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hard-boiled-criminal · 4 years ago

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Planetary Magick: 1

(Twisted Wonderland x Earthling! Witch! Reader)

This is crossposted on my ao3 and quotev. I have a chapter on some general information you should know about this fic before going into it, so please go and look at it first. I’ll have it linked in the masterlist. There is some essential information there, so I’ll also have a shortened version of the general information linked in the masterlist.

I haven’t quite decided all the love interests yet, so please comment who you want to be included. But don’t comment until after you’ve read the essential information post. I’ll know if you haven’t when you comment. I started this fic with my two favorite boys in mind, so they’ll probably end up getting more attention at the beginning.

Without further ado, here we gooooooooooo

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“Alrighty, here we go,” you mumbled to yourself as you got yourself settled and comfortable, then set a twenty-minute timer on your phone for your meditation session.

You breathed in deeply for four counts, held your breath for four more counts, then exhaled for four counts, closing your eyes during the exhale. You scanned your body, seeing how every part of you felt and releasing any tension you discovered. You focused on your breath and how it moves the body, allowing you to clear your mind. Any wandering thoughts that passed through your head you let go, like seeing a leaf floating down a river: you notice it, then let it go.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

Inhale…hold…exhale…

In…hale…out…

. . .

You let out a low, gravelly hum as you began to awake, blinking. Or you think you’re blinking, at least. It was the same level of dark when your eyes were open as when they were closed.

‘When did it get so dark? Last I remember, it was mid-afternoon… What was I doing again?’ You hummed again, but in a way that you didn’t use your vocal cords. It was more of a throaty exhale. ‘Oh, that’s right! I was medita…ting…fuck, I fell asleep while meditating, didn’t I? That’s one of the big thing’s you’re not supposed to do, (y/n).’

Seeing as you probably wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep now, you went to sit up from your laying position, just to hit your forehead against solid wood.

“Ah fuck,” you quietly exclaimed in both surprise and mild pain.

You raised your arms to figure out what you hit your head against, but they also hit wood. Starting to panic a bit, you rapidly felt out the area all around you: it’s all wood. You were in a box. You desperately tried pushing on all of the sides, one at a time, hoping that you weren’t sealed inside. Nothing budged. Your breaths began to speed up, becoming shallower.

‘Why am I in a box? How did I get here? Oh fuck, have I been kidnapped?! Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Various expletives cycled their way through your thoughts as a result of the panic.

You yelped when the box suddenly began to tilt forward, causing your body to slide down the box that you now realized was quite a bit longer than you were tall. Your feet stopped your sliding when they hit the new bottom of the box, letting you stand upright. You didn’t know what this meant. Why would someone stand your box up? What was happening? You heard a voice speaking from outside the box, but your panic prevented you from processing their words.

You quickly shifted your priorities when the box started to heat up like a wooden oven, beginning to fill up with smoke. You didn’t have time to scream. You had to get out of there. With renewed vigor, you rammed your shoulder into the wooden panel in front of you. You felt it budge! It didn’t open, but it budged. You didn’t wait to ram your shoulder into it again. This time, the wood gave in to your force easily, popping off of the box and onto the floor. Maybe it gave way a bit too easily, as your momentum sent you careening to the hard floor, your shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. You heard a loud scream that you knew wasn’t yours, you simply didn’t have the breath to scream, as your momentum didn’t stop, making you somersault multiple times towards the center of the room. Well, somersaulting is a bit of a generous term; it was really more of a chaotic rolling, limbs flailing about as the world blurred between right-side-up and upside-down.

Something you always suspected, but now knew for sure, was that unexpected somersaults are very painful on the neck, not to mention your head that slammed into the hard floor each roll. You didn’t know where the cracks you heard came from, but you doubt it could be anything but your body. You just hope those sounds were the good kind, like the cracking-your-knuckles cracks and not the snapping-your-bones-in-twain cracks.

When you finally rolled to a stop, you laid limply on your side, unmoving. You painfully gaped for breath, trying to fill your lungs with the sweet oxygen you were barred from when rolling. Your vision blurred and swam; unable to make out anything or focus on anything except colors, you closed your eyes from the sight lest you get a headache.

Still disoriented and generally out-of-sorts after you caught your breath, you struggled to roll onto your knees, resting your forehead on the cool floor in hopes to ease the overwhelming dizziness that you could practically feel in every bone of your body.

“Why are you up?!” You heard strange voice yell out, coming from where your wooden prison sat.

You turn your head ever so slightly so you could semi-face where the voice came from. You squinted, trying to focus your gaze, but everything remained blurry. You could see bright cerulean flames dancing around what you think was your box, presumably the same flames that smoked you out. And by the floor was an animated gray blob, slowly growing larger. Or was it just getting closer? You couldn’t tell, your attention snapping back to your throbbing head as your vision span once more.

You groaned as you closed your eyes and turned your head back to where it was, the cold, probably stone, floor felt nice. It helped soothe your steadily worsening headache a bit, but any relief was better than none. You weren’t in a rush to move from your spot, and since the floor was stone, you wouldn’t have to worry about the fire spreading.

“If you’re just gonna sit around, then hurry and gimme those clothes!” That strange voice that reminded you of Team Rocket’s Meowth yelled again, though this time is was much closer. “Otherwise—”

You cut them off with a louder groan than before and held up an index finger in their direction to both shush them and to say, ‘give me a minute.’ “Please, just, give me a sec. I’m dizzy and might have a concussion—no, probably have a concussion. So please, don’t shout.”

“Hah? Why should I care about what some dumb human has to say? Now gimme those clothes unless you want me to roast ya!”

You grunt as you force yourself to stand, the dizziness mostly subsiding. You looked over to see if you could make out the Meowth-sounding figure now, but to no avail; your vision was still blurry and refused to focus. All you could see was that gray blob, but now you could make out a patch of white and two patches of that same cerulean blue on the figure.

“I’m sorry, the fuck did you just say? You want me to give you my clothes? Fat chance, ya little pervert.”

They made a disgruntled sound and yelled again, which did not help your headache at all, “I’m not a pervert, stupid human! Just shut up and hand over that uniform!”

“I’ll pass,” you quickly glanced around the room, looking for an exit. There was a large area of dark brown embedded in the wall to your right, no doubt being a set of double doors; you now had your escape route. You hope you were staring into the eyes of that bleary gray figure. “…yeet.” And you bolted towards the doors.

“Wha—hey! Get back here stupid human!” You heard them shout after you.

Running felt stranger than normal, like there was more drag, like you were dragging something with your arms. You looked down and finally paid mind to your clothes: they were definitely not yours. You were wearing something like a coat—or a cloak? —with heavy bell-sleeves, the source of the extra weight. You now also noticed that there was a hood pulled over your head as well. It was a miracle it stayed on after your rough tumble.

‘Yeah nope, fuck that. I’m not ready to be sacrificed by some fancy cloak cult,’ with that thought fueling your determination, you stayed true to your ‘yeet’ and rammed your other shoulder into one of the doors, not wanting to waste time on opening it like a civilized person. Besides, that would probably be quite difficult as it was still hard to see, and your hand-eye coordination was probably going to be shit because of your probable concussion.

Luckily, the doors were unlocked, the one you charged at bursting open upon impact with little resistance. You didn’t dare slow down, sprinting down the outdoor hallway the doors led to. And as you noticed a group of people approaching, you couldn’t slow down. You danced through the gaps between them, the sudden twisting bringing back the dizziness. Your poor coordination made sure that you bumped into a few elbows on your way through, adding a couple more bruises to the list. You didn’t bother to spare them a glance or even acknowledge them. Your body was screaming at you to stop, your frantic running only serving to further agitate your too-fresh wounds, sending streaks of stinging pain through your body.

It was no use though. Fatigue finally won you over, and you practically collapsed onto the floor of what was a library of sorts. Or maybe an archive? Even if you couldn’t make out any individual books, you could easily tell that the walls were lined with filled bookshelves. You panted heavily as you laid on your back, too exhausted to care about lying on the floor. Your peace could only last for so long, though.

“Did you really think you’d get away from my nose? Dumb human!”

You grumble in fatigue-induced anger, using a chair to help stand yourself back up. You’ve had enough of this pervert’s shit. You’re hurt and scared and tired and confused, and all you want to do right now is sleep. You quickly hoist up the chair, resting the side of the chair’s back on your shoulder, brandishing the chair as a weapon as your hands grasped the seat. You were just about ready to use the chair as a battering ram on this rat of unusual size.

“If you don’t wanna get roasted, better hand over—Buwah!?” Out of no where a whip stuck the strange creature, staying wrapped around it. “Ow! What’s with this cord?”

“This is no mere cord. It is a lash of love!” Their masculine voice sounded strange, as if they were forced to talk around a physical lump stuck in their throat.

Their voice was rounded, but in an odder way than usual. It was as if each word was its own separate circle: only one circle per word with the circles never quite connecting. It was as if they composed their sentences like a piece of music but added a breath mark between each and every note. You didn’t know how else to describe it. His words were round but ended strong and abruptly, as opposed to the gentle waves and curves you’d expect from a rounded voice.

You didn’t notice him until he stepped closer. His ensemble of clothes was mostly black, and the colors that weren’t black were at least dark. More than half of his face appeared to be covered with a black mask, so could you really blame yourself for not being able to make him out in this dark library?

You slowly lowered the chair back to ground as you tried to process that he called it a ‘lash of love.’

“Ah, found you at last. Are you one of the new students?”

“Uh, I’m sorry—”

“Yes, you should be! You shouldn’t do things like leaving the Gate on your own!” He cut you off and kept talking, not giving you a chance to speak, let alone defend yourself because you didn’t know what the fuck was going on. “Not only that, you have yet to tame your familiar, which has broken a number of school rules.

“Let me go! I’m not their freakin’ familiar!” The creature took the words right out of your mouth while squirming in the man’s grasp.

“Sure, sure. The rebellious ones always say things like that,” he immediately dismissed the thing’s outburst. “Just quiet down for a moment.” You couldn’t quite see what he did, but the gray beast could only make muffled noises. You think the thing was gagged, but you don’t know by what. “My goodness,” he directed his attention to you again. “It’s unprecedented for a new student to leave the Gate on their own. Ugh… How impatient can you be?” He sounded very offended by your actions, still not giving you the chance to explain that you were busy trying not to die. “The entrance ceremony is already well under way. Come along now. Let’s head to the Hall of Mirrors,” he turned on his heel, quickly walking away.

You had three options: 1) Follow him to whatever the Hall of Mirrors was. Maybe it’s like a hall full of those body-warping mirrors they have at carnivals? 2)Stay behind and wait for something else to come try to kill you. 3) Run away and hope you don’t run into something that wants to kill you.

You quickly jogged to catch up to him. “I—uh, where are we going?”

“As I said, the Hall of Mirrors. It’s the room you woke up in with all of the doors.”

‘Doors? Is he talking about the sealed box I was in?’

“All students who wish to attend this academy must pass through one of those doors to arrive here. Normally, students wake up only after the door is opened with a special key, but…” he glanced over to you, silently expecting an answer.

You pointed at the Meowth-voiced creature. “He kinda smoked me out.”

“So, in the end, the culprit appears to be this familiar. If you’re going to bring it with you, you have to take responsibility and properly take care of it.”

“Um, sir? That’s not—”

“Oh my!” He cut you off once more. “Now isn’t the time to be long winded. The entrance ceremony will soon come to a close. Let’s get a move on.”

“Sir, I’m sorry, but I have no idea what’s going on,” it came out form your mouth quietly, barely above a whisper.

“What’s this? Are you still dazed? It appears the teleportation magic has left you disoriented…”

‘…teleportation…magic? Was I—Was I kidnapped by a wizard LARP group?’

“Well, it is fine. It happens often enough. I shall give you an explanation as we make our way there. For I am gracious.”

‘Gracious my ass; your favorite thing is to assume things about me, and you know what they say about assume: it makes an ass out of u and me.’

He cleared his throat as we stepped into the courtyard I had previously ran past. “This is ‘Night Raven College.’ Those magicians blessed with a unique aptitude for magic gather from all over the world, here at the most prestigious magical academy in Twisted Wonderland.”

‘Oh shit, they’re a Harry Potter LARP group. I don’t think Harry would condone kidnapping someone though…’

“And I’m the principal, appointed to take care of this academy by the board chairman, Dire Crowley.”

‘Crowley like the demon from Good Omens? Or like that guy who wrote a book on demons? Or maybe that one guy from Yu-Gi-Oh…’

“…” You patiently waited for him to say, “You’re a wizard, Harry,” but he never did. ‘I can’t believe I have to deliver this line without the lead up. “A what?”

He ignored you to continue with his ‘gracious’ monologue, “Only those magicians seen as worthy by the Dark Mirror can attend this school. Chosen ones use the Gate and are summoned here from around the world. An Ebony Carriage carrying a Gate should have gone to meet you as well.”

“A carriage? You mean one with a horse?”

He gasped, offended, for some reason, “Of course it was drawn by a horse! Our school would never be so uncouth as to have it drawn by anything else!”

“Well, I would have remembered if there was a horse. Horses are the embodiment of equal opportunity fear*. You don’t forget running into a creature like that.” You shivered at the thought of the horse-like fae you’ve heard about in legends. Like the one that can apparently kill gods.

“It seems you are more dazed than I first thought. Well, no matter! I shall continue with my explanation, for I truly am so gracious. The Ebony Carriage goes to welcome new students chosen by the Dark Mirror. They are special carriages that carry the doors to the academy. The market decided long ago that carriages are used to welcome people on special days.”

“The market? Are you telling me stocks have something to do with this?” You had to actively try not to say ‘stonks’ instead of ‘stocks.’

He ignored you again, instead speeding up his walking as the gray creature started squirming and making muffled sounds again. “Come. Let’s go to the entrance ceremony.”

With the both of you now speed walking, it didn’t take long for the three of you, counting the creature, to make it back to the doors you had originally burst out of. Crowley, not being one to wait for anything, quickly barged in. “Not at all!” he exclaimed, probably responding to something you didn’t catch.

“Ah, he’s here,” you heard someone say from inside the room.

‘…You’ve gotta be buttfucking me,’ was your first thought as you peeked out from behind Crowley to see the room filled to the brim with people wearing the same cloak as you.

“I cannot believe you all. We were missing one new student, so I went to find them,” he stepped to the side to present you, making your anxiety spike as all the eyes in the room turned to you. “You are the only one yet to be assigned a dormitory,” he now directed his words to you. “I shall watch over the raccoon, step in front of the Dark Mirror.”

You were never more grateful than now to have the large hood obscuring your face, preventing anybody from fully seeing it. You weren’t planning on going anywhere before you got kidnapped, so you didn’t bother fixing up your appearance at all. You probably looked like a mess. If you fell asleep during meditation, that must’ve meant that you were extremely exhausted; you wouldn’t be surprised if your eyes looked like they better suited a meth-addict grim reaper. Regarding what type of death your eyes belonged to, until you got a good look in the mirror, it was up for debate between two options: if your eyebags were dark enough to make your eyes look like they were sunken into your skull, yet at the same time pop-eyed from the contrast of white and red to dark bags, or if your eyes and eyebags were swollen to all hell, giving you a upper pop-eyed look, as if somebody squeezed you and your eyes tried to pop out of your head, but their escape was thwarted by your skin, just barely strong enough to hold them back. Your face probably looked a bit sallow and nothing but bone; today had been a taxing endeavor, both physically and emotionally. You’d kill for a nap—or any sleep—right about now.

You nervously walked up to the floating mirror, your movements stiff and tense, like a frightened deer.

You were ready to come face to face with your deathly reflection, but instead of your face, there was a mask instead. It looked like a floating porcelain mask that had its own free will, making subtle changes in facial expression and everything. It had a black lacy design in the shape of a masquerade mask around its eyes. ‘Probably has an edgy personality too,’ you added as an afterthought when you noticed the dancing green flames in the background. You couldn’t help but feel that it looked vaguely familiar…

“State thy name.” It spoke with a finality in its tone.

‘So, it talks too, huh? Oh, it’s probably one of those facial motion capture programs. Look at this man; it feels like he’s trying to match the same energy that the Wizard of Oz had. Nobody can live up to that legend of a man.’

“(y/n) (l/n).”

You subtly glanced around the room with your eyes, not moving your head, to try and see if there was a ‘man behind the curtain’ somewhere. You didn’t even see a curtain. Just a bunch of coffins and cloaked people.

‘I’m sorry, are those coffins? I can see better than before but not well enough to make out the finer details, but I can tell those look coffin shaped. Like the kind you would see in Scooby-Doo. Does that mean Crowley said I was transported here in a coffin?! What the fuck, man.’

“The shape of thy soul is…” the mask paused for dramatic effect… okay, for a lot of dramatic effect because this was a long pause. “I do not know.”

‘…what was the point in the dramatic pause, then?’

“Come again?” Crowley sounded like he was about to go into shock.

“I sense not a spark of magic from this one… The color, the shape, all are nothing,” the mask roasted you. “Therefore, they are suited for no dormitory.”

‘Rude but I guess that is kind of how it works? After all, magick is just convincing reality and the world around you to bend to your whims by performing certain actions. So, it’s like being a bender from avatar. But instead of the elements, its reality, sort of. Bending the world’s natural magick… But still, fuck you. I may just be a beginner, but I’m still a witch…wait, unless it’s talking about ‘sleight of hand’ magic. Is this like a Hogwarts school or like a Houdini school?’’

People started murmuring in the audience you now had, staring at you, judging you. You could feel a lump in your throat start to form, a telltale sign of the beginning of an anxiety attack.

“An Ebony Carriage would absolutely never go to meet someone who can’t use magic!” Crowley sounded stunned and frustrated. “In one hundred years, there has not once been a mistake in student selection. So why in the world…” Since Crowley was so wrapped up in what was going on, he failed to notice that his grasp on the creature had loosened.

“Pah!” The gray creature, which you think is a cat since you can see better now, exclaimed as he freed himself. “Then I’ll take their place!”

“Stay right there! Raccoon!” Crowley’s attention was now directed on the freed rabid cat.

“Unlike that dumb human, I can use magic! Let me in the school instead! If you need proof, I’ll show you right now!” The little cat exclaimed

‘Wait, what does he mean by proof? If he’s about to do what I think he’s about to do… then shit.’

“Everyone, get down!” The same voice you heard when Crowley and you entered spoke.

‘Don’t have to tell me twice,’ you lowered yourself to the ground and laid on your stomach; the back of your head was still throbbing, so you didn’t want to chance irritating it more by lying on your back. You crossed your arms in front of your face on the ground so you could comfortably rest your head in the crook of your elbow. Laying like this made your hood fall further over you face, obstructing the top half of the room from your view. The bottom half was all you needed to see though, as the cat spewed blue flames around the room—the same flames that made you panic inside the coffin.

“Waaaah! Hottttt! My butt’s on fire!” You heard an animated voice yell.

“At this rate, the school will be a sea of fire!” You heard Headmaster Crowley shouted. “Somebody, catch that raccoon!”

You heard some of the people in the room bicker about who should go after him, not because of the fear of being burned, but because they were being lazy and saw it as a hassle. ‘Well, I’ve got a bone to pick with him anyway,’ you sighed and stood up, casually walking over to the cat. There was fire everywhere, but you couldn’t find the energy to care. You were tired and hurt and probably concussed, and you had had enough. If your clothes catch fire, you can just stop, drop, and roll. God, you were so done with all this.

So you walked through the hot flames, no doubt getting some burns on your legs from the ordeal, and the slacks you wore that weren’t even yours didn’t burn easily, but the flames still managed to burn several holes through it. The cat didn’t notice you approaching, preoccupied with yelling at the bickering students. Luckily, the cat made sure there were no fires surrounding them, so you got a break from the heat. You took a moment to pat out the fires on your pants and the bottom of your cloak using the ridiculously large sleeves of your cloak. Satisfied that you weren’t burning anymore, you reached for the cat and lifted them up by hooking your hands in its armpits. They screeched at the unexpected flight lesson and immediately began to squirm.

“Alright, I think you’ve done enough. I’m sick of your shit, so cut it out before I choke you ‘til you pass out,” you blandly said to the cat since you were, as you put it, sick of their shit.

“Unhand me you stupid human!” They demanded as they wriggled in your grasp. You held them tighter. You could feel the others staring at you, completely silent for a few seconds before someone broke the quiet.

“OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!” That familiar voice of the stranger shouted, a heart-shaped collar suddenly appearing around the cat’s neck.

“Nygah! The heck is this!?” The cat shrieked and started tugging at the collar.

“Laws of the Queen of Hearts Number 23: "One shall never bring a cat into a festival," you could now see that the familiar voice belonged to a student with red hair, red as in bright ruby red. “You being a cat means you've broken the rule. I shall have you leave at once.”

“I'm not a cat!!” The cat denied the truth. “I'll burn this collar right up and… E—eh? I can't use my fire!”

“Hmph! You won't be using any magic until I remove the collar. Just like an ordinary cat,” the redhead explained.

“Wh-what?! I'm not some pet!” He’s a strong independent cat who don’t need no man.

“Don't worry, I'd never keep a pet like you,” fuck, that redhead can roast. “I'll take it off anyway when you get thrown out.”

“Wow, as wonderful as ever. Any and all magic gets sealed by your Unique Magic, Riddle,” another student spoke, this one had light colored hair.

‘Would you call that shade a pale lavender or periwinkle?’ You questioned his hair color.

He mumbled something inaudible under his breath before speaking up, “No, I wouldn't ever want that cast on me.”

“You must do something about this! It is your familiar!” Crowley shouted at you again.

You sighed, frustrated. “He’s not mine.”

“Properly discip... eh? It's not yours?”

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to tell you this entire time, but it seems I couldn’t get it past that thick skull of yours,” You couldn’t stop some of the irritated sass from leaking out.

“Y-you did?” Crowley looked rightfully embarrassed as he cleared his throat. “Anyway, let's get it out of the school at any rate. We won't turn you into a stew. For I am gracious. Someone help, please.” Another student took the cat from your arms and carried him towards the door.

“Gyaaaa! Let me go!” The cat protested, desperation thick in their tone. “I'm going to, going to… Become the greatest magician!” Those were his final words as he was thrown out of the room.

“We had a bit of trouble along the way, but this brings the entrance ceremony to a close,” Crowley said with a pleased tone of finality. “Dormitory Heads, please show the new students back to the dormitories.”

This didn’t really concern you anymore, what with being rejected by a mirror of all things. So, you stood there, starting to space out.

‘…wait a damn minute. If that was a fire-breathing cat, then… the kind of magic they’re talking about is… real fucking magic. Like fantasy world, Dungeons and Dragons’ kind of magic: flashy fireballs and eldritch blasts… What the actual fuck is going on? Have I been drugged? Is this just a real bad acid trip? I know I’m not dreaming because I feel like DIO used Road Roller on me. What’s gonna happen to me? Because something definitely went wrong with that mirror since it rejected me and holy shit what are they gonna do to me? Is this gonna be something like a ‘you know our secret so we can’t allow you to live’ kinda deal? Am I gonna die? Is that why they had coffins prepared? Are they gonna shove me into one of those and bury me al—’ you were snapped out of your thoughts when the headmaster waved his hand in front of your face. Glancing around, you saw that you two were now the only occupants in the room.

