#they literally got rid of ALL OF IT. all i have left is a merit scholarship which i've been working my ass off for since high school

[synonymouslyyours]

.

[pithyorangecurd]

This ones long sorry

Mandatory annual Spring Cleaning Day is just around the corner, so it’s imperative that all citizens know how to properly dispose of the wreckage of their lives. I have some guidelines from the Sanitation Department, received via the pneumatic tube that I discovered beneath the floorboards of my office, under layers of cement bricks, chains and padlocks, [chuckling] as if someone wanted to keep it sealed forever!

Cecil not only recognising his own strength (we rarely hear about his supernatural feats of strength, bit cecil mentions them every so often. More prominently, when purple was manipulating him with lot 37). Cecil has literally buried this under the station, a cited bunker meant to keep him safe from the nuclear explosion. He had to dig his way through the ground, and every safety measure he set up, to get to this. It leaves a very open and raw measure of cecil, and something I'm sure he had intended to take to the grave with him. The only reason I would assume he even talked about all this was because. Josie was dying. He was raw, and losing something very important to him, and it left him vulnerable. The world was ending, josie was dying and cecil couldn't stop her, the angels wouldn't let him, and cecil was losing someone yet again.

You cannot bring old televisions. You cannot bring old refrigerators, you cannot bring old cars. But. You can bring the idea of the backseat where you lost your virginity. You cannot bring old radios, but you can bring the song that reminds you of getting your braces tightened at the orthodontist, that same year when the popular bullies stole your school pictures to laugh loudly about how ugly you were.

You cannot bring your old braces, nor the bullies. But you can bring the beauty you eventually found in yourself by doing beautiful things.

Cecil feels that he is ugly.

That's just a fact of things. He has an astonishingly low opinion of himself, that is juxtaposed by how he knows he is at the height of things because of his job. He is the radio host, he will ALWAYS be relevant. He has to be.

Leading in to this, cecil doesn't say outright that he thinks highly of himself. He says he thinks highly of the things that people think of him. He gives himself a purpose by helping others.

Did I lose the ability to take care of myself when I stopped taking care of other people?

That could be it. But then again, there are so many things it could be. You got rid of so many things.

^ this is just so it doesn't make it seem like I'm making him a little sad boy meow meow. Cecil has deeply and solidly rooted his sense of self in others appreciation of him. Its from guidelines for retrieval, not disposal, but both have like. Massive merit.

There is a place at the landfill where you can put that summer. You know, that summer? You went to the beach that summer, everything seemed great. You had cool sunglasses that made you feel cool. Everybody’s coconut-scented bodies were sliding around on each other, and you did things you weren’t proud of. You don’t remember what they were anymore, it was so long ago, but they’re always there, those things. Always hanging around in a sandy corner of your mind. Along with the cool sunglasses you lost, when you stopped feeling cool. 

You remember that a black hole opened up in the sky that summer, over the waves, and no one else saw. You looked straight into it. It slid open and closed like the aperture of a camera. You felt a deep desire to be sucked into it, but no matter how hard you willed your body upward, you stayed stuck to the street, surrounded by the scream-bursts of people on the rollercoaster down the boardwalk, and the monotonous drone of the roving street peddler mumbling as if to themself. Water, sunscreen, sumbrellas. Water, sunscreen, sumbrellas. Unsettled, you got a churro from a passing cart, and it did not sit well. In fact, it feels like that churro is still a part of you. You never digested it. It’s still inside of you, attached to the lining of your stomach like a parasite. It might.. be growing. It might be absorbing your nutrients and gaining strength.

This reeks of sexual assault, and the dangers of peer pressure. Like, I know we've all seen a school assembly or two, but to cecil his image and people LIKING HIM are very grounded out as things that he relies on deeply. He went there, im sure a little excited, but he very clearly didn't like it. A black hole opens up like a camera aperture could not more clearly be a reference to him feeling watched, seen, in this moment where he is doing something he does not like.

Cecil.

Really dealt with something there and he doesn't know how to address it, so his mind has given him a degree of separation.

"Unsettled, you got a churro from a passing cart, and it did not sit well. In fact, it feels like that churro is still a part of you. You never digested it. It’s still inside of you, attached to the lining of your stomach like a parasite. It might.. be growing. It might be absorbing your nutrients and gaining strength."

This part in particular strikes me, because I get this feeling too. He's anxious, and he feels sick to his stomach, and he knows this was him and that something that day felt. Wrong. Like it messed him up. He was messed up, and whatever messed him up is still there festering and growing, and it's filling him up and killing him.

And then there’s the car, that charcoal-gray car that started following you afterwards. You couldn’t prove anything, it was never closer than two blocks away. Sometimes you think you still see it parked across the street from Ralph’s when you come out with your groceries, or when you go to the bank. Or when you’re driving home from work. But then you think, no! I’m imagining things.

Cecil deals with a worrying amount of paranoia, and it's very likely he WAS seeing a car following him. That's not unlike nightvale, but this car was more likely a manifestation of his own personal "fall from grace". Sometime where he strived to meet expectation and it left him.... hurt. Messed up. And now everybody sees that. Sees where he was tainted, and they all recognize it. He can't say it, but he knows they know what happened. He feels.

And you drive out to your childhood home, which is now abandoned, and no one knows you go back there sometimes. And you fall asleep on the downstairs sofa while listening to the broken gate creaking in the wind. You vaguely remember you have to clean everything out of the house before demolition next week. You wonder how you’re gonna get rid of all these things.

He feels abandoned. And filthy. And he can't deal with this right now. He's losing his longest friend, who he helped raise. Little josie is dying, and there's nothing he can do to stop it. He couldn't stop his mother from leaving, the thing at the beach from ruining him, he couldn't stop anything and he doesn't know if he ever actually could. Or if that's a comfortable lie he ate himself to pretend he had some form of control over his life.

Another thing you can’t bring to the new landfill is the Duran Duran poster that you bought to hide the hole that you punched in your wall, after that summer that you went to the beach. Mice began nesting there almost immediately and reproducing at an alarming rate. Every day after school you put on work gloves and peeled up the bottom of the poster and reached into the hole, and scooped out handfuls of baby mice, and threw them out your bedroom window in a frenzy, like pailing water out of a sinking boat. You spent so much time doing this that your grades dropped and you lost weight. And still, you hear them scratching all night long, chewing, and shredding, and rustling, and reproducing. One day, you lifted the poster and instead of mice there was a black hole, a miniature of the one you saw over the water years before. It slid open and closed, like the aperture of a camera. You haven’t gone upstairs in years. 

Cecil lived. In hell.

I have lived in rat infested places, and it never leaves you. You are terrified of mice for the rest of your life. It makes YOU feel dirty. You can never clean anything up; you feel disgusting and unhealthy, and you have. So much going on. Cecil was MAYBE 15 when this happened. He was so young, and this was terrible, and his mother had already abandoned him at this point. God, he was alone, man. I can't express how deeply traumatising that is, and to do it alone, it's like. Christ.

I'd imagine this is a source for cecils long list of diseases he picks up. Nightvale works under a child's logic, and in a child's mind living like this, it makes YOU feel like a disease. Cecil may have been fine after all that, but with the latent filth he feels under his skin, he's making himself sick. Because he feels like he should be. He's disgusting, the mice showed up because of him.

Further cemented by the reappearing of the aperture, where cecil knows that they know (everyone) that he is disgusting. Filthy. Ruined.

You cannot bring your mother’s half-finished needlepoint that will never be completed, and so is now finished in its own way. You cannot bring the stain on the carpet from when you and your friends snuck in a mixture of everyone’s parents’ alcohol, collected in a jar, wine and gin and beer and tequila. 

Abandonment, cecil mentioning his vices that he picked up, self destructive habits.

You can bring the view from the attic that looks toward the high school track, where you would sit and watch a certain somebody during practice, and tell yourself it wasn’t creepy as long as you don’t get the binoculars. 

Cecil is often prone to addictions, and this is a nod to that aspect of him. He likes pretty things, and he can't deny himself them, but he can't bring himself to reach for them. Both because of rejection, and an internalised view of how he is filthy and how these things are his fault. He feels gross in his liking this kid, and he feels gross for wanting to see him, and he's sitting in his home, where he is slowly rotting all alone.

You cannot bring your deceased pet. But you can bring the moment when she woke you up in the middle of the night with her last breaths, and you cried into her fur. 

Cecil struggles with loss of control. This is definitely about the pet, but this is also about the loss of Josie, and how he can't fix this.

There has also been some confusion about whether or not we take physical pain, because it is both physical and intangible. Unfortunately, we do not have a way of processing this right now, but we are able to take the fear of pain, which we think you’ll find counts for a lot. 

😬😬

Nothing that you bring here, of course, is truly lost. But it will remain hidden from view… forever.

And here it is! Cecil has finished telling us about the traumas he literally buried and literally dug up. Things he planned to never say, or confess to. Cecil feels a lot of things about himself, and a lot of them are very private aspects of himself. This was one of the rare moments when Cecil is so beside himself that he throws away being a voice and is a person grieving his friend. Being the voice won't save her, and she doesn't want a voice. She wants Cecil, caring kind and compassionate, to stand beside her while she leaves. And she's happy she gets to leave. Cecil would be selfish to want her to stay, and even if he did he couldn't make her. The angels gave her their protection.

This is just Cecil, cracking himself open for people to see a little bit of whats inside while he tries not to shatter and let them all see and realize they hate it.

[misschifuyu]

To choose a lover

requested here

characters: ran haitani + rindou haitani

genre: fluff

warnings: none

Giggles and whispering comments were passed around, giddiness present in the voices that spoke out just a few metres away from you.

As much as you tried to focus on the tiresome work that was splayed out on the piece of paper before you, it was completely futile to drown the girls out.

It didn't take a genius to know what they were talking about. The school you were all under had the privilege - if one could even consider it as such - to hold two infamous students.

The Haitani brothers.

Whilst the eldest was in his final year, the younger still had another year under this roof until he followed in his brother's footsteps.

But there was really nothing to dislike about going to class when one had a literal fan group who's main topic was always them.

There were girls who preferred Ran, with his signature braids that they always wished they could undo for him; and others that would always fawn over Rindou's cocky ways and stubbornness, trying to catch his attention wherever he went.

The current conversation, however, wasn't just fixed on talking about their aspects.

Far from it. Sending each other questionable looks and making fun of those on the other side of the opinion, they were discussing who, out of the two brothers, was better.

Those on Ran's side had the advantage of saying that he was older, therefore more responsible and willing to take care of anyone.

Sure.

He would make the perfect husband, some were proclaiming. But...the youngest would always want to show that he is the strongest, the more dependable one, as a result of the inferiority that had always hung with him since they were young.

It wasn't that he was, he just hadn't pushed himself to be known as much as his brother had done all those years back.

Needless to say, it was an argument that would never see an end. At least not until the two left the school behind and continued up to wherever the future would take them.

It was amusing, from your point of view, to hear all of these discussions. For years now you had known the two, as close friends who had grown up on the same street, so you knew everything that there was to them, right down to what they actually did when they said they were studying.

Definitely something that the girls would be pushed back by if they ever found out.

But, if it really came down to it, you probably wouldn't be able to pick one out of the pack that they came in, either.

They both had their merits and faults, and, truth be told, neither of the two were that much of a pleasure to be around with, as much as their fans would beg to differ.

One thing was for sure, though. It had come into the light when the three of you had been hanging out one afternoon, without much else to do.

You had asked the youngest about what he thought about his notorious lower level when it came to comparing him with his brother.

It had simply been a spur of the moment, and you hadn't expected him to actually give a sorrowful response.

He was well aware that he was viewed as the weaker brother of the two, and as much as he'd try to prove otherwise, it had always been something that would eat away at him.

Naturally, both you and Ran had jumped to convince him that he was far from a weak person.

The fact that he was viewed as such meant nothing at all when it came down to the reality of what he was, and that there was no point in even listening to those ignorant - and frankly, irrelevant - opinions about himself.

At the end of the day, although you would never openly admit it near the oblivious fangirls, you held a considerable amount of affection towards the two of them.

Of course, they had their odd moments in which you only wished to hit them around the head with Ran's metal bar; but, all in all, they would always be your childhood friends.

So choosing between them was simply out of the question.

Both of them held an equal importance to you, so when a peculiar feeling started growing for one of them, you quickly averted it so it would be felt for the two, whatever it were to be.

They were two peas in a pod, and you weren't about to change this because of a measly crush.

However, the thought would only bug you more whenever you were all together. Such as the current situation, sat right between the two of them on the comfort of their couch.

Before even coming over, you had mentally ordered yourself to disregard the ridiculous thoughts that had flooded your mind.

The girls back at school hadn't help with the problem one bit, if anything they worsened the conflictive feelings; and now you were to spend the afternoon with the two.

One could only think that all odds were against them in such situations.

Head resting on Ran's shoulder, legs atop Rindou's, your eyes were fixed onto the screen before you. The reasoning behind spending the afternoon together was the airing of your favourite show.

However, you were now racking your brains over what you were supposed to do after the series ended. Watching a movie was the prime option, but you figured they would want to move from the couch and do something else.

And the two were very talkative, so you would have to, inevitably, push everything in your mind aside to prevent from even giving the smallest hint surrounding your thoughts.

Your stiffness didn't go unnoticed, and, soon enough, you felt a hand on your leg, startling you in an instant.

"What the hell is up with you today, Y/N?"

Rindou had lost all attention for what was playing on the screen, and it looked to be as though he had for a bit now. This meant he had felt your change of attitude well before he had actually asked about it.

"What? No, nothing...why?"

Knitting his eyebrows together, the blond looked over at you with a disbelieving stare. By now, you were sure Ran had shifted his interest towards the two of you.

"You've been all skittish since you got here. You got something important on your mind or what?"

Geez.

"No...I've just been thinking about something stupid, that's all. Don't worry about it, now let me watch th-"

"That being?"

Now you were cornered. From behind you, having turned to look at Rindou, a voice spoke out the question. In slight panic, you managed to come up with another way around it.

"Well...that, let's say, if I had to choose one out of the two of you, I wouldn't know who I'd pick. It's a silly question one of my friends asked today, that's all"

God bless the fan girls. You were sure to never judge them internally again, because they might have just saved your skin in the nick of time.

Your nerves calmed down as you heard Rindou chuckle at the concern, and you figured he'd just brush it off as another one of your peculiar inquiries.

However, as he fully turned towards you, it was clear that he wasn't about to let this go unfazed.

"Well, you can't just leave us like that without an answer. Go on then, if it was a life or death situation, who would it be?"

"Rindou...you know I'd get rid of both of you if I could"

You all laughed at your words, stirring the conversation into an area that you were certain you could get a hold of.

Each one of you was just as ridiculous as the next one, so it wasn't hard to divert difficult topics.

If only the youngest wasn't so damn pushy.

"On a real note, there's gotta be one of us that you like just a little more, Y/N"

Upon knowing that perhaps you had driven yourself into a dead end, you started to fumble with your fingers.

What the hell were you supposed to say? If you picked one, the other was surely to get the wrong idea.

"Um..."

A slight shift behind you made you turn your head, catching Ran just a little too close for comfort to your face. Great, just what you needed.

After a few, nerve racking, seconds in silence, it was the eldest of the two that decided to break the ice. You were all just wasting time there, after all.

"Listen...since my brother seems incapable of forming a decent sentence, what we've been trying to get at is which one you'd choose, because we've both liked you for some time now and we kinda need to know who you'd go out with"

Well.

Certainly an unexpected turn to your seemingly uneventful afternoon. It appeared that you weren't the only one struggling with the damned feeling that was a crush, but you hadn't gambled that it would be both of them...and for the same person.

You couldn't choose.

In the same way that you had to waver the feeling of more than just friendship between the two of them, there was no way you could pick one now.

It would be unfair for the other, especially since you would only be lying to yourself for saying that you felt nothing for the half that was left aside.

There was only one way out of this, unless you wanted to shatter the relationship you had built between them for the past years.

"I...both of you. I can't leave one of you out when I, well, like both of you"

A huge weight was lifted from your body the moment the brothers exchanged a look, followed by an agreeing nod. Far from the catastrophe you had gambled with, that much was sure.

As Ran leaned his head on your shoulder, Rindou gave you a bright smile, one that not everyone had the chance to say that they've seen.

"Wasn't so hard to say, now was it?"

No. What was going to be hard was having not one Haitani by your side, but two, as a partner. Sure enough, you were really going to know what their poor mother had to put up with now.

[suits-of-woe]

So I just got to be Cornwall in a delightful zoom reading of King Lear and playing him and reviewing his lines has left me Head Empty Thoughts Cornwall And Edmund once again. This is basically a part 2 to the post I already made about their dynamic because going through this role has left me more convinced of what I already thought - Cornwall sees right through Edmund and understands more about how he operates better than anyone else in the play.

Here’s just a few more points that stood out to me this time around.

Point 1:

Cornwall: This is some fellow, Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he, An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth! An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain. These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends Than twenty silly ducking observants That stretch their duties nicely. (2.2)

So this line isn’t about Edmund, it’s about the disguised Kent, and I’d honestly never looked twice at it before yesterday because it just doesn’t seem that important and I think it’s pretty frequently cut. But actually looking over it to figure out how to deliver it made me !!!! because...Cornwall figures Kent out perfectly. He’s only spent a few minutes with him, and Kent’s being purposefully antagonistic and giving nonsense answers, but Cornwall totally gets what he’s doing. He’s not too stupid or simple to do anything but bluntly speak the truth - he’s putting on a show of stupidity and simpleness to get away with saying whatever he wants, and that’s a greater manipulation than anything the average smooth-talking courtier gets away with. Cornwall may not know who he is here, but he completely figures him out. Just a piece of evidence that Cornwall is startlingly shrewd and good at reading people, and if anyone could see through Edmund’s facade, it’s probably him.

Point 2:

Cornwall: I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reprovable badness in himself.

Edmund: How malicious is my fortune that I must repent to be just. This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not- or not I the detector!

Cornwall: Go with me to the Duchess. (3.5)

I mentioned this exchange before in terms of how dismissive Cornwall seems of Edmund’s protestation that he feels so bad about betraying his father, and that’s still very true. What I didn’t realize until yesterday, though, is that it’s possible to play the line before as Cornwall completely calling Edmund on his shit. Because Edmund spent all of acts 1 and 2 constructing a narrative that Edgar was the cruel, evil son going after the poor, innocent father, because of course, he didn’t know he was going to be able to get rid of Gloucester so easily too. But now that Edmund’s switched tacts and is framing his father as an evil traitor, it’s pretty obvious how bullshit the previous stuff was, and I’m convinced that this line is Cornwall realizing that. That’s the way I tried to play it today: “So much for your brother’s...’evil disposition,’ then. I guess he was actually just responding to how evil your father’s been this whole time? Is that right? You’re gonna need to get your story straight.” 3.5 is just such a loaded scene for the two of them, it’s power play on top of power play culminating in the line that makes me lose my mind the most: “thou shalt find a dearer father in my love.” It’s clear that Cornwall knows exactly how to deal with him by the end of this scene, but I think it’s even more fun if he reveals that he completely sees through Edmund’s lies too.

Point 3:

Cornwall: Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father A child-like office. (2.2)

Corwall: For you, Edmund, Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant So much commend itself, you shall be ours: Natures of such deep trust we shall much need; You we first seize on. (2.2)

Cornwall: Edmund, keep you our sister company: the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the duke, where you are going, to a most festinate preparation: we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister: farewell, my lord of Gloucester. (3.7)

Cornwall: Edmund, farewell. (3.7)

This is basically just a continuation of something I said last time, but playing Cornwall really made it jump out just how often he singles out Edmund to pay attention to him or praise him for something. It’s notable because no one else really does this; when Gloucester brings Edmund into a conversation, it’s often just to demand something of him or talk about him like he’s not there, and the rest of the characters often just ignore him. 2.2 of course makes me lose it like I said before because god, he’s the only person to praise him and recognize his value in a scene when he’s presumably a hero, when he’s literally bleeding and his own father is basically ignoring him. But 3.7 too like! Cornwall is the first person to give Edmund his new title in 3.5, but he’s also the first person to use it publicly, which is just huge. And he gives him his first important political assignment while also possibly setting him up with Goneril! And then he hits him with an extra “farewell” as he’s leaving completely unprompted! What does it mean? What does it all mean???

Basically I am suing Shakespeare for killing Cornwall before this fascinating dynamic could reach its full potential and for not letting me be sexy and evil for two more acts.

[luki-fanfic]

Helluva Boss 5: The Harvest Moon Festival

Huh, Helluva Boss usually drops by mid month. Wonder why this episode is taking so long to put toget-

*Episode airs*

0_0

Oh. That’s why.

