#the potential these two could have had to be a hot power couple is tragic

[smuganya]

We’ll throw a party they’ll never forget.

[twistedtummies2]

Christopher Lee: A Sinister Centenary - NUMBER ONE

Welcome to the last entry of Christopher Lee: A Sinister Centenary! Over the course of May, I have been counting down My Top 31 Favorite Performances by my favorite actor, the late, great Sir Christopher Lee, in honor of his 100th Birthday. Although this fine actor left us a few years ago, his legacy endures, and this countdown is a tribute to said legacy!

We’ve come to the finale of this special event. I’ve discussed Christopher Lee’s two favorite pictures, “Jinnah” and “The Wicker Man,” and I’ve discussed some of his most well-known characters, such as Saruman and Count Dooku. But today, we discuss my personal favorite Christopher Lee Performance…or rather, my favorite Christopher Lee Character: Count Dracula.

Who else could it be?

The Creature – Frankenstein’s Monster – was the role that officially put Christopher Lee on the map. It got the attention of Hammer studios, and made audiences curious…but if that had been Lee’s one standout role, I doubt he’d be as revered as he is today. A bit like how it took “Empire Strikes Back” to TRULY cement Darth Vader’s place in the annals of villainy, I think it is fair to say that it took “Horror of Dracula” to cement Christopher Lee as an actor. However, Lee really only got the part because of Frankenstein, and on closer inspection, this is clear: for most of the film, Dracula is not onscreen, and after the opening sequence with Jonathan Harker, he never speaks again for the remainder of the movie. Ironically, however, these same qualities were part of what made the character so fascinating: the mystery and the power Lee carried, doing so much with so little, made his Dracula instantly memorable, and from that moment on, his reputation was set in stone.

This was as much a blessing as a curse. Lee would, in the end, play Dracula a total of TEN TIMES in theatrical films: seven times for Hammer, once in the Jess Franco picture “Count Dracula,” once in a (bad) comedy/parody film called “Dracula and Son,” and once in a cameo appearance in the film “One More Time,” directed by Jerry Lewis and starring Sammy Davis Jr. (Not the place you’d usually expect Dracula to show up, but whatever.) On top of that, he would end up playing the real-life inspiration for the Count, Vlad Dracula, in a documentary entitled “In Search of Dracula.” And even THAT is not the end, as Lee would narrate an (abridged) audiobook of the Bram Stoker novel in 2009. Put it all together, and you can make a case for Lee tackling the Count a whole dozen times. Even if you only count the initial ten, that’s more than any actor has EVER played Dracula, at least in movies: that’s more than Bela Lugosi, Adam Sandler, and John Carradine COMBINED.

If you will pardon the expression…HOT. DAMN.

Carving out a name for himself as the King of the Vampires was something that Lee would always have something of a love/hate relationship with. On the one hand, Dracula was the role that brought him fame and recognition beyond any other, and to this day he is one of the most iconic and lauded interpreters of the character, especially through the Hammer Horror franchise. On the other hand…if we’re being completely honest, out of all ten of his film appearances as the Count, there are really only a couple that I would solidly and honestly consider to be good movies, with few major flaws to speak of. The rest all range from “okay” to “OH GOD WHAT IS THIS TRAVESTY MAKE IT STOP.” Lee, himself, was well-aware of the flaws in the material for most of his pictures, and as a fan of the Bram Stoker novel, he hated how the writers – especially with the Hammer features – never seemed to use the character to what he felt was their full potential.

Perhaps more important and tragic than the lackluster material, however, was what it did to Lee’s career, and it was this, above all else, that proved to be Lee’s ultimate bitter point with the role and the movies he was in for it: no matter what else he did, for decades upon decades, Lee – like the aforementioned Lugosi – was seen as Dracula. This lasted well into the modern day: while younger viewers of today will probably recognize him better for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or his Tim Burton film appearances, the directors of those same movies never failed to remind Lee with jokes about his role as the Count…something which seemed to mildly frustrate the great man, even then. In fact, any time a director DIDN’T make a joke about Dracula, or only did it once, Lee would point this out as being something that endeared them to him. All the way to the end, the vampire lord dogged this man, and Lee’s commentary on his tenure was, for the most part, quite sour.

Having related all this, the ultimate question one must ask about Christopher Lee and Count Dracula is…why? Why, when the actor so clearly had resentment against so many of the films, and repeatedly stressed his desire to put that character aside and move on, did he keep coming back to it, again and again and again? With Hammer, Lee has gone on record saying he was basically blackmailed into doing most of those movies…but this doesn’t explain his appearances in the non-Hammer properties. And for all the bitterness he had, when Lee was actually asked about the CHARACTER, and his approach to the role as an actor, he always spoke of it fondly, with enthusiasm and analytical intensity.

I think the ultimate answer is that, for all the ups and downs Dracula provided Lee, it was, nevertheless, a role he legitimately cared about. He may not have liked the movies, but he liked the Count, and he was protective of the part. Even in the worst of his Dracula outings, he is always A+ in his delivery of whatever material he’s given. He took steps to try and inject something special into the character, when even the writers often clearly hadn’t the foggiest idea of what they were doing. And in every story you hear about the movies, in every clip from behind-the-scenes you see, he’s having fun. Whatever curse Dracula brought to Christopher Lee…perhaps the pains, in the end, were worth it. Lee may or may not have been proud to see Dracula take the top spot on this list…but it’s the spot his Dracula deserves.

Thank you all for joining me on this adventure through the wild and wonderful career of Sir Christopher Lee. What countdown shall I do next? Only time will tell. ;)

Once again, Happy Birthday, Sir Christopher. I hope that yourself, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price are having fun up there in that big mystery movie in the sky.

[wolfstar-in-color]

July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that. 

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him. 

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things. 

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation. 

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit. 

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do). 

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster. 

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

[renaerys]

22. for reds 🤡

This is 100% not what you asked for (yet...👀), but I give you part 1 of what we're calling the Weird King AU. I'm turning this into a proper multi-chapter High School fic because I love you and I'd jump on any bandwagon for you.

xxx

Like most young, conventionally attractive Supervillains, Brick had made a bit of a habit of failing upwards. It was pretty easy in a town full of simpering morons content to project their own narrative assumptions onto him, and who was he to crush their dreams when they made his life a little easier?

For example, dating.

“You can tell me, you know.” His cute date, Tracy, sipped her milkshake across from him.

“Tell you what?”

She softened and reached her hand across the table. “Your tragic backstory. I’ll listen without judgment, I promise.”

Brick tried to think of something tragic, but it all seemed pretty underwhelming as far as Supervillain origin stories went. “You mean like how I was born in a toilet?”

She made an oh shape with her lips. “We all have those days where we feel like we were born in a toilet, Brick.”

He’d dated Tracy for three months before she broke up with him out of the blue in tears: sorry she couldn’t fix his baggage, she just wasn’t strong enough to handle all that tortured darkness, but she wished him nothing but health and happiness. Brick deleted her number from his phone and spent twenty whole minutes staring at the toilet in his bathroom, wondering what the lesson here was.

But everything changed when Mojo got out of prison and moved Brick and his brothers back to Townsville, where he enrolled them in the local high school alongside their former arch nemeses, the Powerpuff Girls.

Suddenly, everything Brick did pre-supposed ill intent. These people remembered him as the pest who had graffitied their local monuments and blown up their cars and endangered their children. They held no love for him, and at best they feared him. This was not Citiesville, where he’d been a tall, cold glass of Voss water in a sea of recycled Dasani.

He found himself thinking about his birthing toilet again as he stepped into the cafeteria alone and the conversation quieted down as his new classmates watched him from the safety of their tables. His next moves here were critical. He was no longer at the top of the food chain, but fear and mystery surrounding his origins and character gave him a certain power over his peers.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of social suicide, I will fear no cringe,” he said to himself.

The jocks were out. Capable though he may be, Brick was not much of a team player unless there was a blood contract involved requiring his participation on pain of satanic torture. The drama kids were also a hard pass, not because he thought drama was lame, but because they had barely noticed him walk in, and Brick did not have the energy to deal with people more self-involved than himself. Some of the unaffiliated tables could be safe, but without a good understanding of the nuanced social dynamics in the high school, he could be heading toward irreversible doom, and that was a risk he was not willing to take.

He saw his salvation just ahead. It was the only option, all else being equal. In an environment where he couldn’t be certain of his baseline status and potential for upward mobility, there was greatness to be had only by association and certainty only in the devil he knew.

Brick helped himself to the empty seat directly across from Blossom Utonium to a chorus of gasps and staring.

Blossom did not startle like her table mates had. She watched him critically behind a head full of bangs as she balanced her soup spoon in her hand. “Really.”

Brick unwrapped the burrito he’d purchased in the lunch line and brandished it before him. “Really.”

He took a bite of the burrito. It was not hot enough. The two girls to Blossom’s left whispered to each other about that bad boy and he’s hot, though.

Blossom daintily spooned soup into her mouth without spilling a single drop as she continued to watch Brick for signs of his imminent dark side transformation.

The guy next to Brick was brave enough to ask him what his next class was. Brick had a mouth full of disappointing burrito, so he passed the guy the printout of his class schedule in lieu of answering.

“Wow, all APs, huh? Hey, we’re in U.S. History together next period, nice. I’m Mike Believe, by the way. Brick Jojo, right?”

Brick didn’t answer him immediately on account of the burrito currently occupying his mouth hole, and Mike took it the wrong way.

“Oh, yeah, we all know who you are. Blossom sort of filled us in.” He winced like he’d inadvertently revealed a terrible secret.

Brick swallowed his food and washed it down with a gulp of water. “Saves me some time.”

Mike looked super relieved. “For sure! Hey, I could lend you my notes if you want to catch up. Gershwin’s giving a quiz on the Progressive Era on Friday, and she’s a hard-ass who definitely won’t care that you just transferred…”

Brick chewed on his lunch as Mike continued to talk at him about classes and other vaguely helpful, albeit uninteresting, information. But Mike seemed normal enough, a little chatty but not in an overeager sort of way. Blossom was no longer clocking his every move and seemed to be absorbed in her friend’s latest swim team cheating scandal, until Brick reached for his water bottle and she suddenly laser-focused on his wandering hand.

Her keen attention to him was honestly flattering, if expected. It was in his nature to be noticed, and in this narrow respect she was no different from anyone else whose head he turned. If she chose to feed her interest with the flames of suspicion, then it was no difference to him.

But if she was anything like him—and on a chemical level she was probably the closest to him that a person could get—he suspected it took tremendous effort to hold her full and sustained attention. The world they inhabited was as vapid and mundane as the humans that surrounded them, and even the most gracious of gods grew bored of worship. Which explained all the smiting and fucking and generational curses upon entire households in everything from Greek mythology to the Old Testament.

Brick was pretty deep into a fantasy of Blossom going full Ixion and the Wheel on the swim team when Mike tapped his shoulder. “You ready to go?”

It took him a moment to realize the bell had rung and he had a class to get to—AP U.S. History with Mike, apparently. Brick gathered his tray and his bag and followed Mike. When he looked back at the table, Blossom was already gone.

xxx

That whole first week was painfully boring. No one bullied him, or pranked him, or picked a fight with him, of course. But no one really approached him, either. His brothers were more determined to make an effort. Boomer announced he was trying out for the soccer team because there was no rule saying a Super with extremely well documented ties to active criminals and the forces of Hell couldn’t kick a ball around a field. Butch had gotten himself invited to a midnight screening of Snakes on a Plane in some rich kid’s home movie theater, but only after that same kid had accidentally spilled milk on Butch and burst into tears in front of a cafeteria full of Juniors and Seniors. Brick declined the invitation Butch extended to him. He had that AP U.S. History exam to study for on Friday, anyway.

He shared all of his classes with Blossom. Even in the classes where her assigned seat was behind his and he couldn’t see her, he could feel her lobotomizing stare at the back of his head whenever she glanced up from her notebook. And while Mike’s notes were perfectly adequate and the friendly gesture counted for more than the content (a gesture Brick would not soon forget), there was a far more efficient way to accomplish his goal of murdering the class averages while also taking the edge off his loner doldrums.

“Can I borrow your class notes?”

Blossom rose from her seat and pulled her hair tie out to re-do her extremely long ponytail. She held the elastic between her teeth as she worked. Her teeth were very straight, he noticed. Some pretty nice girl-teeth, generally speaking.

“Which class?”

“All of them.”

He watched her wind the elastic around her hair with quick, adroit fingers. “That’s a lot of notes.”

“You’re the top of every class. No point in asking anyone else.”

She moved toward the hall. He followed her out. “Why would I help you?”

A legitimate question delivered without venom. Unlike her sister Buttercup, who’d “run into” Brick after school on Monday and told him to watch his back, Blossom didn’t have to do anything but maintain a general proximity to make her superiority complex known. Which was the kind of flex he could fuck with.

“Isn’t helping people sort of your mandate?”

They had arrived at her locker, which she opened with enough force to rattle the hinges. “I help the helpless. Are you helpless, Brick?”

Brick smiled at her baiting. Had she ever actually said his name at a normal volume before? It sounded good even in her baseline bitch timbre. “Critically helpless. I’m the new student who transferred in the middle of the semester, and you’re the only person who knows me.”

A couple other students clearly trying to get to the lockers Brick was blocking hovered just out of reach. They whispered to each other, but neither of them actually worked up the courage to ask Brick to move. He ignored them.

Blossom rummaged in her locker for the binder she would need for the next class. “Make friends.”

“Working on it.”

The locker door slammed and she faced him. There was something confrontational in the way she held herself before him that kicked him in the nuts back in time thirteen years to their more uncouth days when all he wanted to do was destroy her so he’d be the only one. Now they were older and wiser and he actually did need her notes to study, so destroying her was not high on his list of priorities.

“You want to be my friend.”

“We have so much in common.”

“So do lions and hyenas.”

“Both are apex predators, so.”

She took a step closer and peered up at him. Brick did not move, although he wondered what was so interesting about his face. She probably just thought he was hot. She was probably as bored as he was. She probably—

“You have lettuce in your teeth.”

Brick pulled back and covered his mouth on instinct. God fucking damnit.

Blossom was already walking away from him by the time he’d picked the food from his teeth. “I’ll expect my notes back in mint condition before first period tomorrow morning.”

Brick pressed a fist against the lockers and quietly fumed. “Dumbass…”

“Um, sorry, but do you mind…?”

The student who’d been waiting for her locker space to clear up had her palms up as if to assuage a feral stray. Brick pushed off the lockers, but his fist left a dent where he’d unleashed some of his impotent self-pity. He looked back at the girl, and she shook her head.

“It’s fine! It, uh, it happens sometimes.” She pointed a couple lockers down to Blossom’s, which was dinged up worse than the others.

Brick stared at Blossom’s locker, and then back at the girl. Her narrow, dark eyes were wide, but not out of fear. She was waiting for something, and like an idiot it took him a moment to catch up. “You’re trying to make me feel better about fucking up your locker.”

She laughed nervously. “I mean, it’s really fine! You just looked so miserable for a second there, and I just thought…”

Great, he was moping so hard he had an audience.

The five minute warning bell rang, and a flood of students rushed past them on their way to fourth period. Brick stepped aside so the girl could get to her locker.

“Hey, you’re the new guy, right?”

The new guy, yeah. How quaint. Except, she was waiting for a response, which wasn’t the absolute worst thing that had happened to him all week.

“Brick,” he said. But of course, she already knew that, and she was just being nice.

“I’m Kim. Kim Chan.”

“Okay.” He didn’t have anything else to say to her, so he decided to get his shit and get to his next class.

“Welcome back to Townsville, Brick.”

Brick shoved his hands in his pockets and stalked off. It didn’t occur to him until later that Kim was the first and only person who had properly welcomed him back home.

[ahjustroza]

Hello, could you write an HC about an GN!MC who used to be a mob boss or run an illegal organization and the Mains 6 + Valerius' Reaction? Doesn't need to be angsty just dramatic

I wanted to go dramatic with the CGs lmao. Also, it got long and everything is under the cut.

Warning!

Headcanon includes the mention of murder, suicide, crime, and depression. So I would say it is NSFW.

Mob Boss MC Headcanons

Asra

He always knew it

He knows everything about you even the things you don't know about yourself

I can see you as the type of boss that doesn't create mass murders for personal gain

However, I can see thievery, blackmailing, and playing your games dirty

Maybe illegal underground market business in the red market (a version of the black market in Vesuvia)

You are smart but also have a soft spot

For him

And only him

Since MC canonically lives with him for a long time I can only picture you being a mob boss in your past before him

But your past is probably still haunting you

You don't necessarily need a tragic childhood to be a mob boss

I want to leave the reasons up to you but I refuse to believe you would be cruel and unreasonable

Because you are all amazing human beings

Many people get into this lifestyle by mistake, choice, or by someone else's force

Whatever reason that made you get into this lifestyle however did change you

You have trust issues, always on defensive mode, and always observing everything around you for possible threats or problems

But he came into your life and became the center of it

You told him what you did before moving to Vesuvia step by step

Not in one go

You tried to see how he would react to you

When you couldn't keep this secret from him anymore, you just told him

It was very impulsive of you

Highly surprising

You told him how you started from the bottom and climbed to the top

you told him how everyone in your home knows your name

How many people were your followers and how if you ask they will come and continue to follow you without a question

You did dirty work, you hurt people too

Violence is something he can not tolerate

At all

But just like you, he is also at the loss of words when any topic comes to the possibility of you leaving

He doesn't want you to go

And you don't want to leave

So expect him to stay away from you for a while

He will not speak of it out loud ever again

Never going to tell anything to even Muriel

No one has to know

Because you are now here and a different person

He will assume that you did what you did to survive

Just like his best friend...

When you lose your memories and slowly starting to gain them back

He is hesitant to answer any question regarding your past

But he knows that he has to

So he does

And you get involved in the red market

Asra is disappointed but you assure him that it is to find ingredients for your magic shop

He will never leave you, but he is not approving illegal business

Yet who he is to judge?

He made a ritual to bring you back by killing the Count of Vesuvia

So he is more on the stick close to you so that you won't get hurt side

Nadia

She will either use your connections for spy mastering or lock you up until she gets rid of your gang/illegal organization

But oh no she will not give up on you for being a simple mob boss oh no

She grew up into the royalty and probably dealt with and seen worst situations

She will not allow you to put yourself into any kind of danger and if she must she will put you on house arrest or even lock you up in dungeons

She dealt with a crazy husband before and she learned from her mistakes

So do as she says

She will give you two options, either listen to her or leave Vesuvia completely

Nadia will want her answer on the spot because if you truly want to be with her, you shouldn't need a lot of time to think about it

She will be even more dominant around you

She will make sure to remind you who has the power

If you leave Vesuvia she will never want to see you again

But she will be there personally to put you to the ground if you cause any trouble

If you choose to stay then you have another two options

You leave the business completely or run it for her favor

Provide him important information about the underground market and other organizations in Vesuvia

Yet that only can happen if you can hide your identity as a mob boss

So get creepy and wear a Tokyo Ghoul mask during business hours

I'd say if you chose to go disguise and spy on the underground for Nadia

You two will be the dictionary definition of the power couple

Like hot damn

Imagine

You live like royalty during the day and go be a mob boss during the night

She will even make you her spymaster if you are willing

Julian

He will volunteer to be your henchman (is this what it is called?)

