#the Scream reference is the actual bottom behaviour here

[inspector-montoya-fox]

let me hop onto this kinda underrated but definitely outdated post for a minute and ask: did Dr Michael PhD know about Clockwerk? it's not like i want the owl to be the ultimate catalyst in Sly's life - he was the end-all be-all for two games, it was time to move on for sure - but at the same time murdering an entire lineage of raccoons isn't um something you stumble upon everyday ?

i know how enticing it can be to want to connect all the dots when writing sequels and i'm so happy SP didn't pull a Roman Bridger told Billy Loomis to become Ghostface with Clockwerk and Dr Michael. actually, when you think about it, Sly 3 resists the urge to bring up Clockwerk in any way, which is very respectable. the way the game connects to the other two is through the aftermath of ClockLa (which is hardly mentioned) and returning villains as new gang members. if we removed those from the equation, Sly 3 could be a standalone entry. it's a very refreshing game after, again, two games that centre around Clockwerk and his subsequent resurrection but it's also a bit jarring to think that he is barely (or not at all?) mentioned during a game that involves two characters who worked for him as well as one who used his own tail feathers. at times it feels like the game is deliberately going out of its way to tiptoe around the subject.

personally, Honour Among Thieves left a lot to be desired, especially as the final episode not only of the game but of the series. more specifically, i love Dr Michael's conversation with Bentley so much but i feel like it was too little too late. i get that it acted as a climax for the 'Bentley wants to step out of Sly's shadow' storyline but the conversation gave birth to so many huge implications that it felt like we were just then getting to the juicy bits. why does Dr Michael have such vitriol for ConnEr Cooper? what happened between the gang members? was ConnEr truly a piece of shit or is it all Dr Michael's perspective? did every Cooper have a Bentley and Murray figure in their life?

whereas the player got to know Neyla through her various appearances throughout Sly 2, Dr Michael's character development is put on pause due to the fact that Sly 3's episodes aren't interconnected via the common thread of "a gang of villains". as a result, many questions arise in the final episode and never get answered. one of them being: what's his connection to Clockwerk? as highlighted in the paragraph above, there are other questions that are easily prioritised over this one because they are pointed at during the conversation with Bentley. that being said, it feels a bit bizarre for Dr Michael to not even bring up Clockwerk once. when he first sees Sly he thinks it's ConnEr, which raises the question 'does he even know about Clockwerk murdering ConnEr in the first place?' that's definitely one possibility. the gang dispersed and when ConnEr settled down as a family man, that's when Clockwerk came into the picture. ok! probable scenario...

... but idk i'm not really buying it. i don't want to be the tin foil hat girlie and i'm truly not, like in terms of narrative logic it makes total sense. but from a consistency standpoint, how can you create a character that is actually portrayed as more of an omnipresent, all-powerful entity, the literal embodiment of evil, to then just have him go *poof* ? Clockwerk is the stain on the Cooper legacy, the Cooper killer and Dr Michael, who prides himself on hating ConnEr so much, has no idea who he is? the evil scientist who is infatuated with the Coopers and creates animal hybrids doesn't know about the owl robot that survives on Cooper hate? mama what are the odds. again, i'm against trying to unnecessarily connect all the dots, but even a mention would suffice. cutscene appearance even. like what if Dr Michael acted as this Judas figure who approached Clockwerk post gang breakup and spilled on how to track down ConnEr or some sort of secret? it would also help flesh out Clockwerk's character posthumously, which i find so clever. this is something discussed on the new episode of Safehouse Chats btw (shameless plug-in sis), where we debate whether or not Clockwerk benefits from being shrouded in total mystery. as for my initial question? i think Dr Michael bottomed for Clockwerk. block me

[sweet-star-cookie]

what information do libra's library books contain? who is allowed to read them?

Good question, and I saw your other ask so I'll answer that one here too! Actually I should probably start with the library's appearance, though as usual I don't have much in the way of images yet 🥴 I basically have to drag my motivation kicking and screaming to do background design these days, but I did manage to sketch a part of what the back wall looks like in my head tonight at least:

I picture it as an ornate but practical two-level library with high ceilings, lots of wood and warm lighting. Notably, its design and floor plan are entirely symmetrical, a deliberate reference to Libra's exactness and a more literal take on the idea of balance in general. The door on the bottom floor is where new or returned books are processed and then returned to the shelves, and beyond that is Lupus's private room. The door on the top floor leads down a hallway to Libra's private room where the scales that she's named after also reside.

Here's an old concept for another part of the building that might give you a better idea of the overall vibe and colours (though I need to update this too, this is from like 2019 lol)

As for what it contains, the library functions similarly to other places that seek to preserve the Astral Plane's history. Any books that were remnants of past constellations, be they the author or the subject, are kept here.

For example, the previous incarnation of Lepus was a famous warrior known as The Great Hare, and she documented many of her adventures in her war diaries, of which there are several volumes. I have some side stories planned for what happens to the Chamaeleon Three after the events of the main story, and the current Lepus learns more about who came before him, hoping to maybe become more heroic and confident like she was.

Libra and Lupus spend a lot of time cataloguing all of the information in the library's books, both for archival purposes and especially for any that may provide even a hint at answering some of the more mysterious questions about the Astral Plane. The library has speculative and entirely fictional works as well though, and you can bet that Capricorn and Pegasus have penned written versions of their various plays as well.

The library is open to the public, as both Libra and Lupus strongly believe in the pursuit of knowledge for all, though there are strict rules in place for the patrons' behaviour to avoid any destruction or disorganization. Anyone can read any book, and accommodations needed for language, blindness, deafness, etc. are achieved magically, with the book itself changing in appearance and/or function to be tailored to the reader. While it is encouraged to read the books inside the library itself, they can be checked out like in any other library.

That is, with the exception of any books that can be used as weapons, like magical tomes, which are stored and guarded elsewhere. Libra's balancing magic is often used to ensure that, even if they were stolen, their magic could be negated to reduce their potential harm.

It is possible for books entirely from Earth to appear here though, albeit in specific circumstances and not every book either. How this is possible is a bit of a spoiler, though it's pretty nebulous for the characters anyway!

Because they lack context from their presumed origins on Earth, it can be hard to determine if some of these books are fact or fiction, though they're usually interesting enough regardless, and at least are another indicator of the connection between Earth and the Astral Plane's residents. Pegasus loves anything from other playwrights that she can find there, for instance.

Given Libra's various duties as the keeper of balance and the resident healer after Ophiuchus's disappearance, Lupus does much of the maintenance and running of the library himself, and he does so diligently, with great reverence for it and Libra herself. When on duty, he is very rarely seen standing still, constantly finding something to do. Libra's magic is always there to assist all throughout the library as well though, like her air magic carrying books in and out of high shelves so Lupus doesn't have to climb a ladder every time to get to it. Floating books are a common sight here!

[thrillridesz]

[ to start from the prologue - click here ]

You let out a subconscious yawn, the fatigue from the late night study session the night before taking its toll on you. If there is anything you need right now, it would be a good nap even if it was only for an hour. Why not take the chance to get some rest while the place is still quiet?

As you made your way to your classroom, you were surprised to find the lights already on, with a warm glow coming from the gap in the doorway. Who could be in class this early? Quietly, you pushed open the door and peered in curiously. Everything was in place - the tables were arranged in order, the whiteboard was polished clean and the books in the shelves were slotted accurately by the authors’ first names. All in all, it looked just newly organised and tidied and there was no sign of anyone in the room.

Shrugging, you figured that the janitor must have forgotten to switch off the lights after cleaning the room. You should have known that it wouldn’t have been another student - nobody would come to class an hour early, especially not in the morning and for Philosophy class no less. Closing the door casually behind you without much thought, you very nearly suffered a heart attack as a loud horn sounded off from the teacher’s desk without warning.

It was a loud shrill sound, kind of like a siren and you would have screamed out loud had you been just a little bit more awake. It was the kind of sound that irritated your ears and in such an enclosed space, the sound was all the more louder.

If you were feeling tired earlier, you were certainly wide awake now. The loud horn had to be loud enough to wake a dead man. As you tried to calm your now pounding heart, you could briefly hear murmuring coming from the source of alarming sound earlier. You couldn’t help but feel a stab of irritation and annoyance.

“Who’s there?”

The murmuring stopped abruptly and you crossed your arms across your chest, frowning.

“I know you’re there. I’m not stupid. You nearly scared the crap out of me, so at least show yourself.” You declared even as your voice shook slightly with trepidation. What if it was some sort of intruder into the school compounds?

There was no movement and then suddenly you could see the top of someone’s head and a pair of dark eyes that stared right back at you. There was panic in them until the two of you made eye contact and the tension dissipated instantly. As the figure stood up, you were almost a little relieved to see that it was just a classmate of yours and not an intruder like you had initially thought.

“Hyunjae? What are you doing here and what the hell was that sound?”

“We could ask you the same thing. What are you doing here in school so early in the morning?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We?”

Just then, you noticed another person just crouching over the teacher’s chair, seemingly hard at work on something. As though sensing someone staring, he looked up and you realised it was Hyunjoon.

Of course.

Of course it would be Hyunjae and Hyunjoon. How did you not make the connection? These two were thick as thieves in class, always seen talking and sharing some sort of inside joke. Many times, your Philosophy teacher would call them out on their behaviour as well though it wasn’t like either of them cared enough to pay him any mind. They were a very odd duo to say the least and many people referred to them as the ‘Jekyll and Hyde Hyuns’ - attributing to Hyunjae’s boisterous wiles and loud mannerisms and Hyunjoon’s relatively milder and quieter personality. They were most definitely an unlikely duo and to this day, many have wondered how the two even became friends.

“Yeah, Hyunjoon’s here too. So, what are you doing here so early in the morning?”

“Could ask you the same thing.” You replied, tossing your bag on your chair.

“I asked first.” Hyunjae rebutted, raising an eyebrow.

“I forgot classes start later today. I actually completely forgot today was Friday too.” You sighed, already mourning your lost sleep.

Hyunjae couldn’t help but laugh out loud, his laughter ringing through the room as Hyunjoon continued to work on whatever he was tinkering at though you thought you might have noticed a faint smile on those lips.

You huffed, annoyed. “Stop laughing at me.”

“Well, you kinda deserve it. That’s on you.” He replied, a hint of smile still lingering on his face.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I know.” You said, trying not to broach the subject any longer. “You haven’t told me what you guys are doing.”

Hyunjae and Hyunjoon exchanged a glance and before either of them could say anything, Ailea, a fellow classmate of yours walked in.

Upon seeing the three of you already in class, her eyes widened in amazement.

“Wow, you guys are early.” She remarked before continuing with a confused expression on her face, “What are you guys doing there?”

Hyunjae could only smile and pat you on the back, winking.

“You guys will find out later.” He said vaguely as Hyunjoon stood up, quickly stuffing something into his pocket.

“Cryptic, much?” You thought as you slid into your chair giving the duo a suspicious look which Hyunjae only returned with a bright, toothy smile while Hyunjoon merely casted you a sideway glance as he looked out the window.

It wasn’t long before the other students began to trickle in, some looking just as tired as you were while others walked in with their friends, chattering as they did. So much for taking the time to catch up on some rest, you grumbled to yourself as you rested your head on the table. Somehow, you couldn’t help but let your thoughts drift to what Hyunjae had said earlier. Just what did he and Hyunjoon mean by that?

The bell sounded off just as Mr Park, the Philosophy teacher ambled in, looking as staid and serious as usual. Immediately, the class grew quieter. He had on his usual brown argyle sweater vest over a crisp white button down with ironed corduroy pants and leather dress shoes, looking exactly like the sort of teacher that would be hated by his students which wasn’t straying very far from reality. His sharp eyes surveyed the class through his glasses and as he slammed his books on the table, several students jumped and shot him a dirty look which he promptly ignored.

“Good morning, class.” He said smoothly.

“Good morning, Mr Park.” The class echoed in a dull unison, sounding less than enthusiastic.

From the corner of your eye, you could catch Hyunjae and Hyunjoon whispering to each other, a smile on both their faces and you narrowed your eyes. There was a certain gleam in their eyes that told you that something was up but there was no way of knowing what. You turned to Mr Park, looking at the table rather than him. What were they thinking?

“Is there anything you’d like to share with the class again, Mr Heo and Mr Lee?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to the duo, including yours. The two of them simply stared back, wearing the most innocent look they had on their faces.

“There’s nothing today. Sorry, Mr Park.” Hyunjae smiled and Hyunjoon nodded in agreement.

The teacher looked at them with contempt before turning to focus on the rest of the class, an air of disgust around him.

“Why do they always make me teach such talentless classes?” He mumbled to himself, in a voice loud enough for the class to hear and anyone could have sensed the tension. Mr Park truly was the teacher sent from hell. What was worse, was the fact that he wasn’t even your class’s actual Philosophy teacher. He was a mere substitute for Miss Mae who was on maternity leave.

Everyone loved Miss Mae. She was the sort of teacher every student loved and adored since she was always so kind and engaging in her teachings. Her classes were intriguing and motivated the class to learn instead of bringing them down like Mr Park did. The class used to love Philosophy lessons when she taught the class until she got married to one of the gym teachers and subsequently had to take maternity leave after the birth of their first child. Cute couple they were but you found yourself wishing for her return. Mr Park was an absolute terror in comparison. He was a choleric man who flew off the handle at the slightest things and many times, he had more than a few snide remarks to pass onto his students, sometimes even leaving them in tears. The way he taught was abysmal at best - full of complex terms that he never bothered to clarify, yelling whenever someone couldn’t answer a question he asked and sometimes even laughing when his students did badly.

“Please, Miss Mae… We need you.” You whispered as Mr Park took a seat on his chair.

Immediately, there was a deafening sound that rang through the classroom - a familiar sound just like of an ambulance siren - which shocked everyone. The girl next to you almost fell off her chair and Mr Park leapt up instantly, falling on the floor in the process in a rather comical way while his glasses flew across the floor.

For a second, the classroom was in stunned silence before Mr Park scrambled to his feet, his face turning such a deep purple with rage that from a distance, he looked almost like an overripe plum.

“Who did that?!” He screamed, his spit flying everywhere and you could hear doors start to open from outside in the hallway. In a fit of anger, he tore off the air horn that was taped to the bottom of the office chair he had just sat on and glared daggers at the class who only stared back at him.

“I’m asking again… Who did that?! Own up now!” Mr Park yelled, his face twisted with red hot anger as the vein at his temple bulging. Still, nobody said anything. You held your breath, your eyes drifting to Hyunjae and Hyunjoon who only looked ahead with the blankest of expressions on their faces. Yet, you must have been seeing things because you thought you saw the two of them give each other a knowing smile.

So this was what they were working on.

“No one is going to own up? I see how it is.” Mr Park said in a barely controlled breath and you almost felt yourself fall off your chair from how scared you were when he looked you dead in the eye. It felt the gaze of a ferocious tiger about to fall upon its prey, ripping them to shreds. Quickly, you looked away and found yourself locked in a gaze with Hyunjoon. You clenched your jaw as the gaze held on and even from where you were, you could almost hear the hidden message in his look.

Do not tell.

“Tell me now, all of you worthless, idiotic, little- Oh, Principal Ina!” Mr Park blubbered, his eyes widening with shock at the arrival of the principal. A powerful looking woman, Principal Ina had such an air of competency and class that even Hyunjae and Hyunjoon had stopped smiling at her presence. She wore a disapproving frown on her face as she regarded the Philosophy teacher’s disheveled appearance.

“Mr Park, did I just hear you refer to the students as ‘worthless’ and ‘idiotic’?” She asked curtly and her voice turned icy as she noticed the air horn in his hands, “Are you using an air horn in class?”

“I… I…” The man stammered, paling as he realised his folly.

“I’ll see you in my office after this period.” The principal simply said as she walked out and you could almost swear you saw the two boys breathe an audible sigh of relief and as did you. It was a lot of pressure and more pressure than you thought to hold on to such knowledge in the face of such ferocity. Looking over at them again, you almost hissed at them as Hyunjae shot you a playful wink while Hyunjoon gave you a brief but small smile.

The rest of the class went by the smoothest it had ever gone. Turns out when Mr Park was in a worrisome state, he wasn’t a very bad teacher after all. He didn’t once yell or pass some mean comment after the principal’s visit. As he trudged out of the room looking meeker than you had ever seen him, you felt a tap on your shoulder and turned around to see Hyunjae and Hyunjoon.

Frowning, you snapped, “What do you want?”

“Woah, chill.” Hyunjae exclaimed, “We just wanted to thank you.”

“What for?”

“For not telling on us.” Hyunjoon said in a soft voice as Hyunjae nodded, a bright smile on his face.

“Okay… So what?” You asked dismissively, half hearing what they were saying.

“Would you like to join us for lunch later?”

“No.”

“C’mon, it’s not every day we invite a girl to come eat with the two wittiest guys in class. Did you see that man’s face, it was so worth it.”

“What makes you think I want to go have lunch with you two annoying jerks? You guys could have landed me in trouble, Mr Park had his eye on me at one point.” You shot back.

“Well, we’re sorry that happened. We didn’t know.” Hyunjae apologised and to his credit, he did look genuinely sorry and so did Hyunjoon. “But are you sure you don’t want to come join us for lunch? Do you really want to eat alone today?”

You stopped dead in your tracks.

Right.

Your friends had told you they would be unable to meet for lunch at your usual spot today. Belle wasn’t in school today because of a writing competition held in the school downtown that clashed with the lunch period so you would be alone today. Meanwhile, Simmi had to attend an urgent meeting with the other members of the debate club for their match next Wednesday and Kevin had a make-up Physics lesson today since his teacher wasn’t around the last lesson. Your other acquaintances all had differing schedules either so there was no way you could ask to eat with them too. Since everyone was in the same batch, it wouldn’t be difficult for them to put to and to together. It was either take this chance and go eat with the troublemaking duo or eat alone at the rooftop for today.  

Taking this chance would mean no eating alone and not looking like a loner in the cafeteria though eating alone at the rooftop would be a much needed break to get yourself some peace and quiet, possibly even catch up on the tiniest bit of sleep while you’re at it.

Do you accept their offer or do you choose to eat alone at the rooftop during lunch?

➳ Accept the offer

➳ Reject and eat alone

[sincerelyasomebody]

Lay Your Claim || Oscar "Spooky" Diaz

(GIF Credit: @merakiaes)

A/N: Hello👋🏾, new Tumblr user here. Just giving a heads up that there may be errors; so please be kind. I am not a native Spanish speaker, so refer to the translations at the bottom. Please feel free to correct me if anything is wrong. Jose is used as Sad Eyes' actual name as far as I know it has not been revealed in the show. I've read a few fanfics that have used this name as well. Anyway, happy reading! 

Pairing(s): Spooky x Reader

Summary: Oscar may have claimed her; but (Y/N) demonstrates her claim on him. 

Warnings: fluff, language, physical altercation, underage drinking (I don't condone this behaviour). 

Word Count: 1090

- ♤ - ♡ - ◇ - ♧ -

A party at the Diaz residence wasn't an uncommon occurrence. 

The front and back yard filled with people, music pumping through the speakers, food and drinks neatly organised on tables (thanks to Ruby). The atmosphere of the hangout was something (Y/N) was becoming familiar with.

Being Oscar, or Spooky as he was known on the streets, Diaz's lady was a title that many were shocked she had gained.

He was the leader of the Santos, Freeridge's prominent gang (now that the Prophet$ were gone) and she worked as a librarian in Brentwood.

Two completely different individuals; on separate paths in life. 

Until a chance meeting at a soup kitchen changed everything. 

Now they were a couple; an odd couple to some, but a couple nonetheless. 

"Hey, (Y/N)!" 

The girl turned around and found José, or Sad Eyes, waving her over. He sat with a few members, each with a beer in their hand. Her boyfriend wasn't among them, but she figured he was off doing something important.

She greeted all of them with a smile, "what's up?"

Out of all of the members, Sad Eyes was who she was most comfortable with. Not to say she wasn't comfortable with the rest - it was just her and Sad Eyes had spent more time together. Whenever Oscar wasn't available, he was the one sent to help her out. At first they didn't talk to each other, he was just there, really. 

He only spoke up when he discovered she was spending way too much at the grocery store for fruits and vegetables, so he recommended the farmers market his mum always went to on Saturday mornings. 

That was the beginning of their friendship.

"Just checkin' on ya," he responded. "Any cookies?"

(Y/N) baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies when she first met the gang. It was a hit and now requested whenever she was around.

She laughed, "there should be some on the tables." 

Oso shook his head, "nah, we finished those ones." 

"I baked five trays!?" 

"We were hungry," laughed Joker, "are there more?" 

"No." Was her response, before walking off as they continued to laugh. 

She searched the crowd for Oscar but he wasn't anywhere in her line of sight. Instead she was met with the Core 4 and Jasmine sneaking off with some coronas. She let them be, but made a mental note to check up on them soon.

No doubt in her mind that either Ruby or Jamal would need help staying upright if they had more than one. Cesar, Monsé and Jasmine were somewhat responsible, she concluded. 

As she moved through the sea of people, she nodded at the women huddled near the DJ booth. They were the ones who gave her a heads up about being with a Santos, especially with the leader, as they were with some of the older members. She admired them and couldn't have been more thankful for a support system. There were no issues between her and them. 

Her issue was with the women who regarded her status as Spooky's lady as something that could be challenged. (Y/N) had yet to put a bitch in her place, but it seemed like tonight was going to be the night. 

She glanced over at the snack tables and found Oscar sipping a beer. Josie, a known opportunist, talking to him… though it was more like she was talking to herself because his focus was anywhere else but her. (Y/N) smiled when he noticed her, quickly making her way over to him. It seemed like the girl got the wrong idea, because she moved forward and put her hands on his chest.

Alright, let's do this. 

"Excuse me," she pushed herself in between the two and immediately locked lips with Oscar. 

He was caught off guard, but quickly accepted the kiss; pulling her closer which allowed her to deepen it. Their public display was met with hollering from Santos and party-goers alike. Jasmine's voice the loudest with her 'yaaaaas, girl!'. They shared a laugh when they finally separated.

Oscar brushed his thumb against her cheek. "Damn, mamas." 

(Y/N) pecked his lips as a response, before turning around to face the girl. She gave her a once over, leaning back slightly to which Oscar hung an arm across her chest. The other resting on her hip, with his chin on her shoulder. A position that practically screamed they were together if the kiss wasn't enough.

The hangaround scoffed and rolled her neck, "wow, we were just talkin' and you wanna do all that?"

At this point, the party had come to a standstill. Everyone eager to watch the exchange; especially those who wanted to see what Miss Librarian was capable of. 

"He's my man, I can do whatever I damn well please and he sure wasn't complaining," the young lady replied, "and from what I saw, you were the only one talking. Let's make one thing clear I'm the only person that gets to be all up on him. So, back off, bitch." 

"Or what?

She stepped away from Spooky, her eyes focused solely on the girl. "Please, try me and find out." 

Big. Mistake. 

Once Josie swung, (Y/N) dodged it and sent a jab to face. Josie stumbled but charged forward, once again (Y/N) dodged. Only this time she grabbed the hangarounds arm, twisted it behind her back and forced her to the ground.

