#my brother is the only decent one who shows me any amount of respect

[urlredacted]

i just don't do relationships right, do i?

[littleblackraincloudofcourse]

My thoughts on the lives and deaths of the House of Usher

Prospero - I almost feel sorry for Perry. His ideas weren't bad and unlike his siblings he was doing them himself. I also found it hilarious when he tried to fuck his brother wife. If nothing else that kid had confidence. Fredrick was dick to both of them anyway and she deserved to have fun. If you remove the blackmail and acid rain and that would have been one hell of a party.If Perry hadn't been planning to blackmail everyone he wouldn't have deserved his death. But his death was EXQUISITE. Everything about that scene was so perfect I can't find words to describe it. Everyone involved in creating that scene deserves an award

Camille - We actually got to know very little about her. Her whole story was about finding dirty on the others and managing crisis for the family. Even her death isn't shown. I think the point was that she never got to just be. She lived and died for others but never connected with anyone.

Napoleon - Leo was to me the closest to likable of any of the siblings. He clearly loved them and that may have been the only love he way capable of. He certainly didn't love his boyfriend or anyone he had/was having sex with. He treated people like objects. His death is tricky to categorize. On one side what he did to Pluto was horrifying and anyone who treats animals that way deserves the same fate. But he never actually did any of those things. It was all hallucinations and illusions first from drugs then Verna. He was stressed and grieving and kept finding dead animals everywhere. I would be ready to smash walls in that situation too. He definitely didn't need to be a pet owner but I think his death should have been less torturous

Victorine - I wrote this one last because it was my favorite Poe story growing up and she played it beautifully. That slow steady decent into madness I should have hated this character most of all. Those poor chimps and who knows what other innocent creatures she killed with experiments she knew wouldn't work. Even with her father constantly pushing for progress she should have stopped. Verna gave her so many chances, she wasn't even there when Vic killed her girlfriend or herself. She could have stopped at any point. Yes she still would have died but it could have been painless and less tragic. T'Nia Miller's performance was so good that I actually felt sad for her in that final scene. At least until I thought of the chimps again.

Tamerlane - Knock off Madeleine. Where her sisters hid and guarded their personalities she never had one. Her entire existence was for appearances (hence the ridiculous amount of mirrors). Even when she tries to show emotion she couldn't look at the person she was talking to. Her death might have seemed the most passive but it was shoot beautifully. It was also the only thing she actively accomplished on her own.

Fredrick - Fuck you Frodrick. When his siblings said he was just like their father they didn't even realize how right they were. He might have been worse. His poor wife deserved so much better. I genuinely enjoyed watching the pendulum swinging towards him as he was paralyzed beneath it. I only wish there was more than one so he could feel more pain. He was so much a piece of shit Verna enjoyed killing him. Everyone else got warnings, chances to walk away and have peaceful deaths But this asshole, she knew he didn't deserve one. He got exactly what he deserved. Lying in a puddle of his own piss waiting to die. Seriously fuck that guy

Lenore - This sweet brave girl was the only good the Ushers ever brought into the world. So pure and good even Verna mourned having to take her. I loved that she got to know how much good she put into the world and how many lives she saved. Even knowing from the beginning she would die, it was still heartbreaking to see. At least it was painless and instant

Madeleine - She was cold and selfish but she was also usually right. I respect that even when making a deal with the devil she still had standards. She at least made sure not to have children incase. There is a bit of irony in the fact she didn't want to spend her life serving a man then chaining her destiny to her brother. Gave of serious twincest vibes that I am glad where not explored. Her death seemed a fair balance for her past and mirroring her mother's death brought everything full circle. She fell with the house of Usher. Also sapphire is a good color for her.

Roderick - Without doubt the worst of them all. He knowingly killed millions with his drug. He destroyed any shred of humanity in his children. Possibly worst of all, he knew the damage he was causing and who would have to pay for it but he didn't even blink. Being mentally tortured by his dead children was not enough. He deserved the worst death of all. I understand the poetry of him dying the same way his father did but I wish he suffered more.

[ravennaortiz]

Alright I've got another one. This time it's for Half-Sack. So here are the prompts I've got for him.

7. Stay away from my sister (I'm thinking maybe Opie and see the overprotective big brother come out in him.)

20. Why?

5. I can take care of myself. (Maybe said to Opie by his sister.)

17. I love you

18. Go slow.

Glad to see ya back!!! The amount of joy I got when I saw you picked Half and then these prompts was unimaginable!!! Lets get to the magic! As always 18+

P.S. Come back anytime!! Also I made it so Half is a patched member now and Opie has kinda left the club.

Brother vs Boyfriend

"Thanks for picking me up" you stated as you walked out of the police station. "Couldn't leave my old lady locked up" chuckled Half-Sack as he kissed your forehead before standing back to look at your eye. "Doc got a decent hit." he added as he carefully traced the developing bruise. "Only one she will ever get" you muttered thinking about how nice it had been to finally smash Taras ratty face into something. She had been making digs at your relationship and you could only let so much slide. Before you could reply your phone dinged with a text from Jax.

Jax: Day is full of surprises. Your brother is here.

You: Oh.

Jax: yeah he saw your car.....did you not tell him about you and Half?

You:......Wildly enough in the last year it just never came up

Jax: Your killing me kid.

"It'll be fine babe" murmured Halfsack shooting you a grin as you showed him the message. "Have you not met Opie over protective big brother Winston?" you inquired as you looked at him with a raised brow. "A time or two. Tall guy I think" replied Half-Sack making you shake your head.

***

"So you're telling me not only was my sister involved in a fight and arrested today but she's been dating a club member for the last damn year? And you my best friend didn't do a damn thing to stop it?" yelled Opie as he stood glaring at Jax who was sitting on the picnic table. Jax sighed heavily as he rubbed his face. "Opie, there was nothing to stop. She has as much right to be here as you. As far as Half goes, your dad was fine with it. Kid worships her and the ground she walks on. I'd have stepped in if he was treating her bad" replied Jax meeting Opies glare.

"Also you're the one who walked out of here and stated you wanted nothing to do with any of us ever again. So you being left out of this is entirely on you" add Jax making Opie roll his eyes. "She's a kid" started Opie before Jax cut him off. "She is very much an adult. She knows what this life comes with Opie. She made her decision and you need to respect that" stated Jax firmly as the sound of a motorcycle filled the air gathering both their attention.

"Do not put your hands on a member of my club" warned Jax as the two of them watched you and Half-Sack walk towards them hand in hand. Opie clenched his jaw as he watched the two of you. He had barely liked you growing up around he club and he had forbade you from dating club members years ago. Before either of you could speak Opie was in Half-Sacks face. "Stay away from my sister. Whatever bullshit thing you have going on here is done." growled Opie shoving Half-Sack slightly.

"We will talk at my house" snapped Opie as he made to grab your arm. "Don't touch her" commanded Half-Sack calmly as he grabbed Opies arm. "Why? You going to hit me?" laughed Opie as he turned to look at Jax. "Can you believe the balls. Oh I mean ball on this one?" he inquired as he shook his head. "Opie" warned Jax as he got up from his seat and moved in between the two men after seeing the look Half-Sack shot him.

"Look dude. If she wants to go with you she can but you don't get to show up here after ignoring her for over a year and then start dictating her life and grabbing her like that." stated Half-Sack as he let go of Opie and stepped back some. "Don't tell me how to protect my baby sister started Opie before he was interrupted.

"I can take care of myself" you stated firmly. "You have no right to just show up and try and end a relationship you don't know shit about. You also can't pick or choose when to be my big brother. You're the one who walked out on all of us and when I tried to call or stop by you ignored me because Donna told you so." you continued as your voice started to shake with anger.

Opie was quite for a moment as your words landed like punches to the gut. If he was being honest he knew he was out of line but pride wasn't going to let him back down easily. "Just because I did that doesn't mean I don't love you or care about your well being" stated Opie softly. "Save your lies for Donna" you stated as you rolled your eyes. "Lets go inside" you stated to Half-Sack as you turned towards the door.

"I'll join you in a moment babe" stated Half-Sack as he looked from Opie to you. Once you had went inside Half-Sack spoke. "You want back in her life your going to have to go slow and actually respect her. She's not a little kid who is just going to do what you say. She's her own person and you're missing out by being an ass" stated Half-Sack before walking off to join you in the clubhouse.

"I don't know if you can rejoin. I'll take it to the table but for now you should probably head home" stated Jax as he patted Opie's shoulder before heading inside himself.

Want more Half-Sack? Click here

Want to make your own request? Click here

[biquinntile]

Regulus Black's Patronus

if you hc, something different I totally respect it. I know I've seen a lot of folks pick a lion, with him being named after the brightest star in Leo, but I'd like to give my arguments for why I think that isn't the case. I will be using wizard in a gender neutral sense since the Old Hag didn't want us to have a gender neutral term for magic-user smdh

Firstly, it's very hard to not associate the lion with Gryffindor, and I think that an important part of Regulus as a character is the fact that he is a Slytherin. Our leading Slytherins have this running theme of redemption and forgiveness. Regulus's story was really brought up during Draco's time as a Death Eater apprentice or whatever, when Draco was battling with his morals and his duty and his fear. It was supposed to be this parallel because Regulus was the same age when he was recruited into the Genocide Gang. Like, I cannot stress enough how important it is to his character that he was a Slytherin, he was a Death Eater, he was from an elite pureblooded family who were no strangers to dark arts let me tell you that. He had no reason to question his beliefs, to rock the boat, to step to the Baddest Baddie of the time, especially when I'm sure Regulus knew better than anyone what he was capable. Let's remember that not every Death Eater had a dark mark...but Regulus did. And he did it anyway, knowing he could and would day. He did it like a Slytherin too, using trickery and telling no one. Working in darkness. Kreacher was the only being for over a decade that even knew how he'd really died. Tell me that's not a Slytherin at work smdh. And thank Merlin for his Slytherin work ethic. All this to say I loathe any implication that Regulus should have been in Gryffindor or he would have been in another world. He was a Slytherin AND a good person. That's who Regulus was.

Secondly, I think a very important detail about Regulus is the contrast between him and Sirius. The House of Black is a well-known, established family of pureblooded wizards, predominantly Slytherin to boot. They're the elite, the wealthy, and their family's reputation holds a weight in wizard society. People know who the Blacks are, and Walburga and Orion aren't exactly great parents, if how they deal with Sirius shows us anything. I might be drawing too much from my own experience with a judgmental and strict household of dickhead parents, but while some's reaction to a toxic and strict household was to rebel and fight back and go toe to toe with their parents, like Sirius, I felt I related more to Regulus. Being as perfect as you can, never disagree, figure out how to do what they want before they even ask so they can never get upset and mistreat you. Regulus is obeying where Sirius would break the rules, despite them both being able to acknowledge that the rules are broken and/or wrong. They were too different to be able to understand each other, both attributing the other's reaction to a gluttony for misery. Regulus, to me, represents a person that had their entire life laid out in front of them by his family, and yet his final moment is about choice, his ability to decide for himself what he believes is right and wrong. For me, I feel like him being in Slytherin is important because he would have believed that the Sorting Hat decided for him because he was from the Black family, but we all know that the Sorting Hat gives suggestions more than anything. He chose to be a Slytherin the same way that Sirius chose Gryffindor, but they couldn't understand each other's choices. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Brothers turned strangers by the hands of Fate, molded by their experiences without any understanding of what the other person was making. It's devastating.

Thirdly, I'm sure you're thinking, "Okay, tough guy. So his patronus isn't a lion! So what is it then?" Honestly, I'll sign on to anyone who has evidence for why. Patronuses actually tell you a decent amount of information about what kind of wizard you're dealing with. I think his would be a fox because the fox embodies a lot of the more positive qualities of a Slytherin: cunning, quick wit, mysterious. There's a playful mischief there, which is what I imagine Regulus has when he starts getting comfortable, smoking weed in Barty Crouch Jr.'s basement, you know what I mean? I also have this really strong headcanon that Regulus and Sirius were very close before Sirius went to Hogwarts, but with Sirius gone and absorbed in his new Gryffindor friends, Regulus spends those two years hanging out with Kreacher and getting deeper in the pureblood propaganda his parents spit out, driving a huge wedge between them...but before all that, I like to imagine that Sirius used to try to comfort and protect Regulus from the shittier parts of their family, and I imagine that he'd open up the big windows and tell Regulus stories using the constellations, something they both grew up connected to by their family's tradition. I think that Sirius would not have paid attention to all the stories though, and I could see him grabbing from whatever stories he could remember. I like to imagine him telling the story of the Fox and the Hound, unlikely friends, that go up against Narcissus, the flower that was obsessed with its own reflection or The Banshee, the angry mother that would scream until your ears bled. Silly stories told slightly different by Sirius's embellishments and stitching in things he'd forgotten. I don't know it's a soft headcanon but apparently strong enough that I am here making this post, advocating for his patronus to be a fox. So. there's that.

All this to say, don't listen to me if you don't want to! Believe whatever you like, none of this is real. I just kinda wanted to organize my thoughts about it because I've been thinking about him for a long time, and I feel very strongly about this...clearly...lmao

[littlerosetrove]

So the show and the writers DO know how to write a decent love interest!!!! Are fucking kidding me??!?!?!? fghvbjkhgfgchv. OKAY LISTEN AND BARE WITH ME.

Bucks love interests - Abby was developed because she too was a main character in season one. But after her? - Ali was barely present then gone. - Taylor Kelly was never interesting or compelling, definitely not to me. She was a selfish asshole the entire time we knew her, and her back story didn't garner much sympathy points because it showed her hypocrisy. - Natalia was a death doula that never got developed. No clue why she did or said anything in season 6.

