#this movie actually led me to discover No One Gets Out Alive which I plan to watch sometime tomorrow | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zintranslations · 4 years ago

Text

Kaleidoscope of Death, Ch. 132

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu Link to Chinese / Novel Updates

Chapter 132: By Day, By Night

After hanging up, Lin Qiushi got out of bed. He went to the living room to check on the door and television, making sure both those things were still the same as they had been during daytime yesterday.

After that, Lin Qiushi left the apartment in a hurry. Halfway out he even got a call from Wu Qi, asking why he wasn't at work.

"There's something I have to do." Lin Qiushi was already in a car and had honestly completely forgotten about going to work. He tried to wheedle: "Ask for time off for me."

Wu Qi, "okay, how long should I ask for?"

Lin Qiushi, "half a year?"

Wu Qi, shocked, "…half a year?? Are you planning on resigning?"

Lin Qiushi glanced at his watch, not thinking of work at all.

"Or yeah, you can just resign for me."

Wu Qi seemed like he had something to say, but whatever words were on the tip of his tongue never made it out—he only sighed: "Fine, I'll get time off for you. If there's something going on you've got to tell me, alright? Don't carry it all on your own."

Lin Qiushi made a noise of agreement, expression still pensive.

The car continued on, and over an hour later, it arrived at where Lin Qiushi wanted to go. Lin Qiushi got off, went upstairs, and knocked on the door—every motion done in a single smooth breath. The truth was, however, that these few simple motions were only possible after extensive emotional preparation done during the car ride.

The door he knocked on opened after a bit, revealing a beautiful middle-age woman—it was Ruan Nanzhu's mother.

Because before they'd entered the door, Ruan Nanzhu had taken Lin Qiushi home. Now Lin Qiushi had a clear memory of where Ruan Nanzhu's old house was. Coming here this time was simply to confirm one thing…

"Hi Auntie," Lin Qiushi greeted politely.

"Hello." The woman watched Lin Qiushi with curiosity and asked, "is there something I can help you with?"

"I wanted to ask, do you know who Ruan Nanzhu is?" Lin Qiushi asked carefully.

"Ruan Nanzhu?" The woman's tone of doubt sent Lin Qiushi's heart sinking, and the question on her face only grew stronger. "Sorry, I don't know who that is."

"Then do you know Ruan Baiye?" Lin Qiushi brought up another name—this was the name of Ruan Nanzhu's older bother.

"Baiye? He's my son…" Mama Ruan said. "He's not home right now, but he'll be back later tonight. Are you looking for him?"

Lin Qiushi, "ma'am you…only have one son?"

Mama Ruan nodded as the way she looked at Lin Qiushi got stranger and stranger. Which was fair. Suddenly coming to her house and asking questions like these, Lin Qiushi didn't seem like a normal person at all.

Lin Qiushi had no idea what else to say either. After bidding Mama Ruan goodbye, he rushed back downstairs and hurried off to another location.

Ruan Nanzhu's existence had been completely wiped. There was nobody in this world named Ruan Nanzhu, not even to his parents, and even Obsidian, the organization that he led, had stopped existing…

This time, Lin Qiushi's destination was Li Dongyuan's White Deer.

When he arrived at White Deer headquarters, Lin Qiushi discovered that the building that once belonged to White Deer was now commercial offices, labeled with the name of XX Bank. Lin Qiushi was standing in the doorway contemplating how to sneak upstairs when he saw a familiar face leave the building. That person was wearing a suit and speaking to someone beside him; judging by appearance alone, he was that baby-faced Li Dongyuan that Lin Qiushi knew.

Seeing this Lin Qiushi hurried forward and called, "Li Dongyuan!"

Li Dongyuan's feet stalled, and he glanced in Lin Qiushi's direction. With eyes both cautious and distant, he asked, "who might you be? If you'd like to discuss something please book an appointment with my secretary first."

"I—" Lin Qiushi said. "Do you know me?"

Lin Qiushi lifted an eyebrow and didn't speak. His expression though, gave Lin Qiushi an answer—he did not know Lin Qiushi, and even thought Lin Qiushi's question odd.

"You don't recognize me?" Lin Qiushi also couldn't quite convey how he was feeling just then.

"Should I recognize you?" Li Dongyuan smiled a smile that wasn't quite a smile as he scanned Lin Qiushi up and down.

Lin Qiushi suddenly recalled something else. He said, "then do you know Zhuang Rujiao?"

Li Dongyuan didn't answer, and still seemed unfamiliar with the name.

"What about Jin Yurui?" Lin Qiushi tried again.

"You know her?" Li Dongyuan's smile, however, faded. "You're one of hers, then?"

Lin Qiushi could finally be sure why some people didn't exist in this world—because they were still alive. If they still survived in the world outside the door, then they did not exist inside this door. Both Li Dongyuan and Jin Yurui were dead, so they had new identities inside this door.

And, those who had died inside the doors aside, the people who were competely unrelated to the doors did not seem affected by this rule at all. They existed both inside this door and outside it, and had nothing to do with living or dying.

"Is there anything else?" Eyeing Lin Qiushi, who was deep in thought, Li Dongyuan lifted his chin with a cold expression. "If there's nothing else why don't you take your leave? This is a place of work."

Lin Qiushi took one last look at him before turning to go.

"Who is that?" the person standing beside Li Dongyuan asked as they watched Lin Qiushi leave.

"I don't know," Li Dongyuan said. "Looks kind of familiar though. Never mind, bring me that data and let me confirm…"

Lin Qiushi left White Deer headquarters and glanced at his watch. It was already twelve noon. An idea surfaced in his mind, and Lin Qiushi got out his phone to book a roundtrip flight for C City the next morning.

There were some matters he wanted to confirm in C City; it was already too late to go today, so he could only hurry there tomorrow morning and try to make it back in one day.

Fact of the matter was, Lin Qiushi didn't want to try spending the night on an airplane. Hell knows how terrifying that would be.

After taking care of lunch at a random spot in town, Lin Qiushi returned home and took a nap. As he thought about what would happen later that evening, Lin Qiushi thought he wouldn't be able to sleep. But in fact he slept quite well, passing out the moment he hit the bed. When he woke it was already five in the afternoon. Chestnut sat by his side, meowing, looking to be hungry again.

Lin Qiushi got up and, after fixing up some food for Chestnut, called some delivery for himself. He ate while watching TV.

He saw the trailer for Tan Zaozao's new movie. From the language of the advertisement, Lin Qiushi figured out that Tan Zaozao had already won the award. The award-winning movie was exactly the same as it had been on the outside, only the director was a different person this time and not Zhang Yiqing.

This world was so very similar to the world that Lin Qiushi lived in, but there was one fundamental difference—Ruan Nanzhu, the person Lin Qiushi most wanted to see, was not here.

Good thing that was so, actually. This door, for a lot of other people, would likely be of insurmountable difficulty. Like Zhuang Rujiao. Or Cheng Yixie for that matter. That was because here, they could once again see their most beloved person…

The night deepened, and Lin Qiushi got everything ready.

Around ten in the evening, it suddenly began to rain outside.

Water came down as if tossed from a ladle, washing clean the earth scorched dry by the sun. Lin Qiushi stood by the window, watching as passersby scampered home along the sidewalks until only streetlamps were left on the empty streets, with only the occasional car passing by.

Chestnut fell asleep sprawled out on the couch. The atmosphere grew quiet. Some senseless program played on TV as a queer sort of silence began to crawl out inside the house.

Lin Qiushi smelled petrichor. He used to be quite a fan of this smell, until he encountered a particular door. After that, this tainted scent of rainwater became something a lot more unpleasant.

The hour hand turned bit by bit, and twelve o'clock was nearly here.

Lin Qiushi sat in the living room, as if a spirit waiting for the death god's verdict. The switch from day to night came, and the clock hanging on the wall finally began to ring: ding dong, ding dong, ding dong…Twelve chimes heralded in another world.

The moment it became twelve, someone was immediately knocking at his door once more. Backpack on, Lin Qiushi came to the door, and through the peephole saw a woman standing on the other side, smiling at him.

He remembered the woman's name. It was the NPC hidden among the crowd in the Sister's Drum door, Xu Jin.

"Hurry up and come out already," Xu Jin told Lin Qiushi. "Come out already, my sister's coming to find you."

Lin Qiushi didn't open the door. He heard a soft noise from the window, however, and when Lin Qiushi turned, he saw a figure pressed against the glass.

It was a person with all her skin stripped off, her body a mess of blood and flesh from head to toe. The bloody face pressed against Lin Qiushi's glass and her mouth split open, showing Lin Qiushi her stark white teeth. It looked like she was trying to open up the locked window, and judging from her motions, she seemed close to succeeding.

Opening the door looked to be the only option right now. Gritting his teeth, Lin Qiushi twisted open the door handle and faced Xu Jin, standing on the outside.

Xu Jin clearly knew what Lin Qiushi was worried about, and began to chuckle.

"How could I bear to hurt you?" A pause, as her gaze lingered on Lin Qiushi's backpack. "My diary is still in your hands. Did you give it a good read yet?"

Lin Qiushi, "…" Why did he feel like he was being teased?

But there wasn't time for him to worry about that, because Xu Jin's sister was about to come in though the window. Xu Jin grabbed Lin Qiushi by the arm and ran. The two made their way down the hall and came to the elevator.

"Go on inside, but watch out," Xu Jin said. "There are other things that want you dead."

Lin Qiushi asked, "what about you?" He recalled that Xu Jin didn't have a very good relationship with her sister.

"Me?" Xu Jin’s eyes curved up in a sudden smile. "How do you know that I don't want you dead?"

As soon as she said this, the skin on her body began to fall off patch by patch. The startled Lin Qiushi rushed into the elevator and pressed a number.

Xu Jin was chuckling again, and though her laugh was bright like silver bells, her terrifying appearance struck a sharp contrast.

Even though she now looked scarier, she didn't seem keen on pursuing Lin Qiushi.

The elevator started. In theory, Lin Qiushi ought to be safe, but that weird sense of danger once again assaulted the top of his head.

Lin Qiushi looked all around him, and when he spotted a certain something hanging in the elevator, goosebumps appeared all over his body. He'd spotted behind him, on what should have been an empty elevator wall, a huge black picture frame. There was nothing inside the frame, but the frame was pointed at exactly where he was standing.

Lin Qiushi reacted swiftly, hitting the button for the floor closest to him. At the exact same time, black water stains began appearing on the white paper inside that frame. First there was only one drop. Then it began spreading on the canvas paper.

He watched as the shape of that stain began to look more and more like a woman. It dispersed across the canvas and, in a short amount of time, managed to coat the entire large canvas.

Luckily it was then that the elevator reached the nearest floor. Lin Qiushi immediately took off, and the moment he cleared the elevator, a pair of pale white hands burst out of that canvas paper, searching around like it was looking for something to grab hold of.

Lin Qiushi was currently on the sixth floor. The moment he was out of the elevator he turned for the emergency exit right next door, bounding quickly down the stairs.

It was dim in the stairwell, with just enough light to see the path beneath his feet. Lin Qiushi ran down two stories before feeling something was off. He took a closer look, and discovered that he'd been turning round and round on floor six.

The stairs seemed to have become a mobius strip—up, down, backward, forward, it all came back to the sixth floor.

Lin Qiushi's feet screeched to a halt. He took in his surroundings, and noticed, on the white stairwell ceilings, little black spots of water appearing. That chilling stench of rain too was spreading through the air.

The thing had found him. Lin Qiushi made an executive decision and left the stairwell, stepping out onto the hallway. But back in the hall, Lin Qiushi discovered that the corridor had underwent a terrifying change: black frames hung on both sides, and inside each frame was a human head with its expression all twisted up. As for the ceramic tile floor, there was now a new carpet, thick and black—the pattern on it looked the same as in a door they'd encountered before.

Lin Qiushi looked up and saw, on the other other end of the hallway, another painting hanging. That painting was a woman in black with a long, sharp hat. Her eyes were half closed, but it felt like she was staring right down the hall and meeting Lin Qiushi's eyes.

Lin Qiushi wanted to leave the hallway, but when he glanced back, he found that the stairwell he had just came from had disappeared. The length of the hallway too seemed to be slowly shortening; Lin Qiushi could sense the painting of the woman getting closer and closer, closer and closer…

At that moment, a drop of water fell onto Lin Qiushi's forehead. Lin Qiushi gave it a wipe, and realized that it was blood. On reflex he looked up—a black hole had appeared above his head without him noticing, and blood was dripping from its edge onto his head. A pair of black eyes glimmered faintly in the dark, and then right after, a pair of pulpy, bloody hands reached out of the hole for Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi's instincts were to back away, but the strange thing was, the hands stopped when they got to him. As if a miracle, he sensed no animosity from this pair of hands.

The hallway was still getting shorter and shorter, as if it were becoming a cage keen on trapping Lin Qiushi inside. With a clench of his teeth, Lin Qiushi reached up and grabbed the fleshy mess of those hands, and then felt a sudden force as he was brought out of that shrinking hallway.

"Aiya, looks like you can't manage without me after all."

The voice belonged to Xu Jin, but from appearance alone, he couldn't tell it was her at all. The skin on her body was completely gone, leaving only scarlet flesh and blood. She was grinning brightly at Lin Qiushi, and the contrast between her smile and appearance was strange, but Lin Qiushi didn't find it scary at all.

"Thank you," Lin Qiushi said to her.

Xu Jin didn't speak. Her gaze instead leaped over Lin Qiushi to look behind him.

Sensing something, Lin Qiushi too twisted around, and spotted on the other end of the darkness a pair of glowing red eyes.

"Meimei, my sister."

The owner of those eyes was also a skinless monster. She didn't have any legs and could only walk on her hands, but that didn't mean she was slow. She glared at Lin Qiushi with vitriol and bared her teeth; like a hyena hunting its prey, the sheer amount of hatred in her eyes was strong enough to materialize.

"Why did you betray me?" she said. "Do you like him that much? Since you like him so much, why don't I keep him here for you?"

Xu Jin tilted her head, and also smiled.

"But Jiejie, even if you did that, I still won't like you."

After that, she told Lin Qiushi to run, and threw herself at her sister. The two monsters clashed and tangled together.

Lin Qiushi got up and sprinted in the direction of the light. By the time he reached its source, he found that he'd already escaped from the apartment building, and was standing in the yard of the residential block.

It was still raining outside. Lin Qiushi pulled an umbrella out of his backpack and slowly pushed it open, stepping out into the curtaining rain.

The rain came down in sluicing torrents, and the streets were completely empty, with only water splashing along the ground. The rain ought to have been noisy; but at a time like this the loudness of the rain only made the world sound more silent in comparison.

"Help me—help me—"

There was a sudden cry for help. A silhouette came stumbling out of the rain, and Lin Qiushi could just make it out: she was a pitiful-looking young woman, staggering through the rain in a long dress. It looked like she was being pursued by something, and when she spotted Lin Qiushi standing not too far away, it was like she'd found an oasis in the middle of a desert—she came running immediately.

"Help, help!! Please, I'm begging you please help me, something wants to kill me…" She fell to the ground, looking up pathetically at Lin Qiushi. "You're also someone going through the doors, right? So am I, this door is so scary—"

Had this been reality, Lin Qiushi would've definitely helped the young woman up by now. But at this stage he wasn't moving, and a light furrow had appeared between his brows. The truth was, he found the person before him a bit familiar—more specifically, everything that appeared at night now was familiar, and he was certain he'd seen this person somewhere before.

"Mister, mister." The woman collapsed in the rain saw Lin Qiushi unmoved, and slowly crawled forward. She wiped at the rainwater on her face and said, shakily, "I know a safe place, and I can bring you there. Do you want to come with me?"

Lin Qiushi said, "do I know you?"

The woman said, "we met once in the door, and you even helped me out." Her lashes lightly trembled, looking vulnerable as anything. "But I didn't deserve that mercy, I still didn't make it."

"We met inside a door?" Lin Qiushi now found the shape of her eyes familiar. "Which door?"

The woman approached Lin Qiushi, saying, "you know, that one."

As Lin Qiushi watched her, he suddenly spoke: "There's something behind you."

The woman halted.

"A giant picture frame," Lin Qiushi said. "She's here."

The woman wheeled around in fright, but when she didn't see anything behind her, she suddenly realized that Lin Qiushi had recognized her. What had been a pitiful expression immediately went cold.

"It's been a while," Lin Qiushi said, "Yang Meishu."

The woman chuckled coolly.

"You still recognized me?"

Lin Qiushi shrugged. "I didn't want to, but I can count the people who wanted me dead on one hand. Since you're not a ghost, you must be somebody who hates me…"

He paused, and quickly announced, "she really is here."

But Yang Meishu didn't believe him. She said, "do you really think I'm that dumb? You've fooled me once already, you think you can do it again? I—"

As she spoke, getting more and more agitated, she felt a sudden breeze behind her. Yang Meishu glanced back, and found the woman in black standing right behind her. The woman's white face was impassive, and in her hands was a black picture frame that she swung right at Yang Meishu.

Yang Meishu knew this was likely it for her, and a terrible scream came out of her mouth. Right after she screamed, she became a portrait in the hands of the woman; soaked from head to toe, her expression bore both fright and a lively, vivid resentment.

Lin Qiushi took the opportunity to run further away. The woman didn't seem intent on chasing after him either, only watched him go with an icy gaze.

The rain came down in torrents, and Lin Qiushi was completely soaked. In such a strong rain, the umbrella was practically useless. As he ran, he fished out his cell phone and sent Ruan Nanzhu a text.

How are things on your end? After some thought, Lin Qiushi added: I'm fine over here, don't worry about me.

After the text was sent, he didn't get a reply for the longest time. It wasn't until Lin Qiushi found a place to hide from the rain that the message notification dinged, displaying four simple words: I'm good, don't worry.

Seeing the message, Lin Qiushi huffed a bitter laugh. Because how could he not know? Had Ruan Nanzhu truly been alright, the text would not have been so short. Ruan Nanzhu had trained his way through so many doors, so god only knew how many malicious NPCs and dead people from the inside he would meet at night. From what Lin Qiushi understood of him, if he had everything under control, he would've definitely sent a message first asking about Lin Qiushi's situation. Now, even his text message was so short. The situation on his end could not be good.

He wanted so badly just to be by his side—Lin Qiushi clenched his phone and thought bitterly. Whatever he had to experience would be fine, as long as he could be by Ruan Nanzhu's side.

[Ch. 131] | [Ch. 133]

#kaleidoscope of death #xi zixu #cnovel #chinese translation #死亡萬花筒

196 notes · View notes

nitw · 3 years ago

Note

Can you explain what you mean with misinterpreting Chara? I've always been confused about that character and you seem to have a pretty solid read you alluded to in that post about Snowgrave.

of course!!! as your local chara defender since the ripe age of 13 i hope you don't mind me doing a small essay on this. please bear with me tho because i sometimes can't articulate my thoughts well on stories that deal with philosophical themes ;;

UHHH SPOILERS FOR UNDERTALE AND DELTARUNE CHAPTER 2 BELOW

first let me make a few things clear so i don't have to repeat myself a bunch:

only tobias radiation fox himself has The Word of God privilege when it comes to things that haven't been explicitly confirmed in the games yet, EVEN if they're strongly hinted at. don't take anything i say about the plot as more than firm personal interpretation based on the info we have right now!

i cannot stress this one enough: undertale is a game that was never meant to be experienced from a singular perspective/mindset. the genocide route doesn't JUST exist for the sake of "enjoy your personalized edgy fuck-you run for being a serial killer in a video game", every one of the total 93 endings (look it up) in this game exists to reflect the player who achieved it in one way or another. the genocide route is really no different from any of the others, because in the end, no matter what, the player who decided to go through with the things they did will ALWAYS be rewarded for it. the question the player will have to ask THEMSELF afterwards is "is this what i wanted?"

OK MOVING ON-

let's think back to the little but vital amount of info we have on who chara actually was, like, as a person. we know pretty much all of this due to 1) the tapes in the royal lab 2) asriel's additional dialogue at the end of true pacifist.

while we'll never really know why frisk fell into the underground, asriel tells us explicitly about chara's hatred for humanity, and how they jumped from mt. ebott for "not a very happy reason"; supposedly a suicide attempt. chara "never talked about why", it's left intentionally vague because their reasoning isn't really what matters. what DOES matter is how this is relevant to the genocide run, ESPECIALLY with the new obvious parallels in deltarune's snowgrave route. i'll get to that.

when you finish the genocide route, chara will talk directly to the player in person. they talk about your (you AND chara's) success, despite "their plan (having) failed". this "plan" is one they secretly made with asriel when they were both still alive, as revealed from the tapes. chara got terminally poisoned from eating buttercups (whether this was fully intentional or not is still kiiinda up for debate), and while on their deathbed, asriel says that he doesn't like the plan anymore. yet despite his fear, he still fused his soul to chara's when they died.

the actual plan here was to become a monster powerful enough to slaughter humanity, specifically chara's home village by their own dying request - this all ties into their mysterious spite and hatred mentioned before. but due to asriel's resistance against chara, their fused body was killed by the humans - which eventually led to the creation of flowey, and asriel's inner demons after death.

but back to the genocide route. during chara's monologue to the player, they give us a LOT of important exposition. basically:

at the very start of the game, frisk's own determination is literally what brought chara's soul 'back to life'. we know how human and monster souls are different and how "determination" in this universe is something only humans possess, so it makes sense why it awakened them. i won't get into the whole narrator theory because i feel like it's not that relevant to my point (it's fun tho), but chara is always present from the moment frisk falls down, and stays regardless of the player's actions.

if you managed to finish undertale at all you'll already kinda know this (thanks sans), but the EXP and LV you (can) gain throughout your journey aren't just numbers on your screen - they're genuine in-universe manifestations of power that increase when you kill someone. and in genocide, chara explains how they were directly affected every time your stats rose. they could FEEL their spirit growing stronger for every life you decided to take (REMINDER THAT THE GENOCIDE ROUTE CAN BE PERMANENTLY STOPPED AT ANY POINT BEFORE SANS. YOU DID THIS.), so is it really that strange that they felt the desire to grow even stronger?

and once you do reach this point, there's no return. all that excessive time and effort you put into killing off a civilization OBVIOUSLY has some consequences. the consequences HERE being - if you paid attention to chara's life story - you took advantage of a traumatized child who was already at the breaking point and making irrational choices on their own, and you led them to believe that this was what they needed!

this is VERY MUCH SUPPORTED by the snowgrave/weird/pipis/whatever route of deltarune chapter 2 that was discovered about 2 days ago as i'm writing this. i'm gonna go ahead and assume you know what happens in it and i don't care to go into details if you don't, since this post is about chara, but surprise: THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO NOELLE, TOO! even in a completely normal run, noelle makes it clear multiple times that she wouldn't mind staying in the dark world; that in spite of how scary and dangerous it seems at times (something something horror movies), she started to feel at home. POSSIBLY even more so than her ACTUAL HOME, with her dying dad and negligent mom. like chara, noelle is a young person with low self esteem and her fair share of trauma, even if it's not as apparent. and like in the genocide run, the player's desire to ruthlessly kill in order to grow stronger affected her already-poor mental state.

someone else already pointed this out specifically, so don't credit me for it, but the main difference between chara and noelle is that noelle managed to break free in the end.

if you're like Most People Who Played The Genocide Route Back In Like 2016 and you played the genocide route with no further knowledge about it than "i have to follow these specific steps to get a harder fucked up version of the game", i don't blame you. you didn't actually know what you were doing in the end, did you? but did the outcome disappoint you, make sense to you, or did it just leave you with an empty/confused feeling? i love undertale because it WILL force you to think about things like that. i mean, if the result wasn't gonna affect you in SOME way, why would you go through all of that trouble in the first place? you had your reasons, as the player of any video game where you know your choices matter. would you have carried out the entire thing if you knew what was coming? the answer to that is only relevant to yourself.

#i'm EXHAUSTED girl.#asks #chara #ut #undertale #dr #deltarune #noelle holiday #dr spoilers #deltarune spoilers

66 notes · View notes

maysbanks · 5 years ago

Text

hypersonic missiles. (jj maybank)

hello ! some of you may recognise this fic and that’s bc it’s currently being rewritten as an oc fic rather than a reader insert fic which it was before. i can’t wait for you to read this and introduce you all to haley who i love dearly, so pls enjoy and lemme know what you think !!

warnings: swearing, mention of sex, sexual innuendos, drug use, underage drinking, violence etc

summary: after the death of her father, haley grubbs is determined to get the answers her mother seems to be keeping from her, seeking help from a group of pogues (which just happens to include her weekly hook-up) and unknowingly throwing herself into the midst of a treasure hunt.

( gif isn't mine! please let me know if it's yours so i can credit you. )

The gang gathered around John B's porch, spaced out in various positions amongst the furniture. Silence engulfed the group, the air thick with tension as none of the four teenagers dared to speak.