Yeah

You have now extra trouble because he is not leaving your side

He will even find you more connections for business

He knows key people in different countries and cities

He knows roads to pass without getting caught

He did live this lifestyle for quite a long time after all

Minus the mob boss part

He is by no means not letting anyone he doesn't like to even have an audience with you

My man knows his way with people and not afraid to put up a fight for you

He is impulsive but useful in the underground world

He is a doctor without a license (or it is just a myth? who really knows...) so he was really doing illegal consultations on regular basis lol

He will patch you up when you get hurt and probably will teach you how you can make lethal damage to your enemy during a fight by teaching you anatomy

You will have to send him to horny jail whenever he talks about anatomy because he is a visual learner

And the best way he teaches anything is to show you

So lock him up

It's not like he will resist

He is good with reading body language too

I can think of Julian to be giving you the most understanding reaction when you tell him that you are a mob boss

He has a history (again I remind you)

So if he is in love with you, he is stuck to your side and yes he will still have his leeches with him

His plague doctor mask becomes popular underground too

If you didn't know better, even you would find him scary and intimidating looking during the friendly business hours

And Julian being Julian, he will insist that you find yourself a mask too

So that you will be a power couple

But make it romantic

However, this is the best scenario where you are just doing business in the red market by selling illegal goods, or being a Mob Boss Robin Hood

if you do unacceptable things, such as cruelty towards children and the innocent

And anything violent that including torture and murder,

He will end this all himself

Julian is dramatic but if he had to kill you because there is no other way to stop you he will

Then will follow you not too long after.

Portia

She will hate to hear that.

Portia is strong but fragile at the same time

She has a strong emotional connection to you and you are probably one of those people she trusts more than anyone

So when you say that you are a mob boss she is broken

Hurt and disappointed

But mostly confused

She doesn't know what to do with this

What to do with you, with what you have between the both of you

She loves you a million

But you are wrong with your life decisions

the good and the bad fights inside of her mind when she tries to make a decision

She will either leave everything behind and live a life similar to what her brother had to live

Or let you go to be yourself and get hurt

She will never forget you or never stop loving you

But she will be in a deep depression after you leave her

Most likely never recover

Because you broke the trust she gave you

So if you want her

If you want to be with her

You have to play your cards right

You are on very thin ice here

You can literally break her in a way without a return

So chose your life carefully

What do you want to do as a mob boss?

Will, you hurt people? Cause trouble and chaos? Torture the innocent and break families?

Or will you just do underground illegal trades and sales?

She can keep your secret if you just do your business in the red market

But she will not tolerate you causing harm to others

She will hate it but will stop you no matter the cost before you become the monster you two fought while falling in love with each other

You have her heart

But she has yours too

So she will not allow anyone else to stop you and do it herself

Because she is afraid for others to put you down in a painful way

She'll stop you rather gently

Caress your cheek while crying beside you

She will never forgive you but also will never stop loving you

You are her only big love and will remain like that forever

Or

She will be the person she was while Julian was on the run

Always nervous and always having anxiety and panic attacks

She won't leave you no

No no no no.

She rather dies than spend a day without the thought of you not loving her

Being there for her

She refuses very strongly to let you go and also get caught.

So in this scenario, you two are still together and preferably alive

But she is in agony every second of the day

And you know that this is all your fault

Yet continue anyway.

Muriel

No.

He is not accepting this.

He will be furious and hurt so much that he will tell you to go right away

He trusted you and you betrayed him

There is not much to say for Muriel

He doesn't want to see you again

Even though he wants you

He dreamed about having a peaceful life with you

But he will not go over all the pain he had caused by violence and power

Lucio

You already know he is down

He will do anything for you

Destroy enemy mob boss?

Run the entire underground together?

Invade a city so that you can make the illegal legal?

Do you want someone dead?

Do you want him to arm people for you?

Recruit followers?

Done.

With the potential he has there is no option to stay peaceful in the underground business

Even if you just mention that you want to make a certain business

He'll take it as order the moment it comes out of your mouth

It will be scary

Terrifying even

You will be unstoppable

Valerius

Lmao you probably got him cornered and forced him to work with you

And he got so turned on that said yes on the spot

But made it look as he was the victim here

He seems to be distressed with your connection but secretly he likes the power you have

You do as you please, take whatever you want

And people in the palace have no idea

He knows that you are smart

Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to become a boss and run your business flawlessly

He'll support you financially of course

Under the table

But the real job he does is to give you information

He is also good at creating gossips and rumors as well

He is connected to the high class and works in the palace so it is really hard for people to make any kind of connection between him and you

He pretends to make investigations about your illegal business but what he actually does is mislead the palace

In return, you get him precious stuff

Expensive wine, silk clothes, anything he wants

Oh my god Valerius is your sugar baby and he doesn't even know

Whenever you tell him to see you he is there the moment he can leave his work

He likes to be around you but plays hard to get

He loves to see you struggle and frustrated

He will not give you away but don't expect him to go down with you if you get caught either

He cares about his reputation

The best he can do is to help you escape in a way people can't make connections with him

Then you will most likely become his sugar baby-ish for a while

He will boss you around but the second you remind him who you are he will act bratty

Oh does he likes being bratty

[pallasperilous]

Boneless Wings

 {AO3 version}

So, blah blah blah, it’s their standard-issue disaster: pack of dumbass witches (always with the dumbass witches. Where do they find the time for this shit? Somebody get these women signed up for a Peloton subscription or a macramé class or a vibrator of the month club, seriously, whatever it takes—), ancient curse, Castiel being the actual angel of stepping in it, nobody cares. 

The point is, two hundred and forty-one hours of binge-worthy drama later, Dean and Cas are living in a semi-detached just a short thirty-minute commute to somewhere equally lame, Castiel has two literal-ass wings, and yes, Susan, they kiss now. 

The neighbors are weirdly cool with it. 

For those of you perving along at home, Dean could absolutely provide a list of the hundred or so ways that having a boyfriend* with giant fucking actual wings is super hot and/or awesome.

This is not that list.

(*you can just shut right the fuck up , Sam, because it’s either this or Dean will start saying lover. And nobody needs that. Nobody wants that.)

1.  Bird mites. Holy shit. 

 2.  Sharing a bathroom. The shower curtain rod, and consequently the security deposit, are early casualties. The medicine cabinet follows swiftly behind. Shower hijinks are not even an option.

 3.  Dean comes home one day from a gig and there is a giant plastic green turtle in the backyard. A closer inspection reveals that the turtle is actually a mule for about half a truck bed of industrial dust ‘n grit. It is, in fact, a kiddie sandbox. Dean points out that they do not, in fact, have a small child (FINGERS CROSSED), so...?

Cas then earnestly shows him an entire playlist of exotic birdy dust bath videos on Youtube. 

Dean then earnestly shows him the garden hose. 

4.  The down just gets, like...everywhere. EVERYWHERE. How many times have Sam and Dean practically sold their kidneys for a single angel feather for some dumb spell to solve some pointless Occult McProblem? And now Dean is picking them out of his damn teeth every morning. (No, gross, not because of... Jesus, no, that is not a thing.)

On the upside of this one, Dean finally has an excuse to buy a Dyson, which he’s secretly always thought looked awesome. It is. 

 5.  When Dean is scraping out the umpteenth canister of fluff he jokingly suggests they use some of it to supplement the tragically flaccid down comforter currently shaming their bed, and Castiel pitches an existential fucking sulk. Dean wants to experience happiness again, so he does not point out that it get ass-bitingly cold here this time of year, and decent bedding is not exactly inexpensive, and the Dyson kind of maxed them out on household purchases.

But whatever.

 6.  Castiel is indulging in what Dean thinks of as a sky pout when he flies right into a head-on with li’l Timmy NextDoor’s new Christmas surveillance drone. It dings the shit out of one of Cas’s left primary feathers (the scientific term is “those big motherfuckers”), which apparently hurts like a bitch. Cas is grounded for a few weeks after that and is cutely pathetic about it and at first Dean is absolutely down to kiss it better. By the end, Dean is almost ready to strangle Cas with his own necktie, but he has learned a lot of surprisingly interesting stuff about ancient Mesopotamia, like that it was super horny.

 7.  After the snow melts, Dean starts finding shit on the front step with the morning paper. It’s not even a good newspaper; Cas signed them up for the local fish-wrapper (or maybe it was Sam, before he fled for the hills— he occasionally breaks out in a  “support local journalism” rash). The crossword puzzle is insulting, but the paper does at least syndicate Carolyn Hax, whom Dean secretly suspects of being an absolute wildcat in the sack, so he grudgingly expends the calories to bring it in every morning. 

Anyway, at first the stuff he discovers crapping up the welcome mat is just shiny bits of trash — couple granola wrappers, some MGD pull-tabs, a few field-stripped twisty-ties. Probably just windblown, and he tosses it in the garbage can. 

Then a couple weeks in, things start getting...grisly? It escalates real slowly, from a variety platter of mouse bits to squirrel à la power line and then half of a dry-aged raccoon and an opossum that has recently graduated from playing dead to professional dead-being. The neighborhood crows obviously love that their front step is now a roadkill café; Dean has to bat increasing numbers of them away with the kitchen broom in order to relocate their horrible snack to the edge of the nearest storm drain.

Then one morning there are like twenty crows and they’re in just the cutest little football huddle-up around what turns out to be a human fucking finger with a retro-fun mood ring still on the knuckle (it’s feeling: Sad) and Dean fully loses his shit. 

Cas hears him freaking out and comes whomping out of the garage ready to, whatever, flap somebody to death maybe, but as soon as he establishes that Dean doesn’t need anything more than a fresh pair of boxers, he de-poofs a bit and assesses the whole human finger/crows situation in his usual infuriatingly unrushed way. The crows had mostly bounced up to the cable line over the house, safely out of brooming range, but one by one they start to drop down and hippity-hop back towards the world’s tiniest crime scene.

If Dean were five percent less freaked he’d be tempted to go inside and find out how much of a dent he can make in a six-pack before Castiel finally dings and spits out his results, but he isn’t, so he just stands there in silence clutching the broom like it’s a shotgun.

Eventually Cas says “hm,” and then he looks at the crows and makes some noises that sound like a spoon caught in a garbage disposal, and the crows make some scrawps and chuks back, and then one of them delicately noodges the tip of dead finger with its beak and then hippity hops back a foot or two, bows, and then they all fly away over the shitty little beige duplex across the street like they’re running ten minutes late to an important bird appointment.

Castiel stands up (Dean reflexively backs up into the doorway, as this involves Cas bomfing out his wings a bit for ballast and Dean has caught a blow to the nuts on more than one occasion), dusts off his goddamn slacks, pulls a plastic evidence baggie out of thin goddamn air or maybe his socks, and casually bags the finger like they’re doing a standard FBI wheeze. “So what,” Dean says, as Cas diligently zips the baggie, “the fuck?”

“Oh,” Cas says, blinking in surprise that Dean is still there and interested, “they think I’m their god.”

Dean kind of stares back at him, the six feet of dude and like sixteen feet of bird, and thinks sure, okay, but his face must still be stuck on “Tippi Hedren attic scene” because Cas puts a reassuring hand on Dean’s shoulder and adds “Don’t worry. I’ve told them I don’t require further offerings, and I reassured them that you’re my consort and were simply jealous of other potential mates.”

It takes Dean two weeks to come up with a response to that, but by then it’s become evident that no bird is ever going to shit on the Impala again, so he decides to just chalk it up in the win column and move on.

You know. The family business.

8.  No matter how tightly he folds them, Cas can’t fit his wings through the definitely-not-up-to-code doorway of the wood-paneled family rec room in the basement, so Dean claims it as his man cave and dubs it the “No Fly Zone.” 

Castiel doesn’t find this funny, but Dean really only uses it to fold laundry. 

 9.  Transpo is an obvious issue. Cas can almost stuff himself into the Impala if he sort of reverse-cowgirls the back seat, but then the wingtips smoosh up against the windshield and Dean’s visibility is approximately zip. And, sure, Cas could fly himself anywhere they really needed to go, he’s basically a Chevy Of The Air, but sometimes it’s raining, and the seraph Castiel — Shield of God, Heavenly Soldier of the Lord, multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent, will smell like a wet fucking chicken for days afterward. Febreze does not help.

Dean spends a few nauseating weeks contemplating the purchase of — and here he learns that the human gag reflex can be conditioned, but never truly eradicated — a convertible. Once Cas brings up the possibility of a minivan or perhaps a station wagon (he’s taken to studying family motor vehicles with all the intensity of a birder with a life list) and Dean makes him sleep on the couch.

Dean gets his own living room rotation after he shows Cas a Craigslist posting for a very reasonably priced horse trailer. Castiel points out that it’s used and Dean notes that neither of them is exactly mint in original packaging either. Castiel points out that he’s not a horse, and after a few necessary but admittedly unoriginal jokes, Dean pulls up a website with an exhaustive photographic tutorial on how to convert a horse trailer “for the safe and sanitary transport of ostriches, emus, and/or cassowaries.” Cas points out that he’s not an ostrich, emu, and/or cassowary, and Dean counters that he clearly isn’t, because an emu would probably show a little more gratitude, and that’s how Dean learns that the couch has a broken spring under the left cushion. The transpo issue remains unresolved.

 10.  Dean keeps a pair of shop-grade safety goggles by his side of the bed. It’s not the sexiest look, but it turns out feathers are stabby as hell when encountered at a particular angle. Cas can do the healy thing, of course, but they learn the hard way that cornea perforation is not really a mood enhancer. On the bright side, Castiel accidentally corrects Dean’s incipient presbyopia, which means Dean doesn’t have to hold the newspaper at arm’s length anymore when he’s idly speculating what Carolyn Hax looks like below the neck. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

 11.  You’d think that, when you’re coming down from a time-limited but incurable curse that makes you feel like every cell of your body has its own cute little individual headcold — because you missed a hex bag due to the fact that you were preparing your legal response to Sam turning up to the hunt wearing a goddamn hair scrunchy, as if he were fresh off the set of a very special episode of Clarissa Explains It All — anyway, you’d think that being wrapped in the warm embrace of an angel’s wings would be nice. 

But you would be wrong, because apparently your boyfriend has been out communing with the bees again, and those feathers pick up ragweed pollen like it’s their goddamn job, and guess what else angels can’t cure? Dean will take Motherfucking Seasonal Allergies for 600, Alex. 

12a.  One of the neighbors has that homesteading hippie brain disease that drives an otherwise normal-seeming person to brew their own beer and raise a bunch of chickens despite living within five hundred yards of a fully functioning Hy-Vee. There’s a week where one of the wee little velociraptors seems to be processing some kind of trauma because it starts yelling at dawn and keeps going until well past the hour that swearing is allowed on network TV. 

When Dean finally hammers on the front door the next afternoon the neighbor apologizes with some extremely nasty home-brew (HIPPIES) and some absolutely devastating weed (HIPPIES!) and explains that “Ginger is going through a rough molt” and then he kind of nods his head towards Dean’s side of the fence where Cas is futzing around in the squash plants and stage whispers (this is a direct quote) “You know how they get.”

Dean is about to rip the dude a new one for comparing his immortal space-kaiju lover to a fucking Australorp yard pullet when Castiel pops his head up over the white pickets and breezily contributes “Bad molt, yes, those are terrible, Dean can tell you all about how insufferable I am those weeks,” and sometimes Dean just doesn’t know why he even tries.

 12b.  The less said about angel molt, the better. 

Seriously, the freakin’ eyes-on-his-hands naked mole rat dude from, whatsit, Pan’s Labyrinth of Subtitles, would run screaming from this shit. 

 13.  There’s a 4th of July BBQ Potluck Block Party and Dean’s inability to stand idly by while good meat is abused ( shut up Sam ) means he winds up manning the grill and dismissing the pretenders to set some strictly inedible things on fire. Cas hangs out next to him and uses his flappers to kinda whupf the smoke away from Dean’s eyes now and then, which rules. It’s actually a pretty chill event until Sharon and Don From Number 4267, The Green House With The White Trim, turn up with a giant Pyrex full of naked, still-marinating teriyaki wings. 

Sharon And Don look down at their wings and then up at Castiel and then down at the wings and then up at Castiel and they are clearly teetering on the edge of a Midwestern politeness failure-based nervous breakdown. But then Cas, smooth as a margarine commercial, gently takes the dish from Sharon’s frozen hands, examines the contents for a silent moment, and says “it’s alright. They weren’t personal friends.”

He gets an extra burger for that one.

 14.  Cas keeps absent-mindedly trying to groom Dean — who, in case it still needs to be said at this point, possesses zero-point-zero feathers of his own — so he goes after Dean’s hair, instead. Dean has to stop him after his second hour of trying to straighten out a cowlick. “I don’t understand how you can steer properly with this deformity,” Cas says, as if it’s a genuine miracle that Dean isn’t constantly careening over ottomans like Dick Van Dyke. He’s even more horrified by Dean’s (frankly minimal) use of hair gel. “Jesus, Cas, it’s not like I’m drinking it,” he says, but then one time they have an epic make-out session shortly after Dean performs his masculine beauty rituals and there’s some smearage of various types of Product (tm) on the flappy areas. 

And, sonuvabitch, for the next six hours Cas is spirographing around the house like he has a heavenly inner ear infection, and he only stops veering into the doorframes after Dean wipes down every. Single. Feather. With mineral oil and about eighteen clean shop cloths. Dean switches to something called hair wax, which costs thirty zillion times more per ounce and makes him smell vaguely like church, but is a lot less gloppy. The things we do for love.

 15.  Seating inside the house is a bit of a conundrum, too. Cas can kind of flop his wings out to the sides if he sits in the middle of the couch, but then Dean’s stuck on the recliner, which is basically in the next county. Bar stools are disastrously tippy, Dean’s lower back and hips have not endured mumble-mumble years of hunting just to be subjected to a damn beanbag chair, and, after a brief flurry of optimistic excitement, Dean determines that they’d have to take the front door off to get a massage chair in. He finds a swing online that if, he can get the hardware properly installed in the crossbeam, is rated for up to 500 pounds, so he texts Cas the URL so he can check out the specs. After half an hour he writes back —

CASTIEL: Dean

CASTIEL: I believe this swing is intended for sexual congress.

DEAN: ...

CASTIEL: I can infer from the ellipsis that you have spent several minutes attempting to draft a response.

DEAN: ...

CASTIEL: Dean

DEAN: it’s multipurpose

  16 . On the plus side, though, big-ass wings make for a pretty good drying rack. He can get every sock in the house laid out on those suckers in a single round and, one episode of Dr. Sexy later, they’re perfectly dry and toasty warm, without any of the pair-busting casualties Dean has learned to expect from the apparently socknivorous dryer in the basement. 