Yes I'm going to bring Eddie into this because he's relevant for sure.

Eddie's love interests - Shannon was definitely an interesting character. In some ways we never really got to know her, but overall? Yeah still got some clear ideas of who she was as a person and a mom (a bad one). - Ana was a teacher, nice, but terribly bland (and low-key ableist). Her only interesting moment was the Iconic breakup scene. - Marisol. We still know jack shit about her beyond her weird connection with her brother, and liking DIY.

AND SO I'm finding fascinating that Buck's newest love interest, Tommy, in predominately one episode (though yes he was in 7x3, and had a few scattered scenes throughout season 2) has had a pretty dang decent amount of character development already.

Like. Like just in two episodes of season 7 we can tell that he's been a firefighter for years, has a history with the 118, has been in the army and so connects with Eddie on that level, has had a connection with Chris at some point, is confident, ready to help at the drop of a hat for Chimney and Hen in particular, is very friendly, social, is respectful (ex: when he waited to get the clear from Buck that he's interested, and then made a move), mature, and I could probably go on.

Part of my point is that I honestly appreciate that, finally, in this case for Buck, he's getting a love interest that the writers are putting in effort for. I think it's, yeah, important to do so since *gestures* this is a queer story they're telling. I'd hope that they'd put more care and effort into this, you know? Gosh I hope I'm phrasing this right.

And just. Again I find it weird and funny that, idek, when it's a guy (love interest)??? Oh now they can make an interesting and far more developed character???? Okay okay okay. Interesting. Okay.

And I think the last thing I wanna say is....... I. Y'all. I like Tommy. I don't hate or really mind the Buck and Tommy of it all. I think a big reason for this is, as I just laid out, that Tommy has been developed and just seems like a good guy. No, I don't think they're any kind of end game. No, I don't want Tommy to even get hurt because Buck is still confused about Eddie and currently avoiding delving all that, but. But yeah. While Tommy and Buck last? Yeah sure, I'm cool. I'm happy that I feel fine about it, because I sure have not cared for really any of Buck's other previous love interests (or Eddie's.)

I'm way more confident about Buddie canon, just a by the way. But we're getting there! Give it time!

[emeritus-fuckers]

Hello, congrats on 1000 followers, that is huge! This is my submission to the match-up event. I’ll number the answers to each question.

1. I’m transmasc (we could get into the weeds of it all, non-binary, genderfluid, yada yada but that’s the gist of it), use he/they pronouns and I’m bisexual.

2. I’d like to be matched up with a Papa preferably, although a Ghoul would also be cool if you decide it’s my best fit.

3. I’m 5’4, I’ve lost a bit of weight recently so I’m pretty slim but not skinny, my thighs and arms are pretty big still. I’ve also got a bit of muscle showing, but again, not a bunch (I am working on it though). Most of my life I’ve been the chubby one in the friend group so this is new to me. Besides that, I have an hourglass figure (that I hide under baggy clothes) and, unfortunately for me, a very large chest that a binder does little to conceal. I have brown hair that’s wavy (2C), short on the sides and back and longer on top (comes down to my top lip if I stretch it out in front of my face), parted on the side. I also have brown eyes, I’m white (fairly pale), have freckles on my cheeks, nose and arms and a decent amount of moles all over my body. I wear glasses, I have three earlobe piercings in one ear and one in the other that I’m stretching. I dress in a sort of skater-y style, big pants, vans, oversized band T-shirts, hoodies, jean jackets, funky button-ups if I’m being fancy.

4. I think I’m a friendly person but generally pretty shy and I don’t get out much. Right now I’m writing my BA thesis (studying English) after extending my studies which means I finished all of my classes already, so I really spend way too much time at home. I could probably use someone who would help me to go out more but also respect when I have to stay in and recharge since I lean towards introversion (but only slightly). I’m also kind of a perfectionist which causes me to either put way too much effort into something or, paradoxically, way too little because then I can detach myself from it, telling myself that I didn’t try at all so I don’t feel like it matters.

5. I am very on-again off-again with video games (I could spend a year not playing any but then the next few months playing for hours every day) and I prefer narrative-led games. I watch board game playthroughs a lot and over the last year I bought quite a few board games. I like to watch horror movies but I’ve only been to the movie theater a few times since COVID started. I mostly listen to metal lately but there’s very few genres of music that I wouldn’t listen to, only one coming to mind is EDM. I like to sing a lot. I work out almost every day (ideally 6 times a week but it sometimes ends up being 4 or 5), it’s calisthenics and flexibility because I can do it with only a few cheap pieces of equipment alone at home and the gym scares me + it’s expensive. I also write fanfiction which this fandom inspired me to do and I’m very new to it but enjoy it a lot.

6. I’m 23, I live alone, I have two cats that are brother and sister. I was an only child until my dad had another kid in his second marriage but that happened when I was 16 so I don’t really count it since I didn’t grow up with siblings (my brother feels more like a nephew to me). I don’t think I want to be monogamous, because I don’t think I belong to anyone or anyone belongs to me, it’s just too restrictive and boring to me (although if someone I really cared about wanted to be 100% monogamous, I would probably agree to it). My favorite season is spring. I love most animals, especially reptiles, I used to be scared of spiders (I think from the stigma against them) but now I love to see them in my home and let them stay. But I’m absolutely terrified of the ocean and the creatures that live in it.

I am so sorry that this is so long but I tend to ramble and overshare when talking about myself. If this is too long, feel free to ignore.

This post is part of the 1000 followers match up event. Entries for the event are now closed.

Your match is…Papa Emeritus III

He loves stealing… I mean borrowing your clothes . As much as he enjoys his fancy outfits he adores putting on one of your hoodies and curling up on the couch. Preferably with you in his arms. It helps him unwind after a hard day at work.

He will come and keep you comapny while you exercise, he wants to support you and he often joins in. There will also be quite a lot of flirtatious glances from him.

One time he says "I can think of a much better way for us to work out together caro. hmm? You would like that no?" you cannot miss the sultry tone of his voice and the look he gives you as he draws you to him.

He is really supportive/understanding of your perfectionsim. Despite his playful front he does understand a need to do things to a high standard. He gets like that over his music. So he tries to help you balance it out.

If you are working on your thesis, he sometimes needs telling to just let you work. He loves being there for moral support and he is surpirsingly helpful and knowledgeable. But he gets a little distracted sometimes and just kinda goes off on one. So when you do say that you just need some peace and quiet to think he just pouts at you. Then after a moment he'll nod in understanding, give you a kiss and leave you to it. He will also bring you plenty of your favourite drink to keep you going.

He will definitely encourage you to go out more. He loves going out with you and you both always have a lot of fun. He can also spot when you need to recharge and he plans a cozy night in with a film or something.

He is chill about not being monogamous. It works well for him too and he has similar views to you. He values very highly the emotional connection you two share and he only has that with you. It means the world to him.

~

Written by Nyx

[moorheadthanyoucanhandle]

MOTHERS, SONS, DAUGHTERS

Opening this weekend...

Evil Dead Rise--This fifth feature in the beloved horror series that began in 1981 moves most of the action out of the woods and into the city. An earthquake uncovers a copy of the "Book of the Dead" in the bowels of a decaying L.A. apartment building. Near the tome are a couple of vinyl records on which a priest has recorded the incantations necessary to invoke the evil spirits that re-animate dead bodies to torment the living. The kid who finds all this is an aspiring DJ, so he has turntables, so...

Through this laborious set-up, the lissome tattoo-artist single mother (Alyssa Sutherland) ends up possessed by a malevolent force. It's up to her guitar-tech sister (Lily Sullivan) to defend her nephew and two nieces. Gruesome mayhem ensues, hitting on the obligatory tropes of the series--grinning, leering, levitating corpses, oceanic amounts of gore, hurtling demonic POV, the repeated phrase "dead by dawn!"--as well as nods to Kubrick's The Shining and to Fargo.

I'm afraid I've run out of patience with this style of horror flick. Watching a woman's corpse terrorize and murder her children probably wouldn't be my idea of entertainment in any case, but here it's not only unpleasant but tedious. I've grown weary of films in which characters stand transfixed as something ghastly happens in front of them. After a while one begins to suspect that all the interminable gasping and whimpering and slowly backing away may not even really be about generating terror or heightening suspense, but rather about padding a thin script out to feature length.

Sam Raimi's original Evil Dead trilogy was not inconsequential cinema. The "shaky cam" techniques that Raimi and his cronies developed on those indies, out of economic necessity, were highly influential on the Coen Brothers and Barry Sonnenfeld and others. But beyond the realm of technical innovation, Raimi's movies, especially the marvelous Evil Dead II of 1987, had a low-tech vigor, a whimsical sense of macabre comedy and a guileless campfire-story gusto that, combined with the one-of-kind slapstick acting of star Bruce Campbell, made them classics.

Raimi and Campbell are listed as executive producers on Evil Dead Rise, but almost none of the twisted magic of their early work can be felt here. There's some elegance to the production design, and leading ladies Sutherland and Sullivan are stunning, Bukowski-style L.A. goddesses. There's a sweet line in which the youngest niece tells her aunt why she thinks she'll be a good mom someday. And the Hieronymus Bosch-like horror into which the demon's victims conglomerate themselves is a decent Raimi-ish idea, though the CGI renders it soulless.

I'm told that this film, directed by the Irish Lee Cronin, was originally slated to open on cable TV but got a theatrical release after test audiences took to it. So it may be that I've just aged out of this sort of thing, and the movie will truly please audiences. If so, even though it's not for me, I nonetheless find it cheering that people still want to scream in company.

Somewhere in Queens--Less than a month after opening the Phoenix Film Festival, Ray Romano's feature directorial debut opens theatrically here in the Valley. Romano, who co-wrote the script, also stars as Leo Russo, a bedraggled hangdog sad sack who works for his family's contracting business in the title borough. Leo isn't the favorite son, however. His father (Tony LoBianco) shows more respect to Leo's slick brother Frank (Sebastian Maniscalco). Maybe everybody loves Raymond, but nobody loves Leo.

Well, that's not true. His siblings and his wife Angela (Laurie Metcalf) love him well enough, but they don't take him seriously, or listen to him. A sultry widower (Jennifer Esposito) on a jobsite seems to take a shine to him, but he's not the adulterous type.  Leo does have a source of pride, however: his quiet son "Sticks" (Jacob Ward) is a high school basketball star. One night at a big game, Leo and Angela are surprised to learn that Sticks has a girlfriend (Sadie Stanley) they didn't know about. The same night, they learn that he may be good enough for a college scholarship.

Though it's often funny, a forlorn atmosphere hangs over the early scenes of this movie that had me bracing for some sort of wretched tragedy that would leave the characters standing around emergency rooms or something like that. But the story, though it stings, doesn't drag us through the mud; it takes off in unexpected and painful yet believable and sometimes exhilarating directions.

The feel for the setting is convincing, and so is the large cast. The ensemble scenes are well-executed, especially the girlfriend's debut at a big family dinner, where she both irks and impresses the relations with her nerviness. Romano plays Leo as a toned-down version of his stage and sitcom persona, cowed and slow-witted, and his tentative, apologetic boyishness is poignant, even when you can see how his family could find it irritating.

For a while it seems like the film is underutilizing the mighty Metcalf, but finally Angela gets her big moment. Romano lets her articulate the theme of the movie, admitting probably the most frequent emotion of the parenting experience: Fear.

Also opening this weekend, at Harkins Chandler Fashion 20 and Harkins Arrowhead, is Tom Huang's fine comedy-drama Dealing with Dad...

It's slated to play at Harkins Shea and at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre in Sedona starting April 28.

I reviewed it last year, after it made the rounds of several festivals including Phoenix Film Festival. It's very much worth checking out.

[indistarlight]

"It's when a dog doesn't eat. That's when you know something's really wrong."

This line from Sam in My Bloody Valentine has always come back to me throughout the show and as we see Dean's copping mechanisms. (I'm only halfway through s13 so while I know what comes after, I won't be touching anything beyond that point.) It's meant to be a remark on the worrying nature of Dean not being his usual foodie self and contrast with everybody else getting affected by Famine.

But I think it also says a lot for what Sam looks out for when he believes Dean isn't okay. And it also shows how much he misses because of this thought process.

I think the beginning of s13 contrasted with most other occasions when Dean was struggling in recent seasons (post-purgatory and MoC) is probably the best example. s13 has Dean very very clearly emotionally destroyed; he's lost quite a few people in one-go, he's lost any modicum of faith he had even in the goodwill of Chuck, he's being forced to play nice with a confusing entity who may or may not have brainwashed Cas into death and could destroy the world. And Sam sees that and is attempting to "fix" it. So: Dean not acting like his usual (in this case the baseline is faithful-to-their-line-of-duty-being-a-good-thing) sets off all the alarm bells for Sam.

But. Why? Arguably, Dean is reacting pretty damn realistically. Those eps all together in the timeline are like two weeks tops. He's still functioning, trying to help people, amenable to Jack as time goes on. I'm not saying Dean was right, but he was sympathetic. Most of the confrontations in this period are because Sam is trying to persuade Dean into normal, into Sam's perspective on things, into denial rather than depression. The episode with the psychiatrist is very interesting and lowkey fucked in this regard, because Sam creates a false narrative that Dean has to play a part in, but also get interrogated about very, very real wounds. The tables get turned however, and Dean confronts Sam on not being able to cope, or even accept their losses.

I think this shows how much Sam needs Dean to be alright so that Sam has the freedom to not be alright. If Dean is the dog that doesn't eat, Sam is the dog that'll eat himself sick (ironic given their respective appetites). Dean reacts hard and heavy and pushes himself through it, Sam doesn't react until it blows up internally or externally. Let's not forget it was always Sam as the angry brother, when push came to shove! He's still deeply angry, like in American Nightmare where Sam is decidedly Not Reacting about Mary leaving until he says this to the other complicated mother character:

"God doesn't care what kind of life you live. Trust me. And God didn't kill your daughter. You did." This is guilt. This is anger. These are the thoughts that Sam tries very hard not to think about.

