#the usage of the word boi is off the charts
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missdynamighttt · 5 months ago
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↳ ❝ THERE'S NO ONE LIKE YOU, SWEETS. ❞
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ synopsis: in which, you make what feels like the worst decision of your life—getting into a hot tub with your fake boyfriend, katsuki bakugou.
starring: fake boyfriend! katsuki bakugou x oblivious! reader ⍣ ೋ
disclaimers!: fake established relationship, prefers ass, humping/ grinding, a little degradation, fingering, oral sex (f! receiving), sexual stuff in water
note: pro hero! katsuki drabble, usage of "woman", "sweets" "baby", "slut", fem reader, fake relationship trope, inspired by to all the boys ive loved before hot tub/ jacuzzi scene. I KNOW I HAVE A POLL, I PROMISE ILL GET TO THAT, JUST NEEDED TO GET THIS OFF OF MY CHEST💜💜
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╰┈➤ ❝ [this is so stupid...] ❞ you mumble, walking down the hallway to the pool area, your arms crossed as the cold winter breeze hits your skin.
somehow, kirishima talked you into confronting your 'boyfriend', katsuki bakugou, after he started ignoring you in the class 1A ski-trip/christmas party this year.
"c'mon, girl, hes probably waiting for you in the hot tub 'nyway. get in there, and get him!"
it was only supposed to be a fake arrangement between you two. to be honest, you're not even sure why hes mad. but he was.
the hand-holding, hugs and kisses started to feel too real, the closeness felt too intimate. it was all getting in your head so you distanced yourself from him, sitting next to ochako in the bus instead of katsuki.
katsuki needed to get his ranks up in the charts and you needed publicity. that was all there was to it. supposed to be, anyway.
you reach the pool area and thats when you see him. katsuki bakugo. in the hot tub. shirtless. and in swimming trunks. he's lounging with his eyes shut and eyebrows furrowed, letting the heat and jets of the tub ease his muscles.
you catch your bottom lip between your teeth. you draw closer to the hot tub, perching yourself on the ledge across from katsuki, not getting in the water because you had a night gown on. for now.
though his eyes are closed, a slight shift in his demeanor reveals that he's aware of your presence. even in his attempt to maintain a façade of calm, the subtle tension in his shoulders and the tightening of his jaw betray his awareness of you.
"katsuki?" you tilt your head, trying to get his attention.
when he doesn't respond, you scoff, crossing your arms.
"wow, katsuki, real mature."
his eyebrow twitches at the comment on his maturity, his eyes flutter open. he looks at you with an unimpressed stare, his expression a mix of annoyance and... something else.
"oh, because you're a real shinin' example of maturity," he retorts, his voice tinged with sarcasm.
you frown at him. "seriously, why are you mad at me? and don't go yappin' about how you're not mad, i can tell."
"why do you think?" he grumbles, unable to meet your eyes as his cheeks tinged pink.
"...you've been hangin' around with round cheeks all fuckin' day."
that was all he was mad about? is he.. no. he couldn't be jealous. he had no reason to.
"that... that shouldn't matter."
"well, it does matter, goddamn it," he mutters angrily as his scowl deepens, his jaw clenching in frustration.
"you don't get it, do you? you're my girlfriend, you were supposed to sit with me."
"fake girlfriend-"
"i don't give a flyin' fuck. you're still my girlfriend, woman, fake or not. i expected you to sit with me. and instead, what do i see? you hangin' out with fuckin..."
he lets out an exasperated sigh, raking a hand through his wet hair. he looks like he's trying to find the right words to express his feelings without coming across as too jealous or vulnerable.
"fuck. fuck, i'm... i'm not tryna control you, okay? but it bugs the shit out of me. it bugs me that you were hanging with round face. it bugs me that you sat next to her instead of me."
katsuki's gaze softens at your quiet, conflicted expression. he sighs again, his eyes briefly darting away from you before he continues.
"i... i even brought your damn favorite snacks in case you got hungry," he mutters, his voice tinged with embarrassment. "i thought, we could have sat together and, you know..."
you look up at him, a hint of surprise widening your eyes. you contemplate how to continue, trying to lighten the mood with a soft smile. "do you... still have some left over?"
katsuki scoffs at the attempt to change the mood, but can't help the brief spark of amusement that flickers in his eyes.
"no, obviously," he replies with a roll of his eyes. "i ate some and gave kirishima the rest after you decided to ditch me."
"rude."
"damn right, it was rude. tch, ditchin' me like that."
you let out a soft chuckle, shaking your head, looking at him with a soft gaze. "i'm.. i'm sorry i didn't sit next to you."
katsuki's ears turned slightly pink as he hears your apology. he glances at you hesitantly before looking away again, trying to maintain his aloof demeanor.
"yeah, well, apology accepted, i guess," he mutters, his voice lacking its usual sharpness.
you nod, feeling a mix of nervousness and excitement. after a brief moment of silence, you gather your courage and shed your nightgown, revealing your bare skin as you slowly step into the warm embrace of the hot tub.
katsuki's eyes widen as you stripped, his heart rate speeding up at the sight of you in just a pair of black bra and panties. his eyes roam over your body greedily, taking in every curve and contour.
he clears his throat, his gaze is fixed on your figure as you step into the hot tub, the warm water enveloping you. he tries to keep his thoughts in check, but the sight of you like this, almost naked, is making it incredibly hard (like his dick).
"damn..." he mutters, his voice barely above a whisper. "what are you doing to me, sweets?"
you look at him with eyebrows raised, a soft smile formed on your lips. "hm?"
he takes a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. the water laps around you two, creating a sense of intimacy, and it only adds to the tension.
"seriously, do you have to look like that right now?"
"like what?"
"like... that," his voice is hoarse, gesturing vaguely at your form. "like you're tryna drive me crazy."
katsuki reaches out, his hand hovering just above your torso before finally making contact, his fingers gently carressing the curve of your waist. his hand felt so warm, almost competing with the heat in his eyes now mixed with his raw desire for you.
"damn it, woman. you're killin' me here..."
"can i apologize for that too?"
"i'll forgive you... under one condition," he murmurs, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. his hand slowly roams over your bare skin, exploring your body with a newfound confidence.
he pulls you closer, the water sloshing around you as he guides you onto his lap. his arms encircle your waist firmly, every contour and dip of your bodies fitting perfectly against each other. the corners of his mouth tug to a grin."sit here for me."
your eyes widen in surprise as you feel a rush of heat across your cheeks. you could feel his hot, raging boner, pressing up against your cunt through the thin, pathetic fabric you call panties.
a cheeky grin spreads across your face. "katsuki, is that...?"
he groans, his voice low and gruff with frustrated desire. "just shut the fuck up, sweets."
his hands grip your hips, fingers digging into your skin as he pulls you nearer, his lips crashing against yours in a heated, hungry kiss. his tongue dances with yours, greedy and demanding.
the kiss was intense, filled with pent-up longing and need and so much words both of you couldn't say.
he keeps you trapped against his body with his arms in the hot tub, his touch both tender and possessive.
"such a nice fuckin' ass.." he whispers, groping and massaging your doughy ass before pulling you back in for a deeper kiss.
your arms are wrapped around his neck, your fingers tangled in his hair as you grind on his hard-on, a little embarassed as you feel your panties dampen more from the water and your slick but can't help but want him. need him.
"fuck," he groans, feeling his cock get so painfully hard just from you humping him. "you little.."
your breath hitches when you felt his hand slide down your inner thigh, tugging the pathetic g-string to the side. he enters a finger inside of you, seperating your folds, feeling your warm pussy and your wet slick in the midst of the water. "k-katsuki-"
"aww, this all for me, sweets?" he coos, watching you whimper as he rubs your aching clit.
you pout as you grind against his hand, desperate for friction. your teeth sink into your lip as he put a second finger, your eyes glistening with a mixture of desire and greed. "so what if it is..?"
"that fucking eager for me, huh?" he chuckles darkly, his fingers enveloped by the warmth of your pussy as he curls them inside of you. "gonna take it all for me, yeah?"
you nodded, clinging onto him like a lifeline, whimpering and mewling choked versions of his name. "fuck, fuck.. kat- katsu.. katsuki..."
katsuki groans at the sound of his name on your lips, his hand your hips grip you tighter, pulling you closer, while curling his thick digits against your sensitive spots, the sound of your lewd noises music to his ears.
"see my fingers fuckin' you, baby?" he mutters, his lips find your neck, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along your tender skin. "only i can make your pretty pussy feel this good, yeah?"
"mhm," you manage. despite the embarrassment, you can't help but give in to the heat building between you.
his eyes lock onto yours, his voice sultry and mean. "you know, you're such a fuckin' slut. lettin' me finger you like this where anyone can see us."
a loud moan escapes your lips as your pussy clenches around his fingers at the name. you couldn't help it. fuck, he was so, so mean. and you fucking loved it.
a cocky grin spreads across his face, letting out a low chuckle. "oh? you like it when i call you a slut?" he taunts, bringing a grin to his face at your reaction. "can't believe you're into that shit, sweets."
"it's your fault- fuck.."
"oh? blamin' me now?" he taunts, a cocky expression on his face. "thought you were more.. mature than that."
katsuki flaps his fingers faster inside of you, abandoning the slow, careful pace of curling he did earlier. your slick and the hot tub water moistens his fingers, yet you can still smell the faint hit of your cunt.
"katsukiii! fuck, fuck, fuck. too much, too much..."
"just look at you, sweets. takin' my fingers like a champ, such a good fuckin' girl," he coos, his filthy praises making your pussy clench around his fingers.
"bet you wanted this as much as i did, did you?"
"n-no-"
"bullshit. if you don't, tell me to stop right now."
"sh-shit, no.. don't stop, please.. please, i need you.."
"that's what i thought," his grin widens, his hand that had been resting on your hip moves lower, tapping your leg gently. "lift your hips up for me."
with a nod, you comply, the water rippling around you as it drips out of your legs, katsuki finally seeing your sweet little cunt without the transluscent filter of the water. his grip on your thigh tightens slightly, letting out a shaky exhale as he rubs your clit.
"you close, sweets?" he glances up at you, his eyes meeting yours, feeling you nod before he leans in for a long, lingering kiss.
"cum on my face, 'kay?" he utters softly after pulling away, leaning down on your sweet cunt before lapping his tongue away at your aching slit while still pumping his fingers full of you.
his tongue felt so good. he felt so good, it hurts. all you could smell was the intoxicating scent of your cunt and katsuki's saliva sloshed together.
"katsuki..." you can't help but let out a lewd mewl, whimpering as wave after wave of pleasure courses through your body.
"there's no one like you, sweets," katsuki groans into your pussy, the loud sounds he was making as he ate you out while he fucked his fingers into you was just so lewd. when it felt so good. when anyone could catch you doing this. "cum on my face, baby, c'mon.."
you shudder from the pleasure from his touch as you feel your release, chest heaving up and down as you catch your breath. though, his tongue kept flicking at your clit, pumping his fingers in and out of you as you ride your high.
your post-nut clarity kicks in. fuck, you just.. let katsuki bakugo, your fake boyfriend, not only finger you but you let him eat you out. it doesn't matter you were into him. he was still your fake boyfriend.
and not just anywhere, no. but in the damn hot tub. where anyone could've seen you. the worst part? you enjoyed it to your core.
before you can think loudly again, you feel his lips brush gently against your cheek. you turn to look at him, a little surprised at the sudden show of tenderness after the heated moment as your eyes meet. you take in the disheveled sight of him, his hair damp and wet as he catches his breath, your mind still trying to catch up to the events of tonight.
"sweets... my room. now. please."
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⋆˚࿔ kia's note ˚⋆ should i do part 2 guys lmaolmao hope you enjoyed 💜💜
‎‧₊˚✧[ it's me, kia ! ]✧˚₊‧ 。゚•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• 。゚ ‎‧₊˚✧[ more of katsuki ! ]✧˚₊‧
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nanamiskentos · 5 months ago
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BED CHEM— geto suguru minors dni. art by to00fu !
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welcome to the christmas tour ! take a seat in section (b) and let the show begin !
prologue. → ditching your friend's christmas condo party for your scrumptious, needy boyfriend? yes please!
want to try sitting somewhere else ? take a look at the ticket chart again !
pairing. geto suguru x afab!reader
warnings+. awful usage of brainrot slang to weird geto out (mission successful), making out, messy sèx, crèampiè, nothing crazy !
word count. 5k! song inspiration. bed chem — sabrina carpenter
a/n. happy 1 month birthday to this blog!!!!!! 😭 kind of fitting that i celebrate with a geto fic <3
mp3. where art thou? why not uponeth me? see it in my mind, let's fulfill the prophecy !
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"hey," you say, holding up the dress and crinkling the red satin in your fingers, "what'd you think of this one?"
it's a gorgeous number, a sheer, corset bodice with a daring thigh-high slit, all set to softly drape off your shoulders. the kind of dress that screams 'sexy without trying too hard' and 'television heroine vampire heiress'. your goal in life.
geto doesn't even glance up from his latest obsession, crouched by the kitchen counter. he's eye level with a pavlova, drizzling raspberry glaze over it like he's performing surgery. without missing a beat, "it's cool. for someone desparate in witness protection," he deadpans.
you scoff, clutching the gown like the aforementioned television heroine, "you just say weird shit sometimes. what does that even mean? and a day one hater, didn't even look up..."
"and yet," geto mutters, still hyper-focused on his dessert, "i know i'm right."
you throw the dress onto the couch dramatically, "suguru, you bought this dress for me."
that gets your boyfriend's attention and he looks up, catching the gleam of familiar red satin, and visibly gulps, "oh. my bad. it's, uh, hot you'd look hot, i mean."
"nice save, baby," you arch a brow.
he tosses his inky black hair back, some of it falling right back into his face, "what's it for?"
you sigh, propping your legs up on the worn couch, "that big party, remember? my friend who got married and had a kid last year, y'know her right?"
geto hums, popping a fresh blueberry into his mouth, without taking his eyes off the pavlova, "mmph," he says through a mouthful, "the one who married the guy who cheated on her like thrice?"
you grin, delighted he remembers the gossip you've spoon fed to him over time, "yeah, well, apparently he tried making it up to her by buying her an entire condo."
geto wrinkles his nose in disgust, "tacky. ya' just can't buy class."
"totally," you sigh, "but it's so nice in there. and when she hosts parties there, i can't really complain. it's like, so gorgeous."
then, you glance back at your focused boyfriend, watching as he artfully arranges more berries atop the meringue, "mhm, speaking of gorgeous, are you gonna stand there making love to the pavlova all night, or are you gonna help me accessorise this thing?"
geto glances at you, his violet eyes narrowing playfully, "why so needy? jealous of whipped egg whites and sugar?"
you flop your arms to your sides with a dramatic sigh, "what if i am?"
geto exhales as though you are his most tiresome, and favourite thing in the entire world. grabbing a silver spoon from the cutlery rack, and dipping it into the sticky-sweet raspberry glaze. he's striding towards you, and there's that signature air of both exasperation and amusement, "open."
you comply, simply because dessert trumps dignity, and not before biting down on the spoon with unnecessary force just to mess with him. the glaze simply melts on your tongue, and you smack your lips, "mmm. wait, this shit's really good. what's it for?"
geto laughs, stepping closer to swipe his warm thumb across your bottom lip to catch a stray bit of glaze, "for us, jus' us. thought we'd have something sweet for christmas."
you clutch your chest like a damsel, "i thought i was your sweet thing for christmas."
your dear boyfriend rolls his eyes, swatting your arm lightly with the sticky spoon, leaving a smear of glaze, "tch, what am i gonna do with you?"
you gasp in mock outrage at the sensation, but geto's expression shifts, softening as he swings a knee up onto the arm of the couch, "wan' me to come with ya?"
you blink, thrown off from his hauntingly beautiful features that you'll never get tired of, "come with me where?"
"that party, love."
your jaw practically hits the floor, "wait, really? you actually want to? thought you hated these things?"
geto's lips quirk upwards, shrugging a shoulder, "the things i do for my pretty girlfriend."
cue the squeal. exaggerated just enough to irritate him, just a bit. you clutch his arm, bouncing slightly, "aw! you really do love me!"
geto's exasperated look cracks, softening into something far more quiet and fond. he places a hand on your head, ruffling through your hair just enough to make you scowl at the mess, "don't push your luck," he warns. but his tone betrays his amusement, "i just feel bad i haven't gone to any of the others with you."
"i'm glad you said that, though, suguru," you start, already scheming as you lean forward and rest your head on his knee like its the most natural pillow in the world. he lets out a soft puff of breath, almost instinctively leaning down to press a kiss to your temple.
"remember those high-waisted pants i said would look really good on you?"
geto frowns, "the ones you said made me look like a...and i quote, a slutty mushroom?"
"bingo. you should wear them. the world deserves to see your delicious gyatt —"
your baiting words are accentuated by a pinch to the back of his dark sweatpants but cut off by his sharp exhale, and the way his fingers, which had been lazily tracing the curve of your ear, freeze mid-motion.
"my what, love?" geto asks, his tone a mix of suspicious and the kind of dread reserved for people who know they're about to regret asking a question.
"gyatt," you repeat, completely unrepentant, no shame nor misery, "it means —"
"i know what it means," geto cuts in, deadpan with a faint and tell-tale blush creeping onto his tan skin, "i'm cutting off our wifi. all our electricity actually."
you laugh, patting his muscular thigh lightly before squeezing it again for good measure, "oh, so you do know what it means. that's embarrassing for you, babe."
"and yet, somehow, i still have the moral high ground," geto grouches, pinching the bridge of his nose, "and you say that i say weird shit. now you're bringing gojo's tiktok fuckery into my own home."
"first of all, it's our home," grabbing the red dress and standing, almost knocking him off the couch's arm, "second of all, my big and tall and beautiful boyfriend is such a cutie patootie when he's embarrassed."
geto groans, tilting his head back, "stop. you're emasculating me."
you pause in the doorway, "you cry everytime we watch strawberry shortcake. you do that shit to yourself."
"that was one time!" geto protests, but you can hear the smile colouring his voice.
"two times."
"the mermaid episode was emotionally poignant. power of friendship and moral honesty despite the promise of treasure," he calls after you, "you wouldn't get the timeless themes!"
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well, mission accomplished. the dress fits you like a second skin, hugging all the right places. and you're not even ashamed of how long you spend admiring yourself in the mirror. the way the corset lifts your chest, well, it's definitely giving hot and sexy vampire now.
you delicately pat a glitter bomb compact over your skin, letting the soft shimmer catch the light on your collarbones and shoulders. it's a fine balance, you think, but you know there's a fine line between 'faintly glittered-up' and looking like 'fenty beauty just projectile-vomited rosé rave' all over you.
"suguru!" you call out, expecting a snarky reply but hearing nothing. typical. "suguru!" you yell again, just because you can. you wander out of the bedroom, only to find him already in position: stretched across the couch, legs draped lazily over the armrest.
and fuck, he looks good. wearing those wide-legged pants you suggested, and obviously, you were right about them. a crisp white top with the sleeves rolled up just enough to show off his forearms. geto's hair is pulled back into that high, slightly messy knot he's so fond of, but a rogue and choppy strand has escaped, brushing against his cheek.
the whole look screams 'effortlessly hot' and you can imagine how smug he'd be if he knew what you were thinking.
"oh. hey, love," he greets casually, scrolling through his phone and still draped over the couch like a catalog model who knows all his angles. but then geto looks up, and the phone nearly slips out of his hand.
"uhhh, hey," he says, his eyes widening as he takes you in, and his rosewood lips part, as he says it again, clearly dumbfounded, "hey."
you laugh, crouching down next to him, amused by the way he's visibly short-circuiting, "not bad yourself," you tease, "what were you looking at?"
before he can stop you, you lean in to peak at geto's phone, pressing yourself against his side. glitter from your collarbones transfers onto his skin, but you're too busy laughing at his dimly lit screen to notice.
"suguru!" you gasp, your shoulders beginning to tremor, "fuckass yahoo answers, of all places. wait — i can't believe people still use that. stop moving your phone, let me read!"
is it good or bad if my girlfriend says i have a gyatt?
geto's ears turn deliciously red, and he locks his phone with an exaggerated click, "okay. nosy mcgee," and he's grumbling, "makin' me sound like a loser."
you pat his cheek lightly, grinning like a cheshire cat, "it means i think you're scrumptious," you say with mock seriousness, "like top-tier snackish. like, as in, i like your ass."
geto huffs, his lips twitching despite himself. and then, leaning forward, he presses a soft kiss to the tip of your nose. you wrinkle it instinctively, thinking of all the concealer and powder you had layered earlier.
"well," he says, as he brushes a strand of hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear, "i think you're pretty too."
you sigh dramatically, "just pretty? why did i end up with a nonchalant man?"
geto gasps, his mauve eyes widening in mock offence as he juts his lip forward, "hah, 'scuse me. i'm not nonchalant. i'm like the total opposite of nonchalant. i'm like...chalant."
you snort, catching his stray fingers as they linger close enough to your lips for you to playfully nip at them, "yes. you are. my very chalant boyfriend. what a hero."
geto rolls over to his side, so he's facing you. absolutely wrinkling his white shirt, "thank you for recognising my efforts."
but then his tone shifts, his gaze running over you, "but seriously, you look hot. like crazy hot. like wow, my girlfriend is insanely hot," and he leans in slightly, "and i jus' can't stop looking at your two, beautiful, perfect..."
it hits you that his gaze has dropped to the swell of your chest.
"suguru! my eyes are up here, you dog."
"shit, been caught." and he's still laughing at your grumbles, grabbing your wrist and gently pulling you up in one swift motion, dragging you alongside him towards the bedroom.
"hey!" you protest half-heartedly, trying to dig your heels into the carpet, "the front door's the other way, genius. we're gon' be late."
geto doesn't stop his stride, glancing back at you with a pleading look that's also smug at the same time, "yeah, but you're the one who looks like that. don't think i can function. i need a minute."
"geto suguru, everybody. one-minute wonder. all he needs to finish."
you hear your boyfriend's scoff, as a teasing laugh escapes him, "hah, can't help being like this, can ya? got a gold medal when it comes to pissing me off."
you smile sweetly, "it's because i love you."
geto rolls his rich-plum eyes, his hand guiding you towards the bed as he shakes his head, "you know i love you too, right?"
"duh."
"good," geto says, and with that, he's leaning in. pressing a hot kiss to your jaw, then moving to your waiting mouth. it's messy, sloppy, the kind that makes your pussy clench a bit. sue you, eh? it's just the effect that geto suguru has on you.
you let out a soft whine as his tongue smears across your satin-finished, ruby lips, perfectly lined not ten minutes ago. but then geto's pulling away, circling his finger lazily in the air. a wordless demand that leaves your thighs clenching in anticipation.
you playfully huff, but spin yourself away from him. planting yourself on all fours, hearing geto grunt as he seems to appreciate the view. tsk, your predictable, eager boyfriend.
his large hand is running slowly down your spine, like he's savouring the way the satin clings to you. it's sending shivers down your body, and you're certain that if geto were to push your dress up and cup your core with a large hand, he'd pull it away wet and dripping.
"ah, pretty. so pretty, aren'tcha?" and his fingers are tugging taut at the ruched dress, like he can't quite believe you're real and his. despite three smooth years of professing your love to one another.
"suguru," you protest, "y'know 's not a cheap dress, babe."
you can hear the amusement tinging his smooth voice, "i know. i bought it, remember? don't want you worryin' your pretty lil' head over it."
you let out a soft sigh as you feel him entirely lean his weight over you, enveloping you in that heady scent of leather and cardamom. scooting your ass back, so tight satin would faintly drag across his very pronounced erection.
"f-fuck," and geto's laugh is sharp, disbelieving. half a huff, and half a chuckle, but entirely in awe. broad, warm hands are gliding over you before the gentle press of his palms come to rest on your hips. he's sliding your dress up, letting satin rustle with a soft, whispering sound. leaving your skin exposed to the sudden and sharp kiss of the christmas air.
"wow," geto whistles quietly, appreciatively. he seemed to be enjoying the sheer red thigh-high tights that clung to the plush of your thighs like a second scarlet skin, and you gasp as he hooks a long finger underneath the lace border, snapping it once briefly in a mild sting.
his hands are so close to where you need them most, and it's so utterly infuriating. he's practically dancing his finger tips over your inner thighs, ghosting so close to your underwear. panties that were surely languid, weighty by now. you could feel the damp cotton growing far more slippery and tacky as geto suddenly ran a finger over your clothed cunt.
and you can hear the elation in his voice as he lifts a finger up to his mouth, swirling his tongue around your syrupy taste, "hah, you're practically a super-soaker. that's pretty cool."
you scowl, fighting the urge to swivel around and pounce him in retribution, "y-yeah, thanks," but the bite in your words is tempered by the lazy heat that coils in your stomach, "but you're taking too l-long, baby. can't you jus' -"
and you're deciding to take matters into your own hands, as geto seems fascinated by how thin, clear strands create small bridges between his fingers. you reach for the waistband of his high-waisted pants, running your own hand down his absurdly slender waist, right over a godly chiselled torso.
