#to keep a record of everyone she meets; either just in general or for the purpose of the game

[penwrythe]

After seeing the recent II episode, I've seen ND fans discussing how Cabby is treated in the episode. I also saw Justin comment his thoughts on the discussion as well.

Part of me want to share some insight into how I rewrote a scene in my script for Rise of Relics to remove an ableist implication of Nicodemus' behavior towards Nikey (see this post here about it). There's also another scene I plan to rewrite as well that has a few ableist implications and I want to show how to improve it with research and listening to those with physical disabilities.

I'm not sure if it's alright for me to share this, as some of the II fans have similar symptoms to Cabby's memory issues, I do not want to speak over them as I do not have any memory symptoms as they do. What I do have, in reference to the scene in Rise of Relics, is anxiety and (possible) undiagnosed OCD, and Nikey is written with the implication of having both of these. The other scene I want to later rewrite is also in reference to how Nikey finds comfort in others, sometimes invasively due to having poor coping skills, and Nicodemus is often the person who helps ground her.

I think it's best for me to listen to those who are most affected by the episode before I say anything. But, one thing I say is that condemning a character's aids and accommodations they use to cope with their symptoms is wrong. Showing unhealthy coping mechanisms is okay (carefully saying this while keeping in mind my own experience coping with anxiety), but I do think this episode should have been written with more care.

To Justin and the Inanimate Insanity team, please consult sensitivity readers for your scripts in the future, please.

[velvetchrry]

hockey player!ghoap x smm!reader thoughts

just thinking about how you’re a social media manager for a new hockey expansion team. johnny and simon — who grew up playing hockey together — both got drafted to the pros but have never played on a team together before. they’re both selected for this new franchise — the first time they’ve played together since they were kids.

simon is a defenseman. big, hulking — he’s the guy that's going to initiate fights with the players that are picking on his teammates. you aren’t going to get away with a dirty hit when he's around — he will retaliate. he will dish out a big clean hit when they think they’re safe. especially if it’s johnny. he’s the team enforcer, but still a talented defenseman.

johnny is your center star. he’s wicked fast on the ice, and is always showing off with plays you think are near impossible. he’s surprisingly humble — giving credit where credits due, passing to his teammates when they’re open instead of taking a wild shot himself. he’s the chatty one, always talking up the press during intermission and after the games over.

(and ofc we have gaz as a winger and price as the old goaltender close to retirement, who just can’t give up the game yet)

you were hired with a batch of social media managers in order to promote this new team to the locals. you want to attract season ticket holders. you want people excited for the upcoming season. you want people to meet their players — even though most of them have a history on the ice.

you’re really good at your job. your main job is keeping up with the videos and pictures of the team and players — creating the content that gets posted. your coworkers laswell responds to the fan tweets and comments — she’s got more of a knack for that, where you have the creative eye.

part of your job is getting to know the players and getting them to open up to you on camera, especially when you’re recording. you have them follow along to the latest tiktok trends, record practice sessions and even what time everyone shows up to the arena (simon is early, price is right on time, gaz and johnny are running late). normally your job would be staying on home ice — not following the team when they’re away — but to keep up with content the owners request you specifically go along. it’s been a total hit online and tickets are selling like hotcakes.

you start to really get to know the team — you fly with them and stay in the same hotels. you’re with them at every practice. they start requesting you be the dj at practice even. it helps loosen them up. you get great content. you joke with them. you even stand at the bench during games. (content content content)

johnny of course chats you up first. he's easily to film and he’s your star. he’s the one generating the views and likes and hearts and comments. he’s the one everyone’s excited to see. he’s the first to jump on a new trend you want to film and he’ll encourage everyone to do the same. he’s the only reason that you get simon to be on camera. (and he still won’t go on camera much, rather you have to get shots of him on the ice)

they do their best to include you in everything, but especially when they’re at an away game. if the boys are going out for dinner, johnny will make simon knock on your hotel room door and convince you to join. (you don’t take a lot of convincing, however johnny has to pour simon a stiff bourbon to work up the courage to go ask you). you’re included in celebrations when the team wins. they drag you to one of the guy’s houses for a private dinner and drinks.

johnny and simon start to separately invite you to things — just the two of them. it’ll start off as johnny acting like he has a great new idea for content. he and simon did grow up together, they are best friends. they could have a great little segment together.

but it turns into more. they sit on either side of you. johnny brushes a hand against your thigh and rests it there. simon has an arm on the back of your chair, always keeping his body in the way of any potential threats. always keeping you safe. their sweet little puck slut princess. their hands are all over you by the end of the night.

they take you to a shared hotel room — after all it would be irresponsible for any of your to drive home. and johnny and simon share everything. they’re happy to share a room.

they’re happy to share you.

[that-ari-blogger]

Galinda's True Colours

One key theme in Wicked is superficiality. The world of Oz is a place where honest conversation is difficult to come by. Almost everyone is pretending to be something, or believe something, or have something, all to get what they want.

Popular approaches this theme with the subtlety of a hyperactive wrecking ball and gives a musical monologue about how this world works, and why.

Because Galinda has been portrayed as ditsy up to this point, with a bit of the self-serving schemer archetype thrown in for flavour. But here, we see just how intelligent she is. Galinda has caught on to how the world works, and understands what buttons to push.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (Wicked)

The first element to be brought under examination is Wicked's love for subverting expectations. By this, I mean that certain mindsets in the world have stereotypes associated with them, take idealism and cynicism for example.

From what I have observed, when a writer wants to use one of these archetypes, they will probably draw on a few common ideas. The former is usually portrayed as stary-eyed and naive, or unflinchingly positive. Cynicism meanwhile has a certain sarcasm to it. A cynic might feature a permanent scowl and a dry remark as a kneejerk reaction to anything.

In short, Cynics are usually written to be villains who are overcome by hopeful heroes, or to be heroes who are proven right by a world where hope is meaningless. Idealists on the other hand are either heroes who make the world a better place by sheer force of goodness, or naive fools who the world breaks down.

Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, but those exceptions are mostly more developed characters in their own right, so the label of "a cynic" doesn't really fit them. Batman is an idealist (when he's written properly).

What is fascinating about Wicked is how the characters are presented. Elphaba is introduced as cynical, she fits the archetype to a tea. But after a musical number, her character swaps entirely. She keeps the sarcasm, but the hopefulness becomes a driving force that goes against the stereotype.

Galinda is... introduced as a bit of a ditz. She's got an ego, she gets what she wants all of the time, she has a well-known family. She's the generic rich kid, essentially. Fiyero gets the same treatment.

For the record, By Galinda, I mean young Glinda, and I am treating them as separate entities until they meet back up.

Anyway, when Galinda starts singing, her real worldview becomes clear. It's possible to argue that it wasn't particularly hidden to begin with, but in Popular, she bludgeons you over the head with it.

"Celebrated heads of state Or 'specially great communicators Did they have brains or knowledge? Don't make me laugh! They were popular! Please, it's all about popular! It's not about aptitude It's the way you're viewed"

As much as I despise it, Galinda is kinda right here.

In 1964, Henry Littlefield published an essay in the American Quarterly titled The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism in which he gave some opinions on a theoretical metaphor inherent in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book (if you don't want to read it, TedEd has a video discussing it and its legacy). He claimed that it was an inherently political book about the time Baum wrote it.

The sparkly new world looks even better if you put on tinted glasses, and only works if you understand that the wizard's power is empty, so Littlefield proposed.

Scholars since have praised, debated, and debunked Littlefield's essay. Pointing out the fact that this is pattern recognition with hindsight, in the same way that you can look to the stars and see a goat.

Essentially, there is an argument for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz being political, and there is an argument (most famously made by its Baum himself) that it is just a children's book.

Wicked is a satire, and not a children's book, so it gets away with some heavy insinuation, but to avoid landmines and a lack of knowledge on my own part, I am going to talk exclusively about how this affects the land of Oz itself, rather than its implications for the real world. Please don't argue in the replies.

So, Galinda's hypothesis here is that the leaders of Oz do not get to where they are because of any actual skill, but rather because they were well liked by either the people, or their superiors. She gets proven right about this throughout the musical. Madam Morrible moves up in the world by presenting Elphaba to the wizard, the Wizard gained power by giving Oz a common enemy, and Galinda and Fiyero themselves gain status seemingly out of nowhere.

In Oz, it doesn't matter what you know, but who you know, and who knows you.

In the show that I watched, Galinda was played by Courtney Monsma, who knocked this number out of the park. Galinda is an incredibly cynical character, but Monsma played her with what I can only describe as "manic pixie energy", which circles back to Wicked's idea of superficiality.

Because the ditzy pantomime of Galinda present in What is this Feeling and half of Dancing Through Life is nothing compared to the madness that is Popular. This is a character who knows exactly how to toss her hair to get what she wants, who knows how to make people think she is something she isn't.

Monsma played a character who was well aware that perception would get her further in life than intelligence, and was having fun with that confidence. But she is actually clever, Galinda has picked up on this fact that everyone else has just accepted subconciously, but now she can explain it.

This song feels like a hyper fixation rant. The frantic obsession was a mere outlet for the excitement of finally being able to speak to this worldview head on to someone who she respects and knows will actually understand her. This song feels like Galinda and Elphaba are on emotional and intellectual equal footing.

This song is also part of my case for Wicked as a queer musical that only works as a story because the romance doesn't. As in, this is a story about a romance that could have been, and that romance reads as queer to me. I will get more into it next week, but for now, I will say this:

This song doesn't matter, and that's exactly why it does matter.

This is the moment when Elphaba and Galinda connect, and share. This is Galinda trying to give back for the wand and make up for her previous behaviour to make Elphaba less of an outcast. But she has already done that.

The moment at the end of Dancing Through Life when Elphaba and Galinda share the spotlight, when Galinda makes herself look like a fool to match Elphaba, when she lets the outcast lead, and the rest of the room goes along with it. That moment is when the romance is kicked off, that is the moment when she starts making amends. That is the moment when she starts to make Elphaba less of a social pariah.

That dance renders Popular superfluous, or at least it does on paper. In reality, this song is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the foreshadowing department, even more so than What is this Feeling, in my most humble of opinions.

Popular happens because Galinda is right about so much in her world, but wrong about the most important thing. Brains and knowledge are irrelevant in Oz, perception is powerful, but empathy rules them all.

Galinda gives this big show of how amazing she is for helping people. Look at her, she's so good. But, Elphaba doesn't care about that, and Galinda does. The romance doesn't work in the end because Galinda realises too late that in the big scheme of things, superficiality is nowhere near as fulfilling as connection. That's why her romance with Fiyero breaks off, and its why her romance with Elphaba is doomed. She only realises this when both options are off the table.

The romance between Elphaba and Galinda breaks apart, but it can only do that because it was there to begin with. You can't tear down nothing.

You could read the relationship as entirely platonic, a friendship that breaks down. But art is subjective, and to me, the romance makes this story so much more compelling.

Final Thoughts

Popular is a popular song in the fanbase. It's an absolute bop, but it's also one of the simplest numbers in the entire production. The set is two beds, there is no fancy dancing, just one character sitting still and the other jumping around like she's on springs. The set doesn't change, there are no extra characters, nothing.

This song doesn't let anything distract from the character drama that is going on in centre stage, so that the audience can take in what is actually being said and done.

Next week, I am taking a look at I'm Not That Girl, and I will being going all in on the queer reading of this musical. Although, that is a heterosexual love song, right? How could that be queer? I have thoughts, so stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

(Images were sourced from this video)

[pippytmi]

spy!au + meet messy + you never saw me ? If not that's fine, I just thought it would be cool. :)

spy!au + meet messy + you never saw me 

“So on a scale of 1-10, how much do we hate the fiancée?”

A wry laugh escapes before Kara can even try to quell it, and she briefly removes the unlit cigarette from her mouth to muse, “You know, I've heard a saying that goes ‘never judge a book by its cover.’ Fascinating stuff, I might have to send it to you.”

“Ugh. Journalists—so idealistic.” But Nia is grinning as she snags the barstool at Kara's right. “Where is the elusive Lena Luthor anyway? Do we finally get to meet her?”

Kara shrugs. “Beats me,” she says. “Last I heard, she was running late.”

“Late to her own engagement party? Finally, someone I can get along with,” Nia says. Before Kara can even get a word in, Nia's attention is immediately stolen by the bartender coming over. “Hey M’gann, can I get an amaretto sour?”

“Sure thing,” M’gann says absentmindedly, her gaze otherwise zeroing in firmly on Kara. “Danvers, you better not smoke in my bar.”

“I won't,” Kara swears, raising both hands in a show of innocence, and M'gann rolls her eyes.

“Journalists,” she echoes Nia's earlier sentiment, but with an entirely exasperated deeper meaning. “I'm putting Nia's drink on your tab.”

“Well in that case…” Nia twists around, already waving her hand as if to beckon someone over. “Make it two, Kara's buying a drink for the bride to be. Alex! Don't—I know you can see me, come here.”

For as much as Alex stressed the importance of everyone showing up tonight, she doesn't seem very…well, happy. And while Alex is not typically one to gush, Kara had expected at least a smidgen of joy on her sister's face, not the harried expression she's currently sporting.

“What?” Alex asks, eyes them both suspiciously while fidgeting as if she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Um, hello to you too,” Nia says. “Clearly, you need this. Where's your soon-to-be better half?”

Alex accepts the drink when Nia presses it in her hand but frowns, however slight, at the question. “She's—on her way,” she says, pausing to take a sip from her glass before her gaze falls on her sister. “Oh, gross, Kara. Since when do you smoke?”

“I don’t!” Kara pouts, feeling like a broken record. “Can’t I be edgy and have a cigarette to look cool?”

“That’s the most pretentious thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Nia says, delighted, while Alex just groans.

“Come on, Kara, not tonight. Just be normal for once in your life,” Alex sighs, already distractedly glancing back to the front door like she is willing her fiancée to just walk through any second.

“You guys don’t understand the intricacies of being a method actor,” Kara argues, waving her cigarette in the air to make her point. (And also, because it is kind of awkward to keep it in her mouth without doing anything with it, not that she’ll admit that). But it’s clear she only has half the audience she had a second ago; Alex is half a world away the second her phone starts to ring.

“I’ll be back,” Alex says, handing off her glass to Nia who is more than happy to finish it.