For Sam, it's about control, pop psychology his way through life, doing things the Right way. And eventually that blows up in his face, but damn if he won't keep suppressing. He doesn't know how to deal but he can sure help Dean deal the right way.

What's extra wild about this is that he then is almost obliviously blind to Dean when Dean is acting Normal. Good examples are the early seasons, where Dean's laughing just to keep Sam happy during s3 or when Sam relaxes at the sight of Dean having come home after a wild night (I love love love the meta that Dean set it up to get Sam off his back, good shit yall). I think this is very fun when put next to the near erasure of Dean's trauma concerning hell, purgatory, or even the MoC really. The Cage and Sam's actions during s5's end are brought up a decent amount (not enough tbh, but that's a whole different issue) but because Dean doesn't seem to outwardly dealing with those ramifications, they can all just move on.

This isn't (much) hate against Sam by the way. Dean, for better or worse (mostly worse, for them both), was Sam's truly reliable parental figure. You want the person you rely on to be okay, so that you can continue on relying on them. There's a reason why it's Sam who'll go all the way to human sacrifice to bring Dean back, unlike Dean who'll stop after lying and self-sacrifice. Dean moved on for a year after Sam's death, no matter how much it hurt him. We all have seen s4, no need for me to repeat those points. But regardless of the reasons, there is a very set status quo that Sam relies on, and it can end up being suffocating for Dean.

[currentfandomkick]

Is it bad I want Danny to find a small piece of Kryptonite on the ground but not know it is kryptonite, just ‘glowing green rock with a shitton of souls stuck in it’ at first, and while he’s running around collecting it with other ghosts helping as a goddamn rescue mission Lex and the JL are looking for the Kryptonite thieves?

And you can add as many of Danny’s usual rogues gallery and hell, even Undergrowth trying to help and sending some of his subjects to help as not every earthling (species origin of earth in this sense) is human, why would every species from krypton be a kryptonian like clark?

And if you really want to play with horror aspect? Dani is the one who makes the connection that trapped souls are being used against their living relatives and drags Red Huntress to help as ‘that monster is using trapped souls to power weapons to hurt the survivors, and i, i dont have any ecto to spare but i can’t find anyone on the rescue team and my phone broke and-‘

Cue Red Huntress being seen with ghost girl Dani Phantom, breaking into lex’s labs with and Dani graffiti-ing ‘soul stealing fruitloop’ (as Dani would see that as the highest insult in the land) while Red Huntress is seen looking horrified at the amount they need to move.

“I’ll call your—did you two settle on dad, brother or cousin?”

“Uh, yes.”

“… i’ll call other Danny and see if he can get wulf to help move them. Just. Fuck I knew billionaires were heartless and called demons, but ending Souls is a new low on the living side.”

“Not really. A decent chunk of exorcisms shreds souls to the point they cant reform, and we get new souls with mixed memories out of that in the Realms.”

“… is that how Neverborns work?”

“A few, most are more egigrigore-y or dead gods or whatever most ghosts do to have kids like Lunch Box.”

“Everytime i learn something new about the side you live more in, the more i wonder if i should just keep my mouth shut.”

By the time Wulf is there with a rescue group including Danny Lex is trying to get security in.

Technus hijacks the giys security system screaming about Lex daring to End Souls trapped in the literal destruction of Krypton.

Technus is also enough of a bastard to makes this a world wide event while lecturing him.

Danny and co? Only care about the rescue and he’s seen being handed the rocks and visibly weaker but is heard saying “i can handle ecto-exhaustion—the rest of you would die and we all know it… just. I’m hiding in the Stars sector after dropoff. Pull me out if i don’t resurface within two days.”

Batman and co? Have to deal with the fact the BatCache of kryptonite is literally fueled by trapped souls stuck in a personal hell that requires Clearly Supernatural Species to intervene.

And if after a while we get ghost versions of clark and Kara’s parents haunting their respective child? Well, earth learns to deal with the four dual family protection and environmental protection-obsessed ghosts breaking onto talk shows and personally becoming Big Pollution’s problem.

In some DPxDC fics, Kryptonite is made of solidified ectoplasm.

This is often used for humor - Danny gets to eat the Kryptonite like it’s no big deal.

But what if it was taken in a different direction?

Ghosts are made of ectoplasm.

Kryptonite’s dangerous effects towards Kryptonians mainly came about after the planet’s destruction (in at least some interpretations, the material is dangerous because it’s infused with radiation from the destruction of the planet).

The destruction of Krypton caused a lot of death—a lot of ghosts—all at once.

The first time Danny laid his eyes on some Kryptonite, he had to run to a wastebasket before he emptied his stomach.

It was full of trapped souls.

[nathanbatemanfucker]

FTL - Part 2: BLEEDING

gif by @hunterschafer

summary: this is the opening of new wounds, the deepening of old ones.

characters: fem!reader x javier peña, steve murphy, mentions of connie and messina

contents: 18+/nsfw/MINORS DNI, grief, pining, angst, death, mental health, alcohol mention/abuse, smoking

AN: this gets better i swear, but only before it gets just a tad worse. reader and javi have a blowup in the next bit.

word count: 1.8k

series masterlist | misc. masterlist | requests are open

read Part 1: SALOME.

The morning of, you put on the black dress– your designated funeral dress– that’s gotten a decent amount of wear since you moved to Colombia. You’re staring in the mirror, trying to comprehend that you’re wearing this dress not just for anyone. The last 48 hours have been nothing but a blur. You know that this is reality, you’ve cried enough tears to solidify that. The constant ache in your chest helps too, your grief is real, no matter how much your brain refuses it. Your heart knows.

The shrill of your phone makes you jump. A piece of you hopes it's him. The reasonable part of you that knows Javier Peña would never call you feels a twisted sense of satisfaction when you see your younger brother– Ethan’s– name light up the screen.

You give yourself a voiceless pep talk and clear your throat before picking up, “Hey, Ethan.”

“Hey, how are you holding up?” His voice is delicate and low as if he’s speaking to a wounded animal. If it were anyone else, you’d hate it but it's your baby brother, so you let it slide.

“Oh, you know me. I’m fine.”

“I’m not dad, you don’t have to act like everything’s okay. We’re softer, you and me.”

“I’m fine,” You reiterate firmly. The last thing you need is anyone in your family thinking you couldn’t handle something. Even Ethan was prone to falling into your fathers dated way of thinking from time to time.

“Dad says you can come home if you want.”

That makes you laugh for the first time in days, “Yeah, I think I’ll take my chances with assholes down here, at least they’re not my family and I can-“ You stop yourself before you say too much, never wanting Ethan to know just how brutal your job could be at times.

“You can what?” He prompts when silence hangs between you.

“I’ll call you later, I’m gonna be late to the funeral.”

His protests are silenced when you hang up, setting your phone on do not disturb. You know Ethan will tell your father word for word what you’ve said, but he thinks he knows best and will call to tell you that. He thinks he knows everything, it's why your mother’s death hit so hard. It's why you ended up at the college furthest away. It's on the list of reasons why you took this job. If there was anyone who could get you through today it would be your mother. The unresolved grief attached to losing her isn’t making this any easier, it's only making functioning worse.

The cherry on top of all of this is that Javier doesn’t even come to the funeral. You shouldn't be surprised, he’s said before that he doesn’t do funerals but you’d think with the amount of guilt that was on his face when you saw him that he’d show. For some stupid reason, you thought that he’d do this for you since he’d already failed; you thought you would be an exception. Maybe the exception. Instead of admitting it hurts, his absence just further fuels your anger. Salome deserves his presence, he owes her his respects. So do you.

Everyone says really nice words. They coat all your senses in this sickly sweet layer of comfort that’ll melt away once you’re all alone again. Murphy stands beside you the entire, his hand coming over to rub your back in a consoling gesture every time a sob racks your body. Eventually, your cries come often enough that his hand doesn’t leave. It would be embarrassing if you weren't engulfed in it.

This is the opening of new wounds, the deepening of old ones. It feels like a reminder from some deity above: you are broken, no matter what good you do. You'll never be the same no matter how much you run.

You’ve written a few words and as her partner, you know you have to pull it together and say them. Not just for yourself, but because Salome’s family can’t even be here. For all intents and purposes, you are her family. Once it's your turn, Murphy helps you around to the other side of her casket so that you’re facing the scores of people here to pay your respects. The piece of paper that you’ve written on is worn; you’ve folded and unfolded it too many times to count, staring at the words, still unable to accept that they’re real. You take a deep breath, and your eyes scan the crowd one last time just in case he’s decided to prove you wrong. He hasn’t, and you start to read.

“Salome means peace, and it was fitting. She had this calm about her even in the most harrowing situations that just made you feel like everything would be okay. My last conversation with her was one where she comforted me, where she tried to be my peace like she had been so many times before. She went out exactly how she wanted, in the throes of battle, fighting for the peace that Colombia deserves. And while she’s found hers already, it's our job to keep her alive by pushing on. To Salome, and all she was and will forever be.”

When the funeral’s over Murphy and Connie try to get you to come back to their place but you want to be alone. You want to hear Sal’s laugh again. You want the tender touch of your mother’s arms around you. Messina calls you shortly after you’re home from the funeral, tells you to take a few days off and you happily oblige.

There are bottles upon bottles of wine in your fridge, it was you and Sal’s thing, drinking a bottle together before heading to a local bar to listen to the live music there or dance with the guys that always wanted more. You can never go back there, the thought of being in that place without her makes your stomach turn. Staring at the wine in the fridge, you decide you need something stronger. Something that’ll knock away the overwhelming grief that sits on your shoulders quickly unlike the soothing sweetness of wine.

You hit the liquor store just around the corner, figuring that a few bottles of whiskey will do. It's the same kind that was in Murphy’s desk, the same kind that Javier had put him on to because he always questioned Murphy’s taste. You stuff down the thoughts about him, as you shuffle into your apartment, throwing all but one of the bottles in the freezer.

Whiskey’s your new crutch as you ply yourself with it, day after day. It comes out of the freezer ice cold and heats your body with a sting that makes you forget. But, that reprieve is only temporary and leaves you with migraines and a stomach that can’t hold anything down. The cool tile of the bathroom floor becomes your bedroom.

When you chance a look in the mirror after a four-day bender you realize you’ve got to get your shit together no matter how much it hurts. If Salome saw you like this she’d kick your ass, not to mention what your mother would think.

So after one last long swing, you pour the rest of the liquor down the drain. The shower you take afterward is thorough. You scrub at your skin until it’s raw, and massage your shampoo into your scalp until your migraine has subsided significantly. When you look in the mirror again it’s not so bad, not on the outside. It makes you look presentable, ready to take on the job and whatever else, even if the grief is bleeding out of your eyes.

The days run into each other a little less once you’re back at work. Messina had been kind and told you to take as much time as you want but after 5 days of drowning your sorrows and letting them swallow you whole, you were itching to get back to something that would take your mind off of the loss. If this kept your mind off your mother, it could work Salome too, couldn’t it?

Javier blames himself even though logically he shouldn’t. He had nothing to do with intel, it’d been checked and he went in just as blind as everyone else. But he told you that he would bring Salome back. Since he’s been in Colombia he tries to keep his word; he broke it enough back at home.

“Have you talked to her?” Javier asks as he pours Murphy a drink, sliding it across the table to him.

Her meaning you. He’s found himself glancing at the window around the time you would leave for work. He’s stared at the phone, tried to build up the courage to call you. It always ends with him listening to the dial tone before turning to the bottle. He doesn’t know what he would say to you anyways.

Murphy shakes his head, lighting a cigarette, “Not much, she’s not doing so well. She’s focused on working and nothing else, hardly goes home.”

“Mmm,” His eyebrows raise before he throws back his own drink, refilling the glass quickly.

“She looks like hell, but you’ll see with your own two eyes. She’ll be here next week.”

He tries not to look too alarmed at the thought of you here, “What for?”

“Messina’s making us take turns taking care of your ass,” Murphy offers him a cigarette and he gladly takes it, his nerves all over the place at the sight of you outside of his door.

He breathes in the smoke and it feels like pins are sinking into his ribs. The pressure’s only slightly relieved when he blows out, “Sure she is.”

Fucking Messina. Javier trusts her and respects her but sometimes she’s a little much for him. This is one of those times.

“Have you tried to talk to her?”

They both know the answer to that. Javier doesn’t even have to vocalize it.

They sit there for a while in comfortable silence, the heaviness of all the unspoken emotion sitting between them. This is how Javier deals, keeping it bottled up with a drink and light in hand. Murphy learned this lesson about Javi early on. This is what he needs, he can’t push talking and processing on him unless he wants to end up further away from him than where he started.

By the time he leaves he’s successfully strong-armed Javi into taking the pain medication that’s gone untouched. He would prefer to drink but figures Murphy’s right. He’ll attempt to not mix the substances tomorrow, though he doesn’t know if he can go a day without downing the amber liquid even if he wanted to.

Javi’s hoping that Murphy is wrong. He’s hoping that in your growing contempt for him that you’ve made someone else take up the task of dropping off the things he needs on your designated week. He can hardly face himself, he has no idea how to face you.

read Part 3: IN THE STARS.

if you’d like to be on my pedro pascal characters taglist lmk!

javi taglist: @lesbianhotch, @honeybrowne, @hotchs-bitch, @jazzelsaur, @bubblybubbubs

[aquafaith]

My lengthy, angry ACOSF rant review.