"y'got impatient, didn't you, love?" and now geto's scowling, hauling your wrist back to pin it behind your back like you foretold. but not before planting a soft press of lips to your inner arm, gentle and tender.
but you flex your fingers behind your back, stretching them out, groping at the air. your boyfriend must have noticed, almost immediately because of course he does, and you can hear a soft, knowing coo from behind you.
"ah, 's what you want, right?" he teases, sliding his cool, slender fingers over yours, intertwining them effortlessly, "just wanted me holdin' your hand, how cute."
"maybe i was j-just stretching," you huff, but squeezing his hand tighter.
geto hums, unconvinced, as his thumb brushes lazily over the back of your hand, and you can hear the sound of fabric rustling behind you, "sure. totally not begging me to hold your hand like some lovesick, little dove."
but any retort falls away from your tongue, right when you feel something heavy, and hot smack against your tailbone, leaving a faint, moist kiss that feels cold when it patters off, "now pay attention."
you muffle a small, desparate whine, as geto has one hand tangled with yours and the other being used to hold and smack his thick cock once more over the base of your spine, "hope s-she's ready f' me now."
you feel as though all the air has been utterly pushed out of you, just from geto practically splitting you in two. you don't even have to look at geto to know that he's absolutely wrecked already, just from the throbbing, curved tip of his cock pushing past your tight walls, snagging with only the mildest resistance.
you can almost see it in your mind's eye, picturing it all just from his low curses and gasp.
how his chin must have tucked low enough to kiss his sternum, feathery strands of hair spilling over his forehead. those inky lashes fluttering in disbelief and surrender over hazy mauve eyes.
"s-she's always so eager to take me," geto croons, and his eyes are practically glued to the way your puffy folds bulge and drool over his shaft slowly feeding inches into you, "almost there, love."
"look at, hah, t-that," your boyfriend drawls, but you can hear how entirely undone he is, that tremour cutting off the end of his words in a sharp gasp as you arch yourself into him, letting that stretch take you so deliciously.
"keep your back arched like that, love," geto murmurs, and his hands are guiding you, pulling your hips back in a gentle, rhythmic push-and-pull over his cock. leaving you to feel his girthy shaft rummage and jostle around your insides, leaving a hefty divot at the edge of your cervix in a way that has you suddenly keening out a faint moan, "doing s-so well for me."
and fuck, the sound of his groin smacking wet kisses against your ass has you feeling like your head was going to explode, and your heart was going to give out, pressing right up into your throats. but you can tell geto is pleased, ruined even as he slowly drags his cock out of you at a filthy, slow pace.
if only to make you feel every throbbing vein on him, and how it imprints on your gummy walls.
there's something just so right about him being in you like this, having his pretty love bent over and absolutely stuffed full of his cock, something that just makes sense.
and right now, nothing else in the world matters save for you, and geto can't bring himself to even care about deadlines, or a decent and sensible christmas dinner, or some stupid party. not when he's letting his weighty, drooling tip loll out of your folds.
thick and heavy like a heated rod in the cool air of the evening, as he pushes two long fingers to spread open your syrupy folds, running the angry-red tip over your gloss, before finally pushing himself back inside.
"i w-was gonna say it was this dress, love," geto stammers, swirling his hips around, trying to rustle right into you, "but i think it's just you. ya know w-what you do to me right, hah, don'tcha, pretty?"
oh you are more than aware. and that heightened sense of perception is only exacerbated by how the thick curve of his cock is bruising into you. slamming into you with a heavy smack!
geto's world tilts, leaving him teetering on the edge of an embarrassingly early orgasm. but he feels little shame, not when his head is so heavy and his lips sting, caught under the desparate press of his teeth. every shallow breath he takes feeling like it's just unravelling him further, circling the tips of his fingers over your clit, just so you can whine and arch yourself into him more.
geto decides to play that card more, wrapping a thick arm around you to pull you into the air slightly. that faint increase in angle making you buckle as his weeping tip pulls symphonies of thick, angry squelches from your sensitive cunt. each jostle of his sharp, staccato hips feeling more and more shaky.
"not too much, r-right?" geto's breath hitching in uneven bursts, caught somewhere between delirious laughter and incredulous, overstimulated sobs.
that sweet, and unsteady wheeze results in tears pricking at geto's eyes from the delicious heat of your pussy, falling over the feverish nape of your neck, "know you wanted to go o-out, wanted to wear this pretty dress but i think 'm gonna d-die if i stop now, 's okay with you, yeah?"
"not t-too much, suguru," you hiss, feeling crystalline tears pool in your own lashes, just from pure please, "f-fuck, 'm already so close."
and you truly are, he's drilling himself into you at a beastly place, jostling a large hand over your chest, brushing over the lace lining the corset bodice, as if he's desparate to get his hands into your dress, to brush his thumbs over sensitive nipples.
his cock leaving searing trails of precum against your drooling, fluttering walls, leaving behind a wet trail that almost burned you. the force of his crashing hips leaving stamps in their wake, and geto's gasping and groaning at the faint cling of your dewy pussy, snatching him in quick, forceful bursts.
you shuffle precariously, still jostled against him, as you push down the bodice of your dress. probably damaging the framework a bit, but it's so worth it to hear geto almost sigh in relief, letting his hands run over the fat of your tits. pinching, swirling his fingers over the soft skin.
geto thinks he might just collapse over you in a weak heap when he hears your whine, "wan' more, s-suguru."
yes, more. that's exactly what geto wants to give you. he wants to see you milk him dry from the heavy balls swinging against your skin, wants to see you heave breaths of air as his seed drips out of you. wants to have you pressed against him for hours on end, to flip you over so your ankle lock behind his neck.
his imagination must have been working overtime. for like the peak specimen of male virility that he is, geto suguru just ends up cumming instead.
and with an embarrassing, heady grunt from him, geto's pulling his pulsating cock out of your folds, doing his best to keep himself steady enough to use his other hand well.
to keep running his fingers in tight circles around your clit, while he lets his spurting cock pump load after load of translucent, white fluid paint your spine a pretty pearly sheen. coming right on you.
it's so messy, it's so filthy and geto feels mildly numb as he decides to push his still throbbing cock, one that is still spurting right back into you, as he pushes his weight onto you, taking care not to force you too harshly against the crumpled sheets.
and geto just can't help himself, can't stop himself from leaving sloppy, wet kisses to the back of your neck, to your cheek. can't help himself from tilting your face back so his mouth can meet yours, and he can taste that raspberry syrup from earlier on your tongue, sweet and tangy.
and geto doesn't even care that he sounds ruined, raw and brittle. absolutely tattered as he whines, "we d-don't have to go to that party, right? hnngh, jus' need to hear you say that we don't have to, i think 'm gonna need some more of her. milking me so w-well."
he doesn't hear much apart from your gasps, your short cries like a mantra of "ah, ah! suguru!"
you weren't even sure how much time had passed, an hour even. or more. and you vaguely wondered if your friends were still there. sitting at some christmas party in some luxury condo, whispering over flutes of champagne, wondering about where you were. unaware that your adonis-esque boyfriend had been pounding himself into you, stretching you out over his cock until you were seeing heavenly stars.
until you were feeling thick ropes of white paint your insides once more, and streaks of dark dimmed your vision, and mauve and violet flashed behind your eyes.
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you're tugging at the hem of your dress, still laughing fondly as you watch geto. his tousled, choppy hair falling out of its knot, and his eyes half-lidded and blissed out. his crumpled white top clings to his lean frame, and he's propped up lazily against the headboard with his other thick arm slung back behind his head.
"give me another hour, and we can do it again, love," geto huffs, his voice still a little raspy from earlier.
you shake your head in amusement, despite the mildly uncomfortable feeling of slick sticking beneath your thighs, splattered over your beautiful dress, "mhm, what a nice way to spend christmas, huh?"
geto stares at you adoringly, and his eyes are heavy with contentment, like he can't quite believe that you're here, and for a second, you think maybe the world would stop right there, in this perfect moment.
he runs a thumb over your face, pressing down on your lower lip, "i think it's better than some party," and geto's tone is dreamy, lazy, "no offence to your friend."
you snicker, thinking about whether you're going to need some well-thought excuse for your dear friend. or whether you're going to spill the whole truth for her.
but just as you're about to pull geto's plush mouth into another lazy kiss, his brow furrows. a sudden, concerned shift in his expression.
"hey," your boyfriend mutters, reaching to find his phone, "what's the humidity like tonight?"
you blink, caught off guard, "humidity? what's it matter?"
well, your skin feels unusually sticky, like the air itself is clinging to your sweat-dampened skin. despite the cool air of the december night. and there's that sweet, pleasant tiredness settling into your bones.
geto's suddenly sitting up, his eyes wide with realisation, "wait, love. fuck," he's muttering, scrambling up to his feet, "the kitchen!"
before you can process what's happening, he's racing for the door, and you stare at the empty spot on the rumpled sheets where your broad boyfriend was sitting not ten seconds ago.
"what is wrong with that man?" you murmur, but you hear a panicked cry from the kitchen, something about that damned pavlova going limp and soft with the heating on.
you bite back a small comment about something else going limp and soft, deciding to save that one for later when he's back in bed.
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sleepyheadnat · 3 months ago
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Trapped Inside
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I played Inside over this past weekend and wow. As far as atmosphere goes, this game felt a little like Shadow of the Colossus—and that's a compliment. The areas felt so vast and detailed, and their mood was perfectly tailored by the game even with no words.
Actually, on the topic of being wordless: top-tier environmental storytelling. The whole time, I felt encouraged to try and piece together what was happening based on what I could see, hear, etc. The environment was also so beautiful—the usage of color and color values, the overwhelming sense of scale, the music, the sense of depth, the perspectives of the "camera shots".
The animations were all amazingly done and added a lot of personality to the actors. For me personally, the body movement of the main character helped hammer in the idea that we're playing as a kid, a child, and added an extra layer of "my heart hurts" to think that a little boy was going through all of that, while also making it all the more revolting every time he was attacked—mostly by adults, one of which is accompanied by a child of his own.
The puzzles made me feel really clever when I figured them out, and had some really awesome moments that I could only describe as "dude that's the coolest thing ever". Set pieces like jumping on what you think is a chandelier only to suddenly have control over the people in the background; getting in line and pretending to be one of "zombies" inside the factory; being attacked by the water creature, waiting for a game over screen, only for it to never come and you just sit there, watching your character falling deeper and deeper into an abyss that might as well be bottomless. Cinematic stuff, I tell you.
Now, the ending. The ending made me realize my assumptions over what the story was were all wrong. As I watched that monstrosity lie on the grass, taking in the sunlight, free for the first time, part of me was disappointed with such an obtuse ending, while the other was just incredibly emotional and touched. I can't say I liked it, but the rest of the game grew on me enough for it to slide without marring my experience.
Am I glad I played this game? Absolutely. Would I it again? ...I'm not sure, my anxiety was off the charts the whole time I was playing it HAHAHAHAHA ESPECIALLY INSIDE THE WATER. The deaths were also pretty gruesome to look at (but also unavoidable a lot of the time, while I tried figuring out what I was supposed to do). Do I think you should play it? Yup, do it, I think you'll like it.
P.S.: I did not know how to add this to the main script, but this game gave me serious Animal Farm/1984 vibes. Also reminded me of Beholder.
I would also like to add my personal interpretation of what the game's title means (because I thought way too much about it not to mention). The game is named "Inside", and each area in it is named something that follows the pattern "The" + [Location]: The Forest, The Farm, The City, The Factory, The Mines, The Depths... If you join these two things together, you have a full sentence: Inside The Forest, Inside The Farm, etc.
Now, for certain areas, it makes sense to say you are Inside them: you are, indeed, Inside The Mines, Inside The Factory, Inside The Research Facility... But, for outdoors areas, why would you say you are Inside? Inside The City? Inside The Farm? Inside The Forest?
My interpretation is that this is a constant reminder that you are trapped. Even when you are outdoors, you are still Inside—you are trapped, you are not free, you are Inside. Captive. Only at the end of the game, basking in the Sun, are you Outside.
BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY– *I am forcibly removed from the stage*
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melefim · 10 months ago
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Swearing in Dead Boy Detectives: The Cat King
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Overview:
14 curses total, 6 different words said in 3 episodes.
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Episode 2:
Episode 4:
Episode 6: 1 Fuck, 1 Shit, 1 God
Episode 7: 4 Fuck, 1 Bitch, 3 God, 1 Pussy
Episode 8: 1 Fuck, 1 Dick
Curses Per Episode:
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Episode 2: 0
Episode 4: 0
Episode 6: 3
Episode 7: 9
Episode 8: 2
Uses Per Word:
The Cat King’s favorite curse word is Fuck, which he says 6 times! After that is God, which he says 4 times.
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Fuck: 6
God: 4
Shit: 1
Bitch: 1
Pussy: 1
Dick: 1
Unique Words:
The Cat King and Crystal are the only characters to say Pussy.
The Cat King, Crystal, and Twitchy Richie are the only characters to say Dick.
Percent of Total:
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The Cat King swears 14 times throughout the season, which is 4.3% of all cursing in the show.
Rankings:
Who Swears the Most: The Cat King is tied for 5th with Litty, with 14 curses each.
Curse Word Variety: He is tied for 4th with Esther for swearing variety, with each using 6 different words used throughout the show.
Individual Words: The Cat King is tied with Crystal for first for their unique word usages of Pussy, and with Crystal and Twitchy Richie for Dick, with just one use of each.
Lines:
Episode 6: Oh God, the handsome face, the little kiss, bullshit astrology.
Episode 6: Do you hear me? I will stop fucking playing nice!
Episode 7: Oh god, they say that I'm a pussy.
Episode 7: Why the fuck are you here?
Episode 7: Oh God.
Episode 7: God, I am such a romantic, I hate it.
Episode 7: I don't give a fuck, OK? End of audience.
Episode 7: That was my third life, you bitch. I only get nine. Would you fuck off? Fuck!
Episode 8: So was her wayward husband. A real swinging dick.
Episode 8: Fuck me. Did you even listen to my story?
Notes:
A ‘swinging dick’ is slang for a man who ‘who exhibits bravado or machismo’ or is ‘sexually very active’.
Updates:
Added in Twitchy Richie for unique usages of the word dick.
Updated Percent of Total Swearing chart.
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More Dead Boy Detectives Swearing Posts:
Masterlist
Swearing by Episode
Swearing by Character
Swearing by Word
All Swearing Posts
And if you like lists of things like I do, you can check out my other Dead Boy Detectives ones here!
When Charles’ Shirt Colors Change
George Rextrew’s Edwin comic inspo board
Full soundtrack with timestamps
Moves, Incidents, and Cases Masterlist
First pass at finding where the songs in the score are used- full post with timestamps in progress
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wsancho · 3 months ago
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I have thoughts 🥲
I agree about kwhazit’s translation, to me it’s the main reference to the main story.
Interesting take on Sabin’s last words. I also noticed a type of softening of anger in a different part of the story.
Specifically, Cyan’s original reaction to the poisoning of his family is less wordy, more enraged and potentially less sympathetic. Woolsey is not exactly sugar-coating, but he pulls on different emotional strings, maybe because he worried that the Japanese tropes wouldn’t be as relatable? Just a thing to note.
I like Sabin’s words in kwhazit’s translation. A minor thing like the end of the world couldn’t do him in, but this? I get that being overcome by this would piss him off. And then it would break his heart.
Sabin wonders about his big brother constantly, while Wolsey’s translation make his concern seem more general. But even if the translation waters it down, Sabin is committed as long as Edgar is, and his final words when leaving Kefka’s tower make it clear that everything Sabin did was to support Edgar. That’s why he’s got those stupid muscles 💪🏼😌 (this Woolseysm is out of character, but I like it ❤️)
I read somewhere that Soraya Saga conceptualized the Figaro twins to be one whole person split in two. I don’t know if she always planned to come up with two characters, but I think she prioritized Edgar (that’s why he’s big bro) and then gave Sabin the qualities that Edgar would not exhibit. Even the choice of name and the whole deal with Figaroan technology is very Edgar-oriented.
From ancestry.com:
The significance of Figaro remains strong in modern-day usage, often evoking the image of a clever and resourceful individual. Its association with the plays of Beaumarchais has left an enduring impact, cementing Figaro's place as a symbol of ingenuity and quick-wittedness.
Both twins are resourceful; as Andrew Bluett said, they pass around their one shared brain cell 😅 But if I were to summarize Sabin’s character I would not say “clever”. I’d describe him as “impulsive” and “earnest”. And I like to think that, in part, the reason behind him having no filter is that he expresses everything that Edgar represses. So a way to know what’s going on with Edgar is to look at Sabin.
There are some clues in astrology as well. I think Soraya Saga relied upon it more heavily than the other devs: the twins are Leo and some Leo qualities are very Edgar while others are very Sabin 🦁 I think the traits of one twin are also in the other, but more subdued.
From astrotheme.com:
The words "I love" encapsulate the character of Leo. Generosity, affection and attractiveness are the qualities which resonate naturally with him.
The musculature is elegant or very strong. Indeed, two types of personalities may be found in Leo, the Herculean type and the idealistic type. The latter is more moral and spiritual, and the former, practical and much more physical.
Of course, he is also fiercely jealous, but he is so dignified that he never shows it. In all circumstances, he behaves proudly, loftily, apparently indifferent to jolts, even though he may be distraught internally.
If you are Leo, your appetite is legendary, and your constitution does not predispose to obesity. You are able to swallow amazingly big quantities of food, probably in order to replenish the huge energy used up during your sports feats or your thundering fits of anger!
The Leo archetype can seem awfully self-centered, but if I pull a birth chart for these boys, there are important Virgo placements, which is an archetype of purity and of service to others. Makes total sense for both twins.
Edgar is shown to think of his brother quite often as well, but he might prevent himself from prioritizing his little brother. Sabin is his subject now, and if Edgar is a good king, then the entire kingdom will be fine, including Sabin.
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Edgar can’t keep his cool facade the whole time, but he sure tries.
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I'd be scolding the hell out of him after trying to unnecessarily fight an Ultros who was already getting away when the mission was to get Banon to Narshe, and Edgar stood right in front of him and told him "No", and he still jumped, risking his life and risking getting caught by the Empire 😤 ...But Edgar is just happy to see him again 🥺❤️
Sabin is not a Figaroan officer, he’s the dude who’s gonna bend you like a pretzel if you mess with Edgar; plain and simple. Sabin can afford to follow his heart, while Edgar follows rules and diplomacy.
When Sabin visits the item shop in Figaro castle, Woolsey puts some humor in there, while kwhazit’s translation is kinda ruthless, and says more about how serious Edgar is, and how much Sabin respects that.
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Another bit at Figaro castle shows Edgar missing Sabin once more, but he only allows himself the few moments they get during quests. After all, Edgar didn’t encourage him to leave, but to choose freely whatever path he wanted. Neither wanted separation, it just turned out to be the only right choice 💔
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The way I see it...
There’s a reason why, in the hypothetical scenario of Sabin’s untimely death, Edgar’s death follows soon after: Edgar cannot function without Sabin. He can try and suppress his feelings and prioritize the kingdom and do the noble thing and let him go, but this boy is extremely codependent, and he cannot overcome it because he remains guarded as if his life depended on it.
There’s a reason why, in canon, Sabin gets a character arc and Edgar doesn’t: Sabin’s personal growth is about realizing his value and purpose, which he defines as “being there for Edgar”. On the other hand, Edgar’s hypothetical arc would be about him letting his guard down, but the only thing that can disarm him is losing Sabin. For any growth to occur, he has to be broken, and breaking him is too close to destroying him. Edgar’s arc would be about “Sabin not being there”. Their planned character arcs are mutually exclusive and Edgar's is beyond depressing and extremely nuanced.
It’s hard to infer how Edgar’s final minutes would play out. I can see him being all about the kingdom in his last spoken words, but Sabin is "a process running in the background" of his mind. Edgar conceals his feelings, but he’s not in denial. I think he would worry about the kingdom, and then about Sabin's fate if he were to get pressured to take over as king, which is what Edgar tried so hard to protect him from.
Sabin's Last Thoughts
I'm sorry, I have to share my heartbreak. This is heartbreaking. Don't read further if your heart is at risk of breaking. Consult your doctor before attempting to suffer through heartbreak.
To preamble an unnecessarily excessive amount, a few years ago kwhazit did an AMAZING, step-by-step, detail-filled, context-providing, wonderfully thorough translation of FF6. Like, the entire game: dialog, attack/item/spell names, monster data… more information than you'd find even in an official strategy guide. Should they ever read this, I hope they know how much I appreciate all of the work they put into it, and it's quickly become one of my primary reference sources when looking up something about the game.
Since they included translations of everything, they also included translations of events that may not usually be seen in the game, such as when you fail at a critical event.
FOR A HEARTBREAKING EXAMPLE, it's possible for Sabin to die in the World of Ruin if Celes does not rescue the child from the collapsing house in Tzen quickly enough.
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The incredible @wsancho wrote an excellent post on this particular event and how the "failure" option was softened from the original concept (again, consult your doctor before reading their post about twin death).
In the final version of the game, failing to rescue the child in time results in a "fade to black" Game Over screen. Nothing is shown, only implied (thank god).
What I didn't know until recently, [no] thanks to kwhazit, was that Sabin has last lines before the house collapses on him.
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The two translations definitely have different emotional weight to them. To me, Woolsey's translation's conveys Sabin meeting his demise with confidence (dare I even say optimism?) that Edgar will continue fighting to rebuild the broken world.
Meanwhile, the original Japanese text (through kwhazit's translation) feels more layered to me, like he is pushing himself to the very last moment, is angry at himself for not being stronger, and is feeling regret that he won't be able to help Edgar anymore.
So, not only does Sabin die, but his final thoughts are always about Edgar. 😭💔
Outside of the game, I think this would be true for Sabin in any scenario, even if he lives to be 94 years old and dies peacefully in his sleep.
And although I love the idea that Edgar's final thoughts would be about Sabin, I'm actually not sure they would be. Again, as wsancho points out in one of her amazing braindump posts, Edgar tends to focus on the welfare of his kingdom above all else. Because of this, I think that his final thoughts could be about Figaro and its future. Perhaps it depends on how well he thinks the kingdom would do without him.
None of this matters, of course, because as far as I'm concerned, both brothers live forever and ever and never die or suffer and are always happy and thriving END OF STORY.
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maxwell-grant · 4 years ago
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I was gonna put the Spy Kids quote here but then I’d probably get an ask if they or Sharkboy & Lavagirl are pulp heroes. 
Okay, jokes aside I can’t put it into words just how much I appreciate the feedback and reception I get from you guys, never in a million years did I think I would ever get the notes I get or the amount of asks I receive. I can’t believe I’m nearing 200 followers as is, that’s insane to me. I am eternally grateful that this place lets me finally put out my essays somewhere people will read them and that you guys actually humor my ramblings, and frankly I don’t think I’m ever going to find an outlet like this elsewhere. Please don’t hesitate to send questions.
But I’m gonna have to start rapid firing a couple of those 50 questions so they don’t pile up more, and for these “Is X a Pulp Hero”, I’m gonna start off by pointing that I made a chart specifically to address this question, to try and at least give the cat I let out of the bag a structure to work with so it doesn’t destroy the furniture (not that it ever stopped my cat). Although again, the chart is just a basic attempt to put this on working order, sometimes it really is just a particular vibe that a character or property gives off. 
Anyhow, on a case by case basis:
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Santa Claus: Not a pulp hero, waaay older than those, but has appeared in pulp stories (I mean, it’s Santa). There have been pulp stories that featured Santa, there’s a murderous Santa Claus in the canadian pulp Guy Vercheres, the Jimmieboy short stories had him meet Santa, and The Shadow’s killed at least one criminal dressed like Santa as well as posed for a holiday picture with the real one in Edd Cartier’s final drawing before he passed away, which is as official as a crossover could possibly get.
