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mychemicalxmen · 4 years ago

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The Umbrella Academy College Theatre Kid AU Plot

Alright bitches, ask and ye shall receive.

Here’s the 6k summary of this ten-chapter monstrosity I almost wrote a year ago and just now attempted to flesh out.

Canon divergence from the point of their birth onward. The Commission doesn’t exist here, it would just make everything a little too complicated. No Luther/Allison either, personal preference. If anyone would want to try writing or drawing a scene from this universe, I would be over the heckin moon, please feel free to do w/e if any part of this inspires anyone. And if anyone just wants to shoot hc, pop off!

But yeah. This is a crack concept treated dead seriously. Buckle up.

Chapter One - “Overture”

-I wrote this chapter, but it’s Really Not Good. I had just watched the show and hadn’t written fic in a Hot Minute.

-Welcome to Umbrella University, a top-tier school with a sacrilegiously large budget for the fine arts!

-They’re all freshman atm.

-Basically, all of our kiddos (except Five, we’ll get there) are cleaning the theater between shows in the fall season. Allison is acting House Crew Chief and is overseeing the whole thing. The others are on House Crew for various reasons - tech class credit, volunteer hours, etc. No one is actually studying theatre for their major except Allison, who’s double-majoring in acting and something else

-They’re essentially strangers (except Ben and Klaus, who are assigned roommates). They’re all aware of their own powers, but not any of the others’.

-As they clean, the host on the radio is going on about the one-year anniversary of his favorite “Hargreeves Five” (the current Academy, made up of different kids from the 43, and definitely not based on the ASBO Five) battle, apprehending a robber named Erick Webber in New York City. He was a starving actor who stole from large donation funds that were supposed to be distributed to other starving artists. The battle got violent, and fire got involved. What a spectacle!

-Vanya, who has accidentally skipped her meds that day, sees a rat and screams, prompting Luther to drop the lighting equipment he’s working on. Loud sound. Telekinetic energy starts going.

-There is a comically convenient chain reaction in which all of the siblings’ powers are triggered at once - Diego throws something, Klaus levitates, the Horror has to hold up the light rig, Allison has to rumor to memory-wipe the witnesses, etc.

-Once they have the situation under control, they realize it’s… weird. The odds are absolutely astronomical. How the hell did they all end up in the same place??

-There’s no reason to believe anyone brought them together on purpose, except maybe fate, or whatever Mysterious Space Magic caused their birth in the first place. They have a private House Crew meeting with a lot of freaking out and questions and bonding.

Chapter Two - “God I Hope I Get It”

-Fast forward to junior year. Since that fateful day, the theater has become the siblings’ home base. Luther is the shop foreman this year, Allison is seated at the right hand of the theatre department director (a sharp middle-aged woman who directs half of the shows), Diego knows his way around lights, and Klaus frequently builds and paints in the scene shop. Allison’s the only one of them who actually performs.

-The fall season includes Hair and Othello, and the joint audition for both is quickly approaching.

-Vanya, however, has been drifting away from it all for some reason. Allison finds her in the quad one day and encourages her to audition for Othello. Apparently, the theatre director has observed Vanya’s love of reading plays from afar and asked for her specifically. Vanya doesn’t want to go anywhere near the theater, but she’s touched by Allison’s belief in her and reluctantly says she’ll think about it.

-Diego is going through his classes and can’t help but feel like there’s this one freshman that’s just… following him. Looking at him funny. Keeps showing up in all his usual spots. Must be one of those obnoxious wiz kids - there’s no way in hell that he’s eighteen years old.

-Vanya has a monologue in her back pocket, her favorite from Winter’s Tale, ready to go. But when the day of the audition comes, she walks into the theater for the first time in months, and she breaks down and runs to the bathroom. Allison is too busy helping the director to console her, so she sends Klaus to check on her.

-Klaus talks to her through the door and tries to hype her up for the audition. Ghost!Ben tells him to reel it in.

-Vanya eventually admits that she drifted away from the theater because it was always a special place for the six of them, but after Ben died in a car crash in sophomore year, thinking about it just broke her heart all over again.

-Klaus doesn’t quite have the tact of language to bring her comfort, but Ben does. Without revealing he can see Ben, Klaus just echoes his words. Saying that Ben would still want her to be happy here. Saying that it’s okay to take time to work through all those feelings. He stays there until Vanya’s calm enough to come out of the bathroom, hug him for a really long time, and then go into her audition.

-The cast lists go out, and all the siblings run to see the one for Othello. Allison is the stage manager, to the surprise of no one, and has already seen that she’ll be playing Dionne in Hair. The headmaster’s kid (who I never gave a name, so let’s just call him Ollie) is playing Othello, some guy named Leonard is playing Roderigo, and Vanya is playing Desdemona. While they’re leaving to celebrate, Diego sees The Weird Freshman sign his initial on the cast list, confirming his role. He takes a peek at it later and wonders how this five-foot-six gremlin was cast as Iago, and what kind of a name is Five, anyway?

Chapter Three - “Good Morning Starshine”

-Production on Hair has begun.

-Diego is still a vigilante, but like, specifically for the college’s organization for fighting sexual harassment. Make no mistake, he is not endorsed by the club in any way, shape, or form. But when fellow criminal justice major Eudora Patch gets catcalled on a late night walk home from the library, a fraternity douchebag gets his hoodie pinned to the wall with a knife and receives an extremely harsh talking-to.

-Eudora just sighs into the darkness like “Diego was that really necessary” and keeps walking and Diego runs up to meet her like “yes??”

-Insert exposition here about how they’re exes but there’s still that Tension and fond bickering from the show. Eudora thinks he should get involved in other things on campus, but he immediately rejects it. No. Nope. Nothing else going on. Just lights. And Batman.

-Luther and Allison often hang out in one of the hallways of the theater for lunch. Allison complains that she’s in charge of a lot of little projects in the program, and it’s hard to get people to listen to her. Luther complains that Diego hasn’t been showing up to help in the shop lately. Even though Diego’s not officially on set crew, it’s a little suspicious that he hasn’t been around.

-The mainstage theater has been going through a very fancy refurbishment, and a new chandelier just came in. How the department has the money for a chandelier, no one has any idea. There’s an inside joke that the theatre director must be having a scandalous lesbian affair with the headmaster.

-After a while, Luther enlists Klaus to help him to figure out what Diego’s hiding. With their single shared braincell, it takes them a little too long to realize that Diego’s name is on the Hair cast list. But that can’t possibly be right.

-Luther and Klaus sneak into the blackbox (a smaller, more intimate theater) in the middle of a Hair rehearsal and, sure enough, holy shit, Diego is actually onstage as one of the tribe people, lowkey having the time of his life.

-Enter UT Dallas transfer David Katz in the role of Claude. And it’s just. On sight. Klaus is down for the goddamn count.

-“Who is that??” “I know, right? Like, that’s our brother.” “No, no, not him. The really pretty one.”

-At the end of whatever song they’re doing, Diego locks eyes with Luther and almost dies of embarrassment right then and there.

-Cue big long childish argument of “why didn’t you tell us you had any interest in being in the musical?” and “I didn’t know I had any interest either oKAY you weren’t supposed to find out” “how wouldn’t we have found out you IDIOT we LIVE HERE.”

-At the end of rehearsal, Diego is feeling entirely beaten down. As is Allison, up to her eyeballs in responsibility. They sit on the loading dock and Diego admits he didn't want to make a big deal out of the fact that he was in Hair. But he’s actually really digging the songs and the messages and the comradery. Even though musical theatre is dumb. Allison assures him it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Chapter Four - “What’s the Buzz?”

-Production on Othello has begun.

-Fluffy opening that’s just a montage of Disaster Klaus repeatedly trying to justify sitting in on Hair rehearsal. “Sure, Allison, let me cut out those gels.” “Sure, Dance Captain, I can record the choreography.” “Shut up, Ben, I’m just really into American military history.”

-Meanwhile he’s just…… watching the show, listening to Dave sing, waiting for the right moment to strike up a Totally Casual Conversation with him.

-And it happens! Eventually.

-Diego meets Eudora on the loading dock and comes clean to her about the fact that he’s in the musical. Eudora is shocked and amused and teases him a little for it, but she’s ultimately supportive. And endeared. Cute bickering.

-When she leaves for her next class, Five is six feet away sipping coffee like “Oh, you’re both the same major? Aww that’s adorable.”

-Diego finally confronts him and asks him what his deal is and Five says something cryptic about “Reggie’s bastards”. Diego grabs him by the arm and drags him to the empty dressing room and interrogates him on everything he knows.

-Five is somewhere in his thirties, he can teleport, his body’s been screwed up by time travel complications, he knows about all the others, and he’s “played a game of hopscotch with an unsympathetic god”. When asked why he came back to this time in particular, he dodges the question with some snarky reply of how he’s not sure he made the right call.

-They decide not to tell everyone else all at once, until they hear faint movement. They find Klaus buried under a throw blanket on The Couch that every theater has, a little stoned, stirring from a midday dressing room nap.

-”I’m a BOY in LOVE, leave me aLONE.”

Chapter Five - “No One is Alone”

-Once again, Allison is overwhelmed. She had rumored her way into the double major when she didn’t actually have the high school credits necessary to graduate on time, but since meeting the other siblings, she’d sworn off using her power. If she was caught, it could start a breadcrumb trail to the others and expose all of them. And like, they just want to get out of here with their degrees, man.

-The theatre department director has had to assign her the most incompetent freshmen in the world to manage with assorted housekeeping tasks. They have an attitude, they don’t know how anything works, and Allison simply doesn’t have the time to lead them. She comes to the theatre director to explain this.

-And for the first time in a long while, the director expresses sternness to her. And it hurts.

-”Come on, Allison, we both know you’re good with people. You can be very persuasive when you want to be. You will work this out.”

-It’s very pointed. She will work this out. There is no other option.

-And. Not to be self-centered, but the spring musical is going to be Cabaret, and Allison has been convinced she had Sally Bowles in the bag. But if she gets on the director’s bad side halfway through junior year…

-It’s a particularly tense day, ten minutes before she has to sign in for Hair rehearsal. Some poor freshman is organizing the costume closet and just doesn’t get it and doesn’t want to be here and the director demands that this is done by the end of the day.

-So. It’s just one. It’s no big deal. She just heard the oddest little rumor that the student could make the closet perfectly tidy within the hour.

-Five and Vanya are at rehearsal for Othello. Now that he’s actually talked to Diego and Klaus, he feels a little more at ease being in this place and time. The two have plenty of time to chat while on breaks. And because Vanya is such a chill, calming force compared to the stubborn and impulsive Diego, it goes a lot smoother.

-Neither of them can stand Ollie, the headmasters’ pretentious son who’s playing Othello, going on and on about his actor step-brother in New York. Whatever. He likes to creep around the scene shop, too. Like he’s judging the tech. I’d like to see YOU pick up a drill, sir.

-He’s also really close to the theatre director. No one’s ever heard them interact, but they’ve sure seen them together. And he’s not even putting in all the hours for her that Allison is.

-Vanya and Five probably get coffee before rehearsal. Run lines. Five rambles about the flaws in Shakespeare’s philosophies over an americano. And they eventually tell each other their stories.

-Pogo had gone with Sir Reginald to examine the children and their potential prior to adoption. Reginald’s technology sensed great power in Vanya, even as an infant. After Vanya’s mother refused to sell, Pogo went behind Reginald’s back and made contact with the mother, advising her on how to suppress Vanya’s powers (but not emotions) with medication whenever they couldn’t be internally controlled. Vanya was good at self-control for much of her childhood, but the adjustment to college and grief of losing Ben put her back in a risky zone, so she’s been leaning a little more heavily on her medicine these days. She knows the adrenaline she gets onstage is good and natural, but it makes her nervous about forgetting a dose again.

-Five’s mother was quite a character. The name came from the fact that, during birth, Five first hit the air at exactly 12:00:05.

-Five had practiced his time jumps all through his childhood. (With none of the spite and rush he had in canon, he had no need to leap years right away, so he took it slow.) Sometimes he would get stuck in a place for a while, but his mom was cool and understood this. He would adapt to the new environment, anywhere between hours and weeks, and jump right back when he got enough rest to use his power again. There were some bugs, some problems with exact accuracy of destination, but he was always working on it. He was very lonely, though, never getting to meet with any of the other 43 and being discouraged from doing so by his mother.

-There was a portion of the future he got stuck in as a teenager in which the nation was governed by a tyrannical organization called “The Macbeth Enterprise”.

-Vanya immediately tries to shush him at this point in the story because he said the Bad Theatre Word. The director is very superstitious. She takes it deadly seriously and has threatened to actually penalty anyone who says it in the theater. Five just chuckles.

-And luckily, they’re rehearsing in the blackbox today, so even if the director could hear, it’s not “in the theater”.

-The future he saw was a century ahead of them, far beyond their lifetime. He was able to glean a little information about the origins of the Enterprise, but he shares none of this with Vanya. Firstly, those in power had high-tech augmentation that gave them a perfect replica of the kind of superpowers the 43 had - mind manipulation, immortality, etc. And secondly, they were credited with destroying the Hargreeves Five. As if the Hargreeves Five were a danger to society.

-What he does tell Vanya is that he’d never made any attempt to change the timeline before, but that’s just what he decided to do. With what little information he had, the only thing he could think of was to ruin the Enterprise’s namesake.

-Five spent literal years of his life, traveling from city to city across centuries, dooming various productions of Macbeth with Commission-level pragmatism until the name of the play itself became the taboo we know irl today.

-Vanya’s laughing. Five is too, honestly. It’s crazy.

-But he didn’t do what he did out of a ridiculous dare to himself. He did it out of desperation to not only to save the country, but to save his family as well. The family he’d never known. The kids all across the globe who went through the same strange hell of differentness that he had since birth. The Hargreeves Five, of course, needed to survive, as they’re responsible for maintaining peace on earth anyway. But if the Hargreeves Five were hunted down, why would the Enterprise stop there? Wouldn’t all 43 of them be in danger? Would all their gifts be harvested from them, and would they then be thrown away?

-But who knows if Five actually made a difference? He prays that it did. But the years of isolation in his personal mission convinced him of one thing - he should know his family. He had no idea when the country would start falling to shit - if it still would - but he could keep an eye on it alongside people who understood him. And with his foresight, maybe they could rise against the evil together.

-And maybe he was just so tired of being alone.

-So, digging was done through the Internet and several libraries in several eras. He found his insertion point at the University. He knew he’d have to look a little younger to fit in.

-But naturally, he got some equations wrong.

-Eventually, Five is formally introduced to Luther and Allison, who welcome him with slight skepticism, followed by a strong bear hug. Five’s not sure how to take the physical affection. He nods, which is a completely normal response to a hug, wraps his arms back around them, and tries to keep his eyes from leaking.

Chapter Six - “Whispering”

-It’s tech week of Hair, and because he’s been blowing his voice out in rehearsal from underdeveloped technique, Diego is on vocal rest.

-Most of this chapter is Diego Is On Vocal Rest and Everyone Gives Him Shit About It in a Loving Way.

-“Everyone” includes Eudora. She just bought her tickets for opening night.

-One early afternoon, Luther and Klaus are back in the scene shop together - Luther’s moving some lumber around and Klaus is carefully painting a setting onto a flat - and Luther vents that he’s not looking forward to running spotlight on Othello. He knows he can do it, but he wishes the theatre director would trust him with more authority and let him be Technical Director.

-Ben is eternally rolling his eyes and bitching about how entitled Luther sounds. He’s already the goddamn shop foreman. Klaus tries not to laugh at how annoyed Ben is about this.

-“But Diego could totally go back to lights for Othello! Hair will be over by then! He’s the pro! If I were TD I’d put him back on in an instant!”

-Dave wanders into the shop and says “hey” and Klaus nearly drops his wet paint brush onto the floor.

-After the brief succession of clumsy attempts Klaus had made to connect with Dave, Dave is actually bothering to return the effort.

-Luther is oblivious as hell while he’s toting the lumber around just like “Oh hi! Welcome! You’re new right? I’m Luther. I’m the shop foreman. You ever been on a tech crew before?” and this whole cringey spiel of small talk he usually gives to new students.

-About a minute into the small talk Luther finally sees how awkward Dave feels and how tense Klaus looks and he’s just like ohhhhh.

-He moves his task about eight feet further away to give them some space to talk. Even though that’s definitely not where the lumber is supposed to go. He just doesn’t want to make it weirder.

-Anyway. Insert fluff that isn’t obscenely flirtatious but is like… flirting with flirtatious.

-Later on that day, Leonard is tapped by the headmaster to join Student Government. Must’ve been one hell of a GPA. The new commitment forces him to give up the part of Roderigo in Othello.

-Leonard tells Allison this. Shit. Just what she needed today. She turns to her assistant stage manager and murmurs, shrugging off the guilt as she says it: “I heard a rumor you broke the news to our director as gently as possible.”

-After an eternity of assembling, dusting, and re-dusting, the Umbrella University theater chandelier is finally risen, ready for the first show of the season.

Chapter Seven - “The Life of the Party”

-After a hurried round of reviewing the audition tapes from the beginning of the year, Dave has been cast to fill the part of Roderigo.

-The technical director of Othello quit. No one’s really sure why. He was solid. But Luther’s been asked to step up, and he’s been trusted to pick anyone he wants to fill his previous spot on lights.

-Cue super petty conversation about how they both know Diego’s bomb at lights but they still annoy each other just by existing. Nonetheless, Diego agrees to hop onto Othello crew.

-Guess what, y’all, it’s opening night of Hair.

-Hard cut to Eudora, Luther, and Klaus, standing awkwardly together in the theater lobby, holding bouquets of various sizes and colors, convincing themselves that it’s a totally platonic gift to give to an actor.

-The show goes great. At the end of opening weekend, the cast and crew and friends go out to celebrate at the local bar and grill.

-At some point, the drinks are on Ollie, and everyone knows he and his mom are loaded. So. More drinks are had than ought to be had.

-ESPECIALLY by Five. He starts rambling about this girl named Delores in his quantum physics class and how he’s not sure if he’s allowed to find her attractive because of how complicated his age is.

-Vanya needed to get drunk. She deserved it. Now she’s yelling about this girl named Sissy in her chamber orchestra. What is happening.

-I’m not saying that Klaus and Dave had their first kiss while buzzed and behind the TUA equivalent of an Applebee’s, but I’m not not saying it.

-Luther has like two beers and starts getting emotional about how pretty the moon is.

-In classes the next morning, everyone’s hungover as shit.

-Except Allison, who was the extra careful Mom Friend and made sure her siblings made it home safe.

-Except Klaus. Who. Y’know. Didn’t really make it home. Ben goes to his 8 AM and takes Ghost Notes for him.

-Sometime that week, Luther comes into the director’s office with a question and sees her finishing a phone call, looking distraught.

-He asks if she’s okay. She doesn’t want to explain, but it eventually comes out that her son was in an accident of sorts three years ago. It’s almost the anniversary. He just got another treatment for the burn scars across half of his face. The director is still grieving the fact that it’s highly unlikely he’ll find success in his dream to be a Broadway actor.

-Luther warns Allison that the director might be in a worse mood this week. So that’s great.

-At an Othello rehearsal, Allison is calling cues from her promptbook. She pretty much has them memorized. But apparently, as the theatre director tells her, she keeps getting them wrong today?

-Allison could swear that last time she was at rehearsal, her book was different. What she’s reading is unfamiliar - lefts instead of rights, blue-outs instead of black-outs, etc. So she’s stumbling.

-On break, the theatre director expresses her frustration to Allison. We’re almost in tech week, for God’s sake. Allison apologizes and promises it won’t happen in the run.

-Allison blames her screw-ups on the stress of her overcommitments. Vanya sees she’s a little upset after the exchange and invites her to hang with her and Five after rehearsal.

-Vanya and Five have actually opened a pretty decent dialogue on mental health as it relates to their abilities, with Five’s powers damaging his psychological state and Vanya’s mood being an element of her telekinesis. Vanya reminds Allison that she’s got a lot on her plate, so she should try to take it easy where she can.

-Vanya still has anxiety, and it tends to flare at the part in the play where Othello smothers Desdemona with a pillow. They had worked out a safe plan in rehearsal. The pillow is thin and held at an angle so Vanya can still breathe, and it is only going to be held for a count of twelve. No longer, no shorter.

-Vanya and her siblings also take some more time to bitch about Ollie, too. Did you hear him accidentally call the director “mom” the other day? How embarrassing. What a dork.

-Hair closes and Othello tech week begins.

-A new batch of freshman House Crew members are cleaning up the theater one day with the radio on.

-It’s now the three year anniversary of the host’s favorite Hargreeves Five battle, a showdown against aspiring actor and convicted robber Erick Webber that went up in flames.

Chapter Eight - “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”

-The twelve-hour cue-to-cue tech rehearsal for Othello is a nightmare. But aren’t all cue-to-cues nightmares?

-They are.

-There might be some fluffy sibling stuff here, but nothing important. Luther, Diego, and Allison are speaking on headset with each other (“on com”). The channel also includes the assistant stage manager and assistant tech director.

-About five hours in, Luther and Diego get real sick of each other. Luther is redundant with his directions. Diego knows what to do. Diego keeps jumping the gun on cues. Passive aggression ensues.

-Allison has had it up to HERE and says “Look, if you’re gonna be children, can you please do it on a different channel?”

-And they do. They dedicate a whole other radio channel to Luther and Diego arguing where the rest of the crew can’t hear it.

-It’s during the cue-to-cue that Allison screws up the calls one too many times - is someone editing her promptbook when she’s not around? - and gets one more comment from the director. It’s worded like encouragement but spoken like a threat.