“There you are,” he pulled his hand away from your face. “Well then, (y/n), I’m terribly sorry about this but… We must have you leave the school. Those without any talent for magic cannot be allowed to attend class here.” He must have noticed you tense up when he said that, because you thought that meant disposing of you. “There is no need to worry. The Dark Mirror will send you directly back from whence you came. Enter the Gate, and picture your home clearly in mind…”

You did as he told, picturing where you last were when you had began your meditation. Feeling very much like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, you found yourself chanting ‘there’s no place like home’ in your head.

“Oh, Dark Mirror!” Crowley called out. “Guide this one back to the place they belong!” A moment of silence. “Once more. Oh, Dark Mirror! Guide this—”

“It is nowhere…” the mirror interrupted.

Your eyes snapped open, a tight strained smile on your face. ‘I’m sorry, the fuck did you just say?’ Crowley seemed to have a similar dumbfounded reaction.

“The place they belong is nowhere in this world; it does not exist.”

“What did you say?” Crowley voice the pg-13 version of your thoughts. “That is unbelievable! Hmm, well, the unbelievable has been on parade today.”

‘Uh, yeah. There was a goddamn fire breathing cat ready to kill us all.’

“This is the first time it’s ever happened since I became Headmaster, what should be… Where exactly did you come from?” Crowley asked you.

“Uhh… Do you just want the country, or do you need the planet’s name since the mirror said I don’t belong in this world?”

“Just the country is fine.”

“Well, I’m from (country), but I have no idea how far away we are from it right now.”

“I’ve never heard of that place,” your stomach dropped at Crowley’s remark. “I have a general grasp of where all the students came from, but I’ve never even heard that name before… If you really are not of this world, then I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to know your planet’s name.”

“Well, I’m from Earth.”

“Earth? As in the ground, soil, dirt?” He sounded like he didn’t really believe you. “Well that’s not very helpful, but I suppose you could call any planet ‘earth’ if you so wished. Well, no matter,” he clapped his hands in finality. “Let’s go do some research in the library.

“Who in their right mind would name a planet after its dirt?” You heard Crowley mumble under his breath as you followed him, clearly trying to keep you from hearing him, but that didn’t work out so well.

‘I think it might be the other way around, where we made another word for dirt named after the planet itself.’

You and Crowley made it back to the Library where you were before, but this time you could see just how large it was since Crowley turned the lights on. Using his magic, he practically summoned various historical books and world maps that showed the different countries and borders that were present at certain time periods.

Your vision was still too blurry to read, but you could still make out shapes fairly well, so you stuck to looking through the various world maps. The first thing you noticed were the continents: they were all wrong. You didn’t recognize any of them, though they were consistent across all the maps you had in front of you. These were not Earth’s continents. Desperate, you looked closer at the borders of different countries to see if any looked familiar, squinting to see if you could even have a possibility of reading the names.

You take a deep breath, ‘Okay, (y/n). You’re a-okay. There’s an explanation for this. I’m sure of it. Maybe you just astral projected on accident or something. Okay. You can deal with that. You’ve read about how to get back to your body. You can do it.’ You visualized a cord of sorts connecting the you here to the you that you remember meditating at home. And then you pulled. You opened your eyes and— ‘…I’m still here.’

“There really isn't anything,” Crowley was the first to break the silence. “Not only the world map, but the name of your home isn't written in any history. Are you truly from where you say? You aren't lying to me by chance?”

“No! Why the hell would I lie about any of—" you gestured around you wildly “—of this?!” You must have looked absolutely terrible because you saw Crowley almost look a little guilty for his accusation.

“Looking at all this, you may have somehow been brought here from another planet, after all... There's also the possibility you're from another world.”

“I really am an alien, aren’t I?” You could feel a lump rising in your throat, that previously pending anxiety suddenly rapidly rising. You sadly chuckled out a resigned ‘fuck’ and rested your forehead against the table, your hands grasping, digging into the back of your head. You could tell you were spiraling, but you couldn’t do anything about it. Your breaths quickened as bad thoughts and worries about what the hell is going to happen to you now kept infiltrating your head without pause. You tried to take deep breaths, only for your breath to hitch and prevent that. ‘Okay, okay, we can do this; mantra time,’ the only other way you knew that helped you calm down was to repeat an unrelated mantra in your head until you stopped hyperventilating. ‘The—the mitochondria… is the powerhouse of the cell**. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.’ You repeated that phrase as best you could, both in your thoughts and aloud.

Eventually, you were able to get your breathing back under control. ‘Okay…okay. We’re good. I’m good. I’m fine.’

Crowley cleared his throat, obviously not used to being in these kinds of situations and continued as if nothing happened. “What did you have on you when you came here? Do you have any identification, like a license for a magic car, name on a shoe… You appear to be empty-handed.”

You gave your pockets a quick pat down. “I got nothin’.”

“This is concerning. I can't just let someone who can't use magic to stay at school. However, as an educator, I can't just toss a penniless teenager out on the street with no form of communication. For I am gracious.”

‘…Teenager? You know what, I’m not gonna correct him. It’ll probably benefit me more to let him think I’m a minor.’

“Hmmmm… That's right! There is an unused building on campus. It was once used as a dormitory in the past so if you can clean it up, you should at least be able to sleep there. For the time being, I shall allow you to stay there! Then I will look for a way for you to return home. My graciousness is limitless! I am a model for all educators. We had better be on our way. Let's head to the dormitory. It may be a bit old but there is a certain charm to it.”

You felt bad for the poor librarians who would have to clean up your mess. You couldn’t stay to do it yourself because Crowley already took off, his long legs giving him a longer stride, making you speed walk in order to keep up with him. You couldn’t wait to lie down and rest your aching body.

*Confederate statues in the US—getting rid of the scary white men but keeping the horses: https://youtu.be/aFgGazYzDPo

** “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” is easy to remember (since it’s been ingrained in all of our heads) and is completely unrelated to most causes of an anxiety attack. Unless it’s a bio test.

Okay, so, I wasn’t expecting to get to 6,000 words but here we are. So we have a witch reader, and by witch I mean drawing sigils and making spell jars and such. Let’s see how long it takes for the reader’s adrenaline to run out and realize just how badly they’re hurt. Also, reader is probably end up being a babysitter for those overgrown toddlers (you know who I’m talking about). You thought boarding school would mean getting away from parental figures? Ha! Think again! Cuz the reader is gonna step up and fill that role because these poor boys are young and stupid. But that’ll have to wait until after the reader gets some proper medical attention.

Chapter 2

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thetriggeredhappy · 5 years ago

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61 for heavy and medic, pls??? 💙 -blu-

today we’re gonna play a fun game called “spot the starkid reference” ft some very domestic and sappy heavymedic content. (warning for passing mention of medic doing medic-y things)

#61. Hands On The Other Person’s Back, Fingertips Pressing Under Their Top, Drawing Gentle Circles Against That Small Strip Of Bare Skin That Make Them Break The Kiss With A Gasp.

“Doktor did not eat dinner,” Heavy observed, standing in the doorway of the infirmary. Medic didn’t even look up at him before he hummed dismissively, which made Heavy sigh.

Medic loved experimentation. Everyone on the team knew that. Absolutely every chance he got—every time Miss Pauling had a spare, fresh cadaver—he would spend his time going to town, experimenting with electricity or chemicals, with replacement organs, everything. What he didn’t love was the paperwork surrounding it, the amount of effort it took to get black market exotic animals or their organs—made easier through Mann Co. and their suppliers, many of whom were already just black market with additional bureaucracy, but that bureaucracy was frustrating and tedious—and the amount of notes that followed, writing down observations as quickly as he could remember them when he was finished so they wouldn’t be forgotten, then spending large spans of time trying to write them a second time in a more organized fashion so they would actually be useable.

Heavy wasn’t entirely sure what Medic was working on just then, the ordering or the revising, but he knew he’d missed dinner because of it, and that was a bad thing. He understood Medic missing a meal because he was getting his hands dirty, but the paperwork could very much wait.

He left the infirmary again, going and stacking some amount of the leftovers on a plate and wrapping a layer of plastic over it to keep it warm, taking a fork and spoon as well before walking back over. Medic hadn’t moved an inch when he got back, too laser-focused on his work.

Heavy set the fork and spoon down on the piece of paper Medic was writing on, which was enough to get him to look up, at least. Then he quickly shuffled the paper aside as Heavy put down the plate.

“Eat, Doktor,” he instructed gently.

Medic’s eyebrows furrowed. “Heavy, I am working,” he said, a little shortly.

“Is not important. Eating is important. Doktor will waste away at tiny desk,” Heavy replied, tone gentle.

Medic looked like he was going to argue more, but Heavy unwrapped the plate and presumably he smelled the food and realized how hungry he was, looking down at it with some amount of surprise.

Heavy pulled over the chair Medic kept nearby to sit down with him while he dug in. When they’d first arrived, it wasn’t actually big enough for Heavy to fit in correctly. But then one day it had been broken during some incident, and when Medic replaced it, he’d gotten one of a size that Heavy could comfortably use. Once he was sat down, he started speaking quietly, if haltingly, about everything that happened at dinner. An argument, a second argument, and a joke that Demo made at Spy’s mild expense was apparently very good but that Heavy didn’t quite understand.

“It is a pun, but Heavy is not sure for what,” he said when he recounted it.

Medic raised the back of his hand to his mouth for the sake of politeness until his mouth was clear, then spoke. “Well, Charlotte is a name, and the word charlatan sounds similar to it. It usually means, er... like a con artist. A more, er... more extravagant word to use for a liar or fraud. And often nicknames, especially in English, are just shortened to the first part. So the alias Spy had used was Charlotte, short for charlatan, ja?”

Heavy followed along, and laughed when understanding finally hit, loud and unabashed. Medic chuckled as well, returning to eating. “Thank you for explaining, Doktor. That is very good joke,” he said, extremely pleased.

“It’s a shame I missed it,” Medic agreed, taking a moment to ball up the plastic wrap and drop it into the trash can, putting the fork and spoon back on the plate to set aside. He looked aimlessly over his desks, apparently only just then noticing the wide spread of papers and not sure where he’d left off.

“Doktor has worked hard, should take break,” Heavy said, tone dropping down to something quieter.

“Out of the question,” Medic said shortly, managing to find his pen from within the piles of paper and searching for whichever paper he’d been working on. “There is too much that needs doing.”

Heavy took Medic’s wrist in one massive hand, and Medic didn’t startle so much as go alert, looking up at him. He kept his expression serious. “Should take break,” he repeated, more slowly, more firmly.

Medic deflated, even if he still didn’t speak for a little while. Hesitated. “Ten minutes, then I’m getting back to work,” he said.

Heavy smiled. “Good,” he agreed, and stood, guiding Medic to his feet and a half-step in, then promptly pulling him into a ginger embrace.

After a moment or two of returning it, Medic exhaled heavily. “All you are going to do is hug me?” he asked, tone pointed, and Heavy laughed, moving back to instead pull Medic up into a kiss.

Medic’s arms went around his waist. Heavy was a large man, and often in the past his lovers hadn’t quite been able to get their arms all the way around him. But Medic was no small man himself, and could generally at least lace his fingers together around Heavy’s back when they embraced, and could make it around his waist when they were kissing.

Long, lazy minutes were spent that way, exchanging gentle kisses, Medic humming happily between each of them. He felt his thoughts drifting, his breath starting to get away from him a little, and he was snapped back into reality when he suddenly felt Medic’s hands dip below the back of his shirt where it often rode up when he was leaned forward like this, starting to draw circles against his skin in terribly pleasant little motions.

He broke the kiss with a gasp, having not realized how deep it had gotten when he wasn’t paying attention. Medic was grinning, some part of it a bit sharp in a way that others sometimes found unsettling.

“Doktor,” Heavy said, and a shiver went up through his back when Medic’s motions widened rather than stopping. “Said ten minutes.”

“I know,” he replied lightly, the barest shade of defensive.

“Door is unlocked,” he said more pointedly.

Medic huffed, leaning up to nip at Heavy’s jaw in lieu of pouting. “If someone comes in here and doesn’t like what they find, that is their problem, not mine,” he said, the tiniest bit testy.

Heavy gave him a Look.

“Fine, then I’ll go lock it,” Medic said next, an edge of complaint starting to creep into view, but he was stopped when Heavy didn’t let go of him to let him move away.

“Doktor will complain at Heavy if he gets very much distracted,” he chided.

“When have I ever done that?” Medic asked, brows furrowing.

“This morning. Also morning before. Also during weekend, and weekend before that—“

“Ja, alright, fine, I get it,” Medic mumbled, leaning in to kiss at Heavy’s neck a few more times, then sighing. “Fine. At least just...”

Heavy waited for Medic to finish his sentence.

“At least sit with me,” he finally requested.

Heavy nodded without even really needing to think about it. “Heavy can do this,” he said easily.

“Vielen Dank,” he said, relaxing a bit.

Heavy dipped into Medic’s room briefly to get the book he’d left there, returning and pulling the chair even just slightly closer and sitting down to read. After a few minutes of Heavy and Medic’s reading and writing in silence respectively, Medic stretched a hand forward across the desk. Heavy reflexively closed the gap, lacing their fingers together on the tabletop. Turning pages became a bit of an issue, but that was alright. He would deal with a lot of inconveniences for his Doktor. Heavy loved him.

From the fact that Medic stopped writing several long moments before he stopped kneading little circles against the back of Heavy’s hand when he finally drifted off, falling asleep right there over his paperwork as he so often did, well, that was what told Heavy that Medic loved him too.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #heavymedic #shut up me #my fanfiction #real sappy established relationship? it's more likely than you think

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un-piorthos-et-tous-pour-un · 4 years ago

Text

The thrilling adventures of a PA - Chapter Five : One man’s loss is another one’s gain. (Adam Sackler x Reader)

The nights have been short after what happened. You couldn’t find sleep, your mind kept rehashing that night, what you have said or done that might have laid to this, what you’ve could have done or said differently after he didn’t say anything all night long. It was tiring to say the least, combined with your work and the day to day life. It was starting to show, dark circles under your eyes, your shortened attention span and increased coffee consumption were obvious signs but working with actors rubbed off on you since you managed to fool the others until now, pretending everything was ok. But of course, you were not, and it was driving you crazy. Why were you stuck like this, knowing this must have been just a game for him, hoping for something that’ll never happen and hurting yourself for nothing ? It was ludicrous, completely laughable and once again you remember Stew’s words. So as you’re sat at your table, (barely) eating your lunch, you decide to move on, to stop been that wreck you’ve become and this time, you’ll stick to your plan. No more distractions, no more foolish hopes. You’ll do your job, perfectly, be nice and all but it’ll be it.

After you’re done, you go to the trailer park, walking mechanically towards Adam’s and you knock at the door. You hear footsteps inside, and you take a step back, knowing it’ll open in a few seconds, revealing the actor and you ready yourself for what’s to come. You take a deep breath and smile when he gets out, greeting you with a small ‘hello’. - ‘’We’re expected in 25 minutes on stage 8, are you ready to go ?’’, you ask him quietly, feeling he’s grumpy by the way he’s standing there, hand clenched on the doorknob. - ‘’Just give me a second, I’ve got something to finish first’’, he answers, getting back in the trailer and you nod, waiting as you cannot really do anything else for the moment. You cannot really hear what he’s saying but he seems pretty tensed. You jump a little when a loud thud resonates from the inside, the sound of a phone getting crashed on the floor it seems. You wonder what’s going on but just after you remind yourself that you’re not supposed to care about him anymore. - ‘’Adam?’’, you simply ask, as suddenly he rushes out, closing the door behind him in a loud clash. - ‘’I’ll need a new cellphone, can you get one for me ?’’, he simply throws at you as an answer, storming towards the stage without looking back. - ‘’Of course, you’ll have it tonight’’, you reply, brows furrowed for a second before you start walking behind him, letting him deal with whatever this is on his own. It’s not your problem and it never was after all. The rest of the day goes by in almost total silence but it’s not a bad thing in the end, it allows you to detach yourself, Once you’re home after getting some food from the little grocery store near your beuilding block, you check your mail and start preparing diner as tonight you’re hosting a small party at your place with some coworkers. Of course Shirley & Stew are going to be there along with Oona and the others but also some other technicians you’ve made friends with over the weeks. Nothing too fancy, just some snacks and drinks, a little chill evening to unwind after a hard day at work. Last time it was Oona’s turn to host and it was a nice setting as she had access to her building’s rooftop, so you try to make it up for it with a large variety of snacks. You’re not a good cook but you’re creative so you’ve come up with many different dips for the crips & vegetable sticks you’ve prepared for the occasion. You just hope you’ll be able to make the evening enjoyable for your guests, you all deserve a break and it would bother you to fail to provide that tonight. Once you’re all set, you take a quick look around and you’re pretty satisfied, the place looks cosy, invinting and the food is spread equally, if they don’t want to move too much they’ll be able to taste everything in one spot. Being a PA as also rubbed off on your organizing skiils, you tend to anticipate more, think ahead and it shows. A few months ago, such a party would result in utter choas because you’d have second guess yourself about everything, trying to please everyone to be accepted, leading to disaster because time would have fly by, leaving you with only one option, to order everythin & empty your meager savings just to save face. That xas progress, in the right way even & it made you smile. Who would’ve thought it possible only a few months ago ? Not yourself, for sure.

Before the first guests arrive, you go change your attire for something a bit more fitting but still quite comfy. You’re not going out after all, might as well just do the bare minimum, it’s not like you’re trying to get someone’s attention these days... A last look at yourself in the mirror and you go back to your living room, waiting for your friends who should be there in only a few minutes now. The first to knock is, not a surprise for you, Oona, who got her arms full of boxes, each containing her famous cupcakes. - “I think I’ve overdone myself this time”, she says laughing a bit as she comes in but knowing the others, there would be none left by the end of the evening. - “If you ever consider a career change, I suggest you open a bakery, I’ll be your most loyal customer, your cupcakes are to die for”, you tell her as she puts the boxes down on the table before she turns over to hug you. - “I’ll keep that idea in mind, maybe i’ll do it on the down low, like some people do it on Etsy or something”, she answers smiling before making herself at home. “Need a hand for something?” - “Nope, I’m all set as you can see but you’re sweet to ask.” Before you can say anything else, the others start arriving and so the party begins. You try your best to be a good host, it’s not easy for you as usually you’d rather stay home, by yourself and watch tv shows & stuff like that but for once, you’ll make an effort. Your little group made you feel accepted & competent so you kinda owe them that, and you could survive being a social animal for one small night, right ? It’s 2 hours into the party when you see Shirley coming your way with a big smile on er face and you’re not sure what it bodes for you so you try to match her attitude but still weary deep inside. She wants to congratulate you for the party, saying it’s one the chilliest she’s ever been to but you can’t help but think she’s only saying that to make you feel better (that’s so Shirley after all). Without missing a beat though, she changes topics and mentions that there is someone here that seems very interest in you and she points (not so) discreetly towards him, making him wave back at the both of you. - “So unconspicuous, thanks now I’m blushing for no reason”, you joke with her but your cheeks feel warm still. It’s Dominic. He’s working as a gaffer for the studio and you’ve talked with him a couple of times already. He seems to be a nice guy, geeky like you. last time you two chatted together, you’ve spent a good 20 minutes debating which composer was the best when it came to original movie soundtracks, something any other guy would probably consider boring and trivial. - “Maybe not for no reason... I mean dearie, he’s kinda cute. Plus he’s clearly into you. You should go talk to him, like right now”, she says still smiling but you can sens it’s not really a recommandation, more like an order. - “You’re never going to leave it alone, are you?”, you reply you know the answer already. - “You deserver some love too darling, so go on, he doesn’t bite... maybe if you ask nicely though...” - “Shirley!”, you utter disapprovingly as she waddles away from you chuckling. But the deed is done, you notice that Dominic is coming towards you & you smile politely as he stops in front of you. - “Quite à party you’ve thrown here, congratulations”, he says jokingly as he points out to all your coworkers around, busy chatting while emptying the plates & drinks you’ve set out in the appartement. - “Thanks, you’re sweet to say that but I know it’s pretty basic. I didn’t have the time to come up with something as elaborate as the others”, you defend yourself. - “Yeah but at least you did your best, that has to count for something, right?”, he remarks and you nod slightly. - “Oh, now that’ I’m thinking about it, did you have time to watch the movie I talked you about the other day?”, you ask, more than relieved to change subject. - “Not yet, no, but I’ll give it a try soon, it’s on my watch list”, he answers chuckling a bit. - “So you’ve got one too, I’m not the only one who keeps tracks like this”, you admit chuckling too. And off you both go into a conversation about your most anticipated tv shows and without noticing it, the party is over and you’re left on your own to clean up the place but your friends are nice people, they collected the glasses and plates so you just have to pick everything up & put it in your sink. After the last bit is set to dry for the night, you crawl to your bedroom and fall on your bed, drowsing off into sleep with ease. The following days when you cross path with them, you got some compliments for your little spree and you must say, it uplifts your spirit after all that happened. Plus, as days go by, you’re starting to get closer to Dominic. Often you’re spending your lunch break together, chatting about your hobbies and stuff like that, discovering that you have a lot in common. As you thought, he’s nuce, not to narrow-minded but not too opiniated either. He loves animals (he showed you loads of pictures of his dog already and he’s as cute as his owner you must admit) and he loves the same old tv shows such as Xena or McGyver. It’s almost as if you made him in a computer (to continue the references to vintage tv shows you both like of course). So obviously, you’re on your guard. You’ve learned that if it’s too good to be true, it’s probably a trap and you’d rather avoid falling in another one right now. Plus the fact that you like the same things doesn’t mean anything, just that you had similar tastes and backgrounds as you’re roughly the same age too. But you’re not going to lie, you wouldn’t mind going out with him if the possibility should present itself some day. As for how things are going with Adam, you’re not exactly sure where you’re standing. Still not a single word regarding the kiss and he’s been pissed ever since that phone call the other day. So you do your job, daily and as good as ever even if the mood has clearly changed between you two. It’s a bit hard for you to force yourself not to care since it’s part of the job in a way but well, not that way and you know it. You’re not far from him as you both walk to the set and you yawn a bit, you watched the last season of How To Get Away With Murder yesterday’s evening but you sacrified your resting hours to know how it ended & it shows. - “Another party ?”, you suddenly hear coming from him, making you furrow your brows. Was that a jab at you ? It certainly feels so... - “No, not that it’s any of your business even if it was”, you remark maybe a bit too hastily but you don’t wanna hear any more innuendos regarding what you do or might be doing at night coming from him. He has no right to comment on that. “I’ve left the new pages of the script on your table, there’s only 3 lines that changed. I’ve marked them to save you the pain to go through it to found out which”, you add then to change the topics and open the door to the set, letting him enter first. He just nods to thank you and that’s it for conversation. You go join the others on the side and gladly chat with them after that new spat with Adam. Stew gives you a compassionate pat on your arm and you smile back at him, content that none of them ask what put you in that mood. The usual chatter sets your mind aside and the rest of the day arrives sooner than you thought, allowing you to get home early, giving you the opportunity to treat yourself with a feel good movie & some comfort food. But even that doesn’t really help because you can’t stop asking yourself what game he’s playing with you, ignoring you one moment and asking personal questions the other, like he’s some kind of Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. But luckily, you’re tired so you doze off, your mind finally giving you a break & cherry on the to of it all, you’re not coming back to work before noon the next day. As you join Shirley & Oona at their table for lunch, you catch Dominic in the distance. He’s waving at you so you wave back & see Shirley smile a bit as you sit down. - “What? He was saying hello, I just waved back”, you defend yourself, knowing what that smile means coming from her. - “I didn’t say a word darling”, she says a little bit too cheerfully to your taste. - “No need for that, you’ve got your ‘I’m judging you pout’ going on”, quips Oona, visibly amused too by your conversation. - “Ah! See, you’ve got that face, I’m not the only one saying it”, you remark as you sip on your drink with your straw. - “But she’s got a point though, you’re flirting with him”, Oona points out sipping hers too, making you almost sneeze yours out. - “I’m not, I’m being polite, you two should try it some time”, you retort, knowing they’re saying the truth but for now you ant to avoid confronting it, you’re not in the right mindset to start a relationship. They both chuckle and you end up chuckling too, making you think the topic was over but as usual, Shirley doesn’t give up that easily. - “Just be careful if you go out with him, don’t give him any false hope”, she adds, all wisely. - “Why would I do that?”, you ask, brows furrowed, not really knowing where this is coming from. - “You know why”, she says giving you the ‘you know who I’m talking about’ look. “The guy’s into you but don’t let him get close if your heart & mind are still hooked somewhere else”.

