#then the power dynamics got weirder and worse

[clonerightsagenda]

Saw a (fake) post about someone dating their boss and I know the power dynamics are part of the appeal for many people in employer/employee ships but I have binged too much Ask a Manager to not be concerned by the HR implications. Employer/employee shipfic where the core plotline is restructuring the workplace into a co-op.

[moonknightproductions]

For the character bingo, Xehanort and your favorite Yu-Gi-Oh character?

Gonna put this under a cut because the explanations are gonna get a little long lol

For Xehanort:

Explanations:

I absolutely love his design (any of them), Nomura knocked it out of the park with this one (although him being darker skinned than most of the cast is kinda… you know). Love the coats, love the boots, etc. BUT they could’ve gone even further with his character, even as a kid. Establish his weird empathy powers and run with it. Second row’s are pretty much self-explanatory.

As much as I want to say he’s got a big fanon focus, it’s really only a select group of people who’re in the know about Dark Road (see bottom left of the bingo lol). He very much is THEE character for me, the one who solidified my love for KH.

Autism beam.

If I think about him too long I get a headache (affectionate). Changed my life (as a package deal with kh obviously but Xeha specifically was a big part of it). I really want him to come back in KH4 even if just a cameo. Let me see my boy again in Quadratum living his best 14th life.

For the Yugis (I got a bingo!):

This is for both Yugi and Yami (which is why the dynamic one isn’t filled in; they work as standalone BECAUSE they’re so often in a dynamic). They’re a package deal.

Everyone makes fun of his hair but is it really any worse than, say, Goku’s? Yami especially could be a lot weirder (I know he mellowed out by Duel Monsters with Yugi’s help but l wish he retained some of his season 0 energy, he was very fun in that). The only ship I don’t really hate is Yugi/Anzu, actually. Yugi’s very transmasc to me but also I saw this fanart of fem-presenting genderfluid Yami and she was kinda hot ngl, so.

They very much captured my attention (in a “godammit why does every media I get into nowadays feature a characters with multiple personalities/accidental DID rep (affectionate)” way) and is basically the reason I kept watching past the first few episodes.

His name means game (how original, Takahashi). Autism.

Similarly to Xehanort, if I think about them for too long I start to cry (they’re just so sad and sweet to each other and aughhh). Due to his main character status, people constantly try to kill Yugi and he was bullied a lot before finishing the Puzzle.

Also similarly to Xehanort, he changed my life for the better (in combination with the series but it was mostly Yugi and Yami). However, in exchange, they will not leave my head. At all. They’re the form my consciousness is deciding to take for when I need to talk to myself (and it’s only natural that it’d do this considering the above-mentioned accidental DID rep). Not that I mind, I love him!

For context (even though this means nothing to people who aren’t also into it), I haven’t gotten to GX’s fourth season yet, but I have watched/read all of s0, watched both the og and dub of Duel Monsters, and am in the middle of reading the Duelist manga. I’ve also watched most of the Yugi-related movies except Bonds Through Time, so it’s pretty safe to say I’ve seen a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh media with Yugi in it. YET SOMEHOW I MISS HIM ALL THE TIME? I know I could always reread/watch stuff but every time I finish doing that I just wanna see my boy again??? I’m never satisfied with the amount I’ve seen him???

Despite all that, I do hope he’s happy. I haven’t gotten to 5Ds yet so idk what he’s like in that but I hope the protagonist of that show can help him if he needs it.

[gigglingauspice]

Definitely weirder in the second case. The first is still gross and uncomfortable but like… You don’t know. Presumably you did not grow up with her, you’ve got through the rigamarole of whatever led up to sex without discovering this. Or it’s totally anonymous ala a glory hole and neither of you know. Either way, it’s not your fault even if it is totally nausea inducing to think about. The power dynamics are similar to if the two of you weren’t related. Presumably you can walk away just fine.

The second case definitely feels worse because it’s… Purposeful. (While I’m assuming that whatever is happening is allowed in some aspect and it’s not infidelity, I think infidelity would automatically make it wrong socially.) You and your sister have this guy that’s involved with both of you and it’s just… Going to get so messy? Inevitably? Especially if one of you has a falling out with your mutual partner? Eugh.

is it weirder to fuck your sister without knowing you’re related or for you and your sister (who you know is your sister) to fuck the same guy

[hugh-lauries-bald-spot]

tv show/movie ask meme: Succession!

favorite male character:

Greg, because I feel like he's already just such a weird dude but he's got sooo much potential going into season 4 to be even weirder and worse (/pos)

favorite female character:

❤️💞🥰💖 Gerri ❤️💞🥰💖, because well you see MILFS,, and hotness aside she's just so sarcastic and like deadpan and funny but also just so ruthlessly professional ("how does it serve my interests")

least favorite character:

Logan's already basically a free space so I'm gonna go with Karl Muller he's just annoying to me and I dislike when he comes onscreen for some reason,,,

prettiest character:

❤️💞🥰💖 Gerri ❤️💞🥰💖

do I really need to explain myself further?

(gif credit as far as I know goes to @gerrikillallmen if that's incorrect please tell me-)

funniest character:

Ooh this is tough cause I wanna say Tom cause he's strange and insane and pathetically in love, but then again Roman cause he's strange and insane and pathetically in love, but then again Greg cause he's s-

favorite season:

Season 3 because all the storylines are just culminating to and end and it's so fascinating to see how it happens, all of the dynamics are at their peak, theres the surface conflicts and the underlying conflicts that attack you when you least expect it, the betrayal, the love it's all just so tragic (and COOL)

favorite episode:

Safe Room (2x04) : because its silly and weird and the tomgreg is insane, but also the Roman storyline is hilarious and if I'm not mistaken he calls Gerri "mommy" in this episode which is always appreciated

favorite romantic ship:

Tomgreg (I'm so sorry romangerri) because it's just so Roman (not as in the country itself as it is today, I've never been to Rome) but as in just look at the series of events (SPOILERS AHEAD):

-> man proposes to beautiful wife with a lot of power

-> he meets his girlfriend's cousin

-> he later proposes to his girlfriend

-> his wife is seeing other men

-> the cousin tries to warn him, he won't hear it

-> his wife admits to this after their wedding night

-> while she sees other people he is allegedly allowed to do the same thing but she intervenes not so subtly when he has the chance

-> their love languages grow more and more incompatible

-> he and the his wife's cousin form a weird bond (likened by the man to that of Nero and Sporus, wherein Nero killed his wife and married Sporus, the man says "I would castrate you and marry you in a heartbeat", meaning he would need to kill his wife first, which uh-)

-> the man eventually becomes loyal more-so to his wife's cousin than to his wife and betrays her to leverage himself and his assistant to a higher position

favorite family ship:

I love the dynamic between Shiv and Roman they're just So Siblings and I love when they gang up on Ken it's peak comedy.

favorite friend ship:

I know they were together but like Roman and Tabitha were great and I thought their relationship was more "best buds-y" (not that sex is a requirement for a romantic relationship) they just gave of more platonic romance than anything else and I thought it was sweet and funny for them

worst ship:

I don't know if this is real or not but I've seen some hints that some people ship Ken x Greg but they're related so that's a BIG no for me. I'm also not crazy about Tom x Roman or Tom x Ken but that's just personal preference I don't have beef with those ships themselves and anyone who does like them do your thing go off be free.

Sorry this is so long 😬

[cto10121]

finally saw encanto!!!! yeah, i felt kind of obligated to view and review it, what with my being colombian american (first generation) and all. and also there’s that song about not talking about that guy everybody’s talking about…so. let’s just get to it

it’s better than coco, i’ll give it that, in that it is not (as) cheesy and not (totally) mami and papi propaganda of the importance of ~familia and all. this one actually has conflict…which is then resolved less than five minutes later. also way less plot, so it evens out. i’ll just do a good, bad, and ugly. take it away, hugo

the good:

the animation? it keeps getting more and more detailed and holy shit, they decided to do actual choreography. that must have been painful to animate. kudos, i guess

um. that one cumbia in the end credits? actually colombian and the melody was not that bad. my mom danced a little because of course she would

the premise isn’t too bad. the execution was cheesy and precious (remember when disney had balls and had adult jokes and a genuinely witty screenplay? i do. i remember) but it had at least something to say about burnout and perfectionism and intra-family fuckery.

that’s it, really

the bad:

songs sucked. the first one was probably the worst. at least the bruno song is catchy. but that was the only one even the least bit memorable. the cumbia in the credits was probably the best composition, ha. even the lyrics were piss poor. i swear lin-manuel miranda is getting worse and worse after hamilton. hamilton at least had clever rhymes. what’s happening?

they keep making the screenplays to these things simpler and simpler, aren’t they? also the increased use of superlatives and adjectives.

the lack of stakes. yes, abuela is a pill, but also…not that much? for one thing she believes mirabel immediately about the cracks instead of questioning her and when mirabel tries to defend herself, she doesn’t even accuse her of lying or doing it for the attention. i guess i wanted a more gaslighting abuela, ha. it doesn’t help matters that until mirabel goes snooping around we don’t get a sense of how stressed everybody is. she also sees the error of her ways far too easily and quickly. latino parents are way more stubborn, and this one had trauma.

speaking of, her backstory is…interesting. as in, way too vague. i’m guessing abuela and her husband were supposed to be indians and were screwed over by the spaniards (or simply colombian government doing pogroms??? again, i know that to be a mexican thing, but i suspect that to be a latin american thing in general). it would have given the narrative some weight to give a piece of genuine history, but eh.

this family was just way too lovey-dovey in general. mirabel and isabella hating each other is pretty much the only thing that rang true in terms of family dynamics and that wasn’t developed much at all.

i suppose it was never meant to be a mystery, but…we never got an explanation as to why the casita (or casota, it should be called) didn’t give mirabel a gift. i mean, that was how the movie began and its central conflict: mirabel struggling to accept her lack of powers. also, bruno supposedly leaving never had any weight—even before the song luisa talked about him just fine and mirabel even mentioned him and his powers in song.

the confusing racial mixture of the triplets. abuela and her husband both look straightforwardly indian with maybe (1) spaniard ancestor, but pepa is pretty white (with red hair! was that spaniard?) and of the three only bruno got the nose; he also looks the closest to his mother. but whatever. you do get weirder irl combinations, so

the ugly:

the magic returning at the end. i suppose the big reveal is that the magic was really tied to the well-being of the family members so when they began to feel better it…came back???? if it sounds stupid, it’s because it is. at the very least it was not very well explained and it undermined the whole message of the magic not being what truly matters or what is special but just being you.

the whole scene of antonio getting his powers almost got me diabetes, yuck

the powers themselves being pretty lame. luisa’s was genuinely useful, but unless isabela can grow crops as well, her power was the most useless of all. dolores’ super hearing really should have been torture for her and camilo changing into people is useful for spying, not so much for ordinary life (or would it? that would have been a good angle, show the reality of a small town, but that would require the actual subzero level of fucks disney no longer has). ditto for antonio’s talking to animals.

“COLOMBIA TE QUIERO TANTO. COLOMBIA COMO ME GUSTA TU ENCANTO.” kill me

for all the rah-rah about representing ✨authentic colombian culture, ✨ it’s worth noting that my two colombian parents (boomers, born ‘48-‘58) were like 🤔 and 🙄 the whole movie. my mother kept saying that this looks more mexican and that colombian pueblos weren’t that colorful!!! you remember, mija, when we went to [insert pueblo name] it wasn’t all color, this is more mexican!!! don’t believe in the disney lies!!!! my dad meanwhile was frowning over the modern latin rhythms in a supposedly 19th century setting. there was an arepa. and that one cumbia. and they roped in carlos vives (my parents were like oh, yeah, him). overall, not very impressive. i will say, however, that this may be more reflective of campesino, gente-humilde culture and my parents were…definitely not that, ha.

so this was yet another overrated cheesy disney flick with an inexplicable internet fandom and pumped-up claims about ~representation. i have a feeling some higher-ups ordered the creative team not to make things too colombian or else the other latino subcultures will not give them money will be sad. but now that this was a sleeper hit, disney is not going to stop until it has a movie for every hispanic-latino american subculture. i blame you. i blame all of you.

[hirazuki]

Ooo I'm curious about your hot takes on the Inuyasha reboot after reading your tags 👀

Ahaha, where to start XD Idk if they are hot takes, but here are my thoughts in bullet point form for coherency, I couldn’t figure out how else to organize them. Under a cut, as usual, because it got lengthy... as usual :D

We are 13 episodes in, and I still have no idea wtf is going on or what the series is actually about. And yes, I’m aware that we didn’t know of Naraku’s existence or of the overarching plot until at least episode 16 of that series either and Inuyasha was still very episodic in nature at that early point too, but here’s the thing: Inuyasha did not build upon a pre-existing series. For better or for worse, Yashahime has certain expectations to live up to that the original anime didn’t, by virtue of its being a sequel. Unfair? Maybe, but tough; that’s what happens when you make a sequel. Additionally, despite us not knowing The Main Plot™ of Inuyasha until later, the basic framework for it was laid out clearly by... episode 2? I think? Find and collect the Shikon Jewel shards. Boom, done. Were there distractions or fillers? Sure, but you never got the sense that the characters simply up and forgot about the shards. Even in fillers, the shards often made some kind of appearance. With Yashahime, there’s like three potential storylines going on: 1. The most obvious: most of our main cast from the OG is missing; where are they? Apparently no one in-story cares! :D Inuyasha, who’s that lol. I’m all for a sequel focusing on the new generation with cameos of the old crew; after all, they already had their own series. But this is like... no one cares about them? No one talks about them? And the more characters go about not mentioning them, the stronger their absence is felt. Like, for instance, Kaede knows Moroha is InuKag’s daughter. Moroha grew up on her own, doesn’t know her parents. Kaede doesn’t mention them to Moroha, doesn’t even spare a passing thought about them for the audience’s benefit, Moroha doesn’t ask. Kagome’s family in the present day meet Moroha, recognize her as Kagome’s daughter and... say nothing??? Souta shows Towa Kagome and Inuyasha’s old photos, but doesn’t say a word to Moroha?! Like. It makes no sense. By people not even acknowledging their existence, it makes the fact that they are nowhere to be found even weirder. Also the new gen girls don’t care about their parents or finding out who they were/are... like, okay, it would maybe be in character for one or two of them, but all three don’t give a fuck??? 2. Kirinmaru/the rainbow pearls: Idk how familiar you are with the story, but similar deal with Naraku and the shards here. Kirinmaru is being set up as the villain, still a mysterious figure; our new gen trio is supposed to collect the rainbow pearls that... some of his henchmen have? Or he is after them? Or is that Riku? Unclear. ANYWAY the new gen girls often forget all about the pearls’ existence :D 3. Setsuna’s memories: Setsuna’s dreams have been stolen by the dream butterfly and they need to get them back, because without her dreams she has no memories and is unable to sleep. Cool! Finally a solid, easy-to-follow plot line! Except wait! Towa, who supposedly made it her goal to get Setsuna’s sleep back, forgets all about it! All the time! Like, none of them make an effort to look into this other than being like “oh yeah, know anything about the dream butterfly?” to random folks every now and then. The Inugang back in the day was putting some grad school level research towards their goals, just saying. It just feels like everything’s all wishy-washy and there’s nothing really solid tying the series together. People just remember shit exists when it’s convenient.

.

Character development is MIA. I’m not expecting ground-breaking char dev in 13 episodes (though I do know 12 episode series that were phenomenal in that regard), but like... I do expect the series to focus on building the dynamics between the main three characters. So far, the series is more focused on teasing the audience with glimpses and promises of the OG cast instead. The creators are using nostalgia and bait (esp of a certain pairing) to drive interest in the series, rather than developing the new characters as fully-fledged characters for their own sakes. 

.

Moroha is was the only thing I actually liked about the series. She is a little spitfire and you can somehow instantly see both Inuyasha and Kagome in her, while she also remains very uniquely herself; I have never seen such a successfully developed main pairing child in any series. She featured quite prominently in the first few episodes -- and unlike both her parents, she’s got a great memory and knowledge of lore -- where she balanced funny moments with badass fighting moments and being the token supernatural encyclopedia. It was great! And then... they’ve like... forgotten her. She’s been left behind so many times by the twins. She’s the butt of every joke. She’s become the type of comic relief that’s, well, insulting. More like a buffoon than anything else. And it’s basically all for the sake of giving the floor to Towa :/

.

Setsuna is okay. Not offensive, but unremarkable. She’s got her dad’s personality but like way toned down due to her different growing up circumstances, which is nice, but like... I feel she isn’t given any room to grow or breathe or anything. She’s also basically there as a device to enhance Towa’s development.