"Let. Go. Of. Me!" Josie wailed, trying to break free. 

She laughed and put more pressure, "what happened to being a bad bitch?" 

"Okay, okay, I get it. I won't touch him, I get it! Now, let go! Please!" 

(Y/N) held on for a couple more seconds and then released the hold. She got up on her feet as Josie rose to hers, while holding her arm with a glare set on her face. 

"I'm Lady Spooky." (Y/N) reminded her, eyes scanning the party-goers. "If you try me, I will not hesitate. So, don't touch my man and there won't be any problems. Okay? Cool."

And, with that the party went back to normal; only this time with added cheers and shouts of 'we see you Lady Spooky'. (Y/N) walked back over to Oscar who was still in the same place she left him. She laughed when he pulled her into his chest.

He kissed her forehead, "you must be crazy about me, huh?" 

"You claimed me." Her eyes sparkled with mischief, "only right I do the same." 

- ♤ - ♡ - ◇ - ♧ -

Spanish Translation(s):

Mamas - (slang/nickname) attractive woman

[fangirlinglikeabus]

every target novelisation....2!

planet of giants by terrance dicks ok so i think that the reason that this is...good, and an unearthly child was...not good, is because this was written 9 years later when like. other, non-terrance dicks people were also novelising stories and he wasn’t just grinding them out on an industrial level. planet of giants isn’t one of the greats of doctor who but this is a competent adaptation - it doesn’t add much but it does flesh out what’s already there, giving us some backstory elements and making the appearance of giant insects and bodies seem a bit more dramatic than they could manage in 1964. unfortunately it also alters my favourite line from the story (‘i don't know how you know, you're supposed to know!’) and the doctor is weirdly hostile at the beginning (he’s looking forward to ditching ian and barbara, he responds to barbara’s observation ‘drily’ like he’s being a bit sarcastic over her, um, *checks notes* noticing important details). also, dicks describes this in the opening as ‘the doctor’s most grotesque and terrifying adventure’ and i’m like...planet of giants? really??

doctor who and the dalek invasion of earth by terrance dicks ok this one legitimately doesn’t change much at all. it cuts down on some things (including the doctor’s end speech being shorter - i’m assuming that’s a space thing), fleshes out on pov bits as you can in prose, gets rid of the smacked bottom line. bizarrely there are a few times that susan calls her grandfather the doctor which...i’m pretty sure wasn’t there originally. aside from all those small details, yeah it’s basically the same, but it’s well adapted for prose (i genuinely think it stands as a novel in its own right), and depending on your reading speed it might actually be a nice, shorter alternative to the television version - it was around 45 minutes less time for me. some general things i wanted to comment on: the resistance is explicitly shown as kinda gender segregated (exclusively women are preparing food when we first see it) which irritated me; the description of parliament as a symbol of ‘human progress and tradition’ reminded me of blood harvest having the lords/commons system as the Ideal Form Of Government, in terms of how terrance dicks thinks (this may only interest me? idk i very probably spend too much time thinking about the political views of this particular dead dr who script editor); there’s a use of holocaust here that’s technically accurate to what the word literally means but it felt weird to me to use it.

the rescue by ian marter oh man i’ve been busy and this took me aages to read. it kinda...diverges increasingly from the original story as it goes on. we’ve got some scenes with the seeker crew (incidentally one of them says ‘ass’ and i was like???hello???you’re allowed to do that in a dr who book from 1987???), and then most of the expanded stuff is in the climax. dr who and bennett have a full on brawl! ian, barbara and vicki visit a destroyed didoi city on their way back to the tardis! mysterious silver figures! a giant worm encounter! incidentally, this does have way more of a downer ending than the original because it’s strongly implied that the last two of the didoi were killed by seeker crewmembers who fired in a panic, after which the report that forms the epilogue ends with “goodwill to all persons” to give us a taste of bitter irony. so that’s kinda grim. um...there’s actually a lot of little changes and minor expansions to this one as well so off the top of my head: we learn more about why vicki left earth (global warming :/), sandy is a lot more threatening-looking than on screen, the crashed ship gets its name changed to astra-nine, ian and barbara hold hands briefly, barbara’s fall really leaves her beaten up. i like the seeker crew comparing the tardis briefly passing them to various non-police box objects from the future (although the link to china is a bit eastern world=alien association for my tastes), dr who telling vicki ‘give that pretty face a wipe’ is clearly him attempting to cheer her up and it’s not meant to be weird but i found it weird. finally, i’ve gotta say i appreciate ian marter’s commitment to ‘mildly unsettling’ in his descriptions of tardis materialisations. this was the last novelisation he wrote before his death (the book’s dedicated to him) and mild criticisms aside, i do think he’s a good writer and he brings an interestingly different angle to the series. 

the romans by donald cotton oh my god. how do i even start this. i’m not even going to try cataloguing all the changes because this isn’t even close to a straight adaptation. it’s told in the form of various documents collected by tacitus - the doctor’s diary, ian’s journal that he keeps to prove to the headmaster at coal hill that he and barbara haven’t just eloped (i’m not joking, this is the textual reason for it), an assassin’s letters home to his mum, nero’s scribblings, and various other little details. vicki and barbara get less attention than on screen because we don’t see much from their perspective (vicki unfortunately doesn’t even get to chase the assassin out, she just screams in this), and the nero assassination plot is exclusively confined to being mentioned in the epilogue. it’s also a lot broader, or at least consistently broader, which means that ian’s side of things is treated a lot more lightly (which i was personally fine with) but also that we still get nero’s predatory behaviour being played for laughs. there’s also a few comments about women early on that i was unhappy with, and use of fat as an insult. generally, though, i thought this was great! there were a lot of things that i don’t have space or time to include here but i really liked. i guess i’d consider this as a companion piece to the tv version rather than a replacement, which some of these do basically serve as. they tell the same basic story, but they’re so different in a lot of ways that i think it’s worth looking at both. i just checked my notes and remembered this so content warning: poppea sabina’s first section references suicide.

doctor who and the zarbi by bill strutton ok so i think the web planet is boring. i don’t know completely why, i don’t think it’s any one thing, it has some interesting ideas, but it is! it’s fucking boring! anyway, we have a bit more casual sexism in the novel, we’re missing that fun convo about aspirin between vicki and barbara, but really i don’t think it adds or changes much - like even the chapters correspond pretty much exactly to the tv cliffhangers. i guess it’s competently written prose-wise, but i genuinely can’t get over my conviction that this story is boring. am i being unfair? maybe! i like some of the early atmosphere, though, and i appreciate a book which refers to ‘the ship tardis’ (lowercase) and ‘doctor who’ throughout the entire thing. oh yeah, and i encourage you all to look up the illustrations for this. i don’t know who that woman is but she’s definitely not vicki.

doctor who and the crusaders by david whitaker ah yes, the infamous ‘susan married david cameron’ novelisation. tbh i don’t like the crusades and this has the same problems - i don’t care about the english, el akir is every orientalist stereotype whitaker could possibly cram into one man, and That’s Not How A Harem Works. do i think it’s the most egregiously racist doctor who story of all time? probably not! it certainly has sympathetic arabic characters too. but i prefer most other historicals, at least. however, if that isn’t you, i’m sure you’ll get something out of this. there aren’t any particularly extreme changes to the plot structure, although it’s missing some later scenes at the english court, but it’s well written and probably if you like the original you’ll enjoy it more than i did. there’s some dated language surrounding black characters, though, i’m not a fan of the whole ‘we aren’t so different’ speech ian has (because it rests on ‘we all believe in a higher power’ which uh. i don’t. guess that means i’m not ‘civilised’. also generally i don’t like the argument that we should respect each other because of what we have in common - you should respect other people whatever!), and the prologue at the beginning where they muse on history and destiny assumes that the english invaders and the arabs are both equally right in their own ways (the doctor outright says this!)

the space museum by glyn jones so, i really like the space museum. mainly for vicki’s revolutionary fervour, but there are other reasons too. however, i don’t think that this really adds enough to be of interest - although we do get some information about the two alien species’ biology, and a bonus explanation of why everyone speaks english (the moroks briefly considered invading earth so programmed some earth languages into their translation system). there’s a bit more wandering around the museum, some minor tweaks and expansions in other areas, an underground tunnel scene where we learn a bit of the planet’s backstory...ian and the doctor are very snippy to each other in this, which i find funny. oh yeah, and there’s a bizarrely meta bit where ian comments on poor dialogue? basically, this is a book i enjoyed, but really it just makes me want to watch the space museum instead of reading it. just a heads up, there’s a character who briefly considers suicide to get out of his bosses being angry with him. 

the chase by john peel ok before i get started i need to establish that the cover for this one slaps. anyway, i don’t respect john peel at all but this was...alright? doesn’t expand much plotwise (although i suspect both the sand monsters at the beginning and the plants at the end have slightly more to do) but we get a fair bit of pov stuff. unfortunately lacking ian’s dad dancing and hi-fi the panda, the marie celeste bit is no longer played for comedy (barbara angsts over it) and even though the two paragraphs dragging morton dill are kinda funny i’m not sure how i feel about him being committed for claiming he saw daleks. ian and barbara’s departure plays out a little differently. steven is blond for some reason. we learn as well that daleks are charged by solar panels (at least they’re pro-green energy??)

the time meddler by nigel robinson pretty competent, straight down the middle novelisation, although that is tempered by inserting some weird sexist bits for steven and also lowkey being nostalgic for 11th century england at a few points? it’s also a bit more violent than we see on tv, and if anything the rape is more loudly implied, so heads up. other than that, there are a few minor embellishments (we’re explicitly told the dr and monk recognise each other, vicki tells steven that the tardis is important to her because it’s her home, a few differences between the monk’s tardis and the doctor’s are described, vicki views steven following her as a triumphant victory in their power struggle which i personally find funny), and there’s a prologue (recapping steven’s arrival in the tardis) and an epilogue (which delays the monk’s discovery of the broken tardis because he walks to hastings first to try and get involved there). i had fun, but it’s not a must read. 

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title : The things you fight for

Author : @serahne​

For : @freakysandra1995​

Rating/Warning : some angsty moments, but nothing that someone into Danganronpa couldn’t bear ( 🐻 )  in my opinion. Komaeda and Hinata are a bit of a mess, but they are so entertaining.

Prompt : “Making the other jealous”

Author’s note : It’s finally out. I wrote this in a couple of days, but I still wanted to write something good for you. The prompt I’ve picked amongst your suggestion is interesting because it really struck me as really OOC at first for both Komaeda and Hinata... and then I started to enjoy the idea of Pining!Hinata, so here we are.

The fic also includes some Hinata/Koizumi friendship, because they are my weakness, and there is no way Hinata would get his shits together without her anyway.

As she was one of the very few sane person on the island, Hinata actually enjoyed Koizumi’s presence. Sure, she could be bossy, had a very strict idea on the place the boys should have - and a very vague one on girl’s beside ‘in charge of everything’ - and could fret over things of no importance, but she was also a trustworthy friend, a great listener and she knew exactly how long a tea bag needed to dip in the water to get a perfect flavour.

It was a bit embarrassing that even after going through brain surgery to enhance his abilities or whatever was on this paper he had be asked to sign once - without being given enough time to read the small characters at the bottom of the page about completely wiping out his personality, of course - he was still unable to get it right. No matter what, his tea always ended up undrinkable. Go figure.

But over anything else, Koizumi was good at giving advice. What’s more, she loved giving advice, even when others didn’t ask for them.

“You seem down, Hinata.” She said with a concerned expression, as they were both seated in the restaurant. “Did you sleep well ?””

Hinata shrugged. There was always someone making noise on the island. Unlike what happened in the simulation, no one cared about going to sleep early and locking their door tightly. And even when one of them wasn’t wandering around the island, the agents of Future Foundation were like a swarm of bees, restlessly buzzing through the night.

“It’s fine, I just… urgh. I need an advice.” He admitted.

Koizumi offered him a self-satisfied smile. Of course you do, her smile seemed to say, and despite Hinata’s sudden urge to be purposely unpleasant, he chose to bit his tongue instead. After all, he did need an advice.

“I’ll help you if I can,” she replied. “What’s the trouble ?”

“Boys.” He sighed before sipping his tea - still burning, ouch - and feeling like he might be quoting a random chick movie.

He knew his friend would appreciate it. And indeed, Koizumi huffed in amusement.

“What a surprise, but you’ll have to be more precise. Are you referring to Nidai punching a hole in a tree at the beach ? Or to Souda being caught by Togami building what seems to be a turbo-nuclear reactor, though he swears it wasn’t his intent ? Or… are you talking about Hanamura asking Sonia to be judge at a dick-measuring contest ?”

Hinata almost choked on his saliva.

“Hanamura did what ?” Koizumi looked at him with a blazé look. See what I have to go through everyday ? she seemed to say. Hinata shook his head. “Heh, do you want me to talk to him or something ?

“Oh, no. I already firmly explained to him that he was to stop his harassment. I might have let it slip that Sonia has diplomatic immunity in 187 countries, and that she is free to murder him anytime she sees fit.” Her eyes shone with amusement. “Oh, I had the help of Komaeda too. May the fear he inspires to Hanamura never fade !”

She emptied her cup of tea, her smile never leaving her lips. Hinata took note to go and see Hanamura at some point in the day, just to see if the guy was still alive. There was no way Koizumi would be that giddy over a simple… explanation. Even a firm one. And even with Komaeda scaring Hanamura as a bonus.

“Well, okay then.” Hinata took a deep breath to give himself some courage. “I wanted to talk to you about him.”

“Hanamura ?”

“Komaeda.”

“Oh.” Koizumi sighed. She was clearly taken aback, but to her credit she did her best to pretend that nothing had caught her off-guard. “I thought you were getting along pretty well. I mean. Considering the… circumstances.”

Hinata grimaced. “We are ? Kind of ?” They had an entire list of banned subject that they did their best to avoid whenever they were talking together, but beside that, they got along. “It’s complicated, I guess.”

Koizumi hummed quietly, waiting for Hinata to spill the beans. Hinata frowned.

“Do... hm... do you think he likes me ?” He asked, almost more to himself than for her.

Koizumi froze for a second.

“... define ‘like’ ?”

Hinata rolled his eyes at Koizumi’s cautious behaviour.

“You know what I mean ! I mean like-like.” He was being ridiculous, but why was Koizumi playing stupid right now ? “You know. Do you think he is into me ? I mean we spend a lot of time together, and he always says he is flattered that we hang out so much together, and yesterday he said he liked my smile and…”

“Wow, slow down !” Koizumi cut him off, eyes wide. “Oh my god, how long have you been keeping that inside ?”

“... a while ?”

He just didn’t want to bother anyone with feelings he wasn’t sure of. Everyone has been pretty understanding with his obsession of bringing Komaeda back from his coma, and no one had really questioned that he was seeking his presence afterward. No one except Komaeda, that was. And he wasn’t exactly the best person to talk to about the feelings Hinata had for him, right ? Anyway, it was a freaking mess, and there wasn’t a day Hinata didn’t want to punch himself for getting a weird crush on Komaeda of all people.

Koizumi’s eyebrows had disappeared under her bangs, and Hinata couldn’t blame her.

“Well, that’s… something.” She said quietly.

“You think it’s a terrible idea.” Hinata translated.

To his surprise, Koizumi shook her head.

“Not… exactly ? It makes sense, in some ways. It explains a lot of things. I’m just not really sure what you expect me to tell you. From my point of view, Komaeda is attracted to you. Maybe he actually like-like you, as you said. It’s just… I don’t know how far you are in your ‘forgiveness process’. Maybe it would be better to wait ?”

Hinata fought the urge to scream. He had spent two freaking hours with a Future Foundation’s therapist talking about the forgiveness process - a lot of bullshit in his opinion. He was supposed to forgive everyone. Himself, Hope’s Peak, his parents, the others ex-remnants of Despair, Junko-fucking-Enoshima.

Yeah, sure, tell yourself that I’m not going to burn with hatred for her until I die.

“I forgave him.” He simply replied. “Of course I forgave him.”

Koizumi tilted her head on the side.

“And he forgave you ?”

“What do you mean, he forgave me ?” Hinata huffed indignantly. “He tried to murder me.”

Koizumi fell quiet, and looked at her hands. Suddenly, her face was a lot somber.

“Believe me Hinata, it’s a lot easier to forgive people for being wrong than for being right.”

Hinata grimaced. Koizumi’s relationship with Pekoyama and Kuzuryuu hadn’t improved since they had woken up, almost four months ago. Kuzuryuu was just eaten alive by his guilt toward Pekoyama and couldn’t be bothered dealing with anything else. Pekoyama wasn’t exactly the kind to ask - or to grant - any kind of forgiveness.

Hinata wondered how well her therapy sessions could go, forgiveness process and all.

“Do you want to talk about it ?” He asked.

Koizumi shook her head.

“There is nothing to talk about.” She replied, looking more fragile than usual. “It’s a sucky situation. I’ll… try to deal with it eventually. One day.”

Hinata didn’t say anything but reached for her hand and squeezed it between his fingers. She gave him a little smile in return.

He was about to say something about how friendship should go both ways, when the door of the restaurant opened. There, standing in the door frame, was Komaeda, who looked like he had just woken up even though it was past eleven o’clock already. He looked at them, blinking like an owl, and Hinata felt his cheeks warm up under the other’s gaze.

Well, at least he didn’t enter five minutes before.

“Hey,” he said, a bit lamely. “Are you okay ?”

Komaeda nodded, but his eyes focused on a spot on the table, and confusion painted his face. Hinata followed his gaze, and noticed… that he was staring at Hinata and Koizumi’s hands, still intertwined after their little discussion.

“Er...” Hinata took back his hand and Koizumi didn’t make any comment, happy to observe the scene with interest. It was a bit weird now that she knew, thought Hinata. “Right. Do you want to go and eat something on the beach, Komaeda ? Koizumi and I just finished our… hm… talk.”

“We were talking about the cleaning of the pool !” Koizumi added with a smile. “I’m counting on you too, Komaeda ! So no running away.”

Whatever the weird mood has been, it was gone, and Komaeda smiled a bit, always glad to help. If there was one person on this island who wouldn’t run away from chores, it was Komaeda.

“Of course, I trust your sense of organization !” He bowed his head just a bit, then turned toward Hinata. “I’m going to get a mat from my cabin if we spend some time at the beach, Hinata. You can finish your discussion with Koizumi that way !”

A second later, he was gone, leaving a frowning Hinata and a smiling Koizumi behind him.

“Well, that settles it, don’t you think ?” She asked, looking like a cat who had just found a cream jar.

Hinata didn’t follow.

“What do you mean ?”

“Oh come on, Hinata. You saw his expression when he noticed our hands. He was clearly jealous !” Koizumi replied. “Actually, I’m surprised I didn’t think about it sooner. Seeing if he is jealous when you get close to other people is a good indicative, you know ?”

“Right,” Hinata said. “I don’t know, he was a bit weird but… jealous ? You’re sure ?”

Koizumi shrugged at the question.

“I mean, if you don’t believe me, you can try again, you know. See how he reacts when you compliment other people ? You could try to… let’s see, compliment Sonia on the way she wears her hair ?”

Hinata narrowed his eyes.

“What ?” He said. “That doesn’t sound like something someone interested in her would say. That just sounds very gay.”

Koizumi gave him a flat look, and he eventually gave in.

“Fine, fine. I’ll try, maybe. Thanks for the advice. I guess.” He sighed. He looked at the clock on the wall, and grimaced when he noticed that time was flying fast. “I have to go, see you later ?”

Koizumi waved at him.

“Run, loverboy !”

*

So Hinata tried to follow Koizumi’s advice. While they were eating on the beach, enjoying the warm weather of the island, Hinata managed to mention more or less naturally how pretty Sonia’s hair were on this beautiful morning.

Komaeda looked thoughtful when he answered.

“This is very good news. I’ve heard that when she woke up with short hair, it was difficult for her. Of course, I wasn’t awake yet, so it’s just rumors I’ve heard but… she seems to give a lot of important to her hair.”

His voice was somehow disapproving, but Hinata didn’t mind.

He even smiled a bit. It was true. Sonia had tried to not let the way her body had been mutilated during the events following the Tragedy get to her. Anytime someone expressed compassion about it, she brushed it off, telling that at least she hasn’t lost an eye or a hand. Scars didn’t hurt that much, hair could grow again.

He looked at Komaeda from the corner of his eyes. Sonia’s hair were pretty amazing, but his hair was a mess. Without thinking, Hinata reached out and tuck a strand of white, dry hair behind the other’s ear. Komaeda’s eyes opened wide and he turned toward him, surprised.

“Hinata… ?”

Hinata moved his hand away from Komaeda’s face, as quickly as if he has been burnt.

“Sorry, I just… you had some sand in your hair ?” He tried to cover it up as best as he could. “It just bothered me. I should have warned you.”

“Oh.”

“And uh… Your hair is pretty damaged, you know ? I’m sure we could find you some shampoo if you want.” Hinata added, because it was true after all. Future Foundation entertained some stupid demands from them, so they could be bothered with hair product.

Komaeda didn’t seem to care.

“This is very kind, Hinata.” He replied with a smile. “But I’m alright, really. Unlike our princess, I don’t give a lot of importance to my hair.”

“I’d say that you don’t give a lot of importance to you, in general,” Hinata replied.

For a moment, Komaeda stayed quiet, and turned toward the sea, while Hinata did the same. The water was so beautiful, with the sunlight reflected in the water. Sometimes, Hinata wondered how he could have believed that the Neo World Program was real. Now that he was out and looking at the real thing, he didn’t think he could ever be fooled again.

“I…” Komaeda said slowly without looking at Hinata. “I suppose you’re right.”

Then the mood was a bit killed, and he didn’t feel like bringing up Sonia’s hair again, or any part of her. They just both stayed side by side, not looking at each other but - at least in Hinata’s case - extremely aware of the other’s presence. At some point, Hinata took a deep breath and, heart beating like crazy, he scooted a bit to his left, until his shoulder grazed Komaeda’s. He felt the other tense for a second… and then slowly relax.

Hinata was really glad Komaeda couldn’t see his face at this moment. It could seem stupid and, really, it was, but he was just as breathless and his heart was beating just as fast as after the morning runs he did, sometimes, with Nidai and Owari.

*

The next time he tried to make Komaeda jealous didn’t work either. It was his fault for underestimating his opponent, he supposed.

“You know, I think Kuzuryuu can be pretty sweet when he wants to be.” He said as they were browsing through the books in the library. “He might seem rough on the edges, but he really cares, you know ? He told me we were bonded for life and that I wasn’t allowed to die.”

Komaeda smiled politely at that, and stood on his toes to grab a book on a shelf that was just slightly too high for Hinata to reach. Hinata couldn’t help but glower at him, Komaeda’s smile turning smug when he noticed Hinata’s annoyance.

“Do you need any help ?”

“No.”

Komaeda chuckled behind the book cover but didn’t press the matter.

“Alright, alright. As for Kuzuryuu, I think the term used is tsundere.” He replied. “You should cherish this kind of bond, Hinata. I’m sure anyone would be honored to be bonded to the head of a yakuza family that way.”

Hinata scratched the back of his head.

