#sorry I want Buffy to be happy and actually understand her rather than deciding what’s best based on abstract concepts of what feminism

[raisedbythetv89]

I can’t believe there are humans walking this earth that watch seven seasons of Buffy being crushed under the weight of the literal world and all her responsibilities and suffer constant chronic loneliness and isolation even from her closest friends never getting the support, emotional or otherwise she really needs and then we witness Spike become her safe haven and emotional safe space as she battles her depression and the only person she can genuinely count on both before and after he gets the soul. Acting as a true partner and other half who sees her and she can be truly vulnerable with and who loves her so deeply and she loves deeply in return and go “🤓☝🏻I actually think she should be ALONE rather than in a relationship”

SHE HAS ALREADY DIED THREE TIMES AND HAS A VERY SHORT LIFE EXPECTANCY AND MANAGED TO FIND AND MAKE IT WORK WITH HER VAMPIRE OTHER HALF IN THAT SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME AND YOU WANT TO ROB HER OF GREAT SEX, EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AND LOVE AND FREEDOM FROM HER EVER PRESENT LONELINESS FOR THE REMAINDER OF SAID SHORT LIFE??????????? YOU CAN FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF ACTUALLY THAT’S NOT FEMINISM OR EMPOWERMENT THAT’S JUST MEAN

It’d be one thing if she had a solid family support and real fucking friends but tara and spike were the only people who genuinely cared for her rather than what they can get from her and with Tara gone Spike is an incredibly important person for her to have in her life for her overall happiness and emotional and mental wellbeing and because I don’t fucking hate Buffy I think she deserves to spend the rest of her life with that person!! And miraculously cannon agrees!! So 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻

[izzielizzie]

Now I’ve Seen You I’ve Seen It All Chapter Four

this took forever but i hope it’s worth the wait!!!

(chapter one)

(chapter two)

(chapter three)

“I can’t believe our parents just… left each other,” Ellen whispers later that night. Their mutual dislike long forgotten, the two girls had worked together to push two beds together, where they now lay, side by side. 

“You can’t?” Ali asks after a moment, startled by the conversation change. They had been discussing the merits of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show both girls love despite the fact that they are probably a little too young to be watching it.  

“You can?” Ellen counters.

Ali props herself on her elbow, looking down at her sister as she shakes her hair back. “Yeah I mean we didn’t get along did we? Like daughters like parents right?”

“I don’t believe that’s the saying.”

“Oh shut up,” Ali says, laying back down.

They lapse into a peaceful silence, nearly drifting to sleep until Ellen bolts upright.

“Something wrong there El?” Ali asks, wrinkling her nose in confusion.

“I was just thinking-”

“Did it hurt?”

Ellen swats at her sister. “I was just thinking that we look identical right?”

Ali shrugs. “More or less, yeah.”

“And if we look identical, Mom and Dad wouldn’t be able to tell us apart if we switched right?”

“Ellen, are you saying we should… switch places?”

Ellen waves her hands around like she’s had a brilliant idea as Ali sits up to look at her sister. “That’s exactly what I’m saying Ali! Okay, think about it. We look identical, we could pull it off.”

Ali looks, understandably, very confused. “How?”

Ellen’s face falls. “Well… figuring that out is the next step… obviously.”

Ali smiles. “I wouldn’t mind it,” she says thoughtfully.

“Wait really? I had a good idea?”

Ali laughs and nudges Ellen’s shoulder. “Yeah, little sis, you did.”

“I’m older,” Ellen says. 

“Are you sure about that?”

Ellen seems to be considering this, so Ali continues talking. “I mean, if we were hypothetically going to do this- hypothetically!” Ali adds quickly as Ellen perks up. “How would it work? I take the plane to Connecticut, you go home with Dad?”

“Yep,” Ellen says.

“But… isn’t it risky?”

“What do you mean?” Ellen asks, sitting up and tucking her legs under her. Ali does the same. She waves her arms around for a moment, finding the right words.

“I mean I have a strawberry allergy. What if Mom gives me something with strawberries that she knows you can eat and then I eat it and I die?”

“You do realize that people invented this thing called an EpiPen?” Ellen asks.

“Yeah, well sometimes they go missing when they’re needed.”

Ellen rolls her eyes. “Come on Ali please this is my only chance to meet Dad. And you want to meet Mom right?”

“Right.”

“So then we’ll do it for a… for a month! Yeah, we’ll switch for a month and then on a predetermined day we’ll tell the truth.”

“And then they’ll have to unswitch us,” Ali says, slowly catching on to what Ellen has been trying to say.

“And then they’ll meet. Aunt Maeve said they still love each other right? Then they’ll get married and we won’t be separated. See? Ali, we have to do this.”

Ali licks her lip and nods slowly. “Okay. Yeah I can see where you’re coming from.”

Ellen grins. “And of course we’ll tell each other everything we need to know: rituals, bed times, favorite books and movies, stuff like that.”

“Yeah.” Ali runs her hands through her hair and then freezes.

“What is it?”

“Ellen, I have long hair. And pierced ears.”

Ellen has neither. 

“So?”

So?” Ali repeats. “You can’t go to camp with short hair and unpierced ears and come back with long hair and pierced ears.”

“Why not?”

Ali gives Ellen a look.

“Okay, okay. I can cut your hair, right?”

“What?” Ali asks, staring at her sister in surprise. “You can’t just… cut my hair… Can you?”

“Of course I can. My Aunt Keely does it all the time. It’s easy.” Ellen says this with confidence she does not have, her desperation to meet her father overriding her usually ample logic. 

Ali bites her lip and then nods. “Okay, fine, go ahead.”

With a giggle, Ellen jumps out of the bed. 

“Wait, now?” Ali asks, scrambling out of the bed after her sister.

“No better time than the present!” Ellen sings as she rifles through her stuff for a scissor.

“Oh boy,” Ali mutters and Ellen pulls out a pair of scissors from her bag - why Ellen has scissors Ali doesn’t want to know.

“Okay now just sit in front of the mirror and just… hold still.”

Ali does as she’s told, staring at her waist length hair in the cracked mirror. She spies Ellen approaching her from behind and shrieks. Ellen shrieks in response and jumps back.

“What? What!”

“Sorry, nothing, it’s just, should I really be trusting you with scissors?” Ali turns around to face her sister.

Ellen sighs and puts her hands on her hips. “If you must know, I cut the ribbon at my school’s playground opening ceremony last year. I’m kind of a scissor expert.”

Ali makes a face. “Please don’t ever say that again. God, you're going to be eaten alive in high school.”

Ellen ignores her sister, turning her back to face the mirror. Ellen holds up a lock of Ali’s hair, positions the scissors, and then pauses. “What? What is it?” Ali asks.

“I can’t do this if you’re watching me. Maybe you should close your eyes?”

Ali sighs. “Fine. Fine but if you mess it up…” Ali trails off, leaving the threat hanging. 

Ellen gulps. “I will not. I promise. Just close your eyes.”

Ali closes her eyes, and Ellen, after measuring the length of her hair in the mirror, cuts a lock of Ali’s hair. Then another. Then another, and soon both girls relax. Ellen makes the last cut, and steps back to examine her work.

“Uh, oh,” she mutters. During the fifteen minutes it took for Ellen to cut Ali’s hair, Ali had started to slowly tilt her head, causing Ellen to misjudge how much hair she was cutting. The resulting look is rather… slanted, with one end half an inch above Ali’s shoulder, and the other end halfway down her back. 

“What? Are you done? Can I look now?”

“Um, no. Not yet. Actually, um, want to go for an adventure?”

“Ellen? What? I’m gonna open my eyes.”

“No, no!” Ellen cries, lunging forward to grab Ali’s beanie from her bed. She picks it up, and in one deft motion she twists the remains of Ali’s hair into a knot and stuffs the beanie onto Ali’s head. 

“Ellen what in the world?”

“Nothing! Nothing, come let’s show your hair to Aunt Maeve!”

“At two in the morning?”

“Yes. Come.”

“I’m looking at my hair,” Ali says, and before Ellen can stop her, Ali opens her eyes, pulls off the hat, and shrieks - again. Ellen flinches. “Ellen what did you do?” Ali asks, turning back to look at her sister. Ellen puts her hands to her mouth.

“Oh I don’t know. I’m sorry!”

“Sorry! Ellen, I look awful!”

“I know, I know!” Ellen cries. “Come on, can we just let Aunt Maeve fix it?”

Ali nods. “Okay fine, but you are never coming near me with a pair of scissors again, understood?”

Ellen laughs. “Deal.”

“Girls, what?” a very tired Maeve asks as she opens the door to her cabin.

“God why do kids never just sleep when they’re supposed to?” Luis asks, running his hand through his hair as he steps behind his wife. 

“We had an emergency,” Ellen informs her aunt and uncle.

“Oh have we gone back to murdering each other?” Luis asks. Maeve turns around to give him her very best “shut up or else” look. 

“Well, no. Maybe you should just look.”

Ellen steps to the side to allow Ali to be seen. Maeve looks at Ali’s hair and does a double take. Luis has to duck back into the cabin to hide his laughter. “Ali, what in the world?” Maeve asks, her husband’s laughter almost drowning her out. She reaches a hand out to run her hand through the long part of Ali’s hair.

“Um…” Ali says. 

“Ali fell,” Ellen says confidently. Maeve stares at her for a moment before deciding that sometimes a lie is better than the truth.

“Right. And, I assume you want me to fix this?”

Both Ali and Ellen nod, Ali’s panicked expression bordering on hysterical. 

Maeve sighs and pulls the door open further. “Come on in, girls.”

“Okay now, unpin the next layer of hair. Yeah, just like that.” In her defense, Keely really took being FaceTimed at ten in the morning by Maeve Santos because she needed instructions on how to cut hair pretty well. Even if she was late for work. Keely nods as she watches Maeve do as she’s told, combing Ali’s hair down and snipping off the ends. “So, what time is it over there?”

“Two. In the morning,” Luis grumbles from his spot on the bed, Ellen happily in his lap. 

Keely raises her eyebrows, nodding at her phone, the ghost of a laugh on her face. “So, it really looks like you take after your father, huh Ali?”

Ali smiles at the pretty lady on the other end of her newfound aunt’s phone. She’s not quite sure what to say, but if she’s Addy’s wife then she must be thousands of shades of perfect. 

Keely tilts her head. “But you’ve got Bronwyn’s looks I think.”

“Spitting image of Bron,” Maeve agrees as she spins Ali around to look at the front of her face. “What do you think, Ellen? Beautiful or what?”

“Or what,” Ellen mumbles, eyes fluttering closed.

“Ellen.”

“Okay, okay, she looks like me.”

“She does,” Keely agrees from the phone. 

Ellen perks up suddenly, remembering the reason for this adventure in the first place. “Uncle Luis, will you take me to get my ears pierced tomorrow?”

Maeve looks over at her niece, recognition dawning in her eyes. She looks at her husband, who, as always, is on the same page as her. Those clever girls. Maeve smiles to herself as she waves goodbye to Keely and hangs up her phone. 

“Sure, I’d be happy to Ellen,” Luis says, grinning at his wife. 

“Yeah, he has to get clothes for Nick anyway, he’s growing like crazy.”

Ellen grins. “Thanks!”

“Any time. Oh also Ellen, did you know that Ali’s full name is Alejandra?”

“No, I didn’t,” Ellen says to her aunt, looking at her sister. 

Luis shakes his head at Maeve, but she just grins back. If the girls insist on trading places, they might as well know each other’s full names.

An hour later, Maeve and Luis carry the girls back to their cabin with the promise of a trip into town to pierce Ellen’s ears.

“These girls are insane,” Luis says quietly. 

“Well, they are Bronwyn and Nate’s daughters,” Maeve says as she gently puts Ali down on her bed. Luis does the same with Ellen, and they slowly back out of the cabin, shutting the door behind them.

“And your nieces.”

Maeve looks up at him. “Are you calling me insane Santos?”

“Always, Maevey.”

Maeve laughs and tucks herself into Luis’s side. He kisses the top of her head. “Do you think Bronwyn and Nate will forgive me for what those two are about to do?” Maeve didn’t need to ask her nieces to know that they were planning on switching places. She would have done the same thing at their age. 

“Not at all.”

“But hopefully they’ll be too in love to notice me?”

Luis laughs as he stops to catch Maeve in his arms and swing her around. “Keep dreaming girl.”

[oveliagirlhaditright]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25092943/chapters/61014142

Author’s Note: So, this prompt is based on a story I wrote years ago—right after Madoka Rebellion came out, that’s since been deleted; and you don’t have to have read that to understand this—where I went, “What if Kairi pulled a Homura, and removed Sora’s destiny from him like Homura did for Madoka?”

There’s a lot of debate about what Homura did to Madoka. And while I don’t justify it, I think her intentions were good (for the most part). She thought from their conversation earlier, that that was what Madoka would want… and that it was the only way to keep the Incubators from kidnapping her and forcing her to bring back the Witch system. I also think you can’t fully blame Homura for what she did, because she wasn’t in her right mind as a Witch.

So that’s what I went with Kairi for that story… She’d kind of gone crazy, because Sora had broken all of his promises to her, all of the trauma she’d been through… and because in my story, I had it so the World Order was broken and everyone knew about Sora and the gang’s journeys and other worlds. And that this had led to all these girls being in love with Sora, and thinking Kairi wasn’t good enough for him (yes, this was a reference to some of the fandom’s fans), and they even attacked her for it… So, all of this made Kairi lose it, and use her Princess of Heart powers to “save” Sora from being a Keyblade wielder. But she was also trying to be selfless with it, because the story had started with Sora having to leave Kairi again… but it being obvious that he didn’t want to go, and would stay home if he had the choice.

So Kairi took his powers away from him, sealed his memories of other worlds, and did the fighting for him (she may have split herself into two beings to do this, so one of her could fight and the other could be with Sora. Kind of like how there are two Madokas after her wish. Madoka and Madokami), and at first, she and Sora are happy together…

But eventually Sora finds out the truth and is partly angry at Kairi. Because on one hand, he does think she was right about him not wanting to be a hero (at least not anymore) and somewhat appreciates her maybe saving him from a lifetime of fighting. But he’s also furious that she stole his agency, and memories of a life he did love somewhat—with all the people he met in other worlds.

So, this is a continuation of that idea… where things are better now, and Sora’s trying to make it work with Kairi (though she’s still not quite sane), but he still resents some of her past choices some. Oh, and everyone else now knows what she did, too. And Mickey… Mickey isn’t happy about it. This is kind of following the whole “Mickey was somewhat a jerk about Kairi in KHIII” thing.

And the first line that fits the prompt—that inspired this whole thing—is another line from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. More on that later.

SoKai Week Day 6. Prompt: Connection

Connection

"There is a connection," Mickey was accusing Sora now, when it came to his relationship with Kairi. "She relies on you, you rely on her."

And Sora actually somewhat wanted to deny that there was still a connection between him and Kairi—since Kairi had somewhat become evil recently, and had tried to steal his powers and memories away—but he couldn't. …He loved her, perhaps even foolishly, and he always would as his light... even now. And anyone with eyes could see that, but that didn't  mean they were happy about it… like Mickey here.

"I think she's on the mend, your Majesty," Sora protested, as the two of them walked through the woods in Twilight Town. Little Chef needed more ingredients from them, so that was what they were doing here at the moment. Nothing major, since things had mostly calmed down since everything that had happened with the Master of Masters... well, aside from the Kairi thing. "She still gets out of touch with reality sometimes... but other times, she's spot-on again. So, please... just leave us be."

Truthfully? Sora was irritated with the King when it came to Kairi. And a side of him had ever since said Keyblade War. It seemed as though he'd decided he was against Kairi, and every second he could... he was putting her down in some way. It was tiring.

But Sora couldn't exactly end his friendship with the man... one, because of Donald, Goofy, and Riku—and perhaps for the sake of the universe—and since he really had no proof of these actions from Mickey, and did like him most of the time. But it was still awful.

The two were approaching Kairi now—who was sitting atop the chute that led back to town—and Sora knew that Mickey probably would have insulted her here, if Kairi hadn't been making another lucky charm and seeming relatively sane.

"That's a pretty charm you have there, Kairi," Sora told his maybe-girlfriend, as he leaned down so he could talk to her better. And it was... a lovely jade color, though Sora had no idea where Kairi had gotten those shells from… and he felt a little bit sick to the stomach, in thinking that Kairi must have made them to match Riku’s eyes. And that she was turning something that had been just about the two of them for so many years ago, to include all three of their trio. But maybe it was for the best…

And sure enough, that seemed to be the case. Kairi smiled carefully, cautiously. As if it was the first time she'd ever done so in her life. Kairi, to Sora, was acting somewhat like a toddler, who had come to believe that the world was a dark and scary place—a belief that would now inform her for the rest of her life—and Sora felt heartbroken for her, despite everything.

"I'm making this for Riku," Kairi said as she waved at both of them—including to the man who hated her, and Sora felt his teeth set on edge because of it. Maybe he was wrong to always forgive Mickey so easily… "Since I feel bad that I never made him one. If I had, Sora... if I hadn't been so obsessed with you, maybe things would have been different…"

This seemed to appease Mickey—as he'd always loved Riku—and he left then, wishing both Sora and (shockingly) Kairi the best, as he did so.

Meanwhile, Sora was still—probably unfairly, he knew—mourning that Kairi was going to give Riku anything in the shape of a paopu fruit (even despite Aqua’s beliefs on how the lucky charms worked). Had their relationship really been destroyed this much? …Well, if it had, it was his fault. And Sora tried to hide all these thoughts plaguing his mind, as he gave Kairi one of his thousand-watt smiles. “How are you feeling today, Kairi?”

"Good. It doesn't feel like a scratching in my head is making me want to hurt others, or myself."

"...Good. That's good. But make sure you sleep, too... because anyone can also get insane thoughts when they're sleep deprived..."

It was also depressing looking at Kairi these days, since her hair had turned white... which Sora knew only happened at an early age for the most traumatized people. And if her eyes weren't violet instead of blue, and her hair a shade lighter than Naminé's platinum blonde, then Sora knew he easily could've mistaken Kairi for Naminé. But then again... maybe not. Even now, his heart knew her too well…

"...You're so awkward with me now, Sora," Kairi said suddenly, with more alertness in her eyes now than Sora had seen in a long time. "But I guess it was either this, or you kill me to get your powers back. So I guess I'll happily take this. But still... I'm sorry I did this to us." And the princess went back to joyfully threading her seashells in the shadows, but Sora wasn't happy.

He actually wanted to get into Kairi’s face and say something like, ‘You do, do you? Kairi... I know I broke promises to you, and this mob of girls who wanted to be with me attacked you- I even know that part of you is right that I don't want to journey forever, but want to be home... Most of all, I see how you were traumatized after you were murdered, and then I, to get you back- but you stole my Keyblade, and my memories of those I love in other worlds, and my agency, until I forcefully got it back from you. I'm sorry you did this to us, too, especially since you’re the one I thought would never do such a thing to me.

But Sora didn't... because he knew how easy it was to get lost in his anger with his enemies—and that was also a form of madness, so he wouldn’t be giving Kairi a good example there at all—and because he knew he’d taken her own agency away, when he’d died for her without giving her a say on it… And since she was Kairi, and hurting, and to see her not hurt… Sora would just bear all the hurt himself. Wasn’t it even what he was now saying he wanted… somewhat? What a tragedy it was, that they couldn’t shoulder each other’s burdens anymore… at least for the time being.

But wanting that back—and thinking there was a chance they could have that feeling about them again soon, if they worked at it—Sora just held Kairi... dreaming of falling asleep with her like this. Because when they were innocently and peacefully sleeping in each other’s arms, that was when they were the closest to reaching what they’d once had, Sora thought.

Kairi held tightly onto Sora now and kissed his neck—innocently, with them out in public like this—and Sora clutched that and nothing else… not the bad memories that circled them like a vulture now, but just this feeling.

Right now... the two of them were broken beyond repair, yet still somehow connected. And Sora knew they always would be.

And that, at least, was something, the brunet thought as he for once didn’t have to make the conscious decision to kiss Kairi’s forehead, but rather just did it.

Author’s Note: So, the first quote is something Buffy’s mentor and father-figure, Giles, concernedly and angrily says to Buffy about Spike, when he thinks that having him in the group is a danger to them and that Buffy’s head maybe isn’t in the game. Yeah…

I hope anyone enjoyed this.

Oh. And for anyone interested, BlueRose729 kindly drew fanart of my old story on her deviantArt account.

[anarcoqueer1994]

"Please...Please Don't Go."

This is chapter one of a story I wrote back in the hiatus, so it was a costume day fix it story. Mild angst. Also future chapters are a bit sadder but there is a happy ending.

Cyrus always tried to be rational. Yea, he could be anxious at times but he always had been pretty well adjusted, being able to work through his feelings and helping others do the same. But today, actually more accurately, this past week, he has not felt very rational at all. That’s how he ended up sitting alone on the benches facing the basketball court in the park. It was here that he had met TJ just before planning to do somersault together for costume day. He wishes that knew then that TJ would let him down less than 48 hours later.

He wasn’t even sure if he was allowed to be here, as it was close to midnight. He, Cyrus Goodman, the same boy who would usually be terrified of breaking his parent’s rules, had snuck out of his dad and stepmom’s house and made his way to the park. I guess, even now, TJ had a way of making him more daring, more willing to break the rules; dance with danger, even if the motivation was not the same as before. Before, Cyrus had felt brave because TJ was with him. No one or no thing could touch him as long as TJ was there by his side. Now TJ was once again his motivation to do something he wouldn’t of before, but more as a way of escape.

Cyrus had been cooped up all weekend in his room. It was Sunday night and the weight of his thoughts were restricting him, making him feel claustrophobic. His room felt like it was pressurized, ready to collapse around him at any moment. He tried to ignore his thoughts but just couldn’t. So when he heard his parents go to bed, he slipped out the backdoor and headed down to the park. The small town was eerily quiet, give or take the miscellaneous car driving by.

As he approached the entrance of the park, he contemplated heading towards the swings, but decided against it. The swings had become a happy place for Cyrus, where he could come to feel better. He doubted that it would have the same effect now. So he settled on the benches by the basketball court. It was the perfect place to let his thoughts run wild. It helped keep him angry, helped to remind him that TJ let him down. He wanted to be angry because if not, he knew he would give in and run back to TJ. He would let the boy convince him that they could be friends again. But Cyrus did not want to be friends again. He doesn’t think his heart can handle it.

They were only friends and Cyrus had accepted that his crush would be unrequited. People have crushes on their friends all the time and honestly, how many of those work out? He was happy just being friends because it wouldn’t be fair to push his feelings on the other boy. But lately he had started to notice little hints of maybe something more from TJ. He wasn’t blind, he noticed when TJ would smile at him like he was the only one that mattered. He noticed when they would walk so close together that their hands brushed. He saw how happy he was for his friend when he finally did a somersault. And of course, he noticed the look on TJ’s face when he said “You’re the only person I can talk to like this.” His stomach filled with butterflies when he looked up at the taller boy that day. But now in retrospect, he realizes that he read way too into things.

Honestly, he doesn’t even know why he was so upset. It is not like he didn’t almost do the same thing. Andi had been relying on him to be in her costume. In fact is it weren’t for TJ ditching him to do a costume with Kira, he would of readily dashed Andi’s Mount Rushmore dreams. Jonah had backed out last minute, and though he would have felt bad, Cyrus would have let her costume go to waste. He would have abandoned one of his best friends so he could be the salt to TJ’s summer. So wasn’t he as bad as TJ? Does he have the right to want to be angry? Does he have the right to feel hurt? 

After all, Andi was able to forgive him when he reached out to her. She knew that he almost ditched her for TJ. He technically never even texted her. But she had been so understanding and kind to him when he talked to her about it. She was a little annoyed at first, but she knew how much Cyrus liked TJ. She remembered the previous year, when she went out of her way to be around Jonah when she had a crush on him, sometimes even making a fool out of herself. So she understood what Cyrus was feeling about TJ. The two friends were able to fix things. Why couldn’t he do that with TJ? Maybe TJ would be able to explain and they could fix things too. Was it fair to block him out like this? Was he a hypocrite?

Objectively he knew he should give TJ a chance, maybe he should text him back. Things can be fixed. He just did not want to fix them he realized. He had decided that. Being vulnerable around TJ hirt him too much. But why then was he staring at the blank screen of his phone trying not to cry. He had turned it off when he left the house.  He had to, or he knew he would find himself staring at the texts the other boy had sent though out the week.

Cyrus I’m sorry for not texting or calling about the costume change.

Are we cool?

Come on, please respond.

Let me explain, please.

Cyrus, please...I’m worried about you.

Please...

At least let me know you are okay.

 I pulled a TJ and ruined our friendship didn't I? You don't want to tall to me anymore?

You have been avoiding me at school all week. Come on Underdog, you haven’t even ate lunch with your friends, like idk where you are eating at but its not in the cafeteria. Are you really that mad at me that we can even be in the same room?

Do you hate me?