Spoilers, TW for mental, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

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.

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I loved ACOTAR. I still love ACOTAR. I always will love ACOTAR. But every book afterwards made me give up more and more. ACOMAF romanticized an abusive relationship and assassinated characters for the author's convenience. ACOWAR was a bunch of boring and inconsequential death scares. ACOFAS was all-round dreadful. And each book kept shitting on and pushing away Lucien for no reason.

I'd like to preface this by saying I hated Nesta too. I hated the way she treated Feyre in ACOTAR especially, and I wasn't even too excited for this book because I wasn't that keen on Nesta as a character.

Nesta's POV and her backstory changed my perspective. It does not excuse her actions. All Nesta stans can hold these characters accountable for what they do - trauma is a reason, not an excuse. I, and many others, sided with Nesta because of the way she's treated by everyone else in this book. Also, if you're going to hate Nesta for not teaching Feyre how to read and letting her hunt at fourteen, (which I did, and are very valid things to hate), AT LEAST hold Elain accountable too.

This book. This fucking book.

Shall we start with the intervention? Feyre on her little power trip thinks that her boyfriend that hates Nesta and Nesta hates back, Nesta's ex-best friend, and her possible mate who she never talks to should be at this stupid fucking intervention??? Excuse me???

Remember in ACOMAF when Feyre wouldn't shut up about how rich Rhysand is? Feyre literally has four or five houses and is always talking about how much jewelry and lingerie she can afford because Rhysand is so rich??? Well, Nesta has a few shots. So you know what Feyre does? Humiliates Nesta at this "intervention", TEARS DOWN HER HOME, and forces her to go to the Illyrian training camp.

That was the god awful premise for this book.

Did you think Elain wasn't there because she was against the "intervention"? Nope! She was packing Nesta's belongings without permission.

Remember in ACOMAF when it's made a big fucking deal that locking up a traumatised woman is extremely damaging? Well, when Nesta decides she doesn't want to be in Illyria, Feyre locks her in the House of Wind. Nesta can't fly, so her only way of leaving is down the TEN THOUSAND STEPS, that Feyre KNOWS Nesta isn't capable of climbing.

Feyre's pregnant. In ACOFAS she randomly decided that she wanted a baby to remember Rhysand by if he dies. Which doesn't make any sense because they made that stupid fucking death pact in ACOWAR. It's just SJM superimposing her pregnancy onto her early 20's protagonist. Ignoring the fact that Feyre isn't ready for a baby and Rhysand CERTAINLY isn't, and with a war just ended and another looming and so much trauma and a DEATH PACT are all such horrible circumstances to bring a child into, Feyre is already pregnant. Remember when SJM made a big deal about Fae babies being so hard to conceive, and Feyre said in ACOFAS they wouldn't have to worry for a long time because it can take years to conceive your first Fae child? Well it's been no more than 3 or 4 months and Feyre's already pregnant. Yep.

Also the birth will kill her. Because of course it will. Rhysand KNEW this, and still agreed to try for a baby.

There's no solution. Abortions don't exist for some stupid reason, and a C section would apparently kill Feyre?

(Wasn't this book supposed to be about Nessian?)

In ACOWAR, Cassian was on the battlefield with his entrails around his knees. Someone had to literally hold his guts in for him, and he's fine, but you're telling me a C section would kill Feyre?

Don't worry, this is just setting up the AWFUL ending to this book.

ACOSF amounts to Nesta being gaslit into believing her abusers are right. Her friends and family slut shame her and shame her for her lifestyle constantly. Cassian says it took him decades to work through some of his trauma, and he tried to drink and fuck it away too, but suddenly when Nesta does so it's heinous? Nesta's barely twenty five and she's expected to cope better than these ancient immortals.

Hell, didn't SJM write ACOMAF? Nobody expected Feyre to pick herself up so quickly. The IC (excluding Rhysand) respected her boundaries for the most part and understood when it was grief, trauma, and turmoil that made her angry, sad, want to be left alone, etc. But that's all forgotten here.

Amren also compares Nesta to the people in, and says she belongs in, The Court of Nightmares. You know, the murderers, abusers and rapists? This innocent woman who had a few shots and a bit of sex is on par with them, apparently!

The sex scenes.

SJM is scared to say vagina so she says sex.

She says seed to mean semen.

Apparently the word cunt turns SJM on. I just found Cassian saying that kinda cringe because I'm Bri'ish so the word cunt really isn't a big deal.

Back to the baby killing Feyre, because this is definitely what we all wanted from this book as indicated by the change in covers and format and title... Rhysand decides not to tell Feyre. He tells her friends and family, and tells them not to tell her.

SJM loves sweeping Rhysand's abuse from the first book under the rug and claiming it's always about Feyre's choice... where is that here, MAAS? WHERE IS IT?

Anyway, when Nesta rightfully decides to tell Feyre (although it is kind of out of spite), Rhysand threatens to kill Nesta.

And I believed him. With the way he treats his """mAtE tHaT hE lOvEs sO mUcH""" and all the people he's mindlessly killed before, do you really think he wouldn't kill the person who gave Feyre an inch of autonomy?

So what does Cassian do? His lover who he cares deeply about and suspects is his mate has received a death threat from tHe mOsT pOwErFuL hIgH lORd iN hIsToRy.

Cassian simply gets Nesta out of the court.

EXCUSE ME?

He doesn't breathe ONE word to Rhysand about this. This Illyrian WARRIOR who fought with his GUTS HANGING OUT didn't dare step up to the hIGh lOrD who he considers his brother and sparrs and fights with all the time?

Cassian literally does nothing.

Was it not Rhysand himself who said Mated males are dangerous? Can kill anyone who looks at their mate? Can be dangerous simply leaving the house? Rhys and Feyre both pull the Mate card to justify their bad actions on the other's behalf... and Cassian just tried to get Nesta out of the court?

Also, this High King bullshit.

I swear to fucking god, if SJM DARES to make this abusive, power-tripping, mOsT pOwErFuL hIgH lOrD eVEr, husband-insert of hers hIgH kInG, I will fight her in the street.

My beloved Lucien is in this book. Only for him to be used and shat on.

I really liked it when he calmed Cassian down with just a look though. Yes please fox man.

Helion is also in this book. Nothing to do with Lucien.

Eris is also in this book. ERIS. Lucien's eldest brother. The same one who abused him for years, but according to SJM he's slightly better, because at least he didn't agree to kill Lucien's lover. He betrayed his daddy that one time, therefore Eris is good. Y'know, the same Eris who abused Mor? Left her laying on the Autumn Court border with a nail in her womb? Well SJM is going back on her own canon to redeem yet ANOTHER abusive male, while continuing to demonize Tamlin for things he only happened to do when SJM decided the villain from the first book was sexy.

Nesta and Cassian are Mates.

Remember when Mates were supposed to be a rare and sacred thing? Now SJM dishes them out like Oprah.

I don't want these characters to be mates. I want to see them slowly fall in love. But SJM is incapable of writing that so she forces them together with the mAtInG bOnD. That's literally the only basis for most of these relationships, Feysand especially.

The only relationship where the bond would make sense is between Helion and The Lady of Autumn. Who still isn't named. But I will die on the hill that they're mates, I can feel it between them.

I wanted someone to die in this book. I predicted that it would either be Helion or Tarquin, but Tarquin isn't even in this one.

And the ending.

SJM can't write a decent climax, so she kills both Feyre and Rhysand for the second time. Yep.

The baby is being born which stupidly kills Feyre, and thankfully takes Rhysand with them.

Nesta decides to save them. Bad choice. But she decides to save them! Because she's so powerful and she ATE THE CONTENTS OF THE CAULDRON and she's CONNECTED TO THE MOTHER.

Do you know what happens.

Nesta loses her powers.

NESTA.

LOSES.

HER.

POWERS.

The powers we've hardly seen, the powers that were briefly mentioned and used ONCE in ACOWAR, then we saw like two flashes of in this book? They're GONE now. GONE SO NESTA CAN SAVE HER ABUSIVE SISTER AND ABUSIVE HUSBAND WHO ABUSES THEM BOTH.

Nesta is just an Amren now. They both fought for their powers, and had to give them up to save people who didn't deserve it. Now they're anticlimactically trapped in powerless bodies.

Also, and I can't BELIEVE I didn't originally include this - do you know what else Nesta TRADED HER POWERS FOR?

Illyrian anatomy so she can carry Cassian's baby one day.

EXCUSE ME?

I am so fucking SICK TO DEATH of the narrative that every woman needs a man and children to be happy. SJM clearly loves this because she's literally only keeping Amren and Nesta alive now to be sex objects to their partners and nothing else seeing as their POWERS WERE RIPPED AWAY FROM THEM, and now NESTA TRADED THOSE POWERS TO HAVE A BABY SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW SHE WANTS? Nesta does NOT strike me as a motherly type. She's the wine aunt, she and Cassian are the couple that go on holiday a lot and and babysit their nieces and nephews, but nope. Nesta HAS to have children.

The Feysand baby is called Nyx. That's just so underwhelming, you go from these huge, multiple syllable names like Amarantha and Morrigan and Lucien to Nyx? I get it's supposed to be unique but it's not even meaningful. It's just more shit-flavoured icing on the hAHa nIgHt uWu cake. I prefer Renesmée.

Nesta is wrong somehow. She says she's sorry as she's saving them. FOR WHAT? For being a little rude to Feyre as all sisters are? And rightfully hating your sister's abuser?

Oh yeah, remember in ACOWAR when Nesta took care of a comatose, starving Elain for months? Elain is randomly okay now because she takes care of her mental health the stereotypical way of baking cakes, and not drinking and fucking, which she shames Netsa for.

Remember the slut shaming, demeaning comments that the whole iNnEr cIrClE made about Nesta? They all expect apologies from her. For some reason.

Nesta has done nothing wrong. She coped with her trauma and minded her business in her own ways, and she's expected to apologise to the people who control and emotionally abuse her.

Nothing that any of these characters did to Nesta is right. Nesta wasn't okay at the end, this wasn't Nesta's healing story. This is Nesta being shamed and degraded until she submits.

Oh I can't believe I forgot to write this in my first draft of this review, do you know how Nesta "overcomes" her grief about her Father's death and her conflicting feelings about him and his life and her guilt? When she visits his grave for the first time, she takes Nyx.

NYX.

She holds NYX up to the grave and talks about how it's his grandson.

GO AWAY YOU STUPID DEMON BABY THIS IS NOT YOUR BOOK.

Speaking of, it's revealed that Nesta was abused by her mother and grandmother in this book? Something we were all looking forward to is seeing more of the Archeron's mother seeing as Feyre was so young when she died, but... nope. She gets a few vague mentions, and this newly revealed abuse is entirely glossed over. Nesta was also actively groomed by an older man at 14. But SJM glosses over this because of course she does.

Finally, the bonus chapters.

My edition came with a bonus chapter from Feyre's POV. It was pointless and I hated it.

There's another bonus chapter from Azriel's POV. Once I'd finished this book, he was one of the few characters I still harboured a shred of respect for.

Then I read his bonus chapter.

This exists to purely objectify Elain.

Whether you ship Elain with Azriel, or Lucien, or neither, this chapter is disgusting. He thinks about her coming on his tounge, and other things simply just to please him.

He then dares to suggest that "the Cauldron picked wrong" in choosing Lucien as Elain's mate?

No Azriel, SJM picked RIGHT in not giving each Archeron sister a bAt bOy.

Rhysand does the only right thing he's ever done by telling Azriel to stay away from Elain, but then he has to ruin it by clarifying that it's only so they can manipulate and use Lucien more.

Oh, and Azriel wants to kill Lucien.

Need I remind you that Lucien respects Azriel? Lucien is another victim of the Night Court's needless, baseless torment, and Azriel is no exception.

Lucien stays well out of Elain's way because she makes it clear that she's not interested in a mate, but Azriel wants to kill him simply for being her mate.

Lucien has done nothing. And I mean literally NOTHING to warrant any of this treatment. From the bAt bOyS, from Feyre, from his family, from SJM, from the deluded part of this fandom that think he's done wrong. NOTHING.

All I liked about this book was the Lucien scenes (which is a given), ((although I hated the way everyone talks about him behind his back)), Nesta's relationship with the house, Emerie and Gwyn, the evidence that Gwynriel is endgame and subsequently Elucien, and the book love. Everything else was horrible. Oh, and Nesta hates Rhysand. I love that for her, because everyone else bows at his feet.

Oh yeah, when Nesta DARES suggest that Rhysand is an "arrogant, preening asshole" which I think is a compliment, Cassian can't take Rhys' cock out of his mouth for one second, and has to get mad at her for having an opinion. Don't even get me started on Azriel in that scene.

If each book after ACOTAR made me slowly give up, this book made me give up altogether. I cannot go on to support this victim-blaming, abuse-forgiving, misogynistic series. I've given up on SJM, and the only characters I care about anyone are Lucien, Nesta, Helion, and Tarquin. I'll continue to read this series to see if SJM redeems herself, but I'll be downloading them for free. I'm not giving this piece of shit any more of my money.

I hope we don't get the Lucien book. I don't want her to slaughter my fox in the way she slaughtered LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE.

Thanks for listening.

Edit: I put the review on Goodreads!

[otakusheep15]

SFW Alphabet - Beelzebub

My first two did way better than expected, so I’m gonna continue this series with the rest of the brothers (and maybe the others as well).

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

He is probably one of the more affectionate brothers (besides Asmo and Mammon). He’s quick to praise just about anything you do, even if it’s something small. As for physical affection, he is a sucker for hugs. He’ll randomly come up behind you and lift you up in a bear hug. Also, if you happen to cook, he’ll do that thing where he comes up behind you, wraps his arms around your middle, and lays his head on top of yours. Trust me, this boy does not shy away from affection, physical or verbal. 