Dean assumes it’s just the product of good air circulation and body heat until he realizes that he hasn’t had to toss a pair for being too worn out in...maybe six months? So he asks Cas “Are your wings... healing the socks” and after an entire Abbott and Costello routine centering around heal versus heel, Dean determines that the answer is: yes, his boyfriend’s wings are channeling the almighty power of Heaven to magically repair the socks Dean buys at Target in twelve-pack bags. On sale.

This is actually kind of sexy, if Dean is being perfectly honest, so, you know what? It doesn’t belong on this list.

 16.  So nobody really freaks out or bursts into tears or calls the news or the FBI or anything when Cas goes out in public with him, which Dean is secretly a little disappointed about, because come on. (Maybe giant wings just reads as a gay thing? Was there an episode of Will and Grace about this that Dean missed back when he was ass deep in wendigos or something?)

But no. Dudes tend to just glance at them across the Home Depot parking lot, throw them the Mutual Dude Acknowledgement Nod, and say some shit like “Comic-con,” or “nice anime” in a knowing tone. Then they go back to rolling their carts full of gaskets or hammers or whatever back to their mom’s station wagon. 

Little girls tend to go googly-eyed — Castiel seems to fall into the same category as a Disney princess, despite the stubble and the drabcore wardrobe, and Dean can’t count the number of times some mom has approached Dean at the grocery store (like he’s Castiel’s manager?? Which, okay...yeah, actually) and asked if they do birthday parties. The money would actually be pretty tempting if Dean weren’t five thousand percent sure that Cas would get them both arrested by launching into an anatomy lesson about duck sex or how God is a loser who favors relaxed fit jeans and Wild Turkey.

The worst is white ladies of a Certain Age, and it always seems to happen in the pudding aisle, for some reason. They either go cross-eyed with horniness and become indiscriminately handsy (Dean can’t blame them for the impulse, but also back off, Karen), or ask Cas for prayers for their cat’s chronic asshole problems (which Castiel WILL take seriously). 

Worst of all is when some hippie spinster clocks them. This woman inevitably reaches right for the feathers and asks in a willowy voice if they’d ever consider turning some of them into dreamcatchers to sell at her studio, which is literally always named The Faerie’s Glen. Then Cas gets confused about why, exactly, a sixty year-old WASP in a peasant skirt would need to call on the infant-protection powers of an Ojibwe spider goddess, while Dean just wants to bite the lady’s fingers off. 

Either way, it’s always a bad scene, and many fully loaded grocery carts have been lost to the fallout.

17.  For some metaphysical reason Dean is too dumb to suss out but also too smart to question, lugging a pair of Cessna-sized flappers around this mortal dimension actually seems to tucker Cas out. He doesn’t need to zonk out every night, but he semi-regularly throws in the towel and actually crawls in with Dean for the duration. 

This would be swell in theory, but the guy absolutely cannot settle the fuck down in less than three (3) human hours, which is the exact amount of sleep Dean requires to maintain his famously sunny demeanor. It’s not just ye olde tossing and turning — Dean can handle that, sharing a bed with Sam is like sleeping next to a kangaroo with restless leg syndrome — no, it’s a nonstop parade of little flippy-flappies and shiffle-shuffles and spontaneous outbursts of preening. 

So Dean makes him a Baby Sleep Sack. 

This is something Dean knows about due solely to one super dumb hunt involving a banishing sigil that had to be drawn in — he still feels like this had to be a misprint — human breastmilk, and that was obviously not happening. But the monster of the week wasn’t going to banish itself, so they wound up at the nearest Walmart, at 4am, picking up what turned about to be an unnecessarily generous supply of baby formula, along with a fresh box of shotgun shells because God bless America*. It doesn’t work, although “lots of stabbing” turns out to be a solid fallback plan, but the point is that while Sam was debating between Digestion Support or Neurological Development, Dean acquired an unprecedented familiarity with some of the products currently available to the sleep-deprived parent. So Dean finds some DIY Baby Sleep Sack knockoff patterns online and determines he can replicate and scale up the concept with some beach towels and duct tape, and the next morning he presents the lumpy but totally functional prototype to Castiel. 

Initially Cas thinks it’s a sex thing (reasonable, it probably is), but once they clear up that misunderstanding, he’s obviously a little peeved by the concept of being swaddled as if he were a gassy baby instead of a deathless sky monster in a sexy dude-shaped can. But Dean must be giving off some serious man on the edge vibes because Cas grudgingly agrees to let Dean tape him up the next time he’s feeling dozy. 

It’s real awkward and takes forever to get Cas bundled up right, and then he’s just kind of lying there on top of the sheets, like an enormous, grumpy baked potato. 

“I could easily break out of these restraints,” he says in a pissy tone after Dean has crawled in and turned off the light, and Dean rolls over to tell him “no shit”, but then he has to stop himself because the guy is already asleep.

Eventually they upgrade to a version made out of some of those trendy weighted blanket things, a few yards of parachute silk, and a whole lot of velcro. The dude looks so damn peaceful that Dean is honestly a little jealous.

*he doesn’t, actually. 

 18.  There’s a sunny afternoon that isn’t the usual Kansas is trying to murder you level of humid so Dean rolls the Impala out into the street for a wash. Cas helps him out a bit initially, although tragically not in a way that involves removing any unnecessary articles of clothing, but Deans sends him to grab a new tub of wax from the shed and he never comes back. After half an hour Dean needs a beer break and goes looking for him, expecting to find Cas lost in thought over whether Turtle Wax is made of actual turtles, or is made to put on actual turtles. Instead he finds Cas crouched on the shimmering pavement at the back of the driveway, sun beating down on him like it has a personal vendetta, and he’s got both wings stretched out real low above the ground. Dean kind of flips out because it’s the type of pose that just screams “stabbed in gut by angel blade” or “migraine from Hell, literally.”

Then Cas looks up, which pulls his wings up a smidge too, which in turn reveals that fully half a dozen neighborhood cats are lounging in the shady patch beneath his wings, spread out on the concrete like blobs of furry peanut butter. No, it’s actually eight cats. There are eight cats.

“Ling-Ling was feeling a little overheated,” Cas says, as if this explains everything. 

And, you know what, at this point, it does.

 19.  Dean has faith that eventually Sam or Cas or the third demon from the left in the second row will turn up a solution for the whole business. Castiel will get to tuck those bad boys back into the secret wing-closet dimension and he won’t have to worry about getting stuck in stairwells anymore, or being reported to the FAA (again). Then they can finally pack up the house, plaster over the more egregious spots of drywall damage, and go back to killing things outside of the tri-county area. The whole thing has been a pretty embarrassing interlude for a couple of dudes who’ve kicked Satan’s ass multiple times — Sam is probably telling other hunters that they’ve been deep undercover to take out a nest of suburban vampires, or a pack of ghouls with mortgages, instead of vacuuming angel down out of the AC unit and considering a Costco membership. 

And sure, there have been some...serious pluses to the situation (see: the other list), but, in his weaker moments, Dean has to admit that he’s kind of going to miss some of the goofy, irritating shit, too — like finding a six-inch feather in the veggie crisper (how? why?), or watching Cas fwap his wings out just in time to accidentally clothesline a jogger, or even the strangely compelling, sorta cheesy smell that starts to float around the house if Cas goes a little too long between hosedowns. 

He has actually grown fond of this shit. Which is 100% the least sexy thing on earth, it’s some genuinely, seriously pathetic goo goo crap, and that’s why nobody will ever hear a fucking word about it. People will ask “so what’s it like, with the wings” and Dean will waggle his eyebrows suggestively and review the highlight reel over an inadvisable amount of rail whiskey. His secret’s safe with, well. Him.

 20.  Seriously though, the bird mites. 

Gross.

[originalwinnercheesecake]

Chain of Iron theories: the adopted baby

Here is another hot discussion topic in the fandom. CC has hinted that their will be a special baby, and that they will need to be adopted. So Questions, who is giving a baby up and why? I am assuming that this is a Shadowhunter baby. I cannot see either Hypatia Vex or Kellington who party, operate a secret saloon, and take pleasure in seducing interesting artistic individuals deciding to devote themselves to parenthood. Woosley Scott is set to show up, but their is no way he wants to adopt. Every other downworlder has appeared in the future and never made reference to having raised a baby. So which shadowhunters in this series of so many parents, children, and would be couples are looking to adopt? We know that shadowhunters adoption program isn’t perfect; Ariadne being adopted by an elderly white couple who know nothing about Indian culture and Tatiana somehow being allowed to adopt Grace despite the fact that she is aggressive, clearly insane, and famously unable to care for the one child she gave birth to. But I want to hold on to hope that whoever this little baby is their story will end happily with being given a nice home and family. My Theories

Anna and Ariadne  adopt Eugenia’s baby. (retracted)

  This was my original theory. In COG2 we learnt that Eugenia temporarily left home because of some scandal no one really wants to talk about. It apparently involved her and some guy being caught in a “compromising position” after which said guy could have saved things by asking to marry her but did not? ??? This led many people to believe she and this guy had been immanent and that she might now be pregnant., but unable to raise the baby on her own. So she would give it up for adoption. Eugenia’s older sister Barbara had an understanding with a very nice gentleman named Oliver and kept trying to get Oliver to purpose. I wondered if maybe a reason Barbara was in such a rush to marry is she was hoping for her and Oliver to adopt Eugenia’s baby and pass them off as theirs. Now that both Barbara and Oliver are sadly deceased Eugenia would need to look into finding new  parents to take he unborn child. Well spoilers relating to Eugenia state that despite having different interests and hobbies, she and Anna get along well. She also is set to become friends with Ariadne. Ariadne who really wanted to be a mom. So I thought that if Eugenia was pregnant and looking to give her child up for adoption then maybe she would ask Anna and Ariadne to adopt her baby. That had the potential to be sweet.

  But we have gotten more information now, and surprise surprise, people jumped the gun to quick on what happened with Eugenia. While we still do not know what the scandal was, it is hinted to have been way less extreme/serious than premarital intimacy, and she is very unlikely to be pregnant. I am now hoping that her ex got into a fight with some other guy, she stepped in to hit the other guy with a parasol, and her ex got embarrassed about having to be saved by her and broke up with her. Something that shows the guy was a real loser.

Elias puts Baby Carstairs up for adoption

  In COG2 we got a huge surprise that Sona was pregnant with her third child, unexpected as the family tree only lists her and Elias as having two children. Well actually actually the Carstairs family line is tree has parts of it that “Were lost to time”. So something clearly happened. Jem was clearly hiding something.

   This pregnancy was clearly unplanned and does present some worry’s. For starters Sona is well past the age where it easier/safest for women to give have children. She was already starting to have a difficult time with it during COG2 when she finally confessed to Cordelia that she was about 3 months along. This means that she will be about 7 months along (almost ready to give birth) when we pick up again in COI. Well in the early chapter read Alastair said that his mother has been put on Bed rest with her husband staying by her side and silent brothers monitoring her. This does not sound good. Several people have theorized that even with the brothers help, she will not make it through childbirth. Now lets talk about the babies father Elias Carstairs. Elias Carstairs is even older than his wife. He spent his youth traveling the world (I read a tweet that said he has even gone between dimensions before) leading special expeditions and hunting rare and powerful demons. This sounds grand, but it was a grueling life that left him physically and emotionally scared. Tragically the Clave does not recognize mental health as a need, so they do not provide any kind of therapy or treatment for those who become traumatized. Like many poor soldiers throughout American history Elias was there for the Clave when they needed his help but it that help was not reciprocated at the end. The only comfort he found was at the bottom of the bottle. It took Elias until he was already in his 40′s to start a family, and he has struggled with being able to take care of himself enough to act as a father to the two children he and Sona have already raised. Elias is 63. He is sad and tired, and struggling to keep a handle on his sobriety. This child was unplanned. I have read tweets that show he is at least trying to support Sona, but CC reveals he is questioning if or if not he can really do this a third time. If Sona dies there is no way Elias can raise this child himself. I won’t fault him if he makes that choice, it might be the most loving thing he can do.

   Who would adopt the little guy. Well the most common theory is that Alastair and Thomas would become his new dads. Now the family tree does suggest that both Alastair and Thomas are dads in the future. It also doesn’t list the names of either of their spouses (I am guessing neither had wives) so their is nothing to suggest that they do not live together raising a group of adopted children. Given the way the Cave feels about homosexual parents that could also be why Jem “lost” the records. I will not deny Thomstair becoming adopted parents is plausible, but I am not completely sure that baby Carstaris is who they will adopt. Babies are hard, they are a lot of work, and I am not convinced either Alastair or Thomas will be up to it. Look at Alastair. He is not exactly in a good place at the start of COI, and whenever fans ask CC if Alastair will make any friends she always reply that he won’t until he learns how to speak nicely to people and to be there for them when they need him. Honestly that is a thing he struggles with. He obviously loves Cordelia, but he totally pulled an  Queen Elsa on her where he shut the door and shut her out for roughly 7 years of their lives, leaving her as alone as Anna was. He claims to have loved Charles but the pair spend most of COG arguing because Alastair wants Charles to spend all his time with him and Charles is struggling to balance his promotion, his public reputation, and Alastair (Important I am not saying it was wrong for Alastair to be upset about Charles engagements or to break up with him. I am just saying it seems like Charles did try to see Alastair as much as he could, and Alastair trying to pin all his emotional needs on one person, who already had so much going on, was unfair). On Thomas side well lets just say he has a lot of mixed up and complicated feeling of his own he needs to work out before he will be able to be in a healthy relationship let alone raise a child.

  If Thomstair aren’t able to take care of Baby Carstairs I bet I know a long time married, long time Carstairs loving couple, who would be happy to take the little guy in and have enough resources, experience, and love to give him a great life. Hey in the future Tessa says she has kept watch over three families: the Herondales, the Carstairs, and the Blackthorns. The Herondales and the Blackthorns are her and Will’s grandchildren. If she were watching the Carstairs because they were once her friends wouldn’t she also watch out for the Fairchilds and Lightwoods?

Blackthorn Babies with Mundane and Shadowhunter mommies and daddies

  (Okay this is one will involve some hopping around and several references to the family tree, so stay with me people, stay with me.) We aleady know Jem made some changes to this line. Lucie is not 12, she is 16. Tatiana is probably not going to live another 15 years. Also the tree said that Jesse dies 59, yet he actually died at 17. But future wife Lucie wants to resurrect him... which is highly illegal and should she be successful she will probably face terrible repercussions. Jesse also might not be able to live as a shadowhunter after being brought back. So even if we don’t want it, for the sake of this theory lets assume that upon Jesse’s resurrection both he and Lucie are banished and become a mundane pianist and writer. Let’s assume they also get married and have children. In order for the TDA Blackthorns to be shadowhunters at least one of Jucie’s kids would have to become a shadowhunter and move to the shadow world. I feel like Luce and Jesse would be willing to let their kids go in that case. That was all Jesse wanted growing up and Lucie is Will’s daughter. The children would just need someone they could stay with.

  Now lets hop to the Lightwood family line. According to the tree Christopher and Grace get married (Grace is also listed as a Cartwright so was her adoption overturned and she rejoined her bio family?) and continue the Lightwood line down to TMI. Grace and Christopher are set up to bond  (over science) and many fans are willing to believe that they are an endgame ship. But fans are also doubting that they are the ancestors of the TMI lightwoods.  For one thing Christopher is heavily coded to be asexual; and Grace herself seems to have a very.... twisted and warped view of physical acts. So now lets say Grace is somehow saved from punishment over Jesse’s resurrection or because of her past trauma is given a lighter sentence. Lets say Gracetopher really do get married. if they got married they probably will apt out of having children; at least biological children.

   Christopher has a younger brother , Alexander Lightwood, who seems like a much more likely candidate to continue his family line. Alex has been noted to have those dark blue eyes that while once a Herondale trait later become a Lightwood trait. He shares a first name one of TMI’s most prominent characters, and that is just about the only way baby Alex could have relevance to the story given that he is way to young to help out in the war. If Alexander Lightwood the first is one who carried on the Lightwood line why are his descendants listed under his brother and sister in laws names?

   Well way back before the CC launched TLH I remember her posting a tweet that said Grace could become an ancestor of either the Herondale or the Blackthorn line. This upset a lot of people who thought that it meant that Grace may have a baby with either James or Jesse. (No, just NO!!!) But what if instead of Grace having a baby with Jesse, She and Christopher adopt one of Jesse and Lucie’s babies so that that baby could be raised as a shadowhunter? I could see Grace and Christopher doing do: they each love one of the respective parents and are set get to know the other. The only good thing about Tatiana adopting Grace was she got Jesse as a brother. Should she ever recover from having Tatiana as an adoptive mother I could see her becoming very critical of other adoptions and refusing to allow Jesse’s children to potentially end up like she did. I am in love with a head cannon I have that Christopher will become a science professor at the academy. If Lucie and Jesse have to leave the shadow world, and they have to give up their children then I want to imagine that child living in Malec’s future academy suit with Shadowhunter mommy and daddy Gracetopher while they secretly get gifts and send letters to their mundane mommy and daddy Juice. (It is the least CC can do for the pain reading about that potential exile would cause me.)

[hage-potato-hog]

Mereoleona Vermillion x f.reader (with some NSFW)

@vermillionflames (insert a ton of needless information on why I suck) If you get bored of reading the non nsfw part, scroll down to the highlighted zone , lower it is the a bit more mature content. As I have mentioned before, sorry, Becca! Also, it’s like 3 a.m for me now, I haven’t edited a single thing, I am not even sure it’s written in English, lol. Goodnight! __________________

"I am afraid!" 

"There is nothing to be afraid of, you are a proud lion, aren't you?"

Mereoleona looked down at a young man laying his head on her lap, a profound puddle of red liquid seeping into her clothes. Another handful of blood and he won't be able to recover. For most of her life, the proud lioness lived alone, had to fend for her life in the wilderness where only the fittest survive and back when she still lived in the capital, her family, friends, other royal knights, all of them seemed at least decent enough not to get killed in a battle. Today though, she was facing a different type of reality. For the first time, she felt lonely and desperate amidst the cruelty of this world. 

"You shall not die," a low growl vibrated in her throat. "MEDICS, WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY?!" 

Her shouts were wasted. A couple of Crimson Lion knights standing beside her had neither healing powers nor the mental capacity to comprehend that their teammate is surely dying right in front of them. 

There was nothing anyone could do. Only wait. Observe the skin turning paler until they cannot make out another plea of help through the blood spilling into lungs, throat... Reality hurts. 

"I am useless," whispered the ginger female slightly shaking. 

A droplet fell. Then another one and another. Suddenly, the scene was engulfed in a rainy mist. And so, the tragic end came. 

Interposed in the thunder, puddles began echoing. The next instance Mereoleona was pushed to the side with a "move it" said in a calm demeanor. A young woman looked the bleeding man up and down and after a brief evaluation began moving her hands through the injuries. Several strands of unruly hair fell onto her focused eyes, sticking to long black eyelashes. 