I’ll admit it, my interest in HB was waning. Episode 3 and 4 honestly didn’t do much to keep me interested. Spring Broken had a lot of plot and writing issues, and I felt the concept could have been better executed. C.H.E.R.U.B was more solid, but did have some issues, and just wasn’t that fun to watch.

Harvest Moon on the other hand? Oh boy, now there’s an episode. I am, if you’ll pardon the pun, back on this horse. World building, the action scenes, incredible animation, relationship development of the bad kind, more worlds, interesting characters! It gives us so much to work with.

Spoilers abound, so read carefully.

That said, I will start this with my biggest complaint – and it’s one I’ve had for several episodes, but this one really rammed it home due to the ‘sneak peak’ clip we had of the opening. In the black and white boards, the swearing was limited, and honestly the writing was pretty witty. Then we got the finished product – certain lines were missing, and several words had been replaced with random swearing. Considering what the scene was, it felt like the finished product was a step down – I really wish the scriptwriters would realise random swearing isn’t always funny, and they’ve given proof that their writing is snappy as is.

Anyway...onto the actual episode. We learn that I.M.P seems to be building up their business as Blitzø has 15 clients looking for a kill. Considering he had to do a sale to get a multiple kill, and the other episodes show him basically going out straight after getting the job, they’re clearly building up a name for themselves.

This is further shown with the arrival of Striker, who compliments his decision to go into business for himself, since most Imps don’t. This is new information, since we’ve seen Wally attempt to start his own business – although clearly it wasn’t going well – but if Striker is to be believed, most companies in Hell, even Imp City, don’t have Imps as the owners. Maybe it’s a financial capital thing, maybe it’s partially Hell’s racism, or maybe Imps just generally prefer to follow, which Striker seems to allude later. It’s hard to say with the information we’ve got at this point, but it does put I.M.P in a slightly different light – and probably explains why Blitzø is fairly incompetent when it comes to running the whole thing. He has literally no one to ask or use as an example, and the society he lives in generally assumes he’s going to fail by the nature of him being an Imp.

In fact, even though Blitzø owns I.M.P, he is still completely dependent on Stolas and his Grimoire. Without it, I.M.P is screwed – the reason they’re even at the Harvest Festival is because they can’t work. And that’s what Striker tells him in the final act. Their society has made sure that he can never truly be successful on his own merit, no matter how hard he tries.

I’ve seen some debate on whether what Striker told Blitzø was true or just an attempt to let his guard down. It’s hard to say, because Striker says and does some very conflicting things, but I’m going to believe it was genuine. Why?

He lets Millie and Moxxie live to have leverage over him. He does insult Blitzø to their faces, but why would he need leverage once his job was done?

When Moxxie learns the truth, he doesn’t even try to talk him round, just kill him. Millie is also tossed to the side – possibly because neither of them are ‘superior.' Blitzø gets a full on speech about their superiority and how much he respects him, even if he’s hiding a knife in his tail for if he can’t talk him round.

When he has Blitzø on the ground at his mercy, he doesn’t mock him. Instead, he tells him he genuinely thought they’d be a good team. He had the advantage, but doesn’t take the chance to continue the insult.

Like most Imps, Striker seems to dislike the demon royalty, but at the end of the day, is also working for one (and can I say that twist was brilliantly well done? It made SO much sense but I honestly didn’t see it coming). What is his end goal? Is he envious that Blitzø has some kind of power of Stolas while he has to be obedient? Is he aiming to kill Stella once Stolas is down? Maybe opening an assassination business to take out anything Overlord and above? We just don’t know.

And with that, we’ll step off this train of thought to speak about something else very important in this episode. Stolas. Specifically his relationship with Blitzø, and precisely how wrong it is.

I admit it, I future-shipped them, especially thanks to the Instagram (which become a bit of a bait and switch when the insta-accounts were declared ‘non-canon’). I acknowledged that the relationship was problematic and needed some serious work on both sides before it could really be a functioning relationship, but this episode hammered home exactly how much needs to happen in a way the other episodes didn’t. The pilot and Murder Family treated Stolas as a gag, and then Loo Loo Land made us all care about him and his actions. But Harvest Moon showed the other side of it, and I'm not sure the ship can realistically recover.

Stolas considers Imps as inferior, to a ridiculous degree, and Blitzø is no exception. He has absolutely no respect for Blitzø, and holds all the power in the relationship. We saw this a little in the previous episodes, but they were either alone, or Blitzø was working for him, and surrounded by people aware of the relationship. His actions could be somewhat explained away.

In Harvest Moon, Stolas proves he treats Blitzø this way even in public. Blitzø has very obvious issues regarding his name, so Stolas persistently using a nickname and treating him the way he does around people who aren’t aware, says a lot about how much Stolas doesn’t care about Blitzø’s opinions. Even if Blitzø does have some feelings for him – which I do suspect due to his panicked attempt to explain it as transactional. If he didn’t care, he would probably find it easier to explain. At the same time though, he’d be happier if he could get the book without the monthly visits, because what he has with Stolas isn’t a relationship, no matter what Stolas tries to pretend. Any feelings Blitzø develops puts him even further under his control.

Part of me wonders if the relationship evolved between the pilot and the first episode in planning, and that’s why we have such a disconnect between the Insta relationship and the canon one. I’m really hoping the series addresses it in the future.

Finally, lets talk about that final reveal. Stella has hired a hitman to kill Stolas – even armed him with two angel-tech guns.

(Which, also finally gives us confirmation that Imps/Hellhounds/Succubi can die from conventional weapons, but the higher ranked native demons need angel weaponry to off them).

Stella is also confident enough to scream it over the dinner table. Stolas either doesn’t care, or isn’t paying attention – if he doesn’t care, if definitely puts his motives regarding the original invite up in the air, but if he isn’t paying attention? Then it’s another point in the anti-Stolas tab.

That said, this scenario does ask a question. Why don’t these two divorce? Stolas is clearly not in love any more, and living together clearly isn’t doing Octavia’s mental health any favours if she’s literally hiding behind her music rather than interact with her parents. He should be the first to offer a divorce, but he hasn’t brought it up. And if he hasn’t, maybe the reason Stella hasn’t is because they can’t?

It’s generally assumed that the two of them have an arranged marriage, and that Stella’s anger at his relationship with Blitzø is due to his status more than the cheating. But then wouldn’t it make more sense to hire a hitman to kill Blitzø rather than Stolas? Choosing to kill Stolas, even if it would hurt Octavia, suggests it’s the only option left to her.

I’m guessing we’ll (finally) get some Stella development next time Striker appears, and get an idea of what makes her tick. But for now, I suspect the two of them regularly had lovers on the side, but kept it discreet until this point. Stolas refusing to keep his relationship with Blitzø quiet is causing untold damage to their name and status. Stella wants rid of a man who not only doesn’t love her (if he ever did), but is constantly humiliating her for not hiding his much lower class lover (which we know by this episode he doesn’t even attempt), and since the rules of Hell for demons of their status doesn’t allow divorce (or perhaps their arrangement doesn’t), assassination it is.

Hell, maybe the plan was to kill Stolas, and frame Blitzø for it. Striker clearly knew about their relationship before they met (which should have been a red flag now that I thing about it), so Stella probably mentioned him. It would also put the recruiting on another level, if Striker actually did get Blitzø involved at the final moment and teamed up.

Oh, and as a final amendment? If that angel-gun that Striker left behind is not now in the hands of I.M.P and becomes a key piece when Asmodeus, Mammon and the real Fizzarolli show up? I will be very disappointed.

[mallowstep]

I could see Tigerstar using Featherpaw's hair as a way to humiliate her by cutting it really short. ("Look at you Feather... You can't even take care of yourself, we need to get rid of all this hair, since you are such a dirty child.") It could feed into why she likes to keep it long now, as it's something she now has control over and the thought of having someone cut it brings back memories of what Tigerstar did as punishment.

yeah! i don't remember where the first time i said this was but he does in fact do this.

hm i'm going to put in a cut bc this feels like i'm going to ramble

cw: child abuse, misogyny, religious motivated child abuse & misogyny

so we've established tigerstar formally hates women, right? like in contrast to the cat misty au where it's more of a joke (he does hate women but in my cat world misogyny is very different and not the way tigerstar hates women), he actively is just -- a huge misogynist. to the point where like.

tigerstar doesn't believe half the shit he says. he just likes Power and Control. he definitely believes some of it, but he doesn't believe a lot of it. but when it comes to misogyny...he starts from "i'm saying this because it gets me what i want" but talk to goldenflower and she will tell you "no he was Always Like This. he was Always controlling and misogynistic that's why i left him."

but okay, so. we've talked about how he uses "modesty" as an argument for controlling how women dress. and -- featherpaw does not Get That...protection? recognition? hm. i'm not quite sure but. there's a sense that -- well he presents it as. modesty is something women should have. it's a gift. women are being corrupted, being turned against something natural and good for them.

so when he makes the only clothes featherpaw has access to a pair of shorts (above the knee, not elastic but not baggy, like these things), and a tank top, you know.

mistyfoot and tawnypaw (and the other women etc just assume when i ref misty and tawny i mean all women but those are the two featherpaw interacts with and therefore the ones who are emotionally relevant) aren't even allowed to wear pants.

tigerstar definitely does some stuff that is blatantly transgressing this (notably, whenever he makes mistyfoot go to a party), but -- for featherpaw it's a constant reminder that she is. not worthy of a basic thing.

(also she's cold.)

so the other thing is -- he expects women to have long hair. takes it very seriously. this has nothing to do with goldenflower having long hair nothing whatsoever.

but anyway. mistyfoot and tawnypaw, long hair.

featherpaw has pretty long hair for a while, but. you can only do so much to detangle long hair without a comb.

and, there's not a bathroom in featherpaw and mistyfoot's room? so they're. you know. featherpaw is not getting regular baths/showers.

and at some point, tigerstar goes to yank her by her hair, and he realizes it's a mess (and kind of gross), and he just, oh he's going to make such good use of this in the future.

the pattern of abuse remains basically the same here, in that. featherpaw's gonna go through it no matter what, but tigerstar likes to blame it on mistyfoot. so he mentions that featherpaw is looking a little...unkempt, does mistyfoot need help?

and mistyfoot is Panicking because she can't! she can't do anything! like she literally can't do much more than untangle featherpaw's hair as best she can and like. make use of the few minutes featherpaw has to brush her teeth in the morning and evening to try to do something.

(she braids featherpaw's hair at first but it turns out that's just really tempting for assholes to pull. uh. and she doesn't have a hair tie so it doesn't even keep.)

right but tigerstar lets mistyfoot stew in this for a while, and they're -- this is a few months into their time. so he lets mistyfoot stew in this for a while, maybe mentions it one or two more times, and then he pressures her into "asking for help."

probably by saying something to the effect of -- "if you're sure you're taking adequate care of her, then she's deliberately disobeying, and that merits punishment."

so mistyfoot asks for help and tigerstar puts his hand on her cheek and kisses her forehead and says of course he'll help. he has featherpaw brought to him, has her kneel in front of him, and just chops off her hair in a deliberately horribly ragid way.

and there won't that be so much easier to take care of?

he wouldn't shave featherpaw's head, because then he couldn't use it to make her hold still, but from that point on, he regularly chops it.

and it's. he mocks featherpaw for it, too. like -- you know. calls her ugly and -- how could she possibly think she'd be allowed to eat dinner with them looking like that?

(never mind he's the reason she looks like that)

but it's also another like. othering and dehumanization tactic. tawnypaw's hair is long and glossy and all tied up with a neat little alice ribbon (something she hates, to be clear), and tigerstar uh.

tigerstar brushes mistyfoot's hair?

yeah.

but. featherpaw can't keep her hair, isn't even deserving of modesty, yeah.

and that's 100% why she grows it out long after. that and just. legitimately liking her appearance with it. but. mistyfoot cuts her hair once about when they get out of the hospital, to even it off, and then they just let it grow.

mistyfoot starts braiding it as. you know just a thing to do. if. i dunno my mom used to braid my hair and like. it's just a nice thing. i was at summer camp once and i never get homesick but a camp counsellor braided my hair for me and i broke down in Tears bc it's just a positive memory thing.

and featherpaw has. almost entirely negative associations with people touching her hair. she struggles with taking care of it, like. the fact that she hasn't taken care of her hair in many years and before that she was young enough it was only barely her responsibility is part of it right?

like she was nine, which is -- young enough that you still need help washing your hair. you know she was transitioning into being independent but that's. there's a lot of suds and steps.

and then she spends six years where like. it's not that she never bathes it's that baths usually look like ice water and supervision by someone she does not feel comfortable getting undressed in front of. and they're -- not super frequent.

and then she's in the hospital for a long time, aggressively too sick to take care of herself. by time time the triplets are born she's getting better but she doesn't go through a full rehabilitation process. she's still pretty weak when they leave, because mistyfoot's options are "leave featherpaw or take featherpaw" and she obviously takes featherpaw.

and then for the first time in her life she is responsible for her own personal care.

so. mistyfoot doesn't want to fight with her about this. and so she's finally like, "can i braid your hair?" because if they braid it, as long as they take it out and change the way it's braided now and then, the amount of brushing that needs to be done is dramatically reduced.

and then you know. it's just routine and a good together activity.

there's always. feathertail's life is a constant back and forth of independence vs needs. she can't fully take care of long hair by herself, like she Physically Can't Do It, but she also can't cut her hair short enough she could manage it.

when it grows out long enough she can braid it over her shoulder, she feels better. mistyfoot usually french braids it, because that's a lot more secure, feathertail does two braids.

anyway yeah i forgot where i first mentioned tigerstar as Why feathertail likes her hair long but. it's definitely harder with the kids because long hair is so tempting to pull, and it's just. a Bad thing.

triggering for both mistyfoot and feathertail but they have very different associations with it.

so braids!

(also brook likes braiding feathertail's hair. i realize i have not mentioned brook once and that's bc i literally have 0 idea when/how/where they meet, but she also braids it. she's got some more skills too. does a crown braid once and feathertail decides that she's going to marry this woman.)

[kamyru]

Hello Kamyru,

I hope you are doing well. Is your request still open? I enjoy your writing, so I thought I can make a request as well.

Is it possible to write a short story about Takado is going to have dinner with MC and her parents? You can decide the ending ^^

Have a wonderful day, Kamyru 😊

Hi! I hope you’re well, too. My requests are always opened. The only thing is that I don’t answer right away because I’m waiting for inspiration. Thank you for your request. It is rare for me to receive requests on scenarios. I think I’m better at writing scenarios. Have no idea what my readers think, though. Hope you’ll enjoy the short story. ❤️ 

Takado meeting MC’s parents

Word counting: 1344

"Remember when my parents called me yesterday?" asked MC suddenly while stitching the patient.

"Mhm," was everything that said Takado, being too attentive at what MC was doing.

"They said that they want to meet my fiance."

"They what?"

Everyone was looking from Takado to MC. Of course, the entire hospital already knew that MC was Dr. Takado to-be, but seeing them talking so open about personal things wasn't an often sight.

"I forgot to tell you yesterday and thought that I'll forget again if I don't tell you now. So, do you mind if we visit them the next weekend we are both free?"

"No... No, no. I don't mind..."

"What have you done to poor Dr. Takado?" whispered Missy, who was the closest to MC.

"Nothing special. He looks perfectly fine," said MC without even looking at her fiance, who was as pale as a paper.

After the operation finished, Takado was still in shock. He knew that sooner or later he had to meet MC's parents. He knew that it wasn't going to happen after a long time, taking into consideration that he already proposed to MC. But it still surprised him.

So... The next free weekend... The next free weekend... The next free weekend was at the end of this week. What was he supposed to do? How to act? What to wear? Waves of sweat were running down his spine and forehead.

"You look very stressed," said Kasumi when Takado entered the doctors’ room.

Takado blinked a few times at him and sighed.

"Did something happen with the patient?"

"No. He is perfectly fine. Something happened to me. No... Something is going to happen with me," Takado sighed again.

"No one is going to eat you. Keep calm. At least you'll finally be able to eat tasty food, taking into consideration that the last months you were my guinea pig and tried everything I was cooking," said MC who just entered the room.

Of course, it was easy for her to say something like this. They were her parents, not his. The moment they were going to meet his parents, her stress would be higher than the Empire States.

From the moment he found out about their plans for the weekend, Takado couldn't stop himself from following MC everywhere and ask her about her parents.

"What do they like?"

"What am I supposed to wear?"

"How to act?"

"Will they like me? What do you think?"

"I like you. So I'm sure they'll respect my choice."

"But what if you are wrong?"

In the end, MC had to make him a lot of calming tea. Otherwise, he was going to be Kasumi's patient before they met her parents.

"They won't like you," said MC the night before the D-day.

Takado, who was lying on the bed with closed eyes, waiting to get asleep or to meet the sunshine with puffy eyes, suddenly was up, thinking about every bad thing he ever did.

"They will definitely love you," continued MC, ignoring his behavior.

Takado didn't know if he was happy or wanted to cry. When he was in bed again, MC snuggled beside him. He hugged her tightly and kissed her hair. She knew that this night, she couldn't move. He was going to keep her close to him and every time he would start to worry, he would kiss her and hug her tighter. But she didn't mind at all.

Takado was the first one to wake up. Despite what he thought, he slept pretty well. It was MC's merit. Her presence helped him to get rid of the stress.

She suddenly bit his chest. That moment, he understood that she was already awake. Positioning herself on him, she gave him a mischievous smile and kissed him.

"Are you ready to eat tasty food?"

"That's everything you can think about? Can't you say something like: 'Good morning, babe. I'm so blessed to see your face every morning. Can I kiss you? I want to spend another wonderful day with you. And do it for the rest of our lives.’ But no, you think only about food and even bit me.”

The playfulness on MC’s face disappeared. She gave him another kiss.

“I love you so much that I don’t know how to say it. I want to spend beautiful, sad, wonderful, happy, hard, bad, good days with you. And to bit you in the morning for the rest of our lives. Also, to kiss you sometimes, otherwise, you’ll think I am some kind of dog. Love you, Munechika.”

Of course, Takado was going to blush after such words. Of course, MC knew it and that was the reason why she did it. But they both knew that she was honest.

It took them a lot of time to get ready. Mostly because Takado tried nearly every thing from his wardrobe. After that, he made sure that the cake he made yesterday night was still in a good state.

“So that’s what you were doing before I came home... It looks good. When we are going to try it?”

“When your parents want. Don’t touch. I don’t want you to ruin my artwork.”

“But I’m jealous. You have never cooked something like this for me.”

“I have plenty of time to cook something like this for you. But I have only a day to win over your parents.”

MC chuckled. Though, she suddenly stopped. She didn’t know how to cook cakes. Of course, her cooking skills improved a lot after she started dating Takado, but she still was a newbie. How was she going to impress his parents?

They arrived after lunch. Both of her parents were already waiting for them. Takado was taken aback by their wide smiles. When he gave them the cake, they got even happier.

“I hope it’s not cooked by my daughter,” said MC’s father.

“I’m sorry that you have to deal with someone who can poison you. I suppose MC knows not only how to literally poison people, but also how to destroy their taste buds,” continued MC’s mother to tease her.

“I thought that being here, I’ll be surrendered with love. But now I see how wrong I was. There’s only one person here who truly loves me,” pouted MC.

“At least now, I know that I have immunity at every poison possible, thanks to your daughter.”

“No. I was completely wrong. No one loves me.”

All of them burst out laughing and Takado’s stress disappeared little by little.

Though, instead of stress, Takado started to feel a little embarrassed. MC’s parents wanted to hear how they met, how they deal with the fact that they both are very busy. Also, they put a lot of questions about him. Takado knew that they simply wanted to know more about him and to find future topics of discussion, but he was still feeling a little bit strange.

“You know, we can show you MC’s child photos. But we are afraid that if we do it today, you won’t have other reasons to visit us. After we put you so many questions, you’ll be afraid to meet us again. So, we promise that next time we’ll show you them. And the time after the next, we’ll feed you with something even tastier. We liked to talk with you. Don’t forget about us. I hope we’ll see you again soon,” said MC’s parents before MC and Takado left them.

Takado assured them that soon they would visit them again. It was just as MC said. His stress was useless. They weren’t bad at all.

“How such wonderful parents have someone like you as their daughter?”

“Aren’t you supposed to say that you are happy to find out that your wonderful girlfr... fiancee has wonderful parents, too?”

“Hm... I’m happy that I was able to win over my wonderful fiancee’s wonderful parents, so I’ll be myself a wonderful part of such a wonderful family.”

MC giggled. But soon she stopped, being shut up by Takado’s kisses.

