#no insult intended to romeo and juliet

[kanerallels]

Listen. It's about the fact that Ms. Baker (an English teacher) is married to a man named after a character from Shakespeare's plays (and maybe that's why she loves them! Or maybe they're the reason she first had interest in him)

But it's not just any Shakespeare character. Oh, no. It's Tybalt, from Romeo and Juliet

And it's probably unintentional-- probably just a random Shakespearean name

But Tybalt in the play dies fighting

And Tybalt in the book goes missing in action, presumed dead, fighting in the Vietnam War

BUT he comes back! He doesn't die, unlike the play's Tybalt. And that makes me think of this part

Unlike Shylock, Tybalt isn't trapped. He can be something else, he doesn't have to die. He's not trapped in the script of a tragedy. He can come home, and he does

[somelazyassartist]

Trying to get through "Romeo + Juliet" on the plane. I am barely ten minutes in and already I don't have enough fingers on two hands to count the number of things they've removed important context for, misunderstood the tone that was intended, trampled over what was supposed to be a joke, or just straight up gotten things wrong- not like a new interpretation of it they just got stuff WRONG. Sampson and Gregory are supposed to be Capulets!! They're on Tybalt's side!!! And while yeah removing some dialogue could easily switch them to the Montagues if you really need to but you DIDN'T. YOU'RE WRITING THEM AS MONTAGUES INSULTING THEMSELVES THAT'S JUST NOT HOW. IT'S JUST NOT. THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE INSULTING THE OTHER GUYS. YOU COULD'VE JUST CHANGED THE HOUSE NAME TO MAKE IT WORK BUT YOU DIDN'T. I'm so fucking mad.

[aereasrage]

The Favorite pt. 3

summary: Most curiously, princess reader’s children seem to bear a striking resemblance to a certain prince who is not her husband…

cw: codependent mother-daughter relationship yk the drill, pregnancy, childbirth, religion, gaslighting, incest, masturbation, blasphemy, unprotected sex (i feel like that might be redundant because is there any other way to fuck in medieval times?), jace and reader being westerosi romeo and juliet

notes: honestly, the ages in hotd are so confusing that most of the charts/breakdowns i’ve seen make very little sense so for the purpose of this fic, i’ve just decided to age everyone up a lil so jace is intended to be around 19-20 years old as is reader. also for jace x reader purposes, rhaenyra never left for dragonstone, though her and daemon still married and had their children.

part 1 | part 2

word count: 4.1k

Each time you were pregnant, Alicent found herself so filled with worry that she went to the sept daily to pray. She spent much of her time at your side, sharply commanding the servants to care for you in a way which would meet her meticulous qualifications. She wore her hair braided up simply, her clothing free of embellishment save for her golden seven pointed star; appealing to the Mother in humility, not to take her daughter away from her.

You were with child again, your third. Your marriage to Aegon had indeed been fruitful, for you were blessed with two sons, Aemon and Baelon. Both born healthy and squalling with...dark brown hair. But though Alicent had been briefly taken aback by how your sons looked, she quickly regained her composure. She would not dare suspect you of being anything but loyal to Aegon. She rationalized any unsavory possibilities away, for there was no reality she could fathom in which you would be unfaithful to Aegon, no reality in which you would stray from your mother's guidance so much. She had even watched you complete your duty with resignation and obedience, how could she ever see her sweet daughter as being a whore?

Alicent had been at your side throughout your labors, too anxious to be anywhere else. When she had seen you hold your firstborn son in your arms, teary eyed and thanking the Mother, she knew could never think so poorly of you. Your face, she was certain, was the very image of the Mother.

Rhaenyra, however, was not convinced. The way her eldest son looked at you, seemingly gripped in a trance when you were near, the way his hands twitched slightly whenever you were within grasp coupled with your children being born looking exactly as her three brown haired boys did...it was quite funny to her, honestly. So much grief over her sons and now with you having what were obviously her grandchildren, not a single word. She liked you well enough and obviously she had no intentions of putting her own grandsons in danger but she simply wasn't going to let the situation rest without pointing out the hypocrisy.

At the end of a small council meeting, the lords filed out of the room but Rhaenyra stayed behind, her gaze fixed on Alicent. As the room emptied, Alicent begrudgingly stayed behind as well, having a vague sense of what would come next.

"I wished to congratulate you on becoming a grandmother once more," Rhaenyra started. "Though I do wonder if this will be the time my sweet sister bears a child who resembles her husband."

Alicent drew a sharp breath, steeling herself. Immediate anger would only draw further insult. "What you insinuate is filth."

Rhaenyra could only laugh at how deeply Alicent's delusion went. "Come now, Alicent. Even a lackwit could answer the question of your grandsons' parentage. I seem to remember your mind being sharp enough to make suppositions on the father of my sons. Have you not opened yourself up to this?"

"My daughter is a good wife. She is not so slattern to find herself in bed with your...son while being married to mine." Alicent restrained herself from saying what she truly wished. She would not stoop so low and open herself and her daughter to attack.

"Really, Alicent, how long do you think you can keep this up? Who do you believe you're fooling?"

"Their grandsire's hair was dark brown in his youth, my daughter's hair is an auburn, a reddish brown just as mine is," Alicent stated indignantly and all Rhaenyra could do was stare blankly back at her. This couldn't possibly be the woman so fixated on the truth of her sons’ paternity, couldn't possibly be the great devout of the seven, the woman devoted to the virtues of duty and honor and sacrifice. She wasn't sure why it surprised her so much, it wasn't as if she didn't know those spiteful fanatics were all hypocrites. But somehow, given the way Alicent was with her children, she believed that she'd at least have shame enough to try and cover it up, have the children fostered away from King's Landing, stripped of their names, forgotten. Instead, Alicent was standing more firmly on her daughter's virtue and the parentage of her grandchildren than even Rhaenyra had for her boys. Even Rhaenyra did not fool herself as Alicent did.

She had originally planned to offer a marriage again, thinking that Alicent would be tempted to concede this time but seeing that look in her eyes made her second guess. Alicent was truly too madly in love with her youngest daughter to acknowledge what was right before her. She would never agree to annul the marriage between her and Aegon, she'd never sacrifice her daughter's virtue in the eyes of others even if it would spare all of them the grief of perpetually silencing the tongues that would wag at the sight of Aegon's brown haired sons. She believed in her daughter’s absolute perfection and she’d hear nothing that contradicted it, even if it was meant to help her. Rhaenyra left the room, there was clearly nothing more to say if this was how Alicent insisted on handling things.

Your mother believed you to be immaculate. Your siblings followed suit. If Aegon himself had any doubts as to your loyalty, he did not feel them worth speaking. You got the feeling all that mattered to him was keeping your affection. When he entered your chambers for the first time since you had gone into labor, as you held Aemon, rocking him gently to sleep; Aegon envied the child who, after taking over your body for so many moons, was taking his place in your arms until you commented on how like him the babe was. You had been thinking of him as you looked down at your son, it occurred to Aegon that you’d always think of him when you saw your son. Although the head of dark brown hair sent a wave of confusion through him, he believed in your love of him more than he believed his eyes. How could you be untrue to him? You spent most of your time outside of him in the sept or with your mother or sister, helping mind her children. Aemon and Baelon were his sons, two little creatures who served as symbols of your lasting love of him. How could they not be his with the affection you gave to them? With how lovingly you stroked their heads and dubbed them “as willful as their father”?

To everyone, you were the image of an exemplary wife, daughter and princess. You went to the sept at night before you went to bed, to pray to the mother, to thank her for the health of your children. You cared for your children until the late hours of the night. Unlike your parents and siblings, you slept in the same chambers as your sullen, drunkard husband most of the time and brought him cheer as well as incentive to behave himself at least somewhat. You obeyed your mother, brought comfort to your sister and served the realm with a stiff upper lip.

But while there was truth to your reputation, there was also truth to Rhaenyra’s interpretation of you. Your mother may have thought you to be “not so slattern as Rhaenyra,” but the truth was that you were exactly as slattern as her. When you visited the sept at night, with your ladies waiting outside the door, as you “wished to feel the presence of the Mother unfettered,” you were actually meeting Jace who compelled you there each night.

That night, Jace parted himself from the shadows of the sept as he watched you trail in. “How lovely you look, you almost seem pure in the light of the sept,” he grinned. “Don’t tease, my prince,” you huff. Jace watched you cross the room to meet him, his eyes fixed on you steadfastly. He’d said it in jest, but it was true, you looked the very image of innocence, it was not a wonder you were able to have his children without consequence. His hands went to your small bump as you closed the distance between the two of you. Another of his children.

A surge of jealousy went through him each time he remembered his children were being called sons of Aegon. It filled him with the urge to stake a claim to you. He would have you for his wife someday, he would have his children at hand, his heirs. But not tonight. Tonight, all that he could have was your body and in reparation, he fully intended to take his fill.

He brought you to your knees before the altar, lighting a candle before hiking up your dress behind you. “You must have told your mother you’ve come here to pray. We mustn’t disappoint her,” he murmured as his hand reached into your smallclothes. “I shall lead you in your prayers, aunt. We both have much to repent for.”

He was unsurprised to find you wet but it still brought about a low groan of satisfaction. Evidence between his fingers of his hold on you. You could feel him stiff against your back. “Start with the Mother, she’s blessed you most, hasn’t she?” His voice, slightly breathy with ill concealed arousal, sent a thrill straight down to your cunt which squeezed around nothing as Jace continued to gently stroke your clit. “Gentle mother…comfort of all our ills…” you began, taking a shuddering breath as you tried to concentrate on humoring Jace.

He tsked. “You’ve become so slack in your orisons, what would your mother say?” his touch becoming slightly firmer, only just barely quicker, more desperate. “Gentle mother, comfort of all our ills, thank you for our children. Protect them in your arms, despite our hubris and forgive us our lusts. Grant us your mercy.”

You swallowed a desperate cry and continued. “Father above, may you…” your thighs quivered, you were fighting the urge to simply lean back into Jace. “May you judge us justly, give our family the strength to find justice for those who would harm us.”

Jace kissed your temple, a soft gesture that felt almost befitting of such a place. “That is a lovely wish, it becomes you, aunt. Now what shall you beg of the Warrior?” His hips had started to brush against your back gently in rhythm, seeking to quell his already drooling cock straining against the confines of his breeches.

“Brave Warrior, should ever our realm come to war again, may our men be loyal and brave enough to protect us…” you slurred out quickly, the entirety of your focus narrowed down to Jace’s fingers which pulled back every time you pushed your hips forward seeking relief. The worst part was that he was so tightly pressed to you that any movement you made drew a pleasured sound from him, even as you struggled for more of his touch. “Bring our realm to victory…Jace, please.”

He laughed behind you, seeming to have genuine fun teasing you. “We’re not done.” He slid two fingers inside easily, taking a painfully long time to work up to a speed that made you squirm. An unintended moan broke free and Jace paused his ministrations, tugging your hair gently so that you'd turn to meet his gaze. "If you cannot even be quiet in a place of worship, I'll stop." There was a flicker of humor in his eyes but his face was a mask of seriousness.

You nodded obediently, silently cursing him for not being too horny to keep up this strict septon act. You leaned forward for a kiss but Jace evaded you, cupping your cheek in his free hand. "You have more prayers to recite, sweet aunt."

You groaned softly. "I pray for the protection of the maid, should my child be a princess...I pray that you would protect her innocence, keep her safe. I beg forgiveness for my own sins against your domain...for....for I have allowed myself to be seduced."

"And the Crone?" Jace intoned, softly amused at the state he was working you into.

"From the Crone...I beg for guidance, I plead her wisdom to help me overcome temptation." That one made Jace grin, you could hear it in his voice.

"You may beg for her wisdom but I believe you've already made up your mind." This time he let you roll your hips forward into his hand, matching the pace of his fingers as you sought attention for your neglected clit. He even brought your face back to his for a long kiss.

Suddenly, he pulled your small clothes off entirely, shredding them to rags. You braced yourself on the altar, your fingers sticking in the warm, dripping wax of the melting candles. Jace spread your legs with his knees. When he saw the way you were wet down to the inside of your thighs, he could only moan. "Gods," he murmured, it was a shame he didn't have the time to eat your cunt out properly and fuck you. His cock jolted slightly in his pants as he spread you out to admire you fully.

"Don't...." you whimpered, hurting for his cock inside you at last.

"Don't what? Don't admire what a mess you've made, aunt? Don't tell you that your cunt is begging me to use it again?" Jace laughed.

You screwed your eyes shut, bowing your head as you knelt, waiting for him, utterly defeated. In a place where the gods paid thrice as much attention, you were to bear witness to your own moral turpitude. Jace always loved that moment, when your frantic desire and guilt for the values your mother instilled converged; when your heart ached at the depravity of your own actions but you still knew that desire would win, as it always did and always would. You would almost try to hide from your own wanting, surely your mother had also taught you it was unseemly for a woman to have such hungers but that, obviously, did not draw them back from whence they came. In your heart of hearts, you knew you were born hungry and wanting, Jace was the only one who would allow you all that you could devour.

Such a beautiful sight. It was only then that he slid his cock inside, a surprised cry leaving your pretty mouth when he was only half inside. He paused just as you clapped a hand over your mouth, head still bowed in silent prayer that he should not decide to stop. Mercifully, he didn't. Couldn't, rather. He was sure it would have killed him to stop. He began to push deep into you, meeting slight resistance from the tight space despite how many times you'd taken it. A pleasant sting came about as he stretched you out slowly. As he entered you fully, it came to mind to rub your clit as it throbbed for attention but you simply couldn't. You were stalled, miring in the overwhelming sensitivity of that moment.

Every detail, every curve, vein and divot of his cock was gliding right over the tender spot inside that made you want to weep. You were too sensitive and pent up for so long, it happened every time, you got too close to the edge too quickly. Your breaths came quick and shallow, your brain going to madness. It took so few strokes for you to come undone that Jace himself was not even at the edge yet. You muffled your cries in your hand, your cunt all but fluttering around Jace's cock. A few stray tears ran down your face as Jace gently forced your head up again so that he could admire your expression. "Too fucking easy," he said but so softly it did not even sound mean.

You tentatively removed your trembling hand from your mouth, putting more faith in your voice than you ought have. "Please, more," you begged, your voice a cracked whisper. You were no longer pretending, here of all places with him of all people, there was no longer any need to be the vision of purity in flesh.

"Utterly consumed and still begging for me...that is how I like you, aunt." Jace's hands found your hips, his own snapping forward to thrust into you deeper, quicker. Thankfully, the silk of your gown prevented your skin from rubbing raw on the stone altar but you'd had to abandon your grip on the slick stone, instead relying on the floor to hold you up. Jace let out quiet, restrained moans at the feel of you. He would surely not be able to keep his pace and last much longer, but it did not seem to matter for your body was so alight with stimulation that you were a hair's breadth from cumming anyway. When you'd tried to touch your own clit again, even your own gentle touch, you'd flinched and trembled from overstimulation.

Jace kept a brutal pace, panting like a beast in heat. You came, a painful orgasm racking your body. The warm, wet squeeze of your pleasure, of your cunt trying to draw him deeper was eliciting the most deliciously ill concealed moans from him. He pumped in and out of your hole, his breaths stuttering. Your hand was still over your mouth to contain the whorish moans that would serenade the entire sept if allowed. Just as you thought you'd collaspe in a heap onto the ground, Jace finally came, pumping cum deeply into you in slow pulses. You could feel his body twitch where your bare skin met. Cum continued to flow for several more seconds, your dazed mind was both exhausted and impressed.

When he finally finished, he lingered for a moment inside you. He wished to have you for the whole night, to have you for every night. To steal you away from standing at the side of green cloth and sullen faces; to put you in the true colors of your house as his queen. He knew, like Rhaenyra knew that your mother would never agree to an annulment and it was her who ruled you. It was only when Aegon was sent to the seven hells that he could steal you away and wed you. It was only then he could speak the truth of his children without fear.

That wasn't tonight. Perhaps it would not even be after the birth of your third child but Jace was something your brothers and your mother were not. Patient. He would play the game, he would bide his time, he would plot and plot and plot. He could be as his mother and pretend.

When you parted from him, you returned to your chambers, finding a drunken and weepy Aegon. You had so wanted to have a bath and a nice sleep but it seemed you'd have to soothe your elder brother instead. You sat on the bed, not bothering to even ask what was wrong with him this time, it was always something or another and none of it really mattered by morning. You brought his head into your lap, though you smelled distinctly of sex, your brother must have believed it came from him for he accepted your comfort without question. You stroked his hair and let him drone about Aemond’s jabs as Jace’s cum seeped out of you, wetting the inner lining of your dress.