"JJ should be the one to go." Kie broke the silence, her words hanging in the air as the group processed them.

Said boy whipped around in his place, golden hair falling in his sea blue eyes as they widened, glancing wildly between each of his friends. "What?" He demanded. "Why me?"

"Because you're the one that's hooking up with her," Pope reminded, matter of fact. As if JJ needed to be reminded. The dark skinned boy gestured between him and the remaining two. "She's gonna trust you more than any of us."

Kiara and John B murmured their agreement, JJ scoffing as he flapped his arms, beginning to pace in his spot. "This is ridiculous," he muttered between gritted teeth. "She won't wanna talk to me any more than she'll want to talk to you guys. I mean, we've only hooked up like," JJ paused - raising a hand to count on his fingers. "Maybe like, eleven times, twelve at a push!"

Kiara scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Wow, how chivalrous of you to keep count, JJ," she drawled sarcastically, the blonde boy simply shrugging in return as he took his formal position of leaning against the Chateau's wall. "Look, the thing is you know her better than the rest of us. You're familiar, we're not. We can't just go up to her and start asking questions about her dead dad and John B's compass."

JJ stared in disbelief. "And you think I can?" He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know if you guys realise this, but hooking up doesn't really require much talking. I barely know her."

"But you know her enough to warm her bed every week," John B piped up, narrowing his eyes at his best friend. JJ sighed, lighting a fresh blunt as he refused to meet any of the gang's eyes, staring ahead. John B stepped over and beside the blonde, arm thrown over his shoulder. "We need answers, JJ. Answers she could have. I mean, it was her dad right? She must know something about why he had my dad's compass."

JJ nodded along, but the uncertain feeling bubbling in his chest didn't cease. Thoughts of the two men that had chased the group the day before, guns blazing, entered his mind. Then the memory of him and John B showing up at the Grubbs' residence, only to discover they had been beaten to it by the very same men - he'd heard them threaten Lana and Haley Grubbs, demanding questions about the same compass that lay heavy in John B's pockets. He knew his best friend deserved answers, why did Scooter Grubbs have Big John's compass the night he died? Why was Scooter Grubbs out in the storm that night anyway? Hell, even JJ wanted answers. But he couldn't shake the doubtful feeling, thoughts of Haley Grubbs swirling in his head.

"I don't think this is a good idea." He tried once more, voice small and defeated. The Pogues shared a glance, and he knew they'd already come to a decision. Sighing, he flicked the butt of his blunt, sending it flying in the opposite direction. "Fine, I'll go talk to her. But I'm not making any promises that she'll talk," he frowned. "Sometimes I kinda get the feeling she doesn't like me."

Kie snorted. "I wonder why."

What the gang hadn't bargained for, however, was that the same person who'd they been talking about was already on their way to them - boots stomping across the ground in a determined stride, their mind a whirlwind of series of memories, scenarios, and all the events that had happened in the last twenty four hours.

Haley wanted answers, and she wanted them soon. (Sooner rather than later, if she was being precise.) The series of misfortunes events had all begun with the disappearance of her father - for whatever reason, he'd gone out in the storm that raged against the Outer Banks the night prior, and that, unsurprisingly, had led to his death. Memories of his body, washed up on the shore, cold and blue, eyes open but completely lifeless as they stared up at nothing and everything at the same time. Her heart wrenched at the sight, and she still hadn't been able to get the scene out of your head - her mother breaking down in a heap of sobs, Haley’s body following along with her as the pair both held each other and cried, Sheriff Peterkin's voice echoing in Haley’s mind, over and over again, like a siren. “I'm so sorry. There's nothing we could have done."

Haley knew that, of course. But it didn't explain why he was out in the storm in the first place. She had tried to question her mother, because she knew her dad wasn't a fool. Storm Agatha had been reported for weeks following up to it, he'd even made off-handed comments about it over dinner a couple of times. Her dad was aware about the storm, but had still risked his life (and coincidentally, ended it) to take a boat ride, or so that's what her mother told you.

Bull-fucking-shit. Haley knew there was more to the story, the appearance of two men breaking down her door and trashing her whole house was enough proof of that. And the fact that they were asking about a compass, of all things, didn't sit right in Haley’s gut either. Why the hell would two thugs want a compass, and why would her dad have it anyway? To her knowledge, her dad had never owned a compass in his damned life. (He also never owned a boat, which raised the suspicion of how the hell had he even gone out on a boat ride in the first place.) But the pair were persistent, and she was forced to watch as they threatened her and her mom, their last words sticking with her, sending a shiver of dread up her spine every time they echoed in her head; “We'll be back."

It was something straight out of a king-pin movie, and yet Lana Grubbs still wouldn't talk. She knew something, Haley knew it, and why she wouldn't share whatever information she knew with Haley was beyond frustrating - so she decided, fuck it. If her mother wasn't gonna give her her answers, then she was gonna go out and find them herself. Starting with John B. Routledge.

As if things couldn't have gotten any weirder, the teenaged boy had shown up not a minute after the two guys had left, appearing in Haley’s not-so-much of a doorway with the exact thing the thugs were after: the Compass. To her chargin, she hadn't had time to ask any questions though, her mother was quick to dismiss him (and JJ Maybank of all people, but she didn't really want to think about him at the moment) and warned him not to let anyone know that he had the compass, and Haley could see why - those guys were not to be messed with.

And so, John B. Routledge had left the Grubbs’ home, JJ Maybank in tow, and Haley was left to clean up the mess the bastards had left behind them. Her mothers warning rang in her ears; "Stay away from them boys. Do not get involved in this, Hales.” But alas, there she was, storming towards the property she knew the guys would be. Her mother didn't know, of course, and she was determined to make sure Lana never did. (Haley would be the next person she'd be burying if she ever did find it.)

All Haley wanted was answers, and if John B had even a couple, she was going to find them out. Her father had died, and there was more to the story than anyone was letting on. If it was up to her to piece the puzzle together, then so be it. She would, gladly.

So she marched in the direction of the Routledge residence, more determined than ever. As she walked, people gave her pitying looks, obviously recognising her as Scooter Grubbs’ daughter (the newfound bastard of the Outer Banks, sarcasm intended.) and she simply ignored each and every one of them. She didn’t need them, she thought. She was going to find out the truth, and each step Haley took she was closer to uncovering it all. Some people walked towards her as if to stop and talk, probably attempting to give her some kind of condolence, but each time a person did she hurried her pace; she couldn’t be stopped now, she was too close to getting where she wanted to be for some middle-aged folk tell her they were sorry about her loss, even though they couldn’t have cared less about her dad when he was alive.

Fucking bullshit, she thought.

Haley’s stride slowed however, when a familiar looking van made it's way into her vision, memories of it parked outside the very same house she was planning on going running through her already overactive mind. Her stomach churned, thinking she had missed her chance to interrogate the poor unsuspecting boy, before it seemed to slow down and pulled up to right where she was standing on the curb. Her respectively plucked eyebrows raised as the window rolled down, revealing none other than John B sat in the drivers seat, Kiara Carrera in the passenger, and Pope Heyward's and JJ's heads peering around the pair from the back of the van.

John B leaned out, his mop of wavy brown hair entering Haley’s brown eyed gaze, tight smile on his lips. "Haley,” he greeted. “Hey, where are you off to? Need a ride?"

"Actually," Haley drawled as she stepped closer, right arm leaning on the window as she sent a forced smile the teenaged boys way. “I was just heading over to yours. What a coincidence, huh?"

She never missed the look Kiara shot the two guys seated in the back, all of their eyes seemingly communicating in their own weird little telepathical way. John B blinked, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water for a few seconds before he seemed to compose himself, clearing his throat. "Oh, really?" He asked, as naturally as he could. (It wasn't very natural at all.) “How, uh, how come?"

"Oh, you know," Haley started, shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly. "Just thought I'd pay you a visit, y'know, like the one you paid me this morning. Remember that?" She asked as innocently as she could manage. (It wasn't very innocent at all.) “Just wanted to ask you a few questions, s'all. Like why you have the one thing those meatheads that trashed my house were after. How you got hold of it, stuff like that."

And then she smiled like they were all sharing a perfectly civil conversation, as if the underlying threatening tone in her voice didn't exist at all. John B sighed, his head turning towards the rest of the group, catching their eyes and seeming to have another one of their telepathic conversations before he turned back to her figure, his head nodding towards the back of his infamous Volkswagen.

"Get in the back," he said - and she did, shooting him a smile that resembled one of a Cheshire Cat, satisfied as she moved to the other side, walking around the van and hearing him mutter from inside, "What? This is the perfect opportunity to ask her." She didn't need to look to know the rest of the gang were probably objecting her presence, but she couldn't care less. This was just the first step to getting what she wanted.

The door to the van was pulled open from the inside, JJ's head popping out and thrusting a hand out towards her to help her climb into the vehicle. Haley swiftly ignored the gesture, missing the flash of confusion and offence that appeared on the blonde's face, climbing into the van and seating herself beside Pope who smiled rather awkwardly toward her.

"I'm, uh, sorry about your dad," he said softly, fidgeting under her gaze. She smiled slightly at him in return, lips quirking more so in amusement at his obvious discomfort at either having her join them, or her being seated so close to him.

"Yeah, me too," Kiara piped up from the passenger seat, glancing over her shoulder towards her. "It must really suck, to just lose him like that."

Haley nodded, head turning in the direction of where JJ sat across from her, rubbing the back of his head as he muttered quietly, "Yeah, I'm sorry too." before averting his eyes when she looked at him, raising her eyebrows.

Kiara ignored him, the awkward silence that presented itself to the pedestrians inside the van only lasting a couple of seconds as she spoke up again. "I can't imagine what you and your mom are going through," she said, soft brown eyes darting to John B quickly before they returned to catch Haley’s once more. "We're always here if you need anything. Pogue's look out for each other, right?"

Haley forced a small smile, not bothering to bring up the fact that Kiara was technically not a Pogue, seeing no point in the matter as she sent her a small nod of appreciation, silently grateful for her words. Haley had always liked Kiara, or Kie, as she was more commonly known as. She had spent many times sat around a fire with her, listening to her rants about the environment and what everyone could do to help it, as an infamous Pogue kegger loomed around them. Haley was grateful for her presence amongst the guys, unsure of the fact that if she wasn't there, she probably wouldn't have entered the van. She was determined, but she also wasn’t stupid. Despite knowing the guys well and practically all her life, (it’s a small town kinda thing), she would never willingly get in a van with them and let them drive her to an unknown destination. Which reminded her suddenly - where the hell were they going?

"We're lucky we got each other, I guess," Haley said in relation to Kie's words. Kie nodded as her eyes darted to John B again. "But thanks, I really appreciate it." She fiddled with the hem of her faded out jean shorts, her next words directed towards John B. "So, care to tell me where we're going? Or better yet, why you have the damned compass my house was trashed for."

Silence filled the air of the Volkswagen. It was suffocating, the air thick with unspoken tension as everybody refused to meet her eyes. Haley was beyond frustrated, incredibly so, and she made a point to catch John B's eyes in the rearview mirror, an eyebrow quirking as she awaited an answer.

Finally, he sighed.

"The compass was my dads," John B revealed. Haley’s mouth opened in shock for a second before she clamped it back shut. "And for whatever reason, your dad had it. We uh, we found it at the wreck of your dads boat yesterday."

"Wait, what?" She demanded, blinking. She glanced between the gang, eyes accusing as she held each of theirs. "You guys found the wreck? And you didn't tell anyone?" She questioned, tone dangerously low. "And you stole from it?"

"It's not technically stealing if it was his compass," JJ defended, shrugging. Haley shot him a glare, feeling a bubble of irritation build deep in her gut. "And anyways, we tried to tell the coastguard about it after we first found it, but the guy was having none of it. They were hounded with the storm."

Her eyes narrowed. "First found it? Exactly how many times have you guys been at the wreck?" She demanded, tone accusatory.

The gang all swivelled to send JJ their own respected glares, Pope's voice small from beside her as he tried to explain. "Only a couple," he started, startling as her head whipped around towards him. "We're really sorry, okay! We didn't know it was your dads when we first found it, if we did, we wouldn't have snooped in his room either!"

Pope seemed to make note of his mistake as the rest of the gang did, Kie letting out a little frustrated groan from the back of her throat as JJ cringed, pointedly avoiding Haley’s gaze. John B's hands gripped the steering wheel tight, a warning "Pope" leaving his mouth.

Haley laughed, though it held no humour. She clasped her hands together, the slap of her palms meeting echoing in the confine space. "Let me get this straight, you guys not only found the wreck of my dads boat and didn't tell anyone about it, but also obviously found where he was staying and snooped in his room," she listed, feeling the familiar build of rage pulse through her body. “I mean, what the fuck you guys?"

"We're sorry," Kiara turned in her seat, meeting the Grubbs’ girl angered gaze. "We swear, if we had any idea it was your dad we wouldn't have. We were just, curious, I guess. We found the key on the boat when Pope first spotted it in the marsh, and before we even snooped we tried to tell the coastguard, but like JJ said, they weren't interested. So, John B and JJ went to look in the room."

Haley sighed heavily, leaning her head back to rest against the wall of the van. She tried to tell herself to calm down - hell, she probably would have done the same thing if it was her in their position, she couldn't get mad at them over that. "And did you guys find anything?" She asked quietly, the gang seemingly relaxing as they recognised her calmer tone of voice.

"Did we find anything?" JJ snorted as he repeated her words, grin falling from his lips at the glares the rest of his friends shot him. Haley sat up straighter, taking note of their warning glances. JJ awkwardly coughed, rubbing the back of his neck as he once again avoided her honey coated eyes. "Uh, not really."

"Not really?" She asked, frown on her plump lips. JJ nodded, tongue darting out to wet his pink lips, uncharacteristically quiet once more. "Okay, what the hell is going on? And no more bullshitting me, I've had enough of that from everyone else for the past forty eight hours. I came to you for answers, I'm not going anywhere without them."

She looked to John B then, hoping, pleading, that he would understand. He'd lost his dad too, nine months ago, supposedly lost at sea, believed to be dead. Haley knew he never believed that though, refusing to agree that his father was dead, insisting that he was simply missing. If there was one person that could understand her need to know about her dad, it was John B. And he knew it too, as he sighed and nodded.

"There was a safe," he started as she listened intently. "There was money inside it, I don't know how much. The cops kinda showed up when we were in there," he admitted sheepishly. "We had to hide before we could count it or anything. But there was also, um, a gun in the safe too."

"A gun?" Haley deadpanned. John B raised his eyes and caught hers, nodding. Haley scoffed in disbelief, running a hand through her almost waist length hair. "Why the hell would my dad have a gun?"

"Um, there's something else you should probably know," JJ blurted. "I kinda, uh, took it."

The Pogues glared at him again, Kie spitting a warning of his name, but the blonde just looked at the girl seated in front of him. Her eyes widened as he brandished the piece of metal, black in colour and daunting in shape. Of fucking course JJ Maybank had stolen her dads gun, she thought. It was so... JJ.

"You stole that from a crime scene?" She sputtered, heart squeezing uncomfortably in her chest as she eyed the object with disdain. JJ nodded, looking almost guilty. "My dads crime scene? What the fuck JJ? Do you realise how much trouble you could get into from taking that? For having that?"

Haley was unsure as to why she seemed to care so much about that, rather than the fact that he'd taken it from her dads motel room, and that the gun was technically her fathers. She didn't want to ponder too much about that, though, there was bigger fish to fry in that moment.

"Sorry," he said, rather dumbly. "You can have it, if you want?"

She stared at him incredulously as he held the gun out towards her, quickly shoving it away from her body as she shook her head forcefully. "What the fuck would I want with a gun, JJ?" Haley demanded. The blonde boy shrugged, suddenly sheepish.

"It was your dads," he stated simply. From the corner of her vision she could see Pope sending him a wild look, brown eyes blown wide as he tried to be subtle and shake his head at his friend, silently warning him to shut the hell up, or so she presumed. "I just thought, y'know-"

"You thought wrong, JJ," Haley interrupted him before he could continue. His eyebrows furrowed as he noted her hostile tone, but let it go as he simply nodded, swallowing thickly when she turned away from him. “So, what happened, after the motel room?"

John B looked glad to be back on the original topic. "Well, it wasn't long after that we found it was your dad. We were gonna tell the police, but uh, we had this crazy idea that there might have been more on the boat, like money or something? I don't know, we just thought-"

"Your dad might've been a straight smuggler," Pope piped up. Haley’s glare made him shrink in his spot. "Sorry, sorry. Not the time, I get it."

"Right," John B said curtly as Kie groaned softly. "So we went to look again, and I found a duffel bag. The marsh was closed, obviously. But we weren't the only ones out there," his voice turned deadly serious. “After I got it, these two guys appeared on a boat. The same two guys that were at your place earlier."

Haley exhaled shakily at the information, memories of the two men entering her mind unwelcoming. The image of them carelessly tearing apart her house, screaming threats at her and her mother, gun held to her temple as their fists left holes in the walls and bruises on her mothers skin. She shuddered and hoped the rest of the gang hadn't noticed, but she could see the pity in John B's eyes as they reconnected with her own.

"They chased after us, and they were shooting at us too. We managed to escape them, and when we got back on land I looked in the bag, and all that was in it was the compass. My dads compass. It's a Routledge family heirloom, and your dad had it."

His tone held accusatory, though she couldn't blame him for it. It was a mystery to even her as to why or how her father had gotten hold of the compass, and she knew John B wanted answers just as much as she did. Haley felt almost guilty that she couldn't give him any as she spoke up, “I didn't know anything about it, I swear. The first time I've even heard of it was today when those guys showed up. I'm sorry, John B."

Said boy nodded, seemingly believing her as he sent a small smile her way, reassuring her. “Anyways, that's why me and JJ went to your place, I just wanted to know if maybe you or your mom knew anything about it or why your dad had it," he shrugged a shoulder, trying to come off as non-chalant. "And that's when we saw those guys again. I'm sorry about that, by the way."

She shrugged too, an expression of what-you-gonna-do on her face. Though she desperately wanted to know more about the compass, and why it could be so important to the thugs, she withheld her questions for the moment, deciding they could come later.

"And then they arrived at mine," John B revealed. Haley’s yes widened in surprise at the sudden revelation, churning of fear twisting at her gut. "They did the exact same at my place that they did to yours; tore the whole place apart, looking the compass I guess."

JJ burst then - Haley jumped as his voice echoed in the van, much more louder than what John B's had been, excitement lacing his tone as he began to recite the story of the two thugs and their mission of tearing John B's poor beloved Chateau apart, hands gesturing wildly around him.

"Yeah, they were fucking crazy man! We were all locked in Big John's office, no way out apart from the window that was fucking painted shut. We could hear them, taunting us, y'know. Like, 'you better not be in there', they even knew John B's name!" JJ rambled, excitable expression painted on his boyish features. "They come in, guns-a-blazing and we're all tryna figure out how the hell to get out of there, before we finally manage to open the window and hide in the fucking chicken coop of all places. It was fucking insane, man. I had to kill a hen just so we could make it out alive."

Haley blinked at that, her jaw dropping slightly as she tried to process all the information he'd thrown at her all within a minute. JJ calmed down from his passionate retale, chest heaving slightly as he took in her dazed expression, sea blue eyes catching hers and holding them. Kiara said his name in a warning tone from the passenger seat, and he snapped out of his stare-off with the olive skinned girl, but she was still looking at him in disbelief.

"That's basically it," John B said from the front of the van, though his face held a slight grimace at his best friends rather dramatic recite. "But yeah, they practically stripped my dads office bare. They took everything, all of his books, research, everything about the Royal Merchant."

If anybody had noticed her sudden stiff posture at the mention of the Merchant, they never spoke on it. The Royal Merchant. Something Haley was all too familiar with. It had been something of a fascination to her father for a while, especially in the weeks leading up to his death. She just thought it was a weird hobby, a strange interest of his that she never really thought much of. It was nice to see her dad passionate about something, she’d thought. No matter how strange she believed it to be, he had a hobby and she was happy for him. But, sitting in the back of John B. Routledge's van, surrounded by a group of teenaged Pogues, one of which she was were all too familiar with, to put it simply, her throat tightened.

Surely the Royal Merchant couldn't have had anything to do with her dad, right? She was just thinking too much, more than likely. But something in the back of her mind was nagging, unforgiving as the thoughts whirled in her head.

"But before the guys showed up, we found something," she focused back her attention as John B continued. "There's something engraved on the compass. Redfield. It's my dads handwriting, he must have put it there for me, before he disappeared."

Haley shared a glance with JJ as John B said the word. Disappeared. Ever the hopeful, yearning boy. She couldn't doubt his wish, she wished for nothing more for her dad to appear back in her life - but she knew that hers was dead, officially. How could she forget, she saw his lifeless eyes every time she closed hers.

But John B didn't have that, he never knew, really, if his father was truly dead or alive. The records said so, but he'd refused to sign them, or so she heard. He was still hopeful, so certain that his dad would just appear back at the Chateau one day, like he'd never disappeared in the first place. But Haley - and many others - were realistic, and the reality was there was very little to no chance that Big John Routledge was alive.

(Her heart broke for the boy.)

She tuned out the rest of the conversation for the remainder of the drive, her head leaning back on the cool metal of the wall as she closed her eyes and allowed her mind to wander with all the possibilities. Could the Royal Merchant really have been a factor in her dads death? She couldn't shake the feeling, as she could hear vaguely the conversation of the gang. John B insisting that his dad was leading him on a mission, Kiara trying to be supportive but anyone could pick up on the doubt in her voice, Pope piping up with rather unhelpful scenarios like Big John having been kidnapped, (Haley had rolled her eyes), and JJ adding his input, multitasking with rolling a blunt. (She’d rolled her eyes harder.)

The thing was, Haley and the Maybank boy had a little deal going on. She could remember the exact day it had begun, at an infamous Pogue kegger, the sun having set and leaving the sky coloured in perfect hues of pink, purple and yellow. It had been a beautiful night, she had to admit. The party had gone strong to the early hours of the morning, and she’d somehow found herself leaving with JJ Maybank. He'd approached her after she witnessed him striking out with a Touron, (surprisingly), eyes narrowing at her when she’d let out a giggle at his misfortune. He had been hostile at first, demanding what she was laughing at, grinning slightly when she informed him simply 'you'.

The rest of the night had been spent in each others company, and Haley could recall the exact moment where they were dancing closely, bodies pressed tight against each other, her arms thrown over his shoulders and wrapped around his neck, his own around her waist, fingers digging into her hips. Their breath mingled together, his forehead leaning against her own, and she’d expected the moment his lips fell on herd, slightly chapped but impossibly soft against her own as they danced in a passionate embrace that secretly took her breath away. She’d let him lead her to John B's Chateau across the beach, hand gripped in one another’s, as he pressed her to every surface until they managed to stumble their way into the spare bedroom.

She had told herself the next morning that it would only be a one time thing. Haley wasn’t one for random hook-ups, not that no one had tried to coax her into one. She was kinda known amongst the island as being this untouchable, obtainable person that nobody could ever get close to. She wasn’t sure what it was about her that made everyone label her as this being - maybe it was the fact that she was a loner and didn’t stick to one friendship group and spent most of her time to herself, maybe it was the fact that people thought she was weird because her dad was known to be such a loser (God rest his soul), or maybe it was the fact that she skateboarded around town morning till dawn, earphones plugged in and music blasting so loud that passerby’s could hear every word clearly.

The point was, she wasn’t known for getting close to anyone. And yet, she had found herself drifting back to JJ Maybank many other nights after that first one, and that’s where their little deal came into play.

But that's where it began, and also where it ended. Hers and JJ's relationship (if you could even call it that) never went beyond that. Random hook-ups here and there, whenever JJ struck out with a Touron and found himself soughting Haley out amongst the crowd to fill the space in his bed. Of course they were always friendly with each other, they’d known each other for so long, that it would have been silly not to continue being friendly. But they never hung out, not with his group, not with him alone apart from their many nights of endeavours, until now, she supposed. She thought it might have been weird, and she thought correct. Neither of them really looked at each other head-on, the air awkward and thick as the driving continued.

Haley was thankful when John B seemed to finally arrive at his destination, and she leaned forward with Pope to glance out the window, spotting the tall lighthouse stood proud in front of the group. Redfield, the name was written boldly on display.

"Redfield Lighthouse," John B spoke. "My dads favourite place."

She clambered from the van as the rest of the guys did, gazing up at the high building with her hand shielding her eyes from the bright sun from where they all gathered at the clearing. John B turned to face JJ. "Right, you're gonna post up and look out for bogeys, okay?"

JJ's eyebrows furrowed as he demanded, "Wait, why me?" His expression only darkened when Pope informed he wasn't to go in the Lighthouse, Haley watching from the sidelines, unsure where to put herseld in the situation. "Why?" He continued to argue.