[retvenkos]

anyways i guess i'm a portwell stan now (enemies to lovers/best friends brother/make each other better trope & troy and gabriella parallels my beloved)

and i'm also exasperated at the writers at ricky's path this season. and the writers in general.

i just. want miss jenn and mr mazzara to get together this season and ej and gina to be happy, if that's too much to ask for.

AND WHY DOES THERE HAVE TO BE SO MANY LOVE TRIANGLES????

nobody wants it, they're not needed- all this season has been about romance, with a few crumbs of musical theatre, and it's not what i signed up for! i want more friendship moments between kourtney and seb, and i want more of the dorky improv games.

let the kids be kids.

the north high rivalry is getting unrealistically annoying. if anything, the theatre community is supportive of each other (i'm in a performing arts school, i should know lmbo)

ricky's parents' divorce plot was completely thrown out the window.

nobody wanted the redlyn angst.

why is carlos being kinda mean?

this whole has season has been a mess, and the only people carrying the show on their backs now is ej, gina, mr. mazzara and howie's rendition of "if i can't love her".

i'm so sorry for vomiting this all over you, i just felt this show is going downhill- kinda like glee.

dfghjdsfghjhgfdsdfghjhgfd,,, i haven't watched glee but i know enough about it to know that was a sick burn, cass. i love it.

and omg,,,,, do i have thoughts™. let's unpack them, shall we?

i agree that this season has been..... a lot™. it’s just a cluster of half-baked plot points that are strung together really losely. i feel like they should have scaled back on some of their ambitions.

namely, the north high rivalry is really bland and unnecessary. the only good things to come out of it is howie, the song around you, and the stunning location (i mean, art deco ogden high? count me in). you could take out the menkies entirely and so little would change to the overall story. i’d argue the story could have been even better without it because.... big shock..... we could focus on the characters.

because, truly, they’re trying to tackle too many things at once. whatever angst is happening with carlos and seb is the worst developed plot point we’ve had to suffer through. carlos says “does chip have any big scenes?” and it’s the catalyst for a fight? then we have them split for spring break and it’s just snippets of them fighting? literally, there’s zero reason for seb and carlos to fight - their dynamic is cute but it’s background chatter when you have whatever the hell is happening with ricky, nini, ej, and gina front and center. there was no reason to make then fight and it doesn’t add to their development, it isn’t well executed, and it isn’t particularly interesting. just let them be happy?

and i feel like that’s such a running theme for all of the side relationships? like you said - redlyn didn’t really need angst? i feel like the whole “career day” arc was well done and was compelling (but maybe that’s just because i had a friend who went through the same thing as red, so i’m sympathetic to it), but whatever went on with antoine and ashlyn was just.... really unnecessary? it didn’t add anything? maybe they’ll be revisiting the plot point, but as it stands right now, it was just really random to add in, and perhaps if i were more invested with north high, i would appreciate it more. but they’re.... so inconsequential.

and now we get to talk about one of my biggest gripes,,,,,,, ricky’s parents’ divorce. listen, i thought it was well developed in season one. it had importance. it affected ricky. it affected the plot. it raised the stakes. now it’s just underdeveloped. we’ve barely seen ricky’s homelife, given the sheer amount of plot points the show is juggling, and since ricky has mainly had negative scenes through the totality of the season, viewers aren’t really interested in seeing how the crumbs of his tumultuous homelife are affecting his behavior (which is kind of important, seeing as it accounts for the degradation of his character). 

ricky is going through a lot this season, and i feel like the main reason why people are so upset with him is because the writers leaned into his sad boi™ status. maybe it’s because the screentime is so divided and the stakes are higher, or because the writers really just got rid of all of ricky’s personality, but ricky has had two personality traits this season - sad clingy boi and bitter, passive aggressive boi. 

now, these personality appeared in season one - quite a lot, actually - but because it was framed  between light hearted moments and exploration of his conflicts, it was palatable and understandable. viewers understood why ricky was so desperately clinging onto the past and resisted change so much. we saw the tempest he was in! we had moments where friends like big red or even gina mentioned it. his reactions had merit because the viewer saw the buildup! 

this season, we have not had that. we see ricky’s dad trying to do his best with moving out, and with trying to move on, and we see ricky’s mom trying to do the same, and this is all strong for them, but when ricky can’t move on, and we see less of the struggle that ricky feels, we become disenchanted. ricky has stagnated, and we see everyone else moving on, and we do not focus on hat influences ricky to stop dead in his tracks. 

what’s worse is that the writers have ricky blow up so much more than last season, when we see less reasoning, and when he mentions how his parent’s divorce is a main reason for his angst, we really have no basis for that - except for what we saw in season 1. season 1 isn’t enough anymore, though, because ricky’s dad has moved on! so has ricky’s mom! 

i’m just scREAMING because ricky’s story is important and it was done well in season 1 and now the writers are losing ricky in the crossfire and pulling out the most degraded, negative traits of his character and running with them.

where is the ricky bowen i love and miss????

and lol, i’ve spoken so much about north high already, but i agree 10000% that it’s just getting out of hand. it’s just so not realistic. the rivalries aren’t like this,,,, someone please make it stop. they north high kids are also just so underdeveloped? the only exception is howie, and we didn’t even know he was a north high kid for half of the show,,,,,, (which, imo, should have been built up much better. kourtney said they never hung out with his friends, but we should have seen that so the mystery was more fulfilling. we should have also gotten hints he was in theatre - maybe kourtney hears him sing beauty and the beast, and she thinks it’s vvv cute, and she asks him he didn’t try out, and howie has to do some mental gymnastics to come up with a decent lie.) 

there’s so much poor or just underdeveloped writing in this season,,,, i’m crying.

even gina (my beloved) is the subject of poor writing because literally what happened between her and ricky? she was so emotionally involved she was about to leave, and then she suddenly decides to stay? and she suddenly just ignores ricky? girl worked through all of that off camera and while it’s not bad per se, it’s just lazy. they just underdeveloped that entire story.

the only one who has really shined this season is ej, and that’s just... really out of left field, but i’m not complaining.

and, i mean, i could talk about my earlier gripes with nini, but i see that they’re making narrative sense, now that the show has progressed a little further. i just wish she had stayed at yac longer, or we had seen more of her, there, so that when she says “she liked who she was [at yac],” we would have more basis for that. and i kinda wish we saw more of her sans boy drama, but i’m sure that’s coming.

and the love triangles,,,,, don’t get me started. rina didn’t have to be angsty or happen at all,,,, they could have just been friends and it would have had the same effect. don’t believe me? they’re friends and they lean on each other, but then nini comes into the picture and ricky just wants to be with nini all the time. he starts to really blow gina off and gina wonders if they were ever friends at all, or if she was just a cardboard cut out that ricky projected nini onto. the angst happens, gina realizes she has friends with carlos, she has that moment with ashlyn that gets fixed, then gina gets close to ej,,,,, literally no difference.

and lol, mr. mazzara. i think he and miss jenn are vvv cute together - definitely my favorite out of the miss jenn romances. i love a good slow burn, so i’m willing to wait for an eternity to have it. i just think they’re neat.

[slashingdisneypasta]

Horror Villains / Misc x Reader || Drabbles

Plot: You accidentally summon Beetlejuice because he convinced you that he could help you with your Slasher problem, but he becomes an even worse problem. So, you need your Slasher to help you exterminate him, instead.

Includes: Chucky / Charles Lee Ray and Freddy Krueger

Warnings: It’s got nasty gremlin man in it (Meaning, gross language, dirty jokes and such), and also Slashers (Meaning, gore, swearing, course and suggestive language). Groping (Himself) 

Notes:

Okay, those of you who were with me at MainstreamBaddies; You remember that post I wrote about some rando killer trying to get the reader, so reader goes to the Slasher that’s also trying to kill them for help?

Well this is basically that but with (Movie) Beetlejuice as the rando.