She just hit the spot. You always felt like she was some sort of a mind reader and this just confirms it for you because it’s like she knew what was going on inside your brain and strangely, you both knew it, given the look you two share at this point. Feeling the silence is getting awkward, Oona throws another subject out of nowhere and lunch goes by with you thinking about way too many things to really enjoy your food. You’re still processing that whole exchange during the afternoon, warranting yourself some side glances from Adam from time to time, which you deliberately chosoe to ignore. And it kinda pisses you off that he cares now but still not enough to talk to you about wha happened. Another reason you really should start to forget about him & you know it but it’s not that easy since you’re by his side all day long. Deep down you know what you have to do, it’s obvous but that’ll ask a lot for you & you’re not sure you’ll be able to hold the distance. Despite your slight shyness, you’re someone who cares about people (some may even say you care too much) so for you to cast your feelings aside even though you know that’s what needs to be done, it’s gonna be problematic. On your ride home, you nearly miss your stop because you’re deep in your thoughts and as the evening goes on, you feel a headache forming up, making you officially brand the day a crappy one. The next morning you arrive on set, completely on auto-pilot, the two coffee you already took didn’t have any effect on you until now but you pull through, the last thing you xant is hearing another remark coming from Adam about how you look tired, assuming you went out even though he’s part of the reason you’re in that state. But nothing comes and you’re relieved, avoiding yet another spat with him makes your day easier. In order to keep your cool for the day, you decide to eat your lunch next to the costume department building, knowing almost nobody goes there during the break. After a good thirthy minutes, you return to the real world and you cross path with Dominic, who’s leaving for the day, lucky him. You chat a little and when he leaves, you feel lighter. It’s stupid, you curse yourself to be that way, so unstable in your emotions, such a mess when clearly you should know better with what to expect from someone like him, playing with people just because he can. That’s where you’d like to have a dog, to keep you company in times like this, to cheer you up with its cute face. And at least, he wouldn’t play with your feelings like someone else did. But it would be unfair to him, as you wouldn’t be able to xlak him when needed, plus your building rules don’t allow pets in the appartments so... You just hold your pillow close & wait for sleep to come and get you so you can finally call it a day.

#fanfic #adam sackler x reader #the thrilling adventures of a PA #sorry for the delay #life was full cray cray for me #hope it's gonna be worth the wait #not a lot of Sackler here but it's to set up the next chapter

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elyarond · 5 years ago

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*NOTE. i have not read the silmarillion in it’s full context ( the wording is difficult, even for me. ) most of what i know has been told to me by @aeternitie, @elyaros, @finarfiniel, @laurelote, @luktiene, and @edhelgund. and everything else has been heavily expanded on with headcanons. this post is going to be ungodly long, but it will go over the span of elrond’s life, and will dive in depth about my characterization of him.

following the attack of the havens of sirion by the sons of feanor, with his parents ( at least in his eyes, ) dead, elrond and his twin brother, elros, were taken captive and raised by maglor. as a child, his only constant was quite literally elros, and elrond relied on his brother heavily. he was fearful of the world, and everything in it. you’d often find the twins together, but elrond was always the one trailing behind. elros was unbelievably protective of him, and elrond was very much scared, all the time. his first, strongest memory is of the attack on his home. he does not remember much of his parents, aside from feelings of love and care. but as far as comprehensible memories, he does not have them.

and truth be told, even though maglor did his best to care for the twins, elrond was still very much afraid of him. same goes for maehdros, though he was not as active in raising the twins as maglor was.

the twins were ultimately sent off to live with gil-galad ( we won’t dwell too much on this, but because of the fact that elrond is specifically mentioned being with gil-galad when the elves are allowed to return to the undying lands, it’s pretty prevalent that elrond was with him as a child. and because of corresponding headcanons with @elyaros, elros was as well. )

because of their heritage, the twins were given a choice. whether to be counted among the kindred of elves or of men. elrond chose first, and ultimately chose to be counted among the elves. his transformation would happen first, and elros would witness this. he had asked elrond to come with him to their father’s lands, elrond would ultimately say no.

it’s good to now mention that elrond has never felt, even before being given the option of making this choice, as though he belongs among men. his elven heritage is so prominent in him, and it persuades his choice. it’s also good to mention that elrond has... a lot of trauma regarding his childhood and his upbringing by maglor, and in his heart he feels that it will take him more than one lifetime to move pass this pain. he makes this choice knowing his life will be filled with grief and heartache, but ultimately knows that an eternity is what he is destined for.

that is not to say, that he doesn’t visit numenor once it’s established. and for elros’ life, elrond is appointed as an ambassador on gil-galad’s behalf, and resides in numenor with his brother until his death. mind you, there is no war happening at this time, and gil-galad recognizes how strong the bond is between elrond and elros, and recognizes elrond’s pain about having to be separated from him. he’s ultimately sent on gil-galad’s behalf to congratulate the king on the birth of his son, vardamir, and once elrond is there, elrond is appointed as the official ambassador for the high king of noldor.

he’s there for the birth of the next three children - and plays a very active role in their lives. by this time, he is already an established healer and loremaster, and definitely passes his knowledge and stories down to his niece and nephews. he indulges in their interests and often times just lets them be what they are, children. they are royalty, yes, but they are at heart just children trying to find a place in the world. this never goes over well with elros and his wife, ithildiren ( found on @aeternitie, ) and elrond always feels a little guilty about it afterwards. he just wants the kids to have a good time.

the death that he holds the most painful, and most memorable, will always be elros’ death. it was in elros’ final years that he confided in elrond, and even confessed that he felt that he chose incorrectly, as he, though mortal, ultimately outlived many of the people he loved. elrond reminds him that the other choice would have been no better, as elrond will spend his life outliving everyone he loves - there really isn’t much difference in their choices. elrond chose immortality because he knew it would take longer to overcome his grief, elros chose mortality because he felt that being immortal would only grant him a lifetime of pain and suffering. by the end of elros’ life, i think they had found peace in each other’s choices. no matter how different that choice was, they loved each other.

before we dive deeper in that, it’s good to understand that elrond and elros share a very big connection to each other on a level much deeper than brothers. as twins, they are bound to each other. they share the capacity to feel each other’s emotions, their feelings, can feel when another is in pain, etc.

this means that through all of elros’ hardships, in the life that he lived that was filled with emotional turnmoil, elrond shared in this pain as well. and it is for this that elrond was always there for his brother, as he was the only one who knew exactly how elros felt, even when others truly thought they had him figured out. many would believe elros to be emotionless, but elrond knows it is not true. where elrond is sensitive and open with his feelings, elros is withdrawn and keeps his feelings locked down. they are constantly feeling each other’s pain, their joys, their sorrows. the bond can be cut off if one of them chooses so ( and elros has done this ) but for the most part, that bond is allowed to exist freely.

elros’ death was not surprising to elrond, he knew it was coming. he could feel the weariness, he could feel the exhaustion like it was his own. he felt elros letting go and submitting to his death. moments prior to his death, elros had finally found peace with his life, and elrond felt that wave of peace wash over him, before that connection was severed completely.

the loss of that connection serves as a constant reminder to elrond that he now, in this world, is alone.

once elros was gone, elrond felt little tying him to numenor, and promptly returned to gil-galad in lindon. it was then that annatar came seeking entrance to lindon, and was denied by gil-galad and elrond, as they sensed something wasn’t right. and the war of the elves and sauron would begin.

in s.a. 1695 gil-galad sent elrond to aid eregion. elrond's forces came too late and proved too small to defend eregion. sauron sent most of his army west to attack lindon, he left a strong detachment behind to contain elrond. in two years eregion was lade waste and elrond along with the noldor survivors fled far north. there, he established the stronghold of imladris. imladris was home to many refugees in this war, and though besieged, was not under sauron’s control. it was liberated by gil-galad and tar-minastir’s forces, and once sauron was defeated this time, imladris was established as a elvish stronghold, and elrond himself was appointed to gil-galad’s vice regent, where he would have the ring of vilya passed to him.

in the war of the last alliance, he marched with gil-galad and elendil. he witnessed both of their deaths, and witnessed isildur cut the ring off of sauron’s finger, destroying him, and ultimately tried to ensure the rings destruction. he was unable to do this, as isildur refused. and for those questioning why, i’d like to remind the class that isildur is a descendant of elros. elrond could not lift a hand to kill isildur himself.

with the third age, he would marry celebrian - something he truly did not ever expect to do. ( this is headcanoned with @elyaros and @aeternitie. ) he witnessed how ithildiren’s death destroyed elros, and destroyed the progress he had made over the course of his life. elrond was never looking for love, he never wanted to feel that pain. )

but then he met celebrian. and it changed. he never spoke of his love for her, only once she had prompted that the she had feelings for him, would he speak of his. their courtship lasted most likely, close to a hundred years, though the feelings for each other existed a lot longer than that. for elrond, it was the ultimate hesitance of love ( as you read the reason above, ) but once the mutual feelings were in the open, he, of course, is all in. elladan and elrohir are born in t.a 130, and arwen would follow in t.a 241.

this is something i wanna talk about, as @aeternitie brought it to my attention. but the names of elladan and elrohir are something elrond chose for them, and it is reminiscent of he and elros. let me explain, with direct quotes from rune.

o Elladan is very clearly “elf-man”, which is a reference to Elrond and his children’s status as half-elven, but Elrohir has no confirmed etymology. Parf Edhellen lists “elf-knight”, or (literally translated) “elf-horse lord”, which is valid because horse lord/knight is “rochir” from roch “horse” and “hir” master, but... while the most obvious etymology, it’s not the only possible one.

Why? Because when you cut out the “c” from rochir, from roch, with Elrochir being an entirely possible name, it seems to me that... “rochir” is not what you had in mind in the first place. Anyway, if the first element is unambiguously meant to be “elf”, it could very well be spelled Ellrohir.

“El”, with one L only, is “star”, present in both Elrond and Elros. Which makes a lot more sense, considering how common it is for fathers to give their children names that contain an element of their own. (see Celeborn and Celebrían, plus lots of other people) In which case, “hîr” is still “lord”, but “ro” is a shortening of another word. Which word? Well, it could be rom (horn, trumpet), it could be ron (smooth by polishing), it could be a lot of words... including ross, “foam, spray”

basically, elrond named his twins after he and his brother, and i will die on this hill.

anyway continuing on !

elrond raises the dunedain, and takes in almost all of isildur’s descendants. he maintains and preserves the shards of narsil, and essentially raised these children like his own, in some ways. but i do not believe elrond felt an outward fatherly protection over them, nor do i believe they actually viewed him as a father.

i won’t go too much into the events of the hobbit and lotr, because that’s all known and i pretty much abide by that canon.

NOW WE CAN GO INTO MY CHARACTERIZATION.

as kind as summer, is a big thing.

he is always ready to welcome guests to rivendell, we see this with the dwarves in the hobbit. they were unexpected, but he did not turn them away, and he did not make them leave. the dwarves were there for 14 days, and he even offered to bilbo that he could remain in imladris if he chose not to go on with the dwarves to erebor.

he’s warm ! warm hugs ! warm smile ! he’s the embodiment of summer.

he’s. the best dad. though, for the amount of children he raised ( i.e : elros’ children to an extent, isildur’s descendents. ) he is very stressed over his own children, especially the twins. they mirrored he and elros in a lot of ways, and because of their antics, he is constantly stressed. but he loves those boys.

the boys are big mama’s boys, and arwen is glued to elrond. i accept nothing else.

he could have been a king, but he chose not to.

no, he doesn’t view himself above any of his people, even though he is their lord. he simply views himself as a protector of his people, and would do anything to protect them.

he could have been high king of the noldor when gil-galad died, but chose not to because there weren’t enough of the noldor left to need a king.

his anger is.... something else.

where elrond is summer, elros is winter. but their anger is the polar opposite.

elrond becomes extremely cold and icy when angry, and his words to have a tendency to hurt, even though he doesn’t intend for them to.

when pushed to the absolute end of his anger, when he’s engulfed in it, he’s explosive. and stay out of his way. it takes a lot to get him here, and he’s only been pushed this far a few times in his life. this side of elrond is essentially elros’ anger.

celebrian sailing - his sea longing begins.

this was by far the most horrific moment in his life, and he had witnessed a lot of horrific things. he was unable to heal her fully, her physical wounds may have been healed, but the scars on her mind remained, and he could not touch them.

she figuratively took his heart with her when she sailed. her absence has left elrond with very little cares about this world. he isn’t outright heartless anymore, he is known for his kindness and his compassion, and he still has it. but the only thing keeping rivendell in its state at that point is vilya. he isn’t lifting a hand to make it better or make it prosperous, it’s all the ring’s doing by that point. it takes a lot of effort not to fade and die for him at this point, but he is hellbent on following her into the undying lands once she’s gone. he won’t give up.

arwen’s choice.

this also... destroyed him. not only because it meant she would die, but also because he knew he would not be around for it. like with elros, he wants nothing more than to be with his daughter until the end.

ultimately, he accepts her choice. he wants her to be happy, and if this is what she wants, he has no say in telling her she can’t have it. if she wants to be mortal with aragorn, elrond will not deprive her of this.

however, once the war of the ring is over, he knows he will sail. he stays just long enough to see her wed to aragorn and become queen of gondor.

this hurts him deeply. and his time in the undying lands is spent constantly wondering how she is, what she’s doing, what are her children like, etc.

he realizes after a few centuries that she’s gone, and now suddenly you have a very depressed elrond in the undying lands.

#elmo_fire.gif #I SPENT ALL DAY ON THIS #sorry if it's super long #☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ am i supposed to be grateful to have survived this? / character study #long post tw //

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biohackerblogger-blog · 5 years ago

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Biohacking and Science: A solution for most of your problems

In this article I’m going to be discussing biohacking—what it is and the different aspects of human biology an individual can improve (or “hack”, if you want to call it that) to optimise their life and cognition. In the next blog I’ll discuss the specific improvements I’ve made in my life and their scientific justifications—with an in-depth focus on nutrition, supplementation and cognitive-enhancement.

Biohacking as defined by merriam-webster is “biological experimentation done to improve the qualities or capabilities of living organisms especially by individuals and groups working outside a traditional medical or scientific research environment”.

While that sounds dramatic, the term could also be described as do-it-yourself biology—making small, incremental changes to your diet, habits and life to optimise your cognition and life expectancy. This hobby likely originated in Silicon Valley, a place popular in many trendy self improvement hacks: The keto diet, intermittent fasting and microdosing to name a few.

We are living in an era of excess. Western supermarkets are packed full of processed, sugary, fatty products that people cling to as comfort food. Social media and smartphones have been tweaked to be as addictive as possible. Even television has been replaced by on-demand streaming services that provide countless hours of mindless oblivion to addicted viewers—so much so that “binge-watching” is now a recognized term in many dictionaries. This combination and more has led to the shortening of the average attention span.

Coincidentally, it feels like every other person in recent generations seems to suffer from some form of ADHD, depression or other mental health issues.

Me, technically a part of generation z, am no exception.

I’ve been an underperformer most of my school career, with every parent-teacher meeting ending the same way: “Alexandru is a very bright boy but he doesn’t seem to be reaching his potential in class.”

I daydreamed, lost focus often and was often unmotivated when tackling complex tasks. My mom has practiced psychiatry for 2 decades and during my last year of high school I saw one of her colleagues who eventually diagnosed me with ADHD.

This shook me. I had believed that I was just a lazy person, not working hard enough but now this doctor was basically telling me that it wasn’t my fault; That I had a learning disability that would always put me at a disadvantage to other “functional” people.

As I made my way through university the same issues kept coming up over and over again and I started feeling hopeless. Medication seemed to act as a bandaid on the problem, working as intended inconsistently. Is this what the rest of my life was gonna be like?—Craving achievement while lacking the motivation to acquire it?

Nahhhh, I wasn’t going to let some abstract diagnosis prevent me from prospering in life.

Enter biohacking:

In my spare time at uni I began researching ways of “curing” my ADHD. The goal: Improving my attention, motivation and cognition anyway I could. I’m a scientist, so it only made sense to solve my problems with science. Little did I know I wasn’t so much as curing a disorder as I was just finding ways to optimise my life using scientific knowledge. I tried different lifestyle changes and recorded the positive benefits of each one—Basically running my own scientific experiments on a sample size of 1. Biohacking is basically tweaking your biology to improve your life.

Diet

As I mentioned before, supermarkets today are full of horrible, delicious processed food. It’s expensive eating healthy and it’s difficult to resist the allure of a greasy portion of chips. Regardless, I think a large percentage of the population seriously underestimate how much your diet impacts your day-to-day life as a human being. A heavily debated study found that judges tended to give harsher sentences just before lunch due to hunger (This study has argued about for years). If even people who practice being impartial for a living are at the mercy of their own biology—that means so are you.

Your body is a complex machine, requiring certain amounts of macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) to carry out all of it’s processes efficiently. If any of these numbers are skewed, the machine won’t run smoothly. You can optimise your diet in a number of ways depending on your goals, but the FDA and similar organizations provide recommendations as to how much of each nutrient an average individual requires in a day.

Many of the micronutrients have important roles in our day-to-day lives which becomes apparent when we are deficient. Magnesium plays a huge role in good-quality sleep while vitamin D is important for healthy bones and mood. The world health organisation provides guidelines for what they consider a healthy diet which contains healthy doses of all these nutrients. Obviously, we’re human, not superhuman and we can’t always have a perfect diet all the time. There’s no shame in supplementing your diet artificially, just don't use pills as a replacement for healthy eating habits. Getting blood work done can help you identify which vitamins and minerals you're deficient to inform your dietary changes or supplement purchases.

If you're looking to improve cognition, omega-3 fatty acids are a well-researched staple supplement that is found in high quantities in fish. I could write a whole article on cognitive enhancement and supplements—so I’ll save it for the next one.

If weight loss is your goal maybe consider reading up on the science of the keto diet (a fat heavy diet that pushes metabolism into burning fat) or experimenting with alternative eating habits like intermittent fasting. Hell, I hear great things about going vegan nowadays and you’d be saving the environment while you’re at it.

Play around with it, optimise it for your goals and give supplements a try.

Exercise

The NHS recommends 75-150 minutes of exercise a week for the average individual. Obesity continues to be a huge issue in this country and others so more still needs to be done to encourage public fitness. It seems that many people make the mistake of thinking of exercise as a distraction from more important things like careers and making money, especially as they get older. They say they’re simply too busy and can’t find the time but in reality they’re decreasing their potential to excel in other aspects of their lives. There’s no point in making money if you’re too fat and achy to enjoy spending it.

Exercise is important. As Socrates eloquently puts it:

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

Deep.

Endorphins produced by exercise make us feel great, we sleep better, we have more energy, we are more engaged with our work—Not a whole lot of downsides. For men in particular weight training is a very well-researched method or raising testosterone levels. A hormone my generation seems to be in significant lack of but in need of due to its important properties. Testosterone has anxiolytic properties, lubricates social interactions and is involved in providing an array of physical health benefits too.

Exercise is free, there are no downsides and a plethora of benefits. It doesn’t so much matter what type of exercise you’re doing so much as you’re doing it on a regular basis. It will suck, especially if you’re not accustomed to regular exercise but once you make it a habit (takes around 21 days to make something a habit), you’ll stop thinking about it and it’ll happen automatically.

Biohacking sure sounds a lot like self-improvement eh?

Sleep

In today’s day and age a good night’s sleep has become a rare treat. It’s like taking a gamble every night and hoping you wake up rested. As a student studying in the UK, I feel like I’m probably the most qualified person to say that. Sleep is very important for humans as pretty much all of our physical processes are regulated to some extent by our biological clock. A clock set by our circadian rhythm (Aka sleep cycle). Small perturbations to our sleep can seriously knock our daily rhythm out of line. Memories are written into your long term memory, waste products are flushed from the brain and the body readies itself for the new day. Everyone is aware their performance drops after a poor night’s sleep.

Here are some things you can do:

Humans need to go through about 4-6 sleep cycles per night to function adequately.

Sleep cycle = 90 minutes +/- 5 * 90m = 7.5 hours

Try to wake up after sleeping a multiple of 90 minutes. If you wake up during the middle of a cycle you’re more likely to feel groggy. 6 hours, 7.5 or 9 hours between bed and wake are what you’re looking for.

Avoid blue light before bed. I’m sure you’ve already heard this one but blue light from screens inhibits sleep. Try a blue light filter on your laptop—Flux is the free one I use and recommend.

Avoiding caffeine, sugar and carbs before bed works wonders for your sleep. A magnesium supplement does too.

Going to bed and waking up at the same time consistently will make sleeping easy and soon your whole body will adjust itself to the routine. The human body loves routine.

Anything else worth mentioning

Yes, meditation is a big one. Specifically mindfulness. If you haven’t already been preached to on the internet about the numerous benefits of meditation, it seems to improve pretty much everything about people.—The ultimate meta-habit for improving all aspects of living. It shows promise in ameliorating depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-control and a lot more.

The mobile app headspace provides a great starting point and for those that want a challenge and want to try their hand at a monk’s life check out Vipassana meditation. Their free week-long retreats are a crash course in mindfulness with lifelong benefits. I tried one this summer and was convinced it was a cult for the first 3 days.

I’ve seen huge improvement in my life after I started applying science to fix my problems. I hope I’ve managed to give an effective overview of my experience in biohacking and given you some well-researched places to get started. If you have a biological background I think it’s a shame not to use that background to optimise your life in every way you can.

Thanks for reading,

Alex

P.S. here’s a short rant:

I think (not all, but a lot) of the recent diagnoses of ADHD and depression could be “cured” by not treating it as an isolated malady caused by some bad genes and poor luck—but as a culmination of lifestyle choices and habits that could be improved upon. Exercise and diet should be the FIRST CHOICE intervention when it comes to treating things like ADHD and depression.