“I… suppose it’s true. The words just sounded so romantic, when he said them, you know ?”

Komaeda fell silent and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Yeah, I wasn’t exactly subtle. And yet, it was so hard to decipher what Komaeda was thinking. Fine, Kamukura hadn’t left him the ability to make good tea, but basic social skills were too much to ask ?

“Hinata... “ Komaeda said slowly. “Are you interested in Kuzuryuu ?”

“What ? No, I…” Hinata wasn’t sure what to say once he was confronted to his stupid plan. He couldn’t say that he liked Kuzuryuu like that, right ? “I just thought it was funny, that’s all. In a cute way. Or cute in a funny way, whatever.”

Komaeda processed his words for a few second, then his entire body relaxed.

It has to mean something, right ? Hinata thought with certainty. Why would he be relieved to know that I’m not interested in Kuzuryuu ?

“This is a good thing,” Komaeda said. “While you can be very charming, Hinata, I’m afraid that it wouldn’t be enough, since Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama have a very close relationship. If you had to fight for love, it would be better if your rival wasn’t someone who knew thirty-three ways to kill a man, just as a piece of advice.”

Thirty-th… Hinata felt cold sweat running on his forehead. Not saying that he was into Kuzuryuu had been the good option then. The problem was that now he had no idea if Komaeda was relieved because of his own feelings for Hinata or because he was worried Hinata would be turned into a kebab by Pekoyama.

“Heh, don’t worry about that, I’m safe from her,” he replied with a laugh.

Komaeda smiled, then went back to read his book - some kind of romantic bullcrap that Hinata enjoyed to make fun of sometimes. Hinata threw a look at the book he wanted - just slightly out of reach. His pride refused to let him ask for Komaeda’s help, and he went to get a chair instead.

He climbed it, and he had no problem reaching the book. He was about to get down when…

CRACK !!!

“Hajime !”

At the last second, he felt Komaeda’s arms trying to save him from the fall, but his weight threw them both on the floor, Hinata landing painfully on Komaeda’s chest and arm - his real one, at that. The white-haired boy let out a choked mewl when his wrist got twisted, and Hinata grimaced at the sound.

Still on top of Komaeda, he did his best to support his own weight with his arms, and managed to get enough distance to see the extent of the damages. Komaeda wasn’t crying, but he was clearly in pain, holding his wrist and gritting his teeth.

“Shit,” Hinata grimaced, feeling guilt settle in his stomach like an heavy rock. “Shit, I’m so sorry, I think your wrist is broken…”

Komaeda nodded, and looked at his other hand, the robotic one. A weak smile bloomed on his lips. When he talked, it was hard to not notice in how much pain he was.”

“I’m glad,” he hiccuped, “that I didn’t damage your work at least. I’m pretty damn lucky, right ?”

Shut up, wanted to say Hinata, but that would have be mean considering the situation.

“Yeah, you are. I… I’ll help you stand up, alright ? I don’t think I can be of any help I…”

No tea-making abilities, no social skills, and no medical skills either, hum ?

“... we’ll go and find someone from Future Foundation.”

Komaeda put his robotic arm on Hinata’s to stop him.

“Tsumiki is fine. I trust her.”

Hinata was taken aback a few seconds. “I trust her” just didn’t seem like the kind of things Komaeda would say about anyone. And as far as he was concerned, he liked the nurse a lot but wouldn’t trust her with his health even if she was the last person with medical training on earth.

Still, if Komaeda trusted her...

Quite ironic, but while Hinata had tried to make Komaeda jealous by talking about Kuzuryuu’s ‘romantic’ speech to him, he was the one who left the library with a head full of conflicted feelings.

You trust her, you trust her.

And me, do you trust me ? Do you like me ? Would you fight for me ?

*

Five days later, Hinata was pissed. At Komaeda. For a change.

“What do you mean you lied to Tsumiki for me ?” He exploded. “Why would you do that ?”

Komaeda was sitting on his bed, inside his cabin. With his bandaged wrist, he looked pitiful, but that didn’t stop Hinata’s fury.

“It was unnecessary, Hinata !” Komaeda explained to him, having the audacity to talk to him as if he was an idiot. “No one needed to know that you were there with me, what difference would that make ?”

“I wasn’t just with you ! You fell because of me !” Hinata hissed in return. “Why are you acting as if we are in some kind of toxic mess of a relationship ! I’m feeling guilty, but I don’t need you to cover up for me, okay ? I’m an adult who is trying to get his shits together, no matter how hard it can be !”

Komaeda lowered his eyes to the ground, face cold and closed. Hinata sighed : when the other acted that way, there was nothing he could do to change it. He felt a wave of powerlessness roll over him and closed his eyes.

My, my, what a situation he was in.

“I’m sorry.” He suddenly heard.

Surprised, he opened his eyes, and looked at Komaeda. His eyes were strangely intense, shining with a determination that he had rarely seen before.

Well, except for when this time in the simulation when Komaeda had come to his room before he bombed the hotel’s lobby. His eyes have been shining a lot too, then. Even with how stressed Hinata was, he had still noticed them.

“It’s fine,” Hinata replied, feeling exhausted. “I’m used to it, am I not ? I’m just… I just wish I knew why you’ve done it ?”

Silence. And then.

“I’m sorry.” Komaeda said again.

“Yeah, you said that already.”

Komaeda shook his head.

“No. I’m sorry for trying to kill everyone back in the simulation. I was wrong. I was an idiot. I was fighting for a cause that wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry for killing Nanami, too. I never intended to, but it was my fault.”

Time stopped. Hinata froze, and even stopped breathing. Even his heartbeat turned into a low lullaby, as if it understood how important this moment was.

Komaeda still wasn’t looking at him. The words have come out without an hesitation, as if they had been maturing inside of him all these months since they had left the simulation. Hinata wet his lips, knowing that next words had to be his, and had to be good.

“I forgive you,” he said, and he was almost surprised when he realized that he meant it.

Komaeda stared at him.

“Why ?”

Hinata shrugged.

“I just do.”

Komaeda was clearly frustrated and unsatisfied by the answer. His eyes were looking for something that Hinata knew he wouldn’t find. There was no reason to Hinata’s forgiveness. Maybe the forgiveness process had followed its course, maybe he had just decided that hating Komaeda for what had happened was too pointless and too tiring, maybe he was just happy with where they were now, no matter how awful their situation and their past-actions were, and that he selfishly couldn’t see how Komaeda’s actions had hurt him in the end.

Maybe he was just an idiot with a crush.

“I’m sorry too,” Hinata said finally, because it had been on his mind for a while. “For not being who you thought I was. For disappointing you. Not levelling up to the image that you had of me in your head.”

Komaeda frowned, but didn’t make any sarcastic remark either.

“I… forgive you.” He eventually said.

And Hinata hoped that his forgiveness was also a bit selfish, and that at the end of the day, he didn’t mind who Hinata really was.

“What about Nanami ?” Komaeda asked quietly. “I killed her.”

Not really, Hinata wanted to say.

“It was the hardest to forgive,” he admitted. “At first I felt like I was betraying her memory by forgiving you. No wait… I felt like my hatred kept her alive, in some twisted, sick way. At least inside of me. Urgh, I’m not making any sense, do I ?”

Komaeda shook his head, looking very serious.

“You don’t realize how much you are.”

Hinata took a deep breath.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

They both fell silent, the atmosphere between them finally pleasant, and comfortable, and Hinata didn’t feel like he had ever felt more connected with someone in his life. It was a bit terrifying, in a way. He hoped Komaeda felt the same way.

“You know,” he said, “I’m more angry at Naegi and the others, at the end. I’m angry because they made me care for someone who didn’t exist. How cruel is that ?”

Komaeda looked at him strangely.

“You did like Nanami.”

It wasn’t a question. Hinata remembered how Komaeda had almost asked him the same question, back in the library, when he had tried to make Komaeda jealous of Kuzuryuu. He had a crazy opportunity there : he could admit having romantic feelings for Nanami, and it might push Komaeda to do something in return.

But…

After their discussion he didn’t want to. No more manipulation. No more lies. No more mind games. It’s not like they had been very successful, anyway.

“A bit, I guess. She made things look very easy.” He smiled, nostalgic. “Sometimes I wish things were easier and I wish she was there. I… I talk to her sometimes. I imagine what she would say, and I make up entire dialogues in my head.”

He looked up toward Komaeda, who was just listening to him patiently.

“I’m just really angry at Future Foundation, and Naegi, and everyone who made me believe that Nanami existed and that things could be easy after everything we went through,” he said. “I know it sucks, my therapist wouldn’t be proud of me, she is always talking about forgiving everyone.”

“Oh ?” Komaeda replied, perking up. “Mine too, actually. She tried to make me forgive Enoshima.”

Hinata grinned. Komaeda sounded so offended.

“Did you ?” He asked.

Komaeda looked at Hinata, very seriously.

“The bitch can rot in hell until the the next Apocalypse.”

Hinata collapsed on the bed, his body shaken by a laughter that he couldn’t stop. Tears at the corner of his eyes, his belly aching, curling on Komaeda’s bed as its owner looked very unamused by his sudden joy, Hinata didn’t remember when he had ever felt that light.

*

“I’m giving up !” Hinata announced proudly when he finally managed to find Koizumi, who was hanging out by herself in the lobby, in the middle of the coats that everyone else had brought for the party.

The party was for Mioda’s birthday. She was twenty-three, and had organized the biggest event possible, with music - and private concert - drinks, dancefloor, games… it was a bit too much for Hinata who, after being squeezed in a almost-lethal hug by the birthday girl, hoped to find for some quiet place.

“Giving up ?” Koizumi said as Hinata sat next to her. “I’m not sure what you are giving up exactly, but you seem really happy about it.”

Hinata took a sip from his drink and probably made a face - he didn’t know who had dosed these stuff, but they shouldn’t be allowed to next time - because Koizumi smirked at him. Hinata stuck out his tongue in return.

Alright, maybe he was a bit tipsy. Just a tiny little bit.

“This stuff with Komaeda,” he said. “Making him jealous. It doesn’t work. It sucks.”

“Of course it does. I didn’t know you were still on it. I was sure that the guy was into you since that time in the restaurant.” She stifled a laugh. “But I’m proud of you for coming to this conclusion alone, after two months, and with three or four drinks gone already. So, what’s the plan, now ?”

Hinata felt pretty sleepy. It was also warm and cosy in the lobby. He leaned his head against Koizumi’s shoulder, who didn’t seem very happy about that.

“I’m warning you, if you vomit on my dress, you are cleaning it up ! And it doesn’t go to the machine, so have fun with that !”

Hinata replied something like ‘I don’t vomit, I’m awesome’, before remembering what Koizumi had asked him before.

“I decided to be friend with him,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think I could, but that sounds great. Komaeda is great. I can be friend a with him for a while. Then we can kiss and stuff.”

Koizumi pat his back awkwardly.

“If you say so. That said, I’m starting to think that you are not as hopeless as I thought you were. To see you learn is kinda moving, you know ? I feel like I’m making the world a better place, one poor soul at the time.”

“I feel like you are insulting me.” Hinata mumbled back.

He felt more than he saw Koizumi’s smile.

“As if. I would never. And I’m happy for you.”

Hinata smiled in return.

He was seriously starting to fall asleep when he heard steps coming from the stairs, and one second later, Komaeda rushed into the lobby… and stopped when he noticed them.

Hinata didn’t understand right away why Koizumi pushed him away from her, but then he saw the hurt, the hurt, Komaeda was hurt in the other’s eyes. Then, as soon as the expression appeared, it turned into his usual easy-going, untouchable persona.

“Hinata, Koizumi, good evening. I’m a bit tired, so I’ll head back early. You’ll say goodbye to Mioda for me ? She has been singing on the karaoke machine for the last thirty minutes, and I’m not sure when she’ll be done.”

Before even waiting for an answer, Komaeda disappeared. Koizumi whispered furiously to Hinata’s address.

“What are you waiting for ? Run after him ?”

“What ?” He replied, confused. “Why ?”

“You said you were done trying to make him jealous, right ?” Koizumi said. “Then run after him, and fix up this mess.”

Hinata nodded. That sounded like a solid argument. He stood up, but was stopped in his track by Koizumi’s hand catching his wrist.

“And for the love of god,” she said, “don’t make out with him. You stink of alcohol.”

Hinata offered her his most confident smile - though Koizumi didn’t seem too impressed. Leaning toward her, he whispered.

“You’re not my mom, and I make out with him if I want to !” He let out an extatic laugh. “I’m going to make out with his mouth. So hard.”

Koizumi rolled her eyes so hard Hinata wondered if that hurt.

“And I was starting to have hope.”

Hinata let out another chuckle, and ran outside the lobby. He didn’t have any time to waste : he had someone to fight for, after all.

[sleeplessnightwithphan]

Expect Nothing

Summary: Phil was expecting a restless sleep and lots of crying. He was expecting having to move on without his best friend and feeling lonely. He was expecting a life filled with regret and the question “‘what if?’.

Phil wasn’t expecting a familiar figure crying on his bed.

(But hey, life is full of surprises, isn’t it?)

Genre: Angst, post-breakup, bit of fluff in the end (I couldn’t not)

Word Count: 6.4k

TW: Alcohol, mentions of wounds, hospitals, mentions of cancer (very briefly), mentions of death (very very minor character dying)

A/N:  Thank you so much to @snowbunnylester for helping me to continue writing this fic instead of just deleting it when I got stuck, and @phillybops for making sure everything I had written was actually in English instead of some alien language. I love you both! <3

I have literally been writing this story since March/April, back when Humpty and Dumpty were still living in their old place, so imagine it taking place there (I was too lazy to change it all.)

I had already posted part of this as an attempt to write a chaptered fic, but I feel like it works better as a oneshot, so yeah. Here it is I guess? 

I hope you enjoy the story, and feedback is always appreciated ^^

Readon AO3: X

At nine o’clock, Phil hesitantly opened the door to the apartment. Dan had told him that he should be done packing his stuff and on his way out by six, but he hadn’t actually built up the courage he needed to return until now.

He was scared to see the place half empty, no proof left behind that there were once two men living their lives together in there, being very much in love.

He wouldn’t be able to wear one of Dan’s jumpers at night anymore when he was feeling lonely, wouldn’t be able to go into Dan’s bedroom and be reminded of all the good things that happened in their relationship (even though Dan’s bedroom had unofficially become the spare bedroom a long time ago, it was filled with little things that made it distinctly ‘Dan’.)

Nothing left behind to remind him of making dinner together after a long day of work, which would always end up in them almost destroying their kitchen. Nothing to remind him of sitting on the carpet in their hallway beside his boyfriend, talking him through another existential crisis.

Nothing to remind him of the smiles, the tears, the fights, the making up, the ups-and-downs. Feeling alive, the exhilarating knowledge that no matter what happened, Dan would always be right beside him: being able to take on the world together.

Seeing the apartment half empty would make everything real. It would force him to accept the fact that Dan had moved on, and he had left Phil a broken mess.

Having felt sad, lonely and scared all day thinking of what he had to face when he came back home (it felt strange having to refer to a place without Dan as ‘home’), Phil just wanted to go to his bed and fall asleep, tired out by constantly worrying about his future and missing his best friend.

He was so lost in thoughts that he failed to realise that there was another set of keys on the table in their hallway when he emptied his pockets on there. He was oblivious to the fact that the lights were still on, even though Dan always turned them off when he left (quite a few arguments had started with Phil forgetting to do so). He didn’t notice the boxes in the hallway that hadn’t been there when he left the place to go out earlier that day.

It wasn’t until he walked into the bedroom and saw a familiar figure sitting on the bed, crying his eyes out, that he realised that Dan hadn’t left yet.

***

Phil just stood in the door frame, staring at his past lover.

His first reaction was to run away, leave the apartment again and come back after a few hours. Phil never was one for confrontations, always wanting to do everything he could to make everybody happy. He hated awkward meetings, discussions, or fights -  usually opting to avoid them altogether.

But then again, this was Dan they were talking about. The man he had known for years now.  The man he witnessed growing up from an awkward, starstruck boy who managed to grab his attention on the internet, into a confident, beautiful adult. The man he fell in love with, and even though they broke up, he still felt his heart beginning to beat faster when he looked at him.

So no, Phil could definitely not leave him here alone.

He decided to take a step into the room and softly knock on the open door, as to not startle Dan. However, he didn’t acknowledge Phil at all, but just kept his face buried in his hands and continued to sob.

Phil tried again, knocking on the door a bit louder, and when Dan still didn’t seem to have heard him, he decided to speak up.

“Dan…why are you still here? Why are you crying?” he asked with utmost carefulness in his voice, as if he were trying to approach a young animal in the woods.

Finally, Dan had noticed him. He lifted his head up to see who had walked into the room, but when he saw it was Phil, he quickly looked away and tried to hide his face with his hands again.

“Please, don’t look at me like this. I’ll leave in a bit. I’ll let you continue with your life without me, I’ll go away, just… give me a minute, please.” He spoke, words becoming nearly incomprehensible through the layer of hands and the result of crying.

Even if Phil was to ignore the state he had found Dan in, the words he used didn’t help to assure him that Dan was alright. It sounded almost as if he thought that Phil hated him. If only he knew…

They had decided to break up a month and a half ago, but it was a long time coming. They had found themselves fighting with one another more and more often, most of the times over trivial things they couldn’t even remember afterwards.

Dan had started to get more and more guarded again, seemingly not wanting anybody to see how he felt, putting up an act. It was as if current Dan had switched places with the 2012 version of himself.

This shift in behaviour had caused Phil to have to be extremely careful around his boyfriend, picking every word he said with care, constantly walking on eggshells. And even then, there always was something Phil had apparently done or said wrong.

Their final night together, Phil had decided that he had had enough. He wanted an explanation for Dan’s sudden change, he wanted to stop feeling like Dan was a ticking time bomb that could explode at any time. So he had gathered all of his courage, and went up to Dan to express his concerns.

“Dan, can we talk for a minute, please?” Phil had said while taking a seat on the couch. It was apparent in his the shaking of his voice that he was very nervous and even a bit scared, but he knew that this was something he needed to do.

“There is something that’s been… bothering me, I guess? And I just wanted to discuss it with you.”

Dan, who had been busy on his laptop, sighed, put the laptop away and turned to Phil. “What’s wrong?” he said, sounding annoyed with Phil.

Oh great, this had gotten off to an amazing start.

Taking a deep breath, Phil ignored the small voice in the back of his head that was screaming not to do this. They couldn’t go on like this.

“I...I don’t really like the way you’re acting lately. It’s constantly making me feel like I’ve done something wrong, and I don’t want to have to worry about that all the time,” he had said with all the courage he could muster, looking down at his hands.

“What do you mean, the way I have been acting? I haven’t been acting any different. What has gotten into your head?” Dan spoke, raising his voice just a little bit, but enough to make Phil want to back out of this.

But Phil knew that he couldn’t. He had to do this.

“I just… I constantly feel like you’re shutting me out, you’re not talking to me anymore. We’re always fighting about nothing, and it’s been making me feel like you’re superior to me.

Phil started playing pulling on a loose thread on the bottom of his shirt, anything to avoid making eye contact.

“And, I just, I don’t want that, I want us both to be equal in this relationship. We used to have that, but I… I feel like we don’t anymore. I just want what we used to have.”

That, apparently, hadn’t been what Dan wanted to hear.

“I have been shutting you out? What do you mean, I have been shutting you out? I have been acting superior to you? Phil, those are lies!”

Dan had started properly shouting at this point, something Phil hated. He crawled away into the corner of the couch, but that didn’t seem to stop Dan from fully blowing his lid.

“I have never, never acted superior to you! If anything, you’re the one who has acted superior to me! Always expecting me to tell you everything, acting like you’re the only one who knows how to handle things, but guess what?! I’m an adult as well! I can deal with my own shit, and I don’t need you to baby me!”

“I’ve never done anything but try to help you, Dan! I was trying to be a good boyfriend! Why are you getting mad at me about that?!” Phil started crying at this point, out of frustration and anger, not knowing what he did wrong.

But Dan never answered the question, instead collapsing onto the couch and starting to sob as well.

Phil, out of habit, tried to wipe away his tears and go over to Dan, hold him and calm him down. He moved over to sit down next to Dan, and put his hand on Dan’s shoulder.

Dan’s reaction, however, wasn’t what he had been expecting, not at all. Instead of accepting his embrace, he pushed Phil away, hard enough to making him fall to the ground, and began screaming again.

“You see, Phil?? That’s what I mean! You always have to baby me, act like I’m a child! I’m not anymore, I’m 26 years old for fuck’s sake! And you, you just, you don’t listen when I tell you not to!”

They both stared intensely at each other for a moment, trying to calm down, before Dan stood up and started walking away. Phil was still laying on the floor, in shock over the fact that Dan, his Dan, had actually pushed him.

But he did still hear the words Phil had always hoped he would never have to hear come from Dan’s mouth.

“This isn’t working anymore. We’re over.”

***

Everything after that was a hazy mess clouded with tears, his brain struggling to understand what was going on.

Phil couldn’t remember getting up, didn’t remember moving around. Somehow he ended up banging on Dan’s locked door, begging to be let in, begging to be given a second chance.

Dan hadn’t let him in, hadn’t talked to him, hadn’t acknowledged him at all.

In the end, they had gone into their separate rooms, not sleeping in the same bed for the first time in years. Phil just lied there and stared at the ceiling, listening to any sounds that might be coming from the next room.

Eventually, Phil had fallen into a restless sleep, vaguely aware of the sounds of someone packing a suitcase coming from the other bedroom.

By the time he woke up, he was alone in the apartment.

That’s when he fell apart.

Phil had spent the first week in their – no, his - bedroom, crying the entire day, lacking the energy to do anything. He usually was full of joy, but apparently that part of him had left together with Dan.

He had lied awake at night, thinking about every possible way that he might have been able to save their relationship. Yes, they had been very busy over the last few years, and yes, they hadn’t been spending as much time with one another as they used to, working on separate projects a little more. But it wasn’t as if they never saw each other anymore, they still spend most of their time together, nothing had happened that seemed big enough to cause Dan’s behaviour to change so much.

Should he have noticed it earlier? Was there a very obvious reason for Dan’s behaviour that Phil had managed to miss completely? Was there anything he could have done differently?

He came up without an answer every time.

Dan, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have been sad for a long time after their break-up. Phil hadn’t been able to make himself turn off the notifications for Dan on all his social media until three weeks afterwards, and the pictures and tweets he had still been notified about had shown him that Dan was doing just fine without him.

The Dan currently sitting in front of him didn’t even remotely resemble the Dan he had seen in pictures from those three weeks.

It was then that Phil spotted a bottle laying next to Dan on the bed. He couldn’t make out what the label said from where he stood, but he had a feeling it wasn’t just a bottle of water. Upon further inspection, he noticed that it was completely empty – that could explain at least part of Dan’s behaviour.

“Dan, have you really drank an entire bottle of alcohol on your own?” he asked, slowly stepping closer to the bed, sitting down far enough from Dan as to not make him run out of the room.

“I did, but it was nearly empty anyway. I’m not completely drunk if that’s what you’re thinking.” The tears had stopped falling out of his eyes, Dan had removed his hands from his face once again and was staring at the carpet at his feet.  “I just… needed it, I guess.”