It was that last text that almost broke Cyrus. He had gotten it about an hour before he snuck out. He knew that if kept focusing on his phone that he would reply despite himself. No, he didn't hate TJ. He could never hate TJ. Part of him felt terrible that TJ felt that way. Why does this boy have this effect on him. Even when he had a crush on Jonah, he never this hurt by him being an oblivious straight boy. So why did being rejected by TJ hurt so much more?

TJ obviously liked Kira in the same way that Cyrus liked TJ. And why shouldn't he? She was a pretty girl who ALSO was great at basketball. She was perfect for him. Cyrus almost ditched his best friend to do a costume with his crush, so why did it matter that TJ did the same? He ditched his best friend, i.e. Cyrus, to do a costume with Kira. But it is cool his crush wanted to do something with him. He really should feel good for his friend but he doesn’t.

These are the thoughts that have filling his head almost constantly the past few days. He knows he wants to stay mad but another part of him wants to forgive TJ. But he just can’t! Maybe it is because he knows in his heart that this actually isn’t the same as with whay he almost did to Andi. With Andi, he at least talked to Buffy, who found him a replacement. He did not know Jonah was going to pull out last minute, but at least Cyrus had a replacement. He had been so excited to do the costume with TJ. He knew his friends would understand. Somersault was their thing and his friends knew it. He was genuinely happy at the thought of spending the day the day at TJ’s side, sharing their inside joke. They would be in their own special world made for only them to exist in together.

He keeps going back to that conversation from that day at the park. He keeps picturing the look on TJ’s face when he told Cyrus about his costume idea. He literally was smiling ear to ear. Cyrus doesn’t remember ever seeing a smile so beautiful in his life. In that moment, it felt like he was the only thing that mattered to TJ. Which if he is being honest, felt nice. TJ seemed as excited as Cyrus to do their group costume.

As Cyrus thought more about it, he realized that was why he was the most upset. TJ led him to believe he wanted to do this together. With Andi, Cyrus never shared the same excitement for Mount Rushmore. But TJ seemed so excited to do a costume with Cyrus. He got his hopes up, just to dash them. He left him standing in front of the school looking pathetic. What he couldn’t figure out though, is why TJ looked so unhappy when he showed up with Kira. Did he truly just feel bad for letting his friend down so he could do a costume he liked more? Cyrus figured maybe he was just ashamed that he would rather do a costume with Kira, the girl he knew didn’t like Buffy, and by extension any of her friends, then with Cyrus.

An hour passed as he sat and ran through his thoughts. He kept replaying his interactions with TJ. He kept thinking about how good being with TJ used to make him feel. He kept beating himself up about falling for another straight guy. His thoughts seem to fill the air and make everything around him feel heavier. Suddenly a voice broke through the deafening silence and pulled Cyrus from his thoughts.

“Cyrus!”

The voice was close and familiar. It was TJ. He was coming up behind him. What was he doing at the park in the middle of the night? Cyrus felt his head spinning. He could not face TJ right now. He did not want to look at those beautiful green eyes that could make him melt. He stood up, slipped his phone in his pocket, and tried to get away from the benches. TJ called out again.

“Cyrus, wait. Please…please don’t go.”

His voice sounded so desperate. It sounded broken and hurt. Cyrus has never heard TJ sound so small. It broke his heart all over again to hear him like that. It shouldn't. He shouldn't feel bad but he does. He couldn’t control his body as he froze in place. He felt a warm tear roll down his cheek. He let the other boy make his way in front of him. Cyrus stared at his feet as TJ stood in front of him. He did not want TJ to see him crying but could not find the strength to move away from him. TJ’s voice was broken as he spoke. Obviously Cyrus had not been the only one crying tonight.

“What are you doing out here so late?”

Cyrus quietly replied “I can ask you the same thing…”

“I was…looking for you. Your dad called. He said you weren’t in your room and wanted to know if you were with me. He called Buffy, Jonah, Andi, and my sister, too. Your parents are really worried about you…you weren’t even answering your phone.”

Cyrus guiltily thought about his turned off phone in his pocket. He didn’t think his parents would have noticed him gone. He felt bad for making them worry. But why was TJ here? Surely his parents didn’t ask a bunch of kids to go look for him in the middle of the night. He was pretty sure all four of his parents were driving around looking for him. He keeps staring at the ground as he tries to will himself not to cry in front of the other boy.

“That still doesn’t explain why you are here…”

“I was worried about you…so I kind of snuck out to look for you too. Amber is covering for me. Don’t worry, I did not tell your parents where I thought you may be. I figured I would check the park since you usually go to the swings. When I did not see you there, I started looked around and found you here.”

“You did not have to that, as you can see I’m fine. No need to worry, you can go home.”

“You don’t look fine…” TJ quietly noted. His voice was sad, tinged with hints of guilt as he spoke. “I’ve been so worried about you, you have been avoiding me at school, you haven’t been to the swings since last Friday, and you’ve ignored all my texts and calls…”

With the taller boy's questioning, every wall holding Cyrus together began to crumble. He looks up at TJ with a mix of anger and hurt in his eyes. Tears left streaks down his face as he let lose everything he has been feeling. TJ’s words triggered something inside him. Cyrus normally has never been one to lose his temper and yell in anger, but nothing is normal about this situation.

“You didn’t seem that worried about me on costume day! Do you know how humiliated I felt?! Did you care about how bad I felt walking around knowing that someone who was supposed to be one of my closest friends stood me up without even a call or text?! I bet you didn’t!” Cyrus’ words came out like venom, paralyzing the other boy with every word. He continues. “You know, I don’t care if you have a crush on Kira and wanted to do a costume with her when she offered, even if it was a stupid costume. Double dribble? Really? But that’s not the point. You can do whatever you want. But a text would have been nice. I would have understood. But you didn’t bother because... because... you don’t really care about me.”

Cyrus’ harsh words cut the other boy deep. When he looked at TJ's face, Cyrus suddenly regretted his outburst. Even though TJ hurt him, he never wanted to hurt TJ. He tries to speak but the words that so easily flew so easily across his teeth moments ago were not caught in his throat. Cyrus swears he saw a tear form in TJ’s sad eyes, but it was almost as quickly wiped away. For the first time he noticed that TJ’s hair didn’t have the usual gel in it so strands of hair fell over his forehead. Cyrus couldn’t help thinking that he looked even more beautiful like that. The two boys stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. The air was heavier than ever. It was TJ who finally broke the silence. His voice was uncertain as he said

“Do you really think I don’t care about you…because that is just not true. I care about you more than you can possibly know…”

Cyrus’s voice was just as shaky as he replied “Then why didn’t you tell me you wanted to do a costume with Kira?”

TJ broke eye contact and he looked to the ground. “I didn’t want to do a costume with her…I had to…”

“TJ, wait what do you mean? TJ, look me…” The brown eyed boy begged. The taller boy moves his eyes up from the dark slab of concrete to meet Cyrus’ eyes. “TJ, what do you mean you had to?” Like a reflex, Cyrus reaches across to put his hand on TJ’s forearm as it hangs down to the side. He can hear TJ’s breathe catch in his throat like he was touched by fire. The older boy starts to speak.

“She got into my head, you know? I told her twice that I was good with our costume, and that I did not want to do a costume with her. But then she made it seem weird that I would rather do a costume with you rather than her.”

“Why would it be weird? You just met her and we've been friends for almost a year?” Cyrus isn’t getting it. He scrunches his eyebrows together as he continues to stare.

“She made it seem like it was weird to do a two person costume with another boy….instead of a girl, you know what I mean.”

Cyrus pulls hand back from TJ’s arm. He suddenly is self conscious of his own body movements. He does not want to make TJ feel uncomfortable. “Oh...I get it.”

TJ tries to not let it show that he already misses the feeling of Cyrus’ hand on his arm. He instinctively moves his other hand to the spot on his forearm where Cyrus has just left vacant.

Meanwhile, Cyrus ignores his own disappointment that TJ is definitely not gay. He was just another straight boy worried about looking like he was queer. He continues to speak. His voice is soft and understanding. “I’m sorry she made you feel like that.  But TJ, if you know it is not true, then it does not matter what she says.” Cyrus gives a soft smile. “Besides you are the captain of the basketball team, you are so popular. Who would actually read into the costume like she did. She is just trying to be hurtful…”

“Cyrus, you don’t understand. Kira ...she is right...I… I do like guys in the way I am supposed to like girls. I got scared, so scared that she knew, and that everyone would know if we did a costume together. Everyone would figure out what is wrong with me and then what if they started making up rumors about you too? Like it is one thing for people to try and make fun of me but I don’t think I could handle them hurting you. But now I’m the one that hurt you. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I’m so sorry for being this way. ” His voice sounded weak, it was full of shame and guilt. It almost sounded alien. He was rambling and now the tears could not be stopped. This was a boy who was so afraid and hurting, and Cyrus could see that.

Without thinking, Cyrus reached up and wiped away a tear from TJ’s face. He lets his hand linger momentarily against TJ’s cheek as he steps closer. He was waiting for TJ to pull away from his touch but he doesn’t. When he finally drops his hand, and stares into TJ’s green eyes that look almost glassy from the crying. He is still the most beautiful thing Cyrus has ever laid eyes on. TJ just came out to him.  It is killing him to know that TJ was dealing with all this alone. He hates that he thinks something is wrong with him, he wants TJ to know he is not alone. He knows what he has to do. He takes a deep breathe.

“Teej, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. I told you that before, and I will tell you a million times over if I have to. I will tell you that everyday until you get that. No one has the right to make you feel bad for who you are. Also no one, except you, can decide when it is the right time to come out. Kira does not get to decide when you come out. Just like…” Cyrus pauses, there will be no going back after this.”Just like only I get to decide when I come out.”

This catches TJ off guard, he stares in shock as Cyrus gives him a weak smile. “Wait, are you, um, gay too?” Cyrus only nods his head in response. His face is bright red from blushing. Both boys stand in silence for a moment, not knowing how to proceed. Cyrus makes the first move. He steps even closer to TJ, their bodies impossibly close without actually touching.

“TJ, I also...I also have big crush on a boy…” Cyrus’ face is trying to show confidence but his stomach feels like it is doing twists and turns as his nerves are fighting to get to him. His nervous voice gives him away.

“Oh…” Tj looks down for a brief second to look at Cyrus’ lips before staring back into his big brown eyes. “Do...do I know this person?” From the sounds of it, TJ is as equally as nervous. He can feel his heart pounding out of his chest, mirroring Cyrus’.

“Yeah, you know him. He is tall, with the most gorgeous green eyes. He gets little freckles in the sun. When he doesn’t put gel in his hair, he has the cutest little curl of hair that falls on his forehead. He is great at basketball, and honestly any sport he tries. He makes me feel brave when I want to run and forces me to step out of my comfort zone. And god, every time he talks I want to hold onto every word he says like it is gold. I’ve never met anyone like him and the weirdest part is that he wants to be friends with me.

“That's not weird. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with you? You can light up any room you walk into with a single smile. You are so good to everyone around you, even a scary basketball guy.This guy you like is so lucky to have you in his life. He knows that he would not be the same without you. And I think he likes you too."

With that, Cyrus got a burst of confidence to do something crazy. He cups TJ’s cheek. Their faces are only a few inches apart. Electricity fills the air between them as they stare directly into each others eyes before Cyrus takes a giant leap of faith. He closes his eyes as he closes the gap between their lips. As his lips brush against TJ’s, the world stops around them. Only they exist in this moment. Cyrus pulls back slightly to make sure this is okay. TJ answers the unspoken question by cupping the back of Cyrus’ head and pulls him for a deeper kiss. Its awkward, and clumsy, and all them. Its perfect.

When they finally break away from each other, TJ can’t help but stare like a lovestruck dummy. He could not believe that just happened. Cyrus Goodman kissed him and he kissed Cyrus back. Cyrus gave him his first kiss. More importantly though, Cyrus liked him the same way he likes Cyrus. The only thing he manages to get out of his mouth was a dopey“ I like you, a lot.”

Cyrus lets out a soft laugh and he reaches for TJ’s hand. “I would hope so...because I like you too." Cyrus grabs TJ's hand again. "So wanna be my boyfriend?” He tries to sound cool but he just sounds like a dork.

And TJ loves that about him. “Of course I do, Underdog.” TJ gives him the biggest smile, he was practically glowing. “Just...I’m not ready to come out yet at school or to my parents, is that okay?”

“Honestly, I’m not ready, either. We don’t need others to know that we are together, for us to know that we care for each other. It is our secret for now.” Cyrus smiles. “Now we should be getting back to our houses. I know my parents are worried and I don’t want you to get in trouble with your’s.” TJ nods in agreement.

Soon after that, they make their way to the park entrance, pinkies intertwined as they walk. Before they part ways, Cyrus leans up and kisses the side of TJ’s face. TJ blushes as Cyrus begins to walk away.

“Night, TJ”

“Night Underdog” TJ replies while holding the place on his cheek where Cyrus’ lips just touched. He thinks he is going to like being Cyrus Goodman's boyfriend.

@abg-blah

[myshipshipsitself]

Title: Worth It Character(s): Cyrus/TJ, Buffy, Jonah, Andi, Kira Word Count: 2,206 Summary: Buffy POV. Fix-it, post 3x13. Buffy bringing some tough-love style advice, and TJ’s apology. (This got really long, y’all. I meant for it to be a cute, short, fluffy thing. But then I was like, let’s address Cyrus’s insecurities. And if we’re doing that, let’s address TJ’s too, why not? So enjoy the novel.)

Credit where it is due: This was inspired by @whattamiwatching ‘s little sister, so this is for y’all. (Sorry, I did change the original prompt a little in the way of which costume TJ was wearing. Hope that’s ok).

“Doing Mount Rushmore with us wasn’t that bad, was it?” Buffy asked, trying to lighten the mood. She knew from the moment that Cyrus had answered Marty’s guess at his costume with ‘Thomas Jefferson,’ that their group costume wasn’t the reason that he looked like a drowned puppy for the rest of the day.

“No, of course not,” Cyrus said quickly, putting on a fake smile that Buffy saw right through. She tilted her head down to give him a stern look and his face dropped. He shrugged, colander under his arm as they walked down the hallway towards the lunchroom. “TJ decided to do a costume with Kira, that’s all. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Buffy snapped. “He just bailed on you without even a warning text? The costume was his idea.”

Cyrus just shrugged. He started to say something, then stopped and shut his mouth again. Buffy waited, watching his face contort into several odd expressions before he looked up at her, his face looking more broken than she’d ever seen. “It’s fine, really,” he said earnestly. She almost believed him. Or at least, he believed himself. “I’m the second choice. I’m always the second choice. I get that. It’s fine.”

Buffy froze in the middle of the hallway. She didn’t acknowledge the girl that muttered under her breath as she barely stopped herself from running into Buffy. She could only stare straight ahead at Cyrus. “You can’t believe that.”

“Of course I do.” The look of confusion on his face, confusion at her blatant dismissal of his declaration was more heartbreaking than the look when he’d accepted that TJ had bailed on him. “Look, it’s—“

“Do not say that it’s fine,” Buffy cut him off, her voice breaking on the last word. She took a step towards him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Cyrus, you’re amazing. You shouldn’t be anyone’s second choice. And if me or Andi or anyone, ever made you think that— I’m sorry.”

Cyrus smiled a little at that, and hugged her back tightly when she wrapped her arms around him. “Thanks,” he mumbled against her shoulder.

She smiled as she pulled back, keeping an arm around his shoulders as they continued towards the cafeteria. “And if he’d rather do a costume with Kira, then it’s his loss,” she said, earning something closer to genuine smile from Cyrus. It was still a little muted, and it didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it was a start.

Except that by the time lunch was over, Buffy still wasn’t sure that it was the case that TJ had just wanted to do a costume with Kira instead of Cyrus. She had a good view of where the pair were sitting with the rest of TJ’s teammates, and she had noticed TJ shake off Kira’s hand more than once when she reached out to touch him as she laughed or said something she apparently thought was funny. She couldn’t miss the way he didn’t smile or talk much, or how many times he glanced over at their table. When he caught Buffy’s eyes, he didn’t even hurry to look away. He just looked more upset. Ashamed, almost.

“Hey, earth to Buffy!” Buffy looked around to see Andi’s hand waving in front of her face.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said we’re going to get our picture taken for yearbook. Come on,” Andi said excitedly.

When she looked back at TJ’s table, his teammates were mostly gone, and only Kira was still there, but it looked like TJ was trying to make a quick retreat.

“I’ll meet you guys there. I have to take care of something first,”  Buffy said, offering a halfhearted smile as she got up before Andi or anyone else could stop her.

“TJ! Wait up,” Buffy called, jogging over to him as he made his way towards the door. Kira was right behind him, and Buffy stopped to offer a feigned smile to the girl. “Mind if I borrow your dumber half for a minute?” She could see TJ out of the corner of her eye roll his eyes at the quip, but Kira just bounced on her toes beside TJ.

“Of course. TJ, I’ll see you after class for our costume photo,” she said, never taking her eyes off of Buffy as she spoke, a smirk on her lips as she turned to leave.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Buffy sneered at him once Kira was out of earshot. “How much did she pay you to deal with that all day?”

“What do you want, Buffy?” TJ snapped at her.

“To know why you bailed on Cyrus for such an original costume as a t-shirt with ‘dribble’

written on it.”

TJ just shrugged. “What’s it matter? Last minute change. I told Cyrus,” he said, but even she could hear that he was losing confidence in his words the longer than he spoke.

“Yeah, this morning,” Buffy pointed out. “And this has nothing to do with the fact that half the school now thinks you and Kira are dating?” Maybe it was an exaggeration, but the rumor had been floating around, and Buffy knew exactly who had been spreading it.

TJ flinched back at her words, but just scoffed. “That’s stupid. No one thinks that.”

“I don’t think that, but a lot of people do,” Buffy said. “In no small part thanks to your new costume partner telling people exactly that.”

She half expected him to come back with some lame defense of, ‘so what if people think that?’ But instead, his face dropped and he shook his head. He looked towards the door where Kira had just disappeared, then around the nearly empty cafeteria, before looking back at Buffy, all pretense faded away. “So I guess Cyrus probably believes it too,” he muttered quietly. His voice was almost broken, something reminiscent of how Cyrus had spoken to her earlier. “So why don’t you?”

“Because I’ve seen the way you look at Cyrus,” Buffy said matter-of-factly. She didn’t hesitate in her answer, though she did keep her voice quiet, too low for the few students still killing time in the cafeteria to hear. She expected him to deny it, but he surprised her again.

“That obvious, huh?” He asked quietly, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“A little, yeah,” she said, returning the small smile. “So why go through with this ridiculous costume with Kira?”

The faint smile faded and his gaze dropped to the floor. “I don’t know,” he muttered. She could’ve interrupted given him some kind of excuse, but she just waited in silicon for him to fill it in on his own. Eventually he looked up to meet her gaze again. “I didn’t—It’s one thing, if you notice. Andi, and Cyrus, even Jonah. But—I hadn’t really,” he paused, shrugging as he looked away again, clearly struggling for the words he needed. “I hadn’t thought much about what it looked like to other people. To the team, to the school, seeing me and Cyrus hanging out so much. Doing a matching costume with an inside joke that no one else understood.”

It started to dawn on Buffy, and she didn’t think she could’ve bene any more upset with Kira than she was when the girl was on the basketball team, but here it was. “And Kira made you think it wasn’t okay?” She asked, half pissed at Kira, and half shocked that TJ’s opinion of himself, or anything at all for that matter, was dependent on Kira of all people.

“I know it was stupid. I shouldn’t have done the costume with her,” TJ’s voice was desperate. His eyes pleading with her to understand something he apparently didn’t. “Does Cyrus hate me?”

Buffy just shrugged. “Go ask him,” she challenged. She was not about to play middleman with these two when they clearly needed to figure it out for themselves. “He’ll be in the auditorium for costume pictures, and you know where to find him after class.”

“It’s not that easy,” TJ said. She loved Cyrus, she wanted to be mad at TJ when he was, and wanted to hate TJ for hurting him. But seeing him like that, uncertain and half-broken, it was impossible.

“What’s not easy about it?” Buffy demanded.

“I’m the captain of the basketball team. People expect me to be—to be something,”  TJ said, his words growing steadily less certain as he spoke.

“To be what?” Buffy asked. “To be the team captain that dates Kira? To be what?” TJ didn’t answer, and she hadn’t expected him to, but she let the silence hang for a moment longer before she spoke again. “You have to decide if it’s worth it,” she added, her voice softer.

“If what’s worth it?” TJ asked. “If doing a costume with Cyrus is worth being laughed at by the rest of the team? Worth whatever stupid rumors they would start trying to spread about me? About Cyrus?”

“I wasn’t talking about Cyrus,” Buffy said, a small smile on her lips. “I meant you. You were miserable, talking with Kira and the team during lunch. You looked like you wanted to jump into a volcano this morning instead of wear that stupid shirt with her.” She shook her head as she considered him. “Is whatever rumors would go around, or whatever you think your team would say, is that worth you being happy? Laughing, and having fun like you’ve actually been doing lately, despite my not believing you were capable of it. Or is your reputation worth going back to the guy you were a year ago? The guy that everyone was afraid of.”

He didn’t say anything, just stared at the floor between them. She didn’t say another word, instead leaving him there to mull over what he needed to do. It wasn’t her place to fix his mistakes.

Still, it took a huge amount of will power to offer even a sarcastic smile to Kira as she passed the urchin in the hallway.

TJ didn’t come by the auditorium during the photos. He also didn’t meet Cyrus after school. And according to Cyrus when Buffy met up with him twice to drown his feelings in baby taters and milkshakes, he didn’t try to contact Cyrus at all over the weekend.

When Buffy met up with Cyrus, Andi and Jonah outside the school on Monday, she was convinced that TJ was too scared or too ashamed to face Cyrus, and would end up pity-dating, or fake-straight dating, Kira for the rest of middle school.

“Why is TJ wearing a colander on his head?” Jonah asked, looking past Buffy and Cyrus.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Buffy repeated to TJ as the boy approached them. This time though, her tone was laced with amusement rather than contempt. Sure enough, TJ was walking towards them with a silver colander on his head, and a white t-shirt with a large S on the front of it, hands held behind his back. Everyone else, including Cyrus, seemed to be in shock, seeing the shy smile on the basketball player’s face, so Buffy broke the silence. “Why are you dressed like a salt shaker?”

“Because Cyrus called summer,” TJ said with a hopeful smile, not even looking at her. His eyes were set on Cyrus.

“But costume day was Friday,” Cyrus said. Buffy could already see his eyes brighten, a smile start to stretch across his lips. It was the same look he had when he’d been genuinely surprised that TJ had come to the Shiva. Warm, hopeful, and for just a moment, not quite believing it.

“Yeah,” TJ said. His face dropped, and he looked appropriately remorseful for his screw-up, in Buffy’s opinion. “I kind of messed it up the first time around. So I was hoping for a do-over?” When he pulled his hands out for behind his back, he had a Hawaiian style floral shirt in one hand, and a pair of sunglasses in the other.

Buffy wished she had a camera at that exact moment. That she could capture that exact look of bright, surprised sunshine that illuminated Cyrus’s face. Something to remind Cyrus that he was worth it. To capture the bright, warm smile on TJ’s face that had been far more present as of late. To remind TJ that he was worth it. But from the look in TJ’s eyes when Cyrus reached out to take the shirt, he already knew.

She watched as Cyrus pulled on the shirt over his polo, before reaching out to take the sunglasses. He put them on, smiling bright as he spun back around to face Jonah and Andi.

“I don’t get it,” Jonah said, eyes shifting around between the rest of them for an answer.

“Somersault!” Cyrus said excitedly, before pushing the sunglasses up on top of his head and turning back to smile at TJ. “It’s our thing.”

Buffy just smiled eyes meeting Andi’s, and they just shook their heads at each other before turning back to look at the pair, still smiling brightly at each other, oblivious of anyone else around them.

Those two idiots.

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

Can you do one of your metas on Elena, her strengths, flaws and why you (and I!) still like her despite the fact that many understandably don't?!

Yes! Thank you so much for sending this in. I love any opportunity I get to talk about and defend Elena, because I think she’s such an unfairly hated/disliked character.

I actually wrote a very in-depth meta about Elena before here, but since I did it a couple of years ago now some of my opinions and thoughts have changed since then. What I speak about in the sections about Elena being a Mary Sue and her strengths and weaknesses are still what I think, so it’s particularly worth reading that, because that’s relevant to this question.