I believe diet and exercise should always precede a chemical solution to these ailments. There are hundreds of supplements and activities that have proven psychological benefits that could hugely benefit humans. Thanks again.

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nam-nam-joon · 6 years ago

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fruit

Pairing: yoongi x reader

Genre: mild angst, fluff

Wordcount: 4.6k

Warnings: None. Just soft, soft fluffy love and platonic affection in this one.

Summary: the last day of your vacation with your best friend, Min Yoongi, in Toronto

You wake to dry, cotton sheets and a comfortable silence, only broken by cars noisily starting off after the lights change on the street below the window. The first thing you see is the horribly outdated and blocky AC, and to escape its horrid look you roll over on the other side.

You squint your eyes at the sight of someone sitting with their back propped against the headboard, big headphones dangling around his neck, his phone in between his fingers.

With a sigh you close your eyes again before stretching your arms over your head.

"Do you ever sleep."

His chuckle is the first sound of him that greets your ears, just before his voice reaches you moments later.

"Occasionally. Had pleasant dreams?"

You only hrmpf into the pillow, as every trace of whatever had occupied your mind during its state of rest had been wiped clean after you'd opened your eyes. "What time is it, anyways. Do they still serve breakfast downstairs?"

He scoffs, and you crack open an eye to see him frowning at the opposite wall.

"They call that breakfast, pff yeah. Dunno. You wanna go for breakfast here?"

He sounds a little disbelieving, and when you focus on his face again you find him looking down on you, the frown slightly lessened.

You shrug. "It's free."

He rubs his right hand over his face and pinches his eyes. "It's our last full day here, I think we can treat ourselfs to something a little more enjoyable."

He mentions it so casually but his words have a deeper impact on you as you roll over on your back, staring at the ceiling.

The last day already...

One week of holiday was not nearly enough time, in your opinion, but it was what had been given, and there was no way of changing it now.

One week already.

"Can't believe we've been here for a week already! Feels... I don't know. Doesn't feel like a week."

"I know." He replies, pushing back the blanket and swinging his legs out of the bed. He waits, briefly, to avoid slow blood, before standing up and stretching his back, dropping his headphones off to the nightstand.

There's a brief moment in which you can admire the muscle and bones shifting in his back as he rolls his shoulders, the lack of a t shirt giving you full view over the smooth skin stretching over his frame.

You look away before he could notice, not wanting to add tension to the calm air that surrounds you both.

You doubt he'd take offense, or worse, think you were checking him out - he knows you don't work that way, and it's okay, but a part of your brain still thinks he might interpret it wrong.

Oblivious to your inner conflict, he trudges over into the bathroom, stopping to pick up his pair of black skinny jeans from the chair he'd unceremoniously dumped them on last night, and bends over to pick a fresh pair of briefs out of his suitcase.

When he emerges again, the scentwave of his deo and aftershave comes rolling out of the bathroom behind him, and you're almost done with checking off any new notification that had arrived as soon as you'd opened your phone.

"Get up," He throws your own clothes at you, and you lazily lift a hand to block them from smacking right into your face. "We don't have all day to lounge."

Contrary to his words just now he flops back down on the bed after shrugging into a shirt and oversized jumper, tapping on his phone for a while. Then he sits back up again, shuffling his feet until they're far enough into his shoes so that he can tie them.

You're thanking yourself for having the minds to have showered last evening and can thus safely skip it this morning, shortening the get-ready routine significantly.

"What do you wanna do today?" He speaks loudly through the door as you close it behind you, and you avoid your reflection in the large mirror spanning almost the entire opposite wall as you contemplate for a moment.

"Give me some options!" You shout back, then, unwilling to get your brain to remember what things you already crossed off your bucket list and which were yet to be done.

Yoongi groans at your passiveness, but you hear him move across the room to the physical copy of the list you'd written out three weeks ago, anxiety riddled and excited about this trip coming up.

He lists several things while you dry off, put deo on and get dressed, but two catch your attention.

"Aren't the aquarium and the CN Tower like... right next to each other?"

He stops, and as you open the door again you find him furrowing his eyebrows at the list and stack of flyers in his hands.

"Yeah, they are." He then agrees, and a smile spreads on your face.

"Let's do those today?"

"And the Distillery District tomorrow?"

"Works with me." You stop by your suitcase and pick up a scarf, not wanting to be fooled by the seemingly pleasant weather that is visible through the big windows.

The air outside is so fresh it nips your cheeks until they're red, and you're glad as Yoongi leads the way down into the closest subway station. Warm air rushes out from the tunnels as you await the next train's arrival, nervously checking to see if you're on the right side of the station.

"Aquarium first?" He has to step close so you can hear him over the wind rustling and the tires screeching, and you feel yourself leaning forward further into him to answer, speaking directly into his ear as you confirm.

He turns his head after hearing you agree, and the smile that flickers over his usually so passive face fills your chest with warmth.

It's a bit of a walk from the southernmost station to both Tower and Aquarium, and during that walk you come past some of the skyscrapers that make up the core of Downtown's business district.

There are a lot of people out and about, and during a wait at one of the red lights Yoongi slips his long, cold fingers through yours.

You gently tug him forward as the light switches to green and he's still caught up running his eyes over the architecture that surrounds you both, but doesn't protest as you drag him along.

He needs a moment to file through your backpack until he gets the preprinted tickets out and can present them to the teenager at the doors, who automatically lifts the corners of their mouth and bids you a good stay.

Darkness envelops you as you enter the rooms filled with big glass windows providing a glimpse into the tanks beyond, inhabited by all sorts of critters that you can find in the oceans.

It's so warm that your scarf and jacket soon become obsolete, and you turn to stuff them into your backpack while Yoongi simply pushes the sleeves of his jumper up.

You must've taken longer than expected, because when you turn back and around, your companion is nowhere in sight. Granted, in the dim light and with his inky hair he doesn't exactly stand out, but you're not too worried. If all comes down there's still cell reception in here, but even then it would surprise you if you wouldn't find each other sooner.

Unconcerned you continue walking through the halls, gazing in wonder at all the fish and other lifeforms.

You just caught sight of a sign lit in rainbow colours when a tap on your shoulder makes your head turn, finding yourself face to face with a flustered looking Yoongi. His lips are parted for air and he looks like he's been jogging, the crease between his eyebrows giving him a look of utter annoyance to the untrained eye.

To you the worry in his gaze is clearly visible, the distress that makes him press his lips into a thin line as he silently stares at you in a mixture of exasperation and relief.

"What?" You ask, worry beginning to gnaw at your own heart now. "Did something happen? Did you lose something?"

You're up and ready to go back, eyes already peeled for whatever it is he dropped now, even before he sighs and looks away briefly.

"You." He says then, and over the childish-accusing ring of his voice you hear the wavering that comes before tears. "I thought I'd lost you, idiot."

He wraps his arms around your shoulders, one hand grabbing his own elbow and locking you into the hug as he drops his head against yours and breathes out heavily.

You close your own arms around his middle, softly holding him, rubbing over his spine before letting go. "I won't go anywhere without you."

He only glares at you before forcefully taking your hand and linking your fingers before tugging you forward, evidently still not over the thought of having lost you earlier.

As the biggest tank comes into sight you gleefully step on the slowly moving walkway that is only wide enough for one person, but Yoongi doesn't seem to mind walking besides you, one hand still clasped in yours, the other stuffed into his pocket.

The blue light from overhead makes him look paler than usual, and he watches the big sea turtle pass over the glass tunnel with interest.

So captivated by the sight of the sharks is he that he almost walks smack into a children's pushchair, and barely manages to avoid stumbling over the toddler that is standing up at its side, holding on to it.

The father is quick to apologize and Yoongi is too overwhelmed to say anything but look taken off guard, so you tug on your hands and pull him behind you on the walkway, softly snickering.

His eyebrows lower as his eyes focus on you.

"Oi."

"Sorry." You turn your head to hide the grin that is still on your face, and he clicks his tongue and grunts before pulling on your hands so you take a step closer and he can put his free arm around you, angrily hugging you and seeking comfort after the small shock just now.

When you come to the jellyfish you take selfies and pictures of each other with the orange illuminated, slowly moving beings, forms radiant in front of the unnaturally shining blue water.

You snap a particularly good one of Yoongi, looking up at the orange jellyfish, its colour emitting enough glow to dip his cheeks and nose in its colour, while the lower half of his face is touched in blue. The back of his head and his hair mix with the dark background, making the colours on his face pop even more.

His eyes glint appreciatively as he studies the photo after you hand him his phone back, and he softly rests his forehead against the side of your head as he sends a copy of it to you.

You have a blast leaning over the side of the big tank you previously passed through via the glass tunnel, stretching your hand out as far as you can to touch the rays that peek out of the water and let themselves be pet.

"Look, Yoongi look!" You yell excitedly as you finally manage to touch one of the flat fish's heads, the skin surprisingly smooth and slick to the touch.

He stands a little further away, arms crossed and his chin resting in one of his hands, simply observing you having fun, while a small smile plays around his lips.

Before you can fall over the wall and join the multitudes of ocean creatures down below he gently asks if you're ready to go on.

It's only the gift shop that is left now, and you two have a great time exploring all the ways they make money here.

A box of soft plastic things to put on fingers particularly intrigues you, and Yoongi makes the mistake of stepping close behind you to see over your shoulder. In the next moment his face is met with five wobbling tentacles, each one sprouting from your fingers.

He manages to suppress his shout of unpleasant surprise but can't help the shudder and disgusted expression on his face, before it shifts into morbid interest and he steps closer after having leaned back rather hastily before.

"Gross." He comments, catching the tentacle that is your pointer finger and giving it a testing squeeze, up where it's all rubber and not finger anymore.

You giggle and let him pull them off one after the other, glad to finally have fresh air on your fingers again.

The big shark plushie looks more cuddly than terrifying, and you catch Yoongi putting away his phone after your hand, previously petting one of the sharks, pauses.

"Did you...?"

His face is blank as he tilts his head in question.

"What?"

You narrow your eyes at him but don't say anything else.

There's nothing really worth your money, so you exit through the doors at the end. Wary of the change of temperature waiting outside, you open your backpack and pull your jacket out again, and after shrugging into it signalling with a nod you're ready to go on.

Once past the doors and back in the cold air, you begrudgingly pry one of your hands out of its pocket as Yoongi demands to hold it again. With the next gush of wind you shiver and hastily wedge both hands back into your pocket, despite Yoongi's protest as his large hand doesn't want to fit through the opening at first.

You find a corner shielded from the unforgiving breeze, where you sit on the edge of the freezing cold stone bench and dig into the sandwiches you'd picked up at a Tim Horton's prior to the Aquarium.

After splitting the chocolate chip cookie and wiping your hands you lean back, momentarily satisfied.

The sun is out from between the grey clouds from this morning, but even now it is quite cold.

You think it to yourself, and notice it again when Yoongi makes sweater paws around his hands and his shoulders softly shake.

"You should've put on a jacket." You lightly scold him, more worry than annoyance in your voice as you wrap your scarf around his neck and upper body. "Let's get into that Tower now, get warm again and then go see what the city looks like from up above."

He doesn't say anything but follows close to your heel, jumping ahead and through the doors before you.

There's a security checkpoint before you can get much further, but after that one's passed you can see the trickle of people leading from the cash registers towards where the elevators must be.

On your way there you come across informative panels on the wall, stating facts and more interesting stuff.

"Ohh you can even go on the top of the viewing cabin! That'd be so cool!"

"You're crazy."

You elbow him and he huffs out in fake pain.

The elevator attendee speaks almost continuously before the doors close, but whatever they're saying is tuned out as the ascend begins and the floorboards are suddenly see through, the ground rapidly shrinking.

Yoongi jumps slightly at the sight, instinctively grabbing your sleeve, and you run a hand over his in comfort without having to look.

The sight out of the big windows is truly breathtaking, and neither of you says something for a good while after arriving on top.

The sun is already setting in the distance when you finish your second full round.

"There's another walk without windows downstairs."

He doesn't need to add the question mark at the end of his sentence for you to agree to the question he didn't ask.

Instead of accompanying you around the walkway, he just stops halfway around, leaning on the handrail and staring out into the city that grows darker with every minute.

It's not even much colder up here, if you don't count the wind, and you realize that's probably one of the main reasons Yoongi decided to stay on the side shielded from the strong breeze.

After completing the round you sidle up to him and join him looking towards the dying sun.

Heartbeats pass by in silence, Yoongi eventually dropping his eyes from the burning star and focusing on his fingers holding on to each other, hanging over the handrail.

It must be cold for him, even with the scarf now, and you turn, walk towards the doors, expecting him to come join you on your way back inside, but he doesn't.

Instead he lifts his head again, looking towards the horizon, and you quietly slip your phone out to take a picture of his form. The edges of his pullover, the strands of his hair caught in golden sunlight, he is looking absolutely ethereal.

With your legs to both sides of his, your arms wrapped around his middle and your chin resting on his shoulder you share a bit of your warmth with him. After a moment he leans back into your touch, his hands coming up to touch yours where they snuck into the kangaroo pocket on his sweater.

For a moment you both watch the sun through narrowed eyes, and you wish you could preserve this moment forever.

The city sounds are a long way down, the cold is bearable, and Yoongi is everywhere - under your hands, in between your legs, wrapped in your arms, his scent briefly in your nose every time you take a breathe, the side of his head the border of your vision on your right.

He turns, eventually, to face you. The height difference makes you look up to him, a soft expression of love on your face.

He takes his time studying your face, one hand coming up to cup your cheek, his bony thumb grazing over the area of your cheekbone that has become weirdly numb from the cold.

With the sun in his back his hair has a halo. It fits, you think.

He swallows, and parts his lips, as if to say something, and you catch the way his eyes flicker down to your lips, and suddenly the warm flutter of love and adoration in your chest is no longer there, the smile drains from your face and worry spreads throughout your body.

Yoongi knows you're different than that, he knows that little touches mean something different for you than for most others. He knows you don't want slobbery make-out sessions, and he knows you don't date because why bother when everyone is just so focused on the one thing that you don't want, anyway?

So why would he...?

The fear he might not be different from them bubbles up in you, but you fight it down. This is Yoongi, not some fuckboy. This is Yoongi, with his cold hands and big sweaters, who needs you to hug him even after you're the one to scare him. Yoongi, who needs to be reminded to eat and drink after getting too immersed in his work, and Yoongi who tells the guys approaching you and your girl friends at the club to back off when they don't want to take no for an answer.

Yoongi, who cares so much about every one of his friends.

"I was thinking," He begins, and you can't help it when your stomach drops. He's finally had enough, you think, he can't take it anymore. The displays of physical affection have gotten to him after all, even though he promised he knew you didn't mean to flirt through them. This vacation will be the last one with your best friend, and you swallow through the rush of blood threatening to drown out his words.

"I- You know I love you, right?"

No, you don't, not really. You know he does, but your heart is pounding away in your chest at the meaning his words have, could have, but you nod anyways, just to hear his next words.

"I love you, _______."

"Are you breaking up with our friendship?" It bursts out, and you hate how your voice trembles, hate how vulnerable you sound, even to your own ears. Yoongi knows of your fear of staying alone, of people pointing it out again and again and not giving you the space to accept it, allowing you to try growing comfortable with it.

The way his eyes widen and his mouth gapes, suddenly at a loss for words does nothing to ease the fear worming its way through your gut, making your knees weak.

"I- No! _______, no. I- Oh god, no. No no no."

He slides the backpack off your shoulders and places it aside before enveloping you in a bear hug, holding you so close and secure that you can finally breathe again.

"No, please, please don't think that. I wouldn't, not in a million years. You mean too much to me, do you understand?"

He pulls back, and now his eyes are frantically searching and holding yours, desperate to give reassurance that has left you. Making sure you hear him, see him before his next words.

"That's why I was wondering, if you would be up to make this-" He gestures between you, and you follow his movement with slow eyes, still not knowing what he's getting at but confused since it's not going in the direction you were thinking of. "-a permanent thing?"

"What?"

He lets out a soft sigh and his gaze dances off to the side briefly, hooded eyes under furrowed eyebrows searching and holding on to something before his face clears, the soft, uncertain smile that shows he's excited about something but also incredibly nervous at the same time, and clears his throat shortly.

"_______. Will you be my zucchini?"

You continue to stare at him dumbfounded, but the way he so proudly said the last word, however ridiculous it sounds, slowly melts the ice inside you.

A giggle bursts through your throat, tight with uncried tears, and you clap a hand over your mouth to stop it, eyes still wide and fixed on the person in front of you. Another slips out, and through the conflicting emotions inside you, you ask:

"My what?"

"...Zucchini." Yoongi replies, slightly less sure of himself now. “That’s what-” He fiddles with your scarf before pulling out his phone from his pocket, tapping on the screen and putting something into it. His eyes flicker up to yours, and he continues while pulling something up on his screen. "I looked it up. It's what- It's what people use for each other in a queerplatonic relationship."

He holds out his phone for you to see, and with still big eyes you scroll through the text and quickly read it.

"I, um. I didn't know about that. Um. Wow." You shake your head in disbelief as you hand the phone back to its owner. As he slips it back into his pocket his eyes meet yours again, and through the continuing silence you remember he's still waiting for an answer.

That's when the weight of what he asked sinks in, and your eyes snap back to his, your mouth opening and closing without a sound escaping it.

"You... And me?" Your voice breaks at the end, disbelief making your tongue thick.

Yoongi nods, a wider smile flickering over his face as he runs his hands over his pullover, wanting to grab on to something for comfort but refraining from doing so.

"You're asking me... to be in a queerplatonic relationship? With you?"

He nods, biting on his lower lip, now shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

It's stupid how long it takes your brain to fully wrap around the words and their meaning.

When they do, it's like a drop of sunlight has fallen straight into your stomach.

"Yes. Yes! Min Yoongi, yes! I'd- I’d love to be your ...zucchini."

And you spring forward, into his arms, and he picks you up and spins you around once before setting you back on the ground.

You're both laughing, and finally the tears run freely, out of relief now.

You mush your lips into his cheek, the grin not dropping from your face, even after you press your foreheads against each others.

"God I'm so glad you said yes. That'd have been a sad rejection."

"We could've been each others... celery or something."

That cracks him up and his lips pull back over his teeth. "Zucchini sounds better though."

"Min Yoongi. My Zucchini."

You wrap your tongue around the words and really feel them, testing out how they sound.

He grins back at you, and for a moment everything's perfect again.

Then he shudders and shivers in your embrace, teeth suddenly clattering as his shoulders start to shake uncontrollably.

"Oh my god, go back inside, now!"

You rip yourself out of the soft hug you'd shared and push him through the doors, back inside, before going to collect your backpack and following him.

He's still grumbling about the cold when you spread out the takeaway indian curry and rice over the ridiculously large bed which’s blanket is draped over Yoongi's freshly showered form.

He'd hopped under the water right after you'd gotten back from the CN Tower, before you had gone out alone again to get dinner a last time.

He sucks in air through his teeth now as he takes the first bite of his curry - spicy, to get the warmth back into him.

"If you wouldn't have had a meltdown we could've gotten this over with so much sooner."

He looks over to where you're sitting, and the shy need to confirm you're really not taking offense at his lame comment makes your lips stretch into a smile. You're quick to wipe it off your face in favour of fake annoyance, though, and glower at him half-heartedly.

"If you hadn't been so cryptic I wouldn't have had any reason to worry, you gummybear."

Right after the rather stern words leave your mouth you can't hold the grin back any longer.

"Speaking of which," He says, before putting his styro box with curry down to lean over the side of the bed and retrieve something from the drawer of the nightstand. He's dressed in long-sleeve shirt and sweatpants, and you watch in amusement as it rides up as he stretches. Before you can hold back you reach forward and poke his soft side.

He flinches and turns his head, the look of pure offence making you laugh.

"Sorry, sorry!" You're quick to apologize, but he still gives you a level 3 death glare before flinging a golden package into your face.

"Here, have these and keep your nasty fingers to yourself."

He goes back to shovelling the curry, while you squeal over the sweets.

"Haribo! They're my favourite. Thank you!"

He continues to duck his head, but you can see the way he smiles into his food.

"Request." He says after finishing his serving and leaving a rest for tomorrow.

You pick it up and transfer it into the fridge, before wiping nonexistent dirt from your hands on your pants.

He crawls out of bed to stand in front of you, and you tilt your head in question to his one word sentence.

"Can I kiss your cheek? Please?"

The smile is back on your face in an instant.

“Yes. And you really don’t need to ask every time, ok?” You hug your arms around his ribcage, revelling in the feeling of his lips touching your cheek, your temple. How his arms are heavy and warm and reassuring around your shoulders.

"I love you." You whisper into his shirt, and the warm fuzzy feeling in your chest threatens to burst it.

"I love you too." After a pause, he quietly adds, "Zucchini."

author’s note: i loved the positive feedback on my last ff, and i’d love it if you’d leave a comment after reading this one :3

all the fuzzy happy love to you, wherever you may be right now. i hope you have a great day. <3

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ofmorninglory · 5 years ago

Note

im not well versed in crossover AU's in general but go off about them anyway lay it on me

//screams// Guys, Tea is a Literal Blessing™ and I absolutely don’t deserve all this validation but I will soak up on it.

So, the other day I was going through my Ao3 and I realized literally everything I do, ever, is a crossover, so I guess that’s kind of my thing now. Room Enough AU, however, is literally The Crossover™, you know? I have to admit I’ve been working on plotting it for way too many years (I think it was 2016; I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a hot minute) so it’s so much bigger in my head than what I actually have written. Some of the info I’ve managed to actually jot down somewhere is in this little tag right here, but I’m here to provide the basics on what Room Enough AU is and why it’s so important to me.

Under the cut, to keep your dashes clean, my lovelies!

Room Enough for All of Us is a crossover AU between Marvel and DC (because who didn’t see that coming, right?). While most of the crossovers for these franchises I’ve seen and read all start with Bruce and Clark meeting Steve and Tony (who, arguably, are each other’s counterparts) and while I absolutely adore the idea of billionaire Bruce Wayne becoming friends with billionaire Tony Stark, and Clark and Steve bonding over, you know, being seen as literal beings of perfection, Room Enough AU (which we’ll shorten as REAU from now on, although that’s a name I’ve never used for it, but there’s always a first for everything, you know?) actually starts with Tony Stark, betrayed and broken after IM, meeting (or rather, meeting again) one very problematic and highly-skilled pilot, Harold Jordan.

After the events of IM and Tony being betrayed by one of the people he trusted most in the world, Stark Industries starts undergoing heavy restructuring (am I using the right word? Google Translate says so) and among all of these shifts and changes, Pepper insists that he gets a new pilot for his private plane. He goes to Ferris Air, of course, because it’s in California and he’s had contracts with them for years, and when he gets there, there’s this one roudy pilot who manages to not only evade all of the Stark Training Drones in the air, but actually destroys all of them in the process. Tony wants this pilot. He does. He recognizes under-paid talent when he sees it.

Hal has absolutely zero idea of what is happening when Tony offers him the position as his private pilot. Jordan is not all that enthusiastic about being some rich kid’s pilot-for-hire, but after the stunt he’s just pulled? He really should think about getting a new job. Hal doesn’t say yes outright, of course not, he’s got more dignity than that, but Tony just won’t let up.