You and Aegon had only slept together a handful of times, not that he knew as much. After the first couple of times, you came to know how to prepare yourself for the gods only knew that he wouldn’t. Aegon’s desire for you was sporadic in your first years of marriage, you didn’t know when he’d appear in your chambers seeking your body. So, you’d lay back in your bed, touching yourself to the thought of your pretty nephew. Making yourself wet, relaxed and ready so that things would go along without irritation should he appear. Would that your mother had wed you to Jacaerys, you would have done your duty with gladness and ease but you knew how your mother was and what she expected. You couldn’t fault her so much for it, her intentions were only to keep you with her and within her protection. Thankfully, though as Aegon grew, he became more and more of a drunkard, only occasionally being able to even make it to your chambers at night and being satiated into sleep with only a bit of appeasement. He was never the wiser about whether he had or had not bedded you.

It hardly mattered. He only wished for reassurance that you still loved him and thought best of him and in your arms, he believed he’d found it. His limp, weepy affection was suffocating but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave your brother without comfort when he was upset, unfortunately. In the morning, you were glad to untangle yourself from his sweaty body to bathe and dress for the day. Your maids eyed the light bruises at your hips sympathetically, believing they came from your husband, still snoring in bed. You paid them no mind, though it made you feel a bit guilty, it was all the better for everyone to see you as a suffering and dutiful bride. Better for them to think Aegon bedded you, demanded much of you even as you were with child. A princess quietly suffering was as saint-like as a woman could be in the eyes of lords. Let it be told that you did your duty. Such was the only way you’d ever have anyone fight for you and your children.

Months later — months of secret meetings and muttered prayers later, you went to your birthing bed with your mother at your side. She was trying to soothe you but the sheer terror in her eyes didn’t match her calm words. Still, you were glad to have her. Even if you told Jace you belonged to him and even though the lords of the realm said you belonged to Aegon, you truly belonged to your mother who cared for you in all things. Whose love of you would drive her to madness should you perish in childbirth. It was a comfort that preceded your capacity for romantic love, it was something formed in the womb, when hers was the only voice in the world.

This birth was your longest yet, stretching from starless morning sky to the middle of the next day when the sun hung high in the sky. Alicent’s fervent prayers as she held your hand were only broken by the birth of your child, who was smaller than your others but dubbed a healthy girl by the maesters. It didn’t seem as though Alicent truly cared much about that, she was simply relieved you had survived the undertaking. The instant the maester took the babe to examine for any imperfections, she leaned down at your bedside and held you tightly. “Oh, my sweet girl. You’ve done so well.”

When the maester handed the softly fussing child back to you, you noticed a thick tuft of silver hair in her head of otherwise dark hairs. You noticed it captured Alicent’s eyes too. She smiled, silently pleased, believing that this would end all allusions to bastardy. If there had been any doubt in her heart that she was able to acknowledge, it was all soothed at the sight of her hair. The babe cooed softly, lying at your breast, stealing your heart away completely. You loved your boys but with a mother like yours, how could you be anything but enamored with a daughter of your own?

“What will you name her?” Alicent asked, watching you hold her granddaughter proudly, pushing your sweaty hair out of your face.

“I shall name her Viserra, I think.”

“That’s lovely.” Alicent smiled, coasting on the sheer relief of your survival. You could have told her you wish to name the child Lickspittle and she would only nod blissfully. “You’ve done so very well.” She seemed near tears.

“Oh, mother, don’t cry.”

She wiped at the tears steadily falling from her big brown eyes. “I cannot help it. I wish to protect you from all things and bearing your child is solely in the hands of the gods but my girl is so strong. I am truly proud, truly grateful.” She knew what it was to marry and to stand alone even in marriage. You wore it well, better than even she had. She never cursed Viserys for it only made him harder to live with if she did but in your birth and his neglect of you, she bore a resentment deep as the sea and long as the red waste. If he was to favor one of his daughters, should it not be you who was never once a thorn in his side? Who honored him even as he slowly forgot your name? If a daughter could be a worthy heir in her eyes, it was you who should have been chosen. That thought became another bitter seed of resentment piled onto the many she’d already buried. She could only hold you.

There was truth to the notion that she feared for all of her children but truly, it was mainly you she feared for. The only loss she could not recover from. She could never have tolerated your marriage to one of Rhaenyra’s bastard boys, the anxiety alone would send her to her death. Still, there were other dangers that awaited young girls in the keep, even princesses…even queens. She wished to shield you from all of them but to that end, she would need to continue building allegiance. Never again should she be delicate, never again supplicating to the wrong person. Her daughter would be queen with hundreds at her side, in service of her honor when the time came, even if it came to bloodshed.

[ridiasfangirlings]

MikoRei Romeo and Juliet au (the ones leading their clans are the former red/blue kings). It's funny to think how the story would go with their personalities.

Ah yes who doesn’t remember that iconic scene in Romeo and Juliet where Romeo punches Juliet in the face XD I suppose the clans would have a ‘true’ rivalry in this AU though, Purgatory and Scepter 4 constantly running into each other in the streets and having a huge fight and killing each other. King Kokujouji is really sick of this and would like these two households alike in dumbfuckery to learn to chill and get along instead of causing property damage in his streets. Mikoto is the young master of House Purgatory, really over all this rivalry stuff and constantly bored by everything. One day House Scepter 4 is holding a party and Mikoto figures he’ll party crash, his friends Kusanagi and Totsuka think this is a bad idea but Mikoto saw some S4 guy on the street and thought he looked punchable so what better than to hunt the guy down at his party and do some punching.

Mikoto arrives at the party and it’s as boring as expected, everyone’s in costume and he has to wear a mask so no one realizes who is. As he’s lounging around by the buffet table one masked guy comes up to him and asks him for a dance, Mikoto’s not interested but the guy drags him along anyway. As they’re dancing Mikoto decides to step on this guy’s feet a little, the guy doesn’t miss a beat and kicks Mikoto in the ankle. Mikoto grins like okay maybe not all of these guys are boring, his dance partner makes a comment about how barbarians are supposed to remain in their own territory. Mikoto realizes he’s been found out and wonders if this guy is going to snitch on him, the guy doesn’t seem interested in doing that though and they end up just back and forth insulting each other and trying to see who can kick who most discreetly for the rest of the dance. Afterward the guy sends Mikoto away and tells him to leave while he can, as he’s leaving Mikoto overhears from some partygoers that the person he was dancing with is the heir to Scepter 4, Munakata Reisi.

Mikoto doesn’t intend to go back to S4 but he feels like he didn’t get to bully that guy enough so he sneaks back in the next evening. Munakata is hanging out on his balcony trimming bonsai and Mikoto’s all ‘hey, asshole.’ Munakata raises an eyebrow and wonders what the scion of purgatory is doing by his balcony, Mikoto just climbs right up onto it and is all dunno just felt I didn’t get to punch you enough at the dance. Munakata primly notes that it is truly a low class person who would think to crash such a party, but he does admit that perhaps he did enjoy things a little more with Mikoto there. Mikoto’s all amused like is that so, Munakata glares and is like ‘I said perhaps.’ They’re totally enjoying each other’s company though, arguing and maybe sharing a smoke and when Mikoto leaves Munakata’s all ‘Suoh Mikoto, is it.’

Things are going well until one day after Munakata and Mikoto have been hanging out together for a while Mikoto’s friend Totsuka gets killed in a fight between Purgatory and S4. In retaliation one of Munakata’s fellow clan members, Kusuhara Takeru, is killed by Purgatory and Mikoto is framed for it. Mikoto is sentenced to exile but Munakata isn’t pleased by this, he feels that Mikoto is innocent and that together the two of them could maybe broker peace between the clans. He and Mikoto make plans to meet in secret but the head of S4, Habari Jin, ruins Munakata’s plans by announcing that the clan has already made preparations to wed him to some random member of the house in order to strengthen the clan as a whole. Finding the whole idea distasteful Munakata decides to just fake his own death and send a message to Suoh to meet in his tomb where they can decide to move forward from there.

The messenger doesn’t reach Mikoto but he does hear from one of his men that Munakata’s ‘died.’ Thinking that asshole wouldn’t die so easily Mikoto sneaks back into the city to find him, in the S4 tomb he finds Munakata appearing dead. Mikoto punches him in the head to be sure though and that’s actually stronger than sleeping potions so it wakes him right up. Mikoto figures this was a stupid plan and Munakata admits that it did make sense at the time. They decide to just leave the crypt and see about reuniting their families, luckily in the meantime Habari and Kagutsu got into a big fight and stabbed each other so now Munakata and Mikoto are heads of their families and they broker a truce between everyone. Kokujouji is initially happy but it turns out now they still cause lots of property damage there’s just less murdering happening so it’s still not entirely a win.

[cheezritsu]

Haikyuu Couple Aesthetics

Daichi Sawamura: good luck charms, front row seats at his games, the mature couple; “mom and dad” of the friend group; saying “goodnight” to one another on your doorstep, sentimental captions on their instagram posts, eating dinner and talking about your day like you’re already married; making plans for the future with one another involved; impressing one another’s parents; the thrill of doing everything together; being each others emergency contact; sleeping so well because your love is reliable and stable. You two are the timeless high school sweethearts, making the unattainable look so easy.

Sugawara Koushi: cafe dates, doting words, “sweetheart” and “darling,” laughing just from looking at one another. The secretly chaotic couple, perfectly curated dates, being approved by all his friends, soft, sweet pecks; random flower bouquets on your doorstep; kissing away your tears; hugs warmer than fresh baked cookies, grading student papers over dinner, smiley face post-it notes in your bento boxes, farmers market dates, always, always knowing each other’s favorite things; thoughtful gifts, mistakenly being called “Sugawara-san” before you’re married, shy smiles, kissing his beauty mark, a relationship as easy as the breeze. You two are like bees and flowers, working in tandem to create something natural and sweet.    

Nishinoya Yuu: cutting class to hang out in the hallways, popsicles melting in the summer heat, tongues dyed red and blue from convenience store slushies, dinner dates with no leftovers, neon colored band-aids, learning to hop a fence, scuffed sneakers, bruised arms. The lawless couple, squad posing in couple pictures, matching dyed streaks, sneaking out past midnight, pulling pranks, sitting on the swingset in the middle of the night, counting the stars over head. Adoring stares, “I’m so proud of you!”, kissing his bruises, screaming out the window of your car on a road trip. Traveling the world together, video messages, blowing kisses to each other, saying “I missed you!” after one day apart. You two are twin stars, constantly orbiting each other and burning brighter, together.

Tanaka Ryuunoske: shaving his head, mini skirts, being Saeko’s favorite, troublesome trio antics, late night food runs, horror movie marathons, couple gym workouts. The unexpected couple; getting compliments from the eldery on how cute you two are, flipping off his teammates while you kiss in front of them, excessive worrying, scaring off any boys that look at your wrong, the “Will Smith gesturing to his Wife” meme; thinking you’re too good for this world, calling each other “bro” romantically, kissing him after winning games, placing a beanie over his head in the winter, taking unflattering photos of one another with the most sincere captions. You two are the moth and the flame, drawn together by an inexplicable pull. 

Tsukishima Kei: Wool overcoats, headphone splitters, dogeared textbook pages, study dates, strawberry desserts, “This song reminded me of you.” The better than you couple, wearing his t-shirt to sleep, borrowing each others sweaters, kissing his bruised fingers, hiding in his jackets, going to the same university, softly singing in long car rides, always slightly touching one another, quick, secret kisses, height difference jokes, moon-centric nicknames (“moonbeam,” or “moonshine”) trying on his glasses, mirror selfies,sharing record collections, concert dates; weekend dinners at Tsukishima’s childhood house, being adorded by his teammates, dinosaur themed gifts as a joke, Studio Ghibli movie marathons, listen parties as dates, opening up to one another, “quit staring at me” “but I love you;” him constantly smiling when you’re next to him and denying it ever happened. Sharing insults as a love language, being soft when the time comes, humming into his hair as you fall asleep together. You two are a sweet, slow ballad; a duet between lovers in perfect harmony. 

Akaashi Keiji: library dates, meet cutes, book recommendations, fancy dinner dates, proofreading each other’s work, cuffed trousers, trench coats, french perfume, dainty jewellery, knuckle kisses, the academic couple; good grades, pet names, longing glances, visiting each other’s jobs, sharing clothing, reading books over his shoulders, cocooning in linen blankets, the scent of fresh laundry and lavender, running your hand through one another’s hair, smoothing wrinkles out of his works shirts, working around each other in the bathroom in the morning; matching schedules, museum dates, “you’re the Romeo to my Juliet.” “please don’t die for me.” Literature references, letting Bokuto third wheel, being the smartest couple in the room, massaging one another’s shoulders after long days, words of affirmation, sitting on top of his desk, smiling as he edits another page; “are you coming to bed?” ‘quick, secret smiles. You two are matching portraits in a museum, your love equally as timeless and beautiful. 

Oikawa Tooru: alien bandaids, golden hour selfies, matching skin care routines, wrapping his bandages, phone calls to remind him of things, leaning his head on your shoulder, the king and queen couple; listening to each others insecurities, being his biggest cheerleader, holding your face like it’s the whole world, helping him learn spanish, constantly bragging about one another, stupid nicknames in each other’s phones,  “~Iwa-chan!~”, the Seijoh team rolling their eyes at your PDA, threats from Iwaizumi, making promises you intend to keep, being his rock, letting him cry if he needs to, petty rants, keeping nail files in your purse, knowing the real him, framed couple pictures, teasing him with the team; “I have faith in you;” being there when each other needs it. You two are beloved monarchs, ruling your domain hand in hand with benevolent smiles. 

Kuroo Tetsuro: matching leather jackets, red lipstick kisses, theater hopping, chemistry puns, trying (and failing) to get rid of his bed head, constantly handsy, late night drives, cram sessions, lipstick smudges on his neck, “I’m always this kind,” Yamamoto crying in the distance, “Kenma, love us!”, being double trouble, the power couple; better grades together, singing off key, ugly couple photos, sleeping on the train, awful, cackling laughter, adored by his grandparents, stroking your hair as you fall asleep curled onto a too small couch; making it work no matter what, your eyes shining with pride at all his games. Being on the same wavelength, adoring stares while brushing your teeth, kissing him by his tie, making out in the back of taxis, pulling him into a well needed hug without thinking, playing with your food, whispering ‘I love you’ into the crown of your head. You two are immortal lovers, reunited in this life, and all those after. 

Osamu Miya: late night diner runs, lazy mornings in, being business partners, staying up late drafting new menu items, slow dancing in the kitchen, all you can eat buffets, roses before every date, subtle pda; the domestic couple; matching outfits, holding hands with intertwined fingers, clutching your chests with heavy laughter from each other’s jokes, eating half each other’s plates on dinner dates; devouring ice cream by the tub while bingeing television shows, treating grocery store runs like dates, falling asleep to his heartbeat, comfortable silences, long talks while washing dishes, baking cookies at ungodly hours, hanging onto one another’s arms, sneaking away from parties to be alone, tracing patterns on one another’s skin, whispering “I love you” when the other isn’t listening, temple kisses, side hugs, growing into one another, cooking food as a love language, having immense pride for the one another. You two are best friends, falling in love with each other over and over again every day.

Atsumu Miya: neon colored lights reflecting off his hair, open mouthed kisses, toothy smirks, house parties, being one another’s arm candy, diamonds glinting under flashing lights, breathlessness, wandering hands, showering together, black lingerie, superfluous travelling, first class seating, poorly concealed hickies, clinking champagne glasses, “That’s my girl/boy!” wearing his track jacket, selfies in expensive hotels; the celebrity couple, “I don’t speak broke,” shiny engagement rings, paparazzi photos, explicit pictures, red sports cars, winks meant only for you, hands on your waist, matching manicures, tipsy kisses, flaunting cash, making out on kiss cams, holding ring covered hands, never being alone; cheesy romantic texts, only having eyes for one another. You two are wrapped around each other’s fingers tighter than a bandaid, and that’s how you like it. 

[millllenniawrites]

sparks fly (Poe Dameron x Reader)

part three of dear love of mine

words: 1.6k

warnings: very very slight dom!reader vibes; tension; second hand embarrassment; reader has a last name; regency au for the aesthetic but it’s historically inaccurate for the *vibes*; afab!reader; slow burn; sexual themes throughout; eventual smut; pining; warnings will be added as the series progresses

a/n: this chapter was supposed to be longer but I decided to split up some scenes so I could get it to you sooner!! I hope you guys like it!

__

Poe did not attend breakfast the next morning.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting. It’s not like you could very well ask him why he decided sneaking into your room in the dead of night was appropriate in front of your mother and your staff, even if he had come.

But your questions nagged at you. Had he known that you were out in another part of the house? Had he expected to find you in bed? What would he have done? He couldn’t very well have come into your room. That wouldn’t be proper.

Not that you were worrying about your prospects. It wouldn’t matter if you were untouched if you were never going to marry.

Not that he’d ever—

As you jolted yourself out of your thoughts, you kicked up, sending Ana’s cup careening off the table. Finn managed to catch it before it hit the ground, which your mother applauded. As if that was some trick of magic and not pure luck.

