, 1996. she’s the oldest of two, a baby sister coming to the scene in 1999.

her family is extremely close. they’ve been in peach hollow their whole lives. she grew up in a crowded house on blueberry boulevard, crammed in with her mother, father, sister, maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather. rowan never knew peace or privacy growing up – it just wasn’t possible with that many people which has really contributed to her somewhat isolated adulthood

her mother is a charge nurse at peach hollow general, working on the emergency room floor. her father is a retired car salesman. her grandparents moved into the house when her sister was born in order to help take care of the girls while their parents worked full time. rowan is especially grateful for their care, because she feels like she’d be a little more sour had she been raised by absent parents.

growing up, she shared a room with her younger sister. they told each other everything because they had no choice not to. they both developed an interest in make up and music at very young ages, but rowan particularly took to those things while maci took more interest in sports. when rowan was gifted her first ukulele at age 6, maci got her first basketball. they are polar opposites, but maci was the only person rowan really confided in as a child and an adolescent.

she’d always been rather moody. tantrums and fits were nearly unavoidable. her self esteem lacked before she even had a chance to develop any confidence. she was always the try hard, the girl who stood out because she was just a little different, the emotional one, the one the other kids didn’t want to mess with, not because she’d fight back, but because she would absolutely lose it. there were countless times where rowan ended up in the guidance counselor’s office, waiting on her grandmother to show up and bring her home. that was the beginning of their problems.

her mental health really started to decline in her mid teenage years. she spent hours upon hours in her room, writing songs, playing guitar, practicing make up looks – she’d go days without sleeping and snap at anyone who crossed her path. she got into screaming matches with everyone in the house, only to find herself crying in her bed for the next few days. she started missing days at a time from school, while her artistry thrive, the rest of her crumbled. her grades, all of it.

eventually, this resulted in her parents yanking her out of peach hollow high and putting her in counseling, which lead her to a psychiatrist and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at the age of 17. while it made sense, she dreaded taking the medications. they numbed everything. her writing suffered, and while her moods weren’t swinging from the trees anymore, she feared that this empty feeling was worse.

she finished her high school diploma in homeschooling with her grandmother while maci went on to thrive in school. the attention shifted to her, and rowan couldn’t really blame them. she turned 18 and started performing in clubs, bars, and anywhere she could get in. ps her voice is a mix of bishop briggs & mary lambert. the thrill of performing to small crowds sucked her in. she began to gain an even smaller following on social media, mainly the locals following her. every once in a while she’ll book a show in atlanta and she’ll make the long drive just to sing in front of a bit of a larger crowd. she’ll gain a few followers from those shows, but this still isn’t her main source of income.

most of her money comes from the make up artistry she does through pop of peach. she doesn’t go in every day, but when someone has an event scheduled or needs their make up done for a dance or something, she’s there. she tries to spread things out bc she’s always late lmao and finds it hard to stick to a schedule

she was doing so well for a few years, even moved out of her parents’ house and into an apartment at the towers. that’s where she really found herself, made some real friends and built relationships that were good for her. however, she missed a few doctor’s appointments and was discharged from her psychiatrist’s office. she went off meds, and for a few weeks it was fine. when she ran out of meds, the next few weeks were okay as well. it was when every single drop of medication had drained from her body that things got bad.

rowan was missing appointments she scheduled at pop of peach. she was spending far too much time out at nights, giving in to alcohol for the most part. she tried not to touch any drugs, but drinking became a nightly thing. she’d perform, then spend the rest of the night partying with whoever she could find at the venue.

one night in atlanta after a particularly shaky performance, rowan found herself in a dark place and simply went into the women’s bathroom to calm down, but police say they found her laying flat on the ground, refusing to respond to anyone. she vaguely remembers the end of the manic episode, but it did land her in the emergency room for a change in mental status.

much to her chagrin, they admitted her overnight before transporting her to skyland trail, a mental health facility in atlanta. she spend about two and a half months there getting medications regulated and learning new coping mechanisms. she was discharged about two weeks ago and finally made it back to peach hollow and her apartment.

she’d lead everyone other than her family and maybe one or two other people that she was away on a musician’s retreat, but really, was in inpatient treatment.

she’s currently working full time as a make up artist at pop of peach and performing when she can, but doesn’t really go outside of peach hollow

fun facts & personality

rowan despises small talk. conversations about the weather or political climate don’t stimulate her and she gets snarky pretty easily. it isn’t that she wants to come off rude or unapproachable, but nine times out of ten, small talk is fake and she feels as though she doesn’t have the time or energy to indulge in it. ask her about the sky or some shit. she won’t shut up

she has a tendency to overshare,  aside from what’s been going on in the past few months. her lips are sealed tight about that. however, she’s open to talking about her mental health and is a big advocate for erasing the stigma. this makes rowan a very good listener and a huge supportive presence for anyone struggling. she’s the mom friend, and no matter what time of day or night, if someone says they need an ear, she’ll go to them. she knows what it’s like to be alone.

despite her past and her demons, rowan finds a way to put on a smile. it might often be snarky or sarcastic, but rarely is it insincere. she’s an empath and feels everything so very deeply, but can easily put it away when necessarily.

her apartment is her safe haven. she rarely has company. it isn’t really her thing. she prefers to go to other people’s places. she has her record collection proudly displayed on her living room wall, all the plants you can imagine, incense burning whenever she’s home, and a scottish fold munchkin cat named loonette after her favorite childhood tv show, the big comfy couch. she has hopes to get another cat named molly to match. you know, because we’re all clowns !

she takes great pride in her instagram. it sounds superficial, but often times, rowan will post a good picture and then link to her next show in hopes that somebody will come based on that. while she does have a passion for make up and a second instagram for it, ultimately, she’d like for there to come a time where she can live solely on the money she makes through music

catch her driving her old ass ford focus blaring 00s alternative, mainly fuckin paramore bc she’s heart eyes for hayley williams

wanted connections if ya made it this far!!!!

childhood friends – those who she’s known since elementary school. they’ve most likely watched her go through her many trials and tribulations in class. these could be acquaintances, close friends, or even a ride or die or two.

bullies – people who fucked with her through school. it’s essential that they’re on bad terms currently, but perhaps an enemy turned friend or romantic could be fun??

group therapy pal – this would be super fun and might entail the person finding out about her secret…. msg me for deets

exes – there will be a couple of these, gender does not matter. i’d like to find one that she was dating when she went into treatment and maybe hasn’t seen/spoken to them since they’ve been back, first love, high school sweetheart?? omg possibilities are endless

flirtationship – self explanatory, gender doesn’t matter she’s pan

any other ideas literally lmk!! thanks for reading ♥

[indianroseeee-blog]

I could still feel the tears falling down my face as my rhuematologist told me that i have been diagnosed with Lupus. I blamed everyone. When I found out it can also be genetic. I dropped because my mother is also dealing with the same condition i had. I sometimes chose not to talk and hold so much anger inside when i was mostly needed to relax and not stressed. I felt that my life would be over with. I graduated in 2013 from L W Higgins High School and moved in my apartment the following year. 

Around this time i was also in school and working two jobs. My husband had a job also. Then one day i was working at Walmart as a cashier. I was scanning someones order and almost passed out. She asked me was i ok and i told her no i really didn't feel good. So i went home and laid in my bed feeling like i just ran 5 miles. Around this time my bipolar tendencies started to kick in because i was scared and paranoid. Every time i get sick i always go to talk like i am about to die. I realize there is much more i wanna live for. 

One day in the middle of the night, i woke my husband up from his sleep. i had so much excruciating pain that i could not hold myself up. He thought i was being over dramatic but i was being very honest. But , he still ended up bringing me to the hospital. There we set and waited for a hour in the waiting room at Oschner ER in Kenner,LA. The kept saying it was a urinary tract infection. so they prescribed me antibiotics that had sulfate in it. I took the pill and went to bed. I woke up again and begged my husband to bring me back to the ER because i was suffocating. I caught an allergic reaction and my glands and airway swelled. They gave me medicine and told me tried to get rid of it the natural way. I went to another emergency hospital called East Jefferson Hospital in Metairie, LA.. They were saying the same thing. That night i went home and begin to eat and it would run straight through me. Like literally sometimes i couldn't even make it to the bathroom. Or sometimes when i feel the urge to pee, my body starts to make me pee. I had no control over my body what so ever. 