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Honestly, he is the ideal best friend. You two would spend late nights sneaking into the kitchen for snacks and hoping to not run into Luci. You cheer him on at all of his games, and he’ll cheer you on if you do anything that involves competition. Being besties with him also means being besties with Belphie, so expect him to be a huge part of your life as well. You’ll often carry around snacks for him when he gets hungry. He likes to carry you around, both as a mini workout and because you’re tiny (compared to him) and he likes that he can pick you up so easily. 

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He totally picked up his love of cuddles from his twin. His favorite position is him laying on his back with you laying right on top of him. It doesn’t matter how big you may seem, cause your weight is virtually nothing to him. He also enjoys laying on his back or side with you laying your head on his chest while you two hold each other because that’s how him and Belphie usually end up when they share a bed. 

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Out of all the brothers, he is the most likely to want to settle down. He loves you so much and he wants to spend as much time with you as possible. As for household chores, he’s surprisingly good at them. He can cook decently because of his sin, and he actually doesn’t mind cleaning. He’ll do a lot of the harder chores so that you don’t have to work as much, but he still appreciates if you help him out. 

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

He is one of the kindest demons to ever exist, so the other person would have had to been really bad for him to break up with them. He’d probably just tell them straight up that their relationship isn’t working out. It would be simple and to the point, but he’d still try and be nice so that not as any feelings are hurt.  

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Like I said, he would love to settle down with you. However, he would never push the idea much unless he’s sure you feel the same. If you don’t want to settle down, then he is more than happy to just be with you however you want. And if you do decide you want to officially settle down with him, he’d be so happy. He’d want to get married asap to ensure that you two can spend more time together. 

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He’s a big boy, and he knows it, so he always tries to be as gentle as possible. Of course, he can get a bit intense, especially when he gets excited. When he gets this excited, he’ll wrap you up in a tight hug that sometimes makes it hard to breathe. As for emotional gentleness, he’s the sweetest of the brothers, so he’s usually gentle regardless. However, he’ll sometimes get angry or aggressive when he’s hungry or someone upsets him. 

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

He is an absolute sucker for hugs. Physical touch is his main love language, so he loves giving hugs to everyone he cares about. You and Belphie are the main victims of his hugs, but his other brothers aren’t safe either. He also has a tendency to hug his teammates after a win.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Out of all the brothers, he probably the quickest to say it. He’s very affectionate by nature, so it’s no surprise that he would say it fairly early. That isn’t to say that he’s quick to fall in love, and he was honestly shocked when he realized he had fallen in love os fast. He’d be the type to say it super casually, maybe while y’all are just hanging out in the kitchen one night. 

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

He isn’t super jealous simply because he trusts you. He knows that you’re loyal to him and that you love him like he loves you. Of course he has his moments; other demons hitting on you is the prime example. If this ever happens, his instincts tend to kick in since demons are possessive by nature. He’d probably feel bad after, but you assure him that it’s fine. 

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

His kisses are super soft and filled with love. To him, your lips taste better than any sweet he’s ever had, so he loves kissing them whenever he can. Bonus points if you ate something super delicious before hand. On himself, he loves being kissed on his chest and stomach. He works super hard on his body, and he loves when you notice and take the time to truly show how much you love his body. 

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Out of all the brothers, he’s probably the best with kinds. Not that he necessarily likes them, he’s just kinda neutral towards them for the most part. However, for some odd reason, kids seem to love him. It’s kinda like how kids just know someone’s personality without actually knowing them, kinds just know that he’s a sweetheart underneath all that muscle. So, he eventually came around to them after he realized how much kids seemed naturally drawn to him. 

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Mornings are usually spent with you getting woken up by him attempting to quietly get out of bed to go find food, despite the fact that he is never quiet during this time. After that, you two get ready and go down to breakfast, Most of the time, he tries to give you extra food to eat (cause that how he shows love) but you can never finish it all, so you give it to him. Then you walk to school together. 

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Nights are usually spent hanging out in his room, sometimes with Belphie, but mostly without. You two spend some time together studying or just talking while accompanied by large amounts of snacks for him. You two then get into bed together and cuddle until he has to get up in the middle of the night due to hunger.  

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

He seems pretty open on the surface, and he does trust you enough to tell you about his past fairly quickly, but there are some things he keeps hidden even after you two have been together for a while. he will eventually open up to you about everything, but it might take him a while. 

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

He is pretty patient for the most part. Really, he only gets impatient if he’s hungry, or if someone is threatening/bothering someone he cares about. Besides that, he’s the most patient and respectful demon around. He’ll help you out with whatever you need, and he’ll never yell at you or rush you if you need some time. 

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

This boy remembers everything you tell him. It could be the smallest of details or something you just said in passing, but he’ll still remember it. It’s honestly quite surprising how good of a memory he has. If fact, he’s probably the brother who has the best memory just in general. 

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

His favorite memory is the first time you cooked for him. Not when you have cooking duty, since that’s cooking for the whole house, but when you made something specifically for him. You made him a human world cheese burger since that’s his favorite. He actually teared up a little at the sight of it. Not only was it his favorite meal, but it was made by his favorite human. Obviously, it wasn’t enough to fill his stomach, but it was more than enough to fill his heart. Ugh that was so cheesy.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

He is super, SUPER protective. Not just of you, but his whole family. After all, he is physically the strongest, and he knows how intimidating he is. If he finds someone bullying you or one of his brothers, he will not hesitate to eat them, demon or otherwise. Secretly though, it can get tiring being the protector of his family, which is why he appreciates when you stand up for him.  

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Honestly, he tries so hard to make everything perfect. Usually, he tries to theme dates around food, and he always tries to make you something (or get Belphie to make something) but he almost always ends up eating it, which makes him really sad because he tried so hard. However, you tell him that whatever he does is absolutely perfect, and you love him regardless of how date plans end up. 

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Obviously, his eating habit tend to get pretty bad, but it’s not like he can really help that. His hunger does calm down when you two get together, but it’s still very much there. He often steals your food, or forces you away from whatever you were doing in order to take you to get food. He’s currently trying to ease up, but it’s difficult for him and he needs time to learn how to control his urges better. 

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

He’s not very concerned with his looks in the same way Asmo and Mammon are, but he does like to take care of his body. He works very hard to maintain all that muscle, and he loves the attention it gets him. He’s not all that vain, but having people admire his body does give him a little confidence boost. 

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Absolutely he would. You help quell a large part of his hunger, and he could not imagine his life without you anymore. Honestly, you could leave him for two minutes to use the bathroom, and he’ll still sulk like a lost puppy the entire time. 

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

I headcanon that he is actually the most self-conscious of all the brothers. Where Levi is more open about how much he hates himself, he usually tends to keep it all in, making it even worse. The only time he ever lets it out is in moments where he feels safe and at ease. These times are usually with you and/or Belphie. It’s kinda shocking at first when you find out just how much he hates himself, but it does make sense. He blames himself for Lilith’s death, he is constantly just watered down to food and muscles, and almost everyone is super scared of him. It’s no wonder he would start to act like Levi, even if just behind closed doors. 

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He despises anyone who cooks like Solomon. In general, he hates anyone who goes after the people he cares about. He also doesn’t like people who are super obnoxious or self-centered (Asmo is an exception cause he can’t really control that). 

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

Obviously, he has that habit of waking up at random hours of the night for food. But, when he’s actually asleep, he has a tendency to fall out of bed. He is larger than average, even for a demon, so it would make sense that his bed might not always be able to hold him. When he sleeps with someone, they can also expect to be pushed out at least once. 

[courtlyharlequin]

Breathing Room

Warnings: fluff, no plot just brainrot,  lowkey horn knee, feral and angry Taku coming from nine o’clock because I squeezed too much of her favorite tropes into this

Summary: Humans are strange. Their hobbies and customs are bewildering, but nothing Jade couldn’t handle as he was quick to adapt. Sometimes, he might even partake in said activities. Case in point with hiking. And you, knowing Jade for a decent amount of time as his significant other, came to terms with the fact that he would decline a request to participate in something that didn’t pique his interest. So when you proposed that he play the pocky game with you, you were certain that he would decline. But he didn’t.

A/N: Happy birthday to the Jade simp, @takuyakistall​~! I’m so sorry that this was posted late but you’re already wary of that and thank you for supporting me through such a tough time. Ahhh life just doesn’t want me to simp for my hair wife! I tell you this a lot but I’ll say it again: I’m quite attached to you since you were my first tumblr friend. I didn’t have any in real life or online friends who like twst before meeting you so you mean a lot to me as my first. You always make me laugh whether it be bullying you or rotting over our mains together. Even when we get serious, I still love talking to you. You’re that amazing.  I hope you have an amazing day, one just as amazing as you are. Eat lots of cake and pocky. I love you ♡

“Jade,” you said, tugging at his sleeves.

He sighed through his strained smile as he set down a glass he was polishing. He tucked his hair behind his ear and dusted off his slacks as if he was brushing away invisible crumbs off the garment. It was an ungodly hour. He was working overtime for Mostro Lounge. Today was unusually busy. As vice prefect, Jade took it upon himself to bite off more than he could chew. And he could chew a lot actually. He was a moray eel with two sets of jaws and an immense appetite. In his human form, he only had one set of jaws yet the appetite remained.

The lounge was deserted. Students shuffled to the mirror chambers and headed to their respective dorms to retire for the night. Jade, on the other hand, was sitting on a barstool with an array of glasses and creased brows. You sat by his side, doing your assignments and engaging him in idle chatter here and there. He had promised to help you with your alchemy homework, but alas his duties called for him. In a way. You didn’t mind per se since he helped you understand the material within minutes during his short-lived breaks.

They were about three minutes long and Jade only took two breaks ever since his shift started. You weren’t an expert at reading people like he was, but even you could tell he could use some rest or a pick-me-up at least. Perhaps the latter. Jade was stubborn. He wasn’t going to head to his bedroom until he was done.

“Yes, (y/n)?”

You reached into your book bag and pulled out a small box of biscuits– pocky to be exact. You held it in front of his gaze. He cocked his head.

“Let’s play the pocky game.”

“Maybe later. We can play after I finish. Or tomorrow. It’s late so you should return to your living quarters and get some rest,” Jade said as he turned his attention to his task.

“Please? Think of it as a break. Your last one was about three hours ago.”

“Well, if you put it like that then I shall indulge you, my dear.”

Heat rose to your cheeks as he spun the barstool to make direct eye contact with you. You avoided his gaze as you opened the box, selecting a random stick of pocky and holding it in front of him. He took it and examined it with a perplexed expression.

“What is this?”

“Pocky.”

“Which is?”

“It’s like a cookie biscuit thing with a chocolate covering,” you said, getting yourself your own stick.

“I see. So this ‘pocky’ edible.”

“Yes,” you nodded, biting the pocky.

He mirrored your actions. You watched him chew it thoroughly. His eyes wandered around the ceiling of the lounge. You held your breath as he closed his eyes and exhaled.

“It’s delectable.”

Your shoulders relaxed and he chuckled under his breath. It would have been disappointing if Jade didn’t like pocky. That would mean you couldn’t persuade him to play the pocky game. You looked into his eyes lovingly while he nibbled on the remainder of the stick.

“And what is ‘the pocky game’?” Jade mused.

You took out another biscuit. His brows arched as you waited for him to swallow the last bit of his current pocky stick.

“The objective of the game is to be the last to hold onto the stick as we each take a bite and move closer to the center. Whoever is the last to pull away wins. You take one end and I’ll take the other. I’ll let you have the chocolate end because it’s your first time playing.”

“My, my how kind of you. I almost thought you were the headmaster. All you needed was to comment on your kindness.”

“Ha ha,” you deadpanned.

He brought his hand to chin. He feigned curiosity.

“Though… if you wanted to kiss me you could have just said, (y/n),” Jade gave you a toothy grin, ones he shot at the poor unfortunate freshmen souls that tried to escape the conditions of Octavinelle’s yearly exam contracts before chasing them down the hallways with his brother.

“I-I.. It would be more fun?”

“I jest, my pearl. There’s no shame in wanting to engage in intimacy. I shall indulge you. Though, I have a feeling that I will win every round– seeing as you get flustered even when I embrace you without warning fufu~”

There was not a shred of innocence in his voice. Jade knew where this was going. He was going to do everything in his power to win. He was good at that sort of thing, small ministrations that drove you wild.

When he found out that you were sensitive to neck kisses, chaste or not, he greeted you every morning outside of your first period threshold with a peck on the side of your neck. The first time he did that, you were reduced to a puddle of empty thoughts, a spasm of spiraling emotions and heated cheeks. The following incidents featured your hand instinctively shooting to the spot he kissed, cheeks still hot and bothered. When you had adapted to his rhythm, he kissed your neck in the halls, during lunch, and when he walked you back to your dorm. They were spontaneous and sporadic. They ceased when winter began and you wore a scarf around your neck all day, every day. Of course, that was months ago. The routine faded as your relationship developed. Jade had his share of teasing and came to understand that setting your nerves on fire on a daily basis despite your protests wasn’t exactly healthy. He also came to understand how people might get the wrong idea from neck kisses. He teased you for hours on end for being so lewd, but digressed when you were on the verge of tears due to embarrassment. That didn’t stop his other methods of teasing, but at least you were free from public surprise neck kisses.

Jade loved to tease. He was good at it too. He knew you and your ticks like the back of his hand. You were certainly going to lose this game, but it was better not to let your true feelings show and give him the upper hand.

You inserted the biscuit between Jade’s lips and took a deep breath before taking your end. It was more so a hybrid of a deep breath and a yawn. It was late after all.