Kara dejectedly puts the cigarette back in her mouth. “I just realized something.”

“What?”

“I don’t actually know how to smoke. What if someone expects me to, like, smoke with them?”

Nia presses a fingertip to her chin and  ponders the question seriously. “Either you're screwed, or they will just think you're a dork. The reaction will depend on the person, really.”

Kara's shoulders slump. “So I won't be cool?”

“Journalists generally aren't cool,” Nia unhelpfully offers. “But I'm sure you could make it work for you. You'd be like…one of those grizzly story-seeking sleuth journalists.”

Kara groans, thumping her forehead on the bartop. “That seems more like a private investigator thing,” she says. “Darn it. I'm going to have to start from scratch.”

“I'm all in favor of quitting method acting for one night,” M'gann chimes in, still eyeing Kara's cigarette distastefully. “Now do you need a refill or are you going to fall asleep here?”

“Yeah, sure,” Kara says, lifting her head in order to sheepishly push her emptied club soda over. “Pour me a double.”

That joke never lands—M'gann just rolls her eyes and refills the glass, wiping her hands off before moving down to another patron. Nia scoots her stool closer to Kara once she's gone to reassuringly say,

“I like the pretentious cigarette. It makes you look like a hipster…they’re coming back into fashion, you know. Just like leg warmers.”

Kara wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think anyone really liked leg warmers.”

“That’s how I know you were unfashionable in high school,” Nia says. Then, apparently already bored with the topic at hand, she turns around in search of their former company. “Hey, where did Alex go? I haven’t even bought her a round of shots yet!”

“That’s a good question,” Kara says thoughtfully. “Maybe Lena showed up?” But when she swivels her chair to aid Nia’s search, she can't spot her sister either; considering Al’s Bar is a hole in the wall with not many patrons, that can only mean Alex has stepped out. “I'll go find her.”

All things considered, the night is pleasant—when Kara emerges without her jacket, the air isn't quite cool enough to make her go back in to retrieve it. She walks around the corner to the alley where everyone goes to smoke, but Alex isn’t there. Alex is also not in the 7-11 across the street, nor is she two doors down at the diner. (Kara orders a donut to go just to be 100% sure Alex won’t emerge from somewhere inside, of course, like a diligent sister).

Eventually, her pointless search leads her right back to Al’s. Nia has apparently had enough alcohol to drag Kelly to dance; Winn and James have begun a spirited game of pool; Querl has commandeered the jukebox and is studiously adding 80’s dance music to the queue. Alex, however, is still notably missing.

With a groan, Kara collapses at the bar again. “Can I get a water, M’gann?”

“You got it,” M’gann says, filling a fresh glass from the tap. She moves on immediately after to another customer, and Kara’s question about whether M’gann has seen Alex dies before it even forms. Kara sighs, takes a much-needed sip of her water, and resolves to just melt into her stool when all of a sudden she hears:

“Is this seat taken?”

It should be noted that, in the past, Kara has encountered situations far worse than this one. Moments where her life was in danger, even. She likes to think she has mastered the ability to remain unfazed in the face of the worst surprises at this point of her career.

But then again…she’s never actually met her sister’s fiancée before. And in a truly horrific turn of events, Kara ends up spit-taking all over her shoes.

“Oh crap, I am so sorry,” Kara says, making a mad grab for napkins off the bar and crouching down to pat at Lena’s heels. “Are you—okay, can I get, er, anything—” She doesn't even know how to apologize at this point, so tongue-tied she is just about to offer her own shoes off her feet.

Lena Luthor doesn't answer right away. She takes a delicate step down, and her hand covers Kara's in order to make her pause. When Kara musters the nerve to cautiously meet her eye, Lena gives her a small smile.

“It's fine.” Lena looks much more <i>vivid</i> than the photographs. Everything about her is sharp; the angles of her jaw, the eyeliner she wears, the intensity of her green eyes when they're trained on Kara. Even her voice edges on the sharper side, not quite cold but almost. “Kara, right? I recognize you from Alex's pictures.”

Kara barely remembers to nod. “Yes, I…recognize you too,” she says. “It's nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Lena draws her hand away immediately after, and Kara hastily rises up in order to put some space between them.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Kara asks quickly. “M'gann makes a great…sour.” She cannot for the life of her remember what it is that Nia ordered, and from the strange look on Lena’s face, she has 100% gotten the name wrong. “I don’t really drink.”

Somehow, that awkward confession makes Lena’s face twist, like she is trying not to smile. “Alex mentioned you’re sober,” she says. “I hope it’s alright, that she did.”

“No, yeah, it’s not a secret,” Kara says, but in her mind she’s thinking Alex and Lena talk about her? About what? Hopefully not embarrassing stuff. Shoot, knowing Alex, it’s 100% embarrassing stuff. “And I wouldn’t expect you to have any secrets with Alex either way, so.”

“Right.” Lena takes a careful seat besides Kara, her expression since gone entirely blank. She orders a scotch, Kara sticks to water, and they immediately maintain an awkward silence that M'gann raises a judgmental eyebrow at Kara for.

Kara clears her throat, desperate for any attempt of making nice she can muster. “So have you seen Alex?” she says.

“Today?” Lena has her glass raised to her lips, but she doesn't drink. “Not yet.”

“Oh. Well, I'm sure she's around here somewhere,” Kara says, and tries not to find it weird that Lena and Alex did not see each other at all today despite apparently living together.

This time Lena takes a long, thoughtful sip of her drink, and she turns her head to regard Kara silently. “Kara,” she says, as if testing the name all-too-carefully, practiced and halting like she wants to call Kara literally anything else. “Would it be a fair assessment to assume you don't like me?”

Kara’s grip on her glass falters in a single blink-or-miss-it second before she manages to control her surprise. “What?” she says weakly. “I know we don’t know each other, but, if Alex likes you of course I like you.” Flustered, she backtracks to say, “I mean Alex loves you. Obviously.”

Lena doesn’t put Kara out of her misery. At least, not right away. No, she just smooths out the imaginary wrinkles of her form-fitting dress that she has chosen to wear to this dive bar, drums her fingertips against the sticky wood of the bar counter, and gazes pensively beyond her company in a way that can only be described as lost. Then,

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t meant to be an accusation,” Lena says. “What I meant is, I'm sure you must despise the idea of me.” An attempt at a smile crosses Lena’s lips, but it’s a sad one. “Today was mostly about putting your mind at ease over any misconceptions you might have.”

“Well, I’ve only known about you for like a week, but I can honestly say I have zero thoughts about you,” Kara says quickly. Then frowns. “Wait. That was supposed to sound reassuring. Can I start over?”

The engagement ring on Lena’s finger shimmers even in the poor lighting, and she rests her cheek against her palm, gazing at Kara with a curious, half-amused kind of look in her eyes. “The floor’s yours.”

“I’m not the kind of person who assumes the worst about other people,” Kara says, reaching for her water again, if only to tip it towards Lena reassuringly before taking a quick sip. “And if you make Alex happy, then I can only assume you’re a good person. Also, you might be a saint to even put up with her.”

Lena’s mouth twists into a proper smile, however small. “The way you two talk about each other is so…” She shakes her head as if she can’t quite finish that thought. “You two are clearly very close.”

“Unfortunately, yeah, I'm stuck with her,” Kara quips, and that at least feels normal—talking about Alex is a safe topic. Even if she hasn’t bothered to come back to her own engagement party. “Do you have any siblings?”

“A brother.” Any semblance of a smile vanishes entirely at that, and Lena hastily finishes the remainder of her drink.

Kara gets the feeling she has said something horribly wrong. “And are you two also…close?” she finishes her train of thought awkwardly, even if she already knows the answer.

“No.” The stony way Lena clenches her jaw suggests that Kara isn't winning any brownie points, here, and she has to bite her tongue to stop from pushing on. “Excuse me, can I get another?” Lena beckons M’gann over when she has a second, and M’gann gives Kara another questioning look but doesn’t say anything to her directly.

“I’m sorry,” Kara feels the need to say. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Oddly enough, I believe you,” Lena muses. “You did mention your sister has hardly talked about me.”

“I'm sure she would've,” Kara tries to reassure her. “I just don't see her too much nowadays, with my work.”

“Mm. You’re a journalist, right?” Lena asks, and there is something in her gaze that makes Kara feel hot under the collar. “Or was it a kindergarten teacher? I know you and your sister have an affinity for switching careers.” Something about the calculated way she pauses to take a sip of her drink, gaze expectant over the rim, causes Kara's heart to plummet into her stomach.

Kara, in turn, promptly chokes on air. “What? You—you know? About—” She stops. “I’m not sure Alex was allowed to tell you that.”

“Not even if we're going to get married?” Slowly, Lena begins to smile. It's a real smile, one Kara hadn't realized Lena was capable of until now. “Your sister might be the most by-the-book person I've ever met. Unfortunately for her, I was able to connect the dots about you myself.”

“Ah.” Kara drums her fingertips against the bar counter, feels her cheeks warm slightly with embarrassment.

Lena places a hand on Kara's forearm—a warm, gentle heat Kara can feel through the thin sleeve of her T-shirt. “That was no fault of yours,” she says reassuringly. “She slipped up talking about your job. It was fairly easy to connect the dots.”

Somehow, that does nothing to dissolve the dread slowly building up in Kara’s chest. Alex never slips up. Kara is the resident Danvers sister fuck up (Alex’s words exactly), and all at once Alex’s disappearance tonight becomes decidedly unsettling.

“When did she tell you about my job?” Kara blurts out. “Do you remember?”

“Yesterday, I think,” Lena says, and she regards Kara questioningly. “She was telling me about everyone who was going to be here today and what your friends do for work. Why?”

“Was she working? Looking at her computer or her phone or anything?”

“Yes, that’s all she ever does.” But it’s odd, the way Lena says it, like she’s not bothered in the slightest.

It could be nothing. It probably is nothing. But Kara still scans the bar with a renewed vigor in search of that familiar scowl that she cannot find. “She was just here,” Kara mutters aloud. “She wouldn’t have left without telling someone.”

“Alex?” Lena watches Kara carefully, no doubt trying to decide what to say. “Has she not told you if she’s running late?”

“No, she was here already,” Kara says. “I don’t think she would have—” She shakes her head to herself, cursing inwardly. She can’t assume that Alex has been dragged away for a work reason. Maybe it has something to do with Alex getting cold feet. Either way, telling her sister’s fiancée that the woman she’s supposed to marry has abandoned her engagement party doesn’t seem like it would do Alex any favors. “I’m sure she’s just in the bathroom or something. Uh, I’m going to just…” She pulls out her cigarette in a poor cover and says, “Go outside, for a smoke break, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Lena says. Then, “Would it be alright if I joined you?”

If Nia knew that Kara’s stupid cigarette would have led to this moment, she would laugh her ass off. Repeatedly. Kara supposes it’s a small mercy that Nia is still dancing with Kelly, so she is spared of any and all jokes at her expense.

It’s not until they’re outside that Kara sheepishly confesses: “So full disclosure…I don’t actually smoke.”

Lena doesn't look particularly surprised at the fact. “It's an odd thing to lie about,” she says, and tilts her head, surveying Kara with a sharp look. “Oh,” she says afterward. “I’m sorry. Clearly, you lied to get away from me, and here I am following you around.”

Kara swallows. Hard. “It’s not that,” she says, even though it kind of is. 

“It's okay.” Another touch, this time gently to Kara’s shoulder. Lena has a strange, half-wistful look on her face. “Take your break. I’ll go inside…I should introduce myself to Alex’s friends and keep it convincing.”

That is such a peculiar way to phrase an otherwise normal statement, and Kara feels her brow furrow subconsciously. “What?”

But Lena has turned away by the time Kara even forms the word, and Kara watches, bewildered, as Lena takes two steps forward before immediately whirling back around. There is no other way to describe it, but—Lena has gone sickly pale in the moonlight, as if she’s seen a ghost. Before Kara can ask what’s wrong, Lena has hurriedly bridged the gap between them and grasped Kara’s face with cold, shaking hands.

“Can you turn around?” Lena asks quietly.

Kara does, but she knows her cheeks have gone hot and red by now, so unaccustomed to both the proximity and the specific person before her. “Lena, what’s—”

“I have something very urgent to ask you, and please don’t overthink it,” Lena rushes to say.

“Okay.” Kara tries not to fidget; she has had a gun held to her head several times before and yet, this is the most overwhelmed she has felt in years.

“Can I kiss you?” 

Kara blinks. “What?”

“Please,” Lena adds on, as if that makes the question any saner.

And maybe it’s the desperation in Lena’s voice, in her eyes, in the way she keeps on trembling, but Kara recognizes someone in danger. She doesn’t understand what on Earth is going on, but she slowly nods, and trusts that if Alex kicks her ass later it will be for a good cause.

(Kara is not, however, prepared for Lena to immediately kiss her like she’s starving, hands still tight against Kara’s cheeks, dragging Kara so close that Kara is essentially caging her against the wall). 

It feels like forever, but not in a bad way. Kara hasn't kissed someone in so long that she feels clumsy, almost like she is outside of her own skin, hands falling against the gravel of the bar’s outside walls in order to stop herself from grabbing at the inviting curves of Lena’s waist.

When Lena gently pushes her away, Kara hastily steps back, digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep from doing something dangerous (like reaching back in). Lena looks as if she's calmed down enough at least; she blushes when she meets Kara’s eyes, glancing down at the floor for a brief moment.

“Thank you,” Lena says. “God, if I was recognized out here of all places Alex would have lost it.”

“Recognized?” Kara echoes. She follows the way Lena jerks her head to the right, where the shadow of a man is disappearing into the alleyway. “I…don't follow.”

“That man used to work for my brother,” Lena sighs. “I don’t know if he would have remembered my face, but better safe than sorry.”

Kara opens her mouth, pauses, and then shuts it when she realizes she has no clue what to say. Her phone buzzes in an all-too-welcome distraction, but her blood runs cold when she sees it’s from Alex.

SENTINEL:

Can you tell everyone the party’s cancelled? Lena’s sick. Also let the cat back in before the night’s over.

“Shit,” Kara involuntarily curses when she sees that familiar code phrase. Suddenly everything makes sense: the secrecy, the mysterious brother, the fact that Lena cannot be recognized in the streets outside of a dive bar used as a front for the average spy (or average drunk that security allows in for the cover). “Lena, are you in witness protection?”