I was taking a bath in all hot water and it wasn't burning me, but it was hurting my husband to help bathe me. For the next few days i would sleep all day. I couldnt eat because i couldn't hold anything down. i would have really bad sweat episodes to where my body sweat imprint would be soaked within  the bed. Then i couldn't breathe laying down, so i sat up to go to sleep. Around 12:30 at night i squealed my husbands name and he didn't here me and i said it one more time and woke up. I told him that i couldn't breathe and he carried me from our upstairs apartment to the car. He was so worried he kept telling me to respond to him. I began to go in and out of consciousness. By this time, My whole face swelled to where i couldn't see anything. By the now the nurses know me by heart.

i was rushed to the back. My BP (blood pressure) was 98/52. which is not good. The ER doctor called the admitting doctor because he told me he didn't know what was going on and i have been coming back and forth here between the last two weeks. They admitted me and it took them almost two months of me being in the hospital, that it was my kidneys. My kidneys were failing. So at first they had me on 60 MG Prednisone & Imuran & plaquinil. Then they switched me to cellcept. My body started to regulate again. By this time i lost everyone because of me not being able to work because of how sick i was.I couldn't even finish school semester all because i was in the hospital. I felt like there was nothing left. I felt as if now i became a burden on others and i never wanted someone to feel like they were obligated to take care of me. 

When my husband watch the lady trying to put and IV in my vein, he broke down. The nurse told me that she was gonna stick me and i didn't move or respond. She ask me did i feel anything and i said no. My body was not respond to pain or touch. 

i ended up in that hospital unable to move. 

Then came my second kidney failure which was completely different from the first one. In feb of 2016 i was in an accident where the lady hit me head on.I was vomiting up blood, blood clots eroded from my skin, alopecia, Skin rash over entire body, Peeling like a new born baby. My skin would heal, peel, bleed, infect, heal, and repeat again. This took about a year. Around this time i had gained 60 pounds i would say or more in retention fluid.i would have the worse muscle spasms. When i went to the ER i kept getting pumped with narcotics until they figured out the problem.  

Sometimes it would be so bad that it started to affect my work, i would always be late to class because the fluid was taking over my body.it was painful to walk, because the fluid is applying pressure. i would vomit blood. i was going to the ER every two days. It was horrible. i retained so much fluid that it affected my sex life and brought my body through changes. My vagina had completely swelled and it burned to pee a little, i didn't know what to do. My skin cam completely sunburned on my vagina it looked like. It was swollen so bad that my husband could not have sex with me cause i was so swollen. He did and he takes great care of me. When my vagina swelled it got worser. I started to feel like i had a booty in the front and back.When i slept i had to lay a towel down because the fluid started seeping through my skin. My mother would just sit that and run her fingers through my hair and cried. It was my kidneys again. i started a chemo infusion called Rutuxinmab. Dr. Stephen Morse (Nephrologist) of LSU family practice & Louis Espinoza (Rhuematologist) of LSU family practice saved my life.

my skin would dry out even with lotioning my body. i would have to lotion my body two times to three times a day. Then it had to be non scented lotion. Like Cetaphil. i bath in every that didn't have a fragrance and  will post more blogs about that to come. I would only take lukewarm bathes and i would wash myself twice. When having a open sore , always keep it wrapped. Around this time i had to quit working and i could not even go to school. Each time they made me payback to school. I would bring medical records and all of what happened. I even provided pictures. It was weird cause they granted a refund to her when her grandmother passed. I felt sad because what was happening was something i couldn't control. Then i moved to Dallas,TX and I was in the hospital at first for two weeks cause i had a flare up and i told them i had lupus but thats all they know. They really didn't take the trusting their patients seriously. They asked me what was my old hospital information and i told them but the hospital i was at did not but only mailed. So i waited about two weeks but in the meantime i told them to do a kidney biopsy. This would have been my second one. 

Ladies and gentlemen , this procedure can be done while woke. But after the procedure you can not leave the bed for 6 hours, so i slept. They told me to take it easy and i didn't understand really because my first kidney biopsy i was up and about right after i left. But this one was different my back was in so much pain i was knocking myself out. A Few weeks later they got my info. They wanted to contact me but when they found me in the ER they were ready to talk to me. They told be it was Stage 5, but it was only 20% damaged and 80% percent good. We think we can make this go into remission. They also asked me why am i vomiting blood and i told him i didn't know it must have been my gastritis. so they did ANOTHER endoscopy . Its when they inserted a tube down your through to your abdomen to see if they say abnormalities. This procedure ofcourse you was kicked out. But this was worst. When i woke up i my lip was in so much pain. Y'all i bit my lip. I mean it look like someone knocked my ass out. I was like what happened? and they told me that  happened sometimes during the procedure and i said oh never with the first one i didn't though. Then y'all guess what, i said why am i so wet? They told me sometimes the patients pee a little during the procedure. 

Well guess what it wasnt not piss , it was shit , LMAO!! yo , i told the lady , “ y'all know y'all offed up, y'all could at least told me i shitted on myself, can i get stuff to wash my shitty ass ,LMAO i was so embarrassed. I was like why lord. But overall i haven't been in the hospital but I'm not into full remission yet. and my doctors know what i want my future plan to be and I'm fine with that. So now we are currently working on getting me off these meds. :) 

[wordsaremyenemy]

Hubcaps & Ashtrays [Loki X Reader] Part 1

Pairing: Loki x Reader Prompt: “The thing is, I wasn’t pretending." Word count: 2,300+ Summary: (Fake Boyfriend AU) You’re a school teacher, eighth grade ELA in fact. School isn’t even in session yet and you already want to rip your hair out. Good news, it’s right before Labor Day and there’s a four day weekend before school starts. Which means plenty of time to finish that pain-in-the-ass lesson plan that’s being avoided. Bad news, your family’s annual reunion is this weekend. Opting out really isn’t an option. Aunt Dot is turning 89 this year and even though it’s not 90 it’s still a big deal.

There’s no time to vet a decent guy before bringing him home, so looks like you’re going stag. Again. Which means Mom and all of your aunts are going to make damn sure that your love life is going to be center stage all weekend. Although, a night with friends might have the answer to all your problems in the form of Hallmark movies. A/N: Okay... so.... this is my entry to @justsomebucky‘s (to whom I apologize for taking so long, please don’t eat me) writing challenge from like months ago. Retail + Holiday season = no free time for little old me. Honestly it still isn’t finished, but I’m trying to get my ass in gear and do shit. I honestly shouldn’t even be doing this. I have laundry. And Christmas presents still to make. I have three done out of like twelve. (I’m crocheting and making dreamcatchers. I’m a mess right now.)

I have to give fair warning. This was the shameless self-insert I've been dreaming of. I still don’t think I’ve done it justice though. And though I kept the descriptions of the main character fairly... vague, or at least tried to. The readers aesthetic is very much what I consider my own to be. Meaning "Basic White Female Hipster" meets "Emo Punk Rock Queen." And honestly there's not enough love for punk. The title comes from Sleeping With Sirens’ “The Strays.”

Big thanks to the most amazing woman in the world, who’s read this more times than I have at this point, and very kindly beta-d this for me. I love you, babygirl. Thanks for calling me out on all my shit always.  Warnings: Mostly swearing

It all started Monday. You were running late, spilled coffee down the front of your brand-new cardigan, and remembered that you forgot to put deodorant on as you ran out of your Brooklyn apartment, nearly running over your neighbor-slash-best-guy-friend, Bucky. You end up fifteen minutes late to the very first staff meeting of the school year because you’d forgotten which way the conference room was. (It’s in a very peculiar place, okay? You would think it’s by the front office. It’s not. For some reason, it’s on the third floor right next to third-floor teachers' lounge.) At least you got to spend the rest of the day prepping your classroom.

Tuesday wasn’t much better. No big staff meeting, but you did have to meet with the two other eighth grade ELA teachers who were the co-chairs of the English department of the entire school. That was a trip and not in a good way. You’ve been teaching for four-going-on-five years. You knew what you were doing. Mostly. You liked to wing it the first week, get a feel for your students before you set down a structured lesson plan. Not that anyone really did anything that first week anyway.

Apparently, that wasn’t going to fly this year because Mrs. High-and-Mighty Jacobson and Miss I’m-so-much-better-than-you Atterbury insisted that everyone turn in their lesson plans for the first week by Monday. Great.

Wednesday started a little bit better. You remembered deodorant (you did on Tuesday, too; it’s the little victories). You didn’t spill coffee or run down Bucky. You actually had enough time to exchange pleasantries and be reminded to go over for your weekly movie night. There wasn’t a meeting, so it was pure setting up your classroom for the four classes you were teaching this semester. Of course, you agonized over that lesson plan but it was for the first week and you did just find out yesterday and surely it could wait until tomorrow, right?

Around lunch it gets hazy. Your mom texts you and reminds you of the upcoming plans you couldn’t escape that weekend.

It could be Aunt Dot’s last reunion, honey. You wouldn’t want to upset her, would you?

I told you last week, Ma, you text. I’m going.

You should bring that boy you’re always talking about. What’s his name?

You roll your eyes. Dirk. And we broke up months ago. I told you.

The next message comes a few minutes later. You pointedly ignore it and get back to your task at hand. Ironically, it’s also ignoring that lesson plan. Hopefully, there was going to be enough sangria at this weekend-long party to blur out the twenty questions that came with being single in your family.