The thing is with Elena is, yes, she’s a flawed character, but characters should be flawed because human beings are flawed. Elena’s flaws are exactly what make her relatable and real. Based on what I’ve seen in fandom over the years the main reasons people seem to dislike Elena are because she’s selfish, a Mary Sue or undeveloped as character. In my previous meta I explained why she’s not a Mary Sue, and I stand by that. As for the selfish part, I agree with it wholeheartedly. Elena is selfish, but who isn’t? I don’t understand disliking or hating on a character based on their selfishness because selfishness is a natural human trait that is instilled in all of us. In fact, most of us have to actively try to not be selfish and to be more considerate of others, because we’re naturally hard-wired to think of ourselves first. I would argue that Elena isn’t anymore selfish than any other character on the show and that rather than selfishness, it’d probably be more accurate to refer to it as self-centredness. And you might think those two words mean the same, but to me, selfishness is actively choosing to put your own well-being above others at the detriment of those around you. Self-centredness is a tendency to think about yourself first and to be oblivious to the impact that has on others around you. So, I’d say that Elena was self-centred rather than selfish. She had a tendency to think about how she felt and how things affected her and wasn’t always able to see how others around her were feeling or how they may be affected. The claim that Elena was undeveloped is also a valid argument. I like Elena but even I’m not blind to the incredibly poor characterisation and development she had. I understand the writers intentions with Elena, but unfortunately, it didn’t really work. It felt like Elena never really went beyond her original character profile. It’s like the writers sat down in a room and decided the core traits they wanted her to have in the pilot episode and season 1, but they never really went beyond that. So for me, a big part of the reason I like Elena is because of the potential her character had and the fact that I feel like she’s unfairly hated, as I’ve already mentioned.

Overall, I really don’t think Elena was that flawed, except for her self-centredness and indecisiveness. The biggest flaw of her character was the inconsistent writing that failed to fully build upon her as a character or explore her nuances and sacrificed her characterisation and development for the sake of her romantic relationship. I think that over the years people have exaggerated her flaws in open rebellion against the writers who plugged Elena as this wonderful, selfless heroine whom everyone worshipped and adored. Whenever there’s a character like that people deliberately search for their flaws. This kind of writing also tends to turns people off the character and instead they start to root for the ‘underdog’ or the character that is sidelined (in this case, Bonnie and/or Caroline). So a big part of the problem with Elena’s character comes from the writing and the way in which the narrative constantly centred on her, put her on a pedestal and tried to push her as being special, which people begrudge.

Ironically, the reason I love Elena is because I don’t think she was special. She was just a very normal girl who wanted what most teenagers want - to get through high school, have fun with her friends and live some semblance of an ordinary life with happy moments in between. She wasn’t perfect, she wasn’t special, she was just a girl that tried her best in impossible situations. She didn’t always make the best decisions and she wasn’t always the embodiment of empathy and compassion, but she showed amazing strength and resilience in the face of adversity. Time and time again she experienced tremendous traumas but she dealt with them as best she could, and in the process remained an optimistic and kind soul. Her resilience was undoubtedly her biggest strength. It still astounds me that Elena was able to overcome so much pain and trauma. 

When people criticise Elena’s character, I think they fail to consider that although we’re not explicitly told it Elena consistently exhibited signs of depression. She explicitly said that after her parents death she didn’t want to live, she stopped enjoying her hobbies such as writing and cheer leading, but most significantly, she displayed reckless behaviours and suicidal tendencies. Unfortunately, her suicidal tendencies have been brushed off as being acts of “sacrifice” to save those she loved. I’m not saying they weren’t sacrifices, but her willingness to die was not normal for someone with a healthy mindset. I would die to save someone I love, but it wouldn’t be an easy decision. And perhaps that makes me sound like a terrible person, but I don’t want to die. I have a strong desire and instinct to live and sacrificing my life for someone I love is something I’d do, but I’d be absolutely terrified and heartbroken. However, when Elena was faced with the possibility of her own death, she didn’t seem to care. She passed it off as “I’m doing it to protect the people I love”, but whether that was true or not it doesn’t change the fact that she was going to die. The way Buffy reacted to finding out she was going to die is exactly how I would expect a teenager to react to receiving that kind of devastating news (x). Elena never reacted like this at the prospect of dying. In fact, when she died in 3x22 she seemed at peace, as though she was okay with the fact that she was dying. Afterwards when she woke up in transition she literally said, “I was ready to die”. It’s strange, because I always accepted that Elena didn’t want to be a vampire and that she was heartbroken at the start of season 4, but on reflection it doesn’t make sense. Elena has been around vampires and she knew that although it has it’s cons, she could still have a relatively normal life. Plus, she had a support network around her, particularly Caroline who had literally gone through the process of becoming a vampire two years previously and who had adapted to it brilliantly. I look back now and the only explanation I have for Elena’s reaction to becoming a vampire is that she wanted to die. Lets not forget that a few episodes later in 4x06 she tried to kill herself. She was under the influence of the Hunters curse, but all the curse did is bring her own self-loathing and suicidal thoughts to the forefront. And notice how in her relationships with Stefan and Damon she made some sort of reference to how they provided her with a reason to live. About Stefan: “After my parents died I kind of felt like I didn’t know how to live anymore. Like I didn’t want to. But then being with Stefan, somehow I just figured it out. And that’s what love should be. You should love the person that makes you glad that you’re alive.” About Damon: “ I’m not sorry that I met you. I’m not sorry that knowing you has made me question everything, that in death you’re the one that made me feel most alive.” Elena actively searched for something to live for in her relationships with Stefan and Damon, which just demonstrates to me that outside of those relationships she felt she has no reason to live. That’s hardly healthy and also explains why her relationship with Damon became so intense in seasons 5 and 6 to the point that she described him as being the one that defined her and felt that she couldn’t live without him. 

I could continue assessing this aspect of Elena but it’ll get too long. The point is that Elena endured a lot of hurt and trauma and people crap on her for some of the shitty decisions she made (none of which are really that bad, they’re just generic incidents of self-involvement that we’re all guilty of) without taking into account the context of her character or her mental state. Even the fact that she entered into relationships with vampires as a human is indicative of self-destructive tendencies. Regardless of the humanistic qualities Stefan and Damon had, the fact that they were vampires was obviously only going to bring strife to Elena’s life, but she disregarded that and chose to be with them anyway. Elena had a lot of deep-rooted emotional issues that she didn’t really ever get to deal with because every time she tried to make progress and heal something else traumatic happened to her. People don’t want to accept that Elena was a victim because the narrative placed her as the victim, and it pisses people off, but whether you like her or not she was a victim. Almost everything that happened to and around Elena was as a result of what she was (the doppelganger) or who she was connected to (Katherine, Stefan and Damon primarily) rather than her own decisions or actions.

She was also a victim of the writing. I don’t want to bring ships into this too much because that’s a separate issue, but Elena’s entire characterisation was sacrificed for the benefit of her relationship with Damon. The writers had to change her in certain ways to make that relationship work and instead of Elena having the kind of development we generally expect characters to have (whereby they change for the better), she actually regressed as a character. Elena’s entire character was built around the idea of her being compassionate, empathetic and nurturing, and being a good friend, girlfriend and sister, but all of that immediately became null and void when she got into a relationship with Damon. How could we believe that Elena was compassionate and a good friend/sister when she willingly entered into a relationship with a man who abused and raped her best friend (Caroline), murdered her brother in front of her and kidnapped and threatened him later on in the series, brutally attacked her other best friend (Bonnie), murdered Vicki and turned her into a vampire and killed Aaron. Those are just the bad things Damon did to Elena’s friends and family that I can recall from the top of my head. And this is also a core aspect of Elena’s character that people have a problem with - her entire characterisation no longer stands when she gets into a relationship with Damon. No matter how much the writers tried to tell us post season 4 that Elena was a kind, selfless and caring person, friend and sister, being with Damon automatically invalidated all of that. For Elena to make sense as a character and exist in that relationship, they had to completely re-establish her entire personality and core traits and the writers couldn’t be bothered to do that so just swept it under the rug. The problem is that fans don’t turn a blind eye to things like that they notice it.

So the big question here is why do you, and I, and others still like Elena? Well, I can only speak for myself, but I like Elena because (prior to season 4) she was a genuinely sweet and kind-hearted person that was relatable and had lots of potential but that was done a great injustice by the writing. Elena could’ve been one of the best loved characters of all time if the writers had known how to handle her, but they lost her character amidst the triangle drama and her relationships with the Salvatore brothers (honestly, I think if the triangle didn’t exist, Elena would’ve immediately been a more well-liked character generally). She didn’t do anything to warrant the terrible things that happened to her and has been consistently bashed by fans who nit-pick the minor examples of self-centredness she displayed and overlook all the kindness she showed and the hardships she endured. The horrendous traumas she suffered through have been glossed over but honestly, as a 17 year old girl that went through everything she did, she showed incredible strength and resilience. For that alone, I cannot do anything but love Elena Gilbert.

Also, as a side-note, on a more personal level, I relate to Elena a lot as a character that’s considered flat and boring and that people see as lacking in conviction. I’m always very insecure that I’m dull, that there’s nothing interesting about me and that people will find it difficult to like me or connect to me because I’m a very neutral character. I also worry because I don’t have a specific path in mind for my future or one thing that I’m passionate about and want to dedicate my life to. And I feel like people a lot of people in real life really are like this. Not every single person in the world is super deep and multi-layered with really well-defined personalities. Not everyone is fun, vibrant, charming and charismatic. Likewise, a lot of people don’t know exactly what they want out of life (in fact, I’d argue people who know what they want are in the minority of people). A lot of people are just dull and ‘ordinary’ and don’t have their lives mapped out. We have this tendency to analyse characters based on their traits, their strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, desires, fears etc. which is fun and I love to do it, but real people are more complex than that. If I asked people that know me to describe my core personality they probably wouldn’t be able to (hell, I don’t even think I’d be able to!), because you can never really articulate the essence of what a person is no matter how hard you try. People are contradictory and personalities, feelings, thoughts, morals, beliefs etc. are very changeable. There are core aspects to who we are, but people can change the way they think or behave or what they believe all the time depending upon circumstances and experiences. Elena may not necessarily have a core personality or characterisation that is maintained across the series, but in a strange way, that makes her more human to me than any other character. And I relate so much to the way that Elena never really knows what to do when it comes to making important life decisions. It’s important to remember when analysing Elena that despite Nina looking (and being) older than 17, Elena is supposed to be a 17 year old girl. Most teenagers that age don’t have a clue who they are, what they want or who they want and are just living day to day and seeing where life takes them. That’s exactly what Elena did and since she “made it” it gives me hope that I will one day too.

Thank you so much for asking, lovely! I tried to keep this short, but I have a lot of thoughts and feelings when it comes to Elena. Hopefully I made sense, because I felt like a lot of this was very muddled and explained terribly.

[stahlop]

Once Upon a Time 1x09 “True North” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06  1x07 1x08

Yeah, this episode was not that great. Hansel and Gretel is one of my favorite fairy tales and I did not like the way this was presented.  I did, however, love the Blind Witch, but I’m also a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, so seeing Emma Caulfield on my screen in any way, shape, or form is great. But her Blind Witch was so creepy and just amazing to watch. We also get an outsider invading our fair Storybrooke. I wonder what he will eventually bring to the table.

Synopsis: Emma tries to prevent homeless twins from being sent to foster care by finding their father. In the Enchanted Forest, the Evil Queen sends Hansel and Gretel to the Blind Witch’s house to retrieve something that was stolen from her.

Opening: Gingerbread House

New Characters:

Ava and Nicholas/Gretel and Hansel: Considering these two are the focus of the episode, there really isn’t much to say about them. They are twins (although Ava/Gretel seems much older than Nicholas/Hansel) who are homeless, having lost their mother years ago. They go to school with Henry and he wants to help them out, even though they were going to frame him for shoplifting,  because he doesn’t have any friends. They are afraid of being separated, which, fair. And, while we get a little bit of tension on whether they would make it over the Storybrooke border, they end up reunited with the father they never knew they had and get their happy ending.

Hansel and Gretel are a bit more interesting than their SB counterparts. Again, Gretel seems to be the one in charge. They have a loving relationship with their father, and everything is hunky-dory until they lose their father and the Evil Queen finds them. EQ thinks they have spunk and bravery so she sends them to retrieve something from the Blind Witch’s house in exchange for finding their father for them. And at the gingerbread house, we see exactly which twin got the brains and which one didn’t, as Hansel decides to take a huge bite of cupcake when they were specifically told not to eat anything in the house (and this after he tried to take a piece of candy from the front of the house before they even went in). Hansel and Gretel get locked in a cage and Gretel pretends to be Hansel because Hansel is too scared to go through with the plan Gretel thought up for them. Hansel then trips, making the witch realize she actually caught two children and not just one, and they manage to get her onto her cooking rack and throw her in the oven. I’m sorry, but Hansel is a serious waste of space. They bring back the satchel to EQ who offers them the opportunity to live with them. Hansel’s like ‘cool’ and Gretel’s like ‘you promised to help us find our father.’ So now EQ sends them to the forest with the promise that they can be together if they can find their father.  Never make deals with Evil Queen’s children. They never keep their promises.

Woodcutter/Michael Tillman: We don’t know much about the woodcutter. We know he loves his children so much that he gives them his compass to always find him, unlike the Grimm fairy tale which you can read here. We also find out that he was captured by EQ, for what purpose we don’t know.

Michael Tillman has no idea that he is a father. His cursed memories state that he met the twins’ mother on a camping trip where he also lost his compass, the same one the twins keep on them as a reminder of their mother. He wants nothing to do with the twins because he doesn’t know how to be a father. But when Emma calls him to ‘tow’ her car at the end of the episode, he sees the children, thus having found them, and thus EQ’s promise comes true, and they are allowed to be reunited with each other.

Blind Witch: By far the best new character we’ve seen lately. Too bad she died. The actress did an amazing job with the little amount she got to do. I really would’ve liked more background on why she ate children and how she became blind. She was thoroughly equal parts creepy and campy.

Mr. Clarke: We don’t see much of Mr. Clarke who runs the drug store the kids were caught shoplifting at, but we can determine that he is Sneezy from the seven dwarfs (how appropriate, the sick one runs the drug store). 

The Stranger: We know nothing about the stranger who comes at the end of the episode except that he drives a motorcycle and has some kind of box strapped to the back of his bike. Since Henry says strangers can’t come into Storybrooke, must he originally be from the Enchanted Forest? I guess we will find out.

Character Observations:

Emma: This is a very Emma heavy episode.  Emma is dealing with her past and present demons. Her past demons in the form of the twins having to go to social services and group homes, something she experienced herself and she never wants anyone else to experience. Her present demons in the form of Michael Tillman being there for his kids when she is trying to be there for Henry as the parent that abandoned him. Emma understands Ava and Nicholas because she’s been there. She was raised in the foster care system. She knows that many of those people are doing it for the money. She’s also knows what it’s like to have to steal for survival (maybe this is why she was in jail). Emma also understands Michael Tillman in a way. Yes, she already knew she had a child out there that she had given up and this is new information for Michael, but she understands the doubts that having pre-teen children can bring and how she doesn’t feel like she could be a good mother to Henry. Let’s not forget, Emma’s original intention when Henry found her was to bring him back home and go back to her life in Boston. She was never planning on staying. It was only because she suspected Regina was lying to her about loving Henry that got her to stay and try to be his mother. So Emma gets it, but at the same time, she doesn’t get why he wouldn’t even want to meet his children to see if there was anything there. Yes, she ends up forcing his hand, but at the same time, she breaks whatever curse Regina had placed on them so they get to be a family again.

Now, as for lying to Henry about his father, this is total self-preservation on Emma’s part. She obviously does not want to talk about Henry’s father and she wants to give Henry hope that apparently both his parents weren’t messed up people when he was born. I have a feeling this will end up biting Emma in the ass in the future.

Regina/Evil Queen: I actually don’t feel Regina was so bad in this episode. Yes, she insulted Emma every chance she got, but technically, she was doing what should have been done for Ava and Nicholas. I know she was circumventing the sheriff’s job and she had her own agenda, but technically, the twins needed to be with social services if there were no other relatives known or willing to take them in. Although, if people can’t leave Storybrooke, I don’t know how Regina expected them to leave, unless she knows that Emma can leave without consequence.

And the Evil Queen gave us some depth this episode as well! We see that EQ doesn’t care if you’re a child or not, being in her forest will have consequences. But she is impressed by Hansel and Gretel’s bravery, so she sends them on a mission to steal something for her from the Blind Witch, which we find out is an apple. She says that it is ‘something to defeat a wicked and powerful enemy’ and later on “is a weapon for a very particular and devious enemy.’ Knowing that Snow will eventually fall under the sleeping curse from the apple, EQ really has a lot of hate towards Snow. But, we also see vulnerability in EQ this week. She is so impressed with Hansel and Gretel that she wants them to come live with her and have everything their hearts desire. Then, when she talks to their father, she asks why they wouldn’t want to stay with her when she could give them everything and doesn’t seem to understand why family would be more important than material things. Now, if we hadn’t seen EQ’s father before, I might have understood why this confused her so much, but we know that EQ’s father loved her so much that he basically died for her so she could get her revenge. So how does she not understand why Hansel and Gretel would rather be with their father who loves them rather than live with her and only have material possessions?

Gold: Again, not much Gold in this episode, but he does help Emma find Michael Tillman through the compass. Since the card was blank, does that mean that Rumplestiltskin procured it for him in the EF, did he have some sort of premonition about it, or was it just something the curse provided for him? However he knew, it is obvious that he gave Emma the name, not for her forgiveness or tolerance as he so claimed, but as a way to thwart Regina.

Henry: Poor Henry, he is so happy when Ava starts talking to him in the drug store, and then devastated when he discovers they were using him to shoplift. Of course Henry wouldn’t have any friends his age, he’s the only kid that’s allowed to grow up. But it seems he has some friends now. Hopefully, we’ll see more of Ava and Nicholas in the future. As for the lie Henry is told about his father, he seems happy knowing that his father was a hero. I have a feeling that he will discover the truth someday though. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had Emma tell Mary Margaret that she lied. Also, another reminder that no one can leave or enter the town.

Mary Margaret: I understand not knowing about other student’s home lives (hell, I didn’t know about most of my students’ home lives unless they told me or it was serious enough that a memo was sent out), but not realizing that social services may not be the way to go is naive. But she is right, not all foster and group homes are terrible. Emma just got the raw end of the deal, so to speak. But her talk with Emma at the end was so heartbreaking; being that close to her daughter and not knowing it. I can’t wait to see how Mary Margaret and Emma react to each other when the curse is finally broken.

Questions:

How old are Ava and Nicholas supposed to be? I’d wager a year or so older than Henry, so 11 or 12? They still go to the same school as Henry, since Mary Margaret has seen them around and Henry is in 5th grade, so 6th or 7th grade? Is it a K-8 school?

How do they afford school uniforms? Are they free? And where do they get their regular clothes from, and their school supplies? Is all that just built into the curse?

Has Henry been the only student to age? No one ages in Storybrooke because time didn’t move. So he would have different classmates every year. How in the hell did Regina think she was going to explain that? Sorry, all your classmates failed again and you’re the only one moving up?

Also, did the teachers teach the same thing everyday if time didn’t move? Did Henry learn about the birds and made a birdhouse everyday until Emma came and started up time?

Can the mayor take the only copy of the twins birth certificate? Wouldn’t they have made her a copy instead?

How are all the foster and group homes in the state of Maine full? Is this really a thing that can happen? Did they actually call every single one or was this another ploy from Regina to separate the twins?

I get that Gretel was focused on getting the satchel, but did she really not notice the absolutely huge pile of bones right in front of her?

Aren’t blind people supposed to have heightened senses since they don’t have sight? Maybe she didn’t become blind until later in life (studies show people who become blind later in life don’t usually have the heightened hearing).

How did the Blind Witch get the apple? What was she planning on using it for? Did it already have the sleeping curse infused in it? Is that why Regina needed that particular apple?

It is heavily implied that EQ can see what is going on through other people’s mirror, as evidenced by her looking through the Blind Witch’s mirror. So how did she see Snow in the woods with the dwarfs? Are there random mirrors in the woods?

Did the Evil Queen kidnap Hansel and Gretel’s father with the explicit intention of using them to  get her satchel back from the Blind Watch, or was it a happy coincidence? If not, then why was the woodcutter captured, because he was in the Queen’s Forest?

Observations:

Sneezy runs the drug store.

The Evil Queen has sent several children to their deaths by sending them to retrieve the satchel from the Blind Witch.

Very Pan’s Labyrinth vibe with the not eating the food in the Blind Witch’s house (check out the clip). 

Hansel is the dumbest, klutziest kid ever.

Apparently fireballs can go through her magic mirrors to kill the Blind Witch, but not to kill Snow White.

Emma somehow sabotaged the sheriff’s car enough to make it stall out, but not actually need a tow.

Snow White has now met the dwarfs.

The compass starts working when Michael Tillman shows up to help Emma.

Mary Margaret almost looks like she’s going to remember something when she sniffs Emma’s baby blanket, and then doesn’t.

The articles Emma is looking at say this:

7 Year Old Boy Finds Baby On Side of Road

Still No Leads on Deadbeat Parents: Baby Emma Remanded to Foster System

After weeks of futile searching, Emma turned over to Child Services for Care

It seems like Emma was a big deal when she was found if the papers were making such a fuss over her. Seems very unlikely she wouldn’t have been adopted right away (or at least not returned like she told Henry in the first episode) given the news coverage about her.

Henry’s ‘father’ liked pumpkin pie.

Once Upon a Time Firsts:

Emma’s baby blanket

Emma’s foster care experiences

Names: 

Ava - in German it possibly means desired.

Nicholas - is the patron saint of many things, including children.

Michael Tillman - the surname Tillman mans husbandman or farmer, basically, someone who works with the earth.

I would like to say that I understand that the writers had to made life tough for Emma by having her have a horrible experience in foster care, but having several friends who are foster parents, several friends who work in social services, and even several former students who had been in a group home, it makes me sad that this is the way Emma’s background is approached. From her experience, she never had a single foster parent who loved or cared for her and it was all about the money from the state. I know there are plenty of people out there who foster because they care for children. I only wish Emma could have been placed with one of those (but then we don’t have her mistrust and walls and all that, I know).

This was the first appearance of Sneezy/Mr. Clark played by Gabe Khouth who, unfortunately, passed this Tuesday, July 23rd. RIP Gabe Khouth.

Please leave comments and reblog!

@searchingwardrobes  @thisonesatellite  @justbecauseyoubelievesomething

@laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81

[harrietvane]

do you mind talking about why you dislike Love Actually and Richard Curtis's romcoms? I've seen you mention it in some of your tags and I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

Long post, so scroll now, ye who care not.

OK, so like better voices than mine have articulated Why Love Actually Sucks Balls, but you were kind enough to ask for my view, so strap in I’m gonna talk about Jane Eyre, and the 1990’s Fran Drescher sitcom The Nanny also. It’s coming up on western civilisations’ holiday season, so why not, it’s a good time to tell this movie to choke, because it’s about to be repeatedly thrust upon us once again. (Disclaimer: I acknowledge Richard Curtis is responsible for Blackadder and Vicar of Dibley, so whatever else, we’re still cool on that basis. But I have spite and to spare, so there’s plenty to go around).

My main beef is actually the context. Technically, if all of the below bullshit was in an offbeat movie from any other movie market (I’m thinking maybe a French, or Spanish movie from the 90′s boom, Almodovar style?), the focus would probably be a black humour take on ‘Lord What Fools These Mortals Be!’, sort of look at the inherent ridiculousness of mankind, and how we get in our own way, blah blah, might have been cute. I’d buy that. This movie? A british movie for the american market? It’s sold with a big holiday sticker on it saying ‘ROMANCE’, and specifically ‘ADORABLE ASPIRATIONAL ROMANCE THAT YOU SHOULD ADORE AND ASPIRE TO’. Also the context *inside* the movie itself (through a narration voiceover no less) is that all of these narratives is somehow proof that ‘Love, Actually is all around’, and specifically in a good, wholesome, happy way, overall at least. These stories are redeeming, even if they’re not all happy, they’re Good™ or whatever. The context outside the movie is the same: british TV advertising, hard copy packaging, holiday specials, outdoor gala screenings: they all say over and over: THIS IS SQUISHY HOT PINK NEON LOVE, wholesome, healing, and healthy. You should want this, aspire to this, think this is the cat’s pyjamas! It’s a wide and varied look at the beautiful power of love from all angles, comic, tragic, the lot. 

Is it fuck. The ‘positive’ romance stories range from Stage-5 Creeper to Crotch Puppet Afterthought, the ‘melancholy’, thwarted romance stories seem to say ‘if you’re a woman who’s not readily/immediately bangable to your allocated straight dude, romance is over for you I’m afraid’. Let’s recap, shall we:

Much has already been said about Andrew Lincoln’s character BLANTANTLY SHARKING ON HIS BEST MATE’S WIFE being uhhh, less than fresh. I don’t even feel like I need to justify this one, it’s so over-the-top. The main point is that movie itself maintains this as a tragic, swoony, thwarted, heart-string-tugging missed connection, rather than The Worst Friend Ever (meaning: it assumes we’ll be 100% onboard with Keira Knightley skipping secretly away from Chiwetel Eijiofor to grant his best mate one treasured kiss, as opposed to saying ‘what the FUCK Mark, why are you telling me this, this is super inappropriate?? and my only wedding video is just you zooming in on my face? Pls get help’.

We all love National Treasure Colin Firth and all, but like is Love, Actually fixating on a woman who literally can’t speak to you? Has said nothing understandable to you? About whose own life you’ve never yet, and could never have asked about? Whose main interactions with you have been to wordlessly clean your room, bring you food, and tidy it away after? Your ideal woman, who you meet immediately following a break up, is one who silently meets all your domestic needs, while making zero emotional or intellectual demands on you whatsoever? WOW, SHOCKER. (Oh but it’s cute or whatever, they have him propose, and there’s a mix up when her sister appears, but she’s Ugly™, so it’s funny that the sister is not getting romance. I mean, how could she, an uggo?? Classic joke. Good times.)