Ana batting her eyes at him and the way he softly smiled was enough for you to keep your mouth shut, if only barely. The men in your home were here to ensure Ana and Finn were married. And quickly.

You’d returned to your room after breakfast, claiming an entirely false headache before shutting yourself in for the day. Retrieving the note from under your pillow, you read over his words again.

Your humble servant.

Humble, indeed. So humble he dared to insult your mother and your household by not showing up to his first breakfast in your home.

You traced over the curl of his name. Poe. It was strange, how fitting it was. Gentle. Like the slope of his neck…

Crumpling the letter in your hand, you stuffed it back beneath your pillow and lay atop it. It seemed the General did not need to be in your presence to be needling away at your patience.

You retrieved an old copy of one of your father’s favourite novels, intending to distract yourself from the handsome stranger and dive into a well-loved tale. Running your fingertips along the edge of the cover, you squinted your eyes in an attempt to focus.

You read the same sentence over and over. It was as if your mind had refused to cooperate.

A change of scenery. That should do the trick.

With your book tucked under your arm, you snuck out of your room and made for the drawing room on the first floor. The couch in the corner had a beautiful view of the mountains…

A view that had been thoroughly obstructed by one General’s large, curly, unkept head.

Ana sat across from him, and Finn beside them both at one of the smaller card tables in the centre of the room. Lord Barnes spread out a group of playing cards in one hand and leaned over to fan Ana with them, making her giggle.

Slowly, you began to back out of the room, but your sister caught your eye before you could escape.

“Sister! Come sit!” Ana patted the stool beside her. “We can play as teams! That would be much more fun.”

Lord Barnes stood and gestured across the table to the empty seat. “Miss Dean. If you would be so kind as to join us.”

You approached the table as you would a rabid animal. The General stood slowly, as if in pain, though he straighten the moment his eyes found you.

“Miss Dean,” He sounded surprised. Did he find it odd that you would frequent your own drawing room?

Perhaps he was not as educated as he claimed.

At least he was now dressed. His dark coat was fully buttoned, his teasing sliver of chest from the night before thoroughly covered.

“General Dameron,” You bowed your head slightly, only enough to be polite. “I trust you slept well?”

He had the decency to look embarrassed, though he recovered much too quickly for your liking. “I must apologize for my absence this morning. It was a late night.”

Something glittered in his eyes that had you casting your gaze to the ground. There was a darkness to him that you refused to allow yourself to examine, no matter how much it may intrigue you.

You allowed him to push in your chair, though you did not take the hand offered to help you sit, however tempting the warmth of his skin may be.

“Well, what are we playing?”

Finn quickly dealt out playing cards. The game was a simple race to 23 points. Ana and the General played on one team, with you and Finn on the other. You angled yourself as to not brush elbows with the General, though it seemed you could not avoid his gaze, which brushed it’s way over your form as one would brush away fallen leaves. A nuisance, but somehow necessary.

“Where is your other sister? Siena, is it?” The General asked in a lull of conversation.

“With her governess, mostly likely.” Ana answered simply.

The General’s eyebrows shot up his face and you muffled a snort.

“I had not realized she was so young.”

You had more than a handful of things to say if the General had the intention of courting your sister, but Ana beat you to it.

“She is a sweet girl.”

“As most children are.” You followed up, not needing to meet your sister’s gaze to know her intentions.

As much as you differed on your expectations for your futures and the way you saw the world, you and Ana had never once disagreed about Siena. She insisted on growing up too quickly and your mother, in her age and grief, did not have the keen eye she once kept on her two eldest daughters. Even for her clear favourite.

So it was up to you and Ana to look after her, down to ensuring her hems were taken down and her governess reported to you both in secret.

You paid her handsomely to do so and her bore concerns of her own. It wasn’t as if she was going to refuse.

You caught on to the game quickly. Finn was a good partner, keeping up with your quick changes in strategy with such a keen eye that you could have sworn he was reading your mind.

He made you laugh a few times, breaking you out of the overcast mood that the General’s presence put you in.

He’d be a good match for Ana. You were certain of that.

Eventually, his good-naturedness and Ana’s swooning over him relaxed you enough to engage the General in polite conversation.

He asked after your favourite novels and you listed a few obscure titles that he certainly could not have studied. When he admitted as much, you gave him some grace and engaged him on his knowledge of Shakespeare.

“Well, Romeo and Juliet is of course the greatest love story ever told, so I have studied it at length.”

Finn clapped him on the back and leaned across the table as if to tell you a secret. “This one is quite the romantic.”

You rolled your eyes and Finn guffawed, leaning back so far in his chair that you were afraid it might break. He laughed with his whole body, oozing a confidence and joy into the room that you hoped he might bring to his relationship with your sister.

The General cleared his throat. Embarrassment looked good on him. He was a much smaller man without his bravado lifting his chin so high. There was something… sweet, almost, about him.

As he ducked his head, you noticed what appeared to be a bit of a feather stuck in his hair.

You set your cards on the table and started to reach out, but hesitated at the last moment. Hands clutched to your chest, you giggled, “General, you have a bit of…”

The small bit of fluff bounced as he shook his head in an attempt to free it. His curls flew out like wings, but it didn’t release itself.

“Let me.” You reached forward, tipping Poe’s face up with two gentle fingers beneath his chin. At your touch, his lips parted in a small breath that had heat rising to your face faster than you could combat it. You plucked the white fibre from his curls and carefully swept them back into place before leaning away and letting him go.

The way his throat bobbed with shallow breaths did not evade you.

“There,” you whispered, returning to your cards. Your face burned, but you did not meet his eyes. “Fixed.”

Ana loudly cleared her throat. “Lord Barnes, I believe it is your turn.”

You glanced up at Finn. He had hidden his mouth behind his cards, though it did little to hide the amusement shining in his eyes.

This was a plan, a scheme of theirs. Boys. Children.

A plan to embarrass you.

Surely.

It had to be.

Ana gripped your thigh, as if anticipating you would stand and excuse yourself. “Lord Barnes—” she paused and corrected herself, “Finn, if you would be so kind as to make your next move.”

The game continued on for some time, but the tension didn’t lessen. Ana and Finn flirted in your peripheral vision but you couldn’t concentrate on anything but Poe. Ana had to remind you to take your turns and Finn groaned about some of your choices, but you weren’t really paying enough attention to even try to defend yourself. Every slight movement of Poe’s, a swallow or slight widening of his knees, had you flushed and near-panting.

The game couldn’t end quick enough. You did not meet Poe’s gaze again, even as he helped you out of your chair.

You made the mistake of taking his hand. His palm was soft, his fingers rough against yours. Though the touch was brief, it made you shiver when he let you go and took a respectful step back.

“Thank you,” you breathed before sweeping from the room.

[noshitshakespeare]

i’ve seen interpretations of the duel in romeo and juliet where tybalt doesn’t mean to kill mercutio — were duels always fatal? do we know what would have happened if tybalt hadn’t killed mercutio?

The quick answer is, no, duels weren’t always fatal, but often were. Part of this has to do with the fact that duels were mostly highly ritualised practices, and, in the early modern period, did generally follow guidelines such as those set out in the code duello books that originated in Italy (I mentioned this a while back in this post). This means that a proper formal duel would have to go through several stages: 

The challenger announces the grievance by letter or in some public form (dear sir, you have grievously offended my honour at such-and-such a time...’

The challenged person then has an opportunity to apologise formally or appoint a time for the duel. (dear sir, you sleight my honour with your accusations...)

When they meet, both sides are meant to bring a second (backup) and a doctor (if the other party doesn’t show, they were publically witnessed as cowards). 

The witnesses, including the doctor, would try and end the meeting in a peaceful manner, then the duel would only go ahead if the dispute can’t be resolved through talks. 

If the duel did go ahead, it wasn’t necessarily meant to be ‘to the death’, especially since duels were illegal and the winner could be sentenced to death. Instead, duels would generally go on until one side was incapacitated, though that could mean a death blow, or even wounds that might lead to death. The presence of a physician could improve things considerably. 

So there are several steps that might prevent the number of fatalities, and you certainly could play it so that Tybalt means to hurt Mercutio rather than kill him. But also, you can see there are many things wrong with the duel in Romeo and Juliet. The duel in King Lear where Edgar fights out his grievance with Edmund is a much more clearly defined formal duel, but the one in Romeo and Juliet is verging on a brawl. As I mentioned in that other post, Tybalt does send a letter to Romeo, but Romeo never sees it nor accepts it, and there’s no formally arranged place, second or a doctor. Romeo is well within his right to refuse the fight, and to try and end it amicably without being accused of cowardice. Romeo rushing in to part Mercutio and Tybalt also suggests that he doesn’t see it as a formal duel, and depending on how it’s performed, Tybalt hurting Mercutio under Romeo’s arm could be a really dirty move (or it could be that he hurts him worse than he intended to because he couldn’t see properly). Of course, duels of this kind did occasionally happen. Still, the fact that even the dramatist Ben Jonson properly arranged to fight his opponent (the actor Gabriel Spenser) in 1598 a field in Shoreditch suggests that such codes were generally followed (in that case, as you probably know, Jonson ended up killing Spenser). Also, the idea that Tybalt might not have meant to kill Mercutio would be better supported if he showed remorse and didn’t come back for more, repeating the insults he used on the dead Tybalt: ‘Thou wretched boy that didst consort him here, / Shalt with him hence’ (3.1.130-31).

As for what would have happened if Tybalt hadn’t killed Mercutio... That’s anyone’s guess. I tend to stick to the text rather than surmise. But, presumably, things were more likely to end in reconciliation as Father Lawrence had predicted (after all, that’s the reason he agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet, hoping ‘to turn your households’ rancour to pure love’ 2.2.92). The deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt marks the point of no return for the tragedy, where the chance of ‘pure love’ between the families becomes extremely unlikely. The duel is a crucial moment because it could fall out in different ways. After all, the possibility of a much better ending is part of what makes it such a tragic story.

[dxnniquee]

Because @adalmentia and I are just a brilliant team, here’s our Drama Squadron Au ideas :

The drama squadron is composed of :

- Jacen, Danni, Kyp, Corran, Jysella, Valin (I added these two), Myri, Syal, Ben, Tahiri and Ganner.

Jaina, Wedge, Tenel Ka, Winter, Zekk, Tycho and Mirax help for the costumes or the sets. Mara is the stunt coordinator.

They almost exclusively play Shakespeare’s plays. Jacen is A BIG FAN.

Jacen and Danni tend to play Romeo and Juliet a lot, just to annoy Han.

Han always has an attack when he sees the balcony scene. Especially with the « Deny thy father and refuse thy name. »

Jacen and Danni have A LOT OF CHEMISTRY playing Romeo and Juliet.

Kyp was the nurse, Valin was Mercutio, Ben was Benevolio (pun intended), Ganner was Paris, Corran was Friar Laurence.

Kyp and Corran insult each other in Shakespearean language. For example : "Thou art as fat as butter" and "Away, you three-inch fool!" (This one is Kyp’s because well... Of Corran’s height ).

Kyp loves to play women. He has been Lady Macbeth, the Nurse, Desdemona etc.

He was an amazing Lady Macbeth.

The day of the show, he came with bloodied hands. Here’s a recreation pf the scene :

Kyp *with his bloodied hands* :Hi everyone !

Danni *camera stares like in the office*

Jacen *camera stares*

Kyp *camera stares* : please do not ask abou-

Danni : WE WERE NOT GOING TO ANYWAY.

There were some special guests in the productions : Nom Amor as Iago and Thrawn as Richard III.

Luke is kinda desperate to see this « Drama Squadron » but finds it amusing.

Han HATES the drama squadron with all his heart.

Leia is happy to see her son finally smiling and enjoying life again.

Danni and Kyp love to play Beatrice and Benedic(k)t. Much ado about nothing is their favourite play.

Jacen and Danni used to recite the Hamlet Soliloquy in the Jedi academy. They would hide and then recite it just to annoy Luke and Corran.

Jacen *to Kyp* : What is the Question ? Kyp : My fist in your face or not my fist in your face.

Ganner’s favourite character is Puck. He literally dresses as Puck everyday and pranks everyone.

Corran was a little embarrassed to play with his kids but they turned out to have an amazing dynamic.

Ves joined the Drama Squadron as a choreographer and instantly became friend with Tahiri.

[padme-amitabha]

Hello since you mentioned you are anti Disney are you anti Reylo too? What are your thoughts on other ships

Hmm I wouldn’t exactly call myself an anti Reylo. To be an anti you need to have strong feelings against something and I feel nothing about these two characters and the entire sequel trilogy. Kylo and Rey are so poorly written and underdeveloped characters to the point they feel like blank slates in my mind. So I don’t really care about them getting together. But I’ll acknowledge some parts of their relationship seemed abusive (especially their interaction in TFA) and them getting together after TFA is by no means healthy. Still I’m just not passionate enough to argue against this ship. The only ST ship I like is Finn/Poe because they are cute together have been through a lot together and their relationship could develop over the course of the films.

I’m okay with Jyn/Cassian though they lack solid character traits as well but it’s fine because I think Rogue One was a plot driven movie anyway so fanon works on them are cool. Not sure if it’s an actual ship but I do like C3PO and R2D2 together. With Luke and Obi-Wan, I don’t necessarily think romance is necessary but I’m open to most ships involving them. I do occasionally enjoy Obitine, Codywan and Siriwan. I have a soft spot for Siriwan because of the legends novel ‘Secrets of the Jedi’. If anyone hasn’t read or heard of it, I highly recommend y’all to check it out. I’m fine with Han/Leia though I’m not a big fan of their dynamic (especially in ESB) but I still think it’s great.

Now about the ships I actually don’t like: You can say I’m anti all master/student relationships because I personally just find it really icky. All of the masters and students have big age differences and the masters knew the latter as children/preteens and in some cases raised/groomed them so no. All master/student bonds are meant to be platonic and anything else just feels wrong.

I’m not a big fan of crackships in general neither do I like Anakin/Vader and Padmé being paired with other people. They seem like the only couple who actually matter to the story because without them there would be no Luke and Leia. I love that George based them on Romeo and Juliet while adding bits of Othello/Desdemona to complete the tragedy. I think they only loved each other and just like Anakin’s fate it was destined to happen. I just can’t imagine them loving anyone else. I’m only basing this on the movies; I am not a big fan of TCW nor do I like they created Rush Clovis, a stereotypical clingy ex, just for unnecessary drama and made Anidala unhealthy just because the writers fail to grasp what George intended. I don’t think Anidala is by any means unhealthy or Vaderdala for that matter. I honestly don’t like the distinction because Anakin is Vader at a different point in his life. He made a mistake of choking Padmé on Mustafar because he was unhinged. For the record, he has never been fully mentally stable unlike Kylo Ren as shown in AOTC so you have to keep that in mind. Plus he still regrets doing that to her very much and she’s the first thing he asks about after his surgery. But his actions still break her heart and she loses the will to live. So Vader remains alone with his regrets and in a way this is very fitting because abuse (even if it’s unintentional or accidental) should not be tolerated. Or murder for that matter so even though Anakin’s fall is understandable, karma gets him and he loses everything. I have seen a lot of Anidala fans say Vader and Padmé is toxic but I think it’s only toxic if you make it out to be. I have seen some suitless Vader fics where Padmé is forced to marry him or be with him against her will which is very much abusive. But if Vader still has Anakin’s personality he wouldn’t be abusive at all. Ambitious and power hungry? Definitely but Anakin’s past as a child slave and his mother impacted him deeply. I think he would have respected women even more because of it and definitely wouldn’t force someone to be with him against their will. I dislike how people view Anakin as a saint or like “the good side” of him because it’s the same Anakin who slaughtered the sand people. Viewing him as different from Vader is glossing over his flaws and crimes while undermining his redemption. Vader isn’t a demon possessing Anakin; Vader is Anakin who has no one left and he’s alone and depressed. AOTC Anakin even after his dark moment acted normally with people he cared about (he didn’t exactly lash at Padmé when he returned, did he?) so I don’t think he would have been abusive to Padmé had she lived and I think Padmé would rather die than be abused. If anything Vader would have killed Palpatine much sooner if Padmé was alive.