Not only is Tony Stark some rich billionaire he doesn’t want to be working for either, he’s also one of Hal’s one-night-stands from two years ago. Is Tony fazed at all by this? He is not! Tony Stark is stubborn and he doesn’t care about anything other than getting this man a better salary.

Tony spends about 300 weeks trying to get Hal to actually agree to the job, it’s ridiculous. His gifts are expensive, and they get more extravagant the more time goes on. He even gets Hal Captain rank back for him (if that allowed? I do not know, I have yet to research on this, this is actually a very new development born in the REAU discord chat). Hal draws the line when a Rolex ends up at his home (one of the fancy, classic ones, too, with the green cover) and Jordan calls Tony to tell him to back off.

Twenty minutes later, Hal is agreeing to working for Stark. Carol fired his ass after that whole fiasco with the drones (”They were due for an upgrade, anyways! They’re old and I could do so much better, Ferris! It’s not a big deal.”) so he has to find a way to pay the goddamn bills or move in with Barry, and he doesn’t want to intrude on his best friend like that.

Plus, he loves the sky. Maybe this job isn’t so bad.

Against all odds, and with a lot of difficulties and obstacles, Tony and Hal actually start bonding. Except, whoops, Tony is dying from palladium poisoning, and just as our favorite green boy is warming up to the idea of not only being Tony’s pilot but also his friend, Stark suddenly does a 180 on him and completely backs away.

(It doesn’t help Hal’s confusion that Tony spent the first few weeks of his employment literally changing everything about his life. He gives his company away to Pepper Potts, starts a mentor-apprentice program in which he is the mentor and this girl from Mexico is the apprentice, and just generally starts becoming a Good Man™, in Hal’s eyes.)

Long story short (to wrap this one up, because I could go on for years) Hal finds out Tony is dying with a little help from Natasha (who Hal decidedly stops liking when he finds out she’s been lying to Tony, but who he’ll warm up to again, eventually, and because she loves Barry a whole lot and keeps his boyfriend safe and happy) and then it’s a race against time to save Stark’s life.

And because there is no one smarter (or faster) that Hal Jordan knows, he calls his good buddy The Flash into Tony’s Malibu home and tells Stark that Barry will help him or “so help me god, Anthony Edward Stark, I will find a way to bring your back from death to kill you myself”. When Tony is saved and Barry and him have managed to destroy his entire home, Hal feels like he can breathe again, and Allen smiles at him this sort of way when he catches his shoulders lose all the tension. (”wHAT? WHAT IS IT BARRY?” “You wanted to keep him safe” “He pays my salary, of course I wanted to keep him alive” “Harold” “Bartholomew”)

So, Tony and Hal? They’re really, really good friends. Hal would probably die for Tony, and Tony would absolutely lay down on the wire to let Hal pass (take that, Steve). From the outside, they’re an unlikely pai, except when you look at it closer, they’re literally the only way universes could collide. Barry actually saw it coming from a mile away, but Hal refused to let Tony into his life (Hal is used to everyone leaving; Barry is the exception, of course he is, but that’s Barry there’s no one purer, nicer, or kinder in this whole wide world).

After that, it’s just a lot of JL/Avengers shenanigans, mostly around Barry, Hal, Tony and Steve, once he comes along (and he and Barry aren’t at each other’s throats anymore). It follows losely through IM2, Avengers, probably IM3 (because Harvey Keener) and CA:WS (Barry and Steve bonding!), only to diverge somewhere between that and Age of Ultron (that doesn’t exist, to be all that much honest). I’ve plotted some of the things I want to happen, but since I’m messy and don’t have enough attention span to STAY FOCUSED, I’m still trying to figure out a lot of things.

I’m probably going into Avengers Assemble at some point and work with that. There are some DC storylines I think would fit nicely in there, but I have big gaps in my comic knowledge, so I really have to search for the right things to put.

The funny thing about REAU, however, is how much it has intoxicated every single of my other aus. All of the works that you can find in my Ao3 (right over here) are different iterations of this crossover, brought into different scenarios.

We have Coffee Shop AU, my first non-powered baby whom I love and cherish very much and hopefully will finish one day. We have Hotel AU which is so weird and I have no idea where it came from, but it’s there and it’s some very sweet Clintasha. There’s Prom AU/Childhood Friends AU! That’s sweet and fluffy and features sticker stars and red crayons. We have dumb diner au! The newest published addition to the line of non-powered aus! They’re all great, they’re mostly always the same characters, the same groups of friends (in most non-powered AUs, Steve and Barry don’t hate each other. In fact, usually they know each other from a very long time, along with Bucky, and Steve protects Barry with every ounce of whoop-ass he is) and there’s always some cute-meet that ends up in halbarry ending up together (because yes, they’re all mostly halbarry with a side of stony bcs I’m trash) I’m currently writing blubarry au for halbarry week (which I miscalculated) and it’s actually turned into Paramedic/Blubarry AU and it has absolutely gotten out of control (I’ve finished what could be a first instalment at 13k) and there’s aladdin au for stony that’s still in process and is also a crossover.

Aaaaaaand that’s mostly it, jsjsjsjsj I’m sorry this was so long! I’m so passionate about REAU and all my non-powered aus that it’s overwhelming some times!

Also, that post you did about Natasha? I felt that. My favorite Natasha is the Natasha who gets to be dorky, and cute, and who laughs at and with her friends. My favorite Natasha takes one look at Barry and goes “this one is mine now and if you hurt him I’ll make sure you pay dire consequences”. My favorite Natasha is Natasha painting Tony’s nails on girl’s night (that Tony always crashes, but he also sponsors the whole thing, so it’s alright). My favorite Natasha laughs like a hyenna when Clint makes a dent into their wall because he’s an idiot. My favorite Natasha is Dinah’s best woman, standing right by her, and wiping tears from her eyes without anyone seeing because she still wants to look at least a little bit tough. My favorite Natasha is so beloved by everyone who meets her and I’m !!!!! crying !!!!!

#;ask the author #au;room enough for all of us #i'M ACTUALLY CRYING YOU LET ME WRITE ALL THIS DOWN #Hal Jordan #tony stark #teatitty

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milk--loaf · 3 years ago

Text

original script of Men, Women, and Detectives: an Analysis of Enola Holmes. check out the video

So I’m not the kind of person to use Netflix much. I mean, I pay for a Netflix account, but I’m the person that keeps it running so that my mom can use it. I’ve yet to locate a friend’s acquaintance who makes a profile and uses my account for years without contacting me, but fingers crossed, it’s any day now.

I think the problem I experience with Netflix is I feel overloaded with content. There’s just so much to take in at any given time. And that’s not a unique issue to me, from what I know—“content overload” as a phenomenon has been observed in the userbase of streaming sites for quite a while.

I think personally, it’s hard for me to get into a new show these days unless I know it’s completed its run. I think a large part of the reason why is that, when I’m separated from a piece of content for too long and a new season comes out, it’s already been like one or two years, if not longer, since I last watched it. It’s not that I feel discouraged from watching the new content, but I become ambivalent towards the series in the middle space.

I think a good example for me on this front is the show You. I absolutely love the show You. Season one had me pressed—as a poet, I identified strongly with Beck as a character, even some of her negative traits, and season two kept my full attention. Plus, I’ve been a huge fan of Victoria Pedretti ever since Hill House, so that was a positive.

But when season three came out, as strongly as I was invested into the series, I didn’t pick it up again. It lost some momentum for me. I want to get the ball rolling again at some point, but maybe that means watching season two one more time to rev up, or starting from season one. Getting to season three requires a lot of preparation for a series where I want to catch every detail.

Another reason for my temporary departure from the series is, I don’t think I was able to allocate all the emotional energy required to watch a show of that caliber with my full attention. There’s already been tons of research, or at least observations made, on how apps like TikTok—and I’m sure to some extent, Twitter, which is my demon of choice—on how they shorten our attention span.

These days, sure, I could pick up a new or old show on my watchlist and enjoy watching it with a bucket of popcorn. But if I do, that means I can’t do anything with my hands, or look away without pausing. In place of that show, I could insteadlisten to a YouTube video while simultaneously playing a video game, and allow myself the joy of short form, noncommittal content without putting all my eggs in one basket.

But that’s not to say I don’t want to listen to Joe Goldberg ASMRing murderous thoughts through my TV, it just means I have to figure out how to get back into that mental mode of concentrated viewing. In large part, investing time into a channel like this is all in contribution to getting in touch with that critical and focused mind.

And I’ve found, in the meantime of rebuilding my joy of scripted TV, that movies are a really good middle ground. I used to watch the occasional movie when I was younger, but it wasn’t exactly my go-to kind of content. I wanted to build relationships, make investments, into TV shows at the time. Buffy was a big representative of that era in my life, and it’s very obvious. Sure, I had a list of favorite movies, but I didn’t really venture beyond that list for quite a while.

But movies these days, to me, are like a really good meal. They can have a lot of complex notes or be relatively simple and memorable, and once the plate is clean, you don’t have to think about it anymore, unless you want to. It’s an insulated experience that happens over the course of a couple hours and doesn’t implicitly require anything else.

I oughtta go back to Netflix sometime soon and try this again, but in the last year I indulged in a Netflix original, which was actually meant to premier in theaters before the pandemic took place—a movie called Enola Holmes, starring the girl from Stranger Things, Millie Bobby Brown.

Now, I’m going to be doing things a little differently than my last two videos—this video won’t be a review by any means, I want to, instead, construct some analysis over the movie’s themes, and you might agree or disagree, but these are really just my thoughts on a more critical level. Forgive me if I’m a bit shaky this first time around.

If you don’t know anything about the movie, Enola Holmes was a feature film released in September of 2020 on the Netflix app, and it features the titular character of Enola Holmes, the newly-crafted younger sister of the famous Sherlock Holmes, along with his less popular brother, Mycroft.

Enola Holmes is actually the film adaptation of a book series by a similar name, The Enola Holmes Mysteries, written by Nancy Springer with seven entries published thus far. From what I’m aware, Springer is still writing for the series, but I could be completely wrong about that. I will say, that I haven’t read the book and won’t be sourcing that material for this analysis.

What I do find interesting about the series itself is that in 2020, before the movie was set to premier, the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, set a lawsuit against Springer, Netflix, and the production companies for incorrectly depicting Sherlock as this stone-faced, unfeeling detective, which Doyle’s last few works apparently attempted to mitigate.

That’s not really the point of this video, but I thought it was intriguing enough to include. Doyle’s estate had their lawsuit dismissed from court and that was the last we heard of it.

To focus more on the actual plot and, most importantly, the character of Enola herself, I wanted to start with how Enola fits, or possibly doesn’t fit, into the canon of the Sherlock Holmes universe. As the audience understands it, Enola lives with her widow of a mother at a run-down estate in the English countryside, meanwhile Mycroft and Sherlock have completely forgotten about them as they solve mysteries in London.

I think Springer’s choice of Holmes as the epitomal detective figure connected to Enola was, of course, a fairly intuitive one thanks to the fact that Holmes is the first name you think of when it comes to the word “detective.”

But I also think it was really strategic choices because the original stories never mention his parents at all. The only family member relevant enough to be mentioned or included into Doyle’s mysteries on regular occasion is Mycroft himself. So to say that Sherlock’s mother and unmentioned little sister live off in Sherlock’s childhood home doesn’t exactly betray canon.

Regardless of that, Enola thrives there under her mother’s tutelage, despite their world being overgrown with vines and all the antiques slowly getting destroyed from indoor tennis matches. Enola’s mom, Eudoria, is fairly eccentric when it comes to her methods of teaching—she’s very hands-on.

Enola, as consequence, plays roughly, learns with her hands, and scuffs her knees every now and then, with Eudoria at her side to help her back up. In a way she’s very ready for the world because she’s very cavalier and scrappy, but at the same time, Enola remains very sheltered. The only people she really knows in this world are her mother and their maid

Beyond them, Enola isn’t prepared for the world in a practical sense because she’s never visited it. But at the very least, Eudoria’s equipped Enola with the mindset to adapt and overcome, to survive and even thrive in less-than-ideal circumstances.

A huge draw to the movie, for me, at least, is seeing how Enola navigates her world in a way that’s objectively abnormal and betrays the expected, avoiding her brothers at (nearly) every turn and still flourishing as a young detective. Her wits never falter because she’s self-possessed and can make anything work.

A significant feature of Enola Holmes, the film, and the first one that really initiated this need to critically evaluate the movie, was the fact that Enola herself regularly turns to look straight at the camera and speak about her predicaments. She even winks to the camera at one point while she’s being drowned by an assassin.

And what this says to me, as a person who likes to overthink everything, is that Enola is performing. In what capacity, we don’t really know quite yet. Most plainly, this serves as a method of conveying to the audience Enola’s train of logic, her feelings, and when she switches her game plan. That’s a pretty straightforward interpretation that I would agree with.

But as I’m watching this movie and as I’m thinking about the word, “performing,” the second kind of performance that I gravitate towards, as a person in the queer community at least, is gender performance. Some of you might stop me right there and say, no Andrew, that’s not connected. And you might be right.

But that’s not going to stop me from teasing out an idea for as long as possible, even if it’s all in my head and not the authors. And the more I teased out this idea at the time, the more I felt I was noticing something significant, even if it was unintentional.

To continue forward, a prevalent theme through the movie’s run is this idea of womanhood, of femininity, and feminism. In many ways, I think Enola Holmes works well as a kind of formative piece of content for young folk, both men and women, who are just learning about gender norms and antinormative gender performances. That feels like a bare minimum observation that most audiences should agree with, right?

As a more surface level observation, we know of Enola that she’s not one to be drawn towards the traditionally feminine. The primary representative for this group, we can say, is Miss Harrison, who runs the lady’s school that Enola is set to join. In fact, we can so far to say that Enola herself actively despises such a gender performance.

Eudoria’s teachings encouraged Enola to be wild and unrefined, to ask questions and challenge the norms assigned to her. And if we’re to follow the ideals of Enola herself, a viewer might be led to believe that we should shun this traditional femininity entirely.

And that’s a perfectly strong theme to promote—it is ludicrously restrictive, after all. Women according to Miss Harrison are meant to be refined, appropriately but not indulgently intelligent, and should be “broken-in” as housewives and caretakers. But the movie is far more than a simple criticism of that one identity.

I’d like to establish here that the movie also conveys how there is a toxic image of traditional masculinity within our society as well, whose primary representative is the stone-faced and unaccommodating Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft represents the masculine figure who seeks control over, and submission from, women.

In that way, I think it’s fair to say that Enola sees there is a distinct, unfavorable gender binary at play within the world of nineteenth-century London. Under the education of Eudoria, we know Enola to shun the rules of restrictive femininity, but also to abhor, with a more sweeping judgment, men and their need to be the breadwinner, the fighter, the investigator.

I say “with a more sweeping judgment” because, in this story, as she first embraces the real world, Enola has no strong reference point for antinormative masculinity. Sherlock himself comes the closest, but by all accounts, he is a passive bystander who accepts the privileges of men without seeking to criticize or dismantle them. That’s even commented upon later by Edith, the tea house and martial arts lady.

Enola is challenged on the masculine front within our narrative, and I think the following character growth allows for Enola to reasonably question her mother’s previous instruction, that is to say—never make concessions or detours for men (find exact quote). But I’m jumping too far ahead for now.

To pull back, Enola’s initial foray into the world of London comes with the knowledge that she isn’t masculine orfeminine in the way that society permits, so she opts for neither, effectively choosing a life of mystery and crime-solving as opposed to a set of gender roles.

That’s where I get a title like men, women, and detectives, because Enola exists in this floating ideological space where identity and presentation and performance don’t matter—they’re never permanent or serious to her. She even goes so far as to prove this by lampooning the dress of men and women in society, such as widows and newspaper boys.

Even further, when you consider the audience which Enola makes an active witness to her anti-binary, clandestine lifestyle, you realize this isn’t a transitory phase Enola is going through. By speaking directly to the audience, Enola is making the audience privy to how she views herself, absent of the world around her.

And thinking back to the teachings of Eudoria, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to interpret that Enola embodies a new or subversive form of femininity. Something a bit more palatable or relatable to the modern woman. Eudoria as an activist (and possibly a terrorist) specifically deals with the subversive in that way.

But there is a significant development in Enola’s character that I don’t think gets enough credit within the narrative, and that’s Enola’s subtle dissent from her mother’s teachings after she meets Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether.

Tewkesbury’s role, as far as the plot is concerned, is fairly self-evident because he is the nucleus of the mystery in need of solving. But all things considered, he offers more than a wrench in Enola’s plans—he challenges her ideologically as well, even if he doesn’t realize it.

Before I get too ahead of myself, I want to step back and look at when Enola first leaves home, way before she even meetsthe Viscount, because he’s not the sole proponent of her character growth within the movie—a large part of it comes from herself, and the complication of her family bonds.

We know going into Enola’s travels that she is singularly initiating this plan to find her mother and bring her back home. But this goal slowly transforms as Enola learns more about Eudoria’s hidden life, and naturally, Enola is tasked with thinking more critically about the woman who raised her, to consider that Eudoria left intentionally.

As much as Enola didn’t want to admit it near the beginning of the story, Eudoria is far from the person she thought she was. That isn’t inherently negative, but it’s still life changing. Prior to the events of the story, Enola effectively understands herself to be the spitting image of her mother because they are so close, and because Eudoria singlehandedly raised her.

But when she learns Eudoria holds secret meetings with other women, keeping Enola in the dark, the dynamic changes. She is no longer simply “mother,” she is Eudoria, and the way her mother closes the door on Enola in that scene embodies a huge mental shift most young adults go through. That the person who raised you and loves you is entirely their own person.

So before Enola even leaves homes in pursuit of her mother, before Enola even knows where to run to in the first place, there’s already this rift in her plans—one side is what her mother has taught her, to move from point A to point B with self-assurance, with tenacity, and without distraction.

This side of things also represents Enola’s desire to reestablish the status quo. Yes, Eudoria has fully taught her to be her own person, but that doesn’t mean Enola wants to fly out of the nest just yet. Getting Eudoria back, before the plot really complicates itself, means returning to the safety of a simpler world.

Naturally, she gravitates to this plan at the beginning of the film. But the second half of that rift, which involves a healthy skepticism, belongs to Enola alone. And the writing itself doesn’t sit on this character development by keeping it internal.

Instead, meeting Tewkesbury and getting swept up in his whole situation against her will forces Enola to tease out that which opposes Eudoria’s perspective. First, and most plainly, that men aren’t worth your time. That Enola should keep herself independent from men for the betterment of her own livelihood.

The second, which underscores Eudoria’s teaching on men, is that masculinity is unfavorable at best. At worst—well, we can’t exactly read Eudoria’s manifesto, so I won’t speak for her specifically. But if we refer to the traditional image of Mycroft, it’s not unfair to say that at their worst, men are controlling, small-minded, and violent.

Anyway, despite her initial judgment, Enola helps the Viscount in not dying and, in the process, significantly delays her own plan. For now, Enola believes Tewkesbury to be a mere detour, someone she’ll forget about once they split ways, but in time, she eventually determines very concretely that Tewkesbury is someone she needs to save.

In that way, as Enola comes to terms with herself and forges a bond with the Viscount, we are able to see in real time how Enola isn’t only straying from the traditional world prescribed to her by society itself, but also making herself independent from her mother’s dogma. Enola has fled the nest, whether she’s fully cognizant of that change or not.

So we know in a very literal way that Enola switches her plans from saving her mother to saving Tewkesbury. This is even represented in one of the movie’s headers as Enola moves from step to step. But if we’re looking at the underscored theme of masculinity, I’d say Tewkesbury challenges her on an ideological level as well.

When they first meet, Enola is disguised as a boy, and it’s interesting to see the contrast of how Enola interprets the masculine persona while standing next to a representative of that masculine persona. Compared to Enola’s portrayal, the Viscount looks very pristine and manicured, and has this very cavalier yet sharp mind.

I won’t go so far as to say that the Viscount is feminine, because I think that’s plainly not true. Instead, what Tewkesbury represents for me is the antinormative masculine, in the same vein of how Eudoria taught Enola the antinormative feminine.

The first you see him, he has this long hair, and when you learn about his personality, you realize he’s very into flowers and flora, and compared to most other bureaucrats in that time period, he’s very left-leaning. Even further, and on a slightly grander scale, the Viscount falls into the role of the damsel in distress, which, with Enola as his savior, flips the entire trope on its head.

Overall, Tewkesbury is a major catalyst for Enola’s change in perspective and character development. His presence and influence allows Enola to understand that the performance of gender is never so simple as the refined lady and the breadwinning husband.

Whether he’s just a friend to Enola or a romantic interest down the line, doesn’t intrigue me nearly as much as how sequels could flip more tropes of romance (and mystery and action) on their head. He’s essentially Enola’s Bond girl by the end of the movie, after all.

So when considering the entirety of Enola Holmes in review, I think it’s easy to say that this movie has very strong feminist messaging. And my commentary here isn’t meant to contradict or disparage that.

But I also think this movie slips in enough dialogue and imagery about the absurdity of gender performance, both for the masculine and the feminine, that calling it a story about womanhood would be severely limiting.

Enola is not the spitting the image of her mother, after all. While Eudoria herself propels a message of women’s rights, and how there is no progress without protest, Enola forges her own path. That living in the world sometimes means living outside the binary entirely.

And if you’re wondering, the point of this video is not to say that Enola is nonbinary. I think that would be an incredibly reductive and an incorrect take, especially with such positive examples of womanhood throughout the film.

But something I enjoy very much about Enola Holmes is that it plainly throws the rulebook of gender performance out the window. I think it’s perfectly fine to say that Enola is nonbinary-minded because she embraces the general antinormative with how she navigates the world, working against the grain of what’s expected and still living her best life.

And that’s all a person could really ask for, right?

Anyway, thank you guys for watching this video. Mysteries are one of my favorite genres of film and TV, and I knew I wanted to pay it respect somehow. I also wanted to try a shorter video, just to test myself, so let me know how I did by leaving a comment below.

On top of that, if you enjoyed my commentary, consider liking the video and subscribing, because it gives me an instant blast of serotonin when you do. The next video I have on my agenda is Buffy, part two, so keep on the lookout for that, and I’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

#script #enola holmes #the enola holmes mysteries

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trickhockstetter · 7 years ago

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Derry - Chapter 2: Someone Old, Someone New

Author’s Note: Welcome back to Derry! This chapter clocks in at 3417 words. Enjoy! (And, in case you missed it, here’s chapter one.)

In the sweltering weeks following my family’s adjustment (or re-adjustment, in the case of my father and I) to Derry life, I remain mostly sedentary, spending most of my time either in my room or in the backyard. My homely hobbies consist mostly of reading and enjoying whatever television shows manage to captivate my ever-shortening attention span. The days following my father’s departure for Bangor for work are quieter, as there’s one less person to pressure me into sightseeing a town with no real sights. And, as I don’t leave the house, Sophia has me babysit Gabriel, which is not a problem considering he could spend hours with Legos and coloring books.

But, as school draws closer, and the dog days of summer grow more humid than anything I’ve ever experienced before, I find myself taking more and more solo trips into the town square. It isn’t just to shop, though I do find myself with a Derry-appropriate wardrobe in no time. I don’t want to be a completely new face come the first day of my senior year, and I’m gunning for one of these outings to result in my coming across some other people attending Derry High. I’m not asking for friends, just some acquaintances who may not immediately avert their gazes upon seeing me flounder in the hallways.