.

Towa... oy. I tried to like her, I really did, but she just doesn’t work for me. They set her up having a very Kurosaki Ichigo type deal with beating up bullies and getting into trouble at school and shit -- I’m fine with that. That’s cool. Esp if it’s linked to not feeling like she fits in bc she’s a hanyou? Awesome. Except once she travels back in time to the feudal era it’s all “Oh killing is bad you shouldn’t kill people” and “even though they attacked me I can’t possibly hurt them” and “you need to empathize and talk things out” and “friendship is magic” and shit. It feels like she had a personality transplant, it literally makes no sense. Her design is totally nonsensical too -- out of everyone at her school, she’s the only one dressed in a bright white suit? Do protags not wear the school uniform? Someone should tell Kagome lmao. She’s a pro at hand to hand, and she can absorb demons’ powers and fling them back at them like a personified Tessaiga, and she has a lightsaber sword, and she’s immune to miasma, and -- like... you get it. It’s too much. It’s way too OP for the type of universe that Inuyasha/Yashahime is set in. She’s hanyou for fuck’s sake; remember all the training Inuyasha had to go through? When he couldn’t lift his sword? When his sword attacked him? Sango, Miroku, Kagome, even Sesshomaru all had trouble with their weapons and had to work to become stronger. But Towa? Nope. Towa is straight out of the Yas Queen/Girl Boss manual, so she gets a free pass on everything.

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UGH they are doing the VLD/bad writing thing where things happen (like, BIG THINGS) and none of the characters actually react to them. Or stuff happens and there are no consequences. No one ever talks about anything. It’s wild.

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Everyone has amnesia!! :D People either don’t know or don’t remember anything or anyone. People who absolutely should know things all of a sudden magically don’t know them. Like, Kohaku -- traveled with an undead priestess, spent years in the company of demons, traveled with Sesshomaru... and yet had NO CLUE that Setsuna is Sesshomaru’s daughter or that she is hanyou, despite her living and working with his team of demon slayers all this time. Like... how, man. How. And Kaede! Don’t get me started. Since when does she perpetuate random demon-boogeyman type stories as facts? Demon children will kill each other in the nest so that only the strongest one will survive, therefore Setsuna must have killed Towa when they were infants. O_O What are they, sharks? Has she been hanging out with Kisame? Wtf?? And she’s speaking about Sess’s kids as though she doesn’t know him or anything about him, when she has had Rin under her roof all these years. It just makes. no. sense.

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Things that happened in the original series are happening again now! Because that’s the best we’ve got, recycled plot elements wooo! No, but really, characters that died or things that were resolved in Inuyasha keep coming back. Why? What was the purpose of bringing back Kinka and Ginka? To have a foil for Towa and Setsuna as twins? Someone please tell Sunrise they can just create new characters. Like, it’s one thing to have call backs to the original or cameos, references, whatever. But like... this is entire (dead) characters and interactions.

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No one knows how long it’s been since the original series ended. Fans initially heard 20 years from promo material, then “over 15″ and “10 years since” in-series regarding two different events, and now in a future episode summary we’ve gotten 18 years since Hosenki II gave Inuyasha the black pearl. But like, which black pearl? Because the one in Inuyasha’s eye doesn’t exist anymore, but Hosenki II had told Inuyasha that it would take 100 years for him to produce one. So, are we retconning that or where the fuck did it come from? Also, this doesn’t help one bit, it just confuses things even more. Back to the point, though, we have no coherent timeline or real frame of reference whatsoever, and I’m betting it’s in large part to keep the mystery of who is Sesshomaru’s wife going, as it keeps Rin’s age very vague. Everything is vague and mysterious in Yashahime, to the point where no one knows what’s going on, in fandom or in-story even. It’s kinda like how too much plot twist/shock reveal ruins a story, too much mystery does the same. It’s insane that both shippers and antis of that ship can lay equal claim that the “18 years since” announcement works in their favor.

tl;dr: Idk man, Yashahime is a clusterfuck of a series. Even if the mother of Sess’s twins is either of the characters I ship him with, I will still not like the series. There’s no saving this writing. Every episode feels like this:

[themanicgalaxy]

SPN 5X3 Free to be You and Me

huh oh right they're split up

boy I'm curious to see what's gonna happen

huh open on Sam

like yes, protagonist, but

JESSICA

man she hasn't aged

boy it's nice she's remembered tho

poor Sam and the constant violation of his bodily autonomy

see it's shot like that one lucifer thing

Oh simple man, ok wow

O H CUT TO DEAN

I like this one

Great American Loneliness

Dean canonically knows about twilight

goDDAMN THIS IS GOOD THO

OH MY GOD SAME WAY OF DEALING WITH MUSIC AND THE RADIO OMG

Bedlund started it and they all just liked it so much

CAS!! CAS CAS CAS!!

WHEN DID THEY TALK ABOUT IT

SKSKS HE CALLED BOBBY

O H RAPHAEL

teenage mutant ninja angel

OHDFSAO OH MY GOD

“are you flirting with me” “I’m fucking trying to”

IT’S A TROPE IT’S LITERALLY A RELATIONSHIP TROPE

Cas and his complete sincerity vs. Dean and quips :)

K E I T H ?

o h world peace oof

Sam the Slightly Off kid is SO GOOD

CAS THATS NOT A PLAN

AW HE’S TELLING HIM HUMANS LIE AWWWW

HE FIXES HIS TIE

A W W W W W

the president quip also feels pointed at the times

cas *stares*

THE BADGE THING AWWWW

IT’S THE DEMONS- no no it’s not

aww their dynamic is so good I love it

actual humor just by virtue of people oh my god I love castiel

BOBBY YOU SARCASTIC FUCKER

I do like the dichotomy of like…Sam liked hunting the most but has to give it up(established in the office au) like he’s growing into it

he fucking LOOKS ethereal

“you do” jesus cas

“last night on earth” I’m going feral what the fuck was this

NO HE’S FLIRTING HE’S 100% FLIRTING

S H Y C A S

they’re so fucking funny oh my god I’m cackling

BERT AND ERNIE COMMENT W H Y WHAT WAS THE POINT W H Y

listen…I get it…but also…apocalypse

Sam b ru h

although to be entirely fair, he might be more of a liability

aw I like Lindsay although she’s gonna be…dead probably

CASTIEL OH MY G OD

THE GAY PANIC

HE HAS BLUESCREENED SO HARD

HE IS CHUGGING THE BEER

THE FEAR IN HIS FUCKING EYES OH MY G O D

THIS IS FUCKING HILARIOUS OH MY GOD

HE LOOKED HER DEAD IN THE EYE AND BROUGHT UP HER ABSENT FATHER AHAHA

oh we’ve got themes of world weary in one way vs naive in one way and also knowledgable of the Universe vs the whole GED thing that gets brought up in fic and AAA

“years” oh no Dean :(

I do like the wandering archetype for him actually tbh

Aw she’s three years sober

“come and get me you little bastard” damn I LOVE HIM

WHELP IT WORKED!

IMAGERY WAS SO COOL

Also Dean hunches over they’re about the same height now

he deflects so Cas is ok aw

THE COMPOSURE CRACK! THE COMPOSURE CRACK!!!!

“It was his idea” * B I T C H *

gOd iS dEaD anD we have kIllEd Him

ah there we got to the lindsay death :(

the ages old “what do when god is gone, would he let this happen”

oH VERY NICE ABANDONMENT ISSUES WITH DEAN

“just cuz shit’s fucked up doesn’t mean you make it more fucked up” VERY NICE

“godless universe” and yeah it be like that

post office sksks

ooo it being lucifer is a Nice Touch

it’s not true but still cool

MY LITTLE BITCH

WHAT HE SAID AHAHA

ah JEEZ HE GOT FORCEFED THE BLOOD N O

and he does hulk out but like…human hulk out

AW DEAN CHECKED ON CAS

MISSING FATHERSSSS AW

“you gotta do what you believe” AWW

“we’re not so different you and I” type beat AW

Dean being happy without Sam is Ouch but also

it’s different with not being responsible for someone

aw he’s happy

nO CAS COME BACK NOT THAT ALONE

PEOPLE CAN CHANGE IS IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Ah it’s luci

whelp that must have been violating

heh vessel bros

“and I’ll just bring you back” IS H O R R I F Y I N G, and worse, it’s set up

sincere villain is so interesting though damn

okok wrap:

1. straining against budget. listen it’s painfully clear that Supernatural wants to be more than it is. Like the fact that they burn through a lot of really popular songs(budget) at the beginning is like. there’s a vision, and it can’t be reached. Although in some cases that constraint ends up for the better(I think my fav example is Misha’s crazy hair), other times it ends up well. But the idea that it wants to be more than it is? I go Feral, I want to Eat Glass

No wonder this is like the Most Fanficced Show

2. simple man. I really liked the mirroring montage. They lean TOO heavily on the radio gag(have it be a tape, have it be SOMETHING else so it’s not the same thing two episodes in a row) but I thought it was a good time passing/show the dichotomy montage

actually speaking of

3. dichotomy!! like we know from the office ep/season 4 Sam is down to fight(always more like John, always more taken in by revenge and pain and power etc etc), and Dean has been reticent, wants a normal life, in both Yellow Fever and office ep, and they had to do the other things. And “Weirder” still, Dean is happy! like yeah Sam is Burdened, but Dean is happy to just…vibe for the first time in his life

ok see it’s different cuz a younger sibling is still responsibility, it isn’t technically equal, so Dean was never able to relax because John’s an absent father. the younger sibling thing

but their dichotomy here was very good, and I liked the simple man was highlighted. Once again, Sam being miserable in a normal life(like he always prolly would have been) but Dean finding himself way from his family.

3. Sam I REALLY liked the wandering archetype for Sam. Him actually going to figure shit out would be interesting, but they never actually have the time, or leave the time, for people to go through with it and it’s a shame! Weird Kid Sam would be so cool to see around in a story

also sidetone, but once you notice how little agency Sam has like…ever…like wow, this kid never had a choice thanks to destiny, and that SUCKS

slowly getting more on the Sam Hype Train tbh

4. Cas listen. Not only is Cas’s grapple with his absent father cool, he’s genuinely funny to be around! Like him and Dean have a fucking fantastic dynamic, he Acts Different than Humans(thanks Misha Collins holy hell) so it’s incredibly clear something’s off and it’s just

like it’s so good to have a character like that, he’s just so cool.

Also…Dean was flirting. that was flirting. THAT WAS LITERALL-

WHY BRING UP BERT AND ERNIE LIKE THAT UNPROMPTED

THE CONSTANT LOOKING AT HIM

See I thought people were exagerrating! Like even Merlin I can kinda see what they were going for sometimes!

WHAT WAS THIS!? IT WAS SO CLEAR OH MY GOD

5. absent fathers. Ok listen. Dean sympathizing with Cas because of trying to find an absent father(ties into the beginning of the show, dad’s on a hunting trip etc) and giving him hope to find him is SO CUTE! Like Dean giving Cas hope because of similar situations! Cas letting Dean finally relax! GOOD

Also I mentioned it, but their dichotomy of like…I think streetsmarts(Dean) and booksmarts(Ig universesmarts tho, he knows a lot of Weird Things) IS SO INTERESTING and COOL and AHH

ALLONS Y

[echoeternally]

Which Mario characters would be, as Watership Down Characters, and vice versa?

You know, I took some time to think about this one today, and I’ve got to admit, for my tastes, I can’t think of a feasible way that this works out. And it’s for a few reasons that kind of get me hung up.

Honestly, I think it comes down to at least four pretty divisive factors that keep them from being compared on an equal scale, and adds a terribly heightened challenge to it all. These would be: gender ratios (A), inconsistent characterizations (B), mismatching personalities ©, and cast prominence (D).

Obviously, it’s a lot to get into, so, I’ll include that in a portion below the cut. If you keep going, I’ll try to properly explain why it’s not just a clear-cut question to answer for this one.

A) First, gender ratios, which can be worked around based solely on personality, but still glares out big time. Watership Down has some female characters on the roster, but they tend to matter little comparatively. Hell, there are multiple characters that started as male that were later swapped to female roles in later adaptations. It’s good, and shows that the role can be played by a character, not a gender. But it’s also a reminder that the original work is dated in its viable female cast. By contrast, Mario has a nice number, and they stand out a lot better, each with unique and distinct roles, personalities, and general flavors that they add. They’re fun and dynamic, a highlight to see.

B) This actually leads into the next point, though, which would be the inconsistent characterizations. Both franchises kind of mess around with how their characters are portrayed and what they do. Sure, you get the basics well enough with the major characters: Hazel’s the brave hero leader, Mario tends to be that too. Fiver’s the timid younger brother, so is Luigi.

But it gets weirder the further down the cast list you go. Bowser’s the big bad guy, but depending on his role as the main villain or not, he can either be sympathized with, or totally evil; he’s maybe just looking for love, or has insatiable desires for conquest. Bigwig is a strong authority figure, but can either be super loyal or a part-time jerk that questions his own leader’s authority. Peach is helpless, or more powerful than she lets on. Hell, Clover took over half of Hyzenthlay’s role in the latest adaptation, and they’re far from the only instance of variable depictions in the series, further depending on the characters that are used. Overall, these changes can make them flexible to develop over time, but it makes them harder to pin down on which role defines them best.

C) And that flexibility also leads to mismatching personalities between the casts of both stories. Because Rosalina first appeared as this quiet, graceful, and yet all powerful entity, we’d picture that side to her, kind of elevating her above the usual human counterparts she’d stand beside, calling into question if she’s even human herself. But she’s later show to have simple joys and pleasures, so she’s not totally detached and above it all. This doesn’t quite equate to any particular character in Watership Down; you could try to make her on par with the Black Rabbit of Inlé, based on powers and ethereal-vibes, but Inlé is too tied with death to be a fair comparison for Rosalina.

Likewise, we have characters from Watership Down known for their stock personality types: Blackberry is the smart one, Strawberry is the big eater, and Hawkbit is the deadpan snarker. None of these particularly hit Mario characters due to their shifts in depictions. Sometimes the big eater is Bowser, sometimes it’s Luigi (yeah). Rosalina seems smart, but Yoshi and Toad have been depicted this way as well. Virtually any one of the Mario cast can fall into sarcasm and dry humor. It’s touch-and-go, but doesn’t give a solid match-up for anyone.

D) Finally, if the mentions above didn’t already make it obvious, then the issue falls to how the casts line up with first themselves, and then one another. The core cast for Mario’s main game franchise tends to fall upon Mario, Peach, Bowser, and typically Luigi to round up the rest, though sometimes he can be left out. Watership Down’s main group would likely be Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and General Woundwart. These are more or less the essential characters to have for there to be a story to tell for the franchises.

From there, have fun figuring out who matters and to what level. You can probably safely include higher profile picks for the major characters of each. Mario tends to favor Yoshi, some form of Toad, and generally a rotating female cast member, plus a sidekick villain or a few. Watership Down gets a way better story including the heroism from Hyzenthlay (or a female character that takes on her role for the story), and the undermining plots of whoever gets to be Woundwart’s second-in-command. That could form your secondary main characters.

But it just keeps going from there, and each character is weighted differently. Toad can be an individual and important, but also can get shafted for another more important Toad (Toadette, Toadsworth), or simply suffice as a species, not an individual. Should he be considered main or minor? Dandelion is usually lorekeeper alongside being the fastest, but both of these roles have been divided and distributed to other rabbits (Bluebell and Blackavar respectively), calling into question his prominence. Kehaar tends to always appear, but he can be written around pretty easily. Similarly, Bowser sometimes relies on the Koopalings, but they can also be missing for something close to a decade without the blink of an eye. Who matters, who doesn’t? It depends on the audience, and their interests.

…

Honestly, I even tried breaking it down for the characters on each level, and I had a list spanning past 20 characters on each side. And I wasn’t even including everyone, but just the characters that I felt were important. Trying to mix and match them was even worse, to the point where it really couldn’t be done on a really fitting level.

Going by canon interpretations for both, I think you’ve got, at best:

Mario = Hazel

Luigi = Fiver

Bowser = General Woundwart 

Peach = Hyzenthlay

Yoshi = Bigwig

That’s going by a core cast, with some additions to make sure the major-most of each group gets included. It’s not great either, for several reasons, since Bigwig and Yoshi do not have comparable personalities, but are both strong. Bowser’s also got redeeming qualities to him that actually earn him some sympathy points, whereas Woundwart…well, I think writers have tried, but he’s best as irredeemable and blatantly evil.