THERE WAS MEANT TO BE MORE CHARACTERS!! But its late and I wanna slep ^^ Hopefully I’ll do Ghostface and Jason tomorrow! 

~~~

THE START / ‘Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice’

“So… “Worrying my bottom lip, I look from the wall where I can think properly to the small, ‘fun size’ version of ‘Beetlejuice’ who’s looking expectantly at me. Excited even. 

Although I guess that’s a given. If I was that small and had the possibility sitting right in front of me, of growing back to full size, and full power again, I’d be jazzed too. But, still, there’s something very off about this guy, and it isn’t just the fact that he’s the size of maybe 2 thumbs snapped off at the knuckle and taped one on top of the other. He’s very enthusiastic.

In a Gollum-Swamp Monster-Chick Hicks kind of way.

“’So’, what? I don’t have all day baaaaaay – well, I do have all day. I got nowhere to be – not many fun joints for a guy to go to at this size, amiright? Yeah, but, that’s not the point! Do you wanna get rida’ your lil’ problem or not? Eh?” Beetlejuice is practically vibrating, like an alarm clock and I have the most impulsive urge to call his name three times just to stop it.

Luckily, I have impulse control.

“Of course, I do. I… “Eyeing him pointedly, I start wringing my hands. “I just don’t want to create a new problem, in its place.”

He rolls his dark, feral racoon-panda eyes, muttering something lightning quick to himself before throwing out his arms and yelling. “BABE! I promise ya, really, sweetheart. Baby-lemon pie-dumpling-doll-dollar-sugar-tea, I’m just gonna fix your problem! All I want in the world right now is t’ cum-plete our deal! Get rida’ your Slasher, and be on my way! Unless theirs somethin’ else you ask of me, eh? When I’m back to my normal size? You know, I’m big in all the right places sugar tit- “

I took a deep, necessary breath in when he started on the ‘something else’ and now have the required breath to drown out the last words. “Oooookay!! I wont need that.” I say quickly, as a statement. He licks his lips. “But, um… Are you sure you can get rid of them?” ‘Them’. The bane of my existence right now. The co-star in the horror movie of my life. That them.

“Trust me, babe-sickle. It’ll be sinch.” For a moment, he looks absolutely calm. No vibrating, no yelling, no talking really fast. And it hits its intended mark – my assurances. Okay.

“Alright.” I wring my hands one last time, then clap them and step back from the town diorama that Beetlejuice is roaming in. I cross my arms, then drop them to my sides and look around, then finally back at the impatient ghost… who’s doing squats. Good grief, how much energy is in this guy? “Beetlejuice.”

He gasps, jumps up to his feet, nearly falling over because his weight landed wrong and then rubs his hands together. “Here we go!”

“Beetlejuice.”

“Oh. You do it right, babe.”

Oh my god, here we go. Hopefully this can’t make my situation any worse- I mean, I am being targeted by a killer. What are the odds that this goofball of a ghost could ruin my life anymore? “Beetlejuice.”

“PRESTO!”

Human! Chucky / Charles Lee Ray – Chucky’s POV:

I figure this is going to be a pain, when a screech tears from the ugly old house before I even get in. Confused, and more then frustrated because this spells out nothing but problems for me for when I get in, instead of the nice peaceful kill I was intending to enjoy, I open the screen door -bitch didn’t even lock the front door, it’s like she wants me to kill her,- and rush up the stairs to where the sound came from. “Hold on, I’m not there yet!!”

What the hell is going on?!

“Look, in my professional experience, the screamin’ doesn’t start til the killer takes out a knife, sometimes even before but not before I even get into the house, lady. The audacity of you, here- “

What am I looking at here?

In front of my eyes, my fucking eyes, stands of course Y/N, my victim. And some kind of zebra - one that’s been dead and left out in the swamp for a fuck-long time. He’s got crazy eyes if I’ve ever seen them, and have you seen mine? That’s saying something. Who is this joker? In my coat, I grip the gun I keep just in case strangulation goes awry, but don’t bring it out just yet. Not until this guy reveals his cards, first.

The guy’s eyes flicker in smug amusement from my face, to my gun pocket -evidently, he realises something’s up. Can’t blame the guy, damnit, -, then whips right around, leaving his back wide open for me and my weapon, to my facepalming victim. I smirk at her. “I take it that’s the guy you want rid of, toots?”

“Uh… yeah… “She looks adorable and awkward. The guy lets go of her waist, which he was holding close to his body as she leaned away before, when I walked in and he literally, and I’ve never seen any person do this before, halted in his tracks. Stopped breathing, stopped shifting, it even seemed like the history around him stopped for that ‘caught’ moment. And I swear I heard the sound of record music abruptly being turned off come from his mouth.

And for some odd reason, I get the feeling he’s not human. Can’t conjure a reason why, though.

I should be saying this shit out loud, I’m wasted on myself.

Figuring this guy’s been hired to get rid of me, I take out my gun. “Okay, you’re gonna have to catch me up on what’s happening... Oh, no? Well, okay.”

BAM!

A bullet flies across the room and sticks into the freak’s chest, and that is the end of things going my way.

Because the force of the bullet somehow sends him slamming across the room and through a wall in the back. His body goes ‘poot’ down two stories outside and theirs a silence that doesn’t last long enough for either Y/N or I to digest what just fucking happened before the bastard’s grotty fucking hand spiders up my spine from behind. I wriggle out of his reach immediately on impact, because it’s like a real fucking spider, and whip around, waiving my gun- which is useless now, of course.

Games are over.

The guy looks over at Y/N and grins, throwing his arms out in a ‘ta da!’ way. She winces and just narrows her eyes in a glare. “What’d you think of that, sweet cheeks? I got a flare for the dramatic, you know? Ssssexy! Eh?” When she sticks her tongue out at him, for lack of any words to respond to that with I guess -I mean, I, can think of some choice words for the guy, but she’s clearly not as creatively gifted in the art of insult as I have been told I am. But, a tongue out works, - he grins the most fucking horny grin I’ve ever seen and clutches his sack. Her jaw drops.

“Where the ever-loving fuck did you pick crazy pants up from??” I ask, looking accusingly at Y/N. She chews on the inside of her cheeks and looks even more awkward then before.

“Truce?” She asks, instead of answering my question. I’m genuinely curious.

I roll my eyes. “Ughh, fine.”

“Oh well that won’t do,” The guy speaks up again, looking between us and letting his Johnson go, thank god. The boys have to breath! “Baby girl, blossom, light of my FUCKING DEATH! You wound me. riGHT IN THE HEART! Let me show you, sweetgums, why that was a bad idea.”

Her eyes widen, and I suddenly feel real unsafe. “How about you don’t- “

“Watch this!”

He turns to me, makes some overdramatic hand gestures, throwing his back out in the process and momentarily acting like he’s out of order.

Then he whips back into action and shoots me with finger guns,

And then suddenly everything around me looks 4 times bigger then before. Oh, well, its that or… I’m closer to the ground.

Because I’m a fucking doll again.

I slowly look up from the little black baby shoes and the edges of the godamn jean jumpsuit, to the infected condom in black and white grease paint. “… You son-of-a-bitch.”

He chuckles and turns to Y/N, and gives her finger guns too, but the only other thing that happens this time is he winks at her. “Now, baby! Time to get hitched!”

“What?!” She shrieks.

Freddy Krueger – Freddy’s POV:

“I’m going to die of boredom before this bitch catches winks. I’m gonna pummel her with the counting sheep she clearly needs when she gets here.” The corners of my mouth lift up from the deep scowl I was wearing before, at the idea. It has merit.  

Behind me the fine folks of Pompeii run for their lives and a red and green striped Vesuvius explodes molten lava over their little town when I remember it’s been 2 days since she’s fallen asleep. Or found some fucking Hypnocil. Or killed herself. Who knows, really. I have a… deadly effect on women.

But damn, it would be a bummer if she killed herself. I was having fun with her. I had plans.

Have, have. I have plans. I won’t give up hope yet.

An hour, or who knows how long later -time is a human construct and doesn’t exist in the dream plain, - , I’m lying on the ground watching Psycho play in the sky when that familiar tingle rushes through me, telling me someone’s entered my world.

I’m just getting up and brushing myself off, taking my damn time like she left me to wait -besides, I can turn back time and make it seem like I appeared instantaneously if I want to. Time’s a construct, remember? And this is my world. I’m just doing this for me, to make me feel better, - when she comes out of fucking nowhere and nearly knocks me over. Im-ee-diate-ly I open my mouth to ask her why she’s so eager, but she beats me to the punch, causing me sadness.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

Hold on, I definitely think there’s something off here. Don’t I make the fucking demands?! “Bitch- ”

“Wake!”

“-I haven’t done anything to you yet.” 

“Up!”

“Goddamn!”

What is going on here!?

“I’ll do anything you want, just please. Wake me up!” Her eyes are deadly serious, and I can’t help the greedy smile I get at her submissive idea. What could have made her this way? I laugh.

“Ohhh, I’ll think it over. Tempting offer, though~” She lets out a growl and let’s go of me in pure frustration, looks around quickly for something and then lays eyes on my glove. She picks it up, and my eyes widen in surprise at what she does next.

The blade slices through the skin in her upper arm before I can take any control of the situation, and a nauseous feeling suddenly rolls me and she whimpers from the pain of slicing herself open, as the world goes blurry around us and she wakes up- of course, still holding my glove, which is attached to me, so I go with her.

“Fucking he- “

Much quicker than you think it will be, we both turn up back in the fucking reality. She hops up immediately and flies across the room to a first aid box.

I’m just assuming, I mean. Because I don’t make any move to leave the bed at all and just close my eyes and groan, and resist the urge to cry.

I hate this placceeeeeeeeee.

“BABES, YOU’RE BACK!”

Now I resist the urge to scream and phase out of existence, because a man just appeared on the bed with me and called me his babes. Instead, I slowly turn my head to him and sinisterly narrow my eyes- and hope he doesn’t notice my distress from a second ago.

I’m starting to understand why Y/N was so intent on getting back here. If this guy, a dung beetle with… oh, god. Clearly, some kind of terrible illness if that smell indicates anything, was hanging around me while I slept, I’d be… slightly bothered too. If only for the stink!

He squints, and while he does, his hair flickers through the various colours in the rainbow, confused. “Sweetbottom, theirs something different about you. Did you get contacts?”

As a knee jerk reaction, I stab him in the gut with my blades. “Stranger danger, bitch!”

My panic dissolves into glee as I jerk the knives upwards… just to turn back into panic when he starts tearing all the way in half from my stab wound up to the top of his head with minimal effort from me. I gulp, and retreat from him to where Y/N is, taping her bandages securely around her arm. I gesture to the freak who’s padded onto the floor and is zipping himself back together in front of my eyeballs. “… the fuck is that?”

“That’s Beetlejuice, he’s a ghost=

“With the most, baby.” ‘Beetlejuice’ stands up straight and rests his hands on his hips, chest puffed out and winks at Y/N. 

“-What do we do?”  She asks, looking with wide eyes at me. 

What does she think I am? The Fairy Godmother of the dead?? I’m no godmoth-

… I could use this. A slow grin spreads across my mouth. “First, you go over there and distract him.” 

For a split second she looks like she’s actually going to go with it, then looks with furrowed, unimpressed eyebrows at me. ‘Beetlejuice’ makes grabby hands at us, and she starts to look more panicked by the second. “And what will you do??”

I yank the bedroom door open. “Run!!”

[slash-em-up]

I Was (Not) Born To Be A Cowboy Pt. 3

Ok, so since this seems to be turning into an actual story, I’ve pulled it out of the one-shot series ‘Meeting of the Minds’ and renamed it as its own piece. Apologies if this is confusing to anyone!

BTW, NSFW below!!

-------------------------------------------------------------

You would never admit this to a Jesse but you were actually having a pretty good time on the ranch.

If you discounted the freezing weather and the hands-on farm work, it was almost like a camping trip.

And you were getting pretty good at most of the daily tasks, if you did say so yourself.

Not by any merit of your own – Asa had kept his promise and taught you enough to keep you mounted on your horse;  and Brody, along with the other ranch-hands, were nice enough to not make fun when you dropped the lead on one of the cows and had to chase her around the paddock – but you could definitely tell there was no love lost between Jesse and the cowboys.

It started at breakfast.

Once you’d arrived at the mess, you’d been introduced to the five other hands that worked the ranch. Mr. Ephriam was nowhere to be found, which you thought was a little odd; but hey.

The men all seemed like friendly enough guys until Jesse came huffing through the door.

“Hey there Stretch, where’s your horse at?” one of the men queried.

Reaching angrily into his pocket, Jesse pulled out his phone and typed out his answer, letting the electronic reader give out a monotone ‘Dr. Emory stole it’

The man chuckled at that, giving Asa an appraising look.

“How are ya, Doc. I’m Henry, I run this place when Mr. Ephriam ain’t here. You know your way around horses?”

Asa turned from his place in the food line and faced the man, raising an eyebrow behind his glasses at being dubbed ‘Doc’.

“Enough to get by.”

Henry gave an approving nod.

“It’ll be nice to have one of ya around that can keep his seat. Ever worked with cattle before?”

Asa shook his head.

“Well, you’ll catch on quick. Or ya won’t. Be interesting to watch…”

Henry turned to look at you momentarily before grunting and returning to his eggs.

You didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.

You joined Jesse, who’d seated himself in the corner as far away from the others as possible, and was currently moving what looked like beans around his tray with a spoon.

“Proper cowboy breakfast, huh?”

‘I miss coffee…’

“You literally have a full mug of it sitting in front of you.”

Jesse looked affronted.

‘THIS is not coffee, this is what comes out when you clean a gutter.’

You rolled your eyes.

“Oh please, like you’ve ever cleaned a gutter in your life…”

Jesse’s retort was cut off as Asa sat beside you, taking a long sip from his own mug.

“At least the coffee is decent.”

You choked on your potatoes and Jesse glared.

Asa looked confused (for Asa) and went straight on to befuddled as Jesse lobbed a biscuit at his head.

‘Keep it in your pants ‘Doc’.’

Asa sneered.

“Easy enough, ‘Stretch’.”

----------------------------------------------------------------

“I can’t do this, I’m going back to Illinois.”

You could almost read the ‘take me with you’ in Jesse’s eye as he leaned against the wooden fence, watching you try your hardest to lasso a very slippery calf.

It has all started out so well too. You were sure nothing as cute as the baby cow before you could give you too much trouble; but boy oh boy had you been wrong.

You turned to watch Asa and Spann ride by – herding the grown heifers as if they’d been doing it for years – while Jesse and you were stuck chasing these adorable little monsters.

“Show-offs…” you muttered.

Jesse nodded in agreement, sending a glare at the two riders.

Twin looks of disapproval met his, and you couldn’t help but chuckle. Asa and Spann were usually on the same wave-length when it came to handling Jesse’s childish behavior and you found it hilarious.

The length of rope making up your lasso flew once more through the air, coming pitifully short of the tiny brown calf.

“Dammit!”

Before you could reel the loop back in a dark-sweatered form passed you with a ZOOM. A tiny yelp left your mouth as you watched Jesse charge towards the calf - who immediately took off, prey instincts telling it to GET AWAY as fast as it could.

You couldn’t help but flinch a little as you watched Jesse run - while he was extremely fast and almost graceful when he was chasing a piggy, he had a tendency to be… less so when he wasn’t in a hunting mind-set. 

And the mud in the pen looked pretty damn slippery…

Jesse overtook the tiny cow quickly and hoisted it up and over his shoulder like he would any other body, looking incredibly proud of himself as he walked back to you, keeping the tiny cow held tight as it wriggled.

“Well that’s one way to do it.”

A jerk of Jesse’s head indicated that you should open the pen you’d been trying to lead the calf into and soon the baby was locked in safe and sound with its friends.

Smirking, the two of you passed by Asa and Spann - heading back to the cabin now that your task for the afternoon was finally finished.

You’d nearly cleared the fenceline when the mud got the better of Jesse’s footing and he plummeted into the freezing muck with a loud squelching noise.

Unfortunately, on his way down he’d grabbed your shoulder in an attempt to steady himself and his much larger form was more than happy to take you right down with him.

“FUCK!”

------------------------------------------------------------------

You’d discovered that the saving-grace of the overall chilly ranch was that it had hot water, and lots of it. It had become your habit over the last couple of days to end your evening with a boiling shower before curling up in front of the fire between Asa and Jesse.

Having been thoroughly dipped and dunked in some icy dirt made you even more grateful for this as Jesse and you trudged together towards the bath-house.

It reminded you of your gym’s locker-rooms, honestly. 

It split into two sections, one for men, the other for women and as you entered there were several rows of lockers and benches for people to stow their goods in before getting undressed and occupying a shower stall.

You grasped Jesse by the hand before he could turn into the men’s side.

“Nuh-uh, you got me dirty, you’re cleaning me up.”

Any fatigue he’d been showing left Jesse immediately, perking him right back up as he offered you a grin.

His brown eye twinkled seeming to make no promise that you wouldn’t leave the shower dirtier than when you’d arrived.

You let out a squeak of surprise as Jesse lifted you effortlessly into his arms, pausing for a moment so you could wrap your legs around his hips before pressing a deep kiss to your lips.

The three of you hadn’t had the energy or privacy to be intimate like you usually would, and you were starving for this.

Your hands gripped Jesse’s shoulders as he deepened the kiss, walking you both through the lockers and into a stall.

Gasping, you pulled away to catch your breath and turn one of the dials, starting the shower.

Jesse’s hands were everywhere, feeling you up and pulling at your clothes as you did the same to him.

He preened as you rid him of his sweater and ran your hands admiringly across his tattooed skin.

Once you were both naked, you found yourself pressed tightly against the wall as Jesse sucked and kissed your neck.

“Oh god, Jesse, yes…”

His large hands nearly encircled your ribcage as he lifted you once more, letting you rest between his body and the wall - the cool tile creating an intense contrast with his water-warmed skin.

You could feel his cock pressing insistently against your entrance and you grasped Jesse’s shoulders tightly in an effort to fill yourself with his erection.

He glanced up at your face - eye’s glinting in a devilish way as he moved his hips just out of your reach, then back - small thrusting motions against your skin that were driving you wild with need.

“Fuck, please, get inside me… stop teasing you bastard!”

Jesse stepped away from the wall, causing you to cling even tighter to his wet skin as he brought you both back under the heated spray.

He grinned with satisfaction as he lowered you inch by inch onto his cock, lifting you and pulling you down slowly until you were fully seated.

Your head lolled back in ecstacy at the feeling of being so full. Jesse was large enough that just by filling you he hit nearly every sensitive nerve inside your body, and it was all you could do to keep from cumming right then and there.

Jesse shivered at the feeling of your inner muscles clamping down on him as you tried desperately to stave off your orgasm.

He’d never let you or Asa hear the end of it if you came from just his cock entering you.

When he finally began to move, his pace was still torturously slow - you could feel the desire to cry out with every thrust increase as he drew out your pleasure, pausing his movements over any place he found that made you writhe in sensitivity.

He was a god damn evil man and you were ready to tell that him just that as soon as he moved his cockhead away from your g-spot.

You were panting and whimpering as he finally decided to take pity on you and began thrusting at a rapid pace, bouncing you on his cock like you weighed less than a feather.

Supporting your back with one arm, he brought his free hand down to rub roughly at your clit, causing you to scream to the ceiling and jerk your hips up into his grip.

You came like an atom bomb and tightened like a vice around Jesse.

He nearly lost his grip and leaned back into the rough tile wall to support your bodies as he threw his head back and came inside of you.

Releasing you slowly, he gently lowered you to the floor, letting you lean against him in the shower spray until you’d caught your breath.

“I missed that.” You said, pressing a soft kiss to his chest.

Jesse grinned down at you before signing ‘It hasn’t even been two weeks yet. Miss my cock that much?’

You were feeling far too languid from an excellent orgasm to tell him off, so you simply reached around and pinched his ass instead.

“Among other things, asshole.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Warm and clean, you returned to the cabin wrapped tightly under Jesses arm.

To both of your surprise, there was a suspicious lack of Asa in the cabin and a note pinned to the door.

It was in Spanns writing

‘Mr. Cromeans,

Please bring Y/N and join Asa and I in the mess-hall. I think you’ll enjoy this.

-Spann’

“What the hell? What does that mean?”

Jesse shrugged, looking perplexed by his second’s cryptic note.

“Up for another ride?”

You could tell Jesse wanted to make a joke; but one glance over at Sugar soured his mood immediately.

‘Not particularly...’

You hummed in amusement, tucking yourself back under his arm.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to end up in the dirt again.”

Jesse scowled; but pulled you closer anyway. His distaste for the cold overcoming his annoyance at your cheeky comments.

Giggling, you both headed towards the mess-hall.

To Be Continued...

[tacosandtomcos]

Honestly, I get why people are upset about how the shipping was handled in season 4, but seriously, why are people so triggered over kellco? They were literally nothing but a rebound ship. Neither of the characters took actual romantic interest until Tad left Kelly and Star was with Tom coincidentally. And I mean, they straight up called themselves "Break-up-Buddies".. clearly nothing good was going to come out of that.

Well, kellco was seen a little more then that.

I mean, this was a ship that had been going on and had setup for at least 2 seasons? I mean not as heavily as jarco was but still.

While Marco was dealing with the fact star was with someone else, it became clear he and kelly were starting to connect and become friends who were supporting each other through these rough times.

And a lot of people actually liked the idea of that, that these two unlikely characters going through struggles that were similar started bonding and realizing they had a lot in common.

After LLB it became obvious to the audience kelly and marco were hanging out a lot more offscreen, they hang out in monster bash, kell is implied to like marco in the holiday special, they clearly seemed to go to the wedding together in BB as almost like the other’s date (though that’s more implied then anything), marco even considers kelly to be one of the first people he calls to help with meteora….

the show doesn’t lean on them like it did with other ships, but people could clearly tell marco and kelly were having a budding friendship/romance going on, and i think people liked the fact it stemmed from these characters supporting each other through their romance issues and bonding over time.

not to mention, this was one of the few things marco had that didn’t make him so star-constant.

Marco lacked much of his own personal relationships or hobbies or plots that weren’t extremely rooted to star. Marco lost karate, school, his earth relationships mainly, any of his self discovery episodes.

He barely was in s3 unless he was in the romance plot, or doing stuff for star.

Having him have this new friendship with kelly where they support each other and have marco deal with his emotions and where marco seemed to have someone he hung out with regularly outside of mostly star and tom and that entire love triangle was probably a breath of fresh air.

And this was a thing with kelly, kelly herself seemed to be implied to be having a rough time dealing with her past relationship and the show treats her chance with marco as a chance for her to finally move on and be with someone who really understands her.

Kelly’s not the most detailed and explored character but the fact they spent so much time on focusing on the fact these two were hanging out and there was some romance blooming between them, and then just instantly cut it off for no reason kinda sucks.

In ways i think people liked seeing marco with someone who shared his love of martial arts, and sword fighting, and adventures because while star kinda liked that in s1, her character is flipped a lot in s3 and 4 and it kinda seems more like kelly and marco just end up having a lot more in common.

If jackie was perfect to marco as his opposite, her chill personality working well with his safe-kid persona and worried character.

Kelly was perfect in the almost opposite direction, having a lot in common with him and matching his interests and the two of them bringing out each other’s wilder sides.

Star used to almost be an opposite, but then she got more serious and marco got more wild, and marco just seemed to mostly go on his own adventures, without her.

And the two had things in common in earlier seasons, not all that much in later ones, they don’t really hang out much tbh cause there are more episodes with star dealing with eclipsa and other matters.

in summary here i think kelly just seemed to really compliment the character marco was at the time, and people really liked the direction the show seemed to be taking with it.

like these two characters forming a friendship and support group with each other, and moving on from their heartbreak to find they like each other? That’s wholesome and would’ve been wholesome to see in the show-

-if they had sticked with it.

people are triggered over kellco because the show spent it’s focus on this relationship and building this budding relationship built on support for each other through rough times….and then ended it for no reason.

like even if it was in the bg mostly, it was still a relationship the show put focus on, they even had an entire episode to get them together.

And then ended it? Without a real reason why?

Kelly and Marco’s relationship was built on support for each other and marco just goes off and ends it? Leaving Kelly once again, sad and alone and clearly heartbroken despite marco KNOWING how tad made her feel? And then they just ignore it and pretend it didn’t matter when they clearly tried to make it matter?