Pope grabbed hold of JJ's shoulders. "There are independent and dependent variables, you're an independent variable-" he tried to explain but was quickly cut off as JJ began to yell over his words. "We don't know what you'll do!"

"Shut up!"

Haley awkwardly scuffed her boots on the ground as Kiara sent her a small smile from ahead of the boys, rolling her eyes dramatically when Haley caught them. She smiled at the gesture, once again appreciative of her presence. "Listen to me for a second," John B cut in their argument, stepping forward. "Pope, you stand look out with JJ, okay?" The pair in questioned seemed reluctant, but both nodded at John B's persistent glare. The tall brunette turned to her next, gaze softening immensely when he caught sight of her uncertain posture. "Do you mind keeping an eye out here?"

She shook your head immediately, sending him a reassuring nod. "Yeah, sure. That's fine by me. Heights aren't really my thing anyway," she told him as she looked up at the Lighthouse, nausea hitting at a slight force when she stared at the very top of the building amongst the blue sky. "Yeah, I'm good here."

He nodded back at her, a thankful smile on his lips. "If we split up, we meet back at JJ's house." He spoke, directing the words to the whole group. They all nodded their agreement.

"Great." Kie finalised, shooting Haley one last small smile before her and John B began to walk off, jumping the small fence that blocked their path, their stride quickly entering them into the lighthouse. Haley exhaled as they disappeared into the door, and moved her gaze to return on the two boys she was stuck with.

"I'm gonna work on my merit scholarship essay." Pope informed, before he turned and entered back into the van, leaving her and JJ stood on the outside of it, alone and deadly quiet. She looked at the golden haired boy as he pulled out a happy sack from his pocket, beginning to kick it around with his booted foot.

Haley sighed as she leaned on the passenger side door, her teeth biting down on her watermelon flavoured chapstick covered lip as she stared at the grass beneath her feet, her mind racing. A thud caught her attention and she glanced in the direction of where it had come from, a happy sack laying at her feet. She looked back up to JJ, who sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Um, sorry about that."

She huffed out a small laugh, bending down and snatching the sack from the floor. "You don't have to apologise to me JJ," she said softly. Throwing the sack back to him, his large hands reached out and cupped it, bringing it back to his chest. “I'm sorry about this, y'know, gatecrashing your friends' little adventure."

JJ's lips quirked, his muscular arm reaching back and throwing the sack into the air, Haley catching it and holding his eyes. "You're not gatecrashing anything," he assured. In the sunlight, his skin cast a golden glow. "And 'sides you deserve to be here. You're looking for just as much answers as John B is."

"I'm not sure about that," Haley told him and threw the sack to him. "I mean, I'm looking for answers, of course. That's why I'm here. But I'm pretty sure John B needs them more than I do," she glanced at the lighthouse momentarily. "I know what happened to my dad, pretty much. He died while being out in the storm, I know that, I just don't know why he was out in the storm or what he was even up to in the weeks leading up to it. John B doesn't even know for sure if his dad is dead or alive." She shuddered at the thought, shaking her head. "He deserves answers way more than me."

JJ nodded, tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek as he paused in throwing the sack back towards her, looking at her small figure thoughtfully. "Do you think they could be connected?" He asked suddenly. Haley stared at him, confusion painted on her face. "Your dads, I mean. Yours and John B's. Do you think they could be connected, like your dads death and JB's dads disappearance?"

She stopped. Could they be, really? She had to admit she thought about it in the van on the journey there, but as quickly as it came it passed. To her knowledge, her dad and Big John didn't really know each other - of course they knew each other, but they didn't mix, or so she believed. But her mind replayed the moment John B mentioned the Royal Merchant, the way her stomach had filled with dread immediately, and she had the sinking feeling that it was very possible that what JJ was hinting at could be true.

"I don't know, maybe," she said instead, not wanting to voice her thoughts. JJ nodded thoughtfully, finally throwing her the sack back. She caught it, and repeated the process back to him again.

"I am sorry, though. About your dad," JJ's voice was soft, careful as he watched her pause, taking in his words. "I was gonna say more before, but with the guys... I know how much he meant to you."

Haley smiled gently, a sudden flutter in her chest alarming her as she nodded appreciatively at his words. "Thank you, JJ," she said quietly, sincerely. "It means a lot."

JJ nodded too, chapped lips pulling into an uncertain half-grin. "And I just wanted to say as well, that uh, I don't want things to be like, weird between us or anything," he stated awkwardly, clearing his throat. Haley almost laughed at the look on his face. "I mean, like, with us hooking up and stuff-"

"It won't be weird," Haley quickly interrupted him, grin overtaking the features of her face despite her better thoughts. "It was just hooking up, right? Not like we're exes or anything. No need to make it weird."

"Right," JJ voiced his agreement. Head full of long blonde locks nodding along at her words, dimples winking at her as they made an appearance in his cheeks when he smiled. "Not making it weird. Here's to that."

She laughed as the happy sack landed in her hands, holding it there as she squinted in the sun, grin cheeky as she gazed at him from her small distance. "Yeah, we'll just have to pretend we've never seen each other naked." She joked as she finally threw him his toy back.

The golden haired boy returned her smile, eyes mischievous as they made a show to glance at her figure from head to toe. "Trust me, I'll have to pretend a lot more beyond that to stay civil."

And before she could even think to voice her thoughts of Fuck, how did that almost kinda turn you on, a sudden and loud blare of a familiar siren startled, Haley’s and JJ's eyes widening as they met, a panicked expression matching in their features.

"Shit!" Haley uttered as JJ dropped the happy sack, her head turning to catch sight of the impending police car making its way towards where they were parked. She quickly glanced to the lighthouse, her heart dropping when she saw no sign of John B or Kiara, JJ grabbing her by the arm suddenly and practically dragging her into the van in the passenger seat, him running to occupy the drivers as Pope's head popped up between the seats, questioning them both erratically. She could give him no answers however, having no idea what had prompted the police to arrive. Haley had no time to think about what could have happened as JJ slammed his foot down, peeling out of the grassy area and away from the scene. "What about John B and Kie?"

"They'll be fine," JJ assured her, though they were empty words. He had no clue what had happened either, or if his friends would make it out and away from the lighthouse in time, but he still reached over and squeezed Haley’s knee gently when he saw her worried look. He caught her gaze and held it. "They'll be fine."

She could only hope that was true.

It was hours later when Haley and the Pogues gathered around John B's kitchen table, deadly silent as everyone processed what had just transpired.

She’d had JJ and Pope drop her off at home after escaping the police at the lighthouse, aware that she had been gone a long while and her mother was probably sick with worry by that point. If she wasn’t home within the hour, Haley had no doubt that she would have the police patrolling the streets, searching for her. When she toldthe boys this, they chuckled as she ordered them to park around the corner from her home, not wanting her mother to spot her leaving the van. She’d told them to call her when they heard from either John or Kiara, and they'd both agreed as she climbed from the van and walked the familiar path to her house.

Sure enough, Lana practically collapsed into her when she’d entered. Her arms were wrapped around Haley so tightly as they squeezed all the air out of her lungs, her mothers voice in her ear a jumbled mess of words laced in a frantic tone. Haley assured her she was fine, that no harm was done, and that she had just gone for a walk around the Outer Banks. Lana seemed hesitant, but had allowed Haley to ease her worries as she led her towards the couch and sat her down, letting her mom hold her for as long as she needed to assure her mind that she were really okay.

Haley felt almost bad, seeing her in such a panicked state. But then she remembered if she had just answered her questions truthfully instead of hiding everything from her than she wouldn't be sneaking around in the first place. And then the guilt subsided, if only a little. (Haley still felt awful.)

It was a couple of hours after that when a knock had sounded on her bedroom window. She had startled, her heart racing as she wondered who the hell could be knocking on her window, at night, too. She almost very nearly didn't go towards it, in fear of the two faces of the men from earlier that day greeting her, but she’d exhaled a sigh of relief when her eyes landed on the face of JJ Maybank.

"Care for a late night drive?" He'd asked, and she’d rolled her eyes. His grin never faltered as he watched her put on her boots, checking in on her mother and determining if the coast was clear to sneak out, before she’d climbed from her window, thankful that the house was only one story as she did so. Despite that fact, JJ's hands still gripped her hips as he helped her (though he didn't have to) down from the window.

She’d felt instant relief when she spotted Kiara and John B sat in the van, having resumed their earlier positions. Kie grinned at her as she got in the back along with JJ and Pope, who smiled at her also, as Haley began to question the both of them on what had happened after they’d fled the scene.

They'd been caught, of course. But they'd also been released, and that was the main thing. Haley decided to focus on the positives as John B drove them all off, this time to a cemetery of all places - leading the way towards a specific grave that he informed them all was his great-great grandmother, Olivia Redfield. Her maiden name, apparently.

And of fucking course inside that crypt was a white FedEx envelope, addressed to Bird, which they would later discover was actually John B's nickname given to him by his dad, who'd actually left the envelope there - hoping one day that his son would find it. (Because of fucking course Big John would do that.)

The pieces to the puzzle were all coming together, bit by it, slowly but surely. They’d all returned to the Chateau upon the discovery of the envelope, which contained a map, the sight very familiar. (The Royal Merchant, of fucking course it was.) And there was a very obvious X displayed on it too, X marks the spot. Along with that, a tape recorder fell into the palm of John B's hand.

"Dear Bird," the voice had started, vaguely familiar to Haley’s ears. There was no question as to who the voice belonged to - Big John Routledge was speaking directly into the room, all five teenagers gathered around listening intently. "I didn't expect to find the Merchant either."

Haley’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, her breath catching in her throat as she glanced at JJ who was beside her, his own face a perfect replica of confusion and amazement.

"There she is, the wreck of the Merchant. If something happens to me, finish what I started." Big John's voice continued to fill the deafening silence of the room. "Go for the gold, kid. I love you, Bird, even if I didn't always act like it. I'll see you on the other side."

The recorder clicked off after that, once again silence engulfing the room. Haley felt her stomach churn, her heartbeat to quicken, her palms beginning to sweat. She couldn't believe it. Big John Routledge had gone and found the Royal Merchant. The Royal Merchant, of which her own father had spent months obsessing over. The Royal Merchant, as in the ship that had sunk over two hundred years ago. The Royal Merchant, in which had bought her and this ragtag group of misfits together.

They all littered around the pontoon close to John B's house, beers in hand as Kie strummed softly on her ukulele, the night air a welcome comfort to Haley’s clammy skin, her heart having still not calmed from when she’d first come to the realisation that Big John had found the Royal Merchant, and now she was joining the Pogues on finishing what he had started - for her own father, she thought as she looked towards the stars in the summer nights sky, smiling softly up at them. For you, dad.

"How much was it again?" JJ broke the silence, the golden haired boy seated closest to her.

"Four hundred mil," John B reminded, though he said it dreamily, almost as if he still couldn't quite believe it. She couldn't, either, in all honesty. Five teenagers, about to charge head-first into a treasure hunt? They had to be crazy. But for four hundred million, anyone would be.

JJ's head turned at rapid speed, before he let out a sigh and clasped his hands together, looking between them all. "Alright, let's talk the split. Now, before we say 'evenly' may I remind you that I am the only one that can properly defend us from those groupers who were after us," he branded the gun, waving it around as he spoke. "Protection? Not cheap, okay?"

"Technically, that should be my gun," Haley pointed out, shrugging a shoulder and smiling cheekily when he turned to glance over at her, frown etched on his lips. "You said so yourself, remember?"

"You said you didn't want it!" He protested instantly.

She licked her lips as she teased him, "Well, maybe I changed my mind."

JJ shook his head, tongue running over his teeth as he stared at her in disbelief, though his smile was enough to let her know he found humour in her actions. "You don't just get backsies on a gun," he deadpanned.

Haley rolled your honey coated eyes as Pope quickly interrupted the two of them. “You haven't trained," he directed towards JJ. "You've done zero training."

"YouTube, bro!" JJ countered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "This," he pointed to the gun. "Is at least a five percent bump right there."

The group collectively ignored him, though Haley sent him a smirk when he looked at her, an expression of am-I-right or am-I-right on his pretty face. Kie tilted her head towards Pope. "What are you gonna do with your eighty mil, Pope?" She questioned.

"Pay for college in advance," the boy answered immediately. "And also, textbooks. Those are expensive."

Haley couldn't help but smile at him, Pope, ever the thoughtful one. She knew if she had half the brains Pope had she’d probably be the exact same as him - planning ahead, working towards college more than anything. She admired the boy, truly. But her future wasn't nearly as bright as Pope's, she was aware of that. Which made the desire to find that treasure from the Royal Merchant all that more huge.

"What about you, Haley?” She was broken from her thoughts as Kie suddenly directed her words to the other girl, raising an expectant brow as she came to, noting the rest of the gang all looking at her with similar expressions.

What would she do with her money? Honestly, she had no idea. She felt incredibly lucky to even be considered to get a share of it, given that she had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, demanding answers about her dead dad and the damned compass that had started it all in the first place. She’d questioned the guys immediately after the discovery of Big John's reveal, telling them that she was totally okay with not getting a share, had even told them she’d back off and leave them to it, though so many more questions needed answering in her mind. But they'd all immediately disagreed, letting her know that she were apart of this just as much as they all were. This was her journey, too.

"Move me and my mom out of our shitty house," Haley decided. "Get a huge ass house on Figure Eight, buy anything that we wanted. Treat her to everything she could have ever dreamed of. Maybe buy a holiday home in Italy, visit there every year and have a holiday romance with an insanely hot Italian guy."

Her and Kiara shared a giggle at that, missing the way the blonde beside her shifted almost uncomfortably, eyes downcast towards the water for a second before he licked his lips, proclaiming loudly, "I know what I'll do. I'm gonna get a big ass house on Figure Eight, and go full Kook," JJ announced, eyes meeting hers and sending her a wink. "We can be neighbours."

Haley laughed outright, shaking her head at his dramatics as he continued. "Gonna get a marble statue of myself, and then I'm gonna get a koi pond, put a bunch of those fish-"

"I'm never visiting." Kie mumbled, interrupting his sentence as they all shared a laugh, gazes suddenly turning to John B who hadn't spoken in a while, the tanned brunette simply staring off into space, almost seemingly lost in his world.

"What about you, John B?" He looked back towards the four of them sprawled out on the pontoon, his eyes catching Haley’s own for a millisecond, the pair of them understanding exactly what was going through both their minds in that moment.

"To going full Kook," he raised the hand that held his beer, the group of Pogues wasting no time in following the action, all their hands raising, beer cans glinting under the moonlight as they all exclaimed, "To going full Kook!" into the summer nights air, the excitement and anticipation present in all of their voices.

And she grinned as she clinked her beer with JJ's, the blonde throwing a careless arm over her shoulder as he tugged her closer to him; Haley’s own naturally wound around his waist in return as they all laughed and joked into the night, the promise of an adventure and bright future's ahead of them all.

She failed to notice that their arms never really left each other until later that night, when her departure from the gang forced her to unwind her limbs from his, their gazes catching, secret smiles on both their faces.

Oh, this would be fun.

232 notes · View notes

somethinginthewayiam · 4 years ago

Text

The universe can be a bitch (Part 2/2)

(this is a continuation of Nightcap)

Pairing: Sebstian Stand x OFC

Warnings: alcohol, smut

Words: 5448

Summary: The rest of the day goes by rather smoothly, but when Anna finally arrives at her hotel, she found Anthony, Chris and Sebastian in the hotel bar as they are staying at the same hotel she is. Anthony can convice her to join them for drinks. She tries to ignore him to her best ability but Sebastian has his own ideas...

Previous chapters: Part 1

tag list:

@himynamebel00 @obliviatevamps

Anna arrived back at her guests’ dressing room just in time. The good thing about being late, it gave you no time to think too much about the things you were doing or had just happened in an office across the venue.

“Alright, gentlemen. Good to see you all found your way back after lunch. It’s now time for your signing booths and as a great finish to this day, we have your panel”, she told them and waited in the open door for the three men to walk out and get going.

“Nice choice with the top there”, Sebastian said as he walked past her. “Shut up”, she rolled her eyes and looked at her printouts once again. “Trouble in paradise?”, Anthony asked with a pulled up eyebrow and seemed to enjoy this little back and forth. “It would feel like a paradise to me if you all would get going to your signings already”, she said with a fake smile and led the way through the hall towards the big door out to the general area.

Right at the door, Melvin was waiting for them to accompany the Civil War group through the fans. “Better?”, she asked him with a little side look. “Way better”, Melvin said with an approving nod and held his left fist up for a fist bump. She smashed her knuckles against his and couldn’t hold back a laugh.

Melvin really was one of the funnier security guards she had worked with in the last few years. He did a great job in guiding them through the crowds that gathered as soon as the men came closer without being too rough or pushing people aside. But to be fair, the fans were behaving really well.

Anna allocated her protégées to their signing booths and when she saw that everything was going smoothly, she walked over to the hall where they would have the panel to see if they were ready for them. People already started to gather at the entrances and were soon to be let in. She already saw that this was going to be a big crowd.

Anna couldn’t imagine speaking in front of such a crowd, let alone being funny and witty like Anthony was when she watched him speak about 90 minutes later from the side of the stage. He was sitting on a couch next to Sebastian and Chris was sitting in a big chair to Sebastian’s left. The interviewer was great as well, especially when he pulled out a bag of plums as a joke Anna didn’t get because she hadn’t seen the movie, but everybody cheered and laughed. Sebastian was taking a big bite of a plum and the juice was dripping over his lip onto his chin. Anna caught herself staring and wanting to lick the juice right off his skin.

Anna coughed and quickly looked away to calm herself down again. She felt her cheeks blushing. It had never happened to her that a man could do this to her without even touching or at least talking to her. He was just sitting up there, talking to the crowd or his fellow actors and friends and the way he did it, with such confidence, excitement and pure joy made her want to…ride him until he screamed her name.

Jesus Christ, what was she thinking? She really needed some fresh air. And a drink. She really needed a drink!

Outside the hall, Anna ran into Susan and they had a quick chat about the day so far and the work at such an event to get her mind off things until they heard the final applause from inside. Anna went back in just as the three actors finished the last photographs on stage and greeted them behind the curtains when they came off stage.

“Great panel, you guys. The crowd loved you”, she smiled into the little circle they had formed. “This actually marks the end of today. You’re free to go and I will see you tomorrow at 10 am”, she said and felt like a teacher dismissing her class. “It was nice to meet you, Anna”, Anthony said and hugged her goodbye. Anna was a bit surprised by that but hugged him back. Anthony was a really loveable guy and you immediately liked him when you met him. Chris hugged her as well and thanked her for her work today.

If he actually knew how hard she had worked all day long to contain herself around Sebastian and to do her job…

Then it was down to Sebastian. “Good job today”, she said to him which was the truth. “No hug?”, he playfully pouted and opened his arms. She wanted to say no but she knew it would look weird and more suspicious than if she just did it. “Of course”, she said and tried to put on a professional smile. She kept it short and almost jumped away from him when it was over.

“Okay, see you tomorrow”, she waved at the three of them and walked over to the employees area since Amber was here to escort them out, which Anna was very happy about.

While all the guests and the first fans started to leave, the staff, including Anna, had a meeting to talk about today and the next and final convention day. New schedules and printouts were handed out and after long 80 minutes everybody was dismissed.

“Now let’s get you to your hotel, you poor thing look like you could use some sleep”, Susan said to Anna and patted her shoulder. Just when Susan said that to her, Anna felt how tired she actually was and she couldn’t wait to get to the hotel and sleep until the next morning.

They got Annas suitcase and hopped into the next free cab they could find. Susan told the driver where to go and Anna almost fell asleep in the soft cushions of the backseat.

She must have actually drifted off because she felt like the cab had just took a left turn and then Susan told her that they have arrived. “I’m meeting with some friends from the convention for drinks later, if you want to join, you’re more than welcome”, Susan said as they walked through the doors of the hotel.

Before Anna could answer, she had to cover her mouth with her hand because of a big yawn that came just at the right moment. “Oh, poor thing, where is my head? You clearly just want to go to bed”, Susan shook her head over her own stupid question. “You just quickly check in and then straight to bed, okay?”, she said and held Anna an arm length away, with her hand on her shoulders. “That’s the plan”, Anna smiled and then hugged Susan goodbye. While Anna walked towards the reception, Susan quickly went to the elevators to change and then go back out again.

Anna received her key card, grabbed the handle of her suitcase and walked over to the elevators. She pushed the button and waited for one of the doors to open. “Hey Anna”, she heard behind her and turned around. She didn’t even notice the entrance to the bar of the hotel before, but now Anthony was coming towards her right out of that very door.

“Hey, Anthony”, she greeted him, kind of relieved that it was just him. “I didn’t know you were staying here as well”, he said and hugged her. “I didn’t know it myself until now. My colleague just brought me here, didn’t have time to check in this morning”, she explained. “Me and the guys are having drinks, come join us”, Anthony offered. The guys? Sebastian was here as well? Of course he was staying at the same hotel. She had to concentrate really hard not to roll her eyes.

“That’s really nice, but I’m very tired. I’m glad I’m not falling asleep standing here”, she said and hoped he would not try any longer to invite her for a drink. Well, he didn’t get the memo…

“Come on, just one drink. I think we all could use one after today. See it as a nightcap”, he suggested and stood in front of her with an inviting gesture towards the bar. Nightcap…if this one turned out like the last one she had, she wouldn’t get much sleep this night either. She wanted to say no again but somehow she knew he wouldn’t give up and she didn’t have the power to hold against him. Also Anna really craved a drink.

“Alright, just give me 5 minutes to get my suitcase up to my room and freshen up”, she sighed and just at that moment, the elevator arrived to take her up to her room. “And don’t you dare cop out, I’ll find you and drag you down myself”, he joked but Anna wasn’t too sure about it. She was 90 percent sure that he would actually do it.

“Yeah, yeah, just order me a drink…anything with alcohol will be fine”, she said and had to smile when she saw Anthonys satisfied face that he was able to convince her to join their little after work drinking. What was the worst that could happen? Both of them had to behave in front of Chris and Anthony and she really needed him to.

Anna got up to her room and tried not to pay too much attention to the comfortable looking bed in front of her and walked right into the bathroom to remove her make-up and wash her face with cold water to wake her up a bit. She brushed her hair and put on just a little mascara to look alive. She then changed her clothes to a blue top and a white knee long skirt. Anna was glad she had a second pair of high heels with her. She would have loved to wear her sneakers but that would look just stupid with the skirt. And to know that Sebastian was down there, she at least wanted to look decent.

She grabbed her keycard and when she was about to leave the room, caught her reflection in the mirror by the door. A little lipstick couldn’t hurt. Anna rushed back to the bathroom, applied a berry colored lipstick and then finally left her room.

Downstairs at the bar, she looked over the room with a searching view and discovered Anthonys face at a table in the back corner. She walked over and he saw her first. “Anna, I’m glad you actually came”, he said and got up to greet her with hug and let her slide onto the bench of the booth. “I didn’t dare to stay away”, she laughed and sat down. She ended up sitting in the middle of Anthony and Chris, which she greeted with a little sitting hug, and Sebastian was sitting across the table from her. She just gave him a nod and a little mouthed Hey.

“We ordered you a drink. Sebastian recommended a Jack Daniels”, Anthony said and placed a glass with brown liquor in front of her. “I thought you might like it”, Sebastian said with a flirty voice before he took a sip from his own drink. “I came to like it recently”, she said and looked straight at Sebastian when she took her first sip, remembering how she tasted it on his lips the last time. He looked right back, with a smug grin on his face, basically eyefucking her. Chris and Anthony exchanged some looks that Anna and Sebastian didn’t even notice.

“So, Anna, tell us a bit about yourself”, Anthony said and turned himself a bit to face her. “Is this a job interview?”, Anna laughed, happy that she could distract herself by looking at Anthony. “No, no, but we don’t know anything about you and you probably know anything about us”, he explained. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I know a few things; just the basics really”, she waved off. “Where do you come from?”, he kept asking. “Originally, I’m from Chicago, but I moved to New York for work with my sister when I was twenty, that was…ah, 7 years ago”, she told him. “Sebastian lives in New York too. It’s a miracle you two didn’t run into each other at some point”, he said and threw a little side look to his friend.

Anna turned her head as well for a second and caught Sebastian rolling his eyes. “It’s still New York, I don’t think that’s a miracle at all”, Chris joined the conversation. “Yes, I think so too”, Anna laughed and looked at Chris. “You’re from Boston, right? My brother in law is from there”, she said. “Oh really?”, he asked with honest interest, at least it seemed to her. “Yes, he’s a great guy, but that seems to be Boston number one’s export”, she joked and Chris actually blushed a bit.

She took a quick look at Sebastian to see his reaction about her flirting with his friend. He just looked at her with a light grin on his face like he was saying, “Nice try”.