“And why is that?”

“I…I…I…” Dan tried to respond, but instead he started bawling his eyes out again, and throwing his arms around Phil’s neck, pulling him closer and nestling his head into the crook of Phil’s neck, soaking his shirt with his tears.

Phil just held Dan in his arms, caressing his back and allowing him to cry, keeping him safe and warm.

It brought back memories of all the times he used to do exactly that, comforting Dan and guarding him  from whatever it was that was haunting him. How he was the first person Dan would come to when he felt sad, lonely, or doubtful. When negative comments on his videos got to him, or even just when he was exhausted from a long day of work, Phil was there for him.

They would cuddle for hours if needed, not saying anything, the feeling of being in Phil’s arms enough to calm Dan down and bring a smile back onto his face.

Here they were, in the exact same position they had been in so many times over the years, but everything felt different. Phil was once again reminded of how much things had changed. This time, Phil somehow was the reason Dan needed protection and consolation. He was the one who caused this, and he had no idea how to make Dan smile again.

Sitting here like that also brought back those painful memories, reminding of the last time they’d been in this situation, and how Dan had gotten angry with him for trying to console him. How he had pushed Phil away, breaking up with him only minutes later.

He tried to blink away the tears he started to feel building in his own eyes, holding onto Dan out of selfish reasons, trying not to fall apart himself.

He needed this just as much a Dan seemed to need it.

After a while, he noticed that Dan had stopped crying and his breathing had evened out. Pulling him away from his neck a bit, Phil saw that Dan’s eyes were shut and his face looked peaceful with just a hint of sadness; he had fallen asleep.

Given the fact that Dan had most likely been just as exhausted as him, Phil really didn’t have it in him to wake him up and make him collect all of his stuff. They would hopefully talk about what had happened tomorrow morning, but for now, they both just needed to rest.

He quickly moved Dan around so he was properly laid down in bed, tucking him in and making sure he was comfortable.

Not being able to resist, Phil brushed Dan’s hair out of his face, caressed his cheek, and softly placed a kiss on his forehead, before leaving the room to go sleep in the spare bedroom.  

The soft smile that formed on Dan’s face after the kiss went unnoticed by Phil.

***

Phil

I’m so sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to trouble you in any way at all.  I don’t know why exactly I thought that drinking half a bottle of vodka would help me accomplish that goal, but apparently, I did.

I will ask Louise if she can come by sometime next week and pick up my stuff for me. I’d hate for me to trouble you anymore than I already have.

Thank you for allowing me one last night in our your apartment, you really are the kindest soul to ever roam the earth, and you deserve so much more than what I was able to give you.

I truly wish you all the best, and I hope you find the love of your life soon, so you can finally become happy.

Again, sorry for last night. I won’t be giving you any more trouble ever again.

Just... thank you, I guess.

Now go and have a happy live.

Dan

***

No. No no no no no. This wasn’t happening. This was not allowed to happen.

Phil had woken up the next morning, feeling quite optimistic. He was hoping that Dan had been able to get a good night sleep, and they’d be able to sit down and discuss what had happened the night before - why Phil had found Dan drunk and crying in his old bedroom. He had been hoping to at least get some closure, an explanation on why Dan had behaved to strange in their last months together.

Now that they had spent some time apart, and after seeing Dan being so miserable the night before, Phil was actually feeling like this time, Dan might actually tell him.

That was, until Phil walked into the bedroom to see it empty, bed being made, and a note left behind.

Reading it, he felt himself getting angrier and angrier at every word he read, his blood starting to boil.

So, Dan had just decided to run away again? Leave Phil with all the questions he had? Send Louise to pick up his stuff in order to not have to see him again?

And as if that wasn’t enough, tell Phil that he deserved better than Dan? That he hoped Phil would find the love of his life soon?

Fuming with anger, Phil crumbled up the note and put it in his pocket.

He had already found him. He had found his true love. And there was no way that Phil was going to let him run away a second time.

So Phil did what he decided he should have done the first time already. He took his phone, keys and wallet, put on a coat and walked out of the house. He was going to find Dan and finally talk to him.

Dan wasn’t getting away again.

Not like this.

Once Phil had pulled close the door of his apartment behind him, he realised that he had no idea where to start looking first.

He tried to call Dan and talk to him, but it went straight to voicemail, so Phil presumed that Dan had either turned his phone off, or it had run out of battery (given the fact that Dan had spent the night at their apartment, and Phil hadn’t thought to plug in his phone overnight).

In the end, he just started walking down the road, hoping to find some inspiration.

The last thing he heard, Dan has been spending a few days at his parent’s house, but that had been right after they broke up, and he doubted that would be where he still was.

(Not that Dan didn’t love his family very much, he just always valued his independence, and he didn’t want to feel like he was bothering anybody.)

Maybe Dan had been staying over at a friend’s house? Or he had found a new place to live?

By the time he decided he should try and call some of their friends, Phil had made his way to a small park and sat down on a bench. If anything, Dan might have been in contact with some of them, or maybe one of them could help in his search. Trying was the least he could do.

Bryony hadn’t seen Dan since before the break-up, but she promised to let Phil know if she heard anything from him.

PJ had let Dan stay over at his place for a few days, but that was two weeks ago, and Dan had taken off without telling him where he was going. (PJ did end up talking to him for an hour, allowing Phil to vent, express his worries, and calm down. PJ also promised to keep an eye and ear out for Dan.)

He even reluctantly called Dan’s mum, but that only ended up in making her worry about her son. It might not have been the best idea Phil had had today (but hey, he was desperate).

After Phil hung up the phone for the fifth time, he could feel his eyes starting to water, but he tried to blink the tears away, refusing to cry over this in public.

Why was Dan making it so hard for him to be found? What had he been thinking when he wrote that stupid note? Why did he say that Phil deserved better than him?

Phil honestly couldn’t imagine ‘someone better’. Sure, Dan had his flaws. Yes, Dan could be stubborn, he could be lost in his existential crisis for days, or never believe anything he did was good enough. He could be incredibly loud, but also incredibly quiet and shy. He was unpredictable.

But all of that made him incredibly ‘Dan’. Incredibly familiar. Their relationship had always been easy, it had always felt natural for them to be together, as friends and later on as lovers. They balanced each other out perfectly.

The sky has slowly begun to get darker and darker while Phil had been sitting in the park, and he could feel little drops of water beginning to hit him.

It almost felt like the clouds were mocking him.

Sighing, Phil slipped his hands into his pockets to protect them from the cold weather, when his fingers skimmed a piece of paper.

Dan’s note. He still had it on him.

He pulled it out and started to read it again, trying to find any clue on where Dan could be.

And Jesus, how could Phil have been that stupid?

I will ask Louise if she can come by sometime next week and pick up my stuff for me.

Louise. Of course. Phil had completely forgotten to call Louise, when she was the most obvious person to know where Dan was.

Louise must know where Dan was.

Quickly, Phil dialed her number, and held his breath as he heard the phone going off.

First ring. Second. Third. Fourth.

He was almost afraid that she wouldn’t pick up the phone.

“Hello, Louise speaking.” Phil’s heart skipped a beat when he finally heard the familiar voice.

“Louise, it’s Phil here. Listen, I-” he got out before Louise interrupted him.

“Oh, hi Phil! How have you been? I haven’t heard from either of you guys in months, we need to get together sometime!” Louise told him cheerfully, as if nothing was wrong.

Phil felt as if he just stepped into a cold shower. She hadn’t heard from either one of them in months… surely that must mean that she had no idea what had happened.

“Louise… have you heard anything from Dan these last few weeks? Anything at all?” He asked, desperate for any sort of news, but he already knew what she was going to say.

“Dan? No, I haven’t heard from him since the last time we went out together? Why, is something wrong with him? Are you alright?” She asked, sounding worried.

“He is… we didn’t…he went...” is all that Phil managed to say, before he fell apart.

If he hadn’t already been sitting on a bench, he was sure he would have collapsed onto the floor. Tears started rolling out of his eyes, mixing with the raindrops already covering his cheeks. He managed to hang up the phone with what seemed like his last bit of energy left.

No, he wasn’t alright. He was far from being alright. He felt completely exhausted. He was tired of looking for Dan, tired of trying to make things right, tired of having to make such an effort.

But also tired of not having Dan around to make everything better, tired of missing Dan, tired of feeling like he did something wrong and not knowing what it was.

He really needed to find Dan.

He doesn’t know how long he sat there on the bench, lost in his thoughts. It could have been 10 minutes, could have been an hour, could have been multiple days for all he knew.

When he was slowly beginning to calm down a bit, he noticed that the that the rain had stopped pouring down and completely soaking him, and instead had subseded into a light fall of small water droplets you had to pay close attention to to notice. He was also hearing a sound he couldn’t quite put into place right now, one that was slightly confusing him; what kind of weird bird made those noises?

It took him a few seconds to realise that the weird sound was his phone ringing, but once he did, he immediately fought to pull it out of his pockets (when did he even put it in there?), hoping it would be PJ or Dan’s mum (or even Dan himself, but the odds were not really in his favour today).

This enthusiasm and wishful thinking was why he felt a wave of disappointment and sadness crashing over him when he saw it was an unknown number.

“Stop pretending he’ll come back, Phil. You messed up, you don’t really know how, but you obviously messed up. He’s not coming back.” He thought to himself, putting the phone to his ear and answering subconsciously.

An unfamiliar male voice that came through pulled him back to reality quickly.

“Mr. Lester? My name is Elyas Basheera, I’m a nurse at the Royal London Hospital. I’m calling you in regards to a patient that was just admitted, Daniel James Howell.” The man spoke.

“Hospital… Dan? But, what… how…what? Is Dan alright? What happened?” Phil stuttered out. Suddenly, it was getting hard to breathe, the air not quite seeming to reach his lungs, his head starting to spin.

Dan, in hospital. This couldn’t mean anything good.

“Mr. Lester, are you still there? Are you alright?” The voice came through the phone again. Phil was vaguely aware of the man giving him an answer, but with his thoughts going a hundred miles per hour, he hadn’t paid attention to what he had said.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t really listening. What were you saying, sir?”

The man made an understanding noise before repeating himself. His job probably involved a lot of dealing with people who were reacting very emotional.

“I said that Mr. Howell was found in South London, collapsed on the ground. He seems to have suffered a head wound, and we also suspect he has had one too many drinks. He was brought in here in order to receive medical attention, but he’s in a stable condition at the moment. Since you’re his emergency contact, we would like to invite you to come to the hospital as well.” The nurse spoke calmly, trying to reassure Phil of the fact that everything was allright.

Phil doesn’t think he ever ran to get a taxi faster in his life.

***

Hospitals were something Phil had never taken a liking to.

His earliest memories of them was visiting a distant relative, he hadn’t really known who it was, a cousin of his father or something like that. The man had just received chemotherapy, and Phil clearly remembers how poorly he looked, as if he were a ghost just hanging to his body by a small thread.

Considering the fact that the man had passed away just a few weeks later, he might as well have been.

Every hospital visit ever since, he’s been confronted with people who were trying to battle for their life, people who were grieving, crying, feeling the absolute worst they could. People who were doing anything but being happy. Being the optimistic, happy guy he always was, he didn’t really know how to deal with it.

But here he was, walking down a hallway, passing by rooms that all held people with their own struggles, their own worries and sadness.

And Phil couldn’t care less about any of them.

The only thing he cared about was reaching room 215, the room he was told Dan was currently in. He was almost running down the corridors, trying to reach him as fast as possible.

But when he was almost there, he stopped. 5 steps separating him from being able to walk in the room and hold Dan close, but he had to stop.

What would he even say? Dan obviously didn’t want to see him anymore, wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. He had somehow hurt Dan, even though he never intended to, and he didn’t know how or why.

Should he even be here? Should he just waltz right back into Dan’s life, while he had made it so obvious he didn’t want him anymore? Should he be so selfish and force Dan to talk to him, just so that Phil could feel better?

He was seriously considering walking out of the hospital and asking Dan’s mum to go pick him up, when a nurse walked out of the room. Upon seeing Phil stood in the hallway, she smiled at him.

“Mr. Lester, I presume?” she spoke with a soft, calming voice. “Mr. Howell is just in this room, but he is asleep at the moment. You can go in, but don’t wake him up. He’ll need all the rest he can get in the next few days. The doctor will come in in a few hours, and he’ll most likely be allowed to go home then.” she told him before walking away and disappearing into another room.

Hearing that Dan was asleep helped to calm Phil’s nerves a bit, and he took the last few steps and entered the room.

Taking a deep breath, Phil walked over to the chair standing next to the bed, avoiding to look at Dan for a moment. Sitting down, he took another deep breath before finally allowing himself to look at the figure in the bed.

Head bandage. IV. Hospital gown. A few scratches, bruises and bandages. The wounds weren’t as bad as Phil had feared they might have been.

It was Dan’s expression that surprised him more than anything.

Asleep, Dan usually looked calm, peaceful, all his worries that haunted him during the day disappeared from his face. Even when he was sick or stressed, sleep never failed to make him look young, careless and innocent.

But right now, even sleep didn’t manage to fully erase the pain and the hurt from his face. It wasn’t obvious, barely even there, but Phil still noticed it. Dan was hurt.

They were both hurt.

Phil took hold of Dan’s hand, and lost every sense of time.

When Dan was woken up a few hours later to get his final check up done, Phil never left the room, just kept looking at Dan. Dan didn’t object to him being there, didn’t even acknowledge it. He just walked along with Phil out of the hospital after being told by the doctor to take things slow for a few weeks.

Not really knowing where else to go, Phil told the taxi driver the address of their apartment, and the two of them remained silent throughout the journey, even though there were so many things Phil wanted to ask.

They could wait. He first needed to make sure that Dan was alright.

***

Once they had arrived at the apartment, they made their way over to the lounge. But Dan kept hovering awkwardly in the doorway, not seeming to know what was acceptable or not.

Sighing, Phil decided to put aside the questions that were floating in his head, begging to be answered. They couldn’t have a proper conversation when Dan was feeling this on edge, he needed to calm him down first.

He went to the kitchen to get them both a cup of tea, and when he came back, Dan was sitting on the couch, staring at the floor in between his legs. Upon hearing Phil entering the room again, he looked up, and Phil swore he saw a shadow of a smile on his face, before he turned his face back to stare at the floor again.

“I really don’t get why you would still want to see me after everything I did to you.” Dan laughed, but there was no amusement in his voice. “Damn, I fucked it up really bad, didn’t I?”

Phil sat down next to Dan, put the cups of tea on the coffee table, and turned his body so he faced Dan.

This was it. This was he’s been wanting to do for weeks now. This is why he had tried so hard to find Dan.

To get an explanation. To ask what he did wrong.

“Dan, could you tell me -”

“I found the ring.”

“- what I did… what?”

If Phil wasn’t fully lost for words before, he was now.

“Ring? What ring? What are you talking about? I didn’t - “ Phil said, before he finally caught onto what Dan was talking about.

The ring.

The ring Phil had seen in a shop one day, more than a year ago, and it reminded him so much of Dan that he couldn’t not buy it.

The ring that had been hidden in his sock drawer ever since, waiting for the perfect moment, and where is probably still was now, because Phil had completely forgotten about it after everything that had happened in their lives since.

The ring Phil was going to use to make Dan his forever.

Dan’s voice sounded like he was on the brink of crying again. “Yeah. The ring.”

“But, why? I don’t understand? What does you finding the ring have to do with this?” Phil was utterly confused at this point.

Dan turned to look Phil in the eyes, trying to be brave, but Phil could still see how scared he was.

“Because, a ring, and what you were going to use it for, has so much that comes with it. Marriage is something for adults, people who have got their life together, people who know what they’re doing. Not people like me. People who are relying on medications to get them through the day, people who have no idea what they’re doing with their lives, people who are in so many ways still needy children.”

Once again, tears were making their way out of Dan’s eyes, but Dan didn’t seem to notice that.

“I found the ring, and I was up in the clouds at first, because I really wanted it. But then I realised that I wasn’t worthy of marriage, wasn’t worthy of you proposing to me, I had to fully grow up first. But whenever I tried to act like a proper adult, I did something wrong, and I ended up pushing you away. I couldn’t stand to see you waste your time on me anymore, so I had to let you go to find someone you deserve.”

Somewhere along Dan’s little speech, Phil had started to cry as well.

Some part of him wanted to smack Dan Howell right in the face. Because how dare he think he’s not good enough for him.

How dare he think he has to change even the slightest thing about himself in order to ‘deserve’ marriage.

Instead of telling Dan all of this, he pulled him into his arms, and he didn’t intend to ever let him go again. Dan went very willingly, and slotted his head in the crook of Phil’s neck immediately.

Dan had missed him too, and this meant the world to Phil.

“I would never want you to change anything about yourself,” he muttered into Dan’s neck. “ I wouldn’t have bought the ring if I wasn’t fully in love with every last part of you. You’re just as much of an adult as I am, there is no reason why you wouldn’t deserve marriage. And if there’s any other reason why you left me, if I hurt you in any way whatsoever, then I’m still allowing you to go, but if that’s the only reason you walked out, then please come back. We’re both hurting, I need you.”

Phil pulled back a little bit to look Dan in the eyes, but still kept him safe in his arms. Dan smiled softly at Phil, his eyes filled with tears and joy at the same time.

“There is no way you could hurt me, it’s all me. But I need you too, I’ve been miserable on my own, and I still very much want you.”

Very gently, Phil pressed his lips to Dan’s, and immediately felt his heart skip a beat. He’d missed the softness so much, the way their lips moved together with such familiarity.

Kissing Dan again felt like coming home.

Pulling away reluctantly, he couldn’t help but start to smile widely, seeing Dan doing the same thing.

“Good, because you still have me.”

***

The ring stayed safe in the sock drawer after that, both of them needing to heal, needing to work on their relationship again. They weren’t ready for it yet.

The two of them went through a lot, and there would undoubtedly be a lot they still had to go through.

But the ring would come out of it’s hiding place eventually. Maybe in a year, maybe two, maybe in a month. Phil didn’t know when. And he honestly couldn’t care less.

Because when he woke up in the morning, and got to see the early sunlight reflecting off of Dan’s sleeping face, there was nothing else he needed.

[just-another-sickfic-blog]

Challenge Accepted

Fandom: Voltron

Rating: T for swearing

Characters: Lance and Keith, Hunk, Pidge, Shiro and Allura.

Summary: Another Lance sickfic. This is my challenge fic based off of a post @toosicktoocare made about the things that Keith says to sick Lance. 

You can find the post here.

A shout out to @403secret and @mypoorfaves who have betad this story and read it over and over.

I made a part 2 for y’all who asked for so you can find it here.

Warning for cussing. That’s about it.

                                                “What closely Paladins.”

 With a sharp command from Allura, the training “dummy” materialized in front of her. Allura sunk into a stance of an Altean fighting style in which the simulation mimicked. There was a moment of complete and utter silence, the only form of movement were Allura’s pupils gliding up and down the dummy With a sudden burst of speed, the simulation shot forward, trying to land a kick on the princess’s head. The white foot bounced off of the tanned wrist and to compensate for the imbalance of its stance, the dummy drove its right fist towards her abdomen. Allura caught the fist in the palms of her hands and thrusted away from her body. The simulation stumbled backwards before charging once more towards the princess.

Lance turned his head to recollect himself, blinking away the lightheadedness and swallowing down the weight of nausea that settled at the bottom of his throat. Princess Allura’s movements were too sharp, too quick for his brain to keep up, and each attempt to keep up resulted in the aforementioned symptoms. Dark blue eyes drifted from paladin to paladin, each face with knitted brows and mouths set in stern lines. They finally rested on Hunk who was unblinkingly focused on the Altean Princess. Lance’s head jerked back, forcing the thought from the back of his mind that this may be a bit more than a case of motion sickness.

 Lance jumped when a crash filled the sparring ring and the simulation was sprawled out on the floor, unmoving with Allura looming over it. Allura's only turned with the dummy began to dissolve into light. Pidge and Keith’s mouths were agape while Hunk offered a small applause.

 “Are any of you willing to attempt these moves?”

 Not me, Lance had thought. A rustle of a familiar red jacket caught his eye and Lance’s head followed as Keith, sticking to true form, entered into the training ring. He redirected his eyes to the floor, the same strategy that he used at the garrison to avoid answering questions that he did not know the answers to.

 “Lance?” Lance raised his head in response. “Why don’t you give it a whirl?” The tone in Shiro’s voice suggested it was more of an order than a request. Lance had stated that he was more of a long-range fighter. “All the more reason to spar with Keith. As he specializes in close-range combat, you would benefit the greatest from this spar.”

 Lance scowled like he did every time he was compared to Keith in a less-than-favourable light and had thrown his bayard aside and stalked into the ring when Keith asked if he was scared.

 “Get into your stances!”

 Keith kicked his bayard towards the edge of the ring and eased into the stance. Lance had tried to mimic Keith but Allura had adjusted his legs apart and raised his left arm closer to his face for defence.

 “A sloppy stance can decide a spar before it has started.” Lance resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

 “And...fight!”

 Almost as soon as Allura commenced the spar, Keith bulleted towards Lance, aiming a punch at his face. Lance only had enough time to throw his arms up for protection. Lance weakly grasped Keith’s wrist, only for it to be savagely yanked away and embedded into his abdomen. All of the air rushed from his lungs and he dropped to the floor, coughing, his right arm cradling his stomach.

 “What are you doing, Blue Paladin? Strike back!”

 Lance forced himself back onto his feet and threw his entire body at Keith. The latter’s fingers curled around Lance’s elbow and pulled him forward, jerking the elbow of his left arm upwards, catching Lance in the chin. Lance staggered a few steps away before lurching and crashing upon his back.

 “You could’ve broken my neck!” Lance shouted, pushing himself into a sitting position.

 “God Lance, don’t be so dramatic,” Keith said, “That was nothing.”

 “Yeah. ‘Nothing’ as in, ‘I tried to decapitate my teammate, but I didn’t succeed.’”

 “If I wanted to decapitate you, I wouldn’t do it that way. There is way too much effort involved doing it with your own two hands,” Keith said, nudging his head towards his bayard.

 “I am so grateful that if you ever go psycho and try to kill me, it will be with minimal effort.”

 “Alright, break it up, you two.” Shiro’s voice cut through the argument as his metal arm seized Lance’s left arm and hauled him to his feet. Lance slouched in his position and huffed as he crossed his arms. “Hunk and Pidge; why don’t you two try it out now?”

 Hunk shyly raised his hand. “That would be nice, if I could have actually kept up with the princess.”

 “Kept up with me?” Allura parroted. “You desire that I would repeat the spar?”

 “I didn’t mean ‘repeat the spar’ exactly but maybe the new moves in like...slow motion…?”

 The Altean princess’s face drew into a frown. “Fine. I shall repeat the moves. But watch closely.”

 Hunk, pleased with having postponed his spar with the “Gremlin”, prepared himself to watch Allura once again. Just like the beginning, Allura ordered for the “close-combat simulation level 2”. And just as before, four out of five of the paladins directed their attention to the sparring ring. But unlike at the start, Lance had slipped out of the training room when he was sure no one was watching him.