You’re in the middle of packing for the weekend, jamming to whatever playlist you were last listening to on Spotify. It’s more on the punk side of your music taste than the pop side. There’s a knock at the door, causing you to jump.

“Y/N! Y/N, open up!” Bucky shouts from the other side of the door.

You pad barefoot to the door, clad in blue, fuzzy, penguin pajama pants and an old NYU tee that you definitely did not steal from Bucky a few heartbreaks ago.

“What?” you snap, opening the door in the middle of Buck’s persistent knocking. You’re surprised to find not only Bucky standing in the hall but Steve and Wanda too. Across the hall, Sam and Nat are standing in the doorway to Bucky’s apartment with their arms crossed. “Wait, shit. Is it that time already?”

Wanda grabs you by the arm with a playful smile and roll of the eyes, pulling you across the hall.

“No Vis tonight?” you ask, collapsing face first on the couch. Nat follows and flops down sideways in the armchair. You turn your head to watch Wanda as she answers.

“Vis is still away on business,” she explains with wistful eyes and a shake of her head. She was always like that when Vis was off somewhere that wasn’t wrapped around her.

“At least you have an excuse. I’m walking into this stupid reunion completely single. Again. And my mother is already on my case.”

Sam snorts, perched on the back of the couch by your feet. “Somebody needs a beer.”

“More like an entire bottle of wine,” Nat teases.

Bucky sighs from the kitchen, where he’s the sole person making pizza. “None of you are in here helping me make this pizza so I don’t want to hear anything from any of you if you don’t get something you like.”

That gets everyone up and around the island.

An hour later, everyone’s content and full of pizza. Even Steve, who always seems to be eating, has pushed his paper plate to the other side of the coffee table. Everyone’s gotten into their prime movie watching positions.

Nat is sitting sideways in the reclined armchair, bowl of popcorn sitting where her feet should go. Wanda’s on her stomach on the floor in front of her. Sam’s sitting on the end of the couch closest to them. Bucky’s on the chaise side of the couch; a picturesque view of relaxation. You’re in-between them, your head on Bucky’s lap, feet under Sam’s leg. Steve’s on the floor, between the couch and coffee table, leaning into the junction where your seat met Bucky’s.

They’re thirty minutes into the sixth episode of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot, adding their own commentary to that of Jonah and his robot friends.

“So, whatever happened to that guy you went out with? The one that took you on a date to the opera?” Sam asks. "Why don't you just ask him to be your date? People do it all the time for weddings."

You make a face that doesn’t last long because Bucky’s doing that thing where he plays with your hair and make you fell all warm and cozy inside.

“Wasn’t her type,” he replies for you. He’d heard all about the disaster that was that date. Just like he’d heard all about the ones before it, too. From the day you moved in across the hall, you and Bucky had been inseparable. He was your best friend. Hardly a day went by that two of you didn't share your daily torments with each other.

It was actually Natasha you’ve known the longest. She’d been your roommate when you first started at NYU. It was rough at first. You were the furthest from a city girl, having grown up in farming community, but it was under Nat’s wing that you grew to love the city.

You’d met Steve shortly after, literally running into him one day as he was on his way to class. Turned out he was in one of your Education classes. You’d just never paid attention.

Funnily enough, Steve really made your connection to everyone else in the room. It was Steve who found you the job at the school he was teaching at. He’d graduated the year before, miraculously found a job, and was already the students’ favorite art teacher.

It was through Steve that you met everyone else, but it was fate that you met Bucky. You'd been looking for a place of your own and he'd happened to know one with affordable rent that wasn't far from work at all. The rest was history.

So, Bucky had heard all about the failed blind date with Loki Laufeyson.

You'd been set up by Nat. After getting tired of hearing about your lack of love life after you'd ended the only serious relationship you'd had since moving to New York, she'd taken it upon herself to set you up with the occasional guy to get you to stop bellyaching. There'd been decent guys. Each one was better that the last, like Natasha was getting better about picking out these guys.

Loki had seemed like exactly your type. Tall, dark-haired, and handsome. Proclivity for the color black.

And, okay, to say it failed...is a little harsh.

It was actually a little bit cool. You dressed up in your best date dress and did your hair nice. Went above and beyond on your makeup. He was actually early picking you up at the agreed upon place. (There was no way you were giving him your address.) He was a gentleman and opened doors, pulled out your seat at dinner.

There was just something about him. The first thing you noticed was his accent. (He was British, which gave you shivers.)

The second was that he was more slick-looking than the guys you usually fall for. More eloquent, too.

Honestly, it wasn't his fault that your heart refused to fully give up your teenage crushes on the likes of Andy Biersack (Mostly now -- Juliet Simms was a lucky woman) or Ronnie Radke (more circa "Situations" from his Escape the Fate days, or maybe even early Falling in Reverse -- though you had to admit, Coming Home was a bomb ass album.)

You just liked musicians. It's a thing. Everyone you've ever seriously dated was in some kind of band.

Loki was hot and he had the looks...but the aesthetic just wasn't there.

Back to the really cool part. The opera.

You legitimately had never been to an opera before. So, you hadn't known what to expect. What you got, however, was a heart wrenching tale in sung Italian. You didn't have to understand what they were saying to understand what was going on. But the story had been amazing. So much better than anything you could've read out of a book.

But there was just no chemistry between the two of you.

Which you'd told Bucky.

What you hadn't told him was there was a second date too.

That one was a little bit better. Loki seemed more relaxed than the time before. Just a button down and slacks compared to the full-on suit and tie this time. You'd gone with a skater dress and Vans instead of the heels from the last time too.

It was just a dinner this time. Not as fancy as the last place, but still expensive. You actually struck up a decent conversation. It was mostly about how you'd both been forced to go on awful date after awful date by friends (or family, in his case). He didn't like disappointing his mother.

By the end of the date, you were sure there wasn't going to be a third. It seemed as though you were wrong originally. Loki looked the part, but in reality, he seemed to be like everyone else before him. There was just something missing.

You're brought out of your head by Nat's annoyed voice.

"I really thought he'd work out too. Have to admit, even I didn't see the opera thing."

"What about Bucky?" Wanda asks. There's a knowing grin on her face like she knows something you don't.

You look up at your best friend to find him smiling like he's holding back laughter.

"Yeah, what about Buck, Y/N? You guys have always been really close," Steve adds.

This time, you do laugh with Bucky joining in. "Do you want to tell them or should I?"

"You can," he says sobering up.

"We've tried that," you explain. "Very early on. Before I even met Dirk. It was actually really fun. We went to a Panic! concert. It was great. We even kissed. But guys, we're just friends."

"What do you mean you kissed?" Natasha hisses.

And that's when everyone's attention turns from the movie to you and every minute detail about your date with Bucky.

It's only a couple hours later that you're standing in the kitchen washing dishes as Bucky picks up the living room. Everyone's gone home for the night.

"You could always hire someone," Buck suggests, as he sets a couple of glasses beside you to be washed.

"Do I look like Deborah Messing? This isn't one of your rom-coms, Buck. Stuff like that doesn't really happen in real life."

He laughs. "Come on, Y/N. You know I'm only joking."

"Face it. There's no way for me to find a date for the weekend. Not this late anyway. Besides, I'd rather not be that person that brings a different date to every family function."

"Why is this such a huge deal anyway?" Bucky wonders.

You stay quiet for a second, wondering that yourself. It wasn't that you weren't happy with your life. Honestly, you didn't think you cared that much about your relationship status. But then again...

"I'm almost thirty," you point out as you rinse the pizza pan in your hands. You can feel his eyes on you, like he's about to ask you how your age has any relevance to the conversation at hand. "I know, I know. But it's different for guys. Women have a prime window for creating a family. And I know I don't have to, that women shouldn't be expected to have children -- yada yada. I'm about all that. But I want to. I had a plan. And it sort of fell apart, I guess. And my mom is on me all the time now. And maybe I'm not really all that happy with where I'm at anyway."

You wash and rinse the two cups and you're done, draining the water and drying your hands off on a dish towel draped over the oven handle.

Bucky gives you a gentle smile and pulls you into a warm hug and kisses your temple. "Hey. It's no time to give up. You might not find a date for this weekend, but that doesn't mean you won't find a date for the rest of your life, Doll."

You lean into him and breathe deep. Sometimes it sucked that you and Bucky weren't meant to be.

[formerprincess]

What’s always without you?

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Pairing: LiamxTheo

Summary: This came to my mind the minute I watched the finale episode. Theo left after the fight in the hospital, claiming to sort some things out for himself. He promised Liam to come back...

“You have absolutely no idea where he is?”