“They got married 4 years ago and moved to New Jersey. A year later their daughter Rebecca arrived and last month we celebrated little Nicky’s first birthday”, she told them and didn’t know why she gave them the life story of her sister Marissa. Probably to avoid talking about herself because there was really nothing to tell.

Apart from last night, there wasn’t happening anything exciting or remotely interesting in her life. And that’s although she was meeting a lot of rich and sometimes actually famous people at the events she worked at.

“Is she your older sister?”, Anthony asked. “She’s actually two years younger and I hear that every time I go back home. For my mother, having your life together, means having a husband and kids”, she said and looked down at her drink which she took a big sip of. She started to like that drink and not just because of what or whom she associated it with.

“Oh I get that. Both my sisters are married and the oldest has 3 kids and my mom keeps reminding me that I’m not getting any younger”, Chris said and took a sip from his beer. “Oh no”, Anna laughed and felt weirdly connected to Chris because of their moms.

They kept on talking a bit more about their mothers and siblings and then moved on to Annas job in New York and she told them a bit about some weird guest requests or ones that were hard to handle.

The waiter had just brought her second drink, a Cosmopolitan, her absolute favorite, with a little piece of lime on the edge of the glass.

Anna felt more comfortable around Sebastian, probably due to the alcohol she had consumed without having something to eat, but she felt good. Actually she felt a little flirty and this time she directed it towards Sebastian to see what he would do with it.

While Anthony and Chris told a story from shooting the last Captain America movie, Anna looked at Sebastian when she took a sip of her drink. When she put her glass down again, she took the lime and put it up to her mouth. Just like after a shot of tequila, she put her lips around the fruit and sucked the juice out of its flesh. Little splashes of it dropped down her chin and she licked her lips to catch it. Sebastian, who had been leaning back in his chair, sat up straight and rested his elbows on the table, leaning closer to her. With her thumb, she caught the drops off her chin and sucked them off. Sebastian licked his lips as a reply to it.

“Alright, it’s getting pretty late, I think I’m gonna go to bed”, Chris said and ripped Anna out of her stare. She didn’t even notice that the two had stopped talking. She was weirdly embarrassed and looked down to hide her blushing face. “You’re right, it’s late. I should go to bed too”, she hastily said and didn’t dare to look at Sebastian again to not make him take it as an invitation. “No, stay, your drink is still half full”, Chris waved it off and almost pushed her back down onto her seat.

“Anthony, you’re tired too, right? Accompany me to the elevators”, Chris said and looked at him very intensively. “Nah, I’m good”, he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Anna and then Sebastian with a big grin. “That wasn’t a suggestion”, Chris said through clenched teeth, still trying to hold up his smile. Sebastian dropped his head, clearly getting what his friends or more like just Chris, was trying to do.

Anthony got up very unwillingly and Chris and he hugged her goodbye. Anna lightly shook her head as she watched them walk away. “Did you tell them about us?”, she asked with an angry look on her face. Tomorrow would be one hell of a day!

“I didn’t need to. You were basically sucking that piece of lime dry while eye-fucking me, right here. And I happen to know you're not too bad at this sort of thing”, he smirked and took a sip from his drink. Anna rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up”, she sighed.

“I don’t get why you’re still trying to convince yourself that you don’t like me”, he said and leaned back in his seat again. “It’s because I don’t like you, we just shared a…night together”, she responded and had to hold back a descriptive word like awesome, mind-blowing or orgasmic.

“If that doesn’t make you like me, what will?”, he joked and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m working at the Wizard World which makes you a client. My contract actually forbids me to like you”, she said and took another sip from her drink. “You’re off work right now”, he held against it and thought that this was reason enough.

It started to make her mad that he was taking everything so lightly. It annoyed her so much because she would love to be able to forget about her work ethics and just give in to him but she just didn’t do stuff like this. She has always been the good girl. If she had known that Sebastian was a client, she would never have let him into her room last night, let alone her pussy.

But god, those blue eyes and the way he was looking at her…she would really love to give in…just one last time…

She grabbed her glass and emptied it with one sip. “You’re right, that’s why I go to bed”, she said determined, grabbed her keycard and scooted out of the booth. Sebastian dropped his head with a huff.

When Anna was like two steps away, she turned around and said, “Are you coming or what?” and then started walking towards the elevators. Sebastians head shot up and he looked at her with surprise that quickly turned into a dirty smile, but Anna just kept on walking and didn’t even see his reaction. She pressed the button for the elevators and tried to calm the butterflies in her stomach. This would only count as cool if he would follow her.

Just as the doors slid open and Anna stared into an empty elevator, he suddenly spun her around and pushed her in until her back hit the mirrored wall. With a little side-bend, he pushed the button for his floor and even before the doors closed, he pressed his mouth onto hers and let his tongue slide into her mouth. Her fingers ran through his hair, pulling on them to get him even closer to her. She bit and sucked his lower lip and felt the rush of having him that close and she wanted to feel his hands all over.

Anna didn’t know what had gotten into her but she sure hoped that it would be Sebastian in a few minutes!

The elevator stopped and it took them a second to realize that the doors had opened. Sebastian let go of her mouth and took her hand. He guided her to his room. A little green light lit up when he put his key card into the lock and then the door swung open. “Just so you know, I paid for our drinks”, he said with a smirk. “Was about time”, she said as she walked into his room, turned around and kissed him again before he got the chance to close the door.

He put his hands on her ass and lifted her up. As a reaction, she wrapped her legs around his waist and he had to push the door close with his foot. Her skirt was rid up at her waist and his hands were touching her bare skin. For a second she wished she wouldn’t even wear panties right now just to see what his reaction to this discovery would have looked like.

“Remember…what you…said…to me…earlier today?”, Anna asked between kisses. Sebastian just nodded as he walked into his bedroom, carrying her on his waist. “I wanna hold you to your word”, she mumbled at his lips. Anna could feel very clearly how much he remembered their little talk at the coffee bar.

Instead of carrying her to the bed as she had assumed, he walked over to the big window that went almost from top to bottom. He put her down and spun her around. Anna supported herself on her hands pressed against the cold glass. It looked like they were pretty high up, but she was still afraid that someone could see her. But no light was switched on in his room and standing here in the dark room made it feel even more like a secret and it sure turned her on.

“Don’t turn around”, he whispered at her ear and then sucked at the soft skin behind it which caused her head to drop back onto his shoulder. His hands wandered from her sides to her front and up to the straps of her top. He pulled it straight down together with her bra, resting it on her rib cage, just enough so he had access to her breasts. He pinched her nipples hard with his fingers which caused her to gasp and stick her ass out, meeting with his crotch and his hard cock. She could feel it pulsating through his jeans.

Sebastian put one hand on her back and slowly pushed her upper body down so her ass was high up. The next second she felt his hands pull up her skirt that had went down a bit when he had put her down, all the way up until it was rolled up at her waist. With one flowing motion he pulled down her panties all the way to her ankles. She inhaled loudly as the cool air was touching her wet center, but she wasn’t able to catch a clear thought because the next moment she felt Sebastians tongue gliding through her wet folds, all the way from bottom to top. “Oh fuck”, she pressed out, arching her back and stuck her ass out even more.

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any better, she felt two fingers glide into her throbbing pussy. “Sebastian”, she hissed and leaned her forehead against the cold glass. “God, you look so hot, Anna”, he said and she could hear how hard he tried to control himself. Oh, how she wished he wouldn’t! Just when she thought he would let her come, he pulled his fingers back out and she felt cold where his mouth had been. She wanted to see his face, to touch him, but he had told her to not turn around and she really wanted to know what he was up to.

Anna heard the rustling of clothes being taken off and dropped to the floor and she bit her lower lip in anticipation. Then she heard the sound of a package ripped open. “Do you have any idea how hot you look with your ass stuck out and your panties dangling at your ankles?”, he asked and she had to close her eyes to keep her from coming right there from hearing his words.

He slightly pulled up her right foot a bit to remove her panties from one leg to spread her legs a bit further. He rubbed his rock hard cock along her drenched pussy. Without further warning he pushed all the way in, causing Anna to scream out loud. “Fuck”, he said through clenched teeth. After two, three slow strokes, he started to pick up the pace, holding her steady at her hips.

Standing in front of him, with her ass out, still in her heels, he was able to push in deep with every thrust. The room was filled with the sound of heavy breathing and their bodies smashing together. “Oh god, Sebastian, fuck me hard”, she pressed out with a moan, pushing herself further against him with her hands on the window. She didn’t even care if somebody would see them right now. She wasn’t able to form any clear thoughts in her head besides the wish for Sebastian going even deeper than he already was.

Her head was pulled back by her hair and her next moan got stuck in her throat. “Tell me what you want, babe”, he grunted close to her ear. “I want you to make me cum”, she moaned and the thing she felt wasn’t just warm, it was hot, burning hot, rapidly building up from her center, rushing over her whole body. She started to clench her walls around his hard, throbbing cock and couldn’t wait for the moment her orgasm would wash over her. Literally a second before it happened, he pulled out. “Hey!”, she spat out in confusion. He spun her around again, picked her up and let her slide right back onto his cock.

He moved forward until she had the cold glass of the window in her back which caused her to inhale loudly and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I want to see your face when you come”, he mumbled and pressed his lips against hers. She immediately opened her mouth and let in his tongue, eagerly sucking and playing with it.

“I’m going to come”, she mumbled into his mouth. Sebastian pulled his head back. He pressed her against the window while he fucked her hard and fast and Anna started to see stars. She wanted to close her eyes because she didn’t know if she had the strength to keep them open, but she knew how much it turned him on to watch her come. So she concentrated on his face, locked eyes with him, sinking into his stare, much like she was in trance. She entangled her fingers in his hair.

Anna felt her orgasm come in such big waves that her breath got caught in her throat and a deep guttural sound came out of her mouth as she came around his big, hard cock. Her nails dug deep into the skin of his shoulder. She inhaled loudly as she was able to breathe again and actually saw little stars in front of her eyes. “Oh god!”, she groaned loudly.

Sebastian carried her over to the bed and put her down without pulling out. He placed her right at the edge so he could keep standing up straight as he continued to fuck her. Anna wasn’t sure but it looked like he didn’t come yet. He held her legs up by her ankles as he pounded into her dripping pussy that was still throbbing from the orgasm. Anna pulled her shirt and bra off. Her panties must have fallen off her ankle as he had picked her up.

“You…look…so…fucking…hot”, he grunted with every thrust, his disheveled hair made him look even sexier than he already did. His face was flushed and little drops of sweat glistened on his forehead. To know that she was responsible for the way he looked right now turned her on so much and she felt that warm feeling again. She didn’t even know that it was possible, although she had heard from multiple orgasms, but she always thought that this was an invention from Sex and the City.

“Sebastian”, she just said and it sounded like she was begging. He moved slower now, almost pulling out, just to thrust back in as deep as he could. “Oh god”, she moaned. Sebastian wasn’t able to form any words. He just grunted and concentrated on not coming too early. He could feel that she was on her way to come again and definitely wanted to see that happen. He pushed her up on the bed and followed right away. He wanted to be close to her when she came again, just like before. He wanted to stare right into her eyes, feeling her melt in his arms, moaning his name.

“Come for me, Anna. Come for me”, he mumbled at her ear, his hips starting to move uncontrollably. He knew he couldn’t hold it much longer without exploding. Sebastian lowered his head and sucked her hard nipple, biting it. Annas breathing became heavier and louder and he could feel her walls tightening around him. Oh fuck!

He couldn’t hold it back any longer and pounded hard into her as he came with a loud and deep grunt. The feeling of her walls clenching around him made him come so hard like he didn’t have sex in months. It was unbelievable what this woman could do to him.

Even minutes later, both were breathing heavily, lying next to each other. Anna was still wearing her heels and her skirt was rolled up at her waist. “That was unbelievable”, she said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw how he just nodded, not ready to form any words yet.

Anna wanted to remove her shoes and skirt but she didn’t know if she was even supposed to. Last time, Sebastian left her room almost right after they were finished. Now she wondered if it was her turn to get dressed and leave.

She probably should, right now, and not drag it out until it would be embarrassing. Because tomorrow would be embarrassing enough when she was back at work.

“Don’t you want to take off your shoes? Or do you want to sleep in them?”, he suddenly asked and she looked over to him. “Do you want me to stay?”, she asked and hoped it didn’t sound too hopeful. “If you want to…I hate sleeping alone”, he said with a smirk and moved his face closer so he could kiss her gently on her lips. “I guess, I could help you with that”, she smiled and kissed him back.

Then she rolled over and got off the bed. She stepped out of her high heels and pulled down her skirt, well aware that she was full on showing her naked ass, but it was dark, just a few street lights providing the room with a soft light.

Sebastian pulled up the blanket from beneath him and held it open for Anna when she crawled back in. She cuddled up to Sebastian, resting her head on his shoulder. The little light in the room allowed her to see the bite mark she had left on him last night. She followed the little half circle with her finger. Sebastian put his hand up to touch the part of her skin where he had bitten her today. “A bite for a bite”, he said and Anna chuckled.

All of a sudden she felt very tired and worn out. Staying up that late and two orgasms really took their toll. “Goodnight, Sebastian”, she mumbled at his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist. “Goodnight, Anna”, he whispered and wrapped his arm, the one she was lying on, around her back.

She took a deep breath of his scent. She would enjoy every second of having him that close to her. It would end soon enough when they would part ways tomorrow after the Con. She also didn’t want to think about the consequences she would have to face if anyone found out about them, she would have time to deal with it tomorrow.

This moment right now belonged to her and Sebastian. She snug up to him even closer and a few moments later drifted off into a deep, well earned sleep.

#sebastian stan #the universe can be a bitch #part 2 #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan fanfiction #smut #imagine #fanfiction #sebastian stan x ofc

10 notes · View notes

ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years ago

Text

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Re-Write

(Inspired by the fantastic work of @dalekofchaos)

“Fix it” fics are a thing, yeah? Well, here’s my shot at writing one for the ninth Star Wars film. Contrary to popular opinions, I’m only going to change one or two things about the two movies beforehand, because I unironically loved both of them. But I can admit that there were mistakes, and TLJ tied up most of the loose ends, leaving it difficult to follow-up with a sequel. So, regarding Episodes eight and nine, here’s what changes.

I have exactly one change for TFA. That random ass stormtrooper who called out Finn as a traitor and inexplicably had a melee weapon that could fight lightsabers? Yeah, just make that Phasma and have done with it. I don’t understand why it wasn’t her in the first place. Also, Finn being able to wield a lightsaber isn’t “evidence” that he’s force-sensitive if you ask me. The films never confirm that non-force sensitives can’t use them. This will be important later.

Moving on to TLJ...replace that stupid milk scene with the deleted scene of Luke reacting to the news of Han’s death. I mean, come on, that’s a given. Another given, Luke uses his green lightsaber in the illusionary duel against Kylo Ren. That’s just common sense.

After Kylo Ren asserts himself and force-chokes General Hux, and the two of them depart...the camera pans in on the pieces of Snoke’s corpse, onto his face...and his eyes suddenly open. Yes, this will be important later. Somehow, Snoke survived.

I genuinely liked Vice-Admiral Holdo, but they kind of fumbled her role in the story. She was never given a reason for why she did not share her plans with the rest of the Resistance. The most popular theory being that she assumed a mole was on board, but this was never stated in the movie. In my opinion, Poe had every reason to call for mutiny based on what he knew, so the whole message/character arc of him learning to be a leader rather than a hero didn’t quite stick the landing. So how will I fix it? Simple, replace Holdo with Leia. First things first, we don’t get the superman-flying, which is just an objective improvement. We also are more inclined to trust Leia over Poe, because of the legacy the character has. We’re also going with the plot-threat there is indeed a mole. What’s more, Leia is given the sendoff she deserves with the light-speed kamikaze scene. Sure, she may be force-sensitive, but it’s clear that she chose a different path in her life and I think she should go out as a warrior, not a Jedi, because that’s what she was. General Leia. Plus, you avoid the awkward interactions with CGI Leia from the canon episode 9.

I think we can all agree that Finn deserved better, and he absolutely deserved to have the scene that was deleted, where he called out Phasma in front of her soldiers, telling them what happened in TFA, when Phasma caved so easily. This is the beginning of the Stormtrooper rebellion, and Finn is responsible for igniting the spark. He can definitely duel with Phasma, but he’s not going to win for one simple reason. The mole suddenly reveals herself and puts a blaster to his head.

Spoiler alert, the mole is Rose. The reason why could vary - perhaps she blames the resistance for the death of her sister. Perhaps the First Order captured her sister alive and is threatening her. Either way, Rose’s efforts help turn the tide and allow her and Phasma to escape. The code-breaker can still be part of the movie, but he doesn’t really matter. The Canto Bight sequence is unchanged, because I honestly don’t dislike it at all.

So who saves Finn from his attempt to follow General Leia’s example, and give his life for the cause that he now truly cares about? Poe does. This moment already causes their character arcs to intersect, with Poe being in the position Leia was in at the start of Last Jedi, Finn being in Poe’s position. Poe crashes their ships to save Finn, and because I’m #Stormpilot trash, and we deserved an onscreen LGBT relationship between leads, Poe does indeed kiss Finn. However, don’t worry about Rose. I have plans for her.

That’s about all that changes. But in the grand scene of things, most of these aren’t really issues with the film itself. But they’re necessary to set up for my idea for a Rise of Skywalker re-write. Speaking of...

The Rise of Skywalker - let’s begin with the name.

I hate this name and everything it represents. I’ve heard rumors of an alternate script where Ben Solo is not redeemed, called “Duel of Fates.” I’m not a fan of Ben not being redeemed, but I like the concept of that film name. So I’m thinking this movie will be called something like “One Last Bout” or “One Last Stand.” Something simple but effective, with the air of finality. I truly doubt Episode 9 is the end of Star Wars forever, but if we think of it as a conclusion to the first two trilogies, this can work.

The film opens with the funeral of General Leia. With Rey, Finn, and Poe (who are holding hands for sure) all standing together with Chewie, who is in shambles as we can expect. Lando is also present and he gets re-introduced. Luke’s force spirit appears and looks on, but does not reveal himself to everyone else. Likewise, pan the camera over, and we see Kylo Ren observing the service as well, out of sight. Luke makes telepathic contact with Rey, to warn her of danger, at which point both Rey and Ben double over in pain, the sound design giving us an uncomfortable high pitched screech, or something similar. There’s a disturbance in the Force. Something is returning. Something terrible. Ben is spotted, and the main trio open fire with blasters, but Ben escapes. Lando stops Rey from pursuing him, suggesting that it would dishonor Leia’s memory to do it right then and there.

Ben, on his ship, struggles with horrible pain, a serious headache. Until at last, he is telepathically contacted by a voice we do not hear. But it terrifies him, and he takes off in his ship in pursuit of it.

A scene similar to the one where the Resistance analyzes Palpatine’s message, but there is no message and there is empathically no Palpatine in this movie, though I won’t get into why that was a horrible idea right now. Never mind, Rey is simply recounting to Finn, Poe, Chewie, and Lando that there’s a disturbance in the Force. Luke’s spirit appears and warns them that a great evil that long predates their time, is returning. He disappears, explaining that he needs to await Leia as she “crosses over” and becomes one with The Force. This is the last we see of Luke in the film, because his story is over. The torch has been passed.

Ben/Kylo Ren arrives at what we saw as Exegol. I don’t mind this planet being Exegol, it was about the only new location I actually remembered from the canon film. He confronts the voice in his head, proclaiming that he will kill any threat to The First Order and it’s Supreme Leader. A familiar voice in the dark chuckles. “You have yet to finish off your predecessor. By what right do you claim his job?” Snoke leans forward, and reveals himself. A similar scene to TROS plays out but with no mention of Rey. Despite Ben’s shock, Snoke is amused. “You are not the first apprentice to try and take my life. You probably won’t be the last. I have fashioned many into tools for the Dark Side, even the Emperor himself learned at my feet. Did you think you were special? So, yes. Snoke is the final Big Bad like he should have been (Andy Serkis was robbed) and he really is Darth Plagueis because he was totally supposed to be. By means of mental torture, Snoke reassumes control of Ben and tells him to gather the Knights of Ren “Wherever you’ve hidden them” and prepare to crush the rebellion once and for all.

Instead of visiting a random planet for a lead, Lando and Chewie lead the gang back to Endor. Or it could also be Kashyyyk, I suppose. Like before, Lando and Luke were there. They spent years documenting the history of the Jedi and the Sith. This could be contained in “Holocrons” I realize they have meaning behind them in the lore, but I don’t know much, so just consider the “Holocron” to be a storage unit for information. Arriving there, we still have the scene of a local asking for Rey’s family name, but this time she’s going to stay no one like she should have. While researching, Finn expresses the theory, or more like the hope, that he might be Force-Sensitive. Rey tells him that everyone is, to an extent, but Finn clarifies that he means it the same way that Rey is. “Y’know, the way you can push stuff around and sense people’s feelings. Make stuff float.” An echo back to Rey’s line from TLJ. What I’m going for here is that Finn is not force-sensitive in the traditional way. His arc in this movie is going to be about accepting that, and realizing that he doesn’t need that to be a “hero.” He already is one, with everything he’s done. But as of right now, his insistence that he could be leads to bickering between him and Rey.

Things only get worse as Rey uncovers more about the Jedi. Sees some of the ways in which they were not the white knights that history remembers them as. Luke was right, they played no small part in creating Darth Vader. What’s more, she discovers the “Rule of Two” which has been hinted in the films but never discussed outright. The idea that there are only ever two people wielding the Dark Side, a master and an apprentice. And that the apprentice invariably kills the master to succeed them. A tradition dating back for millennia. The Sith, the practitioners of the Dark Side, always betray each other. She’s disheartened, thinking of Ben killing Snoke and how he offered her his hand. What it all would have led to in the end.

They finally discover what could be the answer - the “great evil” that is returning. A Sith lord called Darth Plaguis, who, when they bring up the hologram of him, strongly resembles Snoke. They put two and two together, reading more about Plagueis’ file. How he vanished without a trace. How he was said to have performed an unspeakable ritual in the Dark Side to allow him to control life and death itself. He could revive those he loved from death, and could not truly he killed, having become an anomaly in the Force. Only another anomaly of equal power would be able to stop him.

An ambush occurs, with assassins in masks attacking the heroes. They wield melee weapons that are not lightsabers, and they force the group to split up due to simply being outnumbered. The gang realizes that, apart from being here to kill them, they probably want that Holocron, but the Resistance must be the ones to get it. We get a similar scene to the canon film, with Chewie heading to the Millennium Falcon with the Holocron and trying to take off, to blast the assassins from the sky...but then the assassins reveal their ace card. They have force power. And they start to pull the Falcon back down. Rey struggles against them, but she’s outnumbered, still upset from everything that she’s learned, and easily angered when Finn rushes in to try and help, despite not being able to. Rey succumbs to her anger and unleashes Dark-Side lightning. Just like in the canon film. The differences? Number one, this doesn’t foreshadow any lineage for her...but importantly Chewie is actually dead, not just a fake-out. He’s dead, and the Falcon and Holocron are destroyed with him. Seriously, the emotional weight of that scene is completely drained by not having Chewie actually die there. The potential is lost, and I’m going to prove it.

Rey is appropriately mortified, shocked, and despondent. The assassins are too - they can’t believe their enemy killed one of their own just to win. Everyone is shocked, but Poe is the quickest to regain his head, dashing in and blasting at the assassins to help cover the heroes while they escape, Finn half-dragging a stunned Rey. So, everyone feels awkward about what just happened and though they believe Rey that it was an accident, it still happened and both Finn and Poe feel distant from her. Lando, understandably, is a lot less patient than them. He knew Chewie for years. His old feelings about losing Han might resurface, and he could say something about how Rey is no better than Kylo Ren, before catching himself and apologizing. At this point, Lando also departs. He needs to get back to the Resistance, because he has been named the Acting General, since Leia’s death.

Meanwhile, Poe deduces that the assassins were the mythical “Knights of Ren” rumored to be the Supreme Leader’s private army. Rey is shaken from her stupor at this news - it doesn’t make sense, it completely violates the “Rule of Two.” Could Ben still be saved? Or is it too late for him? Is it too late for her, Rey, even? Cue Ben Solo/Kylo Ren opening up the force-bond once again. A similar conversation about how they’re both uncertain of their place in the galaxy, and a confirmation that Snoke is back, and is really Plagueis. Ben reveals that he’s been ordered to kill Rey, and he apologies - he truly doesn’t want to do this, but Snoke once again has control of him, and has proven that killing him won’t matter. Rey senses terrible pain, and gets a taste of what Ben has been put through - think, like, the Cruciatus Curse. Whatever “pain” move Kylo Ren used on Poe in TFA. He learned it from Snoke, of course. Ben closes the force-bond, telling Rey to run. Run as far and as fast as she can, because he’s no longer able to take it easy on her.