Lena squints at Kara like she is the one dropping a bombshell. “Yes? Did you not know that?”

“No! What the—why would Alex bring you here?!” Kara frantically texts her insane sister back.

SUPERGIRL:

Is there a curfew?

SENTINEL:

The sooner the better. I’m at Dad’s house right now or else I would do it myself.

That next coded message makes Kara exhale, finally, to at least know Alex is safe. Something big must have happened if she is dragging Kara into this without so much as a briefing, sure, but Kara also knows that Alex would not have trusted her with anything less.

“Lena,” Kara says, “can I ask you something urgent now?” She pauses when she immediately remembers the firm pressure of Lena’s lips, and quickly adds, “It doesn’t involve kissing.”

“Fair enough,” Lena says, enough amusement coloring her tone that Kara briefly flushes all over again.

“Can you trust me to get you home tonight?” Kara doesn’t wait for an answer before she goes on: “I know you don’t know me. But you know Alex. And I swear on my life, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for Alex, and by extension that means there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

Lena nods along with every word slowly. “You take your job very seriously.”

“I do,” Kara says firmly. (And, hopefully, comfortingly).

“Then I trust you, Kara Danvers,” Lena says. “If that’s even your real name.”

And for a brief moment, Kara’s not a spy fighting a clock on a mission she knows nothing about; she is, instead, a normal person who is capable of seeing the humor of her almost-sister-in-law who definitely knows more than she has clearance for.

“It is,” Kara says—even deigns to smile before she can quell it. “By choice.”

“That sounds like there’s a story somewhere.”

“I’ll tell you all about it sometime,” Kara promises. “Maybe even tonight, if in exchange you tell me your real name.”

“Unfortunately, Lena Luthor is my real name,” Lena says. “Alex said it was fine to tell her friends, so, this party was her idea. She even came up with the marriage idea so when my last name is changed, no one will care.”

The cogs finally start turning in Kara’s head far slower than she cares to admit. “Hold on. So you and Alex aren’t actually engaged?”

Again, Lena stares at Kara like she’s grown two heads in the last thirty seconds. “No. You seriously didn’t know? I thought you were just being weird, Alex says you get really into your method-acting stuff.”

“No.” Strangely, the first thing Kara feels is relief; she doesn’t have to actually tell her sister that she kissed her future wife. The second thing is, quite reasonably, alarm. “Okay I don’t know what the hell is going on with your case, but you mentioned someone who used to work for your brother, right? How bad is the threat?”

Lena hesitates. “It’s…kind of a long story.”

“So really bad,” Kara fills in the blanks. “Crap. We need to go.” She quickly shrugs off her jacket and presses it into Lena’s hands. “Put this on. There are no cameras in this area, but we’re going to hit some when we get to the parking lot.” 

“Is everything okay?” Lena asks, though she hurriedly does as Kara says.

“I’m sure it is,” Kara tries to assure her. “But it’s just a precaution until we can reunite you with Alex and confirm.”

Lena doesn’t seem like she believes Kara entirely—or at least, the way her expression remains a fraction confused definitely indicates as much. But at the very least, she does not argue, though she does make a point to ask, “Where is Alex?”

“She just got tied up at work.” Kara leads the way to the parking lot, careful to hover at Lena’s side on the off chance any threat might  materialize. “I don’t know where your current safe house is or if it’s been compromised, so I’m going to take you somewhere else. Is that okay?”

“Not like I have any choice,” Lena says wearily. “So am I not allowed to know when everything’s gone to shit? Or will everyone just keep telling me it’s okay when it’s not?”

Kara swings open the passenger side of James’s car (he’ll forgive her for this later) and waits for Lena to sit down. Lena doesn’t. “It’s—complicated,” she says.

“How so?” Lena crosses her arms and still does not move. Kara is still holding onto the car door, inadvertently standing too close; she feels strangely helpless when Lena looks right at her with eyes dark and determined.

“Full disclosure,” Kara reluctantly admits, “I…have no clue what’s going on with your case. I’ve been in the dark and Alex can't exactly  share the details through a text, so, the truth is I have no idea if everything has gone to shit. I know that is the very last thing you want to hear since I’m supposed to be protecting you, but—”

“Actually,” Lena says, and her look has softened, “that makes me trust you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I appreciate that you will tell me upfront you don't know,” Lena says. She sways slightly closer, enough that Kara stiffens, but it's only to duck into the car after all.

Kara shuts the door only after a very brief pause. This should not be as hard as it feels. For a week she has been associating the idea of Lena Luthor as her sister’s fiancée and it’s tough to wrap her head around the fact that the opposite is true.

(And it has absolutely nothing to do with how attractive Lena is. Or that kiss. For the record.)

The dashboard of James’s car reads 7:19 PM; his radio is playing a news station; the gas tank is half full. Kara makes note of everything and decides she will drive as far as she possibly can before it hits empty.

Lena is quiet, at first. And while there is nothing special about the bumper-to-bumper traffic or the hazy street lights or the clouded night sky, Lena keeps her gaze trained outwards, head resting against the tinted window.

But then, “My brother killed twenty people.”

Kara grips onto the wheel and tries not to outwardly react. She has, of course, always had a terrible poker face. “Oh.”

“It gets worse,” Lena says uneasily. “I designed the technology he used to kill them.”

There is no possible response Kara can imagine which might be appropriate. In the end she settles for: “That actually doesn’t seem like a long story after all.”

“I assumed Alex would have told you that, at least.” Lena begins to drum a pattern with her fingertips against the center console. “Do you think the worst of me now?”

“I guess that depends,” Kara says slowly, “on whether you designed that technology for the purpose of killing people.”

Lena gives a curt, kind of disbelieving half-laugh, half-scoff. “They were nanobots,” she says. “I was trying to use them to cure cancer. But my brother…well, he didn’t see half the potential I did.”

Kara casts a quick glance at Lena, finds her staring straight ahead with a stony expression on her face. “Lena,” she says gently, “that doesn’t sound like it was at all your fault.”

“Everyone tells me that.” More rhythmic drumming, each beat more hesitant than the last. “I don’t know when I’ll start to believe it.”

When she was a kid, Kara had been thrown into the foster system with little more than heartache and a wish to find the cousin she never would. She had never felt so helpless—so unsure—and something about Lena’s guilt right now brings her right back to that moment. Like she’s just a little kid, knees pulled up to her chest, waiting for a sign that would never come.

“It’ll be hard,” Kara says softly. It has begun to drizzle rain, and she mindlessly sets the wipers, watching them flick back and forth as they wait for the light to turn green. “But it will get easier. I promise.” 

“Odd thing to promise,” Lena notes, but Kara can feel her gaze burning against the side of her head, and Lena sounds…lighter, somehow. “Can I change the station?”

“Sure.” James will hate it, but Kara doesn’t mind. Lena chooses a jazz station that frequently breaks with static, and it’s by far the most peaceful hour-long drive Kara has had in a while. 

They pull up to the safe house when the clock reads 8:34 PM and the rain has petered out; the air feels damp and thick with residual humidity, but otherwise, the tranquility of the quiet gives Kara a good feeling. Lena has fallen asleep in the passenger’s side, and Kara softly nudges her awake.

“Here,” Kara says, handing her James’s emergency bag once they make their way up the house steps. “This should have a change of clothes. They’ll be too big, but better than your dress at least…if you’re hungry there will be granola bars in the pantry. We can’t risk ordering anything else right now, unfortunately.” She digs into her pocket for the batch of safe house keys she has on all times and locates the right one, pressing it surely into Lena’s hand. “Until we know for sure if I’ll be briefed on your case or not, just…assume you’re going to be moved tomorrow. Also, you never saw me. Like, officially.”

Lena wipes at her eyes with her palm, absentmindedly smearing her mascara. “You’re going to leave me here?” she says, hugging James’s bag to her chest.

“No, of course not. I’m going to be sitting in the car, out here,” Kara says. “I just mean like in general, you know, if I don’t end up getting briefed on your case it would be all kinds of not-allowed to be talking to you. So if anyone asks…”

“Ah,” Lena says, “right. I’ll just make up a cover story for my cover story.”

“Yeah, you know, we need to protect the bureaucracies and all that,” Kara says. “If I'm even using that word the right way.”

“And you're supposed to be a journalist?” Lena smiles ever-so-slightly. “Good thing you're decent at your day job.”

“Only decent?” Kara feels her own mouth twitch with the promise of her own smile. 

“I'd give you five stars on Yelp,” Lena says confidently, and Kara laughs, unable to stop herself from full-on grinning.

“Well if you need anything,” Kara says, and gestures over her shoulder to the car. “You know where I'll be.”

“Thank you.” Lena places a hand over Kara’s wrist, and just squeezes there briefly, her hand slightly cold but her touch overwhelmingly gentle. “Um. Would it be—would it be allowed to ask if you can stay with me inside, instead? I don't really want to be…alone.”

“That would make plausible deniability much harder to fake,” Kara tries to protest, but Lena is biting her lip and looking at Kara underneath mascara-smudged lashes and really, there is no other option but to cave. “…but I guess I could break a rule or two. Or twenty-seven.”

Lena smiles fully this time with obvious relief. “And here I thought I'd have to work harder to corrupt you.”

Kara pushes her glasses up her nose and says, “I’m a little concerned you were planning to corrupt me, but I mean. It’s one night.” She follows Lena inside when she opens the door, surveys the untouched room with a quick, satisfied glance. “Just as long as you don’t get me into trouble.”

“I’ll try my best not to,” Lena says, making a beeline for the couch to inspect James’s emergency bag; she pulls out an oversized T-shirt with an exhausted sigh. “Can you unzip me?” Already she’s pulling her hair off her shoulders, exposing the graceful slope of her neck, and Kara almost forgets to lock the door behind her.

“Y-yeah,” she stammers out, once again fiddling with the glasses that she doesn’t need, and she knows it right then and there: Lena Luthor will undoubtedly get her in trouble. And judging by the way Lena gazes so shyly at Kara over her shoulder, she knows it.

(But, well. In the grand scheme of things, Kara figures a little trouble never hurt anyone).

[rabbiteclair]

more Girls' Last Tour thoughts, which are admittedly mostly thoughts I had for the first time about five years ago only to resurface today upon having a long conversation about the series with a friend. this one is fully spoiler-y

as far as emotional suckerpunches go, I personally think it's like... [the entire Silence chapter] > [Chito's breakdown after she realizes the Kettenkrad's bricked] > [the end of the Art chapter] > [the end of the Life chapter] > 'the planet will finish life's long work and go to sleep as well' > [the actual end of the series]. This isn't a criticism of it, since I really like the end. I just find it kinda funny.

similarly I find it funny that this series, where every named character is strongly implied to die either during or shortly after its events, which is about 40% ruminations on death, containing the line "currently, you two are the only surviving humans of whom we are aware," is categorized as an Iyashikei. H E A L I N G. I mean I don't even necessarily disagree but goddamn.

One of the core dichotomies of the series, I think, is... it repeatedly makes it clear that people have done horrible things here, and the amount of deliberate destruction that's gone on is absolutely monstrous. They stumble onto nukes and giant war robots that can blow up a city, and there are destroyed tanks and giant craters everywhere. Basically everywhere they go is a former war zone. But it takes a really positive view of humanity. Outside of the attack on their hometown in the flashback, every single person they meet is nice and helpful. Any time it delves into human nature, the message is 'actually humans are pretty cool most of the time, and our basic drive is to take care of each other, not this survival of the fittest bullshit.'

which is one thing that I think sets it apart from a lot of fiction in this space? It never tries any kind of 'humanity is doomed in the long run because we're all violent animals beneath the facade of civilization' message or anything. Humanity rules, and it's a genuine tragedy that things have come to this.

kinda related, the series does a lot to make it clear how all of this is an unfathomably large tragedy. There are tons of background shots of entire abandoned cityscapes, there's the chapter with the mass grave, the gigantic library full of books, and so on. The actual scale of 'no, really, everyone and everything has an end sooner or later' gets driven in repeatedly. At the same time, it spends a lot of time on how something as small as destroying a single diary can be a tragedy in its own right, too. I guess I'm just kinda used to media that takes that kind of grand high-level view dismissing the small stuff as trite and unimportant when we could be putting up another number with lots of zeroes to say how many people died.

there are a lot of different ideas floating around on things like what it all means in the end, and whether it's meaningful to leave anything behind. The AI is overjoyed when she gets her chance for oblivion. The people in the graveyard have a statue to watch over them. Chito's attempt to leave something in the form of her diary is ultimately futile, and while she learns to find other meaning, destroying her diary and the books still isn't portrayed as a good thing. Other people are recorded forever in images and videos, and it's wonderful. Ultimately I don't think there's any one answer or message. Keeping with the general existentialist kinda themes, what matters is what the people involved find meaningful in that context, but that drive to create and preserve meaning for the future is both universal and noble.

while there's a lot to be said about the visuals overall... the fact that basically the only thing on the upper layer is a spiral staircase leading up into the air with no destination sure is some symbolism, huh.

similarly, while it wouldn't change the events any, symbolically I think it's very important that their long, ultimately pointless meandering journey that ends in death was upward, not downward.

on another level, though, it's kinda implied that the higher strata are newer/more recently maintained. So it's also essentially them moving through (and revisiting a lot of) human history to take their position at the very end.

Yuu's gun is never used for anything but target practice, and then she chucks it aside as soon as it's too much effort to carry. They use an old tank for a shower. They find a working military sub with nukes inside, and it's only useful because there's chocolate and a way to look at the storage on a camera. The one time they really fire a weapon, it's horrible, and the one thing they kill is portrayed as a tragedy. Even their helmets are mostly a running joke of 'oh my helmet totally would've stopped that falling building.' For a series that includes a lot of military stuff, it regards military stuff somewhere between 'disdain' and 'indifference.' Very 'the world is ending and you think a rocket launcher is going to be useful? Put that thing down and help me look for food.'

that said, the choice to give them a vehicle from WW2-era Germany is still a pretty damn unfortunate one. Considering the series's consistent stance against violence, disinterest in war, and casually disdainful treatment of weapons and military stuff, I'm comfortable saying that Tsukumizu almost certainly isn't a closet nazi, but still. At best it gives the wrong impression to anybody who hasn't gotten about a dozen chapters in and started thinking about the themes, and there's nothing the themes do with it that wouldn't work basically as well with any other military transport anyway.

the fungus things apparently being the inspiration for the god statues is clear enough, but just what their deal is remains surprisingly undefined. I've always figured they were genetically engineered or something, made specifically to clean up the environment. Which is itself a hell of a thing if so, deifying the creatures that basically symbolize 'maybe we can undo the harm we've done, and if that takes longer than we live, at least we'll leave something behind.'