-“Allison, you were doing so well with the freshman. Just tell yourself you can do this. You’ll be perfect.”

-At lunch break, she wants to collapse. She goes to the bathroom, locks the door, and looks into the mirror.

-“I heard a rumor that you followed that promptbook perfectly.”

-The day after cue-to-cue, Vanya realizes she’s lost her meds. They have to be in the theater somewhere, but she can’t find them. Her siblings assure her that being in the show has improved her overall confidence, and they’ll all come running if she starts to have a meltdown for any reason. She’ll be able to control her emotions until she can get a refill. This warms her lil heart.

-The final dress rehearsals come to pass. Vanya continues to flourish. Five continues to impress and confound. Allison is flawless. Luther and Diego get over themselves. Klaus and Eudora get front row seats for opening night. It’s going to be a packed house. The local news are coming and filming segments to promote the program. As if the program needs any more support. The chandelier still boggles the mind.

-Opening night. The show is going spectacularly until Act V, when Ollie starts pressing the pillow over Vanya’s face.

-This is always the hard part. But it’s just a count of twelve, underscored by two bars of music.

-Until it isn’t.

-Ollie keeps pressing. This wasn’t what we rehearsed.

-Allison sees this from the booth and almost feels like they should call a hold, but her rumor kicks in and she can’t help but keep calling the show as normal.

-Vanya starts to hear the music amplified in her ears and starts to lose control of her power.

-Luther and Diego are both in Allison’s headset as the building starts to shake. “Allison, you need to call hold. Right now. Call hold!”

-Panicking, Vanya sends a pulse of energy out, knocking Ollie halfway across the stage, sending the flats crashing down, and shattering a row of stage lights. When she stands up, Ollie is smiling.

-The news crew caught it on tape. The audience is freaking out. Most of them try to flee but are trapped inside at the back of the house.

-Allison’s next call is the newest and strangest unauthorized edit she’s seen in her promptbook. It’s for the wrong play.

-“Spot B to Macbeth.”

-At the first time that its trigger phrase has ever been uttered in the building, the chandelier starts to glow and expand. Then, it drops, lower and lower, until it is right in front of the stage.

-It was never just a chandelier. It’s a piece of extra-terrestrial technology. Standing on the shelf on top of it are the director and the headmaster.

Chapter Nine - “The Point of No Return”

-I don’t know exactly how I’d reveal all of this, but here’s the gist.

-By the way, this is them coming out as extra-as-hell supervillains. So the way this is revealed is probably extra as hell.

-The director’s son is Erick Webber, a starving artist who resorted to a life of crime to pay his bills and got himself tangled with the Hargreeves Five, who are responsible for half of his face burning in the heat of battle.

-The director and the headmaster actually have been romantically involved for a few years, all but legally married.

-When the directors’ son was forever barred from the career of his dreams, the director and very wealthy headmaster first got together. The headmaster got her a job at the school.

-They wanted revenge for their son. But they also deduced that the Hargreeves Five were too immature for their powers and potential to ruin lives. They were just dumb kids. Their powers must be taken from them and placed into more capable hands.

-The couple had done extensive research, learned about the power potential in the 43, tracked down as many of them as they could find - preferably those already living in America - and hired all sorts of people and services to promote Umbrella University to them. They offered each one of them a sizable scholarship.

-They got seven of them.

-And they arranged meetings with characters that Hargreeves had done some shady deals with so they could acquire the otherworldly technology needed to set their plan into motion.

-And Macbeth was the trigger word for the invention - the story of an old celebrated king slain to make room for the rightful leader, as plotted by an empowered and bloodthirsty woman - so they had to put it in a theater. They had to ensure the trigger wasn’t spoken in the room until the correct time.

-Five realizes at this point that the efforts he made to change the past didn’t stop the Macbeth Enterprise, it just gave them a way more convenient origin. God dammit.

-The siblings realize Ollie was in on the whole thing. He had to make sure all seven of the kids were in the theater at the right time, so he snooped around and reported back to the Evil Moms. They let Luther be TD so Diego could cover lights. They cast Five, made Allison recruit Vanya, and made Allison SM. They took out Leonard and cast Dave to ensure Klaus and Ben would be there for opening. Ollie hid Vanya’s pills during the cue-to-cue.

-Allison realizes the director knew about her power all along and really was suggesting that she use it. Allison had done exactly what they wanted her to. They must’ve had someone re-do the promptbook each day and everything.

-The point is, there’s now news footage of a girl with unpredictably dangerous powers ruining a perfectly good school play and two women making a solid case that these children can’t be trusted with their gifts. The chandelier machinery revs up to perform its task - stripping all of their powers away.

-Five knows it won’t end there - the powers will be turned against the Hargreeves Five. Their abilities will be harvested too. And the hands that they’ll all end up in will be military-minded and will seize control of the nation, ruling by fear.

-There’s an extensive fight scene here. One that, again, I have no idea how I would write. It’s something that involves a level of family teamwork that they would not have if the theatre program didn’t bring them so close together in the first place. So it’s pretty ironic and kinda sweet.

-We find out that Dave and Eudora are absolutely ride-or-die for their idiot boyfriends that they just found out have terrifying superpowers, and they each have a moment where they contribute to the takedown.

-Ben is summoned because he legally has to be. The Horror can do some serious damage to the machine, and he finds he’s unaffected by its drainage because he’s dead as hell.

-Vanya grabs a violin from the pit where the underscoring was being played and shreds away at it to channel her power.

-The fight has heavy parallels to the prologue scene, where everyone’s powers went berserk because Vanya saw a rat and freaked out. Except there’s obviously a lot more at stake and a lot more direction in it.

-All of that gets resolved, somehow. Any of their power that gets drained gets returned to them once they get the machine shut down. Luther effortlessly snaps the tape of evidence in half.

-Allison uses her last rumor of junior year to memory-wipe and send away the cameramen and the witnesses.

-Except Eudora and Dave, who are surprisingly chill about this and promise to keep it all secret.

-The gang has no idea how to explain all the damage to the authorities, but the Criminal Justice Duo knows how to detain the bad guys in the costume closet and highlight some evidence to draw the focus to the less-than-legal dealings they made to set up their plot in the first place.

-Corruption? In college administration?? Pssshhh noooooooo never.

-The story embedded in the rumor is that the chandelier overheated and combusted, so everyone ran out. The police will discover the alien tech and go from there.

-Still, the superpower squad realizes they should lay low. Play dumb if interviewed. Skip class for a couple days and stay far away from the theatre department.

-Diego is up on the catwalk - the walkway above the audience where they maneuver the spotlights - collecting his stuff. He hears some footsteps on the ladder and sees Eudora climbing up to meet him.

-Diego starts to say something snarky and casual and Eudora’s like “No. Shut up. Just. Please. Shut up.” and kisses him.

-After weeks of pretending not to care as much as they really did and a solid half hour of having no idea if the other would live or die, here they are, standing over the decimated theater, finally at ease in each other’s arms

Chapter Ten - “Curtain Call”

-And that’s… it. When the siblings start coming back to classes, no one comes after them for whatever happened.

-Needless to say, the rest of the run of Othello has been cancelled. All theatre classes will be moved online or converted to classroom formats until repairs can be made to the building. There’s a new interim headmaster and theatre department director.

-It’s going to take forever for them to fix the damage done to the theater, and even when they do, it doesn’t feel right to keep that as their home base. So, where to now? How are they gonna fill the rest of their electives?

-All of the fine arts buildings are stacked close together. Music major Vanya has an idea.

-Second semester, Diego takes beginning percussion. Luther joins the marching band (and far exceeds the athletic demands for it). Klaus picks guitar back up. Allison ventures into vocal jazz. Five is a natural at composition.

-Sharing practice rooms. Cramming for theory exams. The entire works. They’re music kids now!

-They’re thrilled when they find out that all of their respective ensembles will be featured in the spring concert.

-But does the conductor of Vanya’s chamber orchestra seem a little… eccentric to you?

...

im a broken woman from this. god dammit.

#tua #the umbrella academy #what the hell else to tag this as #diedora #klave #Reginald They're Thespians #the chapter titles are semi-relevant names of show songs ha get it??

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number5theboy · 4 years ago

Text

ALRIGHT

THIS SEASON

IT WAS A LOT

my liveblogged thoughts under the cut

Episode 1

· Exhilarating! I love Ben

· Ben already has more lines in these first five minutes than he had in the first season

· This montage is good

· ALLISON BABY

· Luther yelled for Diego first I love this

· Diego is immediately in vigilante mode…….hot

· THE SHOT PARELLING VANYA’S FIRST WORDS

· Vanya is a mess we love to see it

· The shot of Five’s feet hitting the puddle? So aesthetically pleasing

· The battle scene is such a smart way of reintroducing everyone’s powers and their Final Form™ succinctly

· I love Hazel. So much.

· The Umbrella Atomic Explosion™ is SO clever I love it

· ALRIGHT UNCHARTERED TERRITORY LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOO

· Oh Hazel and Five make me soft

· Agnes and Hazel had a good life

· Hazel is so dead

· Welp that took no time at all

· “How many times did I say bulletproof briefcases?” ily mister five

· I love the Swedes they’re stupid

· Are we ever gonna know what Agnes made Hazel promise?

· Five is honestly world’s best character

· FUTURE HEADQUARTERS

· “Well the truth is out there!” abkdkblhlkbkhl

· I shouldn’t make quick judgments, but conspiracy nut guy is nice and I hope he doesn’t turn out evil, because I also through Harold was nice in the beginning

· Diego got himself arrested already what an idiot

· Asddjgflkflhfl Diego’s problems all put out

· Okay, set-up for Diego’s character arc of self-actualisation we love to see it

· Lila is awesome, but I hope they don’t make her crush on him excessively

· Diego and Five is an underrated duo

· THEY ARE SO BICKERY

· Five is jut gonna murder him sometime along the way

· I LOVE FIVE SO MUCH WHAT A LITTLE SHIT

· Oof Vanya is so cute in that outfit

· This scene perfectly encapsulates women having to listen to men

· VANYA’S GOING TO MILFTOWN Y’ALL

· I cannot tell white men apart, does Carl look like conspiracy nut guy or is it just me?

· As usual, Ben and Klaus are bad at everything

· “neither does your beard” icon Ben Hargreeves

· I support Ben pummelling Klaus

· I passionately hate the beard and love the coat

· Why do all the white men look alike, I thought this poker dude was a Swede

· I KNEW BEN WAS LYING

· “Pick a better time to self-actualise!”

· I still hate the beard, let’s see if it grows on me

· Yusuf Gatewood………….hot

· By far the hottest couple so far in TUA

· Please tell me she’s not still hung up on Luther

· Yes she is goddammit

· The moon thing is cute though, I can appreciate that

· Luther finally gets a well-soundtracked fight scene I love it

· OI THAT WAS BRUTAL HOLY SHIT

· Oh Luther is pulling a Five in feeling bad about his excessive violence

· I already hate his boss

· Raymond marry me pls

· Allison marry me pls

· OH MY GOD VANYA LAUGHED

· Sissy and Vanya have excellent chemistry

· Oh I see the deliberate parallel with Vanya, Umbrella Academy, you aren’t fooling me

· SWEDISH ASSASSINS BABY

· Do you think they’ll say a single word or?

· Literally the only way this show knows how to signal danger is through flickering lights

· Two bopping fight scene and Five hasn’t been in any of them

· Lila and Diego have no braincells between them it’s beautiful

· Alright, she knows how to fight……..supicious

· If this show wasn’t so hellbent on making Luther and Allison a thing, he would be best ace rep

· Lmao “I don’t give a shit” I love you Luther

EPISODE TWO

· ALRIGHT THE HANDLER IS BACK???????

· Okay so Hazel and Cha-Cha are dead but that pestilence still runs around??? Bruuuuuuuuuh

· Kate Walsh is still hot though

· AJ??????

· THE FISH SMOKES?!?

· God the Commission is such a capitalist hellhole

· Oh there we have 743

· H E R B

· Okay I am here to see her humiliated but please no redemption arc for her

· I love the deliberate parallels between Five and the Handler

· “Like a masseuse?” IDIOTS

· Oh Five is so lost and vulnerable baby boy

· Also the character developments in Luther!!!!!

· “Dad should’ve left him on the moon.” Five is, simply said, an icon

· Oof Sissy is SO cute

· I’m already not ready for Five to find Vanya

· Lila is so extra can we keep her

· Great now I have sympathy for Carl

· Luther’s new outfit looks so good on him

· OH LUTHER IS THE FIRST ONE TO SEE HER

· Well that was dramatic and didn’t lead anywhere

· Alright two episodes in, Civil Rights plotline hasn’t been fucked up yet

· WHAT THE FUCK IS THE SWEDE DRINKING SO CONSCPICOUSLY

· ELLIOTT IS THE NAME OF MISTER CONSPIRACY

· “cousins on my robot mother’s side”

· “Imagine Batman, then aim lower.”

· Lila is great I love her

· Diego is gonna throw both Five and Lila through a wall at some point

· Five is so ready to throw Diego under the bus

· Klaus Hargreeves, world’s worst cult leader

· ……….did Klaus built a cult on pop lyrics?

· Klaus and Raymond bonding I love it

· DIEGO AND FIVE BEST TEAM

· REGINALD IS THE UMBRELLA MAN

· OH LUTHER IS GONNA FIND HER HOLY SHIT

· THE BARN FROM THE PROMO PICTURE

· This scene is so good

· “You shouldn’t be the one to apologise.” I’M GONNA CRY

· Tom Hopper and Ellen Page are so good in this scene

· WHY DID HE LEAVE

· What the flying fuck is up with the Swedes

· BRO WHAT THE FUCK

· Is Five ever gonna bring up the fact that he was supposed to kill Kennedy or?

· Raymond is wasted on someone who doesn’t give him her whole heart

· What the FUCK, Klaus

· Why does she remember her name tho

· The violin starting up when she talks about the callouses on Vanya’s hands

· Brotherly bonding is my new favourite scene

· Do the filmmakers know that your scene can be suspenseful and well-lit

· Okay maybe baby Pogo is cute

· There is gonna be no Five murdering spree, the blood is solely from Pogo

· Next well-soundtracked fight scene

· The choreography of this!!!!!

· Man Reginald is a shitty dad before he even becomes a dad

· Diego cannot catch a break poor baby

EPISODE 3

· SHITTY WIG ON KLAUS ALERT

· THE LEVITATION IS BEN I HATE THIS

· So far, all title card umbrellas have not disappointed

· You are running in a straight line you really should hit her

· Yep, Watchmen flashbacks

· Luther remains cute and awkward

· THEY ARE TALKING TO EACH OTHER BABY

· S E Q U I N S

· SNEAKY LADY ALLISON IS BACK

· FINALLY

· A HUG

· Allison and Klaus are so cute

· What in the goddamn Looney Tunes is this outfit lady

· WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU LADY

· ALLISON HARGREEVES YOU QUEEN

· This spooky ghost show is great

· Everyone going off on Five is great

· @ this show stop ripping Vanya and Five apart and let them be soft

· Diego is so naked this entire season

· Diego and Lila are a good dynamic

· Elliott is a babe I love him

· The Handler continues to be creepy about Five

· So much driving

· Luther is baby and Raymond deserves better than to deal with all the baggage from all the Hargreeves brothers

· HE SHAVED THE BEARD

· Ouch this is awkward

· I don’t get why they didn’t cast normal Dave to play young Dave they’re not that far apart in age

· Oh he’s gonna have to let Dave go

· Oh this scene must be so triggering

· Oh shit’s bad and it’s only episode 3

· PUPPY???

· WE WERE RIGHT ABOUT LILA

· WHAT DO YOU MEAN THANKS MOM

EPISODE 4

· Oh my god the Handler is pure fucking evil

· She learnt the fighting from her mom alright

· THE RED BOOTS WERE THERE ALL ALONG

· Man I hoped that the antisemitism was gone

· Vanya being protective of Luther :’)

· Luther only has shitty father figures

· I can’t believe they were better organised last season

· Why do you hate the Vanya/Five dynamic so much, show?

· Five got an extra dose of asshole today this season huh

· Reggie is probably the twelfth

· Oh boy Klaus is a trainwreck

· That marriage is also a trainwreck

· I understand Ray though

· Why is there Styx on this soundtrack

· Oh Klaus baby

· GALA NIGHT BITCHES

· Five is a smart young old man

· Oh baby is eating his heart out

· Oh the hug makes me soft though

· Honestly, Tom Hopper and Emmy Raver Lampman have such cute chemistry

· AWKWARD DARLING MAN

· “Doomsday” *nervous chuckle*

· Ballroom lessons as kids

· This is an excellent dance scene

· OH MY GOD MOM WAS MADE AFTER A REAL WOMAN

· THIS SHOW MAN THIS SHOW

· Reggie is gross

· Diego’s mommy AND daddy issues are put on blast this season

· Sissy is such a babe

· Man we got budget BUDGET for this season

· Alright, the white violin can revive people now cool cool cool

· How different her powers are when powered by love

· I love Elliott I hope he survives the eason

· I am down for Luther and Elliott getting high together

· LET’S GO LESBIIIAAAAAAAAAANS

· God Allison and Klaus make me so soft

· I am very supportive of Elliott and Luther becoming bros

· You already shanked one son, go poker stick another one

· YES EXCELLENT FIGHT MUSIC

· They both?????? Just left him to fend for himself??????????

· Ancient Greek??? Bitch what

· This show is rated for violence and we have barely seen any!!!!!! What!!!!!!!

Episode 5

· Okay baby Pogo and Grace is adorable

· Why is Pogo in space now

· THEY KILLED POGO

· AGAIN

· Hargeeves got a hug before Five did what the effing fuck

· He might be a dick but his instincts are good

· Haha old cowboy

· Ben is so done

· Vanya……..Sissy……..my heart

· Wow Reginald continues to be a massive arse

· Luther/Diego/Five are DUMB and I love them

· “No, bro, he shanked your heart.”

· God the Handler!!!!!!

· THE MUSIC AT THE REUNION

· We didn’t even see Five reunite with Allison and Klaus!!!!!

· GOD WHAT A SISTERLY UPGRADE

· KLAUS VANYA AND ALLISON HUGGING

· Allison and Diego rights babey!!!

· Are the Swedes ever gonna say something or

· LILA AND FIVE TEAM-UP LET’S GO

· I’VE MISSED YOU ALL SO MUCH I’M GONNA CRY BABY

· The red-blue dynamic in Luther and Diego I live for that

· Luther and Diego are gooooooood together

· What is up with that

· Klaus, Vanya and Allison are dumbasses and I love them so much

· Alright where are the Swedes doing and why is that tree so creepy

· Oh the youngest Swede just went tits-up

· Please tell me Five is finally getting a fight scene

· Excellent fight scene

· Great, now I feel sad for the Swedes

· They deffo have a cooler aesthetic than Hazel and Cha-Cha

· This cover is beautiful

EPISODE 6

· This wig looks better than Klaus’

· Also Ben has barely been in this season where is he at

· Oof Ray is so cute

· The Handler and Five have such good chemistry holy shit

· Diego, Luther and Vanya are a god-tier dynamic

· We love the CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

· BENNY BOY HAS A CRUSH

· Wait how is this only episode six I feel like this is already the pensum of the first season

· Clothing montage baby!!!!!

· God they look so good together

· Oh Allison can be RUTHLESS

· THE BINGO CARDS

· Oh no no no no I didn’t think Klaus and Dave could be even more tragic

· THEY TALK

· God she is so fucking creepy stop lusting after a child

· World’s most satisfying elevator shot

· This scene is chaos I love it

· God everyone just harps on Diego’s daddy issues jesus

· Oh baby no

· Oh babies no

· NO NOT THE DISSOLUTION OF TEAM ZERO

· Why are there so many antisemitic dogwhistles in this

· This scene between Five and Reginald is good

· NOT ELLIOTT

· Oh no no no no Carl

· Alright at least this promises a good fight scene

EPISODE 7

· This polka music bops

· Wait how did he get to 1982

· HE SAID FUCK

· Man Carmichael was out so quick

· No fish-eating?

· Awwwww Klaus and Ben have a heart to heart

· Oh God, Diego and Luther have no brain activity between the two of them

· That is a Look

· Oh this montage of Ben rediscovering touch

· The writing of this show was oddly prophetic

· Oh wait Vanya’s gonna be incarcerated too right????

· Oh this is heart-breaking

· Really?????? Ben’s the dorky one???

· Oh my god Ben is getting a hug and Diego is so soft

· Man why are Five and Vanya so antagonistic

· FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

· Dude a fight between them would have been so epic

· Diego

· You idiot

· Oh Allison really loves him and he loves her

· Oh I am so sad

· Yeah this episode is infinitely worse than the day that wasn’t

· FUCK YEAH BACKSTREET BOYS

· What the fuck

· Yo that is sadistic as fuck Allison what the flying fuck

· This scene might ruin the song for me

· There definitely was an easier way out

· They fucked it up

· I am not surprised

EPISODE 8

· Oh she speaks Russian

· Five just snapped and honestly deserves it

· Yeah I feel for the Swede

· What is it with commission assassins and axes this season

· “Your vagina needs fresh glasses.”

· Nepotism

· Oh Grace is turning on him baby!!

· Ha remember when we were all like ‘oh no they’re making Reggie sympathetic’

· Yeah so much for that

· Five and Luther are……..soft

· What the fuck is up with that

· AYYYY BUTTHOLE SURFERS ON THE SOUNDTRACK

· Oooooohhhhhhh trippy kid scene

· Also Reggie is bad at German

· I love Luther and Five so much

· We finally get to see older Five’s tie pattern

· Alright Lila makes me uncomfortable

· FIVE IS GONNA GO FERAL Y’ALL LET’S GO

· Man after the last rampage you’d think they’d upped security in this place

· Herb for president!!