Personally, if I were to go maybe one extra level and include Daisy for main cast on the Mario side, I’d fit her to Bigwig, and instead equate Yoshi to Dandelion, as both of the latter two are known for speed, while the former two can be tough, but also caring as well. But I don’t feel that Dandelion and Daisy are as important to their franchises, whereas one could argue a little harder for Yoshi, and Bigwig is easily important to the story.

I even tried going on my fanfic interpretations (of at least the Mario characters) to see if that would line up better, but then that just screws up where the main villain connects. Because, that would instead look like:

Mario/Luigi = Hazel/Fiver

Bowser = Bigwig

Peach? = Hyzenthlay?

??? = General Woundwart

Because, based on how I’ve written them so far, Bowser’s even less of an evil force, and more motivated based on his heart and his people. This makes no one particularly equal to Woundwart. Conversely, Peach is a lot, well…she’s hardened. If one were to go by Hyzenthlay’s depiction in the Netflix miniseries, I’d wager that’s good enough. But this splits who Hyzenthlay is, so the character doesn’t quite feel whole. Oh, and Mario tends to be leader-like, but also has weird powers and visions going on, which helps Luigi step up into his role in his absence, so…they both have shades of Hazel and Fiver’s roles.

Furthermore, I get lost in my own biased interpretations of the fanfic I’m never writing for Watership Down, so that would make going down the rabbit hole a lot more terrifying. Well, for you reading this, anyway; I’d be thrilled to keep it going and gush about personalities in my head for the WD cast, lol.

So, that’s kind of how it goes in my mind. Yes, I’m positive there’s enough flexibility to go down each list and match up characters based on as much as possible for each side of them, or by ignoring some things. Mixing some canons together, you could get:

Mario = Hazel

Luigi = Fiver

Peach = Hyzenthlay

Daisy = Bigwig 

Bowser = General Woundwart

Kamek = Vervain/Orchis/Whoever the schemer to Woundwart is

Yoshi = Kehaar 

Toad = Pipkin/Bluebell

Toadette = Clover

Wario = Strawberry

Waluigi = Cowslip

Bowser Jr = Campion

Rosalina = Dandelion

Here, not only do these feel weirdly off when you look further into those characters, but it doesn’t really cover them properly, nor does it pick the best from the rosters of each. Yoshi’s kind of the foreign type to the core cast, so he connects well enough with Kehaar. This, however, chooses to ignore his famous speed that aligns him best with Dandelion, which instead relates his storytelling to Rosalina, because both tell stories, but that’s where their similarities end. We also choose to ignore Yoshi’s big appetite, which would connect best to Strawberry, putting the much less important Wario up to that role.

Similarly, this also confuses the interpretations on certain Watership Down characters based on how they’re depicted, and then sort of picks a Mario character that might connect. The easier one is Woundwart’s right hand scheming little twerp, which has been both Vervain and Orchis in the tv series and miniseries respectively. They work in a role similar to Kamek, a dutiful but terrified henchman.

It gets worse, though, when we hit something like Pipkin or Bluebell, as the latter was absent from the tv series, the former from the miniseries, and though both have some childish innocence to them, neither personality ends here for either. Toad, when he’s fleshed out as a standalone character, probably could be seen as innocent and childish, but I doubt he’s alone, and also has roles that elevate his mindset, which doesn’t quite make him on that same level.

Not to mention that some just don’t outright fit (Junior to Campion), but going that far along, that’s about all that works out well enough for characters that can be argued for their prominence.

…

Bottom line would be that, while I totally love both franchises and would like to put them on a equal level for comparisons, it doesn’t do either one justice.

All the same, thank you for the interest and the ask! It was fun thinking it over.

[jojotier]

what’re your thoughts on sugimoto for the character ask thing? :)

I actually did him before, but by God have things changed since now and the last time I did these rounds….

Favorite Thing: Last time I espoused on how much I adore Sugimoto’s curiosity and willingness to listen and learn all about the Ainu from Asirpa, as well as his kindness, but this time I wanna focus on how devotedly selfless he is for those he loves!! Even though he was singularly focused on Asirpa, he still paused his pursuit to make sure that Shiraishi could be saved from the ice drifts and so that he could assure Shiraishi that he was alive- and God, 188 just showed how much he’s willing to put on the line for those he loves!! 

He’s even willing to save the life of someone he positively abhors if it means making sure that Asirpa doesn’t have to become a murderer. This selflessness is even more impressive when you realize- he’s putting this all aside while also fighting impulses to give into even more violent episodes due to his injury. It’s fantastically realistic writing from a narrative standpoint (while a brain injury in the frontal lobe can drastically change personality, anything extreme usually doesn’t last in the long term- look at the case of Phineas Gage- and the previous personality shows at least in some measure) and makes his selflessness all the more poignant. 

Least Favorite Thing: Some of his more extreme behavior post-injury is kind of annoying, like the willingness to do weirder shit, leaving his photo with the Russian couple, etc- but then again, this is a very, very minor gripe. My real least favorite thing is the same as last time. Stop sympathizing with bearfuckers, fucker

Favorite Line: It’s still his speech about how soldiers have to rebuild themselves on the battlefield in ch100. The persimmon scene is, in general, the single most powerful scene in all of Golden Kamuy so far, but this may simply be due to extreme personal bias. I’ve been quite close with a lot of soldiers in my family, and Golden Kamuy has one of the most genuinely realistic depiction of PTSD and survivor’s guilt that I’ve ever seen in media, as is their effect on military families.

Once, in an uber, I was talking with my driver, I mentioned my Dad had been in the military and served in Iraq. He said that when a soldier serves, their whole family serves, and thanked me for my service. I still remember that- because when my Dad was in the army, I was about 5. This is becoming more of an Asirpa meta, but the persimmon scene encompasses that principle- that not just the soldier themselves serve. All the closest family and people the soldier meets afterward, who the soldier shares their closest lives and struggles with, in some measure are changed by war, even if they don’t know what war is. And it shakes me.

brOTP: Asirpa and Sugimoto- aka, Knife Dad And His Lesbian Daughter. Or like, maybe it’s Gay Dad and his Knife Daughter? I don’t remember how it goes. In any case- I love the sibling dynamic between these two!! Sugimoto obviously has come to love what Asirpa teaches, and enjoys spending time with her, and their joking, teasing manner of doing things is so realistic to how actual siblings act. No cutesy “Big bwother uwu” or “lil sis umu” shit here- Asirpa mercilessly tears into Sugimoto whenever he’s a dumbass and in turn, Sugimoto teases Asirpa for being a tiny goblin who’s weird about poop. He’s obviously endeared, but he doesn’t patronize Asirpa, and I think that’s beautiful

OTP: Oh SugiShira, definitely. Like I still love Sugimoto with a lot of the cast (Umeko and Toraji OT3 included,,) but SugiShira is definitely my all time fave in terms of content and making content! Their relationship is amazingly fun and sweet, and let’s face it- any boyfriend who lets Sugimoto go All Out with courtship is a boyfriend who Sugimoto is gonna go apeshit over, the fuckin sap. The big runner up is SugiKoi, because I still love TsukiKoi but also I love a good rivalmance. Like a rival-to-lover thing that’s ACTUALLY rival-to-lover and not just hatefucking

nOTP: Remember how last time I was like, oh, OSugi’s a soft no, I can’t see it in canon but in a well done au maybe? Yeah lmao not anymore!! Abashiri happened, Ogata kept getting worse and Sugimoto has irreparable brain damage that will affect how he forms and maintains relationships with other people and how some of his motor skills go for the rest of his Life.  I won’t even lie and say “oh maybe you can convince me with an au uwu” because fuck no you cannot. Especially after 188 when people were going apeshit over the eye vore- yall were being fucking weird and that was weird. So yea. Goodbye, Osushit

Random Headcanon: Sugimoto stayed and held vigil over his family’s house as it burned to the ground. Even though the smell of burning flesh made him nauseous, even though his family lay inside, voices slowly being snuffed out and coughing finally coming to an end, he stayed and watched until the flames subsided. It was to make sure things didn’t become a wildfire, he told himself, but in truth he watched because he was mourning. His parents were already as good as dead- had it really been right to hasten them to their graves? And for what, he own fleeting reputation? I headcanon that even now, Sugimoto can’t look at a large fire without the pit of his stomach twisting in on himself. Not without the smell of flesh coming to him. Not without remembering the life he burned.

Unpopular Opinion: Or I guess this is a popular one, idrk? Either way… Sugimoto is a way better guardian figure than Wilk was, despite his few mistakes and general lack of needing to parent Asirpa- he’s not there as Asirpa’s father, just as her guardian and brother and best friend. Which is far more than Wilk has ever done, the son of a bitch, training Asirpa and trapping her in this gold hunt as he did under the guise of parental love. 

Song I Associate with him: I still associate Still in Saigon with him, but after he started getting those psychotic violent episodes, I started ALSO associating Back From the Dead by Skillet with him. Lord knows that’s probably how everyone feels when Sugimoto appears again lmao- and plus, it acts as a great battle track for the Ogata/Sugimoto showdown we never got!

Favorite Picture: I’ve looked at this for five years now

[andawaywego]

cyrano’s got nothin’ on me

by andawaywego

[or: Jason asks Kim out and Trini is too good a friend for this crap]

… Jason asks Kim out on a Thursday. Trini’s not sure why it’s important that it’s a Thursday, only that it is. Thursdays suck. Not quite the week, not quite the weekend. She supposes, also–along those same lines–that she’s not even really sure why it’s important at all . Because it isn’t.

Or…shouldn’t be.

Jason can ask out whoever he wants. He could ask out Alpha-5 for all Trini cares. And it’s not like she has a monopoly on Kim’s time anyway, even if they usually do spend their Friday nights babysitting Trini’s brothers together. Even if her going on a date with Jason would take that away from her.

That tiny shred of a regular schedule.

They’re in the pit when it happens and Trini is delicately putting a bandage over a particularly bad scrape on Kim’s shoulder. She’s being a good friend. Because that’s what friends do. Friends press antiseptic wipes into cuts and wipe away blood and sometimes even press their fingers to their lips and then press those fingers into the Mickey Mouse band-aid. It’s not weird.

It’s completely normal.

“How bad is it?” Kim is asking, her voice that soft timbre that definitely doesn’t make Trini’s knees shake a little from where she’s kneeling on them.

That would be crazy.

“You’re fine, you big baby,” she jokes, trying to get rid of some of the tension of the moment–that unnecessary weight that is always added so immediately whenever her and Kim’s skin meets.

Kim laughs, this light sound that hardly even sounds like her.

It’s a nice moment–Kim sitting on a rock, Trini kneeling beside her, fingers keen and careful as she presses the adhesive sides of the band-aid down. And then Jason comes shuffling over with his hands wringing out some gross sweat towel like he’s nervous and his eyes are downcast, which is definitely weird because–

Well, because he’s Jason. He exudes confidence and this boyish, who-fucking-cares swagger most days that she’s slightly envious of, if only because he can get away with it, as a boy, without being called a bitch .

But she digresses.

“Hey, Kimberly, can I, um…talk to you for a second?”

It’s not an unusual request, if only because he’s been known to pull each of them aside for the occasional heart-to-heart just to ensure that they’re all on the same side. Usually, they are.

This is not one of those times.

From the side of Kim’s face Trini is on, she can see her eyebrows lower down in confusion. She can see that biting frown twisting on her lips, and Trini, in turn, frowns in mere response.

It’s bizarre.

“Yeah, sure,” Kim says. “What’s up?”

The moment Trini realizes it’s weird is the moment Jason glances at her, as though waiting for her to duck out or excuse herself, which–

She doesn’t have to, okay? Kim is probably the only female friend she’s ever had. She has a right to bear witness.

Make sure Jason doesn’t say anything stupid.

Like, You really sucked at training today.

Or, Those jeans don’t look great on you.

Or–

“I was, um…sort of wondering if you maybe wanted to go on a date tomorrow…with me.”

Yeah, something like that.

Kim is silent for a really long time, her mouth just sort of hanging open as she weighs her options, no doubt. Trini knows the feeling. And it’s weird that Jason would even ask, but it’s not necessarily surprising.

It’s practically set in stone. Two kids, fallen from grace, who used to run in the same social circles. If things were different and Jason hadn’t gotten almost expelled for that cow prank and Kim hadn’t nearly been taken to court over the Amanda thing, they probably would have ended up here either way.

Still, there’s the group dynamic to think of and Trini is half-expecting Kim to just blurt out the word, No, and then hightail it out of there, leaving Trini to slink out awkwardly from underneath Jason’s heavy, disappointed gaze.

There’s the group dynamic and the fact that this could sincerely screw that up.

Trini imagines all of this going through Kim’s head and more and then Kim says, “Um…” but instead of delivering some devastating blow to Jason’s ego, she says, “Sure.”

Sure .

The word sends a pang through Trini’s head, the beginnings of a headache. She frowns, bites her lip and presses the band-aid too hard onto Kim’s shoulder, making her yelp out in pain.

“Jesus, Trin! Be careful.”

When she looks up, Jason is frowning at her. Perhaps over the fact that she’s just (accidentally) hurt Kim, but it doesn’t appear to be the look of someone who’s just asked out Kimberly Hart and gotten a positive response. Trini would be jumping for–

For nothing.

Because she’d never ask out Kim because she’s not that girl. She’s not the kind of girl who develops feelings for her straight best friend. Her first best friend.

Jason smiles. “Great. I…I’ll text you, okay?”

Kim bobs her head. “Yeah, great,” she says and then Jason leaves. He joins Zack and Billy by the ship and they leave together.

It’s quiet for a couple of minutes–just the sound of Trini breathing too harshly for someone who’s literally just kneeling there–and then Kim clears her throat.

“Are you okay?” she asks, like it’s supposed to mean something different. Something deeper.

Trini nods. “Yep. Fine.”

She pulls herself up and grabs her things and it isn’t until she’s soaking wet and running home that she realizes she just stormed off like a character from some stupid teen drama. She stormed off for no damn reason.

Because she doesn’t have a reason, she thinks as she sinks heavily, wet, onto her bed and feels the soak of the sheets beneath the seat of her jeans.

At least, not one she’s willing to consider.

.

It only gets worse.

Or, weirder, actually, because Trini has absolutely no opinion of Kim going on a date with Jason, so how could it possible get worse?

Answer: it can’t. It can’t get anything because Trini doesn’t care.

“Morning,” Jason greets from beside her locker as she approaches that next morning and she frowns at him. It’s too early for his perky smile, the way his blue eyes shift in the flourescent lights.

She grunts and tugs her locker open, shoves some of Kim’s books aside so she can get her things.

“Was your night okay?”

She has to hand it to him, he’s genuinely trying. He may not be the elected leader she would have voted for as President Power Ranger, but he tries to make sure they’re all on the same page. Even when he’s asking one of them out.

“If you’re looking for Kim, she doesn’t come get books till after third, so you can come back later.”

Jason frowns–this pretty thing that turns down his lips like some Teen Beat poster. “I wanted to talk to you, actually,” he says and Trini ignores him, grabs her books and slams the locker closed. “I have a favor to ask.”

She feels sluggish, weighted down like she’s just been pushed off a cliff and into an unexpected bed of water waiting below. “What kind of favor?”

And the sheepish look Jason gives her is answer enough.

.

Okay, so it shouldn’t piss her off. There’s no reason for it.

Teen comedies should have taught her that she should do anything for her best friend, even help the guy she’s dating date her. Especially that.

Of course, in a teen movie, she’d probably fall in love with Jason at the end and Kim wouldn’t be a very good person so the audience wouldn’t feel bad that she’s left all alone, but…

Yeah, no. That’s not gonna happen.

“You’re gonna what ?” Zack asks at lunch, halting mid-throw with a tater tot in his hand. The face he’s making is torn between amusement and sincere pity, so Trini looks away–squints until she can just barely see the pile of tater tots he’s been making in the football field down below the bleachers.

“You’re making a mess,” she admonishes, trying to change the subject, but Zack is never so easily swayed.

He frowns and drops his arm. “I’m sorry,” he starts, “but it sounded like you just said you’re helping Jason get ready for his date tonight.”

She looks away, finding something interesting to pick at on the knee of her jeans.

“His date with Kim.”

She frowns.

“The same Kim you’re in love with.”

Except–

“I’m not in love with Kim,” she snarls and Zack nearly looks afraid for a second before a smug look replaces it.

“Mhm,” he hums and looks away. He chucks the tater tot from before and it lands in the same pile in the middle of the fifty yard line.

“I’m not.”

He nods. “I heard you.”

“Yeah, but you don’t seem like you believe me.”

He chucks another one and then turns to meet her eyes. “That’s because I don’t.”