I really don't know how to feel about the whole Shimeji Simulation connection. (if you aren't familiar) On one hand I feel like it undermines a lot of the series' messages to go 'oh but just kidding, everyone's fine and nobody really dies for good.' On the other hand, as somebody who's read/watched through the series about half a dozen times and really marinated in the despair, my primary immediate reaction is 'oh thank god they absolutely deserve this.' And it isn't like I haven't written multiple stories about characters embracing their imminent demise only to turn out okay against all odds in the epilogue.

Yuu's gay little run. this is still a thought

[axelsagewrites]

Pls write some more yara Greyjoy either fluff or smut. I love your fanfics so much 😌

Yara Greyjoy*Flirting

Pairing: Yara x f!targ!reader

Word count: 645

Warnings: none

Masterlist here

You were the youngest of your siblings and it made Danny cling to you. She made sure to protect you, never leaving your side until she was sure you were safe. It had left you a little sheltered to say the least, not that she’d ever let anyone tell you that.

Recently she’d started bringing you to council meetings and when she met with ambassadors. The latest person to request her presence was none other than Yara Greyjoy. Her eyes were focused on the queen, a slight smirk edging onto the outskirts of her lips as she spoke.

You tried to listen to the words, but you couldn’t help but be distracted be her. you had been taught beauty was in dresses, silks, and jewels by your brother, but Yara was beautiful like a dragon. Her leather trousers framed her legs perfectly, her shoulders broad and strong, and her eyes looked like they held the knowledge of the world.

“And I imagine your offer is free of any marriage demands?” your sisters voice brought you back into reality.

Yara’s lips quirked into a smirk, “I never demand,” she started, her eyes lazily falling to you, “but I’m for anything really,” she said, drawing her eyes back to your sister but there was already a hot blush scolding your cheeks.

You were stood beside Danny, but you didn’t need to see her face to know she wore her own smirk. You tried to be calm, keep unnoticed for the rest of the discussion but after asking for independence you couldn’t help but retort after Tyrion spoke, “What if everyone starts demanding their independence?”

“She’s not demanding. She’s asking,” you said, your voice soft but the fact you spoke at all caught them both off guard. Danny turned to you, raising a single eyebrow. You glanced back towards the Ironborn siblings and back to your own, giving a single nod back. it was all you had to do for Danny to know your position and Tyrion to be reminded of his.

-

Later that evening you were heading towards the hall for dinner when you felt someone’s hand grab your arm. Your head wiped around, eyes wide, only to be met with a smirk. “I’m sorry princess. I did not mean to startle you,” Yara said, her smirk smalling into a soft smile as she looked down at your dress, “I like the fabric. I was never one for frills,”

“I wasn’t either. Till recently at least,”

She chuckled a little, “I’ve only heard snippets about you, but I can imagine your story must be quite interesting,” her eyes were so captivating that the world around you seemed to stop.

“Hardly,” you laughed softly, “Yours though I imagine must be fascinating. I admire a woman who can take charge,” you said but your eyebrows furrowed when she laughed suddenly before realising, “I did not mean- “you tried to object when you realised the double meaning of your phrase.

Yara just chuckled, leaning in to whisper in your ear, “Don’t worry princess. I know exactly what you mean,” she said before pulling away, smiling at the hot flush on your face, “Now I was wondering if I may have the honour of escorting you to dinner? After all I’d hate for you to get hurt on the way to the festivities,” she said, holding out her arm to you.

You smiled and took it, trying your best to avoid her eye and the playful glint in it, “For the record I’d be able to make the journey alone,” you said, not wanting to sound weak to your newfound crush.

A smile peaked onto her lips, “I don’t doubt that princess. Though its good to know you enjoy my company,” she teased.

You felt your skin burn but you managed to smile back at her this time, “Maybe so,”

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[foralternateuniverses]

Acechiji A Whisker Away au

Prompt given by @loopyarts while talking about Ichiji + cats combo in the server, so ofc I had to run with the idea.

FIRST. BACKSTORIES.

Ace:

Roger was a bit of an absent father due to work, Rogue was the main caretaker, but she died when Ace was like 5, then he ended up in Dadan's care, with Sabo and Luffy.

Sabo was taken in by Roger because of the neglect he suffered from his bio parents, but since he was basically send to Dadan immediately Ace didn't hold anything against him.

Finally, when Ace is like, 14-16, Roger retires and returns home, with Raleigh. Since he's the legal guardian of both Ace and Sabo he takes both home, Luffy stays with Dadan, tho they're still pretty much neighbors so they see each other daily (and at school).

Ace is not happy.

Vinsmokes:

Sora and Judge divorced when the boys were like 4-5, but since Sora died when they were 8, they went back to being under Judge's care, as Zeff could not claim guardianship of the kids.

Sanji kept running away to stay with Zeff as much as possible, Judge just gave up on him, although he still scolds him from time to time, like Sanji, Reiju is mostly left ignored, as is Yonji, who learnt to keep as much to himself.

Generally speaking, they have a lot of leeway as long as they help Judge maintain his image and obey, good scores, athletic and artistic, keep the image of prodigy; and Judge also has his hands tied due to the records Sora left of abuse, having sued him previously, and winning the case, he only has the kids now cuz he's their only family left, Zeff (and everyone from the Baratie, basically) is keeping and eye on him tho.

Niji and Sanji are the ones who fight the most with Judge, Yonji and Reiju tend to keep to themselves, and Ichiji, well, he's his golden child, so extra pressure on him.

The one time he ever disobeyed his father (and was caught) was when he took Nyasha in, he convinced his siblings to help him keep the cat in secret (he had done so on his own at first) but Judge ended up finding out sooner than later, he destroyed everything Ichiji had bought the cat (along with some other Stuff that Ichiji held dear) and ended up hitting Ichiji when he jumped in to protect Nyasha from receiving Judge's violence. Reiju had to hold Niji back from jumping Judge, Sanji ran to get Zeff and Yonji went to check on Ichiji. Judge left with the threat and order "either you get rid of that thing or I'll do it myself" so they took Nyasha to Zeff, who had to be held down from going to the police ("you won't get custody, so we'll be sent to the system and separated, I rather we stay together, we just need to hang on for a little longer")

Reiju wants to take custody of her siblings once she turns 18, it will be hard but she'll be damned if she doesn't try, and well, Zeff and the Baratie staff will help and support her.

All this happens before Acechiji (ASL+1234 ) finally meet (at school).

A messy lineless sketch cuz I was running out of drawing juice

ASL & 124 meet officially thanks to Sanji getting adopted into Luffy's friend group (Reiju knew of Ace and Sabo but hadn't really interacted with them).

Ace caught Ichiji's attention before meeting though.

It doesn't take too long Acechiji to start their, lest call it courting, but it goes a snails pace because Ichiji's fears regarding Judge, which leads to a lot of mixed signals and confusion, until they finally have their little fight in the festival and Ace walks off and ends up getting the mask.

The fight being: Ichiji responds positively to his advances, not always tho, he's kind of sending mixed signals.

So they're out with their friends in the festival and, as usual, Ichiji responds positively to Ace's flirtations, to the point where Ace finally had the courage and, while they're alone on the back, ignored by the people surrounding them, Ace gives him a very brief peck on the cheek, but Ichiji responds the most negatively he has ever reacted. Suddenly very anxious (Judge may not be homophobic but he is very classist and controlling .Ichiji is worried that if Judge found out the man would just straight up send him to an abroad school or something, and Ichiji likes his life there, his siblings, Zeff and the Baratie, his friends, and well, Ace.), he covers his cheek and looks around, he scolds Ace for what he did, both blushing in embarrassment and anger.

Ace thinks that Ichiji is ashamed of him or sth, brings up the mixed signals, but Ichiji closes himself off, so Ace ends up walking off on his own, the most angry he has ever been at Ichiji, and a little heartbroken too.

That's when he meets the salesman, and puts on the mask.

Ichiji finds him because, after cooling down, he thought about everything and went to look for Ace, to maybe try and talk things out, maybe tell Ace the truth about everything, instead he finds a black kitten.

Like in the movie, Ace keeps turning into a cat to finally see all that Ichiji is hiding from him, specially since things have become awkward with Ichiji (there's some self sabotage going on on Ichiji's side and well, Ace can't simply reveal whatever little he has learnt).

Also, we will only see the mask seller twice or thrice, when he gives the mask to Ace with the time limit warning, later when he reminds him of the deal and having suggested telling Ichiji the truth and ends up taking Ace's human face as a mask, and when the time limit comes.

Nyasha takes Ace's place, he's mad at Ace and has an argument with him when Ace goes after him to get his face back ("I'll make sure to make him happy! And if I have to become you to do so, then I will! I will succeed where you failed him!") but seeing Ichiji's (and honestly all of the siblings and Baratie's) sadness and desperation at Nyasha's disappearance shows him how loved and needed he is.

The turning point of the story comes with Ace's arrival to the Vinsmoke household, seeing how they live helps Ace understand the cause of Ichiji's reluctance and mixed signals to their relationship, as well as help him grow an appreciation to his own guardians (his dad and Raleigh, after all, they do try, you know?), however is around here when the mask seller reappears and takes his face, since Ace had the brief idea that he would only be able to be with and make Ichiji happy as Spade (until the full truth of it all finally comes out and he also grows that appreciation towards his dad and his dad's boyfriend).

With the arrival of the festival, he grows desperate and goes to the other place in search of the mask seller.

Nyasha also tells Ichiji the truth and with all the changes and everything, Ichiji hardens his resolve to fight for his relationship with Ace, so he insists on going to save him. Nyasha, ofc, agrees.

They finally catch up to each other and find the mask seller to settle everything, it seems like the mask seller will let them do as they please, but he takes Ace's mask and it disappears ("But you said you needed to be 'Spade' to make him happy, didn't you? I would never let you regret turning back into a human and losing everything you have with him, leaving him on his own in that awful, awful house") the mask is hidden somewhere in the tree of life and they need to find it, there are no hints to where it could be though.

They barely managed to find it on time, but Ace is still a bit hesitant, the mask seller and Nyasha's previous words did get to him, but Ichiji finally pours his heart out to him.

They finally return together with Nyasha and everyone celebrates together, both Nyasha's reappearance and Acechiji getting together (they will help them keep their relationship secret for as long as possible).

Niji is the least happy with their union, but that's just how he is with his siblings, the mother hen.

Finally, the moment Reiju turns 18, she moves out to a place nearby that Zeff helped her get, and she both studies and works part time at the Baratie, and proceedings begin. Having saved a lot of money (and with Zeff's support, again) she gets custody of her brothers and puts a restraining order on Judge, forcing him to move to another city.

Ace also starts bonding with his dads, specially because they found out about his relationship with Ichiji and not only helped keep it secret, but also helped Reiju settle and win the court cases. They become another safe heaven for the Vinsmoke siblings.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

The end.

Plus a little scene.

He wiggled, because he needed to. It was hot under the sweater and his face was smushed against Ichiji's chest; his hearing revealed the fast beating of the redhead's heart. So he either combusted or wiggled.

"Shh, keep still"

Ace was, once again, squished against Ichiji's body. Being hidden under Ichiji's sweater as he was, his vision was very limited, but, based on what he could make out with his hearing, they had entered a house.

"What were you doing out so late?" He heard Reiju ask.

"Homework"

"Get off his ass Reiju" he heard Yonji farther away "dad's not home tonight anyway, let the guy be"

Reiju sighed.

"And Sanji?"

"He's staying at Zeff's again" answered Niji "He should just stay there forever at this point"

"Don't say that" scolded Reiju.

"Why not?" Yonji again "He's happy there, if it were me I would take the opportunity to never return, would dad even care?"

"I don't think he would even notice" followed Niji. Someone snorted.

"So dad's not coming back tonight?"

Reiju answered "there was an accident in the lab with one of Caesar's projects so he's staying the night there to try and solve it, I doubt he'll be back tomorrow"

The sweater's zipper was pulled down to reveal a brightly lit and spacious living room. Yonji and Niji sat together on the longest sofa, notebooks open on the low table in front of them. Reiju stood behind with a mug in her hands. They all turned to Ichiji, who, firmly yet gently, held Ace in his arms.

"Oh, Ichiji, no" Reiju frowned with pity "you know dad won't allow it"

"Just for tonight"

"That's what you said last time" complained Niji, his frown mirroring Reiju's.

However, Yonji stood up, face bright, and walked to his older brother. Ace slapped the approaching hand.

Yonji cooed "So cute"

Ace purred at the feeling of Ichiji scratching the back of his ear, he looked up and found a very small smile on the redhead's face, softening his expression.

"He is, he's also very friendly"

Yonji nodded and tried to join in the scratching, but Ace caught the limb in his maw. Yonji laughed.

"Do you want to play?"

Niji groaned "Oh, come on, Yonji, don't add fuel, you know the cat can't stay"

"Maybe Zeff can take him in, at least, I want to make sure he finds a nice home"

"Zeff only took Nyasha in because we had no time to find another person to take him in and it was either that or dad would get rid of him on his own" said Reiju, leaving her mug on the low table.

"And because you literally cried and begged him for hours" added Niji.

"Sanji was the one crying" Ichiji defended himself.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night. The point is, Zeff won't take in another one of your cats, not even if you, Yonji, me, Reiju or even Sanji cry and beg, that old geezer's number one priority is his restaurant"

"And Sanji" Yonji jumped in.

"Don't interrupt me, moron. So I suggest you put that back where you found it"

Ichiji clicked his tongue "mind your own business, number two"

"O-Hey-"

Ichiji walked past everyone, ignoring their calls, and took Ace to his room.