· Some catch Diego’s ego is going berserk

· Oh not again

· Dot is a rebel now

· Everyone is ragging on Five, even Five

· This is so trippy

· Oh yeah the brains. Forgot about those.

· I……….sad

· Oh my god oh my god oh my god

· Of course it’s all the government’s fault

· Love how they just walked into an FBI building

· Bro what the fuck is going on

EPISODE 9

· Allison is always there for Vanya and I love her

· Hello Klaus and Diego are so cute

· Oh my heart you go Klaus

· So much for that

· BUT BEN

· YOU ARE CLIFF-HANGERING BE INSIDE AN EPISODE

· Crazy Five is an idiot I love him

· “I’m the daddy here” is not the gazelle, but it’ll do in a pinch

· The 743!!!!!!

· Oh God, Harlan is in danger

· She loves him?!? You barely know the man!!!!!!

· WHAT’S ON THE PAPER

· Oh it’s her file

· HELLO LET US SEE THE FIVES TYING TO OFF EACH OTHER

· This continues to be trippy

· These visuals are so stunning

· This is my favourite scene so far, this is so good, this is an excellent talk

· NO

· NOT BEN

· “I’m askin’, Carl.” You go Sissy, love you, you’re doing excellent

· Alright, we have a mini-Vanya here

· Oh I hate the Handler so fucking much she is the worst

· What a plot-twist

· Oh god so much is going on in this season

· Oh we get fish-eating, but it’s not Five? That’s lame

· Why are they all so hell-bent on making stupid decisions

· Klaus you idiot

· Oh that SON OF A BITCH HARGREEVES

· What the fuck what is on the dark side of the moon

· What the flying fuck what the fuck what tebdjbdgkbjdsgkbjgsdjgnj

· WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE GOING TO WAR

EPISODE 10

· Oh the kids are back for Ben’s funeral

· I hate this

· Reginald is just. The worst.

· My emotions are all over the place

· Oh……..babies

· OH MY GOD DIEGO

· AND FIVE

· It wouldn’t hurt to go to an abandoned farm

· God this is a family of shitty choices

· I don’t want Ben to be gone

· FAMILY TIME

· Oh shit I totally forgot about the last Swede

· BRO THE STAKES

· YEAH THIS LOOKS BAD

· ALRIGHT Harland is gonna be alright

· All these assassins have shit aim

· HE’S MATRIXING

· LILA’S ONE OF THE 43

· SHE CAN ABSORB AND REDIRECT THEIR ENERGIES

· ONE OF THEM ONE OF THEM ONE OF THEM

· Awwwwww they love each other

· Oh great THEY’RE DEAD AGAIN

· Oh now LILA will have to fix the timeline

· Wait now they’re all dead

· The swede to the rescue?

· Please tell me she’s dead for good this time

· We love a de facto protagonist saving everyone’s asses once more

· GO VANYA SAVE THE BABY

· Dot and Herb are precious dumbasses

· This is heart-breaking, but I understand Sissy so much

· WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS CLIFFHANGER

#tua spoilers #not that you'd understand much if you don't watch the episodes #personal #come yell at me in my inbox please

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gokinjeespot · 4 years ago

Text

off the rack #1314

Monday. December 28, 2020

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. These few comic books are thanks to the generosity of fellow fan Doug.

Batman/Catwoman #1 - Tom King (writer) Clay Mann (art) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). Well surprise, surprise. I really liked this first issue. Someone doubted that I would because I wasn't a fan of Tom King's recent stories but this one I enjoyed immensely and not just because of how Clay draws Selina. My favourite storyline in the Batman run was the relationship between Selina Kyle/Catwoman and Bruce Wayne/ Batman and it still is. I really wanted them to get married. This story jumps back and forth in time and involves Catwoman's complicated relationships with the hero and the villains. I hope I get to finish this new Black Label series.

Action Comics #1027 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) John Romita Jr. (pencils) Klaus Janson (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). The House of Kent story concludes with the Superman Family winning the day and defeating the Red Cloud. Too bad the new owner of the Daily Planet and mastermind behind the Invisible Mafia, Marisol Leone, escapes justice. I hear Brian Michael Bendis is leaving this book and that some fans are happy with that news. As big a Bendis fan as I am I thought this story sucked. Not even better art would have saved it in my opinion. Even the shocking development on the last page was dumb. I hope the next creative team does a better job on this book.

Iron Man #1 to #4 - Christopher Cantwell (writer) Cafu (art) Frank D'Armata (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). You can't keep a good Iron Man down. Here I thought Tony Stark was dead. He's back on the racks and teamed up with Patsy Walker/Hellcat in this latest reboot and the first 4 issues were oaky. I stopped reading Iron Man a while back so I don't know who the new A.I. is that he talks to but it goes by B.O.S.S. How he hooks up with Patsy is another mystery to me. Tony has reinvented himself after being resurrected from the dead and he fights a bunch of old foes. His biggest challenge is a new version of Korvac. Remember him? I don't. For straight super hero versus super villains fare, this is okay, middle of the road comics.

Batman Black and White #1 - James Tynion IV, J. H. Williams III, G. Willow Wilson, Emma Rios and Paul Dini (writers) Tradd Moore, J. H. Williams III, Greg Smallwood, Emma Rios and Andy Kubert (art). I call books like this vanity projects. They're written and illustrated in an artsy fartsy way that is pretentious to me. When it comes to Batman I'm more of a blue collar kind of fan and these stories feel more like they should be in a snooty art gallery. The stories are accompanied by creator bios and I found the first two to be worth reading but I didn't read all of them, kind of like how I stop reading the little plaques at the art gallery that goes with the art on the wall after a few. $5.99 US for four short stories in black and white seems steep to me.

Batman #103 - James Tynion IV (writer) Guillem March, Carlo Pagulayan & Danny Miki (art) David Baron (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). The cover is a blatant bait and switch. It says "Ghost-Maker vs. Clownhunter" but it's really Ghost-Maker vs. Batman as Bruce tries to keep Ghost-Maker from killing Clownhunter. The best part of this issue was Harley Quinn's appearance.

Batman #104 - James Tynion IV (writer) Guillem March, Bengal, Ryan Benjamin & Danny Miki (art) David Baron (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). I like this Ghost-Maker guy. He wears a headband. I wonder if he still wears one under his helmet. So Ghost-Maker sedated Batman, Harley and Clownhunter last issue and now has them tied up in Arkham Asylum. He left Clownhunter unfettered with a sword handy to kill Harley with. Uh-oh.

Batman #105 - James Tynion IV (writer) Alvaro Martinez & Christian Duce, Carlo Pagulayan & Danny Miki (art) David Baron (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). Does Clownhunter kill Harley? Does Ghost-Maker kill Batman? Read this conclusion to "Ghost Stories" to find out. Get ready to roll your eyes.

Superman #27 & #28 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Ivan Reis (pencils) Danny Miki (inks) Alex Sinclair (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). The last 2 parts of "Mythological" where Superman fights Synmar came to a grinding, groaning stop. This is the type of story that helps explain why some people get turned off super hero comics. It's just a bunch of big punch-'em-ups and then the good guy wins in the end. And can we get a consistent depiction of the Phantom Zone please? Is it a dimension where the bad guys are phantoms existing in null space or just another dimension where the bad guys live basically like they used to, like in this story? I hate when creators change things to suit their plots. I don't blame fans for grumbling about Bendis after reading this multi-parter.

Detective Comics #1030 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Bilquis Evely (art) Mat Lopes (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Rob Leigh (letters). The grassroots movement to rid Gotham City of masked vigilantes doesn't make me care for the Bat Family more because it sure feels like a contrived plot device. The plotline that I'm much more interested in is Damian's poking around his dad's old case files. That's the kind of detective work I like.

Detective Comics #1031 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Bilquis Evely (art) Mat Lopes (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Rob Leigh (letters). This issue is reflective of events that happened during the recent US presidential election. Anti-Bat and pro-Bat supporters clash and only in comic books can Batman defuse the volatile situation with a noble speech. Meanwhile, Damian quickly finds the person guilty of sweeping the cold cases of the attacks on Bruce Wayne in the past under the rug and brings them to justice. The perp's real identity offers a clue to the villain who shows up at the end of this issue.

Detective Comics #1032 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Brad Walker (pencils) Andrew Hennessy (inks) Dave McCaig (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Father and son set aside their feud to save the rest of the Bat Family from the latest super villain that has them in his clutches. No mystery who the bad guy is with the cover for this issue being a ginormous spoiler. Yes, Hush is back and he's got a great new scheme to hurt Batman.

Superman Special #1 - Andy Lanning & Ron Marz (writers) Phil Hester & Ande Parks (art) Hi-Fi (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). Flashback sequence Marco Santucci (art) Arif Prianto (colours) A Larger World's Troy Peteri (letters). This is part 3 of "Endless Winter" which is DC's version of the finale of the Game of Thrones TV show. It's pretty straight forward. The heroes fight giant ice creatures. The end. I wouldn't spend money on this rack filler.

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in-tua-deep · 5 years ago

Note

What if Klaus managed to hit Five with fire extinguisher? A) Five wanted to came back much earlier but got knocked back and all siblings see is his hurt expression B) he actually managed to stay but his face was messed up

adsfSDAFGHF an au that’s just everything the same except Five is walking around looking like the poster child for abuse thanks to a well aimed fire extinguisher to the face

i mean you could go down so many rabbit holes with this kind of ‘of want of a nail’ sort of things lmao like hey maybe Agnes doesn’t notice the tattoo on Five’s wrist because she’s too busy staring at his black eye and wondering if she needs to call CPS for this black coffee drinking child in her store

which would mean that Hazel and Cha-Cha don’t track down the Umbrella Academy as quickly, which means that Klaus wouldn’t have been kidnapped wearing nothing but a towel or maybe even kidnapped at all, which means Klaus never met Dave, which means Klaus wouldn’t be motivated to get sober in order to see his dead bf, which means he wouldn’t discover he’s able to manifest Ben

I mean you might even think that maybe Agnes doesn’t go in the back because she doesn’t want to leave this potential-abuse-victim with his father-whatever she thinks the tow truck driver is to him, which would mean Agnes witnesses the time travel assassins and either a) dies (bad ending) or b) witnesses all of this and considering how well she took Hazel’s bullshit in stride just immediately adopts this tiny time travelling assassin and decides to help him out on his crusade which has the potential to be absolutely HILARIOUS like I bet you good money that sweet Agnes would absolutely be able to figure out the info on the eye??

Like if Five had anyone else other than Klaus I bet he’d go for it, and failing his mission to get info on the eye and knowing Agnes knows the bullshit going on he’s like “You know what?? you want to help so badly help me get info on this eye” and Agnes is like “hold my apron” as she amps up the ‘sweet donut shop lady who just really really wants to be helpful and she’s so sorry about her nephew, you see, he’s just come to live with her for reasons that should be evident because of his face and he has some behavioral issues and she very much hopes they won’t hold it against them while they’re in this delicate transitional period. in fact, little Fieval showing interest in helping others is really a very good sign for his recovery process and won’t they please help out??’

they walk out with the info they need and Five is just kind of like. hmm. okay. you can help. clearly he underestimated Agnes, master of manipulation and killing people with kindness

Five, walking into the academy with Agnes: okay so I need to work up some probability maps. you and Dolores can hang out, I guess.

Agnes, who actually does have several nieces and nephews and baby cousins who have left her with their stuffed animals and dolls before, very gravely: I would be honored, I’ll be in the kitchen making us some tea when you’re ready to join us.

Klaus, standing there with mouth open: UH actually what the fuck

Five, explaining nothing: ah yes. This is Agnes and Dolores. Agnes, Dolores, this is my idiot brother Klaus.

Agnes, witnessing this scrawny skinny man and activating her inner donut shop grandmother genes: why don’t you come have tea with us in the kitchen, dear. i’ll make some cookies, you look like you could use some meat on those bones. and you, too, Five! Stopping the apocalypse is hungry work, after all.

I fully intended this to be a short post but goddamn i am absolutely enamored with the idea of Agnes being the robin to Five’s batman. Or?? the Alfred? Agnes walking up to the Handler and saying that her behavior is not very nice. Hazel is just. Distantly in awe of whoever is hanging with Five and ends up having a few discussions with her while Five and Cha-Cha fuck something up and he just falls head over heels for her

Agnes: oh, yes. I have plans to visit all these bird sanctuaries. I have a big map drawn up and when this is all done I’ll take a road trip. Maybe I’ll take the kids with me, goodness knows they need to get out of that big old house.

Hazel: i uh. i hate to break it to you but uh. the apocalypse is in like, four days.

Agnes: oh yes that’s why I plan on stopping it. You see, I already went ahead and booked a hotel room for the first stop and it’s non-refundable I’m afraid. I’m going to see a california clapper rail in person, thank you.

Hazel: uh. what’s a california clapper rail.

Agnes, pulling out her book of birds and leaning over: here you see?? aren’t they lovely. they live in california, as the name suggests. they’re about the size of chickens and they rarely fly. how wonderful!

Hazel, absolutely in love: oh man that sounds pretty cool

Agnes, kindly: well if you’d like to join us I’m afraid that this apocalypse nonsense simply has to be stopped, first.

Hazel, already having swapped sides but doesn’t know it yet: UHHH

Five, warping next to them: okay I trapped Cha-Cha in the ball pit let’s get out of here

Hazel: i should uh, go take care of that

Agnes: well it was lovely talking to you, Hazel, I’ll see you next time you hunt us down? Oh! Here, you can hold onto this for now and look through.

Hazel, accepting the bird book and on the verge of tears: yeah that sounds nice

Five: i understand i’m really an old man but from the bottom of my heart i mean it when i say old people are fucking weird.

Agnes: now that’s not very nice, dear

Five: i’m not a very nice person >://

the ABSOLUTE SHENANIGANS and you know that Agnes just gently adopts all the Hargreeves under her downy wings and gives the best hugs?? Vanya: disarmed by the power of hugs and homemade donuts and the power of Agnes giving the whole family a disappointed look when they’re being mean to one another. and also the fact that if anyone says anything bad about Agnes, Five has knives and all the fury of being like five feet tall on his side because Dolores likes Agnes and they’re friends so

how did this au come out of five being hit in the face by a fire extinguisher why can i never stop at like one or two lines i’m a WRECK

but yes i’m calling this the poster child au where Agnes is about 80% more concerned and sticks around and ends the apocalypse by the power of being an ordinary person who is actually well adjusted and sane

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fly-pow-bye · 5 years ago

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Powerpuff Girls 2016 - The Final Stack Up (The Best)

It’s been a good time, friends, but the time has come. Which episodes managed to be great?

Same rules for the worst list apply here, except, of course, I have to say a bad thing about each of these episodes. A lot easier to do than the opposite, sad to say, but I'm not going to let that bother me. Also, I have to reiterate that this is my opinion and my opinion alone. Some may hate one of these episodes, and that's fine. Without further ado, let's look at 10 episodes that managed to get the top spot.

And yes, you can imagine the Cartoon Cartoon Top 5 music here.

The Top 10:

10. The Fog

PPG 2016 never really did a good villain team-up episode. The closest I'd say it ever got to that was one of the comic runs, where the villains all gather together in one big Bureau of Bad…to discuss the times they almost got them like that episode of Batman. There is also this episode, where Mojo Jojo, The Gnat, Bianca and Barbarus Bikini, and nobody else of importance team up to please a rather threatening villain that is more than meets the clouds.

Really, this episode shouldn't be seen as a villain team-up, but as a "Buttercup learns a lesson" episode. At first, it seems to fall into that tired "Buttercup does something bad, her more girly sisters get into trouble because of it, and the tomboy has to save them" plot, but the episode decides to do another twist that is actually pretty satisfying to see.

The episode even ends with a shot of the Powerpuff Girls flying towards a bunch of villains. That would have been a great way to end the reboot, actually; certainly better than Sitcom Dad having a Meet Dave-esque meltdown.

Bad thing: There's a reason why I avoided calling this a real team-up, because they only really team up at the end of the episode. The rest is just the villains trying to beat up the girls solo, or duo in the Fashionista's case, and them getting one-shotted. That should be normal for a Powerpuff Girls battle, but compared to episodes like the original's Meet The Beat-Alls, it's a real missed opportunity.

...also, they completely wasted that yarn villain. If ordinary rope can stop the Powerpuff Girls, this guy should be the Powerpuff Girls new arch-nemesis!

9. Toy Ploy

Going from one episode featuring Discount to another, here's an episode where Jojo decides to interrogate the Powerpuff Girls' toys to find out their biggest weakness. Trust me, it is better than it sounds.

This is another "three shorts" episode, this one using the Powerpuff Girls' favorite toys as its framing device. Blossom has President Dinosaur, who even the episode itself comments is rarely seen in the reboot, Buttercup has Monsieur Ducky, because Buttercup apparently has a soft spot for Ernie from Sesame Street, and Bubbles has Octi, who is revealed to be female in this episode and only this episode.

The Blossom part has a decent plot about Blossom having to deal with a pterodactyl who won't surrender. The Buttercup part is a send up of war documentaries, talking about Buttercup playing pranks as if they were military operations. The Bubbles part is just a little slideshow, but it does have some neat looking drawings, and it concludes with an absolutely adorable ending for the framing device. It's cute, I couldn't hate it.

Bad thing: Blossom's segment is definitely the odd one out, as the story doesn't even involve President Dinosaur until the very end. Not that I hated her part, as mentioned before, but when it doesn't use the framing device, it just makes me think it's an idea they couldn't expand into a full episode. That's what these seem to be, but at least try to hide it!

8. Take Your Kids to Dooms Day

I can see this one's inclusion in my best list as a controversial pick, since there's a major issue with this episode that will turn a lot of people off from it. Namely, and I am going to spoil a major part of this episode here: this episode involves Silico, a villain that was hyped up to oblivion in his first appearance, getting beaten up by someone who is normally a bumbling Sitcom Dad in a ridiculously animated fashion. I was not that bothered by that, though part of that is because he was already ruined by Halt and Catch Silico. This episode doesn't ruin him any more than the revelation that "they broke my toys!" being his reason for being evil.

Also, there's a good reason why I said "in most episodes" in that last paragraph, because this is not a Sitcom Dad episode. Sure, he's a total dork here, but that's still more fitting of the original Professor than being a doormat, saying really bad advice, or just being an oblivious dingus. Okay, sure, there's one scene where the evil plan was outright blurted out to him and he didn't really take it seriously, but I'll take that as a joke. Also, in the way the episode does it, him beating Silico made a little more sense than it seems? He made the suit, of course he could make a better one.

There's also this cute scene where the Powerpuff Girls, obviously disinterested in the Professor's actual job, trying to make their dad look like this cool superhero by making a cheap home movie about him. It even comes with Bubbles holding up a cardboard cutout of Townsville at the beginning of it. Reminds me of that awesome cartoon about three superhero girls fighting crime that aired on Cartoon Network all those times ago. I think it was called "Teamo Supremo."

After that aforementioned "Professor beating up that villain that really deserved better" scene, we get an ending that's only downside is that it has the opposite problem of Memory Lane of Pain's ending: it treats the Professor as a good father figure when every other episode treats him like a Sitcom Dad. I do not see that problem as horrible as that episode's, though. The Professor should be a good father figure and Bubbles shouldn't be an "everyday hero". All in all, I think it's good.

Bad thing: I already mentioned the bad thing, so I will do this minor aside: we learn that Barry's mom is a stay-at-home ninja...who apparently speaks Korean? The show has used Japanese quite a bit before, so it's not that they can't tell the difference.

7. Power-Up Puff

Sure, this episode may be just a way for them to introduce everyone to the hit new accessory that will come with all of these toys, but I can't hate on how they did it. The episode involves Buttercup and Bubbles suddenly getting Green Lantern powers that can easily defeat giant monsters. Blossom feels like the odd one out, as her powers don't seem to show up.

While it is a little predictable how this episode would turn out, even if all the merchandising, promos, and the one episode that aired before this didn't spoil this episode's twist, I can't fault this episode for how it did it. It actually made me feel an emotion other than bewilderment, disgust, or apathy, which is more than I can say for a lot of the early Season 1 episodes.

After I watched this episode, I was worried that they weren't going to use their fists anymore. It turns out they barely even use the aura powers outside of special occasions, so that's all moot. Not much to say, other than this episode isn't too bad.

Bad thing: I get that this episode was supposed to make Blossom feel sad that she doesn't have aura powers, but sometimes it just goes way beyond uncomfortable. This is especially true with this line from the guy I was praising a few paragraphs ago!

Sitcom Dad: We don’t know if you will get powers. You may even lose the powers you already have, and be an ordinary little girl for the rest of your life! Uh, I love you! Good night!

Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't come up with the Sitcom Dad joke sooner than Green Wing.

6. Lights Out!

As implied with my #1 worst, I almost considered putting Find Your Bliss on this list. However, I realized it was really only okay in the beginning, it just had one of the best endings in a show that desperately needed episodes that even ended properly. This is the best Bliss episode, and funnily enough, it's the only one that doesn't have the word Bliss in the title.

Beyond being the best Bliss episode, the episode itself is pretty good, too. It's one of the many, many episodes that involves a science fair, and Bliss is showing off the Buggly, an earpiece that can generate anything! It's all well and good, until the power cuts out and the Bugglies stop working. And then Bliss turns out to be Silico in disguise, as he uses the Bugglies to control all of Townsville. Definitely a step up over his previous appearances, including the aforementioned Take Your Kids To Dooms Day.