Finn and Poe overhear the conversation, or at least Rey’s side of it. They hear enough to deduce who she’s talking to, and this further plants the seeds of doubt in their heads. As we see in Last Jedi, Rey doesn’t really tell people about the force-bond, so we can assume she never told her friends. The family is fracturing more and more. Rey is slipping closer and closer to the Dark Side. And all without needing to give her a bloodline. See? I told you Chewbacca’s death had potential.

They make a pit stop on Coruscant, because there’s no reason it couldn’t have been Coruscant, hiding from First Order ships. Here is where the character of Zorii originally showed up. As compelling as the performance was, she’s not going to show up here. Let’s be honest, she was only there to no-homo Finn and Poe, as well as give Poe a backstory that is apparently racist? (I’m not knowledgeable enough about this topic to comment, so let’s just throw out the whole idea.) Instead, the team is confronted by none other than Rose, the mole from TLJ. She reveals that more and more stormtroopers have been rebelling since Finn gave his speech. There’s only one faction that she is confident will never turn on the First Order - the Knights of Ren, who “seem to worship the Supreme Leader like a damn god...though, I guess he isn’t the Supreme Leader anymore, is he?” News is spreading of Snoke’s return, and Rose has the heroes cornered with a band of loyalist stormtroopers.

Finn pleads with Rose, and the other Stormtroopers, to reconsider. Here is where we outline Rose’s character. She despises everything about war. She’s intentionally attacking both sides, seeking to see both the Resistance and The First Order collapse. She has a personal vendetta against Poe and actively tries to kill him, for his role in the battle that killed her sister. Poe likewise despises Rose for having betrayed Finn. Whether Rose’s actions are tactical doesn’t really matter - she’s responding from a place of emotion, not logic. Poe, showing his growth, apologies to Rose and talks her down. Explains the situation, how dire the circumstances are. Rey chimes in and identifies with Rose, having made plenty of mistakes of her own. There’s a moment of solidarity between the team once again. A moment, anyway. Poe makes peace with Rose, and she lets the heroes go. However, her stormtroopers turn on her, and attack everyone. The gang helps Rose escape with them, and after the escape, they realize that those stormtroopers were in fact the Knights of Ren, spying for Kylo Ren, which means Snoke as well.

Rey, tortured by nightmares about Snoke, leaves in the middle of the night. Finn is awake, and tries to stop her, which leads to a major fight. Finn is having trouble trusting Rey, and it shows. Rey is likewise fed up with Finn trying to insert himself into the story, as it were. However, having been told by Rose the impact that he had on the galaxy, Finn no longer wishes to be a Jedi. He then redirects the question to Rey - does she want to be a Jedi? Like Luke? Honest answer - she doesn’t know. The Jedi of old would never have accepted her. She’d have been expelled and become another Darth Vader. Rey is impulsive, confrontational, she has a short temper. She gives in to the Dark Side too easily, and now it’s gotten someone killed. She feels diseased. Though Finn tries to dissuade such talk, it comes out that he and Poe overheard her conversation with Kylo Ren. Both sides are angry here, because Rey kept this secret, and because her friends spied on her. She cries out in anger, causing several nearby lights to blow out. Rey storms away, seeking to be alone.

This fight scene takes the place of the ESB rip-off with an evil Rey. That just wasn’t necessary. Instead, Rey leaves to confront Snoke, kill him once and for all, and rescue Ben if she can. After that, she isn’t sure what she’ll do. It is at this point that she is captured by the Knights of Ren. However, they don’t kill her, as instructed. They remove their masks - humanizing them as just being people. They reveal that they were the Jedi who followed Ben after he left Luke. When Starkiller Base was finished, Ben told them to go and evacuate their families from their home planets, just in case. The Knights stayed away for a long time, per Ben’s orders, but returned when he bid them too. They love him, seem to look up to him, and they can tell that he loves Rey. That he’s not his own man anymore. And that his best interests don’t align with Snoke’s. They know Snoke has to die, but also realize they aren’t powerful enough to stop him. The only one they can think of who might be - is Rey. They beg for her help, and she agrees.

The movie now offers a montage of Stormtroopers abandoning Phasma and Hux, and turning themselves in to the Resistance, explaining that they want to fight for the light. Meanwhile, Finn talks to Rose and Poe, and they all agree that they can’t just leave Rey, they have to go after her. They regret not trusting her, and conclude that even if she is tempted by the Dark Side, even if she falls...she’s still their friend. They don’t believe that she’s a spy - Rose offers useful tip in this sense. Observing that Rey offers none of the “tells.” Finally, we come to Rey training with the Knights of Ren. The transformation of her staff into a lightsaber pike. And it’s gold, baby. It’s gold. (Oh, since I forgot to mention this, Anakin’s lightsaber never gets repaired. Rey has been using a blaster up to this point.)

Bring us back to Snoke, torturing Ben once again as he can sense the betrayal of the Knights. Ben doesn’t realize that they’re still loyal to him, he thinks they just abandoned him, and his spirit is broken even further. Snoke talks more about his past, and here we can get a philosophical discussion. Perhaps Snoke discovered the midichlorians during his research, and exploited them for more power. He could analyze the Force as being, not a difference between light and darkness, but a shallow body of water that only gets deeper the further you venture. Snoke boasts that he was the first to risk “drowning” himself in it’s depths. Meanwhile, Ben hallucinates seeing Han, encouraging him to get up and fight back. We can also have Leia’s voice here, if we want. Ben fights back in a scene that echoes TFA, the way Rey resisted his own control. “You are no Master, Plagueis. Not of anyone or anything. You act so powerful, but your thoughts betray you. You’re afraid you will never get it right. Your desperation grows with every failure. But Today is not the day you finally succeed.” snaps free of Snoke’s control and when Snoke attempts to dominate him with Force Lightning, Ben goes full Prince Zuko and redirects it, Yoda style. With that, he escapes, now on his own.

Finn, Poe, and Rose show up to fight the Knights of Ren. Assuming Rey to be their prisoner. Rey, faced with her ultimate conflict, the symbol of her uncertainty, a literal metaphor between the two sides of her being at war...her loyalty to Ben, and her loyalty to her friends...her desire to be good, but her tendency toward darkness...finally completes her character arc and solves her identity issues. She creates a barrier between both sides, knocking them all down. She explains herself, telling her friends that the Knights want to stop Snoke. That she has joined them freely, for this reason. She apologizes for how distant she’s been. Admits that while she would never support the First Order, she does care for Ben Solo, despite all he’s done. This leads to Rey making up with her friends, and making peace with the Knights, who were already kind-of friends with Rose, once upon a time. This can lead into a bigger discussion about The Force, the concepts of good and evil as a whole. While Finn and Poe contact Lando, to tell him where Snoke is hiding, Rey reaches out to Ben through the force-bond.

Meanwhile, Ben has returned to the planet where Luke’s old school of Jedi was. He visits the smoldering remains, and unearths Luke’s green lightsaber. He struggles, still feeling that call to the light, and now that he’s alone and able to meditate, he attempts to do what Snoke did, and “drown” himself in the Force, in the hope of stopping him. He doesn’t drown. Instead, he meets a spirit who he had unconsciously blocked out a long time ago. Anakin Skywalker, portrayed by Hayden “The lines were terrible but his acting was actually pretty good” Christensen. The call to the light that Ben had always resisted had come from Anakin. These two finally talk, and Anakin urges Ben to choose the right side. They find solidarity in understanding that they were both drawn to the Dark Side, and both felt that this meant they “had” to be evil. Anakin doesn’t dissuade Ben from the Dark Side, but advises him to do what is right for the galaxy, defeating Snoke. Ben is helpless, he doesn’t know how. But Anakin tells him that an anomaly of equal power to Snoke could be enough to kill him forever. It’s definitely worth a try. Anakin fades, promising Ben that the answer is closer than he thinks. He can sense it right now...

After Anakin fades, Rey appears. She has succeeded in contacting Ben, and they catch up. Ben learning that The Knights still care about him, and that Rey has joined them. Rey expresses that Ben was right - it’s time to leave the Jedi and the Sith behind. To start something new. They can discuss the Force in greater detail, how being Dark doesn’t always mean one is evil, but the teachings of the Jedi suggest that it is a binary system. They express affection for each other. With everyone around Rey seeing her talk to someone invisible, Rey reaches out her hand...and Ben takes it. Suddenly appearing in the ship with everyone else.

Rey and The Knights take turns embracing him, and he exchanges awkward nods with the others. With the help of the Knights, the group comes to the conclusion that Rey and Ben are some kind of Dyad in the Force, irrevocably connected. The two that are one. Such a thing has not been seen in millennia. It’s almost like a glitch in the universe. But this anomaly could be what it takes to stop Snoke for good.

The main team makes their way back to Exegol as we see Lando giving a speech to the Resistance, now much stronger with the added former-Stormtroopers. As much as I love Jannah, she’s just as unnecessary as Zorii. That screen time could have and should have gone to Rose as she re-establishes herself back into the squad, same as Ben. Everyone arrives at Exegol at the same time, and Resistance soldiers move to open fire on Rose and Ben, understandably so, but here come Poe and Finn to talk them down and explain the situation. No one is happy about it, particularly having Ben Solo around, but Lando, with much consternation, accepts the situation and tells the Resistance not to fire on their new allies. However, he also instructs Finn to kill Ben if he steps out of line. We can get a callback when Finn gives the “I’m watching you” look to Ben, and have a line like “Don’t be a traitor.” Or something.

Final battle time. Another montage. Finn leading the former storm-troopers in the battle against the last of Snoke’s loyalists, led by Phasma. Together with Rose, Finn defeats them and Phasma is left on her knees. She pleads for mercy, and Rose is prepared to kill her, but Finn intervenes. They take her prisoner instead, because killing people who are already defeated and defenseless is the “Stormtrooper” way.

Rey, Ben, and the Knights are helping out with their Melee weapons. The Knights are also using the Force, because not using it offensively was a Jedi message, and they didn’t always follow it anyway. Though he’s definitively good now, Ben is still wearing his Kylo Ren armor, and wielding the cross-guard saber. I mean, imagine if he showed up to a warzone in day clothes with a blaster, just because his previous weapons were “evil?” How stupid would that be, right? However, at one point the cross-guard saber is destroyed in the right, and left empty-handed, Ben pulls out Luke’s lightsaber, stares at it...and then ignites it to rejoin the fray.

We likewise get a battle of wits and strategy between Poe and Hux, as Poe commands a legion to take out the forces guarding Snoke’s throne room. In the end, Poe’s armada is saved by another that Lando commands. Hux manages to fatally shoot Lando, but Poe quickly repays him in kind. While everyone crowds around Lando, Hux dies alone, symbolizing the difference between the two causes. Lando expresses pride in how far Poe has come, tells him that Leia would be proud too, and with his dying words, he addresses Poe as “General Dameron.” It’s a truly emotional moment and afterward, Poe simply turns to the loyalist stormtroopers, carrying the poise and energy of a powerful leader. He tells them to drop their weapons. To surrender now, and they won’t be harmed. It’s badass. And the loyalists do as instructed.

The path is clear for Rey and Ben to rush in to the Throne Room and kill Snoke, with the Resistance following them as backup. Only Snoke is nowhere to be seen. All of a sudden, we hear that high-pitched screech again. Rey and Ben collapse in terrible pain, hearing Snoke’s voice. His physical body no longer matters or plays by the same rules. He has essentially taken the practice of returning as a force-spirit and perverted it to become Dark. We now get Snoke’s final backstory, and the answer to why he’s able to do this. Snoke himself was part of a Dyad, centuries ago. Though exceptionally rare, Rey and Ben’s bond is not unique. However, Snoke murdered his counterpart for his own selfish reasons. A total violation of nature. This is what splintered him and turned him into the unnatural being that he is now. Rey and Ben vanish, to the alarm of Finn and Poe, as they disappear into the Force.

The three of them - Rey, Ben, and Snoke, all appear to be in some kind of void. Snoke recounts having sensed the awakening of another Dyad (”The Force Awakens”) and that this is what prompted him to return to physical form in the first place. He reveals his final plan. Rey and Ben must now fight to the death - the winner becoming as powerful Snoke himself. He promises that the winner can rule beside him. This is probably a lie, and both of his opponents refuse. But Snoke also warns that without achieving that kind of power, they’ll be hopeless to stop him. He dual wields red lightsabers in the subsequent duel. Notice how Rey and Ben are using sabers of gold and green - the opposite of red and blue, which have traditionally symbolized the Jedi and the Sith conflict. Snoke tells them that they have no future. They cannot become Jedi, not with the crimes they’ve committed. If they become Sith, well...he cites the “Rule of Two” insisting that Rey and Ben cannot coexist because one will inevitably slay the other. Rey and Ben respond that they are neither, that they simply fight for what they believe in. That they are...knights of Ren.

Together, they strike back, plunging their sabers through Snoke’s chest. He vanishes, and the void world vanishes. Rey and Ben reappear in the throne room, and Snoke is there too, staggering to his feet. The Resistance takes aim at him, but he pays them no mind. He warns the two heroes that there is no telling what will happen if they choose this path, that the Galaxy needs structure when dealing with an entity as vague and infinite as The Force. Rey responds simply that “The Force is not some stranger or threat. It is not a vice for power. The Force...is us. All of us. The good and the bad, the light and the dark. So long as we stand together, you will never influence The Force again. You will never control us. You will never return again.” With a roar of defeat, Snoke’s body turns to dust, and a shadowy mass is left in it’s place. Finn and Poe fire at at it, to no avail, but Rey and Ben join hands, and as the shadowy mass surges toward them, The Dyad employs it’s full potential, causing Snoke’s bastardized force-spirit to vanish. Not sure how this would be filmed without looking silly, but I swear, it’s compelling.

The battle is over. Everyone celebrates. When Finn and Poe kiss, it’s earned, not some nameless background characters. The team returns to the Resistance base. Poe has been unanimously voted to be the new General, which is the closest thing they have to an elected leader right now, so he is in charge of the trials for the loyalists, and the Knights of Ren. The people who committed treason or other crimes. But we only see three of these trials. Ben Solo, Rose Tico...and Rey. After all, she did kill Chewie, right? She conspired with the Knights, too. Rey is pardoned almost immediately, Rose not long after, but Ben Solo...after much consideration, Poe charges the Knights of Ren to a path of atonement. To go around, helping fix the Galaxy. Community service.

Ben and the Knights prepare to leave on their trip, and Rey and Ben say goodbye. How ship-teasy this is, if there’s a final kiss...eh, interpret how you like. I’m a Reylo fan personally, but I know a lot of people aren’t. Ben promises to see Rey again, and they both acknowledge that thanks to the Dyad, they won’t have to go without seeing each other, not really. Likewise, Rey and Finn and Poe and Rose will be helping to fix up the galaxy, so it’s certainly not goodbye.

I lied, Luke’s force-spirit appears one more time, this time with Leia, though she doesn’t speak much for obvious reasons. Luke is proud of her, and says something to the effect of “Not bad for a scavenger girl with no family from Jakku of all places. Well done, Rey from nowhere.” Rey looks around at everyone - at Finn, Poe, Rose. At Ben and the Knights. At C3PO, R2D2 and BB8 (Who were definitely involved the whole time I just didn’t have much to say about them) she looks back at Luke and replies that she does have a family. She and her friends go to wave goodbye as Ben’s ship takes off, flying into the sunset, and....ENDING CREDITS!

Let me know what y’all think! Hopefully this doesn’t throw out quite as much from Last Jedi, and does the characters justice!

#Star Wars #Rey from Nowhere #Finn Star Wars #Poe Dameron #Kylo Ren #Ben Solo #Rose Tico #Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker #Star Wars TROS #Reylo #Stormpilot #Supreme Leader Snoke #Snoke #Lando Calrissian #Chewbacca #Star Wars: The Last Jedi #Luke Skywalker #Leia Organa #The Knights of Ren

20 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 4 years ago

Text

1055

surveys by lets-make-surveys

1 - Surveys aside, do you use Tumblr for any other reason? Not anymore. I used to have a main blog, but it’s been years since I opened it; this is it (excuse the bad word in the URL lol, I thought it made me look like an edgy teen) but as I got older I used it less and less frequently until I no longer remember the password to log back in. These days I stay on Tumblr precisely because no one really uses it anymore, so it’s the perfect spot to hide this blog in.

2 - Do you have a lot of social media accounts? Do you update them all regularly? Depends on what you mean by a lot; I have all the basic ones - Twitter, IG, Facebook, YouTube, hell I still even have my Snapchat alive lol but I haven’t used it in like three years. I use YouTube the most but I don’t update it per se, like I just use it to watch videos. Facebook I’ve used a lot less often since the breakup, but I’ve shared a handful of posts since September. I’m probably on Twitter the most, but even then my usage hasn’t been the same.

3 - Does it bother you when your socks don’t match? What about your underwear? I don’t care for either situation, especially for underwear. Why would I care about something no one is ever going to see and even think about?

4 - How many times a year do you go on vacation? Do you tend to go to the same places each time? My family plans at least two trips, at least in non-Covid circumstances. We will sometimes repeat provinces but we never repeat hotels or sites, and we seldom repeat cities. The only places I remember visiting more than once are Baguio, Tagaytay, Albay, Subic, and Baler.

5 - How many times did it take you to pass your driving test? Just one. I could not afford to fuck it up; I was at the LTO for 8 hours and was not willing to go through that shitty long wait, so I absolutely had to pass that exam and do my best with the shitty car I had to work with.

6 - When you’re in trouble, do your parents ever “middle name” you? Nah they never used my whole name. My mom’s trademark is to add an -ah sound to my name when I’ve done something wrong though, as in Robina lol. That’s a sign I should know I shouldn’t have done what I did, whatever it is.

7 - Which family member do you look like the most? Which one do you resemble the most in terms of personality? People are always shocked to hear my mom is actually my mom and not my sister, because 1) we look very much alike, and 2) she looks young for her age. As for my personality, I’d say I’m a perfect split of my mom and dad. I exhibit an equal amount of traits they both have and I can’t tell which one I act like more.

8 - Have you ever been arrested? Never.

9 - Do you prefer Apple or Android? Apple. Would rather pay more than be stuck with an interface, camera, and emojis that I personally don’t like.

10 - Does getting sweaty or dirty bother you at all? If so, has it ever put you off doing exercise? I don’t sweat a lot, so I really do hate it when I feel beads of sweat on my temples or when the back of my shirt starts to feel damp. It doesn’t have anything to do with my feelings about exercising; I don’t like working out, period.

11 - Have you ever broken a bone? What were the circumstances that led to this happening? Never happened, hope it never happens.

12 - If you could change one thing about your appearance, what would it be? I wish I didn’t get the hairy gene so that I didn’t have to shave too much; my hair to be a little livelier and bouncier; and my front teeth to be straighter.

13 - When was the last time your computer crashed or froze? is this something that happens often? It must’ve been around a month ago. It just got too busy, so it froze for a few seconds. My laptop’s a trooper and doesn’t crash/freeze a lot.

14 - Do you ever have problems with your sleep? It’s mid-sleep I’ve been having issues with; I get nightmares almost every night. I don’t have a problem falling asleep as I’m able to do so pretty quickly.

15 - What was the last thing you ate for breakfast? Is this a normal breakfast meal for you? Angel sent over a small box of chocolate chip cookies as a Christmas gift so I’ve been enjoying that :) I’m currently having it with warm coffee. My normal breakfast is no breakfast, so this is a treat for me. Before this I also had to eat my leftover Chapaghetti that I couldn’t finish last night.

16 - Have you ever thought about how you want to spend your retirement? That has not come to mind a lot, actually. I think more about death than I do my retirement...but this question tells me I should probably take a few steps back. I’d simply love to live in comfort with the person I end up growing old with. For now, that’s all I see myself wanting.

17 - When was the last time you got a new tattoo or piercing? Do you have any plans to get either in the future? A little less than 22 years ago; my mom had my ears pierced when I was a few months old. Haven’t gotten any new ones, nor tattoos, since. I’d love to have a couple of tattoos. Some of my ideas are two pawprints for each of my dogs, a plate of nachos, and lyrics that are personally meaningful.

18 - How would you describe your personality? Oof, what a loaded question. Hmm, I guess I’d generally label myself as hardened until I get close with someone? I’ve always kept a wall up and as friendly and extroverted as I can be, I don’t enjoy letting just anyone in. I value my personal and private space, and it’s important that I don’t lose it.

From another angle, I also like to keep doing nice things for other people, even at the expense of my own happiness and comfort. I have to keep making people happy to keep me pleased with myself and the world. Maybe it’s rooted in the fact that I’m the eldest daughter in an Asian family? Idrk, but all I know is that I’ve never had a problem putting other people first.

19 - Have you ever heard of “hygge”? is this something you enjoy or participate in at all? I have no idea what this is and I’ve never come across this word before.

20 - What colour was the last vehicle you travelled in? Does this vehicle belong to you or someone else? White. It’s the car that was given to me for college, but when all is said and done it’s not mine.

21 - Would you describe yourself as healthy? Why or why not? In some senses yes, in other senses no. I don’t exercise or actively watch my diet, and I certainly eat too much junk; so proactively speaking, I’m not super healthy. But generally, my gene pool has been pretty fortunate with health. Other than heart conditions that run in certain branches of the family, we’re relatively a healthy bunch.

22 - Would you describe yourself as messy or organised? Is this something you would like to change? It’s a balance of both. I’m very organized at work so I allow myself to let go in my personal space, like my closet and car. I do clean up from time to time and I still like my space to be neat, but I’m not as neurotic as I normally would be with my workspace.

23 - Do you miss anything about being a teenager? If you are a teenager, what’s your favourite thing about it? The innocence. It was a period of being ideal, being a dreamer, being as romantic about life as I wanted to be. It was also a period where you were allowed to make mistakes, because fucking up when you’re younger lets you off the hook. These are the biggest things I miss, but I don’t really find myself pining for my teenage days. I still like where I am, even if things are realistically a little duller in adulthood.

24 - Are you patriotic at all? Why/why not? No. It’s hard to be when your country is shit.

25 - Have you ever had to wear a white lab coat before? Was this in school or for a job? Yeah we had lab coats in Lab class in high school, but they were green. We also needed safety goggles, and if I remember correctly if we had neither of these things we had to sit outside and skip out on the session.

26 - Would you ever want to do the same career(s) as your parents? I can see myself going down somewhere in the secretarial path like my mom as I’m good at organizing things and keeping internal affairs in order, but I don’t know if I would find it fulfilling. But in general, I wouldn’t want to be in the hotel and restaurant industry. I don’t have any attachments to it and I’ve always felt like I belonged in media and communications.

27 - Do you believe in aliens? Is there a reason why (or why not)? Yes. For the most part, it’s more comforting to think and believe that we’re not the only beings around.

28 - Which animated film would you most like to live in? Does it have to be a film? I’d love to be in the Fairly OddParents universe and have fairy godparents of my own.

29 - When was the last time you got into an argument? Have you made up with that person yet? Gab. I don’t know. She’s ignoring me.

30 - What are you going to do now this survey is over? Take another one.

1 - Have you ever had your computer or e-mail hacked? Did anything bad happen as a result? No but I had bad viruses on all of my Windows laptops before. The worst virus I got involved my laptop typing out some long-ass Vietnamese paragraphs for me at the most random times. It was like a horror movie lmao. Every time I Googled the text I never got any leads from it, so I never knew what it meant or what the virus was.

2 - Do you prefer the company of people or animals? I don’t really have a preference when it comes to these two because their companionships are individually different. I like that animals can be playful and sweet; but I also like cracking jokes and having meaningful conversations with people.

3 - Are you a religious person? Were you raised in that faith or did you discover it a later date in life? I was born and raised Catholic, and still legally am. I never saw the appeal of the idea of being saved or of reading the Bible or anything that has to do with Christianity; and the idea of praying was weird to me even from childhood. A lot of Christians/Catholics I know are hypocrites anyway, and to me that says a lot about their mindset when it comes to religion.

4 - When was the last time you went to the beach? What did you do there? August 2019. My friends and I had a day trip to Nasugbu so we could have some fun before the semester started; we mostly swam and caught up with one another. August is a low season so we literally had the beach, the pool, and the poolside bar to ourselves.

5 - With all the COVID restrictions in place, would you feel happy/comfortable travelling abroad right now? Why/why not? I’d be happy, but not comfortable because of the swab test I would have to take hahaha. The selfish part of me is itching to go to other places already. I know my parents would put a million roadblocks to keep me from getting on a plane though, so me traveling is purely theoretical.

6 - How would you describe your dress sense? I like wearing flattering pieces but nothing too flashy or bright. I get items that are currently in style and make sure they match with the rest of my wardrobe, but at the end of the day I still like to blend in with the crowd and avoid neon colors, flashy labels, or whatever it is that would make me stand out.