[cookiesupplier]

Every Rose Has Its Thorns - Part Thirty-Seven

pairing: Ricky Olson x ofc x Chris 'Motionless' Cerulli

warnings/tropes: slow burn, soulmates, strangers to enemies to lovers, betrayal, angst, fluff, smut, language, online bullying, panic attacks, stalking, mental health issues.

summary: In a world where soulmates inexplicably receive a tattoo that will match that of their soulmate the moment they turn eighteen years old, being famous and covered in very visible tattoos can make finding your true soulmate a questionable fate. For everyone involved.

author’s note: Unbeta'd, readers beware as always lol.

To read from the beginning, check out the Masterlist Here!

tags: @tearfallpixie @cncohshit @jordynyingling0219 @faceless-mirror @nyxthedestroyerofworlds @wild-child-7747 @witchyweeb34 @black-damask1999 @jilliemiw86 @ilovesamkiszka @lyschko666 @lacktoesandtoddlerants @bngurngheart @collapsedglasshouses @laurpartyprogram @sunsshinesunny @malerieee @talialovesmiw @shilohrosechicken @thatchickwiththecamera @tamtam-elizabeth

Tag List is Open, please let me know if you would like to be added to it or in general.

Chris had ended up having to leave his friend a message on his machine as he was out that morning, he hated doing that as it felt so impersonal, and never wanted to give details on those things. But, it was over really, he knew that he couldn’t always be in the office. The soulmate tattoo science division was a very difficult line of research to keep funded. Most of the people in the field he’d managed to make contact with, even if just marginally over the last few years, all said the same thing. They usually either were extremely lucky with multiple grants, had side jobs, alternate research, or their research into the soul connection was the alternate study. There were some on the outside that sat the soulmate research as a hobby, but he knew they were all so very passionate about it. Sadly, none of them could dedicate all of their time to it, as it just didn’t pay the bills.

That was something Chris could understand completely. He remembered the early years in the band, working what was essentially a day job just to make ends meet. Needing it to make sure he could pay rent, buy food, have the funds for equipment, getting to and from gigs, basically everything the band could possibly need. So yes, he knew what it was like to have a passion project that was worth an absolute pittance. Unfortunately for most of the scientists he’d talked to over the years, their projects in the soulmate research, wasn’t likely to suddenly boom anything nearly as massive as the band. Not with the known track record so far. Besides, he was reminded science wasn’t just about making money though, it was about the discovery and search of knowledge.

He was in need of some of that knowledge right now, and not just him, but also Ricky, and Talia. Living like this, was driving all of them a little nuts, he could tell they were all on edge. Poor Talia, that panic attack she’d had, she had spiralled so bad just at the thought of having to face those doctors again that had treated her so badly. If Chris had his way, he’d shut that whole place down, who the hell treated people that way. What harm, what proof, had her family presented, that could have suggested that any of that was remotely necessary, even then, the doctors should have evaluated her themselves. He couldn’t personally understand how Talia could have met the criteria. 

Just the same, once Chris had made the call, now it was just the waiting game, and checking the message board, cringing at the different takes of what others had of the illnesses that could be wrong with him. Oh yes, the imaginations of these people, they were coming up with everything under the sun that could be wrong with him, and somehow every single person, assumed he was dying. He supposed that happened when you were brought to that particular area of the message boards, it involved death to start with, so assuming death was involved, could be taken to heart. Chris would like to think he wasn’t dying though, he didn’t feel sick, no matter how much of a panic this was whirling around in him right now though, let's not think about that. 

It was about lunchtime that he was finally able to hear back from his friend, right when he was in the middle of making himself something to eat no less, isn’t that how it always goes? When you have been absolutely dying for someone to call you back about a vital topic, you wait around forever expecting their call, but it doesn’t come. When you finally give up and get up to do something else, boom, you are right in the middle of what you are doing, and they call. So he was in the middle of making himself a sandwich when his phone started ringing, and he had to drop everything, he wasn’t going to risk missing this call, not this of all things.

“Micah, hey, man, how are you going? How’s the wife? The kids?”

While Chris had never met Micah in person, they had had some very long and in-depth philosophical conversations about the soulmate bonds between people. Even about the bond stemming between Micah and his wife and how their relationship had been affected by it. Micah had met his wife long before they knew they were soulmates, much like Talia’s friends Kyle and Jordan. Chris had enjoyed hearing about such a bond evolving differently somewhere else to, how the tattoos were different and worked differently for everywhere. It was amazing how that happened. 

“They are doing well, and you, Chris, how is your work going?”

Chris never spoke openly about his work on the phone, not this number anyway, this was the office number. While there were other scientists that Chris knew on a strictly surface level, Micah he’d actually gotten to know a little more personally because the man had understood to some degree what Chris went through. He had switched to soulmate research when his brother had lost his soulmate while he was still a teenager, and the toll it had taken on him had been immense. Chris felt for those that lost so much hope at such a young age.

“It’s going well, on some downtime, which is even better. Though I’ve actually had some curious thoughts lately, one of my friends has been talking to me a lot about soulmate tattoos. I mean, we were talking about the different crazy theories and hypothetical situations out there.”

Chris knew it was a little unfair that he was telling his friend a bit of a white lie, but this wasn’t just about him, this was about Ricky and Talia too. He wasn’t going to put them in a position when they had to deal with a bunch of doctors if they didn’t want to. Ricky had said straight out yesterday, no tests, and Chris did not blame him, especially with how they were all connected, if just one of them got poked and prodded, who knows if they’d all feel it.

As expected, Chris heard a rustling of papers on the desk of the other end of the phone followed by a low chuckle, assuming that Micah was getting himself comfortable for this conversation now.

“Alright, Chris, you’ve got my attention, hit me with them.”

Bingo, he knew how to get Micah, he always liked to hear the latest theories that came about. Hearing them from people was always more interesting than trolling the message boards as Micah told him after all.

“Okay, now, I know that some of these just really got my head spinning, like there is apparently one that is about how the tattoos are actually random and work on hypnotic suggestion once they come in proximity to each other. There is another, that was taking about soulmate tattoos can sometimes change colour after a soulmate passes away, and become a whole new tattoo, which is completely ridiculous. Oh hell, then there was another one, oh, oh, get this Micah, oh you’ll get a kick out of this-”

Chris had a couple more insane ideas in his head to throw at him if need be, including tid bits of the way the soulmate bond that was affecting Talia and Ricky. The idea had been, was to see if he could see if that sparked more from Micah as he went. The fact that he seemed to be stopping his jumbled rant already, it would seem he wouldn’t need that after all.

“Wait a second, what was that theory?”

Chris paused, as if thinking,

“The hypnotic suggestion? Don’t tell me someone is actually researching that, are you kidding-”

“No Chris- I-”

“Because I swear if my friend finds out that he could eventually hypnotise his girlfriend-”

“Chris, that’s not what I-”

Chris was just barrelling forward, he knew this was probably a bit much, but his nerves about the entire ordeal during the night had gone into overdrive. Remembering how it had felt holding Talia as she cried, had him convinced that he needed to protect her from any doctor involved. Even his friend. Ricky and him, they were connected yes, and sure, he didn’t want either of them hurt either, but seeing her curled up against Ricky’s chest sobbing, and the thought of her broken like that again? Never. This was why he was driving Micah around in circles, and maybe one day he’d tell him, maybe one day he’d forgive him.

“Chris!”

“Shit! Sorry, Crap, Micah, you scared me.. What..”

“I wasn’t meaning about the hypnotic suggestion theory. What, what was the other theory you, you and your, friend, were, talking about?”

Here we go, time for the other foot to drop.

“Oh, um, was it, the uh, colour-blind tattoo soulmate theory one? About being the reason they are all only black or white?”

Chris didn’t know if he was frustrating Micah now, but he seemed to just let out a decent puff of air for a long moment then, taking in a slow breath.

“You mean the one about the tattoo changing, after the soulmate died? Like.. something anyway, sounds really stupid, right?”

Snorting derisively into the phone, as if he would have thought this entire thing was utterly ridiculous, and honestly, if it were happening to anyone else, he would.

The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. 

When Micah started talking again, something in his voice had changed, even if it was just from him adjusting his posture at his desk, Chris didn’t know, but something had changed, and instantly it made the man wary.

“So your friend, was this his theory Chris, or yours?”

“We were just shooting the breeze and talking about random things we heard about in passing, they weren’t either of our own theories, Micah, why, what does it matter, why so serious all of a sudden man?”

It was making him very worried about the fact that Micah was getting so serious about this, especially since Ricky had said the remark about testing. Thinking about it now, sent a chill down his spine. What the hell was happening, Micah had never gotten like this before, never, he’d always been so easy going, even when their discussions had become extremely intense.

“No, no, Chris, not serious, or anything like that, I just, I’m curious. How the subject of tattoos changing like that came up exactly. Is this, something that, either of you have heard about from someone in person, or, just a random joke about in the moment.”

He was fishing, Chris knew he was fishing, and it was making him nervous. He pushed himself to laughed slightly.

“Why, is there something to worry about Micah? Don’t tell me, tattoos are changing left right and centre and the government is keeping it covered up, big conspiracy they don’t want anyone to know about?”

That Chris threw out there with a real-ass loud laugh, the thought that random tattoos could be changing and no one in the world would be talking about it would be laughable to him. The things he’d heard all over the message boards about the soulmate tattoos there was no way another person tattoo could have changed, and he wouldn’t have heard about it, no, no way. Surely not… right?

“Chris…”

“Yea?”

Trying to sound as nonchalant as humanly possible considering how completely unhinged he was feeling with the turn this conversation had taken.

“Has your tattoo changed?”

Micah knew his soulmate was dead, and Chris was kicking himself now for including that in the first place, about the tattoo changing after a soulmate passing away. Shit, maybe he wouldn’t be asking about Chris’ tattoo specifically if he hadn’t. What the fuck was he supposed to say, he had to say something, the longer he said nothing, Micah would know he was stalling.. The fact he’d paused, even for a second, he was going to know something was amiss.

Scoffing slightly after that second,

“No, stuff, the same, as always, still.. White.. Still… dead.”

Swallowing, yep, his soulmate was still very much dead, everything was exactly the way it was the last time they spoke, Micah. 

As much as he’d called for answers, the cryptic way Micah was being, Chris wasn’t sure he wanted answers from him any more, something was amiss and he was nervous.

Silence met him again from the other end of the line, and just when Chris went to say something himself, Micah spoke abruptly.

“Chris, whatever you do, don’t call this number again, I’ll be in touch.”

And the line went dead.

What the hell was happening?!?

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

[sidemenxyn]

Hey would u be down to do a platonic Sidemen fic??? Like she's a bit younger than them (maybe like 19-20?) and she's also a youtuber and it's just like headcannons on their friendships???

Yes of course! Hope you enjoy this!

Sidemen x Y/n (Afab) (Guernsey reader) 

Tw: slight language (like one or two words)

–—–

How you all met was because you practically came with Harry. Like a pack of beer or a pack of sweets, you came with the package aka Harry.

Since you weren’t shy at all, you were able to get along with the boys. You helped them record their first lot of videos and encouraged them to be their best selves and be the best YouTubers they can be.

So since you were the ‘younger’ one, you were more up with the trends so you’d tell them what the latest ‘video’ could be.

You had different types of friendships with each person. So let’s get into the details!!

First off Josh! Since he’s been with Freya you see them as your non-biological parents. Freya is literally like a mother, she gives you the motherly vibe (in a good way obviously.) and Josh is always there for you like a dad and he’d (plus the boys) would be protective of you. Sometimes he’d teach you things, they may be random things but it’s a way you two would spend time together besides recording things. He’d teach you how to do YouTube, you already knew the basics but he helped you learn even more.

Simon- he felt the most like a big brother, like the out of the ‘family’ you all were he would be the oldest sibling. He thought you football (along side Harry) but you pair would just have a kick-about together in the garden since the boys were filming for their own videos. He would take you to go get food for you all, you were his co-pilot when getting food for you all. When you have a bad day, he’d be the one to vent to. Like he’s a listener rather than a talker so he’d like to listen to you rant and then try and help you find a solution or to comfort you.

JJ- gosh, he was such a wind up! Especially when you lived in the sidemen house. Pranks left right and centre and if they weren’t for you then you two would team up and prank someone else. He would definitely be the type of ‘brother’ you’d have to keep your eye out for. Either play fighting or pranking. But if someone bothers you that’s isn’t in a ice way or isn’t someone you know; best believe he’s buy your side ready to fight the guy or girl who’s harassing you. Since he’s been boxing people don’t want to try and go against him. He’s the type of person who ‘only I can beat up them’ like bus brothers who play fight with their sibling but if someone else tries, expect murder.

Tobi- he was definitely the ‘twin’ type. He knew just from a look or your body language how you felt. He noticed the small details/aneurisms you’d do. If you didn’t do them he knew something was wrong. You talk to him about boy drama, girl drama or whatever drama. He heard all the gossip. He helped you learn to drive since he drives the most and in your opinion the best. Definitely helped you style your clothes or show you what your style could or can be like. Definitely protective of you if you all went clubbing. Since he’s the sober friend, he’d protect you from creeps when you were drunk. Helped you whenever you needed help he was there (so was everyone but he’d usually be the first).

Vikk- he’s was definitely the kindest when it came to meeting you for the first time. Like he’d made sure you were comfortable in any situation possible and always checked up on you. He’d got you into Minecraft and games in general. You didn’t do it as much as the boys but when they’d ask you to join their gta race or Minecraft challenge you’d be amazing at it. Always helped you with anything you’d struggle with. If you choose to do uni or collage and it was online he’d help you if he was free. You guys definitely have a cute friendship.

Ethan- definitely in recent days helped you become more confident in yourself and your body. I mean come on! He had an amazing body transformation so of course he’d help you feel better in your body. You helped Faith and Ethan become the amazing couple they are today. Ethan mentioned that Faith was pretty and you said she liked him and so poof! Relationship created 😂 but he was definitely the more stern and would be a very good friend and role model. You love going over their house and seeing Olive and having some fun with them. Definitely a person you can feel safe with.

Harry- definitely like the younger brother, I mean you grew up with him you knew everything about him and vice-versa. Football video almost every weekend. You two being the dynamic duo of the sidemen video. Both of you being the younger one of the group. Being a girl it helped him be somewhat more confident in himself while talking to women. You two would take the piss out of each other and sometimes Vikk would try and stop it thinking you pair were actually arguing 😂 like siblings and their mother.