This all ends with a surprisingly good fight scene between a trio that can make auras and someone with the power to generate anything, with the telekinetic teleportation girl helping out in various ways. Bliss doesn't heavily overshadow the other three with her ultra-super-duper-powers, something her other episodes definitely don't do. I can understand Power of Four doing it for the vast majority of its runtime to show how cool she is, but Never Been Blissed is basically the Memory Lane of Pain for everyone not named Bliss. They don't go too far in the other direction, either. She's necessary, but not overpowered. Perfectly balanced, that's how it should be.

Bad thing: This is the episode that gave us the term "uphill rollercoaster", a running gag that has no bearing on the plot, and has absolutely no payoff. This can describe a lot of running gags throughout the whole reboot, actually.

5. Home, Sweet Homesick

Starting from here are episodes I felt were genuinely good. Not "good compared to most of the reboot", I mean actually worth a watch. This is the lowest of the 5, but it certainly deserves its spot among the best. See, the episode starts off with Discount Jojo's hand getting broken by Blossom, complete with a bone breaking sound. 10/10, great episode. I'm just kidding, the rest of the episode is good, too.

The funny thing is that this episode essentially has the same moral as Painbow, except done in reverse. In Painbow, Buttercup needs to learn that there's a time for fun and a time to be serious. In this one, it's the complete opposite; Blossom sneers at this fun space camp, and wishes it would be serious. Blossom would be the only kid ever to enjoy Mario is Missing, apparently.

A particular stand-out scene is a musical number that happens right when Blossom goes into space. It's a parody of Space Oddity, and it perfectly fits the episode's tone. I will admit that some of the reboot's musical numbers that don't involve Buttercup grandma beatbox solos are actually quite good by themselves, but this is the only one to be nominated for an Annie. In fact, it's the only Annie this reboot was nominated for; they didn't nominate that horrible princess episode unlike a certain lesser non-animation-related award show. Unlike that one, I could say that nomination was deserved. Maybe not a win, but still.

It's good to see a use of a moral that actually did it justice, and it's good to see Blossom learning to have fun. Kind of wish it sticked, but nothing seems to stick with the Reboot Puffs.

Bad thing: There really isn't a reason why this plot needed to be done with superheroes beyond how she can survive in a rocket without a spacesuit. I have no reason to wonder why this episode starts with a Discount Jojo beatdown. Maybe that's why it's so good; it doesn't feel like a PPG 2016 episode.

4. The Oct-Father

It's amazing to think that an episode I reviewed just over two weeks ago would make this list, and it's easy to see why. What starts out as a decent Godfather parody turns into a psychological thriller, where we get to see what the Powerpuff Girls are from the villain's point of view. Kind of like a version of Taken where we focus on the kidnappers. I always wanted to see that sort of thing; that's one of the reasons why I was intrigued by that Bureau of Bad comic. To make a long story short, I was disappointed with that one, but not with this one.

Princess is running a scheme where she takes kid's toys when they're away from them, and ask them to give her offers that she will probably refuse in exchange for them. She tries this with Octi, and finds out that Bubbles has become a hardcore monotonous vengeance-seeker. We see all of the emotions she goes through with this as she desperately tries to get Bubbles to break with no avail, to the point where she breaks. It's entertaining, and it made me want to know what's coming next.

This is the best episode of Season 3, though it's not the best Princess episode, believe it or not! Princess is one of the few original villains that the reboot has not ruined, and this episode isn't the only example of that.

Bad thing: No, I don't think asking Bubbles for Octi would have her give it to you, ending.

3. Poorbucks

As hinted before, "character development" is practically non-existent in PPG 2016. It's sort of ironic; as most western cartoons of the 10s tended to go towards arcs, PPG 2016 was perfectly happy by being episodic and having everything go back to the status quo. If Blossom learned how to have fun, she ended up hating fun in the next episode. If Buttercup learned anything, pfft. This episode felt like a glimpse into a universe where PPG 2016 was like other cartoons that were airing in 2016.

Princess' father's company's stocks go down by a lot, causing her to become poor enough for her to beg the Powerpuff Girls to have her live in their home. Bubbles and Buttercup disagree with having this person who wanted to tear down their house a day ago live with them, but Blossom wants to bring out the good in her. After many nights of her being annoying, Blossom and Princess eventually bond over business, and we get a tease of a Princess face turn. They seemed to do that a lot in this reboot, but this is the episode where it felt genuine.

With that plot, a really cute musical number in the style of Schoolhouse Rock, and an ending that is downright heartwarming, this episode is worth of the number 3 spot. The saddest thing is that this wasn't a Season 3 episode; it was a Season 1 episode, during a time where people could have thought this was just like Steven Universe's more episodic Season 1. It really made me think this show was going to go places, and while it's disappointing that they never really went anywhere with it, I can't fault this episode for it.

Bad thing: Gotta love that character that only existed as an excuse for Princess to be evil again! And by love, I mean loathe. I don't need to mention his name, because that's all he did.

2. Fashion Forward

Out of all of the new villains, the Fashionistas are easily the best out of all of them in practice. The only problem I have with them is the lack of in-universe explanation of why she's paired up with a giant pink gorilla. Sure, she's a good excuse for this team to be any sort of threat to the Powerpuff Girls, but is there any other reason? The best we get is that Bianca considers Barbarus her "sister" in Bridezilla, already implied by her having the same last name. Whatever, that's beyond the scope of this list.

A new brand of scarves designed by these fashionistas becomes the latest fashion trend, and the Powerpuff Girls are denied them by their father figure because the Fashionistas are sending the wrong messages. Blossom seems to be the one that agrees with him the most until her peers in the student council decide to kick her out. Will she disobey her father? It is a good premise that ties into the superhero element of the show very well.

This episode is also one of the good Sitcom Dad episodes, to the point where I could call him Professor Utonium here, too. He becomes active in trying to get Blossom to learn the lesson he was trying to teach them, to the point where he is the major player in taking down the Fashionista's big evil plan. It's not a bad lesson, either: don't bow down to peer pressure, and looks aren't necessarily everything as much as the Fashionistas say it is.

This is the best episode of Season 1, though I would say it is a very close call with Poorbucks. This was the first episode that really stuck out to me as a episode I would watch again, and that meant it was downhill from there...except for one certain episode in Season 2.

Bad thing: As much as the Sitcom Dad's antics here don't bother me as much as certain other episodes, it just seemed ridiculous that him saving the day was more of an accident than anything. If one argues that he accidentally did it because he accidentally hit the Chemical X...he didn't, Jojo pushed him into it. I hope they still remember that.

Honorable Mentions:

Blundercup - I can see why people would hate this episode due to the odd premise of Buttercup turning into butter, but I actually found it interesting. We see a villain with lousy powers take the abilities of the extremely overpowered by normal superhero standards Buttercup, and Buttercup has to beat this villain with those lousy powers. In a way, it reminds me of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and anything that reminds me of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure needs to be in this list.

Splitsville - Here's another three shorts episode that was actually pretty good, with a neat idea for an ending! Too bad the Blossom part had that one scene, though. You'll know when you'll see it.

Our Brand Is Chaos - An excellent idea for an episode: Blossom going to all-but-said-to-be-Hell, and taking it over in her own way. Execution can use some work and it needed a better B plot, but still.

Man Up 2: Still Man-ing - This episode got a Neutral Buttercup when I reviewed it, but I can admit it grew on me over time. The minions, the motives, that killer vehicle Manboy has in this episode and only this episode, an actual fight scene in Season 1, I'd say this episode is a stand-out now.

Small World - This may be the only episode longer than 12 minutes I didn't hate at any point, though one part is a little disappointing than anything else. I was actually a bit intrigued with how the Powerpuff Girls could stop this Cheery Gumdrop Villain. Okay, maybe that villain wasn't that great, but still.

The Trouble With Bubbles - This episode could be a dishonorable mention as well, though I wouldn't call it a bad episode by any stretch of the imagination. It was so close to being an legitimately great episode, but it was ruined by the poor direction of the second half. What could have been great serious scenes are played for laughs for no reason. For a reboot that seems to love to have the "there's a time to be serious, and a time to be funny" moral, the reboot itself seems to need it the most!

Now that that's out of the way, here is a little backstory to this #1 pick. I watched quite a few episodes in Turkish. I will not say how, but I will say why: because episodes of PPG 2016 tend to air in other countries long before they get aired here, and getting a early look really helps with writing reviews even if I couldn't understand the language. When I saw this one in particular, I was convinced that this could either be the best episode of the reboot, or an episode that's almost worthy of being the best, and I only needed to know what they were saying to find out which. And, sure enough...

1. Bubbles The Blue

Much like Home Sweet Homesick, this episode was all about feelings. Specifically, this episode is about Bubbles being sad for some reason, and Blossom and Buttercup try to figure out ways to cheer her up. In a way, both of them end up missing the point. Here's a big hint to that: this episode is actually about depression. Not just being sad, but about the actual medical condition. That's not just one of my wacky theories, either; it's been confirmed to be about depression, and, for once, I sincerely believe that, because, unlike certain episode, they hit it out of the park with this one.

Buttercup deals with this in over the top ways, like stealing happy ray guns from Discount Jojo. Blossom, on the other hand, is just thinking it's something she did. In a way, Blossom is even more hurtful than Buttercup, as she eventually outright says that Bubbles must be doing this solely for attention, a sadly common line people with depression have to deal with. I've already detailed a lot of what this episode does right in my review of it, but there's one other aspect that needs to be highlighted.

Unlike Home Sweet Homesick, it seamlessly ties this serious message with the Powerpuff Girls' usual superhero setting. While they're trying to figure out what's wrong with Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup keep getting interrupted by a giant armadillo that's destroying the city. We later learn that the armadillo actually has his own emotional problems, and only Bubbles could understand him. How does Bubbles get involved when she's constantly moping on the bed? Simple: the Professor decides to give her a talk about how it's okay to be sad sometimes. It's like he's an adult!

Best episode of Season 2, best episode of the reboot, way better than I thought it would ever be, and it might even crack the Top 50 Best Powerpuff Girls Episodes if I included episodes of the original. Okay, maybe I wouldn't go that far. Maybe.

Bad thing: I get what they were doing with Buttercup's character in this, but some of her antics are just not funny. One of the worst examples of this is right at the end, where she outright ruins the mood of what would have been a great final shot. This is especially bad when good final shots is something this reboot is starved for.

Well, that's it for the stack ups, but there's still two questions I need to answer.

How do the seasons stack up?

Season 1 is the season most people will think about when they think of this show, to the reboot's detriment. It was a growing period for the show, and "growing pains" would be an understatement. This was the season that brought us the twerking scenes, the references to internet memes, the Nike swoosh fight scenes, and 6 of the episodes on my worst list. Some may argue that Season 1's bumbling incompetency may be more interesting than the mediocrity that plagues most of Season 2 and 3. I disagree.

Season 2 is an improvement over Season 1 in every way. They toned down the meme references to the point where I can only think of that one reference to the late Grumpy Cat. It didn't have any twerking from the Puffs, and the crime fighting increased by quite a bit. Also, they didn't misspell the word "storyboarded by" in the credits at any point, which is an improvement over Season 1. It's not enough for a Happy, though.

Season 3 is a slight improvement over Season 2, if not as significant between the jump between Season 1 and 2. I would say that it did have a few more guilty pleasure episodes in my opinion, though they did not make the Top 10. It did give us its best special, as easy as that merit is, and it's good to see that the show didn't deteriorate like most last seasons. Sadly, it's not enough for me to consider giving it the Happy.

It is interesting to see the slight improvement over each season, which is sort of a tragedy considering the reboot is often represented by that No Me Gusta face it pulled in the first season. Sure, there were some rather ugly face faults in later episodes, but nothing got as bad as that. Speaking of which, I must answer one last question:

Was PPG 2016 really that bad?

It's not the absolute worst show that has ever aired on Cartoon Network; I'd rather watch this over Problem Solverz or Pet Alien. When it comes to The Powerpuff Girls...yeah, it's not a pretty comparison, let's leave it at that.

I'll say this: PPG 2016 is the worst of the three Cartoon Network reboots by a considerable margin. Teen Titans Go, while everyone loves to hate it, does have its moments of pure comedic gold, and it had a great movie. Ben 10 2016, from all I've seen, is a pretty good kid's action cartoon, and I have heard it's actually really good after the first season. Only time will tell if it compares favorably to Thundercats Roar, if that show ever gets to exist.

After watching every episode of this reboot, I can say that if I decided to stop watching the show after that twerking panda episode, I would have missed a little bit of content that is of at least decent quality. Unfortunately, that is a small minority of episodes in a muck of episodes that are mediocre at best.

It's not that bad, it's just not good. Watch the original series, watch the movie, watch that 2010 Powerpuff Girls Rule special, and give this one a pass. One may miss out on some decent episodes, but in the end, ignorance is bliss.

For those who read my reviews since the beginning, those who just found me because of these lists, and everyone in-between: thank you.

Hurrah for Cartoon Network and the Powerpuff Girls. Bye.

← The Final Stack Up (The Worst) ☆ n/a →

#fpb ppg 2016 #fpb reviews #ppg 2016 #powerpuff girls #cartoon network

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neighbours-kid · 5 years ago

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Oh, 2019, What A Year You Were.

It is now a bit before 6pm on January 01, 2020. I just finished unpacking after coming home from my short holiday escape to Berlin for New Year’s with my best friend and frequent travel buddy. My feet are tired, my back hurts, and I’m sitting in bed now, thinking back on this last year and, it’s kind of hard for me to decide if it was a good year or less so.

My 2019 was not as eventful as my 2018. There was no large adventure to speak of like going to New York City for six months, or having to adjust back to life in Switzerland after that. 2019 was just…..uni. The same old trudge of going to class and thinking about texts that should be read (but wouldn’t be), the same old treading water without direction, stuck in one place, unsure what comes next. Or, at least, that’s what it feels like looking back on it.

When I did this looking back the last time, 2018 was not quite over yet. It was still December, I had a few more days of uni to go, all the Christmases and other celebrations still before me. At that point, I had no idea that I would meet a couple of people at the Christmas Party of our English Department and that these people would be largely responsible for tipping the scale of 2019 into ‘good’.

But I did. I did meet these lovely people I get to call something akin to family today. It’s only been a year, and I can’t quite believe it. Found family has always been my favourite trope in storytelling, and this little group of weirdos is exactly that. And to quote my favourite little alien creature, this is my family. I found it, all on my own. It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.

These people are not perfect, they’re not flawless, they’re not angels. But they have more humanity between them than I’ve seen in a long fucking while. We’re all broken people, none of us is any better than the next, but we have heart. And I love them all so fucking much. They have all coloured in parts of my year in their own colours and I could not be happier about it. They’re a bunch of fucking weirdo nerds, but they’re my bunch of fucking weirdo nerds.

* * *

This year was, while largely uneventful, also very special in its own way. You know, after talking to my doc to get a date for a transgender consultation, my plan was basically to wait until I got it all lined up nicely, got my first shot of testosterone and then be like "hello world, this is happening, and if you have anything against it, whoops, too late.” Well, it didn’t quite work out like that. If you’ve been keeping up with this blog or my life in general, you know that my anxious ass decided to have a nervous break in the middle of January and come out to literally everyone then and there. And you know what? It’s good.

I’m not where I want to be, not at all. After January, I had expectations for 2019, I had hopes and dreams, wishes and plans. Unfortunately, that lead to a series of events that is tipping the scale of this year into ‘bad’. I wrote about this extensively before, but the process of starting testosterone is a long and tedious one and I am still not where I want to be, even after this entire year, but I currently see a shiny dot on the horizon that looks very promising in that department, and if everything goes as it should, it won’t be long now until I can start with the hormone treatment.

2019 started me down a road of self-discovery that is more open and public than it was before, and I am glad for it. But I don’t want to linger on that part of my year for too long. Let us look back for a while, relive some moments here and there.

On the train home from the airport today, I thought about what I did exactly one year ago. After everyone who had been at my place for New Year’s had left around lunch time on January 01, 2019, I had sat down in front of my TV and started a very movie and tv show heavy year. Over the course of this entire year, I noted down every movie and tv show episode, every short film and comedy special, everything that I watched. It…..added up quite a bit, to be completely honest. Let’s see….

For reference, I had holidays during January and half of February, as well as June all through August and half of September, and then again from the 21st of December onward. My marathon didn’t quite subside during university, but at least I didn’t binge quite so much.

In total, I watched 178 movies, 10 short films, and 685 episodes of 34 tv shows. That is 300h12 in movies, 1h38 in short films, and roughly 519h47 in tv show episodes. (Yes, I did just spend way too much time looking up all the run times…) That is a rough total of 821h37 for this year. That’s like….a bit over a month of time spent watching stuff. 1/12 of my year spent in front of a screen. Not entirely sure how I feel about this number.

I know that for some this might sound a bit excessive, but to be honest? There is so much more I want to watch and if I could do completely as I please, these numbers would look a lot different.

Here is, with the exact intention of being a big mess of a block, all the movies I watched in 2019. I highlighted a few that stood out to me especially. Not just because I liked them very much, or because they were particularly excellent, just because….they made me feel something different, I guess. The oldest movie I watched was Grease (1978) and the newest would be the comedy special John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch from this year. I started my year with Night at the Museum (2006) and ended it with season five of Leverage.

Grease (1978), My Neighbour Totoro (1988), Die Hard (1988), Batman (1989), Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Othello (1995), Mission Impossible (1996), Mary Reilly (1996), Wilde (1997), Animated Epics: Beowulf (1998), Mission Impossible II (2000), Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Fast and the Furious (2001), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Heartlands (2002), xXx (2002), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Underworld (2003), Bright Young Things (2003), Timeline (2003), The Deal (2003), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Laws of Attraction (2004), Dirty Filthy Love (2004), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (2005), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), Underworld: Evolution (2006), Mission Impossible III (2006), Inside Man (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), The Da Vinci Code (2006), The Queen (2006), Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Music Within (2007), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Ocean’s Thirteen (2007), Zodiac (2007), Iron Man (2008), Twilight (2008), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Twilight: New Moon (2009), The Damned United (2009), Fast & Furious (2009), Sherlock Holmes (2009), The Holiday (2009), Angels & Demons (2009), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), Inception (2010), The Bounty Hunter (2010), Twilight: Eclipse (2010), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Tron: Legacy (2010), Megamind (2010), Valentine’s Day (2010), The Expendables (2010), Red (2010), Eat Pray Love (2010), Iron Man 2 (2010), Beautiful Boy (2010), Fast Five (2011), Fright Night (2011, twice), Resistance (2011), Few Options, All Bad (2011), Jesus Henry Christ (2011), Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011), Mission Impossible IV: Ghost Protocol (2011), Pitch Perfect (2012), Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012), White House Down (2013), Admission (2013), I Give It A Year (2013), Escape Plan (2013), The Adventurer: Curse of the Midas Box (2013), Furious 6 (2013), A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), Red 2 (2013), Begin Again (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014), Kill the Messenger (2014), The Monuments Men (2014), Midnight in Paris (2014), Paddington (2014), The Imitation Game (2014), Maleficent (2014), Chelsea Peretti: One Of The Greats (2014), John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid (2015, twice), Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015), Far From the Madding Crowd (2015), 7 Days in Hell (2015), Furious Seven (2015), Assassin’s Creed (2016), Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping (2016), Ali Wong: Baby Cobra (2016), Nocturnal Animals (2016), She Loves Me (2016), Passengers (2016), Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (2016), xXx: The Return of Xander Cage (2017), Michael Bolton’s Big, Sexy Valentine’s Day Special (2017), Brad’s Status (2017), Home Again (2017), Murder On The Orient Express (2017), Christmas Inheritance (2017), Paddington 2 (2017), You, Me & Him (2017), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Trevor Noah: Afraid of the Dark (2017), Dave Chappelle: The Age of Spin (2017), Dave Chappelle: Deep in the Heart of Texas (2017), Patton Oswalt: Annihilation (2017), Jack Whitehall: At Large (2017), Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (2017), Katherine Ryan: In Trouble (2017), Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018), Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018), The Fate of the Furious (2018), Love, Simon (2018), Ocean’s 8 (2018, twice), Bad Samaritan (2018), John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous (2018, twice), Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (2018), Daniel Sloss: Dark (2018), Daniel Sloss: Jigsaw (2018), Trevor Noah: Son of Patricia (2018), Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife (2018), James Acaster: Recognise (2018), James Acaster: Represent (2018), James Acaster: Reset (2018), James Acaster: Recap (2018), Apostle (2018), The Holiday Calendar (2018), The Princess Switch (2018), The Christmas Chronicles (2018), Captain Marvel (2019, twice), Shazam! (2019, twice), Avengers: Endgame (2019, twice), Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019), The Hustle (2019), Rocketman (2019), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Men in Black: International (2019), Tolkien (2019), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), Isn’t It Romantic (2019), Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019), Jenny Slate: Stage Fright (2019), Wanda Sykes: Not Normal (2019), Katherine Ryan: Glitter Room (2019), Simon Amstell: Set Free (2019), Adam Devine: Best Time of Our Lives (2019), Let It Snow (2019), Last Christmas (2019), Klaus (2019), Always Be My Maybe (2019), The Knight Before Christmas (2019), The Good Liar (2019), Hustlers (2019), Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker (2019), Murder Mystery (2019), John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch (2019)

TV shows are going to make up a block a bit less intimidating, but here goes. Again, highlighted what stood out to me especially.