Marco knows how much kelly had been hurt over the tad situation and he knows how much their relationship meant to kelly to help her deal with it and move forward, and no, he doesn’t owe it to her to be with her if he doesn’t want to…..but he DID want to!

Marco actively said he didn’t really want to have feelings for star because they were in the way of these new ones for kelly. He wanted to move on and he wanted to be there to support her….expect somewhere offscreen he changed his mind.

He never interacts with kelly again after the breakup btw, their entire friendship/relationship basically goes poof and neither of them talk about it again.

I mean, the fact star and marco’s other relationships are almost treated like nothing in comparison to their own is it’s own issue, but kellco is a prime example of it.

Spent a long time on this relationship, these two are supposibly close, then after they break up marco pretty much pretends all that time we spent with him and kelly and the friendship they had meant little to him.

Doesn’t even worry when she’s on her deathbed.

Same thing with Tom, where the writers try and pretend these relationships we spent seasons on meant nothing to star and marco and we should only care about their relationship.

Having star and marco give a heck about these other relationships we spent so much time on would probably make them seem less selfish, but nah, kelly is gone forever in her own dimension? Who cares about the fact we were friends with her and she’s gone forever, we get to date now.

Breaking them up like they did removed all the good merit the show was trying to preach with their friendship.

Moving on is a thing that doesn’t seem to exist in this show as long as it’s keeping the main couple apart.

You have these episodes showing that it’s healthy for star and marco to accept they should move on for their betterment and it all entirely goes to waste because they end up together regardless because neither does move on.

And this is another thing.

Kelly had nothing to do much when she wasn’t with marco.

and like, this is the same problem jackie had, but at least the show didn’t have jackie almost presented like a main character.

They presented kelly as a main character by s3 and by the end, they did nothing with her outside of her and marco’s relationship, which again, they scrapped randomly.

And kelly just never does anything after, she’s basically gone, just like jackie was, because as soon as a character is done dating star or marco they’re useless to the crew apparently and their relationships no longer matter to them.

Kelly wasn’t the deepest or most developed character, but a lot of people were attached to her, liked her relationship with marco, it would understandably piss them off to see the crew give this girl so much attention all of a sudden…

only to immediately remove her and all importance she may of had just to get starco together.

And this isn’t mentioning the fact that kellco didn’t need to exist in the first place, they didn’t develop any characters because marco goes right back to pinning over star and who knows with kelly, they didn’t have a function on the plot directly, didn’t serve to make star or anyone jealous.

It’s a relationship they spent time on, only to go nowhere with, it really had no reason to happen at all and if it was just to make kellco shippers happy….well i think they would’ve rather had no ship then the crew randomly ending the relationship quickly after and pretending it didn’t exist.

by itself, kelly’s world is a cute episode, but it’s so disappointing to see they have it and then pretend it didn’t matter at all.

why did they take so much time to get them together and focus on them if they were just going to break it off after the fact?

It’s easy to be like ���Oh, they were rebounds, who cares, it didn’t matter”

Clearly that’s not how everyone felt.

it seemed pretty obvious to people kellco felt like an opportunity for two characters to move on with their lives and find happiness in each other, because that’s literally how their relationship is presented several times in the series.

and with all the focus this relationship had the last thing people wanted was to see this rather wholesome relationship just be tossed aside for starco, especially since it’s entire message rode on both parties being together and getting over starco.

Kellco made people mad because:

It has no reason to exist by the end

It wastes a character they didn’t care enough about to get any resolution with marco

all the goodwill it had is removed by getting rid of it for starco

the show spent time on a relationship they ended without giving any reason for it to end

it was something entirely wholesome that people enjoyed watching because it was a step away from all this romance drama and gave marco character outside of star, and the show decided to destroy it and make marco so star-centered he seemed to lack any character or ambition or anything outside of her anymore

There’s nothing more hurtful then a show making you care about something and making you feel like it mattered and then tossing it away and spitting on it.

[seriouslyhooked]

Lost Souls and Reveries (Part 24)

25 part AU written for @cssns​. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23. Story available on AO3 Here and FF Here. Banner created by the amazingly talented @shipsxahoy​!!

Killian Jones is a wolf shifter without roots, without plans, and without a pack. He’s a rogue, someone humans should avoid and shifters should be wary of given his lineage. But one night years back set him on a path he didn’t realize he was taking, a path leading to a future he is destined for. That future is tied up in one woman – a human named Emma Nolan. Together Emma and Killian will find not only answers, but a love that’s truly fated. But will love be enough to set them free, or will past demons win out in the end? (Answer: love always wins – I am writing this so despite some tiny pockets of angst it’s basically a fluff-filled insta-love fest). Rated M.

A/N: Hey everyone. So as you can probably imagine, this chapter is going to be A LOT It’s double the length of a normal chapter because the midpoint was too high stress for me to leave you all on. It’s going to be high emotions and very unstable. That being said, I totally understand if some of you just want to skip it all together. Keep in mind if you do, you will be missing the final show down with George and a lot of final puzzle pieces many of you have been trying to piece together. I promise you I will leave the chapter in a stable place AND I have an extremely fluffy chapter planned for the final installment of this fic. That being said, I hope you’ll all forgive me for the angst, and happy reading!

“So what exactly do you think George has in store for us?”

After a few hours of being holed up in the car together, headed north to face her father’s Uncle, the question from Killian was direct and precise. But there was a reason it had taken hours for anyone to ask. The truth was something strange and unnerving. Without having every detail, they all knew that this was a dangerous man with an unstable mind. George Nolan’s reputation preceded him and his craven desire to do harm was undeniable. Still there was so much they didn’t understand. The only one with first-hand knowledge was her Dad, and every time she looked to him for answers, he appeared grim and stony. To see her father’s light dim, to see his kindness cool, was completely foreign to Emma, and it made her hands tremble slightly with anxious anticipation.

“It’s not going to be easy to get to him when we arrive at this ranch,” Emma’s father said, continuing to discuss the task before them just as he had for the last four plus hours. “My Uncle has never fought in any human war, but his life has been one long series of battles. The stuff he’ll have lined up will be straight from the textbooks.”

“They’ve got textbooks on shifter hunting then?” Liam asked with a tone of feigned amusement that was largely laced in sarcasm. “Well look at that. Learn something new every day.”

“Kidding aside, surely George is more sophisticated than that. He must have some sorts of surprises in store,” Killian offered.

“Oh plenty,” David agreed. “I know many of his habits, his tendencies and quirks, but it’s been thirty years since I left home, and there’s no doubt he’ll have more up his sleeve by now.”

Emma continued to listen to the others discuss, but eventually their voices started to fade. The words became less recognizable, and more a continued thrum of energy in the back of her mind. This mental distance was a defense mechanism, a means of shielding herself until the last possible moment. If she allowed her mind to linger in the what-ifs she’d go crazy. Instead, she leaned her head against the window, her temple feeling the coolness of the glass as her eyes stayed trained out, taking in their surroundings.

As the others shifted their conversation from trap types and weaponry to debate about what the best routes in and out of this park reserve might be, Emma thought back to a time before all of this chaotic uncertainty. Her eyes cast out towards the northern woods, with mammoth pine trees filling in the forests all around them. The world was green and bright. The feel of summer was thick still, and the world, though sluggish from the heat, was very much alive. The further from home they drove, the more altered the land looked. Flat coastal spaces ranged from rolling hills to jagged cliffs. Terrain was denser with brush and canopies. Heck, they’d literally left the country and were now in a totally new place, but Emma didn’t think of that, or even really see the sights before her. Instead she recalled what things used to be like, before she met her soulmate, and before everything went completely off the rails.

Emma’s life in Storybrooke was quiet and subdued for so many years. She had her work, and her friends, and her family. Every day was different, but it was also just the same. The spice of her life came from being a vet, where she might encounter varying pets and animals with a whole host of ailments and injuries, but the ebb and flow of life was rather monotonous. Nothing really strayed from ordinary, and after everything that they’d gone through when Neal was sick, Emma was grateful for that. She lived in a little pond with the fish she’d always known, happy that the big and scary waves of their past seemed to be behind them. Things were small and seemingly unimportant in their little corner of the world, but as safe as she’d felt, and as untouchable as being in Storybrooke once used to seem, it wasn’t all that she truly wanted. Where she had consistency and companionship, Emma was missing passion. She was missing that all-consuming love that comes when meeting one’s perfect match, and in more ways than one, she was missing key insights into who she really was. Pieces of her had been, for lack of a better word, hibernating, and now they were awakened, never to be suppressed or forgotten again.

But so far, these beautiful pieces had come with a tainted set of conditions. She met Killian, igniting a spark that had fanned into unquenchable flames. She fell in love with him, opened her heart to him, and started to believe that a life with real love was something she was meant to be a part of, but then she realized he had secrets and a past still left to face. She learned the truth about shifters, and her family’s place in that world. It was confusing but amazing all at once, yet with that incredible truth came a good amount of fear. There was so much left unknown, and things that could hurt them down the line. Bonding together had made Emma and Killian so much more secure in themselves and in each other. She was meant to be Killian’s fated mate, and he was meant to be hers, and Emma would never ever regret that. But saying yes to each other and taking that step brought the threat of Liam and whatever darkness may consume him. Of course, Killian’s brother was no longer a danger to them, but only a few weeks ago they’d felt differently. Before they saw Liam and understood his intentions and his destined ties to Elsa, he was looming menace that Killian had run from for years. His sickness had eroded critical human parts of Liam Jones, and though Elsa had cured him, nothing could take back the panic, the angst, and the worry they’d all expended in the days and weeks leading up to his return.

When they realized Liam wasn’t truly the enemy, there was celebration and reason for joy. Killian had his brother back, and Elsa too was blessed enough to have a mate. But in a matter of days Emma was forced to face down the risks of fully embracing who she was. The tying together of Elsa and Liam was a gift, but it also thrust Emma into more action than she knew what to do with. In a move that completely defied her past human understanding, Elsa used magic to help Emma merge her souls on some kind of spiritual, other-worldly journey. She’d met Killian’s dead mother in another unknown plane of existence, embraced her inner wolf, all while dying for just a few moments. That was crazy, and obviously something Emma should have had more time to prepare for and come to terms with, but she survived, and after the dust settled from such a stressful moment, she thought things were truly okay. They’d made it through, they’d braved their trials. This was surely enough to merit a good old fashioned happily ever after, but no. Things were nowhere near through. Her long-lost, time-ignored grandmother returned, freed from a magical coma that had robbed her of an entire lifetime with her children and grandchildren. Her brother was approached by a mad man and his safety was thrown into jeopardy. Her town was attacked by a genetically modified monster shifter. And if all that weren’t bad enough, they had not one, but two genuinely evil men hell bent on destroying them. Bad intentions surrounded Emma and the people that she loved, aimed at snuffing out her happiness and their lives, and for all of this she was yet again knocking on the door of danger and bracing for another spat with life and death.

I just want this all to be over. I’ll do whatever it takes, as long as we can go back to something even remotely like normal.

The thought whispered in her mind, but it spoke her deepest truth. All she wanted was for this to be finished. Emma wanted to rid them all of any monsters that were lurking in one final stand, and then she wanted to get to living. She wanted to get married, even though she and Killian were forever bonded already. She wanted a special day just about them and their love and their future. She might not have the determination and unyielding vision of her mother when it came to planning this wedding, but Emma craved a feeling, the sheer happiness that must come when she and Killian would say ‘I do’ for real this time. At the same time, Emma wanted to make her and Killian’s new house a home, and to prepare for the baby who she would hold close very soon. She wanted lazy mornings and sunset walks. She wanted beach days and trail hikes and running in the woods. She wanted days where she and Killian did absolutely nothing except spend time together, and she wanted to know peace again in a way she hadn’t had in what felt like far too long.

“I love you, Emma.”

The whispered words that came from beside her made Emma turn to her mate, and the look of calm and fidelity in his gaze helped Emma breathe easier. She hadn’t realized her agitation was carrying over from her mind, but as Killian pressed a soft kiss to her lips, she felt warmed through. The shadows she was grappling with and the what-ifs that would ultimately do nothing but cause more stress retreated again. For a moment it was just the two of them, and she smiled at him, raising her hand to cup his cheek as she looked into his eyes. God did she love this man. He was so right for her, so good to her. She couldn’t imagine anyone else she’d ever want by her side for a moment like this, and though she hated that they had to be here, she was grateful for their bond now more than ever. In all honesty she was thankful for everything they’d been through, huge and daunting and exhausting as it was. For ultimately they were stronger for their trials, and they had used each obstacle and hardship as a chance to grow together instead of fall apart.

“You let the light in,” she said, her words still soft and spoken only for them. She watched as his eyes lit up with both enjoyment and surprise, and it made her heart clutch in her chest that even after everything he might not know how much he meant to her. “You make me feel like this will be okay, even when hope is scarce. I don’t know how I’d handle any of this without you.”

“You’d find a way,” Killian answered immediately, pulling her closer into his embrace. “But there’s no need. I’m not going anywhere, love. Not now, not ever.”

Emma promised the same back to him, and she allowed that promise to fill her with faith as the final stretch of the drive came and went. Soon enough they were passing into the territory of the mountain lions that had contacted her Uncle, and only a slight ways on they came to the sprawling lands of the long abandoned ranch where George and the shifters were expected to be.

“Taking the car any further will alert nearby shifters or your Uncle of our presence,” Killian said to her father. “We might already have been noticed, but reports from the other clans said this area had largely been avoided by the sick shifters.”

“How far out are we from the cabin still?” Anna asked.

“A little more than a mile. There’s a road that would take us all the way there…”

“But the chances George has lined that with explosives or traps is almost guaranteed,” Emma finished. Killian nodded and her father did the same.

“As it is, we need to all be on high alert. This area might be largely vacant because traps have already been laid here and the shifters can sense it.”

“I don’t think that’s why actually,” Anna said, looking to the tree line. Emma mirrored her movement, but there was nothing there, at least nothing she could see.

“Do you feel something?” Liam asked.

“I’m not sure, but you see that path? The grass is browning there, but everything else is perfectly green.”

“What would do that?” Emma asked, but Anna was already moving. Gently she reached her hand out, a swirl of her magic touching the dying blades and when it did a tint of red blipped into existence before puttering out.

“Gold.”

“He’s here too?” Liam questioned but Anna shook her head.

“Doubtful. This magic is fading, and see the way the blades are bent, they’re heading out not in.”

“But he was here,” David concluded. Anna nodded.

“Definitely. So it would make sense that no one has sensed any shifters. Gold has likely infused his magic in their sickness. Realistically he included a fail-safe to keep any of them from attacking him. They’re probably compelled to avoid him unless he summons them.”

“Do you think it’s a trap?” Killian asked and Anna shrugged.

“Only one way to find out I guess.”

With that they all moved through the forest, careful to stay near Gold’s chosen route without actually setting foot on it. They monitored the area around them for pitfalls and unforeseen complications, but aside from some old and rusted out traps of times gone by, the area was clean. They moved closer and closer to where the cabin was said to be located, but ultimately decided it would be better to take down as many shifters as they could before going directly to George.

“The nearest clan said there were fresh kills from yesterday seen here, here and here.” Emma watched as her father circled three places on the map. They were congregated in clusters around the property, all of them by the nearby river’s edge. “Nearly an entire herd of deer slaughtered up by this bend.”

“A whole herd?”

“These shifters killed mostly for sport, not food.”

Emma’s stomach curdled at the thought. She still felt adamantly that killing as her wolf and claiming an animal to eat was a bit beyond her. Sure, she could technically do it, but it was extremely uncommon. Liam and Killian felt the same way, citing that the only shifters they’d ever known to take advantage of that particular power were their father and some of his closest supporters. As such, the two of them never partook, and only ever killed a wild animal while in their wolf form if the animal was a threat to others.

“That’s where we need to start,” Liam said and they all agreed, leaving the relative safety of Gold’s carved out trail and heading for the nearby waterway.

In another situation, these woods would be beautiful, a place of reprieve perhaps, and an area filled with plentiful wildlife and natural bounty. But now an eerie quiet settled on this land. There were no bird songs through the trees, no rustling of squirrels or smaller wildlife to be heard. In a matter of days, the presence of these shifters had eroded any sense of peace or serenity that may once have existed here, and that unnatural decay left Emma’s nerves even more on edge. Only a subtle wind through the trees and the distant gurgle of running water filled the space around them, and even their footsteps were nearly undetectable, as all of them were taking great pains to stay quiet and unheard.

After a few minutes of steady movement, Killian raised his hand, motioning for all of them to stop as he took in their surroundings. “There’s a hostile shifter, fifty paces out,” Killian said, his head nodding through a canopy of trees. Emma was astonished. She hadn’t heard or sensed anything at all, but then she shifted slightly closer to Killian and she smelled it.

“Mountain lion?” Emma asked, as the ungodly scent filled her nose and left her with a need to gag. It was hard to place the exact shifter when the sickness loomed so large, but from her basic knowledge of shifter scents, she thought it was some kind of big cat.

“No. Jaguar maybe.”

“It could be a panther,” David said as he readied his dart gun, loading it with the intended tranquilizer. “George’s idea of vacation involves hunting in other parts of the world. He had a particular fascination with the amazon. Always said panthers were wily and the hardest to kill. He might have trapped one for his army.”

There was no time to really soak that in, as the element of surprise would soon be lost to them. Instead they fanned out, moving to better circle the beast without alarming it to their presence. Only when everyone was in place having created a semi-circle around the river did it occur to Emma that they had one real potential obstacle – panthers could climb a hell of a lot better than any of them, and if this big cat got in a tree with enough coverage to escape her father’s scope, they’d be in big trouble.

At that exact moment, luck went against them and the wind suddenly shifted, brushing against her skin and headed straight for the clearing at the water’s edge where the shifter lurked. Knowing time was up, she moved quickly, making enough noise that the others would know to move too and coming face to face with a giant black beast a few seconds later.

The growl of the animal was feral and loud, a snarl scratched out in a blatant attempt to intimidate. Emma’s instinct was to shift to her wolf form, but that wasn’t the plan. Liam and Killian were the ones who would be shifting, and Emma, Anna, and her father would try their best to hit the jaguar with enough sedative to put him under. Emma attempted to do just that, aiming her dart gun at the jaguar’s neck, but the animal was too fast, lunging away and charging at Emma.

With lightening speed, a fully black wolf leapt at the jaguar, taking it off guard and grounding it with excessive force. Emma knew this was Killian, and watched as he and Liam both took on the panther. But they didn’t try to kill their foe. Instead, as was the plan, they attempted to corale the big cat to a more open space, in an easy line of sight for her father to hit. They were nearly there when the jaguar changed direction, ambling for a giant tree trunk in an attempt to get away.

“Oh no you don’t!” Anna said, her hands flying outwards as she dropped her dart gun and used her magic, managing to make the tree actually shake, tossing branches down below to swat the big cat away. The animal roared again, hurt to some degree from its fall, but mostly agitated. It now saw Anna and hissed at her, ignoring Liam and Killian and moving straight for her. Emma’s heart caught in her throat and protectiveness flooded her system. She was a split second from shifting and sprinting in her friend’s direction to save her, but then the jaguar let out a pained cry and she saw that he’d been hit. Her Dad had landed the blow, and now the drug was overwhelming the shifter’s system.

“Perfect shot,” Anna said, sounding almost excited at what had just happened, as if her life was in no real danger. Emma just gawked at her friend until her Dad explained.

“Anna knew what the plan was. She was never in any real danger. I’d never let that happen.”

Emma knew her father was sincere, since Anna and Elsa were essentially honorary Nolans. Still, she wished they’d conveyed that to her somehow instead of nearly giving her a heart attack.

“Well that was easy enough. One down, three more to go.”

Tracking the other shifters ended up being a much easier proposition since the noise from this skirmish had sounded through the woods. One by one they came out of hiding, two wolves were first, big, but they lacked cohesiveness in their attack, and after a bit of wrangling Emma managed to hit one while her father got the other. Soon after that the bears came, first a giant black bear and just when he was put down another that was brown, but not as massive as Anna’s grizzly from Storybrooke. These two were a bit more capable than the wolves, but they didn’t manage any lasting damage on Liam or Killian. But just when they were trying to catch their breath back in their human form, a cackling shriek of a final frenzied foe sounded through the forest.

“What the hell was that?” Anna asked, looking towards the tree line for whatever had made that awful sound.

“Wolverine,” Emma’s father and Killian said at the same time.

“Like the weasel things?” Anna asked, thinking as Emma did that this must surely be easy.

“Yeah, but wolverine shifters are five times the normal size,” Liam said bulking up his stance before turning to them. “Be on your guard, this one’s gonna be nasty.”

They watched Liam and Killian shift back again as a giant brown burst of energy scrambled through the brush. With gnashing teeth and a rabid expression, the wolverine was terrifying, and also enormous. Emma lost herself for a second, stunned at the sight of it, but when the beast moved to swipe at Killian she gathered herself back.

“Get him to the river,” David instructed, yelling out the command so all of them could hear it. Emma realized right away that this was going to be a very different fight. Their foe was too fast and it had no instinct for self-preservation. All it did was lash out, aggressively trying to maim Killian and Liam to get what it wanted. With movements like that, she had no chance of hitting her target, so she shifted to wolf form to try and help that way. It was touch and go in a few spots, and more than once the beast almost managed to get a nip at her golden coat, but in a moment where she was one on one with the animal her father yelled for her to duck. She did so without question, and as the best lunged for her, she watched the dart hit him square in the chest, knocking him back and pulling another hellish scream from the animal.

“Nasty buggers, wolverines,” Killian said when they’d all determined the beast was subdued. “Even the healthy ones are horrors.”

“Could hardly tell that he was sick,” Liam joked and Emma let out a barked laugh, shaking her head.

“No way. They can’t be that bad,” she said looking to her father who only shrugged.

“They’re packless for a reason. Put too many together, and well, you just saw what can happen.”

Emma was amazed at that, and thankful that they’d managed to put him down for the time being. All of these shifters would be down for the count for at least a day. If Anna’s bear was knocked out for that long in the test, they’d surely be down longer, what with the difference in size and metabolic rate. As such they’d have time to gather them all together or have the nearby packs lock them down to a secured space. But in the meantime they’re greatest enemy was still before them.