You and Harry moved in with Calfreezy and Callux. Let me tell you it was a blast! Something different happened everyday, either it being a cooking video that you’d judge in or Harry making a diss track.

As time moved on Callux moved into his own house and the three of you bought a new apartment (the one Harry had before he moved recently). If you were making a video Cal or Harry would casually walk in and join or when you were streaming and the chat would blow up. You’d be stealing their hoodie left, right and centre. It was comforting if it was just you in the apartment if they were filming outside the apartment. You’d cook them food as you were the best as they quoted. Harry would steal your comfy blankets as Cal would steal your cozy pillows. You lot would most definitely have the ‘bin shoes thing’ like where if you were throwing the rubbish out you’d chuck on Harry’s sliders and go take the bins out. You three definitely doing a cook off in the new apartment.

You all love going and playing seven aside or if not eleven aside. Growing up with these lot, you grew to love football. So playing football with them is fun. Sometimes you’d even see that some random boys would join in if you were low on numbers.

One time you were all playing football with a few random lads. You had scored for your team, on the other team the random lads were losing. So of course they shouted “she can’t play!” So the boys especially Harry, Ethan, Calfreezy and Tobi became protective asking the “why is she a problem?” “Do you have a problem with her?!” So the boys obviously said “yeah! She’s a girl and we are all boys.” So Ethan and Cal started arguing and got them kicked out of the Astro you were playing on. Tobi sarcastically asked “is it cause she’s good and your losing?” The boys walked off losing the argument and then you all decided to carry on and just evened out the teams more.

When you were on the sidemen videos you’d know it was a good video. Like the holiday ones, they were the best cause no matter what team you were in you’d make everyone feel better. Or the hide and seek, you had a thing were if the seeker walked past you’d joke about them and chat shit. Just for a laugh.

If you were having a rough day or something bothered you which ruined your day; Cal and Harry could sense that. So what they’d do is a little ‘spa’ day. So what they’d do was you’d all do some skin care and some face masks. You’d all order some takeout and have a ‘girls night’ so you’d gossip and tell the boys all the drama and they’d get hooked. Then you’d watch a movie or tv show, thats when Harry would be filming cause he isn’t a movie person.

All together they loved you no matter what and everyone adored you for who you were. The fans adored you either it was your own fans or sidemen fans. You’d helped the boy get to where they are now so obviously you all grew a strong relationship with them all and you’d obviously loved them so much! So you can definitely say “I love the boys and they love me!”

[bittenmoths]

CLOYNE FILES — JUNIPER RIDLEY LIAO.

˗ˏˋ 𓂃 ( chase sui wonders. genderqueer. she/they ). meet juniper ridley liao, a 26 year old, who has been in cloyne for their entire life. they are a mechanic at the garage, known for being dauntless and irascible. they are often heard humming along to when i am queen by jack off jill. residents would describe them as the miscreant. ( james, 25, they/them, est )

content warnings for... familial death, grief, alcoholism, child neglect.

profile.

full name — juniper ridley liao.

nickname(s) — june, at the very most ( junie is very poorly received ); ridley.

place of birth — cloyne, ontario, canada.

date of birth & age — april 9th, 1998. twenty6.

gender / pronouns — genderqueer, she/they.

sexuality — demi - bisexual ( but deeply repressed about it ).

occupation — mechanic at the garage.

astrology — aries sun, virgo moon, capricorn rising.

residence — a two bedroom apartment, all rotted floorboards and cracked windows; uncomfortably fitting a rotating list of eight to ten tenants, with the additional bonus roommates who refuse to pay a single lick. a bear's den in the winter.

interests — the quick - release of adrenaline after a bloodied fight; the stretch of healing skin and peeling scabs. black coffee and bar - floor cigarettes. nicking joints from her roommates, shrouded behind an ear. the crackling of a scratched cd in an old car radio. starting arguments for the sake of arguing. bribery, if the price is right ( always the form of free food and smokes ). lying for the fun of it. fake tarot readings and wads of cash stuffed inside bras. stealing, especially from house parties. evading their problems. minor arson; vandalism; baseball bats against mailboxes. being right ( never is ). cars & her job, the only one she's managed to keep. stealing shots at the bar; shitty beers and cheap liquor. living just to spite those who wish her dead.

aversions — intimacy; always nerve - wracking, always confusing - always a trick. ankle monitors; they always itch. the police. her family; her sisters in particular. apologies. begging, pleading. the concept of fear - of being scared. promises; they're always broken. sleeping in a jail cell. the consequences of her actions. stupid nicknames. the faux security that being cared for provides; as if it could save her, as if it could save anyone. notably flinching away; a habit that can't break. their weaknesses on display; vulnerability. the sour taste of guilt. hypocrites, despite being one herself. nuanced truths and straightforward falsehoods. the definitive. nostalgia; nothing good ever comes from it.

quirks — putting cigarettes out against her tongue like a cheap party trick. picking off her nail polish. aggressively stomping out dead leaves on the sidewalk. crosses the street right when a car barrels down it. entering and exiting homes via the window, scaling the lattice. a maddening, hyena's laugh. prefers to watch someone struggle than offer her help ( unless, of course, it's for a price ). keeps a windowsill of dead plants.

most played — when i am queen by jack off jill.

notable features — skin littered with shitty, blurred out stick - n - pokes from years prior, alongside fresh bruises and old scabs. hands that can't keep to themselves, either fidgeting or balled into fists. a spattering of beauty marks across her features, and dark, dead eyes.

general disposition — arrogance and self - loathing tied like twine against a bundle of dynamite; a sneer always twitching at lip. a walking BEWARE OF DOG sign, all growls and snarling teeth.

character study — kim kelly ( freaks and geeks ) & kat stratford ( 10 things i hate about you ).

public records.

everyone knows the liaos, even if they wished not to; they're hard to ignore, cloyne's own bad omen. a family of criminals, of scammers and thieves - the liao children born in quick succession of one another, barely a year apart. in love with themselves and each other, they were respected in their small circle of crime, and managed to evade arrest on numerous occasions.

familial death, grief; no matter how happy they are - it doesn't last. juniper is the last born; their mother dying during childbirth - and juniper becoming a blotted stain in her family's lives. if their grandparents were alive; they would've deemed her cursed, marking the end of their family's lucky streak.

alcoholism, child neglect; the death of his wife strikes their father hard; the oldest liao sister takes the role of parent as their father, in all his grief, turns to the bottle. nights are spent passed out in his recliner chair, in front of the tv - beer bottle just about slipping from his grasp to meet the others littered across the ground. he's an absent man, both in heart and mind - not angry, but lost.

child neglect; the liao sisters grow up raising themselves in their small and cramped, grimy trailer. juniper is always left to fend for herself; they blame her for their mother's death - and they tell her that much. even if they didn't; she knew - just by the way they looked at her, the hard glares that matched her own. juniper blamed herself, too. she grew up as the neighborhood bully; pushing kids off the jungle gym and stealing money, biting when accosted. always claimed she didn't care about the consequences, about the way her sisters treated her. juniper didn't need them; she doesn't need anyone. she'll make her own goddamn sandwiches, walk herself home from school. survive on her own. when they're nine, they run away - and when they eventually return ( not so long after ), it's like they didn't even notice her absence. like she didn't exist.

like any liao before her, by the time juniper's in high school her rap sheet is a mile long and filled to the brim with petty crimes. vandalism and minor theft, underaged drinking, smoking - minor assault, no charge pressed. the police know her by name, as they know each and every one of them. it's a vicious cycle; commit the crime, fail to get away with it, spend the night in a jail cell - even if it has to be the next town over's. they never learn, doesn't care enough to - because nobody else does, so why would they?

they drop out of high school in their last year and refuses to look back; they hop from job to job, anything to make themselves money, anything to keep them out of their family's trailer. tarot scams are her game - a side hustle to keep it flowing as she hops between jobs. none of them stick, mostly by her own design; until the mechanic's shop. she's surprisingly adept, knows what she's doing from years of fixing and re - fixing her family's car. it's the place that sticks.

they move out of the trailer, and into the world's shittiest apartment that's not much better; but it's home enough, and away from her sisters. it's small, and cramped - with at least eight different roommates and their accompanying partners. it's good for the winter time; their beds comically filled with people. shit's always broke, the noise never stops - someone keeps trying to grow shrooms in the bath tub. she can't imagine leaving it.

disposition & details.

locally known problem child long - deemed a lost cause, hopeless to help. the worst reputation amongst the sisters; and lacking the charisma that her parents had in their youth. a cheap imitation, if anything. she can't help but cause all sorts of problems around town, whether it's vandalism or scamming, or just picking a fight - provoking. does almost anything if it means earning a quick buck, and gets an adrenaline rush from stupid, dangerous acts. a liar and a thief.

quick to become defensive, and even quicker to anger; fury bubbles beneath her skin like a witches' cauldron, like coals being lit afire. she's uncouth and aggressive, the mouth of a sailor. is always expecting the worst - is genuinely surprised when it doesn't happen. has few and far friendships and doesn't know how to manage them - or how to handle kindness. doesn't believe in redemption; but tries, on the rare occasion, like it'll erase the sin of her existing.

has never pursued a relationship, much less intimacy in any form. is too guarded, too on defense. takes flirting like a sick joke; becomes confused, angry - like they're taking the piss on her. like she's some sort of joke. it's embarrassing, nerve - wracking, and exposing. despite their outward arrogant demeanor; juniper's soul is laced with insecurities and well - hidden doubt. unable to be close and personal with others; she always deflects attempts.

juniper is incredibly blunt and critical - quick to point out what they notice, or believe, to be weaknesses and weak points. never thinks before speaking; doesn't think very much at all. they act purely on impulse, and doesn't often worry; acts like she hasn't a single fear. she does not have an intuition against danger, but is surprisingly perceptive. notices the little details; and uses them to her advantage.

a part of her cares more than anything; that craves the intimacy of being cared about, of knowing that she won't die young and alone. her emotional needs are heavily repressed, buried beneath layers of self - destruction. a part of her is always mourning the life she'll never have.

is quick to accept a bribe if it benefits her - mostly in the form of money, food, or free illicit substances. her loyalty switches to the highest bidder, whoever benefits her desires the most. she's selfish and unkind; bites the hand that feeds until it's blood becomes her drink.

most of her belongings are stolen from others, or on occasion - thrifted, or passed over to her. excellent with their hands; they make their own jewelry using trinkets they've stolen over the course of the years. is particular to house parties, mostly to raid their medicine cabinets and closets.

wanted.

broke apartment friends — friends being a loose term; the ten or so people who live in juniper's apartment, half of them pay rent and the others freeload. it's small, and half the shit's broken, and most of the time they're sharing beds.

enemies until the end — lifelong enemies from childhood, someone that juniper aims to make life miserable for and vice versa; they're constantly at each other's throats.

a vicious kind of love — love also being a loose term; maybe more of a flirtationship, almost one - sided due to juniper's own reservations. maybe it's just for fun, something to entertain the other person; non - serious for them.

a small amount of friends and even more enemies. people june scams, or have stolen from, or has otherwise wronged. people who avoid her due to her family, and her own actions. neighbors, coworkers. lighthearted crushes, unrequited things. ex - friends by the dozen.

[burnwater13]

Concept art by Ryan Church. IG-11 approached two ex-Imperial stormtroopers on Nevarro. They are holding the Child in a bag on their speeder bikes. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 8, Redemption.

Djarin woke up to the soft blinking light of the Razor Crest’s alarm. He could instantly tell that Cara Dune was still sleeping. Her snoring was something even his helmet sound system couldn't fully dampen. He wondered how she managed to do the work she had done for the Rebels. But maybe drop troopers didn’t stay anywhere long enough to sleep. 

He’d learned that Kuiil slept silently and could sleep anywhere at all. Seats, hammocks, a bale of feed for the blurrgs. It didn’t matter. Kuiil’s life experience prioritized sleep over comfort to an amazing extent. Even the kid wasn't a better sleeper, which had surprised Djarin, considering how much experience he must have had sleeping under unpleasant circumstances. 

Just thinking about that made the Mandalorian sigh. Was he really doing the right thing bringing the kid back to Nevarro? His training as a Mandalorian warrior was pretty clear on that. Go to Nevarro, meet the enemy, crush them, then leave. There would be no one to continue the ridiculous bounty scam and he and the kid could look for his people without running into trouble every time they touched down at a spaceport. 

Unfortunately, that voice, small and childlike, that remembered everything about Aq Vetina, told him to keep the heck away from Nevarro and any world the Imps had ever controlled. Of course he'd thought they’d done that when they went to Sorgan. It was small and sparsely populated. There had been no records of the Imps ever going there. But… of course the Imps or the syndicates had ended up there and they brought the remnants of the Empire with them. That whole thing had almost ended in disaster. Uff. 

So rather than try that again they were headed right back to Nevarro. Karga was either going to help them or betray them and the man who cared about a kid who wasn’t his already knew what would happen to his ‘old pal’ the bounty hunters’ guild leader in either case. He would be warm until he was cold and if he had to be cold, it would be the permanent kind of cold that no amount of consideration and reflection could change. It was a harsh realization but then life as a Mandalorian bounty hunter had prepared Djarin for that sort thing. 

Like the time he got a bounty puck on that Twi’lek who had violated every requirement of their parole on Ryloth. The Mandalorian had tracked them to a small enclave and found them holding a room full of people hostage. Most of them had been children and a couple of women. All of them were Twi’leks. 

He’d offered to bring them warm. Just don’t hurt the kids or the other people present. They had agreed, got to their feet slowly and then kicked a bag at their feet. The whole damn room exploded. It was awful. While his beskar had protected him from the blast and his general position at the doorway, everyone else had been killed. 

The boy who lived in Djarin's head told him to leave. The Mandalorian warrior got out a plastic bag and began to collect samples of the remains. The DNA of that monster was in that mess somewhere and he had Mandalorian younglings to support. The bounty hunter had collected the fee and gone back to his ship to get very very drunk. It hadn’t helped as much as he wished it would have. 

Nevarro was staring at him. A tiny dot. He’d have to wake Cara and see if Kuiil was up already. The Ugnaught seemed to have a sixth sense for when changes occurred that might impact him. Djarin wished that he'd had any sense like that at all. He might have passed on trying to pick up a fifty year old on Arvala-7. 