"I am sorry to be asking this of you," she began without unnecessarily moving a muscle. "could you please wipe the hair out of my eyes? It feels irritating, but I cannot move." 

Mereoleona reached out her hand. A bloody trace of two fingers was left on the woman's forehead, but she simply smiled and thanked.

Usually, when every second counts and minutes can determine whether a person lives or dies, the time passes slowly. This time though everything was over in a wink. Triumphantly, the mysterious lady leaned back. Her face gentle and smiling. The man won't die.

Dense rainfall wouldn't stop, seemingly unable to read the lightened mood, it kept on falling to mourn a loss. 

"TAKE HIM AND HURRY," the substitute captain roared gaining her sanity back. The party came upon an abandoned shack in the middle of the fields and decided to take shelter there, the woman from before still tagging along. 

A nicely burning fire and a roof above their heads, they have decided to stay here for the night. Having finished the roasted boar Mere caught for dinner, they now where sound asleep. Still feeling restless, the ginger-haired woman decided to go out and take a breath outside on the porch, her, now clean, hands reached out towards the everlasting stream of sky water. She could still see blood on her skin, feel how sticky and different this blood was from that of her foes. 

"Some things are inevitable," a voice said from behind her. Wrapped in a blanket sat the woman from before. She felt uneasy to stay in the same room with unfamiliar men and chose to come out onto the porch. "Even if you do everything in your power, there comes a time when it's not enough," she came closer and put the blanket over the taller female which earned her an eyebrow raise. Voice as soft as a prayer for the peace in the world whispered "sometimes... you just have to see them off with a smile." 

"I reject this kind of logic." 

"Eh? Miracles do not happen!" the girl protested. 

"You say that as you popped out like one yourself. Although yes, I agree with you, miracles do not happen, but you can prevent mistakes from happening." 

"Eventually you will break. The future is set in stone." 

The ginger-haired woman turned around with a huge grin, "I will break the stone it is set in," she bolstered flaring up her mana making the blanket burn off in cinders. 

Her companion simply stood there admiring the ashes fly off. The one in front of her was certainly not your everyday person, something was captivating about her, to the point you get intrigued to see them in any state of mind. "I want to be there," she said.

"Hm? You want to be where?" 

"When you lose the battle against fate or... when you run to set the heavens ablaze, I wish to be there and see you, you are fascinating!"

Mereoleona blinked for a moment but the very next second got back her confidence retorting, "If you want to be there, then you must reach my level first." 

"Mmm. I will, do not worry. As a fact, I am traveling to the capital right now," she took out her grimoire and proudly tossed it up a few times into the air. 

"Oho? What for?" Mere felt a sadistic intent rise deep within. 

"I plan to join the magic knights. You people are magic knights, right? You must have heard of the Crimson Lion King, the squad led by the famous Vermillion family? Aaah, I have been admiring them for so long and I finally get the chance to see them." 

"What's so good about them?" 

"How can you be a mage and not understand it?! They don't base their judgment on your status or your wealth even the current level you are on isn't as much of a factor as the potential and your determination. And the new captain, Mereoleona Vermillion, I have heard so many fantastic stories about her, though everyone is saying she is terrifying. I wish to feel what it is like to be under her guidance one day." 

As the girl kept on ranting about the idolized female sorcerer, her partner couldn't contain her laughter anymore. What an interesting creature she found along the path. One moment she is consoling her, acting superior, next she's ranting about her beloved Mereoleona without knowing who she is talking to in the first place.

"Ah, I like you, girl!" she looked back thrilled. 

"I am very pleased to have met you too... Um... did we exchange names?" 

"Mereoleona Vermillion. Welcome to the squad, from today on, you are a member of the Crimson Lion King and soon enough you will feel the pleasure of burning under my guidance!"

*** *** ***

"Hm, it seems we have five days off starting tomorrow," a female chimed walking down the street. 

"Perfect for some vigorous training," another one responded to her. 

The first woman stopped and looked back with dead-bored eyes, then gazed away and kept on walking without saying a word. The atmosphere turned cold instantly followed by silence stinging painfully. 

It has been over 2 years since the fateful day when Mereoleona met a strange yet charismatic woman out on a mission. 2 long years filled with hard work to prove herself and years of Mere's admiration growing until it finally blossomed in love. They now were dating, but even though their love vows have been said after getting to know each other in and out, incidents like this still kept on occurring between them. Someone as bright as the ginger-haired female's lover doesn't go silent unless they are genuinely hurt. For Mereoleona, other people's feelings were a mystery. Even though normally she wouldn't feel even the slightest bit bothered, when it comes to her most important person, she couldn't stand seeing the smile vanish from her face. 

"Ahaha, yea, you are right, I still have a long way to go," the girl laughed and turned around to face her lover with a huge grin. Which was fake. 

"Tell me straight... I am not as good as you with humans and their emotions," this time, Mereoleona's voice indicated pain. 

"Ah, I did not mean that, I am sorry," with a quick motion she stepped in front of Mere and took her hand lifting it to her lips, gently planting a kiss and then putting it against her own cheek. "I want to spend more time with you," she smiled with an honest sparkle in her eyes. "I was thinking that the two of us could run somewhere, anywhere really, as long as it is you and me." 

Both of them stood there blushing. The hand pressed against the woman's cheek turned around holding her face still. Then, two lips met in a soft kiss that seemed to be too sweet for the girl to handle. Right before her knees could give out, they parted. 

"Leave it to me," the eldest Vermillion said leaving her girlfriend still in shock. 

It did not take long for them to reach the approximate location of their 5 days long logging, but before getting the privilege to rest in a warm bed embracing each other, they had to go through a forest that even thieves pass in a circle. By the time their hands landed on the doorknob of a hut in the middle of a plain, surrounded by thick bushes, it was already a dark orange evening with sun way bellow the horizon. Tired, dirty, and sweaty the woman overlooked the energetic one with jealousy. 

"A challange, how else," she chuckled to herself dropping the bags down.

"Are you disappointed?" Mereoleona studied the girl's face. 

"No. It wouldn't be you if these things weren't included and I couldn't love you any other way. Though, I must insist that from now on, no more special-monster-challange-deluxes, okay, love?" her voice took up a threatening note. 

"Yes, I know. Don't worry. From now on, there's only rest. Do you want to go take a dip in the the hot stream?" 

"There is one?" the woman asked turning around excited. 

"Of course, did you expect we will be enjoying a freezing lake?" 

"... I mean, even a freezing lake can turn into a volcano with you..." she said recalling various instances.

Mereoleona yanked a towel off a wooden rack by the door and turned back to her girlfriend "I will be going first, don't stay here too long. Do not forget, I will be waiting." Her step did not lack the usual confidence nor seemed tired even the tiniest bit. Far from it. She seemed to be standing straighter with her shoulders and neck tense as if a beast ready to jump its prey.

It certainly was warm inside the cabin but the temperature magically rose higher as Mereoleona closed the doors as she walked through. The young woman, now left alone, began touching her blazing cheeks, then fanning at them. In her mind, the moment she walked out the door, any layer hiding her bruised skin will be ripped off and even more skin will be broken from Mereoleona's overbearing kisses. Even as she was thinking that, her hands dug deeper into the bags searching for the negligee she bought exclusively for this occasion. Various garter belts flew on the bed with dark, white and burgundy laced panties, some nightgowns, meant to be used during summer and as such more revealing, scattered all around the floor, yet, nothing seemed good enough until her attention was caught by the second white towel hanging on the wall. Sometimes, the simpler way is the right way, she thought snatching it with more force than her beloved minutes ago.

"Hey! Don't tell me you cannot move anymore! Should I make you?” a roar resounded from the outdoor bath.

Flustered and in a hurry, she threw off the clothes, wrapping the piece of cloth around her. This sweet type of anxiety made the woman's hand tremble as it pushed the door open. 

The nightly breeze swiped past the heated body standing in the doorway cooling it down a mere bit. Mereoleona was in the water, facing towards the door, but her eyes wandered through the shape and texture of a sake bottle which she held high towards the sky. There was no way she did not hear the door opening, nevertheless, the melancholic sight of her did not change into the usual rowdy one.

Taking a shy step forward, the other female looked around admiring the untouched nature while breathing the aroma of the vespertine flora surrounding them deep into her lungs. “How gorgeous,” a whisper passed her lips making the ginger set the bottle aside and look back. They both were looking directly into each other's eyes.

“Are you going to join me?” an extended hand offered a cup to the girl on the shore. 

As if on a cue, the moment the towel dropped down to the floor, Mereoleona turned her attention to the side gulping down her own cup.

//////////////// THE RED ZONE ////////////////

They sat shoulder to shoulder in water, facing the crescent moon, enjoying each other and the sake. Or so it seemed. Previous teases from the lioness made her partner assume that they will be embracing one another immediately after their bodies came close enough. Unlike her, the ginger was leisurely sipping on sake, talking about things that entirely passed past her ears even if all the concentration was solely on her. The way her lips move, how they touch together, and then part again giving a glimpse of the tongue which should be on her. Her eyes ran through the peaceful silhouette of her lover, going down her collarbone with water droplets racing to the plump chest which seemed as soft as ever, then to the side, muscular arms resting on top of the rocks, long slender fingers tapping on them. She could almost feel them provoking a moan out of her lips as they play with her nipples indulging the idea of seeing her squirm underneath. Mereoleona must have had no clue what was going in her girlfriend's mind. As she has mentioned before, she's bad with human emotions and sometimes, even the great lioness needs to be shown the way.

First a single digit, then a whole palm touched to Mereoleona's cheek and gently cupped it capturing her attention. Just as slowly, keeping her eyes low, she moved onto her Mereoleona's lap and impatiently clung to her neck locking their gazes again.

“Is something the matter?” the ginger's voice void of any distinct emotions questioned. 

“Mere...” 

A puff of air, hotter than the steam from the hot spring flied out into the air. One of the woman's hands clung to Mereoleona's shoulder when the other was pulling towards her by the neck, then relaxing and letting her slide back down the lioness's legs in a motion which made her tingle with further excitement.

“Could it be that you are having certain cravings right now?” 

“Mhm,” was all the girl was able to mutter.

Mereoleona cast her eyes downwards. The clear water allowed her to see the repetitive motion which has not ceased on her lap. Going up, the curves of the younger woman's torso swayed hypnotically, asking to be held. Prominent breasts kept on making contact with hers, both pairs so earnestly excited. Finally, eyes brimming in lust, hunger, passion and most importantly – love. She moved her hand to the girl's lips, traced them gently, “I don't think you want me hard enough,” her eyes creased as she smiled uncovering her white canines. “Prove that you want me, tell me what I could do to stop this growing frustration in you.”

“Your hands... Mere, you know...”

“Show me, what you want them to do, my damsel in distress,” her eyes shimmered and the woman took Mereoleona's hands and slowly made them travel up her tights towards her bottom. “Huh, that's all?”

“Squeeze it.”

Doing as she was told, she squeezed it but seizing the opportunity, also pulled her even closer. The woman's chest and neck were in her reach. “Should I kiss you on the neck?” she chuckled nuzzling her nose closer.

“Bite it.” 

“Ha, usually you are annoyed saying I bite too much. But if it pleases you...”

She gripped at the curves she was admiring before as she lovingly left bite marks on her neck and areas around, coming back to leave a more serious mark on each. Every time her lips made contact with the heated skin, she'd peek at the girl gripping her shoulder and now somehow her hair as well. “What if I did this?” her fingers slid across the most sensitive area which was surely wet from more than the water and taking their time, kept a steady pace stroking it. 

“Did I prove it to you?” the woman asked catching her breath.

“I am merely giving you a small free-by, you will have to work more to prove yourself.” Mereoleona took back her fingers and licked them. “I can barely taste you, everything washes off. We should go to bed. You walk first.”

Mereoleona sat back waiting, letting the girl rise from her lap quivering. Walking, she stopped to look back only to see two blue irises appraising her backside. When she made it past the door and stood in front of the bed, she could feel the other female behind her leaning forward though eagerly waiting. Mereoleona's hand caught her chin forcing it to the side just a bit more. Their lips joined for a rough kiss which was more becoming for the lioness than the gentle teases out in the pool. One of her hands slid to the front and once again began working its way around the woman's sensitive lower abdomen. Hungrily she pushed her forwards making the two of them topple onto the bed. She inserted one of her fingers inside the woman making her arch her back, pushing her ass up. There was a great deal of frustration involved making this experience more ecstatic than usual. And when she began feeling her premature orgasm coming by shouting Mereoleona's name into the duvet beneath her, the woman took her fingers out. Both of them were panting heavily.

“Didn't we come here so I could taste you properly?” she said grabbing one of the garter belts that flew on the bed earlier. Mereoleona helped her lie on her back after tying her wrists together. “A good knight always sticks to their word,” she smiled again lowering her face to her lover's dripping sweetness. Like a feline, she licked gently, tasting it at first, then again, and again, until her lips were sucking and tugging as her hands held tightly on the woman's hips constantly pulling her sensitively bolting body back.

The cabin drowned in screams of pleasure not even stopping once she orgasmed. Satisfied, Mereoleona pulled back, coming next to her girlfriend and untying her bound arms. The woman had some tears rolling down, “Was it too much?” the lioness asked with a hint of unrest.

“No, you were amazing.” She pulled Mereoleona closer. They kissed not rushing anywhere. Parting, coming back just like the wind passing nocturnal meadows; gently and in waves. “I never knew you were such a great actor,” the two of them laughed.

“It certainly was hard not eating you out then and there. Still... You certainly seem ready for this trip,” she picked a pair of thongs from the pillow. “I would like to see a little show now, would you mind?” Mereoleona extended the garter from before along with the panties. “I am still as hungry as I was moments ago."

[delimeful]

be unbroken or be brave again (2)

warnings: misunderstandings, technical kidnapping, roman’s overactive imagination, dehumanization, tragic backstories, past minor character death 

chapter 1 here!

-

Prince Roman of Faerin woke up with his hands tied down to a couch and a bitching headache. One of these things was considerably more concerning than the other. 

He dragged himself into consciousness bit by bit, trying to figure out exactly what had happened, and then jerked up when his memory finally deigned to remind him that he’d been hit over the head with a rock. 

Seeing as he was tied to a couch with what felt like a truly grievous head wound, he got about three inches up before collapsing back to the soft cushions in agony. There was a resigned sigh nearby. 

“Up again, Princey?” a concerningly familiar voice asked. Roman craned his neck up again, headache be damned, and was rewarded with the deeply upsetting sight of the dragonwitch he’d been hunting for months sitting on the back of an armchair five feet away. 

Despite his casual greeting, the dragonwitch-- his name had started with a ‘V’ but Roman felt a bit too concussed to recall properly-- seemed surprised when Roman actually met his mismatched eyes. Not as surprised as Roman was to still be alive, but surprised nonetheless. 

“Oh,” the beast said, and then turned his body slightly to face an adjacent door, his balance shifting slightly where he was perched. “Hey, Pat, the fresh meat is awake. For real this time.” 

Roman abruptly felt all the blood drain from his face, realizing exactly why he’d been kept alive. The other human was still alive too, meaning that he was in on this sick and twisted plot. To think, he’d been fooled by those crocodile tears, that vulnerable disposition! Their acting skills were refined; how many innocents had they captured with such trickery? 

“Coming!” There were a few clatters from the other room, and then the person in question poked his head out from the doorway. Pat brightened at the sight of him, which made sense because they obviously wanted their victim alive and kicking for whatever torment was in store before… 

Roman’s eyes flicked back over to the dragonwitch, who was watching him keenly, and shuddered. Patton stepped into the room proper, wiping his hands off with a patterned dish towel. “Hey there, kiddo! Try to move slowly, your head isn’t fully healed yet.” 

Roman grunted a vague refusal and twisted his wrists around a few times, hoping to find some give in the knots tied round his arms. He believed he was being rather discreet about it, so he nearly jumped out of his skin when Pat hurried over to his side. Perhaps he was more injured than he’d thought. He flinched back, waiting for the restraints to be tightened or some punishment to be delivered for his disobedience. 

“Oh, I’m sorry about those,” the voice was dripping with remorse, nimble fingers pulling at the knots until they unravelled entirely. Huh? “You’ve got a bad habit of sleep-walking, and sleep-talking, and sleep-other-things, especially with your concussion, so we had to keep you in place somehow. Otherwise you’d keep running into things, and then you’d never heal!” 

Roman snatched his hands back to himself and immediately scuttled backwards to the other side of the couch once he was freed, ignoring the way his head throbbed painfully. He looked up to find the dragonwitch hovering over Pat’s shoulder with narrowed eyes. Roman scowled right back, his hand dropping to the hilt of his knife— and meeting only air. 

He cursed internally. Of course they wouldn’t have left him armed. They were clearly well-practiced at abducting unwilling captives. 

“Looking for this, Princey?” the beast asked, and held up his hand, the dull edge of the blade tucked between two fingers. He flipped it into the air and caught it with a casual gesture, and Roman couldn’t help but clench his fists. If the dagger broke from such careless handling… 

“Give it back,” he demanded, his voice coming out rough and crackly. 

“Hmm, yeah, no.” The dragonwitch slouched against the nearby wall and began to balance the tip of the blade on his claw. “It’s confiscated until you learn how to play nice.”

Roman felt his face grow hot with rage, but was interrupted by Pat bustling over into his space, pressing a cool glass of water into his hand. “Here, you must be parched after all that sleeping!” 

He stared at the cup for a long moment, and then immediately tossed its contents directly into Pat’s face, soaking him. 

“I’m not taking anything from you, you evil, despicable traitor!” He threw the glass at Pat’s head for good measure, incensed. 

The dragonwitch appeared at their side like he’d teleported, the glass thunking into his hand like a ball to a mitt. “Hey,” he growled, expression thunderous. 

Before he could really start tearing into Roman, metaphorically or literally, a hand patted at his side gently.

“It’s okay, Virgil. I won’t pretend that didn’t hurt my feelings, but we did kinda sorta technically kidnap him.” Pat pulled his glasses off, flicking them a couple times to try and get rid of the worst of the water. 

Once they were settled back on his face, he offered Roman another one of those earnest smiles. He looked like a soggy puppy, which shouldn’t be allowed considering he was abducting people to feed to a monster. 

“Let’s try this again,” he offered, extending a hand. “Hi! My name is Patton, and this is Virgil!” 

The dragonwitch looked like he was going to shatter the glass in his hand and use the glass pieces to filet him like a fish. Roman gave him his best sneer. “We’ve met.” 

“I think I liked you better when you were half-dead,” the beast muttered. Roman sneered harder. 

Patton continued to blink at him for a long moment, presumably waiting for him to introduce himself. Roman crossed his arms defiantly until the man retracted his hand. 

“Well, how are you feeling?” he asked, undeterred. Roman snorted derisively, trying to keep the hopelessness of the situation from overwhelming him.