Plus, as my father has his car and Sophia is loathe to part with hers in case of emergencies, I’ve considered my leisurely walks into town and back to be the most exercise I’ve had in ages.

Though the first few outings end fruitlessly, it comes to a head when, on August seventeenth, I enter Keene’s for the first time since the day we’d moved here. I immediately recognize the girl sitting at the counter where Mr. Keene had been before. She snaps her gum as she talks lowly to someone obscured from my vantage point by the sterile white aisles. After a breathless moment, I realize she hasn’t noticed me and head over to the feminine hygiene products, where I bump right into a girl with beautiful long red hair.

“Whoa.” I stumble back.

“Sorry.” The girl sucks in her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

She looks old enough to be in high school. Her face is beautifully structured; high cheekbones, dainty mouth, piercing yet friendly eyes set against a backdrop of pale skin smattered with freckles. I’d guess she’s about sixteen, maybe older.

The Tampax box she’d had in her hands moments before now lies on the ground, logo-down. We reach for it at the same time and bump heads.

“Sorry,” I say.

“No need.” The girl stoops down and picks up the box. She tilts her head to appraise me as she straightens up. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

“I’m new. Well, kind of. I used to live here.” Realizing that most of my explanation is pointless, I add, “I’m Stella.”

“Beverly.” The girl, Beverly, smiles. “Well, kind-of-new kid Stella, it’s nice to meet you. I used to be the new kid, too; moved here almost two years ago.”

I faintly hear the bell above the shop door chime as someone exits.

“Are you going to Derry High in the fall?” she asks, and smiles wider as I nod. “I’ll be in my junior year. We could have lunch together sometime.”

“That sounds great. I’ll be a senior.” I grip on the strap of my cross-body bag, grateful that my plan has worked.

Beverly’s smile turns wry as her attention turns back to the box in her hands. “Well, I’d better get going. I’ll see you around-”

She turns and freezes. At the other end of the aisle stands the denim-loving, gum-snapping girl, her big lined eyes narrowed into slits. Her tight jeans are several shades darker than her denim fringe jacket, and her curly hair is pulled up into a slightly frizzy side pony.

Beverly takes an instinctive step back, bumping back into me.

“Well, if it isn’t Beaverly and Nobody. Have you found a new best friend, Beaverly?” The girl laughs, a harsh contrast to the light elevator-like music playing throughout the store. “Better watch out there, new girl. Beaverly’s trash. Then again, so are you for hanging out with a stupid slut like her.”

Beverly clenches her teeth. “What is it, Gretta? Am I a stupid slut, or trash? Make up your mind.” The last part is muttered lowly, but in the otherwise quiet of the store it’s almost echoing.

Gretta scowls. “I just wanted to remind you. Before you and the losers you hang out with get it into your heads that you can talk back like that at school. You’re nothing.”

While Gretta talks, I notice Beverly’s hands quick at work. Within seconds, the Tampax box slips from her grasp and into the bag hanging by her side. And just like that, it’s as if she’d never been holding it.

“Thanks for the reminder, Gretta. See you in school.” Beverly’s voice is so falsely cheerful that I have to hold back a snort of laughter. She turns away, walking quickly to the door, and I follow, all the while listening to Gretta grumble as she returns to the counter, completely unaware of Beverly’s actions.

Once we’re outside and a block away from the store, Beverly sticks her tongue out at me. She begins, “I know this isn’t the best first impression, stealing tampons and all-”

“No, it’s all good.” I stuff my hands into the pockets of my capris and smile as we walk to nowhere in particular. “I don’t blame you at all. She seems horrible.”

“She doesn’t like most people.” Beverly shakes her head. “She’s got friends - lackeys, more like - but bullies almost everyone in town. Mostly girls, but she’s not opposed to pushing around the guys, too.”

I suck in a breath. “That’s rough.”

“At least you’re a grade above her. Can’t touch you during classes.” Beverly shoots me a worried look. “Derry High is small. I usually share most of my classes with her.”

I feel a pang of worry, looking at how wistfully Beverly stares at the sidewalk beneath us, as though she wishes she could just sink into it. But, just as that vulnerability begins to appear on her face, she straightens up, face brightening.

“But, like I said, you’re invited to my table anytime. I’m sure the guys wouldn’t mind.” She smiles for a moment before continuing. “Though I’m not sure you’d want to completely ruin your rep by sitting with us losers.”

“Gretta seems like the real loser here.” I kick at a pebble, watching it erratically scuttle down the sidewalk.

“She’s the worst Gretta.” Noticing my confusion, she adds, “There’s two. Gretta Keene and Gretta Bowie. Bowie’s your age.”

“Joyful.” Just thinking about how senior year might go with these two Grettas - plus the strange guys Victor hangs around with - sets off alarm bells. Is it too late to apply to that private school in Bangor? Surely there can’t be any Grettas there, too.

Beverly laughs. “Joyful is just about the most inaccurate descriptor for Gretta Bowie. But she’s relatively harmless, so long as you don’t grab her attention. Plus, I doubt she’ll have time to terrorize anyone else this year.”

“‘Anyone else’?” I repeat.

“She and her boyfriend broke up right before school ended. Let’s just say she didn’t take it well.” Beverly adjusts the straps in her hands before pausing at the corner, turning to face me. “Listen, I didn’t mean to derail your shopping thing-”

“-It’s okay-”

“-And I would love to ask you to hang out, usually.” Beverly bites her lip. “But my dad’s home, and he - he doesn’t like unexpected visitors.”

“I get it.” I laugh awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to almost stalk you to your house. I should get going, too.” The crumpled paper list in my pocket, detailing the exact brands for the tampons, chocolate wafers, and gel pens I need, has yet to be looked at since I left the house. “Lots of shopping to do, still.”

“Avoid Keene’s at all costs,” Beverly advises. “Though they do offer a wonderful discount in exchange for being bullied by their cashier.” She shakes the bag, the Tampax logo just barely visible through the thin white plastic.

We laugh and, with a wave and another promise to find each other for lunch someday, we part ways.

On my way home, I catch sight of the strange blue car that Victor and his friends had left the parking lot in weeks earlier, parked by the wooden bridge that is in dire need of repair. A little ways beyond the car, three bicycles lie on the road. One of the bike’s wheels is still spinning. My pace slows as I approach the bridge, taking extra care to look beyond the wooden railings keeping cars and pedestrians from falling down the side. But there is no sign of anybody nearby, no sounds of anything happening, so I press on.

When I reach home, the driveway only holds Sophia’s car. Remembering that my father’s due to come back from Bangor any day now, I shrug off the absence until I’m inside. Sophia looks up as she chops carrots on a cutting board, while Gabriel watches from a chair set by the kitchen counter.

“Where’s Dad?” I ask, unceremoniously dropping my purchases onto the table.

“Still in Bangor.” Sophia’s voice is odd, and I still at the sound. Something’s not right. Her voice is strained, bereft of its usual warmth. I’d blame it on frustration, but she’s been sounding more and more off since the move. Today happens to be the worst yet.

I pick up Gabriel, earning a warm hug for my efforts. “Why?”

“Extended his trip.” The knife Sophia’s using to chop hits the wooden cutting board a little too hard, causing a thump that makes all three of us wince.

Sensing that Sophia is not in the mood to talk further about it, I steer the conversation towards Beverly and the Grettas, omitting Beverly’s Tampax thievery. I’d filled Sophia in on Victor and his friends that same day, so it’s only fair to do it again. She seems relieved that I’ve taken over the conversation, though she only interjects with prompts and occasional reactions, and half heartedly at best. Gabriel watches with rapt interest as I peel potatoes and muse to my mostly silent stepmother.

“And summer’s almost over,” I find myself whining. “It feels like just yesterday I’d escaped the clutches of Mr. Hornsby and his monotone. And now I have to do it all over again, but with these people?”

“At least Beverly sounds nice.” Sophia takes the chopped potatoes and dumps them into the stewpot. “And I bet those boys’ll be nice to you.”

I snort. “Victor, maybe. And definitely not like that.”

“You never know.” Sophia sticks her tongue out at me as she nudges me with her elbow. “All I’m saying is, you oughta be snatched up by graduation, or all these Derry boys are blind.”

“I don’t need a boyfriend.” I think about one of my Coal County friends, Sarah, who switched boyfriends like gum flavors. From what I’ve seen, the only things that couples seemed to do was spend all their time with each other and brag to their friends about whatever bases they’d rounded with one another. Not entirely my idea of fun, nor do I consider it necessary. “Or want one.”

Sophia smiles; the first I’ve seen on her all day. “Maybe so. But sometimes love doesn’t care about needing or wanting. It just happens. You’re seventeen, Stella. Take some risks. Put yourself out there. What harm could it do?”

Two days later, I am surprised by the appearance of Victor Criss on my doorstep. As my father is still in Bangor (for reasons that Sophia seems to be tight lipped on), and Sophia and Gabriel are out and about, having left before I’d woken up for the day, I’m by my lonesome when the white blond boy comes to call.

“How’d you know where I live?” I ask as I politely step aside. He kicks off his shoes and shoots me a smirk as he settles into my father’s armchair.

“Just a hunch,” he says, though I’m sure there’s more to it than that. “School’s coming up soon. Thought you might like to hang out or something before we all get homework and shit to deal with.”

I pause, startled to hear this. Like I said, we weren’t really close before I moved, and the way Victor’s acting is kind of confusing, as though he remembers it differently. We never hung out after school, never slept at each other’s houses or anything like that. I only knew that he danced because he was so good at it that Derry Elementary had him and his class do performances for special assemblies. But there’s no plausible reason for his sudden interest in me.

And when I voice these concerns, he shakes them off with a harsh laugh.

“And like I said, everything’s different now.” Victor raises an eyebrow. “Plus, you seem cool. I mean, you always did, but somehow you’re … I don’t know, even more cool, I guess. Even if you do stupid things sometimes.”

“What was so stupid about it, anyway?” I drop into the chair opposite his, folding my arms over my stomach. “I just told the guy my name.”

Victor groans dramatically, to the point that I’m thankful my parents aren’t home or they’d think something extremely inappropriate is occurring in their foyer.

“You’ve piqued his interest.”

“Whose interest?”

His eyes rolled up to the heavens and back. “Who do you think? Patrick. Patrick Hockstetter. The guy who was looking at you like he was going to swallow you whole.”

Finally, a name to associate with the man. I remember bits and pieces: long dark hair, a hideous artist’s rendition of Tom the cat from Tom and Jerry on his shirt, the frequent lip-licking. Patrick Hockstetter. Oddly, it feels fitting.

“Y’know, I really didn’t know if I was gonna invite you to the thing tonight.” When I shoot him a confused look, he adds, “There’s a thing tonight, a bonfire, at Belch’s family’s place by the river. Thought you might like to come. But yeah, I didn’t know if I was gonna invite you, ‘cause he’s going too, and that could be bad. Though I guess you’re all grown up and whatnot, so you can do whatever you want.”

I nod, though I’m lost at the use of the word “Belch” as a name.

Victor goes on. “Molloy and Patrick usually supply the good shit, and since Gretta’s not around anymore, we may actually have some fun. Henry’s talking ‘bout bringing out some fireworks, maybe even his dad’s gun, y’know, to amp things up.”

“Henry?”

Victor makes a swooping motion towards the back of his neck with one hand. “Mullet man, that’s Bowers. And Anthrax’s number one fan, that’s Belch. Or ‘Reg’, but only if he lets you call him that. Otherwise, just Belch. Got it?”

“Okay. I mean, yeah.”

He pushes a hand through his light fringe. “‘Kay, good. Now. What do you have to eat here?”

Watching Victor inhale several plates of chocolate chip pancakes, all leftover from Sophia’s generous breakfast spread made earlier in the day, is almost enough to turn me off of eating my bowl of cereal. There’s syrup clinging to his chin, and while he is using a fork and knife to neatly cut up the food, it’s the only neat thing about his eating.

“When’s this bonfire, anyway?” I take a sip of my juice, watching him over the rim of my glass as he drizzles more syrup onto his plate. “Like, what time?”

“Why, you got a curfew?” He laughs. “I don’t see any parents ‘round here.”

“My stepmother and brother are out, and my dad’s in Bangor till next week.” My heart pangs at the words, especially knowing that they’re not guaranteed. He wasn’t supposed to be in Bangor for longer than a weekend, but his stay’s been extended over and over again. Who knows when he’ll actually come home? “And we haven’t discussed a curfew yet.”

Victor drinks his own glass of juice, gulping noisily. When his lips part from the glass, he replies, “So no curfew then. Good. These things are best experienced in their entirety. ‘Sides, Henry doesn’t like to set off fireworks and junk until after he’s sure his dad’s done for the night. His dad’s Sheriff here.”

“Sheriff?” I try to imagine the mullet man as the son of an authority figure, but just remembering how his eyes had lingered on me that day in the parking lot makes me shiver.

“Yeah.” Victor shoves a massive morsel of pancake into his mouth and talks around it. “‘Id a goo’ i’ea ‘o b’ing yo’ o’n shid.” I wait for him as he chews, swallows, and repeats himself. “It’s a good idea to bring your own shit. Blankets and stuff. Don’t depend on anyone else to bring enough, or you’ll be picking rocks and sand outta your pants for days. We supply the beer, that’s it. And there ain’t no freebies on the good stuff, not even for newbies. Or oldies, I suppose.”

I nod. I’ve never had beer in my life. I’m more of a fruity drink person. The few sips of Long Island Iced Tea that I’d had at Trina Lancaster’s party two years ago had left me utterly wrecked; I’m lightweight through and through. And drugs have never been considered before.

“It’ll be fun.” Victor wipes his mouth with a paper towel, having polished off the rest of his pancakes. “Till then, I figured we could hang. I could show you around town, stuff like that.”

“Why?”

It surprises both him and I that I question it so brazenly. He clears his throat and shoots me a curious stare.

“Like I said before. You seem cool.” But, just like Sophia, I can tell there’s an undercurrent to his tone, something he’s trying to conceal. Something I’m not supposed to notice.

And, just like with Sophia, I pretend to be none the wiser.

“Right. Okay. Well, I’ve been in town a couple times, but just to the stores. Keene’s and stuff. So anywhere but there’s good with me.”

Victor drives a silver hunk of junk car, peppered with little dents and scratch marks, but it gets the job done. We zip around town for the day, stopping by places he calls the Quarry, the Barrens, and, oddly, Derry’s maze of a junkyard. Despite not being close to him before the move, I find myself enjoying being in his presence, even when he’s a bit too dramatic for the current situation.

Nevertheless, the sky darkens quickly, and soon I find myself in my room, sifting through my closet while Victor vegs out in front of the television set. I’ve already got a cheap beach blanket folded in my bag, and my face lightly made up with the expensive-looking products Sophia had bought me for my seventeenth birthday. The only thing keeping me from herding Victor to his car to get to the bonfire is my outfit.

Or, rather, the outfits I’m trying to choose between.

“Hurry up, Stella, damn,” Victor calls from the other side of my bedroom door. “Go in your underwear if it’s this hard to choose. Hell, no one’ll complain.”

I ignore him and hold the hangers up, side by side. One outfit is a pretty white sundress, with a dizzying print of little yellow roses. The other is a T-shirt and jean shorts, though the shirt is one of my favorites.

In the end, I slip the dress over my head and give myself one last long look in the mirror. Then I trudge into the living room and grab the remote from Victor, shutting the television off as I pull a cardigan around my shoulders.

“You going to church or something?” Victor jokes. “Just ‘cause it’s late doesn’t mean it’s not hot. And there’ll be a fire.”

“So no sweater?”

Victor shakes his head. “Unless you wanna boil.”

Taking his word for it, I leave my cardigan behind, draped over the back of the couch. And, after scribbling a note to Sophia, Victor and I peel out of my driveway, smiling as we crank the radio until the blaring music drifts skyward.

#it #it movie #it 2017 #fanfiction #fanfic #it fanfiction #it fanfic #patrick hockstetter #henry bowers #victor criss #belch huggins #reginald huggins #patrick hockstetter x oc #patrick hockstetter fanfiction #bowers gang #derry fanfic

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namjoonchronicles · 7 years ago

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fortuity | nj

▶author’s note: Fortuity; noun, a chance occurrence, a state of being controlled by chance.

It hasn’t been long since you left Seokjin and Namjoon alone in the kitchen and you already hear heavy footstep coming down your hallway to the bedroom you shared with Namjoon. Seokjin looked paler than the time he was told to look after the maknae line alone when Namjoon took you on a movie date. He huffed at the sight of you from the door, you instinctively shuffle you notes together in a stack and placed them in the book you were reading. “My life span is shortened by five years,” you got up when he said this and started grinning, “Please save me.” He breathlessly begged and you led the way out watching Namjoon chopping the onions with the knife upside down. You wanted to rush over to his side but you figured it would only make him sad, seeing how you expected him to mess up when you’ve always been uplifting his spirits.

“...Namjoon sweetie,” you called pleasantly, “I came to see how well you’re doing...” you said, arranging your words so he’ll feel better. He knows Seokjin can be a bit impatient, and restless so he tends to spit fire making Namjoon feel small. Namjoon jutted his lower lip out as he focused, a habit he is known to have when he’s pouring his utmost attention. “I’m chopping onions. Am I doing it right?” He leans to your side a bit, so you had to put your arm around his waist, and positioned his hand correctly. “Always place the flat side down, so it doesn’t wobble. You get more controls that way, I taught you this before, did you forget?” You sang and Seokjin is rolling his eyes at the back. “I almost had a heart attack,” Seokjin leaned his back on the counter and you shot a look that silenced him, instantly. “Always be aware of where your hands are. Just like that,” you directed his hand. The blades went through the onion efficiently and when you let go of his hand, Namjoon manages to cut without a problem. “He’s good at it. I’m not sure what you’re having problems with. There’s no bad students, only bad teachers.” You quipped and smiled smugly at Seokjin salty expression. Namjoon swelled with pride and his cheek is flushed while his ears turning red from the compliment. You always know what to say to make his day better. “Cringe.” Seokjin darted, and folded his arm. “What do I do next?” Namjoon quipped. “Put the onions in the broth.” Seokjin shot and when you turn around, Namjoon was already throwing the large chunks of onions in, the hot boiling broth splashed on the skin around his wrist and he repelled as quickly as he can, dropping the chopping board and the knife on the floor, clinking. Your eyes shot to Namjoon, feet lunging faster than a heartbeat. Seokjin rushed to grabbed the knife away before anyone gets hurt. He threw them in the sink and you grabbed Namjoon hand and have cold water running on it to soothe the burning. It begins to gradually redden, revealing its burnt spot. “Keep it there,” you said in a hurry, before turning to Seokjin in a relaxed manner, “...There’s a box in Namjoon’s studio, underneath the Vinyl player. It’s a first aid kit.” Seokjin rushes to it, blasting the door open, and kneeling by the said Vinyl player to find the first aid kid. You smiled as if nothing big has happened. Well, such reaction can only be obtained from someone who is used to seeing burns like these, at work. “Don’t worry, I’m used to this. I see it everyday.” You rubbed his back, ensuring that it’s not a big deal. You glanced over his shoulder to see the wall clock and patted his bum twice. “Sit on the couch, I’m going to put some aloe vera gel on it.” Seokjin came with the said box and you thanked him. “It’s a superficial epidermal burn. It’s not serious.” You told him with a relaxed manner, and went to wash your hands before you attempt to apply anything. Seokjin eyed Namjoon up and down, “You’re lucky your wife’s a life saver, you need her. If she’s not here, I won’t be saving your ass.” Namjoon puffed his cheek. He had stayed oddly silent and you knew that he himself was quited taken aback by the accident. “Seokjin, watch the stew...” you reminded him. The flames had been dimmed and thankfully the broth had been reduced and tasted wonderful, despite the chaos that went into making it. “It probably tasted good because we sacrificed Namjoon’s hand.” You muffled a giggle and took Namjoon’s right wrist gently. He moaned in pain at every small move, and you scolded him, “Stop that, it doesn’t hurt that much. You’re being dramatic.” Namjoon tittered. You used your middle finger to whip a good amount of gel and gently smooth it over to the burnt area. “Warn me if its painful,” you sang and added, “Don’t whine. Plopping huge chunks of onion into boiling water, knowing the fact that it will splash you back if you don’t be careful... what am I going to do with you?” The corner of his lips upturned as he watched your eyes get bigger while you tenderly place a clean wide gauze on the burnt area and wrapped it thinly. It is to stop Namjoon from using that hand and to help the aloe vera gel stay longer. “I’m thinking about having more accidents in the future so that you can take care of me like this,” he straightened and slouched in his seat, smiling. You passed him an electric disapproval gaze, and darted, “Who is going to do this for you if I’m not around. Seokjin already said he’s not saving your ass. Stop getting yourself hurt. You travel a lot, and I won’t be around to all the time, please stop making me worry so much.” You watch him take his hand to his chest and view closely on your work. Eyes filled with wondrous awe. Namjoon is so breathtakingly adorable. “Kids, the food are ready.” Namjoon didn’t think eating would be so difficult. Seokjin gave him a side-eye glance. “I seriously think that it’s not that painful,” Seokjin scoffed. Namjoon’s smile is gone in an instant and he turned his head at Seokjin’s grouchy ass to spit all his food all over the table, “Why don’t you get burnt too and then tell me how you feel!?” You grabbed his chin so he’ll face you, but his eyes never left Seokjin and wiped his mouth with your thumb and index finger. “Don’t talk with your mouth full!” You groaned. “Seokjin, he might feel a bit painful since holding the chopstick makes the skin stretch, and its still recovering so, please excuse us being unpleasantly lovey-dovey. It wasn’t planned.” You asked Seokjin to understand. “Do you want eggrolls?” You asked him and Namjoon nodded with his whole body. “I acknowledge your patience.” Seokjin held his palm outward at you, resting his elbow on the table. Namjoon lay on the couch and he had fallen asleep halfway through the movie, snoring and you don’t seemed bothered at all. To Seokjin’s amazement. “I lived with him for almost 10 years and I could never get used to that,” he scoffed. You couldn’t help but giggled short, “My dad snores too. I got used to it because I lived next to my dad’s room my whole life. We had thin walls... Namjoon’s one is bearable.” Seokjin was beyond amazed by you. How can someone be so blessed by such an understanding companion? Namjoon is a lucky lad indeed. “When I got to know Namjoon had the so called ‘Hands of Destruction’, me and the boys kind of predict that he’ll have a hard time finding a girl who would be patient with him,” Seokjin smacked his lips together in thought, leaning his back on the couch while you sat right next to him, listening and watching the movie on the screen. Seokjin continued, “Yongi even thought that he would eventually destroy his girlfriend. And now he’s here, married to you, and you’re still in one piece after four years... proves that he’s only destroying inanimate objects.” That’s funny. You never thought of Namjoon as a hassle. You yourself came from a family of which the mens are basically, turns everything they touch to flames and the women would be fixing everything they accidentally destroy. Either things are created to be too fragile for them, or they have simply a pair of ‘hot hands’ as your family calls it. When you first met Namjoon, holding a coffee cup by the handle and you knew that he is one of those poor souls who has everything in their life sorted out except the things they touch. When he lifts the cup, or at least he thought he lifted the cup, he was actually holding only the handle. The cup was still on the saucer. He blinks cutely at it. He was sitting away from you but you heard him muttering from the shape of his mouth as he speaks to himself, “Did I broke it? Why does this always happen to me...” Glancing over your shoulder at his mouth gaping, wide open and snoring without a care in the world, his hand settled on the side careful not to lay on it, you bit your lips and smiled. “He may break everything he touches or put dangers on himself, but he’ll never break a heart.” You blinked at Namjoon and then at Seokjin, “I wish I knew him sooner. I was always wondering my existence and for what I’m here. And when I found Namjoon, I just knew that this person here, is my calling.” Seokjin tipped his head to the side, lowering the volume so Namjoon could sleep better, “...I’ll never find someone like that.” You rocked your body to the side until you pushed Seokjin a bit from the force, playfully, “You just haven’t met her yet.” Seokjin eyes twinkled warmly at you and the crinkle around his eyeline made you return him a wide smile as well. Namjoon’s snoring got louder. And you both recorded it on your phone for him to listen to when he comes awake.