7 - Do you wait until the sales start before you buy non-essential items? I never really pay attention to sales. It’s led to some pleasant surprises, like the other day when I was looking for a gift for my aunt. There was an H&M purse that caught my eye and it was so pretty, but way above my budget. I decided to get it anyway because that aunt throws amazing Christmas parties over the years and gives us lots of money, so I thought it could would be my way of giving back (especially since her company got hit hard by Covid). Once I got to the cashier the register showed it was like 60% off, even though there were no stickers on it and there was zero promotion anywhere in the store.

8 - What kind of milk do you prefer to drink (if you drink it at all)? I don’t drink milk, but I’m able to consume it in other dishes. I haven’t tried any types other than whole milk.

9 - Do you prefer blonde hair or brunette hair on your preferred sex? I don’t have preferences when it comes to hair color. We’re not really conditioned to consider this factor, since Filipinos have black hair.

10 - Would you be embarrassed to own the same clothing as one of your parents? No. I borrow stuff from my mom all the time. My sister also borrows some of my dad’s t-shirts, at least the ones that can fit her.

11 - When was the last time you wore some kind of fancy dress? Like...a gown? I’m not too sure. It must’ve been Alena’s debut three years ago since that’s the last fancy party I went to.

12 - Do you enjoy dressing up (ie. in suits or smart clothing)? When was the last time you did so? I like dressing up and making myself look cute, but dressing up formally not so much.

13 - What’s worse - being overdressed or underdressed? Personally, underdressed. I’d rather look too prepared than looking as if I didn’t care to look decent for whatever event I’m headed to.

14 - What do you think would be the worst thing about being stuck in solitary confinement? Not having any options or activities to do.

15 - Have you ever owned an unusual or exotic pet? Would you want to? Nope. I would not want to have one. Unusual pet is just a euphemism for animals that shouldn’t be pets.

16 - How old were you when you learned to tie your shoelaces? I was 5 and had to learn it for a test in kindergarten.

17 - Do you enjoy decorating for the holidays? Sure, it makes me feel festive :)

18 - Would you rather go into a restaurant or just go via the drive-through? These days it’s more wise to use the drive-thru, but to be frank I’ve missed dining in. I would opt for the restaurant but make sure to follow safety protocols in the area.

19 - Do you like having your teeth cleaned at the dentist? I’ve actually always found trips to the dentist soothing, even as a kid. The only time I ever really freaked out was when I went last year to have a tooth removed and I was told that I needed an anaesthesia shot on my gums; even then, I didn’t even feel anything when it finally happened.

20 - Have you ever had a gun drawn on you before? Maybe? My cousins and friends and I doodled on each other a lot as kids.

21 - When was the last time you went to a petting zoo? I’ve never been to one and idk if I can go to one.

22 - Do you bite your nails? Could you physically bite your toenails if you stretched enough? Sometimes I’ll gnaw at my nails and then scrape them off. I’ve found it more satisfying than biting them all the way off. I could definitely bite my toenails, but I choose not to.

23 - How old were you when you first started using Tumblr? Have you had the same blog all that time? It wasssssss 2010, so I was 11 at the time. Nah, I deactivated that blog only after a year of using it and then I shifted to a wrestling blog.

24 - Are you a fan of practical jokes? If I’m watching celebrities pull it on another celebrities, yeah. Most of the time I get anxious that the recipient would react negatively, so I don’t watch a lot of pranks.

25 - How many years older and younger than you would you consider dating? Is this a concrete thing or would you make an exception for the right person? It will still depend on the latter condition, of course; but theoretically I would like to keep seeing people my exact age. No more and no less than the year 1998. Growing up with relatives in such close age to me makes me feel like I’d be dating an older cousin if it was someone a year older, and my sister if it was someone a year younger.

26 - Who did you vote for in the last US elections? If you’re not in the US, who would you have voted for? I don’t live in the US; I would have voted for Biden.

27 - Are you a fan of reddit? What are some of your favourite subreddits? Sure. I don’t visit it as much as I used to, but I still go on there when I’m bored and in need of entertaining or educational content. r/AskReddit is a classic fave of mine, but I also go on r/interestingasfuck, r/todayilearned, r/mildlyinteresting, r/dataisbeautiful, r/SquaredCircle, and r/goodmythicalmorning. Sometimes I’ll visit the r/AmItheAsshole sub as well to have some fun lol.

28 - Have you ever watched those YouTube videos of people popping their own spots or zits? Do you find them gross or fascinating? Not those, but I’ve looked up earwax extractions and blackhead removals before.

29 - What’s a food you hated as a kid but love now? How about vice versa? Chicken curry is probably my best example because I’m obsessed with all kinds of curry now, whether it’s Indian butter chicken, Thai green curry, or Japanese curry. I didn’t understand the complex flavors as a kid, but I’m got to appreciate more and more as I got older.

30 - Do you prefer socks, shoes or going bare foot? Idk, I feel like all these choices are useful and convenient in their own different situations? I’m barefoot when I’m at home but put on socks when it’s chilly, and I wear shoes when I’m outdoors.

#survey #surveys

2 notes · View notes

familybusinesswritingbro · 5 years ago

Text

Last Time

A/N: I did this on mobile so sorry for any weirdness with how it turns out. Couldn’t sleep, and ended up churning this out. Hope you enjoy!

Maybe it’s 6:45

Maybe I’m barely alive

Maybe you’ve taken my shit for the last time

Bullets ricocheted off the back wall behind the target, spent casings littering the floor. Dean had been down in the armory for the better part of three hours. He had changed guns twice already, having run out of ammunition for the first two around the same time he had drained his third bottle of Jack.

His lungs felt like they were on fire. Maybe this feeling would never stop. He wasn’t sure. But it kept him grounded as he planted his feet, took aim, and blew another hole through the head on the target. He had contemplated doing the same to himself.

He wasn’t even sure which point exactly had done this. What had been the straw to break the camel’s back. He knew it was his fault though. The fights were almost always started by him and his goddamn mouth, ever since the beginning. If he had just kept it shut, not purposely tried to get under her skin, then maybe she’d still be here. If he had a better control of himself, if he didn’t act out towards her at all. Any one of the thousands of things bouncing through his mind would’ve been better than what he did.

Dean couldn’t explain why he did it. It wasn’t like she was even his to begin with. If anything, she was closer to Sam than she ever was to him. He could understand that,that too, had been his fault of course. Since the first day they had met, he had been too hard on her. She’d given him an inch and he’d taken a mile, and then some.

The fight that had led to her storming out of the bunker, and possibly his life, was stupid. That was the only thing that kept flashing back through his mind. He had already lost Jack, he hadn’t done a damn thing to keep Cas from leaving, and spinning all of that hurt into anger on her was the big finale.

A bullet sailed through the air, this time missing the target and lodging into the wall. That only made him angrier.

Dean knew, deep down, that everything she had said to him was true. He was a dick. He was, as she had put it, insufferable. He was a jerk. Pick any name you wanted and it probably belonged under a ‘Description of Dean’ chart.

He wasn’t sure why he acted like this. Why he had pushed her from the start. But, in a way, he did know. It wasn’t some fairy tale story, she didn’t save him nor did he save her. They didn’t fall in love at first sight, there were no butterflies or wedding bells or anything even remotely similar. It wasn’t love.

It was a respect for another hunter being able to keep the Winchester pace, and a chick at that. She was badass, held her liquor, and had a mouth that would put a sailor to shame. She was wild, and the fire in her eye hadn’t yet dimmed out. She didn’t need him, or Sam, or any other man to rescue her. Dean admired her for that.

After a year or so of bumping into each other, she finally agreed to help them out. It had been like pulling teeth on Sam’s end, trying to convince her that Dean’s attitude would be insignificant in the grand scheme of it all. That memory still felt like it was only yesterday. She had flat out refused the offer to live in the bunker - she was too independent to rely solely on them. Or maybe it had to do with Dean constantly having some smart remark.

So they found a nice little house in town that suited her. They would call each other up for beers when needed, or she’d call Sam to bounce case theories off of one another. There had even been her weekly ‘Jack and Me’ trips where she’d take the kid to do who knew what. Wednesday’s were movie nights at her house where she made sure to sit as far from Dean as possible, and Sunday mornings were breakfast at the bunker where he would purposely make sure to never correctly fix her coffee.

It worked out well, for a while. Sam had a new research buddy, Cas had someone that would actually talk in depth with him about crap Dean could never begin to understand. Jack had someone he could confide in, sort of a fill in for his actual mother. And Dean? Well, he had a new person. In hindsight, maybe that had been why it was so hard for him to pinpoint the change.

He had, from the start, tried to keep his feelings at bay. He didn’t want someone else joining the group only for him to lose her like he had everyone else. He never considered her a friend to anyone that asked. His guard stayed up. It was better to hold her at arms length, to only be acquainted with and a backup plan for a hunt, than it was to admit he was actually letting her into his small circle.

So after a year of relentless teasing, of the occasional but intentional cold shoulder, of picking fights over the smallest things he could find, she was still around. But she was always Sam’s friend, truly. Those two were practically attached at the hip, despite all of Dean’s snide comments. Jack thought she hung the moon, once he discovered what that expression meant. In his eyes, she was one of the best people God had ever created.

When Dean had wheeled around, arms crossed and chest puffed after Cas shut the door, that had been it. The look in her eye was fierce, her eyebrows scrunched in disbelief as she raised a finger at him. It was a pointless argument. She was right about everything she had said, but he was too mad. Too hurt. Couldn’t recall exactly which comment had set her off, but he vividly remembered telling her this wasn’t her home and she was welcome to follow the angel if she wanted.

Maybe he was expecting some kind of argument. A rebuttal to that comment. She always had something to throw back at him when he acted like an ass. The silence she returned, had not been expected.

He could see it in her eyes that he had went too far with his comment. His mouth and opened and closed, trying to think of something to say to make it better, but the damage was already done. Her shoulders slumped briefly, and then she was snatching her keys off the table and shoving past him. Right out the door, just like Cas.

Dean’s grip went slack on the pistol, carelessly tossing it onto the table. Grabbing yet another bottle, he slumped down onto the floor. He could deny it all he wanted, but deep down he knew exactly why she was gone.

Because even if they had never acknowledged it, even if he had been on her bad side more often than her good side, she was always home with them. And he had taken that from her. The ache in his stomach was the least of what he deserved.

He had fucked up, and he had no idea how to make it better.

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #dean winchester imagine #supernatural imagine #dean winchester one shot #dean winchester fic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester angst #jack kline #spn fic #spn one shot #dean x reader #kinda #dean x reader fic #dean x reader angst

65 notes · View notes

gascon-en-exil · 5 years ago

Text

Joining the Game Late: S7E7 “The Dragon and the Wolf”

Synopsis

Jaime and Bronn debate the logistics of fighting without cocks. As the meeting at the Dragonpit looms, Jon doesn’t understand urban population density and Cersei works out her kill order. Tyrion, Bronn, Brienne, and Podrick have their various reunions before Sandor sets up CleganeBowl and Dany flies in fifteen minutes late (not yet with Starbucks). Everyone there kind of hates each other, most of all Euron, but there’s a wight in a crate to make everyone pay attention. Euron wants to go hide out on his island, and Cersei wants something that Jon won’t give because he doesn’t understand the concept of lying. Dany and Tyrion rightfully let him have it because they are all fucked and know it, and Tyrion’s private conversation with Cersei goes badly but at least he comes out of it alive because something something pregnancy. Littlefinger teaches Sansa how to assume the worst, which comes back to bite him when the Stark siblings conspire to take care of him for good. Theon and Jon discuss Ned, leading to a last bit of foreshadowing and a victory for the cockless as Theon leaves to save his sister. Cersei fails a second time at having one of her brothers killed as Jaime leaves her. Sam’s back in Winterfell, and he and Bran share notes and discover that Jon is secretly a trueborn Targaryen at exactly the time that he’s on a boat having sex with his aunt. Arya and Sansa have an actual bonding moment, and Bran watches Eastwatch fall to the undead who, as mentioned, have an ice dragon now.

Commentary

Let it be said that, for me at least, this finale largely makes up for the stumbling of the past two episodes. Some of that is purely in hindsight, as is the case with the Winterfell plotline and the setup for Littlefinger’s death. While it’s still very obvious that the writers couldn’t think of anything else to do with him and the use of Bran’s flashback powers to “prove” that Littlefinger betrayed Ned is as silly as everything involving Bran is now, the summary exposure of all the conflict and death that have resulted from the man’s actions is satisfying to hear laid bare. His execution is also satisfying and pathetic, cutting short his disturbing attraction to Catelyn and her daughter with the dismissal it properly deserves. Not a great narrative execution prior to this moment with the show duping the audience along with the target, but no point in complaining about that twice.

Other stories still aren’t great in hindsight, namely the wight hunt which still ran purely on stupidity and action movie logic, but their resolution is still sound. There’s a certain irony to the gathering in the Dragonpit; background exposition reveals that it was the Targaryens chaining their dragons in there that led to them growing smaller and weaker, but putting some of the show’s most dynamic and engaging characters and also Jon Snow in there is a recipe for solid writing. Not CleganeBowl because who genuinely cared about that, but Cersei and Dany or Jon being an idiot and everyone having fun calling him an idiot or even the smaller reunions before the big meeting between characters who shared storylines in the middle seasons. This is the first time that Cersei and Tyrion have had scenes together since Season 4, and their private meeting especially is powerful and tense and only slightly mitigated when I wondered if every dialogue scene involving Cersei now is going to end with her referring to her pregnancy. It also comes up in the appropriately parallel scene at the end of the episode with Jaime, where (from what I can tell) she comes closer to having the Mountain kill him than she did with Tyrion which says all manner of interesting things about how she views betrayal. I am less sold on the followup on Theon’s end, save that there’s a punchline in there calling back to the episode’s first scene where Bronn and Jaime wonder what could motivate a man without a cock to fight. But never mind that - Jaime and Cersei are finally separated (consistently established only to be ruined at the last minute redemption arc my ass - the guy dies in, what, five episodes?), Theon’s off to be a hero, the Starks are all together as the White Walkers destroy the Wall and Cersei’s going to sit this one out, and Jon and Dany...well....

Obviously, the incest doesn’t bother me*. Notwithstanding my personal indifference, this is the same show that showed a twin brother and sister having sex in its first episode after all. I even like that Sam’s contribution to the reveal (that Bran didn’t know about because...?) is the real problem here: that Jon is a trueborn Targaryen and thus a threat to Daenerys’s right to claim the Iron Throne. Splicing this revelation with the sex scene between the two leads is delightfully twisted in a very GoT way, which goes a way toward making up for the actors’ lack of chemistry or the by-the-numbers development of their relationship. It does add certain uncomfortable layers to what’s going to become of them and Dany especially in the final season, but I’ll get there soon enough - although maybe not that soon if the episodes continue to be this long. My ultimate plan for this liveblog is to finish by the end of March, which should be manageable even if the episodes for Season 8 each take a little longer to work through than normal. Put it this way about these two though: I’m glad that their approximate equivalents in Fire Emblem: Three Houses were not sexually (or, arguably, romantically) involved prior to the scene where one of them kills the other before a throne, and that the game instead leans harder on the family angle even though ironically Dimitri and Edelgard are not biologically related like the GoT characters that partially influenced them.

*My theory for why some people seemed uncomfortable with this reveal when it happened is that Jon and Dany were developed as protagonists from the start of the show and their interactions this season like standard romantic setup. This would contrast against the Lannister twincest, which we’ve known about since the first episode and that involves two characters who are (mostly) on the villainous side of things.

#Game of Thrones #GoT

3 notes · View notes

shirtlesssammy · 6 years ago

Text

8x22: Clip Show

Then:

Cas almost gets hit on by Dean

Now:

Lost Creek, Colorado

A couple are at a cabin in the woods, and the woman is so happy that her boyfriend finally joined her. He acts like it’s no big deal but we flash back to a memory —specifically of Supernatural season 1, episode 2: Wendigo. He’s Tommy and has some serious PTSD from the terror he experienced that night in the woods.

He thinks he hears a growl and pulls his girlfriend away from the window. He knows that a Wendigo is outside and pulls out a flare to take the unseen monster out. He crumples to the floor and then just explodes right in front of his girlfriend. Eeerp.

At the bunker, the brothers continue to find records that the Men of Letters have kept over the years. Sam’s not doing so well due to all the Trials. He’ll feel better once they finish them.

Cas shows up in the war room, and it appears that Dean and Cas didn’t follow the golden rule of not going to bed angry. Dean doesn’t even acknowledge the angel. Cas is still convalescing. He sits down to talk with Sam a bit about the trials. Dean comes back with food for Sam—well, jerky, beer, and peanut butter cups.

Cas offers to go with Dean for more food, but still gets the cold shoulder. “I’m sorry.” “For what?” “For everything.” Classic DeanCas, lol. (Brb, off to throw myself off a cliff.) Oh wait there’s more, Dean calls out Cas with the whole bolting with the angel tablet and adds, “You didn’t trust me?”

THESE BOYS ARE NOT IN LOVE:

Cas is contrite but Dean is not accepting his apology. Sam stays out of it all for a bit but interrupts eventually to pull Dean aside to make it clear that Cas is one of the good guys. What’s that saying? Dean’s harder on Cas because he loves him the most? Well, meh, I do like their later seasons of grumpy banter more than the divisiveness of right now.

In any event, the brothers head to a storage room.

Sam wants to find a case that their records mentioned. He finds the box, and Dean finds a dungeon! Sam’s box contained a movie film.

They set up the movie (They even made popcorn, guys!)

It’s an old black and white film of the Men of Letters. Josie, the woman that Abaddon possessed, is filming the experiment. They have a demon captured in the very dungeon the Winchesters just discovered. They throw holy water on the demon, recite an incantation at it, and then one priest cuts his hand and presses it on the demon. It flares out, apparently gone. The film stops. It was weird (!!!) One of the priests is still alive and Sam thinks it’s a good idea to get the lowdown on what they just watched on the film. Cas wants to go too but Dean won’t hear of it. (Brb, flinging myself off another cliff. DO NOT LIKE.)

Cut to the brothers meeting with the priest. He tells them that the other priest believed that demons could be saved. He thought that they could cure the demon and they could be a normal human soul again. There were other experiments after that one attempt, and then the priest ended up dead a couple months later. Something had torn him apart. Sam tries asking about records but goes into a coughing fit, complete with blood. He heads to the bathroom while Dean continues to talk with the priest. The priest agrees to give them the other priest’s papers.

Meanwhile, Cas is on a mission to make up with Dean. He’s at a Gas ’n Sip and pulling all the essentials to make Dean like him again.

Ways to woo Dean Winchester:

Beef Jerky

Porn

Beer

Protein

AND Smiting the sap who can’t provide the pie

Cas almost smites the poor attendant. Metatron interrupts. They need to talk.

He wants to talk about Heaven. It’s apparently a mess up there without the archangels. Naomi isn’t in charge as much as she’s led Cas believe. Cas blames himself for everything that’s happened in heaven. (URGH, no! —I mean, yeah, but NO). Metatron thinks they can buddy up and save the day! They can sort everything out. First, they need to shut down Heaven. Then he mentioned crepes and flies away.

At the bunker, Sam can’t find Cas. Dean doesn’t care (URGH, no!) They decide to watch the last audio recording before the priest died.

Once again, there’s a demon in chains. This time, the priest injects the demon with purified blood. He continues to do this 8 times. And the demon seems to be cured.

They decide to try the experiment out on their own decapitated Abaddon.

Meanwhile, Cas flaps over to Metatron’s brunch location, a cute restaurant with an outdoor patio overlooking the water. It’s a perfect place to relax!

Iconic dialogue alert:

Waitress: Cool coat.

Cas: No, it's actually quite warm.

Waitress: Cute and funny. Okay…

Metatron: I should have picked a better looking vessel.

You’re not here to accidentally flirt with the waitstaff, Castiel! Cas asks for clarification on Metatron’s quest to close the gates of Heaven. Metatron waves it away as just another godly safety switch - you’ve got one for leviathans, demons, and Heaven, of course. Metatron tells Cas that it’s time for a heavenly lock-in to work out all their feelings. And he needs Cas, the warrior, to do it. Cas owns to feeling responsibility for the current state of Heaven but recoils when he hears the first trial. He’ll need to cut out the heart of the cute waitress, the sole nephilim on earth. (Pronounced in this episode as neph-IL-im.) “What’s more important?” Metatron asks. “Her life? Or your family?”

With season 9 under my belt, I watch Dean and Sam sewing Abaddon’s head on with particular horror. Like, you took on the Mark of Cain to defeat her, Dean Bean. Which led to a whole bucket of depression and sad men. Nobody likes buckets of sad men. (JK obviously I love it or what am I even doing here?) What a spectacularly bad idea! Still, it wouldn’t be my beloved show if characters were making smart choices. Abaddon wakes up, cracks her stitched neck, and greets them with “Morning, sunshines.”

“I can’t wait to tear out those pretty green eyes,” she says, lovingly. The Winchesters smirk, drawing her attention to her handless state. (They chopped off her hands - or maybe just left them detached.) “I’ll stump you to death,” she says and...that’s the spirit, Abaddon! She knows about the priest and his work curing demons. In fact, she was a special dispatch straight from Hell to make an example of him. The priest led her to Josie and possessing Josie helped her dismantle the entire Men of Letters network. Yeesh.

The phone rings. It’s Crowley! Abaddon is appalled to learn that Crowley is the King of Hell. Dean and Sam leave the room to talk to Crowley and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BOYS they leave Abaddon alone.

Outside, the Winchesters chat with Crowley. He directs them to some news stories, “sexts” them an address, and bids them farewell. They discover that Crowley’s been putting out hits on people the Winchesters have saved.

While Crowley’s giving them the news, Abaddon makes like Thing from the Addams family and puppets her hands out of the loosely closed box on the table.

Her hand crawls into her mouth and pries out the demon trap bullet. It’s freedom time, mofos.

The Winchesters return to find Abaddon gone. You FOOLS! Sam keeps his eyes on the prize, though. Crowley’s latest address is from their “witches and baked goods” case and is clearly a trap. Time to make a play to catch themselves a different demon.

Prosperity, Indiana

The power’s out in the target’s apartment (and so are the cupcakes! yum!) Unfortunately, Jennie’s body is also out - sticking out of the oven, that is. “You were a great gal, Jennie Klein,” Dean says and...okay? Great mourning, everyone.

Crowley calls them up again. He’s killing off everyone they’ve saved (and using the books as a reference guide) until they deliver the demon tablet to him.

Metatron and Castiel stalk the waitress outside her place of work, Metatron goading Cas to make a choice. Urg. It’s just the bad decisions gang all around. She whirls around to confront them and saves them the trouble of introductions. “I could see your halos.” (I start to hum Beyoncé to avoid thinking about this next part.) Metatron calls her an abomination and she begs to be allowed to just live her life. (She apparently works twelve hours shifts as a waitress, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like she’s exploiting her power.) Cas looks disturbed, apologizing even as he advances on her. She throws him across the grounds like he’s nothing and then advances on Metatron. Castiel kills her from behind. Oof.

The Winchesters race to the next location, only to discover Sarah - the art dealer Sam flirted heavily with several seasons ago. She’s staying in a seriously adorable hotel room, with actual art on display. Dean greets her like he’s just dropped by for a casual visit. OMG Dean. Sam briefs her on the plan. Devil’s traps at all the exits, shotguns, and an exorcism ready to play on loop. We learn that Sarah’s married with a kid. (Sam gets a peek at what-could-have-been.) Sarah tells him that he’s changed - he’s more confident and grown up. She misses the old haircut. Awww…

Crowley calls and starts counting down and when he reaches zero, Sarah starts to choke. She collapses. “You son of a bitch!” Dean shouts. “Son of a witch,” Crowley clarifies - his mother taught him a few useful spells. The Winchesters start tearing apart the room to try and find a hex bag. Crowley continues his villain monologue: he’s keeping all things hell-related far away from the Winchesters - no more demons getting close enough for them to kill.

“I think the people you save, they're how you justify your pathetic little lives. The alcoholism, the collateral damage, the pain you've caused – the ONE thing that allows you to sleep at night, the one thing is knowing that these folks are out there, still out there happy and healthy because of you, you great, big, bloody heroes!”

I mean, when Crowley’s right, he’s right.

Sarah dies. Ugh. UGH. Crowley gives an ultimatum: they stop their quest to close Hell or people keep dying. In rage, Dean hurls the phone across the room. When it breaks, they finally find the hex bag. (Me: But okay she only stopped breathing a minute ago? Start CCR and call 911!)

Back at the bunker, Sam is Not Okay™ and does not respond well to Dean’s attempts to cheer him up. Sam, who continues to look awful and exhausted, suggests giving in to Crowley. “We’ll kick it in the ass like we always do,” Dean insists. Rousing speech, babe.

We fade to black, with everyone we love on dark paths of one kind or another.

______________________________

I NEED Quotes:

Well, that was weird with three exclamation points.

I NEED pie.

I can't wait to tear out those pretty green eyes.

First things first – what are you wearing?