The Gifted, Friends, NCIS, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Money Heist, Riverdale, The Punisher, Broadchurch, Elite, Doctor Who, Dramarama, Agents of SHIELD, Pokémon Indio League, Good Omens, The Chef Show, Jessica Jones, Halt and Catch Fire, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, The Good Fight, Sean’s Show, Gallowglass, Animals., The Spoils of Babylon, Pobol Y Cwm, Masters of Sex, Prodigal Son, Criminal UK, The Politician, Leverage, His Dark Materials, Zona Rosa, Derry Girls

Some old favourites in there. Some new ones too. I won’t list the shorts because I don’t particularly care for them. I watched them solely for binging-through-someone’s-filmography reasons.

So yeah, as you can see, a very strong year when it comes to the visual medium. I just really love movies and tv shows so much. I love this kind of storytelling, this particular form of it. There’s so much artistry there, so many talented people. I still very much would love to work in the movie world at some point. Inspires me greatly. Always has.

* * *

2019 was not just a year of sitting glued to a TV screen, not at all. I’ve been some places too, got to do and experience some cool stuff.

In April I was able to take a few days off and go to Lugano with my dear friend and relax for a little while. We also met up with one of the lovely people I’ve met through twitter, which was great fun and we’ve spent a fantastic day together (eating food I still catch myself thinking about at least twice a week).

In June I went to Pride in Zurich with my friends, which was also a wonderful experience all together.

In July I was able to go to Cologne for half a week for CCXP, where I got to see some great panels and meet some great people. And, most importantly and also the reason why I went, I got to meet Zachary Levi again, take a picture together, have a wonderful conversation while he signed something for me, and experience an incredibly inspiring panel where I got to ask him a question that he took the time and patience to extensively answer. I treasure these moments, just as I treasure all our previous meetings and the friends and experiences that have come with it. Seeing him again after two years was definitely the highlight of the year, and it’s a strong weight of the good part in the scale that is 2019. He’s always a highlight, the dude. I can’t wait until I get to see that face again.

Also in July, I joined a few friends for a weekend at a medieval festival in Germany, which was also a very interesting and good experience.

And now at the end of the year, I spent a few days in Berlin, visiting museums and bookshops and generally touristing about with my dearest friend, celebrated New Year’s with her in the only way we know how: with good wine, food, warmth, and a tv show we both love and hold dear.

I also shouldn’t forget the two parties I attended of our university’s English Department, and the Halloween party a friend organised, and the birthdays I attended over the year, as well as the Christmas I spent with my friends at my place.

All these things, all these little bits add up and add up and ultimately I want to think that 2019 was a good year. I am so glad this year is over, but looking back I find so many good things that have happened, so many wonderful experiences, and I wonder, why? Why am I so happy it is over? Why am I so desperate to move forward, to turn the page, to start a new chapter, a new book?

I don’t know. I really don’t know.

* * *

For this new year, for 2020, I have a few wishes. I’m not really one to make resolutions, because I know exactly I won’t hold myself to it, but I have some things I’d like to do, like to try.

2019 was my year of movies and shows. I won’t stop watching things, I’ll never stop watching things. But for this year, I want to put my focus elsewhere. This year, I’d like to try and read all the books that have amassed themselves in my possession, that I haven’t actually read yet. It’s doable, I don’t own enormous amounts of books yet. I want to try that. I want to try to read more, to find that passion and attention span again that I had as a kid. I might try to blog a bit about it, just so I have something to hold me accountable. We’ll see. But I just really want to read more. Carry a book everywhere I go.

I know that 2020 is bringing me another step closer to becoming my truest self. I have my next appointment with the hormone specialist early in February, and if I am not entirely mistaken (or something is drastically changed) I will be able to start taking hormones then and there. Starting testosterone is going to be exciting and interesting, and I am very much looking forward to it. What I want for myself this year, is to take it easy. Be kind to myself in this journey. Let myself be gentle. I always have so many expectations for myself, and I really just want to try and…let myself be, let myself just live and experience things as they come. No expectations.

This first half year of 2020 is also the time I will be writing my Bachelor thesis and, hopefully, by summer I’ll have my degree. It’ll be a tough but I hope also rewarding time for me. Having to shift the way I write papers (quick, barely researched and sourced, not even remotely re-read, always started mere hours before the deadline) to something more useful for a thesis, something fitting for a thesis, is going to be challenging. Keeping my head in the right space, keeping the focus and doing the work, it’s all going to be hard for me. But I have faith that I will find a way to reign in my scatterbrain and flick the hyper-focus switch into something that will be sustainable for the time I have to write my thesis in.

Speaking of my thesis, there is something I have not mentioned yet, that strongly informed my experience of 2019. Good Omens is the book I’ll be writing my thesis about (specifically a queer theological reading of it) and Good Omens was the story that has shaped my year. I re-read the book at the beginning of term and once the mini-series came out at the end of May, I did not really think about anything else since. This book and this show are so incredibly important to me, and it is, after a long while of nothing even remotely getting there, the first thing that has captured my attention so strongly, that it has outlasted my one-month hyper-focus ability and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. And that I am so incredibly grateful for. I wasn’t sure if I could still do it. Have an interest, have passion for something, for longer than a month. So many things I tried and loved and done, and after a single month, I dropped them like a hot potato and never touched them again. But Good Omens came and took me by my hand and lead me into the promised land. Especially since the show came out, I feel like a changed person. I have talked about it to no end, and I could go on forever now too, but I’ll just say this for now: This story of an angel and a demon crossing the divide that is their differences, coming together in love for the world, for humanity, and each other, this story means everything to me, and it has given me so much. Nothing is ever going to change that. That is irrevocable. And I know that 2020 won’t change that fact. I have faith that this passion will continue on and will inspire more positive change in me. It’s already started bringing me back to writing and drawing, so I know that it will lead me somewhere.

There is so much more I could say here, now, about 2019, about 2020. About my plans and my wishes, my dreams and the things I ought to do. But I think, I’ll leave it at that, for now. I tried this monthly blogging last year for the first time, and I think I’ll try to continue doing it. So, you can expect to read more of my thoughts on all kinds of things.

For now, however, let me say this: 2020 can be anything you want it to be. 2020 is yours to shape, yours to create in, yours to manage, yours to use. I want my 2020 to be gentle, to be taken one step at a time, to be experienced to the fullest, to be lived and felt and actively experienced. Sure, bad things can happen, bad things can always happen. But it’s your decision what happens next.

In 2020, I want to start loving more unapologetically. Do good, recklessly. Be kind, always. Not just to others, but to myself.

…

I have faith in us, you know? Humans. There’s so much hope there, still. 2020 might just as well show it.

…

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope it’ll be a good one for you.

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dukeofriven · 6 years ago

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It’s nice to see Hussie confirm what is self-evident on any given re-read of the comic: the extent to which early Homestuck is divorced from late Homestuck in terms of focus, plot, ‘narrative destination’ and so on. From the ramparts of act one, or even act three, you can’t tell where Homestuck is going to end - literally can’t, as it was unknown to author as the audience. This is not a criticism - it’s a function of many long-form stories: rarely do they end exact the way the creator envisioned them. Steven Universe provides an interesting example: eight years on from its original conception, six years on from first airing, it reached its original planned ‘finale’ with images that had been in its creators heads from the first: yet if you’ve ever listened to the show Podcast you’ll discover just how much of the show’s ‘fundamentals’ came from the minds of other people well after the show was underway. None of the big comic heroes have a story you can meaningfully read from ‘beginning to end’: entire iterations of reality are unceremoniously erased from existence which far less care and understanding than a Hussie retcon: the Batman I loved when I got into Batman literally no longer exists. So when I see people ask ‘do you think we’ll finally get to see Rose ‘play the rain?’ my gut instinct is ‘unlikely’. Admittedly we don’t yet know enough about the Epilogue to speak with a lot of certainly: for all I know now john will go back to the GameOver era and find that the key to victory is playing Sburb ‘exactly right’ - but from this vantage point I doubt it. As Rose herself said, the person she became is one for whom the little quest of LOLAR no longer seemed relevant: it was (and remains) John who hasn’t freed himself from April 13 2009, but everyone else has long since moved on. These prophecies are a good reference point for the way Homestuck’s narrative focus simply moved on - or, rather, onwards and upwards. When you’re watching one planet crash into another in a game of cosmic boxing the build cost of a common hammer ceases to have much relevance or bearing. Rose no more bred lilacs out of the dead land than Dave dropped it like its hot - least as anyone can tell - but this has no negative effect on the story. There’s a fairly meticulous list of unresolved Homestuck “plot points” but with apologies most of those have nothing to do with plot. Few rise to the level of trivia, and many seem to try and draw important meaning out of set dressing and symbolism. I call this the ‘LOST effect’ - wherein a character piece is shaken down for ‘answers’ it doesn’t have and never cared about. The ‘puzzles’ the ‘backstory’ the ‘lore’ exists to serve the themes and goals of the characters, not the other way around. Whose memories does that amusement park that Vriska and Meenah hang out in belong to? Nobody’s. It’s not there in the story to give you insight into the life of Dave “Barnum” Strider of Universe-QBCDE: its function is not narrative. We like to talk about how Hussie always calls back to something - that nothing in the story is ever “wasted” - but that’s categorically untrue and we all know that. Off the top of my head of Things That Ended Up Being Largely Irrelevent To Homestuck From A Plot-Centric Point of View: Rose and Dave’s ‘waiting’ prophecies, Skaianet Labs, Grandpa Harley fucking about Paradox Space in his giant grey battleship (other than ‘pick-up Jade’s dream self’ we still know nothing about what he was doing there or how or why or anything), Feferi’s destiny to unite the Troll sub-races, literally anything to do with the Beforus trolls who weren’t Meenah and Aradia (you could skip the entirety of Openbound and really only improve your Homestuck experience), the fate of FedoraFreak, the Doctor Brinner Fan Theory Spectacular Power Hour (if you don’t remember... don’t learn), Jade Harley, Sollux Captor who is Karkat’s Best Friend apparently and who just kind of... goes away, and the Alpha’s kids entire planet-based adventures. Please keep in mind that I don’t mean to imply that these things were ephemeral, but their overall-impact is, shall we say, “limited.” You could, for example, note that Jade and Feferi were said to have teamed up in some sense and created the dream bubbles with the horrorterrors and that the dreambubbles had enough of an impact that they lead to the creation of Earth-C and the union of the Troll race - but that all happened off camera, and if you cut half a sentence out of Homestuck a new reader wouldn’t notice its absence: Feferi’s influence on the final outcome, from a viewer standpoint, is non-existent. The story ran for eight years, and things didn’t so much get ‘left behind’ or ‘unresolved’ as ‘shrunk to insignificance.’ It’s like playing Spore: by the time you’re at the space level, cruising around the galaxy and really, desperately trying to convince yourself that you like this game and it’s not the biggest media disappointment of your first eighteen years of life and you will never trust video games again until Mass Effect 3 hurts you like you swore you’d never let another game do and... and... and... sorry, I lost focus there, what were we talking about? Spore, right: by the time you’re at the space level the single-cell organize game is far behind you and out of your thoughts. Homestuck is like that: it just... moved up.

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wendynerdwrites · 5 years ago

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Guess who got a big chunk of writing done for the first time in months? This gal!

Okay, so here is a rough first chapter of a Metalocalypse fanfic, Dethcomics:

"Gentleman… It seems Dethklok is looking into joining the world of comic books. A call has gone out seeking artists and writers to create a Dethklok graphic novel."

"This could be catastrophic! Every new Dethklok industry venture manages to upset the balance of trade, but a band-sponsored book spreading their messages further?!"

"At least with their music no one can tell what Nathan Explosion is saying. But written in black and white?!"

"Exactly. To elaborate, I have called in expert in comics, Professor Varveil Molfirbygai."

The Professor, skinny and acne-ridden, comes forward, pushing his square-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Gentlemen, Dethklok have already rejected the proposals by Brian Posehn, Brian Piludo, and Grant Morrison for their books and are tearing through artists one at a time. At this rate, no one in the industry will be left but Rob Liefeld and Devin Grayson. Apparently their contradictory demands and unrealistic expectations have even been characterized by Alan Moore as 'too far out'. Marvel, DC, Image, and Dark Horse have all blacklisted them, leading to the band to launch their own independent publishing house. This could potentially upset the delicate balance of power within the industry. And God help us if the title is snatched up for screen adaptation by Sony or - ugh - Hulu."

"What can we do to nip this in the bud?"

"It seems that Nathan Explosion's new wife, Abigail Remeltindtdrinc and Charles Offdensen have taken a more direct role in monitoring the project. They may prove a stabilizing influence…"

~_~_~

"Ugh, Dildos!" William Murderface hurls his whiskey bottle to the corner of the game room. "These artsy-fartsy types are a bunch of egotistical, emotional dildos!"

"Ja, likes how obsessives and arrogants can yous gets?" Skwissgaar adds, shredding silently on his Gibson. "And sos delicate!"

Toki, leaning back from the Mortal Kombat machine, sniffs. "I's kinds of liked that Yoorerd Way fellows…"

"HE DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ROCK!" Nathan roars from the foosball table, engaging in a fierce battle with Pickles.

"Maybe we should just write it ourselves, y'know." Pickles suggests, "And get, I don't know… Toki, you draw things, right?"

Toki brightens. "I'S DO!"

Skisgaar scoffs, "All's he's draws is girly, fluffy tings like happy bunnies and womens withts de tits covered."

"Toki is even less metal than that Brenden Smalls douchebag! Heh, Brenden Smalls, what did he ever create for anyone?" Murderface adds.

"I cans draw brutal!"

"I'm sure you can, Toki, but I'm afraid that still isn't happening," a firm, female voice calls out.

The room falls silent as Charles and Abigail enter the room.

"Guys, Abigail may have found someone to write and draw the book," Charles announces.

Abigail blanches slightly, somewhat uncomfortable. "Maybe, if I can convince her."

"Her?" Murderface asks, somehow sounding simultaneously dismissive and aroused. "We can't let ladies make stuff for us!"

Abigail cradles her temple. "See?" She says to Offdensen, "I told you!"

"Why would we wants chicks arounds us?" Skwisgaar asks.

"Guys, we already put out the announcement. You've blown through nearly every acclaimed graphic novel creator in the business. Fans are getting impatient. So if we can get Abigail's friend to do this for us, you will be on your best behavior!"

"Maybe we should give this chick a chance, you know?" Nathan offers, offering his wife a sympathetic look.

"Oh, you're only saying that because your lady suggested it!" Murderface howls, taking a new bottle of alcohol from a Klokateer with a tray. "You're totally whipped, Man!"

Abigail's eyes burn. She smarches over to the couch and yanks the bassist by the ear. He cries out.

"Listen, you talentless sack of piss, this whole project has been taking time away from recording. And you know how I feel about that. You're going to be a good little boy and do as I say, understand?!"

"YES, MA'AM!"

Abigail releases him, leans back, clears her throat, and smooths her blazer. "I apologize for that. I am… not feeling like myself lately. Like I said, I haven't even convinced my friend to do this, I am not even sure I can. But you can all be sure of her qualifications. Her name is Sofia Maldonado, she's been creating comics since she was fifteen. She has worked on titles like The Boys, Swamp Thing, Ms. Marvel, Deadpool, Nightwing, and Batman. She has her own book, The Emerald Pixie, that has been a hit with both critics and readers and has been nominated for four Eisner Awards, winning two."

The band looks at her as if she is speaking Chinese. She sighs.

" Uh, 'Emerald Pixie'?" Nathan inquires, "No offense, Honey, but that doesn't sound very metal."

"The Pixie has retractable ten inch fangs."

"Oh, uh, that's cool, I guess."

"I mean, it can't hurt, I guess." Pickles adds.

"Is she hot?" Murderface asks.

"Yeahs, is she hot?" Skwisgaar asks.

Abigail turns to Charles. "Why am I doing this again?"

Offdensen pats the producer on the arm. "Guys, please, that is irrelevant. And you will keep things professional, or I am cancelling your vacation to Pornfest this year, understand?"

"What?! Can you even do that?!" Pickles cries out.

"As per my new contract with the five of you, I most certainly can."

The band all grumbles, except for Toki.

"Cans I's shows her my drawings?"

"I'm sure that will be fine."

Abigail sighs. "Look, guys, this woman is a friend of mine, she is good at what she does, and she does not put up with crap. I am going out on a limb for you with this. One wrong move and she bolts. Understand?"

They all grumble again, but answer in the affirmative.

"Excellent." Charles straightens his tie and clears his throat. "Abigail will call up Ms. Maldonado and see if she is willing."

~_~_~_~

"No."

"Just lis-"

"No, Abby, and also: No. Nope. Negative. Nuh-uh. Nein. Not happening. They've run through almost everyone. Do you know how fucked up you have to be to weird out Alan Moore?! The man worships a Roman Snake God, for fucks sake. I am not descending into that pit of testosterone and excess."

"I will keep them in line, I promise. I managed to get them through six albums in as many years. Now that I'm involved, it will be different, I promise."

"Didn't William Murderface once refer to women as 'Serpents with tits'? Abby, I have reached a point in my career where I am through putting up with shit like this. I have had to collaborate with Garth Ennis and Frank Miller. I even spent an entire hour of my life in the presence of Dave Sims. I have done my time."

Abigail groans. "Sof, Charles Offdensen is offering enough for you to put Eddie through preschool, K-12 private, college and grad school someday."

"Emerald Pixie is selling like crazy and Paramount and Universal have approached me for the rights."

"I'll get you an interview for Collegiate."

There's a long pause.

"...Really? How?"

"I'm an alum, remember? And the Headmistress owes me, like, seven favors. Your son will be playing in the sandbox with the children of Governors and hedge fund owners.”

There’s another pause. Abigail smiles. For all that Sofia has gone on about hating capitalism and her passion for Leftist politics, since her son was born she’d grown a little hypocritical on that front. Not that Abby could blame her. Sofia didn’t have a lot of support, being a single mom.

“Maybe I’ll consider a meaning.”

Abigail tries a different tactic. “Please do. To be honest, I could really use a friend around here at the moment.”

It’s not something she’d normally say, as independent as she is. But as she makes the statement, she realizes that it’s true.

Sofia’s voice becomes gentler. “What’s up?”

Abigail tells her.

Her friend takes a deep breath. “Okay, then. I’ll take the meeting. But I mean it, Abby, one shitty comment---”

“---I know. But hey, look, you’ve met Nathan, and he’s not so bad, right?”

Technically, Sofia had encountered the entire band to varying extents at the wedding. She’d really only spoken to Nathan, and stared, mouth agape, at Pickles’s bender and slurred Best Man’s toast.

“He’s not too bad, I guess. But the rest? Bunch of crazy gringos.”

“Toki is sweet. Pickles actually isn’t bad when he’s not blackout drunk. Skwisgaar can be decent, aside from the arrogance. And Murderface… Don’t worry, I’ll keep my boot to his neck. I’ll keep my boots to all of their necks. I swear. Please, Sof, do this for me.”

Sofia takes yet another deep breath. “Alright. I’ll be available in a couple of weeks. Book me a flight. And I want my Collegiate interview before then.”

“Done. Thank you so much.”

They say their good-byes. Abigail hangs up and leans back against the pillows of her bed, rubbing her temple. Nathan enters the bedroom, looking a little sheepish.

“Look, uh, I had another talk with the guys. Murderface is in debt again, so I offered to pay it off, if you don’t, uh, mind. That should help keep him… you know… less Murderface.” He sits down on the edge of the bed and takes her hand. “Did she say yes?”

“We have a single meeting in two weeks. I’m pretty sure I’m going to draw up a list with Charles about things they are not allowed to bring up.”

“You’re sure this is a good idea, right?”

Abigail smiles ruefully. “No, not at all. But it’s the only idea I have.”

“I hope the guys don’t, well, uh, you know…”

“Sofia talks a big game, but she’s tough and willing to put up with more than she lets on. She wouldn’t be where she is if it were otherwise. If we keep them reined in enough, I think we might make this work.”

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

“Hey, I’s remembers her!”

“Shut up, Toki! Don’t be weird!” Pickles snaps as they watch their prospective new artist drop her bags in the middle of the Mordhouse entry hall and look up at the gargantuan ceiling.

She is tall and athletic, with bronzed skin, blue eyes, and dark brown hair. She wears boot-cut black pants, a red graphic tee, and a black jacket with pins on the lapel. The band all peers at her curiously as Abigail rushes forward to greet her, ask after her son, and re-introduce Charles.

Handshakes are exchanged, and Abigail ushers the band over.

“Sofia, you of course remember my husband Nathan. This is Pickles, the drummer. Skwisgaar Skwigelf, lead guitar.”

“Hi’s.” Skwisgaar offers, obviously trying not to stare at her tits.

“Toki Wartooth, rhythm guitar.”

“Hello’s artist-lady!” Toki bounces on his heels, clutching sheets of paper. “I’s have some drawings, I hopes you like them!” He thrusts them towards her.

The artist smiles kindly and takes them. “I’ll give them a look. Thank you, Mr. Wartooth.”

“Calls me Toki!”

“Thank you, Toki.”

“And finally, William Murderface, bass.”

“Greetings and salutations, Senoriiiiiita!” Murderface grabs the woman’s hand and presses a wet kiss to it before smirking up at her. “Ole.”

Sofia snatches her hand back and glances at Abigail, who glowers at the bassist. “Knock it off, Murderface, or I’ll have you neutered.”

He squeals and jumps back. “S-Sorry.”

"So's, tells me, comics-lady. Cans we's makes dis comic book a pops-ups book and can we's makes the pop-up dragons breathes fire?"

Sofia takes one look at Toki, then another at Abigail. "I'm so glad to be here!"

#metalocalypses #fanfic #lots of comic book references

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lilhemmo · 6 years ago

Text

More Creamer Please || l.h.