“Did you notice the blood on him?” Liam said, drawing their attention back to the wolverine. “Right paw, encased on the claws.”

“Well someone had to have killed all those deer, right?” Anna asked but Liam shook his head.

“It’s human blood. I caught a whiff of it when he tried to strike me.”

“Human?” Emma asked, worried that these shifters had managed to harm an innocent hiker or something of the like.

“It’s got to be George. The packs were adamant that there are no humans in these parts and they checked with local rangers. There’s a warning out for hikers and campers for a twenty-mile radius and the packs have been circling from a distance for days. No one’s out here.”

“If that beast got a piece of him, then your Uncle’s in bad shape,” Killian said and Emma watched her father’s expression, wondering if anything like remorse would appear. It never did.

“Good. I’m not too proud to admit that we need the advantage. If George is at full health, he’ll be that much harder to stop.”

Heading towards the cabin once more, Emma considered what it would take to stop such a man. No one had said the words aloud, but they all must know that George couldn’t be allowed to leave this cabin. There would be no imprisoning him. He had to die and that was a dark cloud looming over them all. None of them would want to take a life, for Emma it was something she didn’t even think she could do, but in this moment she had to be ready to compromise herself. If it meant protecting the people she loved, she might have to take a life, and though that life would be an evil one, it would still hurt her. But despite that, she would still make that choice. Whatever the fall out, she would see her loved ones protected, no matter what.

“It won’t come to that, Emma,” Killian said, taking her hand as they moved through the woods. “I won’t let your hands be bloodied like that.”

“No we won’t. The person to handle this will be me,” her father said, and Emma looked to him, knowing that burden was something he would struggle with but that he was ready to take on. “I always knew this day might come. He’s my responsibility.”

No one argued with her father, instead allowing the last bit of quiet to consume their journey. They remained alert, moving towards the cabin, finally approaching it from the side. Emma was struck by how the quiet continued, but the air smelled now of smoke and burning wood, and when the dilapidated ranch came into view, there was a hazy gray smog coming from the chimney.  

“Someone’s in there,” Anna said with conviction, her hand moving across the air in a wave, her magic feeling out for signs of life. “And they’re in there alone.”

Quietly they circled around the property, until they reached the front door. From the outside it was clearly barricaded closed, but traces of blood adorned the faded wood going up the steps. Fingerprints in scarlet red clung to the doorway, another sign that George was injured.

“We can’t take his weakness for granted. Even hurt, he could have traps in place.”

“So what do we do?”

“Leave it to me,” Anna said, bringing both hands before her and tilting her head in concentration. She held herself tight for a moment and then pushed her arms out with a violent force. As she did a strong gust moved in, visible in its intensity, shattering the windows and pushing in the door. A split-second later arrows shot from each direction, and Emma felt herself pushed behind a wall of muscle. Killian was huddled in front of her, and Liam had gone for Anna, but Anna pushed him away.

“Wait!” she said her hands still suspended. Emma waited for the sound of impact, but nothing came, and when she peaked around Killian she saw at least a dozen arrows suspended in the air, all of them stopped by magic.

“Anna,” Emma whispered, her feeling of awe over whelming her and Anna let loose a smile.

“You can say it, Emma, I’m a bad ass.”

“We can all say it the moment this is over,” Liam agreed, similarly impressed by Elsa’s sister’s show of magical control. But he was right. This wasn’t over.

“Do you think there’s more?” Killian asked, knocking down one of the arrows as he headed towards the door.

“It’s possible,” her Dad admitted.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Anna said taking the lead before whipping back to head off Liam’s impending rebuttal. “And before you say anything, we both know I can handle this. Plus Elsa will kill me if anything happens to you.”

They moved up the stairs, through the doorway of the house, all of them on alert, but no more surprises came. The place was bare, but clearly lived in. Dust remained, but there were well worn paths where people had been coming in and out. The kitchen had been used, and so had a bedroom, but they didn’t actually find George until they reached the back of the house. Only when they’d entered the great room, done in the style of a long-forgotten hunters lodge, did her Great Uncle appear.

His back was turned to all of them, though he must have heard the shattering of windows and them moving through the house. He stood facing the fire, unmoving for a while. His left arm hung down, but his right clutched at his side, pressing over a makeshift bandage. Emma could smell the wound from here and see the red beneath the white cloth. His wound was deep, and he had lost a lot of blood, but still he remained stoic and unflinching and uninterested in them all together. Only when he was ready did he pivot, looking back to them all and offering no emotion as he did.

“It’s been a long time, David,” he said, his voice more even and regular than a man with a wound like that should be.

Seeing his face now, Emma noticed that there were some similarities between her father and this man. Their size was similar, and Emma wondered if George had started shrinking in his older age or if he’d willed that nuisance away from sheer grit. Their faces held a similar shape, though there were marked differences, but their eyes were arguably the closest trait they shared. Blue and intense, Emma recognized the color, but all comparison stopped there. For her father was a person filled with life and kindness. It radiated from him, the friendliness, the want to do good. He was a good man, but George… his eyes were hollow and dulled. If eyes were a window to the soul, this man’s was lacking, hardened, and in some ways unknowable.

“I must admit I always saw this reunion very differently when I pictured it,” George continued. His free hand moving to a glass upon the mantel filled with what Emma believed was whiskey. He took a sip, seemed to revel in it and then put the glass aside again, looking back at her father once more and treating the rest of them like they were totally invisible.

“Why you wanted one at all, I’ll never know.”

“Oh but you do, David. The day you ran you ensured that this moment would come. When you betrayed your family legacy for the sake of that fool lion, you wrote this into fate’s design.”

Emma found it difficult to look away from George, knowing better than to take her eyes off a man this malicious, but she needed a better understanding of their surroundings. The room was unlike the rest of the house which was sparse for the most part. This room had clutter, knickknacks hanging everywhere, and though nothing looked overtly threatening, she knew more traps could be anywhere. As if she’d summoned one, a steal trap descended from a rafter above and only Anna’s speedy reflexes and magical ability kept it from getting a part of Liam’s head. The sound of snapping metal against shattering wood filled the space, but when it faded out there was only the sound of the crackles in the fire and Anna’s sharpened breathing.

“Oh joy, another witch,” George said, again looking cold and nonplussed though one of his attack mechanisms had just failed. He didn’t even blink at the wasted piece of equipment, instead reaching for a bottle on the table a few feet away. He poured himself another drink, and they all just watched, transfixed in a way by this clearly dying man. It dawned on Emma that this was their chance to take him out, but then she remembered that they needed answers first. If they were going to crack the code of this serum and cure this artificial alpha sickness, they needed to know more about it.

“Why this way? These sick shifters seem like an unnecessary burden. If you knew where I was you could have just come for me. It would have been a hell of a lot easier.”

“Perhaps,” George acquiesced. “But the trouble with training you in my image as I did, was you learned how to cover your tracks. I had no idea where you’d gone, and by the time I discovered your whereabouts it occurred to me – I could do more than just take you out and destroy your family. I could destroy all of them with one perfected remedy.”

When he said ‘them’ he looked to Liam and then Killian, having figured out their shifter status from the start. It made Emma’s skin crawl to think that this man had wanted to destroy so many people. Because ultimately that’s what shifters were. They were people too. But George clearly didn’t believe that.

“I thought many times over the years that your aid would be most helpful in this venture. You always took to the science so quickly, perhaps you could have been of some use,” George said thoughtfully, looking at her father in a way that told Emma that in some sick twisted way he had some kind of regard for him. George was filled with vitriol, but underneath it there was something else. Respect maybe?  “Alas, the Nolan line is old and distinguished, and the stain of your choices could not stand. I could never allow it.”

“It must eat you alive to see what I’ve become,” her father said, standing strong in the face of his Uncle’s condemnation. “To know how many shifters I’ve healed, how many I’ve saved from men just like you. I spent each day doing anything I could to unmake your mess. For every life you ended I would prolong five, ten, or more. I figured I might not be able to stop you, I’d never risk my family to do so, but I could try to make some amends for the shame of what you’ve done.”

“The only shame belongs to your traitor mother,” George snapped out, his words sharp as the lashings of a whip. “You live because of her wicked sins.  She bastardized the very fabric of our history. The lineage of our people was destroyed for her disgusting infatuation with filth.”

No one dared speak in the face of those hateful words. Emma merely looked to her father, who stood there unmoving. He didn’t tense, didn’t react. He waited there, almost mirroring his Uncle, unwilling to give anything up by revealing his anger and emotion. Emma heard something, like a wire being pulled and then watched as her father took out his gun and shot two portions of the wall on opposite sides of the room. When he did a bevy of arrows snapped, but were shot to the floor instead of out into the room at chest level as they would have without interference.  Emma looked around the room to see if anything else gave away surprise attack, but she saw nothing. Killian however did, and he grabbed a stone paper weight from the pile of mismatched and chucked it at the back wall. Only when the stone thudded to the ground did Emma see the small fuse that had been lit and was now extinguished thanks to the hit of the rock.

“You killed my father,” David said, ignoring the added excitement of the would be surprise attacks, and when she could finally turn her attention from the unrest around them, Emma watched her father and felt how much grief that fact brought him. “You killed your sister’s true love, forced her to run, and to leave her two sons behind. Wasn’t that revenge enough?””

“Maybe it would have been, if his death meant anything to me, but truth be told he was just so… forgettable,” George said, his malice lacing every syllable even as they rang out with control and practiced authority. “I couldn’t even tell you what he looked like. He was nothing. Obsolete. Just another in a long line of shifter trash that needed disposing of.”

“When did you know?”

“That you were of mixed blood? I only discovered that recently. You see I too believed your brother’s illness was just that, and I didn’t think to question Ruth’s death when you were born. I saw it as a gift – two new warriors for the cause that I would raise for greatness. The magic that shielded your true nature was well woven, and it had to be, for if I’d known what you two were there would have been no need for sickness, I’d have finished you myself. But no. It took years to discover the truth. Only when Gold showed me Ruth’s sleeping body in his treasure trove did I discover just how deep her treachery ran.”

“You knew she was alive,” Emma’s father said, anger now beginning to rise as his fist tightened on the weapon in his hand.

“Oh yes. Long before she woke, I knew exactly where she was. Gold offered her to me if we made a little deal. I refused. She had no worth to me. I consider her lucky I didn’t kill her then and there.”

“You are a monster, you know that?” Emma asked, not willing to listen to this anymore.

“Ah, and there she is, the final downfall of the Nolan line. Our dearest Emma,” he said, spitting out the words and glaring at her, as if she was nothing but inconvenience to him. “You had a chance to be worth saving. Half breed as you are, you had Nolan blood and you were still human, unlike your cursed brother. But you couldn’t resist the filth either, could you? No, you had to go and choose to mate with one of those mongrels just like my wretched sister.”

Killian growled low in his throat as George looked his way and let out a choked laugh. It was sinister, and directed, but he quickly dismissed Killian again, looking back to Emma. “And then you let that witch remove your block. You tainted yourself. Your brother was already marked for death, I couldn’t let the Nolan line live on as shifter scum.  But you – you I would have spared. You’d have been the legacy. The last hope of the Nolan line.”

“Never,” Emma swore, meaning it with all her might. “I would never have turned my back on my family, and I would never believe all this nonsense you hold dear.”

“Oh, it’s not nonsense, Emma. Shifters are despicable, a plague upon this earth, and there is no remedy for them except removal. You need only look to your mongrel’s father for proof of what I speak.”

“You knew Brennan?” Killian asked, the shock palpable in his and Emma’s mental bond, but his poker face holding firm, giving very little away.

“Did I know Brennan Jones? The single most conceited alpha on the continent? The one who devoured other packs for power and for sport? Yes, I knew the monster. Hell, I owed the beast a debt. Without him none of this would have been possible. In the end, he was the key to everything.”

“You’re lying,” Liam said, disgusted and disturbed. “Our father hated hunters and he’d never help one.”

“The bite hardly makes for a stable mind, but you know that don’t you?” George said with a sick and twisted attempt at a smile. He clearly knew of Liam’s prior ailment, and he was more than willing to use that against him. “Deep down you realize that if I told your father he could have power he’d have given me anything I dared to ask for. All it took was the promise that I would replicate the serum for his pack while making them still submissive to him. He wanted an army, the strongest pack the world had ever known. As if I ever would have let it get that far. Fucking dog. No, I take it back. A dog would be smarter.”

“And so Gold, he was just unimportant?” Anna asked, carefully dragging the conversation away from Killian and Liam’s father for the time being, and to another glaring gap in the fabric of this story. “You want us to believe you did this all on your own?”

“No, I will admit I needed his magic,” George said, as his face darkened for the first time since they arrived, giving away his extreme resentment. “The venom I extracted from actual alpha sickness wouldn’t spread without a curse to bind it all together. But Gold is not to be trusted. He made a mistake, and when the attack with the grizzly failed, he turned on me, leaving me here to die.”

“Why would he get involved? What did he have to gain?” Emma asked and George stared blankly at her.

“You know, I never bothered to ask what he wanted with you and the three witches. Truth be told, I never really cared. But I imagine it won’t be pleasant for any of you. And he assured me you’d never manage to reproduce with that animal, so I didn’t give a damn.”

“Did he promise you that?” Emma quipped, her fury rising in her chest. “Was that part of the deal?”

“Not explicitly, but if things had gone as they should, they would be dead,” he motioned to Liam, Killian and her father, “And you two would be Gold’s.”

“But it didn’t go to plan.”

“No. I could never have anticipated that of all the worthless grizzlies in the world this one would be tied to a witch.”

“Don’t talk about him like that!” Anna demanded, her hands coming up, ready to attack.

“Oh is he yours? I’m sorry,” he said sneering. “Sorry you too are tainted. Such a shame. But perhaps Gold will manage in the end. He’s a patient man, and really, what’s a few years matter? I waited nearly thirty for my revenge. It’s too bad I’ll only have a sliver of it.”

With lightening quick precision, George drew a knife from his hip and threw it towards Liam who dodged it just barely. At the same time more traps came from the wall and the ceiling. It was chaos, with arrows and steel traps and more, and all of it consumed Anna and Killian and her father’s attention. Emma though stayed still, not knowing how to react. She felt herself needing to respond, but then she realized that everyone else was focused on the other things and were missing what was right in front of them. Indeed George was more skilled than they were anticipating. And, having forsaken his hold on his wounded body, he grabbed a pistol from his waist and aimed it at her father.

“No!”

Without hesitation Emma jumped to push her Dad out of the way, successfully managing to  force him from the trajectory of the bullet, but then she felt the blow of impact into her shoulder. There was no slowing down of time. This was immediate and instinctive, and the pain of the hot metal piercing through her skin set in just as swiftly. She flinched at the force of it, falling towards the ground as Liam lunged for the gun, disarming George, and Killian grabbed her, holding her close.

“Emma!” he cried, panic clear in his gaze as George’s laughter filled the room. Liam meanwhile, pinned the old man down and let out a ferocious growl. Through the pain of her injury Emma saw the fear in George’s eyes, but her body was chilled, her heart pounding loudly in her ears.

“What did you lace it with?!” Her father screamed and Emma looked down to where she’d been hurt, seeing the black inky lines that used to be her veins. Oh God she was dying. She was going to die.

“Nothing you can save her from,” George said, his voice labored as he lay pinned beneath Liam. “Gold procured it for me. It’s potent and powerful, and cannot be survived.”

The realization that this could really be it settled on her, and Emma felt herself slipping away. This was really the end. She was too far gone. There was no stopping this poison, this toxin designed to extinguish her father once and for all. The pain that flooded her system began to subside and instead she felt cold and numb. This was shock – the last bit of adrenaline before she’d be gone and she looked at Killian, desperate to say goodbye and say she was sorry, but unable to speak.  

“Emma, no, you’ve got to hold on! We’ll fix this! We’ll save you!”

“Killian.”

“Don’t leave me,” he begged, his voice and face etched in the pain of what was coming.

Afraid to close her eyes, Emma looked upon the man she loved and she felt such unimaginable grief. She wanted to hold on for him, she wanted his pleas to be right. But she was falling under, the current of this poison too high. This was really it. She moved her hand, reaching for Killian and then she felt it, a flutter from her abdomen. Her hand changed course, and moved towards her unborn baby, tears streaming down her face. She’d failed her child. She’d failed Killian. She…

In an instant, warmth flooded from the space where her hand lay through the rest of her being. The feel of it forced Emma’s eyes to close, but when the warmth grew she opened them again, wanting to understand why she felt this way. Her eyes blinked open and the brightness in the room had totally changed. She was surrounded in a beautiful haze, and she wondered if the light she saw through her tears could be real. It had to be an illusion, right? One last crazy vision before death finally came, but Anna’s gasp filled her ears, and Killian’s whispered words, tortured and yet hopeful filled her ears.

“The baby.”

His hand came over hers, and the light grew stronger. Emma blinked away her tears and watched as an iridescent magic not so unlike Anna or Elsa’s moved over her skin. Swiftly it traced the tracks of the onyx-colored poison, soothing every line within her. Emma felt sensation again, as the magic traced over her, filling her with energy, and with hope she’d thoroughly lost. The cold she was feeling was eradicated, and when the magical light finally reached her initial wound the darkness that marred her once smooth skin ebbed away. The blackness was removed, and most of her pain went with it. The bullet hole was still there, and she was bleeding, but she was alive, and though she couldn’t truly, scientifically know for certain, she felt in her heart that she was going to be okay. She was going to live.

“That’s not possible. You should be dead! You should be… wait, did you say baby? You can’t be pregnant!” George screamed but Emma didn’t even bother to spare him a glance.

“She saved me,” Emma whispered, feeling the sensation that somehow her unborn child had stepped in. She had no rationale reason for it, especially given how early on it was in her pregnancy, but it was suddenly very clear. Their child would be more than a hybrid of a shifter and a human – she had magic in her, for whatever reason, and she had used it, even before her birth, to save Emma.

“You can’t be pregnant! Gold said -,”

“Gold is never going to beat us!” Anna yelled. “You’ve failed, and now you’ll die for nothing.”

“Oh not nothing. I still have my weapons. Mated or not, there is no cure for your wretched shifter, I’ve left no trace. It’s all gone and cannot be recreated. So you see, the secret dies with me.”

The pain on Anna’s face looked just as piercing as what Emma herself felt moments ago, but it culminated even more when Emma’s father stepped forward, raising his gun to deliver a final blow. She cried out for him to stop, but it was too late. The deed was done. Her Uncle was dead, and his secret died with him.

“Why would you do that?!” Anna screamed, and Emma looked to her father for answers. He had ruined her friend’s only chance, but he only nodded to the fire.

“I know George better than anyone, and I am willing to bet my life that he burned the secret away. It’s shifter custom..”

Killian sniffed the air and gave a slight nod. “There’s more than wood in that blaze. Paper – both old and new and a bit of leather.”

“I know that there are spells that can unburn what was destroyed,” Emma’s father explained, seeking to calm Anna and show her he was not forsaking her new mate for an easy kill. “I’ve heard about them while healing other packs. They’re not common, but possible. Call Ruby. She’ll know.”

They did just that, and through the grace of something larger than themselves, Ruby found a spell in great haste. With shaky hands and a wavering voice, Anna recited the incantation Ruby read to her, and low and behold the fire sputtered to a stop and from the flames scraps of paper formed, with scribblings of formulas and multiple solutions. A leather bound book also took shape, and there, within the pages were a scribbling of formulas and well-kept notes.

“This is it,” her father said, looking relieved that his hunch was proven right. “This is what Neal needs to find a remedy.”

“Oh thank God,” Anna said, nearly falling to her knees, but ultimately being caught by Liam. It was finally over, and in the end they had everything they’d set out for.

“We did it,” Emma said, looking up to Killian, taking in his expression of relief and some lingering pain. She could feel through their link that the trauma of thinking she would die yet again had rattled him. He was at wit’s end, and she clung to him, trying to prove to him that she was okay, and that they had both made it through.

“I’m telling you right now, Emma, there will be none of this, ever again.” His voice was stern and his eyes made a silent promise that if she ever even thought of fighting such a battle in the future he would chain her to his side and make it so she couldn’t leave. “We are going home. We are getting married. We are meeting our miracle child when the time finally comes, and we are living happily ever after. There will be no more fighting. There will be no more close calls. We’re done with this.”

“Okay, we’re done,” she promised, resting her forehead against his and soaking in the feeling of their mission being complete. “I love you.”

“And I love you, Emma. Far too much to ever walk this world without you.”

“Emma?”

The voice of her father pulled Emma from her and Killian’s embrace, and she could see in his eyes the pain of all of this. He’d almost lost her too, and he’d just taken a life. Her father, the man who was always a pillar of strength for her whenever he could be, was hurting and she moved towards him, hugging him close.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” her dad whispered, hugging her as tight as he could, with his hand cradling the back of her head like he always had, ever since she was a little girl.

“I’m glad I did. If he’d hit you, you’d be…” She trailed off as she pulled back to look at him, unable to face that he would have absolutely died.

“I know,” he agreed, leaving words that hurt to much to say unsaid. “I love you, Emma.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Before she could so much as step away from her father, she found herself jostled into Anna’s waiting arms and her friend gave her a vice grip of a hug. Emma squeaked a sound of surprise out, and Killian moved toward her protectively, but she shook her head, knowing Anna needed this. A second later Anna jumped, remembering Emma’s injury.

“Oh crap, I hurt you!” she exclaimed, but looking at Emma’s wound, they could both see it was already looking much better. “I can’t believe it. The baby healed you. She must be a witch, right? But it shouldn’t be possible.”

“Maybe not,” Emma said, her hand coming back to rest on her stomach. “But somehow it is.”

“And every one of us grateful for that.” Liam said, with a warmth in his eyes and a nod of his head that told Emma Killian’s brother was glad for her speedy recovery. “But might I suggest we wrap things up and get back home? We might have slain a few beasts today, but there’s much more that still needs to be done.”

“Aye, brother, you’re right,” Killian agreed, taking Emma’s hand in his and bringing her close as he looked deep in her eyes. “Let’s go home, love.”

Emma couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to go home and to be done with all of this, and with a swiftness she was grateful for, they managed to contain things as best they could. With the help of the nearby packs, each of the sedated shifters was returned to a cage here on the property. None of them took any pleasure in containing these animals, least of all Anna, who also needed a little magic to really keep things secure, but they knew it was for the best. Sick as they were, there was no telling what these shifters would do, and in the interest of protecting the nearby shifter clans, and any humans who may wander into this area in the future, they left these animals temporarily caged and under the watchful eye of the pack who originally called on Lance.