You’d better find him toot-bloody-sweet.

I know this is insane, but insane is kind of what we do.

______________________________

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn rewatch #spn 8x22 #clip show #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas #metatron #crowley #sarah blake #abaddon #supernatural season 8

39 notes · View notes

alpha-centari27 · 5 years ago

Link

If you’re unhappy with The Rise of Skywalker, and hoping that the holy grail of the #AbramsCut will make you feel vindicated, here’s some relevant news: The Abrams Cut is probably bullshit, but there might be yet another Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly script for Episode IX, that could be the answer to everyone’s unrealized Star Wars dreams.

According to writer and Hollywood insider Robert Meyer Burnett, at least one version of Trevorrow’s unfilmed Episode IX was called Duel of the Fates, and, even if you loved Rise of Skywalker, this leaked script sounds pretty incredible. On Monday, Burnett dropped a lengthy description of the unfilmed, alternate Episode IXon YouTube, and the details are compelling.

The trouble is of course, in determining the validity of the script Burnett claims to have read. Published on his YouTube channel, “Robservations,” Burnett talks for about 18-minutes about his background before getting into the nitty-gritty of the alleged Duel of the Fates script. Presumably, Burnett is making it clear that he’s been in and around Hollywood for a long time, and it’s not that weird to get your hands on an unfilmed script.

“Everything is gettable,” he claims, pointing out that after a movie is actually made, the interest in unfilmed versions of the movies is less important to the general public. Historically, he has a point, but relative to Star Wars, there’s obviously a huge interest (particularly now). Burnett also goes out of his way to sort of obscure how he got ahold of this supposed early Trevorrow draft of Episode IX, and even “jokes” at several points that “maybe I made this all up.”

On paper, the fact that Burnett cops to maybe inventing the script could scan as an admission that the whole thing is fake. But, the problem is, Burnett’s background indicates he has no reason to lie. Unlike full-time leakers like Jason Ward or infamous fake-Star-Wars-news guy, Mike Zeroh; Robert Meyer Burnett is a legit filmmaker who’s worked in Hollywood as a director for a long, long time. Along with Mark Altman, he co-wrote and directed the 1999 film Free Enterprise; a romantic comedy about two Star Trek fans who happen to meet William Shanter IRL. (It’s a pretty good movie!)

Burnett also is known for his work on DVD and Blu-ray special features and if you own any of the Star Trek series on Blu-ray or DVD, the chances you have at least one or two mini-documentaries produced and directed by him are pretty high. He also appears regularly on the podcast Inglorious Treksperts with Mark Altman (a huge, and respected journalist and producer of sci-fi/fantasy shows like The Librarians and Pandora). So it’s not like Burnett is a fanboy. He may be outspoken about his opinions on the directions of various franchises and has frequently tweeted out scathing viewpoints on the direction of Star Trek since its relaunch on CBS in 2017.

I don’t share Burnett’s viewpoints on Discovery, but even if he’s not everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, the reality is, he’s a guy who has worked in Hollywood for a long time and knows a thing or two about sci-fi franchises. So, the question with this Star Wars Duel of the Fates leak is: Why would he make this up and risk ruining his reputation?

Inverse has reached out to Burnett for clarification on a few aspects of the Duel of the Fates script and he has yet to respond. We will update this piece when he does. But for now, here are six major differences between the alleged Duel of the Fates script and The Rise of Skywalker.

Spoilers ahead.

6. The title and crawl

First off, you can tell right away this would have been a different movie. “Duel of the Fates” obviously references the John Williams composition of the same name, which was such a big deal in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Here’s the alternate crawl:

The iron grip of the FIRST ORDER has spread to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Only a few scattered planets remain unoccupied. Traitorous acts are punishable by death.

Determined to suffocate a growing unrest, Supreme Leader KYLO REN has silenced all communication between neighboring systems.

Led by GENERAL LEIA ORGANA, the Resistance has planned a secret mission to prevent their annihilation and forge a path to freedom…

5. Luke Skywalker’s role was much bigger

In this version of the story, the ghost of Luke Skywalker would have had an ongoing role throughout the film, and he wouldn’t just have been helping to train Rey. In this version, Luke’s ghost haunts Kylo Ren, too. In fact, Kylo Ren’s very first scene in the movie would have involved the ghost of Luke chastising him for going down the dark path. According to Burnett, Luke’s ghost says: “This is where the dark path leads; an empty tomb.”

This is pretty interesting, and clearly is a direct follow-up to Luke’s threat to Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi: “If you strike me down now, I’ll always be with you.” So, in the Duel of the Fates version, Luke takes that pretty literally, following Kylo Ren around, bugging him about being evil.

Luke also trains Rey in this script, (who is rocking a double-bladed saber from the very beginning) and even has a debate with her about the nature of the “balance of the Force.” In what seems like a meta-criticism, Rey questions Luke’s credibility in a pretty awesome exchange:

Rey: Balance? The dark suffocates the light, light extinguishes the dark. Over and over and over again. How is that balance in the Force?

Luke: I know that anger. My father had it too.

Rey: So says my master and his master before him. A thousand masters so eager to tell us how to live.

This is clearly very different than the chummy Luke and Rey we saw in The Rise of Skywalker.

4. Palpatine is in one scene and he isn’t Rey’s grandfather

The dead speak! Only this time, it’s through a hologram. Just like in The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren does return to the planet Mustafar, but it’s to get a Sith Holocron, not a “Wayfinder.” In this scene, the Emperor reveals to Kylo Ren that he had a back-up plan for Darth Vader if Luke and Vader ended-up being the last two Sith standing. In this recorded message, Palps tells Vader to go the planet Remnicore because there’s a secret Sith master hiding there named Tor Valum.

The Emperor is not alive, and Rey is not related to Palps in this version of the story. Also, the version of Mustafar that Kylo Ren hits-up is very clearly Darth Vader’s castle and not the random woodland area of the planet we got in The Rise of Skywalker.

As for Tor Valum, secret Sith Lord, it’s not explained how the existence of this new character would have been reconciled with the Sith “rule of two,” if at all. But Burnett does say the script describes Tor Valum as “7,000 years old” and “an alien of unknown origin [with] spindly, intense sinewy muscle…very Lovecraftian.” So, basically, a Sith monster.

Notably, Kylo Ren’s face would have been badly scarred by the Sith Holocron and he would have been forced to wear some kind of new mask that was partially made of Mandalorian armor.

3. Duel of the Fates would have returned to two hugely important Star Wars planets

According to Burnett, Unlike The Rise of Skywalker, the important events of Duel of the Fates would have taken place on two very pivotal and famous Star Wars planets: Coruscant and Mortis. In this version, the First Order has constructed a galaxy-ruling citadel on Coruscant, with Hux serving as Supreme Chancellor.

Thanks to Luke Skywalker’s journals, Rey discovers a “Force Beacon,” hidden deep within Coruscant, which would allow the broadcast to be sent out to all the possible allies of the Resistance. A subplot involves Rose, Finn, C-3PO, and R2-D2 heading to Courscant to “light the Beacon.” This feels like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which is weird, but also pretty cool. It’s very clear Rose had a bigger role in this movie as well. (Burnett claims she’s a major character, but based on the summary it’s hard to see how much more dialogue she has. She certainly has more to do, though!)

Meanwhile, Kylo Ren and Rey would eventually get to the planet Mortis, where they would basically battle to try and balance the Force. At other points in the script, Luke would point out that Rey was “something new” and not related to anyone and that the “Force chose her” for a higher purpose.

2. Kylo Ren wasn’t redeemed

Although Burnett says Luke, Yoda and Obi-Wan’s Force ghosts would try to “release Ben Solo” in one scene, they aren’t successful and it doesn’t seem like Ben gets redeemed at all. There’s also no overt romance or kiss between him and Rey. It’s also revealed at one point that although Rey’s parents were “nobodies,” that Kylo Ren is actually the one who straight-up murdered them because Snoke told him to do it. (Snoke is not a Palpatine puppet in this version either.)

It’s tough to really see how Kylo Ren would have been redeemed or become the heroic guy we saw in The Rise of Skywalker. Basically, in this version, his journey ends as a giant bummer and in total tragedy.

1. The basic ending would have been similar, but for totally different reasons

Finally, Burnett notes that the idea of “good” Stormtroopers coming to the aid of the Resistance originates in this version of the script, but also says that it’s handled a little more organically. Another subplot early in the script involves the Resistance stealing a Star Destroyer, complete with AT-ATs and TIE Fighters, and then needing an army to operate them. Apparently, the rogue Stormtroopers help fix part of this problem, but, in the end, Lando rounds-up a bunch of smugglers and that fleet of ships seems to help turn the tide against the First Order. Which, though is similar to The Rise of Skywalker, happens for seemingly very different reasons.

Unsurprisingly, the First Order still loses, but the overall conclusion and climax to Duel of the Fates still feels murky. It’s not clear if he only had part of the screenplay or just chose to summarize the ending (or if the whole thing is a hoax) but at this point, it seems like one could imagine a similar ending to The Rise of Skywalker in terms of a space battle, just happening over a decaying Coruscant instead of Exegol (which sounds way cooler).

Is any of this legit? Does it matter? Right now, we don’t know, but if any aspect of what Robert Meyer Burnett presents as Duel of the Fates was ever really under consideration to be the real Episode IX, you have to ask yourself: What happened?

Was Lucasfilm totally against Kylo Ren ending up as such an irredeemable character? Was their pressure from elsewhere to bring in Palpatine back as a legacy villain? For the most part, for all of its specific differences, the broad strokes of this story are relatively the same, at least in terms of the larger galactic politics and the eventual balance of the Force. So we’re in a situation where the Dark side was in the details, and for whatever reason, those details caused a civil war inside of the Disney empire itself.

#the rise of skywalker #kylo ren #ben solo #rey #finn #poe dameron #luke skywalker #rose tico #general hux #this sounds like a more coherent story #but really?#only NOW do the jedi force ghosts try to help Ben #you know at the point when it's already too late or nearly so #why couldn't they or didn't they help when Snoke was manipulating Ben

2 notes · View notes

theyearoftheking · 5 years ago

Text

Book Six: The Dead Zone

“We all do what we can, and it has to be good enough... and if it isn’t good enough, it has to be. Nothing is ever lost. Nothing that can’t be found.”

When I announced my next book was The Dead Zone, my brother-in-law admitted to never reading it, or seeing the movie, because it felt dated. He’s not wrong. The 1983 movie felt dated when I’d watch it in the 1990′s. But that didn’t stop me from imagining Christopher Walken during the entire book. So, here’s some cowbell for your Tuesday! Sorry, I’m home with a sick kid, doing training for my job, I need to find joy where I can.

youtube

But The Dead Zone is still eerily important. I need to stop reading Steve’s books... it’s too much... first I picked up The Stand during the Coronavirus outbreak, and now I’m reading about shitty politicians during a particularly shitty election season.

Who hasn’t asked themselves the question... “If you could go back in time and kill Hitler- would you do it?”

Being a disciple of Ray Bradbury, I’d have to answer probably not. I read The Sound of Thunder during my formative years, and it hit hard. I’m also a disciple of Steve, and 11/22/63 taught me what a world where Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated looks like. And that fictional world is bleak, my friends.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

When Johnny Smith was a little boy, he was ice skating, and had a nasty fall. This fall gave him mild psychic abilities. A teeny bit of The Shine, if you will. Fast forward to grown-up John, he’s a teacher and living in the quaint town of Cleaves Mills. To keep the quaint theme going, he’s about to take Sarah, a fellow teacher, to the county fair on a date. Presh, I know.

Now... this is when the book just becomes one big homage to Ray Bradbury. The county fair is straight out of Something Wicked This Way Comes; which Steve actually references at one point. The manic laughter, the spinning rides,, the smell of carnival food, and the feeling of something evil lurking just under the surface is all there. It’s a masterful tribute.

On their way out of the fair, John stops and decides to try his luck at a Wheel of Fortune carny game. You know... the type of game you never actually win at. But his Shine comes into play, and he ends up walking away from the game $500 richer (three weeks salary according to Sarah!). But Sarah suddenly feels sick. She blames it on a bad carny hot dog, but I’m pretty sure The Shine is wafting off John like a noxious fume, and she inhaled too much of it. John gets Sarah safely home, and takes a taxi back to his apartment. Well, tries to take a taxi back... the taxi ends up crushed by some hoods out drag racing, and John ends up in a coma for four and a half years.

Yes.

Four and a half years.

I’m not smart enough to do the math and adjust for inflation; but can you imagine what hospital bills for four and a half years worth of treatment must look like? I mean, I’d almost rather they pull the plug on me. It would be less painful than waking up and finding I’m going to be broke for the rest of my life.

John’s parents Herb and Vera are thrilled he’s awake. Vera is cut from the same kind of crazy culty-religious cloth as Margaret White (Carrie’s mom); and believes there’s a holy reason why John is still alive. John needs to have some painful surgeries to have his leg muscles stretched (because, atrophy is a bitch after four and a half years in a hospital bed); and then some spooky shit starts happening. John has discovered he can touch someone’s hand, and learn all kinds of interesting things about them. For example, he touches the hand of Dr. Weizak, and informs him that his mother didn’t actually die in a concentration camp, she’s alive and well in California. Then, he freaks a physical therapist out by telling her she needs to call the fire department, her apartment is on fire. The news media gets wind of John’s new powers, and they start relentlessly hounding him.

While still in the hospital, he gets a call from Herb, letting him know Vera has had a stroke, and is in Cumberland General Hospital (you know, just above Jerusalem’s Lot). So, Dr. Weizak rushes him to the hospital, and Vera tells him a voice will tell him what to do, and she believes in his higher purpose. Then she dies.

Oh, Vera. She’s had a fun life. At one point, she was a member of The American Society for Last Times. “They were led by Mr. and Mrs. Harry L Stonkers from Racine, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Stonkers claimed to have been picked up by a flying saucer while they were on a camping trip. They had been taken away to heaven, which was not out in the constellation Orion, but on an earth-type planet that circled Arcturus. There they had communed with the society of angels and had seen Paradise. The Stonkers had been informed that the Last Times were at hand...”

I laughed so hard, because of course the crazy cult leaders were from Racine. I worked for a company based in Racine for several years, and one of my co-workers was of this same kind of crazy religious bend. He told me “my lifestyle” flew in the face of what God intended. For the record, my lifestyle was being one of those crazy, new-aged career gals, with a stay-at-home husband raising our two year old. It’s easy to understand what’s so offensive about that.

But the worst part was when this co-worker decided to “treat” his teenage daughters to a home-schooled prom. He rented a limo, ordered flowers, made dinner reservations... and was their date. But no dancing of course, because... religion. When I relayed this story back to my husband later on, he asked me which daughter was going to end up getting lucky on prom night with dad. Ick.

So yes, cult leaders in Racine- 100% believable.

After Vera’s death, John continues his life, living with his dad, healing from his horrible leg muscle surgery, and he even keeps in touch with Sarah, even an ill-advised hook-up for final closure. People keep sending him letters and trinkets, hoping he can help them find lost objects, or solve mysteries. He’s not having it. He just wants to go back to teaching, and lead a “normal” life. But alas, there is this nagging voice (it belongs to Vera) telling him he was awakened from his coma for a reason. He needs to serve a higher purpose. So, he ends up going to Castle Rock, Maine; and helps the sheriff solve a series of murders. Castle Rock is a fun place, FYI. They have a Flagg street there.

After his face is splashed across the tabloids for helping solve the murders, his school district doesn’t want him teaching anymore, and his life has little purpose. After a few years of moping around on his dad’s land, he ends up tutoring young, charismatic, Chuck Chatsworth; and uses his Shine to help Chuck get around the dead zone he has with reading and comprehending text.

A note about “the dead zone”... it’s a term John uses quite a bit to describe the gray area he can’t quite see through/around when he’s holding someone’s hand and telling them something important.

John gets on super well with Chuck’s dad, Roger. One night they’re watching tv, and Roger can’t stop talking about this political wildcard, Gregory Stillson, who is running for a House seat. “The man is a clown. He goes charging around the speaking platform like that at every rally. Throws his helmet into the crowd- I’d guess he’s gone through a hundred of them by now- and gives out hot dogs. He’s a clown, so what? Maybe people need a little comic relief from time to time. We’re running out of oil, the inflation is slowly but surely getting out of control, the average guy’s tax load has never been heavier... So people want a giggle or two. Even more, they want to thumb their noses at the political establishment that doesn’t seem able to solve anything...”

John keeps working for the Chatsworth family, and helps get Chuck into Stovington Prep... yes, the same Stovington Prep as in The Shining. At one point, Chuck is talking about his English teacher, “I like him a lot. Our teacher told us he still lives over in N.H. but has given up writing. That blows my mind. Why would someone just give up when they are going great guns?” I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but I’m 87% sure his teacher was one Jack Torrance.

In the meantime, Stillson wins his election. And John endears himself further to the Chatsworth family the night of Chuck’s graduation, when he has a vision of a fire at Cathy’s restaurant; where a lot of families planned on going to celebrate. John pleads with people not to go to Cathy’s. Some listen, others don’t, but he does end up saving some lives. And then he becomes a recluse, fixated on Gregory Stillson.

Stillson is a bad dude. He’s done a lot of shady shit, and he’s had a lot of people killed. He also worked in real estate development for a while. Smirk.

He knows he needs to take Stillson out before he becomes President, and gets the country pulled into another war. “I have to do something about Stillson. I have to. I was right about Cathy’s, and I’m going to be right about this. There is absolutely no question in my mind. He is going to become president and he is going to start a war- or cause one through simple mismanagement of the office, which amounts to the same thing.”

Oh, how quaint... when the biggest fear is the President starting another war... not the President getting us all killed by nuclear weapons. But, this book was set post-Vietnam, so the feeling is honest.

John goes to a rally, and hides on the upper balcony, hoping to shoot Stillson. He gets a couple shots off, before Stillson grabs a baby to use as a shield (yeah... really...), to prevent John from shooting him again. John ends up shot by Stillson’s goons and he dies, but so does Stillson’s political career, because of a photo showing him using the baby as a body shield. So, his mission was mostly carried out. We also find out John had a brain tumor, which may or may not have caused his abilities.

So, yeah. That’s The Dead Zone. This was a long review for a really short (by Steve standards) book. But it was fun because there were so many references to his previous five books. And yes, the book was published in 1979, but I feel it still holds up. And it has me wondering how/if Trump supporters would explain away Trump using a baby as a shield. I mean... the man has done far worse than that and has still been elected, so....

God damn, I really did not intend for this blog to become political, but here we are! Welcome to the new climate around election season!

There was one lone Dark Tower reference, “He opened the paperback with the picture of the gunslinger shouldering his way through a set of saloon batwings...”

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 9

Dark Tower References: 5

Book Grade B+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Shining

The Stand

The Dead Zone

‘Salem’s Lot

Carrie

Night Shift

Next up is Firestarter. Yes, cute little Drew Barrymore. I can’t wait.

Until next time readers, Long Days and Pleasant Nights!

Rebecca

1 note · View note

mnemehoshiko · 6 years ago

Text

I Really Should Just Invest In Naps + TMI: HEALTH STUFF (x-posted DW/PF)

I'm so tired. I really need to think of a better way of starting these beyond, "hi hello. i am tired. ONCE A FUCKING GAIN."

My parents came Thursday evening to help my brother move on Friday. He's moving apartments and i'm lowkey jealous because he has

TWO ROOMS!!!

A REAL BATHROOM!!

a fucking washer and dryer in unit

all utilities covered except for internet

for fucking 950/month. T___T

The only con is that he's farther from things compared to his, now, prior apartment. Also it's carpeted which is a downside for me (and probably him). But ughhhhh.

But he did most of the movie on his own before they showed up on Friday? So they didn't have a lot left to move.

Mama brought me pillows?? Which are Nice and Lovely and I like the Color but it was also just weird to go downstairs to let them in and have the exchange of

Me: SALAAM MOM

Mother: Salaam, I have your pillows. *thrusts garbage bag filled with pillows at moi*

Me:*blinks* (thinking....when....did I....ask....for pillows??? In retrospect, it was probably one of those things I like claimed when grandma posted stuff to the family WhatsApp group?? And I probably?? Forgot???) Mother: *squints* you just woke up didn't you. Me, who got dressed in like 3 minutes immediately after she called saying they were here: *takes pillows* =__= (I had Not Just Woken Up. I had woken up and then rolled over. VAST DIFFERENCE!! ....there is no difference.) (In my defense, my period has literally Just Started and I'm like Not Happy By This. T_T) They ask if I want to come to my brother's place to move stuff and I'm like, "i'll go on the second round." (also known as attempt to clean my apartment, haahhahaha) I help with the second round of stuff and we all pile into the mini-van to go my brother's place and it's NICE and I am Not Envious but I'm Not Not Envious. =___=

He has Actual Windows. T__T (my bedroom does not. my apartment...has A Lot of Flaws but It's Walking Distance From Many Things So I'm Paying for Convenience) (is this my current mantra? MAYBE.) Anyway, afterwards we go to Costco because like That Is What I Care About. And we Costco'd up. And had minor rage that a pack of 3, clinical strength "lady" deodorants were 12.99 vs 10.99 for 5 pack of "men" clinical deodorant. My brother concurred and has like also read up on the "pink tax" before and like if he ends up marrying a lady, I'M JUST LIKE??? CONGRATS?? WE HAVE TRAINED SOME SEMBLANCE OF A WOKE BLACK MALE. PLEASE DIRECT PRAISE TO MY MOTHER AND MY SISTERS. (no really, he can cook, clean, grocery shop, basically function as a decent human being and like LISTENS WHEN WOMEN TALK IN A THOUGHTFUL MANNER. He also is willing to openly weep during movies, so like congrats.) Anyway, then we went to Sprouts?? Which is like the Large Hippie Grocery Store in Durham and I uhhhh had never been there properly and now I understand why little brother sometimes grocery shops there. There were So Many Types of Almond Milk I Was In Heaven. (update: have discovered that Sprouts....instacarts to my area......as does Sur la Table. This Is Dangerous Information.) Then we went to the hardware store to acquire somethings for little bro's apartment and then we popped back to my place and my mother was like LET ME HELP YOU WITH THINGS. Me, aware my apartment is still disastrous: "That's....not....necessary." Narrator: The mother was undeterred. She did not have a conniption but she did go into Deep Maternal Worry Mode with Bonus Overbearing and Meddling Steamrolling. Internal Me: She means well. She means well. She feels guilty that she's not Around More Often Even Though I Made The Choice To Move Down South. Mother: are you okay? I know you have the anxiety and depression but has anything else happened?? You know?? You'd feel better if this place was cleaner. Me: *pained nods* Mother: Has anything else happened that you haven't told us??? I know you have the health things but anything else? Me: ...no??? (Beyond health and like my inability to like sleep properly, nothing else has happened but stress of my grad life. =_=_ Mother: LETS TAKE JUST 5 MINUTES AND TIDY THINGS UP A LITTLE

Me, who's hungry and still Has Not Eaten In Spite of It Being 5pm: mother Mother, with broom and dustpan and trashbag: COME ALONG. Internal Me: She means Well. At Least She Is Here And Alive. Appreciate The Time You Have With Her. She Means Well. *grits teeth* We clean. WE ALMOST THROW AWAY ONE OF MY ROTHYS BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T LOOK INSIDE BOXES BEFORE THROW SHIT OUT!!! And then we go to the restaurant for dinner....where the kitchen messes up my little brother's order and has chapati on the plate and he has a severe wheat allergy. So he takes Benadryl and my mother....goes into....deep worry mode Again. SHOULD WE LEAVE HIM AT HIS APARTMENT BY HIMSELF???? SHOULD WE TAKE HIM TO THEIR HOTEL??

my mother, once again, making plans without idk ASKING EITHER PARTY INVOLVED: MNEME, YOU SHOULD STAY AT HIS PLACE OVERNIGHT!! HE HAS A WASHER AND DRYER SO YOU CAN DO YOUR LAUNDRY THERE FOR FREE!!! me, a known cheap but is fucking exhausted and trying desperately to Not Snap At My Mother Because That Is Not Respectful But Also Looking Forward to Flopping on Her Fucking Couch and Maybe Even Getting A Waterbottle for my tummy: ....yes mother. =___= My dad upon seeing my mother and I exiting the apartment complex with my laundry: ???? Me, wordlessly pleading for salvation: o__o My mother, once we get to my brother's apartment: ....you know I probably should have asked before making this plan... My brother and I having Just Accepted Our Fate: *crickets* I give my brother the air mattress to blow up until he gets a Real Bed, (the place came unfurnished--which is the other reason I haven't moved because i'd need to like Get Furniture And At This Stage of My PhD, It's Just Not Worth It--so he has No Furniture At All). I sleep on the floor instead of telling my brother to just scoot over and let me ALSO SLEEP on the mattress which is a Queen-sized mattress. Nor does it occur to him to offer it to me. *stares into the void at my back* (In her defense, she did message us apologizing and I know she wasn't doing it maliciously and she's over zealous at times because she feels bad that like I'm a few hundred miles away. Alone. By myself. Single and thus don't have like anyone who's there for emotional support which like does suck but also I AM DOING... Not Amazing But Not As Bad As Undergrad? So...yeah.) I do all my laundry except for like One set that I do in the morning because my father is slow as molasses for Anything and I Know That While My Mother Wants To Leave Early they will not be here early and I have accepted this reality. Mother: WE'RE GOING TO BE THERE By 7:30 AT THE LATEST Narrator: They arrived around 10ish. We still managed to get to the farmers markets though? WHICH IS WHAT I WANTED HER TO EXPERIENCE. NC may not have Many Good Things but The Farmer Markets are So So Nice?? And big??? I have also realized if you wear a shirt that says "Ask me, I'm a scientist!" Shockingly, people read it and like ASK. Me, who slept in this shirt and threw a cardigan on because I was Too Lazy To Put On A Real Adult Shirt: ????? ! oooohhhhh... i do science. yes. yes, i do. Also got my brother to change his address because the voter registration folks were there and like IT'S EASIER TO DO IT THERE then like Figure Out Where To Go, so like We Did Our Civic Duty Today. *finger guns* Got some loaves of GF bread from the bread seller that sells Actual Edible GF bread. Sadly, they were out of raisin because it was 11am and like they open at 7am. T___T

Then we grabbed my dad, who went to the coffee shop....to work. It's been almost a full year since his open-heart surgery and he's back to being a Workaholic. =___=

Then we went to Lowes because he needed something and my parents FAILED TO COMMUNICATE PLANS and he was like...."oh I thought we were going to do it on the way back to MD??". Either way, I now have an adapter to make a three pronged plug into a two pronged one? So yay?