Liam stopped wrapping his lacrosse stick with some tape and looked up, shooting a glare at Corey and Nolan. “Did I stutter?” He asked, brows furrowing in annoyance. “I, Liam Dunbar, have absolutely no idea where Theodore Raeken is at this very moment.” He said solemnly, even going as far to raise one hand in mock pledge. 

“But....” Corey started again and Liam rolled his eyes.  “Okay, stop right there before I start snapping. Theo is out of town, he needed to sort some things out for himself. After the hospital...” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “After what happened at the hospital, after we won and all the adrenaline was out of his system, he realized what happened, okay? So he told me he had to take his time and process it. Alone. On his own.”

Liam remembered the talk when Theo showed up at his house in the early morning hours. He had seen a shocked eighteen-year-old boy, visibly shaken up by the events, had seen the impact his ability to take Gabe’s pain had left on Theo and Liam had felt sorry. Theo was completely overwhelmed, they all were, but Theo was suddenly faced with the possibility of him being redeemed. He had told Liam the knowledge of him caring enough to take pain was just so new and overbearing, he almost felt as if was rushing over him and he couldn’t think straight. Since Liam freed him, Theo had worked on redeeming himself and now that he had managed to do just that, the chimera had no idea what was in for him now. What was about to come, what he wanted, what he wanted to achieve. 

That’s why he left town. To clear his head without being constantly surrounded by memories. Liam could understand that. It’s what he told Theo, trying very hard to be brave and supportive of his friend. Because Theo was just that, okay? His friend. They went through all this and the older risked his ass for Liam several times, it was safe to say they were past the alley stage and right in the middle of friendship. Liam liked having Theo around and the other leaving had been hard for him but he tried to disguise it. Theo had noticed anyway, of course he did, and his reaction had been equally surprising as it had been welcome: He had pulled Liam in a hug. Theo Raken had pulled him, Liam Dunbar, in a hug, a very tight hug to say the least, and Liam had clung to him too. “Hey, I’m not leaving forever. I will be coming back, I promise.” Theo had muttered and Liam swallowed before he nodded. “I knew.” He had uttered back and squeezed Theo one last time before they parted, the older boy got in his truck, and drove away.

“He will return one day, he promised.” Liam now repeated for what felt the millionth time. He really didn’t get why Corey and Nolan were on his case about that so much. “You miss him, don’t you?” Nolan asked, squeezing Liam’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Well, of course, I do. He’s my friend.” And yeah he had thought Theo would at least message him every once in a while to let Liam know he was still alive. But since Theo left three months ago, radio silence. Okay, Liam could work with that. 

He wouldn’t text Theo and make it seem like he was a worried mother hen. Theo was old enough and strong enough to look out for himself. No matter if Monroe and her army were still out there, Theo was smart and cunning. Liam wouldn’t think about all the negative things that could have happened and he sure as hell wouldn’t think about Theo enjoying his life somewhere else because that would only make him feel something he forbade himself from exploring any further. This undefined feeling was enough to make him feel strange, no need to explore this any further. 

Scrambling to his feet Liam stuffed his things in his locker and changed into his street clothes. “Uhm, yeah, do you guys want to hang out at the Diner? I’m craving a good bacon burger if I’m being honest.” Everything as long as he didn’t have to dwell on the feeling images of Theo being happy somewhere else with someone else. 

Nolan and Corey obviously decided they would let it slide for now because they also gathered their things and together the three friends left the locker room and shortly after the school. “Mason’s still with Deaton and learning all about the supernatural?” Nolan asked Corey who nodded.  “I’m sure he will join us for burgers though. Who says no to that?” He laughed and Liam had to agree. The burgers in the Diner not far from school were too delicious to stay away.” “We should go there more o....” He wanted to suggest but something in front of him made him cut himself off abruptly. 

Because there, just a few feet away from them, stood Theo Raeken. Hair a bit longer than last time Liam saw him but just as perfectly styled as always and looking as neat as he always did (even when he had been homeless), stood the one person Liam had missed more than anybody else. And that said something, giving most of his friends were at college or out of town. But Theo, Theo had left a special empty spot in Liam’s life and his heart too. 

And all of sudden he was back again, smiling softly at Liam. 

“Hey.” Theo greeted and that voice made Liam drop his bag. He was here, Theo was really here. He was back, just like he had promised Liam months ago. Liam felt a big smile spread over his whole face and he moved towards Theo, telling himself to keep his dignity and not jump his returned friend.

***

“He jumped him.”, Nolan said later. “Talking full on running towards him, lunching at Theo and hugging him tightly here.” “And Theo didn’t drop him. He staggered a few steps back but he didn’t drop Liam.” Corey chimed in and Liam blushed, much to the chagrin of his friend’s. Mason chuckled at his best friend reaction. “I didn’t jump him!” Liam tried to defend himself. “You had your legs wrapped around him! Liam, you basically turned into a koala right then and there.” Nolan laughed. “But Corey has a point too, Theo never stopped holding you. Nope, he hugged back actually.” “Really?” Mason asked gleefully and Liam groaned, resting his forehead against the table. 

He had really tried to keep his calm but having Theo stand there, smile at him and having him talk to Liam made Liam realized how badly he actually missed the older boy. So he had started running and yes, unfortunately, jumped Theo. He could still hear the chimera’s surprised laugh in his ear but then Theo had wrapped his arms around Liam and kept him from falling flat on his ass. It had given Liam a strange sense of protection, the one he always felt around Theo. Theo would never let him get hurt, one way or another.

Feeling somebody slide next to him in the booth as well as the delicious smell of onion rings made Liam’s head snap up again. Theo had settled on the table as well, bringing a plate full of onion rings with him,

“You hate those!” Liam exclaimed and Theo shrugged, snatching a few fries from Liam’s plate. 

“And you love them. Figured you would like it.” He made a hand motion towards the plate, offering some to Nolan, Mason, and Corey too. His arm slung over the backrest of the booth and Liam caught himself asking if the way Theo’s hand stroke over his back while doing so was just an accident of desired. He blushed against and snatched two onion rings which he quickly devoured. They were the best in town.

“How have you been?” Corey now asked Theo and Theo shrugged. “I’ve been driving around, visited a few towns and cleared my head. Was a lot to take in.” “Did you manage to sort your thoughts?” Mason asked. Theo nodded. “Yeah, mostly. I know what I want to do now, what I want to have and achieve.”  “That’s great.” Mason smiled at the oldest of the group and Theo nodded his head with a small smile. “It is.”

Liam meanwhile acted like nothing was off but he felt the way Theo’s thumb stroke forms on his back while he talked. It was a casual move but it made something in Liam stir again. Was Theo doing this on purpose or was he just too focused on the talk to notice?

“What were you talking about?” Theo asked curiously and Liam groaned once more when Mason, Corey, and Nolan turned towards him with shit-eating grins on their faces.  “About the way Liam suddenly turned into a koala instead a werewolf and clung to you.” Corey snickered and really, Liam loved his friends, but right now he wanted to strangle them! “And how you didn’t drop him. Something we actually expected.” Theo chuckled. “I saved Liam’s ass so many times, I’m used to sudden actions from him. This wasn’t as surprising as you would like to think.”  Liam had to bite back as gasp because now he felt Theo’s whole hand slowly stroking over his back, softly stroking his skin through the fabric of his shirt, and had the chimera’s hand always been this hot? Liam felt like it was burning a hole in his clothing. And it was definitively not an accident that Theo was stroking his back, that was for sure!

“You’re an idiot!” He choked out and grabbed his coke to take a large gulp. That way he didn’t need to talk or look at Theo. And it hopefully cooled him down enough so he wasn’t as blushing as much as he felt himself doing. His cheeks were literally burning. 

***

“I missed you, you know?” Liam said when they were driving home. Theo chuckled softly and stopped his car in the driveway of the Dunbar-Geyer house.

“Your greeting gave that away, believe me.” 

Liam sighed and rolled his eyes. “And I’m outta here.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and the opened the passenger door. “Welcome home, Theo.” He said with one last look at his friend, offering a soft smile. Theo returned the smile with one of his own and Liam left the car, slamming the door shut. One last wave to Theo and he made his way to the front door but on his way his steps haltered, thoughts running around like crazy in his head.

He was so happy Theo was back, back where he belonged. Beacon Hills. Liam. Liam didn’t know when he had started to see it that way but now it was crystal clear to him: Theo belonged with him and he didn't want him to leave ever again. Not without Liam at least. His longing for the older had gotten stronger with every day Theo had not been there and suddenly Liam found it impossible to ignore the undefined feeling in his stomach any longer. Not when every touch from Theo felt like fire.

Spinning around he was chasing after the car, good thing Theo was just slowly pulling out of the driveway. When he saw Liam running towards him, he stopped altogether, winding down his window. “Liam? What’s wrong?”

“I forget something!” Liam called out and Theo frowned.

“What did you forget? Your bag is right on your shoulder.” 