And, well.

She doesn’t owe any sort of explanation to him anyway.

.

“So,” Kim starts at the end of the day, standing by Trini’s locker and Trini can’t even look at her, can’t bring herself to do it.

Keeps hearing, the Kim you’re in love with, over and over in her head. Zack’s stupid voice.

Stupid words.

Stupid Zack, always making things more complicated.

“Yeah?” Trini prods, because it’s rude to ignore someone you’re not technically mad at. It’s rude to ignore your best friend at all.

“I, um…Have fun with your brothers tonight, I guess.”

That’s when Trini remembers that she’ll be babysitting alone for the first time since before Rita–since before meeting Kim. She’ll have to deal with Diego and Alex not wanting to do their homework on her own and Kim won’t be there after bedtime to watch cooking shows in the dark living room with.

Which is fine.

Because Trini isn’t needy. She doesn’t need to spend every single Friday with Kim like some standing date.

Date.

“Right,” she says and tugs the last of her books out. “Have fun on your date .”

If she spits that last word–if she slams their shared locker door a little too hard–she doesn’t mean to. And it doesn’t mean anything when she’s scared to look back at Kim as she leaves, scared to see her reaction.

.

At home, she tries to smother herself with a pillow only to be interrupted by a phone call.

“Hey,” Jason says when she answers. He sounds anxious and Trini closes her eyes against her growing migraine. “Could you…I don’t know what to wear. Could you maybe come over and help me?”

Like she’s some sort of dating-Kimberly-Hart expert. Like she’s a dating expert at all .

The clock on her phone says 3:47. The date isn’t until 7:00 .

Trini sighs. “Be there in five minutes.”

.

Jason answers the door like he’s just run a marathon. He looks sickly, his blue eyes darting around nervously as his hand clasps around her wrist and drags her inside and down the hall to his bedroom.

“Sorry,” he says, once the door is closed. “My mom knows I’m…” He trails off. “And if she sees you, she may think you’re who I’m taking to dinner.”

Trini nods. She gets it.

Mrs. Scott is almost as overbearing as her own mother–something that her and Jason had only just begun to bond over before this whole date fiasco started. Now, she’s–

Now she’s fine. Because this is fine.

Jason is her friend and Kim is her friend and this is totally fine .

“So…You’re taking Kim to dinner then?”

Her curiosity gets the best of her, bubbling up in her chest and her stomach and making her feel antsy. She taps her foot against his bedroom floor and takes a seat on his messy bed, pushing a couple of dirty t-shirts onto the floor to make room for herself.

Does curiosity always feel so nauseating?

Jason crosses his arms over his chest and looks towards his open closet, his messy dresser drawers, all of them pulled out and torn apart. “Yeah,” he says. “That, um…that pizza place over on Maple?”

She nods. Her brother ate seven slices of pepperoni there last month and upchucked on checkered table cloth. Good times.

Of course, she doesn’t tell Jason that because he looks nervous enough already without hearing about her kid brother puking everywhere in the same restaurant where he’s about to take Kimberly Hart on a date.

“You good?” she asks. “You look sick.”

And he does.

Jason nods and uncrosses his arms to wipe his palms on his jeans. “Yeah, I’m good, I’m just…”

But even he doesn’t seem to know what he really is, and the subject is promptly dropped.

“Okay.”

She pulls herself to her feet and edges around him to his closet and pushes around at a couple of flannels he has hung up inside it. “What were you thinking, clothes-wise?” she asks, because all the shirts look pretty much the same, most of them checkered blue and red.

Jason shrugs and he doesn’t seem to know what he’s allowed to do with his hands, because he keeps moving them around–stuffing them in his pockets, running his fingers through his hair, rubbing his face with his palms.

“Dude, are you sure you’re okay?” she asks. “Because, like…You look like you’re gonna ralph”

“I just…” He looks away and then crosses the room to sit in her recently vacated spot on his bed. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do or say tonight. I just feel like…This should be easy, right? If it’s meant to be?“

Trini knows that feeling–feels it pretty much every time she’s left alone with Kim, but it had been the most poignant that first afternoon alone, before they’d defeated Rita. She’d made a fool of herself going out for coffee with the other girl–hadn’t known whether she should hold the door open for her and ended up slamming it shut on Kim’s face. She hadn’t known whether or not she’d been meant to pay for her own half or not and ended up accidentally making Kim pay for the whole thing and then–

It hadn’t been pretty, but she’d like to think it’s gotten simpler since then.

Still not perfect by any means, but definitely not the disaster of that first afternoon.

“Hey, Kim is easy, okay?” Trini says, but it’s a lie and it comes out sounding like some sort of comment about something else entirely. She blushes and Jason gives her an odd look at her phrasing. “What I mean is–” She starts, clearing her throat. “–is that she’s not gonna, like, judge you or anything. She has like endless chances for us weirdos.”

Jason smiles in relief at her words. “Don’t lump me in with you,” he jokes and Trini smiles, the mood suddenly a good deal lighter than it had been mere moments before.

“Just open the door for her. Hold her chair out. Ask her questions, I guess. She doesn’t like to talk about herself unless you make her, but it makes her feel better to do it, so…And she might try to steal your food, but just let her because she makes this really cute face when she thinks she’s gotten away with it.”

Jason is looking at her weird again, his eyes narrowed and Trini looks away, back at his closet.

“How about this one?” she asks, pulling out a button-down shirt that looks exactly like the others.

But Jason seems pleased. He smiles and takes it and makes Trini turn around as he changes.

It isn’t until 6:00 when she’s making sure his hair looks decent that Trini realizes what she’s helping him prepare for.

“Thanks,” he says on his way out, his keys jingling faintly in his hand as he makes his way to his recently-repaired truck.

Trini nods and swallows around the lump in her throat, wonders vaguely if she might be getting sick. Other than the faint, persistent nausea, though, she feels completely fine.

“Have fun on your date,” she says and the words sound wrong coming out of her mouth, leave her tongue feeling heavy.

Jason nods and smiles as he backs down the driveway.

Trini almost follows him. She even starts to–heading down those familiar back roads to Kim’s house–but she stops herself before she gets too far and pulls over on the side of the road.

“What the fuck is happening?” she whispers, head against the steering wheel.

Jason’s tail lights disappear up ahead and it’s only once they’ve completely disappeared that Trini turns around and drives herself home.

.

Her parents leave at eight for their weekly scheduled date night and her brothers’ long division homework does little to distract her. Trini feels sick–like she’s trapped in some sort of funhouse mirror, stretching and pulling and shrinking again until her insides are a jumbled, sick mess.

Zack texts her once around nine with a stupid meme she doesn’t fully understand and Billy sends a picture of his cat about twenty minutes later with a message that just says, You feel off. Maxwell wanted to say hi. Call me if you need me! :)

The offer’s nice and all, but all it does is remind her of why she feels off. And why she doesn’t want to think about why she feels off.

Twenty minutes after she puts the boys to bed–when she’s flopped back on the couch trying to take some sort of enjoyment in the way Gordon Ramsay is yelling on screen–the doorbell rings.

She contemplates just leaving it. Her dad forgets his keys sometimes and hates pulling out the hide-a-key rock they have by the front stoop because “the neighbors might catch on”, but being forced to out his secret is punishment enough for forgetting them again .

But then it rings again. More insistently. Loud enough to wake Diego and Alex.

She pulls herself to her feet and grumbles all the way to the front door, unlocking it and ripping it open. “Mom, you gotta start making sure he grabs his keys before you guys–” she starts, and then promptly cuts herself off.

Jason is standing on her porch with the shirt she picked out for him tugged up around his elbows. He’s kicking at the wooden steps and shifting his weight and he says, “Hey,” when she sees that it’s him.

That damn lump in her throat is back. “What do you want?” she asks, meaning it to sound harsh, but comes out insecure and a little wobbly.

“I, um…” He shuffles just the tiniest bit closer and his posture very nearly has her pitying him.

“How’d it go?”

The question is out of her mouth before she can even stop herself. Jason’s head tilts up as her words hit him and she gets the answer from the way his eyes drop.

This time, it’s her that tugs him into the house.

.

They’ve got maybe twenty minutes before her parents get back. Thirty, at the most, but that’s only if her mom decided dessert was worth it for the night and she usually doesn’t, citing that “room for dessert” means you did not have enough to eat at dinner.

Trini rolls her eyes at the thought and realizes too late that Jason must think it’s directed at him.

Which, it is. But only a little.

She doesn’t want to talk about that.

“What went wrong?” she asks and Jason shrugs, tosses his hands up in the air.

“I don’t know!” he says. “It was just…it was weird. I thought maybe…”

He doesn’t have to finish. He’d thought that it wouldn’t be weird, that the stars would finally align because, based on every group dynamic ever made, Fred and Daphne always end up together.

But that metaphor pretty much sucks. Mostly because she’s pretty sure that makes her Scooby.

Jason is too big for her couch. He looks humongous and out of place, but he presses his face to his knees at an awkward angle, and she’s pitying him before she realizes why. Disgust twists in her chest a second later, because a tiny thrill of pride had shot through her when she’d realized the date hadn’t gone well, and what kind of friend does that make her?

“Wanna be specific or am I gonna have to prod the rest of it out of you?”

She pokes his ribs, making him squirm, and then he finally pulls himself upright.

“We didn’t have anything to talk about,” he tells her. “We just sat there for, like, twenty minutes in silence. It was weird! And…I tried to hold her hand on the way into the restaurant and she just…I don’t know.”

Trini’s not sure if that’s meant to convey that Kim had pulled away or that she’d been superbly and shockingly terrible at holding hands in the first place. She’d go with the latter, if only for the comedy of the thought, but she knows it’s not true.

Because she’s held Kim’s hand exactly three times–once after Kim had confessed everything that happened with Amanda two months ago; once on the couch just two weeks ago; and the other just earlier on in the week when they’d been patrolling through the streets for anything strange.

Kim’s hands are warm without being sweaty, soft without being clammy. Her grip isn’t too firm.

It’s not like Trini has held a hundred different hands in her life, but she’s pretty sure Kim’s would be at the top of her list even if she had .

“It just felt wrong,” Jason admits. “And then we talked and I just…I realized why . Or…I don’t know.”

Trini’s head spins. She has so many questions, she’s not sure where to even begin

“Maybe you went about it the wrong way,” Trini tries. She really wants to be supportive because Jason is her teammate and her friend and she wants Kim to be happy. And if Jason can make her happy, then she’s gonna damn well do her best to make sure he does . “She’s…Kim is sorta hard to pin down. It took me a while to get her, but she’s…I don’t know. You’ll get there.”

Jason is quiet for a long time, just kind of slumped over with his face pressed into his hand, his elbow braced on his thigh. Trini isn’t sure what she’s supposed to say and Gordon Ramsay is saying, “You’re a fucking lunatic!” on screen, so she watches him storm out of whatever restaurant he’s trying to fix and waits for the silence to be broken.

But the moment it is, she wishes it hadn’t been. Because Jason says, “You’re a good friend, Trini. You really care about her,” in this super insistent way she doesn’t know what to say to.

“I mean, she’s my friend, so I–” she starts, but Jason’s eyes really should be illegal.

They’re too blue, too easy to turn into watery messes that you can’t turn down.

She sighs. “Yeah, I do,” she says, and it’s at least enough to get him out of her house before her parents get home.

.

did you guys miss me?

The message comes through while Trini is lying in bed an hour or so later, just kinda staring up at the exposed wood of her ceiling, that messy dent she hasn’t quite gotten around to patching up yet.

Her phone blinds her eyes and she doesn’t know how to say no because the answer is yes.

The boys did, she sends back and it’s read immediately, making Trini’s heart flutter.

Somewhere across town, Kim is lying in bed with her phone open waiting for Trini to text her.

just the boys?

Trini sighs. Yep, she types, then, how was your date with our dear captain? even though she already knows the answer.

It goes unanswered, but read, for probably about two full minutes before Kim finally texts back.

fine, it says, and then, i gotta sleep. see you tomorrow.

Kim, it seems, isn’t anymore willing to talk about what happened, and Trini shouldn’t, but she’s relieved for a moment before the disgust sinks in.

She really is the worst.

I’ll help you, she texts Jason a minute or two later and the response she gets is immediate.

.

“You seem better,” Billy chirps happily when she swings into detention the next morning.

He’s already at his desk with some homework pulled out, hands folded neatly on his lap, and his smile is impossible to ignore.

“I’m fine, Billy,” she tells him. It’s not necessarily a lie, just a marginal bending of the truth.

He nods. “Okay. Well…Maxwell says hi.” He smirks at his own cleverness and Trini smiles.

“Cool,” she says. “Tell him I said hi back.”

And then she’s in her corner of the room, burying her face in her English homework and ignoring the way Kim’s look burns into her face when she climbs down the steps a minute or two later.

Jason comes slinking down just before Mr. Narvy and he throws a note at Trini’s head as soon as roll call is finished.

what’s the plan? it reads, in scratchy mostly illegible letters.

Trini sighs and glances at the back of his head and then across the room where Kim is sitting, her head lowered over her homework. She’s bouncing her leg like she sometimes does when she’s taking a test in Biology. It’s a movement that Trini has become more than a little familiar with since the beginning of the school year–since before they officially met–and it makes her smile a little distantly.

She scribbles down her plan as quickly as she can manage and chucks it at his head, then pulls out another piece of paper, writing out A wild Jason appears! at the top of it in as close to Jason’s handwriting as she can manage.

It hits the back of Jason’s head with a painful looking thump. He whips around to glare at her in confusion and she just mouths, “Throw it to Kim,” with a particular harsh jut of her head towards the girl in question.

So he throws it to Kim.

It lands on her desk and she immediately stops bouncing her leg, head twisting around to look at Trini, as if the note had come from her, which…it had . But she catches Jason smiling at her instead.

Trini watches the exchange out of the corner of her eye and then the note is being discreetly tossed her way by Jason a second later.

All it says is, hey .

Which, for Kim, is wildly solemn.

Jason is watching her and Trini’s heart is pounding in her ears. The fact that it’s not her own name she’s writing down doesn’t make her feel any better.

Jason uses ASK TO A MOVIE TONIGHT.

Her hands tremble as she waits, which is stupid of course because it’s not like she’s asking Kim out (even if she is ).

Technicalities.

Kim is smiling. Trini can see that cute (what?) little curve of her lips from where she’s sitting. It must be a big smile.

She’s pretty sure she’s having a heart attack.

The answer she gets a minute later is, sounds good!

She should feel proud, maybe. Because she just asked out a pretty girl, because the pretty girl said yes, even though the way she went about it was possibly the dorkiest, quasi-lamest thing she could have done.

It’s not clear what expression she expects from Jason when she sends the note chain back to him with she likes dramas–bring tissues scribbled on the front, but mild disappointment certainly isn’t it.

.

At least training is cancelled.

A silver lining perhaps, but Kim flakes out after detention and Trini isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do now that she’s gotten Jason another date, so she goes to the mine anyway.

Zack is already there, swinging his legs over the edge of the cliff.

“You look pissed,” he says as she slumps down into the dirt beside him. “How’s the whole Cyrano de Bergerac thing working for you?”

She frowns, momentarily confused and Zack shrugs.

“What?” he asks. “I read.”

.

Jason calls her a couple of hours later, freaking out about movie times and choices.

“I don’t know, dude,” she says and resists the urge to chuck her phone into a rock.

Zack chuckles humorlessly from his spot on top of the train car. She flips him off.

“It’s like you’ve never dated a girl before,” she says, and it really is.

Not that she has either–not that she has much experience–but she’s been to the movies with Kim. She’s sat beside her in a mostly-dark room with one bucket of popcorn between them and felt the exact same nervousness that’s probably jumping in Jason’s throat right now.

Mostly, she just hates knowing that her and Jason have that much in common, so when he says, “You’re right. It’ll be fine,” a minute later, it’s satisfaction she feels when the line clicks dead.

.

He doesn’t show up on her doorstep that night, which she takes as a good sign.

For him.

Around ten, he texts her the thumbs up emoji. She doesn’t want to think about what that means.

.

“How are things with Jason?”

Trini asks it out of obligation, out of some masochistic tendency that she relies on like bad limp. She doesn’t want to know. Or, rather, 90% of her doesn’t want to know. It’s that rogue 10% that would much rather her be left a crying mess on the floor with her hard-to-process feelings.

Except they’re not so hard.

“Good,” Kim says and she’s cradling her paper coffee cup in her hands and exhaling bright, white curling air that spreads upwards, chilled and freezing microscopically.