Summary: Luke is a famous CEO and you work for a magazine that makes money off of his late nights and poor decisions. You try your hardest to keep him out of the bad spotlight, but your boss has other ideas.

Rated: T+ (language, i believe, and also a relatively sensual situation but NO smut) Word Count: 14.2k (holy schmokes batman!!!) MASTERLIST | WATTPAD | ASK BOX

October

The scent of freshly brewed coffee and hot ink are the status quo at Explicit Critique Weekly.

You landed an internship at Explicit Critique six years ago, straight out of high school. Back then you were just a local journalist for your school newspaper, but your aunt pulled some strings and managed to work you into the mix at the magazine.

The sound of your heels against the tile floor brings everyone’s attention. You smile and hand out the assignments, taking your own and plopping it on your desk.

The wheels of your chair squeak as you turn to look at your assistant-slash-intern, “Arielle, I’m going to go get myself a cup of coffee, would you like for me to grab you one?”

She looks at you nervous, tucking her dark curls behind her ear, “A-Aren’t I supposed to be the one getting you coffee?”

You snort and shake your head, standing back to your feet, “I want you to learn to write, not be shoved into a stereotype.” You push your chair in and walk to the coffee bar, shouting over your shoulder, “But I better hear those keys clacking!”

Arielle ducks her head back into her computer screen, fingertips flying across the keys. You chuckle to yourself as you walk to the coffee bar and pour the two of you each a cup.

Pouring creamer in your cup is interrupted by a certain someone speaking a little too profoundly about their newest topic.

“I got Mitchell to grab a few shots of him last night,” Kyle grins, showing the photos to whoever it is standing next to him. “The piece is going to expose him to filth, I swear.”

“As if the last five ‘exposés’ you did on Luke Hemmings weren’t going to ‘expose him to filth’,” you snort, stirring the creamer into your coffee. You chuckle and shake your head, “Kyle, you really should find another Forbes playboy to focus on. This whole Hemmings crap is just getting old.”

“That’s not what my followers are saying,” Kyle smirks as he drops his left eye in a wink. He shrugs, “You’re just the business section, honey, what do you know about gossip?”

You roll your eyes, “I know most of it is a load of crap.”

“Hemmings is just as bad as I make him out to be,” Kyle sighs, “and you know it.”

“I actually-”

“Whatever,” he holds his hand up in your direction. “Go back to your numbers.”

You sigh and shake your head, looking over at the intern standing next to Kyle, “Dylan, don’t let him taint you, sweetheart.”

Kyle scoffs and pulls the intern toward his office, murmuring something about Luke Hemmings. You turn and walk back to your desk with the coffee cups in your hands, ready to face the day with a double shot of caffeine and a smile.

January

“Excuse me?” you look up to see your editor standing in the doorway of your office.

You smile, pushing your glasses on top of your head. You put the cup of coffee you hold delicately in your hands down to rest against your desk, “Hey, Laura.” You nod at the paperwork in her hands, “I see you got to read my article.”

“Yes,” she sighs, shaking her head as she thumbs through the pages. She makes eye contact with you, “And I’m not publishing it.”

“Why not?” you stand to your feet. “It’s a good piece! You know I wouldn’t give it to you if I didn’t think it was worth publishing.”

“It’s not that,” Laura sighs and steps toward your desk. She lays the paperwork on top of your keyboard, “The gossip column is writing about his spiraling social life and the fashion page is discussing how the leopard print shirt and painted nails absolutely do not work in his favor.”

“So?” you tilt your head in confusion. You cross your arms over your chest and lean your hip into your desk, “I don’t see the problem.”

“I don’t want Explicit to have conflicting views, darling,” she explains as if you’re a simpleton. “If you’re talking about how charitable and giving Luke Hemmings is being, it’s going to seem contradictory to what Kyle and Sabrina are saying.”

“So, Hemmings can’t be an eccentrically dressed philanthropist?” You laugh, covering your mouth after the sound escapes. “You guys didn’t drag Jeff Goldblum through the mud, and I swear I saw Sabrina praising Harry Styles for painting his fingernails that one time.”

Laura sighs and drums her fingers against her forearm, looking anywhere but at you. You groan, rubbing your hands over your eyes, “I just don’t understand the personal vendetta this magazine has for Luke Hemmings.”

“Oh honey, it has nothing to do with a ‘vendetta’,” she smiles and pushes her hair out of her face. “Luke Hemmings is creating his own scandals, I don’t even have to fabricate anything - and it’s making us money. Subscription numbers spike every time we plaster him drunk on the cover, and single sales are through the roof any time he’s with another girl.”

“This is why I couldn’t stand that week you made me write the gossip column in an attempt to ‘culture me’.”” You run your fingers through your hair. There’s a sour feeling in your stomach and you know its origin. You look across at Laura, “It’s a good piece, Laura. He’s doing a good thing for the community.”

“Talk about it another week, after this recent redhead fling dies down, okay?” She winks at you before turning and walking out of your office, clearly leaving you no choice in the matter.

“Okay,” you sigh, sitting back down in your chair and kicking up your feet. You look down at the words on your paper, “Last minute topic about Dave Ramsey, here we go.”

March

The panel goes much smoother than you ever imagined. Arielle is taking perfect notes and you are ready for the questioning part to come up so you can ask about the recent foundation set up for the minority students in struggling neighborhoods.

“All right,” Ben Hemmings smiles, taking his seat with his brothers, “we’ll take your questions now.”

Every hand in the room shoots straight up and you bide your time, knowing that you’ll catch them in the middle of something and ask your own questions in due time.

“Ashley?” Ben nods, leaning against the arm of his chair.

The mocha-skinned reporter from your rival Pretty People Magazine stands to her feet and rattles a question off from her notepad. You notice the way the youngest of the brothers curls his lip at the inquiry, shifting in his seat.

Another few questions are asked and you recognize Kyle’s name called. You roll your eyes and look down the aisle as he rattles off his question: “So, Luke, is it true that you’ve spent half of your interest and distribution in the company on your new house in Beverly Hills?”

You can’t help it as it slips out: “If you knew anything you’d know where most of that interest went.”

Luke seems to pick up on your comment, his light brow quirking as he stares at you. You can’t tell if his focus is cold or just calculating. He sits forward, lacing his hands together as he leans toward the microphone in front of him.

“What does that mean?”

He’s fighting a smirk and you can tell. You take a deep breath and your skin crawls as you realize everyone is watching you closely.

“I’m referencing the A Child Succeeds When We Meet Their Needs foundation you recently, well, founded,” you chuckle, tapping your pen against the notepad in your hands. You try your hardest not to kick over the thermos filled to the brim with caramel coffee. You bite your lip, “That was actually what I was going to ask you about.”

Luke raises a brow and leans back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other and looking relatively amused. He chuckles, “Ask away.”

April

“You’re all the same!” he blurts, pushing a camera out of his way. His middle finger raises and you sigh at the sight; you can practically smell the liquor on his breath from feet away.

The humanity in you wants to leave him alone, but the reporter in you wants to ask him a million questions. You let the reporter win out, and you step forward.

“Luke?” you call out to him, hoping he hears your voice over the other rambunctious journalists and paparazzi. “Hey, uh, can I talk to you?”

He rolls his eyes and pushes past you, the lights blinding his eyes as he makes his way out of the club.

“Hey!” you shout at him, trying to keep your strides in line with his own. “I was trying to talk to you.”

“Yeah,” he turns on his heel and you get a glimpse of his irises behind the sunglasses. His blue eyes are rimmed in red and the whites are bloodshot. “Everyone is talking at me,” he pushes his fingertip into your collarbone, “but I ain’t talkin’ back to ‘em.”

With that, he turns and leaves.

The next day, there’s a photo with him in your face, hand near your throat, the caption titling: Luke Hemmings, Millionaire Menace?

You sigh, reading the headline of your own magazine.

In the lower corner, a bright yellow star is filled with white text: “Get the exclusive from our very own reporter!”

There’s not enough caffeine and creamer to fix this.

You’re not sure what brought you to the Hemmings Co. building so late that night.

“Thank you,” you turn and hand some cash to the taxi driver. “Keep the change.”

He thanks you and drives away, the yellow car blending into the streets easily. You sigh and force yourself up the steps, holding onto the railing to steady yourself. If you weren’t a seasoned journalist, you wouldn’t have noticed the various paparazzi stationed in random locations on the lawn and in their vehicles.

“Hello,” a front desk agent greets you. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” you nod, trying to formulate some sort of lie in your head to tell this woman. You cough, covering your mouth with your hand, as you clutch your cold coffee in the other, “I, uh, I have a meeting with Luke.”

The way her brow cocks upward would make you laugh if you weren’t so disheveled. You take a deep breath and she turns her attention to her computer, clicking and tapping away.

“Well, I don’t see an appointment on his calendar,” she forces her lips into a smile. Her eyes lock with yours and you swear she can see right through you, “I can get in touch with Mr. Hemmings if you would like and reschedule?”

“No, no,” you shake your head, leaning up on the countertop. “See, I wanted to apologize for what the Explicit said in our last article and he told me to come here. I just figured he’d put it on his calendar.”

The secretary stares at you blankly and after a moment she speaks up again, “Okay. Let me just get in touch with Mr. Hemmings and let him know you’re here.”

You nod to her but your heart is racing because you know as soon as she calls Luke, he’ll tell her the truth and you’ll be pushed away. The lie you told her was a partial truth – you did come here to apologize.

Your eyes skim the room as she picks up her phone and dials an extension, waiting on the rings to go through. You manage to find the legend to the levels of the building, noting that the CEO office is on level twelve.

As the secretary’s back is turned to you, you pluck yourself away from the counter and rush to an elevator. You watch her eyes connect with yours as the elevator doors shut and the number twelve flashes at the top of your lift.

The ride up to his floor is excruciatingly slow. Your palms are sweating and you pray that your blazer hides your armpits long enough for you to get in and get out.

The elevator opens and you come face-to-face with Luke Hemmings.

“Oh, God,” he groans, stepping back and running a hand through his hair. “What the fu-Why are you here?!”

You bite your lip, trying your best not to cower away from him. You sigh, taking a step forward, “Look, I just want to apologize for the other day, all right?”

“A-Apo-apologize?” he wheezes, covering his mouth. “After that exposé your stupid magazine did on me, I’ll be lucky if my brothers ever want me to have a seat at the table again.”

“That’s what I’m here about!” you edge into the conversation, stepping out of the elevator before it closes you back inside. You grunt, tugging on your hair, “I didn’t give them any of those quotes, and they ran it without checking with me first.”

Luke rolls his eyes, “I don’t know how you work for them.”

He tuts, adding before you can butt in, “And I don’t know how you are always drinking coffee. Stuff is s’bitter.”

“I-I, uh,” you’re taken aback by his comment about your caffeine addiction. You recover, “I’ve been there for a long time,” you shrug, crossing your arms. “Laura means well.”

“Means well?” he spits, throwing his head back in laughter. You feel a pang on your heart but you try to push it to the side. He snorts, “People who mean well don’t talk about the ‘floozies’ that I bring home from the bar.”

“I-I,” you swallow and he chuckles again. Luke nods at you, crossing his arms over his chest, “Exactly. No words for me, huh? That’s a first for you, isn’t it darling?”

“Look,” you find your confidence, taking a step forward so you’re close to him now. “I came here to apologize, not be verbally assaulted. I’m-”

“That’s ironic coming from you, princess,” Luke raises a brow, tilting his body downward so he’s standing over you. “I walk out those doors and I’m verbally assaulted. Doesn’t feel so great, does it?”

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, frustration building up like smoke in your lungs. “That’s all I came here to say.”

Silence stretches between the two of you, both staring one another down with your arms crossed over your bodies.

“Then you can leave,” he breaks the quiet, his jaw muscle quivering with tension.

You grit your teeth together, “You’re not going to accept my apology?”

“Apology pending,” his nostrils flare.

Luke leans forward and for some reason you’re wondering if he’s going to kiss you. His hand brushes by your elbow and just as you swear he’s going to grip you and push you against the elevator, kissing the apologies straight out of your lungs, he presses the button to call for the elevator.

You find your eyes unable to focus on any one part of his body and the cologne in the air is making you dizzy.

He snaps his fingers and your cheeks turn cherry red, “Like what you see, darling?”

“Pig,” you scoff, rolling your eyes.

“Hey, you’re the one checking me out,” he throws his hands in the air in defense. “I was just the one noticing things. Kind of like a journalist. Except,” he tilts his head downward for dramatic effect, “I only tell the truth.”

You feel the heat of tears pressing against the backs of your eyelids, and so you turn around and avoid making eye contact at all costs. The elevator makes a sound as the doors slide open and you force yourself to walk away without making an even bigger fool of yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat one final time, hoping that your words make it through his thick skull.

There’s something in his crystalline eyes that you can’t quite make out as anything other than puzzlement.

You don’t have time to ask him as the elevator doors close between your bodies, separating you once again.

May

The first thing you wanted to do was to get even, to act on your feelings.

You wanted to write your very own expose about how Luke Hemmings is exactly who everyone thinks he is.

And then you find out he donated half a million dollars to cancer research, and your heart softens.

You stick steady on your course, reporting about the Hemmings Co. charitable foundations and donations. You talk about the stock prices and the business meetings. You discuss other things too, of course, such as Apple and Samsung. You make sure to keep the rumors that you’re practically drooling over Luke Hemmings at bay.

You would never drool over Luke.

You’re not sure where your obvious overall care for the man comes from. Surely it’s because he’s a good person and he gives people houses and money and jobs. There’s no chance that it’s because he has nice hair and pretty eyes and full lips.

Never.

The summer passes and you go to concerts with your friends and you attend lectures with your coworkers. You throw a barbecue at your house and your family and friends all come. You go watch baseball games with Arielle and eat your weight in soft pretzels.

You’re still standing up for Luke in your own way, whether it’s battling Kyle at the coffee station or slipping in a snide comment as Laura turns out of your office. You make sure that enough gets published that ensures his entire public relationship isn’t tarnished.

Things are finally getting normal again when you’re sent on a mission to a familiar address.

October

When Luke answers the door to his office after closing time, he surely doesn’t expect to see you there.

“Hi,” you choke out the word, anxiety eating you alive as you step forward into his office.

He grits his teeth, “And tell me why I shouldn’t just kick you out?”

“Because you’re a nice person?” you muse, smiling as you run your fingertip over his mahogany countertop.

And for some reason Luke comes to the realization that you do genuinely believe he’s a nice person.

Luke’s fingertips leave the door handle and he muses over the fact that you’re here, months after the first incident where you crawled your way up to his floor.

You’re bundled up in a sweater and a scarf, the beanie atop your head ruffling your hair in a way that he actually thinks is cute. You look so warm and soft and he tears his mind away from examining your outfit to glare into your eyes.

“Why are you here?” he questions, chewing on his lower lip as he walks around to sit at his desk.

You take a deep breath, “Uh, well, Laura wants me to do a segment on you and your brothers, how it is working with family and all that.”

“You couldn’t have spoken with the Robertson twins?” he snorts, picking up some sort of trinket and passing it back and forth between his hands. “They’re women, wouldn’t it be more interesting to write about them?”

“Yes,” you answer honestly. “But Laura, you know, is just so smitten with you three.”

“Pretty sure she tried to seduce Jack at our last Christmas party,” Luke muses, chewing on the inside skin of his lip.

You can’t help but snort at the mention of Laura and the word seduce in the same sentence.

“Look,” you put your hands up, “I know you’re not my biggest fan. I’m sorry for all of that, but I’m strictly here on business. No apologies, no nonsense, no trying to trap you in an elevator.”

“I don’t know what it is about you that just sets me on edge,” he murmurs, running a hand through his hair as he stands back to his feet. Luke paces between his desk and the doorway, his fingertips aching to twist the door handle and throw you out.

You notice how uncomfortable he is, and no matter how badly you want to get this story for Laura, you find yourself standing to your feet.

“Tell your assistant I’m sorry for messing with her again,” you pull on the inside of your cheek with your teeth. You take a step toward the door, clutching your thermos to your chest like a lifeline.

Luke smiles sadly down at you, “Thank you for understanding. I-I just don’t-“

He grunts, looking down at his hand.

“Wh-What?” you ask.

Luke groans, leaning his back against the door as he slides down to sit on the floor, “Not again.”

“’Not again’, what?” you question him, anxiety blooming in your chest. You reach forward and snatch the door handle only to be met with resistance by the handle itself. “Luke Hemmings, you better not be-”

“Trust me, princess,” he chuckles, “I don’t want to be stuck alone in a room with you.”

“Then what is this?”

Luke sighs, “The cleaning ladies will come by on Fridays and sometimes they’ll lock me in.”

You rub your free hand over your face, your other still holding onto your coffee thermos tightly. You grunt, “Well, this is just great. Here I was, trying to leave so I didn’t make you uncomfortable, and the universe is laughing at me.”

“The universe keeps pushing us together,” he laughs, kicking his feet against the rug. He looks up at you, a childlike quality in his blue eyes, “So, I guess since we’re here you should ask me your questions.”

You bite on your lip because the idea sounds so tempting, but something else also sounds kind of tempting.

“You keep whiskey in that locker back there?” you ask him, tiptoeing around to the back of his desk.

“Is that your first question?” he jokes, standing to his full height.

You shake your head, leaning your hip against his desk. “No, but I don’t want to be a journalist right now.”

“Oh really?” Luke chuffs, picking up his keys off of his desk and plucking a small silver one from the mix. “You’re seriously not going to take advantage of having me literally locked in a room with you to ask me questions?”

You shake your head, pursing your lips. He laughs again, shoving the key into the safe and pulling out an expensive-looking bottle of whiskey.

“I call them truth shots,” you explain, sitting cross-legged on his rug, the fancy chairs pushed out of the way.

Luke leans his lanky body against the front edge of the desk, his legs sprawled out in front of him. You have two shot glasses stationed in front of your bodies, both full with whiskey.

“Truth shots?” he raises a brow, running his fingertip over the rim of the glass. “Explain.”

“One person asks the other a question,” you nod, careful to watch for his expressions. “And if the person doesn’t want to answer, they take a shot instead.”

“You try’na get me drunk, darling?” he asks you, picking up the glass. “Because I know how to hold my liquor.”

You roll your eyes and pick up your glass too, “Oh, Hemmings, you have met your match.”

“I’ll ask the first question,” Luke nods, sitting up a little straighter. “Why did you become a journalist?”

“Easy,” you huff through your nose, rubbing your thumb around the shot glass. “I was lied to my whole life. My dad was cheating on my mom, my aunt was hiding the fact that she was an alcoholic, my little sister was depressed and never told me…You name it, I went through it. I was tired of being lied to, I just wanted to find the truth.”

“Wow,” he breathes the word.

You shrug, looking down into the amber liquid in your glass, “My turn. Who do you consider to be your hero?”

“My mom,” he doesn’t hesitate.

“When she was growing up, my mom didn’t have a lot. She met my dad and got lucky she married a billionaire, but she never lets me and my brothers forget her roots.” Luke smiles reminiscently, his gaze in a far-off place. “She drove us through the neighborhood where she grew up and it was rough. There were bullet holes in people’s doors and bars over people’s windows.”

Luke sighs, looking up at you. There’s a vulnerability in his gaze that you didn’t think you would see bared so soon.

You volley questions back and forth. Easy ones, of course, like favorite color and favorite singer. You take a shot once because you don’t want to tell him you had a Justin Bieber phase, and he takes a shot because he doesn’t want to admit that he wants to get his nose pierced.

Eventually, the both of you are buzzed just enough that you don’t realize how close to one another you’re sitting, your alcohol-ridden breath mingling as you laugh alongside one another.

“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” he asks, turning to look at you.

Without hesitation, you tip the glass back to your lips, guzzling the shot before you have time to think.

“No, no, seriously,” he laughs, nudging you with his shoulder. Luke’s speech is slurred as he smiles at you, “You’re telling me you haven’t had a boyfriend before?”

“I have,” You manage. You grab the bottle of whiskey and pour yourself another shot. “I was with him in college. Then I wasn’t.”

You plunge the whiskey down your throat, wishing it would hit your veins first and make you forget about this conversation.

Luke reaches over and grasps you by the wrist, his fingers warm to the touch as he grips your skin. He looks at you and it’s like a little heartbreak is captured in his blue irises,” Was he a douche? Oh my God, did he touch you?”

You laugh, shaking your head, “No, no, but he touched someone else.”

It slipped too quickly past your loose lips, the alcohol dimming your sense of privacy.

“I’m sorry,” Luke goes quiet.

You can’t help it when you look up at him, holding his gaze with your own. He’s so captivating with his freckles and tanned skin. You want to reach up and push a blonde curl out of his eyes so you can look at him completely.

“Just another lie,” you shrug, “by then I was used to them. But I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

“Men are pigs,” he swallows, picking up his own glass and tipping the shot backward.

“My turn,” you pick at your jeans. You force yourself to keep your eyes off of him because he has this electricity that is pulling you in and it’s frightening. “If you could pick a different career, what would you choose?”

“I’d be in a band,” he answers immediately, slamming his palm down on the rug. “I’d want to travel the world and sing and not have the responsibilities like I do now.”

You cock your eyebrow and stand to your feet, digging in your pocket for your phone. Thankfully you’d charged it while you were at work, so it’s almost at full battery. You pull up your music app and start up a playlist.

“What are you doing?” he laughs at an octave higher than his normal voice. It’s almost a giggle, really.

You smirk, “We’re gonna sing!”

“You’re crazy,” Luke mutters as he shakes his head. “You’re absolutely nuts.”