But Liam didn’t waste any more time with long explanations, instead, he opened the door to the driver seat, grabbed Theo by the collar of his shirt, and yanked him into a kiss. His heart was running a mile per minute, thundering against his ribcage, and when Theo didn’t respond he was about to pull away and start apologizing; but suddenly there was a hand on his cheek and Theo moved his lips, kissing back with equal fervor. 

How long they stood there and kissed, Liam didn’t know, all sense of time completely forgotten, but when they eventually did, Liam leaned his forehead against Theo’s. “I can't let you go ever again. At first, I just missed you as a friend but then I realized...I realized there is something else you suddenly you’re back and you’re holding me and you’re making me feel safe and the feeling I have intensified and your hand feel like fire and please, tell me it makes sense what I’m babbling!”

Theo laughed softly. “I get what you’re trying to say. And before you even ask, I felt something similar.” He looked down and laced their fingers together. “While I was away I tried to sort some things out and after a while, it always came back to you. You were the one pulling me back, you were there, it was always you. I said I wouldn’t die for you but that’s a lie. If it means keeping you safe and sound, I would basically do anything.”

“Don’t say that! Because if you die then....then we can’t kiss again. Oh god, if you want to kiss again I mean. Didn’t want to assume. You have....” Theo cut him off with another kiss, softer this time and Liam felt himself smile into the kiss.

“Breathe, Liam. I would love to continue kissing you. As often as you want. I like kissing you. Just as much as I like you” He smiled softly and Liam found himself thinking how much he loved this look on Theo’s face.

“I like it too. And you. Can we figure this out, like together? And now just as friends?”

Theo nodded and squeezed Liam’s hand. “Together sounds great to me.”

Liam kissed him once more and then cleared his throat. “Well, you're back but I don’t think you already got yourself a place yet? We have a guest room and in case you don’t like it, my bed is big enough for two.” He invited Theo with a smirk. The chimera’s eyes widened slightly but then he grinned and was faster out of the car as one would think, one arm slung around Liam’s shoulders while they walked towards the front door.

[kellendriaaa]

Fate and choices

Chapter 1

Cast: Jack Kline; Rose Ceallaigh (Main OFC); Sam Winchester; Castiel; Dean Winchester; Gabriel; Lucifer; Tara Zendey (OFC); Clark Barker; Victoria Wellagan (OFC); Dolby Murray (OMC); Mitchell Inkle (OMC); Loris Lichens (OMC)

  Pairings: Jack Kline/Rose Ceallaigh; Castiel/ Dean Winchester; Gabriel/Sam Winchester; Lucifer/Sam Winchester; Clark Barker/Tara Zendey and others... 

  Summary: Rose Ceallaigh, a student and part time waitress found an innocent boy, not that innocent in front of her building. Knowing that he ran away from his family not to escape them but to protect, Rose try to help him discovering a world she did not know who was right in front of her eyes.

He know basically nothing about the world, so Jack will learn what is love, burn, passion, joy and being hurt. He will learn how to be human, how to feel every emotions.

While Dean, Sam and Castiel are still trying to find him and finding that girl who is immune to supernatural powers when dealing with their own preoccupation.

Okay I sucks at summary too. I'm sorry please give it a try 

Notes: I don't own Spn neither their amazing characters only mine so all the OFC and OMC. English is definitely not my first language (I'm french) so sorry for my many mistakes.

It's really slow, and basically nothing happens, I'm placing the characters and the context of their lives but I always put hints into my chapter. Sooo enjoy ! ^^

The music was ringing in the dinner. Heat of the moment by Asia was making her move her head while reading her document on the global warming; it is not that she did not like it. C’mon, she definitely love studying and learning about the environment and water and all of that but making a whole project about it seems heavy and way too much in her mind.

Except, that asshole naming Brennan, Mr. Brennan, do not even wait for her to come in the class to choose what she had to do.

Well, not exactly. Yes, global warming was the last subject but there was another one.

Fate and choices.

C’mon, how the hell were we supposed to do something with that. She was not really a fatalist (sometimes she was, after watching sappy movies. And knowing she will passed another valentine’s day watching other sappy movies) but apart from that she was believer and did not think everybody deserves hell.

  …

  Okay reading fanfiction on the net was enough for everybody to go straight to hell but at least she knew and was ready to run to hell with her fanfiction friends. However, all these peoples with a rough life do not necessarily deserves this. After her class discuss the subject of “Fate and choices” she was pretty sure, her classmates were demons or at least some dark creatures even if she do not believe in that.

  So is she really a believer? That is a good subject! Better than all of them actually.

  “Rose!” her boss shout, “less brooding and more working lil’ girl.”

“’m coming” she answer tying the knot of her apron correctly.

  She was working as a waitress in the diner when school was over or before. For now 2 years and she freaking like it, everything was cool and people were kind (not always but most of them!) so was her boss. Mitch Inkle, soon to be, 60 years (they were preparing a little something for the event) and four marriage in the counter, well four-failed marriage so four divorce. He was immune to marriage now.

  “Why don’t you shout Vic name when she’s obviously sleeping in some corner of the house huh?” she complained while dressing the table, “’m pretty sure she’s your fave here.”

“Yeah maybe, she gives me chocolate cake every day not like you and the rest of this damn house.” He shout the rest of the sentence so everybody hear him, then everybody laughed.

“We, on the contrary, care about your health old man so don’t complain,” says Loris, another waiter.

“Yo Loris,” start Vic finally out of her beauty sleep, “can we talk about all the cigs you smoking? We should have another big conversation about how your ass will burn with these things.”

“My ass will be cooked perfectly just waiting to be eat hon’,” he says laughing.

  This was her day, joking around before the opening. Her coworkers became her family.

  Today was a chill day, clients were calm and all, no problem happen.

Yet.

Nothing happen before these guys came into the diner. ‘They look freaking weird’ she said to herself. They were four, a guy with a trench coat (like who still wear that?) giving his soul with his eyes to the guy who look a squirrel. Actually, they were giving each other heart eyes but seems deep in Narnia. Then there was the giant one and goddamn it he was tall as hell. Probably Eiffel tower height.

How did he even walk correctly and the hair! Is he doing an ad for L’Oréal or what? Well, the giant one was in front of a young guy, looking like the trench coat guy. Seems lost, like a kid.

  Did they kidnap him?

  “Rose! I’m tired of screaming your name all the time,” Mitch, who was right next to her scream laughing, “go ask these guys what they want lil’ girl.”

“I’LL GO!” she screamed in his ears going to the weird team. “Hey guys! What can I get you?”

“What is the most delicious and greasy thing you have?” The squirrel asked. She laughed while the giant one just rolls his eyes.

“The Mr. and Mrs. Is the biggest and greasy thing I eat here and it makes regret it the day after. But hell it was all worth it.”

“Yep,” said Vic staying next to me, the smile on her face becoming bigger showing all her teeth and she got so many teeth. “Big, delicious and mouth orgasming. You’ll feel it all over your body, trust me I know.”

  Was she flirting with the squirrel? He is way too in love wi-

  “Well, I’ll take it then,” he says winking at her with a smirk.

  Not so in love I think. Or just too much in the closet. That done, she wrote down his command and went for the others while Vic went to tell Dolby, the cook, what she needed.

  “Soooo, what about the others?”

“Egg and bacon,” said the giant one, “with water.”

“Nothing for me.” The trench coat.

  The last one seems to search very deeply, what he wanted to choose. Rose feet were hurting her in these damn shoes. Too small for her feet but what can she say when it was calling for her, screaming her name for her to come and buy them.

But right now, she regretted it more than anything, how something so pure and beautiful could be so evil. The fact that the young one seems to be searching excessively long did not help at all, even if he was cute when he was concentrating.

  “Ooooookay, he’ll take egg and bacon,” the savor, who was the giant one, say.

  She nodded then go to Dolby while she saw Vic adjusting her clothes, opening the button of her shirt then going to serve the squirrel. Rose thought that she should probably tell her that he was not that type of guy but then she thought about how he reacted to her poor attempt of flirting then let it go. She sit at the bar checking her text.

  Tara

Hey booboo, your still in work or?

11.17AM

  She loved that woman but she hates her grammatical errors. She answered rapidly.

  Rosie

You’re* and yup still. What about you?

11.26AM

  Tara

Shut up, just finished some stuff, about to go to you. Need some burger with a lot of bacon asap

11.28AM

  Rosie

It’ll be waiting for you. Love ya xx

11.28AM

  Tara

Same here xx

11.29AM

  She put her phone into her apron and take the plates, sighing when she knew rush hour is about to come. She walk toward the team giving them their plates.

  “So 2 eggs and bacons for the two of you and hot sauce for the guy here,” she gives the hot sauce to the squirrel, “’m sorry she forgot it.”