Trini nods and presses her coffee further between her knees, bundling into her coat and trying to ignore the cold metal of the park bench beneath her legs.

It’s quiet. Trini lets the unspoken reasoning behind her brief, unimportant interrogation settle into the space between them, which doesn’t say much because there’s not much space. Kim’s arm is pressed up against her own and Trini wants to move and doesn’t in equal, confusing parts.

“Are you…” She’s not certain how she wants to ask that. Mostly because she’s only had a couple of days to come to terms with where this has been heading since she met Kim on that stupid cliff two months ago.

Her dumb, teenage heart got away from her and now she can’t so much as look at Kim without imagining Jason kissing her. The thought makes her sick. The thought of Kim with anyone (else) has made her sick for a while now, but she’s only just now begun to understand the reasoning behind it.

“Yeah?” Kim prods and she’s looking at her now.

Trini meets her eyes, but barely–refuses to get lost in the darkness of their color, that beautiful shadow around Kim’s pupils that spins her out of control every time.

Trini tries to hide the severity of the moment by taking a sip of her coffee, wincing at the bitterness, but relishing in its warmth. She’s not sure who’s idea it was to sit in the park in the middle of November, but she’s fairly certain that her nose is never going to be warm ever again.

“Are you going to go out again?” she asks, once the scalding coffee has slipped down her throat.

Kim looks away. “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe. If he asks.”

Quiet again.

And then Kim bumps Trini’s shoulder with her own. “The beanie actually makes more sense in the winter,” she jokes and the image of Jason pressing his hands into the graceful convex of Kim’s waist makes her swallow a little more thickly than usual.

.

Billy brings her some cookies that night, the kind you can find at every other grocery store. The somewhat chalky, sprinkled kind that mostly just taste like processed sugar and food dye.

It’s a nice thought and Trini eats three of them on the couch while Billy sits beside her and reads.

“Is this because Jason and Kimberly are dating now?” he asks and Trini doesn’t think there’s any point in answering because that’s all this has ever been about.

She likes Billy and his gentle voice, the way he’s always trying to perk everyone up, no matter what the circumstance. She especially likes how good he is at it.

“You should talk to Kimberly,” he says a little later and she’s got her head on his shoulder, feeling the way he moves as he chews one of those cookies. “Nothing else is gonna help.”

And of course he’s right. He’s Billy. And Billy is never wrong.

.

But the timing doesn’t seem right. She doubts that it ever really will.

Kim comes over that night–just hefts herself through Trini’s window like she sometimes does on nights when it’s late and she gets antsy, or when she can’t sleep and knows that Trini will be awake. It’s late and Trini is lying in her bed with the lamp off and the thing is, she’s so used to this at this point that she doesn’t even jump when she hears the window creak open.

(even though the first time it had happened, it had been enough to send her into some sort of Rita-induced PTSD flashback that had taken Kim twenty minutes to talk her down from)

“Sorry,” Kim mumbles, when she knocks a stack of drawings off of Trini’s desk and Trini jumps up to help her gather them.

“What are you doing here?” Trini asks, kneeling on the floor with Kim and pushing papers together like some sort of movie-script meet-cute.

Kim smiles at her sheepishly, her eyes dark in the shadows. “I wanted to see you,” she says and the words thump hotly through Trini’s veins even though the meaning is probably different than what she hears.

What she feels.

“Okay, weirdo,” she mutters, half-joking and then Kim is lying on the covers beside her in her bed.

They’re silent for a long time, Trini’s lip trembling as she tries to figure out the best way to out herself. To say, I want you to date me, not Jason . Without scaring Kim away.

But her confidence unfolds under Kim’s gaze and the feeling leaves her empty as fear creeps up her spine.

And then Kim reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing her fingers gently. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks. “You’ve been weird lately.”

Trini doesn’t have a good answer for that, not one that has zero chance of sending Kim running into the night. She shrugs. “I’m okay.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

Trini sighs, hating the way she feels dizzy and wired at the same time from the mere offer.

“No,” she says. “I’m good.”

Kim doesn’t buy it. She rolls her eyes and then stares Trini down so intensely that Trini has to pull her hand free in order to lessen the severity of the moment.

It’s a teen movie scene, but Trini isn’t the protagonist and by all laws of 90’s rom-coms, Kim should be in Jason’s room right now, sharing this moment with him and not the best friend that is probably in love with her. Maybe.

Because the protagonist should kiss the love interest here. It should be that great moment before the low point, when everything is going okay and then something happens. Something humiliating or just enough that it breaks them apart, that everything is bleak for about ten minutes of screen time before the grand romantic gesture–the running through the streets, the song on the jukebox, the big banner declaring their love.

Trini hates that sort of thing because big moments like that only happen after something awful.

It feels more like a misguided apology than an actual revelation.

For a second, she’s certain that Kim is looking at her lips–that they’re both leaning forward and that she’s moments away from what might be the greatest kiss of her life But–

Nothing happens. Either she pulls away or Kim does or all of it was imaginary in the first place.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Kim tells her, voice soft and careful as it blows through the air between them. “About anything.”

The prospect of it is meaningful, but Trini is fairly certain it would fall apart in practice.

What straight girl would be okay with their best female friend harboring some pretty intense feelings for them?

She has a lot of faith in Kim–this girl lying in bed with her in the dark, who crawled up the side of her house in the middle of the night to ask if she’s okay–but trust can only do so much.

.

It’s not two days later when Jason comes to her again.

“Okay,” he says, in the middle of the cafeteria, waiting for Trini to figure out if she wants strawberry or chocolate milk. Mostly, she’s trying not to look at him. The milk doesn’t matter. “So the movie thing was great, but we’ve gotta talk tonight. And…we’re okay around you guys, but alone? I don’t know. That’s what was so bad the first time.”

“I can’t help you talk, Jason,” she tells him.

She picks chocolate because she doesn’t want to look at anything pink right now.

“I can help you ask her out, I can tell you what kind of movies she likes, I can tell you that nine times out of ten, she’ll greet you by saying, ‘Wazz poppin’, but I can’t talk for you.”

Billy is sitting at the table and she loves him, she really does.

(hell, she loves all of them, and maybe that’s what’s screwing her over)

But he must hear that last part, because he smiles as they take their seats. “Actually,” he says, “you might be able to.”

.

“Can you guys tell me what the plan is again? Cause I’m pretty sure it’s stupid, but I want to be really sure, y’know?”

Trini glances over at Zack, sitting on Jason’s bed with this stupid smug look on his face.

She likes him sometimes, but not when he insists on being solely expository.

“So, I’ve got Jason hooked up with a couple microphones and this hidden chest harness for my GoPro and Trini is gonna monitor his date with Kimberly to make sure nothing awkward happens.”

“So…Would you call this a double date?” Zack asks, still smirking. “Or…I guess, a tricycle, maybe?”

Billy looks at him, confused, and then goes back to strapping the harness over Jason’s undershirt, where it’ll be hidden by his button-down and tie.

“Thanks for doing this again, Trini,” Jason says, beaming. “I…I just want tonight to go well. Third date and all.”

“Right.” She swallows around the bile in her throat. “Well, you know me. Resident Kim expert. Here to help.”

Her head is starting to pound and Kim isn’t supposed to arrive for another twenty minutes. There’s something to standing in this room with three boys, preparing one of them for a date with the girl she likes.

Maybe loves.

Or…Whatever.

Doesn’t matter.

Because Kim is her friend . Her best friend and she’s worked for it, so fucking hard for the past two months. She learned how to handle Kim on her own–learned her quirks and her habits–and she didn’t just ask her out on a date in an attempt to wing it and then beg someone else for help.

She doesn’t care, of course. Because if Jason makes Kim happy, then so be it.

She can be supportive.

Witness her being supportive. She feels her eyelid twitch.

Maybe she could fake food poisoning and guilt Kim into taking care of her like she did when she had a cold last month. Kim could make her that cheddar chicken noodle soup again and they watch bad reality TV in Trini’s bedroom and–

That sounds a lot like a date.

Maybe Jason should fake food poisoning.

“How do I look?” Jason asks, turning a little so they can see.

The camera is hidden well behind his tie, but Trini is skeptical on how they’ll even be able to see . Billy looks proud. He claps his hands together.

“Good,” she manages.

The doorbell rings and Jason waves her off to answer it so he can make sure his hair looks alright.

Kim looks beautiful and Trini immediately stops wondering why Jason wanted her to meet him here instead of him picking her up. Stops caring. Because Kim is wearing a skirt and Trini’s seen her legs before, of course, but it’s different like this somehow, in the low light of the cold evening.

She’s shivering too.

“Hi,” Trini says and Kim pushes her way inside.

“Hey,” she says in the foyer, the door still open a little. “Why are you here?”

Her tone is a little more uneven than usual, the inquisition raising up at the end and Trini frowns, trying to think of a good reason.

“Oh, well…being supportive,” she lies. “Zack and Billy are here too.”

Kim nods. “Is Jason ready?”

She seems tense, for some reason. Her shoulders are hiked up higher than usual and her tone is biting now, a little annoyed. Trini has no idea why.

“I think so.”

Silence descends and Trini sniffs, trying to break it, if only for a moment.

It hardly works.

“You look…wow,” she says and Kim brightens a little, her shoulders drooping.

Trini reminds herself that she shouldn’t hurt like this, because she’s doing this for Kim (and for the dizzying rush she gets every time Kim smiles at her now, but she’s trying not to factor that in right now).

“Thanks,” Kim says and her voice is low, hardly a whisper. “So do you.”

Her eyes drop down to inspect Trini’s outfit like she’s never seen it before, even though it’s the same thing she wore to school earlier. The moment is nearly too much. If Kim weren’t dressed and ready for a date with someone else, it would be overwhelming for a lot of reasons.

In any case, Jason comes in a second later and greets Kim with a boyish smile that makes Trini shrink into the corner soundlessly.

“You look great,” he says and Kim smiles–different than the one she’d sent Trini for her similar comment.

“Thank you,” she responds and then they’re out the door, Kimberly sending a little wave as they back out of the driveway and head towards town.

Trini watches them through the window and the moment is so stiff and unyielding for a second that she doesn’t even know what to do.

And then Billy says, “We should probably get ready, huh?” and the moment is broken.

Thankfully.

.

At least it’s not the pizza place again.

Granted, it’s still Italian food, but that’s pretty much the only kind of restaurants Angel Grove has anymore, as if Rita’s gold monster had had a vendetta against fast food chains or something.

She snorts at the thought of Jason taking Kimberly Hart on a third date to McDonald’s.

“What’s so funny, pip squeak?” Zack asks from the cramped back of her car. His knees are practically in his chest and Trini rolls her eyes at him.

“Nothing,” she says.

Billy has his laptop out and is hooking it up to the camera on Jason’s chest, to the microphone in the pocket of his shirt. “Do you need to be alone?” Billy asks her and she gives him a confused look. “When you woo her? That can get pretty personal.”

Her face flushes and Zack cackles in the back, slapping the seat with the flat of his hand for effect. “I’m not wooing her, Billy,” she says. “I’m just here if Jason needs to phone a friend.”

Billy shrugs and goes back to fiddling with his computer. “If you say so.”

Jason’s truck is in the parking lot of the restaurant, just three down from where Trini is parked. They can see through the windows, but not much further than the front entrance. Jason had held the door open for Kim as they’d gone in and she imagines them holding hands on the table top.

Her stomach twists.

“–sea this time of year,” comes Jason’s voice, suddenly, through the speakers of Billy’s computer.

Trini whips her head around to look and is immediately faced with the somewhat blurry image of Kim across a table. She has her elbow leaned on the tabletop, her chin rested prettily in her palm. Trini sucks in a breath and holds it.

“Yeah, that’s true,” she drawls, sounding bored. “Weather is funky like that.”

Trini smirks at her vocabulary and ignores the look Zack is giving her.

The silence between the two is palpable, even through a damn computer screen. It’s actually a little painful to witness and Trini starts to rethink her entire life leading up to this moment.

“This is not going well,” Billy cuts in as they watch their friends order their food and then return to sitting in silence.

Trini can’t look away from Kim, at the bored, taut expression on her face. The way she keeps looking to her left, where she assumes a window is sitting. She must be eager to leave and Trini feels bad, immediately, for the thrill this realization sends through her.

Suddenly, there’s a loud thump in the speakers and Billy glances at her.

“I think that’s your cue,” he says.

And, it is.

“I don’t think even you can fix this, Trin,” Zack says and she reaches back a hand to shove him just as Billy passes her the speaker they have attached to the tiny earpiece Jason is wearing.

“Hey, Jase,” she says into it and the image of Kim on the screen jostle, as though he’s been started. She rolls her eyes. “It’s me, weirdo. Act natural, or she’s gonna know something is up. Don’t just sit there, weirdo. This is awful. Ask how her day was.”

On the screen, she can see Kim move as Jason clears his throat. “So,” he starts, “how was your day?”

The smile she sends is blinding. “It was okay,” she says. “Coulda been worse. I could have been pushed off a cliff.”

Trini frowns at the reference, at the way it ignites her chest. It doesn’t make sense for to be bringing that up. Not unless Jason knows about their first meeting.

But he doesn’t.

Because he stays silent and then she says, “How was yours?”

“Okay,” he returns.

Silence again. Trini runs a hand through her hair.

“Jesus, dude,” she says into the speaker. “You’ve talked to humans before, right?”

He doesn’t answer, of course, because he can’t, but she hopes the point got across regardless.

“Ask about her interests, okay? Ask what her favorite movie is,” she suggests. “She’s gonna say Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but it’s really ClueTell her you like that movie if she does that, okay? She’ll probably do her Tim Curry impression. It’s cute. You won’t have to pretend to laugh.”

Jason is quiet for a second and then he follows orders.

Now, it’s not just Zack who’s staring at her. It’s Billy, too. And she knows why.

This is ridiculous and super masochistic, but she’s in too deep already. If she can’t have Kim, the least she can do is make sure that whoever does appreciates the right things.

True to form, Kim says Breakfast at Tiffany’s but brightens up the moment Jason mentions Clue. Her laugh is brilliant–this bright, white thing in Trini’s chest–when it comes through Billy’s laptop.

The conversation doesn’t last long enough to make the following silence less unbearable. Trini’s starting to think it’s always going to be back to square one.

Fortunately, their food arrives and that buys her some time.

Not much, but some.

“Dogs or cats?” Jason asks a couple minutes into their meal, as per Trini’s instructions and Kim cites back the answer Trini had already prepared him for verbatim.

For a moment, Trini is able to imagine that it’s her sitting across from Kim at that table, that they’re on their third date and there isn’t any weird tension. That things are perfect and Kim is smiling at her and Zack’s stupid, knowing looks are nowhere near her.

“Just fucking talk about something, man,” Trini says a little later, because she’s getting frustrated beyond reason, now.

It’s almost like Jason is trying to bomb this.

“This is nice,” Jason says. “I’m glad you decided to try this again. I know the first date was…weird.”

And–

There they go.

That doesn’t sound nearly as stilted as the rest of the conversations did.

Kim is nodding and running her fingers through the ends of her hair. Trini can hardly breathe at the sight. “Me too,” she says.

The silence is basically square one. Kim and Jason’s super weird reset button that gets pressed every thirty seconds.

“Can I ask, though,” Kim says and Billy glances over at her. Trini frowns at him, looks back at the screen. “What do you want this to be?”

Jason must wiggle or something because the camera jostles a little too violently and then slants to the side.

Zack tugs the speaker from Trini’s hand and says, “Yo, dude, you fucked the camera up,” into it.

Jason must hear, too, because he says, “I…Can you give me a second? My phone is buzzing.”

It definitely isn’t, and the frown Kim gives him is a good indicator that she knows it, but Jason gets up from the table anyway and Trini watches (sideways) as he pushes his way through the dining room and out the side door. When she looks up through the windshield, he’s there, barreling towards her car in shaky, frightened movements that almost seem over exaggerated.

She rolls the window down and Billy gets out of the car to adjust the camera.

“It’s like you want her to figure out I’m out here feeding you lines,” Trini tells him and Jason gives her this weird look she can’t interpret.

She doesn’t have the mental capacity for it right then.

“How am I supposed to answer that question?” he asks, sounding panicked.

Trini sighs. “You don’t know what you want from this?” she asks and Zack peeks his head around the chair, pressing his temple into hers, but she doesn’t push him away. “Why did you even ask her out, then?”

That, somehow, seems like a harder question for him. His eyes widen in alarm.

“Okay…” She sighs again and pushes her forehead to the steering wheel for a moment, thinking over her options. “Go back in,” she says. “Go in there and I’ll…I’ll help you, okay?”