Anyways there’s only one ship I absolutely despise and it’s a popular dark ship. I don’t think I hate any other ship with such a burning passion and it involves Anakin/Vader and a certain shitty OC from the marvel comics - an unoriginal and trashy character who exists because Disney has given certain writers far too much freedom to write their fanboyish fantasies. So they write a sort of dark Padmé who’s into women but that doesn’t stop them from shamelessly dropping sexual innuendos in every interaction with Vader. The worst thing is the writer pretends it was unintentional while pretending to “discover this ship” and I find it direspectful to the lgbt community that they wrote a character who even though she’s gay is shipped with every male character she interacts with (including Luke), because clearly her preference is not that important. She’s conveniently morally gray too because that way she can team up with both sides. I don’t like any ships where characters have a big age difference and this “dark ship” has about twenty years of it and this OC Smelly Lunatic A*hra is closer to Luke and Leia’s age. She is a mixture of Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Padmé and even Anakin himself and fangirls over him with plenty of forced and obvious parallels. She even has plot armor and I can’t believe Vader - who kills his own officers for failure - tolerates her when she double crosses him multiple times because Disney is too afraid to kill women especially ones they created to push their own propaganda. Hell she even survives after being thrown into outer space and when she’s alive Vader is a petty villain obsessed with hunting her down and killing her and all these supposedly take place before ESB when I’m sure he had other things on his mind than this one insufferable brat. Even while she’s working for him, he doesn’t hesitate to choke her or use the force to hurt her. He only keeps her around for her skills and it’s not like he cares about hurting her so it’s absolutely toxic but people who ship them seem to think otherwise. She is also allowed to pry on his past and joke around with him which sounds so unrealistic and terrible. To top it off their last interaction involves her, a non force sensitive, trapping him and leaving him to die and giving him some much-needed life advice because she’s clearly very wise and knows better and Vader is an incompetent fool who walked into a trap. Not only does it butcher his character, it makes him a typical and petty villain. I truly can’t express how much I hate this ship and this character. It’s just laughable and insulting to Padmé to think Vader will be with someone else after he believes he killed Padmé or was at least responsible for her death in some way.

(If you happen to like her character or support this ship, feel free to unfollow because all you will ever find in this blog is rants on how terrible the character and the ship is.)

Anyways, there you go that’s my opinion on the SW ships. I’m neutral about the ships I didn’t mention above.

[traincat]

how many relationships has Johnny had? did they /all/ end badly or does he, like, actually have some good ones in there

I wouldn’t say all of Johnny’s relationships are bad. He has some bad ones, some real bad ones, some good ones, some utterly forgettable ones, and some weird ones. I sometimes think a character’s first relationship kind of sets the tone for their future relationship history, like Peter Parker being in the middle of two love triangles and being the hot item in both of them. In Johnny’s case, his first relationship involved his girlfriend lamenting that he wasn’t more like other boys and saying she wished he wasn’t so flaming all the time. It’s a metaphor. But Johnny Storm’s relationship history, the quick and dirty version. For the sake of simplicity, I won’t be including one off mentions of celebrity dates and only addressing on page relationships.

Dorrie Evans: Johnny’s high school girlfriend who, as noted above, hated his flaming on and often compared him unfavorably to other boys, such as Peter Parker. Their relationship ended when Johnny ghosted her until she broke up with him, although they apparently remained on good enough terms for Dorrie to lend Johnny her car shortly afterward. When Johnny and Crystal broke up, Johnny tried to get back together with Dorrie only to find out she was married with kids. And that’s why we have Facebook now.

Valeria of the 5th Dimension: A beautiful blue girl who developed a crush on Johnny when he briefly ended up in her dimension during his Strange Tales days, Johnny mostly seemed awkward around Valeria. They kissed once later after Johnny broke up with Crystal (you may notice Johnny has a habit of revisiting past relationships, usually unsuccessfully) and then nothing ever happened with them again, and it’s unlikely to come back up seeing as Johnny now has a niece named Valeria (after a third totally unrelated Fantastic Four Valeria).

Crystal Amaquelin: Probably the most popular and well known of Johnny’s relationships, and for a good reason. Johnny and Crystal started their relationship as star-crossed teen lovers from different worlds yearning to be with each other, a superhero Romeo and Juliet without the murder-suicide, and once they are together, they’re honestly pretty cute.

(FF #67) They’re cute! That it’s probably Johnny’s happiest, most stable relationship is probably the reason it gets revisited a lot in AUs and future What Ifs, although I personally think the charm of it is in the teenage puppy love and that returning to it isn’t the best move for either character. The relationship falls apart when Crystal, who can’t tolerate the outside world’s polluted atmosphere, returns to the Inhumans and falls in love with Quicksilver, who she later married. Johnny took the break up hard, and he and Crystal later had an emotional affair when Crystal was on the Fantastic Four after leaving Pietro and when Johnny had only just gotten married, but things never progressed to a physical level mostly because Johnny refused to cheat.

Frankie Raye: Originally created by Roy Thomas, Frankie Raye was a beautiful redheaded girl with a deep-seated fear of fire who seemed tormented by Johnny’s status as a superhero. Thomas originally intended for her to be the daughter of Toro Raymond, the sidekick of the original Human Torch, but Frankie dropped off the pages before that could be revealed. Johnny briefly dated a girl named Lorrie Melton who he met while racing, but Lorrie broke up with him when it became apparent he was more interested in a serious relationship than she was. Frankie Raye resurfaced in Byrne’s run, where Byrne reworked her backstory so that, instead of Toro’s daughter, Frankie was the step-daughter of Phineas Horton, the man who created the original android Human Torch. As a child, Frankie suffered an accident that gave her flame powers. Horton hypnotized her to give her flame powers and to make her dress in a golden leotard to help control her powers. Frankie’s powers reawakened and for a time she joined the Fantastic Four, but her deep yearning to be wild and free -- an interesting contrast with how tightly under control Johnny keeps his powers -- led to her making the decision to become Galactus’ new Herald, a decision that left Johnny near suicidal when she left the planet.

(FF #244)

I don’t think there was anything wrong with Johnny and Frankie’s relationship during the duration of it, although I will note that it does the opposite of heat up, so to speak, once Frankie gets her powers, and that they had certain ideological differences that didn’t speak to a great future together. (Frankie occasionally displayed a violent side that on at least one occasion worried Johnny.) Much later, an alternate universe Frankie Raye who expressed feelings for Johnny violently assaulted him in the middle of battle, kissing him before throwing him to the ground, though.

Julie Angel and Sharon Selleck: Julie Angel was Frankie Raye’s roommate who, after Frankie disappeared with Galactus, Johnny developed a crush on, attending the same acting classes as her, although she didn’t seem to reciprocate his feelings. Her friend, Sharon Selleck, developed a crush on Johnny but when she made a move on him he rebuffed her:

(FF #259) If you read Fantastic Four, Johnny will occasionally say he used to date Julie, but it’s simply not true -- Julie does kiss him once, but he doesn’t reciprocate the embrace, and laments afterwards that he’s over her anyway, so. Mark those down at not relationships.

Zsaji: An alien Johnny shared a flirtation and a few kisses with during the original Secret Wars event. Johnny wasn’t very emotionally invested in the relationship, which is odd for him given he usually goes from 0 to 60 on the “now we’re in love” meter. Colossus was very emotionally invested, though. Very, very emotionally invested.

“Alicia Masters”/Lyja: Retroactively revealed to be the Skrull Lyja, Johnny and Alicia started dating in secret after Ben remained in space after Secret Wars. While Lyja would later admit that she got close to Johnny specifically for her mission, she claimed she only originally meant to be a confidante before falling in love with him, but it’s hard to tell with Lyja what you can and can’t take at face value when the character frequently lies. Johnny and Alicia officially get together in Fantastic Four #275, which marks Johnny’s first “sex scene” in the form of a morning after scene where he appears regretful about the night and might even be trying to break off the relationship before Alicia convinces him to continue it:

For reference, Peter’s first published “after the deed” scene is in Amazing Spider-Man #150, published 10 years before this. Though it caused problems with Ben when he returned from space, Johnny and Alicia got married in Fantastic Four #300, although pretty immediately there were relationship problems, including a lack of chemistry. Johnny had 1.5 emotional affairs, the first with Crystal. Later, when he was bodyjacked by Ravonna Ravenslayer in guise of Nebula, who used his powers to kill people and hit on Gladiator because I don’t know, she thought he was into blond twinks, I guess. Though the bodyjacking by Nebula is depicted to be both physically painful and emotionally traumatizing, with it being specifically compared to an incident where Johnny loses control of his powers, and overall a not so subtle rape metaphor, Johnny laments afterwards that he can’t stop thinking about how beautiful Nebula was and is guilty over the fact that he’s more attracted to her than Alicia. (I think the attempt was to make the original story both consensual and straight when it was neither.) 

Shortly after this, “Alicia” is revealed by Ben and Alicia’s father to be a Skrull impostor and it comes out that Johnny never was with the real Alicia at all, her having been switched out when he was off planet. I have a couple of long posts unpacking The Lyja Story -- it’s a long, long story -- linked in this post but I think it’s important to note that Johnny thought he was consenting to a romantic and sexual relationship with a friend he trusted and not with an alien spy who had a mission to harm his family. Not only that, but after the Skrull reveal, Lyja attempts to murder Johnny, lies to him twice about a baby, once in an incident that could’ve led to the deaths of him and his family, and when Johnny specifically told her he didn’t want to see her anymore she invented a new identity -- Laura Green -- so she could continue to be with him without his knowledge, explicitly stating that she knows if Johnny knew it was her he wouldn’t want to be with her. She also used the Laura identity to insult and belittle him, calling him “trite and simple” and “pedestrian.” So when you want to talk about bad relationships Johnny’s been in, I think it’s hard to beat the one where he was raped, gaslit, abused, and stalked. A lot of writers tend to refer to this genuinely as a romance but I think it’s important to talk about what actually went on in the relationship and how it’s a pretty horrifying violation of Johnny on every level.

Alysande “Caledonia” Stuart: After Lyja disappeared from the pages following Heroes Reborn, Johnny rescued a woman from another Earth named Alysande Stuart and essentially hid her from the family in the basement. (They all knew.) Though Johnny implied he had feelings for Alysande and Alysande swore a deep loyalty to him, nothing physical ever happens between them, and the relationship never evolved beyond the platonic. They did go to Comic Con together once. 

Namorita: Johnny briefly dated Namor’s cousin Namorita after they discovered they were a hit with the paparazzi, in the first of Johnny’s “celebrity” relationships that seem more based on their respective profiles than any honest attraction. Namorita and Johnny never spend much time together, something Fantastic Four itself remarks on. They break up off-screen. The comic itself doesn’t make the link that Johnny might’ve been targeted because of his former connection to her, but after Namorita dies in the Stanford Incident that incites comics’ Civil War, an angry mob beats Johnny into a coma. 

Kourtney: A model Johnny briefly dated. This is another celebrity relationship -- and one where they don’t even seem to like each other very much. Kourtney complains about attending Franklin’s birthday party and breaks up with Johnny when the Fantastic Four lose their fortune, although they later briefly get back together. Nothing much to write home about here.

(Marvel Knights 4 #2)

Psionics: A bad girl bank robber Johnny briefly had a sexual relationship with -- before she helped a future version of Sue abduct him to use him as a power source in a move that might have killed him. Psionics later kisses Johnny, but the art suggests he doesn’t reciprocate before departing for a new planet. When they next see each other, Psionics attempts to kidnap Val and kills Alyssa Moy, a family friend of the Fantastic Four, in front of Johnny, before she’s murdered, also in front of Johnny.

Daken: This one is a doozy in part because the actual relationship is in a bit of a canonical grey area -- it’s only ever implied, although the implications are not at all subtle, that Johnny had a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Daken, Wolverine’s 70 pansexual son.

(Daken #4) Like I said: the implications aren’t subtle. Daken ingratiates himself with the Fantastic Four mostly through Johnny, including engineering his meeting with them by shooting Johnny through the thigh with an arrow. (Johnny doesn’t know Daken shot him, but also, holy penetration metaphor, Batman.) Daken later tricks Johnny into thinking he’s dead, fakes an attack on Franklin so he can stage it to seem like he rescued him, and then mostly likely, going by the above panels, had sex with Johnny right after, though again, that’s just an implication. I say this is a canon grey area because, while Marvel the conglomerate hasn’t acknowledged any canonical attraction to men on Johnny’s part, Marjorie Liu did say in a tweet that the subtext was intentional and readers were meant to sense something was up. After this encounter, Daken steals from Reed’s lab, and the next time Johnny sees him (which is after Johnny’s stint in the Negative Zone) Daken tells him that “real people stay dead.” Then Daken tries to murder Reed. I do hope that if/when Johnny comes out it’s revealed he’s head other relationships with men because this is a hell of a first one if otherwise.

Darla Deerling: Another Johnny celebrity relationship. Johnny dated pop star Darla Deering for a hot minute before getting her to take his place on an emergency replacement Fantastic Four, where Darla met and fell in love with Scott Lang. On his return, Johnny wasn’t too broken up about it, telling Wyatt Wingfoot that he was more attracted to Darla’s rock star lifestyle than to Darla herself. Lot to unpack there.

Rogue: Rogue and Johnny dated, allegedly, during the time skip after the 2015 Secret Wars, but we never see it on the actual page, and it’s acknowledged by most canon that Johnny is a huge mess during this point in time, grieving very badly for the family he thinks is lost. They flirt a little bit after their alleged break up during their time together on the Uncanny Avengers team but I have to admit, it can very easily be read as friendly.

(Avengers #689)

Medusa: Yes, as in, Crystal’s older sister, Medusa. This one’s a mess largely in part to the fact that the writer didn’t do the research and backread the Fantastic Four issues where Medusa was on the team with Johnny, where they were actually quite close although not romantically involved. Medusa and Johnny keep their relationship secret, which of course blows up in their faces when Crystal inevitably finds out and is furious with them. I think it’s easy to read this relationship as Johnny trying to latch onto what family he has left -- Ben is in space and not talking to him at this point in time, Reed and Sue and the kids are presumed dead -- in an effort not to self-destruct in a way that doesn’t quite work. The relationship ends with a whimper and not a bang when Medusa leaves Johnny.

So there you have it! The relationship history of Johnny Storm.

[emybain]

the titanic au that no one but me asked for

im not sorry and thats all im saying other than that this is far from the same plot and its all over the place AND maybe dont read if u havent seen the movie AND this goes into the crack section of the renegades fandom

•not necessarily the same plot bUT titanic is dramatic and im dramatic so im doing it

•nova is jack and adrian is rose simply for the first vs third class

•the "anarchists" are all third class and they know of the "renegade" first class lot so they dont like one another

•there's also no cal aka fiancée for adrian in this bUt ingrid is kinda like cal so she would try to keep nova and adrian apart

•so basically this is romeo and juliet but set on the titanic and it loosely follows the movie

•anarchists are bitter bc renegades used to be poor like them but were able to become rich (idk how yet)

•also the anarchists are criminals but were somehow able to get passage on the titanic

•ace is also in prison bc of the renegades

•idk how nova losing her family ties into the renegades just yet

•anyway adrian spots nova while they're outside and oscar's like "okay dude" and danna's like "she's third class adrian it could never work" bc danna is a rule follower and was told that classes must remain separate (even tho she doesnt like it)

•then an anarchist shows up beside nova and pulls her away and one of adrian's friends is like "see? an anarchist. she's no good"

•officially meet when nova tries jumping overboard bc she hates the anarchists

•but when adrian tries to save her nova falls on top of him and even tho she screamed the rich people who come to help make it seem like she attacked him

•also sidenote but nova wears the same clothing as jack i dont make the rules

•then nova sneaks onto the first class deck and thanks adrian for saving her, then insults him when he mentions her not being happy with the anarchists

•but they become really friendly and flirty and spend the rest of the day together until its time to get ready for dinner

•one of the nicer renegades (ruby or danna probably) offers to lend nova a dress when she says she'll just wear what she's got on

•so novas hot at dinner whether she wears a suit or a dress

•she and adrian sneak away and talk and then end up at one of the third class parties

•nova has never been to one but adrian loves it

•maybe oscar, ruby, and danna tagged along too idk

•but they have a blast

•ingrid spots them there while searching for nova and the next day she blows up (no pun intended) on nova about being with the enemy

•so when adrian tries to see her later she tells him off and mentions they cant see one another anymore bc of class differences and the groups they're a part of

•adrian tries to convince her that the anarchists are only using her and she's a good person, etc etc but it doesnt work

•then the iconic smoochy smoochy scene at sunset where nova says "i changed my mind, adrian"

•unsure about the "draw me like one of your french girls" scene bc they're literally the same age as jack and rose and even the regular scene makes me uncomfortable

•but adrian does draw nova (just not,,,nUde)

•and nova leaves it for ingrid and the anarchists

•while in third class one of the anarchists spots them and chases them

•all the chasing nonsense etc etc probably minus the sexy times scene and replace it with a super gushy scene in the carriage with kiSSes

•iceberg hits while nova is telling adrian they should run away together

•when they go to tell the renegades, ingrid decides to teach nova a lesson about loyalty and slips some priceless object she stole from the renegades into nova's coat pocket

•the object is reported missing ofc and the renegades, who never liked nova bc of where she came from, search her and find the object

•so nova goes to boat jail

•adrian goes to save her while the ship is sinking, etc. etc

•ingrid chases them with a gun and stuff

•somehow the anarchists are able to pose as first class citizens and get on boats

•the renegade females (except for ruby and danna) refuse to let nova on with them, and when the boats are starting to let men on board, adrian refuses to get on without nova so they stay together until the ship sinks

•havent decided yet if they both get rescued in the water or not

•they probably will bc im a romantic

•so they get on the carpathia together and then get off together in new york and go west where they'll be far away from everyone else

•only their friends know where they are

•the anarchists think they are dead but adrian and nova informed adrians dads that they were alive

•happily ever after the end mother truckers

•add on any details please so ik im not alone in this

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I wrote this a while ago (4 months?) . Sorry it’s so long, but that’s the drawback of insomnia and no one to gush about a movie to...