“I’ve been abducted by a maniac who feeds his own kind to monsters, how do you think I feel?” he snapped, glancing at the windows. There was no way he’d make it before the dragonwitch pounced, but it was better than not trying to escape at all. 

“I— what?” Patton asked, mouth agape. Behind him, the beast’s face wrinkled in displeasure, probably from Roman having the gall to call him out. He tilted his chin up in challenge stubbornly. 

In the next moment, Patton giggled, slapping a hand over his mouth when they both turned to look at him. “I’m sorry, it’s just— what are you talking about, silly? Virgil isn’t going to eat you!” 

He cast a dubious glare at the dragonwitch in question, who rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a sharp-toothed, not-very-friendly smile, “I don’t like the taste of arrogant princes.”

“Virgil! Not helping!” Patton swatted at him, shaking his head wryly, and the monster ducked away with a slight twist of his lips. Roman watched with wary eyes, unable to believe it when the dragonwitch didn’t even bother to retaliate at the jab to his authority. Before, too, he’d subsided at Patton’s word despite being quite clearly furious.

He slowly leaned back against the couch, mind racing. It looked like he had misinterpreted the situation.

Clearly, Patton had to be a powerful evil mage to have enchanted a dragonwitch into this all-encompassing subservience with so little strain.

His manipulations went deep enough to even have the beast fooled into thinking they were friends, had him willing to die for the mage. He shuddered to imagine what the mage would do with a prince of Faerin as a puppet. 

That had to be avoided at all costs, Roman decided as he reluctantly allowed the evil mage in question to press another glass of probably-drugged water into his hand. He had to be more subtle about his rebellion, and he needed an ally. 

His gaze slid over to where the dragonwitch was in the process of perching on a windowsill much too small to serve as a proper seat. He was loathe to work with a monster, but… the enemy of his enemy was his friend, right? Or at the very least, if he could appeal to the beast’s desire for freedom, a potential distraction.

The next time Patton ducked back into the kitchen, he made direct eye contact with the dragonwitch and tipped the contents of his glass into a nearby houseplant. The beast snorted and rolled his eyes rudely, but made no move to stop him or tell Patton about his deceit. Roman let his lips curl up slightly. 

This just might work. 

-

The problem with trying to get through the dragonwitch’s brainwashing was that it required the dragonwitch to be alone with him long enough to actually have a conversation. 

Patton was always just around the corner, popping in on him, offering him food or books or other gifts like some sort of over-exuberant fae. Checking to make sure that he was still properly captive in the guise of fussing over his injuries, and all the while the dragonwitch lounged on some surface that wasn’t meant to be sat on, frustratingly out of range. 

In fact, the dragonwitch was only near him when he was escorting Roman to the bathroom, and he had exactly zero tolerance for any stalling tactics Roman tried. He’d picked up on the attachment Roman had to the dagger, and obviously wasn’t above using that to blackmail him into behaving. 

For days, he seethed under their constant surveillance, always bracing for the first signs of magic brainwashing to appear in him. It seemed as though Patton was perfectly content to enchant him at the mage’s own convenience, so he was simply left to wait in painful anticipation. 

His chance finally arrived early one morning when he woke to the sight of the dragonwitch sprawled across an armchair and the conspicuous absence of any noise from the kitchen. His eyes flicked between the beast and the doorway, wondering if this was his opportunity. The dragonwitch ignored his clear confusion, so he cleared his throat primly. 

“Where is Patton?” he asked shortly. 

The dragonwitch didn’t acknowledge him for a long moment, yawning leisurely and displaying vicious fangs. Then, 

“Pat’s out cutting wood.” 

A surge of excitement passed through him, clearing away any lingering sleepiness, and he sat up fully. He’d had more than enough time to consider how he would approach the subject. The first step to breaking a mage’s control was to force the creature to confront the fact that it was being controlled. 

“You know, whatever you want from me, you won’t get it,” he said without any preamble, putting on his best scowl. “You should just kill me already, put the both of us out of our misery. I’m sure a malignant monster like you is sick and tired of playing nursemaid to a dragon slayer.”  

He looked the dragonwitch up and down derisively for good measure, internally cheering at the way a muscle in his cheek jumped with irritation. Naturally, the creature would have killed and/or devoured him by now if not for the mage’s bidding, so making him wonder why exactly he wasn’t doing that would aid Roman’s quest greatly.   

“Nice try,” the dragonwitch said, idly inspecting his claws, “but no, we’re not killing you. We’ll figure out what to do with you eventually, but till then you’re stuck with us.”

Roman pretended that there wasn’t a shiver running down his spine at the words, instead forcing his expression into a twisted sort of pity. “Patton will figure out what to do with me eventually, you mean.” 

The beast raised an eyebrow. “No, I mean both of us. Pat can be awful soft sometimes. If it were up to him, he’d have you here forever, I’m sure. Be glad I’m here to remind him that you’re still a stubborn Faerin asshole.”

Roman forced back the surge of mixed nausea and fury, instead shaking his head despairingly. “Do you truly not see the truth? You foolish creature, that mage is clearly controlling you.” 

Those mismatched eyes stared at him for a long moment, slit pupils uncannily inhuman, and Roman felt the back of his neck prickle with sweat. After a moment, though, his head dropped forward, obscuring his expression as his shoulders began to shake. 

Roman leaned back, anticipating some kind of blow up. Had he done it? Was the creature awakened?

“Y-- You think,” The dragonwitch started weakly, finally lifting his head. Roman gaped at the sight of his face, watching him wipe away mirth-filled tears.  

“You’re LAUGHING?” 

“You think-- ha, oh my god-- you think Patton is a mage?” the dragonwitch continued, barely able to get the words out between stuttered, gasping laughter. “You think he’s the-- ha ha, secret mastermind behind all of this?” 

His voice was mocking, and Roman flushed against his will. “Obviously! It’s-- it’s the only explanation!” 

The dragonwitch only laughed harder. 

“Why else would you not be trying to kill me right now?!” Roman demanded, frazzled and thrown off-script. Like a flip had been switched, the laughter finally stopped short. 

The beast’s amusement dropped away, face shuttering back to that neutral displeasure. His body had gone tense, and Roman couldn’t help but shy back slightly, anticipating an attack at any moment. 

The silence was shattered by the front door swinging open, Patton stepping inside with an armful of freshly chopped wood. The dragonwitch rose sharply, turning on his heel and storming out the door with a curt, “Your turn on babysitting duty,” thrown over his shoulder. The door slammed behind him.

Patton immediately turned and leveled a disappointed look at Roman, who tried not to wilt. He was a grown adult, damn it! He was not going to cave to the discouraging gaze of his kidnapper! 

“What did you say to him?” Patton asked sternly as he carried the firewood over to the dwindling stack by the fireplace. Roman pointedly did not sulk. 

“I asked a perfectly reasonable question,” he said snippily, turning his nose up for effect. 

“Which was…?” 

Even if Patton really wasn’t a mage, his disheartened-parent voice was bafflingly accurate. 

“... I simply wished to know why he hadn’t taken the opportunity to kill me. Assuming you aren’t some kind of puppeteer-- which I’m am still undecided on, by the way-- there’s no reason he shouldn't take my life for threatening him. You aren’t strong enough to stop him, and my unconscious body certainly couldn’t.” 

Patton sighed, shoulders slumping as he walked over to sit in the rocking chair next to Roman’s couch jail. His face looked deeply weary for a moment, making him seem much older. He began to draw nonsensical lines on his palm with one hand.

“Roman, let me tell you a story,” he started, and despite himself, Roman leaned in to listen. He’d always been a sucker for traveler tales. “It’s about a boy who was part of a big, loving family, living a joyful life in a little town named Port Greyson.” 

The name hit him like a pommel to the gut. He stiffened abruptly, eyes wide. “Who told you this story?” he demanded, voice wavering slightly. 

If Virgil had been the one to torch his home, to kill his best friend, there would be no forgiveness. He would strike the beast down or die trying.

Patton’s eyes flicked up at his tone, but he didn’t answer, still tracing patterns on himself.  

“The boy’s name was Patton.” Patton continued, voice carefully measured, and what? There had been other survivors? 

“He was happy until the day the calamity fell, and his family was killed before his eyes, trying to protect him.” Roman closed his mouth with an audible click. “He ran and ran and ran but the fires spread so fast, and he was sure he’d die and his family’s sacrifice would be in vain.

“And then… an angel.” Patton said, a sad smile on his lips. “Barreling through the flames as though they couldn’t even touch him, eyes wild, searching for someone to save. And I was that someone.” 

Roman started to get an idea of where this was going. “A dragonwitch. Your dragonwitch.” 

“My best friend,” Patton confirmed, folding his hands over each other. “He’s all the family I have left, at this point.” 

“He-- He was there?” Roman asked, a thousand conflicting thoughts piling up in his head. “How do you know-- What if he was the one who set it all aflame in the first place?” 

To his surprise, Patton didn’t glare at him for the implication. He seemed oddly far away. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen him, that day. He got me out and tried to run right back in, even though his face was covered in ash and his skin was peeling and burning. He stayed in human form the whole time, no doubt because he knew any survivors would be terrified of an approaching dragonwitch, no matter what his intentions were.” He visibly forced his mind back to the present.

“Even so, I know for absolute sure that it wasn’t him because I saw the one who did it.”

Roman’s whole body tensed up, all of his attention on Patton. This was the moment where he would figure out if the man was a simple monster sympathizer, lying about everything… or a genuine survivor of the worst day of Roman’s life. “Tell me.” 

“It was a dragon,” Patton recalled, and his hands finally stilled. “A huge one, black as night, that shook the ground like an earthquake when it landed. It took my family too long to understand what was going on, but by the time we figured it out, our house was already beginning to collapse, the air around us hot enough to burn. I-“ 

His mouth trembled for a moment, but he pushed on, words stilted. “I was barely thirteen years, the baby of the family. My parents and my older siblings carried me through the forge-hot fires, and I was passed from hand to hand until there was no one left to hold me. The dragon-- I could hear it call out nearby the entire time, cries unearthly—“ 

“— and full of rage,” Roman finished, echoes of the sound ringing in his ears. “I hear it in my nightmares.” 

“You were there?” Patton asked, a new understanding lighting in his eyes. Roman nodded, slowly. 

“I was. On the… the outskirts. But I didn’t see the beast until it fled, and it looked— small. Adolescent. You’re certain—?”

“It might be that I misremembered it’s size, since I was smaller then, but I’m sure it wasn’t Virgil,” Patton cut him off sternly, before softening slightly. “Super extra sure since now I’ve seen his dragon form! He’s all purple.”

The half-form had had wings and a tail that were much the same, Roman knew. He paused. “Wait, he was in his true form? When did you see that?”

Dragonwitches took that form to destroy, to burn towns and people alike to the ground. Why had Virgil taken it? What had he done while Roman was unconscious? 

“When we were flying you back here, of course! He’s so cute, you wouldn’t believe it!” Patton gushed, flapping his hands. Roman’s panicked thoughts ground to an abrupt halt at the idea of being carried by a dragon. 

“And he didn’t drop me?” he muttered unthinkingly, shivering at the idea of waking up to the landscape far, far below. 

A light smack on his arm made him jolt, and he looked up to meet Patton’s scolding expression. “That’s why he left, y’know. You treat him like a ticking time bomb instead of a person.” 

“Because he’s not a person! He’s a dragonwitch!” Roman blurted, his hands coming up to clutch at his hair in frustration. “Dragonwitches are evil, their powers are corrupting and they terrorize and pillage and kill innocent people! Every last one! You should know this!” You witnessed it yourself, he doesn’t say.

Patton looked at him with blatant pity, slowly reaching out and tugging lightly on his wrists until he stopped pulling at his hair. “You and I are living proof that that’s not true,” he said, voice quiet but resolved. Roman shook his head, not even sure what he was disagreeing with at this point. “I can’t change your mind for you, Roman.

“I know what it’s like to lose important people and want to hurt those you deem responsible. But Virgil has been hunted by humans his whole life, and he still cares for me to the point of self-destruction. He still looked after you when you were suffering the effects of your injury.” 

“He— what?” Roman thought about the cool hands on his head, the gentle murmured reassurances when he whined, and his cheeks flared up with embarrassment. “I thought that was you.”

“You spent a lot of time lashing out at anyone who woke you,” Patton explained easily. “Virgil wouldn’t let me near. He did a good job looking after you, though.”

A soothing hum as he mumbled half-formed thoughts, a hand gripping his as he cried out at the memories playing out in his dreams. Virgil’s words from before rang in his head. “I think I liked you better when you were half-dead.”

“Well,” Roman said, thoroughly nonplussed. “That’s… embarrassing.” 

“Just a little bit,” Patton agreed with a grin, patting the back of his hand. He hummed thoughtfully. “How about this: I’ll make you a deal! The non-magic kind.” He winked teasingly, and some of the color returned to Roman’s cheeks.

“I’m beginning to get the feeling I will never live that assumption down,” he grumped. “... What kind of deal?” 

“Virgil told me he thought you were a skinseller, because you were looking for a specific scale color.” Patton nodded at Roman’s expression of disgust at the idea. “I thought there was probably something different going on, and I’ve got a fair idea now, I think. So, I’ll offer this!

“We know a wizard who does business with dragonwitches. If our dragon has been active anywhere in that area, they’ll have gone to get information or materials from the wizard.” Roman felt a thrum of anticipation in his chest. This was the most concrete lead he’d gotten in ages. 

“We’ll take you there, on one condition,” Patton said, holding up one finger. “I want you to reconsider what you’ve been told about dragonwitches, and give Virgil a chance.” 

“That’s technically two things,” Roman pointed out, just to be difficult. Patton raised both eyebrows at him. “But, yeah, I… I can do that. 

“It’s a deal.”

[bonesgadh]

My thoughts on the final season of Orange is the New Black:

Obviously, some heavy spoilers below:

If you ask me, Piper’s storyline outside Litchfield was, for the most part, a complete waste of time. Instead of having her getting stoned with her brother or going to that pointless retreat, why didn’t they have her doing something productive like helping other former inmates or writing her book?

Speaking of the book, I’m high-key disappointed they gave the memoir storyline to Judy fucking King. Call me cheesy but I was looking forward to the show ending with Piper writing her book just like she said she would in season 6. Such a missed opportunity.

I really, really wanted Taystee to be cleared of Piscatella’s murder. I don’t understand why they gave so much importance to Suzanne writting what really happened and Taystee showing the text to her lawyer if it wasn’t going to make a difference in the end. Chekhov’s gun, anyone?

I’m so relieved she didn’t kill herself. I guess as long as there’s life there’s hope fucking Cindy will confess the truth and justice will be served. In the meantime, I was happy Taystee found a new meaning to her life and decided to help other inmates have a better shot at rebuilding their lives after prison.

Daddy’s death caught me by surprise. That said, I didn’t notice her absence at all for the reminder of the season. I guess she was a one-hit wonder character.

I have the feeling they had no idea what to do with Frieda so they just had her do weird stuff like accumulating trash. 

Thank Christ they got rid of Badison so early in the season. Cringiest, most annoying character in the history of television.

Aleida is so stupid lmao. I get she wanted to protect her daughter from that pedophile but she fucked up. I was rooting for her to rebuild her life and I was disappointed at her.

I liked Suzanne coming to terms with her sentence and being more comfortable around people and making new friends. It’s what she deserves.

Why is Cesar out of jail? Didn’t Aleida say he was supposed to stay there until he was an old man?

So Yadriel isn’t Pepa’s biological father?

Shani, man. Her relationship with Nicky was so cute and you could tell she was different from Nicky’s other flings. She didn’t act like a stallion around her, she was sweet and considerate with her and her backstory was very sad. I’m pissed they weren’t endgame because they made such a good couple.

There was no need to kill off Lorna’s baby. That was unnecessary roughness.

What happened to Maritza left me devastated. That final sequence of her getting into the plane and all the other women who were deported as well slowly disappearing until there was no one left gave me fucking chills. It was tough to watch but it had to be done to make a point of how a good portion of the immigrants who get deported are young adults who have never lived anywhere else besides the US, but still they are not considered citizens.

I absolutely adore Fig. Her character development was one of the best in the show. Also I LOVE HER RELATIONSHIP WITH CAPUTO OMG.

Piper’s sister-in-law is annoying af. I bet she is one of those anti-vaccinations freaks.

Alex looked so damn hot in her flashback oh my god. 

Goodall is adorable! For real, what a gorgeous baby.

I was not expecting CO Fischer to make a comeback.

Healy is still a piece of shit.

I can understand why Piper developed feelings for Zelda. She represented the potential life she could lead now that she was a free woman, the opportunity to start over and leave prison behind (like Sophia advised her to). However, there wasn’t anything exciting about being with her, it was way too safe and that’s the exact opposite of what she had with Alex. 

Polly is even more annoying than she was before but Larry didn’t get on my nerves this time around, which surprised me. Maybe because his little prep talk is what pushed Piper to follow Alex to Ohio or maybe it was the nostalgia. Idk, but they brought him back in a nice way.

I felt really bad for Vinnie. He wasn’t only grieving for his son but he also had to see Lorna fall into that complete state of denial.

Sophia’s comeback was everything. She looked like a goddess and she seemed so happy and in control of her life. I thought we wouldn’t see her again after she got released from prison but I’m glad they managed to bring her back even for a couple of scenes.

Totally random statement but Piper looked very attractive at the benefit gala and the morning after. I don’t know if it was the hair or the way they did her eyes but she was smoking hot.

Danielle Brooks is the best actress in the show. Don’t @ me.

McCullough is the archetype of the psycho ex. I legit thought she was going to shoot Piper when she confronted her at her house.

Alex knows Piper so damn well. She is aware of the fact that Piper tends to run away from stuff when things get complicated and her choosing to have an affair with McCullough was her way to try to protect herself. Then again, I really thought they had moved on from that phase. 

Fig lying about being pregnant to help that woman get an abortion was such a strong moment. Also her calling out the double-standard of the guard who was opposed to the woman aborting but wanted her to get deported? Legends only.

Lorna is such a racist but I can’t bring myself to dislike her. If anything I’ve always felt a bit sorry for her.

Linda is such a bitch.

Tamika was the only warden who actually cared about making a difference. I’m sad she got fired because of something that wasn’t even her fault but her good deeds made a profound impact.

McCullough is so damn unstable but I can’t blame her for developing such strong feelings for Alex. She’s quite irresistible.

Alex acting all unattached and cold as she was breaking up with Piper was painful to watch. I knew it wasn’t real but for a hot second I thought that was it for them. 

The ICE storyline was out-of-this-world amazing. So powerful and brilliantly done, quintessential OITNB.

If you had told me six years ago I would cry like a baby with Pennsatucky’s death I would have laughed at you.

But for real, POOR PENNSATUCKY. I’m sorry she had to die for Taystee to stay alive.

Because of the ‘a fan-favorite character dies in the final episode to mark the end of the show’ trope I had the feeling they were going to kill either Red, Alex or Taystee. I was legit surprised when the final death was revealed to be Pennsatucky.