  They nodded and started to eat. They really really freaking really seems weird and she was pretty sure she saw a blade in the giant one coat but maybe eyes were becoming tired. Anyways, she waited for Tara and not long after she saw the old red mustang parking and her best friend coming into the diner hugging her closely.

  “I don’t know how that old car is still rolling.”

“My baby is tough, she’s the strongest person I’ve ever see in my life,” Tara answered, her car was her life literally, she was taking care of that car more than herself sometimes. “You done? ‘m taking the food home.”

“Just wait until this table is done then ‘m all yours.”

  She was about to tell Mitch that she was done then something inside her twist. Maybe her instinct but she take Tara and throw her down, using her body as a shield against whatever that happen. Probably an explosion, her head was tripping, she hears gunshot, then a big light in the dinner but her head was too dizzy to focus, she tried to see if Tara was good but her face was full of blood, same for her arm then nothing.

TV was on, probably SpongeBob because she knew every episodes of this show. The smell were horrendous, it was a hospital. She was in a hospital. What the hell was she doing in a hospital, she tried to move but every part of her body hurt even part she didn’t knew exist were hurting her.

The first things she saw was white, too bright, too white and too clean. There was a face smiling at her, face she recognize as Tara. She try to smile back but her lips was drier than the Brennan bald ass so she tried to move but Tara stopped her.

  “Hey easy booboo, you take some good shot here.”

  Rose wet her lips, her mouth feels weird, disgusting just like hospital. Like death.

  “Stop being overdramatic about the hospital, it’s not death,” Tara say laughing slightly.

“Ho… How?”

“I know you, how do you feel?”

She adjusted herself in the bed.

  “Like a 2 trucks went over me then a train came and end the job.” She respond scanning the room, there was SpongeBob at the TV and men in front of her, men in suit. Black suit and sexy suit. Weren’t the guys from the dinner? Tara saw Rose confusion about the two men standing and watching her like a mouse in a laboratory.

  “Booboo, these guys are the FBI and they want to ask you some questions if you want.”

  She nods quietly. She knew something were weird with these guys but FBI, she did not except this.

  “Hi Rose I assume,” say the giant one, Rose nod, “I’m agent Smith and this is agent Wesson,” he continue pointing the squirrel. “We want to ask you some questions about the attack at the diner.”

  She nodded again.

  “What do you remember?” asked agent Wesson.

“Not much, I was about to tell my boss that I was going with Tara then… then… I don’t know I felt something coming so I pull Tara away, then nothing much after that.” Rose answered. “By the way, Tara your face was full of blood and… and… how?”

“How what?” She answered not sure.

“How did all the blah on your face is gone, it looks like nothing happened.”

  Tara looked at the agents then at Rose.

  “You protected me, which is by the way the last time you do such a stupid thing, you were the one who was damaged booboo.”

  Rose was sure and certain that Tara’s face was disfigure but she did not remembered a lot so she let that go. Maybe it was just her mind playing tricks. Still, she was curious about what could have happened.

  “Do you know what happened?” Rose asked.

“An attack, we’re working on these missing people, did you hear about it Rose?” Asked agent Smith.

“Yeah, they’re talking about it at school apparently these guys were going in and out the old house, at the end of the street. A haunted house or something.”

  They seems interested, the three looked at each other then at Rose.

  “Which one?” Asked Wesson.

“Pink with an angel on the porch, you cannot miss it, it’s the only old house around.”

“Thank you, we’ll let you rest now,” said agent Smith.

  She didn’t hear about them after that. C’mon agent Smith and Wesson, were they that obvious? Why not agent Beyoncé and Jay-z?

Months after that, life was still the same nothing more or nothing less. Tara was in one of her many traveling, so Rose was mostly alone at home but she likes it. She loved chilling on her big comfy couch while watching TV, with some shows or Marvel movies. She loooooooved Marvel since the day Tara bought her, her first comic book as a birthday gift, it was almost 5 years ago. She was 18 years old and it was her first gift. She still have it, cherished it since this day. Since her 17 she lived alone, ran away from abusive parents and found that beautiful woman who helped her and raise her up when everything was down. She owed Tara her actual life even if she was working in a little diner, struggling with school, she has never been happier than right now.

  Today was Mitch’s birthday surprise. The regular customer knew about it, so they were acting differently on purpose. The old lady, Mrs. Marks, was upset about everything, complaining all the time so Mitch would take care of her, living the employees to plan the surprise. Dolby did an amazing cake who was in the fridge, Vic took care of ours and Mitch’s clothes, Loris make sure that Mitch was away during the preparation.

  “Goddamn! Where is Rose? Or Vic?”

“Calm down Mitchie, Loris is in the place why don’t you go and see what Mrs. Marks needs huh?”

  He shook his head, refusing to go again and hear about how stupid those teenagers, being taller and provocative than ever are.

  “No, hell to the no, I love her but not today,” he begin then whispering the last part, “I just want slit her throat and burn her at the moment, go with her and I’ll see the new one.”

  Loris laugh, it was amusing to see how the charming and loveable Mitch could be when things get out of his control. Loris went to Mrs. Marks thanking her then went to see how things were going in the kitchen with the girls and Dolby.

  “Yo! Is everything ready ‘cause Mitchie is about to freak out and kill everybody.”

“Yup, almost done,” said Rose, “go and change ‘m gonna shut down the power.”

  They all nodded, so she did it and called for Mitch to see what was happening, he was almost relieved to get away from the constant stress and check everything making sure it was alright but he and Rose came back, there was no light in the dinner just a little bit the cake’s candle then everybody screamed.

  “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MITCHELL!!”

  Rose has barely seen Mitch crying and it was one these moments she will forever keep.

The party was good, they were so many gift it took him 1 hour to open them all, from the customers, the employees, his kids and even ex-wives, same for his family. Mitch is someone you cannot not love. He was like that and Rose like it this way.

After the cleaning, Loris dropped her at the nearest bus station so she could take a bus go straight home. It was late and very dark and that part of the city was not full of light. So she took her phone from her backpack and use the lamp torch to see through her way home.

Everything was fine when she saw a body sitting on the ground, her first reflex is to run to him and see what is happening because he seemed hurt. The truth, he was full of blood and there was a cut on his lips. She tried to wake the guy up but he was totally down.

So she shake him a little bit, trying to have a reaction from him, he open his eyes, looking at Rose. She try to make him stand up but it was hard since he was about to collapse.

  “Damn!” She curse and put him on his feet nevertheless. “Yeah, that’s it hold onto me big guy. ‘m taking you to my house. Do you understand?”

  He nod so at least he was still conscious. She hold him through the way his arms around her shoulders while she was holding him from behind, going upstairs slowly until they make it to her door so she try her best and open it taking him directly to her room so he can sleep on the bed. She close the door and lock it twice to be sure. Then run to her bathroom taking all the medical care she got. She put some alcohol on a compress, cleaning his head and his lips.

The guy was beautiful, soft pink lips, beautiful features. Looking like an angel.

But she didn’t stop, she keep searching for other marks or cut but his clothes full of blood did not help at all so she try to find something that could fit him. And there was her ex-boyfriend’s clothes who can fit him so trying her best to not look, Rose undressed him, cleaning the bruises every time she finds some, and put the fresh cleaned clothes on him.

After putting the bloody clothes in the washing machine, she put the covers on him and turn on the heater so that he will not be cold then clothes the door letting him sleep.

  She start questioning herself. First of all, what the actual fuck? What will happen if the boy was a killer or something like that? However, a killer would not be in that state huh? He would’ve been the one putting someone in that way so no, well she hope no.

Trying to keep her mind out of this, she started working on her school project. Doing research and writing down everything that seemed important in no order, after she will put all the ideas and information in order.

When she looked at the watch, it says 02:54 AM.

  She scratched her eyes not being sure of what she was watching.

  And indeed it was not 02:54 AM but 06:24 AM, it was worse so she stopped everything and let her body fall on the couch and sleep.

Chapter 2 ; Chapter 3 ; Chapter 4

[alphabees-writes]

Glee - S1 E2 (Showmance)

Mama Mia, here I go again!

Please don’t tell me this GROWN MAN had his license plate changed to “GLEE” to reflect the high school club he runs. PLEASE.

Rachel brings a whole-ass SUITCASE to school? I know she’s extra by nature but PLEASE.

Finn just Doesn’t Know What Things Are! I adore him. 

You’re really just going to walk by Kurt hanging out by the dumpster with a bunch of dudes who harass him in the hallways? AGAIN? Nice one.

“One day, you will all work for me” I doubt these guys are going to be working up the ranks at Vogue.com, Kurt, but I rate the energy.

Emma you’re better than this dude. Run. Run as fast as your hollow bird pelvis will let you.

SANTANA’S FIRST LINE!!! You’re right, they should get a room. 