Then we took me, and my laundry, back to my place. My mother gave yet more instructions. I just smiled and nodded and reminded that she meant well.

And then ran back to the car because SHE WAS SO INSISTENT ON LIKE MOVING MY LAUNDRY BASKETS THAT SHE ALMOST LEFT HER MEDS BEHIND!! Me, ....this...is why....i said.... i could do it.......

But they are now back safely in MD, along with my brother because he has an orhto appointment. I was debating going back with them but I uh can't because I have a meeting with my PI on wednesday. And thus, I stay here. But I have a lot of article revisions and analyses to do so it sadly makes sense.

Maybe I'll try to go NY in Aug or mid-July?

IN FUN HEALTH THINGS, new game that I hate; "is this blood from my period or from my ass?" Spoiler: It's both~~~." Which now makes me regretting uh telling the gastro office that "no, I don't have symptoms so I don't think the steroid is necessary??" But in my defense, I DIDN'T HAVE SYMPTOMS ON WEDNESDAY WHEN THEY CALLED. Also they uh, usually are 3-6 months apart not 1.5 months...apart. So that was an unpleasant surprise which led to me pass out in bed when my parents left because ahhahahaha blood loss is v v exhausting and I forgot to pack my iron pills last night.

-____-

So, my mother is coming down again in July to take me to my sigmoidscopy. In which, they'll see things. Or they won't. I hope they see something? Anything? I don't want UC but I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW

- why i've been constantly inflamed since 2015?

- i know what hemorrhoidal bleeding looks like and uhhhhh i'm sorry but I shouldn't be dropping Actual Clots Out Of My Ass

*lies down*

i just want to not be tired and my intestines to not hate me as much. =_=

Okay, I am Going To Actually Sleep After I Knock Back Some Licorice Tea for my throat. (it's....super sore for some reason which is Not Great since I have D&D tomorrow most likely.)

#mneme's adventures in adulting #mneme: a life #mneme's health #mneme's fam

9 notes · View notes

neverlandparker · 6 years ago

Text

“Could this be another lead?” (peter parker)

Word Count: 2.4k words

Warnings: none, enjoy!

Author: @neverlandparker

Requested By: @broadwayshtuff p.s. thanks so much for requesting!

Prompt: #7 from my prompt list: “Peter, my favorite avenger is Spider-Man. He is super amazing and believe it or not, I think I’m really close to finding out his identity…”

RINGGGG

The shrill school dismissal bell finally rang and jolted you out of your thoughts. You couldn't be any more excited. You quickly gathered all your belongings and rushed through Midtown’s main hallway to wait by the main entrance for your best friends, Ned and Peter.

This week had seemed especially long and a stressful one too. The teachers somehow decided to dump loads of homework on you this week. You heaved a great big relieved sigh.

It was FINALLY Friday, and you couldn’t wait because Fridays were the best. Not only were they the last day of school for that week, but it also meant that you and your friends, Ned and Peter, would walk home and spend some time together.

You guys would often hangout either at Ned or Peter’s house and build legos, watch movies, or play games. Friday nights were something you’d constantly look forward to each week, and you were especially excited since Peter had promised he would be there after mysteriously skipping out on the last few Fridays.

What brunette nerd was oblivious (or hopefully oblivious) to was that you had begun to slowly develop feelings for him and you saw him as more than a friend, but afraid of risking your friendship, you had kept the secret to yourself.

You shook out of your thoughts as the boys spotted you and made their way through the crowd, weaving between students in order to get to where you were standing by the doorway.

“Hey Y/N! What a week huh? But yay, it's Friday! And you know what that means??”

You gave a laugh at Ned’s enthusiasm and smiled, and off the three of you went.

When you arrived at Ned’s house you made yourself at home, after all, it was almost like your second home because you practically went over all the time. You grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around yourself sighing at the comfort and warmth.

Then all three of you sat down and somehow, your conversation with Ned and Peter about Star Wars turned into one about the infamous Avengers.

Oh.

It's on.

Let’s see who the biggest fan actually is...

You were the ultimate Avengers fan, you had posters, drawings, and even Spiderman pajamas that you were only slightly embarrassed about.

When you had the opportunity to speak, you practically fangirled and told Ned and Peter all about your love of the Avengers and your newfound fascination with the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

“Guys, my favorite avenger is Spider-Man. He is super amazing and believe it or not, I think I’m really close to finding out his identity…”

After your little fangirl moment and rambling about how much you adored the Earth’s youngest Avenger, you looked up to see Ned who was weirdly smiling like Earth’s biggest fool (which you had no idea why) and also Peter who was totally red in the face and a sputtering mess.

Expecting them to agree or even chime into your fangirling, you were confused and a bit disappointed by their strange facial expressions. Weirded out, you quickly back and forth between the boys several times.

Pausing because you registered the awkward atmosphere your fangirling had suddenly created, you frowned.

“Wait. Was it something I said? I’m sorry...”

The boys gave you no response but all of a sudden, Peter abruptly walked out, mumbling over his shoulder some lame excuse about having math homework to finish (but Pete, its Friday) or something like that to do, and then you heard the front door click shut, signaling Peter’s rushed departure.

When Ned’s front door shut, it seemed to end this trance that Ned was in after you finished your little Avengers outburst.

“Sooooo....uh what was that about? Did I say something wrong?” you questioned Ned with a slightly accusing look.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” was all Ned managed to say.

You sighed.

He was such a bad liar. There was definitely something suspicious that just happened here.

For the past few months, you had been obsessed with the Avengers. After all, they had saved your city. There were all these crazy space aliens who invaded and caused chaos upon New York, but thankfully, the Avengers were there and managed to save the city. It was thanks to them that New York was still standing and the fact that you were still alive.

More recently, you noticed a new superhero, “Spider-Man” as YouTube dubbed him. And you had been fascinated with the new hero and curious to learn his real identity. So all things led to other things, and for you, your Avengers obsession quickly turned into an investigation to find the face behind the mask of Queen’s very own Spider-Man.

You quickly told Ned an excuse that was something like, “Uh...yeah I will go do that, but actually, I also really need to go, my mom just texted me and she wants me home. I’ll see you later! Bye!”

And with that, you booked it down the hallway and out of Ned’s house. As you were making your way back to your house, you were too busy thinking about Spider-Man and your mind was running wildly. Could this be another lead in your rather far-fetched investigation in finding the identity of the spandex superhero?

So you paid more attention to Peter Parker over the next few days. But every time you tried to approach him to talk with him, he would just avoid eye contact with you, make a random excuse, and walk away. He seemed to be desperately trying to avoid you. You were heartbroken. What did I do to deserve this?

At lunch, it seemed like every time you had tried to bring it up the topic of the Avengers or Spiderman, he would start to fidget awkwardly and avoid the conversation. You also noticed he seemed to grow more distant. If you were partners in Chemistry class, your once lively conversations with Peter now dwindled to little or none besides the occasional muttered “hey, can you pass me the beaker?” or “what do we do after stirring the mixture?” And to be honest, you felt strange and tired of this weird treatment you had been receiving after that one “fateful” Friday night at Ned’s house.

You decided that as Peter’s friend, it was your responsibility to find out what had exactly happened on Friday night when you had had your little ramble that had led to Peter avoiding you for the entirety of this week. The question that you had left to ask yourself was, “Did this have anything to do with the identity of the superhero?”

Deep in your thoughts as the history teacher rambled on about your assignment, you had begun to think of possible reasons to why Peter was avoiding you. Then, after several focused minutes of thinking, you finally came to your questionable, crazy, and absurd but only logical conclusion.

What if...What if...the reason that Peter had been avoiding you had been because...

You gasped at your conclusion, the fear and shock making your drop your pencil which dropped to the hard tile of the school floor with an audible “clank” and it seemed that half the class seemed to stop whatever they were doing before to stare at your shocked expression. Your hands flew up to your mouth in a failed attempt to cover your loud gasp. Embarrassed that you had made quite the noise, you shrunk in your seat and laughed it off, hoping your fellow peers would buy it and turn their attention back to what they were doing before. ,

...because he himself,

Peter Parker...

was Queen’s very own neighborhood Spider-Man?

At first thought the idea of nerdy, socially awkward Peter Parker as the spandex hero almost made you laugh out loud, but thinking about it again now, it made perfect sense.

Suddenly, everything clicked:

...why he had decided to avoid you after the conversation at Ned’s house

...why he had tried to avoid you this week

...the numerous times in the past he had skipped your Friday movie nights that you, him, and Ned would enjoy after a long week of school

...why he had seemed to gain quite the athletic form recently.

...why he specifically avoided the topic of Spider-Man

and now, you had been assigned yourself a new mission:

To confirm the identity of the web-slinging hero, Spider-Man, as your friend, Peter Parker.

Feeling energized with a the sense of discovery and epiphany, you could hardly wait until class was over. And when the school bell once again signaled the end of the school day, you dashed out of the classroom and walked out towards the front grounds of the school. You had a plan. And one that involved with you spying on Peter.

If he wasn’t going to tell you, you might as well take the initiative to figure it out yourself. Besides, you were getting tired of Peter treating you like Flash Thompson, the school bully who Peter always actively tried to avoid because of the taunts that he would often shout at him to ridicule Peter whenever saw him.

That’s right, you, Y/N, are on an investigation to identify the face behind the mask of the web-slinging hero.

Instead of waiting by your usual spot to wait for Ned and Peter, you had decided to hang out in a secluded shady spot underneath a tree where Ned and Peter were most unlikely to spot you.

Waiting in the shade, you noticed Peter and Ned looking for you, but after a while of looking, they gave up and went their separate ways. But what caught your attention was the fact that Peter walked away from the school in the direction completely opposite of the neighborhood he, you, and Ned lived in. Instead, it seemed like he was heading straight towards an alley. Tailing him loosely, trying hard not to get noticed by him, you followed him into the alleyway. And what you saw, only seemed to confirm your earlier suspicions.

You cautiously approached the-person-who-must-be-Peter in his Spider-Man suit standing with his back facing you in the alley, but despite your best attempt at not getting discovered, he whipped around, recognized you, and jumped backwards. His spider eyes of his suit seemed to dilate and you could only guess it was out of surprise.

“Soooooo...Parker...you have some explaining to do...”

But before he managed to modify his voice....it was too late and in a timid and surprised voice he exclaimed, “Y/N?!?”

He tried to cover it up...he really did...but he tried...and failed...miserably.

“I mean...u-uh w-w-who’s Parker? I don’t k-k-know him...a-anyways hey, whattcha doin’ here?” he said, but this time, in a newly modified voice an octave lower than his normal one.

His stuttering only grew worse and you grinned, knowing that his cheeks would be flaming underneath his mask. His best effort to fool you failed miserably, and you shook your head, responded with a slight giggle, and gave him a look.

You laughed...“Please don’t do this, Pete.”

However, despite his failure in the beginning, he seemed adamant on keeping his act up.

“Okay, if you are so convinced I’m Parker, then you can prove it to me” he stated in a gruff voice, this time, with new-found surge of confidence that you were 99% sure that only came with the Spider-Man suit. He was still hoping and trying to mislead you. But you wouldn’t be deterred. You knew it was him under the mask, but for some reason, he was still trying his absolute best to throw you off your little investigation.

You confidently strode up to him and to be honest, you think you surprised him with your confidence because he seemed rather taken aback by your actions, judging by his almost-comically dilated Spider-Man eyes. You smirked.

“You are Parker...Peter Parker because...

“number one...,” you counted off on your fingers, giving your favorite hero an award-winning smile, one that translated into that’s right, I’ve solved the mystery now, its game over... “...our height difference is the same.”

“number two...,” you continued to list off. “um, you sound like him, duh.” you stated flatly, at which he shook his head wildly against, which you found so amusing that you almost just burst out laughing right then and there. But reminding yourself that you were in the middle of your oh-so-serious interrogation, you managed to stifle your laughter.

“u-uhhhh, n-n-no I d-don’t...” Peter interjected, but instead of his gruff confident voice, his normal stutter voice slipped out.

You raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

“andddddd…..” you continued...

“o-okay, okay, okay, okay,” the masked hero sputtered, but this time in his ordinary Peter Parker voice.

Sighing, he dropped his shoulders, and he turned away from you to check his surroundings, making sure that there weren’t any peeping eyes, to which indeed thankfully there were none, before finally lifting his mask up and off his face to reveal a brunette boy standing with his back towards you.

You held your breath, waiting for the big reveal that would confirm your suspicions.

surely you were right...right?

Finally, after what felt like 10 minutes, but was only a few seconds, he finally turned around to meet your glance.

“You caught me.” it was indeed no other than your best friend, Peter Parker, who turned around, grimaced, and raised his hands in surrender.

You gave him a look that said really?

He just gave you a sheepish smile, rubbed the back of his head, and you swear that you could see a blush that had crept up his cheeks.

Glad that you had managed to solve the mystery as you felt your investigation come to an end. But you still had one last thing you wanted to tell you friend.

“Oh! And Peter?”

“Huh?”

”I meant what I said,

But Peter just stared at you with confusion written all over his face.

”At Ned’s House...I meant what I said...you’re my favorite Avenger,” and with your reference at the words you had said “that one fateful night,” you gave Peter a wink and a wave, and walked out of the alleyway with an uncontrollable smile tugging at your lips and a new bounce in your step.

And once your words had sunk in, Peter Parker was left in the alleyway, once again, a sputtering mess, but this time his cheeks were a flaming crimson color...

...one that perfectly complimented his Spider-Man suit.

Author Notes: Sorry this one took me a while to write...I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!! :)

#peter parker #tom holland #peter parker imagines #peter parker x reader #peter parker fanfiction #fanfiction #writing #spider-man #spider-man fanfiction #spider-man homecoming #avengers #marvel #marvelouspeterparkerr #marvelouspeterparkerrwrites

119 notes · View notes

hollowedsammy · 5 years ago

Text

Hello, hello, everyone! My name is Susie, I am 21-soon-to-be-22, I live in the EST timezone, and this is the first of my two characters, Sam! If you’d like to plot, like this or IM me! This contains his basic info, backstory, info about what he’s currently up to, some misc. information, a small playlist, tropes that apply to him, and wanted connections. Yeah... I went a little hard.

☾ ↪ cillian murphy, male, forty, he/him. ／ ❛ have you heard from samuel marx lately ？ yeah, the forty year old mechanic / drug dealer. pretty sure they’ve been here twenty years, and from what i’ve heard, sam can be kind of cynical & self-serving, but i caught them on a good day once, and they were pretty funny & clever. i’m probably overthinking it, but given all the crazy shit around here, i hope they’re okay. maybe they’re watching their favorite scary movie, i heard it’s child’s play.

trigger warnings: homophobia, parental/domestic abuse, self-harm, depression

BASIC INFORMATION

Full name: Samuel Joseph Marx

Nickname(s): Sam (everyone), Sammy (his mother, close friends, or significant others only)

Age: 40

Gender: male

Sexual orientation: bisexual

Birthday: January 12, 1956

Zodiac: Capricorn

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Personality type: ISFJ

Family: Joseph Marx (father, deceased), Serafine Marx (mother, deceased)

Criminal record: shoplifting (3 counts), underage drinking (2 counts), auto theft (1 count), fraud (2 counts), possession with the intent to distribute (2 counts)

TROPES

Beware the Quiet Ones

Cornered Rattlesnake

The Cynic

Deadpan Snarker

Don’t You Dare Pity Me!

Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas

I Just Want to be Loved

I Need a Freaking Drink

Lower-Class Lout

Not Good With People

Perpetual Frowner

The Runaway

Smarter Than You Look

The Snark Knight

Sour Outside, Sad Inside

When He Smiles

FIVE-SONG PLAYLIST

“The Mute” by Radical Face

“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant

“Run Boy Run” by Woodkid

“The Kids Aren’t Alright” by Fall Out Boy

“Emperor’s New Clothes” by Panic! at the Disco

BACKGROUND

Sam was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He had a small family -- just him, and his parents. His father was a police officer, and his mother was a housewife.

Sam never got along with his father. Never. He can’t remember a single time that he didn’t entirely despise the man.

Joseph Marx was a corrupt cop, as well as an abusive husband and father. The Marx household was frequently filled with the sounds of slamming doors, screamed profanity, and glass breaking. While he frequently took his anger out on his wife, Sam quickly became Joseph’s favorite target.

Sam was also a favored target of other kids. An incident during which two older boys held him under the water instilled an unshakable case of hydrophobia in him, and he was often beat up when teachers weren’t around. Many said he brought it on himself -- what did he expect, when he was so obviously queer, dressed in such ratty clothes, acted so strangely?

Unsurprisingly, he developed delinquent behavior early on, and was frequently in trouble for cheating on tests, stealing other students’ possessions, skipping class, smoking, drinking, and stealing cars for joyrides.

Bullied at school and abused at home, Sam had few friends, and spent as much time as possible out of the house. He’d wander the swamps and streets alone, only occasionally having a companion with him.

Finally, when he was sixteen, Sam hit a breaking point. A terrible fight with his father led to Sam being thrown into the kitchen window. The glass shattered, cutting into Sam’s skin. His mother tried to help him get cleaned up, but Sam had had enough. That very night, he packed a small bag and snuck out the back door. He stole a truck from one of his neighbors, and hit the road, never to return to Baton Rouge.

Lacking any sort of plan, Sam wandered from town to town, making money via odd jobs, shoplifting, pickpocketing, purse-snatching, and selling dime bags of weed. He had his fair share of scrapes with the law -- even spending six months in a correctional facility when he was eighteen -- but always managed to worm his way out any long-term consequences.

While in jail, Sam finally wrote to his mother -- now that he was eighteen, he couldn’t be forced to return to his family’s home, so he could assure her that he was alive. While he kept in contact with his mother from then on, Sam never spoke to his father again, and refused to ever return to Baton Rouge, even after his father was shot and killed in the line of duty.

ARRIVAL IN HOLLOWAY

Sam got to Holloway at the age of twenty. He only intended to stay for a couple weeks, long enough to make enough money to make a cross-country trip. The girl he was dating at the time went to school in Maine, and he wanted to go visit her.

When the first Hollow Man murder happened, a couple weeks after Sam’s arrival, he was nervous. When it became evident that there was a serial killer in Holloway, he started thinking maybe he should just say “fuck the money” and skip town altogether. However, before he could, the police were asking to talk to him.

It had been discovered that a couple of the deceased had bought drugs off of Sam a few times. While they hadn’t thought much about Sam at first, this caused the cops to look closer at him. Upon further digging, the investigators found that Sam was a drifter who had dropped out of school and run away from home, had a history of behavior issues, an ever-growing rap sheet, a brief stint in jail to his name, a skittish and antisocial air about him, and an obvious hatred of cops.

Yeah. It did not look good.

Sam was interrogated many times. His story never changed. He did sell weed to two of the deceased. No, he didn’t hurt them. He never even interacted with them beyond the sales. He was asleep at the time of the murders. No, no one can confirm that, he was alone. No, he doesn’t have a hotel room, he’s been sleeping in his truck.

Despite a lack of solid evidence or a motive, Sam was still a prime suspect for the first few murders, and he was told not to leave town. Knowing it’d look much worse if he ran, Sam decided to get a job -- partially because he was stuck in Halloway for the foreseeable future, and partially because he knew he might have to hire a lawyer soon. He eventually persuaded the local auto shop to hire him as a mechanic. (Accused of murder or not, Sam is damn good with cars.)

No official charges were ever brought, and eventually, another murder took place while Sam had a clear alibi, having been drinking in a local bar in full view of at least a dozen people all night. He got busted for having a fake ID, but at least he wasn’t an official murder suspect anymore.

Key word being official. Some suspected that Sam had an accomplice, and that the whole thing was a set-up to clear his name. Despite rumors, whispers, stares, and even a few people accusing him of the crime to his face, he always maintained that he never hurt anybody.

After being cleared, Sam intended to get out of town as soon as he could. But then, the girlfriend in Maine he’d been planning to go see dumped him... via postcard. It was the cherry on top of what had been a shitty few weeks.

Sam decided to stay for a little while until he figured out where to go next. He was rather enjoying having a steady paycheck for once, and it wasn’t like he had a plan. “A little while” eventually turned to twenty years.

NOWADAYS

Sam has now lived in a half-double in town for many, many years. It’s small, but he makes it work.

While most have probably abandoned the idea that Sam killed anybody, he’s still not exactly Mr. Popular in town. He’s known to be a sarcastic, self-centered dick, who has no respect for authority. (Some things never change.)

He still works at the auto shop. The original owner’s son runs it now, but Sam is the longest-standing employee, as well as the best mechanic.

Sam still hates cops. If he could refuse service to them, he would.

He’s still selling weed on the side (his boss looks the other way -- so long as Sam doesn’t get busted while at work, he doesn’t really care), and can be bribed into purchasing alcohol for underage students. However, he refuses to get mixed up in anything harder than that.

He mostly keeps to himself, and isn’t known to be particularly violent. If someone else attacks him, he’ll defend himself, but he rarely throws the first punch.

He’s been in an even more melancholy mood than normal lately, because his mother died last month.

He honestly thought the Hollow Man business was behind him. But now that a new victim has been found, he can feel people looking at him sideways again.

And, no matter how much he says he doesn’t care what other people think... he doesn’t like it at all.

MISC.

Sam’s sexuality is not public knowledge. He’s not ashamed of it, but he also wants to avoid harassment, so he’s only ever openly dated women. The only people who know are men he’s been with in the past, and maybe, maybe a very close friend.

Despite his dislike of people, Sam is quite fond of animals, and even adopted a stray cat he found a couple years ago. He’s named him Hecate, and he is quite possibly the ugliest cat in existence -- he has one eye, crooked fangs, and scratches everything that isn’t Sam.

Sam suffers clinical depression, but is in denial about how serious it actually is. It’s driven him to make some pretty damaging decisions, and he’s had a habit of burning himself with cigarettes since high school. The scars are all over his shoulders, arms, and stomach.

Sam was -- and still is -- a frequent target of classism. Due to his lack of education and working-class background, many assume the worst in him, and many underestimate his intelligence. While he uses it to his advantage, he is irked by it.

It surprises people to learn that Sam is actually very well-read, and a talented actor. In another life, he could’ve joined a Shakespeare company. In this one, he reads passages aloud to himself when he’s alone.

Sam claims to hate... well, everyone, but he holds a special contempt for bullies and abusers. One of the only times Sam’s been known to instigate a fight is when he got sick of listening to a drunk guy catcall a woman walking by, and just decked him.

Sam still hates water, and refuses to go swimming -- on the rare occasions he has to go near the water, he won’t put his head under.

Sam has a pitch-black sense of humor. The Hollow Man murders are one of the few things he won’t joke about.

SUGGESTED CONNECTIONS

Someone who still believes Sam was or is the Hollow Man.

Related to the above, some of the younger characters have probably been told by their parents to stay away from Sam. Whether or not they listened is up to you.

Friend with benefits.

Exes.

Someone who has become aware of Sam’s depression and is trying to help him -- whether he likes it or not.

Unrequited crush (from either party).

And anything else you can think of!

#hollowfm.intro

2 notes · View notes