                             ~~

It wasn’t until after the second demonstration that the others had realized that Lance’s presence was missing. Hunk had insisted that something must have been wrong with him as apparently, this wasn’t normal “Lance behaviour”. Keith responded that Lance was probably pouting in his room about losing to him. Shiro had resolved that after this training session, he would talk to Lance about.

 Keith never found out if Shiro and Lance had that talk. Sticking to his routine, he remained in the training room after Allura disbanded the team training for the day to perfect the latest martial arts techniques. It was also a great way to vent the worries and stresses today brought --- not that he had anything particular on his mind.

 He didn’t see Lance again until he happened to be wandering passed the recreation area on his way for an Altean version of a bath. On one couch, Pidge was typing away at her laptop while Hunk was vacantly watching her, clearly, with the lack of anything better to do. On the other sofa, Lance was wrapped in a dark blanket that looked strangely...familiar….

 Keith approached him from the back and yanked it off Lance’s shoulders. The former inspected it closely, ignoring the startled cry from the latter.

 “Did-did you steal my blanket, Lance???”

 Lance attempted to snatch the blanket back.

 “It’s freezing in here. Besides, both my blanket and Hunk’s are in the wash.”

 “What about Shiro’s?” Keith questioned, though he already knew the answer to that.

 “Shiro’s room is the ‘shadowy place’ referred to the in ‘The Lion King’. God knows what will happen if anyone goes into that room,” Lance responded, shivering.

 Keith tilted his head, raising an eyebrow. “The...Lion King….?”

 Lance brought a hand to his brow. “Anyways, Pidge won’t let me use hers, so yours was the only one available.”

 “Hey. I don’t wanna get sick,” she replied swiftly, still typing.

 “I’m cold, not sick.”

 Pidge, this time, did stop typing, raising her head to look at Lance dead in the eye. “Oh really? You’re cold when the temperature is quite comfortable for us, you appeared to be tired after a mere three minutes of sparring, not to mention your sparring was shittier than usual? All symptoms associated with a Lance with a cold.”

 Lance snatched back the blanket. “You heard her; I’m sick.”

 “Oh, please!” Keith snapped. “You probably aren’t even that sick.”

 Lance released the blanket and made eye-contact with Keith. “If you’re gonna take away my only source of comfort then you can at least cuddle with me.”

 Keith whirled around. “What are -- no! I will not cuddle with you! Oh my God, Lance!”

 “I was being sarcastic! Add that to your vocabulary!” Lance pushed himself off of the sofa, his posture sulking as he made his way out the door. “I’m going to my room. If anyone needs me, I’ll be there.”

                                                 ~~

The alarm screamed and Lance fired himself out of bed like a bullet being shot from a chamber and began dashing from his room.

 “Paladins, we’re under attack!”

 Lance found his body running down a series of halls, while walls began to swim and while his head pulsed to each flash of red and to each alarm. His legs were Jello and a persistent heat cupped his face, though these went unnoticed at the time. Looking back on it, he didn’t know how he made it to the main deck of the castle or how he managed to board Blue with no issues whatsoever. All he could recall is that he was running and that he was suddenly in flying from the Altean castle amongst the four other lions.

 “Where the Hell were you???” Keith demanded. His voice sounded raspy, suggesting that a cold glass of water would be a priority after they fought off the Galra. Of course it was safe to assume they were fighting off the Galra. Who else was as obsessed with Voltron as the Galra were?

 Sure enough trademark ships of the Galra empire began to pull into view, creating a wall of ships. Some Galra battle strategy, Lance assumed.

 “Lance!”

 Lance was yanked from his thoughts. Who had just spoken? Was it Shiro?

 “Yes?”

 “Blast at 5 o’clock!”

 Lance threw the controls to the left, just in time to dodge a purple blast of light. Pulling back a switch, a beam of ice was released from Blue’s mouth. It missed the target ship completely and almost brushed against the top of Red.

 “Where the Hell are you aiming?!” Keith shouted into his comm. Lance brought a hand to his head, wincing.

 “Calm down will ya? Your voice is so loud…”

 “Calm down?! You almost hit me, Lance!”

 “Both of you, enough!” Shiro could always slice through any argument. “Argue when we’re not fighting off a Galra fleet, will ya?”

 Keith huffed and Lance collapsed back onto the chair, but there was no further verbal exchange between them. Shiro shouted for Pidge to fire her cannon at twelve o’clock and for Hunk to shield Lance when Blue wasn’t dodging attacks with her usual grace and speed. Lance had found that Blue had taken over most of the fighting. Her worried purr that vibrated at the back of his mind was the only consistent thing throughout the battle.

 He had told her many times that he was fine, though the fact that the blasts of ice or the evasion of Galra attack had not been of his own moves but Blue functioning almost completely on autopilot. He had tried to remove some of the load off of his lion. He tried to pull a lever here and there and pressed a button. His body might as well have been moving through molasses because each movement he made was painfully conducted. At some point in the battle, metal straps sprouted from the chair and secured Lance to the chair, Blue’s way for keeping her Paladin from being tossed back and forth like a rag doll.

 Voltron did not need to be formed. The attack was a rather small fleet of Galra ships who happened to be patrolling the area when they laid their yellow eyes upon the castle. This was a great relief to Lance, who was sure that he could not conjure up the concentration or the strength to complete the transformation as the leg of Voltron. He suddenly recalled Blue heading back towards the castle with the voices of the Paladins congratulating each other.

                              ~~

Sometime during the attack, the castle had been struck. Lance did not know when this had occurred. There was something wrong with the rockets and the...healing pods….? Everything was merging together. The sounds and the images were swirling to create a blur of colour and small buzzes of words. Someone suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

 “Where are you going?”

 Was..was that Keith? Hmmm…..red. I supposed it is. “Shiro said something about the healing pods needing repairing.”

 “He’s talking about the hangars, you moron. We’re supposed to report the damage done to the lions.”

 So that was what they were supposed to do. “Oh...okay…” Lance continued walking.

 “It’s in the other direction.”

 Lance, this time, did not offer any verbal response. He turned to face Keith.

 “What is your problem today?!” Keith snapped.

 “Nothing.”

 Keith released an exasperated sigh. “You haven’t even taken off your helmet yet!” Slowly, Lance raised his arms are removed his helmet. Keith’s hostile expression melted into concern as a flushed a sweaty face was revealed. Especially since the suits were programmed to remain at a comfortable temperature in spite of the weather. “Hey, are you okay?”

 Even Lance in this state did not miss the quieter and gentler tone that Keith had taken on. “I should ask you that. I didn’t know ‘nice’ was a part of your dictionary.” He took a step forward but the world through his eyes lurched. He felt his body hit the ground, his heated face against the chill of the metal floor. He could faintly hear Keith’s call his name. He felt a pair of arms slip under his own arms and haul him back to his feet, a voice demanding to be told what was wrong.

 The gauntlet to his armour had been removed, revealing a pale hand. Said hand was suddenly against his forehead. “Lance, what the fuck?! You’re burning up!” His hand migrated to his neck. “I don’t understand. You were fine like, five minutes ago!” No, Lance was sure he had been feeling like this for more than five minutes. “Why didn’t you say you were this sick sooner?!”

 Lance had opened his mouth with intent to answer that very question but Keith ordered him to be quiet. “And the Galra! How did you manage to take out all of those Galra ships while this sick?!”

 He muttered that it was Blue who did most of the fighting but Keith quieted him once more, this time telling him to reserve what little strength he had left. He was practically dragged down through numerous hallways as each attempt in walking “by himself” resulted in unsteady footing and being dangerously close to cracking his head on the floor. Neither of them spoke except for when Keith occasionally murmured that he would be alright and that they were close to his room.

 They did reach Lance’s room eventually and almost as soon as the doors hissed shut, Keith began yanking off Lance’s armour and discarding it on the far corner of the room. Under his armour was his blue shirt and white shirt and blue pants, neither of which Keith felt comfortable with removing.

 “I think Shiro wants that report now…’’

 “No Jesus, get into bed! What the fuck!” He forced Lance down on the bed, noticing the absence of a blanket. Recalling what he had said earlier that day, Keith mumbled something underneath his breath and dashed out of the room, only to return momentarily with his own blanket. Lance was back into a sitting position, trying to find a way to push himself off the bed without falling over.

 “Don’t make me use this blanket as a straight jacket!”

     Keith shoved Lance back down on the bed, tucking his own blanket around Lance’s body. “Fuck, okay, it’s going to be fine. I can handle this.”

 Someone should know, Lance realized. His mom always told him if he got very sick, tell someone so they could actually help him. “Keith…” he rasped.

 “No, you hush and rest Lance! I said I could handle this!”

 Lance snapped his mouth shut at the sudden outburst of emotion but opened it again.  “Shiro….tell….Shiro.”

 Keith knelt beside him. Keith grasped his shoulders and pulled him upright. “Yes..That’s the first thing I should’ve done. Fuck, shit, why can’t I do anything right?!” 

   And Lance felt himself once more being pushed back down on the mattress. “Don’t move, Lance! I’m getting Shiro!” And following Keith out the door, was a rather long string of curses.

[philippaoliver]

This Article Will Change The Way You Think About Clickbait Forever!

(Originally published during my time at The Leith Agency, in September 2017)

I was recently perusing the latest Teen Vogue political journalism masterpiece (no, really). When I came to the bottom of the article, I was greeted by the usual suggestions of other articles I might want to read. As always these days, the titles were clickbaity.

Part of me — a large part, the part that’s usually dominant — is screaming words dripping in sarcasm. Lord forbid I’m making an eyebrow mistake! But there’s another part, the one that’s normally buried deep down, asking if there even are 15 mistakes you can make with eyebrows, and then again what if my eyebrows are a bit shit? And so I click. And in a new tab I also open the one about the benefits of sleeping with my hair in a bun because honestly, I’d love to read the opinion of someone who is probably equally as unqualified to talk about hair as I am.

(Fear not, it turns out my eyebrows have not undergone any major catastrophes.)

But why did I click? I knew perfectly well that it’s not a subject I’m particularly interested in. Anyone who’s ever met me knows my usual aesthetic is ‘scruffy at best’. I also knew that it was clickbait, and that the contents would be disappointing. And yet, here we were. Again.

So, deeply disappointed in myself and coated in my own self loathing, I did some digging, and it turns out there’s actually a fair amount of research on clickbait (it was even mentioned on a recent episode of QI) and it’s fascinating stuff.

Is anyone immune to clickbait?

We all know someone who, whenever the subject comes up, will smugly proclaim ‘Oh, I never click on that rubbish. I can’t imagine why anyone would.’ They’re just better/smarter/savvier than that. But the truth is that we know clickbait works. There are whole websites that rely on it and reputable news publications are increasingly using it to pad out their offerings and increase website views.

Diply claims to generate 1 billion video views on Facebook and 150 million unique website visitors per month. Given that they sell advertising space, it’s fair to say that clickbait is big business. So claiming that clickbait doesn’t work just isn’t going to cut it with me and the science backs me up. So what are the key reasons clickbait works?

Curiosity and Dopamine

Studies have shown that the reason clickbait is so alluring is partially down to dopamine responses (the body’s reward system). So if someone’s claiming to be completely immune, chances are they’re either lying or joyless. Dopamine is the chemical in our bodies that makes us feel good, and the levels of it rise when we find something good. It’s hella addictive. But interestingly, we release dopamine in anticipation of a reward, not when we receive the reward itself.

Kanye’s probably immune to clickbait.

Additionally, dopamine is the impetus to do the work to receive the reward (in this case, clicking the link and navigating through sixteen pages of pop-up ads and auto-play videos). So we don’t actually need to see the cute or funny or shocking thing in order to feel good about it, but feeling good about it is what makes us click the link in the first place. So those particular clickbait headlines, the ones that add a “#23 will appall you!”, are especially effective; it’s anticipation that keeps you clicking through.

And even worse, we’ve been set up by our own bodies. Dopamine levels grow even higher when there’s a chance that there won’t be a reward at the end of our work (as we all know there probably won’t when it comes to clickbait). Psychologists and neuroscientists call it intermittent reinforcement. When we introduce a ‘maybe’ factor, that addictive surge fills us like never before. This explains gambling, but it also explains clickbait. We’re addicted to the fact that maybe it won’t be good. We’re slaves to our own curiosity.

The Information Gap

Further to this, behavioural economist Loewenstein describes an ‘information gap’. This takes a similar approach in that it has the same end point — that curiosity, and especially its intensity, is driven not by the satisfaction of obtaining information, but by the pain of not having it. There is therefore pleasure in the anticipation of obtaining it.

Studies have also found that guessing and feedback increase curiosity. In a sense, many clickbait headlines pose a question (What do these child stars look like now?). Readers may have an idea of what the answer is and, by internally guessing, their curiosity increases. The information gap has now widened to include whether or not they’re correct.

In studies on deprivation, researchers have also found a link between deprivation and impulsivity. Loewenstein links this to the impulsivity we see in curiosity situations; we’re curious when we see clickbait so we impulsively click on it, without stopping to consider if it’s clickbait. Anyone who’s ever fallen into a Wikipedia hole knows this to be true — you go on to find out whether cuttlefish sleep and through clicking on interesting links somehow end up learning about the black market organ trade, also reading about every living member of the Dutch royal family on the way.

Actual footage of me in a Wikihole.

The Language and Tropes of Clickbait

It’s all well and good to understand the dopamine responses that curiosity elicits, but how is curiosity elicited in the first place? The headlines of clickbait articles are written in such a way as to pique that curiosity, and the pictures are too. One of the major tropes of clickbait is a partially obscured picture — clearly linked to copy that throws up an information gap (You’ll Never Guess What This Teacher Bought For Her Class! I Was Shocked!), but with the information gap part obscured, only increasing the urge to click.

Writing these headlines is not so much an art as throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. With the rise in technology, websites can serve you the same article with 20 different headlines and simply eliminate all but the one that works best. Nevertheless, there is skill attached to good clickbait headlines, and you’ll also see certain ways of phrasing used repeatedly. These often take advantage of the things we’ve mentioned above: information gaps, taking advantage of emotion (including disdain) and using lists.

But it’s not just the content of the headline that draws you in, and what’s particularly interesting to me are the ways in which grammar and semantics are manipulated to grab your interest. Clickbait headlines frequently follow specific patterns, which are really odd compared to everyday language. They often refer to a specific person or persons by only a pronoun (e.g. he, she, they). That’s super weird when you don’t actually know who they’re referring to. In linguistics, it’s called a deixis: it’s a word or phrase that cannot be understood without further contextual information.

Consider the two following headlines, both clickbaity:

1. ‘She Gave This Bear A Pair Of Headphones… What Happened Next Will Shock You!’

2. ‘A zoologist gave a grizzly bear a pair of headphones… what happened next will shock you!’

While it’s written in an annoying way, I’d argue that the first is more successful in grabbing your attention and getting you keen(ish) to find out more. This is for a number of reasons, but key among them is the use of deixis. There are a couple of ways deixis are normally used — anaphora and cataphora — and this headline sort of defies both of them.

The first headline would be completely normal in situations where there was some text preceding it, which explained who the reference was in ‘she’ (e.g. ‘A zoologist was doing some research on grizzly bears and their reactions to music. She gave…’). This is called anaphora — where the deixis in a sentence or clause refers to some information that came before. That’s fine. We’re cool with that. Cataphora is sort of the opposite — it’s where a deixis refers to some information which will come later in the discourse. It’s a little stranger to explain, but it happens a fair amount, especially in rhetoric, literary prose, or storytelling. The reason it happens more in literary prose and story telling is that it adds an element of suspense. We’re also pretty cool with that.

What clickbait does is to separate the deictic words from their cataphor — you’ll find out what they refer to, but only if you click on the link. It’s not something we normally see, so it throws you off a little bit. And like an open bracket that never closes, it makes you a tiny bit stressed. We’re not so cool with that. By not giving up that contextual information we need to understand ‘she’ or ‘this’, the headline effectively and infuriatingly adds further curiosity.

What does this actually mean, though?

As advertisers, we cannot ignore the fact that clickbait exists primarily to allow its publishers to thrive on advertising money. In a sense, we fund and pay for clickbait (and as part of that, fake news). Guilty as charged, we’re proliferators of evil (but we already knew that). A question to ask ourselves is whether we’re able to reclaim clickbait and harness it and its techniques as a force for good. So what, if anything, can we learn from clickbait?

Loewenstein suggests that the information gap could be used to motivate learners in educational settings, by drawing attention to what they don’t know. It’s an interesting point, and could hint towards clickbait as a force for social good. For those of us in the business of behaviour change advertising, there are real questions to be asked about whether we can learn from clickbait in inciting our targets to learn for themselves. Am I suggesting that the answer to all social good is clickbait? Absolutely not, it’s still fairly abhorrent, but I do think there are learnings to be had — certainly in terms of our approach and possibly from the way we use language (even if it’s just manipulating cataphor better).

It may also be useful when we’re trying to solve particularly modern problems. In our recent campaign for the Scottish Government, our aim was to educate the Scottish public about the introduction of new legislation against the non-consensual sharing of intimate images (NCSII) — commonly known incorrectly as revenge porn. NCSII is not a new thing — people have been doing it since we had cameras — but it’s become more of a problem in recent years due to the ease of dissemination through internet channels. It made sense that we would talk about it on the same channels our audience are likely to encounter it and proliferate it, and potentially in the same salacious tones that make people so morbidly fascinated by it.

In came clickbait.

With headlines like ‘Her Boyfriend Shared This Video Of Her Online…You’ll Never Guess What Happens!’ (spoiler: he gets arrested), we infiltrated our targets’ newsfeeds with authentic looking clickbait to pique their interest and get them clicking. On the other side, a ‘trojan horse’ ad — starting off looking like an authentic homemade video (we shot on an iPhone 4), we see what looks like the beginning of a sexual act, with our female actor placing handcuffs on the wrists of our male actor (who, for authenticity, was also the cameraman). A quick cut later and the fluffy handcuffs have been replaced by real ones, his girlfriend by a stern policewoman.

A still from the campaign.  By luring people in using curiosity gaps and the implied promise of the very thing we’re legislating against, we hope we can encourage them to examine their own behaviour (which will ultimately prove more effective than lecturing and finger wagging). Companies are already using clickbait to sell their products, I can’t help but wonder if we can use it in a more worthwhile way, as we did for our NCSII campaign.

Given that viewing clickbait is itself viewed as a shameful act, can we use that to our advantage, to access topics that people find hard to talk about? Clickbait taps into morbid curiosity, it’s car crash internet. Let’s take a long look at how we can take advantage of that, rather than simply dismissing it as an annoyance to avoid. I’m not saying clickbait is good, or even that it’s not annoying, but it’s unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon — so let’s at least take it seriously (even if it does make our copywriters want to vomit).

And to finish on a lighter note, my favourite piece of (parody) clickbait, which delivers on its headline in spectacular fashion by presenting you with the entire text of Moby Dick: ‘The Time I Spent On A Commercial Whaling Ship Completely Changed My Perspective On The World’. Plus, my current favourite Facebook page, TL;DR, who helpfully summarise clickbait articles so you don’t have to click on them. Not all heroes wear capes.

[artificialqueens]

TROIKA (Trixie/Alaska feat. Katya) Prologue/9- Spoky

A/N: In the end, it’s just RPF. @veronicasanders & @fryshook, cheers comrades.

Summary: You can’t choose who you fall in love with and sometimes it’s inconvenient; it’s challenging, cumbersome, difficult and pushes you in directions you previously thought impossible. This is a story about negotiating love when everything you thought you knew about family, relationships and sex proves to be insufficient.

TROIKA

“What happens if you fall in love with an individual, but that individual is more passive? He’s a bottom. And you’re also more passive. You’re a bottom. What you need to do is, break up . ‘Cause you know what you want, and you know how you want it, and you know that he’s not going to do it how you want it.”

- Willam Belli, 2013, 00:56-01:20

May, 2017

“Thank you,” Katya said as he stepped into the silver space.

“Not at all. Which floor?”

Katya glanced up from his mobile phone and smiled at the middle-aged woman who’d held the elevator, seeing him approaching.

“Top, thanks,” he said and smirked at his inner dialogue. Top, thanks. Not that many guys fought him on that one, not in West Hollywood anyway. Well, they hadn’t really fought him on it in Boston, either.  

The woman nodded in response, pressed the button and sighed heavily as she leaned against the elevator wall, closing her eyes.

“Rough day?” Katya asked as he stuffed the mobile back into his pocket. The woman looked worn out, carrying three bags of groceries and a backpack that belonged to a Spiderman-fan.

“You could says so,” she said and chuckled through her nose.

Bing.

The elevator stopped at the second floor and a young, blonde girl jumped in through the slowly retreating doors.

“HA! Made it!” she announced victoriously, slightly out of breath and pointed at the woman with her index finger. She couldn’t have been older than six. Her hair was tied up to a messy ponytail that swung from side to side as she twirled around in the small space in her bright yellow glitter jellies. As she turned, she noticed Katya in the corner and got embarrassed. Shyly, she retreated next to the woman, who Katya guessed had to be the mother.

“Yes, to the second floor,” the woman said. “I thought you were supposed to beat me to the top?”

The elevator doors started to close slowly and the girl grabbed the spiderman backpack, throwing it sassily over her shoulder.

“No. I meant second,” she said and studied Katya discreetly through the mirror. The woman rolled her eyes but didn’t argue, clearly used to the child’s antics. “That’s a girl’s bracelet,” the girl said then, eyeing Katya’s wrist carefully as the elevator twitched to move again.

Katya glanced down at his wrist and chuckled. Trixie had forgotten the pink, plastic trinket into his car almost a month ago and he hadn’t had the chance to return it before today. He’d grabbed the thing from the backseat of his car before making his way to the apartment complex and decided to wear it, rather than stuff it into his backpack, thinking that the chances of him forgetting to return it were smaller that way. He fondled the jewellery affectionately, adjusting the lock against his pulse point and smiled at the girl.

“Yes, I guess it is,” he agreed.

“But you’re a boy,” the child said immediately, squinting her eyes as if trying to identify whether her gendering was accurate or not.

“Ethan,” the woman said emphatically and looked down at the child scoldingly.

The child, Ethan, pursed his lips together and crossed his arms across his chest, covering the flower print of his light purple t-shirt. He never stopped staring, though.

“I’m sorry,” the woman apologised Katya. “They’re very interested in gender.”

“No, it’s alright,” Katya grinned, looking at Ethan and feeling a tiny bit jealous of their freedom and confidence. He wished he’d grown up in a similarly progressive time, in a society where a third pronoun was a possibility, but things had been a little different thirty years ago. “You’re right, I am a boy,” Katya said to Ethan, “- but sometimes, I’m also a woman,” he added cryptically, as if letting Ethan into a secret.

Ethan looked at Katya skeptically at first but as the elevator binged for a sign that they’d reached their destination, they huffed as if coming to a conclusion.

“Yeah, I get that,” they said, nodding compassionately to Katya before storming out, their hands spread wide as if flying, their lips pushed forward to make convincing airplane sounds.

Katya turned to look at the woman, who was now staring at him openly.