Samurai Jack: Maybe. The most directly pulp thing Genndy Tartakosvky’s done yet is Primal, that is just 100% cartoon pulp, the Conan/Lost World stuff bleeds through the screen. Samurai Jack is kinda near that ballpark but that’s because Samurai Jack has a zillion influences and pop culture references, most of it seems taken straight from comics.  Pulp stuff is in there but that’s because pulps run in the blood of everything, and it doesn’t make everything pulp. The whole premise of Samurai Jack is designed for the contrast between an old-fashioned samurai coming to face and adapting to whatever wacky future nonsense and pop culture archetypes Aku’s throwing at him that week because that’s what they felt like doing for the episode. There’s gangsters and Lupin and Star Wars and historical fantasy and robot violence and...shit, it really is pulp, come to think of it. Still not gonna say a definitive Yes to Jack being a Pulp Hero but the vibe is definitely there and maybe that’s all that really counts.
The Belmonts: Maybe. There’s definitely Simon, because Simon is Conan. Julius Belmont also gives off a strong old-school adventurer vibe. The others are a lot more distant but they are definitely a lot closer to that ballpark than most videogame heroes, characters like Richter and Alucard wouldn’t look that out of place fighting monsters next to The Spider or Elric. Again, there’s not many actual connections to pulp properties or periods, but the whole point of Castlevania is that you get to cartwheel through graveyards and whip your way through exploding skeletons and Frankensteins so you can give Dracula a wedgie. So I’m gonna actually say a Yes to this one. 
Scrooge McDuck: Yes. He’s in the chart already, and really I probably could have placed him in the True Neutral section considering Scrooge was created in the 1900s-1950s time period and was pretty explicitly modeled after a pulp magazine kind of adventurer. 
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The Joestars: No. I don’t consider Joseph a Pulp Hero in the first place, it’s really more Battle Tendency having an Indiana Jones globetrotting vibe than Joseph himself, I put the characters in the Radical Pulp Anarchy section as extreme examples to show how far you can conceivably stretch the term based on superficial connections. But I don’t get neither much of a pulp vibe from any of the Jojo parts besides Part 2, and pulp material has never been within Araki’s influences, and I obsessively catalogued all of them in my Jojo phase. You could maybe make an argument for Jonathan since he’s the old-school adventurer of the bunch, and maybe Jotaro since he’s both the wandering warrior type as well as Clint Eastwood in a school uniform, but at this point you gotta separate what’s “genre” and what’s “pulp”, and they can intersect without being the same thing. 
Fast and the Furious: No. Pretty hard no, actually. I don’t think there’s even much of an argument there other than I guess they both have a reputation for being trashy low-class entertainment, but that kinda goes for way too many things to ever be placed under an umbrella term. The terms “high class” and “low class” don’t even really see much usage anymore in media discussion, they died and it’s a good thing we killed them.
Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Stratemeyer Syndicate was pretty specifically centered around hardback publications of juvenile adventure series, which means they could not be considered pulp characters in their time despite being from the 1930s, and in fact were pretty specifically defined as being the opposite of the pulp publishers of the period. Still, that distinction hardly matters much once people started talking about serial and radio and comic characters as pulp heroes, and currently a lot of what it takes for a character to be considered a pulp hero is just being from any kind of 1930s fiction. I wouldn’t include them in any listings but, you do you.
Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction: I mean, it’s kinda the big thing you get when you even look up the terms “pulp” or “pulp fiction”, by sheer osmosis it’s replaced the things those terms were created to define in pop culture popularity. It’s been forever since I watched it and I don’t particularly have any interest in watching any Tarantino movie, but I guess the fact that this is a movie with several different stories interconnected on crime drama and doomed love affairs and philosophical hogwash and bantering men of action is very much structured like a typical pulp magazine, which usually consisted on an anthology format that I suspect is what the movie may have been homaging. Either that, or it’s just named Pulp Fiction because it’s sleazy and gorey and shamelessly excessive and those are terms that are very much associated with the pulps, for better or worse. 
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snkpolls · 4 years ago
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SnK Episode 61 Poll Results (for Anime Only Watchers)
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The poll closed with 164 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!
Please note that these are the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Manga Readers’ poll, click here.
Anime only watchers, beware of spoilers if you venture over to the manga readers’ poll results.
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RATE THE EPISODE 142 Responses
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Episode 61 received even better reception than episode 60 did for anime only viewers, with all votes leaning 3-5 on the rating scale, none of our respondents seemed let down by the episode! 
AMAZING!! not action heavy this time, but the information i gained  was a big insight on what’s to come! lots of things are gonna go down and i’m s c a r e d. ready for next sunday 😈🔥
It was fire 
I really loved this episode, better than the last episode. Animation quality was on par with movie quality. MAPPA is giving us their best, ALL HAIL MAPPA.
1 word. Awesome
I love the pacing on this episode and the small details in it. 
Give me more!!!
bruh
WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE SCENE/MOMENT? 142 Responses
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Reiner monologuing about the 104th at the dinner table took front and center seat this week with 43% of viewers favoring this scene the most. Trailing behind, 16.9% enjoyed the scene where Reiner meets up with the Warrior Cadets, and 9.9% enjoyed seeing the human forms of the Cart and Jaw titans for the first time.
WE FORGOT TO ASK LAST WEEK D: WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING SCENES/MOMENTS FROM EPISODE 60 WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 142 Responses
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Last week, the highest percentage of people (at 30.3%) enjoyed Reiner’s, “I’m sick and tired… of walls.” 19% favored the scene of Zeke’s scream turning Eldians into titans. 17.6% were most hyped up over Reiner and Galliard wrecking Fort Slava.
MAPPA WENT ALL OUT WITH THE CINEMATOGRAPHY IN THIS EPISODE. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE CINEMATIC PANS AND ROTOSCOPE ANIMATION? 142 Responses
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Overall, 75.4% of the total vote went in favor of the animation this week, with 33.8% of viewers stating they felt as though they were watching a movie, 32.4% enjoying the fluidity, and 9.2% enjoying the upgrade from the stiffer animation in the previous season. 10.6% felt the rotoscoping and cinematic shots were a little too over the top for an anime, and 10.6% are indifferent. A small handful aren’t enjoying the cinematic animation at all. 
Hated the rotoscope, loved everything else.
It was a bit off-putting at first but I've grown to really like it
it was different but i liked it! it was cool. reminded me of some anime movies i’ve seen, though unique in it own sense
Thought it was great and fluid just at some points like the scene with udo on the docks felt a bit choppy.
Beautiful work, it honestly felt like I was watching a movie. From cinematography to shot framing to the animation. A dialogue heavy episode felt exciting, which is amazing.
I really liked the animation
The animation is so glowy
NOW THAT WE’VE GOTTEN TO HEAR A LITTLE MORE OF THE NEW OST TRACKS, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SOUNDTRACK SO FAR THIS SEASON? 142 Responses
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People are overall enjoying the new music so far, with 41.5% feeling it really compliments the change in atmosphere and 35.9% REALLY enjoying the songs and finding their usage very good. 9.9% feel they’re just ok while 7.7% miss the music being composed solely by Sawano. A smaller handful aren’t enjoying the new music.
They DEFINITELY bring the right vibes lol. again, different, but i like it!
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CLOSEUP OF ZEKE’S MOUTH? 141 Responses
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In our first of a series of unnecessary crack questions, 31.9% find Zeke’s mouth closeup to have been pretty cool animation. 24.8% are very concerned about Zeke’s treatment of his lungs (do shifters get lung damage?). 20.6% didn’t care about Zeke’s mouth at aoo, while 14.2% would welcome a smooch from him. A handful of people just think it’s gross, lol.
Fucking hate zeke smh 🙄
He smokin a spliffy 😂 not no ciggy 
what chapstick using??lmao.  it was a cool scene
WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ABOUT ELDIAN ASSES? 140 Responses
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Eldian asses didn’t turn out to be too controversial, with the majority (42.1%) just wanting to know the details of Zeke’s secret ass wiping technique. 10.7% just think Eldian asses are neat, and another 10% are more enthusiastic about some nice Eldian asses. 25.7% are confused about the question’s inclusion, and 11.4% don’t understand why this was asked at all.
DO YOU WANT REINER TO GIVE YOU A HEAD PAT? 140 Responses
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In a close race, 42.1% of respondents would be thrilled to get a nice head pat from Reiner! 41.4% apparently don’t, and just wanna know what the heck the pollsters are smoking while writing up these questions. 11.4% do NOT want Reiner head pats. :(
ZEKE SEEMS TO BE KEEPING HIS ROYAL LINEAGE A SECRET FROM MARLEY DESPITE HIS LOYALTY TO THEM. ANY IDEAS WHY YOU THINK HE IS? 139 Responses
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Zeke, the “wonderboy” (as General Calvi puts it) who sold out his own parents, has never been doubted by Marley in terms of his loyalty. Yet, for some reason he seems to be keeping his royal bloodline a secret from them. When we asked why that is, over half of respondents (56.1%) state that they are suspicious of Zeke and his real motives, believing that he is plotting something under Marley’s nose. 25.2% feel that he doesn’t want them to know he’s royal so that they can’t abuse his power, and 12.9% think he simply doesn’t let them know so that they won’t kill him. 
I forgot he was royal 
maybe they will force him to continue the bloodline through children, or maybe he will get used or killed
Well if they dont know hes got a hereditary advantage over both his predeccesors and succesors, he'll always be recognised as the best beast titan and heaps better than my boy Colt.
WE LEARNED IN THIS EPISODE THAT FALCO’S LAST NAME IS “GRICE.” DO YOU THINK THIS WILL HOLD ANY SIGNIFICANCE? 139 Responses
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32.4% of respondents don’t remember anyone named Grice. To recap, “Grice” is the name of the person who recruited Grisha Yeager into the Restorationist group, and is the one who was kicked off the wall for the restorationist titans to chase after once they were transformed by Marley. For those that did remember this seemingly random person, 52.2% feel that this relation will be brought up again and have importance to the story, and 12.9% feel it doesn’t really mean anything other than being a neat little detail. 
I feel like you asking this implies that there’s something to it
Not sure yet. But, Falco and Colt seem to be really caring and aware of how the Marlyeans treat Marly-Eldians (at least compared to the other warrior candidates). Also, when we saw their parents they seemed kind too, showing lots of concern for Colt. Maybe they learnt what the former restorationist/other Grice was doing and his cause of death and sent their kids to the warrior program for the same reason Grisha and Dina did Zeke? My bet is Colt & Falco are the restorationist Grice's nephews?
YOUR REACTION TO THE CART TITAN BEING A CUTE WOMAN? 140 Responses
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Pieck deserves a colorful pie chart, and she got one! 25.7% say she’s best girl, 22.9% think she’s utterly adorable. 13.6% of viewers already knew about Pieck before getting to this point and were unsurprised. At a tie, 11.4% of voters think that it’s amazing, or they were shocked to find out that the quadrupedal nightmare titan is really just a short, cute woman.
I worked it out last episode since the armbands appeared to indicate the 'type/status' of Eldians, but I was a bit surprised last episode I thought from the trailer the red bands may be special lineages i.e. Ackerman, Oriental clan, and Riess/Fritz. Still think she may be from the oriental clan though since the only characters we've seen with a similar appearance to her are Mikasa and her mother.  
she kinda shawty 👀 but she looks scary too
WE WERE FORMALLY INTRODUCED TO MORE CHARACTERS THIS WEEK, SO WE WILL ASK AGAIN… WHICH NEW CHARACTER IS YOUR FAVORITE SO FAR? 143 Responses
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Last week, Falco was the most favored of the new cast with only 40% of the vote. This week, he shoots up over 10 percentage points, with 50.3% of viewers feeling the most positively toward him. Pieck comes in second with 17.5% of the vote, and Gabi is hanging on with just 12.6% of the vote. Colt and Galliard are trailing just a little bit more behind them. 
Gabi best girl
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE FATE OF YMIR? 144 Responses
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While we did get teased about Ymir’s fate in Season 3, seeing the scene in full can definitely have more of an impact. 37.5% of respondents have accepted the notion of Ymir dying, and feel that it was a decent end for her character, all things considered. 22.9% are in complete and total anguish over her fate, and 20.1% are simply just disappointed and had hoped to see more of her. A very small percentage think that this is actually a red herring, and that Ymir is somehow still alive somewhere.
Already saw this in season 3
Appropriately grim and realistic given what lengths Marley will go to in order to protect themselves 
I am in so much pain please euthanize me that’s my wife
i didn’t really like her anyway so it’s fine(but it was still a bit sad) 
Kinda hate crimey considering shes the only OUT (@jean) charcter. Nah jk. Like wasnt shocked tho coz we saw Galliard last ep
Let's fucking GOOOOOO
Galliard will NEVER replace Ymir, I already hate his bitch ass
So Galliard really is a replacement scrappy eh? I already hate him JUST for that.
TURNS OUT THAT GALLIARD IS MARCEL’S BROTHER. DO YOU THINK THIS WILL BE SIGNIFICANT? 143 Responses
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Over half of respondents (52.4%) believe that Galliard’s relation to Marcel will have significance at some point. 32.9% think that it might, but don’t want to say either way. A small percentage feel it’s just a detail that won’t matter. 12.6% have completely forgotten who Marcel is (to refresh your memory, Ymir ate him before RBA attacked the walls).
DO YOU THINK THE MAN WEARING THE ARMBAND INCORRECTLY WILL BE IMPORTANT? 144 Responses
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At 73.6%, the majority of viewers are eyeing the random amputee soldier who Falco briefly helped out, believing that he will be important in some manner moving forward. 13.9% believe that it’s just a random soldier, and the scene maybe meant more in terms of showing Falco’s kindness. 12.5% aren’t sure what to make of the amputee soldier at all.
LAST WEEK, WHEN ASKED WHO WILL INHERIT THE ARMORED TITAN, THE MAJORITY PICKED FALCO. AFTER THIS EPISODE, WHO DO YOU THINK WILL INHERIT THE ARMORED TITAN NOW? 143 Responses
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Falco is still the most favored to inherit the Armored Titan from Reiner with the percentage of people believing he will jumping from 37.6% to 48.3%. 21.7% are still confident that Gabi will ultimately be the one who gets to eat Reiner. 28.7% believe that neither of them will inherit Reiner’s titan at all.
DO YOU THINK THAT REINER REALLY BELIEVES THE PARADISIANS ARE DEVILS? 143 Responses
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The overwhelming majority of respondents don’t believe that Reiner really means what he says when he calls the Paradisians “savage, heartless devils.” Only a small percentage feel he does really means what he says, and a handful of others aren’t sure.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT REINER WITH WHAT WE’VE SEEN IN THIS ARC SO FAR? 143 Responses
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The majority of viewers feel very positively about Reiner and are enjoying seeing more of him, with 46.2% stating that Reiner is really starting to grow on them, while 26.6% already liked Reiner from the start. 18.2% are beginning to feel more empathy for Reiner, although they still aren’t huge fans, and a smaller percentage don’t like him and haven’t been swayed by the narrative as of yet. 
Always seemed like there was lots to him, enjoying the furthered development into his psyche :) 
he’s so hot omg. i feel so terrible cause he’s clearly suffering from ptsd and his disorder too. he seems torn. i do like how he is playing a major role so far. 
I’m in love with Reiner and always have been
Meh
Reiner became 1000% hotter after his life fell apart
REINER AND GABI ARE REVEALED TO BE COUSINS. THOUGHTS? 142 Responses
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36.6% of respondents were genuinely shocked to learn that Gabi and Reiner are cousins. 21.8% feel more invested in Gabi’s character arc after knowing this information. 19% were already spoiled on this, and 15.5% don’t really care about it at all. 
Kinda thought she wanted to fuck her cousin lmao
Makes me horrified how casually they talk abt eating Reiner
They had the same last name so I figured they must have had some relation.
Yee haw
GABI QUESTIONS REINER AFTER HE TALKED ABOUT THE 104TH, ASKING IF PEOPLE ON PARADIS WERE ALL BAD. DO YOU THINK SHE CAN OVERCOME HER BRAINWASHING TO SEE THAT PARADISIANS AREN’T EVIL? 143 Responses
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The majority think that there is a possibility for Gabi to see things from a new perspective over time. 40.6% aren’t completely sold on it yet, but also believe that it’s within the realm of possibility. 32.9% are very confident that this is the direction her story arc is going to take, and 26.6% think that nothing will be able to undo years of brainwashing for her.
THE TYBURS ARE SAID TO BE AN AFFLUENT FAMILY THAT HOLDS THE WARHAMMER TITAN, BUT HAVE NEVER BEEN INVOLVED IN ANY CONFLICT. WHY WOULD THEY WANT TO GET INVOLVED NOW? 139 Responses
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While we still don’t know much about the Tybur family, we thought we’d check in and see what preconceived notions viewers may already have about them. 27.3% believe the Tybur family feel the same as Marley and see Paradis as a threat. 30.2% think that the only reason they’d want to get involved in the conflict is if they get something about it. 41.7% think that the Tyburs are super sus and ultimately will have their own agenda for attacking Paradis. 
They got the good life already, why battle?
WITH AN ATTACK ON PARADIS BEING IMMINENT, HOW DO YOU THINK REINER WILL REACT WHEN HE RETURNS TO THE ISLAND? 139 Responses
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We’ve seen Reiner struggle over the weight of his sins in previous seasons, with Ymir even pointing out that he has developed a type of “split personality” to cope with the horror he forced onto the people of Paradis. With the prospect of returning to the island, we asked how you think Reiner will handle the situation. With the highest percentage, 32.4% of respondents feel that Reiner’s mental state will make him completely ineffective if he returns to Paradis. 28.8% think he may even completely switch back to his “soldier persona” once he faces his former comrades again. 26.6% believe that he will keep himself together and stay focused on the mission handed to him. 9.4% think he will find a way to avoid going back altogether. 
Honestly, don't know.
I wouldnt say ineffective, probably just ina daze of sorts. Like hes not fully in the moment.
Idk if he is even gonna go
Not Sure
I hope my boi Reiner makes it through!
REINER FLASHBACKS NEXT WEEK! ARE YOU EXCITED TO FINALLY GET THE WARRIORS’ BACKSTORY? 142 Responses
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The vast majority are happy to be finally getting the Warriors’ backstory in the next episode, with 69% feeling overwhelmed with excitement about it, and 19.7% just happy to finally be getting to this point. A smaller percentage don’t really care about learning their backstory and a handful of people are actually dreading it. 
I loved the baby warrior flashback and can’t wait for next week.
ON A SCALE OF REINER TO ZEKE, HOW EAGER ARE YOU TO GET BACK TO PARADIS? 141 Responses
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While there is a handful of people who are enjoying the new perspective and getting to know these new characters in Marley, the majority of viewers are (unsurprisingly) eager to see what’s going on with the original cast after the 4 year time skip and the cliffhanger at the ocean in season 3. A message from manga readers: we know your pain, just hang in there!
This arc isn't really doing it for me. The story is only interesting when it focused on the 104th.
If their goal is to make me sympathize with the Warriors it ain't working, I frankly don't give a crap about their sob stories and want to see Eren and friends wreck shit for them
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?
Animation and graphics quality is amazing. The sea was CGI too which feels a bit too detailed compared to other things. The plot and vibe is amazing. I like the WW2 style of things. There are so many interactions coming just the thought makes me hyped up. I can easily rewatch it and notice new details and i enjoy it too. Feels really packed and intense.
Solid, loved the animation props to MAPPA, cant wait to see Reiner's character development.
Kinda just people walking around with HELLA ptsd.  Overall kinda vibey Very reminiscent of seas 3 part 1. I will say kinda tgf about these knew kids accept Colt, just wanna see the ogs and Jeans side part. I also HATE Reiner but.........dare I say.....he's growing in me???? Not gabi tho 
Great episode, the trailer's beginning to make a lot more sense now. I didn't expect that guy with the long blonde hair declaring Eren as the enemy (from the trailer) to be part of the Tybur family (maybe I'm wrong here but he looked identical to one of the Tybur family members in the photo Zeke showed.) I assumed he was maybe the Marley leader haha. I think he may be the warhammer titan but it's hard to tell at this point. Regarding the Tybur family, another curious thing is how they are celebrated internationally not just domestically for their help during the great titan war. I am curious whether Marley only treat the Tybur family well because if they didn't that would create issues globally? It seems like the Tybur's have lots of power. But, I wonder if the war hammer titan will be a letdown... I thought it would be the 'big boss' of the titans but after learning that titan doesn't go through training like the other titan shifters and never fought I feel like it's a 50/50 on whether the shifter will be strong or not... I also feel like the guy Falco spoke to was Eren, and this could hint at Eren noticing and possibly trying to indoctrinate Falco? and he was possibly watching Reiner talk to the kids? That was probably Pieck though. Curious how Pieck's father was shown but not mother, he also didn't look like he was from the oriental clan maybe we have another Mikasa on our hands (half Ackerman/Oriental clan) that would be cool, maybe a little bit fanservicey tho.
I like that the focus is on world building right now
I’m just so excited to see what’s coming next
It was friggin awesome but I’m curious on who fell off the roof 🤔
Who is the guy who jumped and died ? :(
WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 138 Responses
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Thank you again for participating! We’ll see you again next week!
7 notes · View notes
antiadvil · 5 years ago
Text
Friends With (Tax) Benefits
summary: After same-sex marriage is legalized in the UK, Phil suggests he and Dan get married to save money on their taxes. Dan initially rejects his proposal, but after some thought, he changes his mind. Except then he starts to… feel things. Things he really shouldn’t be feeling about his best friend and platonic husband. And all of the sudden, what was supposed to be a simple arrangement between friends has the potential to get much, much more complicated.
Surely Dan can keep his feelings repressed for a little bit longer.
rating: PG-13
wc: 7.4k
notes: for the @phandomreversebang​! art provided by @artlessdynamite​ and betaing provided by @dansstripedsweater​. they were both super helpful and great to work with!
also, warnings for unhealthy alcohol usage if you’re not into that.
read under the cut or on ao3!
“Let’s get married,” Phil said.
Dan snorted. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah, I heard you,” Dan said. “I just have a few questions first. Like, what the actual fuck.”
Phil shrugged. “I just mean, it makes sense. It’s legal now. We live together and will for the foreseeable future. We have a lot of joint assets. We’d save a lot on taxes.”
Dan stared. “You want to get married. For tax purposes.”
Phil shrugged, cheeks pinkening.
Dan shook his head in disbelief.
“No pressure,” Phil said. “It was just an idea.”
“It was a dumb idea,” Dan snorted.
It was a dumb idea. It was a really, really dumb idea. Dan couldn’t believe he was thinking about it for longer than three seconds. Dan definitely couldn’t believe he was still thinking about it that night while lying in bed.
It was such a dumb idea. Why would Phil even suggest it? Especially considering...
Dan closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought about it in years. He hadn’t had any reason to.
When Dan and Phil had first met, Dan had maybe liked Phil a little bit. And maybe he had mentioned something to Phil to that effect, and maybe Phil had gently shut him down, reminded him how much younger he was, how much less experience he had with relationships that were more than just awkward fumbling in dark rooms.
But that was years ago, and Dan was over it. He had been over it for years. It was so long ago it shouldn’t even factor into this decision. Why was he still thinking about it?
His bed did feel empty. He wondered what it would be like to have someone lying next to him, close enough to touch.
Dan shook himself. Even if he and Phil did get married, it wouldn’t have to change anything about their relationship. They would still sleep in separate beds. They would still be friends. Nothing less, and nothing more.
That thought sent a slight twinge through Dan’s heart. He resolutely ignored it, turning over to his side. He was done thinking about this. It was a bad idea, and dwelling on it wouldn’t do him any good.
***
Dan slept badly. His dreams were fragmented; the kind that vanished when you woke up and left you with a weird sense of fatigue for the rest of the day, as if you hadn’t slept at all.
He made himself coffee with his breakfast that morning, and Phil noticed. Of course Phil noticed. Phil knew Dan better than anyone in the world, maybe better even than Dan himself. Was it even possible for anyone to ever get to know Dan better than Phil already did?
“Coffee?” Phil asked, glancing at Dan’s mug. “Rough night?”
“You could say that,” Dan muttered.
Phil nodded, turning his head back to his phone, and a sudden need burned through Dan.
“Hey,” he said. “I was, um, thinking about what you said last night.”
“Oh,” Phil said, putting his phone down. He looked sheepish. “I’m sorry, you can just forget about that if-”
Dan interrupted. “What would we even tell our friends? Our families?”
Phil shrugged, carefully setting his cup of coffee down. “We could tell them the truth. If you think they could handle it.”
“What if they can’t?”
“Then we tell them something that isn’t the truth. We’ve been living together for four years, I’m sure some of them already think we’re dating.”