Jason nods and Billy finishes fixing the camera.

“Thank you,” he half-whispers, and then he books it back inside.

“Sorry about that,” they hear over the laptop.

Kim smiles placidly. “Sure. Everything okay?”

Jason doesn’t respond, which must mean he nodded or something. “To answer your question,” he starts a second later, and Billy pushes the speaker into her hand again. Zack pulls his head away and then looks out the window.

Trini closes her eyes.

“To answer your question,” she repeats, buying him time like he’s thinking because she’s thinking. She’s lining up all her reasons in a row.

Because she shouldn’t have signed up for this. This stupid, pathetic third-wheel living where it’s almost like she’s on a date with Kim if she squints her eyes and tilts her head.

She’s not . Jason is.

Jason is on his third date with Kim, to be specific.

And that hurts more than she’ll ever be able to compromise.

She doesn’t know why he wants to date Kim, that’s part of the problem. But she has her own reasons. And she’ll never tell them to Kim, never say them out loud in any way that means anything. But maybe this is enough for now.

“I wanna be with you, Kim. I…I wasn’t sure for the longest time. I thought…I thought if I told myself enough times over that what I felt for you wasn’t real, then it couldn’t hurt me. You couldn’t hurt me, but…”

She trails off, and she’s not certain, but she doesn’t think she can hear Jason repeating her. She looks to Billy for help, but he doesn’t seem perturbed by it, which must mean nothing is wrong.

So she presses on.

“I think I’m the only person I can’t lie to. Not really. And I think you’re a close second,” she says. “I wanna be with you. Only you. For as long as you’ll have me. Because…because when I met you, it wasn’t anything special. Not that first time. But every time since then has been something else. You are something else. And I–”

Her voice cracks and her hands are shaking. Zack is breathing down her neck like he wants to reach out and comfort her, but doesn’t know enough to.

“I wanna go on a hundred bad dates with you. A thousand good ones. You’re worth every moment. Even the bad ones.” She takes a shaky breath and she can hear Jason on the other end.

She can hear him say, “This is what I was trying to tell you,” which is a good enough ending for what she’d been trying to say.

When she looks up at the screen, Kim is staring at what she assumes must be Jason’s head–that spot right above the actual camera–and her eyes are watering a little. If it’s something she can see through the pixelation, she gathers it must be a pretty emotional response.

“Yeah,” she says. “That’s enough for me.”

And then her eyes finally lock onto the camera. The same camera that’s supposed to be hidden, that she’s not supposed to know about.

“Where is she?” she asks and Trini’s heart beats out a confused, panicked tempo in her ears.

“What?” she asks, no one in particular.

“Outside,” Jason says. “She’s right outside.”

“Can she hear me?”

Trini whips her head over to look at Billy, who is staring at her expectantly. To look back at Zack who is also watching, also waiting.

Kim is looking into the camera at her and her mouth is opening like she’s going to say something–like she’s going to finish off whatever cruel joke this is.

She could hear her?

So, Trini does what she always does–that fun thing she’s never been fully proud of.

She opens her car door, gets out, and runs all the way home.

.

By the time she gets home, she can’t feel her legs, which she’d be worried about, but she can’t even wrap her mind around anything other than the memory of Kim’s voice saying, can she hear me, can she hear me, can she hear me. Her front porch light is off and her parents are upstairs no doubt, her brothers in bed already.

Trini doesn’t want to go inside. Can’t even bring herself to it.

She slumps down on the porch and closes her eyes, grits her teeth, tries to focus.

Kim had heard her say all of that. Jason had somehow turned whatever radio connection that had into some sort of grand public humiliation event. She’d guess, based on Zack and Billy’s looks that they’d known, too. That they’d known it was coming.

Jason must have figured out her feelings for Kim and decided to teach her a lesson. It was only a matter of time.

Her hands tremble.

“Trini!”

And Kim–always Kim–is running down the street after.

That grand romantic gesture she never wanted, because it means the other person messed up. Because it means things are far from perfect.

Trini stands up, fists balled at her side, and wills herself not to cry. “What do you want?” she snarls. “Come to get a good laugh?”

Kim steps back from where she’s stopped in front of her and it’s unfair that Trini aches for her to come back immediately, to be closer. “I’m not here to laugh at you, Trini,” she says, but it’s not convincing.

“Oh, sure.”

She turns on her heel, intent on going inside to hide away from all of this. To possibly stop being a person forever.

Sorry to inform you that Trini’s existence has been cancelled altogether. Thank you for your understanding .

“Trini!” Kim says and Trini is drawn to her. Always. She stops walking halfway up the porch steps, but she doesn’t turn around. Not yet. “Why did you run?”

“Why do you think , Kim?”

She can practically see the cogs moving in Kim’s head, the way she starts to put things together. Still, it takes her a minute.

“Jason meant well, I think! He…I didn’t know what he was doing. I thought he just–”

She cuts herself off and then laughs, a little self-deprecating and Trini finally turns.

“What are you talking about?” she asks, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“I’m…” Kim looks beautiful in the streetlight, in the harsh light of the moon above them–dark hair haloed somehow. Trini scoffs and crosses her arms. “I…Did you mean all that stuff? The stuff you said?”

“No,” Trini says immediately. “I was just helping Jason.”

Kim quirks an eyebrow and takes one solid step forward. “You didn’t mean any of it?”

Trini shrugs and looks away. The trees in her yard are far more interesting.

“Jason…I told him, that first date when things got all weird, that I thought I knew the reason why it felt wrong…And he offered to talk to me about it just so I could…I don’t know, process I guess. I think I only said yes to him out of expectation. I think he only asked me out of expectation. We…We’re better as friends. We’d be a dating disaster.”

Trini wants to say that she’s pretty sure her and Kim are already off to a worse start.

“And I know why now,” Kim continues. “Because…Because I want all that stuff with you, too. Every part of it. You’re…You’re the one I want to be with, Trini. If you’ll have me.” When Trini doesn’t answer, she barrels on with defenses, with excuses. “I guess…It’s super fucked up, but Jason was trying to help, I think. I told him that I didn’t think you had a clue about this… thing… between us, and I think he wanted to help you realize it’s there, too.”

She smiles and Trini fights the urge to return it.

The whole thing is fucked up. And sure, Jason and her might have meant well by it–Zack and Billy, too, no doubt because they’d absolutely had to have been a part of this–but…

Kim takes another step forward and the toe of her shoe bumps into the bottom of the steps. “I didn’t know what he was doing until he came back in and…and he told me to listen and…Trini, I would never–”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Trini snaps, cutting her off. She knows how that sentence was going to end. “I’m gonna kick his ass. We don’t live in an episode of Friends. I thought…I thought I was never going to get a chance with you.”

Her fists are still clenched and she’s shaking and she can’t even really process her anger because she’s feeling too many things, holding them all in.

“You could have just talked to me about this. You didn’t need to go to a guy you just fucking went on a date with.”

“That’s bullshit, Trini!” Kim fires back, angry. “You…I thought you were either being a bitch about it or were just super naive. I thought it was obvious what was happening between us and you just…refused to acknowledge it. What was I supposed to think? I didn’t want to lose you!”

The words are harsh in the cool night air and Trini is certain right then that her and Kim might break each other apart a hundred times over before they ever start to fix each other back up.

“No more secrets between us if we’re going to do this, okay? I…I come to you and you come to me and that’s how it’s gotta work.”

Trini’s mind sticks to the if we’re gonna do this part, playing on an endless loop as she stands there.

“From now on, we talk to each other. Deal?” Kim says this with some degree of feeling Trini has never felt for herself.

She shakes her head. “Deal.”

They’re silent for a moment, but a different silence than that awkwardness during her and Jason’s not-date.

“Cards on the table–did you mean all of that? About wanting everything?” Kim asks. “Even the bad moments?”

Trini stares at her in disbelief for a moment and then smiles, tiny and afraid. She takes a step down, closer, hovering just by Kim and murmurs, “Of course I do, you idiot,” and Kim leans up, closer to Trini’s face, closer and closer until she’s all Trini can see and feel and know.

And her lips brush against Trini’s cheek, then jaw.

Trini’s arms come uncrossed and then her hands are on Kim’s shoulders, fingers tightened in her jacket and Kim presses those lips to her jaw one more time as Trini tugs her up, whispering, “Trini,” so quietly it nearly gets lost as Trini finally kisses her and lets her grip loosen.

.

Zack’s, “Where’s my thank you?” gets him a punch in the gut right there in the middle of the hallway the next day at school. Billy gets a half-glare (because it’s impossible to be mad at him) and Jason gets the cold shoulder for half the day and a couple of well-timed, vulgar hand gestures when she catches him throwing his puppy dog eyes her way.

Kim gets three kisses before lunch and a couple of admonishing comments whenever Trini passes one of the boys in the hallway.

“Punish me, too,” Kim says. “I’m just as bad.”

She means it seriously, but too much time around Zack twists the comment in Trini’s head and she wiggles her eyebrows until Kim kisses her again, right against their shared locker.

At lunch that day, Jason slides a note over that just says, A wild apology appears! Jason uses SORRY I FUCKED UP.

She rolls her eyes at him, but it’s hard to stay mad when he so desperately needs a haircut–when the ends of his bangs are starting to curl by his eyes.

A couple minutes later, she steals his pre-packaged cookie and Kim is holding her hand under the table, so when he says, “It’s super effective!” she lets it slide.

It’s not ineffective .

.

She doesn’t really forgive Jason.

Tells him as such that next day at training and then sidesteps a putty so that he gets his ass handed to him on a silver platter.

“Yeah, I um…” he says later, with a bloody nose and one hand messing through his hair. “I guess I deserve that, huh? That was…really…”

Bad , Trini wants to finish.

Later, though, it’s hard to remember why she was ever angry in the first place when Kim has her pressed into her bedroom door once they get to her house, before it’s even fully closed. By that point Jason is nowhere even close to her thoughts.

(nothing regarding him really is, actually)

.

Still, though, it’s basically the worst way they could have ever gotten together.

One of them, anyway. But Trini figures it had to happen sometime.

And at least it didn’t start on a Thursday.

…

[ineverhadmyinternetphase]

All You Did Will Be Undone

AO3 Link

Genre: Oneshot, part of QPR verse, first meeting, 2009 phan, asexual phan

Summary: Fiction. What 2009 phan would have looked like if they were ace and wanted to be in a QPR.

Warnings: discussions of sexual themes (but no smut, they’re ace it’s just them figuring stuff out)

Word Count: 7496

A/N: Happy birthday, @charlottekath! This entire QPR verse I have planned would not exist without chatting to you about ace phan headcanons so this seemed like a fitting gift <3

Title from Taxi Cab by Twenty One Pilots (thanks for making me obssessed with them too Charlotte)

Reminder that I don’t know Dan or Phil at all and I’m not suggesting this in any way reflects reality. This is a work of fiction

---

The first time telling Dan the truth was hard.

Dan was perfect in every way – exactly what any guy in Phil’s age and situation of life should want. Except Phil. Because as much as he might try, Phil didn’t want that.

Dan was perfect. He called every night without fail, even when his skype window was dimmed to the lowest brightness and he had to whisper, lips close to the microphone, for fear of waking his parents. He texted Phil every morning, and texted back promptly when Phil messaged him, and he indulged Phil’s weirder side by seeming to actually like the often odd creative things his brain made.

Phil would never forget the first time he’d started to notice danisnotonfire. He’d popped up a few times in his notifications, sure, but it wasn’t until Phil’s Space Adventure Videos that he really started paying attention to Dan. The guy had left comments on every single part, which showed a level of obsession that not many viewers of Phil’s had. When Phil read the comments danisnotonfire had left, he was unashamed to announce that he’d squealed into his pillow repeatedly.

Needless to say, Phil had felt the need to reply, and sent Dan a dm. Dan’s excited reply had only increased Phil’s growing affection, and then things just took off faster than both of them could imagine. It was only a matter of time before they were swapping facebook and skype details and then almost-daily calls became a thing, and seeing Dan’s face for the first time had made something swoop in Phil’s stomach.

That had never happened before.

A long, long time ago, Phil had come to terms with the fact that he’d never have a real relationship. He’d fumbled around some at uni, tried to figure out something that seemed alien to him, but no one seemed to get it. Or maybe he just didn’t get everyone else. Either way, Phil had seen that he was apparently missing something when he watched his friends pair off happily and frequently, and he was left alone on the outside, a little bit too weird for this.

Until Dan.

Now, when Dan looked at him for a beat too long through the skype camera, or on the rare occasions Phil made Dan laugh and it made his eyes go crinkly and his often worried expression smooth out, Phil still felt that odd swoop in his stomach. He thought maybe he understood butterflies now, the way everyone said you were supposed to feel when you had a romantic interest in someone. The feeling was new, and honestly it surprised Phil who had more or less resigned himself to never wanting a partner by that point, but it was good, he thought, so Phil didn’t fight it. Instead, he let it settle, and he watched Dan back through the skype camera and felt this odd pull that seemed to say, yeah, him.

Whatever it was, it was the closest thing to romance Phil had ever felt.

Only then he’d learned more about Dan. About the fact that he’d just broken up with his long-term girlfriend, and Phil tried to ignore the slight tug of jealousy at that. He learned Dan’s desperate fear that he’d never be accepted because he’d come to realise a long time ago that he also kind of had a thing for guys, but Phil had reassured him about that, too. Evidently, that wasn’t an issue for Phil, because the way Dan looked at him all heavy and warm did strange wriggly things to Phil’s insides.

But there were the other things Dan did that just left a slightly sour taste in Phil’s mouth.

Dan didn’t mean to do it – Phil was certain of that. He’d seen Dan in his softest moments, late at night when his eyes were fuzzy with sleep and first thing in the morning when he was yawning and his voice was all squeaky and muffled and he blinked at Phil out of a frankly ridiculous nest of blankets. The Dan of those moments made Phil’s heart ache – soft, happy, everything Phil could ever want in life.

But then there were the other times.

Mostly in the evenings, when they were both chatting in their rooms and Dan’s eyes would go dark and heavy and he’d start to murmur things. Things that would have been inappropriate if he’d still been in a relationship with his girlfriend, and were still incredibly terrifying to a Phil who was really, really not ready to confront this sort of thing.

“I really need to get laid,” Dan said casually one evening, making Phil choke on his coffee. It was nothing more than a passing comment, the kind of easy casual way they had of talking to each other when they were both increasingly more comfortable in each other’s company. But it still had the power to make Phil choke.

He hated this kind of thing. Already he could feel his chest constricting and his stomach tying itself up in knots, and Dan had done nothing more than allude to something perfectly normal for teenagers. Or so Phil had been told.

So he gave a weak smile back to Dan and managed a quiet, “Yeah?”

“Fuck, yeah.” Dan flopped over backwards on his bed and gave Phil a look. From under his lashes, biting his lower lip. “It’s been ages.”

Phil’s already weak smile trembled. He didn’t know what to do with this. He knew – or he thought he knew, at least – that Dan felt some interest back at him. After all, he called Phil endlessly, tweeted him at every possible opportunity, and told other people on twitter to back off if it looked like Phil was paying more attention to them than he was to Dan. Dan’s actions could easily be called jealous, unless Phil was reading too much into them.

But if he wasn’t, and Dan really did want him back, then that – that would involve something like this.

Something Phil really, really wasn’t comfortable with.

This was ridiculous. He was supposed to be the mature one, even if more often than not it felt like Dan was the older one between them. Regardless, Phil was the one who was supposed to be experienced, to know how to direct them. But he didn’t, or at least, he didn’t want to. So he hid every time Dan brought up something like this, changing the subject as quickly as he could without being rude.

Dan didn’t seem too disappointed, at least. He always went with whatever lame topic Phil would drag up, humouring him even when he was being a mess. But it made Phil feel bad, made something unpleasant twist inside his stomach, like a reminder that he could never, ever be good enough for Dan.

Of course Dan would want more. So Phil had to force himself to at least try.

He looked at Dan now, flopped on his back in his bed with his eyes all warm and dark and his expression heavy. This was supposed to be the ideal, wasn’t it – to have the person you’re interested in lying all open and willing before you. Phil just didn’t know what to do with it, but he was far too terrified of losing Dan, and so he was going to try.

“I like looking at you like that,” Phil murmured to start with. After all, that wasn’t a complete lie. He liked the way it felt to see Dan’s fringe flopping down into his eyes, and he liked the way Dan’s face softened when he looked back at Phil.

“Yeah?” Dan answered, his tone all low and alluring.

Phil swallowed. “Uh. Yeah.”