“Thank you,” she said seriously. “They don’t get to meet a lot of adults like them.”

“No, thank you ,” Katya praised as they stepped to the hallway, hoping that the woman knew what he meant. Thank you for providing a safe space for a child like me, thank you for letting them be what they are, and most importantly, thank you for not being ashamed of them.

Katya nodded his goodbye as they parted ways and could still hear distant, cheerful airplane sounds echoing in the hallway as he paused behind Alaska’s door. Meeting Ethan had left him slightly unsettled and while he was excited for his meeting with Trixie and Alaska, somehow he felt unbalanced, as if something wasn’t quite right. He shook his head and knocked, determined that the feeling was fleeting, nothing that a cigarette couldn’t sort out. Luckily, it took Alaska just a moment to answer his summons.

“Hey girl!” Alaska greeted as he opened the front door and let Katya into the apartment.

Katya pulled the other man into a brief greeting hug, took notice of how good he smelled and took another exaggerated whiff as he squeezed the man closer.

“You smell divine! Just hold me as I dry hump your leg, would you?”

“You’re confusing me with Willam, again,” Alaska snorted, barely hiding his amusement as he slithered out of Katya’s arms. “But I’ll take a hello?” he added with a flirtatious tone and cocked his eyebrows suggestively at Katya over his shoulder as he led him further into the organised chaos he called home.

“Hello,” Katya drawled and grinned widely, eyeing around in Alaska’s apartment.

Unlike Delta Work’s notorious label as a messy queen, Alaska’s similar reputation had nothing to do with his behaviour on social media. The apartment was clean, but there was clutter on most surfaces: jewelry, makeup, photos, art, drag queen merchandise, post-it notes, postcards – some of which he’d clearly received through the post whilst others sat tightly in the protection of their plastic sleeves. Katya dropped his backpack on the couch, next to the embroidered pillow that read STUN in pine green, and turned to Alaska.

“Seriously though, dire nicotine deficiency, it’s either a cigarette or a panic attack. Choose wisely.”

Alaska chuckled and placed the mug Katya hadn’t noticed him holding on the coffee table.

“You know where the balco-”

Alaska’s sentence was cut short by a knock at the door.

“That’s Brian,” Alaska noted and turned to walk back to the front door, leaving Katya hovering next to the sofa, baffled. He couldn’t recall a single instance of Alaska referring to Trixie as Brian, not one, and yet, the name had rolled through Alaska’s lips with complete ease. The two must’ve gotten close while working on their project. The thought caused a tiny sting of jealousy in Katya’s lower abdomen, but he quickly buried it underneath other unimportant feelings and thoughts. After all, he was here now, they’d invited him over to talk about the project, there was no reason to feel left out. He took couple of steps to his right, for a better view of the hallway and the front door.

Katya followed with interest and slight confusion as Alaska opened the door with a rushed “Katya is here” instead of a “Hello” and let Trixie into the apartment. The pair nodded to each other but no hugs or verbal greetings were exchanged between them. It was odd, but Katya didn’t have time to analyse the interaction further as Trixie noticed him in the living room and rushed over.

“I thought you’d decided against transitioning, Mr. Dolezal,” Trixie mocked as he pulled Katya into a firm hug, sending him into round of giggles.

“Yes yes, against genital snippety-snappety,” Katya agreed enthusiastically, “but look at this skin!”

“Very Pocahontas,” Trixie nodded in approval. “I hope its spray tho’. I’ve put my money on lung cancer, not every fricking subtype of melanoma.”

Katya screamed and flung his fists in the air excitedly. He hadn’t seen Trixie in over three weeks and while they hadn’t stopped texting, being in the actual presence of his best friend felt somehow soothing. Katya’s socially constructed reality felt little more balanced, interesting and manageable in a close proximity to Tracy Martel. He still wanted his cigarette, though.

“Thanks for the reminder. I need a smoke break,” Katya announced, glancing at Alaska briefly for permission to use his balcony. “It’s the least I can do for Tracy’s retirement fund.”

“I’ll be sure to bring that up when they ask for a character reference.”

* *

Katya closed the balcony door behind him and took a seat at the rattan bench next to Trixie. The sun was starting to set, discreetly painting the sky with hues of orange over the still dominant baby blue. It was hot, though. One of the hottest days yet and Katya pulled at the collar of his t-shirt to stretch it out. The leg of his shorts was rubbing uncomfortably against his damp thigh and he felt momentarily jealous of Alaska, who didn’t seem too bothered by the heat in his white tank top and jeans.

“Kim never sweats,” Trixie chuckled. “It’s so weird. Once we were in New Orleans and I swear you could’ve cooked eggs on the sidewalk and this guy is just there, chilling, while the rest of us are on the verge of dehydration, smelling like rotten cabbage.”

“You trying to tell me something?” Katya asked, cocking his eyebrows as he lit his cigarette. The first inhale worked as a lasso that pulled most of Katya’s disoriented thoughts into a some type of, if not organised, then at least contained pile.

“I’m used to your rank,” Trixie brushed him off, spreading his legs wider as he slid slightly lower on the bench to get more comfortable. Katya couldn’t not to notice how his shorts got tighter at the crotch, trapping his dick into a very evident bulge.

“It’s genetic,” Alaska said, catching Katya’s attention.

Alaska was leaning to the balcony rail, his hands crossed over his chest loosely. The pose reminded Katya of Ethan in the elevator. The look that Alaska was giving him, though, Katya couldn’t place. It was curious and simultaneously somehow judgemental, criticising? Alaska glanced quickly at Trixie’s crotch and back to Katya, giving him a discreet but teasing smile. Katya just grinned, not even slightly embarrassed that he’d been caught appreciating Trixie’s current posture.

“Genetic?” Trixie asked, turning to look at Alaska.

“Yeah, like, I read somewhere that the Koreans have like, less sweat glands or something, so they don’t smell like the rest of us.”

“You’re kidding,” Katya snorted.

“No no, I’m not. Google it.”

“I’ll add it to the list of things to google the next time I’m having an existential crisis and need to make sure the world is actually relatively real,” Katya said through laughter before taking a long drag of his cigarette and inhaling deeply. He blew the smoke slowly up towards the ceiling and from the corner of his eye studied Alaska, who was smoking his cigarette in shallower breaths. Alaska’s style reminded Katya of the type you saw in some European movies where less than half of the smoke was inhaled after the initial drag while the rest was released in an extravagant puff. It was somehow sexier, maybe little extra, very drag. In conclusion, suited Alaska perfectly. “So, you guys wanna tell me about this project of yours?”

The relaxed atmosphere on the balcony shifted after the question. Trixie corrected his position to sit more straightforward while Alaska started to absentmindedly massage his shoulder. Katya glanced to Trixie whose gaze was directed at Alaska under his slightly wrinkled brows. He was rubbing his right index and middle finger against his thumb in small circles, a sign of which Katya recognised as Trixie’s subconscious habit while nervous. The pair was looking at each other in silence and Katya frowned. They had invited him over to talk about the project, but didn’t want to talk about it?

“I think I want a beer,” Alaska said suddenly and Trixie was quick to jump on the train.

“I think there are couple of Stellas in the fridge.”

The speed in which Trixie stood up and stepped towards the door made it obvious that he was trying to escape the situation. Katya was getting more confused by the second.

“It’s fine, I’ll get them,” Alaska drawled, stumped his half smoked cigarette into the ashtray and wiggled his way around Trixie to get to the balcony door.

There were two things that struck to Katya as the two competed in what seemed to be a race out of Katya’s uncomfortable presence and questions. One, Trixie seemed curiously knowledgeable about the alcohol contents of Alaska’s refrigerator and two, the ease in which Alaska opened the rainbow striped jar placed on the windowsill next to the balcony door told of a well internalised habit. Almost subconsciously Alaska had pushed aside the ceramic lid with his pinkie, grabbed one of the white balls between his index and middle finger like a Go stone and popped the thing into his mouth before leaving the balcony, not once even glancing at the jar itself as he had been staring at Trixie.

As Alaska disappeared inside, Trixie was left hovering in between the balcony door and his earlier seat and Katya couldn’t recall a time he’d ever witnessed Trixie quite as tense. Possibly in Australia when they’d almost gotten arrested? The Barbie was shifting his weight from left to right and was clearly at loss on what to do next. Trixie’s discomfort felt alien to Katya. He’d thought they were beyond these type of encounters but apparently, he’d been wrong.

“What’s in the jar?” Katya asked, hoping for the mundane question to break the strained charge.

“Mints,” Trixie answered instantly, still staring after Alaska, “I would think,” he rushed to add as a hasty afterthought whilst turning to Katya, as if suddenly realising that he wasn’t supposed to know. “I would think mints.”

Katya looked up to Trixie, puzzled. He could think of two reasons why one might want a mint after a cigarette, neither of which made very much sense in the given situation, so he dismissed the oddity as one of Alaska’s quirks. Something was bugging him, though. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it as the trepidity Trixie practically radiated made him feel ill at ease, blurring his thoughts.

When Trixie had called him two days ago to arrange the meeting, explaining that he had something he wanted to talk about, something new and exciting and slightly out of his comfort zone, something that involved Alaska, Katya had gotten excited. Whatever the two had planned  was bound to be hilarious, but also professionally executed, and Katya was here – H. E. R. E. Here. – for it. It had been months since Trixie had first mentioned that he was working on something with Alaska and absolutely refused to spill any of the details. Katya had tried probing Alaska for some information as well, but the man had acted like Helen Keller without a pencil. He felt a little honoured that they’d finally decided to include him, whatever the project was, but the awkwardness and secrecy was driving him slightly mad.

“Come on man, he’ll get them,” Katya said and pulled Trixie back onto the sofa from his shorts leg.

Trixie complied with ease and took a deep breath.

“Fuck man,” Trixie swore quietly and brushed his palm against his knees. “I’m just trying not to fuck this up.”

“What exactly is there to fuck up?” Katya asked, but knew that he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

When Trixie didn’t reply at all, however, or even recognise that Katya had said anything, Katya started to think that maybe, just maybe, it would’ve been more productive to stay at home tonight. He could’ve watched the latest season of Game of Thrones instead, as it seemed like Alaska and Trixie were not going to get anywhere. He leaned his elbows against his knees and thought about Ethan. The confidence of the kid intrigued him.

“I met this kid today,” Katya said not quite certain why he was telling the story.

“Kid?”

“Yeah,” Katya nodded. “Curious little thing. I thought they were a girl at first but then the name was Ethan, so I think non-binary.”

“He introduced himself to you?”

“They,” Katya emphasised, throwing Trixie a judgmental look with cocked eyebrows. Trixie lifted his hands up in mock surrender and pursed his lips. “No, the mom called them that. Or like, I assume she was the mother.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

Katya turned his gaze to the yard where a group of young teenagers were fighting over a inflatable dolphin. They weren’t being incredibly loud, or maybe they were just too far for him to hear, but the flirtatious play he could see them engaging in was disturbingly heteronormative. They boys would steal the toy and take it into the pool, into which the girls couldn’t possibly enter because of their hair or makeup, possibly both. So they would guile one of the boys to help them to steal the toy back, and so it went, back and forth, like a very peculiar mating dance. Ethan would probably have to pick a side eventually.

“They were – was?” Katya asked Trixie who just shrugged, clueless. “Were,” Katya decided. “They were wearing these yellow glitter jellies-”

“-that you wanted?”

Katya laughed out loud before singsonging: “Yes, God! And like this purple tee and I- I think I was kinda jealous of their confidence.”

Trixie hummed and nodded as a sign that Katya should go on, that he was listening.

“I don’t know, man,” Katya said and grinned. “Like, meeting them was just like…” Katya paused to look for a word.

“Nice?” Alaska suggested and drew Katya’s attention up from the young, lekking teenagers.

“Yeah,” Katya grinned, meeting Alaska’s eyes. “Nice.”

Trixie grabbed the green Stella Artois Alaska was holding out for him and took a sip.

“I’ve got some weed, if you’d like?” Alaska asked Katya, once again leaning against the balcony rail. Katya chuckled through his nose and shook his head as he lit a second cigarette.

“Nah man, I’m good.”

* *

Katya threw a used napkin on the empty pizza box and leaned his elbows against the dinner table as he lifted his gaze up to Trixie and Alaska on the other side. Trixie was munching on the last slice of pizza, paying clearly no attention on Alaska, who was talking vividly about something Katya hadn’t heard a word of since, well, since the beginning really. He assumed it was something to do with drag, purely based on the excited glimmer in Alaska’s eyes, but he wasn’t really listening. Instead, he fixated on the incredible ease in which Trixie reached over Alaska to grab his beer, to wash down the pieces of pizza he was currently chewing. Trixie had finished his own bottle ages ago and now failed to return the stolen bottle back to Alaska, placing it instead next to his empty one. The exchange reminded Katya of his father who was in a habit of stealing his mother’s red wine on occasion, if she didn’t finish it quickly enough.

“So, spill,” Katya interrupted Alaska without apologies. “And for the record, I know that both of you are capable of coming up with ideas worthy of the Vienna Academy of Art rejecting young Adolf, but I’m open for anything consensual and unanimous,” Katya said sternly as he leaned further into his elbows. He was determined to get to the bottom of this damn project the other two had been avoiding for the past two hours.

Trixie and Alaska exchanged yet another uncertain look between them, as if once more confirming with each other that Katya was to be let into the secret. Katya wanted to roll his eyes but restrained. No idea, however tentative, could be that fragile. Had they fucking met him? Truthfully speaking, he felt like he should’ve been slightly offended that they kept going back and forth with their decision to include him.

“Look,” Katya sighed. “I get the impression that this thing of yours might be a little out there, even for me. But listen, we still have Bob the Politician as the current fucking reigning. As long as it’s not another United Airlines joke, or a rerun of the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 76 skit, because both of those were badly executed, mama, and I’m talking some serious BFA offensive to be edgy bullshit, I think we should break some PC boundaries – or bones, if it comes to that.”

Trixie blinked at Katya’s words and Alaska bit her lip to prevent a laugh.

“God I hope we don’t break any bones,” Alaska muttered quietly and Trixie threw a disapproving look at him, trying hard to hide his amusement.

Katya watched, intrigued, as Trixie swallowed the final pieces of the pizza, wiped his mouth to the back of his palm and faced Katya with a rather un-Trixie-like seriousness.

“There’s no project per se.”

Katya’s enthusiasm was taken down a notch.

“No?” he asked, now completely confused. “Don’t tell me, you’ve collectively decided to stop the music industry and retire to Baan Souy at Pattaya?”

He reached over the table to offer a hand in solace to Trixie. “I know you want to support your singer-songwriter sister here,” he said solemnly and glanced briefly to Alaska, “- but it’s not your time yet, you still have some good years in you.”

Alaska chuckled lightly as Trixie pressed the feet of her palms into his eye sockets and leaned his elbows to the table, groaning loudly.

“I could-” Alaska started but was immediately cut off.

“No,” Trixie said firmly and sat back up. “I’m doing this. I need to do this.”

Alaska nodded and successfully avoided Katya’s questioning eyes.

“Katya,” Trixie said seriously, too seriously, and Katya had to grin. There was bound to be a joke, it would just take some time for Trixie to crack.

“We’re not retiring. We’re dating.”

Katya was looking at Trixie straight into the eyes and had to admire the raw talent in which he embodied the character. Trixie’s words came across completely sincere, as if he was entirely convinced of his own words, with no trace of the practiced script whatsoever. It was Meryl Streep level artistry. Katya glanced at Alaska, who was still avoiding his gaze and thus he turned back to Trixie, who was now pursing his lips together like he always did when expecting an unfavourable reaction or bad news from his manager.

“You’re kidding,” Katya said and realised that now she too sounded serious, too serious. He rewinded back the previous two hours: the odd non-greeting when Trixie had arrived, the avoidance of the project as a topic of discussion, Trixie’s familiarity with Alaska’s refrigerator’s alcohol contents, the stolen bottle of Stella Artois, even the mints in the clay rainbow jar on the balcony made suddenly sense; Trixie had always hated kissing people who tasted or smelled like cigarettes. Trixie and Alaska in a romantic relationship made about as much sense as the Trump Presidency; just because it seemed too absurd to be true didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

“I wish I was, because your face is a fucking picture right now,” Trixie snorted, but his voice didn’t quite reach the lighthearted tone he was clearly aiming for.

Trixie was nervous, Katya realised. He was apprehensive of Katya’s reaction and was waiting for his reply, possibly even his approval? Holy Mary and Jesus’ twelve Apostles in alphabetical order, they were not joking. Trixie Mattel, Katya’s co-patient from RuPaul’s seventh group therapy session, was, if her word was to be trusted – like, who knew, she could’ve been on any kind of drug possible! Katya swallowed the idea. Trixie Mattel was the least likely of them to be high in this situation and currently, according to her words, dating Katya’s all time favourite drag superstar from RuPaul’s best friend race.

Katya turned to look at Alaska who was now looking at him calculatingly, as if trying to figure out what was going on in his head. What was going on in his head? Katya didn’t even know himself. He was shocked, and confused, and a little disappointed that Trixie hadn’t told him earlier. How long had this been going on? He figured he should probably also feel happy for the pair, but he was too busy feeling shocked and confused to be able to branch out.

He turned his eyes back to Trixie, who looked slightly worried. What was he expecting Katya to say? Surely there was nothing he could say that would somehow affect the situation? Was Trixie expecting him to be upset? Why? Just because Alaska was Katya’s favourite, and admittedly hot as fuck, that didn’t mean that Katya would be upset. Hell, even if the game at Hey Queen had been just a joke, Katya had picked Tatianna over Alaska to kai kai with! It had been Trixie himself who had picked Alaska, not Katya, and… A small lightbulb lit in Katya’s head, very similarly to the scenes one might see in the 1990’s cartoons. Trixie had picked Alaska… The self-proclaimed high femme with a rainbow collection of “BOTTOM”-labelled baseball caps had been chosen by the country cowboy for a mutually satisfying coupling. Now, it certainly wasn’t the politest, or even the most relevant question. But it certainly was the first one Katya’s brain jumped to and before he could prevent himself, he had blurted it out:

“But, who tops?”

Trixie groaned in frustration and hid his face to his arms against the table.

“Funny you should ask,” Alaska drawled slowly as he reached to gently massage Trixie’s neck, an amused grin decorating his lips. “We were kinda hoping that you would.”

___________

A/N2: Thoughts?

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Questions for HSM III (Part VII)

We are literally now diving into the abyss. If I had posted a picture of the Titanic wreck instead of this one, we wouldn’t have sunk far enough. 

On Troy and his Dad

1- I’m a fan of Troy’s scenes with his dad. Despite the significant challenges in their relationship, and despite the burden of pressure that Jack Bolton places on his son’s shoulders, the father-son bond is real, relatable and touching. I like Jack Bolton on the whole, because he’s that traditional kind of father sadly lacking in today’s society. One of those men who worked up from the bottom and is keen to pass these values onto his son. Troy has a strong work ethic (when referring to being the Coach’s son: “makes me practice a little harder”) is a thoroughly fair and decent guy and doesn’t believe in taking shortcuts to success. I believe this comes from his father. 

Given that Jack Bolton asks about Gabriella, having come to accept that she isn’t just his “detention buddy” (that scene in HSM I makes me crack up every time), I would like to have known his reaction to her unannounced disappearance and the resultant effect on Troy. Surely Mr. Bolton saw his son moping around at school? Would he particularly well-disposed towards Gabriella or am I just wishing he’d advise his son to date someone else? Mr. Bolton asks Troy whether Gabriella will still be attending prom, to which Troy answers yes with a smile. Read and weep, people. Read and weep. Again, I wonder what the Bolton patriarch’s reaction would be when she suddenly decided she wasn’t coming. After all, in HSM I, he unreasonbly got angry with Gabriella for allegedly causing Troy to get a detention (she did no such thing). How would he have reacted? Or is he caught up in Troy/Gabriella hype, too? I’d love to know. 

2- Notice the pride in Troy’s voice when he says “She’s knee-deep in geniuses out there.” I would love to have heard that phone-call, particularly to hear whether Gabriella apologized for jumping ship after lying to him that she just meant “goodnight”. Of course, Troy doesn’t mention it. But if that phonecall was anything like the one we’re going to hear soon, then I have no hopes. I really hope Gabriella doesn’t get a job in Customer Sales, because she has a terrible telephone manner. Even when dressed as a pretend maid, she managed to sound like an irritable, huffy miseryguts. 

Then Troy says that Gabriella made a comment about the food at Stanford and East High. See, this is where hearing the conversation would have been helpful. Is that really the most remarkable thing that Gabriella said to him over the phone-- that the food was worse at Stanford? (If any Stanford graduate can back that up, I’d be grateful.Gabriella whines about everything, so I don’t take anything she says at face value). Oh hi, Troy: everyone here is really clever and the food sucks, and yes, I’m still coming to prom. Seriously, this sounds like the extent of their conversation, otherwise Troy would have mentioned it. Are we to assume that she did or did not ask after him, his feelings, his studies, let alone apologize for her grand departure? I’m digging and I’m theorizing, yes, but this seems to be in line with the stilted nature of their conversations. Am I missing something?

3- So, are we to believe that the reason Mr Bolton shoots hoops in the backyard is because he doesn’t know how to deal with Troy potentially attending another college/school? Because if so, that might explain Troy’s upcoming mental breakdown in the gym. When is Mr. Bolton going to learn to communicate with his son in a more constructive manner?

4- Does Mrs. Bolton have a say in this? No indication is given on what she thought about Troy’s further education. Yet her view would matter too, right?

5- “Chad will be awfully disappointed if you decide to change your mind!” Behold, the reason why people choose a college: because best friends. Seriously, Mr. Bolton? Didn’t this same man say in HSM II that Troy wasn’t going to be with the Wildcats forever? That the team was great now, but in future, he would need to seize his own opportunities? Or was that good advice only relevant because Troy was trying to secure finance for his father’s alma mater? But then again, precisely what were Mr. Bolton’s thoughts when, during HSM II, Troy DITCHED a scholarship opportunity for no good reason other than to appease his friends and girlfriend? Because judging by their interaction here, it doesn’t even come up in conversation. How did Mr. Bolton react then, when Troy let a golden opportunity slip through his fingers? Remember, Mr. Bolton made the effort to watch Troy playing with the Redhawks in order to give a good report to Mr. Evans. In order to give Troy the best shot possible. So if Mr. Bolton got over the fact that Troy flushed this all down the toilet for his ungrateful girlfriend and ungrateful friends, then why’s he guilt-tripping Troy into accepting U of A? Then again, if he WASN’T cool with Troy’s “decision” in HSM II, why aren’t they talking about that now? (Like to answer that, Script?) Thoroughly unconstructive, hypocritical behaviour from Mr. Bolton here. On the first watch, I thought Troy’s annoyance was overdone; now it’s completely understandable. 

An answer, please. Someone. 

6- “You raised me to make my own choices, and I need to make ‘em. Not you, or Chad, or anyone else. ME.”

Wise words coming from a guy who is now about to do the complete opposite for the rest of this film. 