Dan’s face grew warm. He hesitated.
“Or we don’t have to tell them anything. It’s up to you. I don’t really care.”
Phil said it with such flippant ease that it felt like a stab to Dan’s gut. Of course he didn’t care. Why would he? It was just a business arrangement, really, just something to do for tax purposes.
“I’ll have to think about it,” Dan said.
Phil looked surprised. “Okay,” he said.
Dan thought about it again that night. He thought about how he always slept on one side of the bed, as if he was leaving the other half for another person he expected to come in in the middle of the night after a late shift at work. He thought about how the other half of his bed was going to be empty for the rest of the night.
He didn’t sleep well that night either.
***
Dan made a pro-con list the next morning. He didn’t label it at the top- that would have felt too real. He just divided it into two sides and wrote “Pro” on one side and “Con” on the other.
He tapped his pen against the paper. “Weird,” he scribbled on the Con side, quickly followed by “Can’t get real married later.”
As if that was looking likely. The last person Dan had dated was in high school, and it could not have been more of a disaster.
The Pro side was looking a bit lonely. “Taxes,” he scribbled, to humor Phil. He couldn’t help but smile a bit. Only Phil would say something like that.
Well, actually, there had to be more than that. There were all sorts of legal benefits to marriage, weren’t there? He crossed that out and added “legal benefits” instead.
The rest of the pros and cons came more quickly. In a lot of ways, they were basically married already. It would make it easier to come out in some ways. He could fend off unwanted suitors more easily. Because he got so many of those, he thought wryly.
Dan looked down at his paper. The pro side was almost full- mostly of small, stupid things, but Dan just kept thinking of small, stupid things to add.
Even if not all of the reasons for doing it were as good as the reasons for not doing it, just looking at the shape of his chart, it was clear what he wanted. He took a deep breath.
Maybe it was stupid, but it was what he wanted, for whatever godforsaken reason. What was the point in denying it? He had spent so long ignoring what he wanted. Didn’t he deserve something he wanted for once?
He crumpled the piece of paper to throw in the trash, but hesitated. He didn’t want Phil to find it. He smoothed it out, then put it at the very bottom of his dresser drawer.
There. Now it would never be seen again.
He left his room. He had to find Phil and tell him something.
Phil was in the living room this time, on his laptop, completely absorbed in a word document. Scripting, probably.
Dan hated to disturb Phil when he looked like this. He really was beautiful when he wasn’t paying attention to it- though Dan supposed it was the kind of beauty one learned to appreciate rather than the kind that was innate. The kind of beauty that only existed in people you loved.
“Hey Phil?” he asked, and Phil looked up, the illusion shattering. “I think I’m done thinking. About the thing.” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, but luckily, Phil seemed to know what he meant.
“And?”
“I want to do it.”
Phil raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
Dan nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Okay then.” Phil smiled. “Have you decided what to tell people?”
***
Dan came out to his parents on Skype, and told them he and Phil were getting married in the same conversation. It was easier that way. He didn’t have to buy a ticket home, or awkwardly stick around after he made his big revelation, acting like everything was normal.
His mother said she was proud of him and she loved him no matter what, and couldn’t wait to meet Phil again as her son-in-law. His dad didn’t say anything.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Phil asked when it was over. He had been sitting on the couch in the other room while Dan talked to his parents. Dan wasn’t sure how much he had overheard.
Dan shrugged. “My mom was fine. My dad…”
Phil’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry.” He stood up, wrapping Dan in a hug.
“It’s okay,” Dan said, trying to force his tears back. His voice still came out tight and watery. He buried his head deeper in Phil’s neck, and Phil held him tighter.
His brother was about as accepting as he expected any sixteen-year-old boy to be. When Dan called him to explain, he just kind of grunted and said he didn’t care.
Phil’s parents already knew he was gay, so all that was left was to explain was his relationship with Dan. They had decided not to explain to anyone that their marriage wasn’t really real, but Dan wasn’t sure exactly what Phil had said to his parents. Phil had asked Dan to leave the flat while he talked to them, and Dan had done so. He had a rather nice day wandering around London, and when he returned to the flat, Phil was stiff and composed, and told Dan that it went fine when he asked. Dan wasn’t sure whether or not he believed him, but he didn’t question it.
Explaining to their friends was tricky. Most of them already knew Dan and Phil were gay, and were confused about why they would hide a relationship from them for so long. Dan awkwardly fumbled explanations about the subscribers, and privacy, and the media, while Phil nodded, playing an excellent version of someone who was saying things that made sense.
They didn’t come out to their fans. Marriage was a matter of public record in the UK; they were just going to have to hope that no one actually cared enough to look.
The marriage ceremony was short and simple, nothing more than going down to the courthouse to sign some paperwork. Dan’s mum tried to get them to do some kind of ceremony, but Dan refused. That would have felt too much like a lie.
He couldn’t stop her from insisting on a visit, though, to congratulate the newlyweds.
Her train arrived on a cold, slightly rainy day- the usual in London. Still, Dan couldn’t help but take it as a sign justifying the dread growing in his stomach.
Phil had offered to come with Dan to meet his mum, but Dan had refused. He didn’t want to deal with the weirdness of pretending to be a couple that was pretending to not be a couple in public in front of his mum. It was way too many layers of weirdness to deal with. Dan would rather stick with just one.
“Mum!” he said, sweeping her into a hug. His worries lessened a bit as she hugged him back.
“Dan!” she said. “It’s been too long.”
Dan didn’t visit his family a lot. It probably had been too long. “I missed you,” he said, and it was mostly true.
She smiled, pulling back. “I missed you too.”
Dan knew she was coming alone, but he felt the absence of the rest of his family as an acute pain in his side. “Why didn’t Dad want to come?” he asked.
His mum pressed her lips into a thin line, and for a moment, Dan thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Oh, you know how busy he is,” she said lightly.
Dan nodded. “I’ll have to visit sometime,” he said.
He wouldn’t. They both knew it.
“But look at you!” His mum beamed, saving the mood. “My Daniel, all grown up. You’re married! Let me see the- Oh,” she said, looking at his hand, sounding disappointed. “No ring?”
Shit. If they were trying to pass this off as real, they probably should have gotten rings. “It didn’t make sense,” Dan explained. “Since we couldn’t wear them out anyway, with the fans and all.”
She nodded, still looking sad. “It’d be nice for you two to have something, though.”
“Maybe,” Dan said noncommittally, flagging down a taxi. He couldn’t help but think that it would be nice, but he hoped her badgering would die down once they got in the cab, or once they got back to the flat and he could talk to Phil.
Phil was so much better at lying than Dan was. He’d be able to handle this.
***
“Karen!” Phil said, sweeping her into a hug. He towered over her. Why were the two of them so tall?
“How’s my favorite son-in-law?” She hugged him back just as tightly as she had hugged Dan at the train station.
“He’s your only son-in-law,” Dan interrupted, “Unless Adrian also has some news he’d like to share?”
“Even if I had a million son-in-laws, Phil would still be my favorite,” Dan’s mum smiled.
“Aww,” Phil said.
Dan rolled his eyes. “Suck up,” he muttered.
“Where should I put my suitcase?” his mum asked.
“Oh,” Dan said. He hadn’t really thought about where she would sleep. “Um, there’s the gaming room? Or the sofa, but-”
“I thought I could just sleep in the guest room,” his mum interrupted.
Dan stared.
“Oh, come on, Dan,” his mum winked. “I know you two don’t really sleep in different rooms.”
Phil turned completely red. Dan suspected his face was a similar shade.
“Right,” Phil said, still blushing furiously. Hopefully, his mum would think it was because she had mentioned Dan and Phil’s supposed sex life and not because Phil was lying. “You can sleep in my room. Just give us a bit to set up, we completely forgot to.”
Dan wasn’t sure if it was possible to pass Phil’s incredibly messy room off as a guest room, but he supposed it’d be easier than handling the dirty laundry piled up in Dan’s closet.
Phil pulled Dan into his room after distracting Karen with the wall of pictures they had set up about six months ago, some time after her last visit.
“Change the sheets,” Phil said. “I’ll take care of-” he waved his hand at the mess. “All this.”
Dan couldn’t help but feel a bit sad as he stripped Phil’s sheets off his bed. They were so bright and colorful- Dan had always loved them. It felt wrong to put them away.
Phil managed to get most of his junk into boxes that he moved to Dan’s room while Dan’s mum was distracted. His room still looked a little bit lived in, but hopefully not excessively so.
“The room’s all ready, Mum!” Dan said.
“Finally,” she said. “You know, if my parents were visiting me-”
“Yes, mum,” Dan cut in, rolling his eyes. “You would never treat them with such disrespect. I’m a shame on the family. I deserve to be-”
“Oh, shush, Dan, you know I was only teasing.” His mum swatted his shoulder with the back of her hand.
Dan ducked away, cheeks burning. It was hard sometimes to remember that his mum was proud of him. “I know,” he said.
She hugged him. “Thank you for inviting me,” she said. “And I’m proud of you. I really am.”
“I know,” he said, and this time he even believed it a little bit.
***
“Are you ready for dinner?” Phil asked.
“I’m ready.” In an astonishing display of adulthood, Dan had called ahead to get a reservation. He had ironed a button-down shirt. He had found a suit jacket that sort of matched his pants. He had even scheduled a cab ahead of time so they wouldn’t be late.
It was exhausting. Dan didn’t know how other people did it. “You and Mum are already ready, I assume?”
“Yep,” Phil said. “The cab should be here in a few minutes.”
Dan was half expecting something to go terribly wrong, but to his surprise, they arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early, and when they entered the restaurant, a waitress ushered them straight to their table with no problems, handing them menus and setting down glasses of water and a basket of bread.
Dan turned immediately to the wine menu as Phil attacked the bread basket. He scanned the list- he didn’t really recognize anything, so he fixated in on the cheapest.
“Can we get a bottle of-” Dan started when the waitress finally came back.
Phil nudged Dan’s foot under the table. “I don’t think we need an entire bottle of wine.”
“I want an entire bottle of wine though,” Dan pouted.
His mum looked up, her brow wrinkling.
Dan bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ll just take a glass then.”
The waitress nodded, writing Dan’s order down. She took everyone else’s orders too- Dan was the only one who got any alcohol, which suddenly made him feel very self-conscious.
Luckily, it was nothing that a few refills of his wine glass couldn’t fix. Dan noticed Phil eyeing him after his second glass, but he ignored him. Dan was an adult, if he needed three glasses of wine to get through a dinner with his mum and his pretend husband, that was his business.
His mum had noticed too, Dan realized with a slight pang of guilt. He forced it down with another sip of wine.
“So,” Dan said, trying to distract her. “How’s Dad? And Adrian?”
She relaxed a bit. “Oh, they’re fine.” She filled him in on his dad’s work and Adrian’s school. Dan nodded along, doing his best to keep up. He noticed Phil doing the same out of the corner of his eye.
“But enough about me,” she said. “I feel like I’m behind on years of life updates. What have you two been up to?”
Dan looked at Phil, pleading wordlessly for him to take over.
Phil hesitated, his eyes falling on Dan’s fourth half drained glass of wine. “What do you want to know?” he finally asked, his eyes flicking back to Dan’s mum.
“Everything,” Dan’s mum said. “I don’t know anything about your relationship.”
A laugh spilled nervously from Phil’s mouth. “There’s a lot to tell.”
“Well then, not everything,” she said. “But- the basics. How you met. When you knew. How long.”
“We met the way Dan’s told you. Internet strangers, that whole thing.” Phil glanced at Dan, choosing his next words carefully. “And, well, we started out just friends.”
Dan nodded, and Phil seemed to take that as encouragement. “But, well, we started to get to know each other better, and we thought we’d be better in a relationship, so we decided to go for it. We were already living together, and that kind of intensified things, I think. We were pretty serious from the beginning, but of course, marriage wasn’t really a possibility until recently. And then all of the sudden it was, and, I mean, it just made sense. Why wouldn’t we, you know?”
Dan’s mum nodded.
“And, well, now we’re here.” Phil smiled at Dan. Dan returned the smile gratefully.
Dan’s mum looked like she was about to ask another question, but luckily, before she could, their food arrived. Dan took the opportunity to sink into his plate, grateful for an excuse not to talk. “This is delicious,” he said, changing the subject.
Phil relaxed. He squeezed Dan’s hand under the table in gratitude. “It’s so good,” he said.
“It really is,” Dan’s mum agreed. “You have excellent taste in restaurants, Dan.”
Dan inflated under the praise- he couldn’t help it.
Phil kicked him under the table. “Don’t get too full of yourself.”
Dan sat back in his chair, sulking, but he couldn’t for too long. His plate drew him back in- this food really was good.
Phil steered the conversation away from their personal life and towards a series of stories about his childhood, and Dan was able to breathe again.
Phil really was amazing. Dan was lucky to have him, whatever form having him might take.
***
Dan was definitely drunk when they got back. He wandered to the kitchen, downing a glass of water. He didn’t feel thirsty, but he forced himself to drink another. If he got hungover from drinking too much wine at a nice restaurant, he might never live it down.
He dragged himself through a nightly routine, getting into his pajamas, brushing his teeth, and returning to his room, where he froze.
Phil was there.
Of course Phil was there. Where else would he be? Dan’s mum was sleeping in his room. If Dan had spent more than thirty seconds thinking about it, he would have realized, but he hadn’t.
He wished Phil would say something, do something, acknowledge how fucking bizarre this situation was, but he didn’t. He looked so normal that Dan was almost convinced this was normal.
“I’m going to bed,” Dan mumbled, and Phil nodded.
Dan climbed into his bed clumsily, rolling over on his side to stare at Phil.
Phil. He should do something about Phil, but he wasn’t sure what.
Dan swallowed. Should he ask Phil to sleep on the floor? No, that was incredibly rude, if anything, he should offer. But he was already in his bed, and Phil was climbing into it with him, and the bed dipped, and if Dan let his hand fall out, it would be brushing against Phil’s arm.
Dan let his hand fall. He held his breath. Phil’s skin was warm and soft and not moving away. Emboldened, he rolled himself a little bit closer.
He didn’t know why he was acting like this. Dan and Phil had shared beds before. It wasn’t that big of a deal. But lately, everything felt different.
Phil rolled himself closer too. “I get really cuddly when I sleep,” he whispered. “I hope that’s okay.”
Dan swallowed. His mouth was dry. Maybe he should go get more water. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Good,” Phil said, wrapping his arm around Dan and pulling him closer.
Dan stiffened slightly, surprised.
Phil frowned, lifting his head. “Are you okay?”
Dan forced himself to relax. “Yeah, sorry. You just startled me.”
Phil put his head down, snuggling closer. “Oh. Sorry.”
“You’re good,” Dan murmured. He closed his eyes, and let the weight of Phil’s warm body gently lull him to sleep.
***
Dan woke up to an empty bed the next morning, with no headache, thank god. He peeked at the clock, then immediately rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. He succeeded in working himself back into a light slumber, but just as he began to get comfortable, someone yanked his blanket off of him.
“Hey,” he mumbled, rolling over onto his back.
“Wake up,” Phil said, still holding Dan’s blanket in one hand. “You’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours.”
Dan rolled back onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. It smelled like Phil, and Dan realized with a start that this was not, in fact, his pillow. It was Phil’s. He stayed there anyway. “I’m tired.”
“Dan. Sleeping for twelve hours isn’t normal.”
“You should try it sometime,” Dan mumbled into the pillow.
“No thanks,” Phil said. “Now get up. I’ve been entertaining your mother for the past three hours and I’m going to go insane.”
Dan sighed, rolling and stumbling out of bed. “Oi. Watch what you say about my mum.”
“What’ll you do about it? Sleep more?”
“Maybe,” Dan grumbled, rifling through his dresser for clothes. He found a black T-shirt that seemed clean and tossed the shirt he had worn to bed to the side before putting it on.
He noticed Phil staring. “Whatcha looking at, mate?” he asked.
“Hurry up,” Phil said.
“I am hurrying,” Dan said, pulling a pair of jeans on.
“Hurry faster,” Phil said, closing the door behind him.
Dan would have liked some time to straighten his hair, but it didn’t look like that was happening today. He had straightened it yesterday; that would have to do. He stumbled out of his room and down the hall, squinting against the sudden light.
“Dan! You’re up!” His mum was way too cheery.
Dan managed a smile. “I’m up.”
“Took you long enough. How late were you up last night?”
Dan didn’t want to tell her that he had actually gone to bed early last night, he was just a mess. “I dunno,” he said instead. “Pretty late, probably.”
She rolled her eyes fondly. “When will you start sleeping at normal times, Dan?”
Dan shrugged, grabbing a box of cereal from the kitchen cabinets. It was still full- Dan supposed there were upsides to sharing a bed with Phil. He couldn’t sneak out at night to eat his cereal anymore. “I guess I’m still a teenager at heart.”
***
When Dan’s mum left, Phil didn’t move back into his own room. They never really discussed it- the first night after, Phil just came into Dan’s room at the normal time, and they fell asleep comfortably tangled together, just like normal.
When did their current arrangement become anything remotely resembling normal?
You could adjust to pretty much anything, Dan figured. Besides, it wasn’t like it was… bad. It was actually kind of nice. Just weird.
It was almost like they were a couple. It made sense, in a way. When people visited, it’d look suspicious if they slept in separate rooms, and if they were trying to pass off Phil’s room as a guest room, it’d be easier if Phil just didn’t sleep in it.
The easiest way to convince people of this lie was to live it, as much as possible.
Phil’s parents were the next to visit. Phil’s relationship with his parents had always been better than Dan’s, which made this trickier in some ways. Dan hated to admit it, but his mother barely knew him anymore. It made her easier to lie to.
Phil’s parents, though- they doted on him. They loved Phil with a ferocity that had always made Dan just a little bit jealous. And this meant they could see through him with a clarity that did not make Dan jealous at all.
They had Phil’s room prepared as a guest room ahead of time this time, at least. That saved them some awkwardness at the beginning of the visit.
They got a few minutes alone together while Phil’s parents unpacked.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Dan asked.
“Yes,” Phil said. “Don’t worry, Dan, they love you. This’ll be fine.” He grabbed Dan’s hand, lacing their fingers together.
It didn’t make Dan feel any better.
After a dinner Kath insisted on cooking for them, they discussed what to do for the rest of the evening.
“Cards?” Nigel offered.
Phil snorted. “Dan doesn’t know any card games but go fish.”
“Hey!” Dan elbowed Phil. “I know lots of card games.”
“Like?” Phil asked.
“Um,” Dan said. Phil’s eyes were twinkling. It was distracting. “Go fish. War. Poker-”
“You don’t know how to play poker,” Phil said delightedly.
“Shut up!” Dan said. “You don’t know how to play poker either-”
“I never claimed to.”
“We can teach you!” Kath beamed excitedly.
“Mum, that’s not the point-”
“It’ll be fun,” she insisted.
Phil gave in. “Okay, we can play poker.”
Poker wasn’t as hard as Dan had expected, though Kath was still easily winning almost every round. At least, it wasn’t hard until Phil’s parents started asking questions.
“Are you two going to Amanda’s wedding?” Nigel asked.
Phil’s eyes darted to Dan. “Maybe. I hadn’t decided yet.”
“You didn’t tell me Amanda was getting married,” Dan said, surprised. Amanda was Phil’s cousin- they had only met a few times, and briefly. Dan wouldn’t have expected to be invited to her wedding, though of course Phil probably would be, and since he and Phil were supposedly married now...
“She and her girlfriend have been engaged for a while,” Phil said. “As soon as it was legal, they started planning.”
Dan nodded.
“You should come, Phil. She’d like to see you,” Kath said, placing her cards down on the table.
“Gay solidarity,” Dan joked, bumping Phil’s shoulder.
He smiled stiffly, putting his own cards down. “We’ll see.”
“It would be so nice to be able to introduce Dan to the rest of the family,” Kath persisted.
“We’ll think about it,” Phil repeated.
Kath switched tactics. “Dan, won’t you two come? It’d be so nice to see you again, and it’s in London, you wouldn’t even have to-”
Phil interrupted. “I said, we’ll think about it.”
Kath sounded disapproving now. “Phil-”
Phil interrupted. “Mum! For the last time, we’ll think about it!”
“All right!” Kath raised her hands in defense. “I’m just saying-”
Phil stood up. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Phil-” Nigel said.
“I said I don’t want to talk about this.” Phil pushed his chair in and walked out.
Nigel put his cards down, and Dan did too. “You should follow him,” Kath said quietly to Dan.
Dan shook his head. “I think he’d rather be alone.” Dan didn’t really want to get involved in whatever Phil’s issue was with Amanda and her wedding. He cleared his throat. “Shall we play another round?”
Kath and Nigel shared a glance. “Sure,” Kath said finally, collecting everyone’s cards so she could shuffle them back into the deck. Dan handed his to her gratefully, hoping Phil was alright. He idly wondered what exactly had made Phil so upset.
Phil would probably talk to him about it later if it was important, and later, he didn’t, so it must not be important.
The night after Phil’s parents left, Dan half expected Phil to return to his own room, but he didn’t. He kept coming back to Dan’s, and Dan was grateful. The only time he could sleep well was with Phil curled up beside him, solid and warm.
And he had been sleeping a lot. Despite Phil’s constant bickering about how eight hours should be enough for any healthy human, it was rare for Dan to sleep less than ten, and most days he slept for at least twelve. He had gotten used to crawling into an empty bed and waking up an hour or so later to Phil crawling in after him. Phil would lie next to him, they would cuddle, and Dan would wake up again in the morning (well, afternoon) to an empty bed. And then he would get up, and then he would find Phil, and they would talk about something completely unimportant, and Dan would pretend to do work until he could go back to bed, the cycle complete.
Some days they had important conversations, arguments, really. Dan hated those days, but he had to admit a break from the monotony was nice sometimes. Maybe that was why he brought up Amanda’s wedding again.
“We shouldn’t go,” Phil said, for the millionth time. “I don’t want to have to keep up this performance all night.”
Dan shrugged. “It’s not much of a performance. We just need to go together and-”
“And what?” Phil said. “And act like a couple?”
“I think you’re overestimating how bad it’ll be,” Dan said. “No one is looking for reasons to not believe us.”
“Maybe not. But they’re looking.”
“Phil. You’re blowing this out of proportion. What do you think they’ll see?”
Phil shrugged. “Look, it’s just safer this way.”
“Are you planning to hide me from the rest of your family for the rest of our lives?”
Phil didn’t answer.
Dan didn’t know how it was possible to sleep as much as him and still be so unbelievably tired all the time. “If we’re always avoiding people, it’ll just cause even more questions. When does it end?”
“I don’t know,” Phil admitted. He looked so small in that moment; the one inch of height Dan had on him felt like a massive gulf.
Dan sighed. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’d like to go.”
Phil didn’t answer.
“Think about it?” Dan pleaded.
Phil nodded, short and stiff.
“Thank you,” Dan said.
***
Amanda and her wife were sickeningly sweet together. They couldn’t stop grinning at each other like lovesick fools, and all Dan wanted was to wipe that smile off their faces.
He couldn’t, so he just kept ordering more drinks from the open bar.
“Whoa, Dan. Slow it down.” Phil gently eased the glass of champagne out of Dan’s hand. “I think you’ve had enough already.”
Dan made a grab for it back. “No I haven’t.”
“Dan!” Phil held the glass back. It sloshed over the table. “You’re making a scene.”
“You’re making a scene,” Dan argued back.
“Dan, seriously.” Phil’s voice was a lot sharper than usual. If Dan had been sober, he probably would have backed down now, but he wasn’t.
“Give it.” Dan made another grab.
Phil set down the glass of champagne. “Dan.”
“What?” Dan whined.
“We need to go,” Phil said, standing up.
“But-” Dan protested.
“We’re leaving,” Phil said firmly. His hand on Dan’s wrist was even firmer as he pulled him up and towed him away.
Dan finally quieted down. He let Phil pull him away from the reception and towards the street.
“Aren’t we going to say bye to-”
“No,” Phil snapped.
“But- Isn’t it rude to-”
“Oh?” Phil turned to face him. “You want to talk about being rude?”
Dan stayed quiet until they climbed into their cab. “Phil-” he said.
“Not now, Dan,” Phil snapped.
Dan quieted down, spending the rest of the cab ride sulking and staring out the window.
Phil remained in stony silence when their cab arrived at their flat, and as they climbed their stairs. It was only once they were in their room that he finally spoke.
“What the fuck were you thinking tonight?” Phil shouted.
“I-” Dan interrupted.
“Be quiet,” Phil said. “For once in your life, be quiet for ten fucking minutes and let me talk.”