“C’mon,” you prod him, “have a little fun! There’s no one watching us.”

“That’s what you think,” he murmurs as he studies the whiskey left in his shot glass. Luke rolls his eyes, tipping the cup back, “Ah, what the hell.”

You giggle and grab him by the hand, yanking him up to dance with you to some crazy song that comes on the station.

You two dance and sing along to pop hits and oldies songs. You find out that he’s a fan of Blink-182 and Forever the Sickest Kids. He finds out that you know every word to Stacey’s Mom and Living On A Prayer.

After an ad plays, a slow song comes on and there’s a settling of awkward tension that lays over the top of you like a suffocating blanket.

You stutter, but he’s swift to grab you up in a gentle hold, pulling you close as the music continues. Luke pulls on your arms so you are wrapped around his neck, your thumbs brushing against the curls at the nape of his neck. His hands settle on your waist and in order to keep from looking at him too many times, you duck your head under his chin to rest on his pectoral.

It’s all so serene as Luke hums the words to the song, his cheek against your temple as you feel the vibrato of his voice in his chest. The night sky is settling outside, pitch black save for the stars glistening in the distance. You wonder if maybe this was fate, that this was supposed to happen. Maybe you were always going to get drunk and slow dance with Luke Hemmings in his corporate office.

Fate is a fickle thing, you know.

“You’re not what I expected,” he blurts, his thumbs brushing gently over your hip bones.

You can’t look at him because you know you’ll break down into tears or kiss him, so instead you respond with your head still tucked against his chest. “What do you mean?”

“I just mean that I wanted to hate you so badly from day one just because you were a nosy reporter,” he explains quietly, careful not to break the moment. Luke sighs and you feel it rustle your hair at the crown of your head, “Yet here you are, being this endearing, caring little annoyance and I can’t help it when I think that you’re smart and kind and generous. I’ve read your articles, I know you’re not as terrible as the people you work for and with.”

Luke holds you tighter and you can hear the song coming to an end but it doesn’t matter because he’s still talking. “I expected you to be some nosy person who wanted to get into my pants and my personal life, but you’re not like that at all. You’re genuine, I dunno.”

The song ends and something must be wrong with you because you lean back to look him in the eyes, your hands withdrawing and pressing against his neck. You smile and look all over his face, taking in his freckles and the red on his cheeks and the blue of his eyes.

“You’re not what I expected either,” you bite your lip, pushing his hair out of his face. “Here I thought you were some billionaire playboy but really you’re just a kindhearted philanthropist whose been taken advantage of one too many times.”

“God, you’re not making this easy on me,” he mutters, his eyes fluttering all over your face. “I’m drunk and you’re drunk and I really wan’to kiss your pretty mouth.”

“Are you going soft on me, Hemmings?” you ask him as he pulls you tighter against his body, your chests aligned with one another as you watch him fight the instincts in his body.

He noses your cheek, breathing out gently over your skin and sending a shuddering of goosebumps over your flesh. He makes it to the juncture where your jaw meets your neck just under your ear and you hear his gravelly voice whisper, “It’s Luke, honey. You can call me Lu.”

The first kiss he graces you with isn’t on your mouth, but on your neck instead. It’s open-mouthed and hot and you can’t help it when your legs shake

Your grip on his hair tightens and you swear he lets out a sound of his own at the sensation. His name comes tumbling from your lips because you just can’t help it as his mouth travels back up your jaw to your chin. He presses a sweet, gentle kiss there before hesitating over your mouth.

If it didn’t feel like the moment was so delicate, you would shatter it and kiss him square on the lips right then. Instead, you let him guide you with his hands around your waist and his scent in your nose. You feel his soul touching yours and it’s like the stardust outside has reached in and grabbed the two of you.

“I dunno know what it is about you,” he whispers, his mouth ghosting over your own, “but I wanna kiss you until I can’t breathe.”

You smirk and go to say something smart, but it’s lost in your chest as he claims your lips with his. It’s a forceful but gentle kiss, his assertion obvious but also his kindness apparent. Your hands roam from his hair to his chest to his shoulders, trying your hardest to take all of him in.

Luke’s hands slip under your sweater and the heat from his fingers is unbearable to the point you swear he’s searing himself into you. Your teeth are clashing and your lips are bruising as he kisses you fiercely. You’re thankful you kicked off your shoes hours ago, or else you’d be throwing them across the room right now as he leads you back to the couch.

He leans you back and breaks the kiss long enough to look in your eyes and see the fear that is settled far back but still there.

Luke shakes his head, “No, no, darlin’. ‘m not gonna do that to you. I jus’ wanna kiss you.”

“Okay,” you nod, gripping his cheeks again to bring him down on top of you.

And just like that, you’re pinned beneath Luke Hemmings with your bodies entangled as the stars set the perfect scene above you.

He pulls away from you after moments, his chest heaving, “I got extra clothes if you wanna change.”

Minutes later and you’re changed into a pair of Luke’s sweats and an old Stanford long sleeve. It dwarfs you, thanks to his size, but you find comfort in the oasis of his fabric. You wrap your hands up in the sleeves and notice he changed into something else too.

“Couch pulls out into a bed, if you want to sleep,” he nods. “I got snacks, we can eat something, but it’s like past midnight.”

All of a sudden you’re yawning, covering it up with your palms. You laugh at yourself, embarrassed and trying to hide the obvious blush on your cheeks.

“S’cute,” you hear him mumble as he pulls on a stray lock of your hair endearingly. “Can’t believe I wanted to hate your guts.”

“Can’t believe you thought you could,” you joke with him, tugging him back down with your hand in his hair to kiss him on the mouth one more time. It lasts longer than you thought, and you can feel his hands wrap around your thighs.

You squeak as he picks you up, wrapping you around his torso. He’s smiling against your mouth as he walks you back to the couch-turned-bed, trying his hardest to place you down gently.

You both get situated and it’s fascinating how he wants to rest his head on your chest and have your hands in his hair. You love the way his arm wraps around your waist and his lips part for lyrics and melodies.

And then you wake up.

At first you’re confused, the events of last night unable to be recalled at such an early time in the morning with such a terrible headache.

You want to grunt and stand to your feet, but you can’t.

You’re currently trapped in a pair of arms too lanky to untangle on your own. Your cheek is pressed into his chest, his leg traipsed over you and his chin digging into the top of your head.

“Shh,” he groans, burying his nose into your neck as he resituates himself. “Not yet.”

“Lu,” you sigh, hating the smell of your morning breath already. “It’s morning.”

“Yeah, I know sweet’art,” he grumbles, his voice gravelly with sleep. If you weren’t so worried about what was going to happen next, you’d revel in the delicious sound and ask him to sing you back to sleep. He huffs, “Don’t wanna get up yet. Hungover.”

“So am I, you lump,” you push on him, your emotions and insecurities getting the better of you.

You manage to untangle yourself from him and stand to your feet, the shirt and sweats even bigger on you now that the fabric has stretched while you were rolling around in your sleep.

When Luke sits up, rubbing on his eyes, you swear your heart skips a beat and you forget how to breathe.

In the morning, with his hair ruffled from sleep and his cheeks puffy from where he was squished under you, he looks so childlike and innocent. It’s hard to believe that this man was walking home a redhead just the other night from a bar.

“I’ll walk you out,” he mumbles, pulling his hair back into a bun as he grabs his jacket and your neatly folded clothes off the top of his counter.

You shake your head, “A-Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Luke laughs, “There’s a back way, I’ll make sure no one sees you.”

Promises are nice, you think, but the truth isn’t.

The front page of Explicit Critique Weekly the next day is the two of you standing too close together and laughing like no one is watching.

“Laura!” you snap, slamming her door shut.

“Excuse me,” she stands to her feet, hands on her desk.

Your knuckles are pale as you clutch onto the paper with your face plastered across the front. Tears threaten to collect in your eyes but you refuse, your anger overwhelming your betrayal.

“I can’t believe you tossed out my heartfelt piece about Luke’s new foundation to do this,” you seethe, slamming the magazine down on her desk.

She tuts, “I’m well aware of what the headlines read, darling.”

“You’ve gone way too far this time, Laura,” you tell her, shaking your head. You know your cheeks are dark with humiliation, the heat is settling into your stomach. You grind your teeth together and you feel the muscles in your jaw twitch with the tension. “He was being kind to me and walking me out to my car after I practically snuck into his office.”

“Well, if only I had known it was a clandestine affair,” Laura smirks, tapping a bright red nail against her chin. “That would’ve been even more juicy of a read.”

“I can’t believe you!” you shout, throwing your hands up in the air.

She rolls her eyes, turning her expression much more serious, “I can’t believe you,” she sneers. “No wonder you try to glorify that bastard. You’re always defending him and talking about all the good he’s done. It’s because you’re his slut on the side.”

“No, Laura, it’s because no one else will!” you argue, feeling your eyes bulge in their sockets.

“Because it doesn’t make money,” Laura scoffs. She takes a deep breath and exhales, “The only way this magazine makes money is through scandal and gossip. Even the fashion column talks about how one person looks better than another.”

She steps around from behind her desk and tucks a piece of stray hair behind your ear, “The quicker you realize doting on billionaire playboys won’t make money, or help you with your pathetic love life, please come talk to me again.”

A tear slips over the top of your lash line, dripping down your cheek. Laura goes so far as to catch it with her thumb, a sinister smile on her face as she pulls her hand away from you.

Something in her words catches you, though, and you can’t help wondering if maybe it was just the whiskey that made Luke kiss you and hold you. Maybe he never really meant it, and it was only out of happenstance that he managed to put up with you for an extended period of time.

“Do you know what I could do to you, dear?” she asks you, tilting her head as if she’s some kind of therapist trying to get you to answer your own questions.

You feel your chest constrict as she leans closer to you, “I could run you through in one article, darling. I could take away your credibility, all your years of schooling and hard work. No one at any other paper or magazine would take you. You couldn’t even anonymously write the funny pages.”

She looks down at you with disgust, as if you are the ant under her boot, “I suggest you let this Luke Hemmings is a hero thing go to rest. Before you lose everything.”

The thought of having to move back home because you’re broke and unemployed scares you more than the thought of usurping Laura and posting something anyways.

So, instead of standing up and slapping her like you so desperately want to, you nod and your lip quivers when you answer, “Okay.”

“Okay!” she claps like a child who has gotten her way. Laura giggles, “Now, sweetheart, go write me a masterpiece.”

And so you turn, walking out of her office with disdain in your heart and the twinkle gone from your eye.

April

The next six months are torture.

You’re stuck writing about Apple and Google and Nike and Dick’s Sporting Goods. You’re told what to write and when to write it, and you swear it isn’t even that good. You still receive your salary, so at least your home life doesn’t change, but you’re no longer offering to get Arielle coffee and donuts. You don’t even say anything to Kyle as he traipses through the office slamming Luke Hemmings’ name.

Luke doesn’t try to contact you either. You know he has your phone number, and he knows where you work. If he really wanted to talk, he would have by now. You’ve come to the terrifying conclusion that what the two of you shared was a brief moment out of desperation. Nothing more, nothing less.

The realization that you shared bits and pieces of your personal life with that man makes you hate him even more. How could he let you bare your soul like that and then let you sit and rot while you wait for him to make the next move?

“Are you okay?” Arielle asks you one day, pushing a cup of coffee toward your desk.

You nod, looking up from your piece. You force a smile, “Yes, I’m fine. How’s your article coming?”

“Stock prices,” she grimaces, “so exciting.”

You purse your lips and turn back to your computer screen. Arielle looks at you for a moment, trying her hardest to understand what’s going on, but mimics your actions and returns to her work.

It’s Friday and normally you would be worried all weekend over what you were going to write next, but you just honestly don’t care.

Instead of calling for a cab, you walk home and find yourself distracted by the neon lights of a bar up the streets. Alcohol usually isn’t your coping mechanism, but tonight it may as well be.

You step into the doors and watch as guys gather around a pool table and girls sit at the bar, joking with the bartender. You sigh and find your way to the tabletop bar, knocking your fist against it to get the bartender’s attention.

He’s tall, rather handsome with his tanned skin and dark hair. He’s got tattoos running up and down his arms and a few on his hands. He smirks at you, “Looks like it’s been a long week. What can I get you?”

“Whatever you feel like making,” you respond, twisting yourself in the bar stool.

He nods and turns around to the bar and pours you a shot of something. You reach around and hold the shot glass between your fingers, tipping it back against your lips and downing it without hesitation.

“Open a tab,” you put your credit card down on the counter and push it with your empty glass towards him. You gulp, tasting the alcohol at the back of your throat, “And I’ll take another one of those.”

He nods, smiling down at you sadly. He pours you another shot and slides your credit card under the table, “I guess if you’re going to be here for a while I may as well introduce myself.” He puts his hand out to shake yours, but you’re too busy downing the drink.

You slam the glass back down on the table and smile lazily across the bar at him. You shake his hand and he’s warm and inviting in a way a bartender shouldn’t be, “My name is Calum.”

You respond with your name and he takes the empty shot glass back from you to pour you another. You rest your head against your arms as he attends to the other people at the bar.

The alcohol rushes to your head, making you slightly dizzy. Even so, you’d rather feel dizzy than whatever the mixture of regret and betrayal are swirling around in your belly. The alcohol mixes with your blood and you look up at the television to try and take your mind off of the disdain you feel.

“Hey!” you hear Calum shout. You don’t look away from the music video playing on the television to pay attention to whoever he’s talking to.

The seat next to you squeaks and you see Calum coming your way so you tap the bar again. He chuckles and goes to pull the bottle of alcohol out from behind the counter when the person next to you offers to buy your shot.

“Thanks, man,” you shake your head, running a hand through your hair. You’re so thankful it was casual Friday at work because you look a lot less stuffy than normal in your jeans and flowy shirt. “Best part of my week.”

“Sounds like it,” he responds and something about his dialect sounds familiar so you look up just as Calum puts two drinks in front of you.

“U-uh, I,” you stutter, putting your hands over your eyes.

Luke chuckles, picking up his drink and downing some of it. He purses his lips and sucks in a breath through his teeth, “Hadn’t heard from you in a while. Fancy you’re in here. I thought you only drank coffee.”

“Y-yeah,” you bite down on your lip and you wonder if he’s feeling the same anxious bubbles in his stomach that you are.

Something spirits in you and you sit up straight, “Wait, wait, wait – hadn’t heard from me in a while?!”

Luke’s laugh echoes in the bar and you find yourself embarrassed, but push through it anyway because you can’t let him win.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” he tips his drink back and casually takes a sip.

You grit your teeth and look him directly in the eyes, “Uh, you had just as many chances as I did to reach out to me, and you didn’t take it.”

“Touché,” he raises a brow, “because you could’ve reached out to me too, princess, but you didn’t.”

Your mouth goes dry because you want to fire back something sassy, but you’re unable to because he’s right.

“Yeah,” he smirks, finishing off his drink and passing it across the bar as a silent request to Calum to fill up his cup. “But it’s okay, I get it.”

“Get what?” you ask in return.

Luke licks his lips and it takes him a moment to respond, but he turns in his seat to face you, lounging back with his legs spread, “It was just another interview for you, I get it. You got your bit, your piece, and then you were done.”

“Hey,” your voice is obviously displaying how offended you are. You reach out and grab him by the bicep as he tries to swivel away so he doesn’t have to look at you anymore.

Luke yanks his arm away from you, “No, you’re not going to exploit me and expect me not to get upset.”

“Luke.” You force yourself to keep the emotion from spilling out on your cheeks. Your voice is thick, “That’s not what that was.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he spits, his eyes hard as he looks across the bar at you.

You tilt your head back to hold the tears in your ducts. You lick your lips and take a deep breath before facing him again, “I was afraid, okay? I was scared that you were just acting all vulnerable because you were drunk.”

You sigh and run your hands over your face, desperately wishing you were somewhere else where you didn’t have to confront your feelings, “I know I’m just a reporter to you, I didn’t want to kid myself.”

Moments pass and you know he’s looking at you because you can see him in your peripherals, but you can’t find it within you to keep on speaking. Why should you make a fool out of yourself while he looks on and judges you?

“A nosy reporter, you mean.”

His tone is serious but you can hear the smirk in his voice. You want to reach across the bar and slap him, but something about his annoying sense of humor is endearing and instead you catch yourself smiling.

Luke’s hand reaches across the space between you and he presses his palm to your knee. The warmth from his touch is intoxicating and you’re brought back to all those months ago when you were pressed against his body with your mouth on his.

“Just because I was drunk doesn’t mean I wasn’t honest,” Luke smiles sheepishly at you. He leans back in his seat, retracting his hand from you, “All right, so what’s up?”

It takes you a moment, but then you’re comfortable and you pick your drink back up, sipping on the liquor.

“Yeah, I’m at an all time low you could say,” you swallow, touching the rim of your glass. The heat on your cheeks is embarrassing, and you can feel a thickness settling in the back of your throat as you think about the last few months. “When one trades vanilla creamer out for vodka, I guess it’s noticeable.”

“I’m listening,” he leans back in his seat, tipping back the drink against his lips.

“Cal has been keeping me stocked,” you laugh nervously, trying your hardest to ignore the warm way his gaze feels on your skin. “So it may not be the most cognitive rant you’ve ever heard.”

Luke smiles at you and it is soft, his golden curls and bright blue eyes inviting. “Drunk words, sober thoughts.”

“Truth,” you hiccup, picking up your shot glass. In order to talk to him, you’re going to have to have a little bigger of a buzz than you already feel in your veins.

He looks at you as you throw the shot back and swallow it in one gulp. His eyes are alight with amusement and he can’t help it when he laughs under his breath at you.

And then, you’re spilling your guts.

You tell him about how you’ve clawed your way up serving coffee to your superiors and writing paragraphs when you were allowed to. You tell him how you put in endless hours of overtime and begged Laura to give you a column in the paper. You tell him how you put yourself through school and classes and it still feels like it hasn’t paid off.

You toss another two shots back before you finally tell him about Laura.

“I’ve been trying so hard to write these pieces about the Hemmings Foundation and the donations you have made,” you wave your hands around in front of your body. You shake your head, swallowing so you don’t start crying as all the emotions pile up in your soul. “And instead of taking what I’ve written and rolling with it, she twists it or tosses it because it isn’t scandalous enough.”

Calum brings you a glass of water and you sip on it, thankful that Luke made you eat an appetizer about a half hour ago. The alcohol swirls in your stomach, mixing with your emotions and making you sick.

“And then she turns my apology to you into some stupid story about how we were secretly having sex behind the bushes,” you tip the water glass back. You wonder if you could drown yourself in it.

Your finger runs over the rim of your cup, “I confronted her about it, you know,” you chuckle drily. “I shouted at her and reamed her up and down about how terrible she’s treated you, exploiting your personal life for dimes.”

You look up at him, finally brave enough to look him in the eyes. You purse your lips, “She told me she’d fire me if I kept writing. She told me she’d ruin my reputation and make it so no one would hire me.”

Luke’s forehead is creased, his tanned skin wrinkled between his brows. His blue eyes are crystal clear, hand stationary on the glass on the countertop. He’s focused on you intently, his eyes never leaving your face as you speak.

There’s a long silence and you feel as if you’ve overstayed your welcome, complaining about your life to the point where he doesn’t want to listen anymore.

“I’d hire you,” he blurts, breaking the silence.

“Wh-What?” you stutter, leaning forward to be sure you heard him correctly.

He shrugs, leaning back in his seat. Running his hands through his hair causes the curls to separate and you wonder what it would feel like to touch his hair for a fleeting moment.

“I’d hire you,” Luke repeats, his tone serious. He reaches out and puts his free hand against your fingers resting on the back of your chair. “You obviously care about what you do, and you’re good at it. I’ve read your stuff. Somehow you make general business-related topics seem at least a little more interesting than normal.”

You can’t find words to speak, your throat closing up. Luke chuckles at the obvious surprise in your eyes, “I’m being serious. We’re looking at expanding Hemmings Co. to include a news section, both paper and electronic. We want to converge into social media and whatnot. I think you’d be perfect to head the department.”

“I’m working at the paper that slanders you,” you look up at him in distrust and confusion, “and you want to hire me to be on your team?”

“That’s what I said,” he laughs, tugging on your thumb. “You obviously don’t want to drag my name through the mud.”

“No,” you shake your head, emotions running high, sticking in your throat. You swallow and look up at him, tears in your eyes. “I think you can be a bit of a playboy, but I don’t care about that.”

“You don’t?” he questions.

Luke’s hand is suddenly hot on yours, the pads of his fingertips searing into your skin. His smile hurts your soul, seeing it this close and so genuine.

“N-No,” you manage to stutter out. “It’s your personal life.”

He smirks, pulling his lip into the bite of his teeth as his eyes graze over your body. He settles back on your eyes, holding contact so tense you feel a literal rope between the two of you.

“Most of the time I just end up walking out of a place with a girl at the same time,” he tells you, leaning back and retracting his touch. Suddenly you feel cold.

Luke picks at the knee of his jeans, a light tint of pink on the apples of his cheeks. “Sometimes I get ambushed by someone on the way out of wherever I’m going. I usually don’t even know who they are.”

Something in your heart pulls and you find yourself biting your lip to keep the words you want to say tucked into your chest.

“Pretty sure my brothers hate me,” he chuckles but it’s hollow. “I’m always making a mess for the company. Public scandals that aren’t really anything and fashion disasters.”

You rest your palm on his knee, “Hey, not everyone feels that way about you.”

“Yeah,” his throat bobs as he looks at you. There’s a distant warmth in his eyes, shrouded by a cold exterior. “There’s a small percentage that don’t.”