On Troy’s Nervous Breakdown and Ms Darbus

1- I honestly skip this section. It’s extremely boring and depressing, but totally understandable. On the first watch, I was fighting to stay awake by this point. Troy is in the abyss. (So is this movie). His dad doesn’t understand him, his friends don’t take his aspirations and indecision seriously, his girlfriend is an ungrateful freeloader, the musical is going down the toilet (which is why he told his dad not to ask earlier) and he feels like jumping out one of his beloved trees. “Scream” encompasses all of the above conflict and is a reasonable climactic point for the movie. (Actually, on second listen, this song is quite catchy, if a little try-hard in the pop department). It should have been followed by an improvement in Troy’s circumstances, and more importantly, his decision-making. Alas...

Screaming seems to be Troy’s default method of releasing his anxiety, which follows on from his yelling in the Lava Springs kitchen during HSM II. This would imply, would it not, that Troy is actually quite a reserved guy except when on stage?

2- I like the scene between Troy and Ms Darbus, who, unlike Taylor, has dropped her lack of understanding towards sports stars. It is Ms Darbus who gives Troy the most meaningful encouragement and good advice that he has ever received in this entire movie. Not his girlfriend. Not his best friend. Not his father. But his teacher. Of course, any good teacher wishes the best for their students, but it says something when Troy had to run into an abandoned school and scream blue murder in order to process his emotions, instead of running to people who should be supportive and understanding. Ms Darbus believes in him, and thus submitted an application on his behalf to Juilliard, which is an act of confidence in his abilities and in his future. This is good. The stage is set for Troy’s grand decision later on. 

I really wish we had learned precisely which schools Troy might have attended and when he received his offers. But this would involve learning more about Troy’s life in isolation, and not as a subsidiary of Gabriella’s life. Why didn’t we get the necessary context leading to his “decision” RE Berkeley?

By the way, I have a solution for Ms Darbus struggle to rebalance the musical: scrub out Miss Montez’s part altogether. 

On Musical Disharmony and Hoops Man

So, Gabriella is learning her way around Stanford, good for her. A totally pointless scene that neither helps conclude Troy’s anxiety beforehand, nor leads into the musical that she abandoned with such casual hypocrisy. 

1- Poor Troy. He’s really trying. Kudos to Ryan for helping him out there, which I believe he did out of friendship and understanding, and not just because he is the choreographer. Another smiley face sticker for Ryan. Once again notice a complete lack of sympathy of understanding as demonstrated by any of the other Wildcats, which I suppose is unsurprising, given that they only agreed to do the show after Troy did. In other words, they expect him to do all the legwork and hold the show on his shoulders. As I mentioned before, you can see Chad muttering angrily to Taylor in the background, jabbing his arm in Troy’s direction. Folks, this is the guy who spent five minutes of your time claiming he didn’t dance. NOW he cares so much about the musical? Remember when I said that no one came to check on Troy after Gabriella left? Surely, Chad must have his own off days? Surely he must understand why Troy is so upset? Surely he knows that Troy has no chemistry with Sharpay whatsoever? This sudden annoyance grates on the nerves. 

2- “Hoops Man! Over here! You look like you’re having the time of your life!” Unlike Chad, who just blames Troy, or the other Wildcats who act like he doesn’t even exist even though they know he’s upset, Kelsi always does her best to keep Troy’s spirits up. Injecting some humour into the situation was a great way to break up the tension, disappointment and lack of energy in these rehearsals. Again, we are forced to believe that Gabriella’s absence is ruining the show; as I said before, I dispute such an assumption. The only ones willing to put in any effort are Kelsi, Ryan, Sharpay and Troy. As a composer, you would think that Kelsi would be the most irritated by Troy’s consistent mistakes and lack of focus; instead she shows him nothing but sympathy and understanding, so sadly lacking from almost everyone else. 

If only Kelsi had stopped here!

3- “It’s all of us, and all of us pretty much know why. If it wasn’t for Gabriella, this musical would have just been another “Sharpay Show”!”

Kelsi, please-- PLEASE-- be quiet! Don’t do this to yourself. Every time I watch this scene, I’m ready to quit the world. This is what ruins that which could have been another memorable Trelsi moment; Kelsi’s persistently illogical hero-worship of Gabriella on the basis of pure fantasy and catchy love songs rather than actual reality. Not only is this comment cringeworthy, it is completely false. It was Troy who agreed to the musical when everyone else was arguing against it. (Does she not remember jumping for joy when he finally capitulated, rather than when Gabriella stood up for her?!) So it’s Troy who saved the musical from being another “Sharpay Show”; Troy, who is standing right in front of her, doing his best to continue with said musical whilst Gabriella is chilling in Cali. (Alright, she’s not chilling, but roll with it). 

Why is Kelsi convinced that the show cannot run without Gabriella? This is a girl who applied to Juilliard (kudos to her), and so obviously must know that they perform musicals all the time... Without Gabriella! Would it make her happy if she brought Gabriella along with her to Juilliard, since it’s so clear that nothing can work otherwise? Have theatre performers had it wrong this entire time? Did West Side Story or Grease need Gabriella? When Kelsi was submitting her songs for the high school musicals and kept getting rejected, there were musicals that succeeded without Gabriella, were there not? There are only two Playmakers in this movie series: Troy and Kelsi. There are only four people chosen for a prestigious Performing Arts scholarship in this movie series, two of whom are Troy and Kelsi. What more evidence does Kelsi need that the world doesn’t revolve around Gabriella? And again, why does Kelsi say NOTHING when one of the show’s leads just ups and leaves without telling her-- AGAIN? Remember in High School Musical I, when Gabriella unilaterally decided that she and Troy wouldn’t do the musical based on that webcam stunt? Out of Troy and Gabriella, who do you think would have bothered to tell Kelsi? The script never showed us this, but I think I can guess. So should we really have any hopes that Gabriella would have told Kelsi about this new development in HSM III? But meanwhile, Kelsi still wants to have another jab at Sharpay. How many times has she written music for Sharpay now? Even when Sharpay was bossing her around in the first movie, she offered to write more solos! (”Uh... I should write you more solos?”) Stop kidding yourself, Kelsi. 

Ever astonishing and exasperating bias from Kelsi. 

People, I love Kelsi. She’s my second favourite character after Troy. But seriously, these questions must be asked. 

Still, she redeems herself for comforting Troy as always. 

TO BE CONTINUED

[welcometowcwmondaynitro]

WCW Monday Nitro 29/07/1996

 Here we go boys and girls...

You know, I just realised I have no idea what that “Q” shape in the top right hand corner actually means. To Google! 

OK well, I had a brief check and I still don’t know. Answers on a postcard. 

Something else I just noticed...

Hogan’s screaming face right next to a building that says “prescriptions”... I don’t think I need to comment any further.

“WCW Monday Nitro ignites once again!” screams Tony Schiavone as we get a high shot of the WCW set at Universal.

The magic kingdom has never been more magical.

As always we are welcomed by Mr Schiavone and “Living Legend” Larry Zbyszko. They’re both wearing Mickey Mouse shirts which is somewhat appropriate. Larry doesn’t look best pleased about it.

Tony informs us that there are two title matches tonight. The Giant will be defending his World Heavyweight title against Arn Anderson, whilst Rey Mysterio Jr will be defending his cruisweight title against Eddie Guerrero. I’m guessing one of those matches is going to be far more entertaining than the other. Tony also hypes the American Males Vs the Steiner Brothers, but... meh. The American Males suck. 

Tony brings up that WCW has recently been under attack from the New World Order. Larry refers to them as the “new world odor”. Very clever, Larry. Zbszko says the nWo are in control and picking their spots. Really they’re just being allowed to do pretty much whatever they want. WCW could have these guys thrown out in their asses for all sorts of shit, but nope. Nobody ever questions why.

We go to footage that Tony says was sent to them (not established by who) of Hall and Nash standing outside some kind of building looking a little bit high.

Next up we see footage of Luger and Sting coming out the back of some arena. Apparently this is a WCW Saturday Night taping. I assume the Outsiders filmed this footage or had somebody film it for them, as you can hear them saying mostly unintelligible shit in the background. Luger gets called away, leaving Sting by himself. 

At this point the Outsiders attack Sting from behind, shove him half way into the boot of a car and slam the door onto his back. They then beat Sting up some more before running off. This is all being filmed. Larry and Tony express minor disgust, as if they aren’t literally watching a guy getting the shit beaten out of him on tape, and say it’ll be dealt with at the Hog Wild PPV. 

Obviously another way to deal with it would be to, I don’t know, send this tape to the police? A blatant, pre-meditated assault filmed in its entirety before and after. You aren’t going to get much more clear-cut evidence. But, y’know, wrestling.

Tony calmly states that Sting is OK and suffered “minor injuries”. Well, that’s fine then. 

Some vaguely old school Western movie music plays and out comes the former Mauler, Mike Enos, aka one half of the worst named team in the world, “Rough ‘n’ Ready”. I think he was Ready.

His opponent is the ultra patriotic numbskull Jim Duggan. “Not Hacksaw” sighs Larry, and I’m with you living legend. Why? Why?

Mike “Ready” Enos Vs “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan

What a way to start the show. And yes, that was heavy, heavy sarcasm. For fuck’s sake. Couldn’t we have started with Rey Vs Eddie? Maybe just not had this match at all?

There are some contrasting emotions in the crowd as Hacksaw comes out...

The guy on the right seems happy to see Duggan. The guy on the left looks like me when I realised who was coming out. Come to think of it, I think that guy on the right was the dude aggressively booing Konnan last time. Loves ultra patriotic Jim Duggan, hates Mexican konnan to the point where it looked like his head was about to explode... pretty sure this guy is now a Trump supporter. I’ve just dated this blog, but for reference we’re in 2018, so that’s a relevant thought for at least another few years.

The crowd start chanting “USA” straight away. I think they’re both from the States so it’s not a chant that favours either man. Hacksaw is instantly furious, for some reason, and wants to start beating up Enos before the bell event rings.

The ref is like “bro, bro... calm down. We’re at Disneyworld.”

Duggan clotheslines Enos over the top rope after about a minute. Remember how last week Norton got disqualified for doing the exact same thing to Dave Taylor? No such luck here. Damn it.

I notice Enos has “Rough and Ready” on the back of his sleeveless jacket..

.What’s the snake meant to represent? Are snakes known for being rough or ready?

Enos and Hacksaw give each other some pretty nasty looking headbutts...

What’s funny is that Enos’s headbutt was more of a leaning his head in and pushing, whereas Hacksaw just went charging in there and smashed their heads together. Looked brutal. Also Hacksaw is fucking thick. And I don’t mean “thicc”, I just mean thick. Stout. Rotund.

Larry repeats his “new world odor” phrase for about the fifth time already. It’s not that original or funny Larry, give it a rest.

Look how empty the front row is. Where the hell is everybody? Normally that front row is full, and usually with really strange people too. I wonder if the black guy in the bottom left still has his “hulkster” shirt, or whether that’s now been disposed of...

Enos is putting on this really shitty looking chinlock.

It doesn’t look remotely painful. He’s literally just cupping Hacksaw’s chin in his hands. I mean, to go from those brutal headbutts to this is silly. This goes on forever. Even Larry basically says the chinlock is bullshit and not being applied properly.

This match has been going on for about 6 minutes and Duggan looks like he’s run a marathon.  

Duggan comes off the ropes and goes for a roll up...

Did not want or need to see Enos’s arse crack, thanks. Sometimes I wonder if WCW understand their audience is predominantly heterosexual males. I mean, between this and that baywatch-esque clip from a few shows ago with Jim “Jobber” Powers, Alex Wright, etc stripping off their clothes in slow motion... I’m starting to wonder.

Tony actually calls attention to the four empty seats in the front row and wonders whether they’re for the new world order. I suppose it’s possible, and I can’t blame them for deciding against watching this classic.

Match ends when Enos is arguing with the ref, allowing Duggan to tape up his fist and crack Enos over the head.

Check out the black guy in the upper right. He’s loving this way more than I am.

“Hacksaw” Jim Duggan defeats Mike “Ready” Enos via Pinfall.

Expert shit-stirrer Mean Gene is in the ring to interview Duggan. 

Poor Hacksaw looks like he’s ready to go to bed.

Okerlund asks Hacksaw for his opinion on the nWo. Not sure why anybody would be particularly interested in what Duggan has to say on the subject, but whatever. Hacksaw gets unusually serious as he asks people to listen. 

Hacksaw asks “Hulk, what have you done?” 

He reminds Hogan about the kids who look up to him, and brings up going with Hogan to the make-a-wish and special olympic events. Duggan asks why Hogan would turn his back on everything he loved, and everyone that loved him. Duggan says Hogan has held his children, and the first word his oldest child said was “hulkster”. That’s not weird at all. Duggan says “Hulkster, you’re a great technical wrestler” - lol - “but I don’t want to wrestle ya, I wanna beat ya up”. Broadly the same thing but OK. Gene says, referring to Hogan, “if you put a good apple into a basket of bad apples... enough said”. I guess so.

Hacksaw’s promo here was actually pretty good. He conveyed his emotions well, and his facial expressions really sold what he was saying as genuine. Just a shame I had to watch a match with him involved first.

We see footage of Arn creepily peering into a random limo last week...

Totally normal behaviour.

WCW loves showing this shot of Mickey. Maybe they were contractually obliged to do it.

Ric Flair’s music hits, and out come three of the four horsemen, plus the ladies.

As of yet no explanation has been given for Flair’s no-show last week. The horsemen don’t seem overly bothered by it though. 

Sting’s theme music hits, and out come the Stinger, Lex Luger, and the Macho Man.

I’ll admit to having a bit of a soft spot for the “Man Called Sting” theme song. I actually like a lot of those older WCW songs - Man Called Sting, Steinerized, American Made... I have an eclectic taste in music. Don’t judge me.

Tony repeats that Sting only suffered “minor injuries” after being attacked and he thinks the Outsiders were “just trying to send a message”. Uh, no. If they were sending a message they maybe would have shoved him over, or yelled some threats, or something else vaguely threatening. The pair of them quite literally punched Sting repeatedly and slammed a car boot against his back. I love how the commentators don’t see this as anything major. Just another day in the crazy world of wrestling. Larry calls it “a game of chess”. Most people would call it criminal assault.

Well anyway, these guys waste no time, a brawl starts...

And the match is on.

Ric Flair, Steve McMichael & Chris Benoit Vs Sting, Lex Luger & Macho Man

The match starts with mostly brawling outside of the ring. Sting and Flair are in the ring fighting for about twenty seconds but they’re soon out on the floor as well. We have to go to a break, and during that break we see...

Remember how I noted the dates had been dropping from the “coming soon” part of Glacier’s promo? Now even COMING SOON has gone. Maybe eventually it won’t even show “GLACIER” any more, it’ll just be the symbol in the background. Then a black screen. Then maybe it’ll just become a Mortal Kombat advert. Would have been a better idea than what eventually happened, but let’s forget about BLOOD RUNS COLD for now.  

We come back and the bell sounds. Things are finally under control.

We start off with Sting and Benoit. Sting takes charge and Benoit rolls over towards Flair and Mongo. Flair holds out his hand for a tag...

And comes in. Sting is going to tag Macho in but Flair knocks Macho off the apron before Sting can make a tag. Soon Flair and Savage are fighting on the floor, near that stupid unnecessary VIP table. The ridiculous candlestick in the middle gets knocked over...

Good. Although they’re lucky it wasn’t lit, or that shit could have ended up on fire. Meanwhile Savage picks up the bowl of fruit and dumps it onto Flair. 

Fruit all over the floor. What a waste.

Flair runs back into the ring but immediately eats a press slam from Sting.

As you can see, the crowd are loving it.

Macho gets tagged in, which leads Flair to drop to the outside and plant a kiss on Miss Elizabeth. This angers Macho who runs over, but gets caught out and double-teamed by Flair and Mongo. The advantage doesn’t last for long though, and soon Savage is back on top. Annoyed by how useless he is at fighting, Flair walks off.

Bye, then.

For some reason Flair stops walking away, sees Savage coming after him and just drops to his knees begging off. This never works and I don’t know why he didn’t just start running. Schaivone says Flair was trying to hide, but if so that was a pretty shitty place to try and hide. Savage throws Flair into the metal bleachers. As he leads Flair back to the ring, I’m sure I hear someone in the crowd say “Macho, put some cheese on it”. What? He might have said “Nacho” instead, so I guess that is kind of a burn, but... not really. I suppose it’s possible he was advising a friend how to best serve nachos, very loudly, and just happened to get picked up on camera. You gotta put cheese on nachos, no doubt.  

Next up Mongo and Luger are tagged in. Oh joy. The fans chant “Luger”. Say what you want about Lex, but until mid-1998 or so he was consistently over with WCW fans.

As Larry is talking about Mongo having “great teachers” in Flair and Anderson, Mongo completely botches running into the ropes and somehow falls through them.

Look at the faces on Lex, Benoit and Flair. W T Fuck? Mongo - unable to run the fucking ropes without botching, but still a member of the Four Horsemen. Both hilarious and tragic. The announcers cover for this by saying that Luger threw Mongo out of the ring through sheer strength. It’s not a bad save in fairness.

Thankfully Mongo tags back out to Flair, who is able to run the ropes without falling outside the ring. He just gets beaten up again though. Flair is just the worst fighter. He so rarely gets in any offence. Benoit comes in and kicks the shit out of Luger. Savage comes in and takes Benoit down, even though he isn’t the legal man. 

Tony mentions that the Dungeon of Doom have “literally” put a bounty on Benoit’s head. I assume that’s just to beat him in a wrestling match, not actually kill him, but it’s the Dungeon of Doom so... who fucking knows. It might be to shave Benoit’s entire body. According to the Giant that’s what the Dungeon like doing.

Flair takes a brutal superplex from Sting. 

That image is a second or so after they landed. Some serious impact. They both literally bounce up like they’re on a trampoline. Mongo is then tagged in again - uh oh spagettios. He basically clotheslines Sting in the corner, executes a tame looking backbreaker, and tags back out to Benoit. Good idea.

Eventually it’s back to Flair and Sting. Slick Ric puts Sting in the Figure Four.

Sting isn’t really selling it much. He looks mildly inconvenienced. Flair starts slapping Sting in the face.

This just annoys Sting, who ends up reversing the Figure Four. Flair tries locking it in again but Sting counters into a rollup.

Flair kicks out and tags in Benoit. The Crippler attacks Sting’s leg and hits him with a snap suplex. Sting kicks out at two. Benoit then puts Sting in a nasty looking Lion Tamer.

He struggles to get full extension on it due to the height difference but it still looks uncomfortable to say the least. 

Luger comes in and breaks the submission up. Benoit tags Flair back in. 

Suddenly Jimmy Hart comes running out, yelling at the cameraman that “we need help” and for him to “come to the back”. 

What good is a cameraman going to do if you need help? 

Drunk?

Well, regardless, the cameraman decides to listen to this lunatic and starts running towards the backstage area. Hart gets up on the apron and tries to get everybody’s attention.

Hilariously the wrestlers just totally ignore him, even though he’s going berserk on the apron. 

Hart finally gets Luger’s attention and yells at him that they need to get to the back.

Who’s on the bottom of Jimmy’s insane tie by the way? I want that tie.

We cut to the back where the cameraman has assumedly ended up, and we see Arn Anderson is down. Hall and Nash are hanging around with baseball bats.

Not sure what that stain is down by Arn’s foot. Not sure I want to know.

I love how these two are just smashing the shit out of people with baseball bats, and still... no thought to call the police. I feel like at this point these two could literally cave somebody’s head in with those bats, murder them live on TV, and Tony would say they’re “sending a message”, Larry would say it’s a “game of chess” - where you smash the fuck out of your opponent’s pieces, apparently - and they’d try to settle it at a PPV. 

Anyhow, the other guy laying on the ground is Marcus Bagwell. 

His tag team partner Scotty Riggs comes out and turns his back to the Outsiders, oblivious to the fact they are obviously the cause of his partner’s injury. What a dunce. He’s also standing like he’s got rickets. 

Hall cracks him over the head with something like light rigging. The camera turns...

And we see Rey Mysterio is standing on the rails here like it’s a turnbuckle. He tries a flying cross body onto Nash, but the big man catches Rey like he’s a small child, aims him towards the trailer and...

Tosses him into the side of it like a lawn dart. One of the more iconic moments of the original nWo invasion, one that everybody remembers. It looked like a rough bump to take, but kudos to Rey for taking it.

The Outsiders get back into their limo just as the Macho Man arrives. Savage dives on top of the limo and reaches through the sunroof as it starts to drive off...

This won’t end well. 

The limo literally drives off with Savage riding on top. Nice knowing you, Macho.

As Savage rides off into the night atop of the Outsiders’ limousine, the backstage area is now filled with wrestlers and yellow shirt security. Just where the fuck were these fuckers when the Outsiders were beating the shit out of people? Obviously the wrestlers in the ring had a reason not to be there, but what were these security people doing? It’s a bit late to be out there now, assholes.

We come back from a break and Woman is cradling Arn like he’s about to die.

Liz and her boobs are there too.

A fire truck arrives. What incompetent idiot called for a fucking fire truck? You have three choices and the only wrong choice would be to call a fire truck. Yet here we are. What are the firemen going to do, hose everybody down? 

Rey is on the ground, holding his head and yelling that “there were four”. Well, unless he’s counting the baseball bats as members of the nWo there were definitely only two. I suppose you could count three if you include the limo driver, but the assumption is that he was just a random dude hired to drive, rather than an nWo member.

An ambulance turns up. That’s more like it. 

I’ve just realised this fucks the rest of the card. Eddie Vs Rey ain’t happening now, neither is American Males Vs the Steiners or Anderson Vs the Giant. Why do I get the feeling the replacements in these matches are going to be a significant downgrade?

Mysterio is having a neck brace put on, and during this time Alex Wright is yelling “Hey Rey! What do you mean by four? What do you mean by four?” ... dude, the guy just got thrown head first into the side of a fucking trailer. Screaming questions at him probably isn’t the best thing to do right now. The medics take Rey’s mask off to treat him. Tony acts shocked by this and says that in Mexico masked wrestlers never take their masks off. Of course, in Mexico they probably aren’t propelled head first into trailers either, so, you know. Hard to treat a head injury when the entire skull is covered by a mask, Tony. 

 Benoit appears to be crying over Arn’s condition. 

Eddie wants to go to the hospital with Rey, but Alex Wright reminds Eddie he’s got a match, and he’ll go instead. The match was with Mysterio so actually Eddie doesn’t have a match anymore, but whatever. If I was Rey I wouldn’t want some German guy sitting next to me yelling “WHAT DO YOU MEAN FOUR?” over and over but the ambulance crew evidently don’t see a problem with it. 

Benoit is still on the verge of tears. He looks like a little boy who’s just seen a dog get run over. Larry says “I know how much Benoit looks up to Arn. This is disheartening”. Disheartening? Is that the best word you can come up with, Larry? Disheartening would be if Arn forgot a conversation they’d had last week. The guy just got attacked and apparently severely injured by two big guys with baseball bats and all you can say is it’s “disheartening”? Jeez.

For some reason Benoit starts getting into it with Meng...

Good thing those ambulances are there. Benoit’s going to need one as well if he starts on Meng.