“Good,” Dan continued after a beat, in which Phil panicked about what on earth he was supposed to say next. Dan stretched out obviously on the bed, arching his back, eyeing the camera. “I like you looking at me like that.”

Phil managed not to choke out loud. He kept his face impassive and hoped it came across as interested – at least enough to keep Dan placated, or from running away because he thought Phil was prudish or innocent or judgemental, or something. Instead, Phil rushed to add, “Good. That’s – good. I like looking at you, Dan.” Again, not a complete lie. In fact, if Phil kept his eyes trained solely on Dan’s face and nowhere else, he very much liked the view.

Dan’s entire face split into a smile, then, a wide honest one that made his eyes crinkle up and glimmer out through his far-too-long fringe. “You too. Is it bad that I’m literally counting down the days to meet you in person?”

“Not bad to me,” Phil answered, and that was the most honest thing so far. He was rewarded with another giant beam from Dan which made Phil’s stomach wriggle all over again.

Maybe he could pretend for long enough to make this work.

---

Phil definitely couldn’t pretend for long enough to make this work.

Things were getting progressively worse the closer it got to Dan coming to meet Phil.

Well, no, progressively worse wasn’t quite the right way to describe it. Dan was still amazing. They still had hours long discussions about the proper characterisation in their favourite anime, or arguments over the merits of a Muse song against a Radiohead song, or Dan would still gush over Phil’s most recent videos. Those conversations were still the best, and only getting better with time.

It was the other moments that were bad – the ones where Dan pushed at Phil, and then got worried when Phil couldn’t respond without freezing up.

The trouble was, Phil was really trying. Every time Dan said something suggestive, or bit his lower lip and stared right at Phil, or went into explicit detail about his favourite dynamics within their shared anime ship, Phil could feel himself freezing. And he really needed to get a grip, because every time he froze, Dan would send him a worried look and ask, “Are you alright?”

“’Course I am,” Phil would always answer immediately, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Are you sure?” Dan pressed, and then in the beat of silence that followed, “I mean – I don’t have to come up, or like, if you’d rather meet in a public place first – or if you’d rather come here first—”

“No,” Phil answered quickly – too quickly, because Dan’s face fell and that was Phil’s least favourite expression in the world. Phil let out a frustrated sigh. “No, you idiot, of course I still want you to come here.”

That was true – Phil had never wanted to meet someone so much before. Now there were only eleven days before Dan would be sitting on a train up to Manchester and Phil would be on his way to the train station to meet him, probably arriving ridiculously early because Phil really couldn’t bear to be late. He’d met online friends before – PJ being the one he was closest with – and they’d always gone well, at least for the most part. Phil thought he had that part figured out.

He was just kind of terrified of what Dan might do, or what Dan might expect from him.

Dan right now was giving the camera a serious look, before he looked away and gave this small little smile that made his dimple appear and Phil wanted to wrap him up in his arms.

“Good,” Dan murmured almost too softly for the microphone to pick up. “I really, really like you, Phil.”

Phil’s heart was in his mouth. “Same.”

“No, but like,” Dan lifted his head and looked Phil straight in the eyes, and Phil’s stomach dropped. “I really like you. Actually, properly, not-just-friendly like.”

Phil’s stomach swooped and erupted, something shooting down his spine and making him curl forward and press both hands to his mouth. He could feel his stupid smile happening behind his fingers, the stupid one where his tongue showed, so he ducked and hid and could feel his cheeks going red.

Dan chuckled from the camera. “Is it a good thing that you’re hiding from me?”

“It’s a very good thing,” Phil promised from behind his hands, peeking up through his fringe at Dan. “And same, Dan. About everything.”

Dan’s answering beam was everything Phil could have wanted.

---

Later that night, Phil lay back in his bed staring at the ceiling, nowhere closer to falling asleep than he had been hours ago. It was 3am, way later than he usually stayed up, but he just… couldn’t get his brain to shut up. Dan had fallen asleep on skype hours ago, and Phil had left his screen up in a probably worryingly stalker-ish way, his laptop balanced by his pillow showing him the darkened sleepy lump that was Dan.

He looked relaxed. Calm, happy. Everything Phil could possibly want.

Except that Dan was going to hate him.

Phil couldn’t help but feel like he’d been leading Dan on. As much as he wanted to let himself be incredibly happy that this wonderful person liked him back, his happiness was tainted by a hint of fear. The same old fear that had haunted him all through his fumbling through his uni days – he just wasn’t enough.

He never could be enough. He didn’t want to be enough. He wanted to hold Dan’s hand and take him out on dates, in fact he’d already planned to take Dan to the sky bar and really treat him. Dan deserved to be spoiled, and Phil loved to spoil people, and he wanted this weekend to be perfect for both of them. He was going to collect Dan from the station and show him all around his city, cling to him as much as possible, hold his hand and cuddle him if Dan would let him, but…

But that was all. The thought of going any further than that made Phil sick to his stomach.

He should just force himself to try it. He had before, after all, at uni, but he’d never got further than taking his clothes off before having to run to the bathroom and throw up. He didn’t want to do that to Dan. Even the thought of hurting Dan like that terrified him, and as much as Phil wanted to believe it would be different with Dan, he knew himself well enough to know that wouldn’t be the case.

He just wasn’t built that way. And it made him an awful person, because Dan was going to expect it and Phil was all but leading him on at this point.

He had to tell him.

It was the only fair way.

Phil turned his head against his pillow, dragged his duvet up until it was wrapped up under his chin, and stared at his laptop where he could see the top of Dan’s sleeping head. His hair looked so fluffy, curling a bit at the edges, and his face was all smooth and young looking. Young, Dan was so young, and it was almost terrifyingly easy to forget that sometimes. They just clicked so well, but Phil knew he would never ever take advantage. Dan was already fast becoming the most important thing in his life.

“I just want to be fair to you,” Phil whispered towards his laptop, and watched as Dan shifted a bit in his sleep, but didn’t open his eyes. Phil almost willed him to, just so he could get this conversation over with while he was still feeling brave enough to do it.

But then he really would lose Dan forever.

Phil stared at Dan for a long time, and then went back to staring at the ceiling, and wished sleep would help him shut up his worried thoughts.

---

Eight days before Dan was due to arrive, Phil finally gathered the courage to tell him.

Or at least, that’s what he was sternly telling himself as he sat on his bed and stared at his laptop screen, open on a window with Dan. He just had to hit call and Dan would pick up, he knew that already, but was he – was he really ready?

“Phil?” His mum’s voice called from the doorway, and then her head appeared around the side of his bedroom door. “Just popping to the shops, do you want anything?”

“More cereal,” he answered instantly. “And marshmallows.”

“You’re a menace,” she told him, and then caught sight of the staring contest he was currently having with his laptop. She gave a small knowing smile. “Does he know yet?”

Phil blinked, glanced up at her, and gave a small smile. “Yeah. He likes me back.”

His mum’s little squeal of excitement made Phil grin, but it also scared him. She’d always been wonderfully accepting of him having crushes on boys too, but he’d never actually brought someone home before. He knew she’d been worried about him being 23 and never having had a proper relationship, and now Phil felt awful that he might have to end it with Dan so early because he couldn’t get his body to work properly and want something that made him sick to think about.

He just had to grit his teeth and tell Dan already, get the cord cut before they got closer and it hurt even more.

“I’ll leave you be,” his mum said with a wink, and then backed up out of his door.

Phil waited for the front door to snap shut, and then he went back to staring at his laptop screen, still open on his skype chat with Dan. It would be so easy just to press call. Phil really wanted to see his face again.

He just didn’t want to deal with the way Dan’s expression was going to crumple, and then he’d get angry and hang up and never speak to Phil again.

But even that was better than hurting him by leading him on.

Eventually, Phil just went for it. He pressed the call button and sat with his heart in his mouth, and then as soon as Dan’s face appeared on his screen and he grinned and started saying hello, Phil was blurting out, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

There was a startled squawk from the screen, and then Dan rolled over sideways and there was a muffled thump and a groan.

Phil blinked. “…Did you just fall off the bed?”

“No,” Dan grunted, his voice sounding very muffled. The skype call window was currently only showing a heap of blankets, and then there was some ruffling and Dan’s head appeared over the top of them, his hair a curly mess, his eyes dim.

Phil laughed, all fear temporarily forgotten. “Oh, you did. You’re adorable.”

“Shut up!” Dan was dimpling, though, his eyes warm and soft as he clambered his way back up onto his bed, flopping down on his stomach and looking up at the camera with a gaze that held so much warmth, Phil’s breath caught in his throat.

He really, really did not want to lose this.

“What did you say?” Dan asked carefully once he was back in position, and Phil gulped. His throat was closing up, but Dan didn’t leave him in agony for long. “You don’t want to have sex with me, is that what you said?”

Phil swallowed. It sounded harsh, said like that, out in the open. He flinched despite himself.

“Um,” Phil managed to say into the silence a moment later. “No, I – I don’t.”

Dan was staring at the camera with an unreadable expression – and Phil would kill to know what was going on inside his brain just then.

“You don’t?” Dan asked eventually, his voice small.

“No, but like, it’s my fault,” Phil rushed to try and explain, and winced when Dan just looked more confused than ever. “Like, Dan, I – will you let me say something?”

“I’ll always let you say anything,” Dan answered, but his tone was already getting miserable and he looked sad and oh, this was the worst thing Phil had ever done in his life. “I mean – if you don’t want this you could have told me, I would have dealt with it—”

“I do want this,” Phil interrupted sincerely.

Dan sent him a flat look.

“I do!” Phil was quick to defend himself, but when Dan’s face just crumpled up some more, Phil rushed to add, “Look, just – give me five minutes, ok, let me explain?”

There was a silent minute that stretched on forever, in which Dan stared at Phil for so long that Phil was sure he was just going to say no. But then Dan relented, and gave a tiny little nod.

“Ok.” Phil let out a loud breath, and then sat forward so he could wrap his arms around his knees. “Ok, so – so I don’t want to have sex with you.”

The skin around Dan’s eyes tightened.

“But I don’t want to have sex with anyone,” Phil was quick to reassure. He lifted a hand when Dan just gave him a confused look. “Just listen? Please?”

“Alright,” Dan nodded again, but his voice was still all small and he still looked very confused.

Phil let out a breath, hugging his knees in close to his chest. “It’s like, I’ve just – I’ve never wanted to have sex, ok? I mean, I’ve tried – I really tried, but I’m not like you, I never had a relationship, I never really wanted one until you started stalking me—”

Dan made a noise of complaint, but Phil sent him a look and then kept on talking. “I don’t know, just, you’ve been the first person in my life I can see myself with. Just – just not like that.”

Dan was quiet for a moment. He wasn’t looking at the camera, instead staring down at his blankets and picking at a fraying edge, and Phil’s heart was hovering in his mouth.

“Like what, then?” Dan muttered eventually, still staring down at his blankets. “If not like that, then like what?”

Phil bit his lip, thinking hard. He hadn’t lost Dan yet – not yet, he didn’t have to give up hope yet. If he could just frame this properly.

“Like,” Phil answered gently, “Like, I want to take you out to fancy restaurants and buy you soft toys and let you borrow my hoodies. Like I want to hold your hand and show you around my favourite places and talk to you for hours on end. Like I want to cuddle with you and touch your hair and introduce you to my mum. Like that.”

Dan had melted a bit. He gave a little wriggle, the sound of the blankets rustling loud through the crackly skype reception, and then Dan’s pixelated warm brown eyes were glancing back up at the camera, finally, and Phil was drowning in his gaze again.

“I want that too,” Dan whispered back, so quietly Phil almost didn’t catch it.

Phil had to close his eyes for a moment. The room span with his relief. “Are you sure? I mean, could you be happy with just that?”

“Phil—” Dan started, but Phil shook his head, interrupted him again.

“No, I need you to be serious – are you going to be ok with just that? Because honestly, I don’t think I could ever give you anything more.”

“Phil—”

“And it isn’t fair, because you deserve everything, you deserve someone who could give you everything and if I’m not that person then I’d rather you just told me now—”

“Phil!” Dan exclaimed loudly, and Phil shut up abruptly, staring startled into his webcam. Dan rolled his eyes, but the movement seemed – affectionate? “What on earth gave you the idea I wanted to have sex with you?”

Phil almost choked. As it was, he just spluttered very unattractively and could feel himself going very red in the face. “Oh. I – oh. Have I been reading this wrong, then?”

“No,” Dan continued, and was he actually smiling now? “Well, not exactly.”

“I don’t understand,” Phil confessed weakly.

“What’s not to understand?” Dan shuffled about a bit, his feet kicking up into the air as he lay on his stomach and avoided Phil’s eyes again. “I want all the same things as you. So let’s just – get on with that, shall we?”

Phil snort-laughed. “How romantic.”

“Shut up.” Dan curled up in a defensive little ball, moving about so much that Phil was having trouble tracking his movements. “I mean, clearly we want all the same things, so it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Phil hedged. He wanted to just believe that, to drown in something he never thought he’d find, but he just – couldn’t believe Dan really meant it.

After all this time, with how suggestive Dan had been getting with every new call, every new text or tweet or dailybooth, Phil had been sure this would be a dealbreaker. He still kind of believed it – because how could Phil be enough for someone like Dan, really?

Dan shuffled about a bit, and then his face crumpled. Phil’s heart lurched. He reached for his laptop screen, like that would somehow help close the distance between them, and just seeing how Dan looked absolutely miserable sealed it for Phil.

He’d ruined everything.

“It’s ok,” Phil said hollowly. “Like, don’t feel bad – I get it, I know it’s not enough—”

“No, it is,” Dan insisted, but he was snivelling and Phil felt absolutely awful.

“Dan, please—”

“Shut up, Phil,” Dan insisted thickly, and ok there were actual tears in his eyes now, and this was the first time Phil had ever seen Dan cry. Shit, he’d made Dan cry.

“I didn’t think this was possible,” Dan muttered after a moment, wiping irritably at his nose and lowering his face until it was mostly hidden in the blankets.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” Phil leaned into his screen, eyes flicking everywhere he could see bits of Dan – the top of his head, a stray curl, the way his fingers clutched at the blanket he was hiding behind. “Just – tell me, Dan, talk to me, please.”

A hollow chuckle sounded from somewhere in the blanket. Dan didn’t emerge, but he did start talking, the words hard to catch through the thick material. “I didn’t think it was possible. I thought – once you meet someone and decide you want to date them, like, that’s it, the only option is sex and stuff. So I thought, if I could just get that bit out of the way, then it would be over and then you’d be happy and we could get to the better stuff.”

Phil stared at the screen, dumbfounded.

“Which sounds really dumb now I say it out loud,” Dan muttered, still hidden behind the blanket. “I mean, it’s you, I should have known you’d – but – I didn’t know – I mean, is that why you’ve been looking so terrified whenever I mention coming to visit you?”

“I wasn’t terrified,” Phil argued, still trying to get his head around what Dan was saying.

Dan snorted. “Yes you have been. You’ve gone white as a sheet every time I mention it.”

“I’m pale!” Phil defended himself, but Dan just chuckled again before finally lifting his head out of the blankets and sending Phil a soft, warm look.

Phil melted. He leaned in close to his screen again, drinking in as much of Dan as he could, and asked, “So – so you’re ok? I mean, if we – if we never did that, are you seriously saying you’d be ok with it?”

“I’m saying I’d be fucking relieved,” Dan answered. “I didn’t even think it was an option, to just not do that – I mean – it doesn’t mean you don’t—” he went pink, cut himself off.

Phil picked up where he thought Dan was going, and beamed. “No, it doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you.”

Dan let out a surprised little laugh.

“I care about you so much,” Phil murmured, watching the way it made Dan wiggle again. “So much, but I just – you’ve been getting all suggestive, and I felt awful for leading you on – I mean, of course you’d want something normal, but I just know I really don’t, and I was sure I’d lose you but it was fairer, you know? Because you deserve to be happy.”

“You make me happy,” Dan answered lowly. “I don’t want anything else.”

Phil melted. “You really mean that?”

Dan nodded. He smiled at Phil, wide enough that the corners of his eyes just started to crinkle, and then asked, “So I can still come and visit, right?”

“You’d better, or I’m flying to Wokingham to steal you,” Phil answered immediately, shocking another laugh out of Dan. “But until then, can you go and make your dog bark at the camera again?”

Dan snorted. “Needy as fuck, you are.” But he still got off his bed, smile wide and bright and grinning, and picked up his laptop to carry downstairs.

---

Four days before Dan’s arrival, Phil called PJ.

Phil was freaking out. Sure, things had been going better with Dan than he’d ever dared to imagine, especially since they’d ironed out exactly what they wanted. It was still hard, and Phil still had trouble believing that Dan really was ok with him not wanting… certain things.