Short verson? Unexpectedly I really liked an obscure old western called To the Last Man, basically because the romance at it’s center really connected with me. 

It’s interesting when a movie takes you by surprise.

I’ve been watching a a DVD set Pop fished out of a $5 bin a very long time ago. It’s one of those “20 movies crammed onto two discs, and how watchable the image and sound are doesn’t matter” kind of things. And geez, some of these look horrible. In the case of one movie there were times I couldn’t even tell which character was on screen. These are the sort of churned out discs where the just throw whatever they can get a hold of onto it, quality be damned.

 Not being a huge western fan, and having recently endured a similar set of early John Wayne films Pop had * I wasn’t looking forward to it at all. Still, it was the last of the unwatched movie DVDs so I figured I might as well play them.

Turns out they have been a facinating variety of westerns, covering at least 40 years. For instance one film was a a spaghetti western that actually involved a circus ** and a film next to it was a pilot to a 1970s tv show set in 1914 with the heroes traveling the west in a car. 

Which leads me to the biggest surprise so far, a barely movie length film from 1933 called To the Last Man. 

Now I went into it expecting very little. It was one of those movies so short it wouldn’t be considered feature length now, a western staring Randolph Scott who always seems to fade from my memory as soon as I finish a film. *** Even after it started it seemed to be a Hatfield and McCoy style family fued migrating west, with an already old fashioned silent era quirk of putting the names of the character and actor on screen when they first appeared. And then they added a Romeo and Juliet to the story…

Again I had low expectations, When they introduced the girl, daughter of the baddie family, I thought I knew exactly where it was going. Once out west the girl is a bronco busting, sometimes trouser wearing despite being the 19th century, kind of gal. I liked her, which made me dread the romance ahead.

See stories have traditionally had problems with romances involving  non-traditional women. 

In some stories the woman will be there for the fella, saving his life or something like that, but whatever affections he may have for her the love will be unrequited. Sometimes she dies, sometimes she gets a supporting character love interest, but always the hero goes off with the traditional princess type girl.

 In the stories where there is dainty, aloof beauty for the hero to moon over instead, they go a different route. Those are the stories where women are tamed. The hero often mocks and teases the woman for her non-traditional ways, even outright bullying her and accusing her of not being a “real” woman. She goes through an awkward phase of attempting to be properly feminine, to humorous effect, before eventually transforming into what a woman is “supposed’ to be for the love of her man.

I hate those, both of them. With the first,  I find myself grumbling the gal is to good for him if he cares more about a proper bit of styling and pretty face than courage or kindness. With the second, it’s even worse. Love does NOT demand that the person you love deny their nature and remake themselves to satisfy your tastes. If they have to change into something else to earn your love then you don’t love them at all. 

Anyway, I was sure how this was gonna go, especially with references in the conversation between the father and his thug pal about her wildness. This was gonna be a taming. I liked her as she was, and they were going to break her…

But I was wrong! 

The initial “meet cute” involved her swimming (naked…it was1933) and being harrassed by the thug until the hero rides up and intervened. When afterwards they chatted I was surprised. Sure it was flirty and established their attraction, but in more authentic way than I expected. When he refered to her as a lady and she assumed he was mocking her, in most movies there would be truth in her belief. But not here. To be honest I was as thrown as she was by his sincerity.

Later she talked to one of her father’s men, trying to figure out how a lady would dress because she wanted to dress that way before heading out to find the hero. I thought, “oh no, here it comes”, but again I was wrong. The conversation was sweet as the guy used his mother as an example and offered to help the girl go shopping, only to have her say she couldn’t wait that long. The hero would be camping for the night nearby, so she would have to go find him wearing her usual ratty clothes. She did NOT do the comedy attempt to fancy up!

And then we get to the campfire scene.

They may have met while she was swimming, but he has a body too. She surprises him as he shirtlessly shaves, so there is a bit of admiring the male form, complete with her saying she would think he was “soft” (for shaving so often in her rough world) if it weren’t for the fact she could see his strong arms. Even now too many movies don’t do something as simple as this: Let the man be physically admired by the woman.

During their conversation after he dresses, for all her attraction she is also self conscious of her rough around the edges appearance. When he notes her bare feet must find the mountains painful, she is defensive, expecting it to be a slight. But he quickly reassures her that no insult was meant, and it’s true. He didn’t. Not once in that scene, or in any scene, did he ever belittle her or tell her that she is somehow wrong for being herself.

When he was ready to say goodnight she announces she is staying. While she does tell him he must treat her “like a man” for the night, it’s still a woman boldly telling a man she’s spending the night with him whatever ended up happening after the fade out.

Now next morning she fixes him breakfast. In most movies this would either be the comical “non-traditional woman inept at proper womanly skills” or it would be the “non-traditional woman embraces properly womanly role because of love”. It was neither. She fixed him breakfast, an affectionate gesture to be sure,  but no fuss was made of it. She cooked it skillfuly and he didn’t seem astonished. It was just….breakfast.

Naturally as they are now head over heels for each other, this is when they find out each other’s family names, with the expected emotional turmoil. Now you would expect a few hostile scenes between them before they get over the whole feud thing, but they actually get over it quickly. By the time he buys gifts for his reunion with his family, he buys one more gift for her. And sure, when he leaves it where she can find it she at first angrily tosses it in the fire…before fishing it out. The fact is they are still in love, family war or not.  

About that gift..yes, it is a dress, but it doesn’t feel like a judgement or a nudge but a gift given with love of something she desires. He doesn’t know that when her father got out of prison he commented on her shabby dress,which she explained was her only dress after the hard life she’d had to live. He does know she was self conscious about the dress she wore when they met. It feels like a thoughtful gesture.  

The next time they are together, her family has stollen his family’s horses and she is joyfully riding the horse his brother had recently given to him. This would be a  moment for a lot of shouting and protesting that their own families were in the right. Instead we see little of the encounter except from the viewpoint of the distant thug. Considering the couple kiss and he smilingly sees her off on what had been his horse, I really don’t think there was much shouting.

Naturally the thug, who has designs on her,  tells her father abouther romance. The dress she’d hidden away is dug out as proof. She defiantly says she intends to wear the dress at her wedding to the hero, and her father lashes her. It’s off camera but we see him swinging the whip, so whoa, horrible daddy there! 

Stuff happens with the feud, which I’ve almost totally ignored**** despite it being the main plot, which culminates in the thug engineering a rock slide. The only survivor of the men folk from both clans is, of course, our hero. As he staggers to the girl’s home he seems horribly injured and dazed almost to senselessness. There is no sudden miraculous recovery for the sake of love scenes, fights or plot.  This is convincing the way 99% of all action movies ever aren’t when it comes to traumatic injuries. He needs care..

So here comes the thug. The girl quickly hides the hero in the loft and goes to work to deal with the villian. She has to feign normalicy, then react as he would expect her to react, while he makes clear she is to be considered his property and she has to figure out how to play that considering she is trying to hide her beloved. The dazed hero can hear what’s going on, tries to aim his gun, and drops it. The villian know the hero is there, so it’s time for a fight scene..l.

And the fight is between the villian and the girl!! And this is no dainty girly crap like so many movies have thrown at us. 

Mom and I used to have this thing of yelling at the screen “Hit him!!!!!” whenever heroes and villians would fight and the love interest would stand by looking helpless. I mean, I dunno about you but if someone is trying to kill someone I love they are gonna find themselves fuckin’ fughting TWO people!

And here the girl was doing some serious full body, roll on the floor punching and biting fighting. This wasn’t damsel in distress “You brute!” thumps at the chest or gingerly smashed vases on the head. She fought like she was trying to save the life of someone she loved. Which should be expected, but isn’t when watching an old western.

Alright, so the hero does finally do in the baddie by dropping down with a knife…but now that I think about it maybe SHE was the hero of the movie anyway.

Well, maybe to me she was because she was my identification character. Most of these westerns haven’t had women I could relate to at all, and here was one I related to on some very deep level. I got her. 

Now my family was nothing like hers, not only in the lack of violence (with the ones exception of a relative you can guess) but that they were hardly uneducated (say hello to the ONLY relative I even know of that didn’t graduate college…that would be me BTW) Heck, Pop was a total sweetheart.

And yet I got her. 

An unconventional woman type myself, I never learned the girly stuff. Partly that was accidental and partly it was impractical for the life we lived. I did have to be willing to be rough and tumble, with no line between guy stuff and girl stuff. When I was a kid I was also the only girl in a neighborhood of boys where being a sissy was the worst insult and you had to be ready to fight. I was the girl that swam in the river and played in the woods. And for various reasons ( would take a while to explain) I’ve spent most of my life in worn out work clothes. 

Actually that’s an aspect that makes her resonate even more: clothes. 

I don’t dress like her, but I have my own version shabby woods girl going on. As I write this I’m wearing one of my father’s old t-shirts with holes in it, jeans worn at the knees, a broken hair barrette in my hair, and steel toed men’s work boots on my feet. 

Now there are reasons for all of these. The practicalities of farm amd woods life, being poor enough I’d have to choose between new clothes or things like books, a childhood trauma that gave me a lifelong desire to dress for fight or flight, not having a social life so 99% of the time no human sees me, living in a rural area with no credit card for onlinr ordering and, in the case of the boots, just the fact they are all I can find locally that work with the ankle braces my flat feet force me to wear.

But notice what is missing from all these reasons: fashion. I almost never get to wear clothes I actually like. I’d flip through catalogs or wander stores and imagine wearing this or that. I have strong feelings about clothes I like or don’t, but no real chance to express it. I actually fantasize about that, living the sort of lifestyle where even if you are adventuring you get to pick clothes you want to wear.

Somewhere along the line people started assuming I what I wear reflects my taste, or rather lack there of. I used to ask my cousin at Christmas to please give me something pretty. She couldn’t understand it as a request, but folks just never thought of me as wanting pretty things. What would it have been like, just once, to try to be pretty. 

Actually I’d probably have been laughed at, a comedy buffoon, the hideous lady trying to look cute, the ugly step sister. Just as well life never gave me a chance to try. 

So being self conscious about my appearance is normal for me. I know how I look to people. I also know from experience that people can be cruel, and have taken my share of insults and mocking. In her position I would have thought he was making fun of me too and reacted almost exactly like her. In fact, I have. 

Here is a heroine I can relate to, and she gets the fantasy too. The fella falls in love with her, and loves her as is, not as a fix it upper. He loves her and doesn’t tease her about things where she is sensitive. He gives her a gift of something pretty just because he thinks she will like it. She gets to admire him (and his strong arms). She even gets to fight the bad guy to save him! 

Geez, of course I ended up loving the movie!

Never saw that coming, a Randolph Scott film I will actually remember! But the question is, will I finally remember his face or just his arms?

*NOT  a John Wayne fan, and these were some sort of 1930s filler less than an hour formula stuff.

**I REALLY enjoyed this one, but of course I have a thing for circuses. Woody Strode as a trapeze artist gunfighter and Victor Buono as the big bad were nice bonuses.

***That’s always puzzled me. I usually have an excellent memory for faces from movies, but I forget his instantly.

****Also forgotten, Buster Crabbe, Shirley Temple and the rest of the costars. 

[hellyesbro]

CW for sexual violence and major talk about genitals

One thing that being a trans woman has made me notice is the absolute weaponization and mythologization of the penis under the patriarchy. Penises are depicted as a thing of strength, and of power and of force (and yes, i do believe this highly ties into rape culture). Bigger is always better, it represents strength and brutishness, and routinely in pornography you can see it being used as a sort of sexual weapon, intentionally going too big or too rough in order to dominate through harm into subsequent submission. In addition to this even the language of “fuck” can be charged with penis based sexual force. It depicts sex as not an act between 2 individuals, such “danced with” or “walked with” or even “slept with” but rather an action that is done to someone else, usually describing the person with the penis fucking the other. This is only further supported when we look at language using “fuck” in a negative connotation. If someone puts you in a bad position they “totally fucked you” or “fucked you over”, if someone intends to harm you, they’re going to “fuck you up”, if you want to insult someone, you tell them to “get fucked”. I’m not saying using this language is like, problematic on a personal basis, hell I swear like a sailor and probably tell someone to get fucked like once a day, but they do represent a larger and far more sinister system of thinking. On top of this, literal weapons are routinely subject to this, as with guns one might joke about size, and again playing off the whole symbol of “mine is bigger than yours/is more powerful/is more destructive” as a part of “Penis=Violence=Masculinity”. You can even see this drawing back to Shakespeare’s time with jokes such as “Draw thine tool” before a sword fight in Romeo and Juliet. There’s such deep programming in the western patriarchy intertwining power, violence and masculinity with penises that it’s become a 2 way street with penises being used for violence, representing weaponry, and having weaponry represent them that those things were even nearly synonymous in my head until i started having sex with other trans women. Seeing the reality of a penis as a tender, delicate sexual organ was so jarring that it was literally revolutionary for me. I had grown up all this time to see this horrible things being intertwined phallic imagery being normal that i hadn’t even realized it until i saw the reality of it on someone else. It wasn’t something that “fucked” me roughly and violently, it was something I gently and tenderly held in between my fingers, it was stiff sure, but it was mostly soft and warm. It, and by extension, the girl it was attached to, didn’t rely on dominating me for orgasm, but rather submitted herself entirely to me with the trust that I could get her where she needed. I’m not saying that like “Hey having rough sex is bad” or anything but rather that the existence of tenderness in relation to dicks is what made me kind of “unplug” so to speak and realize the reality of the situation. I don’t really have much to say as to a closing statement but I hope this dumb rant can help other people to realize this line of thinking and the damage it’s done, or maybe the damage it’s spawned out of, and try to fix this in our culture in order to minimize damage going forwards

[evakuality]

It’s been a while, I’m sorry (blame work and random fic enthusiasm that had to be complied with).  I hope to get back to doing roughly 2 a week now, though.  The first meta in this series can be found here, with links following through from there.

Episode number and name: Two. Du er over 18, sant?

Clip number and name: Three.  Ikke vær frekk

My thoughts/analysis:  Isak approaching Vilde is one of the more adorable things I’ve seen.  It’s fairly clear that he’s not all that enamoured of her (just think about the way he says ‘Vilde’ in the kosegruppa clip; he’s exasperated by her), and that having to ask her for this is not his idea of a great time.  However, it’s also clear that Even and wanting to see more of him, is such a great drawcard that Isak will deal with the discomfort of Vilde’s enthusiasm.  For her part, it’s actually quite sad to see how eager she is that Isak is taking an interest.  Of course, she can’t know that he’s only interested because of the guy he met, and so her genuine delight is a little heartbreaking.  She tries so hard to be needed, and it’s a little sad to see her passion exploited in this way.  Not that I blame Isak at all; he has this one way in to seeing Even again and it’s very understandable that he would take advantage of that.  He has no way of knowing that Even is at least as desperate to see him, if not more so.  Of course, she’s not above using what she sees as his interest either: she needs someone to host her party and she leaps on this opportunity.  Isak, because again he is very good at reading situations and using them to his advantage, doesn’t commit one way or the other.  He knows this gathering is his likeliest chance to see Even again, so he doesn’t want to say no if it’s the only way for that to happen.  But on the other hand, the idea of being seen to be involved in an active and enthusiastic way with kosegruppa does not sit well with him either.  Being involved in that sort of thing is not going to help him with the facade he’s so desperately trying to wear, of the cool totally straight guy who likes ‘normal’ cool straight guy things.  So he hedges.  

Of course poor Vilde doesn’t pick on that: “why are you all laughing like that?  Do you think the revue is stupid?” -- honestly, this girl just really can’t see beyond her own PoV, which is that kosegruppa is her ticket to popularity and so others must see it that way as well.  Poor Isak, who doesn’t want to stand out for the wrong reasons within his group of friends, is then forced to endure Vilde’s over-excited babble that he is hosting and has absolutely agreed to it.  He looks so uncomfortable as the boys laugh and tease him.  This is a credit to the acting, of course; Isak’s inner turmoil is so clearly shown here as the conversations flows and he quickly slides into the same stance and attitude that the other guys have: closed off to Vilde and her ideas.  Shoulders hunched, arms crossed, neutral (almost disdainful) expression on his face.  Isak’s big problem, of course, is that he can’t shut Vilde down completely as she’s his way in to seeing Even again.  This is only made clearer when he spots Even across the yard.  The whole point of why Isak’s talking to Vilde is right there, and is hilariously distracting.  Isak literally tunes out the conversation as he sees Even and takes note.  He’s only called back to the present by the unwelcome addition of Emma, who literally gets in between him and Even here.  It’s interesting that she’s presented in this way because the implication is that she’s going to get between Isak and Even when in actual fact she really isn’t.  We don’t know it yet, but they are both on the same page and Emma, for all her attempts to get with Isak, is never really shown or seen as a threat to the relationship.  They may get together a little, but at no point are we ever intended to think that she’s a serious contender for Isak’s affections.  