Driving home after that, Emma was surprised at how quickly the time went by, but that was largely thanks to the sleep she fell into once she was back in the safety of the car and nestled in Killian’s arms. Magical revival from her child or not, Emma was exhausted, and the wound she’d incurred did ache and aggrieve her. Knowing that this pain still lingered, Killian held her close, kissing her anywhere he could and whispering that it would all be all right. She trusted him in this, and slowly gave into the comfort of his presence, falling into a slumber filled with flashes of dreams. Some were blips of the fighting they’d just faced, but there were more that came later that were so much more beautiful and remarkable. Emma would never be able to explain them out loud, but these flashes were of her future, of that she was sure. She saw in them a life that was happy and bright. She saw Killian, her love, standing with her, never far from grasp. She saw her family and her friends also with her and not a one of them saddened or stressed out. And then she saw the children, glimpses of a beautiful baby girl with dark hair like her father and eyes that matched Emma’s to a tee. There were more behind her, but it all came so quickly. These flashes seemed to surround her while also staying just out of reach, but as Emma woke up, she couldn’t help smiling, and the first thought that came to mind was Hope.

“I think we’ve got a name all ready for this little girl,” Killian whispered to Emma as he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. She smiled, snuggling into him further and knowing her mate had read her mind, quite literally.

“I can’t wait to meet her,” Emma admitted, thinking back on her dreams and knowing in her heart that her child would be a blend of magic and love and endless possibility. “But at the same time, I can.”

“Is that so?” Killian asked, seemingly surprised by her latter admission.

“Yes. On the one hand I love her so much already. I always have, and I always will,” she said, and Killian hummed out a sound of agreement with that. “But on the other, we still have so much to do. We have to get ready.”

“In more ways than one.” Killian teased and Emma felt her cheeks grow warm as she smiled and nodded her understanding. He wasn’t just talking about furnishing their place or baby proofing their new home. Emma could see, hopefully, more than a few weeks spent relaxing, recuperating, and spending every waking moment that they could enjoying each other and strengthening the bond they’d found together.

“Speaking of getting ready, we’re nearly home, and we’re about to have a lot of explaining to do,” Anna said and Emma jumped, not realizing the whole car was listening in on their talking. “Oh sorry, were we supposed to pretend we couldn’t hear you?”

“Seems a bit late for that,” Liam replied, his voice gruff but his eyes sparkling with amusement at Emma and Killian.

“Anna’s right though. It’s best to get our stories straight now,” David said. “Better to frame some of this as, let’s say ‘kindly’ as we can.”

Emma knew her father was thinking of her mother and her reaction to everything. She appreciated that her Dad wanted to spare her Mom any more pain, but she also knew, even if he said this that it would never come to pass. Her parents never held secrets from each other, and this time would be no different.  

“No need to bother. Chances are Ruby’s seen most of it anyway. She’s probably told half the tale already.”

Killian’s guess was soon validated, and as soon as they arrived, they were greeted with huge hugs and a million more questions. They might know most of what had happened, but there was so much more they wanted verified and expanded. Ruby had her visions that were helpful, but there were blank spots and things that couldn’t be explained. People wanted details of the shifters, of the fighting, and of George. They wanted to know what they’d learned of Gold and this plan and the evil that was done to enact it. But more than anything they wanted to know how Emma had lived. Emma explained as best she could, and the others stood by her description. One moment she was dying and the next she was cured. There was only one answer to the question, but no real explanation. No one understood how or why, but still it was true. Emma was saved and that was a miracle. Maybe someday they’d understand it, but for now they were just as grateful as could be.

Every query was ultimately answered, despite the exhaustion they were all feeling, and Emma felt it was better to get this done now rather than later. If they put it all out there, then maybe they could put it all behind them. Eventually they broke apart for the night, and by that time it was nearly sunrise of the next day. Just as Liam had said there was still a lot of work to be done and over the next few days they hit the ground running. Her father and Neal made a possible cure in a matter of days, and Emma did all that she could to help them. It was a long, laborious process, but it was made totally and completely worth it when she watched the moment that her best friend truly met her one true soulmate. Seeing that it worked, they made enough to get up north, and her Uncle Lance and Aunt Gwen brought the rest to other packs, making sure every sickened shifter was treated, and reporting back that they all were now freed, and were all on their way back to the homes they’d been forced away from.

In the meantime, Elsa and Ruby and Ruth worked long long days to try and track Gold. Using everything they could ,they sought to better understand the malicious mind of this maddened man. Anything they could learn could be a clue, but Emma knew this was just the start of their long journey. Her Great Uncle’s snide remarks rang true to Emma – Gold would remain hidden for as long as he could, but if they were all patient, surely someday they would find him, and stop him before any more grief could come their way. To this point Emma still didn’t understand his endgame. He wanted Anna, Elsa, Ruby, and Emma could easily understand that. Three strong witches must surely be a threat, but wanting her for her status as a hybrid… it didn’t make sense to Emma. The only thing she could think was that maybe it wasn’t her that Gold was after. Perhaps it was her baby, who would be a hybrid too, and in even more ways than Emma. But the others remained convinced that Gold could not know. He’d sworn to George Emma couldn’t get pregnant, and for now, that secret was protecting them all. And ultimately, despite the danger Gold still posed, Emma knew in her heart that she would never let anyone hurt her child. One life threatening instance was more than enough – and she knew, down to her bones, that there would never come another time when her baby was at risk from these terrible men.

And yet, in the midst of all of this work and all of this progress, Emma found a way to make good on her promise to Killian. She helped the others as best she could, but she also took time for herself and time for her love. They made their house a home, and found many new moments of peace and tranquil calm. They planned for their wedding, and for their family, and for their future. But more than anything they lived every day to the fullest, knowing that they’d never allow anything or anyone to take this away from them again. For love, in the end, was a powerful thing, and fate was a power even stronger than that. And as for Emma and Killian, fate had decided that they were meant to be, and that they were indeed meant to live a wonderful, glorious, happily ever after.

Post-Note: Hey everyone! So I know there’s still so much that I didn’t get to go into detail on. I wanted to do so much in this chapter, like see Neal make a cure and watch Anna meet Kristoff and all that cuteness. But it just wasn’t meant to be. Instead, I am working on the first epilogue of the story (which will include Emma and Killian’s wedding) and I am on track to post it next weekend. As I’ve previously mentioned, I will also be writing a follow up story to this one, that’s not just from Emma and Killian’s POV but the POV of the other central characters as well. In that story I will be including the Anna/Kristoff meeting and probably more of the process of healing Kristoff, so if you can wait you will someday get a snapshot into that. After that there will eventually also be a second epilogue of this story, where you get to see how everyone is doing in the future, and how life has shaped up for CS and the others. Anyway, thanks so much for riding through this with me. I know it was a really heavy chapter, and so much happened, but I hope that you enjoyed and that you trust me to make everything right with a cute and fluffy wedding chapter next time. Thanks so much to all of you for reading, and as always I can’t wait to hear what you think!

Tag list: @jennjenn615, @kmomof4, @winterbaby89, @teamhook, @ultraluckycatnd, @resident-of-storybrooke, @artistic-writer, @snowbellewells, @snarkycaptainswan4, @allofdafandoms-blog

[ohshcscenerios]

Could you do a HC of the angsty events that lead up to Kyoya and Haruhi confessing their feelings for each other and becoming a couple? I ship them so hard. 🙃 Thank you 💞💞

I apologize for my late response, it took me a while to decide how to answer this. Also please don’t be upset if it’s not very good, I literally wrote and uploaded this at 4:03am. I couldn’t decided between headcanons or writing a one-shot so I wrote... this? I hope you enjoy. 

Kyoya didn’t think much about the Host Club’s new addition; only keeping a sharp eye on her debt as she slowly paid it back with her services. However, a year mingling with the host maiden proved detrimental to his indifferent attitude. Beginning his second year he couldn’t be bothered with the opposite sex. His main priority in being named heir to the Ootori Group was greedy and didn’t allow room for anything else, least of all love. Nearing the end of his second year his foolish heart had convinced his foolish mind to at consider the foolish emotion; love. 

Haruhi had once considered herself level-headed; not as to brag but considering her straight forwarded nature it seemed to fit best. Her serious personality steered her on a straight path towards her goal. There was no time for bee-lining through life. She could stop and smell the roses once she finished her studies - once she graduated - once she got accepted into college - once she obtains her law degree - once she’s hired onto a law firm - etc. etc. She was a human bulldozer with horse blinders secured in place. So how did one year in serving the host club manage to loosen her reins and make her step out of line? 

Kyoya began noticing the little things first; how she tapped her pencil against the notebook paper when she was deep in thought, how long she steeped a tea bag for her preferred strength, how often she glanced at the clock when a she was expecting a supermarket sale to begin within the hour. He shouldn’t have paid any mind to these miniscule details for they served him no purpose. He cursed himself for even retaining the useless knowledge. Why would he bother himself with such fickle things that wouldn’t provide an ounce of merit in the future? The only considerable benefit was that he knew Haruhi a tad better than before.

Haruhi didn’t like noticing Kyoya’s quick glances as she busied herself hosting her guests. It proved to be a distraction. Haruhi hated that his brief glimpses of attention was distracting her. She wanted to focus on pouring tea for her giggling guests and recalling precious memories of her late mother to move her guests to tears. She wanted to focus on lowering her debt – the cursed debt that trapped her afternoons in music room three. She didn’t want to focus on her debtor.

Kyoya asked Haruhi to stay behind one afternoon to discuss the details about her debt. He didn’t often offer this liberty for he felt it wasn’t truly her business. Her responsibility was to lower the debt. His responsibility was to manage it. So far their mutual agreement carried on smoothly without any suspicious questioning or accusations. However that day Kyoya felt he should allow Haruhi to see her progress. The act of kindness didn’t offer him merit. There was nothing he could gain from Haruhi learning her progress. There was nothing Haruhi could gain either. So why? He pondered that question throughout hosting hours until his door of opportunity was wide open. Before she left for the day he called her over with a lazy wave of his hand.

Haruhi didn’t appreciate his tone. She didn’t appreciate his sly smirk as he reasoned the high interests and the damaged tea sets that somehow landed on her bill. He almost sounded condescending as if he enjoyed toying with her. Her freedom wasn’t something he could yo-yo for his amusement. The very thought made her sick. How could this faux egoist flaunt her debt like… like… like he’d own her forever. She would forever be under his thumb, scrambling for a foothold that would never appear. Haruhi feared she would never be rid of Kyoya Ootori.

Kyoya noticed Haruhi parted her hair differently one day. Usually she parted her bangs to the left but that day she parted her bangs to the right. It wasn’t a beneficial detail and he silently cursed himself for even noticing – yet he couldn’t help but like the sudden change. It was subtle enough to not draw attention but just enough to draw his attention.

Haruhi wanted to part her hair different that day. The sudden urge was thanks to the Hitachiin twins. She had overheard them spatting nonsense to their fellow male classmates before their sensei started class. They rambled on and on about how to coax forth a love interest living in the shadows. They bragged about their experiences in drawing forth the many young ladies who had crushes on them just by changing a slight detail in their appearance. If the young lady noticed the change then her heart belonged to them. That day Haruhi parted her hair differently to test the obnoxious theory. She had to question why she wanted to test it but an inkling urged her to go through with her plan.

Kyoya quickly adjusted his glasses when Haruhi noticed his persistent staring. However he didn’t notice her smallest of smiles after he looked away.

Haruhi was surprised to learn Kyoya was the only host to notice her little change that day. That night she lied awake in bed mulling over the same scene; over and over and over until it nearly charred her memory. She remembered how Kyoya adjusted his cool exterior after being caught by her assertive eyes. She remembered the slight blush on his cheeks. She remembered his guests swooning over his brief dishevelment, thinking their endearing flirts caused their cool host to stumble over himself. Haruhi smiled, knowing the truth was much weirder. The truth that Haruhi’s parted hair made Kyoya Ootori blush.

Kyoya wasn’t a stranger to long sleepless nights for they became his routine many years ago. He was fond of the silence of night, the chaotic clatter from his keyboard, and the occasional warm cup of tea. However that night Kyoya attempted to retire early. He prayed for sleep to befall him and deliver him from his pesky thoughts. That night Haruhi haunted his mind and he couldn’t shake her loose no matter how much melatonin he swallowed or how many prayers he offered to the ceiling. He couldn’t fall asleep with her in his mind. He couldn’t fall asleep without her on his mind. He simply couldn’t fall asleep and no matter the angle it was Haruhi’s fault. It was her fault for parting her hair to the right.

Haruhi greeted the next day with confusion heavily sitting on her chest. Her dreams were pleasant. Her dreams were of Kyoya. Pleasant and Kyoya were two words she never dreamed of stringing together in the same sentence and yet that’s exactly what happened. She had dreamed of Kyoya and she woke up… happy.

Kyoya woke up entangled in his silk sheets and growled at the sunlight pouring over his face. He would have a stern talking to the new maid for drawing his curtains before due time. He never cared for a rude awakening. When he moved to sit up he felt another very strange and very uncomfortable rude awakening… particularly one that stood at attention between his thighs. He had dreamed of Haruhi and woke up… happy.

Haruhi walked into an empty music room. It was strange considering she was three minutes late. Her tardiness wasn’t unusual but the silence was.

“Haruhi, you’re late.” Kyoya stood from his hosting couch and leaned against the arm’s rest.

“It appears so is everyone else.” Haruhi searched the music room but found no one else. No one but Kyoya Ootori.

“They are not late for they are not coming. I gave the afternoon off.”

“It would have been nice to know that Kyoya-senpai otherwise I’d gone home an hour ago.” Haruhi miffed.

“I didn’t want you to go home. I wanted you to come here.” Kyoya adjusted his glasses.

“Why?”

“How do you feel towards me Haruhi?” His eyes studied her closely as he spoke, determined to have this conversation. Haruhi had haunted his mind for far too long and he needed his rambunctious thoughts to obey him once more. If that meant inviting Haruhi into his life romantically then so be it. So be it.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking.” Haruhi didn’t want to understand what he was asking. She didn’t want to venture down the rabbit hole that she feared she’d inevitably dive into one day. The dark deep endless hole that is the beginning whispers of love.

“I believe you do.” He retorted.

“I should get going if I’m not needed today.” Haruhi turned to make her exit but was forced to a stop when two form hands gripped her arms. She was spun around and staring straight into a mad man’s eyes; a hungry mad man’s eyes. Kyoya seemed unnerved – no, distressed – and his intense glare sent shivers down her petite body.

“I need you to get out.” He nearly growled.

“I was about to before you grabbed me.” Haruhi barked back, anger coloring her cheeks a shaded red.

“No, I need you to get out of my mind.” Kyoya corrected, leaning forward until he nearly rested his forehead on hers. The intense dangerous emotions that heated his body just seconds earlier left his widened eyes and gnarled teeth; loosening his tense expression.

“Get out of my head.” Kyoya nearly pleaded. He closed the space between them and captured her gaped lips in a spontaneous kiss. Her skin against his skin. His breath merged with her breath. Her hesitance bowed to his hunger. His hand found her slender waist. Her fingers found his raven hair.

Haruhi pulled away for a fresh breath, long enough to see his charged dark eyes staring into her chocolate wells.

“You don’t want me to leave.” She said.

“No.” Kyoya agreed. He pulled her close once more, sealing her virgin lips with another kiss.

There was no merit for Kyoya to pursue the commoner. Her social status offered no valuable connections and her low-grade upbringing didn’t teach her a lady’s natural grace. He reasoned her two left feet would spark unfavorable gossip at Galas, her never ending appetite would be looked down upon by even his maids, and her blunt lethargic personality couldn’t keep up with the demanding life of an Ootori. And yet, Kyoya wanted her.

Haruhi found Kyoya to be an enigma; a kind selfless man wrapped in a cold callous shell. She learned to tip toe around him without ever being asked. She knew when to hold her tongue and her breath. His warped reality forced him to march on a difficult and reclusive path. She watched him swallow his loneliness for this sake of his pride; wiping his brow and adjusting his glasses to refocus his priorities. He didn’t ask for help, didn’t smile often, and enjoyed looking down on his opponents. And yet, Haruhi wanted him.

[thunder-the-ranger-wolf]

A World of Difference (BNHA story)

Summary: That premise where Izuku is a year older and ends up in the class that gets expelled before the canon class 1A. 

Something gave him a bad feeling about this year’s class. He didn’t know what, exactly, but he knew to trust his instincts. None of these kids would last a day in the hero world, and not just because they were crowded around two kids chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” like a bunch of elementary school kids.

No, that was indeed confirmation. But there was more to this. 

“Fall in!” He barked out. Some of them glanced up, saw his glare, and scampered to their seats. The rest of the class was too focused on one of their own getting pummeled. 

“He said to fall in!” 

He forgot that Mic had been right behind him when he walked into his room, had been so thoroughly unimpressed by the state of his students. But Mic’s Quirk was good for more than a few things. Right now it was getting people’s attention. He nodded his thanks and Mic went to sit behind the teacher’s desk, a spot he wouldn’t inhabit until he was done talking. 

The students all shuffled nervously to their seats. It turns out that the pair who’d been fighting had the same seat but shouldn’t be near each other due to an old rivalry. Something he would have to rectify with assigned seating.

“Dude, what’s up with the caterpillar act?” Someone called out. 

“It’s a sleeping bag. I sleep.” He offered dryly. “But you kids can’t be left alone for five minutes, now can you? I was going to give you all a chance to show off your Quirks but now you’ll do an essay.” 

“Is it gonna be on why fighting is wrong?” Someone simpered. 

These little shits would absolutely be testing his patience. 

“Togamiru, welcome to the class. Congrats on your relationship. But if you could pull up your pants and tell your partner to use mouthwash before he speaks, your classmates would appreciate it.”

“This class is definitely one for the books, eh?” Mic snickered as the pair made for the front of the room. 

“If you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back.” Aizawa informed them. 

The partner scoffed and spat at him. Mic narrowly avoided the kid’s terrible aim and rummaged through the desk for a pack of wipes and some hand sanitizer. 

“The essay is not going to be on why fighting is wrong, Kumitoru. The essay will be five-thousand words on your favorite hero and how they contribute to the community around them. This will likely take the rest of the class, so you best get started.” 

Most of the class had some objection to that and some of them were more verbal than others. 

“There’s no way I’m doing some dumb fucking essay on the first day!” A boy in the front row snapped. 

“Well, Rosuru, as your previous two classmates have shown, you are very much free to leave, so long as you don’t come back.” 

The boy deliberated for a few minutes before shaking his head. 

“This isn’t worth it.” He scoffed. “They’re not like this at Shiketsu, I promise you that!” 

“I know what they’re like at Shiketsu, Rosuru, and I doubt you would like it there either.” 

“We’re supposed to be heroes! How is an essay supposed to help us save people?!” 

“Well, if you think about the subject for more than a second you might see why I assigned it.” 

“Fuck you, old man!” 

“I don’t do kids.” Aizawa deadpanned. “For that matter, if you say that to someone and they take you up on it, run. As far and fast away as you can, because those words get you nothing good.” 

“Cryptic bastard. I don’t need this!” 

“As I said, you are free to go.” 

 There was his second (or was it third? That kid sucking off Togamiru probably wasn’t in his class… he’d have to look into that.) student for the day. 

“Start writing, children. I want as much as you can get me by the end of the session.” 

Some breathed exaggerated sighs of relief while others glared venomously at him. 

Ten students are left by the end of the day. The rest hadn’t taken their assignments seriously. Some of them had written about how amazing their Quirks were, some had written about how awesome their personal heroes were. Some had written about whatever the fuck they wanted, and that wouldn’t stand. A student who couldn’t follow directions turned into a hero who got people killed. 

Aizawa found that walking into his second day that only one student had come in and found his seat. He handed the student his paper and waited for another half-hour before taking it back. 

“I wasn’t done-!” 

“Did you honestly think you could get five-thousand words done in not even two days?” 

“I figured it was a drawn-out assignment when you took the papers back at the end of the day, Sensei. Still, I went home and did some research on the programs set in place because of-.”  

The boy cut himself off when he noticed Aizawa moving away, but the homeroom teacher waved his hand. 

“Keep talking, but come on. We’re going to test your skills today.” 

“I went home and did some research on the programs set in place because of things like destruction of property. There are a bunch of initiatives that die almost on-the-spot because no one Agency can keep them up.” 

“How so?” Aizawa wondered.  

“Ryukyu, the Dragon Hero, has fought for her interns with less powerful Quirks to be recognized as heroes in their own right. The Iida family sets up their employees who don’t have proper homes with everything they’d need to get one more immediately. It’s not as easy as giving them more money because if they could just buy everyone houses then someone probably would have tried by now, but like my mom can tell you, even just paying for rent some places can wipe out savings and there’s not much that your job can do about it but maybe give you a higher raise. I got off track, though, we were talking about hero initiatives.” 

“I think we should pick this conversation up tomorrow after I do some research myself. This is some interesting work you’ve done. Now how far can you throw this ball?” 

The kid’s name was Midoriya, and he passed the Hero Course Entrance exam by his own genius and pure luck. He also managed to persuade Nedzu to allow him the use of some homemade gadgets, after impressing him with knowledge of the millions of ways the principal’s Quirk, High-Spec, could be used in a number of fields. 

Everyone else has a natural advantage, Midoriya had informed the principal. Why not allow me to level the playing field? 

That’s how the kid seemed to do everything, Aizawa noticed. The kid was smart and he knew it. Able to spout off facts about any given hero the second a name was dropped. Able to break down and rearrange any Quirk he was informed of.

The green-haired boy was a bag of tricks physically as well as mentally. He wasn’t able to go toe-to-toe with Aizawa or Vlad King, though he tried just for the hell of it. But he knew that. His emphasis was on dodging and letting his opponent’s actions turn back on them. 

It’s how he’s gotten rid of many a childhood bully, he informed his teacher cheerfully. This, after literally tripping Aizawa over his unraveled capture weapon and sending him sprawling with one yank. 

“Very good.” Aizawa groaned as he lumbered to his feet. “Can you pick out weak spots like that on the fly?”

“Yes, but it took some major training and a lot of hero fights.” Midoriya admitted. 

“What would you suggest for Midnight-san?”

“Nothing.” Midoriya offered flatly. “There is absolutely nothing she can’t do with that Quirk, and since she hangs with you and Present Mic, I’d assume she knows how to fight of her own merits. There is no way I am touching her outfit with a ten-foot pole even if she wasn’t literally right behind you.” 

Aizawa dipped his head in acquiescence and turned to face his friend. 

“That you thought I wouldn’t call you out is amazingly stupid. That Midoriya did was rather impressive.” He told her. The Rated R Hero snorted, which turned into an all-out giggle. 

“You’re a gem, Aizawa,” She crowed, leaning her full weight into the hug she was giving him. “A diamond in the rough. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.” 

“Vlad generally acknowledges that I’m hard to ruffle, but thank you anyway. What exactly do you need from me right now?”

“Oh, right. Yagi wanted to see if you were busy. I think he’s nervous about actually teaching this year instead of just being part of the staff. Poor guy was muttering over his notes all morning.” 

“Well, I just so happen to be finishing up this session. It’s onto Vlad for you, Midoriya.” Aizawa informed the boy. His student nodded, waved to both of them, and sped towards the main building.

“I still can’t believe you only kept one student.” Nemuri scowled, standing on her own feet so she and Aizawa could follow Midoriya. “Out of twenty-three.” 

“I never said they were expelled. They could come back if they wanted to. Technically they’re skipping class of their own accord.” 

“They dropped out and you know it, Sho-chan. I’m shocked this kid lasted as long as he did. Did you really make them write five-thousand words on the first day?” 

“I wanted the assignment to take up the first few classes. They were literally watching two kids fight to what would have been the death. Mic was there, he could tell you.” 

“And your first expulsion, they were…” 

“Maybe don’t ask Mic about that one. He might genuinely be traumatized.”