The Prime Minster and his tea lady: more on Curtis’ Domestic Servitude Kink below, whoo boy.

Laura Linney would really really like to sleep with Rodrigo Santoro, and god bless her who wouldn’t, but she is tragically unable to, because she has family commitments as being the sister – not even fulltime carer, just RELATED TO -  a brother living with disability. Sorry folks, romance is OFF THE CARDS, FOREVER for Laura here. How can she??? That’s the nature of love, actually. Can you have sex right now this moment? No? Whelp, sorry, thanks for playing, back to the Tragic Assisted Living facility for you. Gosh it’s unfortunate that’s a truth universally acknowledged that any whiff of disability = no romance for you ever. (Don’t start me on 4 Weddings* [edit: *it’s totally Notting Hill, not 4 Weddings, thank] and how that husband is like The Best because he continues to love his wife even though her legs don’t work. What a champ, honestly, do they have an award for that?) I have to stop now before I get sarcasm poisoning, but my eyes will continue to roll.

How could I say anything bad about the Liam Neeson widower and his adorable lovestruck son storyine? Lol, I’m gonna. Have you seen the Buffy episode The Zeppo? Xander is convinced the only way girls (as a concept, not in the specific) will like him enough to sleep with him is if he has A Thing. The Thing is posited as ‘being cool’ by having an object or skill that alone will be the magic bullet to romance. Musical instrument prowess is considered, and he ends up just getting a car to be his Thing. This just seems like a redux of that logic. This kid could get some genuine direction from the movie to get to know this girl, learn her interests and share his, see if she likes him as a person by being A PERSON, but the narrative just backs away from that and eventually DOES just say ‘play the drums in the show, she’ll like you’ and that’s …it. But it’s cool, teenagers don’t learn key interpersonal dynamics at this age or anything, she kisses him for some reason, whatever. (Bonus points for gifting his dad with a literal supermodel as a punchline, after making that an actual joke earlier about the shallow nature of attraction, and love is about filling a one-sided need.)

I could go on, but I have very little to say about Freeman falling for a girl whose tits he’s been holding for a week, the no-homo pop star Nighy plot, or the guy that goes and has sex in Wisconsin with Bond Girls, and can’t be bothered, which leads me to…

Richard Curtis’ Domestic Servitude Kink. Must I kinkshame Richard Curtis in his own home?? Nope, I’m kinkshaming him AT WORK in his narratives, surrounded by his nubile, pliant, adorable female employee characters. Oh Mr Curtis, I seem to have dropped a pencil!

OK, so like a M/F Domestic Servitude romance is an extremely old trope, and extremely common, and I’m not here to tear that up, because done well it’s amazing, lot of petrol in that King Cophetua narrative tank. I’m a fan. The most famous in-context historical example being Jane Eyre, for instance: he’s her boss, she’s his paid subordinate, they’re both 100% aware of that. It’s a great way to explore the real-life class and power dynamics of these 2 train wrecks of human beings, and they vomit their ridiculous drama llama feelings all over a 600 page novel. Super fun, they’re both awful humans, I love them. Mid-century you might have The Sound of Music, and in more modern times you get 1990s sitcom The Nanny, both extremely well-developed romances involving paid employees, and part of their value is that the shows KNOW THIS. They’re aware it’s the basis for their dynamic, that they have to directly play with that, and develop beyond to go anywhere. Watching Fran Fine in her runway-fresh Moschino minidresses jump on Maxwell Sheffield’s desk for the 800th time making him super uncomfortable (and not a little turned on) is always such a treat. It’s right out there on the label. The problem with Love, Actually, is Curtis doesn’t want to admit that naughty secretary seems to be a cornerstone of what gets him going, romantic-stylez. 

One (1) time in the movie would be ‘sure, why not’. Literally the highest political office in the land, making overtures to the woman who brings him tea, i guess might be a bit off, but let’s say it’s done well, and maybe Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon’s charisma gets us over the line (his behaviour is cute because her last man didn’t like her body, but the prime minister DOES like her body! so it’s cute!). Whatever, seen worse. Two (2) times however is making a point, and Colin Firth is driving his silent portuguese maid home - not a french maid but so close! - and deciding he’d like her to bring him tea and clean his toilet for as long as they both shall live, and that also seems to be her greatest joy. Ah, l’amour. OK, I guess you like the thing, everyone has a thing, but at least you’re done now. Wait, you mean there’s a third (3rd) one? Everyone’s Fave Alan Rickman drives the plot of his own marriage’s tragic romance because he’s having stiffening feelings about his own Naughty Secretary halloween costume, after all. All the beautiful speeches about Joni Mitchell give Thompson some nice things to do, but it still assumes the Nature of Romance is to want to plough the help. A man can’t help it! It’s how romantic attraction works! Once would be whatever. Three times and there’s a tag on Ao3 for that, so please just scratch that itch and stop selling it to me in a heartwarming christmas movie as the Universal Nature Of Romance, so varied, so vast, the full spectrum! Just 2 hours to tell a story: but 3 whole narratives and 7 actors devoted to the variants on the naughty maid story. My point is be upfront about it and I’d be all for it - pretend it’s not A Thing You’re Doing and my creep-meter goes ping. Steven Shainberg’s ‘Secretary’ has a scene where the boss literally puts a saddle on his employee, and I find it to be one of the most genuinely moving romances I’ve ever seen. Love Actually makes me feel like Curtis is sending me a ‘u up?’ late night text about his secretary fantasy.

Anyway, I fucking hate this film, and not necessarily because of the content, but because of the context. The movie tells me to love it as aspirational romance. My culture tells me to love it as aspirational romance. Everyone tells me to love it as a varied and full exploration of reasons to get up in the morning, because it’s an aspirational romance. It makes me want to claw my own face off.

[andimackfaneditsss]

the boys of Andi Mack should not be given a pass

So ”We Were Never” was fantastic for many reasons. No doubt about it! It was honestly, in my opinion, the best episode by far. It was nostalgic of season 1, where things weren’t so complicated with love triangles upon triangles upon triangles. It was nice, focused on some characters’ stories we thought had gotten left behind. We even get a few heartfelt moments of two families in this episode. I cried, ngl! But after the tears and smiling I came to the conclusion not only did this episode finally touch on storylines we thought were being forgotten...it also touched on characters and relationships in a way that has me seeing things differently now.

I realize the Friendom has made jokes about how oblivious Jonah is, I’m guilty of that. I also realize the Friendom has pointed out something else might be up with him, he might be depressed or suffering still from his toxic relationship with Amber and unfortunately that’s how his relationship with Andi turned out. But if Andi is going to be held accountable for literally everything she does, I don’t think the boys of this show should keep being given a pass.

Let’s start with Jonah: he seems to be oblivious, he seems to be helpless, but I’m not so sure now. He was obviously manipulated and forced into a relationship by Amber and because she’s older than him by a year and is pretty intimidating in nature and is in high school, that’s believable. However, she still has a heart that Jonah kind of played with. In a way? He sort of led her on. But that’s because he didn’t know how to speak up to get out of the relationship. There wasn’t any communication on both ends and so both people got hurt.

Okay, so both people messed up. Not entirely Jonah’s fault. But his relationship with Andi should have been different. Why? It’s Andi we’re talking about. Such a sweet, understanding girl.

Some people have given her crap because she’s only freaked out over their relationship the entire time they were together, always panicking and assuming the worst. But look at it from her perspective: if you’re dating someone (you think) and aren’t getting any signs from them that they don’t like you or that they don’t want to be in this relationship BUT they also literally don’t tell you anything (“hey, I’m helping a friend that day I scheduled something with you, sorry” or “oh btw I’ll be hanging with a friend of mine at the Spoon, you can come down and say hi if you’d like) then you see how your parents’ relationship is turning out and it’s not well, you’ll freak out and only think the worst of things.

When Jonah invited Andi out to the virtual arcade, he also invited Buffy. We all thought he was oblivious and just liked hanging out with everyone. Maybe he’s nervous about being alone with someone. But then we see him hanging out with Morgan at the Spoon, it’s only him and her. Now yes he and Andi have hung out alone before, but they weren’t dating then. If he really started to question their relationship and wanted to go back to being friends, he should have spoken to her about that. But maybe he was scared? Well...no. He grinned and was quite relaxed and actually believed Andi just knew he didn’t really consider them together. He held her hand, he told her he liked her and was oh so hurt when she laughed at him for falling down and injuring himself, but they’re not really a thing? Is she a side chick? Does he have a main? What’s going on here that he thinks it’s just universally known and accepted you’re not really a couple if you do some couple things and the other half of your not-a-relationship will think you’re dating. Now this could be because Amber basically I guess cheated on him? We’ll never really know until they bring it up again, however. But let’s say that’s affected him—okay it would make sense. Some people try not to do what was done to them, especially if it made them feel bad. But others don’t even know that they’re doing unto others what was done unto them and hurt them.

Whatever his reasons for being this way, he clearly believes it’s no big deal and doesn’t hurt anyone. So now my thoughts on Jyrus after realizing Jonah is this way: it should not happen. Hate me if you want but do you really want that for Cyrus? For him and Jonah to be together, do couple things, be all cute and happy together, only for one day to have Jonah walk up to Cyrus and say, “oh no Cy-guy we weren’t actually together I mean I don’t really like labels, were just friends, we’re good right—yeah we’re good.” Because I don’t want to see that. I no longer ship Jyrus because of Jonah Beck.

Now for Tj: he sucks. I really don’t see how stealing a muffin for Cyrus, or rather, getting him to steal a muffin for himself? Being forced into passing his teammate the ball during a game? How does that make him a good guy? He’s a jerk. Who doesn’t decide not to be one, he’s forced into not being one at times. He got Buffy to break her moral code and do his homework for him because he didn’t want to be pitied by anyone for at least one more game. But he can’t even sympathize with people. I don’t like him, sorry. And no, I don’t ship Tjyrus/Tyrus. Him having a learning disability is good representation, but does not redeem him.

Now for Cyrus: he really should have just asked Tj what he wanted from Buffy. Because I think if he knew, he wouldn’t have helped him trick Buffy like that. Also, he tends to make things worse when he tries talking with everybody. I know he just wants to help. But if Andi is going to be held accountable for her. Every. Action. Then we shouldn’t entirely excuse how Cyrus messes a lot up.

Bowie: not really sure how to feel rn. He deserves happiness. But so does Bex and Andi. There just needs to be better understanding and communication.

And as for Ham: you’re awesome, my friend.

Marty: come back pls.

[obsessive-fics]

Title: (Let’s Stop) Running from Love

Rating: T

Word Count: 3.3k 

Summary: Phil is ten years old the first time he asks his mother what love is. He doesn't fully understand what her answer means until he meets Dan Or Some of the most important Valentine's Days in Phil's life over the years

A/N: Thank you to the wonderful @yourfriendlyblogstalker for being an amazing beta and putting up with all of my whining and procrastinating

[Read on Ao3]

1997

Phil is ten years old the first time he asks his mother what love is. They’re sitting at the kitchen table, filling out valentines for the kids in his class, and it’s got him thinking. What’s the point? Why are him and a bunch of other kids going to give each other cards that say things like “You’re cool!”? Is there anything special about that or does it stop being special once everyone gets one?

When he voices this, his mother just smiles and pats him on the head. She’s been doing that a lot lately, just stopping to affectionately encourage all of the strange ways his brain works.

“I don’t think anyone really knows- it’s just something nice you all do for each other. What I do know, though, is that love is choosing someone. It’s when every day you wake up, and you choose to continue giving yourself to that person in whatever way you see fit,” she explains, handing him a valentine with Pikachu on it, folded perfectly in half. He takes it, and puts it in an envelope with Emily R’s name on it.

“So you chose Dad then?” he asks, because parents are supposed to be the ultimate example of what love is, but he’s starting to notice that not all of the parents he knows live up to that.

“I did. And he chose me back. And to us that means being each other’s best friends and biggest supporters, even when it’s not easy.” she doesn’t know it at the time, but he takes those words and decides right then and there that he’s absolutely going to live by them. They finish the Valentines and he’s tasked with setting the table for dinner while she cooks, but he never stops thinking about what it means to choose someone and to be chosen in return.

2003

He’s sixteen before he finds himself wondering what love is again. Lily is smart and pretty and actually listens when he spends twenty minutes analyzing the latest episode of Buffy. This must be it, he thinks, this must be how it feels. He spends all of Thursday night trying to think of the right way to tell her- what should he say, what should he say? But nothing seems right.

Martyn is entirely unhelpful in this regard. “Just tell her how you feel,” is the extent of his advice, and maybe that works in movies where everyone knows exactly what to say to express exactly how they’re feeling, but he has no idea. Eventually he gives up trying to plan and hopes he’ll know what to do when the time comes.

The next day at school, he’s all nerves. He sits next to Lily the same way he’s done every day, but something about it feels different. Like he’s been holding his breath this whole time and he’s one second from breathing again.

“Do you want to hang out after school?” Phil asks while they’re walking together after class, complaining about how much reading they’ve got over the weekend.

“Oh, I would, but… it’s Valentines Day,” Lily answers, suddenly looking everywhere but him.

“I know, that’s um… kind of why I’m asking,” he tells her, desperately wishing for the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

“Oh. Oh! Wow, that’s… that’s so sweet, really, you’re so sweet, but I can’t,” Lily rambles, stopping and hugging her books tighter to her chest.

“Oh… Well, that’s okay then. Let’s just f-”

“Girls!” Lily blurts out, cutting him off.

“What?”

“I can’t because girls- a girl. I’m… God this is hard. I wanted to tell you, but I…” Lily trails off, shaking her head, but he manages to piece together what she’s getting at.

“You can’t go out with me tonight because you like girls?” Phil asks, and all of the tension in Lily’s body seems to fade away at once.

“Yeah. Yes. I’m… well, I don’t know yet, but I’m getting ice cream with Rosa from history later, so I’m excited to find out,” she tells him, and he doesn’t think he’s even seen her smile that big.

“You know, Rosa kind of looks like Willow,” he tells her in an attempt to make her laugh. It works, and she wraps her arms around him for a quick hug.

“Thank you for understanding,” she says, pulling away.

“Always. Just don’t forget to invite me to the wedding,” Phil jokes as they resume walking.

“Shut up,” Lily laughs, shoving him, and just like that they’re back to normal. It hurts a little, knowing that he hasn’t found the person that’s going to choose him, but he’ll get over that. For now he’s just happy that someone as wonderful as Lily is discovering herself, and that she’s found someone to do that with.

2008

Nick is… Nice. He’s nice and attractive in that tan, blonde, boy next door kind of way. But if Phil’s being honest with himself he wouldn’t be here with him on any other day of the year. Jimmy had caught him, watching Titanic on the couch, in his pjs at six o’clock and demanded he come out with him.

“It’s a day of love! You can’t just sit here watching tv by yourself all night,” he’d said, turning off the tv just as Rose’s hand comes up to the leave its print in the foggy car window.

“Why not?” he’d whined, but it was a battle he already knew he’d lost. Which is how he found himself in his best shirt, sitting next to Nick, listening to him shout over the music about the big game next weekend. Jimmy keeps shooting him encouraging looks from across the table, and he’s starting to regret every decision he’s ever made that lead him here.

“I need a drink,” he announces unceremoniously, cutting off Nick’s very detailed description of his workout routine.

Phil orders the most colorful drink on the menu and sits down to nurse it. He’s being unfair and immature, ditching his date to sulk and drink, but he doesn’t go back to the table. Three drinks later, he feels someone sit down next to him.

“I’m a lousy date I know,” he says, but it kind of loses power when he has to shout it in Nick’s ear twice more before he understands what he’s saying.

“Oh! That’s okay, I probably haven’t been all that great either,” Nick shouts back, smiling sheepishly. Phil suddenly feels a wave of guilt and affection, probably brought on by the amount of sugar and vodka he’s just consumed.

“Do you wanna go somewhere quiet?” he asks, before he can think better of it.

“... Sure,” Nick says, so quietly he almost misses it.

They make their way outside, side stepping heart shaped balloons and giant teddy bears. It’s freezing outside, a blast of harsh February air hitting them the minute they open the door. They lean against the side of the building, arms wrapped around themselves.

“Sorry if I was going on back there. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, but I also don’t want to not say anything, and then I just can’t stop even though-” Nick is saying, when Phil kisses him, cutting him off. He’s not sure why exactly- maybe it’s because it’s Valentine’s Day, or because he’s a little drunk and Nick’s being almost unrealistically nice, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to spend the night completely alone. Either way he’s standing outside kissing a guy he’s known for two hours, and they’re gonna need to find a place sans witnesses pretty soon.  

Fifteen minutes later, Phil’s pressed up against his bedroom door, Nick doing things to his neck that are definitely going to leave a mark in the morning. He wants to enjoy this, to just not think about love and romance, and how, to his knowledge, neither of those things have ever start with sloppy, drunken handjobs, but his mind really enjoys betraying him. He’s there physically the whole time, but he feels like he’s watching a dream from far away. The next morning, he wakes up feeling nauseous and disoriented, as Nick is sitting at the foot of the bed, putting his shoes back on.

“Thanks for uh, last night,” Nick says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Yeah, uh… You too,” Phil replies, as articulate as his hangover addled brain allows for. Nick leaves after that, and Phil decides immediately he’d much rather spend every Valentine’s Day alone than having to feel like this. And then he runs to the bathroom to go throw up.

2010

It’s the night before Valentine’s Day, Phil is hopelessly in love, and he’s sitting in his bedroom alone, looking at his camera. The universe can be relentlessly cruel sometimes. How could it bring him his soulmate and then constantly rip them apart?

He’s never had a real, proper, Valentine. Someone he’s sure he’d choose over and over again, in each lifetime, in each universe, but now he does. Dan is all of those things and more, and in an awful twist of fate, his family had chosen now to go on holiday in India.

It’s after midnight there, and Dan has to get up early to go on a family outing his grandmother’s planned, so Phil  had reluctantly let him go so he could get some sleep. But now he’s been left alone with his thoughts and it’s gonna be at least another four hours before he can get to sleep.

“We don’t have to do anything today, it’s a completely arbitrary holiday. I’ll come see you when I get home and it’ll be just as romantic as it would’ve been to do something today,” Dan had said on skype earlier that night.

“I just… I wish you were here,” Phil admitted sadly.

“I wish I was too,” Dan said, sounding equally dejected.

They fell into silence then, watching each other with the faint hope that if they willed hard enough, the universe would pull them through their computer screens, across borders, until they were together. Dan was the first to break the silence, sighing heavily.

“Valentine's Day is overrated anyway- we don’t need flowers or chocolate to prove we love each other.”

“I don’t want to do those things to prove I love you. I know you know that already. I want to do them because I love you. I also wouldn’t get you flowers or chocolate because neither of those things are very original gifts,” Phil argued immediately. He liked to think he’d be a little better at Valentine’s than that.

“You don’t have to get me anything,” Dan said, laughing and shaking his head.

“Too late,” Phil replied, before he could think better of it. He hadn’t actually gotten a gift, but the thought of seeing Dan’s face light up had wormed its way into his head, and he knew almost immediately he’d do anything to make that thought a reality.

“Seriously? I didn’t get you anything!”

“You don’t have to get me anything, just be here.”

“Okay,” Dan said finally, barely containing his grin.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Then they spent a few minutes being sappy and in love before Phil noticed Dan drifting off and forced him to go to bed.

Phil sighs, thinking of the sight of his adorable boyfriend, all sleepy and soft, and before he even registers what he’s doing, he’s turning on his camera. He’s got the perfect valentines gift in mind, one that’s romantic, but not cliche, and also undeniably them. He hits record and takes a deep breath.

“Awrf. Hi Dan.”

“I love you,” Dan says the minute Skype connects the next morning.

“So, you got it then?” Phil asks hopefully.

“I got it and I love it and I love you and I can’t wait to see you,” Dan tells him grinning excitedly, and Phil can’t wait until they’re in the same space and he can kiss those dimples whenever he wants.

“Only a few more days,” he says instead, because he feels like they both need that reminder.

“How gross would it be if I said I was counting down the days?” Dan asks, leaning on his hand.

“Pretty gross, but I love you anyway.”

2012

“Valentine's Day is tomorrow,” Phil says cautiously Monday night. They’ve just finished dinner and it’s his turn to wash up. He hands Dan the plate he’s just washed, and looks at him.

“Yeah, so?” Dan replies, drying it off and placing in on the counter.

“Do you want to do something? We can go to a movie, or get dinner...” Phil trails off, picking up another dish.

“What if someone sees us?” Dan asks, voice suddenly small.

Phil wants to argue that of course they won’t be seen, and even if they are, what does it matter? But he knows there’s always the chance of running into a viewer, and it only seems to grow every day. And no matter what they say, people are only going to think.

“I hate this. It’s Valentine’s Day. I want to spoil you,” Phil says, sighing in frustration, leaning on the sink.

“Hey, come here,” Dan says softly. Phil turns off the tap and turns towards him. Dan puts the dish towel down and wraps his arms around Phil’s waist.

“I keep telling you, it’s just a day. I’ve done the big Valentine’s date thing, it’s not that big of a deal. Besides, you do nothing but spoil me. We’ll do something next weekend, okay? Let’s spend tomorrow ignoring work and watching anime all day,” Dan suggests, reaching up to push hair out of Phil’s face.

“You’re my favorite person in the world, you know that?” Phil says, smiling at him warmly.

“I know. You still have to finish the dishes though.”

Phil rolls his eyes, but steps out of Dan’s arms and turns back to the sink. It’s something he’s still learning, but sometimes love is quiet- it doesn’t stay all shy glances, dramatic declarations of love, clawing at each other impatiently. It settles down, it’s peaceful, not because it’s boring or stale, but because you don’t need all of that to be sure of each other. You just are.

2025

Phil is exhausted. Exhausted, but happy. It’s been an uncharacteristically nice day for February, which means he’s spent the last two hours chasing around a very excitable dog and an equally excitable Lilah while Dan just watched and recorded. Deciding to raise Lilah has been the best, most difficult thing they’ve ever done. She was so traumatized when they met her she was completely nonverbal, despite being four years old. She’s eight now, and slowly becoming one of the most outgoing and energetic kids they’ve ever met.

Now, Lilah is falling asleep on Phil’s lap in the middle of one of her favorite Disney movies.

“Are Shang and Mulan going to live together now? That’s what people do when they love each other, right?” she asks, yawning.

“Sometimes,” Phil tells her, running his hand through her hair.

“Does love mean living together, like you and Dad?” Lilah wonders, Phil smiles and feels the warmth he does every time she calls one of them dad.

“It can. Love means lots of things. It’s not really something you completely understand until you’re actually experiencing it. But mostly it means choosing someone, over and over again, deciding to love and support them for as long as humanly possible,” he explains, as best he can, the same way his mother did for him when he was little.

“Like you guys chose me!” Lilah says excitedly.

“Yeah, Li. Exactly like that. We love you very much,” he tells her, but she’s already asleep.

“She asleep yet?” Dan asks, leaning in the doorway.

“Yeah. Want me to carry her to her room?” Phil asks, looking up at him.

“Not yet,” Dan says, pulling out his phone and taking a picture, before sitting down next to them, and draping his arm around him.  “I kind of don’t even wanna go out tonight. This is way more fun.”

“Oh, no, you’re not getting out of this that easily. Besides, the sitter is already on her way,” Phil points out, but leans into him anyway.

“I love that this is our life now. There are so many things I used to dream about that I thought I’d never experience, and then I met you, and everything seemed possible,” Dan says softly, looking down at Lilah’s sleeping form.

“I love you too. Seriously, though we’re gonna lose our reservation if we don’t start getting ready,” Phil reminds him, and Dan rolls his eyes, but still kisses him and gets up to go get changed.

Brittany gets there about an hour later, and Lilah practically runs to the door when she realizes who it is.

“Hey, Li,” Brittany says, reaching down to hug her.

“Can we play space princesses?” Lilah asks, excitedly bouncing up and down.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Brittany answers, and Lilah runs off to put on her princess costume.

“She’s gonna be hungry soon- there’s dinner in the fridge for her, so just heat that up. She should be in bed by 8:00, but she likes to find excuses to stay up, so if she reads one of her books, she can stay up until 9:00,” Phil instructs while he and Dan bustle around, gathering coats and shoes and keys.

“Yes, I’ve got it. You tell me the same thing every time I come here,” Brittany says, laughing.

“We just… We worry,” Dan explains, shrugging his coat on.

“I know. But Lilah’s in great hands, trust me,” Brittany assures them, opening the door for them. They’re walking out when she calls after them.

“Is it okay if I FaceTime my girlfriend after Lilah’s asleep? I wouldn’t usually, but it’s Valentine’s Day, and she’s studying abroad- I miss her a lot,” she tells them, shifting slightly.

It’s almost shocking to hear someone in that exact predicament, not much younger than they were at the time.