Unfortunately for Isak, Emma is very attractive and very confident and so his attempts to put her off are thwarted by the boys.  You can see the real dilemma for him here; he needs to be seen as the player, as the guy who got a blow job from this girl earlier.  But he also doesn’t want anything to do with her.  He doesn’t want her to want him; his need is to get her off his back (of course, this changes later, but for now Isak wants her out of his life).  The fact that he has to play off both these needs with two different groups of people here is desperately uncomfortable for him and you can see the way it affects him when the boys call him ‘brain damaged’ and push aside his objections.  It’s not hard to understand why he’d blow them off from this party, since he never wanted to go in the first place.  Anyway, Isak is probably profoundly relieved when the boys’ interrogation is cut short by Vilde’s rant about first year girls.  First because it allows him to avoid the discomfort of explaining why he chose not to go with her in the first place, and second because Mahdi asked the supremely difficult question again: are you gay?  This is Isak’s worst nightmare: these boys, who are the ones he most wants to keep seeing him as straight, are starting to question his sexuality.  I bet he’s seriously regretting telling them that she’s the one attractive girl in all of first year.

Romeo and Juliet connections for clip:  Yes <3 This time there is one, and I adore it.  I have to say, the moment when Even strides across the courtyard to the music used to introduce Romeo in his movie and the camera follows him in the same way and he uses the same body language, moves his head in the same way, and it’s the most Baz Luhrmann-y thing ever -- that moment was the moment I fell in love with this show.  All over-excited shrieking from me aside, this is a really interesting shout out to the movie.  First, Isak hasn’t watched it yet and so he has no way of knowing what’s going on there.  From the next clip on out, we can assume Isak has at least some peripheral knowledge of Even’s dramatic Romeo and Juliet-related shenanigans, but at this point it’s all still unconscious on his part.  He knows that Even likes Luhrmann; he made that clear last clip, and so it’s obviously on Isak’s (and now the viewers’) radar.  This shot is clearly deliberate, a conscious choice to show us Even as Romeo, the misunderstood, angsty, dramatic, poetry-loving hero of the vibrant but tragic love story.  Once again, that puts Isak in the Juliet role; like her, he’s still bound by his circumstances and tied into a role/situation he’s not really keen on.  Like her, he is beginning to find this stranger appealing, finding someone who can help him open up and make the world new and exciting.  Interestingly, in the movie, this shot is from the audience’s PoV; it’s us who is being introduced to Romeo and it is almost the first shot we have of him (haha, who has watched this movie too many times?  That would be me), so we’re all meant to be seduced by his mystique, his coolness and the way he interacts with the world.  In this case, though, the PoV is explicitly Isak’s (and that’s fascinating because in the movie, Juliet isn’t even around to see this side of Romeo).  We see his attention drawn to Even, and we see this shot through his eyes.  This is probably a hint that, unlike Romeo, Even is not actually this mysterious, sexy, cool, dramatic dude Isak has him initially pegged as.  This is so loudly signalled as his PoV, much more so than usual, that it seems clear that there is something more to Even.  This obviously unfolds over the course of the season, but it’s interesting that it’s already signalled here.

I also think it’s very interesting that Even is again cast as Romeo because, as we will see later, Even himself sees himself as Juliet.  So the fact that they each see the other as the Romeo of their lives is just really lovely.  Of course, this allows us to have Paris (aka Emma) butting in in the same way as happens in the movie.  S/he unintentionally breaks into a moment the two are having (more explicitly in the movie than here; Even here, while definitely hyper aware of Isak, is acting casual and as if he isn’t laser focused on where Isak is and that he’s watching).  It’s interesting that Emma has a lot more agency than Paris; he is willing to go along with it all, but he’s pushed into the role of interloper by Juliet’s family.  Here, Emma makes all her own decisions and all her own moves.  They’re both clueless that the object of their affections isn’t interested and just barrel on with a wooing, but he at least has the excuse that he has the explicit approval of her family and assumes therefore that she’s down for it.  Emma has her own desires and her blindness to Isak’s real wishes so she comes across as a lot more clueless.

Associated extras:  an instagram picture, a chat with the boys and a really really awkward chat between Isak and Emma.  The picture seems again to highlight who the important people in Isak’s life are.  Many of his pictures, videos etc are of these three guys and so it really drives home the point that their good will is important to him.  The chat again highlights this with the added bonus that they are teasing Isak about tricking Emma with painkillers and hinting that he’ll enjoy seeing her again (they completely ignore his ‘psycho vibes’ issue with her, presumably because she’s attractive).  Then the chat with Emma.  It’s so painfully obvious that Isak is uninterested.  His one word answers are brimming with a sense of ‘get out of my face’ and yet she’s so flirty and excited.  It really highlights her obliviousness and lack of awareness.  She’s very young, and probably not all that used to guys not falling or her.  We’ve seen that Isak has an unconventional flirting technique (insult her and not be like the other guys who fall all over her), and so it’s not a surprise that as he keeps acting not-like the other guys that she keeps being charmed.  She has, as yet, no real reason to think he’s not into her other than his distance.  And that probably seems surmountable since he’s acted ‘weird’ before and still been presumably interested.  It doesn’t help that his only response to the ‘are you single’ an added babble is a short yes.  She will of course think he’s saying that about his relationship status and take it as a hint.

Overall impressions: I suspect it’s fairly obvious, but I love this one.  I will always have fond memories of it because of the Romeo and Juliet thing and how much it charmed me with just that one shot.  There’s not much going on in the clip, but the undercurrents between all the characters are so interesting.  It’s particularly interesting to know that Even was just as invested in this moment as Isak.  He looks so calm and in control and yet he’s probably bubbling inside.  The two of them are as ridiculous as each other and I love it.

Next one can be found here.

[poetiicdissonance]

So technically it’s a university AU rather than a high school au, but it’s still Romeo and Juliet! Or how Shiro and Lotor spend six months being increasingly flirty and don’t figure anything out until the last possible minute.

For extra headcanons in the end notes, and also better formatting (like the italics that should be there and less mangled paragraph spacing) I’d heavily suggest reading it on ao3, but I digress! On with it!

Lotor knows better than to let Sendak get to him. He’s been a constant since Lotor was a child, and had his father telling him how he should be more like Sendak. Sendak is tall with broad shoulders, Sendak plays sports, Sendak hadn’t brought shame upon the family when he was caught kissing a boy– not that Lotor can even remember his name now. He’d been an unimpressive, wasted taste of teenage rebellion, but nothing had ever been the same after that.

Sendak leers, his arms crossed over his chest. “With hair like that, I’d suggest you join the cheerleading squad.” He says, “Cheer me on when the team wins.” Lotor rolls his eyes, and doesn't intend to react. It isn’t exactly a novel insult, nothing Lotor hasn’t heard before. Sendak was head of… whatever the university's main sports team was. He had never paid that much attention. He’d attended one volleyball game when Ezor had been on the team, before deciding it wasn’t exciting enough to stick with it.

However, intention means very little when Ezor drapes an arm over Lotor’s shoulder, and pushes herself onto her tiptoes to rest her chin on his opposite shoulder. “He can’t.” She says, and Sendak looks away from Lotor to her.

“And why not?”

Ezor grins in the way Lotor has long since learned to fear, because it means she has an idea, the sort of idea that makes Zethrid smile at her girlfriend and make he and Acxa exchange looks of mutual wariness.

Ezor brandishes a purple gel pen from her back pocket and writes down all four of their names on the first poster in range. Lotor reads the title to see what she has unwittingly signed them all up for. At least she had the good sense not to include Narti in this madness. Romeo and Juliet. Lovely. He hasn’t read it since highschool, and he doesn't remember liking it all that much. Not that Macbeth or Hamlet had been much more interesting, but at least those had more interesting plots.

With a deadpan look, Lotor looks back at Sendak. “I’m otherwise engaged.” He says. Well, at least so were his roommates, so that was a benefit if nothing else. Misery loves company and all that.

-

Lotor is reading through Acxa’s copy of the play, tucked in one of the stackable chairs brought to the hallway outside the abandoned backroom that was going to be their practice space. Ezor and Zethrid had been there earlier before they finished and went to go get lunch, but both promised they’d be back in time to hear the cast listing.

Across the hall, he can see Allura and Lance running lines, hoping to get the titular leads. Lotor looks back down at the pages in front of him, just to remember it is a tragedy rather than whatever romance they seem to think it is. If he can get Montague, he’ll be happy, barely any lines, but enough to say that he went out and was simply beaten out by the better actors.

He gets called up, and passes the script back to Acxa, who's running her lines under her breath. It’s not, he knows that she’s particularly interested in any starring role, but he knows her well enough to understand that her perfectionism will allow for nothing else– they are well matched in that regard, it’s what makes being her roommate easy.

The audition goes, if he is so bold to say it, well. Passion tempered with dignity, and he only stumbled on two lines, both of which he can pass off as being simply for dramatic effect. He finishes with one hand outstretched, “That I might touch that cheek,” he says, and Coran looks pleased, writing down something on the clipboard.

“Very good, very good,” he says, and Lotor nods, heading back to the chair he’d been in before.

In the time it took for him to audition, Shiro has arrived, book bag slung over one shoulder. Several people had come and gone to classes, but he hadn’t thought anyone else would be arriving now, not with so few people left to go.

Lotor settles back into his chair, and pulls out his own textbook to study. If he is going to be stuck here for what looks like at least another hour, he's going to get some work done.

By the time Coran comes out of the rehearsal room, the hallway has filled again with the soon-to-be cast. Ezor sips on her coffee, leaning against Zethrid who’d arrived just in time. Coran looks around, seeming to do a head count, before brandishing a paper.

“What everyone’s been waiting for,” he says, and waves a hand. “The cast list, and yes, it will be posted so you can all double check.” He says, and clears his throat. “Acxa, you’ll be Juliet, I have one who seems to know all her lines already!” Lotor laughs, seeing the panicked way Acxa blinks. She hadn't chosen to participate in the play, so much as, like Lotor had been, forcibly signed up for it.

He’s not going to be the one to say that the only reason Acxa knows all the lines is because the university is making her take an English class and it was either Shakespeare or children's literature. She hadn’t hesitated making the choice.

Somehow though, she had gotten the main lead, which made her a better actress than Lotor had ever expected. Perhaps their years of speech and debate, and hiding her obvious crush, had paid off.

“Right then, for everyone else, Keith you’ll be Tybalt,” Beside him, Ezor and Zethrid giggle, the long-standing crush between those two had been bright as day since high school. He’s almost disappointed Keith didn’t get Romeo, the irony would have been poetic, and perhaps been enough to get them together. Cousins rather than lovers; with any luck, it would still be enough. “Romeo will be Shiro,”

Allura frowns. She and Lance had planned to get the leads, he knew, had choreographed matching auditions and everything. Saccharine, if he has to pick a word for it. If he knows Shiro at all, he had gone into it with an honest portrayal well suited for someone like the Prince, and then come out of it with Romeo.

As Coran reads out the rest of the roles, Lotor leans back in his chair until he hears his own name. “Lotor, Benvolio,” Cora frowns at the next role, and looks up. “Lance, do you think you could get your sister to participate?”

Lance offers him a salute. “Yeah, she planned to anyways, but she had class,”

Coran writes it down. “Alright then, Veronica will be Lady Capulet.”

-

The first rehearsal is a singularly awkward experience; all of them gathered in a loose semicircle, copies of the scripts in front of them, reading the play aloud. Most of it, if Lotor is honest, is taken up by Coran wincing at the butchered Shakespearean English.

By the afternoon of the second rehearsal, Pidge has successfully pawned her role as ‘chorus’ off to Risavi and Leifsdottir, the other two members of Griffin and Kinkade’s quartet. Lotor isn’t going to bother asking why Pidge and Matt, the people who would be doing the lights and sound backstage, were here, but he long ago decided that some things were not worth questioning.

Rehearsal starts with Coran trying to get the two women to do the opening sonnet in tandem and failing spectacularly. Leifsdottir’s reading is level and slow, contrasting Risavi’s high energy, positively bouncing across the lines. He watches as Griffin and Kinkade wince, and go to talk to them. Several minutes later, they try again, and this time, it’s somewhere between the two, and actually sounds like it should. He’d dare to say it’s impressive, both the change, and whatever the two had said to get them on the same level.

-

Acxa is miserably ill, and Lotor says as much when they walk into the practice room. Coran nods, and waves him off, searching through the stack of papers overflowing off his desk. He’s not entirely certain that the man heard him, but he wasn’t going to fight with it.

For the next few minutes, Lotor leans against the wall talking with Ezor and Zethrid, and then Coran claps his hands, seeming to have found whatever it was he had been searching for. “Alright team! Let’s run Pilgrim’s Hands.”

“Acxa’s sick,” Lotor reminds, and Coran frowns.

“Who’s her understudy?”

Allura raises her hand, and Coran gestures towards the center of the room, as Shiro steps up across from her. He and Acxa had only just graduated to actually touching during this scene, working out chemistry, and Lotor doubts he is thrilled to have to try and do this now with a new person.

“Good pilgrim-“ Allura begins confidently. And then her expression falls. “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much. Which… which….” She trails off, and bites her lip. “I know it, I promise! Which…”

Lotor slips his hands into his pockets. “Which mannerly devotion says in this, for saints have hands that pilgrim’s hands do touch.” Shiro’s eyes widen gently when he hears Lotor take over Acxa’s part, and steps away from Allura. There’s twin thumps on his back that push him forward; Ezor and Zethrid, damn them. Lotor pulls his hands from his pockets, a change that Shiro adapts to quickly.

He reaches out to run his fingers down Lotor’s arm, across the thin, sensitive flesh of his wrist, left exposed by the rolled up, short sleeves of his blazer. “And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.” Lotor flips his hands to slide his fingers between Shiro’s.

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” Shiro’s free hand reaches to push a stray strand of Lotor’s hair that had escaped from his bun, behind his ear, and for a moment, they stand there, eyes locked. And then Lotor says his next line, remembering it only because of how many times he has run this scene with Acxa.

“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”

Shiro moves closer- impossibly close, his foot sliding between Lotor’s. There’s a hand on the back of his neck, hot and distracting, from where Shiro’s hand had drifted out of his hair, but not left. The room is silent, their hands still held gently beside them.

Shiro’s eyes flicker down to his lips, “O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do…” for a moment, Lotor thinks that Shiro will lean in and kiss him, wanting to lean in himself. “They pray, grant thou, lest,” it’s too quiet, it is, Lotor knows it is. Shiro and Acxa’s run of this scene have never been this close, always several steps back, both hands held between the two of them, and even then, only fingers curved loosely around each other, nothing entwined like theirs.

“Lest faith turn to despair.” Lotor finishes for him, a flawless transition, as if that is the way the scene is meant to be performed. The air between them is positively electric, and then the moment breaks.

“Good job, Lotor! ” Coran says, and within an instant, Lotor and Shiro have separated, Lotor running his hands down the sides of his lilac blazer, tips of his ears flushing red. “Let’s run Tybalt’s death next.”

He doesn't notice when Ezor slides her phone into her pocket, but he sends her a questioning glance when he hears her giggling.

-

When they get back to the dorm room, Acxa is curled up on the couch, the salmon coloured blanket that Ezor had thrown on her before they left for rehearsal still there. A testament, Lotor thinks, for how sich she is. Ezor grins, and flops beside her, as Lotor sets his bag down.

“I have to show you this,” Ezor says, pulling up a video of her phone. Before he has time to find a way to stop Ezor showing Acxa the recording, Zethrid’s hand closes around his shoulder to keep him from moving. He is going to kill his roommates. Through the speakers of Ezor’s phone, Lotor can hear he and Shiro’s recitation of the scene, and feel the subsequent blush high on his cheek.

Ezor is giggling, and even Acxa looks up at him with a raised eyebrow once it’s over. “For something that’s supposed to be a romantic scene, I have to say you do it better than we do.” She says, and Lotor sinks his head into his hands.

“Don’t say it.” he groans, and Zethrid tightens her hold on his shoulder. “Don’t worry so much, it’s not like the entire cast saw the way you and Shiro played the romantic scene with all the veiled sexual tension of… actually they did.” She says, and he groans again.

He takes back whatever positive sentiments he has ever expressed about his roommates, because clearly they hate him.

-

That is not the end of it. Despite, or perhaps because fate seems to want to see him embarrassed. At the next rehearsal Coran claps his hands together with a particularly wide smile. First, he looks at Acxa. “Welcome back!” He greets, and she raises a hand in a wave.