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fuckyeahjamieandclaire · 7 years ago

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It turns out love can conquer crow’s feet. Executive producer Maril Davis on the period drama’s decision to let love, not age lines, drive Claire and Jamie’s reunion arc despite a 20-year time jump.

There’s always been plenty to envy about Claire and Jamie, the star-crossed couple whose centuries-spanning romance propels the period drama Outlander. They’re capable, brave, and beautiful, blessed by an unbreakable bond, strong convictions, and even stronger sex drives. Since the series’ first season, their ear-pleasing accents, smoldering, soul-searching looks, telegenic love-making, and repeated rescues of each other’s lives have set a high standard, relationship-wise. But recent episodes of Outlander have introduced us to yet another quality we wish we had in common with Claire and Jamie: They’re almost immune to aging.

By their third seasons, many TV series settle into a rut—a familiar and welcome one, in the case of some comfort TV, but less so for hour-long dramas with fantasy elements, which traffic in twists and upheaval. But disrupting the status quo wasn’t a struggle for Outlander, an adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s book series, which comprises eight novels (with a ninth on the way) and assorted shorter works. Through 37 episodes, the Starz series’ story is still closer to takeoff than landing, working through the third book in the sequence, 1993’s Voyager.

The events of Voyager dictated an unorthodox interlude for a program that’s centered on the interplay (and intercourse) between two charismatic and chemistry-laden leads: an extended separation and a mutual 20-year time jump. At the end of Season 2, the pregnant Claire (a 20th-century English nurse who in the first season accidentally slips into the past through, um, a mystical stone) and Jamie (her 18th-century, red-haired highlander lover) are forced to break up by the impending Battle of Culloden, at which Jamie, a Jacobite rebel, expects to be (and nearly is) killed.

To protect their soon-to-be-born daughter Brianna, Claire (played by Caitriona Balfe) returns to the 1940s. Believing that Jamie (played by Sam Heughan) did die, she does her best to move on, relocating to Boston, raising Brianna, becoming a doctor, and growing apart from her first husband, Frank, who’s caring and attentive but lacks Jamie’s highland lilt, kilt collection, and Men’s Health cover physique. Jamie, meanwhile, survives battle, torture, and imprisonment (nothing new for him), grows and shaves a big beard, fathers a son, pivots to printing and smuggling, and gets married again out of loneliness, all while carrying an eternal torch for Claire. Midway through the third season, after almost five episodes apart, they reunite in the mid-1760s, two decades older but no less in love—and, curiously, looking a lot like they did the last time they were together.

“I wanted to look—well, the same as when you last saw me,” Claire says with some trepidation during their first conversation, admitting that she’s dyed away the single gray streak that had appeared in her hair in earlier, Boston-centric scenes. Mission accomplished, Claire. Neither member of Outlander’s leading duo looks any worse for wear after 20 years of imprisonment, parenthood, and pining for lost love.

For Outlander’s creators, the time jump presented a production dilemma, not because of the story (which Gabaldon had already plotted out) or setting (most viewers aren’t well-versed in the intricacies of 1740s vs. 1760s style), but because of the actors’ appearances. In real life, a two-decade difference isn’t invisible, no matter how much St. Ives Oatmeal and Shea Butter Lotion you lather on because of Balfe.

Heughan, 37, and Balfe, 38, were both 34 when the series premiere aired in 2014, but their characters were considerably younger. “Jamie’s kind of early 20s, Claire is late 20s when it starts,” Outlander executive producer Maril Davis says by phone. Three years passed between Claire’s first time jump back to 1743 and the Battle of Culloden, which, Davis says, would put both of them in their “mid- to later-40s after the [20-year] time jump.” Although the creators talked about shortening the story’s time jump to reduce the need to alter the actors’ appearance, they found that they couldn’t do it without omitting too many plot points from the characters’ time apart.

Aware that the time jump was looming, the producers started doing screen tests last season with Balfe and Heughan, in consultation with head of hair and makeup Annie McEwan, who had worked on Season 4 of Game of Thrones before joining the Outlander crew. After experimenting with various looks, the creative team decided, essentially, that both Balfe and Heughan were too hot to convincingly tamper with by obscuring their actual features. “We have two actors who happen to be incredibly beautiful people,” Davis says. “It is hard to make them look bad, damn them.” Originally, the pair’s first post-reunion sex scene featured a reference to stretch marks, but the writers lost that line from the script, Davis says, when the makeup crew informed them that stretch marks “don't read very well on camera.”

Even apart from the specific challenge of wrinkling, graying, and thickening two age-resistant actors, the transition from 20s to 40s is a particularly tough one. “It's hard to make young people look incrementally older,” Davis says. “It's obviously a little easier—and I put ‘easier’ in quotes—if you're aging someone up from like 30 to 80. … With two actors who look so young anyways in their real life, we realized that we couldn't do major jumps without it looking fake, and also taking a lot of extra time in hair and makeup, as well as using a lot of extra prosthetics.”

For Davis, a veteran of more explicitly sci-fi (and more makeup- and prosthetic-reliant) productions such as Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, Outlander’s understated approach to the aging process didn’t come intuitively. “There were some times that I said to our hair and makeup team, ‘Can we go farther? Because you can't read some of these lines that you're painting on camera,’” Davis says. “And they were horrified. They were like, ‘Are you kidding? Oh my god, we can't go any farther.’ It's interesting, because you also have to take the advice of people that have been in the business doing the hair and makeup a long time, knowing that they can only go so far until they feel uncomfortable because it doesn't look real anymore.”

In addition to the aging uncanny valley, there’s the time cost to the talent and crew to consider. A heavier hand on the cosmetic side—on top of the prosthetic flogging scars already applied to Heughan’s back in shirtless scenes for much of the series’ run—would mean much more time in makeup chairs, staring blankly into mirrors as fake years and real hours add up. Though according to Davis, Balfe and Heughan, who were frequently consulted, never expressed any reservations about hiding their youth under veneers of age. “They're both very game for whatever we want to do, and so this isn't a vanity thing,” she says. “Neither of them, I don't think, at any point has ever said, ‘I have to look good, so don't make me look too old.’”

This was a weighty decision, because the ramifications for the series could extend far into the future. Unlike some shows or movies that might insert a brief flash-forward in a single scene or episode, Outlander is committed to the time jump for the long term. Whatever aging the crew applied to Balfe and Heughan now would sentence them to the same look for years to come on a series that may still be relatively early in its run (which already has been renewed for a fourth season). That’s not only a nuisance, but potentially an acting inhibitor, as Davis says Heughan discovered while wearing his wild beard in the third season’s second episode. “If you have something on your face like that, sometimes it's a little harder to talk, you're more aware of it, it takes you out,” Davis says. “So all of these things are factors, and same with if we were getting into heavy prosthetics to make actors appear much older than they are.”

The end result of all the discussion and screen tests is a difference so subtle that you have to squint to see it—just like the new, older Jamie has to squint to see small text without wearing his reading glasses. Specs aside, he looks almost unchanged. “With Sam, we've kind of weathered him, adding more shading to his face,” Davis says. “We've got some lines that the hair and makeup department have put in themselves, and then greying at the temples for him, as well as with Caitriona. We realized because her skin is also so young that we'd have to sell a lot of it with the gray in her hair.” Of course, even that gray is gone now, at least temporarily, although Davis says its absence stems from an impulse to portray Claire’s humanizing insecurity, rather than a need to preserve the stars’ romance-novel looks (which she acknowledges are part of the show’s appeal). “So much of our talk about appearance is motivated from a character standpoint,” she says. “I don't think we ever go, ‘Oh my god, they have to look amazing because this show is trying to sell a fantasy element.’” But who’s to say that the mystical stones don’t have anti-aging effects?

In navigating the time jump, the producers’ overriding desire was to avoid distracting the audience by going overboard on aging. “You don't want to be taken out of the moment, sitting back watching at home,” Davis says. At times, though, the lack of aging is its own sort of distraction. My wife and I giggled through one supposed-to-be-tender scene as the script tried to sell us on these nearly identical-looking 30-something specimens as people pushing 50. “I don’t look like an old man?” Jamie asks self-consciously, shortly before exposing his still-chiseled chest. And Claire, after completely disrobing to reveal her youthful frame, tells an admiring Jamie, "You must really be losing your eyesight." Nobody’s buying it, guys.

The aging-related dialogue is less jarring when it alludes to the absurdity of the situation, as when Claire marvels to Jamie, “Most men in their 40s have started to go soft around the middle. You haven't a spare ounce on you,” or when she greets the family lawyer by exclaiming, “You look exactly the same!” (No Battlestar fat suits here.) In other scenes, though, the actors convincingly convey the passage of time through emotion, even though they both remain outwardly radiant. “We had so many discussions with Caitriona and Sam about this internal aging, because some of it, you are trying to sell this gravitas of 20 years of loss through their acting, which I think they do so well,” Davis says.

The best asset Outlander has in hand-waving its characters’ immutability is an audience that’s willing to suspend disbelief. “Let's be honest, we could've kept these two apart for a week and it would've seemed like an eternity,” Davis says. “I think for the fans it probably seemed like 100 years—for us as well. So I don't think we needed to add to that at all.”And if—like a lot of the Outlander faithful—you’re the sentimental type who doesn’t mind some soapiness, you’ll accept that love can conquer crow’s feet. “I think in a weird way, that 20 years just kind of faded away when they saw each other again,” Davis says. “In some ways, it was like so much time had passed, and in other ways it was like no time had passed at all because that love had never died.”

With the reunion episode’s semi-awkward aging exchanges behind it, Outlander soon stops dwelling on appearances: The following week, Jamie fireman’s carries a man from a burning building, and the week after that, not-so-newlyweds Claire and Jamie tear off their clothes and writhe around on the floor. Most Outlander watchers wouldn’t have it any other way.

Judging by the books (spoilers!), there’s still a chance that we’ll see an actually old-looking Claire and Jamie in future seasons. “If we're lucky enough to do all the books, they're in their 60s in the current books,” Davis says. “So we do want to also have somewhere to go, and we do need to use, as a base, our two actors, who are very young, and so we want to be with them on this journey.”

But based on this season, don’t be surprised if the 60-something couple doesn’t look a day over 45. “Time doesn’t matter, Sassenach,” Jamie says in Season 3’s sixth episode, using his pet name for Claire. “You will always be beautiful to me.” And also, most likely, to everyone watching at home.

#outlander #outlander starz #maril davis #caitriona balfe #sam heughan #jamie x claire #tv news #people: caitriona balfe #people: sam heughan #A. MALCOLM #3x06 #tv: s3 #queue

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homestuckhiveswap · 7 years ago

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END OF YEAR 5 - Since the Hiveswap kickstarter was funded: A hopefully final development chronicle

via /r/homestuck

Some of you might be too young to remember the heady days of mid-2012. A time where Homestuck still updated pretty much every day. The fandom had rode strong and true through the EOA5 hiatus and crashed through to the unexplored pastures of Act 6 with nary a whinny of hesitation. And after the coolness that was [S] Caliborn: Enter, Hussie returned from a hiatus with a troll ancestor walkaround to open A6I3... and an extra project: the 'Homestuck Adventure Game', and its corresponding Kickstarter.

The plan is this. I'll finish Homestuck some time in 2013 . . . When Homestuck is done, that's when our full attention will be on actual development. The game will be scheduled for release in 2014.

-Homestuck Adventure Game Kickstarter campaign (Sep. 4 2012)

As we now know, the Kickstarter was a big hit, and reached its funding goal 32 hours after its launch, on September 5, 2012, at roughly 10:30 pm. Five years ago, to this day. The campaign went on to end with $2.5 mil on October 4, however no one expected to see much more on the game until Homestuck ended. Eventually, Hussie paused for two months before A6A6 started (on 4/13/13) to work on the game, and intended to finish Homestuck in the upcoming months after the pause.

This is Homestuck's final push . . . To alleviate some of the suspense and wild speculation, I will give you a very loose estimate of my schedule, from now until the end of HS. Please observe these facts, as organized by this really awesome "html table" I have designed for this purpose.

-MSPA news update (Apr. 13 2013)

Then a bunch of A6A6 happened. The dreaded, terrible, Gigapause began. Hussie planned to continue making Homestuck, but handling the final section of the story in one big chunk, instead of regularly updating. And also work on the game. He didn't even give a time estimate on the Gigapause's length, probably to avoid tying himself to any expectations.

I also have to allocate some time to work on the Kickstarter game . . . I'll probably have a more substantive update on that before the end of the year. There hasn't been much to report yet since it's mostly been in a high level planning and writing phase. And firming up tons of legal minutiae.

-MSPA news update (Oct. 17 2013)

It took until New Year's Eve for us to get our first news on the game itself. It wasn't much to see, but one fact that is important to us is that it seems that Hussie had already agreed to create the game with The Odd Gentlemen, as he said that he didn't want to announce the developers of the game at that time. It took another six months of Gigapause to get another update on the game, which was when the partnership with The Odd Gentlemen was formally announced. The game seemed already to clearly be on schedule for late 2014 at the very earliest.

Note there was no target month given, because I really didn't know what the timeframe was down to that level of specificity . . . When the Kickstarter ended, that is not really when development began in earnest. That's when we began getting a lot of boring legal stuff in order, which took a while. Probably around six months I'd say . . . So if we are behind schedule (which may not even be technically true), I guess it could be by that amount of time. But I'm anticipating a major surge in development in the latter half of 2014.

-Kickstarter backer update (Jun. 20 2014)

The Gigapause finally ended a year after it began. And soon after it ended, Hussie outlined an entirely new plan for the Homestuck Adventure Game, now finally revealed to be titled Hiveswap. There's a lot that was said in that update (available here). But to condense it to one point: Hussie decided to pull development of the game in-house and over the last 'couple months' set up a What Pumpkin game studio for that purpose. Remember that it had been only four months since The Odd Gentlemen were revealed as the developers, which means that the decision to take back developing duties happened very promptly after the developer was announced!

The original plan had us testing the game by this point. Looks like testing within first half of next year is more likely. One major change to the plan I've settled on is to release the game episodically, to shorten the gap between now and when something is ready to be released.

-Kickstarter non-backer update (Oct. 30, 2014)

It took until after A6A6I4 had concluded for our next update, which was promising: Hiveswap had a website (since redesigned) and actual screenshots. Hussie stressed how development had amped up, especially considering that "Back in October of last year we hadn't even bought, like... computers.", and was overall very optimistic about the development progress, both in terms of speed and quality.

This point and click adventure has 3D graphics, puzzle solving gameplay, and an original story spanning four content packed Acts that will release throughout 2015.

-What Pumpkin Studios press release (Feb. 17 2015)

The future seemed bright. There was an asset reel, a playable demo at conventions, and a trailer ("Have you noticed that we're posting more updates lately? That's because things are really moving on the game right now, and there's a lot of exciting progress to report."). A second press release mentioned a mid-2015 release date (the press release was later still available - with the date edited out!). However, time came and went... and nothing happened. Just as A6A6I5 was ramping down with the Omegapause about to begin, we received more news on the progress of the game. It said that the WP Studios operation at NYC was expanding, and necessitated a bump in the development of the game.

So we'll be taking the little adjustment period this month to revise the schedule and come up with a new date to reflect the amount of polishing and testing we think the game could still use. We'll announce a new release date once we're sure the estimate will be final.

-Kickstarter non-backer update (Jul. 20 2015)

We kept waiting for EOA6 and A7, waiting for Hiveswap, and then suddenly finding ourselves in utter radio silence again. But something extremely worrying started to happen: in late October, a large amount of WP Studios NYC employees were laid off at the same time - surely a sign that the game was being abandoned. With no official word on the matter, people started trying to glean the truth by following said former employee's social media presences. The hysteria rose to such a point that on this very subreddit, someone took it upon themselves to dig up everything they could on these employees in a dangerously insensitive way. (And then Makin fucking stickied it without even fully reading the post. He says "I'm sorry".) The resulting backlash ended with Hussie saying that news on the game was coming before 2015 ended just to calm everyone down. And news did come:

We've been taking the last several months to pause production on Hiveswap and revise the overall approach to the game, as well as the visual direction, to make things a little more cost-efficient, and more rapidly producible over the full span of the series.

-Kickstarter non-backer update (Dec. 25 2015)

Hiveswap had transitioned to 2D, and in the process WP Studios NYC had been shut down (the expansion earlier that year seemingly for naught) and development was moved to a decentralized operation with less physical presence. Even though the previous update claimed to have a release date coming soon, no hint of any such thing was made now. Fans were relatively pacified after months of thinking that the project had been cancelled, and turned their attention to the upcoming end of Homestuck. It was generally assumed that Hussie was working on getting Homestuck done by 4/13, and that after that he would be free to turn his full attentions on the game. Our last crumb of official news came six months after the last, in the newspost for the release of Volume 10.

Since 4/13 I have been preoccupied with a wide variety of projects. Some are related to Homestuck, some are not . . . I have kept busy, and do not feel there is much to report yet. But there probably will be over the next couple of months.

-MSPA news update (Jun. 12 2016)

Four months came and went in deadly silence. Hiveswap was still under active development, but from the outside, nothing appeared to be happening. All official forms of communication were silent. The official website hadn't been updated in a year and a half, and still contained screenshots of the 3D version of the game. It seemed like the project had died (yet another) silent death behind the curtains. But suddenly, unexpectedly, one little update showed up on the game's website:

Hiveswap: Act 1 will be released January 2017.

-Hiveswap.com news update (Oct. 1 2016)

(quickly deleted, then undeleted on Oct. 6 2016)

A launch date??!? A new trailer! The 2D style makes it pretty now! THE GAME IS COMING OUT! After such a long time with a seemingly dead project, things were suddenly moving at breakneck speeds. Hiveswap was submitted to Steam Greenlight (in December) and overwhelming support got it approved almost instantly! Plus, we got the Homestuck credits flash and the snapchat stuff that's happening! Could this be a revival? Wait... isn't January almost done already, how come we haven't heard anything el-

Status of Hiveswap: the game is just about done. It could still use some more testing to be absolutely certain we are not releasing a buggy piece of shit! To that end it will be worth waiting another several weeks or so.

-MSPA news update (Jan. 26 2017)

Oh. Well, alright. It did seem a little odd though, since we never got an exact release date, and the game is getting delayed for 'bug-fixing'. But that means it's essentially finished anyways, so we just have to hang on a little longer. Say, 4/13 is coming up - and three months' time should be enough to quash any pesky problems. Of course, we'd gone back to not hearing anything about Hiveswap, but it seemed like a reasonable expectation given the timeline of things...

So, the game is nearly done . . . Some things take longer to implement or polish than we anticipate, but our intent is not to mislead you. I promise. We want to keep you in the loop as much as we can . . . The next time you hear a release date from us, it’ll be because the game is about to launch. In the meantime, we thank you, one last time, for your continued patience and understanding.

-What Pumpkin tumblr post (Apr. 13 2017)

Well, we'd gotten another trailer. And an apology. And by the time those two started to wear off, we got what we should have had all along: semi-regular communication from WP in the form of a series of developer interviews, art, and track releases. It was, at least, something to look forward to while waiting. But the lack of real MSPA content of any kind combined with the passing months meant dissatisfaction continued to mount. It was supposed to be just bug fixing, after all! Until finally:

We’re excited to let you guys know that HIVESWAP: ACT 1 has a release date, and it is September 14th!

-What Pumpkin tumblr post (Aug. 29 2017)

Here we are, everyone. Act 1 might actually be released. It's been a long and hard wait as the years went by, but the light at the end of the tunnel draws near. I hope you're all as happy and excited as I am about it! And I fervently, desperately hope not to have to repost this next year. But at the same time, there's one vital, inscrutable, heart-tightening question that we will have to find an answer for soon...

When's Act 2 coming out?

#hiveswap #homestuck #article

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superpotatesme00 · 7 years ago

Text

(Pidgance Fanfic) by AIR

Notes:

I’m back guys! I am so sorry for the wait...Please forgive me:(

Read: [Previous] || [Next] || [AO3 Link]

SO HERE IT IT^^

Becoming Aware

Chapter 6/7:

Misinterpretations and Far-Fetched Ideas.

Somewhere deep in his conscious Lance knew that karma would go for a B-line and strike him right in the gut. The funny thing is he never expected Shiro to be the punishment on Lance’s day of judgment. Of course, although seemingly out of nowhere, in the moment Lance was met with the force of Shiro’s still human hand, he knew it had to do with Pidge. Female’s intuition?? No, just Lance’s life flashing before his eyes. Of course Keith would argue that Shiro didn’t use ALL his force. That much would’ve sent Lance right back into one of the healing pods. No, this was the brute force of Shiro’s disappointment in the teenage boy and utter sense of protection over the sole female member of the paladins, and her name was Katie.

Lance felt his butt smack the ground but could only look up at Shiro in horror.

Oh quizznack. I’m done for.

Hunk’s wide gaze slowly rose from the fallen Lance to meet the black paladin’s taller than normal self looming over them. Keith's face didn’t change much. He stood as he had been, arms crossed with just slightly arched eyebrows not expecting Lance to end up on the ground.

“Hey, Shiro?” Keith knit his thick eyebrows together and turned to Shiro out of concern.

“Not now Keith.”

Panting, Allura and Pidge reached the control room just above the training deck.

“Allura! Pidge! What’s going on?”

As they held their knees in exhaustion Coran couldn’t help but interject, “This dosen’t look good! Its like a squirgal ready to kill a yelmore!”

Lance had managed to pick himself up only staggering slightly at the unwavering fire that was Shiro’s anger. Shiro only watched and although, now standing, the tall lanky boy was still shorter than the latter.

Lance brought his hands up in an easing manner attempting to calm Shiro, but before he could sound anything out he was cut off.

“You think this is funny Lance.” Shiro stepped forward a bit as the boy’s eye widened in confusion.

“Wait, no. Shiro let-!”

“What were you trying to do to her.” None of these sounded like questions. Shiro’s heavy steps drew intimidatingly closer to Lance.

“Nothing! I-ii I swear!” Lance’s hands felt weak in front of him and his legs unwillingly paced back away from the threat. Sweat was forming on his nape and he felt his breath hitch and crack as he spoke.