That Poussey flashback had me in tears.

Alex and Nicky’s goodbye scene was so sweet and I love they talked about eventually reuniting. They were my brotp.

What Larry told Piper when she visited him at his place was very interesting. When Piper told him she loved Alex he told her he believed her, but that he also thought she loved what Alex represented. I believe that was true at some point—well, for most of the series—and, unconsciously, Piper believed that as well. But, if anything, what they went through in season 7 helped Piper realize she did want to be with Alex. The extra limb analogy was amazing and I don’t think Jenji could have picked a better way to explain their relationship.

Hellman is the new warden? Gross.

My favorite part about the old inmates’ cameos was that they were shown doing the same stuff they did in Litchfield: Boo being tired of everyone’s bullshit, Yoga giving the mandala talk to new inmates, Gina feeling exasperated and Norma calming her down, Watson running and Alison checking her time, Angie and Leanne being stupid, Brook mooning over stuff.

I only missed two characters making a cameo: Sister Ingalls and Miss Claudette. I know most fans wanted to see Bennett again but fuck that coward.

Also wtf happened to Bayley? I kinda wanted to know.

Karla’s story broke my heart. I’m glad they included her character because her story is the story of millions of immigrants that are separated from their children, forced to return to their home countries and endure harsh conditions while trying to make their way back to the US.

Blanca really went out there and said “fuck it” to the american dream, didn’t she? In my opinion she had the best ending out of all the characters. I’m so happy she reunited with Diablo and is ready to live her life with him at last. My girl deserved it.

Maria’s storyline was so ‘meh’. It was way too similar to her season 6 storyline.

My mom Gloria had the second best ending. I was afraid they were going to punish her because of the phone thing but thankfully asshole Luschek finally did something right. I was rooting for her to have a happy ending and I’m glad she got it.

Also was that little girl living with Gloria and her kids her granddaughter? Because she was definitely younger than her sons but Gloria’s flashback stated her daughters are older, so I’m confused.

I really need to know if Aleida killed Daya. I hate it was left so open.

Flaca choosing to help immigrants was so sweet. I bet one of the reasons she did it was to stop them from suffering Maritza’s fate.

Fig and Caputo are adopting!

Cindy did not deserve a good ending after she ruined Taystee’s life. That made me so angry. I was really hoping she would confess the truth.

In the end, McCullough made Alex a favor by having her transferred to Ohio. She went back to minimum security, she was with friends and people she knew and far away from all the crap in max.

What happened to Red and Lorna was devastating. Red losing her identity and her memory was so tragic because of what a badass she was. Also I knew Lorna would lose it after her son’s death but it was heartbreaking. They deserved better.

It sucks balls Nicky lost every person who was important to her but despite that I liked her ending because, even though she suffered heartbreak after heartbreak, she found a way to keep herself sober and now she will help others the way Red helped her. It was the best way she could honor her.

Despite literally everyone around Piper advising her to leave Alex behind and forget about her (from her parole officer to her dad to Larry to Sophia) the fact that she chose to follow Alex to Ohio was a pleasant surprise to me. It showed her growth and how much she really wanted to be with Alex, and that she was not a mistake in her life but her life. I was never a Vauseman shipper but even I knew they had to be endgame, any other ending wouldn’t have made any sense. I feel bad for the shippers because it was a very tough season for them but love prevailed, so congrats.

I didn’t catch the Piper Kerman cameo until I saw someone mentioned it on twitter. That was so cool! Also I don’t know if this was intentional but I liked the visual parallel between Larry Smith & Piper and Piper Kerman & Alex. Larry waited for Piper for as long as she was in jail and never abandoned her, so I choose to believe Kenji and Co. are hinting at Piper doing the same thing for Alex.

It was a good decision to show us a glimpse of Piper’s new life. She has a stable job, a new home, she is studying about criminal law and using her time in a productive way, and also she looks happier than we ever saw her.

In conclusion, I liked the season very much. Orange is one of my favorite shows and I think they ended it in a very nice way. It was very well executed and, unlike other final seasons I have watched over the years, it never felt rushed to me. It was the best season in at least a couple of years and I’m in love with the series finale, I stand by my original statement that it is the best one I have ever seen.

I give it a solid B+, four-out-of-five stars, 8.5 out of 10.

Orange forever, indeed.

[shigarakis-fifth-hand]

MHA Headcanons

How would they react to their non-gender-specific s/o winning the Sports Festival?

starting with girls this time bcuz everyone knows I’m fricking gay

Mina

“I knew it! I fucking knew it bitches!” she yelled, taking out shirts with your name on it for the entire class to wear. She even offered one to Aizawa, who said he wasn’t allow to wear. He secretly wanted one though, he was just so proud of his adopted child. 

As you stood facing your final opponent, you could hear Mina from the stands screaming her lungs off, smiling ear-to-ear as she shakes her classmates around her. 

She only stops when a boy from 1-B has the audacity to shush her. Mina knows this boy, he looks you up-and-down whenever you pass the classroom. 

“You’re just jealous that they like me you fuc-” Aizawa wrapped his scarf around her mouth, forcing her to be quiet.

 “That’s enough for you.” Tsu smiles, watching you. Mina does to, she just can’t take her eyes off you. As you run around, dodging left and right as if you have eyes in the back of your head, she feels such pride in you. 

She can’t stop screeching, pouncing off the walls as she watches you. Everyone else is focused on your fighting skills, but she can’t stop thinking about how you’re so cuddly and you are the strongest student in UA.

She never wants to let go of you ever, and that’s a promise.

Momo

She can’t help staring in shock as you dodge attacks left and right, doing everything that you never did in training. Momo watches the way you move, taking all of her tips as you keep winning, not even letting your opponent skim you. 

On the other hand, he is taking major damage from you. Momo thinks about how you two rehearsed your special running, zooming left, faking right, and the going straight.

“Left, right, right, left, straight, straight.” She watches, memorized as you follow the plan exactly.

She can’t help but be so proud. Momo fell in love with your quirk almost as fast as she fell in love with you, so she always had improvements to tell you that would make you even better. Of course, she had felt like you were ignoring her lately, the way you looked so tired while she talked. Now, she realized you had spent time at night practicing her plans and improving. And now, look where it had gotten you. 

She felt such pride knowing that she had helped you, that some of your victory was thanks to hers. She was even happier that she had helped you reach your full potential! Champion of the freaking sports festival!

The very thought of you winning made her blush, and she knew she would kiss you the minute she could! Sure there would be hundreds of people trying to talk to you, but for one second, she knew that you would talk to her. It’s just the kind of sweet person that she loved.

Uraraka

As she watched you run around the field, she felt herself crying. You two had talked about this as she had cried about his financial issues to you. You had calmed her down and told her that you would take care of her. That you two would live in a wonderful house as heroes, that you would take care of her parents, and that money would never be an issue for her again. 

You would make her life perfect, and she would never cry again. As she watched you down there, fighting for her role for 1#, she knew you meant it. She knew that you could do whatever you put your mind to, and a promise was a promise. 

As you hit your opponent to the ground, to where he could barely stand, you looked behind yourself and up at Uraraka. Blowing her a kiss and making the crowd go wild, Midnight announced to the stadium that you won. 

Uraraka found herself mumbling, getting dizzy as her friends around her shook her in happiness. 1-A was estatic, but Uraraka felt her heart jumping out of her body.

As soon as you walked to join your class, Uraraka shoved everyone, even Bakugo, out of the way as she ran to hug you, wrapping her legs around you. As she kissed you, her legs still wrapped around your torso, she began floating in happiness. 

It took Todoroki and Deku to pull you two down before Aizawa used his quirk. You both fell to the ground, laughing as you two held hands. Uraraka knew she couldn’t ever let go. You were the hero that would turn her tragic life into a love story.

Todoroki

As he watched you beat the shit out of your opponent, he couldn’t help but feel warmth in his body. It was the same feeling he got when you hugged or kissed him, or anytime he saw you in your swimsuit. 

Except, this time, he felt happiness swarm his body at the same time. As you skillfully zoomed around your opponent, he watched his dad’s reaction to you. His dad seemed... angry? Good. 

He could only imagine seeing a child better than his own infuriated him, while also seeing how happy that child was. How free your spirit was, and how silly you acted. You could even bring a smile from Aizawa, the zombie human. 

And at the same time, Endeavor had talked to you before. Sure Endeavor had no idea that you were dating him since Todoroki knew it would enrage his dad, but you had come over as a “friend” for a “school project” which really was just some hot making out and Todoroki introducing you to his family and giving you the tour of his mansion. 

Yet, Endeavor had sat down with you, talked to you, even questioned you. He asked about sensitive subjects like why you lived with Present Mic and his family, and not your own. This caused Todoroki and his father to start yelling violently, which ended dinner for sure.

As you finished your opponent with your secret move, the entire crowd erupted into roars of fans as you looked around, almost passing out from over-working yourself. 

Then you saw Endeavor, with that confused look on his face. He looked appalled at how powerful you were, since you didn’t have that much muscles and you were pretty thin thanks to a fast metabolism. How on earth could you even be real? Honestly, Endeavor was impressed, but not as much as angry that his son wasn’t better. It was Todoroki’s fault he wasn’t as powerful as you, right?

As the match ended, you ran to meet your class, Endeavor following close behind, wanting to talk to you. Immediately Todoroki ran up to you, hugging you tightly. “Can I kiss you?” he asked smoothly, sending chills up your spine. “Yea, but your dad is right t-” 

You couldn’t talk anymore as Todoroki kissed your lips passionately, holding you closely. Nothing sexual, but more protectively. 

Sending messages saying that you were his, especially sending that message to his old man who was burning in rage and confusion. As you kissed, you could hear the cameras flashing behind you as Todoroki imagined pictures of you two kissing circulating the News station for weeks, smiling at the thought of his dad being questioned about your relationship. 

You two would be the hottest new couple in town and he would make sure that your relationship got famous.

“ENDEAVOR’S SON AND SPORTS FESTIVAL WINNER; YOUNG LOVE?!”

Tenya

As Tenya watched, he felt shakes congratulating him from his seat as he watched you. “Dude, good job!” Kirishima smiled, cheering loudly for you. “Why are you congratulating me? All that skill is her own... look at the way she moves. She’s so much more powerful than I thought!” It was true, Tenya had never realized how powerful you were, and it was only going to get better from here. 

He knew you had a secret move, you were just waiting for the right time to use it, near the end so when you used up all your energy, he would be done for!

But as Tenya watched from the sidelines, he found himself getting angry. How dare the competition do this to him, making him watch as you constantly got thrown around like a rag doll, even though you were winning. You were still getting hurt, even injured. 

He knew that recovery girl would have to focus on you very much. Kirishima had broken your ribs, Uraraka had dropped you from a large height, and Deku had punched you right in the stomach, knocking the wind out of you and having you crumble to the ground. It pained Iida to see you fight, and he was just grateful that he didn’t have to fight you. Your greatest weapon was the puppy dog eyes, and that would have him surrendering in seconds. 

He wouldn’t be able to hurt you, to hear your groans of pain and to see you cough blood. But you were a fighter, it was just one of the things he loved about you.

That’s when you used your secret move, sending your enemy to the ground. Iida knew it would, he had let you use that same move on him before, except lighter. Your opponent was surely on the verge of death as they wheeled him out on a stretcher to recovery girl. As soon as you exited the arena, thousands of news reporters followed you, taking photos and asking you questions. “Tell us, what’s it like to be the Sports Festival winner? What teacher led you to push yourself? Do you have any other hobbies? Will you model for us? Who’s your greatest inspiration?” 

Instinctively, Iida grabbed you by the waist, growled at the reporters, and kissed you passionately. “I’m so proud of you princess.” he whispered in your ear.

Kirishima

As Kirishima watched you run around the arena, he saw some of your muscles showing through your shirt. You were the hottest, manliest thing in the world, he was about to cry. Most guys would find it threatening or bad that they’re s/o was better than them, but it just made Kirishima cry.

Kirishima was happy for you, especially proud to be your boyfriend as he watched everyone in the stadium stare at you intensively their eyes wide open. “Dude, do you see this! Look at them! And that!” Kirishima hugged his bro back as he looked at Denki, smiling. “Bro, are you crying?” Denki asked as Kirishima nodded happily, not denying it. “Yea bro. I’m just so happy.” Denki started crying too. “It’s okay bro. It’s their big day.” 

As they said that, you finished your opponent with your big move, knocking your opponent out cold. The stadium was quiet for seconds before it erupted into screaming, yelling, cheering, and more. Midnight walked out and raised your hand as you smiled, looking around and finding Kirishima’s friendly face in the mix. 

You smiled at him directly as his heart skipped a beat. After you took a few photos with happy All Might, proud dads Aizawa and Present Mic, and impressed Endeavor even, you walked out to join your class. There stood Kirishima waiting for you patiently, his heart jumping around excitingly as he smiled.

“You did so good baby.” he whispered, walking over and kissing you slowly before turning around and smiling at the cameras with you at his side. You rolled your eyes for your cheesey boyfriend as you kissed his cheek.

The entire class applauded you too as the cameras flashed. You knew that you and Kiri would show up on the cover of some magazine. You were excited to remember this moment forever.

Bakugo

As of his luck, you were his competitor. That’s right, the very person he had kissed and cuddled with and trained with... was right in front of him, about to fight him. “I want to win Katsuki, I need the prize money.” You whispered to him as he began to get upset. He nodded, knowing that you were right. “Walk out of the arena Y/n. I’m not fighting you.” 

You just shook your head, refusing. You were just as stubborn as he was, that was why he loved you so much.

“I told you to go!” He blasted many deadly explosions your way, but he knew you could take it. “Get recovery girl!’‘ Midnight yelled, about to stop Bakugo from killing you. That was, until she saw you standing like nothing had happened. You had dodged every explosion?!?! NO WAY. “K-Katsuki.” You began crying, showing your arm to him. Your arm had 3rd degree burns, the blister bleeding and sizzling. “I-It hurts.” You looked up at him to show your puppy dog eyes as he immediately softened. “Then surrender! Go get help!” He yelled, confused at what you were doing. “No, I’m going to make you watch me in pain. Watch me cry, make it burn. Watch that you hurt me. I thought you loved me Katsuki.”

Immediately the crowd began booing Katsuki as he stared at you, at your hurt arm, feeling instant regret. Instantly he ran out of the center before running back to you. As the buzzer sounded off, you found yourself getting woozy and passing out from the pain. 

You woke up in the room minutes later, an IV injected into your arm. You were still in your bloody uniform, except you had bandages on your burnt arm. 

“You’re awake!” Katsuki rushed to your side, kissing your forehead in relief. “Y-you’re not mad?” You began crying as he just shook his head. “I couldn’t ever be mad after I did this to you. You were right, you do need this prize money. Now you can stay at UA, with me. It’s a win-win for both of us.” He kissed your forehead as he helped you stand. 

“Come on! All the photographers want pics with you I guess. I’m not letting of of your hand so they’ll have to deal with it.”

I spent all night writing this ❤️❤️ If you wouldn’t mind leaving a comment so I know if people are actually enjoying my stuff! 😘😘

[visforvengeance]

Exit music (for a film)

Ｂｉｌｌｙ Ｈａｒｇｒｏｖｅ

Requested by: no one ;)

Notes: hello. here is something i’ve been working on since s3. it was originally called we hope that you choke. but i changed it literally 3 minutes ago. it’s going to be in chapters bc i couldn’t figure out how to write everything without making it an 8,000 word fic😬. the upside down doesn’t exist in this. el doesn’t have powers. ahem hopper and billie don’t die. i thought this song would fit perfectly with billy considering his dad is pretty shit. i’m procrastinating on wdywmts. i’m so sorry. i have a justin foley fic. do y’all want that shit?

Warnings: none in this chapter. i mean cursing? and vulgar language. steve being a dick. billy is maybe out of character. slight mentions of death and daddy issues.

word count: 2,072

Y/n’s POV

“Have you seen the new kid? He’s so hot! Ugh! Look at that hair!” My friend, Genesis, gushed as he walked by. He was hot, but he looked like trouble. And it was annoying how every girl swooned over him. Looks like Steve Harrington has some competition this year. “Gen, don’t you have a boyfriend?” I questioned. She rolled her green eyes and scoffed. “Alex and I are on a break, thank you very much.” I laughed at her faux annoyance.

I closed my locker door and leaned against it. “He isn’t even that hot. He’s already flirting with girls and it’s literally his first day.” Genesis hit my arm. “Can you blame him? Look at him. God, his chest is so mint! I’d give anything to get a piece of that.” I shook my head at how much my friend was thirsting over him. “Jesus, Gen. Can you keep it in your pants? You don’t even know his name.” She smirked and looked at me. “Billy Hargrove.” God, even his name sounded like he’d be a womanizer.

“I’m not even going to ask how you know that. And keep your dirty comments to yourself, Genesis.” The red-haired girl slammed her locker shut. And we began walking to first period. “Oh, don’t be such a prude, Y/N! Ever since you broke up with Steve, you’ve been a complete betty!” I rolled my eyes and scoffed. “No, I haven’t! I just don’t care for boys anymore. They’re stupid and gross.”

“Yeah, since you got your heart broken. Come on! It’s time to show him what he’s missing. Have you seen your body recently? Boys have been tripping over their feet staring at you. You just won’t give them the time of day.” Blah blah blah. She just had to bring up repressed memories of a certain tragedy.

Steve had called me over to attend the end of the year party he was having. His parents weren’t home, so he had a shit ton of alcohol for everyone. When I entered the door, I was greeted by loud music and drunken teens. I wove my way through the crowd and stood by Steve. He’d noticed me and pecked my cheek, “Hey, babe. You made it.” He sounded surprised. “I mean, yeah? Why do you sound so surprised?” He was a little drunk, so he tripped over his words a bit.

“U-usually you never come. Too busy doing your homework or whatever excuse you tell me.” Tommy H. appeared and forced his way into the conversation. “Nah, she’s too busy being a prude. Are you a virgin, Y/N? Steve usually tells me about all the girls he’s fucked, but you? He’s never even mentioned.” Before I had a chance to defend myself, Carol butted in.

“No way she’s a virgin. I heard she had a thing going on with that creep, Johnathan Byers. How’d you take it, Y/N? In the ass? Or did he pop your sweet cherry?” Steve laughed as Tommy and Carol taunted me. I scoffed. “None of your business, dipshits. And seriously, Steve? I’ve been to every one of your stupid parties. You just choose to ignore me. Like you do in school, you cast me aside. Am I not popular enough for you? Is that it? Or are you too busy ogling Nancy Wheeler?” His face scrunched in confusion. “Woah, woah, woah. Are you okay? You’re going a bit psycho. It’s not my fault no one likes you.” I scoffed at Steve’s drunken words. Of course, he’d say something like this.

The next day, Steve found out about what he had said. He tried to explain why he said what he said, but never said he was sorry and that it wasn’t true. I broke it off with him.