“Feeling much better.”

“Good! Now… it came to my attention last rehearsal that perhaps we haven’t pushed the bounds of this performance far enough.” He says, and Lotor wants nothing more than to hide, or perhaps, drop out of school altogether. Yes, that would be a good response to this whole situation, unless, through some miracle, Coran means something entirely unrelated to the scene with Shiro.

“Acxa, do you by chance know Lotor’s part?” He asks, and Acxa, the traitor, nods.

“We run lines together,” She says. Enough rounds of every scene meant that they could both recite almost the entire play.

Coran nods excitedly. “Then because we’re so close to the start, I’ve decided that we’re going to trade Acxa and Lotor’s parts.” And there, Lotor thinks, is the other shoe dropping, like he’s been waiting for, the culmination of his dread. Here lies Lotor, he died of embarrassment.

Beside him, he can practically feel Ezor’s excitement. Acxa at least, has the good grace to hide her smile behind her hand and nods. “I saw a recording of the scene last week, I think that would be for the best.” She agrees, and again, he can’t help the part of his mind that calls her a traitor, best friend or not.

“Fantastic!” Coran says, “So from now on Acxa is Benvolio, and Lotor is Juliet….” He trials off, and for a moment, Lotor almost hopes he’s reconsidering it, realizing that Juliet is a woman’s part, and despite Sendak’s commentary, and his father’s continued displeasure with the length of his hair, he is most definitely not. “Julien.” Coran seems to decide, and no, Lotor thinks, no such luck.

Everyone else nods, even if Allura looks distinctly put out by the whole affair. Lotor wants to tell her it’s not like he wants this. He can’t even blame Acxa for being sick last week, as much as he wants to, because ultimately, he’d put himself in this position by speaking up at all.

-

Despite most of the cast's initial reservations, Lotor can tell they’ve come around to the idea of him playing ‘Julien’. He caught Pidge and Hunk whispering to each other about how the scenes with them had more chemistry than anything between Acxa and Shiro, not counting the few awkward attempts with Allura.

Gone are the barely clasped hands, and feet of space between the leads. Between him and Shiro, Lotor can almost understand why people looked at it like a great love story even if it only lasts three days. In the past several rehearsals, as they run the rest of their scenes, the tension between them only seems to magnify. Shiro is a better actor than Lotor originally gave him credit for.

He’s just grateful that Coran seems to have conveniently forgotten the fact that they should, at some point in the play, kiss.

After rehearsal, Shiro catches his wrist. “Hey, do you want to run some of our scenes? I’m not totally happy with the blocking for the death scene yet.” Lotor is going to refuse when Ezor, Acxa, and Zethrid all wave at him.

“We’re going to meet up with Narti, we’ll tell her you’ll be late,” Ezor says, and Lotor knows a slightly more-subtle-than usual push when he sees one.

He looks back at Shiro and nods. “Yeah, of course.”

-

“It seems unfair, that now that Juliet’s not a girl, that she gets no more agency.” Lotor complains, gesturing with the open script, page held in place by his thumb.

Shiro laughs, and shrugs. “She’s still the damsel though. It’s a tragedy.”

Lotor rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but Coran decided to swap Acxa and I, without considering why Juliet’s a girl to start.” He says, and leans back against his headboard. Shiro laughs again, and leans back against the wall, his own script abandoned between them.

The first two times that he and Shiro had practiced together had been awkward, with stretches of silence not filled by the chatter of their castmates. Now, a week, and five extra practices later, Lotor feels comfortable in Shiro’s presence, and their conversations have slowly meandered away from the play only.

Shiro shrugs. “It’s not like Coran is known for long thought out plans, or that the choice to switch you and Acxa was exactly… something he considered from the start.”

Lotor sighs, and looks back down at the play. “We might as well rehearse ‘but soft through yonder window breaks’ again.”

-

Lotor has known Takashi Shirogane since he was fourteen and they started at the same highschool. In that time, Lotor could convincingly tell himself he didn’t find Shiro attractive approximately zero times. They’d rivaled for club space between speech and debate and student council all through the later years, and the it had been a schoolwide toss up between which of them would be valedictorian. In a move that seemed to surprise the entire student population, it had been Allura instead. On more than one occasion, he had gotten distracted watching Shiro’s arms when he’d been waiting for Ezor and Zethrid to finish with track practice.

Lotor gawks when at the start of rehearsal, two months in, Coran says that he and Shiro should run through their scenes, and actually kiss, so that when it comes to the shows proper, it won't look rehearsed, but like two actual lovers. It’s not a lack of attraction that makes him want to hide, but rather, the fact that in the past month and a half, Lotor has realized how painfully he likes Shiro. He likes his dry sense of humor, and unwavering consistency. He likes the fact that Shiro is brave and wants to do the right thing, and is surprisingly smart. And perhaps most damning of all, likes the feeling of Shiro’s hand in his, even if it’s all pretend.

Once they get through the fist one, it’s surprisingly easy to wrap it into the performances. It fits into the gaps between them naturally.

When he sees Acxa and Keith making out after the first dress rehearsal, he’s not even surprised. Their scenes had always been charged, even more so after she became Benvolio. He’s only jealous that they seem to know exactly what they want.

-

They’re both in Lotor’s room when Shiro gets a look in his eyes, running his gaze down Lotor’s body. Lotor raises an eyebrow, and suppresses the desire to shiver. “What are you planning?”

Shiro pulls him to his feet. “I have an idea,”

“I guessed as much,”

Shiro laughs, and moves forward, one arm going under Lotor’s knees, the other behind his back. In his shock, Lotor’s arms go around Shiro’s neck, and then he’s looking at Shiro's smirk from a place several feet above the ground.

“What was that for?”

“We get married, and it's not like I can carry you across the threshold. So I figured off stage was close enough. I just had to make sure I could lift you.” He says, and Lotor pushes at his shoulder. Shiro drops him back on his bed, and sits beside him.

“Well now you know you can. Curiosity assuaged?” Lotor asks, running a hand through his hair, to push it back, partially for the excuse to do something with his hands.

Shiro nods. “Yeah, no more surprise lifts, don’t worry.”

-

It’s their last rehearsal, and Lotor catches Shiro’s eyes in the mirror as he does up the zipper on Lotor’s costume. The backstage is abuzz of energy, with their first performance tomorrow. Months of work had all led up to these last few nights, and Lotor can admit to himself that he’s enjoyed it more than he had ever expected.

For a moment, Shiro’s hands seem to linger on his waist, where the zipper ends, but Lotor assumes it’s just his imagination, because Shiro removes his hands after another second. “Are you ready to marry me?” Shiro asks, and Lotor laughs.

“Only if you’re ready to die for me.” Shiro presses a hand to his chest in mock hurt.

“I’m always ready to kill myself for your love. I do it four times every week.”

-

Despite how many months it’s been, Shiro hasn’t ceased to surprise Lotor. It seems like each time they run through the play, there are differences. A hand on his hip where there hadn’t been before, a softening glance, a smoother delivery.

They run the scene where Shiro picks him up before the others arrive for rehearsal, and it’s a good thing they do, because the first time, Lotor flinches so hard that Shiro almost drops him, because he picks him up the line before he expects it.

The night of their first performance, Coran gathers them all together in the green room. Rizavi is halfway through touching up Romelle’s makeup, and Kinkade is pulling at Griffin’s costume to get it to lay flat. Hunk is running through his lines, looking a little nauseous at the idea that he has to perform in front of an audience. Lotor feels surprisingly calm, but the nervous, thrumming energy doesn't escape him. Through the door, he can hear the muffled sounds of footsteps and conversation as everyone filters into the house.

Coran looks around at them all. “You all look very good, and I have faith in the work you’ve all put in.” He says, and there’s murmurs of agreement from all of them. “It’s showtime, though! And there’s a full house out there, just waiting to see how our young lovers fall in love,” he says, with a wink towards he and Shiro.

They break, Coran going to peek at the audience, as the others do their last minute adjustments. Acxa is leaning against Keith, and Ezor and Zethrid are doing their utmost best to keep each other’s costumes intact. The actions are spilling into the dressing rooms, though the cursory decision of the left being for the men, and the right being for the women seems to have fallen apart.

“Break a leg tonight, everyone,” Shiro says, and the answering call echoes through the room.

And then the curtain is rising, and they’re out.

Acxa and Keith kiss off stage, for themselves, like they’re trying to make up for years of missed opportunities. He and Shiro kiss on stage, to the delight of the audience. And it is to their delight when, half way through the play, what is supposed to be a loving, but otherwise unremarkable kiss, ends with his arms around Shiro’s neck, Shiro smirking down at him from the dramatic dip.

The crowd claps loudly even before the scene is done.

-

The stage lights beat down on them, and Shiro’s head is in his lap for the second of their three performances. The crowd is silent, holding bated breaths, as Lotor runs a hand across Shiro’s cheek, the prop dagger already in place for his suicide. Everyone knows how the story ends, everyone knows both lovers die. Violent delights, violent ends, and nothing between them has ever been moderate– in that, Shiro’s displays work even better. The unreservedness does more to sell them as incandescently in love than two people who can barely look at each other.

He’s supposed to kill himself, and let the play end. That’s his role, it’s what's written on the script. After tomorrow night, there will be no more afternoons spent in a back room, no Shiro catching him after rehearsal saying they should spend some time practicing. Romeo and Juliet fall in love, he wasn’t supposed to fall in love in between the fantasy of it all, certainly not with Shiro.

The background music is playing out, and there’s a moment where he thinks that he will let the play go out as it is always meant to. Romeo dies. Juliet dies. Before he can spend more time debating with himself, Lotor leans down to press a gentle kiss to Shiro’s lips. It’s not scripted; it’s not Juliet kissing Romeo, but Lotor kissing Shiro. His curtain of hair hides Shiro’s open-eyed shock, and the distance between them and the first row covers the way that Shiro’s hand settles on his hip on the side not facing the audience.

Lotor pulls back, and Shiro resumes playing dead as if it had been all part of the performance. First kiss and final kiss all rolled into the same under the stage lights. It’s only fair, Lotor thinks, considering how many times over the months Shiro has surprised him by making the performance just that shade more intimate.

Lotor barely remembers the rest of the play, heart beating in his chest, from where he’s laying pressed half against, half on top of Shiro, hands clammy against the prop blade.

When they do their bows, Lotor catches the way Shiro looks at him through the corner of his eyes. When the lights go dark, Lotor leaves before Shiro has the chance to talk to him.

-

It’s strange, Lotor thinks, sitting on the edge of the stage. The seats are all empty, the props cleared away, just the backdrop left to be dealt with tomorrow before the stage can be used again. He’s removed his stage makeup with a borrowed makeup wipe from Ezor, and changed out of his costume, brushed his hair out. It helps that by the end of the play, it’s down anyway. Months of work, from one spontaneous decision to spite Sendak all played out, the final curtain drawn.

He lifts one foot to balance on the edge of the stage, and leans against his knee. His roommates had already left, yelling something behind them about the afterparty. There’s a shuffle behind him, and then Shiro sits down next to him, in his own normal clothes. The adrenaline that he’s been running on all night is starting to leave, and he’s not going to run from this.

“It’s quiet.” Shiro says, and Lotor hums in agreement. They haven’t talked about yesterday, and Lotor would be happy never doing so. Shiro seems unbothered by the lack of a response.

“Now that we won’t be seeing each other four times a week, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to kiss me, instead of Romeo?”

Lotor’s head snaps to look at Shiro. “You’d want to?”

Shiro runs an awkward hand down the back of his neck. “Yeah, I mean I’ve wanted to for months, but it never seemed like a good time to ask y’know? And then you were Juliet and that seemed like a spectacularly good way to ruin the performance if anything went wrong.” He shrugs, and gestures behind them at the stage. “Did you think I did it all for the performance?”

Lotor nods, and drops the knee he’s leaning against back down to hang from, leaning back on his arms to look out over the seats. “Best Romeo I could have imagined playing opposite.”

“I admit, I expected a ‘Juliet’ rather than a ‘Julien’, but I think I prefer how this turned out.”

Lotor laughs, and leans across the small space between them, and kisses him, and kisses him again. And this time, there’s no pretense of the performance.

They pull back, “I think there’s an afterparty they’ll be waiting for us at.”

“I’m sure they can wait another minute.”

High school AU where the school has to put on a production of the famed Romeo and Juliet.

[writing-marvel]

There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back - Peter Parker

Author: @writing-marvel

Character(s): Peter Parker/Reader, Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones, Aunt May

Word Count: 4776

Notes: So, this is the first part of the illuminate series and my first ever Peter Parker fic so please don’t be too harsh on me?! This gets slightly smutty, but goes no further than slight making out. No fondue, lucky Cap. Listen to the song here.

I wanna follow where she goes I think about her and she knows it

Peter’s heart leapt out of his chest each time he thought about her. The way her eyes would light up as she came up with yet another mischievous plan or something that was surely not what they were supposed to be doing. He would find himself smiling each time she did, and it was the sort of smile that could light up a room. It was one of those grins that caused your eyes to crinkle slightly and your cheeks to hurt.

She knew exactly what kind of effect she had on him, he knew because each time he became flustered she’d have a little smirk, she repeated the actions that sent him spiralling into such a state, but he couldn't find it in himself to care, because after all, he did the same thing to her.

Normally, Peter was a hesitant boy, he’d hold back, he wouldn’t throw himself into situations that were too dangerous (lest he be clad in his red and blue) but with her, he’d follow her to the ends of the earth.

She was new to the school, and he’d taken an immediate fascination to her the moment Liz Allen had reached out, offered her a seat at her table. Now if there’s any one thing Peter knew - despite almost knowing everything due to his borderline genius intellect, of course - was that the new kids were always swept up within seconds on their first day by the popular crowd. Being new was like a ‘get out of jail free card’ for high school torture.

Having been seated next to him in his English Literature class, and he hadn’t taken much notice of her. However, when Liz Allan had entered the library, where their class was held, to take out a book she needed for an assignment, his entire thought track about the continual themes of love and hate in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had been gone. He let his head rest on his hand, watching as she glided through the shelves with elegance.

However, his heart was practically thundering out of his chest when her eyes locked on his table, and she was making her way over. For a split moment, he was delusional enough to think she was heading over to talk to him, but when she took place opposite the girl beside him, his hopes dropped.

Dishing out a much wanted and prestigious invite to this new girl to join Liz at a lunch table, she was quickly rejected by her and Liz looked positively shocked, but kindly accepted the girls decline and gathered her book, checking it out and leaving.

Peter, however, was thoroughly awestricken. This girl, whom he’d now had a chance to observe properly was actually very much of his interest. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but he was absolutely captivated by her nonetheless. Overlooking her physical appearance, she had just turned down Liz Allan because she didn’t want to become a well-known face. She was here for an education, not a prom queen nomination, and he looked upon that admirably.

Without any possible hesitation or any nerves, he tapped her on the shoulder, gaining her attention and he flashed her a cheeky smile, his head tilting to the side and she returned his grin.

“Hey, I’m Peter Parker, and how would you like to sit at the exact opposite of the popular table?”

I wanna let her take control 'Cause every time that she gets close, yeah She pulls me in enough to keep me guessing, mmm And maybe I should stop and start confessing Confessing, yeah

Peter had confessed his feelings to her when she’d been patching him up. With a grumpy pout, she paused her episode of Star Trek and made her way to the window, sliding it open and letting the superhero of Queens climb through with a grunt. Shaking her head, she straightened out her covers and patted the sheets for him to sit down, which he did.

Pulling out a first aid kit she had quickly assembled after his first few visits, she opened it up on the bed. “Suit off, Spidey, you know how this goes.” She teased and she was almost certain he was rolling his eyes under his mask, but he stood on shaky legs, pressing down on the spider emblem and letting the loosened material fall away to the floor.

She let out an audible gasp upon analysing the injuries littering his body, worse than she’d ever seen, and his head snapped up, black-rimmed eyes widening as he looked around. Her hand cupped his cheek and she knelt on the ground in front of him gently. Subconsciously leaning into her touch, he shivered slightly as her fingers traced in touches lighter than feather over his skin.

“Oh, Pete, I wish you’d be more careful.” She mumbled, not taking notice of her words until he stiffened under her touch, and she looked up with a raised eyebrow. “You think I wouldn’t know? My intelligence is insulted, Parker.” She grinned and he coughed lightly, clearing his throat. Moving her hand from his cheek, she hooked her fingers under the edges of his mask, and he lifted his own hand to pull it up and over his head, messy brown curls sticking up at odd angles.

“H-How long have you known?” He whispered, throat raw and fragile but she smiled, taking a seat beside him on her bed as she doused a cotton pad in rubbing alcohol.