“Like, what if it means he doesn’t actually like me like that,” Phil was speaking a mile a minute down the line to PJ. “I mean, he might only be saying it to go along with me, or like, to make me feel better about it or what if he really thinks he’s coming here as a friend? What if I think it’s a date and then he isn’t even interested? What do I do then?”

“Phil.” PJ’s voice was calm. “You’ve been talking to him for how long now?”

Phil bit his lip. “It’s not even been that long, just – this has all happened so fast.”

PJ was quiet. Phil could basically hear the disapproval, and he sighed. “It isn’t like that, PJ, you know that.”

“How can you be so certain, thought?” PJ argued back. “I mean, you hardly know him.”

“No, I know him.” Phil was sure about that. He thought about the way Dan looked in skype calls, how eagerly he texted Phil back, how apparent he was online leaving comments all over Phil’s videos. Phil had lost any doubt that Dan wasn’t genuine a very long time ago.

PJ sighed. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Phil.”

“I know, but you don’t need to.”

“Just be careful?” PJ begged. “He’s a fan, after all – he might be trying to use you—”

“Not Dan.”

“—Or maybe he thinks this is a way to get attention—”

“Not Dan,” Phil argued, insistent. “He doesn’t even like attention, he didn’t make any videos until I encouraged him.”

“So he’s already kind of used you,” PJ pointed out.

Phil stopped short.

“And are you sure it’s a good idea to invite him over when your parents are away?” PJ pressed.

Phil snorted. “PJ, that – that’s so not even a problem, have you not been listening to anything I said—”

“Does Dan know that, though?” PJ demanded. “I just want you to think carefully about this. I don’t want my friend to get used.”

Phil melted a bit then. He softened his tone, answering, “He knows, Peej. We’ve talked about it.”

They had. Phil had outlined at least three more times just how much he wasn’t going to get too physical with Dan, and Dan had been more relieved each time he’d said it. Miraculously, it looked like Phil had managed to stumble across the one person in the universe who was tailored exactly to him – all the same interests, the same love of long calls and dogs and discussions about their favourite characters, and then Dan even had the same physical boundaries as Phil.

He hoped. It would all come to a head in four days’ time, and Phil was absolutely terrified.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful?” PJ asked, sounding concerned.

“I promise,” Phil answered, and felt his heart tug in his chest. It was a little too late to be careful. He’d already fallen fast and hard – and he just had to hope that Dan had fallen, too.

---

Half an hour until Dan’s arrival, and Phil was shitting himself.

He’d arrived at the station stupidly early, but waiting alone in the house after waving his parents off that morning had not been a good idea. Phil had paced circles into his carpet, broken a glass in the kitchen, and then stared blankly at the TV until he decided it would be better to just get out of the house.

He’d caught the earliest bus, and now here he stood, on a packed station platform waiting for a train to arrive carrying the most important person in the country.

Phil hoped the train knew just how important its cargo was.

There were lots of angry-looking business people striding purposefully about, rushing up the stairs or pushing past each other to wait right by the yellow line on the platform. Phil found a little corner to sequester himself away in, by one of the beams holding up the roof, and tried not to let his heart clamber its way up out of his throat.

It felt like the train took forever to arrive. Eventually, though, the rush of the engine and clanking of the rails announced its incoming status, and the people stepped back as the announcer came on, and then the train rushed in and slowed to a halt and then the doors were opening and—

There was a guy a few doors away, awkwardly tall and hiding behind his brown fringe, eyes glued to his phone so much that Phil was amazed he didn’t walk into anyone.

Until he did, and then Phil was laughing watching him awkwardly trying to apologise to the kid he’d knocked into, and then Phil was walking before he could talk himself out of it.

He covered the distance in five steps, caught the edge of Dan’s voice saying, “Sorry I didn’t – I wasn’t looking properly—”, and it was Dan. His voice, his eyes that skittered upwards and caught on Phil, his expression that absolutely froze.

Phil stepped around the child and grinned at Dan. “Hello.”

Dan’s eyes had widened. He stood there absolutely still and silent for a moment, phone in hand that Phil could just see was open on the text conversation with him, and then Dan let out a breathless laugh. “Fuck, you’re real.”

Phil’s nerves dissipated the minute he heard Dan speak. His grin widened, and he opened his arms, and Dan stepped into them and clung on tight, and it was the best feeling in the world.

“I’m real,” Phil agreed, and crushed his arms so tight around Dan that he could hear the breath whoosh out of Dan’s lungs.

“Can’t breathe,” Dan gasped, but he was smiling and leaning into Phil, all elbows and bones and sharp corners, but Phil didn’t care.

“I know,” Phil told him, and squeezed him tighter.

---

That evening, they were curled up together on Phil’s bed, watching old fullmetal alchemist episodes on Phil’s laptop. It was an anime they’d both seen before, and discussed separately many times, so it was the best one to stick on in the background while they figured out exactly how they should be around each other.

The first cuddle attempts had ended in a lot of sharp elbows and soft winces. They were both tall and bony, and as much as Phil had dreamed about wrapping Dan up in his arms and hugging him close forever, the reality was proving much more difficult to actually bring about.

Not that he would change this for the world. He had Dan’s hair shoved in his face and Dan’s knees poking into his shins, and his arm was kind of squashed under Dan’s head where Dan had wrapped himself up all small and comfortable and pressed his face right into Phil’s collarbone, where there definitely wasn’t any kind of view of the laptop screen.

Phil didn’t complain, though. He wanted to keep this forever, with Dan curled up all tight to him and Phil’s arms holding him close.

They’d had the very best of days. Phil had kept his promise and taken Dan out on a proper date, coffee in starbucks and a fancy meal at the skybar, and then taken him all around the city and shown off all of Phil’s favourite haunts. Dan had taken it all in with bright eyes and a dazzling smile, but more often than not, Phil would look down at him to explain something only to find Dan staring straight at him.

It was almost embarrassing, how much Dan stared at him, but Phil was quickly coming to love it.

They’d come home late in the evening, and made dinner together (frozen pizza, it hardly counted as cooking), and the sight of Dan in Phil’s kitchen taking control of the washing up and closing all the cupboards behind Phil was almost too much. Dan just looked so right there, Phil was hit with the possibility of a future – of having Dan in all his future kitchens.

If Dan would even want that.

They’d held hands a few times, around the city, and now Dan was tucked right up under Phil’s chin, but Phil was still kind of terrified that he was going to do something wrong. Even now, cuddling Dan and warmer and happier than he’d ever been, Phil wasn’t fully relaxed. He was scared of doing something wrong – of putting a hand in the wrong place and giving Dan the wrong idea, or scaring him away and sending Dan skittering back to the other side of the country again.

Dan shifted a bit, and Phil’s heart skipped a beat. But all Dan did was adjust himself so he could look up at Phil, head on Phil’s pillow, and remain curled up in his arms.

Phil’s breath caught a bit.

“Can I try something?” Dan asked softly, so softly Phil wouldn’t have heard him if they hadn’t been in such close proximity.

Phil swallowed, nodded.

“I think we should talk about it first, though,” Dan amended after a moment of just staring at Phil’s face. It almost made Phil self-conscious, to be stared at like that – how on earth could someone like Dan find him so fascinating?

“Alright,” Phil agreed, nudging at Dan. “What do you think we should talk about?”

There was some kind of fight sequence happening on the laptop screen, but Phil was all caught up looking at Dan just then. The way Dan was tucked up against him, curled up small on Phil’s bed where Phil had been imagining him for so long.

“I want to try something,” Dan said again, and was his voice trembling a bit? “But you can say no – like, I don’t want to make things awkward.”

“Duly noted.” Phil poked at his cheek, at where the hint of his dimple was appearing. “It won’t be awkward.”

Dan made a face at him, drew back a bit. He looked into Phil’s eyes, and he looked actually nervous, his lower lip caught between his teeth, his gaze a little guarded.

“Dan?” Phil murmured, almost worried now. “Tell me, I promise it won’t make it awkward.”

Dan peeked up at him. “You promise?”

Phil nodded sincerely.

“Alright then.” Dan drew a breath, curled up a little closer. “I want to try kissing you.”

Phil spluttered.

“I just mean try,” Dan hastened to add, squirming a bit in Phil’s hold. “Like, it’s fine if it doesn’t work – and it’s fine if you don’t want to try, too, like I know – you said this kind of thing isn’t really your scene – so it’s fine, ok, we can forget I ever brought it up if you want.”

Phil stared down at him, trying to read Dan’s expression. Honestly, he hadn’t been expecting that – but then, they’d never really brought it up, had they, boundaries. They’d never talked about what each of them wanted, aside from that one extremely awkward skype call.

“You want to try?” Phil asked after a moment, surprised.

Dan squirmed again. “Only if you’re comfortable.”

“Why?” Phil asked before he could stop himself.

Dan grimaced, and then hid back in Phil’s neck. “I dunno. Just – everyone says it’s meant to be good, right?”

Phil blinked. “I suppose?”

“And I do like you like that.” Dan was talking quickly now, his words warm against Phil’s throat. “I mean, I definitely like you like that. So it seems like we should try?”

Phil had to bite back a smile. “So you know this is a date, then, right?”

Dan snorted. “Yeah, I think the number of times you mentioned it over skype cleared that right up.”

“Hey,” Phil shoved at him, “I just meant, you know, with – what I told you I don’t want to do – I thought maybe you’d got the wrong idea.”

“Well, I didn’t.” Dan peeked up at him again, all warm smiles and sharp edges. “So do you mind? If we try?”

Phil went silent again for a moment, thinking it over. He’d kissed a couple of people before, knew the mechanics of it, and it had never really done anything for him before. But this was Dan, after all. Maybe it really would be different when you found the right person.

And Dan wanted to.

“Yeah, sure, we can try,” Phil agreed with a small shrug.

“And it won’t be awkward if it doesn’t work out?” Dan rushed to add, peeking up at Phil through his fringe. “I just want – like, I just want to check. That we’re both on the same page.”

Well, Phil definitely wanted to check that too. So he nodded, carefully untangling one hand to press gently to Dan’s cheek, guiding him closer.

Dan’s eyes fluttered shut, and he leaned in, and then they were kissing.

It was – weird. For Phil, at least. It wasn’t bad, not as bad as his other kisses, but it was just – warm, and wet, and kind of nice, maybe? But still mostly weird.

Dan drew back after a moment, thankfully not too long, and Phil blinked at him. He liked the way Dan’s cheeks had gone just a little bit pink, the way he was staring at Phil like Phil meant everything again.

“So?” Phil asked after a moment.

Dan made a face. “Uh. Would you be offended?”

“Not unless you say my breath smells.”

Dan hit him, making Phil squeal. But Dan was smiling again, which was all that Phil ever wanted to see. “Honestly, it was just – not really my thing?”

“Same,” Phil rushed to agree, and let out a thankful little sigh. “I mean – it’s not bad exactly, just—”

“Just not that great either,” Dan finished for him, nodding with his lower lip caught between his teeth again. “Alright. Yeah. Good. Back to cuddling now, please.”

Phil snorted. “Not until you get your elbow out of my stomach.”

“It’s comfy, fuck you,” Dan muttered back, and deliberately jabbed his elbow in harder. Phil rolled his eyes, reaching out to catch Dan’s arm, warm and soft and supple against Phil’s fingers. Phil deliberately moved Dan’s arm up until it was wrapped around him rather than squidged between them, and then shoved Dan’s head back into his neck so Phil could bury his face in Dan’s hair.

“Oi,” Dan squawked. “Can’t see anything, here.”

“Shut up, you were fine there before.” Phil closed his eyes, and just breathed Dan in. He was still having trouble believing this – believing that someone could match him so perfectly. But Dan had done nothing but make it more than evident that they were on the same page for every little detail, and anything they weren’t, they could iron out pretty quickly.

Seeing Dan on skype had been perfect, but this – having Dan folded up against him, knobbly knees and bony elbows and everything – this was more than Phil could ever have imagined.

Impulsively, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Dan’s head. “You’re perfect.”

“I mean, I won’t argue with you.” Dan chuckled, accepting his fate of being smushed up against Phil by curling himself in smaller. “If you’re going to keep saying stuff like that.”

“I am,” Phil decided, nuzzling him close.

They were silent for a moment, aside from the continuing action from the anime on the laptop.

“Hey, Dan?”

“Yeah?” Dan’s voice was small and sleepy.

“How much are you fanboying over being inside my bedroom right now?”

“Phil!”

“I mean, it must be like being inside one of your favourite videos, right? I’ll even sign something for you.”

“I hate you,” Dan said decisively, elbowing Phil in the stomach again.

Phil couldn’t even bring himself to mind. He just gathered Dan back up into his arms and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of the boy he’d never quite dared to imagine might actually be real.

He never wanted to let go.

[adamrevi3ws]

The Lighthouse

Yesterday afternoon, I finally saw Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, and let me tell you, that has got to be one of the most unique movie viewing experience I have had in a while. The movie feels like Eggers saw a couple of those creepy black and white photographs you can find in an Outer Lakes beach house and decided to make an entire movie out of it. While the premise of two men going insane on an island is pretty simple, Eggers spares no detail and puts an offensive amount of effort into fully fleshing out his specific twist on the concept, ranging from the movie’s cinematography, plot, and characters.

I specifically compared this movie to a creepy black and white beach house photograph, because it damn well looks like one in every shot. I’m not exactly sure if this description works, but this movie is….immersive. Something about the cinematography and directing perfectly crafts this 1800s feel and makes it seem like the movie very much was filmed in that time period. While I used to generally dislike movies that were filmed in black and white when I was younger, this would frankly be a much worse film if it were in color. The black and white filter on this movie fundamentally impacts how its story is told and how its characters interact and think. The cinematography and directing of The Lighthouse are one of the most telling instances of how deep Eggers dives into his conceptual vision – and how much it pays off.

This is probably closely related to my last point, but I would like to emphasize that this movie is THRILLING. Despite having some idea of the movie’s premise and therefore having some preconceived predictions on how it would end, this movie became EXTREMELY unpredictable very fast. Although I personally wouldn’t consider it to really be horror, 60% of this movie is quite unsettling, and the other 40% is that sense of uneasiness in trying to catch up and make sense of it all. I think my only issue with the course of the plot (and the film in general) is that there were multiple points where I just thought the film would just simply end because I thought its unsettling nature had peaked, but then the damn movie just kept on going. And kept on getting weirder. The Lighthouse is not only a ridiculously creepy movie, but also pretty layered in its creepiness, and is the first movie since Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to make me truly terrified of mermaids.

The final thing I’d like to say I absolutely loved about this movie was, of course, Pattinson and Dafoe’s performances. The role of the elderly lighthouse keeper seems to have been almost made for Dafoe. Throughout the movie, Dafoe’s face constantly looks like a mask you’d find at a Halloween store rather than that of a human being. Half, if not most of his dialogue sounds like him quoting Rime of the Ancient Mariner or some other type of epic poetry, but that elaborate yet grimy and haunting vernacular is simply his character’s home tongue. While Dafoe’s character is larger than life, it causes no break in immersion despite its occasional moments of absurdity and nearly embodies the movie’s soul. Pattinson, on the other hand, gives one of the best performances of his career and is nearly unrecognizable. Despite my praise for Dafoe’s character work, his characterization remains relatively static, while Pattinson’s is elaborately dynamic, constantly stretched and twisted in a slow yet noticeable fashion throughout the epic. If this movie were a magic trick, Dafoe is the pledge, Pattinson is the turn, and I don’t think we reach a proper prestige till the bitter end. It feels ironic that the man who played an emotionally muted glitter vampire ten years ago gives us such an impressive demonstration of all the negative aspects of human emotion subtly coming out of the woodwork, but after seeing him the masterful thriller Good Time, I can’t be too surprised. This man has my full trust in playing Batman. I’d lastly like to say that these two had some utterly mind-blowing chemistry. Despite playing some standard archetypes, all their interactions feel extremely human, and almost relatable, to some twisted extent. Their relationship is a constant back and forth cause and effect, fundamentally powering the plot and character development, contributing just as much to the thrill and uneasiness inherent in the film as the masterful directing and cinematography itself. They perpetually torture, annoy, and reluctantly love each other in this cinematic death march, but I’ll be damned if it’s somehow ridiculous and believable at the same time.

Overall, The Lighthouse has got to be one of the best or at least most insane movies of the year. It’s not the most accessible movie to watch, but no matter where you live, it’s worth the trip to whatever pretentious indie movie theater is playing it. Do I give out good ratings a bit too easily? Definitely. But this is still a 10/10.