“Fair enough. But what’s so special about this kid in particular?”

He comes back.” Aizawa snorted. “I’ve scared all the others off or bored them off or reprimanded them somehow. I knew something was up with this set of kids but I honestly didn’t think it’d be this easy to get them all out of my hair.” 

“Re-evaluating your teaching methods?” Nemuri teased, knowing the exact opposite to be true. 

“More like wondering if this next crop of heroes will be ready for the world.” Aizawa admitted. “I might have driven them away, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have other options. If they’re smart, they’ll re-evaluate themselves before taking such chances again.”

“And if they’re not?” Nemuri promoted warily. 

“Well, that’d be to everyone’s detriment.” 

[carryonsimoncarryonbaz]

Chapter 15 is up! The penultimate chapter of Can’t Find My Way Home. Thank you all for your support of this fic--the comments, the private messages, the kudos. I appreciate it so very much.

Just one more chapter after this. . . 

Chapter 15

Baz  

I don’t know how they expect us to actually open the office in London if all we do in these planning meetings is rehash everything we discussed at the last meeting. The agenda may as well be rubbish; it’s not as if we ever follow it.

I don’t say much. I can’t be bothered anymore. I’m tired of trying to keep people on track when most of them only want to hear the sound of their own voices.

Philippa gave me a blistering after the last meeting. She seemed to think I’d cut her off and stifled her opportunity to “voice her opinion.” Bollocks. She’d nattered on for almost ten minutes about the décor, which is literally the least important issue facing us at the moment.

I’m certainly not one to shun tastefully chosen interior design, but when we haven’t even finalized a transition team and we’re barely three months away from said transition, I find discussions on the merits of sage and taupe versus silver and charcoal grey quite maddening.  

I find everything about this vexing. I’m part of these meetings, perforce, but no one has officially named me to the actual on-site transition team. The staff composition for the London office is still a mystery.

I don’t even think we’re going to make the May target date.

It’s even more unbearable being here in New York now. It was barely tolerable before the holiday but now, with Simon in London, it’s absolutely excruciating.

I really don’t know why I even bothered to come back. I should give my notice and go home. I’ve got contacts in the industry, references and credentials that are impeccable. I could find a job in London and Simon and I could take up where we left off. Which would make life infinitely better.

But I’m a Pitch and we don’t give up, even in the direst of circumstances.

I committed to this transition and I am a man of my word.  

Fuck it all.

Simon

I do my best not to ask Baz about work anymore. I’m curious of course, because I’m me, but I try to restrain myself. Talking about work drags on him. He looks pale and wan when we Facetime as it is.

Last time we spoke he reluctantly admitted that the London transition was a bit of mess. Didn’t say much more than that, but his expression said it all. He’s worried they won’t make the May date.

Which means he won’t be coming to London then.

I don’t know what that means for him overall. I know he’s talked about leaving, finding another position here, with another firm.

I’d like that. But I don’t want him to do that for me. He’s got to do it for himself, not for us.

So I do my best to distract him when we talk. Tell stories about work, the boys in the home. How I totally bollocksed up the art class and spilled half the paint on my shirt. The day I managed to get free tickets to a football match for the older boys. The way the little ‘uns like to hear my stories of the scrapes I got into at Watford.

The grim details of how the older boys completely thrashed me when we played football on the green. I am shit at goal.

It makes Baz smile and that means the world to me.

Baz  

It’s finally set. The transition team has been named and I’m on it. The London office tentative opening date has been pushed back to late June, but the team is scheduled to be there starting in May.

I’m in charge of operations. I finally have some fucking control of this disaster. I live for this kind of thing—bringing organization to chaos. It’s in my blood.

The whole thing is a fucking wreck and I’m sure to be driven mad before the end.

But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Two months. I’ll be back in London in two months.

Simon

He’s still pale but Baz is far more animated when we Facetime now. He’s drilling the team in preparation for the move. He’s in his element when he’s in charge like this; his eye on all the moving parts, relieved to finally have some control.

Not that he’s clear of the dark days. Plenty of those still. His coworkers all sound like berks.

I’m just glad he’s going to be back here in May.

I miss him.

I know that might be a stupid thing to say, when we only had those few days together in December. I’ve got years of being with Baz, under less friendly circumstances mind you, but still. It was easy to let myself fall into the comfort of being in his company again.

Easier to admit some truths I’d been shoving away for far too long.

I can’t say there isn’t a tinge of apprehension. We’ve just gotten to know each other again, and I don’t know whether this blaze of affection that manifested months ago will continue to burn as bright when we’re together again or proximity and familiarity will quench the fire of it.

I’d like to think it won’t.

I’ve never fallen for someone in this way before, so completely and overwhelmingly. I mean I loved Agatha but I wasn’t in love with her. The idea of a happy ever after, even a bland and sedate one, was alluring for someone like me.

But settling is never in anyone’s best interest.

With Baz, even if it was only a matter of days, I felt like I’d found what I’d always been missing. The last piece of the puzzle. The place I fit.

Home. That’s what I mean. The idea that once you find home, that’s that. You keep that person, if they let you.

I think Baz will let me keep him.

Baz

I toss my keys on the table, toe off my shoes and collapse on the sofa.

I’m exhausted. Knackered. Utterly spent.

It’s been a fucking week. Friday couldn’t come soon enough. I glance at my watch. It’s almost eleven o’clock back home. Not too late to Facetime Simon.

I dial his number and wait. It takes a few rings for him to pick up but the wave of warmth that rushes through me at the sight of his face is frankly embarrassing.

Fuck, I miss him.

“Baz!” Simon’s face lights up as he stares into his screen. He’s holding it up close so I can see the pattern of moles and freckles on his face clearly.

“Hello, love.” I drink in the sight of him. His hair is drooping over his forehead, his cheeks are flushed, and he looks ridiculously pleased to see me.

The feeling is mutual.

He pulls back a bit and frowns at the screen. “You look tired. Another shit day?”

“They’re all shit days.”

It’s my turn to frown at my mobile. The background behind Simon looks awfully familiar, but it’s not the one I was expecting to see, not the one I’m used to viewing behind him when I call.

The reason manifests itself an instant later.

“Sod off, Baz. You’re fucking up our movie night.” Fiona’s face pops up, obscuring Simon completely.

“What the fuck is Simon doing at your flat?” No wonder it looked familiar. What the hell is going on?

Fiona raises an eyebrow and glares at me. “I just told you, you dolt. It’s movie night. Hurry the fuck up. We’re watching Lost Boys and Jason Patric just came on screen. I’m not about to forgive you for making me pause that.” She disappears but I can still hear her grumbling in the background.

“What the hell, Simon?”

“She rang me up a while back. We’ve met up at the pub a few times, for drinks and karaoke, but she wanted to do a movie night this time.”

“This time? How often do you and Fiona get together?” Why do I know nothing of this? What the actual fuck.

Her face pops back up, full-on glare this time. “Baz. Kiss the screen or do whatever the fuck you do when you Facetime Snow, but for the last time, wrap it the fuck up. We’ve got a movie to watch here.”

“Why is she glaring at me like that?” I ask Simon as he retakes his mobile from my wretched aunt.

He waggles his eyebrows at me and grins. “Oh, that’s just her fond glare.”

Fucking hell.

Simon

My mobile chimes from the table. I pull the roast all the way out of the oven and set it on the stovetop before I toss the potholders aside and focus on the screen.

Baz: May 17th.  

Simon : what  

Baz:  We just finalized the dates. I fly home May 17th.  

Simon:  !!!!!

Simon:  about bloody time they gave you an actual date

Simon: wankers  

Baz: I convinced them to push back the opening to July 1st.  

Baz:  I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend your birthday stressed and working all hours.

Simon:  you didn’t have to do that  

Simon:  but thank you

I glance at the calendar. Less than a month away.

Baz

My eyes sweep around the flat one last time, just to make sure I’ve got everything. I’ve already set my luggage by the door—the same two suitcases I arrived with almost a year ago. No more, no less.

The keys go in an envelope. I’ll drop it in the building manager’s mailbox on my way out.

There’s a ping from my mobile.

Ah. The Uber driver is waiting downstairs.

This is it. I’m finally done with this miserable chapter of my life. I’m not sure work is going to be any less miserable, just by virtue of it being in London, but I’ll be in London, which is really all that matters.

I’ll be near Simon again.

I can sort the rest of it later. The new office, the job, if I even want to stay employed at this firm.

I have time to figure that all out.

I look around once again. There’s no nostalgia. I’m well rid of this place. But I can be grateful for one thing: if I hadn’t been in New York I’d never have run into Simon. I’d never have found him again. It’s all been worth it, just for that chance encounter. Every sodding minute of it.

I can’t waste my time reminiscing. There’s a flight to catch. There damn well better not be any storms.

[youknowmymethods]

Content Creator Interview #12

Tissues at the ready, because, sniff sniff, this is the last post in the current series. And we’re ending with me, @ohaine, putting questions to one of my favourite people in the whole world, @likingthistoomuch, who answers questions about her secret squish, how culture and language influence her writing, and why her eyeball occasionally rolls under the bed.

If you’ve been in the Sherlolly corner of the fandom for any length of time at all you’ll already know that likingthistoomuch is funny, sweet and not afraid to say what she thinks. What you may not know is that she’s one of the kindest, wisest people that you’ll ever meet. She’s a beautiful person, a wonderful friend, a bit crazy, a bit sarcastic, and now, by public vote (well, I voted for it), an honorary Irish cailín dána. As if all of those things weren’t enough she’s a damn fine writer too. Want me to prove it? 

Molly looked surprised but followed his lead. They moved to the silent tune being played in his head, upping their tempo as the notes seemed to flow fast and with certainty until they reached a crescendo and slowly seemed to fall as leaves in autumn, leaving a wonderful silence in their wake.

“There’s no silence when I’m around you. It’s music. And its beautiful.”

The simplest symphony, one of her sixty two stories, is one of my all time favourites, and I was so happy to get the chance over Christmas 2018 to pick her brain about where these beautiful words come from.

OhAine: I’m always impressed by the gentle way you treat your words, and I’ve often wondered is that because English is a second language for you?

Likingthistoomuch: I am always surprised when reviewers say that because I honestly just blurt it all out. There is no deliberate attempt to make the words the way they are. And English, though it may seem like my second language, is in a way my first because my entire education has been in English. (I just may be more fluent in it than the local languages but that’s a discussion between my mum and me that you really don’t want to know.) The only real barriers are when it comes to the British way of putting words. Because we are so exposed to American TV, that’s the language that forms immediately in my mind. But it’s getting better, because nowadays it’s all British TV for me! (GoT is worldwide and based in Westeros so it’s not American ok!)

 OhAine:  Brit-picking you mean? Nothing will throw me out of a Sherlock story faster than reading something that just shouldn’t be there, so how do you get around it?  

 Likingthistoomuch: I (le gasp!!) ask people like you and Emma Lynch but mostly I just bulldoze ahead. (My muse lasts less than the winter here so I need to move it quickly.)

 OhAine: And is it that love of film/TV/stories that inspired you to write in the first place, or are you a life-long writer? What was the very first moment that you thought to yourself; I can do that?

 Likingthistoomuch: I would call myself the Accidental Writer (I can almost hear the play-writes scribbling that title down...royalties people!!!). I wanted to read a story with a certain story line, and the then regular prompt takers were all busy. @writingwife-83 was the one who suggested that I try writing the fic on my own, she said, “Why don’t you just give it a go!” And I did. The result, Moving with time, didn’t seem to be too bad considering. Of course I get the cringe moment when I read it now, but that’s what started the ball rolling!

 OhAine: This seems like a really apt moment to slip in a reader question submitted by @writingwife-83. She asked; How does writing inspiration tend to strike for you? Does it hit you out of the blue or does it come from something more external? 

Likingthistoomuch: It’s literally a hit from out of the blue! It can be a movie or a song or recollection of a scene, literally anything. That is exactly why my post-TFP took so long to finish, the story (Our love has a way about it) was just not getting through!! So I look at admiration when writers take on a prompt and expand it into stories. My mind’s inbox is full of Asks, waiting for the brain to acknowledge and work on it :).

 OhAine: When I looked at your sixty two stories as a body, it occurred to me that there are two types of stories that you excel at; Victorian!lock, and short scenes—

 Likingthistoomuch: Ooh thank you.

 OhAine: No, genuinely, no smoke blowing here LOL. I think you have a real affinity for Victorian Sherlock. So, how do you get into the mind set and what about that era particularly inspires you?

 Likingthistoomuch: The mind-set isn’t much of an imaginative journey. We Indians have a saying, "The English left India but left their bastard behind." This refers to the narrow minded, sexist mind-set that was highly followed during Victorian times, remnants of which we are still fighting to get rid of here. Not blaming it all on the English, we have been pretty inventive with our own original regressive thought process too. So for the social mind-set and fic setting, all I need is to look out the window. 

I love putting Molly and Sherlock in that era because on some front, both of them epitomise "not all heroes wear capes". She is trying to reach for opportunities that are denied to her just because of her gender and he is seen as the almost vulgar, rude and insensitive soul who is ready to judge people on their merits alone...(oh how dare he!!) It’s a personal favourite to put them in an era where they do struggle and fight but eventually it always work towards what they want, and of course, they get it via some unrelenting angst but hey what’s the fun if it’s all bubble gum. (It’s almost my inner romantic peeping out but don’t you dare tell anyone about it, I have a reputation to keep!)

 OhAine: I can kind of relate to that – and this is something I put to @hobbitsdoitbetter too, because she writes Victorian era Sherlolly so brilliantly as well – I often think of Molly in the Victorian works as being like Irish women of the last generation who took their small victories where they found them.

 Likingthistoomuch: True, unfortunately every geography and people has a similar story to tell. Things are changing but this change has yet to reach the grassroots levels.

 OhAine: We can’t talk about your Victorian!lock without mentioning With eyes shut tight, where you did a very interesting thing when you switched to John’s voice in a very ACD way. What inspired that? How did you find John’s voice?

Likingthistoomuch: I actually found John's character (and Martin's fabulous portrayal) in TAB to be very interesting. Here is a man who can see what’s correct, will support it but is also so short sighted that he doesn’t realise that in supporting the women's struggle elsewhere he is ignoring the struggle going on in his own home. So there was the empathy for Molly not getting her due treatment as Sherlock's wife balanced by the outrage at her wanting to follow her own heart. Martin's performance in TAB is my favourite of the special and it was fun to try and bring in his voice, the sarcasm battling the disbelief. I had great fun doing it :)

 OhAine: I have this theory that you have a secret squish on John, am I right?

 Likingthistoomuch: You mean crush? I absolutely adore the boots off Martin Freeman, his performance is exquisite. I know we all look in awe at Ben's work, but for me, performance wise Martin takes the cake.

As for John...you know Sherlock puts on a veil of indifference to hide that he feels so much. I think for John it’s the opposite. He thinks he feels a lot and understands it all, but he too is hiding the inner struggling man. That’s why the TLD exchange between these two, (S: Underneath all we may just be human. J:You too? S: No, you too) is so profound. Just as Sherlock found in John a partner, John did too. It’s just that Sherlock accepts that he needs John, John is too blind to understand that he needs Sherlock too. That is one man who has his emotions so cross wired and tangled, it’s a very interesting character. And the thing is I feel Sherlock understands that and hangs on to John, not looking at it as a weakness. John, if he ever introspects, will find his dependency on Sherlock as a weakness. It’s basically asking Sherlock to do something, which he himself would not apply. 

And Martin adds a different layer each time he plays him.

 OhAine: One of my favourites of yours is a short story (<1,000 words), New paths. There’s a very calm, meditative feeling to the story: could you tell me a bit about your inspiration?

 Likingthistoomuch: So, couple of years back we made a trip to England, and had visited Filey, near Scarborough in Yorkshire. After a long drive from London, we arrived and realised that there was a view of this cliff face from our cottage. And while my city bred, urban self gawked at the lovely site, the cloud thing happened and the hills actually turned pink. In that moment, it went all quiet and I literally felt the tiredness from my long journey seep away. And it’s only nature that can do that magic.

While writing New Paths, I wanted to see things from Molly's perspective. Do I feel she broke down and cried buckets and ate two tubs of ice cream? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think she just felt tired and also at the same time, like a huge weight was off her back. And sometimes, what you need for your soul to just feel even a little better is a few moments away from humanity. Not necessarily to forget things, but more like to recharge your batteries and get the energy to deal with things in a better way. So I made her experience what I did that evening. I made her experience the sea, the beautiful colours that nature shows and just heal her tired heart a little. God knows she needed it.

 OhAine: Misty silhouettes is a unique story, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like it before. Can you tell me about how it came to you and what are the challenges of writing Sherlock and Molly through so many lives?

 Likingthistoomuch: Misty came about because of Mirrors, a short one I wrote on my phone, half asleep and trying to get rid of an ear (brain?) worm. Kiki had loved it and encouraged me to expand on it, which I attempted to do. I think I had just recently watched a historic Indian movie and was highly impressed with the battle scene, hence the opening sequence. I thought; why not work through time as well as geography, bringing these two closer and closer, like they showed in the short Sherlock episode before S3, where Anderson comments Sherlock is coming home? So they start in ancient India, and then slowly weave geographically as well as chronologically towards their current destination, London. 

The challenges were to keep the story along the same theme as Mirrors, so trying to find characters, stories and their ending as well as the transition into the next life was some work. In short, I feel I have exhausted my small quota of creative imagination where the story stands right now, on the cusp of the last chapter where Sherlock is now in current time. It is definitely NOT abandoned; I have at least formulated ten stories and discarded them all because after such a long journey, Molly and Sherlock deserve a good reunion. And I trust myself to write it one day. Because that right end WILL come, I am sure of it.

 OhAine: Have you found that end yet?

 Likingthistoomuch: I may have! I have just started on that path, praying I stay on it.

 OhAine: What does your proofreading and editing process look like?

 Likingthistoomuch: Going through the document three times, checking for typos. Posting the fic, finding those three escaped typos and correcting them. Finding typos the more times I read a story. Yes, that’s the process. Elegant, no?

 OhAine: Super elegant, LOL!!! You would rather do it yourself than press a beta into service? Or do you find working with someone else restrictive?

Likingthistoomuch: I think it may just be because I am such an impatient writer. I have loads and loads of ideas but putting them on paper takes a lot out of me. So once it’s there, I can’t wait to get it published and for you guys to see (and maybe get a few reviews too.)

I am learning. I do at times ask for help to oversee the plot and the work and it’s worth waiting.

OhAine: But you work without a beta most of the time… Is that a deliberate choice, or something that’s just evolved?

 Likingthistoomuch:  Actually, that’s just how it evolved. My first impression of a beta was someone who would do a read through and call out my typos and grammatical mistakes. Then it dawned that I could ask about the story line and if / how/ will it work. The advantage of working with someone is that you might get a better way of putting your story forward, get help when you are stuck. Or they’ll help you understand character’s motives and inspirations even more, which was a fantastic new experience for me. On the downside you could end up telling someone else's story.

 OhAine: I think that’s a great point; you can end up telling someone else’s story, and it sort of has me reflecting that I’ve done that when I was very new to writing. Has it ever happened – even in relation to reader input – to you?

 Likingthistoomuch: Actually no. But that’s also because almost 95% of my fics are one-shots. As for inspiring something new, only Kiki's advice at expanding Mirrors was an exception. The rest...? I am a free bird!!

  OhAine: I’ve seen it argued lately that sites like tumblr stifle creativity and can lead your writing in directions you wouldn’t have otherwise taken it. What’s your take on that?

 Likingthistoomuch: Oh good question! The social policing at times can inhibit your writing and introduce undue caution at best or a total change of direction of the story at worse. It’s something that every writer has to take a call on, and finally write a story that he or she wants to tell. Because, at least for me, I know when I have written something good, and maybe not many would like it. But it’s the story I want to tell, and if I am not able to do that, no matter how many accolades I get, there would always be a feeling of dissatisfaction bubbling beneath the surface. I may just not share my work next time, and that would even further piss me off :D So not a good cycle to get into. I would encourage writers to take pride in their creation and own it like a boss. Your words indeed are your baby!

 OhAine: Does that mean that social media has been a stimulator more than a damper of creativity for you?

 Likingthistoomuch: So far I have had a relationship with social media where I have been able to distance myself if there indeed is shit happening. Which, if you have been on tumblr long enough, you know is pretty frequent. I keep to my lane, and I expect you to do the same. So far it has been a stimulator, and the few moments where it could’ve been a dampener, I was able to remind myself that’s it’s all virtual and imaginary and I have a real life outside, and hence was able to ignore the shit.

I have a very simple mantra, you no like, you unfollow or block or ignore. I will survive, indeed thrive, in your absence....if I notice your absence in the first place.

 OhAine: The thing that puts me off social media is the combative purity culture that seems to be so prevalent now.

 Likingthistoomuch: *roll my eyes so hard am still looking for my right eyeball that rolled under the bed, the bugger* All I can say is, real life is tough as nails, Social Media should be a platform to release some steam, not to order or bully people around. Again, instead of telling people what to do, what to post it would be better if the Social Police (aka Staff) got their act together and BLOODY ADDRESSED THE PORN BOTS. (I got 5 new followers yesterday and no prizes for guess what they are.)

Also, as a blogger, it’s not MY responsibility to ensure that YOUR children and young people see clean content. There are tags and blocks meant for filtering NSFW stuff. I came to your free site because I thought I could post/follow the stuff I want. And people will always find a way to find 'blocked' content. It’s called Google.

 OhAine: And a few quick fire questions to wrap it up. Starting with: how do you find your titles? 

 Likingthistoomuch: Like literally throwing a net out there and hoping the words caught make sense. Sometimes it’s just *snap* and you have your title, sometimes it takes time. I always hope the story inspires the heading but that rarely happens. Except for my post TFP, Our love has a way about it. That was purely the after effect of finishing chapter 1 that I had been trying for months.

 OhAine: How do you gauge the success of a story? What’s the metric you live by?

Likingthistoomuch: Reviews! Comments! God, I love them. But honestly, sometimes it’s more about being happy myself and putting an honest effort on the paper. I feel the best when I know the job I have done is a good, genuine one, like for Our love has a way about it.  It’s a lovely feeling and very few things can replace that knowledge of a job well done.

OhAine: Do you find writing is an outlet for real life pressure?

 Likingthistoomuch: Not really. How can I say this, it adds a bit of colour? Like people who art! Writing makes me feel good, that I can do things that may not have a tangible benefit for anyone but it is a big achievement for me. And since not many know that I write, it’s a very personal feeling, a fight to the finish with myself. 

 I had a great time addressing all these questions, Áine. I am surprised that the answers aren’t one worded, as I half expected them to be. Caught me in a chatty moment I should say :) This has been a wonderful exercise, and dare I say, a wonderful initiative. Kudos to you for coming up with this. 

OhAine: Aww, thanks Gee, you’re such a sweetie :) It’s been great fun, but I’ll be glad to get Friday afternoons back to normal!!

So guys, that’s it for now. I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who read, followed, re-blogged, liked, left comments, and supported this project, none of which would have been possible without the oh-so many lovely writers and interviewers who gave up their their time to participate, and who so kindly shared their fandom and writing experiences. Thank you all so, so much ♥