Dan rolled his eyes, but he shut up. Exactly how angry Phil was with him was finally starting to sink into his alcohol-sodden brain.
“We were at a wedding, Dan. A wedding for my cousin. I know you have your issues, but for fuck’s sake, Dan, you can’t act like this.”
Dan pouted. “But-”
Phil wheeled around with startling ferocity. “No. I don’t want to hear it.”
Dan cringed back.
“I’m not interested in your excuses right now. I’m sure you have a reason. I’m sure you have lots of reasons! Take care of them. You can’t act like this.”
Dan stared at the floor sullenly. “I just-” his voice broke.
Phil sat down on Dan’s bed. Their bed. When did it become their bed? “You just what?” he asked. He didn’t sound mad anymore. He just sounded tired.
How could Dan even explain it? What even was “it”?
He was miserable. He could barely wake up in the mornings. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong ever since he had married Phil.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Dan said, swaying and flopping down next to Phil.
“Do… what?”
“Any of this.” Suddenly, through his drunken haze, he knew what he had to do. “Phil, I’m sorry, I know we didn’t even make it to April-”
“What’s in April?” Phil asked, confused.
Dan groaned. “Taxes, Phil.”
That didn’t seem to clear things up. “Dan, why are you talking about taxes?” Phil was smiling a bit, at least, even if it was a very confused smile.
“Because half the reason I even agreed to this was for the fucking taxes!” Dan shouted, but he dissolved into giggles by the end of his sentence. “It’s not funny,” he muttered, swiping at his eyes, still laughing.
“Agreed to what?” Phil asked, brow furrowed in confusion.
“This,” Dan exclaimed, throwing his arm wide.
Phil frowned, looking where Dan seemed to be pointing.
Dan shook his head. “No, Phil,” he said, clumsily grabbing onto Phil’s hand. “This.”
Phil’s hand fit in his so perfectly. Dan never wanted to let go.
What was left of Phil’s smile slipped away. “Oh,” he said. “Us.”
“Yes.” Dan seized Phil’s other hand. “Us.”
Phil pulled his hands away. “Dan, I don’t know if we should-”
Dan might regret these words in the morning, but if he didn’t say them now, he probably never would. “I love you, Phil,” Dan said, reaching for him desperately. “Phil, please don’t go-” He reached too far and fell over.
“I think you need to go to bed,” Phil said carefully, patting Dan’s shoulder.
“No I don’t,” Dan muttered into his pillow. “I’m not tired.”
“You’re always tired.” Phil’s voice was flat. He was the one who sounded tired, Dan thought irritably.
Still, Dan couldn’t argue with that. “I’m not that tired.”
“You’re drunk. Go to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Phil’s face was stony and impassive, but that couldn’t stop the bloom of relief spreading through his body.
Dan sat up. “I already feel good, Phil. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything for so long-”
Phil winced. “We can talk in the morning.”
Dan’s heart deflated as Phil walked to the door.
“Come back,” Dan said sadly. “Wanna be with you.”
Phil turned around, hesitating in the doorway. “Dan, you’re drunk.”
“I’m not that drunk,” he said. “You’re drunk too,” he added as an afterthought, though he had no idea how much Phil had drunk at the wedding.
Phil shook his head. “Go to sleep, Dan.”
“But I want-”
“We can talk tomorrow. Okay, Dan?” Phil closed the door before Dan could reply, leaving Dan alone in the dark.
***
Dan woke up with a killer headache. He cracked his eyes open to check the time.
How the fuck had he managed to wake up at seven in the morning? Especially after last night? He opened his eyes a little bit further, and the light stabbed through his corneas to the back of his brain.
That was probably how. Got to love waking up in pain.
Someone (probably Phil, Dan would have guessed if he was in any sort of state to be making guesses) had left a glass of water and a few aspirins on his bedside table. He swallowed them quickly, draining the glass of water before curling up on his bed and waiting for his headache to subside.
It did, a bit. He wasn’t completely pain-free, but eventually, he was pain-free enough that he could think again.
He tried to remember last night. Phil was mad at him, he was pretty sure- he had gotten way too drunk at the wedding. Phil had yelled at him, and then they had talked and then Dan had-
Oh god. What had he done?
Told Phil he loved him, apparently, if his memory served him correctly.
Oh god. Their friendship was probably over. Their marriage definitely was. Why did Dan have to tell him in the worst possible way? Curse his stupid brain and the fact that he couldn’t talk about his feelings without a blood alcohol concentration of at least 0.1%.
Dan pulled the sheets back over his head, hoping the darkness would make it possible to fall back asleep and forget his problems, but his headache wouldn’t let him.
Well, there was nothing left to do then but face his problems. Dan pulled the sheets off of his head and sat up.
He hadn’t noticed at first, too preoccupied with his headache, but next to the glass of water on his bedside table, there was a box, with a piece of paper next to it. He grabbed it.
“Love you, spork,” the note read, in Phil’s scribbled, messy handwriting. Confused, he grabbed for the box. It was a small black jewelry box, and Dan stared at it. Still confused, he opened it.
A thin metal circlet, with a black diamond in the center. A ring. Dan didn’t know why he was surprised. What else would fit in a jewelry box that size?
He slipped it onto his left ring finger. It fit perfectly.
There was a soft knock at his door. “Dan?” Phil asked. “Can I come in?”
There was no point putting this off, was there? “Yeah,” Dan said.
Phil cracked the door open, peeking in. “I thought I heard you up.” He took a step forward, closing the door behind him. “You saw the ring?”
Dan nodded, mute.
Phil blushed, looking away. “I guess you’ve figured out what that’s about. I, um. I know we’re already kind of married, but I thought it might be nice to do it again. The right way.” He walked over to Dan, sitting next to him on the bed. He carefully removed the ring from Dan’s finger, putting it back in the box.
Dan rolled his eyes. “Phil, I’ve already seen it. You don’t need to-”
“Shh,” Phil said. He opened the box again, tilting it so Dan could see in. “Daniel James Howell, will you marry me?”
“Phil, we’re already-”
“For real this time,” Phil said. “I wasn’t brave enough to ask you properly the last time, and I’m sorry.”
Dan looked at the ring, hesitating. “I don’t- I’m confused, Phil.”
Phil lowered the box, looking down. “That’s... understandable.”
“I have questions.”
“I can answer them,” Phil promised.
“Did you really want to get married for the taxes?” Dan’s voice sounded small.
“No,” Phil admitted. “I didn’t expect you to go along with it, honestly. I thought… I don’t know, I thought I could make this into a real relationship without having to talk about it.” He paused, looking up, meeting Dan’s gaze. “Why did you go along with it?”
“I don’t know,” Dan said slowly. “It just… felt right. I didn’t think too much about it.” He maybe should have thought a little more, but it was too late for that now. “When did you get the ring?”
“I’ve had it for a few weeks now.”
“Why?”
Phil looked back down. “I was going to tell you eventually. Really.” When Dan didn’t answer, he continued. “I’m not good at this. I’m sorry.”
Dan smiled weakly. “I’m not very good at this either.”
“My parents thought it was a bad idea.”
Dan was surprised. “Did they know?”
Phil cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I didn’t exactly tell them, but I think they might have suspected. I’ve… liked you for a while.”
Dan frowned. “But-”
“What?”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Dan said, brow still furrowed. He buried his head in his hands. “When we first met. I asked you out. You said you weren’t interested.” It felt weird to talk about now. Neither of them had mentioned it in almost five years.
“I thought- I don’t know.” Phil sighed. “I liked you, but I just couldn’t see a way it could work.”
“So you lied,” Dan said.
“I didn’t-” Phil started, but his protest died down under Dan’s cold stare. “I guess it could be seen that way,” he admitted, “But I don’t think I said anything that wasn’t technically true.”
Dan shrugged. “Still,” he muttered. A five-year-old rejection shouldn’t still sting, he knew, but it did.
“I’m sorry,” Phil said. “But- I think it could work now. If you’ll give me another chance.” Phil lifted the box back up. “Please?” he whispered.
Dan took the ring out of the box and slipped it on his ring finger.
Phil let the box drop to his side. “Dan, I’m the one who’s supposed to-”
“Shut up,” Dan said. “Yes, Phillip Michael Lester. I will marry you.” He leaned across towards Phil, and kissed him.
***
“Are you nervous?” his mum asked.
“No,” he lied. “Why would I be nervous?”
“It’s a big day.” She smiled and straightened his black tie, but Dan could tell from the way her fingers were shaking that she was just as nervous as he was, if not more so.
“I’m not nervous,” he insisted.
“All right,” his mum said, still smiling. She hugged him. “Are you ready?”
Dan nodded, straightening up. “Yes.” He wasn’t lying this time. He was ready for this; he had been for years.
Music started playing. That was his cue to start walking down the aisle.
“Hurry up!” his mum said, pushing him forward.
“Mum!” Dan said. “Calm down.” He took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders before moving forward. He opened the doors, and saw Phil waiting at the other end of the aisle.
Phil looked amazing, as always, in a pure white suit and tie. His dark hair stood out against his pale skin and white suit, and Dan swore he could see the blue of his eyes from where he was standing.
Phil’s face lit up as he made eye contact with Dan. Dan started walking down the aisle towards his husband, every step bringing him closer to the man he loved and the future he dreamed of.
19 notes · View notes
jxst-saying · 6 years ago
Note
Omg please make a part two of the social media manager imagine!! It’s so good
A/N: Part two has finally arrived! (I wrote this in a four–part mini–series.) You can request part three here like usual! 
[+masterlist]
Part One can be found here! And so can be Part Three! Don’t forget Part Four! 
Empty. A city of nearly four million people felt empty. How that was, you weren’t all that sure. But it didn’t feel like your other city, the one that didn’t sleep and had no mercy for those who did. Sure, the sun was warmer and brighter and the people were obnoxiously friendlier. You wouldn’t bother denying any of that. It was a nice thought to have the ocean as close as it was; it was even nicer to sit on the shoreline and watch the waves come in and out and feel the sand in–between your toes. But staring out at the massive expanse of blue and white, you didn’t feel anything but some kind of emptiness.
This wasn’t your home. It wasn’t anything of the sort. You were in the Golden State, but it felt more like Siberia to you.
Your promised promotion wasn’t half bad. After a month and a half, you had finally fallen into a routine of sorts. Six o’clock in the morning was your short run around the neighborhood block. (You had finally found an apartment, and your furniture was said to be on the way.) Seven o’clock in the morning and you were drinking your black coffee (you could leave the Big Apple, but that didn’t mean the Big Apple could leave you). Eight o’clock and you were stuck in traffic on the 405 (whatever that was) headed to the office. Nine o’clock in the morning and you were sitting at your desk with the pretty little gold–embossed title tag that read, “Public Relations Specialist, Y/N.” You still weren’t too sure what that meant, but maybe it didn’t really matter in the end. Maybe it wasn’t really supposed to mean anything. Ten o’clock in the morning through one o’clock in the afternoon would find you filling out paperwork with a view of the Los Angeles skyline behind you. The windows were floor–to–ceiling and let in all the light that the city could find. Your office was perpetually golden. If you didn’t feel locked in this city, the always golden hue might make you happy. But right now, it didn’t make you feel anything because you did feel locked in this city with its 502.7 square miles. One o’clock was lunch. Always. Your assistant (you had an assistant) tended to remind you of that. After lunch and you were back to work until five o’clock in the evening. Most days, you were let loose at 5:00; only on a handful had you stayed past golden hour. To be honest, you didn’t particularly care either way. If you were out of the office by 5:00, you were hitting the worst of the worst traffic no matter what. If you got out later, around 8:00 or 9:00, you were still hitting traffic on the 405 or the 1 (or anywhere, really) but it wasn’t necessarily as bad.
The boys had a week or so left in their Europe trip. It was entirely promotional. None of them knew anything about your own promotion (read: banishment; exile; prison sentence) as of yet. But it was only a matter of time before the executives told them of your speedy departure. This was the longest you had gone without seeing any of them. If you didn’t constantly see photos of them or news of them crossing your desk day–in and day–out, you might have just forgotten what those oceanic eyes looked like or the (now) blindingly red hair or the tattoos that were littered across their skin. Maybe that would have been better. Besides moving to the other side of the country, it felt like you had lost four of your closest friends. Now, you didn’t even know what the five of you were. Past colleagues? Old friends? Best friends? Acquaintances? Nothing? Something More?
The single had released the other week. Turns out the executives’ plan was well–formulated and entirely correct. Without you in the picture, the music was the only thing to focus on. Billboard’s Top 100 Chart seemed to agree, as well. You even received a fruit basket from the executives thanking you for all your “hard work.” You may or may not have immediately thrown it in the trash.
You had never really missed anything or anyone before. Not really, anyways. So, you had no idea what it felt like––all that aching and longing and heartache. But if this is what it felt like … this complete and utter numbness and not–all–thereness and void that you felt that nothing could ever really fill … you never wanted to feel this again. More importantly, you couldn’t feel this again. To go through all of this time after time after time? That wasn’t negotiable. And you missed it all. You missed the hot–dog vendors and coffee carts on the street that knew you by name in your neighborhood; you missed seeing the light of sunset glinting off the Empire State building; you missed the way your apartment always smelled like patchouli no matter how many air fresheners you used; you missed coming home late at night to find your door already unlocked and a gangly boy (man?) with oceanic eyes sitting on the couch in your living room. How was there any space in that heart of yours for all of this missing?
And sitting in your office just now with the Los Angeles skyline behind you and the desert fanning out even beyond that, you had never felt more missing or more alone.
+
On the other side of the globe, the situation wasn’t that much different. (At least, not with a certain band front–man named Luke.) They were in Rome for the weekend––La Città dell’Amore. But to Luke, it was just another city. Another place without you in it. A little over a month and a half without seeing any sort of vision of you and it felt like some kind of earthly hell. The melody of your (slightly obnoxious) laugher was better than any tarantella; your eyes were brighter than the Roman sun; and your crooked smile was warmer than the Mediterranean Sea. However, these were all things he had to keep to himself; in some way, they were things he had always been keeping to himself.
The Roman sun was just beginning to set. A bead of sweat was falling down the nape of his neck in between his scapula. Luke didn’t even notice as he walked past La Fontana di Trevi. He wasn’t noticing anymore. Everything was a kind of blur, like when you’re driving on the highway and the lights are speeding away too quickly and bleeding together into one continuous stream of light.
Unlike you, Luke was more focused than anything on the rumors about the two of you. (Well, now, the blatant lack thereof.) He remembered all the photos, all the memories, all the times spent with you. Each and every one. And maybe that was his own personal curse, some kind of karmic retribution for an err in a past life. But standing there in that historical and ancient and miraculous city and all he could think about was you. But it wasn’t anything romantic. No. Of course not. You were just his best friend. Hell, you were their social media manager! He was just used to having you around; that was all. Really.
So, yeah. He noticed when the rumors careened to a complete stop like they had never existed. Seemingly overnight, any and all mention of you anywhere vanished without a trace. Zilch. Nada. Only a couple fans noticed your disappearance from the crew of the four boys. (Luke, included.) What was even odder than your farewell at JFK was your near radio silence since. No personal social media usage, no phone calls or texts, not even a postcard with that ever–so cliché wish you were here.
It took Luke another forty–three minutes to traipse his way back to their hotel off La Piazza Barberini but only another minute after that for the other three boys to open their mouths in rapid–fire questions.
“Did you know that Y/N moved to Los Angeles?” Calum.
“Speaking of Y/N, why isn’t she here? She’s our social media manager. Isn’t this literally her job?” Michael.
“I called her apartment and office in NYC and she wasn’t at either. The person who answered her phone at the office didn’t even know who I was calling for. Luke, where is she?” Ashton.
Luke collapsed onto the bed. NYC was their city; how could she just up and leave and head to a city that was the complete opposite? He knew the streets of her neighborhood and that apartment better than even his own. She couldn’t just leave like that––not without a goodbye to him, to that apartment, to that city, to their memories. “I didn’t know anything.”
“Is she even our social media manager anymore? You said she wasn’t at her office or apartment. And she moved,” Michael asked Ashton.
Luke shrugged his shoulders.
“Come on,” Calum egged. “Everyone thought the two of you were dating. Hell, even we did sometimes! Did you really not know any of this?”  
Yes, he really didn’t know any of this. He really didn’t know that the last night he spent in that apartment would be his last. Forever. He really didn’t know that the last time they couldn’t sleep at four in the morning and went to Central Park for a breakfast picnic was The Last Time. He really didn’t know that everything with you in that city of yours (of the two of yours) was going to be The Last Time.
“Have you––have you talked to her? Lately?” Michael asked tentatively, his words cautious.
“No.”
“Don’t you think you should? I don’t know, maybe see if she’s alright? Why she moved, maybe?” Ashton.
“Moving takes time. She probably just wants some space to figure it all out. That’s probably what she’s doing: figuring it out,” Luke answered. An excuse, that was all it was. Just something to delay the inevitable.
And that was definitely what it was: Inevitable. Because that night when Michael, Calum, and Ashton had long since fallen asleep (he could hear their snores), Luke pulled his phone out from underneath his pillow and opened the long since used text message conversation with you.
To: Luke Hemmings
if you don’t delete that last tweet of urs i swear to GOD i’ll drop kick your ass onto the tarmac
A small smile curled onto his face at the memory. But that text was written nearly two months ago at this point and all that was left between you both now was the distance from Rome to NYC and then the newly added distance of NYC to LAX.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard of the cellphone. All it took was something like hi, right? Any baby step. Just one. That was all he needed.
Actually, no. What he needed was to be told why she left their city. That was what he needed.
To: Y/N
heard u left the big apple how u gonna do ur job now
It wasn’t long before his phone lit up in the dead of night with a response.
To: Luke Hemmings
It’s 1:14 in the morning for you. Go to bed. Get some sleep. You have meetings in the morning.
To: Y/N
answer my question
To: Luke Hemmings
Yes, I moved to L.A. I’m about to go into a meeting. I’ll talk to you later. Go to sleep.
There was something different in your tone. Something more professional, distancing. Something that definitely did not sound anything like the Y/N that Luke knew. The girl was texting him now was not the same girl that he left behind at JFK a couple months ago; this version of you was a stranger. And that was a thought that haunted both his dreams and nightmares, waking or otherwise.
The minutes ticked by at a glacial pace until he looked at the red numbers on the clock at the bedside and discovered that it was only 2:09 in the morning. It hadn’t even been one hour. A long night, that was what it was going to be. And maybe that was what gave Luke the initiative (read: desperation) to call your number at obscene hours in the morning for him but just the beginning hours of the evening for you.
The phone rang four times before you answered.
“Go to sleep,” were the first words out of your mouth.
“I thought you were going into a meeting.”
“It got cancelled.”
“There was no meeting, was there? Y/N, what’s going on? You’re not here with us; you apparently moved out of NYC; you don’t even work at that office anymore; you’re in LA. What is going on with you? You tell me everything, and all of a sudden, I’m getting nothing from you? What’s that all about?”
He could hear you sigh through the phone. It was the frustrated one, the kind that you used to give when you had to repeat your Chinese food order five times over the phone because the sixteen–year–old taking the orders was too busy flirting with her boyfriend across the counter. “It’s really not important, Luke. I just had a change in careers. I’m still working for the same firm, just at their Los Angeles headquarters. It’s not a big deal. You’ll be getting a new social media manager, and they’ll be taking over for me.”
“What is going on?” Luke asked again. You weren’t answering any of his questions; you weren’t helping him understand anything. You were still the stranger that he didn’t know.
“It’s really not that big of a deal, Luke. Trust me. This is better for the band in the long run. Your music streams and sales have been up nearly 93%, and your promotional events over in Europe seem to be doing just the trick. This is good, Luke. If it’s good for the band, it’s good for you.”
But that wasn’t the case. That wasn’t any sort of Truth at all. What was good for the band in any sort of PR sense, if it broke the two of you apart, was not good for him. How could you even think that? Luke didn’t understand how you could go from that old farewell at JFK to this cold–as–ice behavior that he was getting from you now. He remembered it much too clearly. Leaving you just before the first security checkpoint of JFK. It was more painful than the others. Not terribly so, but just enough. There was some sort of look in your eye, something he hadn’t seen before and something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Your mouth opened just a fraction of an inch, enough for Luke to think you were going to say something. But no words came out and the two of you were left in the silence with Calum yelling out in the distance for Luke to “hurry up and get his ass in line.” So, he left you with the haphazard and friendly farewell of see you later, alligator and you responded with a sort of forlorn smile, the kind that has some sadness lingering behind it or a secret or two, and in a while, crocodile. He turned around, then, grabbing his suitcase and duffle bag and walked back toward his bandmates in line. But six steps in the line and he was turning back around to take one last look at you, something to memorize and store at the back of his memory. This was a first of sorts. You weren’t coming along with them. You were staying behind. And in Luke’s mind, he was leaving you behind; right now, that felt a lot more painful than he thought it ever would.
With that memory in mind, Luke spoke his own truth before he could lose his nerve and before he could accept whatever it was you were telling him. “You don’t really think that, right? That whatever’s good for those guys in suits and their profit margins is good for me is good for the band? There’s no way you genuinely think that’s the truth, right? Y/N, it’s different without you here. It isn’t the same. I don’t … I don’t like it. I don’t like you there and me here.”
“You land in JFK in a few days. You’ll be fine and stateside then. Enjoy your last few days in Italy. La città è bellisima––”
“Y/N, you don’t––you don’t get it! It’s not the same without you here. I don’t know how many different ways I can say that! It’s not the same without you here. You need to be here; not some other social media manager, not anyone else. Just you. Is this because of all the rumors about the two of us?” (Maybe his heart fell a little at that possibility.) “Because if it is, they’re a non–issue now. No one’s talking about us anymore. It’s really not that big of a deal. Just––if it’s that, if it’s because of the rumors, then tell me. I didn’t think they were really getting to you that much, but if that’s what this is––”
“I took care of the rumors, Luke. I did. That’s why they’re all gone. I’m in Los Angeles because they’re all gone. For your music, for your band, for you—that’s what I did. That’s what I had to do. I know the rumors are a non–issue, Luke. I know because I made them a non–issue.”
For once, Luke had nothing to say.
And then you sighed again. That same one. The frustrated one. Maybe mixed with a little sadness this time. “Luke, I really have to go. I have a meeting. You have to get some sleep.”
Click.
+
REQUEST PART THREE! 