“Nothing? That’s why you fucking had that out!?” Lance’s lips sucked in so hard he thought the oxygen had evaporated from his lungs. Shiro’s head gestured to Lance’s lower region.

This definitely had Keith and Hunks undivided attention now. Both their ears twitched and their eyes lit with curiosity and a bit of mischief. Keith’s arms came down out to his sides and both he and Hunk let out a simultaneous “What????”

Keith drew towards Shiro and Hunk whispered down to Lance. Not really…whispered, but attempted.

“Dude, Lance. Did he mean your cash ’n prizes???”

Keith spun away from the fuming Japanese man, “What were you doing?”

More curiosity than expected filled Keith’s usually brooding self as the amusement in Hunk’s voice giggled out, “Ohhhh mann! Were ya caught mid jerk-!”

“WHAT? Oh god! Nononono no!”

The entertainment for the boys was short-lived and abruptly decimated by Shiro.

“Enough!”

Lance felt his life-span shortening exponentially and that no amount of self-care would fix this heart wrenching experience.

“Why were you anywhere near Pidge’s room at night?” Each word made Lance’s neck burrow deeper into his shoulders. All eyes were on him, and to his dismay, Shiro’s hands had found their way to Lance’s collar, holding him up right with unbearable strength.

“She is young, and GOD I knew you had a stupid flirtatious attitude but…I never thought you'd cross the line.” Shiro’s head had dropped down and with a painfully deep sigh as he emphasized the syllable “god.”

Before Lance could even react to his current apprehension or even the innuendo Shiro was hinting at, Keith and Hunk blurted togther, “HOLY CROW!” “No way.”

“Did you guys actually-?”

Hunk pushed into Keith and gestured with his hands, “You and Pidge, Pidge and YOU, hooked -?!”

Up in the observation deck things were beginning to make little to no sense to the Alteans. While Pidge’s face had lit up like a ripe tomato they had been reasonably lost in the colloquialisms that the earthling paladins were using.

“Uh. Number 5. I know this seems to be affecting you quite a bit but uh…I don’t seem to quite understand what is going on here…” Coran was caressing his mustache in deep thought and only turned a bit to glance at Pidge.

“Yes, it seems that way Coran.” Allura face was formed into an unruly contortion.

“What does it mean to ‘hook up’, also does it have anything to do with Shiro’s and the boy’s constant gestures towards Lance legs???”

“Huh? Uh-hhh no no! Um well you see hooking up is-!” Pidge fidgeted in place and poked at her glasses. Her face never ceasing it’s flushed color. “Well, I mean! It means to…ya know?? Ahh what would you guys understand?? To mate i guess? Yeah! and uhh-!”

Oh no…

She could feel the exasperation rising in her voice, the bubbling words and composure she wouldn’t be able to contain.

“BUT I MEAN LIKE ME AND LANCE!!! PFFFTTT NONO NOWAYTHATYOULDHAPPEN! I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THAT LEAD TO THAT?!?!? AH HA HAHAHA!” Pidge’s nervous laughter had the two Alteans exchanging rather quizzical looks.

She desperately looked for an out of this conversation and could only keep looking back to the threatened blue paladin down below.

“Ok WOW that took a weird turn. I mean like a more correct way to say it would be se- “ Her head was spinning and each utter of a word that left her mouth seemed to be drawing the curiosity of the Alteans more.

“Woah woah! Wait me n PIDGE? I’d never-!” Pidge felt a sudden pang in her chest. She had to resist swallowing at the painful lump in her throat.

“Shiro, I wasn't going to, I mean I didn't DO anything to her it was an accident” Shiro’s grasp remained resilient around Lance’s collar.

“You think that just because your ridiculous antics don't work on your preference you can just turn around and take advantage of whatever is female around you?!” Pidge felt the ache once more, clutching her fist at Shiro’s words.

Whatever’s…female…

“If you lay one hand on Pidge I swear I will-!” Lance’s face had drained completely of blood but was quickly distracted by the sudden static of the intercom.

“He-He! Did NOT take advantage of me! And as I said before, it was an accident! Maybe you would have heard that if you weren’t having your ridiculous dad freak out right now!” Pidge’s words were sharp and her eyes burned a fierce copper, burrowing into the now reciprocated gaze of the black paladin.

Shiro turned to glare at Lance, still unconvinced. “An accident. Perfect. Then you wouldn’t mind telling me exactly what happened.”

“Ah haha it’s funny that you ask that, see I don’t remember exactly how I got to the bathroom-“

“Lance.” Pidge sternly urged him to get on with it, feeling her heart beat at 100 miles per second.

Lance chokes back a whine, attracting the still eager ears of the Alteans and the viewing paladins. He is able to quickly retell the story, with exception of his occasional stutters and embarrassed laughter.

Just when Pidge thinks the heat in her cheeks has left and the throbbing in her chest has subsided she hears Lance release a massive sigh, “It’s not like I was too thrilled to have Pidge see ALL my shit either.”

The heartache causes her to wince a bit this time. She doesn’t understand. Why was he so uncomfortable with HER seeing him like that? Would Allura or Nyma have been a thrill for him? Was it so hard to imagine ANYTHING going on between her and Lance?!

She swallows sharply at the bitter taste in her mouth, “Wasn’t too impressed by what I saw either.”

Hunk and Keith stifle their chuckles, only barley able to cover their mouths as Shiro turns an annoyed brow to them.

“Ah Shiro. I do not have a full grasp of the situation but Coran and I are having a hard time understanding why exactly it is you are so upset?”

“Yes. It is common for accidents to happen on Earth is is not? Also why would such an accident make you believe that out of everyone, these two paladins were…intimately involved?”

This time Allura’s ears twitched a bit to Coran’s words. She knew not everyone was aware of her feelings but surly the disbelieve would dampen Pidge’s hopes…

Allura re-evaluated the situation, having remembered Lance and Shiro’s exchange before quietly turning to the young girl.

“Pidge…” He voice came out quiet and gentle, obviously meant only for the ears of the green paladin.

She was met with silence and the down cast shadow covering the expression on Pidge’s face. Allura noticed her clutched fist and opened her mouth to console her.

“This is stupid. Of course nothing would go on between Lance and me. That would be gross.” She quickly turns to leave. Coran and Allura’s gazes following her distancing silhouette.

“Princess?”

It felt like a long moment of silence as Shiro’s face remained unchanging, hiding whatever it was that he was thinking. Everyone, but Keith, was pretty affected by the figurative sound of crickets in the background. But soon everyone’s anticipation was met with Shiro’s low and crisp, “Oh.”

Shiro’s gray eyes quickly scanned the whole room to his now realized audience. He attempted to nonchalantly straighten his back and clear his throat. It did little to ease the awkwardness of the his ‘misinterpretation’.

“So. That’s how it is.” Lance flinched as Shiro released his death grip and gently patted down the wrinkled collar. A mere attempt to fix the disheveling his anger had caused.

“Just…Just be more careful, ok Lance?” Lance could only nod, hoping to not trigger any more of the black paladin’s fury.

“Well. I’m going to go…train now.”

All heads turned to watch the rigid and obviously embarrassed Shiro march out of the training deck. Some would’ve sworn they caught a glimpse of flushed red tinting his ears and neck.

Of course that wouldn’t happen. It’s not like I wanted everyone to think that would happen.

Pidge violently shook her head.

But would it be THAT hard to believe? Lance and me? Me and Lance…? Yeah…it just doesn’t add up…

Pidge had managed to make her way to her lion’s hangar. She was intensely gazing at her screen as numerical codes ran by at lightning speed. Her eyes followed just as fast, but…she wasn’t reading any of it. Instead her head swirled with nothing but Lance, and everyone’s words.

Then she remembered Allura and her attempt to console Pidge. That look on the princess’ face.

Pity.

She hated the whole two syllables of it. She didn’t want to be pitied, not over her brother or her father and even over her stupid feelings for Lance. Yet, no matter how hard she tried to NOT think about any of that, it came crawling back in. Her teeth were clenched and she felt her shoulders trembling with what she could on describe as frustration. Her small nails were beginning to dig into her palm and just as her anger peaked her screen flashed an error code.

“Man their crazy! I mean sure what happened, happened. But it could’ve been anyone. Like…..Allura???” The thought made him uneasy, “Ugh! Who would haha I mean *pft* me and Pidge? HAHAHAHA!”

He quickly searched to see if anyone had seen him talking to himself.

Lance’s thoughts spewed out like explosive spaghetti. He was all over the place, and even after awkwardly watching Shiro leave he just narrowly escaped everyone’s questioning eyes, or in Hunk’s case-real questioning.

Hunk nagged him to tell what was really going on. But, what was there to tell? What happened was the truth…Nothing more. He and Pidge had NOTHING going on.

‘Nothing.’

That sudden thought made his stomach feel empty and a gloom rose over his head.

Is it really nothing? I mean…Pidge is…

His thoughts fell back to everyone’s misunderstanding.

They thought we were ‘together’ together…like more than just friends…

He remembered Pidge’s unbearably cute face from that day. Her eyes wide and golden burrowing into his own blue irises. Her soft fluffy hair, her pale skin that couldn’t hide any bit of pink that shown on her cheeks, nose, lips…legs…His imagination wandered down to the bare dainty legs that lay sprawled by her fallen self.

He would’ve overheated with embarrassment right there if he hadn’t suddenly felt the cold hard edge of a wall smack into his face.

“Ah what the hell-?!” If anyone could start a fight with a wall it’d be Lance…and maybe Keith. His anger was short lived by the sudden groan coming from the open room just next to him. His eyes immediately fell on a small figure standing at a computer within the green lion’s hangar.

His steps felt upbeat and whatever smidgen of unease he had vanished as he approached Pidge.

“ARGH!” Her small fist loudly shook the table with a bang causing Lance to squeal like a little girl.

He flinched as she paused and turn towards him.

“Pussy.”

“Woah. First of all, rude. Second, Lancey Lancey makes great company!” He stuck his signature finger gun and confident smirk.

A good few second passed with him like that, only to have Pidge turn away from him. He slumped with the taste of bitter rejection on his teeth.

Curiosity drew him closer. He peered over her small body to see, not that his height made it difficult to see over her anyway. Normally, in the past, he would’ve slumped an arm over her, but as of lately he decided against that. It made him uncomfortable, the reason unknown to him. Instead he took it upon himself to lighten the mood, having noticed Pidge’s crankier and usual self.

“Man, can you believe everyone back there? I nearly got my head taken off for a stupid accident!”

“Yeah, honestly Shiro can be a total pain when he loses his temper.”

“No kidding! I mean he should’ve just listened to me.”

“Obviously, that wasn’t working.” Lance dropped his annoyed gaze at the blunt remark.

“Well, yeah. But, honestly it so crazy that any of them would think that! Like, are you kidding, you and me?” Pidge’s ears twitched slightly.

“Ha ha. Yeah. They’re crazy. To think they honestly thought WE would be a thing?”

“RIGHT?! Geez! That’s fuckin’ crazy talk! Crow, like we would never do shit like that! *Blegh*!” Her eyebrow twitched this time, and with that she actually turned to face him.

Lance was dense and Pidge’s angry smile completely hid the steam seeping from her ears.

“Yeaaahhh, me interested in YOU is crazy enough, but us ACTUALLY being a thing and doing shit. That’s just gross.” This time Lance’s upper lip twitched.

‘Gross’…?

Whatever remnants of a smile he had turned malicious and annoyed, “I wouldn’t say ‘gross’ is the word.”

“Nah, I think it’s pretty spot on if you ask me.” He nonchalantness winged at his patience.

“You know what? You’re right! I’m offended they hadn’t noticed my type, tall and gorgeous.”

“Oh yeah? That’s fine with me, frankly I need someone with a little more brain cells than an empty paper weight as a head.”

“Empty-Wait did you just call me stupid?!”

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

“You wanna play it like that? At least, I don’t have to jump to reach shit around here, or anywhere in general!”

“At least, I can count to 10 WITHOUT using my fingers!”

Shiro was a sight for sore eyes but honestly Allura didn’t expect him to be such a pain in the ass when he lost his temper. The whole situation was ridiculous and Shiro’s interference definitely made things worse.

Much like Lance she had been lost in thought and unknowingly paced down the corridor in search of Pidge. That was until a voice startled her, “Allura?”

She turned quickly to see Coran on the ground hugging his knees.

“Coran? What on Earth are you doing?”

“Eh well, I had been planning to talk to Pidge, but I wasn’t quite sure why…Then I decided that I should figure out why and I haven’t been able to decide if it was a good idea or not. In my predicament I ended up as so…” Coran’s reasoning failed to make any sense to the princess.

“Okay…I was actually going to go see Pidge my self. There are somethings I need to talk to her about.”

“Ah! If that’s the case I will join you!” Before Allura could protest Coran had jumped to his feet.

“Right…Pidge is probably in her lion’s hangar.”

Just around the corner the two Alteans were met with an open door and the undeniable voices of Pidge and Lance.

“At least I don’t have a bird’s nest for hair!”

“At least I don’t get cuffed to trees for thinking with my DICK too much!”

Allura and Coran cautiously peered in through the open door.

“At least I don’t get confused as a BOY for a whole goddamn year!”

“At lest I don’t get my ASS handed to be by a mullet wearing hothead!”

With a loud gasp Lance protests, “TAKE THAT BACK!”

“MAKE ME.” They both stepped closer to each other.

Sweat was beginning to drip down the worried pale faces of the observing Alteans.

“My neck hurts just from looking down at you so much.”

“You sure it isn’t cuz of other reasons?”

“Wh-what? What’s that supposed to mean?!” His face burned with anger and embarrassment.

“Dumbass!”

“SMARTASS!”

“SEVENTH WHEEL!”

They were almost butting heads, and the tension was causing the spying Alteans to tremble.

Oh no.

Lance felt his anger bubbling and although he was usually good at calming down, that last comment sent him over the edge.

“NO SEX APPEAL!”

Shit.

With that the room fell silent, although the buzz of rage still reverberated through the walls. There they stood, each standing their ground, golden eyes burning into blue ones.

To the Alteans minimal relief the fight had not gotten physical, but once the two paladins had dismissively walked away from each other, neither Coran nor Allura found the bravery to call out to either of them.

With the room empty the two were left speechless.

“oh dear…”

“This is not good…”

Due to unexpected events that had happened literally just a few moments ago, Lance was now stomping down the corridor towards his room. If anyone were to be in his way, they would’ve been run over. All that blackness he felt hurt and ached the more he repeated her words, and most importantly his words. He remembered his family, he remembered similar anger from the times he had fought with siblings or times he had fought with his parents. His mother was a open minded but feisty and boy could she stand her ground. And his father, although stern at times was mostly the calm and gentle, always capable of turning an angry child into a giggling mess after he talks them down. That’s why EVERYONE in his family was genuinely happy, his parents kept them together.

“Hay qué saber hablar…’

He remembered his parents word. Communication was key and growing up he had always lived by that, and in this case…he let them down. His steps slowed. Pidge was important to him. And he screwed up. Obviously, he was still hurt by Pidge’s words but he knew how she was, how she reacted when she was angry. He just wasn’t sure what he had said to make her so angry…

Not cool…

A sad sigh left his lips.

‘No sex appeal?’ What the fuck was I thinking….

He found himself in front of his door, slid open by his presence to show a bed that seemed anything but relaxing to him at the moment. An idea popped into his head and he eagerly gathered his things to make his way to his new destination, lion slippers and all.

He removed and form of clothing he had been wearing. Lance calmly wrapped the towel around his hips, not before eyeing himself,“You started all of this.”

The steam covered his face like a blanket almost immediately. His quiet footsteps echoed a bit Exhaustion over took him and he couldn’t resist the urge to yawn and rub his eyes.

“Was wondering who came in.” Lance’s hand stopped short and slowly lowered to his side.

“Aw man…You gotta be kidding me.”

Keith gave no response as the steam cleared up to reveal the communal bath.

“Huh, RUDE! I’m in here too!” Lance’s face lit up a bit with relief once he saw Hunk hidden beneath a mountain of bubbles.

“Oh thank god…”

“Quit it guys.”

“Hey hey look! Who am I???” A small tuft of white bubbles clung to Lance’s forehead.

“An idiot?” Keith chuckled to himself, arms remaining crossed in the water.

“Funny. No, I’m Shiro.”

“Oh oh! Yeah I see it!” Hunk gathered more bubbles and turned away, fumbling with his hands.

“Check it out!” Hunk snapped back around and enthusiastically displayed his bubble mustache.

Both Keith and Lance stared blankly at Hunk before bursting into laughter. Clutching their stomachs before Lance fell back into the water. The other two were still giggling when Lance resurfaced, lightly splashing Keith.

Curiosity struck him, “Hey Keith, I’ve never seen you in the baths before. Decided to take a shower for once?”

“Yeah, good one. And no, I do come in here once in a while but just when no one’s around.” He combed his raven hair back easing it into a stubby ponytail.

“Yeah he does! I’ve seen him in here a couple times!” Hunk sleeked his hair back with wet hands.

Lance watched them completely unconvinced, “Hmmm.” He scrutinized them with his squinted gaze.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I purposefully avoid being in the same room as you?” Keith taunted him and lifted a bemused brow.

Lance put his hands up shrugging, “Hey, no offense taken here. But seems to me like you’re just scared to have people see how little jimmy is.” The corner of Lance’s lips perked up into a wide smile, obviously proud of his joke.

“What??? Why would I? I got nothing to be embarrassed about!” Keith’s voice rose in a fluster. Rising more after seeing Lance’s smug smile.

“Screw you Lance. Not like you got much to be proud of!”

“Not that I care, but based on Pidge’s comment, you’re all talk and no show.” Lance wouldn’t have been offended if it weren’t for Hunk’s giggling.

His cheeks turned tomato red.

“Aw no sweat Lance, it’s just a joke!” Hunk draped a heavy arm over Lance’s shoulder. To Lance’s surprise Keith pat his back.

“Yeah, no worries dude, I mean there are other things that can make up for it,” Keith and Hunk did little to stifle their laughs, as Lance sunk into the water.

“Fuck off guys!” Lance pushed them off of him only gaining more laughter from the naked teenagers.

Lance felt the urge to strangle the too bumbling bozos. Nothing weird, just 3 idiot teenager, roughhousing butt-naked.

“What’s going on here?” The boys stopped mid roughhouse to see a hazy figure amongst the steam.

“I’m pretty sure the bath is for relaxing not fighting.” The steam cleared a bit to reveal the undeniably impressive physique Shiro had, as well as the towel that did nothing to hide another rather impressive aspect to him.

The boys were at a total loss for words. Shiro shied a bit under their stares, “Is everything ok?”

Hunk was the first to nod and come back to reality but the other two simply stared until Shiro stepped into the water. With one last look both Keith and Lance hung their heads low in defeat.

Shiro was right, the baths really were meant for relaxation. The boys were all lazily leaned against the edges of the bath. Lance had a warm wet towel draped over his eyes and forehead. He thought the slowly cooling towel would help clear his mind, but it did everything but that. His mind wandered and wandered. It went from his family, back to the Verdadero Beach where he used to swim every weekend, to the thought of Pidge having at some point possibly been in this very tub. The very thought embarrassed him so much he felt the towel starting to heat up again. His hand reached up to remove it.

“Lance.” Lance’s hand stopped mid air.

“I just wanted to say that I am really sorry about what happened earlier.” Lance moved to take off the towel and looked at Shiro in bewilderment.

“It was out of line what I did. You are a member of the team and I am not Pidge’s father. I jumped to a conclusion and threatened the balance of the team…I’m sorry.”

The sincerity in Shiro’s voice lifted goose bumps on Lance neck. He didn’t know what to say. His idol and leader of Voltron was apologizing to him. His mind fell back to Pidge and a lump swelled in his throat.

“No…It’s okay Shiro. I know you care about Pidge. I know how much her family means to you and I know you want to protect her, us too, but her-out of respect and consideration for her brother.” The thoughtfulness in his words had the attention of Keith and Hunk now as well.

“I respect Pidge too. I care about her a lot and believe me nothing happened. It was a total fluke. Not intentional at all. I’m not that sick. I…I’d never hurt Katie…” Lance had met Shiro’s eyes but wavered as he mentioned ‘Katie’.

Hunk and Keith observed Lance, interested in his calling Pidge ‘Katie’.

Lance kept his gaze low and bit his lip before continuing, “I mean, why would any of us want to hurt her? She’s great. Even back at the Garrison Hunk and I knew that. It wouldn’t matter if she was a boy, Pidge is Pidge. She’s wicked smart, sarcastic and funny and man can she fight!” He lifted his gaze, “She’s a great pilot…better than me…And honestly I don’t want everyone thinking she’d ever have a thing with me. Someone like her…can get any guy she wants.”

The red and yellow paladins exchanged a look before Lance continued.

“Argh!” He groaned to himself.

“But I fucked it up bad this time!”

“How so?” Shiro’s voice was filled with sincerity.

“I-I got in a fight with Pidge…I just wanted to see how she was doing and we ended up saying some shitty stuff to each other. I can’t take any of that back…”

A gentle hand held Lance by the shoulder, “You’re right. You can’t take it back. But you can make up for it. Pidge is great. She’s an amazing pilot and an part essential of this team. But, so are you.”

Lance looks up to meet Shiro’s encouragement.

“We aren’t just a team now Lance. We are all we have, we are family. And I know Pidge thinks you’re just as important.”

Lance can’t help but smile at Shiro’s gentle words.

“Go talk to her dude.” Keith shows a rare smile, sincere and gentle.

A sudden wave of confidence washes over Lance and he immediately stands up to wrap his towel around him.

“Yeah! You guys are right! No time for sulking around!”

As he makes his way over the ledge he slips and face plant onto the ground, his towel coming undone in the process.

The guys all let out a sigh as Lance whimpers.

“Poor Pidge…” Hunk can’t help but sympathize.

The silent squeak of mice can be heard down the corridor. As usual Allura is having her hair done up but the enthusiastic and adorable rodents.

“Oh! You would not believe-! Everything was going so well! Well…not exactly, but it wasn’t a disaster!”

The mice speak in response, mostly focusing on Alluras unruly white hair.

“Then Shiro had to on a rampage and-!”

The squeak of the pink mouse interrupted her. It batted its eyes and gestured to Allura.

“What? I mean well yes…It was exciting seeing him get angry…BUT that’s besides the point!”

The mice giggled at Allura’s noticeably pink cheeks.

“ARGH! I just really wanted to help Pidge! I think they both share feelings for each other and no one can convince me other wise!” Allura dramatically slumps her chin into her hands.

The mice all look at each other, squeaking and contemplating the princess’ words, until finally they nod in accordance. The smallest of them scurries to Allura side, nudges her elbow. Allura meets the mouse’s eyes as it squeaks a series of what must be words that only the princess could understand.

Allura’s eyes lit up at whatever the mouse told her, and she rushes to the door, “I must tell Coran!”

Once she find the mustached man she quickly beckons his ear to hear her whisper. He looks at her as a sly smile forms on both their faces, “That might just work!”

****

THANKS FOR READING! Stay tuned for Chapter 7/8! :D

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#voltron fanfic #pidgance fanfic #plance #pidgance #flirtyrobot #AIR #pidge x lance

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