Jade’s eyes widened and the stick broke in half. Your eyes widened as well.

“You’re supposed to hold onto the stick for a long as you can, silly.”

He closed his eyes: “Yes, my bad. Shall we try again?”

“One to zero,” you said as you slipped a biscuit into his lips.

“Did that count?”

“Of course it does.”

He pouted as you inhaled and exhaled deeply before taking your end of the pocky. It snapped immediately.

“Jade,” you whined, drawing out the last syllable of his name.

“Apologies, my dear. It seems to be instinctive for me to bite the stick.”

“You can bite. It’s just that the pocky keeps breaking in half whenever you bite it. Maybe try to be more gentle?”

“Two to zero.”

“You’re so cruel, (y/n).”

You giggled as you handed him the stick. He pursed his lips and held the stick out for you to take a bite from your end. You closed our eyes and opened your mouth to take a deep breath once more and the stick snapped before you knew it.

You looked up at Jade to see the pocky awkwardly sticking out of his hand which was covering his face. Mostro Lounge’s dim lights made it difficult to make out many details, but you were positive that Jade Leech was profusely blushing.

“Jade?”

“C-Could you not do that*?”

“Do what?”

What could have possibly reduced him to such an adorable state? He’s usually so composed. He was never this flustered. Out of all the times you tried to get him to break, he was resilient. And here you were, not having any idea as to what you did to make him blush.

“O-Open your mouth.”

“Pardon?”

A yawn escaped from your lips. Jade spun the bar stool around and stared at the glasses with sudden interest.

“Could you not do that?”

“Yawn?”

He nodded.

“Why?”

He mumbled something under his breath.  

“Jade?”

“(y/n), you should have just asked for a kiss.”

The eel stood up curtly from his seat. He towered over you and his eyes glowed in the dark lighting. He pulled out a pocky stick from the box in your petite hands and slipped it in between your lips. There was a small pause before he came crashing down. If he hadn’t been holding your shoulders so firmly, you might’ve fell over from the force that he exerted. He came barreling towards your lips. You weren’t sure if he had even bit the pocky. You felt it snap, but when you parted your mouth to allow his tongue to entangle with yours, you could not find a single trace of the biscuit. The flavor lingered in his mouth, but the pocky itself was nonexistent. Did he swallow it whole?

He did not leave your mind to wander too far from him. He kissed you hungrily and nipped at your lips. His sharp teeth grazed your flesh and you mewled into the kiss. You could hear him growl faintly as he held onto your waist. You wrapped your arms around his neck to deepen the kiss. He tiled your head for a better angle. You pushed him away. You needed to catch your breath.  A string of saliva fell from your lips.

“Jade,” you gasped as he nuzzled his head in the crook of your neck.

“It would be in your best interest if you don’t do that again, especially during mating season. I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself next time. I might break you in half, dearest.”

Your cheeks flushed as you nodded absentmindedly. Mating season?

He bit your neck.You yelped and wriggled out of his embrace.

“Jade!” you hissed, clutching your neck.

“Consider that a small price to pay,” he chuckled.

You huffed.

“I win this time,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah…”

He packed the glasses onto a shelf.

“You’re free to go now. I’ve finished here so you don’t have to keep me company anymore. Would you like me to escort you?”

“No, it’s fine,” you said, trying to stifle a yawn.

“Goodnight, (y/n).”

“Goodnight, Jade. See you tomorrow.”

Though you had agreed not to yawn, it escaped your lips. Luckily, your back was facing Jade as you exited the lounge so he didn’t see you yawn, but rather heard you yawn. You heard a distant bang on the counter as well as a faint “dammit” from a voice you knew all too well.

It took every fiber in your body to restrain yourself from turning around. You knew all too well that if you turned around, he would’ve rushed towards you and snapped you in half just like a pocky stick. It was best to give him a little breathing room even if you were hot and bothered yourself.

*Note: To initiate the mating process, moray eels open their mouths very wide at each other to signal the start of it. This trait carries over to when (y/n) yawns as Jade took it as a sign for his eel-y instincts.

[jackyjango]

Part 1- Mouth to Mouth Combat

Pairing: cherik

Written for this prompt

Erik's empty stomach grumbles in protest. The digital clock on his monitor displays it's 2:30 PM, but he hasn't had a bite to eat since that morning. An ache has been steadily building in his head that throbs with every pump of blood through his jugular. Three ounces of coffee somehow hasn’t seemed to tame it. He needs something stronger. Something like nicotine.

He's mulling over how he wants to torture Sean for screwing up the third blueprint in a row when his phone begins to ring. Though he's set the ringing volume to the minimum, it draws the attention of his interns. Angel gets up from her seat with an excuse of locating a fallen pen while Sean leans back in his chair pretending to stretch his legs. Even though Alex’s eyes are stuck to the monitor, Erik knows that his ears are pointed in his direction. Utter bastards. At least Darwin is the only one in their lot who has the decency to pretend that he’s minding his own business. Pretend, being the key here.

Erik glares at all of them until they pretend to shrink back to work before picking up the call.

'Hello, aunt Ruth.’ He tries to keep his voice to a whisper, but it comes out as a growl. ‘No aunty, I'm not angry with you for calling. That's absurd- No aunty, I'm just at work. Yes, yes…. - yes aunty. You know I will. Of course, I will. Yes- I'm eating. He knows it too. What? This Saturday? Alright, I'll ask him if he's free. Yes, I'll bring him if he's free. Of course, I will.’

On the other end, aunt Ruth goes on berating Erik’s unhealthy eating habits without giving him a breathing pause while Erik nods and aquices to whatever she says. He’s just about to reassure her the third time that he’s been eating his meals on time when Azazel bursts into life in front of him with a hiss of air which overlaps with whatever Aunt Ruth says next.

Tapping on his watch, Azazel mouths the words: ‘Let's go.’

'Alright, aunt Ruth, I have to go now,’ Erik says, half getting up from his desk. 'Yes, yes. I'll check with him and text you. Love you, too… Bye.’

Pocketing his phone, he turns to glare at his sad-excuse of team members. Like a flock of birds dispersing at a pelted stone, they lung back to staring at the screen and tapping idle keys.

Azazel chuckles beside him as they head out into the roaring Genoshan sun.

The chicken roll they both take from the street vendor manages to vaguely quieten Erik’s stomach. He lights a cigarette after walking a short distance to the smoking zone in front of their office building. Floating the lighter to AZ, Erik sends out a text to Charles.

Hey, Aunt Ruth’s invited us to dinner on Saturday. You free?

The reply comes immediately, which means that Charles is on his free hour.

When am I not free for her cooking? Count me in! :)

While Erik sends aunt Ruth a text to confirm that both he and Charles would be coming for dinner, a second text comes from Charles.

Speaking of dinners, how does pasta sound for today?

Smirking, Erik takes another puff of his cigarette.

Are you cooking? Really?

Hey, my cooking isn’t all that bad. I’m decent. Well… mostly.

They both know that Charles’ cooking doesn’t come anywhere near the decent territory, so Erik doesn’t comment on the decency of Charles’ cooking or bring up the fact that he almost burnt the kitchen on three different occasions. Instead Erik sends out: In that case, A okay for pasta.

Stomaching substandard pasta is a small price to pay for being Charles’ roommate.

I assure you, my friend. You won’t be disappointed, comes Charles’ text followed by a grinning emoji.

The devil that he is, Az peeks into his phone and smirks. 'Taking to your boyfriend, huh?'

Erik rolls his eyes. 'Charles is not my boyfriend, Az. He's my friend, just like you are.'

Az shudders and blows out a cloud of smoke through his nose, the image rendering as the incarnation of Satan himself. 'Please, don't compare me with him.'

Erik supposes Az is right. It'd be grossly unfair to compare someone like Az with someone like Charles.

‘Hey,’ Az says, inhaling another puff of smoke into his lungs, ‘A friend of mine is playing at the pub downtown this Saturday. I’m going out with the boys. Wanna join?’

‘No, I’m going to aunt Ruth’s for dinner. You carry on.’

‘And is Charles going with you?’ Az asks way too innocently for Erik’s liking.

‘Yes.’ Erik agrees begrudgingly.

Az pins him with a look that spells out crystal clearly, see what I mean by boyfriends?

Erik barely restrains the urge to smack Az on the head. ‘He’s a friend and a roommate, Az. Nothing more.’

‘Really?’ Az asks leaning on a pillar, his movements gracefully feline; almost akin to a bored cat toying with a ball of yarn aware of the level of destruction it’s capable of. ‘Is that why you refuse to move out or is it because you prefer to travel twenty five kilometres to work?’

Okay. Erik will agree that travelling almost an hour to work is a bit of a hindrance. But it wasn’t a hindrance two years ago when Erik was looking for a place near the engineering firm he was interning at the time. He’d seen an ad on a communal mutant app asking for someone to share a two bedroom flat with. The man who had posted the ad, Charles Francis Xavier, at the time had been a freshly minted post graduate eyeing the position of a junior lecturer in the Genoshan university with a lease amount to a nice house too hefty to bear on his own.

The house itself was more agreeable to Erik and More importantly to Erik’s meagre stipend.

Charles had declared that he’s gay and a telepath the day they’d met, and that Erik should look elsewhere if he had a problem with either of those. In response, Erik had plucked the pen tucked into Charles’ breast pocket with his powers and had signed his half of the lease agreement.

Erik’s not an easy person to live with (and Az will enthusiastically attest to it). He’s weird and particular and controlling and territorial (And that’s just the first four entries on AZ’s list). He doesn’t know what to attribute it to, but living with Charles for a roommate is …. easy.

His living arrangement with Charles is comfortable. Charles doesn’t have any irritating habits. He isn’t stingy with money or particular with the groceries. He carries out his fair share of cooking and cleaning around the house. They take their turns doing the laundry and the dishes. What talent Charles lacks in cooking, Charles makes up for it in baking (And that’s coming from a man who hates anything with more than two spoons of sugar in it). He isn’t overly dirty or messy. Charles picks up after himself (except when he has finals or is in the middle of a research. The house is a dump zone for his tea mugs and their dining table is a disaster zone for papers during such bouts).

More importantly, Charles respects Erik’s boundaries. He doesn’t poke his nose into Erik’s business or needle Erik for anything he isn't willing to share. It helps that they keep their personal lives separate, too. Whatever flings he has, Charles keeps it outside of their shared home and Erik returns the favour. The only things they argue on are which show to watch on TV or which place to order in from. And all the times they’ve come very close to fighting are nights spent over a chessboard pitching points to and fro, for or against human-mutant relationships and ideologies. Erik would be lying if he said that he didn’t live for such nights.

In little over two years, Charles has become Erik’s best friend. And apart from Az (who’s more of a brother Erik can’t get rid of no matter how hard he tries), Erik doesn’t have many of them. So he doesn’t see why he should give up all of that for a few hours saved in commute to work.

Voicing any or all of it will only encourage Az to needle him more, so Erik shrugs and squashes his spent cigarette with the heel of his boot. ‘Come on, it’s getting late. I still have two blueprints to review before seven.’

Az groans at the mention of blueprints. ‘I have three to finish. God, Shaw will bite my head off my shoulders if I don’t complete it by today.’

With that, they move into the blessed cool of the air conditioned building.

Just before Erik turns on his monitor, a text alerts Erik (and by proxy all of his interns he shares his cubicle with). It’s from Charles and says: Got to get to my classes now. See you at home Erik! :)

See you at home, Erik sends and smiles to himself.

He just hopes Az doesn’t see it.

-

[ibijau]

Futures Past pt18 / on AO3

Nie Huaisang returns to the Cloud Recesses, and meets the people he's meant to befriend

Much to his surprise, Nie Huaisang realised upon returning to the Cloud Recesses that he had missed the place. Or rather, he had missed the friends who lived there.

All winter, Su She and him had exchanged letters, mostly to complain about every single thing that bothered them. When they finally met again in person, they were quite happy to do more of the same. They also discussed all the things they might do for fun that year. 

Su She, at long last, had risen in rank and been given more freedom than he used to have. He would have less classes to attend since he was now trusted to take charge of his own training to some degree, he would join more Night Hunts, he had been given a new jade token that allowed him to leave the Cloud Recesses at any time of the day as long as curfew was respected, and he would even be included among those juniors who patrolled to enforce the respect of the rules.

All this made Nie Huaisang so happy for his friend, that he did not realise at first all the implications this had regarding the amount of time they would get to spend together. Su She would be very busy in the future, but he promised he would do everything possible to still make time for his best friend, and Nie Huaisang easily believed him.

The other joy to be found in returning to the Cloud Recesses was not immediate. By the time Nie Huaisang had arrived there, Lan Xichen had not yet returned from a Night Hunt he’d gone on with Nie Mingjue. That was hardly a surprise. These two were usually far too serious in all things, but when they went Night Hunting together, they always stayed a little longer than really necessary. Nie Huaisang usually found that greatly amusing, and never missed a chance to tease his brother about skirting his duties. They seemed to have taken a particularly long time on this occasion, but since Nie Mingjue had complained a few times that he hadn't seen his friend in such a long while, it was not so odd. Nie Huaisang would have mocked his brother so much if he'd seen him before leaving home. 

Since he didn’t have a chance to do it that time, he instead teased Lan Xichen when he finally came home, on the same day most of the guest disciples were set to arrive, on the eve of the lectures' start. Of course if Nie Huaisang had been a good and dutiful person, he would have gone to the main gate to see those other guest disciples, and maybe try to strike a friendship with them as early as possible. But between trying to catch a glimpse of the boring friends his future self wanted him to make, and dropping by Lan Xichen’s house to see the friend he actually liked, the choice had been easily made.