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smolbeandrabbles · 5 years ago
Text
Makin’ Waves - Fraser x Reader (Black Sea)
Part 3 of #TheRetcon:  Quit Breaking Up With Me / Keep The Girl
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GIF CREDIT: X
Author’s Note: I’ve been mentioning my GIF usage a lot lately but... I really LOVE this one. I mean like... I can just think about lying with him and just that quiet understanding staring... and then talking to each other and I just...  I’m sorry! I Digress! Here we are! Part 3 of 4!  Disclaimer: I own nothing from Black Sea / I mixed up about 5 different places for where they are on holiday but it’s solidly based on Marbella  Premise: Back from Russia with a hefty amount of Gold, Fraser begins to decide how to spend it. The answer is obvious... Words: 7890 Warnings: Pre-Amble / Sex (Edges into Smut maybe a little) / Swearing 
________ We found paradise right here tonight a little off shore And a pair of eyes lookin' into mine that's gonna lead to more Gonna lead to us a little later on clothes on the floor So hold on tight cuz... Sangria kiss I won't forget, you know the kind that lingers on your lips When you wake up in the morning Yeah we set it motion... There's no signs of slowin' it down... We got the weekend wakin' Up on the bank, it's breakin' Got nothin’ slow on the radio Ain't just those speakers shakin' As soon as that sun starts fadin' I'll be the arms she lays in That girl is amazing And we just love makin' waves We got the anchor down We got the music loud We gonna party as long as we want 'Cause there ain't nobody around ---
Something wasn’t sitting quite right with you. Not quite. Everything about seeing the boys home made sense. It did. The ones still there, one ones not. (Minus the banker. You’d make sense of that in your own time. Collateral? The only man who knew what was really going on – someone had funded this. Possibly his boss. It made sense to bring him home. Kinda.) But there was one little thing niggling at you. You pulled the car over, engine still running. Your hands tapped the steering wheel and you bit your lips together; Fraser looked around the car like he’d missed something. “Y/N… What’s wrong?” You looked to him; “Why… Why was there an 18 year old kid from Liverpool on a Russian sub in the first place? What reasons did Tobin have to be there-!?” “Oh-! Well… Kurston…” Fraser began to explain, but as he did so you reached across him, opening the glove box again and scrabbling around for paper and a pen “…Told Robinson all about it, and then killed himself… Tobin delivered Robinson the news… I guess we were just desperate to have the right number of men so Tobin got pulled into it. If Gittens didn’t die I wouldn’t have had to pull him into Diving…” He paused “Are you mad at me?” Even your scribbled handwriting was neat, Fraser raised an eyebrow at what exactly you were writing however; “…But why would you accept something like that? Does he have a family…? And of course I’m not mad at you. You needed three divers. He could dive…” “Well we didn’t exactly all sit down and talk about our lives… But I wouldn’t assume so… Sleeping rough? I’d say he needs that money like we all do – as for family… I can tell you he has family coming. I mean he’s having a kid so. Yeah… family… But maybe not… the kind of family you’re talking about.” You folded the note in half and held it out to him; “Give him one.” Fraser took the note – address and phone number – without hesitation “Us? A pretty girl from London and an Australian psychopath? That’s one hell of a family.” “Just… he can come whenever he wants or needs to… he can call when he needs to. Invite him for dinner too. That’s what people do, right?” “Are we adopting this kid now?” He grinned “He’s a diver too. So… I feel like of all the people who are going to look after him, see him straight.” “Think Robinson thinks he’s got that covered.” The sarcasm that dripped from your voice couldn’t be understated; “Oh. Yeah, cuz we know what happened with Robinson’s family.” “Y/N…!” He shook his head at you and then laughed, “Okay. I’ll go invite him…” But he allowed himself to stare at you for a few more seconds, before smiling and ruffling your hair; “You’re too good a person.” He opened the car door and slipped out. Making you laugh and call after him; “WELL - ! Someone’s gotta look after you both-!” *** “So where do I need to run it...” You ran your hands through your hair and muttered to yourself for a second before sighing “God this feels like insider trading... call the number I gave you, tell them everything you can about the gold. They’ll log a case - it’ll be sent through and be picked up by someone who will then begin the processing. Once that’s done they will offer you a price... and if you agree the price they’ll transfer the money through - probably - and send a security vehicle to pick up the gold. It’s usually a simultaneous action...” “How is that insider trading?” “Your partner works for the company you’re sending it too.” “You’re not getting something from this though?” You gave a shrug, technically not, it would be his. But you’d still be in his life, there was still a personal connection here. “Eh, I dunno, the money goes to you but I’m here.” “...Just quit it. I’m using your company. That’s final. Fraser trusted you. Which meant he trusted where you worked. He had a choice in this you supposed. You just hoped it wouldn’t end up on someone’s paper trail... These days anything could happen.
 Still, Fraser home was about the best thing to happen in years. He was unusually quiet about this trip. But he also liked revelling in you and was quite content to stay quietly at home. You didn’t mind too much, if he was there at least he was keeping out of trouble and therefore prison. He was making you late again though - and had no remorse for that. And your boss could tell her was back more than a few days in; “Fraser’s back, isn’t he?” “Oh god it’s that obvious!?” He gave a knowing little smile “Work from home a few days if you need to... that’s totally fine. He’s home. You should enjoy that.” So you accepted, but you couldn’t say you got a lot done when working from home either.
Miraculously today you weren’t even on time but early into the office. And had already finished one report by the time Tobias, your boss, walked in. “Hold on...” he pointed at you “What happened..?” “Nothing!” “He’s not gone back out already has he-!?” “No!” You laughed, but decided a moment later to bite back on that, that was the last thing you wanted right now. He peered at your screen “No, you’re right no charts to be found... fancied being productive?” “Yes, in fact!” “Good!” Then he looked even more surprised as you handed the report over “Here you are.” “Suspiciously productive, Y/N!” He tapped the side of your desk with a smile and walked off, looking back every so often to jokingly tell you he was keeping his eyes on you. But not close enough. And pretty soon you were making your way to a different operations department and sitting on the desk of a great colleague of yours; “I have a request for you.” Gareth’s eyes flicked up, suspiciously “Go on...” “How many trades you got going on?” “Shouldn’t you be asking the LME floors that...? Got a couple, slow going... kinda meandering.” “So, you have capacity?” He folded his arms and sat back in his chair, trying to take a measure of you; “What’s up? You know I can’t give you any information.” “I know but I also trust you to handle it with integrity.” “But it’s between me and the client and I’m not doing them any favours.” “Just look out for something for me, will you?” “I’m all ears... but if it gets grabbed by someone else it’s out of my hands... interesting?” “Russian gold from an abandoned submarine that was on its way to the Nazis.” He blew out a breath at your deadly seriousness; “Sounds like a museum piece... Geez... how much?” “Don’t know. I’ve heard the casual figure of £2 million flashed around but I don’t know enough to say that’s for sure.” “... It’ll be done on authenticity and purity... hammer and sickle works?” “As far as I know.” You had literally no idea, and didn’t want to know any more than you had to Gareth whistled; “Well, that’s certainly something worth being part of the process on... who am I looking for.” “His name’s Fraser.” “What is he to you?” “Best we don’t say right?” “Right. But also, Y/N, regulation would state you should declare or it would be even worse if they find you out.” “To whom must I declare?” “To my boss. At the very least!” You nodded, you knew Aimee relatively well; “And you don’t owe me.” “Certainly not.” You patted his shoulder “Thanks Gareth - tell me when y- No... forget it don’t even tell me that...!”
 Two days later, you got a call to go back down to Gareth’s desk. Which you thought was against the rules, but you went down anyway. And he looked both elated and bemused. “What?” “Is this the diver guy you’ve been with for 10 years?” “No comment.” “He’s possibly one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met...” You raised an eyebrow and could think of many questions to ask, opting instead to get to the point. “You’re not here to tell me that.” “Who told you £2 million, it’s bullshit.” “... In a good way?” “In a very good way. We couldn’t even value it, had to get one of the museum distributors out...” “Oh my god.” “If he worked that damn hard for it he deserves what he’s getting believe me. I just wanted you to know that it’s a big figure, so, if this is the guy you’re with, I hope you’ve damn well told the people you’re meant to.” You leant against his desk; “I followed protocol. It still feels wrong talking about it like this…” “Well it’s massive - we can’t not...! Congrats!” “Geez, he needs it. I know that...” “Yeah I bet... I just got the valuation back, I’m about to send over... so, if he signs...” Gareth gave a shrug “It’ll all be worth the effort. And I’d sign...” “Shut up!” “Well just if he comes to you...” “He should go to you... I don’t even want to know the amount...” “Good! Keep completely out of it.” “Fair price?” “No rates necessary - they aren’t playing him. I’ve made sure of that, that’s why you asked me. I know...” “Thanks Gareth I-“ “Hey-! You don’t owe me, okay! Don’t even think it..!” He turned back to his computer “Though-! If something comes up on your floor I’m always interested!” You laughed “I’ll keep it in mind!” *** You knew the second that cheque came through though, because the door was barely open before he was running to you; “Y/N!” “Oh-! God-! Okay-! Hold on, let me get through the door…!” “Have you ever-! I’ve never-! I---!” He waved the paper for a minute “I… I…” “I’m not sure I wanna know how much you’re worth… What happened…?” “Oh…” he indicated to the door; “They brought a big armoured van around and put it all in there… I think some of it could be going to the museum too… That guy seemed very interested. Do you think I coulda got more on the black market, I mean…” “I have it on authority they aren’t playing you…” you rolled your eyes “And god forbid you do anything legally.” Fraser laughed; “I just… I can’t…” He pulled you to him and placed your hand over his heart; “What even… is… I just…” “Breathe!” You giggled “Did they tell you what happens next?” “Oh… yeah!” He still kept your hand in his as he pulled you into the kitchen, gathering another piece of paper “I take this cheque and this letter to the bank. Apparently the letter is very important. And I guess it all clears and the money is mine.” “Well, what does it say?” “I dunno, looks like jargon to me.” “Yeah, and a diving manual would look like jargon to anyone else…” You held your hand out for it and he gave it over. Although you realised your mistake instantly as your eyes widened. “Sorry-! That’s nearly 21 mil-!” You stopped yourself and looked across to him “Who the hell said two!?” He gave a shrug “That was the ballpark, grossly underestimated.” You turned back to the paper and read it; “I’m gonna go with you, you better take every form of ID you have an be on your best behaviour.” Fraser tiled his head like the notion of him behaving otherwise was foreign to him; “I’m always on my best behaviour. You folded your arms and raised an eyebrow, amused as you were you couldn’t help it; “Oh yeah? Wanna tell that to your criminal record?” *** You'd never seen Fraser look so excited. You also hadn't seen him bounce off the walls like this since you used to dive together - and it was easy for you to realised how much you missed it.
This time it was about money though; as his cheque came through for the gold - he might just have held his breath until it cleared... And then he really was allowed to think about what he could do with the money.
"Just be sensible..." "Sensible was always my first thought..." He gave a smile "I'm taking you away." You were between raising your eyebrow in confusion and the sweet ‘aww...’ You felt at him telling you the very first thing he wanted to do was go on holiday with you. "...You want..." You couldn't keep level headed about that - and relapsed into a wide grin that wouldn't disappear. "I know just the place... But you have to promise to dive with me." You looked back to those beautiful blue eyes pleading with you. "Not too deep." "Sweetheart, I know your limit... I just need you to do this with me... Please..." You walked over slowly and took his hands in yours; "Baby... Of course I will... Now go on." You gave a wink "And tell me nothing but the dates." He tipped his head, with a disbelieving smile "Oh? You trust me?" You thought it was a silly question, but humoured him anyway, pulling yourself into him you brushed your lips to his "...With my life..."
 **
 He did remarkably well. And you knew exactly where he'd got the idea from. Every so often if Fraser was out at sea your friends would take you away themselves to make sure you weren't all alone in your house for a long period of time. Even though Fraser wasn't massive on his social media - you knew he always saw the pictures, because he always asked where you had been.
 Fraser had been planning something like this for so long. Sure, he could get paid for diving usually - but that didn't mean that on occasion the two of you didn't scrape by. It wasn't like he was getting work anywhere else. Your lifestyles weren't exactly lavish - you were just conscious savers. And that was before he thought about any time he was in prison or picking up fines. And he wasn't happy with you paying for everything either. But if he wasn't taking you diving (which since your accident had been a few times but nowhere near as many times as he wanted), or he was allowed to take you on a job (also occasionally they'd allow spouses to come), Fraser hadn't been able to take you on holiday.
 But he could now. And he could give you clear, warm, tropical seas that would hardly put your skills to the test - but that you would be more than happy to dive in. The white sugar sand just off the promenade made everything picture perfect - and even though he was holding hands with you as you walked, Fraser knew you were somewhere out there. And he got to watch that for himself this time. The hotel had a number of private flats that overlooked the beach and each had its own private strip. There were other couples you'd both interacted with around the resort, but it was so out of season that everything seemed deserted. So you revelled in how much alone time you got with him - and that he could enjoy the beach, for once.
 You liked just being in his company for so long - there was no threat of him being called away out here, and even less threat of prison. For which you were extremely thankful. Even on the flight out you'd got to curl up with him and wind yourself around his arm in a way you hadn't for nearly 5 years. And he knew how significant that was; leaning his head on yours and running his thumb over the back of your hand soothingly. That was good for him too, in fact, this whole break was good for him. Fraser got to occupy himself with just about everything. There wasn't a day yet where he hadn't been up before you and wandered back into the bedroom with a smile "Hey! Y/N! I've been thinking we could do this today... I just went up to the hotel and they said..." "...Honey, whatever you want, just come back to bed for a bit - yeah?" And so he did, often.   Then you got to revel in him in a different way for a little bit.
 Today you'd managed to persuade him not to drag you out of bed so early, so you could spend the day on the beach. Which meant you actually woke up before he did; but you didn't move. Why would you when he looked like this?
Fraser's name shouldn't really ever have been uttered in the same sentence as 'calm' - because he didn't have a calm setting. He was high energy, when he was sat still... Well, he was never still. Something always had to be going on, either with objects in his hands, or with how fast he would talk. Fraser needed something to stim with, and that was how the knife had started – other than it obvious utility – only, now that was somewhere in the Black Sea, you guessed. That was about as "calm" as it got. And because you ran on a wavelength similar, that's how you had always ended up in fights. No matter how 'in the past' that notion was. Because Fraser didn't wind up; Fraser just snapped. And that was a hard thing to deal with if you didn't know him well. Which also pissed you off about him spending half his life on a claustrophobic container in the depths of the ocean. Fraser noticed when he was on that edge and he could talk himself down. But in the process of doing so, if you irritated him again he would cross that line. And Fraser over that line was never merciful.
 It was a line you'd witnessed him cross enough, but you'd only crossed it once. Fraser could get angry and hate you - but you'd never ever been on the receiving end of a dangerous and violent psychotic episode. Nope - you'd crossed that line diving. Because you were still a teenager when you'd met him, and you were still a teenager when you'd become dive partners. And thought you were both invincible and too old to be told what to do by someone clearly more experienced. Your snap backs to every careful comment he made were on occasion downright rude; and he had every right to go off on one after telling you multiple times to stop. Because there was nothing Fraser cared more about than the people he dived with. So, you learned the hard and fast way that Fraser screaming at you over a comlink on the sea bed wasn't exactly your idea of a good time. (Yes, you'd been good at pushing his buttons back then too.) But by the time you surfaced he'd calmed down to a more manageable level of mad, and decided he'd rather not talk to you for three days than do that again. But it scared you enough to let you know to never do it again. And also had you learning a lot more about him. Now here you were. Ironically the only other time in your entire life you hadn't listened to him you had been hurt, but it had let to him laying here with you now. So that didn't feel all that bad.
 So sleeping with one arm tucked up under his head and the other reaching across the bed so that his hand grazed your stomach, yes, Fraser looked calm. You took the hand on your skin in your own and kissed his fingertips delicately. You realised a long time ago how hard it was to repay this man for saving your life. Staying by his side through everything and trying to protect him from the world seemed like an agreeable thing to do. Even though sometimes you thought that's what he was trying to do for you. "I love you..." You shook your head gently; "And even I don't think I realise how much..."
 **
 The beach meant only one thing to Fraser. Ice Cream. No beach visit was complete without it; and when he'd announced that to you in his strong Australian accent, you knew it was the Britishness in him talking. "Oh. We converted you somewhere along the way then?" He gave a smart shrug "I guess!" It was about the only thing he enjoyed when you would drag him to a beach in the UK - because half the time he would grumpy about the amount of people. High energy yes, but social? No way in hell. You and The Boys. That was Frasers social group, and in all honesty the only one he wanted. He only hung out with your own friends on occasion because his status as your partner demanded it of him. So, ice-cream it was. And you were surprised how long you had to sit and wait for him to return, considering the lack of people out here. Maybe he'd just had to walk a long way for it. Maybe he'd stopped to admire the sea... You hoped you hadn't missed that...
"Can you believe it?!" Was how he announced his return, holding the cup of ice-cream up "Even all the way out here they still use these stupid plastic spoons!!" Fraser settled back next to you on the beach towel and held up the tiny fluorescent yellow "spoon".  "Whose idea of a joke were these things!?" "Makes it last longer." "Nah!" He took a spoonful and pointed it at you "That's what they want you to think! Truth is your ice cream is liquid about 6 spoonfuls in. and then it becomes even more useless!!"You gave an amused shrug and leant on your hand "Go on, Mr.Holmes, what's the theory?" He bent it between his fingers "Look how easy that is to snap..!" You took his wrist "Well don't do it! Or you'll have to go get another!" He laughed "Would you like some?" "Mmm... I wouldn't say no..." "...Oh, to answer, I have no theory... See you'd think it could be for the kids... Only, talk about a choking hazard. Also I'm NOT a small child!" "You sure about that?" He gave you a warning look "Just because I love you doesn't mean you're getting any ice-cream if you're just gonna be plain rude... Y/N!" "Rude?” You teased “I thought it was quite funny." "Ha. Ha." But his sarcastic laugh made you really laugh and he leant forward with the spoon, "Now come on... It's pretty good." "Oh. I don't get the whole cup then." "I'd never get it back!" He did know you well! You opened your mouth and were met with the taste of your favourite ice-cream; "Mmm! No that is good!" "So you want more right?" "Is that why you decided on my favourite, huh?" "No." His smirk was gentle, “it's because you aren't getting any of the other.” "The other?" You questioned; "Going back for seconds, are we?" "Obviously..." He scraped the spoon around again; "Just two spoonfuls for you mind." "Too kind." "Well... At my own expense..." You accepted a second plastic spoonful of ice cream and then let him sit contentedly to finish the rest on his own.  Not without stealing his cap though. "Hey- Aw, forget it..." "Not fighting me now, huh?" "Oh, we gave up on that..." Fraser tipped the cup back like a shot; "See! Liquid!" He set it down and eyed you "...No... I've just always thought you looked good in that..." "Aw..." You pulled it down a little more to shield your eyes from the sun "...Do I get to keep it?" "NO!" He pushed you gently "Look after it, by all means!" You noticed he used the same tone with you then as he did when he asked you to do so before he left for a job. "Yes Skip!" "Damn right - not that you ever listened!" "I did 98% of the time...!" You whined with a pout "Yeah and that other 2% was hell, thank you very much!" He continued his lean forward and captured your lips with his. "...oh-!" "Thought I better kiss that pout away..." And so Fraser did it again, and again - and you just kept accepting his kisses.
 Fraser did, eventually, get back up and wander away again. By this time you were laying down, shades on, eyes closed, music in. That didn't mean you didn't notice when his presence left your side. You opened an eye and shook your head after him. What did he need more ice cream for anyway? Again it took him an age to stroll back to you. And when he sat back in the sand he tapped you; "Y/N..." You slid your shades up to rest on his cap and sat up. "Now what...?" "Come here a sec..." He patted the towel next to him. That made you suddenly suspicious, and your eyes narrowed; "Fraser I am literally right here..." "Yeah I know, and I want you a little closer, darling, c'mere..." Even with your suspicions you weren't about to resist the pull to be closer to him, and took the two steps needed to be on his towel, where you sank back to his level. "What?" He turned his body so that you were facing each other and he held out another spoon of ice cream; "Do you want some?" "You just said I wasn't getting any of this one..." "I know what I said, I'm feeling generous..." He gave a wink that you also felt you shouldn't trust. But stupidly did. "Okayyyy..." Fraser gave you a winning smile and held out the spoon for you. But you should have known better and he teased every time you tried to take a bite. "Seriously!? And you say you're not a child!" "-Just playing into the spoon!" "Will you hold still!?" "Okay... I will now I promise..." He didn't. And this time instead of moving his spoon out of your reach, you ended up with ice cream on your nose. But the cooling sensation on your skin made you at least giggle. And this time when Fraser leant forward, he licked it off you.
"Oh." It was of both realisation and surprise. And you realised exactly why he'd bought a second helping. And why you were also in a pretty secluded part of the beach under palm trees "Fraser I..." "I figure it's yes or no..." He murmured kissing you gently again. You weren't sure, but something in you was curious. Fraser knew you and sensed that; so the spoon left marks across your jawline and down your neck; and his lips followed the trail his hands were making. Your eyes fluttered closed as you focused on him. "Yes..."
  As he continued his trail of ice-cream and kisses, your body trembled as the feel of his tongue gliding over your skin. And you closed your eyes – sighing. Fraser pushed the straps from your shoulders and pushed you gently down into the warm sand and you knew this was heading exactly where expected. You quivered again at the thought of making love to him somewhere so public – you’d never had that before with anyone, and for a moment you were curious as to whether he had. Considering his background, where he was raised, and everything that remained a mystery to you, it wouldn’t surprise you if he’d done this before. But never with you… The ice-cream was finished before he’d got half way down your body; but not before he’d managed to completely undress you. And he afforded you as many touches as you would allow, before you wanted his shirt and shorts off him. He wasn’t about to give into that request either…
 Fraser admired you a little longer in the sunlight than he usually did. He liked that you weren't afraid to show that scar. There was a confidence in that he admired - and how you could easily have it tidied up, or nearly gone, but refused it... There was a tragic beauty in it... And a constant reminder to him of how much he should protect you. How delicate you really were; even though you'd always been a tough girl. And had to be, to be with him.
He took your hands in his as he kissed it - just as delicately. He whispered against your skin. I love you? I'm sorry? You couldn't make out the movement of his lips. But it didn't matter - you knew why. You ran your free hand into his hair. And that was Thank you.
 ***
 He got the idea to take you out on a boat. Eventually you knew that would mean diving, but for now Fraser was going to whisk you away to a tiny private island. And you meant tiny. You stared at it questioningly from the boat and turned to him; “I think I liked it better on the mainland.” “…I didn’t say we were going to live on a private island.” “Fraser that thing is barely inches wide.” He shook his head at you; “You’re not seeing the bigger picture here.” You laughed at his choice of words and turned, with a grin; “Help me out…” “It’s private, Y/N. That is literally the only word here that matters.” You leant on the boat and stared hard at him, but that smirk on his face wasn’t moving. Oh, it was gonna be one of those days…
 “…Damn… I swear this is clearer than it looks over there…” You shielded your eyes from the sun, looking across to the main shoreline from the dock. “Whatever you say.” Fraser joined you to stare at the water, hands in his pockets and his eyes traced over to you. You noticed this, and couldn’t help your smile under the weight of his gaze; “Stop looking at me like that.” “Like what?” Though Fraser was well aware of what he was doing. “That…!” “Why…?” “It makes me feel…” you bit your lip gently, and shied away from him “…Like I’m about 18. Again.” A smirk threatened to cross his face; “What did I do?” “…Nothing… My heart hasn’t raced like this… well… I mean… since yesterday, but…” He looked back out to the sea again with a snort; “This sounds like some damn romance novel.” You folded your arms and turned towards him; “You asked the questions!” You couldn’t help your smile though, “This is entirely your fault Fraser. Now get the HELL over here!” ‘Over here’ was about five steps, but he still put a little swagger in his walk as he strolled across the tiny ‘pier’ to you. You almost shook your head watching him. “You wanted me to say that.” He gave a gentle shrug; “Maybe.” “Shut up!!” “No. You, shut up.” He wound his arms around you, pulling your body close to his, his lips grazed yours gently, nowhere near good enough… “Damn…” you sighed against Fraser’s kiss as he left your lips – kissing your forehead, to your temple, across your cheek to your nose, before claiming your lips again. But each one was a ghosted kiss, and you knew that was on purpose. And so did he, by the way he liked that you whined. But he was strong enough to keep you back from him. “No… No… don’t do this…” “Mhhm?” “Fraser…” you whined again, voice soft, “Please…” He smiled again, and answered by kissing you once more. But you weren’t ever going to let him just get away with that! He wasn’t in control of you – he wasn’t about to start thinking that either-! You’d show him-! All it took was one movement, and before he could stop you, or even react to what you were doing, you’d pushed him backwards off the end of the pier and into that crystal clear blue salt water. By the time Fraser resurfaced you were laughing so hard it almost hurt; “Y/N! WHAT! THE! HELL!” “Oh my God! That was TOO good to pass up!” “GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!” “Why don’t you make me!?” The flash in his eyes as he moved through the water to the pier made you step backwards a few paces, and your breath catch. But you held firm and shook your head; “Just chill out, stay there a while sweetheart.” “Y/N!” there was a growl to that, sending a familiar tingle up your spine. “Say it.” Fraser knew exactly what game you were playing, and he sighed with a slight roll of his eyes, tilting his head back in the water “…Please…” “Uh huh.” You unbuckled the belt pulling your dress in belt first; it fell to the pier with a clink. Unbuttoning your sundress, as slow and sensual as you could make it, you dropped it, running your hands through your hair you watched him. Fraser was more than a little taken aback, but you knew he loved the way you were looking at him. “You gonna take off your clothes or what?” He frowned; can’t argue with that and nodded, his shirt was off in one swift movement. But his shoes took a little longer. You almost laughed “Bet you wished you’d taken them off to walk through the sand now, huh?” You slipped your feet out of your sandals as he shot you a look. You reached up and pushed the straps of your swim wear from your shoulders; and as a second gesture of goodwill pulled your pants down your hips just enough. You heard that gentle growl, and the rest of his clothing was on the pier in seconds. You bit your lip just thinking about it with a gentle hum, and the way those blue eyes were looking at you expectantly.  But that wasn’t quite good enough for him; so he swam back a little further, just to make sure he could get a real look at you. You unclipped the top half of your costume and stepped out of your pants nonchalantly. Running your hands through your hair one last time, with him staring at you like that, made you feel like you had all the power here. And that injection of confidence made you the one to smirk as you stepped forward to dive in. The water was warm; the sun has been hitting it right all day. You surfaced and breathed gently with a smile as you swam out to him. Fraser whistled gently; “Well, damn. What was that?” He took you back in his arms with another delicate kiss. “Well it’s not like I’ve been practicing or anything…well.. Mayyybe I have…” You made sure to kiss him back; smaller, butterfly kisses, because he should damn well know you still want revenge. “Oh, uh huh?” He attempted to deepen every single one of those kisses, but you continued to pull back from him. You knew you couldn’t keep control over him for long, so you had to own this moment whilst you had it. “Naw, Y/N, c’mon…” You refused him once more, and could tell he was just becoming more frustrated. And you were in his domain out here. And he was a stronger swimmer than you. Fraser caught you again; tangling your legs below the water, he began running his hands lower on your body; which instantly made you gasp his name. “F-Fraser---!” Your breathing hitched, twice and whatever control you had is gone. He could kiss you now – and Fraser knew he had won. He lifted you higher onto his hips, barely allowing you breathing space as his kisses became hungrier and hungrier. You brushed against him and gasp again; and you could feel the way Fraser started smirking against your lips. – He’d always been very good at not asking for it.. Not begging for it...  What happened between you after an argument involved so much push and pull, but when he was back from work now… All you wanted was him… So you were not; you’d never put up much resistance to him wanting you, anyhow. Your breathing hitched for a third time as he kissed down your neck, and your exposed shoulder, biting down gently – that was enough to have you moaning, eyes closed. “Fraser!” His hands were all over you, and all it made you want was friction. Your legs tightened around him. But you still didn’t want to entirely give up on that little bit of power… In your desperation you attempted to move your body lower down his, which only caused Fraser to chuckle again – of course he knew what you were doing… His hands moved quickly to your thighs and he attempted to loosen your lock around him to lift you a little higher. But you weren’t having any of that, either.