A fifty year old child. Who’d ever heard of something like that? The droid had commented that some species age slower than others, but that was cold comfort when Djarin had seen those big brown eyes staring up at him. He thought of those poor kids on Ryloth and the big kid who was staring down at the pram wondering what the heck had happened. 

He wondered if the kid really wanted to do this. He hadn’t really considered that. What if the kid just wanted to keep running from place to place? What if the kid just wanted to go back to Tatooine? That lady with the curly hair had offered him credits for the kid… but he couldn't do that. But… he could have gone back to Tatooine and hidden the kid with the Sand People. He knew some of them and knew that they also cared about foundlings. A foundling like this kid might have been just what their prophesies were all about. 

Dank Farrik. He’d made the decision he'd made. The kid was the bait. He, Cara, and Kuiil were going to make the thing work with or without Greef Karga's help and that was just the way it was going to go. If all else failed, the droid, IG-11, could take care of kid until someone else showed up who was better at this sort of thing than he was. If someone showed up. Djarin sighed again. Time to send the boy home and have the Mandalorian warrior take over. Din Djarin was a determined and skilled fighter. He’d gotten out of spots tighter than this one and he’d do it again, with the kid. 

This is the Way.

[sweetest-honeybee]

C'mon mate what's the tea on the manager they crazy or just stupid? A manager is usually one or the other. Or both.

PFFT just an ass to literally everyone in the building but I learned all this in pretty much one day:

She was hoping to fire this one girl bc the girl has a no call-no show on her record (girl in question is a mother and I believe it was due to an emergency related to that). The hope was that the girl wouldn’t come to work on another no call-no show but she ended up coming which pissed off manager

This is just something I heard from someone else (old friend from high school who happens to work there) but apparently one of the employees there is suing due to violations regarding an injury they received at work. Manager made them continue working and demanded them do things their doctor specifically said they couldn’t do and so company and manager are being sued

Lady I work for in the kitchen HATES her and they have a fair bit of history from the last year actually including a screaming match which ended in items being thrown apparently? Manager keeps butting in to cook things bc she thinks lady in the kitchen, despite it being her job, either doesn’t know what she’s doing or is too slow

Manager put me and girl she was hoping to fire in there together to cook stuff and train me in the kitchen. All was fine til manager butted in to teach me the EXACT same stuff lady taught me and was somehow surprised I already fuckin. Knew how to do it 😂

Manager just kept getting in the way of every damn thing in that kitchen

Manager sent lady int he tiki hen home early bc she decided there was nothing else she needed to do even tho we kept continuing to prepare food under the training of 2 managers including asshole manager

Kept pulling employee who’s suing aside to bitch at them in the kitchen in the last couple hours of my shift

Generally kept bitching about every damn thing in the store (loudly going “Customers come in here expecting us to drop everything to help them! 😡😡” in the kitchen)

Kitchen lady was busy training me so nobody was watching the roller grill for the first 2 hours of my shift which pissed off manager even tho she stuck be back there to train. Openly complained about it in front of customers

More of a pet peeve but she also bitched about my name tag being on the wrong side like 8 feet from me. Didn’t say it to me, never did. But bitched to another manager about it. There were no specific codes on how to wear the name tag, just that you had one. I wore it on my left side with the company logo bc I’m right handed and reaching things with my right hand would make my arm hit it and repeatedly scrape against my arm. I fixed it but apparently she’s got a reputation for bitching about something to EVERYONE except you if you’re pissing her off with something

But yeah people quit there all the time bc of her and the ridiculous workload she puts on everyone. And by ridiculous I don’t mean a lot, but such a small store means there’s not always something to do. So before store inspection, she had me scoot along the inside perimeter and scrub that little corner where the walls and floors meet. Honest to god I god paid an hour to sit and scrub dirt out of THIS

[sparrow-in-boots]

okay so, I'm going to get to Lucy Stillman and the franchise's treatment of her, but i think I need to explain my own feelings about the portrayal of the modern brotherhood first. I do not buy the "brotherhood = conspiracy theory cult" angle. It's flawed and leads to terrible takes overall, by the lore and by the fandom.

It's a holdover from the fact that the game decides to run with conspiracy theories that we have in the real world, and assign them all to the Isu. they even poke fun of it in the earlier games with the whole lizard people and space wizards in tinfoil hats comments. now that's a whole can of worms in itself given how deeply racist and antisemitic the overwhelming majority of conspriacy theories are, but it's not a good way to portray the assassin brotherhood because that's not what they are. they are far leftists. they are anarchist cells, they are commune organizers, they are revolutionaries. that's not me saying it either, that's just canon, plain and simple.

but that would make the story too close to real-life politics and they can't do that cus it's not in their interests.

therefore, the brotherhood is coded as isolationist cultists, or at least as far as The Farm goes. in current year, i think we can all agree there's an inherent fallacy (if not outright disengenuous portrayal) of painting your leftist organization fighting against the capitalist neocolonial hegemony with the same strokes as the whacky people starting communes in the middle of nowhere to escape 5G towers, fluoride water and the [insert villanized minority group here].

i don't buy it, i don't appreciate it, and i think we could have had a stronger story without it, even regarding Desmond's backstory.

THAT SAID, let's take a look at Lucy. her's is the story of a girl who was forced into adulthood too early after being left to her own devices by a very sheltered and isolating community that failed her, and then inducted into a cult which ultimately killed her and then was promptly swept under the narrative. that cult is the templar order by the by.

Lucy was born and raised within the Brotherhood, and pretty much set lose on the world with no connectiosn to speak of. surely they must have given her a paper trail, fake parents and school enrollments, medical records, the works. she was told to infiltrate Abstergo and probably given a general path towards that, namely research that could be useful to them, but otherwise? she was on her own.

first thing that comes to mind is when Amish folks get their time away from their hometown to experience the world and choose to come back or not. i can't comment on their experience and general view on this so i won't attempt to draw a parallel here, but just that initial mental connection speaks for itself imo.

She speaks of having to wait tables to make ends meet, and while that's the socially expected experience of solo living for a young adult leaving home (work minimun wage jobs, go to college, climb the chain, start small, etc), she has no home to return to. In fact there's this looming tension that even opening up to missing her home or going into detail about it could blow her cover. Even in the privacy of being around friends and colleagues, there's this necessity of keeping up a front. She has to buy it so deeply it becomes her, inside and out, and doing that at such a formative age is bound to take it's toll.

You're removed from everything and everyone you've ever known. You don't know when or if you'll ever see them again. In fact they can die at any moment and you might never hear about it. Contact with them is a fraught and dangerous thing, and even the slightest slip could spell your doom and theirs. Connection is a constant swinging sword of Damocles over her, and who can take comfort and solace from community like that? No one, is who. So of course she'd seek that away from where she could endanger everyone.

So in comes Vidic. She knows he's a templar, of course she does, but he's kind and understanding, a bit frustrating and headstrong, but she can usually talk him into chilling out here and there. And of course, one can draw a parallel between him and Bill. Both are strict and charismatic (in their own way) father and mentor figures, but while Bill is cold and hard, Vidic feigns affection (as Haytham so eloquently put) and the worst part is, it works. Any affection and attention is good attention for the starved, and Lucy's been on the end of her ropes since she's been outside of the Brotherhood.

She knows and can see it's all manipulation, she's not that blind of course, but it chips away at her. That's what emotional manipulation does after all. And then, in come the agents to kill her, and Vidic stops them.

All her life she's heard how brutal and merciless the templars are, and surely she's seen it too while working under them, but right when her facade slips and she should be dead, she's not. Because Vidic spares her. Of course that leaves a deep impression on her, and further erodes her resolve. Slowly but surely, she opens up, and Vidic is an expert at what he does. She may hold quite a bit of guilt and shame at turning, but the templars were there when the brotherhood wasn't.

Bill says that of those they send to infiltrate the templars, they are either "too strong" and can't keep up the charade, or are "too weak" and turn. How is being a human being who needs connection and community "too weak"? How is being slowly lovebombed and manipulated into choosing the wire mother and then being foresaken the plush one when in need weakness?

Desmond says that she "seemed so sincere, like she really wanted to make a difference", and I truly believe she did. Her morals and belief were twisted through years of emotional torture and isolation, and she knew she couldn't return to the brotherhood after how far she caved under the pressure. There's no space for the nuances and endless gray areas of such an unbalanced war in the current brotherhood, and she knows it, so throwing in with the templars for her was the lesser evil. She's not fool enough to buy their propaganda wholesale, but it's a necessary concession in her mind so she can excuse her taking advantage of their attention and community. Again, as long as she's useful to them, she has a place among them.

However, the way she's treated by the narrative is... w o w. We never get the chance to hear it from her side, expect by a pathetically short email on the ACR dlc. While having the protagonists agonize over someone's beliefs after their passing and finding no solid answers, they really don't spend nearly enough time for that to carry much weight narratively. In fact, there's hardly much of a critique on the conditions that led her to that kind of fall from grace, and even less is done to fix it.

She, much like Clay, are the epitomes of how the brotherhood is mirroring too much the templar's and Juno's disregard for human life, and how that needs to change in order for them to turn the tides. But nothing comes of it, because our anchor to the modern timeline gets doomed by the narrative and now all those loose plot holes go nowhere. Her funeral, her burial, her memory, it all gets waved about like an annoying gnat on the dinner table, and nobody does anything but try their best to ignore it until it goes away. Her actress couldn't keep with their schedule, so they got rid of her in the most pathetic horrifyingly dismissive way possible.

Personally I'm not a fan of the templar turncoat plotline they gave her, but if that's what they wanted to go with, then it needed much MUCH more careful writing and it needed to fucking GO SOMEWHERE. But it doesn't. And it sucks.

[inkyquince]

SHARED THREE WAYS

Remy x Wren x Male!PC x Niki

Your mother marries into a certain well-to-do family in the farmlands but it's hard to keep up with two stepbrothers and one rowdy employee. Especially since you're the one trapped in a den of hungry monsters.

content warning. Remy is a dick but what else is new. Niki being a creep, nonconsensual voyeurism, photography, Wren is a whore, one mention of Remy harming PC, bad mother, its previous generation so names shall be dropped, cock!whore Remy. This part is Wren-centric, part two is remy centric and part 3 is niki centric. 5.1K

(part 1/ part 2/ part 3)

You thought the upper crust of the town was bad. Danube street always felt lightyears away from Domus Street despite being right next to each other. It was an entirely different world, where all the lawns were trimmed to the exact centimetre, all houses stood tall and pristine, with polished school children trotting along, clothes perfectly ironed and shoes gleaming in the sun.

This was somehow worse.

Your mother tended to become wrapped up in every single boyfriend she'd get and made sure to align both of your lives with theirs in as many ways as she could, as if to prove to them she was the one they were missing all their lives. Her track record wasn't great with this. It always ended with her with tissues and ice cream in front of the TV as you tried to get things back to normal.

"You don't even know him." You muttered, watching the town you grew up in merge into the vacant fields just outside, the sea disappearing as you drove further inland.

"Yes, I do!" Your mom chirped, tapping her nails against the wheel. "We're engaged and it's time we finally got everyone together."

"It's stupid." You said flatly. "I haven't even met him."

"Because you were always such a grumpy little cow to all the others. I decided to change things up and hey presto, maybe it was your attitude that drove the others away."

You didn't bother to reply. This was the worst case of "boy fever" your mom has gone through in a long while. Telling you a few days ago to pack a suitcase and chuck everything else, selling the house to move in with some rich asshole out in the farmlands. You had fought to stay, bringing up reasons you should stay in town. That you had just a few months of your last year to finish, that she laughed at, and said you would be tutored along with her fiancé's "boys". You asked to stay in town, with a friend, and she was horrified at the thought. You said you didn't want to move out in the middle of nowhere and she tossed your empty suitcase onto your bed, refusing to continue the argument.

With every fading building, you quietly said goodbye to your friends in your head, knowing they will only know on Monday your mother had gone off the deep end again. Eden would have scoffed, calling you an idiot for not taking up his offer to come stay with him. You were going to miss sitting next to Sam as Mister Winter droned on, passing notes back and forth. Hell, even meeting up with Landry after class and wandering around town without money in your pockets and splitting a milkshake when things got bad at either of your homes. Hell, even rougher kids were okay to you, which was a blessing.

The drive dragged on, passing a cute little farm with a red headed woman chasing around a gaggle of similar haired kids, the moors which Morgan had dared you to stay overnight in before panicking and trying to get you back himself. You perked up passing a riding school you never noticed before as your mom pulled off the main highway onto a well kept gravel path.

It wasn't until a few moments away did the new place you were staying at come in view.

You thought the upper crust of the town was bad.

At least those guys had to follow building regulations and not have their houses three times the size of the orphanage you had lived most of your life next to. It was huge. There was a section connected behind the estate, with barns and fields just out of sight.

As your rickety car pulled up, three people emerged from the house, a tall man turning around briefly and pointing his finger at the second tallest, almost threatening. Your mom didn't notice as she hurriedly stepped out of the car and called his name with glee.

Her fiancé was a tall, broad man. Almost spitting image of those lean horse riders your mother would watch in riding competitions, mooning at the screen. Short, shaggy brown hair with stubble, with the meanest eyes you've ever seen. You knew mean kids, but there was a streak of maliciousness in him that never appeared in Briar or Bailey's snide glances.

You awkwardly stepped out as they embraced, and just leaned against the car, trying to look anywhere else than at the gross display of affection. Instead you focused on a small group of boys hanging out by one of the fences on the side of the estate, leaning over to get a closer look at the arrivals. You caught the eye of one, ruffled blond hair bright in the sun and he shot you a wink as the others guffawed.

"-And this must be him?" Pulled away from warm brown eyes and back into the situation, you blinked up at your... About-To-Be-Stepdad-Maybe. 

He stuck his hand out for you to shake, which you awkwardly did, his fingers squeezing yours too hard. 

“Nice to finally meet you.” You finally said and his lips twitched. 

“Remy, Niki, greet your brother properly.” 

The other two boys’ expressions matched yours as you were called brothers.. The older one, lean and tall finally walked down the remaining steps, only to continue to tower over you, his eyes matching the cruel glint his father had. 

“A pleasure.” Remy, you believed, finally said, taking your hand in his in a brief handshake. 

Your palm stung as he squeezed it, glancing down as he walked back to the smaller brother. A thorn pushed into the sensitive skin of your hand. Did he.. ? 