I shook my head, pushing the thoughts out of my mind. “I’d rather not. And what makes you think he’d go for me anyway? I don’t seem like his type.” Genesis filled the halls with laughter. “He’s been staring at you since he walked into the classroom. And not to mention, he’s coming over to you now!” What? I turned to his direction and followed until he was standing next to the desk beside me.

“Is this seat taken?” I think I underestimated his attractiveness. He was insanely hot. “U-uh no.” I stuttered out an answer. He nodded and smirked. It was science class and my partner had moved to another state. You know what that means? He’ll most likely be my partner. I don’t think I'm stable enough to handle this.

The next 60 minutes were filled with uninterested and forced conversations about physics and whether I was single or not. Thank god for the bell. Before Billy could say another thing, I rushed out of the classroom and stood by my locker, waiting for Genesis. She looked annoyed as she approached me. “Why the hell did you run off? He was obviously into you.”

I rolled my eyes as she lectured me about the blue-eyed boy’s interest in me. “I don’t want to be the first of girls who he has fucked over. I’ve had enough of that with Steve.” She frowned at my tragic outburst. “You never know! He might be different. Looks CAN be deceiving, Y/N. You have to give him a chance. It’s my dying wish!” Genesis dramatically placed her hands on her heart and head. When I deadpanned, she straightened her posture. “Come on. You don’t even have to go all the way. Just be nice to him.”

I sighed an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Fine! I’ll be nice to him. But as soon as he shows signs that he’s up to no good, I am dropping it.” Genesis excitedly jumped up and down, trapping me in a hug. “Yes! That’s all I’m asking. I just know you won’t regret it.” She declared as she wiggled her eyebrows in a suggestive manner.

Billy had shown up in my next class, and also decided to take a seat next to me. Causing a student to angrily walk to the back of the class, while she shot daggers at me as we talked. He looked at me and smiled. While the teacher taught, he started talking to me. “Hey.” Remembering what Genesis said, I turned and smiled at him. “Hi.” His eyes displayed shock, but his body remained cool. “So, you’re talking to me now?” I laughed and nodded. “I’m glad I didn’t give up on you, then.” “Hm, I’m glad too.”

We talked for majority of second period. He was quite interesting and he had a gorgeous smile. I learned that he came from California and had a sister. He made it his job to walk me to my locker and carry on the conversation we had for three periods now. As we were walking, Genesis’ ginger curls came into view as did my locker. She saw us and her eyes went wide with surprise.

I introduced the two people as I opened my locker. “Billy, this is my best friend, Genesis. Genesis, this is my new friend, Billy.” He turned to Gen and greeted her by taking her hand and placing a chaste kiss on the back of it. “Pleasure to meet you, Genesis.” My friend was astonished, as she bowed. “The pleasure is all mine.” I rolled my eyes in annoyment as Genesis continued to be dramatic.

It was now time for lunch and Billy joined us at our table. While we walked, I felt Steve’s eyes on us. Jealousy painted the features that I once adored. I returned my attention back to the two people who were happily chatting about god knows what. “So, Billy. Are you dating anyone?’ Genesis stated as she nudged my knee with her own. I nearly choked at the question as I looked at her. Thank god he didn’t notice my slight panic and carried on with his answer.

“No, not at the moment.” He chuckled at the question. “Interesting. Neither is Y/N.” I felt hot all over as Genesis exposed my relationship status to a person I barely knew. Now, Billy was full-on laughing while I sat in complete embarrassment. “Yes, and it’ll stay that way until further notice,” I said while I kicked the girl’s knee. She winced in pain and decided to back down, for now. Billy’s face faltered in disappointment. But he quickly replaced it with amusement.

“What a bummer, then.” He smiles almost sadly. “Yes. A complete bummer. I’ve been trying to get her to come out of her shell, but Steve really fucked it up for her.” Genesis said, angrily. He pulled a confused look. “Steve Harrington?” He asked. Genesis and I exchanged a look. “Yeah, you know him?” He nodded while taking a sip of his chocolate milk.

“He’s in my gym class. Real asshat, that guy. What happened between you two?” He asked, curiously. Genesis looked at me, expectantly. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “He was just a dick. He always placed his popularity and shithead friends above me.” Billy shook his head in disbelief and slight anger. “He didn’t deserve you.” Genesis perked up at that. “I’ve been saying that for centuries.” I zoned out as they both shared a common ground on how I deserved better.

Lunch was over and we had to go to fourth period. Genesis and I had gym, so Billy didn’t tag along with us. “So, he seems like absolute boyfriend material.” I shook my head. “You’re really pushing for us to date, huh?” Genesis turned to me after stretching her legs. “Uh, yes? You guys would make the perfect couple. He gives me bad boy/protective boyfriend vibes. Potential daddy issues with unconditional love for his girlfriend? Ah-mazing!”

He seemed really sweet and he was definitely the cutest. His hair seems so soft, and don’t even get me started on his smile. It makes hearts generate above my head! And his body, dear god. It seems so perfect. I’d give anything to feel his abs against my-

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Genesis nearly screamed at me. “What? No, I’m not.” She squinted at me, not believing a word I said. ‘Date. Him.’ She mouthed at me. I shook my head and turned to pay attention to my teacher’s directions.

The school day was over and I was so relieved. Gen’s dad picked her up early, so I was alone for the rest of class. I was putting my things in my locker when Billy approached me. “Did you miss me?” He asked, jokingly. I laughed and closed my locker. “I just about died without you.” I said as I placed my hand on my chest, dramatically. A slight blush creeped up on his cheeks.

He cleared his throat and regained his composure. “Are you doing anything after school?” He asked. I thought about it for a second and shook my head. “Nope. I planned I’m going straight home. Why?” He held the door open for me as we walked outside. “I was wondering if you maybe wanted to hangout?”

I giggled at his uncertainty. “Yeah, i'd like that. We could probably go to the park? And just sit in your car and talk.” He seemed so happy that I agreed. “Ok. Sounds like a plan.”

We arrived at the park and he turned his car off. I turned so I was facing him. “So. Tell me about yourself. How old is your sister?” “She’s actually my stepsister. But she’s 14. My mom died when I was 8.” I grabbed his hand and apologized. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry. That must’ve been hard to deal with.” He looked at our hands and then up at me. I released his hand and placed mine back in my lap. “It was. My dad...he’s really shitty.” Daddy issues? Wow, is my best friend God?

“Sounds fucked up. I’m sorry, again. Do you miss California?” He nodded. “A lot. But I think I’ll like it better here.” He smirked. My eyes went wide for a second and then back to normal. This boy is going to kill me.

“You know. You’re actually not so bad. I think I might take a chance on you.” He leaned back in his seat. “God, I sure hope so. You seem like a doll.” I laughed at his confidence. “Thanks, I guess.”

[skekheck]

30 Days of the Dark Crystal Challenge

Decided to do poultry-blocks Dark Crystal challenge because it looks like a lot of fun to do. However I’m cheating and I wrote all of this within a couple of days. Warning: fairly large post with pictures and fan ramblings. 

EDIT: I FORGOT TO INCLUDE DAY 16 WHOOP. It’s in there now. 

Day 1. Your favorite skeksis

Idiot, feral, wildman who stole my heart. How? Why? Who knows. *chef kisses* Beautiful stinky bastard.

Day 2: Your favorite gelfling

Bless her and her skeksis cosplay. What a queen.

Day 3: A character that you love that everyone seems to hate.

The tides are changing for her it seems. I think people are appreciating her more, but she still faces her fair share of controversies. Not that I don’t think it warrants discussion nor am I excusing her actions. But she’s way more complex than what a lot of people are making her out to be.

Day 4: A character that you hate that everyone seems to love. 

Hate is a strong word as I don’t hate him, but I don’t really care for Amri. He feels like a bootleg Deet mixed with a little bit of Kylan and Gurjin. Wasted potential and honestly shouldn’t have been the POV for Tides of the Dark Crystal. Seems I’m alone in this opinion, though. Maybe the book warrants rereading?

Day 5: Movie or TV Show? Why?

TV Show by miles! I think the series accomplishes way more than the movie does, like establishing lore,  better written characters, and a more engaging story. I actually cared about the gelfling and it really fleshed out the skeksis in an interesting way outside of “oh they do evil things because they’re evil!”. Doesn’t mean it does everything right, but I’ll get into that later.  

Day 6: Something you wish that happened in the series but didn’t.

Just a few things. I miss the gelfling intermingling with the mystics, particularly urVa. I love everything that happens with urGoh and skekGra, but some of the bonding moments Naia had with urVa are precious and I wish we had more of that. I also wished the gelfling got the message out to the other clans like they did in the book where Kylan dreametched their message onto the Santuary Tree’s blossoms and scattered them all throughout Thra. I also wished Tavra and Onica were an established couple, but maybe it’s not too late for that.

Day 7: Favorite gelfling clan

The Sifa! It was the Dousan at first, but the more I learned about the Sifa the more I grew to love the clan. If I were a gelfling I would probably be a sifa myself LOL. 

Day 8: You opinion on Aughra

She’s a fun and fascinating character! Aughra puts a unique spin on the whole beautiful, wise earth goddess trope by making her ugly, old, and cranky. She’s also a character with her own flaws, even having a mini arc about neglecting to take care of her planet and doing whatever she can to make amends. Not to mention she’s wildly entertaining. Much love for Aughra!

Day 9: Skeksis or Gelfling?

Both!

Day 10: Your opinion on podlings?

They’re just funky little potato people who just want to have fun, dance, and drink all day and I respect them for that. They’re great. Also Hup exists and he’s just an amazing character so there’s that.

Day 11: Your The Dark Crystal unpopular opinion

I think it’s okay to sympathize with the skeksis as long as one is not excusing their actions. I see a lot of people say you shouldn’t because they’re evil and they commit atrocities. Which, yes, it’s true, but I think both can co-exist. I mean, skekTek’s whole cycle of abuse is written very sympathetically yet the show doesn’t coddle him. It shows the ugliness of his character and what happens when someone isn’t capable of cutting off from said cycle. Also the writers consider the skeksis as tragic characters due to their broken nature so I don’t think it’s wrong to be a little sympathetic. But once again with great emphasis, sympathy is fine as long as their actions are judged. They are awful bastards and no amount of sympathy will change that. 

Day 12: Something you dislike about the series

I think the stuff I don’t like about the show is a result of its pacing and cluttered cast. There are so many stories going on and while I liked how they handled it for the most part, you can also see how the show rushes to get through all of them. A lot of important moments where a character should reflect or something that should simmer more is pushed aside for the next thing. Maybe if the show was given more episodes and time to breath it would have been better off. 

Day 13: Most disappointing thing about the series

SkekMal and urVa didn’t have enough screen time and we were honestly ROBBED. 

Day 14: Your OTP

Speaking of which... . Its a crack ship, but I’m all about that allegory for self love (and I just want these two to be alive). Day 15: Favorite quote

Listed plenty of my favorite quotes before, but I’ll pick this one:

“ Life is my paint. Death is my canvas”

Day 16: Rate the skeksis from least favorite to favorite OR rate the gelfling from lest favorite to favorite [or both!]

And if you want my gelfling hot takes, here’s this list (just backwards in context to this post)

Day 17: Opinion on Raunip?

Raunip is a fantastic character. I loved him in Creation Myths and I can’t wait to see what role he’d play in the resistance. And I absolutely love the parallels between him and the urskeks it’s great. 

Day 18: A character that is most similar to you.

I too am a dark-dwelling gremlin who constantly forgets where I put things and crack a few dark jokes at my expense. 

Day 19: Which character do you strongly dislike, why?

This is entirely based on the books, but I find Mera to be awful.  I think it’s because she’s so fake and condescending? When Naia arrived in Sami Thicket, she was acting nice and polite but when the Drenchen asked her why the skeksis never visited Sog Mera responded  “It’s only worth counting what’s valuable”. She continuously disrespects her by calling her pet names even when Naia became maudra. It doesn’t come off as cute, it’s gross. I don’t recall Mera ever apologizing for any of the shit she did to Naia... or Kylan for that matter. She was a pretty neglectful step-mother to him. She doesn’t have an excuse being busy with Maudra stuff because Laesid was a kickass mom to her kids. So in conclusion, fuck this bitch.

Day 20: What do you like so much about the Dark Crystal?

The better question what’s not to love about the Dark Crystal? It has amazing creature design, an expansive world that feels real and alien from our own, having complex and interesting characters as well as villains, the fact that it relies heavily on practical effects a.k.a puppetry... . There’s nothing like it and that’s what makes it so wonderful and unique. It needs to be appreciated more. 

Day 21: Favorite music piece from the soundtrack?

Can’t beat that opening theme. 

Day 22: Your opinion on the sequel comics [Power/Beneath the Dark Crystal]

They have cool concepts and ideas, but they’re not written well. Power is just the movie if it was put into a blender and shredded and ignoring a large portion of established lore for the sake of plot. And Beneath is just a generic fantasy story with the Dark Crystal logo slapped on it. 

Day 23: Which character from the YA novels/comics do you wish we would see more of?

There are plenty of characters that are a given to appear in the series at some point (skekSa, skekLi, urSan, etc). And of course I want to see them, but I really hope Periss shows up (and his brother too). He is one of my favorite characters from the book series and we could use some more Dousan rep!

Day 24: Your opinion on the Age of Resistance comic?

I have yet to read the comics. I’m waiting on them to be part of a collection so I don’t have to buy all of the volumes at once (I prefer owning physical copies). I’ve heard good things about them, especially the story with Hup and the current Mayrin arc. I’m excited to get my hands on them. 

Day 25: The best moment/scene in the series?

There are a lot of great moments, but Rian and Ordon’s fight with skekMal is still my favorite in the entire series. The "Speak For the Dead” scene is a close second.

Day 26: The death of a character that hurt you the most?

He did not deserve this. Fuck you, skekMal. 

Day 27: Your favorite episode from the series?

It’s got to be 4. Not just because a number of my favorite characters debut in this episode, but it’s an important one for the plot. Stakes are being raised, we’re seeing set ups to major story elements and character arcs, and events that impact the rest of the series. It also has a handful of my favorite character moments and interactions. 

Day 28: Your favorite non-skeksis and non-gelfling character? Why?

I’ve come to realize the reasons why I love urVa are the same as why I love skekMal (incredibly appropriate I might say). There’s enough information about him that we get a good understanding on who he is as a character, but still mysterious enough that there’s interest in wanting to know more. Much like his skeksis, he’s unique from the other mystics and thus giving him unique experiences that are fun to speculate. However, the YA novels are responsible for my current fondness of him. 

Day 29: Do you like the urru and skeksis apart or like them as urSkeks together?

A main theme of the Dark Crystal is unity and balance. The main conflict of the franchise are the skeksis, the broken fragments of their urskek self who, according to the writers, “...[have] a dire need for the qualities they lack”. Their only salvation is to become urskeks again and unfortunately many of the pairs never achieve this.  They’re basically a giant allegory for the self and self-love. While we don’t really know what they were like when they were an urskek (aside from SilSol perhaps), we can get some understanding when we look at their pairs and see what traits they share. Speculation is also fun! So as much as I love the skeksis and mystics as individuals, I prefer them to be whole again.

Day 30: What are your wishes for a possible season 2?

A whole bunch of things. I want to see them explore more about the mystics and their lifestyle, having Raunip play a big part in the plot, seeing more of skekSa’s fall from grace from her perspective, the beginning of the Garthim Wars, and more. 

[tabloidtoc]

National Enquirer, October 26

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover Story: Death Mysteries -- Whitney Houston autopsy cover-up; Kenny Rogers’ body is missing 

Page 2: Reba McEntire’s new romance with Rex Linn convinced Kelly Clarkson she needed to walk away from her unhappy marriage -- while Reba’s love life was heating up Kelly’s relationship with husband Brandon Blackstock who is Reba’s former stepson was hitting the rocks and Kelly remained very close with Reba and Reba would tell her how happy Rex had made her

Page 3: Control freak Tom Cruise is a basket case after he couldn’t charm Cher into leaving their steamy fling out of her upcoming memoir and the image-conscious actor was so panicky over Cher spilling their sexy secrets that he personally called her -- they had a strong physical attraction when they met at a White House event back in the ‘80s and eventually they hooked up and it was very hot and very intense and over in a matter of weeks but it left a nice impression on Cher so she only has good things to say about their relationship but what happened between them could prove very embarrassing if it got out and Tom doesn’t want that to happen -- unfortunately for Tom Cher wouldn’t say anything about what she intends to write and wouldn’t promise to leave Tom out and that’s made Tom even more paranoid and he’s wondering if he’s going to have to take legal action

Page 4: Kanye West is keeping a secret divorce diary to use against wife Kim Kardashian and its potential dishy dirt has her famous family quaking in their boots -- Kanye’s convinced Kim’s about the kick him to the curb and is putting together collateral to crush her and her family is the couple spirals into a $2.2 billion divorce, Jennifer Garner at 48 is flaunting her best body ever and her motivation is to compete with ex-husband Ben Affleck’s 32-year-old girlfriend Ana de Armas because Jen was tired of hearing how Ben’s fallen head over heels for Ana and wanted to remind him what he’s missing -- Jen’s always been very confident of her looks but she decided to step out of mom mode to remind everyone how hot she still is 

Page 5: Devastated Lisa Marie Presley has been relying on an old pal Smashing Pumpkins rocker Billy Corgan to repair her shattered life in the wake of the suicide of her son -- Lisa Marie and Billy were spotted together at Graceland not long ago and he’s been a huge source of support for her -- though they were rumored to have had a romance in 2018 Billy’s fully committed to his baby mama fashion designer Chloe Mendel and Lisa Marie would like nothing better for them to make beautiful music again but she knows he’s taken and she needs his friendship more than ever. 