Lan Xichen offered him tea and smiled when accused of dodging his responsibilities, but less warmly than Nie Huaisang had expected. In fact, he found that the older boy looked rather more tired than he should have been, and more nervous as well. He tried to ask about that, but Lan Xichen refused to dwell on the subject.

“There is just a lot to do, and you are right that I was gone longer than I should have,” Lan Xichen said. “Especially since Wangji is in seclusion… he was supposed to come out of it today, but I saw him earlier and convinced him to continue meditating alone for at least another month. There will be many energetic people among our guests this year, and I doubt he will enjoy their company too much.”

Nie Huaisang, who had found the Cloud Recesses even more fun without the constant threat of Lan Wangji being around to enforce the rule, could only nod. He didn't mind waiting a month to set in movement his older self's orders.

“And this had nothing at all with you wishing to have a little peace without your brother constantly enforcing the rules, does it?” he teased.

“I am nowhere near as rebellious as you seem to have decided,” Lan Xichen replied with an indulgent smile. “Though I suppose Lan Wangji does take a stricter approach to them than I do. I’m sure in time, he’ll learn that they are meant to be a guidance, not a restriction.”

“And that he should let his brother eat candies sometimes.”

Lan Xichen smiled, trying to hide a chuckle. That was enough to comfort Nie Huaisang. As long as he still enjoyed his jokes, Lan Xichen could not be doing badly. And after that the conversation soon moved on to music, giving Nie Huaisang a great chance to show off how hard he had worked all winter. By the time Nie Huaisang had to leave, Lan Xichen appeared in good spirits again, for which he congratulated himself.

-

When morning came, Nie Huaisang got up as early as he could manage after falling back on his old habits during winter, and headed toward the lecture hall with the other Nie disciples. There were a number of other boys assembled at the door, all waiting for the teacher to arrive. 

Among those, the ones dressed in purple attracted Nie Huaisang’s attention the most. He recognised Jiang Cheng of course, with Meng Yao next to him whose attitude seemed more that of a babysitter than a fellow disciple, perhaps because of that other boy standing near them who had a mischievous smile on his lips. Then, behind them, there were two other boys dressed in Jiang purple, plain and quite forgettable. Perhaps Wei Wuxian wasn’t there after all, or perhaps he had already entered the class to study on his own, as befitted someone who was destined to fall for Lan Wangji.

Even if that person was absent, Nie Huaisang decided he should go greet Jiang Cheng and Meng Yao at least, since he already knew them. But before he had taken even one step in their direction, he heard someone call out for him.

“You are Nie gongzi, right?” a haughty boy asked.

He was dressed in that shade of yellow that only the Jins ever thought pleasant, and his face bore a passing resemblance with Jin Zixun’s, except with much nicer features, and a far colder expression. All of this made it rather easy to guess his identity, even if they had never met.

“And you must be Jin gongzi,” Nie Huaisang replied with a polite nod. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Jin Zixuan said, returning the nod. “Since you are my cousin’s friend, I hope we can become better acquainted.”

Nie Huaisang gaped at the other boy.

“I’m what?”

“He’s too proud to use the word, but I know Zixun. He wrote about you several times last year, and he told me you helped him pass his exams.”

That this would be anywhere near enough to be considered a friend said a lot about Jin Zixun’s overall popularity. Nie Huaisang himself, who wasn’t exactly rich in friends, wouldn’t have used the word to talk about Jin Zixun, but he still felt flattered. In fact, he wondered if the acquaintance might be worth sustaining. Surely Nie Huaisang could try to write to Jin Zixun perhaps? He’d promised he would write to Xue Yang already, to give him a chance to practice reading and writing without the pressure of a classroom. If he was writing anyway, one more letter could be easy to fit into his very full schedule. Jin Zixun was a prick, but on occasions he'd been almost tolerable, so he wouldn't be the worst friend Nie Huaisang could make.

“He also said you became friends because he broke your nose,” Jin Zixuan added, his tone dripping judgement at the idea that anyone could ever put up with something like that.

Nie Huaisang self-consciously raised a hand to touch his nose, before quickly dropping it to his side, embarrassed by this habit he’d picked up.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” he grumbled. “But I guess I did help him pass. And, well… if you want to be friends, I have no issues with that.”

“We’ll see about it,” Jin Zixuan retorted, before turning around and returning to his own group, as if it might dirty him to spend too much time with people who weren’t Jins.

Jin Zixuan was lucky to have such a pretty face and to be so rich, because it certainly wasn’t his personality which would make him friends, Nie Huaisang thought. He was at least as annoying as Jin Zixun, even though it was in a different manner.

He must not have been the only one to have that impression. When he turned his attention back toward the Jiang disciples, all of them save for Meng Yao were glaring in the direction of Jin Zixuan. Worse still, when their eyes wandered toward Nie Huaisang, it was clear that mere association with Jin Zixuan had instantly branded him as unpleasant to them. That was odd, though. Everyone knew that there was an engagement between Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli, so surely there should have existed, if not friendship, then at least some degree of cordiality between disciples of their two sects. 

Nie Huaisang feared what starting with a disadvantage might do to the mission forced upon him, when already he wasn’t the best at making friends. But his eyes then met Meng Yao’s who, after whispering something to Jiang Cheng, walked toward Nie Huaisang and even bowed to him with far more deference than anyone had ever bothered to show before.

“Nie-gongzi, I am glad we meet again,” Meng Yao said. “I never had a chance to thank you before for your help that day.”

“I hardly did anything at all!” Nie Huaisang protested, waving his hands in embarrassment. “In fact, you were even hurt by my fault that time!”

“And yet I must insist in expressing my gratitude. If not for you and Lan gongzi standing up for me, I would not have been given a chance to become a cultivator, which has been my greatest dream since childhood. For this, I am in your debt.”

Nie Huaisang blushed a little. “Really, it was nothing. Any decent person would have done the same! And with a potential like yours, it was only natural that someone would take you as a student someday! How’s Yunmeng treating you? Are they nice to you? You can tell me if they’re not, and I’ll tell my da-ge, and he’ll tell them to be nice. But it’s Yunmeng, of course they’re probably nice, right?”

His rambling surprised Meng Yao, who appeared a little unsure how to answer. Probably he’d expected the young master of a great sect to be a little more eloquent than that, the way Lan Xichen was, or even Jiang Cheng. But it was difficult to keep cool in front of the boy who would have become the man who had killed Nie Mingjue.

How could that have even happened? Even after months in Lotus Piers, Meng Yao remained shorter than Nie Huaisang, and barely any heavier. How could someone like that…

“I think we’re treating him fine,” Jiang Cheng said in a dry voice as he joined them. “Though your concern commends you, Nie gongzi.”

Nie Huaisang jumped in surprise, and quickly bowed to him.

“Of course I didn’t mean to imply… and, well, he’s here to study, so clearly he is well treated, and your father must be quite impressed with him,” Nie Huaisang said, fidgeting with his sleeve. “I’m quite glad that things worked out so well!”

That other Jiang boy, the tall and handsome one, also joined them and threw an arm around Meng Yao’s shoulders to pull him close.

“It’s not Jiang-shushu who’s impressed with Meng Yao, it’s Yu-furen,” the boy said with a bright grin. “She’s the one who said he should come, because we’re less stupid when he’s with us.”

“She said you’re less stupid,” Jiang Cheng scoffed. “Don’t drag me down with you.”

“Yu-furen also thinks that having Meng Yao with us means that stupid peacock will keep his distances,” the other boy continued, unbothered by that interruption. “She’s really so scared that we’ll start an argument with him.”

“You would!”

“Only if he insults Shijie! Which he would, because he’s nothing but a self-important…”

“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng hissed. “Can you not shut up just for a moment?”

The boy just laughed, while Nie Huaisang stared.

Surely there had to have been a mistake. That couldn’t be Wei Wuxian. There was simply no way that Lan Wangji would ever become even a little attracted to a person such as this, who was bold enough to insult Jin Zixuan within earshot, who was so careless regarding Meng Yao’s obvious discomfort at having the connection mentioned. Sure Wei Wuxian wasn’t half bad looking, but with a personality like that, Lan Wangji would only try to murder him, not kiss him.

“You know, if the teacher isn’t here yet, we can probably leave,” Wei Wuxian said. “That’s what we’d do at home. Let’s ditch the lesson and go have fun!”

Oh, Lan Wangji was so going to murder him when they met. Surely Nie Huaisang’s future self had to be mistaken about those two. 

“Hey, Wei-xiong, you shouldn’t say things like that,” Nie Huaisang advised. “There’s some people that might punish you if they heard you talk like this!”

“Sure, but the point is that the teacher isn’t here, so I have nothing to fear. Come on, Nie-xiong, it’s your second year here, right? Surely you’d rather run off to have fun with us than sit through some boring lectures again!”

As a matter of fact, Nie Huaisang very much wanted that. Considering how badly his studies went the year before, he had no reasons to think he would do any better that year either, so having fun would be a great use of his time. But that would upset Nie Mingjue, who didn't need that. And it might also disappoint Lan Xichen, which would be the worst thing ever. Having discovered that he enjoyed being praised, and how willing to do just that Lan Xichen was, Nie Huaisang didn't want to risk upsetting his friend. 

"When I say there's people you shouldn't make angry, I don't mean just Lan Qiren," Nie Huaisang warned. "He's mostly manageable, if you just avoid talking back and cry a little when he gets angry. But his nephew Lan Wangji is a real terror, and they've put him in charge of overseeing punishment for the juniors. You're lucky he's in seclusion at the moment, because just for speaking of skipping classes, he'd have your skin. He takes rules very seriously!"

"The teacher's nephew, uh," Wei Wuxian said with an odd smile. 

"You're thinking something unwise," Meng Yao accused. 

"Please don't go bother that guy as soon as he leaves his seclusion," Jiang Cheng warned. "Mother will murder you if you disgrace our sect!" 

Wei Wuxian's grin only grew wider, to the great anxiety of the other three. 

"That nephew, he wouldn't happen to be a very handsome boy?" Wei Wuxian asked. "About my size, very handsome…" 

"His brother looks much better," Nie Huaisang interjected without thinking. "Lan Wangji always looks so crossed… but he has a fine enough face, yes."

"And a silver sword that gives off a cold impression?" 

"Did you already meet him?" Nie Huaisang asked. 

"Yes, last night." 

"Last night?" Jiang Cheng repeated. "How… there's a curfew in place here! Are you already breaking rules?" 

Without a shred of regret or shame, Wei Wuxian started telling the story of his escape to buy wine, his attempt to return in secret, and his fight with Lan Wangji. Upon hearing that tale Jiang Cheng was furious, Meng Yao was worried, and Nie Huaisang so delighted he had to cover his mouth with both hands not to laugh. 

Lan Wangji losing his temper! Lan Wangji getting in a fight, and not even winning it! Lan Wangji failing to punish a criminal! It was the funniest Nie Huaisang had ever heard, and he couldn't wait to share all of it with Su She who would surely be just as entertained. 

This Wei Wuxian was a much more interesting person than anticipated, and Nie Huaisang could see himself becoming quite fond of him, even though he'd been determined to dislike him before. But that had been when he thought that his future self and Lan Wangji approved of him, two people whose opinion he didn't value much. 

"Wei-xiong, you are so dead," Nie Huaisang cheerfully announced when the other had finished his story. "It's going to be a matter of pride now, he's going to have his eye on you for the entire time you'll be here!" 

And for more than that, if Nie Huaisang’s future self was to be believed. That old prick didn't seem the sort to prank others, but it was also difficult to imagine Lan Wangji falling in love with someone like Wei Wuxian. People said that opposite attracted, but there were limits. Then again, it would be immensely funny if these two did become a couple. If it happened, Nie Huaisang might laugh to death. 

"That Lan Zhan is probably too busy to bother with me," Wei Wuxian claimed. "And it's not like he comes to the lectures, right? So I'm not worried in the least. Besides, I'm more than his match in a fight!"

The arrival of Lan Qiren, who seemed in as bad a humour as Nie Huaisang had ever seen him, cut short that conversation, though Wei Wuxian still looked quite sure of himself as they all entered the classroom. He only deflated a little when they all noticed that there already was a student sitting there, a Lan boy who only looked up from the scroll he was reading to glare at Wei Wuxian. In turn, Wei Wuxian did appear a little startled, having clearly not expected that his new nemesis would be there.

It took Nie Huaisang all of his self control not to laugh at this situation.

The plot to help Lan Wangji find a cultivation partner had held little joy when he had believed Wei Wuxian to be the second Jade's equal in temper. But discovering that Wei Wuxian was a wild spirit, sure to drive Lan Wangji mad with annoyance and to distract him from his duties, delighted Nie Huaisang. It was the funniest thing in the world.

It was the stuff of great romances, something which might blossom into a love story people would talk about for ages. Two people of opposite temper, of opposite values even, learning to see each other’s worth… it would be quite fun to watch that unfold, and even more amusing to give it a push here and there.

Helping the romance of others was the closest to living his own that Nie Huaisang was likely to get, so he’d have to content himself with that.

His lack of appealing skills made it unlikely he’d ever provoke the sort of strong sentiment already at play between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. But even a more talented nature would not have changed his delicate position as his brother's heir. Until his brother married and had children, Nie Huaisang knew it would be unwise of him to flirt with anyone of his own choosing, not when the Nie clan might someday require him to make a good match. The only reason he wasn’t already engaged to anyone, he suspected, was because there weren’t many girls of the right age among the greater sects, and because his brother disliked the idea of using him as a political tool unless absolutely necessary.