For all the creepy obsessing Will’s done so far over the glee kids, you’d think HE would be the one to notice how they don’t have enough members to qualify

Sue points out a bunch of special ed classes, and yet I’m pretty sure she says McKinley has no real support available for special needs students later on? They must be whack classes

These people are really acting like all Will does is coach the glee kids even though he’s literally a Spanish teacher

Early Quinn may be incredibly mean, but like, I’d say thanks if she killed me 

Rachel really has a whole spare outfit ready to change in to post-slushying? I guess that makes sense if it happens that regularly

Cory Monteith REALLY couldn’t dance and we love him for it

Disco didn’t suck until Mr Schue got his grubby little mitts on it

I almost forgot about Kurt’s selection of hats. What is this one? A fez? It’s fez shaped

Why is Kurt so sure they’ll throw fruit specifically? Is that McKinley asshole custom?

Terri’s actress, once again nailing the act of making me want to throttle her

Kendra also nails that.

A “used” house oh my god

THIS ARGUMENT BETWEEN KURT AND MERCEDES IS GOLDEN. “You need to call me before you dress yourself. You loo like a technicolor zebra.” They REALLY match. God I hope they ad-libbed that.

It’s the first rap of the show, folks. 

I hate Mr Schue doing Kanye, I really do, but imagine Finn doing it instead like he planned. Better? Worse? I can’t even tell anymore. 

The LOOK Kurt gives Mercedes when she starts belting out the Jamie Foxx part... Don’t be jealous hon you’ll get your bars. For real though his face is hilarious, he looks like he’s worried she’s about to burst a blood vessel with all that TALENT

Sign #5 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: Get your hands OFF of Kurt Will Schuester he doesn’t want to dance! Tbh though I love season 1 Kurt during the group numbers because he just always looks SO done.

Mr Schue’s also wearing a T-shirt that says “DITCH PLANS” on it. Please DITCH the state instead?

KEVIN MCHALE IS THE UNSUNG VOCAL HERO OF THIS WHOLE SHOW AND I WILL NEVER LET ANYBODY FORGET IT

Watching them all sing in a goofy, candid way is honestly healing. 

KURT’S DOING THE SINGLE LADIES RING-HAND MOVE IN THE BACKGROUND THIS BOY REALLY LOVES HIS BEY. Me too Kurt me too

They straight up gave Rachel no gag reflex and had her guidance counsellor make a joke about it? Ok RIB

“Have you ever liked somebody so much you just want to lock yourself in your room, turn on sad music and cry?” Same girl, same

AAAaaaAAALllLlLLLLLlll BYYYYY MYYY SEEEEeeeEEEEEEEELFFFF.........bY mYsEeElF i’M bY mYsElF

Ok I like Emma but she sometimes kinda sucks at her job

“He doesn’t even notice me” Rachel, hon, he’s probably already warned his neighbours about you

“Gay parents encourage rebellion” PICK A SIDE, SUE! I really can’t keep up with the convenient flip-flopping of her bigotry. And with Jean, you’d think she’d go off on Rachel for calling people “chromosonally-challenged”

Finn, of course you know who Justin Timberlake is... That’s Mr Schue’s hotter, less evil twin!

I love how they have to label Robin Thicke on the poster - you know, because of how awful and irrelevant he was even then?

Half the janitors are just gone. How has this school not been closed down already?

Sign #6 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: Mr Schue: I want to build a club where people can express themselves musically Literally every single member: Hello Mr Schue, I’m here to express how much I dislike the music you’re making us perform. Mr Schue: Never talk to me or my fake-unborn-son ever again

Humble, modest Finn going d’aww shucks and telling Rachel to stop complimenting him is adorable. I love him!!!

How could I forget the celibacy club... I almost feel bad for Quinn, he’ like the only person there who genuinely cares about being celibate. I don’t buy that anybody’s convinced that Puck’s a virgin...

The fact that Finn thought joining the celibacy club would get him laid is just... Yeah. It suits him. 

Jacob Ben Israel you will die by my hand you slimy, unforgivable bastard. NOBODY IS OBLIGATED TO GET YOUR DINGER WET, SCUMBAG! Short skirts are not an entitlement!!!

I still don’t know what Puck means when he says “Those skirts are crunchy toast” and I don’t think I want to know.

OH GOD T H E M A I L M A N . . .

Finn Hudson has canonically nearly killed a man and I don’t think anybody talks about that enough.

I beg all of you to look up this scene and listen to the way Finn goes “Ahahaha... Driving’s fun...” Like it just brings me so much joy. What a doofus. 

Carole’s first instinct is to yell “OH MY GOD YOU’VE KILLED HIM WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?!” Calm down queen he’s gon be fine

Quinn really hates contraception, huh!

I know your wife is a shit, Mr Schue, but it’s fucking reprehensible to lead on another woman. It’s clearly intentional at this point I’m sorry, you don’t put chalk dust on somebody’s nose like that platonically!

Rachel: We’re going to give them what they want! Kurt: Blood? God I love him

I do love the running gag of Figgins wildly overestimating the excitement for the assemblies tbh

This school doesn’t have working toilets but, hey, on the bright side, all you have to do to get expelled is shit yourself!

“Yay, Glee! Glee kids hooray!” Emma just warms my cockles

Will referring to the glee club and saying “We’re on our way back” like no, old man, you’re not getting clout for this. Then again, neither are any of the students until they’ve graduated...

AHH, PUSH IT! KURT’S HIPS. LOOK AT THEM GO. HE’S SO INTO IT.

I WANT THE FACE SUE MAKES WHEN SHE SEES FIGGINS TAPPING HIS FOOT TATTOOED ON MY HEART

Finn’s face as he gets ready to start his part... He’s so nervous. Bless him...

THE PERFECT TIMING OF KURT SLAPPING HIS ASS. And then the zoom on that fucking fanny pack going crazy this scene is so fucking iconic. That fanny pack has been burned into my retinas forever. 

AND THE WAY HE WOBBLES HIS HEAD AROUND AS HE STEPS BACK. KURT! FUCKING! HUMMEL!

Oh god, now he’s crawling across the floor to Mercedes. I can’t tear my eyes away he’s GOING for it!

They really had Finn and Rachel go that hard? Honestly up until that point, the routine isn’t too overtly sexual, but now I understand why they get in trouble 

I DON’T GET HOW THEY’RE STILL LOOKED DOWN ON AFTER THIS PERFORMANCE! Nearly everybody applauds! RIB just had to have that cake and eat it too. 

I demand Will’s resignation too, Sue

Ah, the approved songs list... That they will proceed to ignore for the rest of the season post the Unholy Trinity’s audition

Sign #7 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: He has NO PLACE to be mad at Rachel here. You didn’t listen to any of your students, you wouldn’t compromise, and now they’re going on a sex riot. You did this!

Ken Tanaka you cannot undermine a woman’s self esteem and convince her to settle for you as a second choice, and then complain about feeling like a second choice... WHY do they ever act like he’s a victim here?!

Finn saw that whole-ass picnic set up and didn’t think to ask about it? King. I love one (1) himbo. The way he says “You’re cool, Rachel” just fucks me up every time...

She pours him the TINIEST drink in the world? Girl the cups not even a tenth full and he’s a big boy...

The real OTP is Finn x Airplane Cups

Why does Rachel lie down for the kiss... Is it solely so Finn can have his little overflow at the mayo factory or???

THE MAILMAN SCENE HAPPENS EVERY TIME HE KA-BLAMOS OH MY GOD HOW DID I FORGET...

Look, Rachel, I get that it sucks that he ran away, but he literally has a girlfriend? You couldn’t have expected things to go that well...

THE UNHOLY TRINITY FORMS... I’M QUAKING

Throwback to how blatantly obvious it was that Santana and Quinn weren’t singing at all. How did they think they’d get away with that...

Brittany’s original sideswept bangs? Ugh. Giving me LIFE.

Dianna’s voice turned me gay. I’m genuinely convinced my sexuality is Quinn Fabray’s fault and I’m not even mad?

By this point we know next to nothing about Santana’s character, but the second Sue suggests sabotage, her face fucking lights up. She’s living for it already 10/10

Will you can’t make Emma tag along to all your janitorial shifts I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re married. And a jackass. 

I know Rachel went behind his back, but there’s no real reason to give Quinn the Don’t Stop Believing solo? She’s talented and incredible and I love her, sure, but it doesn’t suit her voice at all my guy, if you didn’t have biscuits for ears you’d know that...

Is this the only instance where Will takes actual responsibility for the glee club’s actions rather than blaming it all on the kids? Wow... A rare gem.

The way he says “I should never have pushed disco so hard...” All serious like... Get a fucking grip

I can believe that Rachel’s neighbours would sue her for singing all the god damn time

Rachel singing “Take A Bow” is more fitting than I realised. At first I was like, “that’s dumb, Finn doesn’t really realise what he did anyway” but it fits her character to use a song and spin it so she feels empowered by it in the end. Or at least, tries to feel that way.