“Of course you can, Brittany. Thank you for watching Lilah tonight,” Phil replies, and he can tell by the look on Dan’s face he wants to buy a plane ticket right then and there, and send Brittany on her way.

“It’s no trouble. Have a great date!” Brittany calls after them, heading back inside.

“I feel terrible she’s babysitting on Valentine’s Day. She should be  with her girlfriend,” Dan says as they walk.

“I’m sure they’re gonna have a great time talking to each other later. Besides, she will be, sooner than she realizes. You of all people should know that,” Phil reminds him gently, knocking their shoulders together. Dan doesn’t say anything then, just pulls Phil by the hand, and kisses him deeply.

“What was that for?” Phil asks, a little breathless.

“Because you’re here, and I can. And it was torture when I couldn’t. I know it’s been over a decade now, but nothing makes me happier than knowing I can just reach out, and you’ll be there,” Dan explains, and they should probably stop standing here, holding each other, but it’s Valentine’s Day, they’re ridiculously, hopelessly in love, and Phil wants to bask in this moment a little longer.

“I know exactly what you mean,” he says, because there aren’t nearly enough words to describe what he’s feeling right now.

They’re going to get dinner at their favorite restaurant and play silly games at the table, and then they’re going to come home to their wonderful daughter and the best dog in the world, and Phil can’t believe how lucky he is that this is his life. That in all of the universes and possible fates, he ended up here, with his best friend and the love of his life, and that even now, sixteen years in, they continue to wake up every morning and chose each other. Even without fancy dinners or a fancy house, just that alone is the best Valentine he ever could have asked for.

[laracastrowrites]

EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE GRISHA TRILOGY

*Spoiler Alert: is Mal*

I’m going to start with a story:

There was a girl who heard wonderful things about Six of Crows, so this girl decided that she wanted to read Six of Crows. But then, she knew Six of Crows was a dualogy passed in the same universe of another series: The Grisha Trilogy. The girl found herself conflicted and in doubt cause she heard from people she trusted a lot of mixture things about The Grisha Trilogy and she didn’t know if it was worth to read the trilogy before Six of Crows or if the trilogy was worth of reading at all. But then, having some experience with extended universes (being a big fan of The Shadowhunter Chronicles for instance), she decided to give the trilogy a chance. She knew the subjects of critiques towards the series, that being: the main romance, a certain character that was the main romantic paring for the protagonist, and the ending. The girl thought that maybe she could have had a different opinion of the majority, of course, so that thought encouraged her even more. But turned out that, after the girl finished reading the trilogy, she realized with bitterness that everyone was right, and worse: she found out for herself that the ending was even more upsetting than she first pictured and could ever imagined. And well… surprise surprise the girl was me.

I mean, let’s start with the worst of the worst (that actually leads to everything else): Mal is a weak character. And this is a fact, I don’t make the rules. He is bland, he is plain, he is generic, he has no depth, he is a complete mediocre character that maybe if the author had had made justice for his mediocrity instead of trying so hard to make him relevant could have worked better. He should have been that first crush that the protagonist at some point got over with. Or maybe he and the protagonist should have stayed just friends, with no *FORCED* romance getting pushed down the readers’ throats. Or maybe he shouldn’t even exist (I personally think that’d be better actually).

Mal is the Riley Finn of Buffy y’all know? (a fuckboy version of an alternate universe anyway, but well…) The bland uninteresting common white guy that when the writers try to complicate (to maybe make him interesting or less boring), just become this annoying, whinny, sexist douche no one can stand. I mean, they are so alike that once I couldn’t picture Mal in my head (consequence of being generic cause I usually picture characters as total unique people that just exist there in my head), I started to imagine him as Marc Blucas (damn it, the first book character that I had to make a fan casting to imagine him, and that is not a good sign). But at least in Riley’s case, he had his dance, he had his time and at some point that time was over and he went away (thank god), and badass Buffy ended up single *need no men* just her and her awesomeness sticking together (IMAGINE that happening with Alina uh? What a concept…). But well, for some mysterious reason that I will never understand (that just makes sense in LB’s head I guess) Leigh Bardugo thought it was a great idea for her Buffy to end up with her Riley… SRSLY THO WHO THAT FUCK WANTED BUFFY TO END UP WITH RILEY?! (If you did, don’t talk to me. Ever. tyvm)

- Gif above is the perfect picture of my Mal

And well, how about we move on to the romance, shall we?

Alina and Mal, Mal and Alina… First of all: they have NO chemistry whatsoever, their scenes together bores me to death or annoys me to the point I want to throw my book on the wall (in this case, e-book actually), Mal has NOTHING to do with Alina’s character development, actually, he just pushes her development back (the girl guarded her powers in because of this plague ffs!), she is fragile and in constant doubt next to him, he makes her fell bad about herself, about her being powerful, makes her doubt her decisions, makes her fell bad for wanting more and be more and be ambitious and do something with her life that doesn’t evolve around him, makes her fell bad for not need him anymore, to protect her or to live her life (and if that sounds kind of abusive, well… is because it is; and dont @ me to say the Darkling was abusive too because NO KIDDING?! I KNOW! EVERYONE KNOWS! But the thing is: the Darkling is far from our reality, even his abusive tendencies were very unique from that fantasy world, but Mal’s case knocks very close to home, so which one we should be more worried about? And besides, it’s not like the narrative doesn’t properly address the Darkling’s fuck ups or try to justify them, but I can’t say the same about Mal tho), so what that freajldjufnmdkasjcjahuuygdcauygefkahfeoçaijdçaomdafoh????????????????? How the heck she (I mean, LB) thought it was a good idea to go on with this stupid hetero nonsense of relationship??? I keep wondering: was there no one, no beta reader, no editor, no…smart critical person next to her to say “girl… What Is It That You’re DOING??? This romance is bullsh*t!!!!” (didn’t need to be exactly with those words but…you got the idea)

I think that probably in LB’S head, Malina was the perfect beautiful angsty worthy romance, but you know… That worked well just in her head. When put down on paper it just didn’t work (Mal in general just didn’t work). And even then, she still kept insisting, pushing this annoying nonsense ship down our throats, until she killed all Alina’s character development and resurrected the plague so they could be together, and even trying to sell us that as a happy ending (just with some sacrifices and losses, but still happy ya know) pfff  ¬¬

And btw THAT ending… If there was an ending that pisses me off more I can’t tell right now cause I don’t think it exists… Like as robbing Alina’s powers wasn’t enough, she resurrected the rat and transformed Alina in a housewife to live a mediocre life aside (or should I say behind?) a mediocre husband, killing off all of her protagonist character development (just a side note here that there’s nothing wrong in being a housewife, the problem of Alina’s housewifeness comes from whom she’s been housewifed with, for instance…and the fact that being a housewife had nothing to do with her character development either lbh), like, tell me of a more shitty treatment to give to your protagonist, I’ll wait…

And I find hilarious a person who tried to push The Humble Legend Uncle Iroh to try to justify that ending (like it was total the same thing!!!!!), like bish don’t you even dare!!!!!!! Uncle Iroh developed and learned humbleness throughout his life, he learned to appreciate the simplicity of life because he had his development to arrive at this point, now tell me: did Alina learn humbleness? Did Alina learn to appreciate a simple life through character development? Of course the answer is no, she did not, to any of the questions. She was TAKEN, ROBBED from power, like a punishment for being greedy. She didn’t learn humbleness (btw, my headcanons just work exactly because she haven’t learned humbleness) cause her character development was going in a total different direction and she was punished for it, so she settled for a simple life… Alina gave up on power not because it was HER CHOICE, but because she was taken from it, there was NO power anymore, so of course she didn’t learn anything, no character development came from it, rather what came was a character development’s assassination. What made Uncle Iroh be the humble legend he is? Well, it’s not because he had no power (meaning, it’s not the same as Alina’s case), but exactly the opposite: he HAD power, he was extremely powerful, the thing is: he CHOSE not to use his power because he learned humbleness, he learned to give up pride, he learned not to be greedy. The author might try to tell Alina’s loss of power was a “sacrifice” or the “loss” she needed, but it was clearly a punishment, and a punishment she did not deserve. Alina was punished in the level of The Fire Lord Ozai punishment without even being on that level! Why not take the Darkling’s powers then?! He was closer to The Fire Lord Ozai’s level! (Even though Fire Lord Ozai was clearly an alt-rightist and Darkles was a leftist, especially considering that benders didn’t suffer prejudice for being benders like the grishas, but anyway…) LB didn’t even give Alina a chance to see what she would do with more power (probably because she knew Alina was as greedy and ambitious as the Darkling [as we all know] and instead of trying to explore this, she preferred not to give Alina even a chance… *Alina darling I’m so sorry*), and of course, she wanted to make Malina happen, and I don’t know which one is worse…and of course to make Malina happen, she had to downgrade Alina to Mal’s level, and again, I don’t know what is worse… All that idea to tell a story of a “common boy and common girl” should have been thrown in the trash after a good analysis of Alina’s journey lbh. 

So yeah, what is wrong with TGT is Mal and everything that comes with him: his romance with Alina, his mediocrity and the effort that LB puts to make him relevant (so ironic that the only way she found to explain his function in the plot was linking him to the villain lol) even tho he should have been just a phase (or nothing), and I needed to make this rant to take this out of my system (or at least try to), cause DAMN if this trilogy had potential… I mean, I still like it and I clearly care about it, but I’ll never not be bitter nor angry about what was wasted…

P.S.: I read a post today of an artist that “inspired” me to write this (or better saying, put me in my ranty mood) so if anyone is interested in read that is here (I like the artist btw and everyone has your right to have your own opinion, so that is her opinion and her feelings and here I’m expressing my opinion and my feelings, fell free to disagree *even tho I’m with the majority now, so I think few people will disagree but unfortunately, I don’t fell like a winner…wonder why…*)

P.S.S: Mal’s timid character development in R&R wasn’t enough to make of him an interesting, compelling or decent character, he was still the least interesting character there that I didn’t care about at all and besides, I doubt of the bottom of my heart that his sexist doucheness went away with that development tbvh so…  

[jennycalendar]

adapting

ao3

He should place some sort of advertisement in the paper. Wanted: Childcare for Potential Vampire Slayer; Emotional Support for Watcher.

(in which giles and buffy adjust to living on a hellmouth. well. mostly just giles)

lmao remember when i was talking about how this fic was going to be angsty? that fell tf apart. it has angsty parts but it’s a short fluff piece; one more of these & then i think we might get to some Actual Plot Things!

tagging @theforestlesbian as always <3

Giles had been in Sunnydale for two days when he nearly got jumped by a vampire on his way back from the grocery store, and it was then that he started considering that he'd made a pretty serious mistake coming to an active Hellmouth just to get away from the Council monitor. Keeping Buffy in his care was definitely not as important as keeping Buffy alive, and living here alone with no one to take care of Buffy if anything happened to him was most certainly a bad idea, which was why Giles was panicking at two in the morning and couldn't go to sleep.

Buffy was awake, but not because she'd been crying. Giles, wanting to remind himself of the one certainty in his life, had picked her up and out of her crib while he paced around her bedroom. She seemed somewhat upset by his anxiety, and kept on making concerned little whimpering noises that didn't really alleviate Giles's stress. He should place some sort of advertisement in the paper. Wanted: Childcare for Potential Vampire Slayer; Emotional Support for Watcher.

"You," he said to Buffy with some exhaustion, "need some sort of reliable care that isn’t me, because sooner or later I'll probably get murdered by some sun-resistant vampire. It's California, after all. I expect these people can withstand five thousand bloody degrees of heat even after they’re dead." He bounced Buffy in his arms, trying to distract himself. "I'd give you back to the Council if they weren't likely to just lock you in a room and set up a few magical wards to make sure you don't die before you get Called—"

Buffy began to cry.

Giles felt more than just a little bit horrible for passing his worry to Buffy. Part of him wished he'd just stayed at his desk job in the Council, never mind the shame he'd have brought on his family for not accepting a Potential when offered one. Maybe then Buffy would at least be with someone who could keep her safe, if not happy.

But Giles hated the thought of Buffy being alone—that was why he wanted her to have the chance to meet other children. She was such a social butterfly, always smiling and laughing at complete strangers, and Giles knew that the Council didn't approve of Potentials as mischievous and charismatic as Buffy, and who better to take care of her than someone who had dealt with mischievous, charismatic people on a daily basis back in college—lord, was that only seven years ago? It felt like so much longer.

"Shh," Giles murmured, bouncing Buffy in his arms. "Hush now, dear, everything's all right."

It wasn't, really, but he certainly shouldn't be worrying Buffy. Giles did wish there was a manual for rogue Watchers trying to secretly raise a child instead of prepare a Potential, something with affordable resources and self-help tips. It would be a niche sort of book, certainly, but it'd be better than whatever the hell seemed to be going on with him right now.

Buffy had stopped crying, but she still looked upset. Giles took her tightly curled fist in his hand and hummed an old song his mother might have sung to him, once.

 There were two daycares within Sunnydale city limits, and both were absolutely out of the question when it came to finding safe and affordable care for Buffy. One was two blocks away from a location where new vampires seemed to enjoy going to spend time, and the other had a two-hundred-dollar entrance fee and was located in the distastefully wealthy section of Sunnydale that Giles was trying his hardest to avoid.

Putting an advertisement in the paper did next to nothing except make Giles panic even more about the possibility of the Council finding it and asking questions he wouldn't be able to answer without incriminating himself and losing Buffy. Adding to Giles's panic was his worry that he was creating a negative home environment for Buffy anyway with all this worrying. He couldn't believe he was even thinking this, but he very much missed Los Angeles.

Growing more and more desperate, Giles decided to check out the two-hundred-dollar daycare. He could always dip into his emergency funds, if need be. Perhaps just a little time, enough for him to figure out something more permanent and definite.

"Hgb," said Buffy from her car seat. She'd started to vocalize a bit more precisely as of late, though nothing amounted to an actual word just yet. Currently, she was chewing on the arm of the small cloth doll Giles had bought her back in Los Angeles. She had grown incredibly attached to that doll, even more so than her old baby blanket.

"Right," said Giles with nervous determination, and pulled into the parking lot of Bright Smiles Daycare. In Giles's opinion, that name better suited a dentist's office, not some ridiculously overpriced daycare full of tiny children with extremely wealthy parents.

After getting out of the car, unbuckling Buffy from her car seat, and picking her (and the doll) up, Giles locked the car and surveyed the daycare from outside. It looked quite nice, it was in the part of town that seemed to have quite a lot of mansions, and it was well protected by a solid brick wall with a mural featuring many eerily smiling children painted near the gate. Giles wondered how desperate for childcare parents had to be in order to walk their children past these small painted goblins every day.

Then again, he thought, I seem to be rather desperate myself at this juncture.

"Welcome to Bright Smiles Daycare!" gushed a young woman standing at the door. She was holding a small child in her arms that looked perhaps Buffy's age, if a bit smaller. "You must be Rupert Giles! It's always a pleasure to meet a new member of the Bright Smiles family!"

Stepping into the perfectly symmetrical hallway and neatly organized artwork, Giles was very vividly reminded of the cult he'd had to join as part of an intelligence-gathering mission for the Council. He held Buffy protectively to his chest (Buffy, of course, was at this point very involved with babbling to her doll and didn't really notice) and stepped closer to the woman, inquiring, “Do you, um, have anything to eat?”

“Oh, of course!” said the woman warmly. "We have snacks for you, applesauce for your daughter—"

"Oh, she's not my—" Giles began reflexively, before remembering that he was trying to seem relatively normal to this perfectly nice young woman. "allergic to applesauce," he finished awkwardly. "Which is perhaps very good if that is what you have."

Buffy, taking advantage of her close proximity to the first child her age she’d ever met, threw the cloth doll at the other baby as hard as she could.

"Buffy," said Giles, mortified.

The doll bounced off the other baby’s face, and the other baby began to cry. The woman, whose expression had suddenly changed, said awkwardly, “Cordelia’s parents make very generous donations that help finance most of this daycare. I’m terribly sorry, but if your Buffy doesn’t get along with her, Bright Smiles might not be the best fit for you.”

“No, this is just her way of saying hello,” said Giles helplessly. “I think.”

Buffy was watching Cordelia with a sort of scientific interest. Cordelia seemed wholly unaware of the fact that she was being observed, too focused on crying as loudly as possible.

“I’m so sorry,” said the woman again, “but Bright Smiles can only afford to take on well-behaved and well-mannered children.”

Giles had accounted for the fact that he might not be all that good at finding Buffy a daycare. He hadn’t considered that Buffy might not be all that good at daycare in the first place, and it was very difficult to understand, particularly after spending so much time with Buffy. Buffy was excitable and sweet and, well, perhaps a bit rambunctious, but she was most certainly a lovely young girl that any daycare would be lucky to have, and—and he was still just standing here, not saying anything. “Well,” he said finally. “I’ll just search elsewhere, then. Good day to you.”

“Mr. Giles, we can perhaps discuss—” the woman began, but Giles was already turning and hurrying out of the daycare.

As soon as they were outside of Bright Smiles, Buffy began to wail. Giles turned and saw the woman, struggling with a still-sobbing Cordelia in her arms and Buffy’s doll in one hand. “I really am sorry,” she said apologetically. “We’re just a very exclusive place. We can’t afford—”

“Yes, thank you,” said Giles exhaustedly, and took the doll, handing it to Buffy. Buffy sniffled and stopped crying, going back to her usual pastime of chewing on the doll’s arm. “I expect we’ll need to look elsewhere, at any rate.” Turning, he hurried to the car, unlocking the door and placing Buffy into her car seat before climbing into the backseat himself.

“You’ve made my life very complicated, you know that?” he said softly to Buffy. “It’s rather impressive. You’re quite small, and yet you’ve caused nearly as much upheaval as Eyghon.” This was quite a exaggeration, but Giles just liked talking to Buffy. As of late, she rarely ever paid any attention to him while he talked, and it was strangely endearing. She lived in her own very happy little world.

Giles leaned back into the seat, thinking. It wasn’t just that Buffy had made a bad first impression, it was that he didn’t want Buffy to be in a place where he constantly felt like he was walking on eggshells. He didn’t want Buffy’s daycare to be dependent on how much money he could shell out to cover any misbehaviors, and he got the distinct sense that this was the sort of place that catered to the rich part of Sunnydale. All the parents who wanted an exclusive experience with only the most well-behaved children.

“I feel a bit bad for that Cordelia girl you threw your doll at,” he said to Buffy. “That sort of place seems as though it might not be the kindest.”

“Pshhh,” said Buffy happily.

Really, Giles thought, he needed some guidance, and there was only one resource in which he’d nearly always found consistently good advice.

 Buffy, sitting on the sofa with her beloved cloth doll, watched Giles with a large smile as he entered the room with the third box of books. Giles smiled back, feeling more than a bit reassured by the fact that someone seemed to have steadfast faith in him, even if that someone was a six-month-old who wasn’t well-behaved enough for daycare. “Daycare is rubbish anyway,” he informed her. “I didn’t go to daycare, and look how well I turned out.” He considered this, then winced. “Well. There are plenty of other people who didn’t go to daycare and turned out just fine.”

Buffy held out the cloth doll to Giles.

“Oh—” Giles placed down the box, crossing the room to take the doll from Buffy. “Thank you,” he said very seriously. He knew it was a bit early to start on good manners, but there was a parenting book he’d read recently that said encouragement was extremely beneficial to a growing child. Besides which, he did appreciate the gesture; Buffy didn’t give her doll to just anyone. Buffy did throw her doll at just about anyone, but giving her doll willingly was reserved for only Giles.

Tucking the doll into his front pocket where Buffy could still see it and know it was being taken care of, Giles turned back to the books. He’d brought along a few copies of Watcher journals that the Council had gifted to him, as infant Potentials weren’t generally all that common and the Council seemed to think Giles could use some frames of reference. Giles had been mostly ignoring them out of spite, but quite frankly, he was getting desperate. Perhaps among one of these books he might find some kind of a solution, some Watcher who softened to their Potential and wanted a better life for them.

But after a good two hours spent researching (or, more accurately, one hour spent researching, half an hour spent playing with Buffy—she was such a sweet child, and Giles didn’t want her to feel neglected—and half an hour preparing dinner for the both of them), Giles really hadn’t found anything of use. The Watchers’ diaries were dispassionate and disinterested in their charges, and Giles had the strong sense that these had been specifically selected to encourage a similar mindset for him.

It did make him very aware of one thing, though. These Watchers never really seemed to mention any sort of community or resources, instead putting a specific emphasis on how solitary their lives had become. One Watcher boasted that his Potential’s first encounter with another child didn’t take place until she was eight years old, and even then it was under incredibly controlled circumstances.

“The system is broken,” Giles informed Buffy, and was unexpectedly reminded of Ethan, both of them sprawled in the grass talking lazily about burning the world down. Giles had been frightened, he realized, by what had happened with Eyghon, stumbling to distance himself from rebellion so that no one would ever get hurt again. Choosing to raise Buffy the way he thought would be best was a sideways way of rebelling against the Council without really rebelling against the Council, and it still didn’t really address the actual problems he was creating with his careful approach. He had no real way to make sure Buffy wouldn’t go to another Council operative in the event of his death, no contacts he trusted, no community to fall back on, and he still felt as though impulsive, rebellious behavior was the absolute wrong way to go.

Buffy made a small whining noise and stretched a tiny hand toward the doll in Giles’s pocket. Turning, he absently handed it back to her, but she grabbed plaintively at his hand instead.

“Hello,” said Giles tiredly, managing a smile. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.” He sat down next to her on the couch, thinking. He couldn’t at all handle the idea of hosting some neighborhood get-together to meet people; pretending to be a single father for a long period of time would be difficult when faced with cheerful Americans eating his food. All he really wanted was someone he could reliably count on to take care of Buffy if anything happened to him—

The solution to his problems occurred to him quite abruptly. “Idiot,” said Giles to himself, picking up Buffy and making sure to add for her benefit, “Not you, dear, you’re very smart and let no one tell you otherwise.” Carrying Buffy down the hall to her bedroom, he placed her gently down in her crib before hurrying back to the living room to find a pen and paper.

 “You’re not serious.”

“I assume you received my letter?” said Giles cheerfully.

“We did. We’re calling to inquire what on earth would make you think legally adopting the Potential would be a good idea.” Travers’s voice was clipped and irritable. “That sort of thing makes placing her with another Watcher extremely difficult in the event of your demise. It would be significantly different were she British, but there is only so much we can do in regards to the American legal system.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” said Giles, who was feeling thoroughly proud of himself at the moment. “I simply feel that—well,” here he dropped his voice a bit dramatically, “I’m of the mind that it also makes things more difficult for any family member to step in. You don’t want just anyone swooping in and claiming guardianship of a Potential, Travers, do you?”

On the other side of the room, Buffy noticed a dog outside and started shrieking with delight.

“What on earth is that racket on your end?” Travers demanded.

“Television,” lied Giles, making a shh motion to Buffy (who, as usual, happily ignored him and pressed her hands up against the window while she stared at the dog). “Listen, Travers, I’ve been doing a bit of digging,” this part actually wasn’t a lie, “and this particular Potential has quite a few relatives in this area. I’d move, but I’m taking my research responsibilities quite seriously.”

“Mr. Giles,” said Travers, “tread carefully.”

Giles winced. That didn’t bode well. “I’m sorry?”

“These constant changes in your approach to training your Potential are giving me doubts,” said Travers. “I will support your request to adopt the child and pull a few legal strings, but only because you claim that there is danger of a relative ‘swooping in.’ I hope you understand that you make any more requests and we will conduct a very thorough investigation.”

Giles felt almost dizzy with delight. He did feel awful about using Buffy’s relatives as though they were pieces in some horrible game of chess. But he’d be able to make legal arrangements that would keep Buffy out of the hands of the Council in the event of his death, and that was truly comforting to him.

Buffy, meanwhile, was still very distracted by the dog, which was chasing a squirrel. “Go!” she shouted suddenly, and Giles nearly dropped the phone. “Go go go!”

“Mr. Giles?”

“Go!” Buffy crowed, and hit the window as though watching a high-speed chase.

Giles stared, eyes wide, and a slow, proud smile spread across his face. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Good day, Travers.”

“Good day.”

Giles waited for the click of the receiver before crossing the room to scoop Buffy up. She uttered a whine of protest, peering over his shoulder at the dog and the squirrel. “Go,” she informed Giles sulkily, which did make it a bit unclear as to whether she knew what she was saying was an actual word.

Giles chose to believe that she was just trying to be mysterious. “Yes, it did go,” he agreed. “But you can’t hit the window.”

 To celebrate their small victory, Giles decided to take Buffy on a walk to the nearby park. She’d been mostly cooped up since the daycare incident a few days ago, and he thought they could both do with a bit of fresh air. Besides which, he was more than a little bit proud of the high-quality stroller he’d gotten for Buffy, and he wanted to see if it worked as well as advertised.

Buffy was always very happy about getting dressed and going outside; she was a very sweetly cheerful little thing. Carefully buttoning Buffy’s tiny sweater, Giles lifted her up and into the stroller, tucking her doll in with her. “Now, if we meet any new children, kindly try not to throw things,” he instructed her.