“Well, one of us has gotta give.” You hated that Fraser had voiced it the way he did. How he made your body tremble against his; and you could feel your cheeks heating up; “uh huh! I told you it was hot out here.” He virtually purred it, with a cocky grin as he kissed you once more. You hated that confidence as much as you loved it – you were both frustrating each other on purpose, only it was getting to you more. “Fraser…” your voice was barely audible, and he missed what you said “You’re gonna have to repeat that darlin’…” “...Don’t.” Of course he wasn’t going to listen, and he pushed your body again. Well, this time you were fighting him on that one. Locking your arms around his, your nails dug into his skin – enough to give him a visible wince; “NO.” For a second you were more in control than you have ever been before, considering how fierce the look you were giving him was. Fraser bit his lip – he hadn’t seen a look like that from you in a while, not since you used to fight. And reminiscing on moments like that didn’t help anything but turn him on even more, and he knew you could feel that. “D-Damn….Y/N…” “Please.” Knowing that neither of you were going to give up, and yet both of you wanted it, you were gracious enough to concede – you needed him; “Baby, please…” At least he responded to that, capturing you in another kiss; his hands ran through your hair and you sighed gently against his lips, tightening your embrace around him. Fraser felt your legs loosen around his waist and dropped a hand from tangling in your hair to guide you. The movement was gentle – but you whined through the kiss at the same as your body tensed for just a second. But you weren’t the only one making noises; and he groaned too, breaking the kiss to breathe deep – his eyes closed to you for a moment, and he traced his hand down your spine… Fraser always had this strange feeling that you were perfect, you were built right for him. He found that an odd thing - not something he ever thought about often, but he felt it now. Maybe it’s because he was here… Fraser was never more in tune than he was in the water. You placed your forehead gently to his, and closed your eyes too, your focus on his breathing, his heartbeat, this moment. When he opened his eyes again yours were still shut – and Fraser moved from you to trail kisses down your neck – now you tasted like the sea too. And that was all his favourite things in one place… He ran his hands lower on your body to support you against him, aware that he would be all you had out here. You were relying on his abilities once more.  That feeling persisted though; and the notion that you were built for him made the prospect of you ever being with someone else an odd concept. He realised if you had any ex-lovers he never knew about them. But Fraser was always aware of the crew’s teasing – that you could have whoever you wanted when he was away and he’d be none the wiser, or that they could simply win your heart from him. Your eyes reopened as you gasped gently again, as the train of thought he was on began to affect him. “F-Fraser! W-Wait--!” “Sorry! Sorry I didn’t mean…” You shook your head, smile setting back in – you gathered his face in your hands, eyes looking between his. People called him a psychopath - like it was just a word they could use… but behind those eyes of his was something wild and untameable; a stormy energy perfect only for the open sea. You weren’t sure what your role was in that… you only used to add to it – a squall that would attempt to destroy you both. Now you could calm it… but control it? That was a fabrication of anyone’s mind who dare think it… “It’s okay, don’t ever say sorry. I love you…” You let him go in order to claim kisses again; this time biting his lip gently. Pulling yourself into him tighter you took another breath; Fraser closed his eyes for just a second to adjust himself to you, and the water. Was he excited by this prospect, or not? Well yes… but the responsibility was all on him.  Your breathing slowed, as you slipped into the grove of his own. His lips brushed yours, to let you know he was ready, and your movement of reassurance was taken as an opportunity to move. “Fraser---! Dammit---!” but your sighs weren’t angry; just blissful and he chuckled gently. “If you keep saying my name like that, Y/N, we might just have to do this more often…” *** Even on the gentle boat ride out to the particular chartered area of water Fraser had decided on, he could see you were nervous. It was far from you not wanting to be there, though... This was just what happened every time you went now. The way you would eye the ocean and beg that this time it wouldn't finish what it started.
Obviously Fraser hated seeing you like this; given that there was never anything he could really do about it. You came to terms with it on your own and he knew you'd be right as rain after being in the open sea for a couple of minutes, but until that time you'd be internally freaking out. His attempts to distract you from it proved fairly futile, but at least you were standing close by him now - and he could put an arm around you. He wasn't sure if you'd ever get over it, but there was sometimes nothing he wanted back more than you by his side on deep sea diving missions.
He slowed the boat down to a complete stop and turned to you; "You sure you're going to be okay?" "Mmmm..." Though you didn't sound so certain. To you it was just a question Fraser always felt he needed to ask; he knew you'd be fine and that once you'd spent 5 minutes below the water it would be just like it always used to be. Still, he always gave you that option to back out, even when you were already fully dressed and kitted out. "Alright," he breathed, "we're gonna do this nice and slow okay? Always make sure we're in each other's eyeline and if anything happens..." He pointed to the back of the boat, "We signal or call for help; okay? Other than that - you know all the partnership rules..." He pushed his forehead to yours, "I'm gonna look after you okay, Y/N..." Those blue eyes studied yours hard, but he didn't let his own internal worries cross his face. "I promised myself nothing like that would ever happen to you again and I meant it. And I've still never lost a diver." But Fraser had always been diligent, and you'd always blamed your accident on your own mistake - whether Fraser let you or not... You nodded and accepted his short sweet kiss, before he stepped away to finish getting ready himself.
 You could feel the tightness in your chest - and your skin running hot and then cold. Your blood and heartbeat pounding in your chest, and through your ears. It all made you feel a bit nauseous and you had to steady yourself against the side of the boat. You found it ridiculous that even after all these years it was still that bad. The waves swelled under the boat, but it was all very gentle. And you knew Fraser was watching you again with the same worried look on his face. But those nerves made you hesitate - and you never knew why. You should have been more scared under the water than standing above it - but entering it was almost always the difficult part. And why?
Maybe it was the not knowing... Not until you were in it or under those waves what the temperament of the water would be. And that could always massively affect the success of the dive. But it had never fazed you before. You turned to him, now by your side and took a deep breath "I'm sorry this always happens." "Don't be..." He pulled you to him and sat you on the side for a minute; "Even now I can't imagine how hard this is..." "Should it be..?" Fraser gave a shrug, "I pray I never have to find that out..." he held out his hand "We'll do this together - okay?" "Mmm..." You laced your fingers with his, and gently pushed your forehead to his again closing your eyes. You knew this was as calm and steady as Fraser got, and you just wanted to bask in that energy as much as you could. He was home right here - and it still made you so happy to behold it. "...Fraser, I love you. So much." He chuckled gently, and grazed his lips against your cheek "How many times do you think you need to tell me that?" You reopened your eyes, "Well. How else am I supposed to get you to kiss me?"
Fraser got that immediately but the way he smiled and shook his head "...Well. I figured even then, you might have made it easier on yourself..." He gripped your hand a little tighter "Just let me make up for that and make it easier on you now, Mmm'Kay?" You gave a nod "Together? On three?" You nodded again - but were well aware he wouldn't even count one. You could have laughed at the predictability of it all, as he pulled you backwards off the boat as soon as you'd agreed to it. But the sound you made was enough for him to know that he had done the right thing.
 And that was his only aim; Fraser would always do right by you. You deserved nothing less.
---
@dennismitchell @happyskywhale @wltz-bby​
#MendoTagSquad.
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melefim · 10 months ago
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Swearing in Dead Boy Detectives: The Cats
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Tabby Cat:
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Overview:
3 curses total, 2 different words said in 3 episodes.
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Episode 1: 1 Fuck
Episode 2: 1 Piss
Episode 3:
Episode 4: 1 Fuck
Curses Per Episode:
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Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 1
Episode 3: 0
Episode 4: 1
Uses Per Word:
Tabby Cat’s favorite curse word is Fuck, which he says twice!
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Fuck: 2
Piss: 1
Unique Words:
The Tabby Cat and Charles are the only characters to say piss, once each. (Funnily enough, to each other- Charles tells the cat to piss off in episode 1, then the cat tells the trio the cat king is pissed in episode 2)
Percent of Total:
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The Tabby Cat swears 3 times throughout the season, which is .9% of all cursing in the show.
Rankings:
Who Swears the Most: With his 3 curses, the Tabby Cat comes in 14th place in the overall rankings.
Curse Word Variety: He is tied for 11th for swearing variety, along with the calico cat, David the Demon, Maren, and the girl in Crystal’s club memory with just 2 different words each.
Individual Words: Tabby Cat is tied with Charles for their single unique word usage of Piss.
Lines:
Episode 1: Fuck you. I'm not telling you nothing about that house or the witch inside.
Episode 2: The Cat King is pissed. We're taking you to him.
Episode 4: Fuck off. The kid had a sardine.
Notes:
Only episodes where the character appears and has lines are included in the ‘Curses Per Episode’ chart.
Updates:
Updated Percent of Total Swearing chart.
Calico Cat:
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Overview:
2 curses total, 2 different words said in 2 episodes.
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Episode 3: 1 Fuck
Episode 4: 1 Whore
Curses Per Episode:
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Episode 3: 1
Episode 4: 1
Uses Per Word:
The Calico Cat is an equal opportunity curser- she says both her curse words one time each.
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Fuck: 1
Whore: 1
Unique Words:
The Calico Cat is the only character to say whore.
Percent of Total:
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The Calico Cat swears 2 times throughout the season, which is 0.6% of all cursing in the show.
Rankings:
Who Swears the Most: The Calico Cat is tied for 15th with Maxine, Brad, and the girl in Crystal’s club fight memory with just 2 curses each.
Curse Word Variety: She is tied for 11th for swearing variety, along with the tabby cat, David the Demon, Maren, and the girl in Crystal’s club memory, with just 2 different words each.
Individual Words: The Calico Cat was the only character to say whore, so took the title for that word alone.
Lines:
Epidode 3: At least we don't have to go inside. This house is fucked up.
Episode 4: You're such a whore.
Notes:
Only episodes where the character appears and has lines are included in the ‘Curses Per Episode’ chart.
Updates:
Updated Percent of Total Swearing chart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More Dead Boy Detectives Swearing Posts:
Masterlist
Swearing by Episode
Swearing by Character
Swearing by Word
All Swearing Posts
And if you like lists of things like I do, you can check out my other Dead Boy Detectives ones here!
When Charles’ Shirt Colors Change
George Rextrew’s Edwin comic inspo board
Full soundtrack with timestamps
Moves, Incidents, and Cases Masterlist
First pass at finding where the songs in the score are used- full post with timestamps in progress
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hoodmara · 6 years ago
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Honest * Nick Mara
The tv hummed quietly, only being heard between the breaks of the jersey boy’s snores. 
Y/N turned her head to the screen to see the music video playing, a telling sign that it was too late for her to be awake. She let a small sigh escape her lips as she turned back to her original position of staring at the ceiling. Hoping that she could soon forget about the thoughts racing in her head, she started counting her breaths to try and sleep. Before she could even get to 10, the boy across from her started to turn in his sleep. 
Their legs were tangled like headphone wires, so wherever he turned, y/n had no choice but to follow. She tried her best to detangle herself from his hold, but to no avail. She didn’t understand why he was wasting his time being squished on this couch with her while he had a whole bed upstairs, empty and waiting for him. 
Tapping him on his calf and slightly rubbing on it, y/n tried to wake the boy up. Finally, he let out a quiet ‘hm?’ as his hands went to rub his eyes.
“Nick, go up to your bed, you don’t have to stay down here with me” Y/N said quietly, leaning up so she was in a sitting position. Nick rolled around a little bit before finally opening his eyes. He sat for a bit before he finally adjusted to being awake. Sitting up slowly, he placed his hand on y/n’s ankle gently.
“Ok, but you gotta come with me” he replied, lacing his free hand through his hair while the other slightly caressed the girl’s ankle. 
“Uh yeah no, I’m not about to sleep in your childhood bed with you. Your mom would not have that”
“Y/N, she doesn’t care about you being in my bed, she would rather have you up there with me than being on this busted ass couch” 
Y/N sat, contemplating her next moves. Nick’s mom did say that she didn’t care about them both staying in his room, as long as there was no baby-making in her house. She said that she was not ready to be a grandma yet and Y/N promised not to make her one. 
“Ok fine, but don’t try any of that shit tonight, Mara”
“I’m too tired to do anything, y/n, don’t worry” he lazily laughed as he turned to stand up from the couch. Finally in an upright position, he offered a hand to y/n and she gladly took it. Before heading up the stairs, y/n ran to turn the tv off and then took Nick’s hand again to help him up the stairs.
“You love running up the light bill, so I don’t want your mom on my ass about it too,” Y/N joked, making Nick chuckle quietly.
“Shut up, I’m very mindful of my power usage,”
“Yeah ok. I bet when we walk in your room, your tv is on,”
“Aight bet, I know my tv is off,”
The two rounded the corner at the top of the stairs and made their way into the last bedroom of the hallway. When they entered, the room was almost pitch blank, but the dim light of a black tv screen sizzled lowly. The screen gave off just enough light for them to make their way to the bed. Y/N let go of Nick’s hand to walk over to the tv and turn it off.
“Man, your carbon footprint is off the charts,” Nick could help but laugh and shake his head. Y/N always did know him, almost better than he knew himself. 
“Girl shut up and get in the bed, I’m cold,” he joked back, pointing to the mattress. Y/N smiled and jumped onto the high mattress. She rolled across the bed and snuggled into the dark green comforter that was pushed back.
Nick laughed and smiled sleepily at the sight before him. Y/N had just gotten into the bed, but she was already dozing off. He took that time to slide in next to her and pull the comforter over them both. At first they were laying face to face, both of them scanning over the other’s features.
“Like I said before, don’t try any of that shit....but can you be big spoon? Just this once?” Y/N asked, looking up at the boy in front of her. He smiled and nodded, receiving a happy sigh from her as she turned over and scooted back into Nick. 
It wasn’t unlike the two to cuddle like this. They were both affectionate people, so it was in their nature. But since it had been so long since they’ve been given the opportunity, due to tour and college, this simple cuddle felt so much better. 
Nick wrapped his free arm around Y/N’s waist and pulled her close. Her head rested against his shoulder and she could feel him nuzzle into her hair. The two were content with this position and they both began to fade off into their respective dream lands. That was until Nick muttered something that Y/N couldn’t leave until the morning.
“I think I love you,” he whispered, hoping that the girl in his arms was deep asleep. He knew that she probably wasn’t, but these words were too important to keep to himself for another day.
Y/N sat for a few seconds and let the sentence replay in her head. She processed the words and felt safe enough to respond. 
“You think you do or you do, because those are two very different things,” she replied, still facing the wall. She didn’t want to turn around, because everything felt easier when she didn’t have to look into his brown eyes.
“I love you. I know I do,” Nick replies much more sure of himself. Y/N smiled and slightly nodded.
“Good. I love you too. Exactly how you meant it,” she replied. 
Nick smiled and nodded back, happy with the answer he received. Finding Y/N’s hand in the blankets, he laced his fingers with her and pulled them up to his chin. Gently, he laid a kiss on each of her knuckles before bringing both of their hands back down into a resting position. 
The two laid in a comfortable silence, both of them slowly drifting off to sleep. There was a silent and shared feeling of excitement, because they couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning and share their love with each other honestly.
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stevenuniversallyreviews · 6 years ago
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Episode 116: Gem Heist
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“We won’t stand out if we play the roles we were made for.”
There’s nothing like a good heist. You’d think a plot with such a consistent formula (build a team, go over a plan, execute the plan and adapt to its inevitable failures) would get stale, but consider for a moment that Inception and Fast Five premiered within a year of each other, and are both heists following the same general beats, but they’re fully different experiences. I’m not gonna say which one is better, but only one of them has a car chase where a car is chained to a giant safe and uses it like a wrecking ball, so.
In some ways, Gem Heist drops the ball on what I want from a heist: there’s barely a planning stage, and the team is already together, so it’s all about the execution and the wrenches thrown at our heroes. But while it’s hardly the caper I hoped for from the title, I can’t help but admire how it takes the tropes associated with heists and uses them to comment on Gem society.
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A heist is all about specialists with clear jobs. Safecrackers, getaway drivers, demolitions experts, con artists, the whole point is getting a bunch of talented people who are each essential to the group. This element is only briefly touched upon in the traditional sense in Gem Heist, with Steven referring to Pearl as “our hacker,” but in its place, our heroes must succeed by putting themselves into the very roles they escaped by becoming Crystal Gems. Sapphire is a wise advisor and Ruby a disposable bodyguard, and the two must be separated. Amethyst must be huge. Pearl must be lowly servant. And Steven, who can’t exactly take the leadership position of his Gem parent, must play the dumb human.
This conceit drives the episode and makes it unexpectedly solid in terms of characterization, given how bland its plot ends up being. This is basically an episode about walking through a hallway, and instead of a third act we just get two minutes transitioning Steven to the Zoo that could’ve been spent in our next episode (or heavily cut). Even Adventures in Light Distortion feels more meaningful from a sheer plotting standpoint, and that was literally just getting the Crystal Gems from Point A to B. But because of how fascinating the characters are to watch when forced into the positions they’d be stuck in had they not rebelled, I’m able to enjoy what would otherwise be a slog of an episode.
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The surprise lead of Gem Heist is Sapphire, who takes charge of the situation right away and finally shines on her own. Ruby got a head start in Jailbreak in terms of screentime, and takes up more room when the two are together thanks to her louder personality, and has a whole squad of counterparts to define herself against, so I love seeing a focus on Garnet’s quiet half. 
Sapphire’s serene baseline is portrayed so well by Erica Luttrell that she’s often played comically straight (her casually agreeing to call Steven “Esteban” is a great example here), but we already know from Keystone Motel that she’s more than just her calmness. It’s great to see her lose her cool so early in the episode, putting up a confident front while planning but getting frazzled with its inevitable failure before the team even disembarks. I wouldn’t quite call her a ham in the way Ruby and Peridot can be, but her overacting while narrating her activities to warn her friends of danger is wonderful. And of course, she gifts us with the universe’s cutest wink.
Charlyne Yi always brings a lot to the table as Ruby, and while she’s had more to do than Luttrell after Hit the Diamond, this is the first time since then that she’s voiced our Ruby. The line of the night is her furious declaration that Blue Diamond “hates fusion and love?”—it’s such a horrible thought that Ruby treats it like a question rather than a statement, because how hating something as good as love even possible? Still, Ruby’s bigger highlight is all in the animation as she runs up a locked door, claws at it while screaming, and admits defeat when this doesn’t immediately work.
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Pearl also benefits from the visuals, which portray her humiliations in ways Deedee Magno Hall can’t in the moment due to her needing to be quiet. Which isn’t to say Magno Hall doesn’t do a lot with what she’s given, going from embarrassed and deferential around Holly Blue Agate to pissed off while alone with the Crystal Gems. And while Amethyst is the first Crystal Gem to go, Michaela Dietz picks up the baton from Yi and Magno Hall to play other amethysts; it’s neat to hear her turn down the playfulness for gruffness without completely removing the prankster edge from her voice. And what we do see from Amethyst is a reasonable amount of nervousness around a first encounter with her peers, which pays off wonderfully in That Will Be All (as does the actual sentence “That will be all” that Pearl will soon get the chance to redirect).
Steven is surprisingly low-key here, all things considered, but I suppose with all the focus he gets in the first two episodes of this arc, as well as our next one, it makes sense to look more deeply at the Gems; after all, they’re the ones who were born into an oppressive class structure that they must temporarily return to (give or take an Amethyst, but she still has plenty of issues stemming from societal expectations). He’s got some decent jokes, and dominates the last part of the episode when separated from the Gems, but the last part of the episode is so boring that I don’t really care. 
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Still, none of these characters would have the chance to shine without Holly Blue Agate, who comes in hot and seems physically incapable of chilling the hell out. Christine Pedi voices Holly in just two episodes of the original series, but boy does she know how to leave a mark. After seeing Homeworld loyalists from the bottom of the totem pole in Peridot and the rubies, a Homeworld loyalist who’s a known hero in Jasper, and two leaders of Homeworld in Yellow and Blue Diamond, we encounter perhaps the worst kind of zealot: middle management.
Holly Blue Agate is the Dolores Umbridge of Steven Universe. She’s not given the stage to become main villain material, but she sure knows how to be the most detestable kind of miniboss we could hope for. She’s a shameless sycophant whose worship of Gems she considers superior is matched only by her disdain for those she sees as beneath her, but because she actually has some authority, she’s able to be far more tyrannical than the likes of Peridot. She’s hardcore lawful evil on the classic alignment chart, but if we allow for variation to the classics, I’d consider her more petty evil than anything.
With one character, we personify the entire toxic class structure that the Crystal Gems were born to defy. And with every word, Holly Blue proves that our heroes were correct to abandon this caste system. She’s flippant in her physical abuse, and wears her bigotry as a point of pride, taking glee in enforcing the inferiority of every Gem around her but Sapphire, who earns the same kind of swooning she applies to Blue Diamond. This is all performed under the thin disguise of politeness, because again, this is Umbridge we’re dealing with. She yells that there’s no yelling allowed, then gets mad when an amethyst corrects herself by being too quiet. She either pretends to not understand human speech or genuinely doesn’t get that Steven is talking (I could get into a whole thing about the necessity of an unrealistic translator for the Gems, but first off they’re magic so unrealistic things are fine, and second off what’s clearly more important here is Holly’s attitude).
It’s almost a shame we don’t get more of Holly Blue, because she may be loathsome, but she’s the compelling kind of loathsome that makes an excellent villain. Aquamarine is similar in feigned sweetness and cruelty, but Holly lacks that Cartman-inspired awareness of how miserable she is, which makes her less extreme and more relatable to real-life monsters in our daily lives who are blind to their own awfulness. At least she gets one more episode to be horrible and receive some decent comeuppance for her behavior in Gem Heist.
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As I’ve said, the actual story here is pretty dull. We get some hints at lore, as it’s now pretty clear that the Era 2 referred to by Peridot was separated from Era 1 by the death of Pink Diamond. We get further indirect characterization of Blue Diamond with Holly Blue Agate’s praise and Ruby and Sapphire’s scorn. And the final sequence, while feeling tacked on, at least gets some neat usage out of what looks like the same tech as Peridot’s gone-but-not-forgotten robofingers. But if not for the stark reminder of why the Crystal Gems’ ability to decide their lives is important, this would be one of the least consequential episodes of the series. Plenty of episodes have great characterization, this is Steven Universe after all, but most of those also bring more to the table.
I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?
Second episode since Gem Harvest to feature the Floridoverse as the main promo, and while it’s a little unclear whether this is another Floridoverse promo where a new adult character is portrayed as a teacher (Holly’s uniform vaguely resembles Greg’s and Ruby’s) I’m gonna go ahead and hope the intent is for her to be a student because man, that vibe on a peer is in some ways even worse than on a superior.
We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!
Lousy plotting really knocks this one down, considering how great an actual heist could’ve been, but the character work barely scrapes this from an episode I don’t care about to one I enjoy. It straddles the line between Like ‘em and Enh, but I’ll be nice this time.