So there’s episode 2! What a hot mess. We love our hot mess.

[placetobenation]

Picture it.

Sydney.

2010.

A young peasant girl comes home from uni to watch SmackDown. An injury to the Women’s Champion necessitates an impromptu title match in her hometown. The fighting is short but fierce. Punches. Kicks. Heads bonk together. Great feats of strength are performed by a woman on one leg. Finally, a beautiful British lady wrestler wins the match, becomes the Women’s Champion of the World and starts screaming over and over. On the opposite side of the world, the peasant girl watching on television also starts screaming over and over. To this day, she is still screaming.

That young peasant girl was me.

And that lady wrestler was Layla.

Fair dinkum I yelled so loudly when she won the title that my father came running in thinking I’d hurt something. (“I’m fine Dad, some sheila just won on the wrestling,” I say, as he rolls his eyes.) Then I’m pretty sure I ran around the house high-fiving my mother. I was an amazingly cool 19 year old.

I’m embarassing myself like this just to demonstrate how completely head and shoulders in love I am with Layla. You better get your ponchos out because – in a stark departure from the rest of my pieces – I am going to gush like a geyser.

You see, when Victoria left WWE in January 2009 she left a decidedly Victoria-shaped hole in my heart. If you recall, Victoria showed me that in wrestling, I like my heels like I like my women: goofy and clever and showing a whole lot of ass. (A line so nice I’ll use it twice.)

Anyway, cue Layla. She’d been around since winning the Diva Search in 2006 and already showed a lot of potential, but when she hooked up with Michelle McCool and formed LayCool she embraced her inner Victoria and became the bumpiest, stoogiest, goofiest heel of all time. It was like I dreamt her into existence.

She had a deadset smorgasbord of shtick. She would mock and taunt and poke and prod, and then scream and run away in terror when anyone came after her. She loved to jump into Michelle’s arms, or hide behind her. And when she was REALLY threatened, she would… curl up into a ball on the floor. Like a toddler, just turtle up and hope that “If I can’t see you, you can’t see me!” still works as an adult.

Then she’d get caught and just EAT some shit in the most glorious way.

What a bumper she was! By the time we get to LayCool she is absolutely eating offense for lunch and bumping like crazy. She made everyone look good, particularly someone like Beth Phoenix, who would fold her completely in half. They had a match on Superstars that is basically a five minute snapshot of peak Layla – Laycool cut a promo belittling Beth, who came out and chased Layla around, Layla stooged her bits off until she was caught and bumped into another dimension as she cried and begged for mercy. I have watched that match about fifty million times. It is pure, unadulterated fun.

That’s what Layla was, really. Fun. She was the silly one that brought all of the ridiculous, over the top hamming to the LayCool act and their segments. She definitely brought that stuff out of Michelle McCool, who had always struggled with promos and showing personality before this. I already went into how much Michelle needed Layla to fully develop as a wrestler. In turn, Layla needed Michelle too; Michelle brought credibility and her Terminator-ness to the act and allowed Layla to goof off to her heart’s content. Working with Michelle also helped Layla become a much better wrestler, and honestly by 2010 I think Layla had an even better year in the ring than Michelle did.

But that’s me splitting hairs because they were both fantastic in 2010. Well, really for the entire LayCool run. I remember they would have these nifty little tags with any combination of the blondes on SmackDown – Kelly Kelly, Tiffany, Beth, Natalya – these matches were usually only two minutes or so, but they were just about the best two minute tag team matches you could possibly have. LayCool got pretty well hosed when it came to match time on SmackDown, but in true Diva fashion they always made the most of any time that they got.

On the rare occasion that they got time they really shined, taking the time to bust out old school heel tricks and use the referee to get some proper heat going. They had a random tag team match on Superstars that for some inexplicable reason was the longest women’s match in WWE since literally the 1980s. Absolute manna from heaven. This thing was just after TLC where Nattie put them both through the table, and seriously, Michelle and Layla sold the aftermath of that one table bump more than people like Shane McMahon sell leaping 30ft to their untimely deaths.

LayCool did it all as an act – promos, skits, short matches, slightly less short matches. They even managed to sneak in some epic, long term, Breaking Bad-esqe storytelling as well. And it was Layla’s character and her acting of it that drove the story of their eventual break up – it was all about her vulnerability and feelings of inadequacy compared to Michelle. For such a goofball who spent all her time cracking bad jokes and cartoon bumping her ass off, she was doing some legit character work at the same time.

I want to get back to those bumps for a second. I still can’t get over Layla saying that the first bumps she ever took were ON TELEVISION during her first match on SmackDown. (Chorus: Fuck this company!) But the truly crazy thing about it is that you would never, ever know.

She looked SO GOOD in that battle royal, brief as it was. I watched it before I even knew Layla had said that, and I just kept saying to myself how astonishingly solid she looked for her first match. And she continued to do so whenever they put her in the ring, which was only sporadically for the first 12 months. But really, I shouldn’t have been surprised she turned out as good as she did, because she sure showed a lot of promise pretty much from the get go.

She had debuted as a babyface after winning the Diva Search, but this woman was a born heel. Once Extreme Expose broke up on ECW (R.I.P.) and Layla began wrestling as a heel she immediately seemed to get it. One thing I noticed in particular is that no matter the match or how much time they got, Layla always took the time to target a body part and take over the face by working an arm or leg. Like the world’s hottest Arn Anderson.

I’m sure the six months she spent working with William Regal as his valet didn’t hurt her education in villainous bodypart work either. I really only mention this pairing just so I have an excuse to bring up the time that Layla threw her shoe across the whole ass ring at CM Punk and nailed him right in the fucking head.

But I digress.

Layla became a babyface again after LayCool ended in tears (R.I.P.) and she wasn’t quite the same, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. Well, Layla tried, anyway. The company, not so much. LayCool were horrid people and completely unlikeable and they never made any effort to rehab her character once it was over, so she never got much in the way of sympathy. But Layla did her best by buying all the way into WWE’s Smiling, Dancing Babyfaces Just Want To Put Smiles On The Faces Of The WWE Universe policy. She smiled, she danced, she joked around in the ring, and she got a new sickeningly cheesy theme song. From the world’s hottest Arn Anderson to the world’s hottest R-Truth.

In the ring she made a great effort to switch it up her style and work as a babyface. Heel shtick was replaced with Smilin’ Babyface shtick, and she brought in cool, lucha-inspired moves like the double pump springboard crossbody and her wacky running rollup. And even if she never truly got over as a face, she sure had a lot of good matches as one. Great PPV matches with Beth Phoenix, great title bouts with Eve Torres. Her and AJ Lee even opened a SmackDown episode with a women’s match for the first time in, well, actually ever, I think.

The final few years of her career were mainly frustrating, as injuries and other issues kept pulling her away from TV. We just get little glimpses of Layla, like the feud with Summer Rae over Fandango and the ensuing tag team with her that stole my poor gay heart. Or when she turned heel on Kaitlyn in 2013 and immediately started partying like it was 2010, bumping and stooging away for a hot minute until she vanished again. Layla was one of the few to have fun matches with Tamina during this time, and even her second last match was a cool romp with Emma in the UK. I always missed her like crazy when she was gone, and marked like a mofo when she came back. They really could have used her a LOT more in those years.

But alas, Layla quietly retired in late 2015, having spent nine years on the roster, which at the time was the longest full-time run for a women’s wrestler in WWE history (Nattie and Foxy have outlasted her now). Not bad for someone who didn’t even start wrestling full-time until the age of 30.

It’s no secret at this point that I love a lot of these women, so sometimes it’s hard to tell one of my loves from another. But apart from Trish Stratus herself, I think Layla is the Diva that I loved the absolute very most when she was around. Certainly I’ve never marked harder for anyone winning any title in wrestling than I did for Layla winning hers. I can still remember watching it clear as day, sitting in this room, in the exact same spot on this earth that I’m in now.

In some ways, I really haven’t stopped screaming since.

It’s hard to come down from Layla, so I say don’t come down, just keep mainlining Divas! So next week I’ll be making another deep dive straight into my bloody, beating heart.

Check it out: Layla vs. Melina (Smackdown, August 14th 2009) Layla vs. Beth Phoenix (Superstars, April 8th 2010) Laycool vs. Kelly & Tiffany (Smackdown, May 21st 2010) Layla vs. Tiffany (Superstars, August 5th 2010) Laycool vs. Beth & Natalya (Smackdown, December 31st 2010) Layla vs. Beth Phoenix – Divas Title (Over the Limit 2012) Layla vs. Beth Phoenix – Divas Title (No Way Out 2012) Layla vs. Eve Torres – Divas Title (Night of Champions 2012) Layla vs. Natalya (Smackdown, November 14th 2014) Layla vs. Emma (Main Event, April 15th 2015)