Buffy smiled. It was very clear that she had no qualms about throwing things.

They lived in a refreshingly shady part of Sunnydale. Giles was not at all fond of the sun that the town’s name advertised, and very much missed the chill of England. Buffy very clearly loved the sun, but was willing to settle for the breeze and shade that the many trees in their neighborhood allowed. It was pleasant, Giles had to admit, and very lovely to walk with an excitable Buffy in her stroller (who had just seen a pigeon and was babbling happily in its direction) without all that many plans for the day. It felt like the sort of break he needed after the panic of their first week in Sunnydale.

“Do you suppose things will settle down?” Giles asked Buffy, stopping the stroller to peer down at her.

Buffy gave him a very irritated look, crossed her arms, and said, “Go.”

“You’re quite a demanding little girl, aren’t you,” said Giles affectionately, and went back to pushing the stroller.

[anarcoqueer1994]

Please Don't Go: Chapter 3

Another chapter in my post costume day fic. I will be posting another chapter of my Trans Tarty story soon. Let me know if you want to be on a tag list for either.

Yesterday had been one of the best days Cyrus has had in a long time. TJ, his sweet, oblivious, gorgeous boyfriend, took him on a real date. They even held hands...in public! As he lays in bed, letting the morning sun shine on him from his window, it's all he can think about. He can't believe anyone could care about him so much.

Every wall TJ has ever put up, he let Cyrus tear down. He even let Cyrus help him with his fear of thunder. He knows how proud TJ could be so Cyrus knew that this was a big deal. In fact, anytime TJ let Cyrus see his vulnerable side, he knew it was a big deal. He could not get over how happy TJ made him feel. TJ captivated Cyrus with everything he did.

He picks up his phone and stares at a text from last night. It had started storming again around 11pm, and without a second thought he had sent TJ the playlist from the museum with a short note.

Cyrus:

"Songs That Make Me Think of TJ"

In case you need this <3

TJ:

Thanks Underdog.

TJ:

Can I FaceTime you? I kind of rather hear your voice…

TJ:

You don't have to though. I'm sorry.

Cyrus:

Don't be sorry. Of course you can.

Moments later, he got a video call. That's how they spent the next few hours, with TJ under a blanket with headphones on, just listening to Cyrus talking about anything to block out the the thunder rumbling outside their windows.

Cyrus keeps smiling as he sits up in bed to get ready for the day. He blushes to himself as he thinks about TJ's cute text. He actually said he wanted to hear Cyrus' voice. Cyrus can't help but gush over TJ. How could he be so lucky?  He considers sending a good morning text to TJ but decides against it. He knows his boyfriend likes to sleep in most weekend mornings and really does not want to bother him. So he throws on his clothes and gets ready for the day.

**********

After breakfast, Andi had called Cyrus to see if he wanted to hang out with her, Amber, Buffy, Jonah, and Marty. They were going to spend the day at Andi's, maybe watch some movies and order pizza. Of course he accepted, but part of him was a bit disappointed that he couldn't invite TJ. Obviously with the exception of Amber, none of them liked TJ. They only tolerated TJ at school because he was Cyrus' friend.

Cyrus actually feels really guilty towards TJ. He wishes his friends would be kinder to the older boy. He sees the way they shoot him looks; he is not blind. He knows they are being protective, but he does not need babysitters, he needs friends  When they are all hanging out together, he tries to ignore those looks and focus his energy towards TJ. Most of the time he gives him gentle, apologetic smiles to counteract his friends' negativity. He never wants TJ to feel bad and he hates that his friends are part of the reason he may. Even Andi, who has a crush on TJ's big sister, won't let up on him.

One of the things that stuns Cyrus the most about TJ, is he doesn't complain about the way the GHC(and friends) treat him. Cyrus would understand if he did. They could be terrible towards him. He is a little worried that he is doing that so Cyrus won't feel bad. He knows his boyfriend always puts Cyrus' feelings before his own. He does this to a fault.

On more than one occasion, Cyrus has run into TJ at school, and noticed how sad the basketball player was. Whenever he asks about it, TJ promises that it is nothing, and puts on a big beautiful smile but Cyrus can see how the smile doesn't reach those green eyes. Cyrus knows that when TJ is truly happy, that happiness radiates from his entire face, like yesterday when he stared at Cyrus talking about every dinosaur in the museum. He can't believe how TJ could make him feel like he was the only one that mattered.

That is the problem though; TJ did not treat himself like he mattered. That's why Cyrus is convinced there is something happening at school that TJ is not telling him. He does not know what to do because he doesn't want a push him to talk though. One thing that is for sure, his friends are not making whatever it is better.

***********

In the early afternoon, he starts heading towards Andi's. It is mid November but it had been pretty warm, so he did not expect it to be that cold. He is only wearing a light button down. It's a little chilly when he gets outside but not cold enough to go back inside and grab a jacket.

Boy, did he regret that decision. By the time he reached Mainstreet, the wind picked up and he was shivering. He walks past the little supermarket on the corner when he spots a familiar tuff of dirty blonde hair. The older boy is examining some apples on a stand outside the store, trying to pick out the right ones. He doesn't notice Cyrus sneaking up behind him. Cyrus stands on his tiptoes and whispers "Boo" into the TJ's ear.

TJ spins around around and smiles as he sees Cyrus. Cyrus takes a moment to absorb how cute TJ looks right now. He does not have his hair done up with the usual copious amounts of gel. Cyrus likes it better this way. He likes the way little strands of hair fall on TJ's forehead. It reminds him of the night at the park when they first got together. He is wearing a pair of faded jeans with his blue basketball team hoodie, and a jean jacket over that. Cyrus thinks he can stare at TJ all day. He reminds himself that he should speak though.

"Hey Teej." He flashed the other boy a smile.

"Hey Underdog." *TJ fought everything inside him that wanted to pull Cyrus in for a hug. He couldn't help it. Every time he saw Cyrus, he wanted to touch him, even if it just to hold his hand.

"So what are you doing today?" Cyrus immediately feels dumb asking. Obviously TJ was shopping.

"Just picking up some things for my mom. We are going to bake some apple pie flavored muffins tonight."

"Bake? I didn't know you liked to bake."

"What can I say, Cy? I have layers." He laughs softly before continuing."It's kind of a thing my mom and I do together when it is just us. Dad is working 2nd at work tonight and Amber is going to be at Andi's for some movie night. I'm guessing that's where you're heading, right?

Cyrus nods his head slightly. He still feels bad going, knowing TJ was not invited. He really wants to hang out with his friends, but he also wants them to see TJ like he does. TJ was genuinely a sweet boy, albeit misguided at times. He has worked so hard to let the good come through. God, was he proud of TJ.

As if TJ could read his mind, he says kindly "Enjoy your friends tonight Cy, I'm okay. I promise."

"I just...I just think you deserve to be seen for who you really are…" Cyrus wants to say more but a small gust of wind blows, sending shivers through his body.

TJ notices Cyrus shivering from the cool fall air because of course he does. He notices everything about Cyrus. He slips off his jacket before pulling the hoodie up over his head. He puts back on the jacket and then hand Cyrus his hoodie. "Put this on, it's cold. I don't want you getting sick."

Cyrus cannot bring himself to argue with TJ. Plus he is pretty cold, so he welcomes the idea of warmth. The smaller boy slips it over his body. He likes the way that it smells. It smells citrus-y, just like TJ. He is not sure if it is the soap TJ uses or what, but whenever they are close together, he swears TJ smells like lemons. He takes a second to inhale the scent from the piece of clothing.

TJ blushes as he looks at Cyrus in his hoodie. The sleeves are too long and the hoodie is too big for his small frame, but TJ thinks he is adorable. Something about his boyfriend wearing his hoodie makes him feel so pleased. He always sees other sports players' girlfriends in their hoodies and letterman jackets. So giving Cyrus his hoodie felt so right. He says quietly "You look good in my hoodie...I think you should keep it for a while."

Cyrus' face is bright red at this point. He has to remind himself not to do anything to give them away. He settles on a soft smile as a response. TJ lets out a quiet laugh before saying "Better get going, Muffin. Text me later?"

"Yes of course." Cyrus says before turning around to head out. TJ's eyes linger on Cyrus a little longer before going back to what he is doing.

The rest of the way to Andi’s, Cyrus is smiling like an idiot. He can’t really explain why TJ has this effect on him, but he does. He pulled the hood over his head so he could literally be surrounded by TJ’s scent. He wants fill his entire world with this smell. It makes him feel like he is not alone, like TJ is with him, even when he is not.

Before long, he arrives at Andi’s front door. He forces himself to put on a nonchalant face before knocking. Andi comes to the door and lets him in. “Cyrus, took you long enough.” She laughs as she holds the door open.

By the looks of it, he is the last one to arrive. When he walks into the living room, Marty and Buffy are on the ground in front of the couch, talking about something that Cyrus really has no interest in. Jonah is on the chair in the corner, while Amber is on the couch next to an empty spot that Cyrus assumes is Andi’s. Cyrus takes a seat on the floor and faces the rest of the group.

“Hey Cyrus” Buffy says taking her attention away from Marty for a second. Her greeting is echoed throughout the room. Cyrus looks around at his friends. He loves them all so much and they are so wonderful to him. He tries not to let them see him frown as his mind drifts back to TJ. They all go back to what they were previously doing.

It is Amber who ends up interrupting his thoughts. “Hey, isn’t that my brother’s hoodie?” All the eyes suddenly turned to look him.

Crap. He forgot to take it off before he came in. He has to come up with a good cover. “Yea, I saw him on the way over here. I forgot my coat and I was really cold. I asked him if I could borrow his hoodie since he had a jacket. Honestly, it was pretty dumb of me to leave the house without a coat…”’

Buffy rolls her eyes. “Wow, TJ actually did something nice for you for once. Don’t get used to it.”

Cyrus didn’t know what to say, he did not want to give away too much and he knew he had to be careful what he said. Luckily, he did not have to worry about that right now because Amber piped up.

“Hey, I know you guys don’t like him but that is still my little brother so be nice.”

Buffy rolled her eyes even harder. Cyrus knew Buffy wasn’t Amber’s biggest fan either so he did not know if she would listen. For now though, Buffy seems to have dropped it. Jonah, ever spacey to what is going on around him, says “So when is the pizza going to be here? I am starving.” The room laughs and he just shrugs his shoulders.

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

Cyrus should have known that Buffy was not going to drop the TJ stuff permanently. It was not long after the pizza arrived that she started at it again.

"I don't get it Cyrus, why are you still friends with that guy? I mean, he is not..."

Marty interrupts her. "Buffy, if he wants to be friends with him, isn't that his business, not ours?" Cyrus has never been more thankful for Marty.

She shoots back at him. "Cyrus is my best friend and it is my business when some jerk isn't worth being his friend." Andi nods is agreement.

Cyrus doesn't know what comes over him but he stands up and says louder than intended "Don't call him that! He is not just some jerk. He is a really great guy. And you know what else? He is so considerate and sweet. You don't know anything about him, Buffy. So just stop.

Everyone is quiet for a moment. They are all shocked by his outburst of assertiveness. To be honest, Cyrus was shocked by it too. He looks around at his friends' stunned faces waiting for someone to do something. Buffy takes a deep breath and stands up to be face to face with Cyrus.

"Cy, do you still like TJ?" She says in a quiet, understanding, voice. Cyrus doesn't know how to answer. In reality, he wants to just tell them all the truth. He wants them to know that he doesn't just like TJ but TJ likes him too. More than that, TJ  is his boyfriend. He wants to tell them all how happy TJ makes him, how even now, in this tense situation, his boyfriend's scent, enveloping him in the form of a hoodie, helps him feel stronger.

"I need some air, okay?" He manages to choke out. He knows Buffy wants to push more but he is grateful that she doesn't. He gets out of the living room and into the backyard.

He really doesn't know what to. His head is spinning as he sits down on the bench. Why is this so hard? Being with TJ is so easy. Why can't telling people be this easy? He knows it is not his right to out TJ so telling his friends now is not an option.

He really doesn't want to bother TJ tonight. After all, he is spending his night baking with his mom. But it is as if his fingers have a mind of their own.

Cyrus:

I don't know what to do.

TJ:

What is happening? Are you okay, muffin?

Cyrus:

Yea, I'm okay. It's just, I screamed at Buffy. She just called you a jerk and I lost my temper. Then she asked if I still had a crush on you and I panicked, and now I am outside like an idiot.

TJ:

Cyrus, I'm so sorry...I hate that you are feeling bad.

Cyrus:

I wish you were here

After that text, Cyrus does not hear anything. He hopes he did not weird TJ out by being too clingy. He is kicking himself for being so dumb. He sits outside for another 30 minutes and he is glad his friends let him be. He keeps staring at his phone in case TJ texts him back.

He finally collects himself enough to head back in and face his friends. He does not know what he is going to say but he will figure it out.

He walks back through the back doors to the living room. He is still lost in his thoughts so he barely notices his surroundings. He is not even looking up because he does not want to meet his friends' eyes. That’s why he is caught off-guard when he hears an unexpected voice say "Hey Underdog..."

Cyrus' voice catches in his throat. He can barely believe who he is hearing. He looks up from the ground to meet TJ's eyes. Then he quickly looks around at his friends who all look as confused as he is. He goes back to TJ's eyes. "You actually came..." Cyrus thinks back to the last text he sent.

"Of course, I came." TJ beams at the younger boy. TJ had shown up a few minutes prior. Andi had answered the door. She was not expecting him but let him in anyways. He was just about to head outside to look for Cyrus. TJ continues to stare into Cyrus' eyes. They are in their own world again. Cyrus feels his heart flutter in his chest. TJ dropped everything to be here for him. How could he be so lucky?

As usual, Buffy is the first to break the silence. "Okay, what is going on between you two?"

Cyrus bites his bottom lip and silently asks TJ with his facial expressions for permission to say out loud what he wants to say to his friends. TJ nods his head slowly and Cyrus feels a weight lift off his shoulders. He mouths "Thank you."  Without removing his eyes from TJ, he says in a shaky voice "TJ is my...boyfriend." He feels it get harder to breathe as his chest restricts. He knows that this is also difficult for TJ but once again, TJ puts Cyrus' feelings first.

Everyone in the room stares in shock at the two boys.No one quite knows what to say. The air is thick and Cyrus could practically cut the tension with a knife. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees everyone's faces. Buffy, Andi, and Jonah all have mirrored looks of surprise on their face. Marty looks kind of clueless, which Cyrus expected.

But it is Amber he appreciates the most right now. She is smiling over at her brother. TJ is so focused on Cyrus, that he doesn't notice her but Cyrus does. He is so thankful that someone else really cares for TJ. He focuses his attention back to his boyfriend. As soon as sees his face, he melts. TJ is practically glowing as he smiles at Cyrus.

TJ steps closer to Cyrus. He moves so he is at Cyrus' side, grabbing his hand. He squeezes his hand gently, urging Cyrus to continue on. He clears his throat and begins to talk, this time in a way more confident voice.

"TJ and I started dating a month ago yesterday. It’s been the best month of my life. He even took me to the Natural History Museum yesterday, on like a real date.  TJ treats me like I'm important."

TJ interjects "Because you are important, muffin." He blushes when he realizes he said that out loud. Cyrus smiles even bigger. He runs his thumb over TJ's knuckles. Buffy looks like she is going to laugh at the overly cutesy nickname but Cyrus shoots her a look that makes her reconsider.

Andi steps up closer to the boys. She looks hesitant at first but then gives a small, nervous smirk. "That explains a lot...but I still don't get it. " She turns her head to TJ. "Why did you abandon Cyrus on costume day?" Cyrus goes to speak but TJ interrupts him. "It’s okay, Underdog... I want to be open with your friends..."

He pulls Cyrus to the couch so that they are sitting against each other. Their fingers are still laced together. The other kids sit down too, getting ready to listen. He takes a deep breathe. “It was Kira…she figured out I liked Cyrus…a lot. She had come up to me to ask about being on the boy’s team, and I turned her down. Cyrus had come up, and she seen how we interacted. At the time I was oblivious to how obvious I was about liking Cyrus. She made me feel bad for wanting to do a costume with a boy. She made it seem like people would know I was…gay if I did. It was dumb, I know. I was dumb. I understand why you all hate me, because I hated me after what I did. I kind of still do.” Cyrus looks at TJ with sad eyes. It kills him that TJ feels this badly about himself. He tries to focus on the rest of what the boy has to say.  “Cyrus deserves the best and it makes me so happy to know that you care for him so much.”

Buffy looks so angry. Cyrus is afraid of what she is about to say. He does not want her to still hate TJ. She spits out “How could she do that?! Oh god, I am so sorry, guys. I kicked her off the girls team, and she went after my friends…I can’t believe her! I’m sorry for the way we have been treating you, TJ.” She pause and thinks about something. She laughs to herself. “Who would've thought a year ago, I would be apologizing to you?”

TJ laughs back. "It's fine, you were only protecting Cyrus...I would of done the same thing."

Jonah chimes in. "So is Kira still bothering you, man?"

TJ gets quiet and Cyrus feels him tense against him. Cyrus turns to face TJ. "Wait...TJ is she? Is she doing anything to you?"

"It's nothing, I promise…"

"Teej, don't lie to me...please tell me. I see you sometimes at school, looking so sad. I never want to push you to talk when you are not ready, but it is breaking my heart knowing that someone is making you that upset. "

TJ looks around at the room. Marty speaks up "Look, if I know anything about this group of people, they will all go above and beyond for their friends, and that includes standing with them when someone is giving them trouble.” Buffy looks behind her at Marty and smiles.

Cyrus squeezes TJ’s hand and pleads with him. “Baby, please tell me if something is happening.”

TJ feels so vulnerable right now. He has worked so hard for the past month to hide this from Cyrus. He hates putting so much on the brunnette. Cyrus has already done so much for him, he really did not want to add to that. But now, here he is with his big brown eyes peering through TJ. The way Cyrus called him baby made his breath catch in his throat. Cyrus literally could make him putty in his hands. TJ could not possibly hide anything from him now.

He tries to keep his voice calm and as detached as possible. He does not want to come off as too emotional over this. “It’s really not that important. She just says some mean things sometimes…”  TJ tries to look anywhere but back at Cyrus. But it is no use. Everywhere in the room he looks, he sees a pair of concerned eyes looking at him.

Cyrus says tenderly “TJ, what kind of mean things does she say? “

“Just...just like..umm things to remind me that I’ different. She likes to point out how unfortunate it would be if my secret got out. She is right though, this is a small town and not everyone is that accepting.But  like she is threatening me for the fun of it. But she doesn’t have any proof so I think that is why she hasn’t outed me...us. Oh and sometimes she brings up cute girls in front of my teammates and asks me what I think about them.I  think she just wants to embarrass me. She gets some sick pleasure out of making people feel small. Or like...on Friday, she noticed I was struggling in math so she started basically calling me stupid. I did not even turn in anything to Coleman…” TJ was rambling and he was starting to speak faster. Cyrus could see how upset he was getting.

Cyrus pulled TJ into a hug, squeezing him tight, in an attempt to push away any hurt TJ was feeling. Cyrus was so beyond angry. How could Kira be so cruel? He never wants to see TJ hurting.especially when that hurt was caused by a senseless reason. Kira was a bully and for some reason, TJ was her target. It just wasn’t fair.

Cyrus could tell that TJ was getting uncomfortable around all these people. He knew TJ was trying to hold himself together and put on a strong face for them. As he hugged TJ, he whispered “Wanna go to the swings?” TJ  nods slightly as a response.

Both boys let go of each other as they go to stand up. “We are going to go, okay?” Cyrus gives them all a weak smile. Everyone understand and bids their farewells. Right before TJ walks out the door, Buffy grabs his arm. “Hey, you know we got your back, okay? We will figure out a way to handle Kira.” TJ gives her a little smile. “Thanks, Driscoll.”

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

It's about 6:30 when they get to the swingset. The sun is starting to set, and the park is pretty empty. TJ likes it that way. Now it can be just him and Cyrus. He takes a seat on the swing next to Cyrus’. “Hey Cy?”

“Yea?”

“I am glad we told your friends… 

“Me too...but can I ask you something?” The shorter boy asks meekly.

“Anything, Muffin.”

“Why did you change your mind about telling them? Was it just for me?”

“Well part of it was for you..” The blond says honestly. “But part of it was for me too. I was kind of hoping that...they could be my friends too. I know that sounds pretty lame but sometimes  I get jealous of anyone who has friends. Besides you, I don’t really have any.”

“That is not lame, not lame at all. And I think after tonight, you have a huge group of friends.”

Tj smiles at the thought of that. He clears his throat to continue speaking. “I really am sorry for not telling you about Kira. I just did not want you to worry.”

Cyrus looks around for anyone who may be watching. They might have come out to their friends but neither of them are ready to come out to anyone else. Their friends are pretty understanding people, but Shadyside could be kind of conservative. Not every kid, or even adult would be so kind to them. When Cyrus is sure they are alone, he twists in his swing to face TJ. He grabs the other boy’s hand.

“Teej, it is my job to worry about you. It is part of the whole boyfriend deal.. Think about it, You would want me to tell you if something was happening to me, right?”

“Yeah, of course!” *TJ says almost matter of factly.

“Well I feel the same way. Kira doesn’t get to bully my boyfriend and get away with it, you understand?” Cyrus says in a very controlled voice.

TJ nods.How could he be so dumb to believe that Cyrus wouldn’t want to hear about his problems, about his bully. God. He does not understand how Cyrus does it  He already thought Cyrus was attractive, but he has never looked cuter than right now. TJ took in the image in front of him. Cyrus’ face looked so confident as he spoke about standing up for his boyfriend. Adding to that, Cyrus was still in TJ’s hoodie. The sleeves were pushed up slightly and the hood was draped down the top of Cyrus’ back.

TJ reaches for one of the strings hanging from the hoodie, and plays with it as Cyrus stops talking and looks at him. TJ’s green eyes meet  Cyrus’ brown. He bites the bottom of his lip as he notices Cyrus’ eyes flicker down to his lips. He stands up from his swing and steps closer to the other one. As he stands over Cyrus, he leans down and cups the bottom of Cyrus’ chin with on hand as his lips press against the other boy’s.

It is like the world stopped spinning around them. TJ has never felt more connected to another person in whole entire life. He could stay like this for hours, if only he did not have to breathe. When they break apart, TJ goes back to his swing and sits. They spend the next few minutes in blissful silence, both of them lost in their own happy thoughts.

Unfortunately, neither boy realizes they were not alone in the park. Come tomorrow, their whole worlds are going to change.

@abg-blah

[jheaton416]

Ace and Sep’s Greatest Hits

With Sad Hands and heavy hearts we bid farewell to Ace and Sep's Buffy recaps...  

"I get it now. The Slayer thing really isn't about the violence. It's about the power. And there's no one in the world who has the power to stop me now." Just then the Hubris Police step in in the form of Rupert Giles and throw a bolt of green energy at Willow, knocking her clear across the room. "I'd like to test that theory," says Giles, all tall and authoritative. Oh, Giles! Hi! I missed you so much this season! We have so much catching up to do! Let's see. I just finished my finals, and I think I did rather well. And I met a very nice boy who just happens to live in England, so when I'm over there this summer, if you wanna hang out or something just let me know. I gotta hand this over to Ace now, but... call me!

Sep, "Two to Go"

Sep: So there I was. At Trader Joe's, and boom. No Booty to be had. And you know my dedication to all things snack.  Ace: I feel your pain. The other night I was at TJ's and they had all these different kinds of Booty from Fruit Booty to Vegetable Booty, but not the Booty that I wanted.  Sep: Yargh. That blows.  Ace: Snerk. So anyway. Ash asked me if I wanted to get one of the other varieties, but I just felt that if I couldn't have the Booty that I wanted, it was better to have no Booty at all.  Sep: Dude. That's deep. And also would have saved me much pain and humiliation in my early twenties.  

There are tiny colonies of single-celled life at the bottom of deep fissures in the sea using their cilia to tell each other, "Buffy used Spike." Can we please move on?

Sep, "Never Leave Me"  

Ecch, I hear a noise like forty cats being squeezed too hard around their middles. Turns out it's Cordelia singing "The Greatest Love of All."

- Ace, "The Puppet Show"  

i dont have time to read all theze post but did u hear what happens in the finale? every vamp and demon that buffy has ever kiled is rezrected and they all sing at spike and angles WEDDING!!!! OMG!!! laterz Sep (Go on. Ban me. I dare you.)

Sep, in the forums  

Aw, Willow is wearing shorts and showing more Willow-leg than I believe we've ever seen. What a cutie. ... Giles finally pipes up that he's sorry he missed the encounter, but he actually sounds like he's sorry these damn kids won't leave him alone so he can pour himself a nice single-malt Scotch and watch that Letty The Lusty Librarian tape he has hidden in his nightstand. ... Dracula wears a sweater vest? Well, I guess that answers the age-old question: "What does Dracula wear under his cape?" Or was that Scotsmen? Who does he think he is anyway, Chandler Bing? ... I would like to point out that Spacky is wearing more eye makeup than the entire female cast combined.