Page 6: Ambitious anchor Gayle King is calling the shots at CBS This Morning after executive producer Diana Miller quit in the latest backstage shake-up; there was tension between Gayle and Diana and now Diana is gone -- it’s like the show gave Gayle the keys to the car and even if she runs it into a ditch the network gives her more power -- Gayle also clashed with former co-host Norah O’Donnell who successfully snagged the anchor chair at CBS Evening News but Norah hasn’t wowed in the ratings and it’s a matter of time before Gayle gets the coveted job 

Page 7: The mystery over the fate of country great Kenny Rogers’ body has left his own family members in the dark -- sources close to the singer said he’d been cremated while others charged his body is still on ice and Kenny’s body is missing as far as most people are concerned and there’s no place fans can go and pay their respects -- it’s most likely he’s been cremated and the ashes have yet to be scattered but there have also been whispers in certain circles that he could have been cryogenically frozen to preserve his body for a later date, many of Hollywood’s biggest names are abandoning Tinseltown to escape the COVID-19 pandemic and a collapsing entertainment industry -- Julia Roberts hightailing it to San Francisco and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson getting citizenship in Greece and Pierce Brosnan put his Malibu mansion on the market and Jim Cameron is peddling his prized L.A. compound

Page 8: Frustrated Jon Stewart’s plans to reinvent himself as the next Steven Spielberg have flopped and he’s pretty unhappy about it and he wants to be viewed as a respected serious filmmaker but he’s hit more roadblocks than he ever saw as a comedian or talk show host -- he was left fuming when Irresistible his latest outing as a director was met by mediocre reviews and limited to pay-per-view and streaming services last summer even with box office draw and best buddy Steve Carell in the cast -- he could snap his fingers and get any TV project but he’s setting his sights much higher and he’s walked away from millions of dollars to go back to TV because he wants to prove he is a creative force in the film industry 

Page 9: Frustrated Brad Pitt is threatening to have ex Angelina Jolie dragged to jail if she refuses to end her harassment campaign against him and hash out a divorce and custody agreement and he’s had it with Angie’s intimidation tactics and is fed up with being labeled a bad dad and it’s no exaggeration to say Brad’s scared of Angie and he wants professional witnesses around them at all times when he attempts to see their children but for Brad though it would be the ultimate revenge to see Angie led away in handcuffs, Nashville legend Travis Tritt is trying to keep up with country music’s up-and-comers by getting a lift from plastic surgery and recent photos show the 57-year-old almost unrecognizable with a line-free face and skin as tight as a drum -- Travis is getting ready to put out his first album of new music in more than ten years and it’s hard to blame the guy when he’s completing against singers 30 years younger 

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Julia Garner got a touch-up on the Staten Island set of Inventing Anna, Reverend Run visited a mural of slain Run-DMC bandmate Jam Master Jay in NYC’s Hollis Queens, Vanessa Paradis and daughter Lily-Rose Depp in Paris

Page 11: Lovestruck Chrissy Metz is already talking marriage and babies with newly unveiled beau Bradley Collins but she has a history of falling for guys fast which has previously been a recipe for heartbreak and while nobody’s doubting Bradley’s intentions there’s a lot of confusion about why they kept their romance totally hidden until now, the devastating fire that tore through Rachael Ray’s home has made her reassess her life and she and husband John Cusimano are now considering adopting a baby -- losing so many of their possessions in the fire made them realize they weren’t all that important anyway so they bulldozed the house and are rebuilding and the word is they’ll add a nursery

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Danny Trejo cuddled a rescue pup (picture), Lizzo is the first plus-sized Black woman to ever grace the cover of Vogue but pulling off the shoot was a challenge with most designers unable to find clothes that fit her, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel are very private and they’re livid with Lance Bass after he confirmed that they had another baby, when he was NBC’s biggest star Matt Lauer conducted almost every high-profile interview and now editors and doing a lot of cropping and zooming to preserve archived footage while removing Matt 

Page 14: Crime 

Page 15: Rock guitar god Eddie Van Halen who tragically died after a brave battle with cancer wanted to be buried with one of his Frankenstrat guitars that he created to define his signature sound -- Eddie felt like he owed his whole life to that instrument and he loved that thing as much as his family, Perez Hilton dished he kissed notorious skirt-chaser John Mayer in a New York nightclub and the lip-lock happened right in front of John’s then girlfriend Jessica Simpson who didn’t seem to know whether she was incredibly embarrassed or really turned on

Page 16: Cover Story -- explosive new autopsy evidence proves superstar Whitney Houston didn’t have to die -- eight years after she passed mysteries about her final moments and blatant blunders at the death scene point to murder and a shocking coverup and now investigators are demanding a new probe into the 2012 tragedy in a Los Angeles hotel bathroom and for Whitney’s body to be exhumed -- a private eye believes the autopsy proves Whitney was murdered but the case was never pursued because she was dismissed as a druggie and she was marginalized by law enforcement as a dead drug user 

Page 18: American Life

Page 19: Horror movie legend John Saxon’s family started battling over his fortune even before he passed on July 25 -- in legal papers filed in May his son Antonio claimed the actor’s third wife Gloria Martel had been pocketing money against John’s wishes, Netflix faces criminal charges in Texas over the controversial film Cuties -- according to court documents a Tyler County grand jury indicted Netflix claiming it knowingly promoted visual material that depicts the lewd exhibition of the private parts of a clothed or partially clothed child younger than 18 -- Netflix said in a statement that Cuties is a social commentary about the sexualization of young children and this charge is without merit 

Page 20: Suzanne Somers recently cheated death when she and husband Alan Hamel fell down a flight of stairs at their Palm Springs home and although Alan wasn’t seriously injured the terrifying spill left Suzanne in agony with two displaced vertebrae and forced her to undergo delicate neck surgery but she said the surgery went off without a hitch and promised she is on the mend, Hollywood Hookups -- Sofia Richie has unfollowed Scott Disick on Instagram, Zac Efron hopes to marry Vanessa Valladares, Sharon Stone and Mindy Kaling are both on the market 

Page 21: Twelve years after she was placed under conservatorship Britney Spears remains unable to sign her own name on official documents -- Britney recently made moves asking to allow a different financial group to step in and help run her life as well as gain more freedom but lawyer Andrew Wallet said Britney to this day does not have the capacity to sign documents and make decisions for herself and she is susceptible to undue influences, the audience for the Saturday Night Live season premiere came away with more than just a few yuks they also received $150 because to get around New York State pandemic guidelines SNL gave each guest a parting gift of $150 paychecks as if they were employees, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may soon have a new neighbor in heavy metal maniac Tommy Lee -- the drummer was recently spotted checking out a $2.3 million three-acre plot next to the rogue royals’ $14 million home in Montecito and he was obviously pumped about living there but building the tattooed rocker’s home would mean tons of truck traffic and hopefully Harry and Meghan don’t get upset with the building work he’s planning 

Page 22: ABC is reeling from a barrage of allegations from employees and on-air talent who’ve blasted it as a toxic and racist working environment -- the network which is owned by the family-friendly Walt Disney Corporation was rocked when Sunny Hostin the popular co-host of The View accused company executives of institutional and personal racism in her memoir and in later interviews about the book

Page 26: Lonely country singer Kenny Chesney is looking to find a new ladylove and is talking about finally settling down for good -- he is unhappily single after his eight-year relationship with model Mary Nolan hit the rocks -- he spends all the time he’s not on the road at his island paradise in Antigua but he misses having a partner and he’s even asked pals Matthew McConaughey and Richard Branson to play matchmaker 

Page 28: America is preparing for World War III as China amps up war games in the South Pacific and readies plans to invade U.S. allies -- military insiders warn China and Russia and their tyrannical accomplices in Iran and North Korea and Syria and Turkey are bracing to launch a coordinated attack against America and the west that could end in nuclear disaster 

Page 36: Health Watch 

Page 38: Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood has traded in his debauched days of sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll for knitting, Rod Stewart revealed there’s a deep freeze between him and former close pal Elton John and that Elton refused his attempts to that things out -- the two ‘70s icons had been friends for decades before Rod blasted Elton’s biopic and his most recent music tour -- when Rod realized he was in the doghouse he tried to bait Elton with a bone for his kids by inviting Elton’s boys Zachary and Elijah to come play soccer with his sons Alistair and Aiden only to be greeted with the sounds of silence 

Page 42: Red Carpet -- The Christian Siriano collection 

Page 45: Spot the Differences -- Sophie Okonedo in Ratched 

Page 47: Odd List 

[theajaheira]

OKAY. issue 14! bet you’ve all really missed these posts, huh?

so as i mentioned earlier today: when i first saw that bitty preview, my heart went “it would be so funny/ridiculous/wonderful/tragic if jenny was staring into the camera contemplating how fucking much she really wished she hadn’t just hooked up with her kinda emotionally unavailable boyfriend,” and i reluctantly discarded that possibility as relatively unlikely (which i REALLY REALLY REALLY need to learn to NOT DO at this point given that boom studios has spent an entire year just going out of its way to exceed my expectations!!! ridiculous!!!) and moved on with my life.

And Then.

(a brief reprieve from my meta to SCREAM about giles and jenny and their HOOKUP. a THING THAT HAPPENED. she is IN HIS BED. the only canon i respect is reboot canon that’s IT.)

this conversation’s been a long time coming. jenny planted the seeds for it in issue 6:

and was subsequently (and gently) shut down by giles in a way that -- at the time, and without seeing his decision in the museum when the chips were down -- did seem like genuine growth and understanding on his part.

when we circle back to giles’s watcher-related hang-ups, it’s framed this time as something that has the potential to hurt jenny -- something that he will always place above her, in a way that initially made me assume that canon was building towards jenny demanding a relationship where she’s prioritized unequivocally first.

but jenny’s real concerns get brought up again in issue 14.

giles brings up the concept of “healing together,” framing the entire thing as just a communication snafu that they can work together to resolve -- and emphasizing that his priority here is rebuilding his relationship with jenny. his decision to let joyce die at the museum is described by him as “an unfair test that you had to endure,” and he very clearly sees the entire thing as water under the bridge now that they’re both safe, alive, and in their right mind.

jenny is very clearly not in that place.

and now it is time for me to SCREAM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS, because THIS. THIS is the kind of jenny-and-giles content that i didn’t even know i wanted!!! they’re very clearly in love in a big, messy way that neither of them are trying to deny or work around; they’ve been an important part of each other’s lives for long enough that they feel comfortable calling each other out (whether it’s giles in issue 9 emphasizing that he’s “always been there” for jenny despite her tendency to shut him out, or it’s jenny in . uh. literally every single second she’s in a scene with giles, to be honest), and this is a genuine opportunity for growth on giles’s part that canon NEVER, EVER afforded him.

here’s where i stop waving my “jenny and giles have been married forever in boom reboot canon” flag for a little while, though, because i think that that actually detracts from the utter amazingness of jenny’s characterization here. when thinking of jenny’s determination to make knowledge accessible to all, coupled with the fact that any comments she made about buffy in canon reflected buffy’s age (i.e. buffy is a BABY), it’s pretty obvious that she would so not be okay with the deal buffy’s been handed. ESPECIALLY when juxtaposed with jenny’s own relationship to duty and destiny -- and the fact that she was herself forced into a situation she didn’t choose and cannot turn away from. obviously original canon never actually explored jenny’s motivations, personal philosophy, and internal thought process (because original canon kinda just threw random plot points at jenny so that giles would have a hot girlfriend, which is gross), but jordie is doing a PHENOMENAL job of that here. it doesn’t MATTER how long jenny and giles have been dating in this situation: jenny is not here for your watchers’ council patriarchal bullshit, and she is ESPECIALLY not here for the fact that buffy and kendra are on death row while giles gets to opt out.

and before we dissect what quickly becomes an INCREDIBLE AND EXTREMELY CHARGED CONVERSATION, here’s an important thing that @ifeveristoday​ brought to my attention: the fact that jenny’s calling him “giles” and not rupert.

way back in og canon, names were a HUGELY important part of both giles and jenny’s character arcs and their relationship to each other. they both had fragmented, fractured identities (jenny and janna, rupert and ripper, i’ve talked about this literally so often let’s move on), and the way they addressed each other very often said a lot about where they were. jenny almost always called giles rupert in canon, very clearly as an attempt to bridge the gap between them; the only times she calls him giles or mr. giles are in “when she was bad” (when she’s clearly trying to keep herself balanced in the face of new and fluttery feelings) and in prophecy girl (yeah, that one’s just inconsistent writing. that’s how jenny’s character flows.)

keeping that in mind, i always was a little bit thrown by the fact that jenny’s called giles by his surname so often in this canon -- but now that we’ve got a pretty solid arc going when it comes to their relationship, there’s a pretty established pattern in the writing.

outside of this issue, here are the places where jenny’s called him giles:

and in each of these other instances, you wanna guess what she’s doing? shutting him out. it’s a little gentler in issue 6 (and she’s more easily swayed), but in all of these situations, she is very clearly distancing herself from him. jenny’s got a habit of trying to pull back and away when the going gets tough, specifically because she knows giles well enough to know that she’s not gonna get through to him on watcher-related matters.

back to THIS.

FELLAS. OH MY FUCKING GOD. i don’t even know where to START here, so let’s go with the easiest one: issue nine set me the FUCK up!!!! jenny pulling away from giles, jenny expressing deep hurt and sadness when it becomes clear that he prioritizes buffy over all else...i automatically assumed that this is her realizing that her boyfriend would have let her die and being horrified about THAT. but the reality of this -- the reality revealed by this issue -- is SO MUCH FUCKING BETTER: the horror that we see on jenny’s face is because the man she loves has been warped by a corrupt system to the point where he doesn’t understand the kind of hurt he’s perpetuating.

and then !!!! jenny absolutely refusing to accept giles’s answer of “this is so much harder for me than you can ever understand,” because he is a grown man with the ability to opt out and she is advocating for two teenage girls who do not have that same luxury. he keeps on trying to turn the argument into something about how buffy’s life isn’t THAT bad, about how buffy’s not REALLY on her deathbed, about how buffy is strong and incredible and jenny is doing her a disservice -- but jenny repeatedly shuts that shit down. “it’s like a religion for you,” she says, like that’s not the rawest fucking line she’s ever gotten to say. thank you, jordie bellaire, for my goddamn life.

and then jenny LEAVES. and she does not fall back into giles’s arms when he says that togetherness is such an important component of healing after the hellmouth. and that says a whole damn lot about what both of them want: jenny wants giles to take accountability for the shitty things HE did and continues to do, and giles...loves jenny and wants her in his life to the point where he’s not listening to a single thing she’s trying to say.

let’s bring back my favorite panel from issue 9:

this sums up my point pretty well, i think. giles keeps on thinking that jenny doesn’t hear what he’s saying -- that if he says it a different way, stresses a different point, she’ll cave and understand how much he loves her and wants to be with her. but the thing is, he’s the one who isn’t listening: jenny is repeatedly saying that she loves him, and that that’s why she’s holding him to the standard that she does. she knows that he can be better than he is, and she’s disappointed in the man he’s becoming.

at this point, i’m pretty sure there’s more to come with regards to giles and jenny. this is a narrative that has very clearly tossed the concept of “world’s best watcherly dad” in favor of “the watchers’ council fucks up the lives of teenage girls and giles is complicit in that.” jenny leaving giles has the potential to push him towards positive growth and character development -- or he could continue to firmly and stubbornly ignore the reality of his situation.

personally, i’m DEEPLY hoping that it’s the former -- and that we get to see giles and jenny come together again after they’ve had the opportunity to grow outside of their relationship. i think there could be something really powerful and wonderful about seeing giles deconstruct his shitty watcher-related views & work towards becoming someone who can genuinely help buffy and kendra (AND smooch his ms. calendar silly, bc she’s sure been having a time of it as of late.) and can you imagine how great 2020 would be with a giles and jenny who have actually learned how to effectively communicate???? ASTOUNDING.

tl;dr: rupert giles and jenny calendar are VERY much in love with each other, VERY sick of each other’s bullshit, and VERY stupid. let’s hope they get their house in order.

[vannahfanfics]

I mean, of course I have to ask about your rarepairs/crack ships. 😉

AHHHHH, you already know how it iiiiiiiis! Still, the other nine should be interesting ;) Some of these are genuine crack ships, while others may be popular in the fandom but according to my Ao3 searches seem to be underrepresented.

Number Ten- Kankuro and Hinata Hyuga

LOL, this one is so off the rails that you can’t even find a GIF of these two. Do NOT ask me how this happened; it was 3 a.m. and I was tired and I just thought “Huh. The aesthetic” and this crack ship of all crack ships was born. I intend to write a story based on this ship one day, but it’s gonna be in the vault for a hot minute. I dunno, something about grumpy sand boy soft for sweet Hinata just has me. 

Number Nine- Fumikage Tokoyami and Kyoka Jiro

This, again, is a product of random 3 a.m. thoughts. Kamijiro is one of my ultimate OTPs, but Tokoyami and Jiro just have this... Vibe... That speaks to me. Just imagine them in a rock band together. Actually, you don’t have to, because that was a whole arc! My mind is weird, y’all. 

Number Eight- Izumo Kamiki and Ryuji Suguro

Holy shit, a GIF exists- anyway, this is more borne from the recent chapters of the manga, where the two have developed a friendship. I dunno, they’re both grumpy, I feel like they would feed off each other, especially when busting Renzo’s balls. Power couple. 

Number Seven- Natsu Dragneel and Juvia Lockser

Um, fire and water, hello? Obviously my OTPs are OTPs for a reason, but if things had gone down differently, I totally think Natsu and Juvia would have a great spark. Aesthetically they compliment each other, at least, and I just think they’re neat... 

Number Six- Shiemi Moriyama and Amaimon

I always thought Amaimon was an interesting character with the potential for growth. Yes, he treated Shiemi like hell when they first met, but their later interactions, especially when her arc is about to hit its climax in the coming chapters, intrigue me. They are undoubtedly connected in some way and I think Amaimon is going to make up for his wrongs when it comes to her. Whether or not I will shed tears over it is yet to be decided. Regardless, I think they fact they are both themed in Earth and plants is fun and I ship weird things. That is all. 

Number Five- Gray Fullbuster and Lucy Heartfilia

A random anon request actually turned me on to this. Before, I mainly focused on the Big Four ships, but after writing them, I can see the appeal. Their insecurities in particular make for a fun dynamic, and I could easily see how they could have been canon if things were different. Of course, NaLu and Gruvia are still beautiful ships, but this one is just a nice alternative that I fancy. 

Number Four- Nami and Ace

Another request dropped this on my radar. Nami is fun to ship with anyone, but the long-distance and ultimately tragic would-be canon relationship is just good damn food. Plus, their personalities just mesh well, I think. They would get up to no good together and I love it. 

Number Three- Katsuki Bakugo and Ochako Uraraka

I’m honestly shocked at how little following this has. I thought Uraraka x Iida would be a rare-pair, but it dwarfs this ship by comparison! Ever since their Sports Festival fight, it’s clear that he respects her (canonically, he is the only one besides Kirishima that he actually calls by name most of the time, and that’s important to his character IMO) and Uraraka understands a lot of Bakugo most people, even Midoriya at a point, doesn’t. I’m a sucker for grumpy boy soft for his adorable GF, and these two fit the bill. I think they make a nice dynamic that would be interesting to see. 

Number Two- Shikamaru Nara and Sakura Haruno

I happened to see a fandom event going on and thought, hey, what the hell, I’ll write for it. Holy cow. Easily has risen to the top of my rare-pairs. The potential is just so solid between the two of them. Intellectually, they mesh well, and they are both particularly haunted individuals, and that makes for some damn good potential interactions. ShikaTema is goals, but, this is easily my next favorite Shikamaru ship. 

Number One- Nami and Trafalgar Law

This was obvious, by a long shot. You and @searchfortheonepiece have me hooked on this drug. Just, the banter between them? Absolutely golden. I’m on this train for life, man. Would ship these two in Hell and be proud of it. 

Honorable Mentions: Tokoyami/Asui (My Hero Academia), Orihime/Uryu (Bleach), Neji Hyuga/Ino Yamanaka (Naruto), Mephisto/Shura (Blue Exorcist); Baby 5/Luffy (One Piece); Gintoki/Tae (Gintama); Hawks/Fuyumi (My Hero Academia)