It was not easy, being next in line to inherit a sect, and Nie Huaisang was quite happy that he wasn’t in love with anyone at all. He only wished a little to be like Wei Wuxian, as a servant's son, free to live as he pleased as long as he did not bring any scandal for his sect. And it was lucky that Lan Wangji's status was not quite as dire as Nie Huaisang’s, not when he had a brother who was more likely to get married than Nie Mingjue, and even a relatively young uncle who could well have children of his own if needed. 

Lucky them indeed, but Nie Huaisang was determined not to envy them.

He’d just have his share of fun watching them… and maybe he’d see if Lan Xichen could be convinced to help too, just so they’d have another thing to laugh about together.

[bts-teaspoonff]

Fangirl pt. 1

Genre: Romance, Slow Burn, Idol A/U

Pairing: BTS OT7 x reader

Rating: PG

Summary: Y/N, being a huge fangirl, finally got her chance to work alongside her favorite idol group as a backup dancer. She gets to know each member personally and realizes that her feelings may be more than fangirl-idol attraction.

Word Count: 3K

PARTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | .... masterlist

“It’s finally here!” I shouted as I bolted from my room towards the front door to greet the delivery man carrying my package. Even without looking at the mirror, I could feel my smile going up to my ears and my heartbeat furiously echoing through my chest. The delivery man handed me a medium sized box and stared at me as I reach out for the box with a huge smile plastered on my face. I signed the delivery form, closed the door and ran back inside my unit.

I ran to the living room and placed the box on the floor. I turned to my left and hurriedly rummaged for my cutter inside the drawer beside the sofa. I also took my phone on top of the said drawer and placed it on my lap. I swiftly sat down on the floor in front of my package with the cutter ready in my hand when I remembered something. I unlocked my phone and proceeded to video call my brother who’s at work. My brother’s name and his photo appeared on the screen as I wait for him to answer the call.

“Hey Y/N…” His face popped up on my screen. I silently giggled at the angle of his front camera when he answered the call. Not really flattering despite him being good looking. He must have placed the phone on a table directly below his face. “You know I’m at work right? Why did you call? Emergency?” I could hear keyboard sounds in the background. He must be busy typing on the computer as he didn’t bat an eye on his phone while talking to me.

“Yeah I know. I just wanted to share some good news” My camera is facing towards me with just my eyes peeking through screen. I was worried that maybe he’s with some people at work that might see me when he answers the video call and I’m not decent looking right now. “My package has arrived!” I low-key squealed as I pressed the ‘rotate camera’ button on the screen and directed the camera at the package. I could see my brother looking now at the phone. He placed his phone in front of him and leaned it on a stable surface for him to see me properly. He continued to type slowly on his keyboard as he steal glances on his phone screen.

“Don’t tell me…. You bought another merch?” He giggled as he looked at his phone screen and continued to type on his keyboard. He looked back at his computer screen after a second, with a smile on his face. I opened the package with my cutter on one hand and my phone on the other. Tearing through the tape, I can’t contain my excitement as i shrieked when my cutter got through the end of the tape. I released the cutter from my hand and pushed it aside.

“BTS Merch! Oh my god, I have been waiting for these for weeks. I got the latest album, more Tiny Tan figurines, and some concert goods from last tour.” I proceeded to open the box and showed my brother the contents. I felt accomplishment as I look at all the merchandise that has just arrived at home. My ARMY heart couldn’t contain the joy that I have right now. I shot my eyes back on the phone screen and saw my brother smiling as he looked at me through the phone screen.

“Hey, I’m happy you are happy but you know I work in Big Hit right? I work for them?” He stopped typing, took the phone back in his hands and brought the phone close to his face. “I could just easily buy these things for you with my employee discount.” And now his whole face is occupying my phone screen. 

“Jiyong, I know but where’s the fun in that? I want to buy these items using my own money. Well, an employee discount is nice but I don’t want to abuse your privilege as I buy too much of their merchandise.” I snorted at the fact that I really do buy too much of their merchandise. Besides, when I use his employee discount, the items are delivered directly to him as he works inside the Big Hit Building. With the amount of merchandise that I buy, I don’t want to embarrass him and label him as a big fanboy especially with him working so close to the boys.

“If you weren’t my twin sister, I would totally laugh at you. Not that I think you’re crazy but you’re…. loyal” He puts emphasis on the last word. He respects my deep profound respect for the 7 boys but he thinks that maybe I have gone too far with the purchases. He placed his phone back in front of him, leaning on a surface. “Oh before I forget, did you read my email?” I was taken aback with topic change but I’m used to it as he does this all the time. I pressed the ‘rotate camera’ button once again for him to see my face. 

“No, I haven’t opened my email yet. I went home so late last night. My last client in the gym arrived late so we finished late as well. A bummer.” I scoffed as I remembered the fatigue that enveloped my body yesterday. I work as a gym trainer/physical therapist full time and a dance teacher/choreographer as my sideline. I work at my friend’s gym located in the heart of Seoul as a gym trainer. I currently handle 7 clients, some who I have worked with for a few years already. I also teach dance classes at a small dance studio just a few blocks from where I live. Mainly, I handle BTS dance classes because duh, I am a full-blooded ARMY. I really tried to make my passion as a source of income and it warms my heart to see people having fun when I teach them those dances.

“Check it. Anyways, I gotta go. I still have a lot to do. As you know, the company is busy since BTS will be releasing another album sometime this year.” My brother currently works as a Recording Engineer in Big Hit. He used to brag to me that he’ll spend hours with BTS and TXT. I was jealous of course but I am so proud he’s working for them. Whenever I listen to songs from Big Hit artists, I try to think that he has contributed to a lot of songs despite not knowing what exact songs he has worked on. Another reason why I listen and support them.

We both said our farewells and dropped the call. As I took out all the contents of the package unto the floor, I used my phone on the other hand. I opened my mail and saw few unread emails. Some of them were from my subscriptions on Netflix and Spotify, which I barely read. On top of the list was my brother’s mail. I saw the subject “READ THIS FANGIRL!” and I laughed. Here I thought he sent me something urgent or important that needs my utmost attention. Must be another event or merchandise that they’ve yet to announce to the public.

I opened the mail and my eyes were glued to the first line of the message body.

“Big Hit is hiring backup dancers. See the forwarded email below, sis. I think they’re meaning to assign whoever they’ll hire as part of BTS dance team.” Did I just receive this email? It came from my brother so it must be true. He won’t prank me like that. If I apply, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be hired right? That’s too bad if I won’t be hired but there’s nothing to lose if I try to apply.

I left my package scattered throughout my floor and ran towards my laptop lying on my bed. I sat down on the floor beside my bed and opened my laptop. I felt like a kid but here I am, rushing to find my resume to apply for a new job that might eventually change my life.

….

It’s been a week since I applied as a backup dancer for Big Hit. I sent in my resume and a few videos of me dancing to some of their artists’ songs. I’m lucky to have known a lot of BTS’ songs and choreographies by heart and I might have tried to study some of their label mates’ songs as well. I haven’t received a reply back from them and I’m worried that I may not receive any response ever.

Apparently, BTS is known for having only male backup dancers as far as I know so it’s news to me that they’re hiring female backup dancers now. It got me thinking that this might also attract fellow fangirls like me to apply but knowing Big Hit, they wouldn’t want anything scandalous to happen just because they hired female backup dancers. I’m not saying that female dancers lack professionalism but how the boys are the top rank boy group in the country, female fans would be green with jealousy if they see female dancers dancing with them. Some Armies are really protective when it comes to the boys so it’s really shocking to hear that the company is finally considering this.

The day that I got the mail from my brother, I spent half of my day planning what dances to shoot and submit. I chose BTS’ Idol and Singularity, TXT’s Crown and a freestyle dance to Beyonce’s Yonce. I wanted to showcase my range in dancing by carefully choosing a variety of songs. I admit that the reason I may have applied to this job is partly because I’m a fangirl but nonetheless, my passion for dancing is bigger. I have been dancing since I was a kid but I was not this confident at the start. It’s hard to convince me to perform in front of a bigger audience, let alone a stadium full of fans. I slowly got over my fear little by little when I started teaching dance classes at the dance studio. The fear is still there and you may wonder why I am applying for this job when I’m scared shit in performing for a large audience. BTS taught me to love myself and I am really trying my best to go out of my comfort zone. I figured that this may be my best chance in doing so. Also, I get the benefit of working alongside them which is a big plus.

I couldn’t really focus on my job for the whole week. I find myself regularly checking my mail in the hopes of getting a response from Big Hit. 5 days and there’s still no mail. Maybe my email just went to their spam folder or maybe I typed in the wrong mail. On the 7th day while I was pulling out my clothes in the dryer, I heard a ping from my phone from across the hall. I left my phone on my bed and the laundry room is right beside my room. I noticed that the ping was my assigned tone for mails. I hurriedly took out all my warm dry clothes and unto the basket, closed the door of the dryer and turned the lights off in the laundry room.

“New Mail. Subject: Dance Team Application” I saw the notification banner and my heart just jumped out of my chest. I felt my forehead sweating profusely, fingers shaking and my throat closing up as I try to open my phone and check my mail. I silently and swiftly read the contents of the mail. After two seconds, I shrieked at the top of my lungs and threw my phone across my bed. I ran out of my room and in circles around the living room. Good thing I live alone so that I could just celebrate and make loud noises like this. I jumped up and down on the sofa while etching the image of the mail into my head. I buried my head on my pillows and shouted once more, emptying all the air out of my lungs.

I ran back into my room and read the mail again.

“Good day, Miss Y/N.

We have received your application and we are glad to say that we are impressed with your resume and skillset. We would like you to come in our office tomorrow so we can meet and talk personally with our dance team. We are glad to have you join our current dance team. Details of our meeting are expressed below.

Time: 10 am

Address: 42 Teheran-ro 108-gil, Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Attire: Comfortable Casual

Please look for Mina at the front desk to escort you. Thank you.”

I still can’t believe what I’m seeing. Did I just got accepted? As a backup dancer? For Big Hit? Maybe for BTS? I’m such a lucky fangirl. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

….

It’s a good thing that my schedule is free today. I don’t have any clients in the gym scheduled for today and the dance studio is closed for today. I was so nervous and excited at the same time. I woke up at 6 am as I feel my jitters bothering my sleep. I tried to go back to sleep but I trashed the bed and rolled side to side for about 30 mins so I decided to go for a run. I turned on my Spotify and played my ‘Intense Run Playlist’ which mostly consists of high bpm BTS songs. There’s a jogging path near where I live and the scenery is filled with trees. Very calming, which I really need right now.

I arrived in front of the Big Hit Building around 8:30 am. I made sure to arrive early as I don’t want to be late for the meeting. I’m so anxious right now if I’m allowed to go up as early as 9 am or should I just arrived on time. I lingered outside and paced back and forth at a nearby shade. I wondered if I could visit my brother and stay with him for the mean time.

“Is she a stalker?” I heard whispers coming from my right as I slumped back at the pole where I’m taking shade just across the building. “That’s scary.” Three schoolgirls were standing a few meters away from me. They were staring and smirking at me. I wondered why they would think of me as such then I realized that I wore my hoodie up to cover half of my face.

“I’m not…”

“Good luck stalker-nim. You won’t get a glimpse of the boys.” They giggled and ogled me with judgmental looks with their arms across the chests. “Can you get away from the boys? We don’t want stalker armies like you.”

“As I said, I’m not a stalker and I’m older than you. Why are you talking to me in an informal tone?” I pull my hoodie off my head and slowly tread towards them. They laughed and ran away at the sight of me making my way to them. Sheesh, do I really look like a stalker?

I looked at my watch and it’s still 9:10 am. I guess I could try and visit my brother. The fresh morning air blew gently in my face, as if to welcome me, and be my merry playmate, and the sun looked at me with a warm and tender smile. What a nice start to my day, I thought. I put up my hoodie again and I was comfortable once more with the warmth my mere hoodie gave me.

“I have a meeting in your building today. Do you want to meet up? I’m not due until 10 am. – your adorable look alike” I texted my brother and inserted my phone back in my pocket. I breathed in the fresh breeze and not a second later, my phone pinged. I pulled out my phone to see my brother’s name on the screen.

“Lucky, I’m on a coffee break. I’ll be down in a sec.” he replied. A grin was present on my face as I stood up from where I was leaning. I skipped from across the street towards the building. I looked above at the sky and towards the top of the Big Hit Building and when I returned my gaze back in front of me, I was met by a dark haired man in his mid-twenties. I bumped into him and was knocked down at the side of the street. I exclaimed in pain as I rub my backside.

“Hey look where you’re go…” I looked up and immediately recognized the face. The man was wearing a grey Fear of God shirt paired with black baggy pants. His face was half covered by a black mask and his hair was kept away from his face with a black headband almost occupying his whole forehead.

“You should be the one watching you’re going. Crossing the street while prancing around like that.” He scoffed and continued to make his way towards the building. He didn’t even help me up. I sneered back.

“I’m sorry. I assure you that he’s not usually like this. He’s in a bad mood.” Two hands were suddenly around my elbows, propping me up from the ground. I turned my head and saw a woman around mid-twenties as well. She was carrying an opened big black bag propped on her right shoulder with filled with piles of unruly papers stuck inside. When I finally was able to stand up properly, she took off her hands from me and bowed in apology. She swiftly followed the man and shouted, “Yoongi, wait. I can explain.”

So I was right. It was Suga. All the images of a funny and loving Min Yoongi ran through my mind. Just like a scary movie, it was replaced by a disgusted look he shot at me a while ago. Did he…. Maybe he thought I was a stalker or something? I guess if I really looked like one then I don’t blame him for shooting those looks at me. However, a decent person would help anyone up in that situation.

I beat the dust off my hoodie and slowly treaded towards the building’s entrance. Not a really good way to start my first interaction with anyone from BTS, I thought.

Next part: 2