Ace, "Buffy vs. Dracula"  

Credits. Who does James Marsters have to sleep with to be billed before Michelle Trachtenberg and Emma Caulfield? Ooh! Please let it be me. C'mon, if y'all give me James I won't ask for anything else for my birthday or Christmas. What? It worked when I was ten. ... Look! Xander is using a skill! Effectively! As he's building shelves for Giles, I notice that he's attired in jeans and a plain long-sleeved shirt. It looks like after his other half fell into the Gap, he managed to climb out with a basic grasp on the matching theory.

Sep, "Out of My Mind"  

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I love the 'Bot; I really, really do. She's so cute and happy and chirpy and I just know reanimated Buffy is going to be an angst-y pained ball of angst just like she was all last season, and sometimes I wish we could just replace her with the robot permanently. Especially if she keeps making jokes about marzipan.

Ace, "Bargaining I"  

Damn, Marc Blucas makes James Marsters look like a tiny, tiny man. After last week's showcase it's sad, but also amusing, to see Spike reduced to an elfin laundry-stalker.

Sep, "Shadow"  

WARNING: Contents may have shifted during shipping. Oops, that's the wrong warning. The warning is this: This recap contains opinions.

Ace, "Tabula Rasa"  

Evil Dead eh? I'm just going to take that as a shout-out to me and my Evil Dead t-shirt that I ordered out of the Fangoria (shut up) catalog twelve years ago and have been wearing consistently ever since. David Fury must have seen me in it or something. ... Buffy notices Ben sitting somewhere else and goes over to talk to him. Oh GREAT. You know how, whenever there's an outbreak of some sort of nasty infectious disease, during the news reports they often retrace the path of the virus on a map? Well, that's what my mind is doing with Ben right about now. First I only had to live in fear during the hospital scenes. But then he leached into the hospital parking lot. And now that he's just showing up at the Bronze all willy-nilly, he could just ooze on down the road anywhere his little slime trail will take him. Curses. Greasy Intern Ben is spreading. I wonder what his vector of infection is?

Sep, "Crush"  

Tough Love - Or, "The Unedited Buffy You Never Wanted To See." Buffy routes paperwork. Buffy repairs an appliance. Buffy folds laundry. Buffy goes to a parent-teacher conference. Dawn does homework. Dawn does homework some more. Glory practices personal hygiene. The recapper props her eyelids open with spork tines. To spice things up a little, Giles goes all Ripper, Tara goes all Forrest Gump, and Willow goes all Fairuza Balk. The recapper falls asleep and drools on her cat.

Ace, "Tough Love" recaplet  

Spike stumbles, bloody, bruised, and wild-eyed, down the hall to the elevator, and if I weren't a fan of this show and were just flipping by I might think it was a clip from a Behind the Music on Billy Idol.

Sep, "Intervention"  

...Marci needs to find "the key."  ...Darcy or Shannon or whatever her name is  ...Sheila or Lisa or whoever 

Sep describing Glory before her name was revealed, "Family"  

...the guy, who I've decided to call Gee Dub McChoad for no reason whatsoever...

Sep describing Tara's brother, "Family"  

Willow screams, 'Noooooooo,' and a rippling force shoots out of her mouth and zaps Osiris, who vanishes. Oh, the heartbreak of halitosis!

Ace, "Villains"  

My roommate brought home a big pile of Marshmallow Peeps from a post-Easter sale. I took one look at them and screeched, "Peeps show!" before grabbing one, winging it into the microwave, and making "Bamp-chicka-bow-wow" noises while watching the Peep swell and undulate in the microwave. Try it. It's fun. Also, I have in my notes from the first airing of this episode, "Dawn no like monkey-brain marshmallows." I think I'll just leave that in. You'll either find it as amusing as I do or marvel at my illiteracy.

Sep, "Conversations With Dead People"  

Willow incants more at the effigy (who looks like she's ready for a doctor to check her tonsils) and then sends green energy blobs shooting out of her breasts towards Santa's Phallus. It's a lesbian thing -- you wouldn't understand.

Ace, "Grave"  

Cut to Xander chaining Spike up in the basement of Casa Summers. Dawn, Buffy, Wood, Giles, Willow, the UN Security council, three random passersby, and a small hedgehog are all in attendance. Okay, not really, but seriously. The number of people present for this is way unnecessary. Giles, Willow and Buffy will perform the spell. Xander, Dawn and Wood will distribute small snacks and throw Jujubes at Spike's head. ... Spike's mum tells him that he "needs a woman in [his] life." He replies that he does have a woman in his life. She is momentarily taken in, but then realizes that William has some really serious Oedipal issues. Victorian etiquette dictates that it would be in poor taste to mention this, so she pretends to be flattered. He promises to always look after her, but she has a coughing fit, hoping to die and escape her creepy son. Knowing that Spike's women-paragon obsession thing in which he defines himself and his moral center by the dominant female figure in his life started back when Spike was human, and has continued until the present day, really makes me realize how pathetic a creature he truly is. You'd think that after the first hundred years he might have self-actualized or something.

Sep, "Lies My Parents Told Me"  

Let me amend that. It's a long, thick, snake-like demon with a head shaped just like a penis, that squeals at Buffy and then sprays liquid out of its mouth and onto her. Just think about that for a minute.

Ace, "Doublemeat Palace"  

At the Pub the Chuckleheads are sitting around a table strewn with empty beer pitchers, randomly slapping and picking nits off of each other. One of them is trying to remove his shirt but gets his head stuck in it. I can sympathize with him. I've done that -- sober.

Sep, "Beer Bad"  

Rack is creepy. Then about ten more anvils crash into my room, followed by a minor deluge of cow pies as we launch into a trippy-druggy sequence the likes of which has not been seen since The Trip and Psych-Out.

Ace, "Wrecked"  

Willow is wearing what Ace called a poncho, but I think looks more like a tube with no armholes. If anyone remembers the commercial for the plastic device that enabled you to turn a crank and produce miles upon miles of useful and fashionable yarn tubing, well, it looks like that. Either that, or Willow took up knitting but hasn't figured out the secret to sleeves yet. Patrolling against vampires and other night-haunting demons with your arms bound to your sides by an acrylic strait-jacket doesn't seem like a wise move, but what do I know about fashion? Oh, that's right -- a lot more than Willow, obviously.

Sep, "Something Blue"  

Suddenly, my TV screen fills up with a bunch of monkeys, all dressed up in platform sandals, cunning frocks, feather boas, and mascara. They form a menacing circle around Dawn. I think they're all guy monkeys, but y'know, it's a little hard to tell with the simians.

Ace, "Potential"  

It's Cruella D'Will. Heh. That's why she flayed Warren last week. She's making a coat out of him. Man, how much cooler would this episode be if Willow pranced around singing, 'See my vest! See my vest! It was once Warren's chest!' ... This is a test of the Emergency Snorecast System. Everything operational.

Sep, "Two to Go"  

Sunny Valley, Arizona Ace, a beautiful, brainy, and brilliant recapper for TWoP, that world-famous website and recipient of three Nobel Prizes for Internet Criticism, piloted her pink bubble-shaped hovercraft to the landing strip on the roof of her lux penthouse apartment. Slim and clad entirely in her everyday garb of form-fitting leather, she headed quickly to her Operations Control room, stopping only to scratch the chin of her almost-sentient leopard, Francesca. "Follow me, little one," Ace purred to her feline companion, "for tonight we view a new Buffy!" In Operations Control, Ace flung her shapely form onto the low designer sofa and thumbed the remote to her wall-sized liquid television. As the episode progressed, Francesca began to pace the room in agitation, for she had never before seen her merry human companion in such distress. Ace's perfectly manicured nails caressed her flawless face as she murmured, "How will I recap an episode so sorely lacking in plot? An episode that consists mostly of Andrew's fantasies and stolen videotaped vignettes of the Scooby gang? Without a narrative structure to follow, at what point should I mention the disturbing basement sex of the un-reunited Xander and Anya, or the empty and unsatisfying riot occurring at Sunnydale High?" Finally, Ace knelt, and attractively wept into the silken tawny fur of Francesca, "I face my greatest challenge ever! Just as the tears of repentant Andrew closed the Seal of Danzig in the school basement forever, so do my hot tears of rage seal my unrepentant loathing of this season!" Los Angeles, CA The evil genius Jane Espenson cackled evilly as she polished her six-inch chrome stilettos and flipped her shiny titian hair. Whirling menacingly in her secret headquarters beneath Reseda, she flipped open her tiny red Mobicom and hit speed-dial. Upon hearing a voice on the other end of the line, Jane leered and snapped out, "Hello, Joss? I think we've broken Ace already. The tears are the beginning of the end. That'll teach her to complain about Andrew's poor grasp on reality!"

Ace, "Storyteller" recaplet  

The Knights are gonna get the Key, toniiiight! The Scoobies drive a big RV, toniiiight! This year, the minutes seemed like hours The arc progressed so slowly And still no end in siiiight!

Sep, "Spiral" recaplet  

Xander gets snide about what a "simple" decision this must be for Buffy and then leaps up, snarling, "You know, if there's a mass-murdering demon that you're, oh, say, boning, then it's all gray area." Hee -- go Xander! I'm not really taking sides in this argument because I think both Buffy and Xander are both right and wrong here, but I really think it needed to be said that Buffy totally put aside all her Slayer standards in order ride Spike's man-pole, and she's never really admitted that to or faced it as far as I can tell. She's mumbled about how it was bad for her, but never seemed to realize what a betrayal of her calling it was. Buffy wins The Lame Comeback Of The Century Award when her only reply is that Spike is "harmless." Harmless except for the whole part where he could and did harm you, Buffy. Nice self-preservation instincts there, honey. Let's kill Anya because she could hurt men. Let's not kill Spike because he can only hurt Buffy. Uh, where was I?

Ace, "Selfless"  

This whole Spike with Buffy thing? My fault. When Angel was on the show, I hated every second of him and his dazed "you can tell I have a soul because I look like I just walked into a tree" method of acting. (Angelus was a different story. A cooler story that didn't spend so much time whining and moping.) Then, when he left, it was like light pouring in through the heavens. I was excited. Happy. I had a new lease on life. I thought, "No matter what, Buffy's next boyfriend won't be so bad." Enter Riley. Riley with his potato nose, thinly-veiled chauvinism, and women issues. And so it was, until it came to pass that Riley endeth. And lo! Happiness reigned far and wide across the land (defined as my apartment), there was much rejoicing, and it was good. Again, I foolishly allowed myself to be confident that this had been the worst. Surely Buffy's next boyfriend...

Sep, "Two to Go"  

ASH is really giving a killer performance here. I wonder how many takes it took for him to stop laughing. His singing sounds very soulful and I'm convinced it's his own voice, just very badly synched. Maybe the sound crew had to work overtime on all the Buffy/Riley moaning and ran out of time for the important things. Bad prioritization, guys. For a whole week following this episode, my poor cat is tortured by me following her around the house and bellowing, "No ooooone knows what it's liiiiike/Toooooo be the baaaad cat/Tooooo be the saaaad cat/Behind blue eeeeeyeees." I swear, one of these days she's going to lose her patience, pack her little kitty suitcase and leave. Well, at least I don't make her watch The Others with me anymore.

Ace, "Where the Wild Things Are"  

Luke is chanting, "The Sleeper will wake and the world will bleed. Amen!" Because vampires are such religious creatures. Don't you remember that one heartwarming episode they had when they showed them all going to church? Sure, they wanted to eat the rest of the congregation, but as long as they're worshipping in Glen Oak with the Camdens I really don't have a problem with that.

Sep, "Welcome to the Hellmouth"  

D'Hoffryn introduced himself, and Aud replies, "I am Aud." Hee. That's a funny pun. You know that saying that goes, "Puns are the lowest form of humor"? That always confused me. I mean, I wondered who decided that, and what the highest form of humor was, and why the phrase always seemed to be uttered only by the very humorless, who wouldn't seem qualified to judge. Anyway, this is 2002, and the saying is obviously obsolete. It comes from an older era. An era before the fart joke. Fart jokes are quite clearly the lowest form of humor, and I suggest that we petition the correct powers that be to have the saying updated for modern times. ["The lowest, and yet consistently the most reliable. Hee. Farts." -- Sars]

Ace, "Selfless"  

Willow and Buffy walk up the steps to school, and Xander catches up with them. I'm sorry that I can't recap their conversation, but I'm sure you'll understand once I tell you about Xander's red and moldy green-gray sweater paired with brown and yellow plaid pants. As if that combination wasn't horrific enough on its own, Willow is wearing an orange and yellow striped fleece shirt. It's at times like this that I wish I were blind -- just like the wardrobe people.

Sep, "Passion"  

Ace: "I don't know why Buffy was all surprised when Spike tried to kiss her. That's what you do at the end of a date and drinking, dinner, and pool all add up to a date." Sep: "It totally was a date. My last date ended exactly the same way. Someone threw a wad of cash at someone else, the words, 'You're beneath me' were uttered, and one of us was left crying alone in an alley." Ace: "You've got to be kidding me." Sep: "Actually I am. My last date ended with me threatening my beau with a spork."

Ace and Sep, "Fool for Love"  

[izziebash]

Worth a Second Glance | Zizzie

Who: @izziebash and @zaddieblue

When: Saturday, November 18th

Where: Tony’s

What: After casually being makeout buddies for like, two months because of mutual shyness, Izzie and Zaddie finally go on their first official date! 

Izzie hadn't known what came over her. Here she was, so excited for this date, and had the perfect outfit already picked out -- a skater style dress with a peter pan collar, the kind of thing she normally wore, probably with some booties or Oxfords or something. But what Buffy had told her left kind of a bad taste in her mouth. Why was she, compared to Tia and Sage, so cutesy and adorable? They were all practically the same age, in the same social circle, and now on the same teams so...why wasn't she the same? That was when Izzie decided to go shopping for a new outfit -- something form-fitting, mature. Something Tia would wear. With heels! She knew Zaddie liked her enough to want to date her now, but he saw her every day. What if he got bored or thought she wasn't trying if she showed up to their date wearing what she wore every day? It made sense to want to glam up a little. After posing for a few Instagram photos in the courtyard, Izzie bid her friends goodbye and sucked in a breath, mentally preparing herself to meet Zaddie outside of the football stadium, as planned. Walking through the last few stragglers of spectators, she spotted him, towering over the rest as usual, and gave him a quick wave. "So I Google Maps'ed it, and Tony's is about a twelve minute walk from here, which gives us twelve minutes of conversation before our main concern is pasta!" she joked, "Because I'm starving."

Zaddie had no idea what the hell he was doing. Constantly making out with someone? Going out on dates? Who was this person and where did the old Zaddie go? Never in a million years did he think that he'd be this guy. The guy that girls actually wanted and didn't ignore. The guy that went out on dates. Who could kinda hold a conversation without bringing up anything pokemon related? It was -- weird. New. Cool, maybe? He didn't understand what was going on at the football game at all, but he stood and cheered when everyone else did and cheered Izzie on just like he'd promised and he waited. And waited. It hadn't been too long, but to him it felt like forever. He'd been so nervous, his hands were sweating, his heart was pounding in his chest. Because this was real. This was happenening. Y'know, if she didn't decide he wasn't worth it and then stood him up and went out with someone who was cooler than him. But finally he settled on her, his eyes widening slightly at the outfit that she was wearing. It wasn't bad, not at all. She was absolutely stunning, gorgeous. And he looked like a piece of garbage in his button up and jeans. Great. Wonderful. He was already screwing it up. He tried to keep his eyes on her face, but they couldn't help but trail over her as she approached. He swallowed thickly, half paying attention to what she was saying but was distracted by how -- amazing she looked. His eyes flicked up to her face and he cleared his throat. "Sorry -- I was -- kinda -- you look," he paused, clearing his throat and reaching up behind him to rub the back of his neck as he tried to think of an appropriate word to , "tall!" He cleared his throat, letting out a nervous laugh before he shook his head. "Not that being short is a bad thing! No, you look -- good. You look good," he cleared his throat, suddenly feeling very warm as a blush grew on his cheeks and he offered her his arm, "Shall we?"

Izzie caught her bottom lip between her teeth, biting back a smile at the way Zaddie was looking at her. She noticed, and knew then that this outfit choice had been a good idea. He could get the mousy Izzie bundled up in a sweater back at the cottage. Tonight, he got this. Whatever this was. When he fumbled, she felt a heat rise in her cheeks and pushed back a strand of hair behind her ear when he commented on her...height. She furrowed her brow, laughing nervously with him, as she glanced down at her heels and gave a shrug. "Yeah, heels'll do that!" she chuckled, wondering if he was okay with her wearing heels. Obviously, he was tall enough not to be emasculated by it, but she never knew -- boys could be weird about things. Maybe he thought she was too dressed-up. Her worries were quickly squashed, though, when he rambled to a resolution to his sentence, and she let out a happy sigh. So they were both as nervous as she felt. That was comforting. "Thanks, so do you!" It was hard for Zaddie not to look great these days, and when he put in just the tiniest bit more effort like today or homecoming, she was even more weak in the knees at the sight of him. Holding her clutch in her left hand, Izzie glanced at Zaddie's outstretched arm. With the last couple of months that they'd had, linking arms felt so...formal. Rather than take his arm, Izzie took a leap of faith and his palm in hers instead, lacing their fingers together. "We shall," she smirked, beginning to walk in the direction of the restaurant. "So did you like the game?"

Zaddie let out a laugh, glancing down at her heels. Because honestly, he hadn't even noticed. He was too busy paying attention to everything else that was going on, because this was definitely different than what he saw at school. Or at the cottage. "Yeah! Duh, I'm just -- nervous," he admitted, clearing his throat and shrugging slightly. Was it weird to say that? Maybe, but at least he'd been honest. He couldn't help but laugh at her compliment, glancing down at his attire before he looked over at her. "People are gonna wonder what this loser's doing with -- well, you." He gestured to her, letting out a laugh before he shook his head. "You're stunning, Iz. Really." His eyebrow rose when he took his hand, mentally cursing at himself because he was sure that his hands were drenched in sweat. He should've worn gloves or something. It was kinda chilly outside. It would've made sense for him to wear gloves. He smiled, walking with her and making sure he wasn't walking too fast -- because he learned fairly quickly that being taller than people meant that he needed to walk slower. Holding hands made that easier. Until he remembered that they were holding hands. "Uh, it was cool?" he stated, giving her a slight smile before he let out a laugh, "I don't know much about sports, but it was nice. I just came to support you."

Izzie laughed, giving an honest shrug. "You probably won't believe me, but that makes two of us," she smiled warmly, knowing that for some reason Zaddie was convinced that he was so much more of a loser than her. Which, maybe he was from the outside of things -- their circles were kind of different, he was Pokemon and she was Barbie dress-up games from 2005, but inside, she felt like just as much of a dweeb. She scoffed when he continued to put himself down, shaking her head and running a comforting hand over his shoulder, unable to keep from smiling at his modesty. "Or they'll look at me and be super jealous. 'Wow, she's stunning and she's got that tall drink of water on her arm'," she joked, trying exceptionally hard to accept his compliment and not shut it down. "But thank you." The heat rose in her cheeks again, and she was thankful for the way-thicker foundation she'd applied, or else she was certain they'd be pink by now. As they began their walk, Izzie perked up her brows when Zaddie mentioned why exactly he'd gone. "Really?" she squeaked, "That's so sweet!" She resisted the urge to hug onto his arm already, for they were only a few minutes into their date and she knew how things went when they got so close in proximity. "I talked to someone about your...video game...things...and they said that with the new Mario game that's out, I can play as your hat! Or something like that, so if I got it we could do something that you like, too, since you're out here being all adorable and watching me cheer and stuff," she rambled, knowing full well that none of that probably made sense, but tried to finish it with a confident smile so it at least seemed like she knew what she was talking about.

Zaddie ‘s eyebrow arched at her words, shaking his head and giving her a slight smile. “I don’t believe it, but it does kinda make me feel better, I guess. But you have no reason to be nervous.” She’d always been part of the popular crowd, where as for him, he’d barely been part of the soccer team and that was where his “popularity” came from. Even then, the only person who’d really hang out with him outside of practice was Charlie — when she wasn’t with Wes, Tia or Bianca. She had absolutely no reason to be nervous around him. He laughed loudly, shrugging slightly at her words. “If you say so.” He smiles at her squeaked words, raising his eyebrows at her and glancing over at her. “Why else do you think I’d show up to a sport that I know nothing about?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her, “For the food?” Although, the nachos were to die for. His calloused thumb brushed against the side of her hand, a wide smile growing on his lips when she mentioned how she’d been talking to someone about video games. “I mean — you don’t have to buy anything for me. Games for the switch are stupid expensive,” he shook his head, letting out a laugh when she called him adorable and his face began to heat up once more, “That’d be cool! I could show you some of the games I already have and we could figure something else out so you don’t gotta drop 60 bucks on a game.”

Izzie quirked a brow teasingly, sizing Zaddie up with her eyes when he said she had no reason to be nervous. "And you do? I promise I'm not that scary," she chuckled. He was right, though. She had no reason to be nervous. She'd felt more herself around him than she felt around most people these days -- maybe because she had no clue who 'herself' really was lately, but around Zaddie she felt no pressure to be anything she wasn't. "Well football is like....kind of like soccer, right? Or is that basketball?" she scrunched up her nose, realizing then that maybe she didn't know as much about sports as she thought, either. All she knew was, cheer when your team has the ball and if they're running for a long time, that's really good so cheer harder. All those years managing the cheer team, she'd spent focusing on the girls and not much else. It was way different in the middle of the action. "But in any case, I always treat myself to a hotdog afterward so I would definitely recommend the food," she laughed, her stomach growling loudly at the mere mention of food. It was a good thing they were almost there. Izzie shrugged, as if spending that kind of money was no big deal. It wasn't really, but she did have to catch her breath for a moment after he informed her that they were sixty dollars. "Sure! I'd be down to try and figure out how to be anything that's not a hat," she chuckled, "But I'll be keeping in the back of my mind for Christmas. Or your birthday. Which is -- when, again?"

Zaddie nodded before he cleared his throat, shoving his free hand into his pocket and looking over at him. "I'm not exactly -- experienced in anyway." And he just kinda assumed that she was. She was one of the prettiest and most intelligent girls at the school, he'd be shocked if she had no experience. And people were idiots if they didn't want anything to do with her. His eyebrows pressed together and he laughed, shrugging. "I mean, kinda. You can't use your hands in soccer -- and I honestly didn't even play that much. I was pretty much a part of the team just so they had enough players to play." It was mostly a joke. Mostly. Zaddie gave her hand a squeeze, licking his lips and bringing his free hand up to pull his fingers through his hair. "Yeah? Cool! I've got lots of 'em, and you can choose," he smiled and he looked over at her, "August. August 13th, to be exact. What about you? When's yours?"

Izzie gulped thickly, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. It wasn't like she hadn't had any opportunities...aside from that Freshman year fiasco with whatshisname that she repressed as soon as it happened. She always just had some kind of mental block that kept her from putting herself out there. "Neither am I...? Not really, I mean. I've never really thought about dating until now, actually. I guess I've just been so busy, it never really came up." She shrugged, knowing that was a half-truth, but part of the truth was better than none of it. The truth was that she was scared of...everything, really, when it came to dating. Boys, girls, all of them intimidated the crap out of her. "Awww!" Izzie cooed through laughter after Zaddie described his position on the soccer team. "Well, look at us -- a couple of former spares out on a date. What luck!" she chuckled, squeezing his palm as well, as they approached the restaurant. For a Saturday evening, it wasn't super busy, but they still had to stand in a short line. "Awesome! I'll try to choose wisely," she smirked, making a note to do some research on the games he had so she wouldn't pick something based on its pretty cover or something. "You do not strike me as a Leo! Mine is March 30th."

Zaddie looked over at her, raising his eyebrows in complete shock. “W— wait really!?” his eyes searched his face, “I mean, you’re super ambitious from what I’ve gathered, which is awesome. Totally awesome. I’m just — I dunno, surprised? I figured you’d have people —lining up outside of your door.” He even gestured to the line in front of them, in attempt to make her laugh or just to make himself seem like even more of idiot. Or maybe even both. Yeah, both was good. He felt his face heat up as she cooed, clearing his throat and he let out a laugh. “Nah, at least you had a purpose. Keeping the girls in line and ordering supplies and stuff. I kinda just sat around until someone needed a break.” Which, he was an awful player so it was rare that he ever got to actually play. He hummed, grinning at her and raising his eyebrow at her. “I’m kinda nervous, but I trust you.” He laughed and he shrugged, puffing out his cheek. “I don’t remember who told me, but they said I have a Cancer Moon or something like that,” he stated with a laugh, looking down at her and raising his eyebrow, “What does that make you? A — Taurus or something?”