“I’m going to fix that,” you tell him, sitting up straighter in your seat. “I’ll take that job offer. Let me turn in my notice and then I’m all yours.”

“All mine?” he echoes with a laugh. “I like the sound of that.”

May

As you pack up your things at your desk, you hear Laura’s voice screeching through the office. You’re pretty sure you hear your name somewhere in the mix.

“Yes?” you ask innocently, looking up at her from your seat.

You’ve never seen Laura so heated, but this is probably the first time her magazine has been exploited.

“You know what,” she seethes, her cheeks bright red in anger and embarrassment. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking it’s time to tell the truth, Laura,” you tell her, putting the top on your box. You shut down your computer and stand to your feet, “I’m sick and tired of you getting to dictate other people’s lives for the benefit of your wallet. A benefit you don’t even share with your hardworking employees.”

You put your box on the countertop, looking down at the copy of this week’s magazine laid out on your desk.

The headline reads: Laura Jennings – The Truth Behind The Lies

“How did you do this?” she asks, spitting the words through her teeth.

You lean back against your desk, picking up the copy to thumb through it. You laugh to yourself, the sound wry as it splits your lips, “I, uh, I stayed late last night like I always do. I waited until everything was finalized and then I re-finalized it, with the truth this time.”

You stand to your full height, your nose close to her forehead, “I’m sick and tired of you bullying people to better your bank account. You don’t get to control me anymore, Laura. I finally got to post my truth, and now I’m leaving.”

“Of course you’re leaving!” she shouts, shoving the issue into your arms. “As if anyone will ever hire you ever again, you ignorant child!”

“I actually already have a job,” your smile is smug as you think about the blonde who is going to change your life. You pick up the box of your things and hold it securely in your grasp, “And I wouldn’t be worried about me, Laura. I might start worrying about you.”

Instead of sitting around and continuing to argue with your now ex-boss, you kick your rolling chair under your desk and start toward the elevator. Your heels clack against the tile and its such a satisfying sound as you walk away.

“Who is it?” she asks, her voice carrying across the suite.

You hit the elevator button as she bellows the question again.

As you step into the elevator, you look her dead in the eyes, clutching your beloved thermos, “Hemmings Corporation. Head of the news branch.”

“Head of the-”

The last thing you see as the elevator doors close is the bewildered expression on Laura’s face as she tries to lunge after you, and it gives you such a sense of satisfaction it should be a sin.

As you’re on the way out of the building, you pull your phone out of your pocket and text the one person you thought you’d never even have the privilege to have their number.

i did it!!!

You fidget on the way to your car, the parking lot a walk away from the front doors. You’re surprised when your phone buzzes moments after.

that was quick lol

You’re trying to type out a response when another message buzzes your phone.

it’s still kind of early. you want to grab breakfast?

You can’t help the smile that tugs on your lips as you type out: of course!!! where at?

He texts you the address of a quaint diner in the downtown area and you find yourself there about twenty minutes later. You brush off the front of your skirt, trying to busy your hands as this new reality that is your life settles in like a rock in the pit of your stomach.

You push open the doors and Luke’s frame is tall in the bench seat. The whole diner is a throwback, a stereotypical movie diner finished off with checkered linoleum and cherry red booths. The bar advertises for milkshakes and pie and you feel like you’ve been sent through a time machine.

“Wow,” you manage as you sit down, bouncing a little in the booth. You laugh, “This place is great!”

“I know, right?” he smirks over his cup of coffee. He pushes another cup toward you, creamer and sugar crowded next to the porcelain cup. “Figured you’d already have the jitters, so I got you decaf.”

“I figured you’d take me somewhere that they drink champagne for breakfast,” you jest, trying to brush off the fact that he ordered you something and understands you. “A-And eat those little pastry things that make you look dainty when you eat them,” you joke, settling into the seat.

He shakes his head, his curls bouncing as he does so. He nods towards the man behind the counter, “Yeah, I figured I may as well show this place some love.”

“Why’s that?” you ask as the waiter steps forward, flipping his book over.

“Oh,” Luke grins, “’Cause I own it.”

You’re left feeling a little embarrassed but mostly surprised as Luke orders his breakfast. The waiter nods and addresses him by his first name, so it’s obvious that Luke frequents here.

You order a waffle and a side of fruit. The waiter nods in your direction and thanks Luke before walking back to the kitchen to put your order in with the cook.

Before too long you have him snorting into his cup of coffee, “You what?!”

“Yeah,” you laugh, sitting back in satisfaction.

“No way,” he shakes his head, steadying his cup on the table. “There’s no way you hacked the Explicit. Are you kidding me?”

“No,” you laugh again, falling forward to the tabletop. You can’t help the stitches in your side as you giggle at the expression his face is tugged into.

“Yeah, I’m totally glad you’re working for me now,” he smirks as the waiter brings the food to the table. “Laura wasn’t using you to your full potential anyway. Always figured you could do better.”

“Really?” you ask, interested. You raise your brows, “What makes you think that?”

He stabs his food and starts stuffing it into his mouth very un-CEO-like and you can’t help but smile. Sometimes you forget that he’s a normal person too, what with the way the media paints him. You figured you’d meet him here and he’d be wearing a stuffy suit and tie, but instead he’s surprised you in a flowy shirt and black skinny jeans.

“You’re always so well-articulated and you ask intelligent questions, I dunno,” he backs himself up, shying away from you. He puts his cup to his mouth to try and distract from the sudden fondness in his tone.

“W-Was that a,” you cup your hand around the shell of your ear, “compliment?”

Luke sneers and kicks your shin under the table, “Shuddup.”

Things just start there.

January

Eight months later and you’ve been with Hemmings Co. for long enough to get their social media branch up and running and their news page updated daily with stock information and Luke makes sure there’s a section in the Hemmings Edition magazine for your business column.

You’re running around in a pencil skirt and pumps when you almost bump into someone.

“Jennifer, honey, please make sure to send your article off to Samantha for proofreading before posting this time, okay? And Jake, ple-oof!”

The papers in your hands go flying everywhere and you’re glad you have digital copies of literally everything because there’s no way you’ll ever get that back in order.

“I’m sorry, I’m looking for, uh,” and he spits out your name in a laugh and you can’t help yourself as smack him on the arm.

“Lu,” you grunt, stuffing your papers back against your chest. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously,” he laughs as he helps you retrieve your work, “I figured I’d see how you were doing. Maybe you wanted to get lunch? Grab a cup of coffee? It’s only twelve, I know you haven’t hit your limit for the day.”

And it seems that the two of you are always spending time together now, and people are starting to take notice.

Of course, the Explicit has been trying to spin the two of you ever since your big blow up at the magazine. Their following has died down after your expose on Laura and you can’t lie and say you don’t get at least a little satisfaction from it.

Luke is always surprising you in the office, claiming he wants to make sure everything is going as good as you promised him it would be. He laughs every time he sees you clutching a cup of coffee. He swears that caffeine runs in your veins instead of O-negative.

Every time you show up to work the next morning, no matter what time, the fridge is stocked with every type of creamer you’ve ever admitted to liking. French vanilla, caramel, mocha.

One time when you’re at his house, you’re getting ready for a company party when you notice he takes an interest in one of your many makeup bags.

“You like it?” you ask him, blending out your foundation down your neck.

“What is it?” he asks, cocking his head as he tilts the bottle of liquid eyeshadow up into the light. He inspects it dutifully, “It’s all glittery.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle, powdering your face. You nod at him, “You can swatch it.”

“Swatch?” Luke responds incredulously. He chuckles, “Darlin’, I don’t even know what that means.”

“I can tell.” You reach across and pluck the little bottle from his hands, unscrewing it and swiping the applicator across the inside of his wrists. It’s a pastel purple color with micro-glitters of blue and pink running throughout it.

“You ever use it?” he asks, marveling at the color as he shifts his hand back and forth under the light.

You’re swiping on the rest of your powder products as you answer him, “Not often, no. I don’t go to a lot of events where I would need it.”

“What do you use it for?”

You want to look at him as if to ask if he’s serious, but the tone in his voice tells you that he’s nothing but.

“You put it on your eyes,” you answer him. Luke unscrews the bottle himself this time, swiping a little more onto his fingertip and he rubs it back and forth against his index and thumb. He chuckles, “That’s weird.”

“You wanna try it?” you question, biting your lip as you glance at him in the mirror.

Luke looks up at you with hesitance obvious in his irises, the blue there turning almost gray in color. Instead of letting him continue to revel in the question, you grab the little tube of eyeshadow from his palm and lean down, cradling his neck in your hands.

You can’t get a good angle on his face and so you settle down so you’re sitting forward-facing on his lap, your knees on either side of his hips. You run your thumb over his cheek and rest it against his temple, holding him steady as you run the applicator over his eyelid.

The tension between the two of you isn’t palpable until you pull away from him, your face a mere few inches from his. You swear you see his throat bob as his breathing hitches.

The sudden revelation that you’re straddling your boss hits you like a wave and you pull yourself away from him, standing to your feet.

“There,” you grin, swallowing thickly.

You look down at him, the glitter from the shadow hardly showing up until he steps in the light. He’s blushing, you swear, but you’re not going to say anything as he examines himself in the mirror.

The two of you attend the party together but you end up separated before the night grows dark.

You find him later at the bar with what looks like claw marks on his temples and a bruise across the line of his jaw bone. He’s tipping back what looks to be like whiskey and he flinches when you grab his bicep to get his attention.

“Shi-Warn a guy!” he snaps at you, pulling his arm away from you.

“Lu,” you call out gently to him, pushing his hair back from his temple to get a good look at the marks on his face. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” he mutters, turning his face so you can’t see him directly anymore and he downs the rest of his glass. He taps the bar and the man behind the counter pours him another glass over melting ice cubes.

Luke chuffs, “Go enjoy your party, honey, we’re here because of you.”

“Hey,” you tug on his bar stool so he’s facing you. “We’re not-”

“Yeah we are,” he interrupts you with a cold expression hiding something. He snorts, “This party is literally thrown because of your department, so go have fun.”

“I’m not leaving you,” you tell him, your voice quiet. You try your hardest to look him in the eyes, but he’s not paying you any mind. “Will you please tell me what’s wrong?”

“I could just fire you for being annoying,” Luke retorts. His words alone shake you to the core but it’s the fact that Luke is the one saying them that brings tears to your eyes. He snorts, “Never liked reporters.”

“Journalist,” you mutter, wiping under your eyes.

“Whatever.” Luke rolls his eyes and touches the glass to his lips.

You turn to go back with your coworkers when you see a group of bigger guys standing off in the distance looking between the two of you and laughing. You look down and see one of them with what looks like dirt under his fingernails when you make the connection.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you seethe, looking back and forth between Luke and the men about twenty feet away.

Instead of listening to Luke’s self-loathing projected as sarcastic jabs, you stomp toward the men and poke your index finger right in the middle of the biggest one’s chest.

“Listen here, you archaic bigot,” you plunge your fingernail further into the plane of his pectorals, “I don’t care how many hours a day you spend at the gym or how many people you’re going to take home from this party. It’s 2018 for crying out loud, woman up and quit being a bully.”

“Woman up?” he mocks you, grabbing you by the wrist. “Listen, miss, I’ll be nice since you seem to be with the fairy sitting at the bar, bu-”

The resounding sound of a slap echoes in the room.

“You listen to me,” you grab him by his collar, restraining yourself enough not to gouge his eyes out right here, right now. “That man at the bar has more understanding of what it means to be respectful and caring and honest than you ever will – which are all traits that make up a man if you ask me.”

You release him and shake your head, “So, as far as I can see, he’s more man than you’ll ever be. But, just in case, I can check for you.”

Before he can ask you what you mean, you jerk your ankle skyward and kick him between the legs.

He squeals and topples to the ground, his friends leaning over his shoulder as he curses at you. You smile, crossing your arms over your chest, “Well, that answers that. Have a nice night.”

You pass the bar and grab Luke by the arm, snatching him up out of his seat and bringing him outside to wait for an Uber.

You don’t talk until you get back to Luke’s house.

Your lips part in the promise of speech when you hear the first whimper fall from his mouth.

“Hey,” you call out to him, rushing over to his side. Your hands cradle his head as he sinks down to the floor. You fall with him, steadier and guiding. His cheek presses into your stomach and you feel his tears seep into the fabric of your dress.

“Shh,” you hush him, running your hands through his hair.

Luke’s hands clasp around your body, his frame quivering as he cries into your clothes. You whisper into his ear and hold him tight, waiting for him to stitch himself back together.

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he whispers, voice broken, “I’m not good enough for anybody.”

“Don’t say that,” you press your cheek against the top of his head.

Luke sniffles, rubbing his thumbs over the backs of your calves, “I’m not emotional enough for the paparazzi, I’m too emotional for everyone else, I’m not organized enough for Ben and Jack, and I’m not a good enough leader for the company. I’m either too much, or not enough, I don’t know how to be in between.”

“Hey,” you repeat, softer this time. You gently tug on his chin with your thumb and index finger, forcing him to face you.

Your hands drift to his hair, “You are so kind and so strong, Lu. You help families in need and put on a brave face at work. You help people find their passion – look what you did for me!”

“Coincidence,” he sniffs, rubbing under his nose.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” you snap, brushing your thumbs over his cheeks to collect the tears. “You allowed me to explore my heart and I found a good place for it to take root. You do that for people every day. You provide them with the resources to do what they’ve always wanted.”

You chuckle, “You’re a good person with a bad publicity rating. You just get caught at the wrong times, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry,” he shakes his head, standing to his feet and pushing away from you. “I shouldn’t be unloading all my life drama on you.”

“No, no, no, hey, I’m here for you,” you reach up to press your hand to his pectoral, needing to feel him for some reason. You need to know that you’re still connected by the soul. “Just because you like to wear glitter and paint your nails doesn’t mean you’re less of a man. You’re just being honest with yourself and who you truly are.”

“You’re the only person who sees it that way,” he lets his hand cover yours against his chest, his lungs expanding as he takes in a deep breath. He blows it out, a curl flopping against his forehead.

“I’m not,” you insist, shaking your head with a grin on your face. You shake your head and hold him tight, trying to piece him back together if he’ll let you.

You tilt your head up, looking him in the eyes as your hands find purchase on his shoulder blades, “I know you. And I know how wonderful you really are.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he whispers, his eyes swimming around your face, unable to concentrate. He pushes a lock of your hair away from your face, framing your cheek with his palm.

“It’s not about deserve, Luke,” you smile, leaning into his touch.

He chuckles, leaning down and nudging your nose with his in a way that makes your heart bruise your chest, “I guess I should be happy then, because I know I won’t ever do enough to deserve you in my life.”

And with that, he kisses you.

Luke holds you tight, his teeth grazing over your lip as he grips your hips with his fingers. The moan he elicits from you shakes your throat and he grunts in response, his forehead knocking into yours as he tries to get closer.

“C’mere,” he mutters, grabbing at your thighs.

You push yourself up and he hoists you into his arms, wrapping you around his torso as he walks you to wherever he wants. You really don’t care at this point, the only thing you’re focused on is the way his hands feel on your body and how his lips capture yours.

“God, you’re perfect,” Luke whispers when he finally gets you to his bedroom. He’s laid you back, touching your cheeks as he straddles your waist.

You reach up and brush your thumb over his eyebrow, collecting some of the stray glitter from earlier. You smile and gently graze the scratches on his temples. You shake your head, tears welling up in your eyes from the memory of the guys at the bar.

“I think you’re beautiful,” you find yourself mumbling, your cheeks bright red from the admission. Your rub your thumb over his lower lip, and he catches it between his teeth. Luke bites it playfully before releasing it, running his nose over your jugular.

He smirks against your skin, his body heating yours as he murmurs, “Tried to look pretty for ya’, sweetheart.”

Before you can retort with something smart, he’s sunk his teeth into your shoulder, pulling on the skin with his mouth. You gasp, gripping his shoulders with a ferocity you didn’t know you had.

Somehow you push the loose button up off of his shoulders so you can feel him for real now, and it’s lovely getting to touch his skin like this. Luke is warm and muscled, the planes of his back and chest easy to explore as you touch the dips in his muscles and the freckles on his skin.

“Shh,” he mumbles as another sound emits from your throat. Luke nudges his nose over the spot that is pulsing bright red on your shoulder. He playfully flicks his tongue against it, causing your body to convulse at the feeling.

You groan and roll your head back, your legs aching as he slowly runs his thumb over your bottom lip. He kisses up your jaw to your mouth, and you can’t stand it as he plays with your lips, nipping and licking them.

“C’mere,” you almost growl, tugging him by the hair and holding him close. You can’t help it when you suck his bottom lip between your teeth and press your tongue against his teeth. Your every sense is filled to the brim with Luke, and you’re not sure you want it to end.

And it doesn’t end.

February

You and Luke are together for fourteen months when he asks you on another coffee date.

“Coffee isn’t the only thing I like, you know,” you tell him, holding onto his hand as he walks you down the sidewalk. It’s freezing cold in the February air, snow on the sidewalks as you kick it out of your way. You’re careful not to slip on the ice.

“I know,” he kisses your temple, his hand warm in your grasp. “But this one is special.”

“Oh my God,” you groan, “Did I forget a date or something? It’s not our anniversary. I know it isn’t your mom’s birthday, and it’s not Petunia’s-”

“So instead of bringing up my birthday, you bring up both my mother and my dog?” he asks you incredulously, staring down at you. His breath clouds like a fog around his lips.

You nod, “They’re the two most important people in your life.”

“Next to you,” he doesn’t hesitate.

You roll your eyes and lean your head against his bicep, “Cheeseball.”

It takes another ten minutes and you swear you can’t feel your nose but Luke is so excited to visit this new coffee joint that you don’t make a fuss out of it.

“All right, we’re here!” he smiles, taking a deep breath. “I really hope you like it.”

You look up at the coffee shop on a corner block, the deep wooden exterior nothing if not inviting. The lighting inside looks warm, and there are benches on the outside that are lined with people.

“Luke, we’re never going to get in,” you find yourself whining. You pout, “We can just go to Starbucks.”

“Oh, they’ll let us in,” he smirks.

You kick up a brow, “You’re not going to pull the Luke Hemmings, CEO card, are you?”

“No, not necessarily,” he shrugs, but there’s still an underlying grin and you suddenly feel like you’re left out of a rather big joke.

“Not necessarily?” you ask, your forehead crinkling.

Luke chuckles and you watch as his hands fidget in his pockets as he turns to face you. He points up at the sign hanging on the side of the building, lit up with pale lights. He grins, “Read it.”

“MORE CREAMER PLEASE,” you do as you’re told. You squint your eyes because there’s something else under the title. “A Luke Hemmings and…oh my God.”

Your name is on the sign.

Luke bites his lip before taking a step toward you. There are people pushing around him, desperately trying to get into the coffee shop or around to their destination. There are cars on the street, honking loudly and dismissing passersby. There are horns honking and store bells ringing.

Somehow, the only thing you can focus on is Luke.

“I know I’m not great at telling you how I feel.” He’s obviously nervous as he fidgets with his hands in front of him. “But I want you to know that I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you because you’re simultaneously the most amazing and most annoying person I know.”

You go to open your mouth, but he stops you, “You’re only annoying because you’re the farthest thing from what I should have, but you’re the only one I want. You’re a damn journalist for crying out loud. Your very existence gets on my nerves, but here I am, loving you anyway.”

“Lu,” you whisper, breathing his name through the thick emotions that cloud your vision.

“Honey, you’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he reaches out and grabs your hands. “I want what we have to be eternal, whether that means we get married and have a million babies and travel the world, or that we stay just the two of us cooped up in our house in each other’s company.”

Luke chuckles and catches a tear as it glistens down your cheek, “I want this to be the start of the rest of our lives.”

“Luke, I don’t even know how to run a coffee shop,” you blurt, laughing after you realize what you’ve said.

“Is that the only thing you took from that big, long confession?” he rolls his eyes, but the fondness shines through. Luke shakes his head anyway, “Don’t worry, it’s just your name on the sign. I have a manager in place, but you have final say on anything you want or don’t want.”

You’re laughing together and he pulls you forward to kiss you on the lips. Your hands wind into his hair underneath his beanie and you can’t stop smiling as you’re kissing him.

“I know it’s no shiny ring,” he kisses the corner of your mouth, “but I figure it’s a start.”

“Much better than a shiny ring,” you grin, looking up at the store that has your names on it. It’s like an omen, that you’ll be working together on whatever life throws at you. You laugh, “You know how much I love coffee.”

You lean up to kiss his cheek, the scent of freshly brewed coffee filtering through the air, “Lu,” you call gently, pulling his attention back to you, “I love you too, by the way.”

“Oh, good,” he breathes out the apprehension building up in his chest. You watch as he fidgets with his hands, “I was worried there for a minute. You know, I have this shiny ring here and I just figured that maybe you didn’t want it, you know, since you said you loved coffee so much-”

You look down at his hands, shocked at the velvet box he’s holding in his shaky hands.

And then you’re kissing again, regardless of who is watching.

Spoiler alert: the shiny ring is nice.

a/n: i hope you guys loves it!!!!

tag list: @calumurrica @bananashemmo @cxddlyash @morningfears @hamleggs @rexorangecounty @just-another-photo-filter @youto-believein @cakeslolita @h0tsos @lukeskisses @calummix @teasedalou @hiorheybitch @lukes-curls @lukesbaby @theh3aven @cucumberinmyass @lolmemequeen @sweetcherryharry @sugarcoatedlu @cal-king @lavieenbananabread @fakebech @cherryp-ie @5sos-ficssmut @happiestluke @casanovacal @lmao5sosimagines @hemmomfg

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