“A good few months, but I figured you’d tell me when you were ready. Or never at all, either way, it’s your secret and it wasn’t mine to play with. I’m so proud of you though, Peter. Every article I read in the paper or news report flashing on the TV, I feel so proud of you.” She smiled and his breath hitched, although he tried to pretend it was from the sting of her dabbing at his cuts and not the intimate moment he’d just shared with the girl he loved.

“How did you know?” He whispered, though he’d waited until she’d finished patching him up and she shrugged, biting down on her bottom lip and worrying it between her teeth slightly.

“I guess, I always found it slightly unusual that you always came to me to be stitched up, but you never spoke. I questioned it. Why did Spider-Man have so much faith in me, but he couldn’t trust himself to speak? I knew it must’ve been someone I knew, because it was a trust like no other. Then it was the little things, like the times I’d hug you but you’d flinch, or the time I held your hand and you let me even though it hurt you because you had sprained your wrist, but I didn't know at the time. I just.. put together the puzzle pieces.”

He was stunned to say the least, and his face was almost as red as he suit when he found his next words. “So.. you can just read me like a book?” He mumbled and she chuckled lightly, reaching for his hand and lacing their fingers together, staring at their intertwined hands and nodding. “Does that mean.. you know about my.. f-feelings?” The words barely left his mouth they were spoken so quietly, but she heard them and she looked up at him with a smile.

“I’ve known about those for a while too.” She confirmed and he nodded, breaking their eye contact and swallowing thickly.

“The little things?”

“The little things.” She confirmed and he bit his lip, deciding to take a leap of faith. Lifting his other hand, he ignored the shooting pain in his shoulder and placed a hand under her chin, tilting her face upwards as he leaned in, catching her lips with his. The hand he was still holding tightened and he smiled into the kiss, receiving a whine from her.

“Stop smiling, I’ve been waiting to kiss you for four months, stop ruining it.” She teased and he pecked her lips again softly, grinning wildly when he pulled back.

“I’ve been waiting to kiss you for ten.”

Oh, I've been shaking I love it when you go crazy You take all my inhibitions Baby, there's nothing holdin' me back

You take me places that tear up my reputation Manipulate my decisions Baby, there's nothing holdin' me back

“You’re tearing up my reputation by making me do this, you know.” He stated, shaking the can in his hand while watching her as she scoped out her canvas.

“What reputation?” She scoffed, turning to face him with a bright smile and he shook his jaw dropped playfully. “Your reputation as May’s good boy?”

“No.” He huffed, sticking his tongue out and popping the lid off of the first can. “My.. Spider-Man reputation. I’m supposed to be the law, this is illegal, you know.” He prompted and she simply shrugged, taking no hesitations in spraying a thick red line across the bricks. He watched as she carefully began to graffiti the wall, a small smile on his lips as he watched her enjoying herself.

“Stop staring, P. If you don’t wanna’ get caught, you better spray fast so I can get the pictures for my project and we can get out of here.” She spoke, eyes never leaving her project as she swapped out her paint colours and Peter looked at the blank bricks before him, wondering what to do.

He eventually settled on something basic and they soon had the whole wall filled between them, as far as they could reach anyway, and she stepped back, admiring the work. Peter bit his lip as he looked at his own work in comparison to hers. His dodgy love heart barely resembled the shape it was intended to be and he’d used far too much paint, which was why it  was now dripping in rivers down the wall and it gave a very strong impression of a melted candle. She didn’t seem to mind however, because she began snapping pictures of it, moving around in an attempt to find different angles and eventually deciding she’d had enough of her art project for now.

He tucked his hands into his pockets, looking at the work they’d done together and he offered her his hand, the blue colours coating his own merging with the array of colours on hers as she accepted. “You know what would be cool?”

“What?” He mused, letting her tug him towards her apartment building.

“If you hang upside down and let me kiss you.” She turned to look at him and he raised an eyebrow.

“Like a Spider-Man kiss? With the webs and all?”

“With the webs.” She agreed, fingers playing absentmindedly as they waited in the elevator, and he nodded, thinking to himself.

“Let's do it.” He grinned, and she tilted her head to the side, a bemused expression on her face. “The Spider-Man kiss. Sounds like it’s going to be my new favourite thing.”

She says that she's never afraid Just picture everybody naked She really doesn't like to wait Not really into hesitation

Peter didn’t protest as his back slammed against the lockers, and he winced, because there was a large slash that he was sure had just reopened that had been caused the night before. Apparently, minding your own business was now on Flash’s list of do-not-do’s because that is exactly how he found himself now.

A thick forearm pressed against his throat as he gasped as Flash smirked, the pressure on his airways not doing much but it was enough to irritate his throat and he tried desperately not to cough, should that irritate the bully further. A small crowd had gathered around the moment Flash had not so accidentally knocked Peter’s books from his hands, which was what he hated the most.

If Flash picked on him when he was alone, it was usually a mean comment hurled at him and a rough shove to his shoulder that would send him staggering, but when crowds formed, it fed Flash’s inner attention seeker and the boy would not relinquish until he was sure everyone had seen him make a spectacle of poor Peter Parker.

While ‘poor Peter Parker’ was for sure not a term that could apply to him anymore, he knew he had to play the role, despite how much he desperately wanted to snap off Flash’s arm and beat him with it, because he was crumpling the new sweater Aunt May had bought for him.

Flash however was suddenly lurched backwards, the collar of his t-shirt tightening around his own neck as whoever had gathered his attention had tugged on it. His eyes glazed over in what could only be described as rage and Peter pitied the poor bugger on the receiving end of that anger. A very familiar face took place in his view and his eyes widened as his girlfriends normally beautiful smile was curled down into a scowl and Flash simply smirked, tilting his head to the side.

“Oh, well, look at that. Parker needs his bitch to defend him.” He snarled and Peter’s ears were practically steaming with how angry he was just from that comment, but luckily for him, he had a reliable best friend, and Ned quickly pulled him away.

“Excuse you, Flop, but you were in the way of my locker.” She growled, poking a finger into his chest firmly and he looked down at it, before back up to her. She’d stepped closer to him now, her jaw clenched and eyes flaring with aggression.

“It’s Flash.” He all but growled, taking an equal step closer to her and Peter was fearing for his girlfriend's life at this point because frankly, what was she doing?

“Is it?” She questioned, and Peter, along with the rest of the crowd that was watching with baited breath, couldn’t hold back their sniggering and Flash fumed, his face red and he was practically baring his teeth. “I mean-” she wasn’t done, and this time, she punctuated every other word with a harsh jab to his chest with her finger, “I’m pretty sure you’d have to be even remotely interesting to have a nickname like Flash. Like, you’re super intelligent, and you get the answer in a flash. But that's not you. Or maybe running, like for the Olympics? But don’t think I didn’t see you trip while jogging track the other day. You’re no quicksilver.”

He was now up against the lockers, his back pressed to the same spot Peter’s had been only moments earlier and Peter was practically shaking in excitement as the girl he could proudly call his put Flash in his place. “You bit-”

“Bitch? Is that the only insult you know? You sure aren’t a flash at comebacks either. You’re definitely a flop. So, Flop, get out of the way of my damn locker.” She hissed, and he quickly pushed past her, his shoulder connecting roughly with hers as he stormed down the corridor, doors slamming as he went and the crowd soon dispersed.

Peter however, was still standing in shock and staring at his girl, completely love-struck as she went through her locker and sorted her books, while Michelle and Ned looked positively repulsed by the ‘heart-eyes’ he was giving her. Taking a few short steps, he waited until she closed her locker, jumping slightly as he leaned against the metal doors beside her own, catching her by surprise.

“Hey Pete!” She smiled, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek, her lips lingering by his ear. “How’s your back? I should rebandage it before you go for your patrol tonight.” She smiled and he nodded, swallowing thickly.

“I will, but I wanted to say thank you. For that, just then.” He smiled, though now feeling slightly embarrassed he’d never had the guts to do it himself.

“I didn’t do anything, he was simply leaning on my locker and annoying me.” She played it off, and he was internally grateful that she didn’t make a big deal out of it. Leaning in closer, he nudged her nose to the side with his own, pressing a kiss to her lips as a thank you that she gratefully accepted.

“It was still pretty hot though, you should get bossy more often.” He teased, and she scoffed, slapping at his arm and linking her fingers with his as they walked towards their next class, chatting aimlessly about the nerdiest things possible.

Pulls me in enough to keep me guessing, whoa And maybe I should stop and start confessing Confessing, yeah

Oh, I've been shaking I love it when you go crazy You take all my inhibitions Baby, there's nothing holdin' me back

Spending the day with May to plan for Peter’s 18th birthday was exactly how you wanted to be spending your Saturday. Having decided to go out for a meal, you, May, Ned and Michelle had spent time saving up and getting a reservation, and you couldn’t be more excited about the evening to come. Of course, Peter hadn’t been able to keep his hands off you and that’s how you found yourself extremely grateful you’d booked a hotel room for the night instead of deciding to crash at his house.

Pressed up against the hotel door, your head tilted back, a low moan falling from your lips as Peter’s mouth moved hotly over your neck, quickly finding your sweet spot and sucking on it harshly. Your hand shot up, lacing into his curls and tugging lightly, a low groan rumbling from him and he pulled away, letting his eyes roam over the blushing red marks he’d left along your skin, which would undoubtedly leave a trail of purple marks she’d have a hell of a time covering up.

A smirk pulled at his lips and he let his lips find hers again as his hands slid from her hips to the hem of her dress, pulling the material up until it was bunched around her waist. One of his knees pushed her legs apart, his thigh pressing against her clothed heat and he loved the fact that she almost immediately responded, rolling her hips down in a desperate hope for friction.

“You know, princess-” His voice was raspy. Practically dripping with arousal and she whimpered just at the sound of it. “I love that you wore a blue dress and red underwear.” He teased and she nodded, hand lacing into the hair at the bottom of his neck, pulling his mouth back to hers, lips slanting together hungrily, teeth practically clashing with the heat and urgency of the kiss.

“Peter, please.” She mumbled against his lips and something inside him broke. His hands locked onto her hips, pulling her away from the door he’d had her pressed against and walking her backwards to the bed. Her knees connected with it, but before he let her fall, he tugged her dress up over her head, letting her kick off her heels.

She wasn’t too sure when Peter had become so skilled at undoing a bra, but he did it with ease now, and the material dropped to the floor. A growl sounded in his throat, his hands cupping her breasts and running his fingers over her nipples, kneading lightly as he tilted his head back, letting her kiss along his collarbone.

“I’m not gonna’ break, you know?” She mumbled, a chuckle vibrating against her lips as his hands tightened on her hips.

“You want it rougher, baby?” He cooed and she scoffed at his tone, hands pushing his jacket down his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. Turning him around, she grinned as his knees hit the edge of the bed this time, letting him fall to the mattress. Crawling up to him, he propped himself up on his elbows, one eyebrow raised and she straddled him, rolling her hips down.

Another smirk was pulling at his lips as her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, and he resulted to sitting up fully, tearing it open and letting the remaining buttons drop to the floor or the bed as his lips found hers. Smoothing his hands down along her back, he let them cup her butt, squeezing softly and her lips parted as she moaned.

“Fuck, I love you.”

'Cause if we lost our minds And we took it way too far I know we'd be alright, Know we would be alright

“You’re kidding me, right?” He cursed, tugging at the ends of his hair as she stared at him incredulously. “You want to go to a college in California?” He seethed, holding up the letter she’d been ready to hand into school with her her college options on.

“Yes! It’s an amazing college and it has the courses I want, s-”

“It’s in California! It’s on the other side of the-” He shouted again, and May knocked gently on the door, opening it and peering inside. A stern look was on her face and she directed it at Peter, not wanting to invade on the conversation but silently telling him to ‘cool it’. He shook his head, taking a deep breath and clenching his eyes shut. “Hi, Aunt May.”

“I just wanted to let you both know dinner will be ready in five minutes.” May smiled and she nodded, standing and taking the paper from Peter’s hands.

“Thank you, May, but I won’t be staying for dinner.” She nodded to the older woman, who quickly accepted, leaving the room and Peter’s heart dropped.

“What do you mean you won’t be staying for dinner?” He stood in front of the door, blocking her from leaving as she took steps towards it.

“It means I’m going home, Pete, because you don’t get to dictate my life. I expected you to be happy for me, not throw it in my face.” She huffed, pushing past him and leaving, giving May a quick goodbye and he stood in the doorway of his room, thoroughly unsure how he was going to fix what he just messed up.

That had been three weeks ago, three weeks of agonising silence between the pair that neither of them were enjoying. She was still far too angry to speak to him and he was almost 100% certain they’d broken up, though neither of them had actually said the words, and he was too scared to approach her in fear of it being confirmed.

However, as she sat on her bed staring at the white envelope with the known stamp for her college on she couldn’t help but feel a great swell of sadness that he wasn’t here with her to open it. To kiss her and congratulate her if she got in, or to hold her and comfort her if she didn’t.

Her finger moved numbly across the seal, eyes scanning the page for the words she was looking for and a small smile rose to her lips as she read them. Accepted. She was going across the country to follow her dreams, but a larger feeling of complete and utter misery washed over her at how alone she felt in this moment, and how maybe Peter had been right.

Wiping at her face, she cleared the tears from her eyes and let the letter drop to her bed, answering the series of knocks at her door and she took a deep breath. On the other side was the boy himself, an apologetic smile on his face and she opened the door wider, coughing to clear her throat and stepping aside to let him in.

He took a seat on her bed, picking up the letter she’d been sent and reading over it, a wider smile than her own had been as he took in the information. “You were accepted!” He congratulated her and she nodded, crossing her legs beneath her as she took a seat beside him. “I was too.” He spoke, softer this time and she swallowed thickly, tears lacing her eyes again.

“That’s amazing, Pete. Where to?” She tried and his smile fell as he looked at her, hands cupping her face, thumbs running over her cheeks and wiping away the falling tears. Standing up, he pulled the letter from his back pocket, handing it to her. Folding out the crumpled envelope, she almost couldn’t believe the stamp across the front, and just to be sure, she lifted the envelope of her own to compare.

Identical.

Her eyes met Peter’s and he shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets bashfully. Sniffling, she wiped at the tears on her cheeks for the second time, and she stood to meet him, wrapping her arms around his waist tightly and burying her face into his chest, taking in the faint scent of him she’d missed so dearly. “You applied to the same college as me?”

Feeling him nod against her, she pulled back, leaning up to press her lips to his in a searing kiss which he quickly reciprocated. “I looked at the courses, they have the one I want to do and they seemed pretty good. But it wouldn’t matter, this is your dream, and you’re too important to me. I’ll follow you wherever you want to go.” He whispered ands she found herself on the verge of tears once again, a watery smile being his answer.

If you were by my side And we stumbled in the dark I know we'd be alright, I know we would be alright

I feel so free When you're with me, Baby

Looking down at the girl in his arms, Peter couldn’t help but be in absolute awe of her. Her hair was splayed messily on the pillow, her lips parted just slightly and her eyes were closed, much to his dismay because he loved her eyes. The cold air in the room swept across his skin and he attempted to leave the bed, in order to grab a jumped to cover his bare shoulders her arms tightened around his waist, restricted him from going anywhere.

Moving in her sleep, he was worried he’d woken her and he stayed deadly still, breathing out slowly as he realised he hadn’t. Adjusting himself to lie down again, he lay on his back, pulling the blankets up as far as he could without his feet being exposed and propped a hand beneath his head, getting lost in his thoughts as he stared at the ceiling.

He’d had trouble sleeping lately, his mind swirling with worry and fear, but also with joy and hope. Fumbling quietly in the drawer beside him, he pulled out the small black box, popping the lid and letting his eyes settle on the ring inside. It’d taken him over a year to choose a ring. Having just celebrated her 22nd birthday, he remembered having lay in bed with her on her 21st and deciding he was sure he wanted to marry her.

And here he lay, a year later with a sure feeling that she was his world, and that he would stay with her for as long as he could, until death do them part, but he couldn’t work up the courage to do it. Having carried the box with him, he’d firstly planned to do it on her birthday, but he’d shied away. Having had many opportunities since then, he hadn’t taken any of them and he was getting angry with himself.

“Is that for me?” A voice broke his silence cheekily, a kiss being pressed to his chest and he jumped, swallowing thickly. He wasn’t sure exactly what to do as she sat up, pushing a pillow against the headboard and wiping her eyes with her hands so she could see properly. “Is that what I think it is?” She whispered, having gotten a good look at it now and he sat up too, nodding shyly. “It’s beautiful.”

“I-Is that.. a, um, a.. you know-”

“Of course it’s a yes!” She cried, leaning over and pulling his cheek down to her lip, pressing multiple kisses there. “How did you ever think that it would be a ‘no’?” She smacked his arm lightly and he whined in protest, a blush rising to his cheeks. He leaned down, pressing a long and loving kiss to her lips, slipping the ring onto her finger and holding her hand tightly, adjusting to the new and cold feeling he’d get each time he laced his fingers with hers from now on.

Baby, there's nothing holdin' me back.