Izzie felt her cheeks warm even deeper when Zaddie showed some level of surprise at her news. As if he needed more evidence as to why she was the STI spare or whatever. "I mean, sure, there have been instances, but....No one's really out here jumping from one of Tia or Sage's lines to jump into mine," she blurted, and instantly regretted it. Izzie hated when she said stuff like that, because it just felt like she was asking for someone to console her. "Kidding. But uh...I kinda like having one person at a time lining up outside my door," she shrugged, hoping that flipping the statement around and turning it into a compliment on his part would distract him from what she'd said before. "And all athletes need a break! You were totally important to the team because you offered that support. I think support is great!" she said truthfully. It was the same mantra she used to defend her own position and it always made sense to her. Successful people can only get that success with the people who were there to help them, and she liked being one of those people. It made her feel successful, too. "Ooooh, a Cancer moon makes more sense! You've definitely got the passion of a Cancer, and I guess we're both lucky you don't have the Leo ego," she smirked. As the line went on, the host escorted them to a table, and Izzie thanked them before taking her seat across from Zaddie. "Oh! And to answer your question, that makes me an Aries, actually. But, like you with Leo, I don't think I'm a great Aries," she shook her head with a laugh, as she glanced over the menu. "If we're both bad at being our respective signs, do you think those 'Are Aries and Leo Compatible?' articles shouldn't be trusted when it comes to us?" she half-joked, but was also half-tempted to pull out her phone and search right there.

Zaddie let out a soft laugh at her words, shaking his head and wrinkling his nose. “I mean, not that Tia and Sage aren’t great, but I think I’d prefer to knock on your door. And I’m sure there has been, because you’re awesome and if anyone doesn’t see that — they’re blind. But — y’know, I’m glad you answered the door for me.” He offered her a wide smile, his eyes skimming along her face and bringing their conjoined hands up to his lips and pressing a kiss to the back of her hand. He laughed and he gave her a gentle nudge, nodding. “I mean, I’m sure a lot of them said they were fine and exhausted themselves so they could win. Because I’m kinda awful. And look! You’re on the team now, and one of the best ones out there.” Not that he’d really been paying attention to anyone but her. Zaddie laughed, shrugging once more. “I apparently could. But I wouldn’t wanna be like — some people and have a huge ego.” And he never would. As great as Wes Maldette was Zaddie could never imagine his ego getting that large. Maybe have a little bit of an ego, because that was healthy. He pulled her seat out for him before he sat across from her, shifting nervously in his seat and wiping his hands off on his jeans — clearing his throat. He laughed and he shrugged. “I mean, we know we’re compatible? Otherwise why would we even be here? Do we have to research it?”

Izzie lowered her eyes, incapable of holding back a smile when Zaddie kissed the back of her hand. She hadn’t been fishing for compliments, but they always sounded nice coming from him, so she supposed she couldn’t feel bad about it. “I’m glad I did, too.” Eyes raised to him as she brought the back of his hand to her lips, as well, reciprocating his gesture and accidentally leaving a lipstick imprint on his skin. If this were anyone else, she’d have apologized profusely and wiped it off, but she felt comfortable enough around him to leave it there. “You never know! You could’ve been a hidden gem, too, but they’ll never know because they were too stubborn to give you a chance,” she smirked. She could only imagine how different high school would have been if he’d been an athlete and she’d been a cheerleader. Would they have fallen into the trope and gotten together sooner? Izzie cocked a brow when he mentioned an ego, and dramatically placed her hand on her chest. “Was that....shade? I do not believe my ears — Zaddie Blue is throwing shade!” The phrase sounded weird coming out of her mouth, but for the sake of teasing him, it was worth it. She knew of a few people’s egos he could’ve been referring to. Izzie smiled when he reassured her that they were compatible without that stuff, and nodded in agreement. “You’re so right,” she chimed, “Why not just trust our guts? Speaking of guts, mine is screaming at me. Do you know what you’re ordering?”

Zaddie smiled when she did, because it was hard not to. Especially when she got shy. It was cute. Someone who should’ve had all the confidence in the world was shy about him kissing her hand. “I sure hope so, otherwise this’d be a little awkward,” he teased with a laugh. His eyebrows rose when she reciprocated the kiss on his hand, smiling and feeling his heart skip when he saw the lipstick imprint on his skin. He was so inexperienced with things like this, with girls that he was surprised with how — comfortable he felt around her. A bark of a laugh fell past his lips, his head tipping back as he did. “Nah, I’m not good at a lot of things and soccer’s one of them.” He grinned even more at his words, feeling his face heat up at her slight teasing and his eyes flicked down to the menu. “Isn’t what that all the cool people do? Throw shade?” God he hopes that he didn’t sound as — weird as he thought he did. Zaddie’s eyes flicked up to her and he nodded, giving her a wide smile before his eyebrows rose. “You mean I’m supposed to eat here?” he joked, before he shook his head and looked down at the menu, “Probably spaghetti or something even less interesting.” He looked at her, offering a crooked smile before he nodded. “And you know this is on me, right?”

Izzie let out a laugh, nodding at his teasing. "True," she chuckled. She raised a brow when he very blatantly laughed off the idea of being good at soccer. She knew not everyone was like her -- competent at pretty much anything she put her mind to except socializing -- but still, she liked to think that he was just being modest. "So why'd you try out for the team?" Izzie asked tenderly, holding his arm closer to her to show that she wasn't judging or being skeptical. She genuinely wanted to know. If he had the guts to try out for a sport he knew he wasn't good at, then what took her so long to cheer? Izzie scrunched up her nose, unable to keep from laughing at the way the slang fell clumsily from Zaddie's mouth. It was weird, but cute at the same time. "Well, you're a cool person, so I guess so," she retorted, before turning her attention back to her menu. "Oh yeah, we're totally just here for the ambiance -- it's a great romantic atmosphere," she teased back, poking out her tongue. Izzie's breath caught in her throat when Zaddie pulled a total guy move and offered -- no, not offered, informed her -- that he was paying. She supposed that since he was the one who asked, it wasn't like she was falling into some outdated custom. "...Sure! I mean, if that's what you want to do. I'll get it next time, though." The waiter came, and Izzie was quick to order spaghetti, as it was one of the more inexpensive choices, but if he asked it was definitely because he made it sound so appealing.

Zaddie paused as he thought of an answer to her question. Because frankly? He had no idea. Maybe to seem cooler. Maybe to be part of some crowd. To be involved with something other than the game on his phone. "I dunno. I thought'd be fun. And most of the time when you try out for something, at least at WHS, you get on. I dunno -- maybe I wanted to be part of a crowd or something. Make friends. And I did. Though, it seems like one of the friends I had hates me now, for whatever reason." He smiled when she scrunched up her nose, wrinkling his own nose when she laughed, but his eyebrows rose and the previous expression on his face completely changed when he called her cool. "Well, that's the first time I've been called cool, whether you're joking or not, so I'm gonna take it," he teased, throwing a wink her way -- which was completely unlike him. But it was easy, stuff like this was easy around her. Being flirty, weirdly confident. It was -- different. Nice. "The most romantic atmosphere, I've heard," his eyes flicked down to her lips when she stuck her tongue out, raising an eyebrow before her eyes focused on his once more, "And don't stick that out unless you intend to use it." He paused, his eyebrows raising when he'd realized what he'd just said -- sinking back in hist chair for just a moment and feeling his face turn a bright red color. "Not that I meant that in any -- like... sexual way or whatever. I just -- nevermind." He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck before he reached over took a sip of the water that had been placed in front of them. He cleared his throat, giving her a sheepish smile before he shook his head. "I mean, you don't have to, but we can totally switch it up every time." He ordered the same thing, reaching up and pulling his fingers nervously through his blond locks. "D'you come here often?"

Izzie nodded slowly, knowing exactly how he felt. Being part of something was such a validating feeling -- like people liked being around you and needed you there. She totally got it. "Oh my God, who hates you?" she furrowed her brow with a bit of an uncomfortable laugh. Zaddie was like, the least hateable guy around. Maybe anyone who didn't know him didn't have to like him, but hate was such a strong emotion for someone who did like, literally no harm ever. Izzie lit up a bit at being the alleged first time he'd ever been called cool, and gave a nonchalant shrug. "It was given for you to take, so please do," she quipped back, sipping her complementary water before he made that joke. She sputtered on her drink, letting out what could only be described as a cackle, feeling her cheeks go warm and match his in color. "Oh my God," was all she could say through laughter, clapping her palm over her pink cheek. She almost flirted back, but was just too floored to even think of anything. "Bye. It was nice knowing you, I'm dead," she shook her head before sticking out her tongue once more (ever-so-slightly) just to prove that yes, she did intend to use it without actually saying that she did. "Every time..." she repeated with a nod, smiling to herself that he was thinking about not just the second date, but third and fourths too. "Oh, no. Unless you count the million pizzas we've ordered from here for STI sleepovers but like, other than that, not at all. You?"

Zaddie was thrilled that their first official date had been going well. She made this easy, easier than he had heard it was gonna be. Sure, it had it's awkward moments, but everything had gone even better than he had expected it to. And he hadn't even wanted to pull his phone every time it vibrated because they were near a pokemon. He paid for the whole meal, tipping the waiter as well as he could before he pushed himself up and moved toward the opposite side of the table. A smile grew on his lips, holding his hand out to help her up and raising his eyebrows. "I'd say I was being a gentleman and walk you home, but we live together so either way I wouldn't have a choice." He paused, raising his eyebrows when he realized just how bad that could've sounded before he immediately began to back track. "Not that I wouldn't walk you home! Because I would. It's just -- convienent that I live there too. Walking you back home is definitely and will definitely not be a big deal."

Izzie didn't even care that her heels had gone all pinchy as the night went on. She could have sat there and talked with him til the restaurant asked them to leave. But she was really grateful that the night did come to a close and it was time to go home -- which just meant that their date could last as long as they wanted, just with more comfortable clothes. She took his hand and hoisted herself up out of her seat, dropping a few dollars onto the table to add to his tip on her way up. Tossing her head back with laughter, Izzie gave a nod as he rambled on. "Well let's just say that I'd totally think you were a gentleman even if you like, decided to run in the other direction right now," she chuckled, before clutching his arm to her chest. "....But don't." Exiting the restaurant, she gave a content sigh -- this had gone well. This was what dating was like...and it was just as great as everyone claimed. "I like this," she admitted with a shrug. "If it wasn't clear enough already that we should do this again sometime, we should definitely do this again sometime."

Zaddie sighed when she laughed, hoping that was a sign that he hadn’t said anything that was too douchey. Accidentally douchey, because he wasn’t sure if he could purposefully be douchey. He laughed softly, shaking his head before slipping his arm from her hands and wrapping it around her shoulders — gently pulling her even closer to him. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise,” he stated with a smile, looking down at the brunette. He smiled even more at her words, listening to her before he nodded. “We definitely should. I’d enjoy that a lot.” And without even thinking about it, because he knew if he thought about it then he’d stop himself, he reached over with his free hand and tipped her head back. He dipped down, kissing her just as he had several times before.

Izzie gave a matter-of-fact nod, almost a "You'd better" in response to his promise as his arm wrapped around her. She reciprocated the embrace by wrapping her own arm around his waist, and met his gaze as he looked down at her and agreed that they should do it again. So she supposed they were...dating, or something. Just the thought made her smile even wider, unable to hold it back even when his lips met hers. "I think we're like, dating now," she chuckled, scrunching her nose up as if the idea wasn't as completely enticing as it actually was in her brain.

Zaddie smiled even more, the smile on his lips growing even more as her arm wrapped around him as well -- a soft, content sigh falling past his lips. He smiled against her lips as she did, his calloused thumb brushing against her jaw even when she pulled away to speak. He laughed, scrunching up his nose just as he had and raising his eyebrows at her. "Yea, I guess we are," he stated, shaking his head before he stole another kiss -- still unable to keep the smile from his lips, "Gross." Except it wasn't. It wasn't gross at all.

[twentysomethinginorlando]

MegaCon Part Two: Meet Your Heroes

New Post has been published on https://twentysomethinginorlando.com/megacon-part-two/

MegaCon Part Two: Meet Your Heroes

Memorial Day decided it wanted to be even busier than usual this year. Rather spending my Thursday night finishing my cosplay preparations, I found myself at a movie in full pirate garb with my friends before our trip to MegaCon on Friday. You can read about this, and the morning’s adventures in MegaCon Part One: But First, Cosplay.

Thankfully, it didn’t take me too much longer to find the most important booth at MegaCon: Karen Hallion’s. If you’re not familiar with her work, Miss Hallion does amazing art. She is most famous for her crossover art with Disney characters and Doctor Who, but she does so much more than that. Lately she’s developed an original character named Celara that I really like. My favorite part of her is this cute little orange fox/cat/critter sidekick who reminds me of a cross between Duffy and my cat. I can’t wait to see what kind of adventures the little guy goes on. I’ve met Miss Hallion at the last two MegaCons. She’s just the nicest person and takes time with everyone even though her booth is always slammed. The best part is I somehow manage not to turn to Jell-O when I talk to her. I picked up a print of Celara and the TARDIS. I was torn between that one and the Hamilton one, but that’s just because the little fox looks so darn cute in his outfit. I like Hamilton but I’m much more a Whovian. I asked her if the fox has a name yet, and she told me the two she’s debating between but she’s stuck because she wants it to be just perfect.

I completely understand. This blog had a whole lot of titles before I settled on this one.

As I was finishing talking to Miss Hallion and putting my print away, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around expecting it to be someone asking for a photo and there was a guy with a microphone asking if he could interview me. Okay. That’s different. Well, why not.

He asked me about why I was Korra with a keyblade, and then he asked me about how I felt about the lesbian undertone of the ending of the series. I might have slightly bitten his head off without meaning to when I corrected him that Korra and Asami are bisexual, not lesbians. I get really angry about that. I also talked about how annoyed I am that is literally all anyone wants to talk about now that it ended that way. The show stood on its own well before that final scene.

Frozen Gaming interviewing me.

I think my aggressiveness sort of scared him and the interview ended quickly. At least I think it did. Apparently I do better when you put a camera in my face than I do when trying to talk to celebrities. The guy with the camera man was dressed as Ash from Pokémon and he apologized for their ambushing me, and gave me a card with their YouTube information. Their name is Frozen Gaming and much like me, I think they’re just starting out and I wish them luck.

You can see the interview here, but they cut most of it. Warning: Some of the language in the video is NSFW.

The new print wouldn’t fit in the bag with the first two prints, so I stopped at a random booth to see if they had a bag. They did, and she was very nice, and I wound up buying three postcard prints from her. Pikachu and Barry Allen for me, the Punisher for Jay.

We wandered the floor until a little after two when I was starting to get over whelmed with the crowds. I have worked in one of the world’s busiest theme parks and yet MegaCon phases me, because that makes sense. We headed back to the food area to find a place to sit for a bit and I rechecked the schedule. I had forgotten about the Improvengers show and now it was too late to line up. There were only two other panels I wanted to see: the Hillywood Show and James Marsters’. Sadly they were within half an hour of each other, and James Marsters obviously won.

I wasn’t sure what the line would be like for his panel, but I remember how crazy the Firefly panel lines were two years prior so we went ahead upstairs to line up. Basically this meant we got to camp on the floor for a while and rest and recharge, and look at our phones for the first time all day. I reached out to a couple of friends I knew were there, but hadn’t seen yet, and we agreed to meet after the panel. I had also been looking for a particular booth all day in Artist Alley and hadn’t seen it, so I went to their Facebook to ask the booth number.

While we were waiting, I saw a Black Widow and Star Lord walk by with their own keyblades, and I had to chase after them to get a photo. I didn’t want to interrupt them before they got in line, and we got some nice person in line to take photos on both Black Widow’s and my phones. We compared construction techniques, and I have a few ideas I want to steal to improve mine in the future.

Kingdom Hearts crossovers are popular this year!

They let us into the room around 3:30, and, boy, do I like walking around a keyblade on my shoulder. It makes it really hard for people to move past you. Having an intimidating pirate next to you also helps. We wound up in the second row after the VIP section and I left the keyblade across our laps until the row was filled. We talked through what all we still wanted to do before we left and made a list so we wouldn’t miss anything.

The panel actually started exactly on time to my surprise. I thought he might be late again. They played a highlight reel of his many roles over the years, and I was extremely disappointed the shot of him jumping on top of the coffin in “Once More, With Feeling” was not in there. The host welcomed him out and went over the rules for questions. Before he took the first question, James asked everyone in the audience to put their hands in their air and “scream like your team won the thing”.

Someone asked about a charity he just won an award for, and he talked about CASA, which is an association that helps foster children. Someone asked about how he got into acting, and apparently when he was fourth grade he played Eeyore in a school play. The live action Winnie the Pooh film Disney is doing got brought up and now someone would want him to do Eeyore’s voice. His response was absolutely perfect, in the exact voice, “Oh, Pooh.” Now I will be heartbroken if anyone but James Marsters plays Eeyore. He was asked about his work on the audio books of the Dresden Files, which Jay tried to explain to me and I quickly shushed him. I have never gotten around to reading them, but I know about them. “I have no idea why Jim Butcher picked me. No idea whatsoever.” He was asked about the hardest episode he had to shoot on Buffy, and he talked about how difficult the bathroom scene was, and the toll it took on him. “It put me in therapy. Which actually turned out to be a good thing because I’m much happier now.” He talked about where that story line came from, and the struggle and triumph of Spike gaining his soul. He talked about some of the struggles of going from stage acting to film, and “trying not to lie to the audience”.

Someone asked about his role on Torchwood. He had been on tour with his band, Ghost of the Robot, and his road show manager refused to go out to dinner with him because Doctor Who was on. So they ordered room service and watched it in her room, and within fifteen minutes he was hooked. He went down to his agent’s room and asked him to try to get him a role on Doctor Who. Russel T. Davies said no, but they had a perfect role for him on Torchwood, and they had been looking for someone to fill it. He also talked about being interviewed by the BBC for the homophobic backlash against Torchwood, and his response was apparently, “We’ve got a backlash!? That’s great!”

He was asked his favorite role he had ever played. Without hesitation he said, “Spike. Absolutely Spike. If you asked me to pick between Hamlet and Spike, and Joss is good but Shakespeare’s just a little bit better, sorry Joss, but I’d pick Spike. Absolutely.” Then my favorite question was about his favorite episode, because it turns out we have this in common.

Apparently the cast was very nervous about the musical because they thought Joss was “flushing the show”, but they decided to do the best they could anyway and hope it didn’t suck. Well, it certainly doesn’t suck. It’s my favorite episode of anything that has ever happened.

He also loved killing the Anointed One.

The time was up far too quickly, but I’m so happy this was the one panel I made time for. Three years ago, I had never seen Buffy. Then I didn’t understand why Spike was so popular when he was such a bad guy, then I was cheering as he and Buffy kissed at the end of “Once More, With Feeling”. His line to Buffy at the end of the series about how he loves her was one of my favorite quotes long before I ever saw the show, and I was so beyond happy it was his line.

We filed out of the panel and I stopped for a picture with a spot-on Buffy cosplayer before we went to find my friend Kimberly. Sadly she was in the South Concourse and I was in the North, but she was leaving soon and I was determined to find her. Tradition must be upheld and I have pictures with her at every MegaCon.

It thankfully didn’t take us too long to get across the building and I found her as Black Widow with our friend Mihn as Chirrut. I finally got to introduce Jay to her and we talked for a few minutes before we headed back to the floor. It was already five and we still had several things to cross off our list.

Our first stop was the Hillywood Show table. I had been putting this off because I wanted to meet them, but didn’t know what to say. They’re two sisters who do parodies, and while they aren’t the only reason I started making them myself, they definitely influenced me. Going up and telling them that would be awkward though, and probably giving them too much credit. So I decided I would just ask for a photo, because then I could meet them and it wouldn’t be weird, right?

Wrong.

The only way to get a photo was to buy something, which is fine except they only had merchandise from their three latest parodies: Sherlock, Supernatural and Suicide Squad. Three fandoms I am not a part of to begin with, and I like their older parodies better. I told them as much when they asked which was my favorite, “Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2.” “Oh but that one’s so old!” Long story short, I wasn’t getting a photo without paying ten dollars and it just wasn’t worth what I make an hour to me. Not when I just wanted to talk to them for a moment. Lesson learned, never meet your heroes. (Well, sometimes. Miss Hallion and Robby Cook were great!) I tried not to tear up when I walked away. It wasn’t that upsetting, it was just a very long day without a lot of sleep and it hurt my feelings a little.

Author Nick Braker.

Our next destination was the booth whose number I had to track down on Facebook. Nick A. Braker is a science-fiction writer from my hometown, and his son Chris was one of my best friends in college. Last year I’d been posting on Twitter about heading to MegaCon and he’d texted me I should go see his parents. Well I did, and then I had dinner at their house when I was home for my birthday last year, so I wanted to go say hi.

He’s one heck of a writer. He’s turned out three books in a very short time and he’s got two more coming. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll hopefully be venturing back into video production to produce some book trailers for him.

Now all we had to do was find the three booths we wanted to buy things from and we could leave. This should have been simple. It was not.

I wanted to find Brandon Kenney’s booth so I could buy his Lilo and Stitch Splash Mountain print and the booth with the Disney Parks style buttons. Jay wanted to find the independent fairy tale comic so he could get the preview issue. After wandering in circles through the aisles for twenty minutes with no luck, I went back to Karen Hallion’s booth because I knew I could find her. She collaborates with Mr. Kenney on occasion so I knew she would know where his booth was and her sister and business manager gave me directions. Miss Hallion happened to be standing in front of his booth when I got there, and I said, “Oh, I could have just followed you!” I couldn’t decide if I wanted the big or small Splash print, and Jay told me to just get the big one. I also picked up the pack of three Stitch stickers he had.

We resumed our wandering and I still had the change in my hand, which proved dangerous as I impulse bought a big Pikachu sticker for my bullet journal. Well, at least it has a purpose.

I straight up lucked into finding the Disney Parks buttons booth. I even followed him on Instagram earlier in the day and wasn’t smart enough to look there to see if he had his booth number posted. They were two for five so I picked Gaston and BB-8. I could have happily bought them all, and some of his prints, but I was trying not to go overboard. The artist’s name is Joey Quintin and he had a series of Disney characters dressed as cast members that was just fantastic. I asked him why Anna got to be a Skipper, and admittedly his reasons were good. He asked who I would want to see. “I don’t know, but I am a Skipper so I’m a little picky!” “That’s fair.”

Jay was ready to give up on finding the independent comic booth, but I was determined. It was the only thing he had really wanted all day, and it did look extremely cool. One of the main characters was the son of the Big Bad Wolf and he was on the cover with a brunette Aurora. We thought we knew the general area and we knew they had black and white sketches hanging on either side of the booth, but of course after a while everything just blends together. We went in circle after circle, and I must have passed the Brakers ten times now that I knew where they were. I was getting increasingly frustrated, but I do not give up easily. The warning message played that the show floor would be closing in half an hour, so we were almost out of time. Neither of us had been smart enough to take a picture of the booth or the name of the comic to look in the program.

ARGH.

Hero Cats!

I got distracted by the Hero Cats booth and wound up buying a comic and a button, but it’s literally about cats saving the world so I feel like that was another good impulse buy.

After about fifteen more minutes of circling, I finally spotted the booth and raced over to them. “Oh thank goodness.” The artist had returned and I honestly think we confused him and the nice woman we’d spoken to earlier, but I was so out of breath.

They had two comic options, the normal one which was one out of five hundred, or the variant which was one out of a hundred. The normal was $10, and the variant was, well Jay heard $50 and I heard $15 and I don’t which one of us was right because I bought the normal one. It came with a free black and white print, but of course the one Jay wanted wasn’t actually a print.

It was an original sketch. He offered to make a print of it and we could pick it up at a future con, but I elected to take the Beast print home and buy a second comic in the future. The series is titled The Chronicles of Zelaria: Dynasty of Darkness and Jay now owns #106 out of five hundred of the preview issue. I haven’t looked at it much yet, but I am already looking forward to seeing more after the description the author gave us while we were there.

We could finally head out, and began the long trek back to the car. I had tried to be good about switching which shoulder I carried the keyblade on throughout the day, but my back was aching. Jay’s pirate boots were killing him, and we were very happy to start stripping off the outer layers of our cosplays. I hadn’t realized how little my vest breathed until I took it off.

I hadn’t wanted to try to carry Duffy and the keyblade so he had to stay in the car. He didn’t seem too mad at me thankfully, I did let him watch Pirates the night before.

MegaCon is absolutely one of my favorite things about living in Orlando. I’m a little sad I didn’t get to go more days, there were other celebrities I would have liked to see like the Flash stars and Stan Lee. I’ve seen Stan Lee twice before, and he’s wonderful but this is his final Florida appearance. Getting off work on a holiday weekend is just too difficult in the hospitality industry, but I’ll be there at least one day next year. I never plan on missing it.

A pretty good haul!

Cost: A one day ticket purchased in advance was $41 after tax. The four day option I was looking at previously was $99 before tax. My portion of the photo op was $35. I probably spent close to $40 on cosplay supplies, and another $30 towards the keyblade, but a good chunk of that was the jigsaw which we won’t have to purchase again. I came home with a little less than half of my original spending cash. Parking was $15.

Duration: All day, whether you go for one or four.

Value: Absolutely worth it. Can’t wait to see who they announce for next year.

Add Ons: There are VIP ticket options, autographs and photos. The prices change from year to year based on what guests are attending.