Top Twenty
Steven and the Stevens
Hit the Diamond
Mirror Gem
Lion 3: Straight to Video
Alone Together
Last One Out of Beach City
The Return
Jailbreak
The Answer
Mindful Education
Sworn to the Sword
Rose’s Scabbard
Earthlings
Mr. Greg
Coach Steven
Giant Woman
Beach City Drift
Winter Forecast
Bismuth
Steven’s Dream
Love ‘em
Laser Light Cannon
Bubble Buddies
Tiger Millionaire
Lion 2: The Movie
Rose’s Room
An Indirect Kiss
Ocean Gem
Space Race
Garnet’s Universe
Warp Tour
The Test
Future Vision
On the Run
Maximum Capacity
Marble Madness
Political Power
Full Disclosure
Joy Ride
Keeping It Together
We Need to Talk
Chille Tid
Cry for Help
Keystone Motel
Catch and Release
When It Rains
Back to the Barn
Steven’s Birthday
It Could’ve Been Great
Message Received
Log Date 7 15 2
Same Old World
The New Lars
Monster Reunion
Alone at Sea
Crack the Whip
Beta
Back to the Moon
Kindergarten Kid
Buddy’s Book
Gem Harvest
Three Gems and a Baby
Like ‘em
Gem Glow
Frybo
Arcade Mania
So Many Birthdays
Lars and the Cool Kids
Onion Trade
Steven the Sword Fighter
Beach Party
Monster Buddies
Keep Beach City Weird
Watermelon Steven
The Message
Open Book
Story for Steven
Shirt Club
Love Letters
Reformed
Rising Tides, Crashing Tides
Onion Friend
Historical Friction
Friend Ship
Nightmare Hospital
Too Far
Barn Mates
Steven Floats
Drop Beat Dad
Too Short to Ride
Restaurant Wars
Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service
Greg the Babysitter
Gem Hunt
Steven vs. Amethyst
Bubbled
Adventures in Light Distortion
Gem Heist (barely!)
Enh
Cheeseburger Backpack
Together Breakfast
Cat Fingers
Serious Steven
Steven’s Lion
Joking Victim
Secret Team
Say Uncle
Super Watermelon Island
Gem Drill
Know Your Fusion
Future Boy Zoltron
No Thanks!
     6. Horror Club      5. Fusion Cuisine      4. House Guest      3. Onion Gang      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure
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pemini · 7 years ago
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UNREALITY: System Failure | 4:01 PM
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「 Chapter One 」
⇢ Word count: 1,064
⇢ Genre: horror, angst, interactive
⇢ Warnings: none
⇢ Members: Jaemin, Jeno, Renjun
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> BACK
> NEXT
> SETTINGS
> USER #JAEMIN HAS ENTERED UNREALITY_SERVER1
> 4:01PM
< Hello, #JAEMIN! Welcome to Unreality, enjoy your stay! >
Jaemin could see the colour of time. When he opened his eyes, greeted by the light blue hues breezing into the room he found himself in, he knew it was 4PM. He was in his bedroom, he designed it specifically for the game. It was more spacious than his real bedroom. Much emptier. It only held a bed, a dresser, and a small couch. He shivered despite the warmth of the interior and took a mental note to redecorate. 
Everything was so perfect, it was wrong. The light spilled from the window in consecutive beams, illuminating every corner of the room. The view were of houses just like Jaemin’s. Identical, in fact. The same pastels and perfectly mowed lawns. Jaemin tried to brush off his uneasiness. It was a game. Games are created by humans. Humans are used to imperfection, but crave the opposite, its only natural to eliminate all imperfections in a game thats main goal is to put your perfect world on a platter for your enjoyment.
Jaemin had convinced his best friends, Jeno and Renjun, to buy Unreality. All three of them were devoted gamers, always up to date on new video games and technology. They’d form an obsession over whatever game everyone would be raging over and play it religiously until a new game took its spot on the charts. Everything was temporary, and they’d expected Unreality to be the same. 
> Jaemin, two unknown users are knocking on your door. Choose your action carefully.
> OPEN THE DOOR
> IGNORE
Jaemin’s brows furrowed at the usage of the word “carefully”, knowing Jeno and Renjun were the ones at the door. They planned to meet up and explore the town the three of them chose to live in on the game. Although, the game’s rules and reminders section did strike him as strange, coming off as too aggressive of a ‘stranger danger!’ warning for a life simulation game. 
“Open the door.” He replied, as he left his room in search for the entrance of his house. He quickly found the front door, living room and kitchen. They were just as empty as his bedroom. The in-game choices were voice controlled, leaving space for misunderstanding, so Jaemin braced himself for the opposite his orders.
> #JAEMIN chose to OPEN THE DOOR.
“Took you long enough” Renjun chuckled as he stepped into Jaemin’s home, Jeno by his side. “I expected your house to be more, colourful?” He muttered as he looked around, his eyes eventually landing on the fridge and his body following.
“So, how’re you liking it here so far?” Jeno questioned before throwing himself at the navy blue couch situated in the middle of the living room. Jaemin sat next to him and rested his head on his shoulder. A headache was forming in the back of his head.
“I don’t know, I don’t think I like this town. It’s too quiet. And empty. And there are no people walking their dogs, what’s up with that?” He knew it was too early to form a conclusive opinion, but he was so used to the barking of his neighbour’s dogs, the birds, the loud children who’d come out to play at 5PM (5PM is an opalescent orange, with shy yellows and a barely there blue in harmony every so often) and the occasional conversation he’d hear from outside his window once someone was passing by, that the silence was unsettling. The town was too quiet. The clock was ticking. There was a flicker of orange that he would have missed if he hadn’t practiced not to. 
“The game’s new, there aren’t that many players yet.” Said Jeno, closing his eyes. “You’re gonna regret complaining about the quiet when everyone in town has three parties daily.”
“Open your eyes you loaf, you sleep all day in real life, I’m not letting you sleep that much in fake life, too.” Jaemin teased, repeatedly poking at Jeno’s cheeks. Instead of a swat of the hand or a death glare, he received a whiny “I miss my cats”.
“Yo, what do you need twenty whole cups of iced coffee for?” Jaemin’s head shot up, turning to look at Renjun, who was rummaging through the fridge.
“He’s addicted.” Answered Jeno, who’s eyes were still closed. Jaemin had already made his way to the fridge and chugged down half a cup of coffee, Renjun staring at him with his jaw wide open the entire time. “I wonder if there’s a rehab center here and if they offer help for caffeine addicts.”
“I wonder if marriage to a beverage is legal here.” Sighed Jaemin, which only made Renjun’s jaw drop further. Jaemin placed his hand under Renjun’s chin and shut his mouth for him, making Renjun reach his arm out and begin to choke him as they both laughed. 
“Shit, what time is it?” Asked Jeno, eyes frantically scanning the room as he stood up. 
“Like, 4:15, I think.” Replied Jaemin, banging at Renjun’s arm which was still wrapped around his neck. “Why?” 
“There’s some sort of questionnaire all players have to do at the town square. I don’t remember what it’s for, probably game preferences or about our experience so far?” Jeno recalled, he joined the two boys at the fridge. “We have to be there in half an hour.” 
“We could leave in the next twenty minutes and make it on time, but I kinda wanted to check out the area before it got too dark.” Pondered Renjun as he grabbed a cup of coffee from the fridge. He took a sip, his eyes widened and he stifled a cough before shoving the drink into Jeno’s hands and running to the sink, spitting the drink out. “Jaemin, what the fuck is wrong with your coffee?” He panted, only to see the boy in question slapping at his knee as he doubled over with laughter. Jeno took a sip of the drink, slightly choking before forcing himself to swallow it down.
“Well, that’s satan’s nectar.” Jeno coughed, making Jaemin wheeze louder. 
“It’s the eight shots of espresso.” Said Jaemin as he caught his breath and attempted to regain his posture.
“You really do need rehab.” Replied Jeno. “Anyway, do you guys wanna leave now and check out the town or stay here and leave in half an hour?”
What should Jaemin, Jeno and Renjun do?
> STAY HOME
> LEAVE NOW
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- Some options reveal secrets that may be useful in the future. The secret score is currently 0/?. The secret score will be updated in the beginning of each chapter, based on how many secrets were collected in the past chapters.
-  The voting links for STAY HOME and LEAVE NOW have been deleted, as voting time is now over.
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chiseler · 6 years ago
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McVouty!
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I first heard Slim Gaillard in a cramped little new and used punk rock record store just off South Street in Philadelphia in the mid-‘80s. You wouldn’t normally be expecting the spiked and leathered clerk in a place like that to be playing ’postwar jazz, but Gaillard was a different kind of finger-popping jazzbo, as singular a groovy beatnik punk rock wildman as they come.
Bulee “Slim” Gaillard’s early life, as he describes it, was as storied, fantastical, even mythical as Salvador Dali’s or an early 20th century boy’s adventure novel. Given official records are sparse, it’s just better and somehow more fitting to simply take him at his word. It only makes sense, really, and helps explain as well as anything how he became what he did.
The motormouthed madcap hepcat bebop comedy genius behind 1938’s “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy),” a performer whose unexpected slips into rapid-fire Spanish, Arabic and Yiddish can at first sound like skilled mimicry, a kind of scatting Sid Caesar, was born in Cuba in 1916 to an Afro-Cuban mother and a German Jewish father. His father was a steamship steward who sometimes brought the young Gaillard along on ocean voyages to show him a bit of the world. But after a stop in Crete in 1928, the ship somehow sailed on half an hour earlier than scheduled, leaving the 12-year-old Gaillard behind. Completely alone and speaking only Spanish at the time, out of simple necessity he picked up enough Greek to get by for the next couple years. He also occasionally hopped aboard passing ships to visit the Middle East, where he likewise learned some Arabic and became enamored with the people, the music and the culture. Then at 16, deciding it was about time he returned home to see his parents again, he booked passage on a ship he thought was headed for Havana.    
Only problem was, the boat skipped Havana, sailing north to New York. Gaillard didn’t disembark there, instead staying aboard as the ship made it’s way through the St. Lawrence before docking in Detroit. Considering he spoke no English, Detroit seemed much more amenable, he would note years later, mostly on account of it’s large immigrant population. With so many Greeks, Arabs and Hispanics vying for work in the auto plants, he was at least able to find people with whom he could communicate, and was taken in by an Armenian family. He picked up English as quickly as he picked up the others, though, and started working odd jobs. Among the odder, there in the midst of Prohibition, was a stint with the notorious Purple Gang, for whom he made deliveries in a hearse carrying a coffin filled with bootleg whiskey. After witnessing too much violence, the preternaturally gentle Gaillard realized it wasn’t the life for him, and took the advice of a tough local beat cop (who also happened to be black) who warned him to get away from the gangs, get out of the neighborhood, and do something with himself. For a black teenager in Detroit in the 1930s, his escape routes were limited. He could go into boxing, or go into music. He tried his hand at boxing for a bit, then decided maybe music was the preferable route.
Gaillard started taking night classes, and after some backstage encouragement from Duke Ellington himself, eventually learned to play guitar, sax, vibraphone, piano and drums. In the mid-30s he moved to New York, having decided he wanted to be a professional entertainer.
Since work as a professional musician was hard to come by, he became what he called a professional amateur, making the rounds of the amateur nights at the local clubs, changing his act as he did to avoid recognition. Sometimes he’d be a dancer, others a pianist, still others a sax player. Simple fact was he could get paid $15 a night on the amateur stages, which was better than a lot of professionals were getting paid. The trick, though, was he couldn’t be too good, If he was too good, they’d never let him play amateur night. So he always had to drop in a few intentional flat notes to cover himself.
Although he was an excellent musician who could play everything from boogie woogie to bebop to Big Band to Afro-Cuban to American standards to children’s songs and classical, Gaillard will never be remembered for his playing. Despite having so many languages at his disposal (the list had since come to include Armenian, German and Yiddish), Gaillard found there were still ideas and concepts beyond what any of them could express. To rectify this he began inventing his own vocabulary, centered around the adjectival verb “vout” (and it’s variations vouty, McVoutm McVouty, etc.) and the suffixes o-reenee, o-roonee, and o-rootee. They were fluid in both usage and meaning, and could be dropped in pretty much anywhere in conversation. By the time he teamed with bassist Slam Stewart and the pair began recording as the musical comedy team Slim and Slam in the late ‘30s, Gaillard had started writing his own songs in the new language he had christened, yes, Vout-O-Reenee. Beyong that, the pair was a master of the dueling jive comic scat, playing off each other and riffing on everything from La boheme and “Jingle Bells” to chicken clucks and food references. Gotta say, Gaillard wrote an unusual number of songs about food—avocados, chili, fried chicken, ice cream, matzoh balls, bagels, peanuts, and whatever else came to mind when he was hungry. He also wrote songs about motorcycles, cement mixers, and mass communication.
Slim and Slam first came to the public’s attention when Benny Goodman performed their song “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy) on the radio in late 1937. The song was an overnight sensation, and when Slim and Slam recorded their own bersion shortly thereafter, it reached number two on the Billboard charts. A copy of the song was even included in a time capsule buried at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The capsule is scheduled to be reopened in the year 6939, and you have to wonder what whoever or whatever finds it will make of what kind of people we were.
Other outlandishly catchy novelty hits like “Cement Mixer (Put-Ti Put-Ti)” and “McVouty” soon followed. The pair’s between-song banter, marked by non-sequiturs, bad jokes, and Gaillard’s new language made them radio favorites. In 1941 they appeared as themselves in the appropriately wild and accidentally postmodern Hellzapoppin’, and performed in a handful of other films in the early ’40s.. Gaillard’s facility for languages, accents and crazy sound effects also earned him occasional voice work on animated Warner Brothers shorts from the era.
In 1943 Gaillard was drafted into the Army Air Corps, trained as a pilot, and flew a B-25 on bombing missions over Europe, which is something worth pausing to think about for a moment. After his plane was struck by anti-aircraft fire in 1944 and Gaillard was hospitalized for months with an arm full of shrapnel, he was discharged. He resumed his musical career, solo this time, recording jams with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and releasing his majestic four-part “Groove Juice Symphony.”
Gaillard was  tall and rail thin with a pencil mustache, a groovy, mellow, and utterly unpredictable hepcat’s hepcat, and was deeply respected within the jazz community. While playing a stint at a little club in San Francisco in the late ‘40s, he met Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, whom he  says hun out at the club eight nights a week. They became good friends, Gaillard being impressed by their deep understanding and love of the music. Kerouac would later immortalize Gaillard by famously recounting the meeting in On the Road. (It’s also interesting to note that during a 1968 episode of William Buckley’s Firing Line, a very drunken Kerouac interrupted the discussion about the hippie movement with an impromptu rendition of “Flat Foot Floogie.”)
By the late 1950s, however, the music scene had started to change, rock’n’roll was coming to dominate the airwaves, the jazz clubs which had lined Manhattan’s 52nd Street were shutting down, and Gaillard was starting to feel like he no longer belonged. It’s unclear if the 1957 release of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” had anything to do with this perception. The song was of course a massive hit and is today considered a fundamental, defining classic of early rock’n’roll. True to form, Little Richard refused to acknowledge the song (down to the “Tutti Frutti-o-roottee” chorus) was simply a bowdlerized version of Slim and Slam’s 1938 hit of the same name. Little Richard fans insist up and down they were two completely different and unrelated songs since the Slim and Slam version was about ice cream not girls, but when the singer himself notes his original title was “Tutti Frutti McVouty,” well, there you go.
Gaillard insisted he had nothing against the new music, but it simply wasn’t his scene, so by the end of the decade he stopped recording, stopped performing, dropped out and started looking for something else to do.
For an entertainer of his range, ability and goofy charisma, the choice seemed easy, and he picked up and moved to California. Although often cast as musicians who bore an uncanny resemblance to Slim Gaillard, over the next two decades he would appear opposite Bobby Darin and Stella Stevens in John Cassavetes 1961 feature Too Late Blues and in the 1958 Harlem Globetrotters movie Go, Man, Go! He had guest spots on Marcus Welby, M.D., Charlie’s Angels and Medical Center. He played Sam, the baseball expert in Roots: The Next Generation, and Raymond Burr’s butler in Love’s Savage Fury. Although he claims he was one of the gorillas in 1968’s Planet of the Apes, I honestly can find no verification of this, no matter how much I want to believe it.
After a dinner with Dizzy Gillespie around 1980, Gaillard decided to return to his one true calling. He  signed on for a number of jazz festivals throughout Europe, and started work on a couple new albums. Also at Dizzy’s recommendation, Gaillard picked up again in 1983 and moved to London, where the atmosphere was much more welcoming for American jazz greats than it was in the States.
As if to prove a point, shortly after his arrival, Gaillard was approached by the BBC, which produced a remarkable four-part, four-hour documentary about his life and career. Slim Gaillard Civilization allowed Gaillard to tell his own story, combining archive footage with clips from recent performances, conversations between Gaillard and old friends, candid shots of a family get-together in California (his daughter Jan was married to Marvin Gaye), a few impromptu songs, and even some dramatic recreations of scenes from his childhood. Gaillard’s slow, gentle and simple poetic narration leaves his tale sounding like a children’s bedtime story, which is the overall form the documentary takes.
He was a little slower, a little more, yes, mellow, and the manic energy of half-a decade earlier had ebbed a bit. A new recording of “How High the Moon?” seemed staid and over-rehearsed, even a little bored compared with the unpredictable and mad anarchic ad-libbing of his original 1947 recording, but remains uniquely his own. More than anything, there was a new and unexpected air of melancholy about the 68-year-old, much of it focused on a scene from his childhood. As he was leaving Cuba with his father for what would be the last time, Gaillard had been instructed not to look back, because he would see his mother standing there on the dock and want to go home. He did as he was told, never once thinking he would never see her again. After being abandoned in Crete, he never saw either of his parents again.
Gaillard died in 1991 at age 75, and is mostly remembered today as a novelty act, a kind of clown prince of jazz, but he’d led a singularly American life for someone who didn’t speak English until he was 16, and remains one of the most unique, eccentric, and insanely talented musical entertainers the country’s produced.
O-Roonee.
Jim Knipfel
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mdomroe-blog1 · 6 years ago
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TecKed Out
OUTLOOK
Everyone has their own personal favorite social media influencers, whether that be Youtubers like, Keaton Milburn, Fitness Bloggers like Tammy Hembrow, or top models like Hailey Bieber. These three famous influencers have three main characteristics in common. They are tall, skinny, and blonde. Growing up I had a great childhood, I was carefree and never had a second thought about the way I looked. In later middle school when I became a part of the social media world these things changed.  I started to see the differences that I had from other girls my age and noticed I never could compete with some girls.
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[Keaton Milburn is a 21-year-old social media influencer, courtesy of AZ Foothills.]
I’m not here to tell you that skinny blonde girls need to be exterminated from society or to tell you to stop using social media. I’m writing this blog to raise awareness of future implications extreme social media and technology usage could bring to the next generation of young adults. Compared with other developed nations, Americans are more likely to have a higher amount of screen-time than almost any other western society. According to Common Sense Media,  American youth, ages 8-18 spend an average of nine hours using any source of media. Instead of living an active lifestyle and learning lifelong skills, we are training  our youth to live behind the screen while emphasizing the importance of technical literacy in the workplace. Brianna Crowley compared the older generation to be more of “digital immigrants’” rather than “digital natives”. However, we are not preparing the “digital natives” for the real world, we are teaching them to live like lifeless computer-oriented zombies. Employers are more inclined to hire someone with both computer and communication skills, however CLIMB professional Development and Training ranked strong communication as the top answer. As a society we need to be conscientious of the negative impact’s technology can bring, so we can work toward a well-rounded lifestyle.
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[This illustration shows this woman’s struggle to detach herself from social media. (Thrillist)]
MENTAL HEALTH
In 2014 Nielson performed a study to show the negative effects technology has on the developing teen brain, this study showed how technology has negative effects on sleep patterns, self-confidence, social skills, emotions, and personality in teens. Nielson highlights the negatives of social media as a whole, rather than demonstrate what a person goes through on a more intimate level, which is so important to acknowledge. As technology has risen, personal hatred towards one’s own body became extremely prominent. Girls and boys saw true differences between their bodies and ones of famous influencers, which then made teens try and work towards a more “likeable” image. Teens will do anything to fit in, going anywhere from posting scandalous photos to starving themselves, because that is what their favorite celebrity does.  The Girl Scouts Research Institute found that ½ of every teen women wish they were as skinny as fashion models. I think it is horrible to see how many girls are affected by social media, if they weren’t subjected to mass amounts of edited content then maybe it would be easy to differentiate between what is real and what is fake.
Body image is something that usually has a negative connotation. When you’re a teen you have so many different things to worry about. Teens stress about the craziest things, personally I have stressed about how my new perfume smelled for hours. I think with just simple posts a teen can completely misconstrue the meaning behind the initial post and work-up their emotions in response. Our brain has been rewired since I was a kid. According to Stephanie Hertzenberg; from Beliefnet, there is a direct connection between your brains ability to process a large influx of information, and the ability to retain information. This recent catastrophe is referred to as “popcorn brain”, and if the brain is subjected to a large amount of stimuli for long periods of time, then the brain will no longer retain large portions of information.
Not only does over indulgence of social media lead to poor cognitive function it also is a main trigger of anxiety and depression. It is so easy to see posts on your feed and compare the amount of likes you receive to another young teen, but while some of us just see that like as a number others take that number to heart. In 2017 the Child Mind Institute conducted a study that shows 92% of teens use or own a smartphone. The Child Mind Institute also found that in half a million high-schoolers depressive symptoms have increased 33% in a five-year span. In that same time teen girls experienced a 65% increase in suicide rates. Technology is a great thing and allows for millions of people to connect from all over the world, but when people feel bad about themselves after going online then why should we promote its use. We should not let cyberbullying be something in this world that could trigger someone to take their own life.  Jennifer Mills; a renowned Canadian Psychologist speaks on body image and says teens "… felt worse about their own appearance after looking at social media pages of someone that they perceived to be more attractive than them...". Many are quick to see negatives within this quotation; however, I believe we need to not see it as a negative but see it as an opportunity to change young tech users outlook when on social media. Instead of viewing it as a competition, we need to teach developing youth that it is a form of finding information on others.
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[This photo symbolizes how she sees herself based upon others words, and how they stick on her (Social Media Effecting Body Image).]
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
We have seen our society move up the ladder with new innovations, with large technology companies constantly working towards releasing the newest update. Apple is the leading tech company in the world and is a great example of a company with a fast turnover rate. Within the last decade, we have moved into the realm of smartphones. With technology at our fingertips our citizens live a very efficient lifestyle. You can completely live a paperless lifestyles if truly necessary, but that may lead to a dependence on any given device. Women and men are constantly on popular modes of social media like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. If our society is on average spending nine hours on a device, then a large amount of that time is spent on social media. Constant time spent on social media updates teens on the newest tech trends being released, this inclines people to buy more and more products that have very little differences. Zac Hall exemplifies the fast technology turnover rate, by showing how every September Apple releases a completely new model, then just makes small adjustments and rebrands throughout the year. This marketing scheme is what makes Apple and other companies so successful, however they do not show how the consumer is constantly updating to stay hip to cultural trends.
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[This is a chart that shows the large increase of price on Apple products (Phillipine Peso.]
PERSONAL REFLECTION
When I was a freshmen in high school, I was completely naïve to all the mean girls in school and what their words could do. I was a pretty shy girl and did not really get into deep conversations with “the cool kids”. One day I had class with this beautiful popular girl named Rachel and she was seated in my table group. I was pretty excited to be in a cool table group, and for her to even know my name. A few weeks went by and I thought Rachel and I had really hit it off on multiple occasions. Little did I know that she was purposefully manipulating me for pure enjoyment. I had found out that she posted a photo on her Snapchat story of me wearing shorts with white paint on the butt. This white stain led to many sexual jokes that I was not expecting nor wanting.
In conclusion, although Rachel and I do not talk anymore her words still linger with me to this day. I feel that without the monumental tear to my self-confidence I would not have grown to be a strong independent leader. I am currently writing this from my hotel room where I am staying in Nashville. I was selected to attend a Leadership Conference here and I truly think back to that time where social media destroyed me, and how I have grown from that experience. Overall, I believe technology has allowed us to transform society and grow into what we are today, but without proper guidance it can go extremely bad.
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[These are unfortunately the very old shorts that I got made fun of for when I was so young. Ironically, I brought them to wear to bed.]
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[This is me and Jacquelyn Kelly pictured above at the Leadership Conference this past weekend.]
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