We go back to Tony and Larry who look a little lost. How boring must this be for the fans out there? As far as I’m aware there’s no screen anywhere showing them what’s happening out the back, so they’re just sitting there looking at an empty ring. I appreciate the tickets were free, but still... 

We go to a break, and when we come back there’s still nothing of note happening. 

Bischoff and Heenan (wearing the same shirt as Zybszko) have arrived, but Tony and Larry haven’e gone anywhere yet. I’m surprised the crowd are still hanging around to be honest. It’s surely been at least twenty minutes for them now.

Heenan says he’s not going to do the broadcast tonight unless he can be guaranteed he won’t be physically hurt. Probably a conversation that should have happened off-air, but whatever. Bischoff says he can’t give Heenan any promises and he should do whatever he feels he has to do. So Bobby leaves. 

Tony says “the wheels are falling off here”. Bischoff says that “fortunately” the fans in attendance can’t see what happened or is happening in the back. Yeah, Eric, I’m sure they would much prefer to stand around staring at an empty ring for half an hour. What a fun time.

A funny thing to note whilst this shit continues to go down - apparently during this incident somebody legitimately did call the emergency services as they thought a gang fight had broken out. At Disneyworld. I’d like to know which gang has claimed the Disney/MGM studios as their turf. Going around spraying Mickey Mouse graffiti everywhere. You don’t fuck with the DisneyWorld Baseball Bat Crew.

Understandably, there’s a loud “BORING” chant from the crowd. Eric says the crowd are “anxious”, Tony points out more astutely that it’s because they’re not seeing what’s going on backstage and nothing is happening in the ring. Of course they’re fucking bored. This is a really cool angle on TV, don’t get me wrong, but those poor fuckers in the crowd are being screwed over big time.

An “nWo” chant breaks out. We see Arn Anderson getting loaded into the ambulance. Bagwell is then loaded into the same ambulance. Sting is holding one of the baseball bats that the Outsiders used. Bischoff calls it “evidence”. Should probably be handing that over to the police, although it only appears that an ambulance and fire truck have shown up. It’s almost like in the world of WCW police simply don’t exist. They’re never mentioned and never seen. The best we get are security guards who are absolutely useless. Remember a few Nitros ago when it took about a hundred security guards to get Hall and Nash out of the arena, and half an hour later the Outsiders were still backstage fucking shit up? WCW hires terrible security and has no understanding of how to file a charge with the police. No wonder Heenan ran off.

Fireworks inappropriately go off behind the WCW sign as we go into a commercial break. That’s the most exciting thing that crowd has seen in about half an hour or so. 

It looks like High Voltage are replacing the American Males.

They’re both yelling stuff that makes no sense.

These kids have become so bored that they’re screaming in excitement for High Voltage of all teams. 

“Here’s a story of two brothers, Rick and Scott...”

Scott’s gigantic arms are covered by his Michigan jersey. The Steiners come out looking quite subdued, with Rick constantly looking behind him. The Outsiders drove off in a limo with Macho Man on top, guys, I think you’re OK. Macho hopefully isn’t laying splattered on a pavement somewhere. Nobody really seems bothered that they saw Savage hanging onto a moving vehicle as it drove away. 

Even though Rick is clearly bothered by what’s happened, he’s still barking. But it’s kind of a sad, tentative bark. You could argue that he shouldn’t be barking at all, but, that’s another story. A lot of things happen in WCW that make no sense.

The Steiner Brothers Vs High Voltage

Scott Steiner starts off dominating Chaos. Fireworks are still going off. Rick Steiner is still totally distracted and won’t get up on the ring apron.

Scott is starting to get pissed off. 

Rick gets tagged in. He barks a few times, then turns away from Chaos and starts pointing towards the empty entranceway. Chaos takes advantage and hammers Rick with a few punches. Rage gets tagged in, and he and Chaos hit a double drop kick on Rick Steiner. Fireworks are STILL going off behind the WCW sign. I have to assume WCW has no control over this.

Rage hits Rick with a flying shoulder block from the top turnbuckle. Rick kicks out at two. The crowd bark in unison to try and lift Rick Steiner.

Chaos goes up to the top turnbuckle, and I think Rick is supposed to reverse Chaos’ jump into a powerslam, but Rick instead just kind of ignores Chaos and does a half-hearted slam motion as Chaos flips over him and crashes to the mat. Made Chaos look like a total chode.

Scotty gets tagged back in and hits Rage with an underarm suplex. For some reason Scotty tags Rick straight back in. Questionable decision considering Rick seems to be struggling to focus unless the crowd is barking “woof woof woof” at him.

Well anyhow, Rick tags Scotty back in after hitting a few moves on Rage and knocking Chaos off the apron. Scott picks Rage up in a Falcon Arrow type position, holds him there for a few moments...

Then drops him right on his head.

It’s basically the Falcon Arrow but way more hardcore. 

Scott gets the three count and this one is over. Low Voltage.

The Steiner Brothers defeat High Voltage via Pinfall.

The crowd are very happy with this outcome. Two guys in the front row exchange a double high five. I guess they wouldn’t mind getting Steinerized.

Yeah... sorry. Anyway.

We’re back to the broadcast position and Bischoff calls it “A heck of a broadcast so far”. Yep. As long as you aren’t in the crowd it’s been a fairly good show.

Tony and Larry look like they’ve just been told Christmas is cancelled. Cheer up guys. Bischoff says “half of WCW have left in ambulances”, which is a pretty significant exaggeration. Bagwell, Riggs, Rey and Arn. That’s four. So unless WCW only has an official roster of eight people I think we can say that an estimate of half is wildly out. I suppose you can count Alex Wright, Sting and Flair as well, since they hopped into the ambulances too, but still.  

I think Tony and Larry are supposed to be looking upset/irritated, but Tony just looks fucking depressed and Larry looks like a kid who’s just been given a time out. Eric says the Outsiders will go “wherever there isn’t security, wherever the weakness of WCW is. That’s where they’ll be”. Well, to review, they’ve come through the crowd and into the ring without being stopped. They’ve ended up at the broadcast booth multiple times without being stopped. They’ve been able to commandeer a live microphone and talk trash multiple times without being stopped. They’ve draped banners over the WCW logo without being stopped. They’ve broken into the production truck and fucked around with the broadcast without being stopped. They’ve powerbombed Bischoff off a stage on PPV without being stopped. They’ve attacked Sting after a Saturday Night taping without being stopped. And they’ve just beaten up multiple people with baseball bats without being stopped. So, yeah, WCW’s weaknesses are basically everything and I’m not convinced they even hire genuine security. If they do then they should probably look at hiring another company.

Oh, here comes Rey’s replacement.

You’ve got to be kidding. How is Big Bubba an appropriate replacement for Rey Mysterio? He weighs about five times as much as Rey and has about a fifth of Rey’s ability in the ring. The name graphic makes it look like Jimmy Hart is “Big Bubba”, which did make me chuckle.

Out comes Eddie.

Eddie Guerrero Vs Big Bubba

This match goes on for a while. I’m skipping towards the end because who cares about any match involving Big Bubba?

I skip ahead and get this visual.

Imagine waking up with that hovering over your face. Terrifying. He mumbles “Big Bubba Rogers” but I can’t make anything else out. 

Match ends when Jimmy Hart attempts to throw Bubba his megaphone to use as a weapon. 

Hart also hugs the referee. 

Bubba lets go o the megaphone, which goes flying into the air, as Eddie grabs him in a rollup. Eddie gets the three, and that’s that. 

Eddie Guerrero defeats Big Bubba via Pinfall. 

We come back from the break to “the following announcement has been paid for by the New World Order”.

Cool. I think this is the first time we’ve had one of these on Nitro. The Outsiders and Hogan are in some kind of studio. The camera cuts randomly between them as the nWo music plays in the background. The video begins like a computer game struggling with inconsistent framerate. 

Hogan says “it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it”. Nash says “people wonder who’s gonna be next? Don’t call us, we’ll call you”. “Yeah,” says Hall. “It’s invitation only, chicos”. 

We get a shot of the three nWo members, whilst video highlights of Hogan play behind them. Hogan says there’s a new world order, and he hopes that’s okay, because there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Nash lists “power, fame, money, and now our own corporation” as the positives. Hall says “think about it, nWo, we’re new, we’re taking over World Championship Wrestling, and we’re giving all the orders”. Not sure the nWo name really needed an explanation, but OK, sure. Hogan yells “it’s the new way, is that OK, billionaire Ted?” ... not sure if he intended to rhyme or not. Hogan quotes humpty dumpty be saying all of Ted Turner’s horses and all of his men won’t be able to put WCW back together again. That’s the second promo in recent times that’s referenced humpty dumpty. First the Giant, now Hogan. Coincidence, I guess? Or the WCW locker room really loves that nursery rhyme.

Hall starts talking about who the fourth or fifth member of the nWo is going to be, and Hogan starts laughing really loudly. A typical evil villain type laugh which kind of throws Hall for a second.

Nash is trying not to laugh at Hogan’s cartoon-villain cackle. Hall says that Sting and Luger have gotten soft at “billionaire Ted’s country club”. He says that he and Nash have had to claw and scratch for everything they’ve got, and that they want Sting and Luger. In the ring, I assume/hope. 

Hogan says he almost forgot that he’s wrestling the Giant at Hog Wild for the world title. Liar. He says that he finds it ironic that WCW could be so weak to have to beg for the Giant to save them from the nWo. Hogan says on August 10th the Outsiders will become the Insiders, and with 500,000 “vroom-baa Harley Davidsons” by their side the nWo “will establish itself as the greatest wrestling organisation on the Earth, brother”. 

OK. The nWo is not exactly a wrestling organisation. It’s just a faction with three dudes in it. Later on you could argue it’s more of an organisation, but right now? No. 

Hall calls Sting a “painted face punk” and says “don’t sing it, bring it.” Nash says they call it “Armageddon” and that “Genesis has begun. It’s the beginning of the new world order”. Didn’t expect a shout out to the bible in here but there you go. Hogan finishes the promo by saying that as the Outsiders take care of the “top talent” in WCW, the Giant will crumble at his feet.

It’s amusing how in these promos Hogan is still basically in Hulk promo mode, yelling, hollering and using big words that don’t necessarily mean what he thinks they mean. Hall and Nash have much calmer, cooler delivery which contrasts quite sharply to Hogan’s more 80′s approach. They pull it together well by editing a lot of Hogan’s stuff to make it more succinct and to the point.

Eric Bischoff has left the broadcast position, leaving Tony and Larry to handle the last fifteen minutes or so of the broadcast. They recap events from earlier in the night. The crowd have had another long wait, between the end of the last match, the nWo promo which none of them would have seen, and now this recap of events earlier in the night that they’re also not seeing. Oh, and they had to sit through long matches involving Jim Duggan, Mike Enos and Big Bubba. I know they got into this show for free, but they still deserve a refund. 

Still, we have the main event left. This is WCW’s chance to replace Arn Anderson with somebody exciting, somebody fresh, somebody who can get the crowd on their feet, somebody who...

Oh.

Greg Valentine.

Greg “charisma” Valentine.

I mean, if this was 1986 then this would have been a decent replacement, but it’s not. These poor fans. 

On the plus side this is unlikely to lost long.

The Giant Vs Greg “the hammer” Valentine

It’s for all the gold. The WCW world title looked so awesome. 

The Hammer manages to rock the Giant early on with a few chops to the chest and clotheslines. 

Doesn’t last long though. Giant knocks Valentine down, picks him up, smashes him across the back, then puts him into the corner and chokes him with his boot. Giant then throws Valentine across to the opposite turnbuckle, goes for some kind of weird splash/elbow but misses in a move very obviously telegraphed, yet somehow the cameramen miss it anyway. 

Valentine heads up top and hits a double axe handle. Giant is momentarily dizzy, but as Valentine scrambles up to the second turnbuckle to try another move, Giant drops the strap on his outfit, runs over and puts his hand around Valentine’s neck.

Uh oh.

Splat. Unsatisfied, Giant roars a few times then picks Valentine up and hits a second chokeslam.

Thanks for coming, Greg. Hey, I’ve just noticed, the dude in the middle on the left with the tash has definitely been at previous shows. So has the woman three to the right from him. I remember her dancing with her daughter to the Nasty Boys theme. The daughter doesn’t appear to be there this time. No Nasty Boys, no interest, I guess. I had no idea WCW had repeated customers for these shows, I always assumed it was just random park guests turning up.

As an aside, check out the guys on the bottom right. Either doing the most awkward wave ever or vicariously living through the Giant chokeslamming poor old Greg. 

The Giant defeats Greg “the hammer” Valentine via Pinfall.

Post-match, Giant leans into the camera and says “I want you to listen real close Hulk Hogan. Pay attention, and listen real close”. He then walks away. I assume he’s going to be interviewed?

Yes, indeed, Mean Gene is in the ring with the Giant. Haven’t seen much of Gene-o tonight. I kind of missed the shit-stirring bell.

Giant is either ripping a major fart or mocking Hogan’s poses. Hopefully the latter, although Jimmy Hart’s expression suggests it could be the former.

Gene asks Giant about Hog Wild. Giant continues mocking Hogan by saying “well you know something Mean Gene, I’ve been to the top of the mountain brother, I’ve walked through the valley of the shadow of death...” Gene pulls the mic away and asks if the Giant has lost his marbles. “That’s a knock off on Hogan!” - no shit, Gene. 

Giant laughs. He says Hogan “conned America”, because he didn’t believe the things he preached. Giant says Hogan started the nWo because he knew he couldn’t be “the big fish in WCW”. Giant says that whilst Hogan has been making movies, he’s been defending the title. Giant says if WCW doesn’t hang together, then they’ll all hang separately, and he’s got a chokeslam noose that’ll fit around Hogan’s neck.

For some reason Okerlund gives the mic to Jimmy Hart, who appears to have taken a shitload of High Voltage’s uppers. He’s all over the place, ranting about “living wrestling 24/7″ and says sometimes he lies so much he believes in his own lies. 

Hart says that one day he’ll have to pay for the things he’s done, but at Hog Wild, they’ll take Hogan out. Well... OK, then. Sounds like Jimmy is involved in some pretty shady shit.

Gene bids us goodnight from Orlando, and WCW decide to show the Outsiders beating the shit out of the WCW guys one more time. Because why not, I guess? They show a slow mo of Rey getting lawn darted into the trailer, and the show ends with a still shot of this as the Nitro music plays in the background.

Nice. I’m sure Rey appreciates that.

[vicbab111]

my husband is having an affair but denies it

my husband is having an affair but denies it

  http://www.keepyourmanawayfromotherwomen.com/fullbook.html

  Relationship Advice The important problem in any relationship that is bad is a breakdown In communication between the two partners.

  This lack of communication is what makes the problems grow in the early phases and moreover, what makes them hugely difficult to deal with in the end stages of the relationship. And basically, whether couples go to workshops Or even answer the questions, or therapy on a relationship quiz together, the real bottom line for any approach is that the two people are talking to each other about their relationship. Too often, talking to every other means battling with each other. Relationship problems can not be solved with yelling and screaming and the principal point of a workshop, or a quiz or therapy is that there’s something or somebody there to avoid the yelling and screaming from taking over the process. Distance always presents an lame and unnecessary explanation for

http://www.keepyourmanawayfromotherwomen.com/fullbook.html

With lovers feelings of loneliness gradually wrap cold arms around one or both partners. When disparity’s feeling engulfs one partner or both, the end product is always ‘infidelity’. They could feel quite lonely and long for the business of the opposite sex. Libido could start rising, making it difficult for the 1 in desperate need of his/her partner, who is miles away, to stay aloof from leaping onto the other persons bed. Philanderers and nymphomaniacs are very vulnerable to this Distraction in a relationship but this is a topic for discussion in a different article. The measures and cure to the character trait that is damaging and problematic aren’t impracticable. The buttons of character traits that are embedded in every 1 of us could be controlled by us.

I believe that ‘unfaithfulness’ sits calmly in 1 corner, like all other characters of our robotic creation, until we tap into it. Then it is turned on and released. This may be reversed – the mechanism is not too different from that of a remote control that comes on and goes off in the push of the button.

Boredom, as was discussed is an ‘infidelity’ prompter, can be

A couple in a relationship could avoid boredom from slipping into their relationship so long as the enthusiasm that was in the beginning of the relationship in them stays alive. In order for this to be accomplished there ought to be understanding that is total. There should be fire.

my husband is having an affair but denies it

http://www.keepyourmanawayfromotherwomen.com/fullbook.html

  Both partners should constantly explore every other, learn more about every other, get and shut out any other intruders of the opposite sex. They should see each day as the very first of their romantic escapade and . Their partner should be seen by them .

Relationships are durable when dialogue is referred to as upon. Relationships shouldn’t live by bread (sex) alone, but by the words that come from every spouses’ mouth. It has a power of bringing people quite close.

They should lay their hearts bare and direct every other to About themselves and people today tend to stick with you when you tell them the truth about yourself. There can’t be any dull moments in partners’ lives if they make dialogue a stepping stone in their relationship. If he or she does nothing more than to provide a safe atmosphere for the couple to talk about their relationship 30, the therapist can be helpful.

  my husband is having an affair but denies it

Obviously, if the therapist can make suggestions, comments and offer advice to the couple on how to better deal with each other, this may greatly help them and accelerate the healing process. By merely providing a forum for calm, orderly discussion, the therapist can move a couple off of the path towards a breakup or divorce and back to the realm of hope for the existence of the relationship. The issues may come from any list – sex, money, quality Time, control influences infidelity, fear, listening to and supporting every other, but all of these problems can be addressed, perhaps not solved but at least addressed, through communication with each other. If there is no communication, the relationship issues will win out and the relationship itself must fail. Some men cheat while some do it because of wrong Influences or overpowering feelings. The reasons are varied and differ from man to man. Infidelity has turned into a torture for the women who want their guys to belong solely to them. The worst part about unfaithfulness is even when you find out, many times they’re unacceptable and that, you might never know the reason for it. The most difficult thing about this matter is, to find out whether your man is cheating on you or not. In fact, it’s observed that most men who don’t and cheat Want to get caught, keep their wives happy and do not give her a chance to complain. But of course, this might not be accurate for all men. So ladies, please do not begin doubting your husband or boyfriend on the basis of this. Sometimes, women have a tendency to take a relationship of friendship between a man and any of his female friend, in a sense that is wrong. Affairs, including emotional affairs, are generally unplanned events. Even if we are on that slippery slope, we convince ourselves everything in OK. “But we’re just friends” are four of the most dangerous words for your relationship and marriage. Although it’s certainly true that there are affairs that begin with impulsive one-night stands with a stranger, the most common ones that I see start as “just friends.” In actuality, if you find yourself thinking or saying “but we’re just friends” you are likely already in trouble.

Might be considered ‘normal’ behaviour in a man. First of all, there needs to be some degree of commitment and exclusivity between the two partners, furthermore, this commitment needs to be understood and agreed by both people. Obviously, marriage, engagement would constitute a level of commitment. Regularly dating for a period, may also be seen as constituting a commitment. It is here that the confusion starts to arise for a man may not feel he is committed to another person until he has said for the woman the simple fact that he dates her regularly may be observed as a sign of commitment. It’s where there is a disagreement as to the degree of Commitment involved, that problems occur. The man may feel he’s free to observe another person without it being considered ‘cheating’ but the woman (his first partner) would be more likely to consider it cheating. There are several reasons for why men cheat on women. But a lot of surveys have seen out that the main reason for infidelity in case of men is sex. Basically, there are different types of infidelities which Are observed and they vary with regard to the time factor. The kind is the famous ‘one-night stands/caps’. These last only for a single night and does not include any ties. A level higher than this are the affairs, wherein the cheating man continues to be with his wife and has a mistress on the side. In cases like this, the husband attempts to conceal the relationship from his loved ones. He may or may not get emotionally involved with the affair. If the Engagement is limited, then he may leave the mistress rather than providing up his family. However, if the Engagement outside is greater, he may separate from the family that’s the worst type of infidelity. Also, There’s a degree to which a person separates the Physical act of lovemaking from the emotional connection to another person. A man is able to do the act without becoming emotionally connected to the woman. A man may often cite that a fling or an affair was ‘only physical’ and that it does not imply that he is not emotionally and physically attracted to his first spouse. For a man, this is often true and is not an excuse. However, the woman is likely to view the situation differently. Some evidence or evidence of it. This is frequently to meet and corroborate her perception. However, the woman frequently has not thought via what she would do if the evidence became proof of her man’s infidelity. For the girl, proof of the cheating of her man brings hurt and anger. It will often also bring about feelings of distress, loss of self esteem and a feeling that she was to blame. This creates a dilemma for the woman; should she attempt to fix out the relationship of belief that she’s been to blame for his infidelity or if she end the connection acting out of anger or emotional distress? The emotional consequences of the cheating of a man are not Clear to the man not before his act. It’s only that a person may have some feelings of guilt. Nevertheless, if he’s not found out, then these may subside and the man comes to believe that he can eliminate the cheating. Even so, if he tries to continue and to get away with his cheating, he still knows that at some point he is likely to be found out. It can become a contest, how far can he go without being seen out? To many men, having partners is observed as a symbol of their status. Even when in a committed relationship, they may think they have a require to boost esteem, their status or ego by cheating. The lack of love, affection and support as a result of a simple thrill, does not occur to them until too late. In their hearts and minds, men know that cheating is wrong, yet frequently their egos and, quite simply, the temptations overrule their hearts and minds.

The word infidelity brings with it fear to every woman I’ve Ever had the opportunity. Cheating on you, you should start by looking for a few of the signs.

Lower desire to be with you sexually. Suddenly tries new sexual positions. Working late more often. Phone calls.

Angry when you look at the cell phone, pager, or computer. Is secretive of these. Smell of perfume. Takes a shower once he comes home. You find hairs or objects on his body or in his possessions. Starts taking more care with his appearance.

Accuses you of cheating.

He changes his routine without reason or cause. The world’s current scenario regarding relationships And commitments may compel you to believe that marriage is no longer an institution which is regarded with the exact vows and values in the modern world, as it had been during the past. Statistics are currently blowing the trumpet that infidelity is your reality that is modern-day. The truth about deception is revealed in this write up via some shocking facts and info. Here are some infidelity facts. Cheating statistics are Increasing at a pace. Many surveys and magazines have come out with many statistics. Long-lasting marriages and relationships that are healthful appear to be an elusive hunt for couples nowadays. According to researchers, gut instinct is the hint of infidelity. If you’re feeling something you almost know it. A study suggests that nearly 40% men and 60% women in USA have been in some type of extramarital affairs at some stage of the marriage. Almost 22% men have been at least once during their married life. Love is the ultimate in any relationship. Love changes everything. Differences between them less important. Love perseveres, love endures, love Withstands torture, love passes the test of time and love overshadows all other negative emotions. There needs to be genuine love. Love should And must be immeasurable with both spouse nor too bashful to act. Love is the foundation of an relationship not lust Love does not hibernate, it remains strong. The partners

my husband is having an affair but denies it

    Other good resources to check out below:

Signs Husband is Cheating

my husband cheated on me

Why do guys cheat if they love you

How to keep your man

How to keep a man

How to keep a man

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