Not having a proper moment to think about it, Niki stepped up, his hair hanging into his eyes. He didn’t look a lot like his brother or father, with messily dyed blond hair, and black roots, rolling a lollipop against his teeth as he barely grasped your hand before dropping it. 

“It’s so nice we’re all together.” Your mother gushed, still hanging off new-darling-stepdaddy’s arm, oblivious to the sour mood stagnating between the four of you. 

He wasn’t even listening properly, looking over her shoulder at the gaggle of boys staring, a small frown on his face. The blond one seemed to meet his eye and ducked his head quickly. 

“Niki, show your brother to his new room. Remy, show your mother around the place.” He carelessly cut her off. 

“She already poked around before.” Remy muttered but cowed when his father shot a glare at him and went back up the stairs, your mom following closely behind, chatting away. 

His father gave you one last inscrutable glance, dragging over your lips and throat, flicking down to your hips before walking off, the boys scrambling away except for the brown haired one, waiting as if expected to be told off. Niki didn’t help you with your luggage. Stuck his hands in his pockets as you hauled your suitcase out of the trunk, lugging it as he made his way back into the estate. 

Your room was…Quite nice. Bigger than your entire kitchen on Danube street. 

“Is… Are you and your brother’s rooms like this too-” 

“Remy isn’t my brother.” Niki said flatly, popping the pink sweet out of his mouth. “Half brother. You’re not my brother either.” 

You felt yourself flush out of embarrassment. Don’t talk to Niki, got it… Maybe, given the thorn pushed into your hand, maybe don’t talk to Remy either. 

“Someone will come get you when we eat.” Niki stuck his lollypop back in between his teeth, shooting you a distasteful look before leaving the room. 

You sighed as soon as the door shut, unzipped your suitcase. This was already going to be hellish and awful and lonely and- 

Dropping your school supplies as you opened the bottom drawer of your bedside table, you stared at the “gifts” left for you. 

Someone had left, or purposely placed a dildo in the bottom drawer, right on top of a magazine of “Country Side Hunks” the front page already showing two cowboys mid fuck. You quickly kicked the drawer shut, hearing the hefty dildo roll around inside as you did. 

Fuck these people. 

Three virginities remaining. 

You quickly learned your place in the house. Keep quiet and out of the way. Remy had no time for you, barely glancing at you as he went about his day, spending most of it outside or studying. Niki was somehow more reclusive than you, popping into existence as if out of thin air sometimes. The only friendly face was- 

“Hey, pretty boy.” Wren grinned over at you, approaching on one of the mares he was supposed to be breaking in. 

“Hi.” You replied wearily, already having faced so much of his flirting at every turn. 

Wren was older than Remy, Niki, and you, but much younger than every other farmhand that ran around the estate. No one seemed to know why he was here, but he was useful so they assumed that was why he was kept around. 

“You looking even poutier today.” Wren tucked a cigarette between his fingers, patting his pockets for a lighter. “Which is cute, but usually means that you’re sad. Which you gotta knock off, I always get my hopes up and think it means you tryna signal me down to tease those pretty lips.” 

“I miss my friends, Wren.” You ignored his flirting and tugging out grass from where you sat. 

“They seemed like tits.” 

You blinked up at him, his lean chest leaning against the neck of his mare, his cheek squished against her head as she snorted in confusion. 

“I mean, y’know, the big boss ain’t gonna marry no one without looking into people, so, yeah, I got to play stalker with you a bit.” 

Fury mounted in you again, already sick and tired of this stupid posh family’s antics, pretending to be better than you and trying to fuck with your life like this. You scrambled to your feet and stomped off, planning on rounding around the manor to the highway and hiking your way back if needed be. 

“Hey, now, I can make it up to you! How about a drink, huh, baby boy?” 

“Fuck off!” You snapped as you rounded a corner and smacked into a solid chest. 

Remy blinked down at you, lips already curling. 

“Wren, don’t you have to be at the stables?” 

The boy in question grinned and turned his mare, clicking his tongue to speed her on. You tried to dart around Remy but he grabbed your elbow, dragging you close enough for his lips to press against your ear. 

“You aren’t special. Wren’s like that with everyone. Mind yourself.” He hissed before shoving you off, stomping off, the back of his neck flushed red. 

Sadly, you didn’t even make it off the property, your mother pulling into the driveway with her shiny new car, her and your stepfather climbing out. His eyes dragged over you, inscrutable as you awkwardly were pulled into a hug, your mother apparently overjoyed you were finally exploring your new home. 

Dinner was a frigid affair. Niki, as per, wasn’t there. Remy stabbed at his food, glaring at you across the table and your mother nattered on to the air as your stepfather sipped his drink. There was a foot pressed against your ankle and it was distracting you, slowly rubbing at the exposed skin. Worst of all, you didn’t know who it was. 

It was hard getting to sleep that night. It was hard most nights, too used to the noises of the town, cars passing by and people shouting back and forth, the hum of life. This was truly just… Where people spent a few weeks before returning to town. You can’t believe people willingly stayed out here. 

Your throat itched too. You couldn’t blame that on the countryside, but damn, you will find a way. Tossing your covers to the side, you slid out of bed. Using your phone as a light, you slowly made your way down the hall, too busy trying to not make a noise that you didn’t realise the sounds that already were drifting down the hall. 

Remy’s door was open enough for a slit of light to shine out into the hall, along with two sets of voices moaning and whispering to each other.  Stomach twisting, your feet carried you closer despite really not wishing to see what was happening at all. You glanced into his room, freezing at the sight inside. 

Rumpled covers barely hid the two bodies hungrily grinding against each other, sweating and naked. Wren above Remy, groaning into his neck as his cock rutted into him, gripping his hips so hard even you could see the bruises already forming. Remy, naked except his gloves and boots, gripped his lover’s hair tightly, panting as his own cock lay leaking on his stomach, drooling thickly. You watched for only a few seconds, stunned by what you were seeing, but Remy’s eyes opened as he lay his head back against the covers, spotting you. 

You expected to be yelled at, called a pervert, but he grinned widely, snide and smug as he urged Wren deeper inside of him. You backed up, forgetting about your thirst as you fled back to your room, ears burning. Ignoring your interested cock, you buried yourself under the covers, wanting nothing but to have the bed swallow you whole. 

Sadly, it didn’t. Ever sadder, Remy was the one to wake you up, grabbing your nose as you slept and smirking as you struggled to breath, bolting upright. 

“Hello, creeper.” He smirked. “Father needs you to stay clear of the house this morning. Can’t have his important meetings ruined with the little pervert he took in.” 

You couldn’t even respond. He smirked and got up from your bed, only looking back to shoot a nasty grin at you before shutting your door. You were so sick of this place already, from the first day hostilities, to the weird mind games, to the goddamn fact your clothes were disappearing. You had a feeling that Remy was feeding them to the cows or something, running low on everything, from underwear to jumpers. 

Spending the morning outside, you mainly sat against one of the trees on the edge of the property, watching the farmhands work, a few of them even waving at you. Even when your watch showed that it was lunch, even when it ticked into the early evening, twilight settling, you stayed outside. You just.. Didn’t want to look at anyone in that place anymore. You were sure you had grass stains on the ass of your jeans, bark clinking to your jumper, but it was so much nicer than being ignored by Niki and harassed by Remy. 

“Hey, pretty boy.” A familiar voice called out, Wren hurrying over with glee. “How long you been out here, I’d have ditched-” 

“Don’t call me that.” You said flatly. 

Wren paused and tilted his head, quizzical eyes fixed on you. He scuffed his shoe against some of the fallen leaves before stepping closer. 

“Why so bratty today, babe?” He tried to maintain his easygoing grin but it was already faltering. 

The longer you went without replying, quietly tearing up the yellowing leaves, the more Wren’s face fell before he quietly sat down next to you. 

“I, uh… Should have guessed something was up. Remy doesn’t like me coming into the house usually and last night he was really-” 

“Just shut up, Wren.” 

He did, to his merit. Though, by his own pout, you didn’t spare his feelings one bit. 

“Y’know, porn shows two cute step brothers fighting over a third in a more fun, sexy way. Last time I ever trust the hub.” 

You snorted softly and Wren took that as a positive, scooting closer to you. He watched you shred some leaves before picking up his own, twirling it between his lean fingers. 

“Look… How about a drink to make it up to you? ‘N no nicknames or flirting, I promise.” 

You glanced at the house, the rooms slowly lighting up as evening set in, dinner probably being prepared. Glancing at your room, the curtain twitched sharply and swung back into place, as if someone was holding it back to peer out. Your stomach flipped. Maybe it was okay if your plate was also left alone, just like Niki’s. 

“Okay.” You finally say and Wren grins, grabbing your forearm to haul you up. 

Wren lived just at the edge of the property, in a pretty cottage he shared with a few others. Luckily, he dodged their invites to a game, just grabbing two glasses and a bottle of questionable substance. His room wasn’t fully decorated, some cardboard boxes still holding some stuff, with one of the walls being the only one with any posters or pictures. 

“Charming.” You glanced around and Wren snickered, yanking a small round table out of the corner and pulling up to two chairs to it. 

“I always only half unpack my shit when I move.I’m more used to living out of a suitcase, y’know?” 

You could relate to a small degree and you sat down, gently knocking his knee with yours as you did. 

The mistakes started when the drinks started flowing. Wren refused to let there be a gap in conversation, making sure your glass was never empty and you didn’t stop laughing or chatting away. You two pressed closer, your head swimming slightly. Ignoring your phone buzzing in your pocket, against your thigh, you leaned against his shoulder, still unused to the alcohol making the world a bit more bearable at the moment. 

“You’re so cute.” Wren chuckled, pressing a kiss to your head. “Townies have no tolerance, I swear.” 

“Fuck off.” You hiccuped, smiling against his shirt. 

His fingers trailed over your back as he slowly breathed in the smell of your shampoo. 

“Not kidding.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “You’re so fucking cute. Make me act all stupid n’ shit.” 

“Wreeeen.” You complained, sitting up a bit. “No flirting, you promised.” 

“I ain’t flirting.” Wren pulled you closer again, nosing against your temple. “I’m stating a fact. Got me acting up over some townie. God, I’m so jealous your friends got a taste of you first.” 

“Huh?” You blinked at him turning your head so you two were practically nose to nose. 

He racked his eyes over your face greedily, his fingers finally getting to the curve of your back, slipping under to stroke the bare skin. 

“Your friends ain’t ever had you spread your legs for ‘em? Better friend than I would have been. I’d have fucked the shape of my cock into you so you wouldn’t want no one else.” 

His heated words made you dizzier, blood rushing from your already drunken brain to your cock, slowly hardening. 

“So, what have you done? Fucked? Been fucked? Sucked a few dicks?” Wren probed, leaning in so his lips barely brushed yours. 

You could only slowly shake your head, feeling flushed from the lack of blood in your brain, and all of it making your cock ache between your thighs. 

“Nothing?” 

“I’m… A virgin.” You mumbled, stuttering off into a whine as Wren groaned and pushed his lips against yours, yanking you into his lap. 

“Oh, you’re a fucking gift.” 

Wren’s intent was clear, hungrily licking into your mouth as he yanked your belt off, his other hand shoving down your trousers and underwear at once. He took your cock in hand immediately, running his thumb over the head as his breathing grew heavier. He broke the kiss, swearing softly under his breath as he made a loose fist around your erection, giving it only a few, light tugs.

“Fuck. Hung as hell, aren’t you?” 

You hadn’t even fucking thought of yourself like that, quickly hiding your face behind your hands in embarrassment. Wren snickered and tucked his knees in between yours, yanking your legs apart to properly display yourself. Your cock was already leaking, bobbing against your jumper, leaving dots of glinting precum on the fabric, glistening in the intimate lighting. 

“If you’re so embarrassed about your pretty cock, I’ll just distract you, doll.” Wren whispered, leaning back in his chair to dig into a drawer before leaning back, hand pressed protectively against your stomach. 

Tugging the cap off the lube with his teeth, he greedily poured it over his fingers before wrapping his arms back around you, oiled up fingers just stroking along your rim, not even nudging against it, just trailing his fingertips over you. 

“Have you at least played with yourself, with the dildo I left for you?” Wren whispered, enjoying how you twitched in his embrace, your eyes fixed on his fingers. 

“That… That was you?” 

“Yeah, baby. Knew I wanted a piece of that ass when I first checked you out. Thought it was best you got the idea what you were gonna be doing with most of your time here right off the bat.” 

You hiccuped as he applied a bit more pressure to your poor, teased hole. 

“W-... What am I going to be doing?” 

“Getting fucked, sweetheart.” Wren nipped your ear as he sunk a single finger into you, quietly delighted by the way you shook and bucked your hips. “Relax your body, don’t be so tense. I can’t get you addicted to cumming with just your ass if the rest of your body is as tight as your hole.” 

“Wren…” You whined out as his finger reached deeper inside of you, hungrily curling as you twitched. 

“Don’t.” He warned, teasing your earlobe between his teeth. “Don’t say my name like that, or I’ll just split you open on my cock right now. I ain’t the saint you’re looking for in this place.” 

“At least,” He murmurs, in an afterthought. “I’m the only one upfront about wanting to fuck you.” 

You didn’t catch his soft whispers as he finally added another finger, making you arch your back and moan even louder, legs shaking against his. He made another sharp hiss as you tried to take ahold of your leaking cock, needing some sort of gratification as he ruined your poor ass, stretching you out. 

“You’re going to cum with your ass, or not at all.” Wren tutted, adding yet another finger and curling them cruelly, brushing your prostate and making you whimper, cock throbbing. “I want to fucking ruin you. I want to be the one who makes your fat cock useless. It’s too big for girls, ain’t it? Hurt them when you try to put it in. I don’t want you thinking with it anymore. Cum from your ass being fucked only. No need to even think about this drooling monster, eh?” 

He lifted his hand off your stomach for a moment, just to squeeze your cockhead, greedily watching as precum dribbled out. 

“Fat, useless thing.” He wiped off the liquid from his fingers onto your stomach before resuming his firm press against it, dropping a kiss to your neck. “Hurts cute pussies, you wouldn’t wanna ruin ‘em, do ya?” 

“N-No.” You gasped, Wren finally fitting in the fourth finger, trying to push them all in to the knuckle inside of you. 

“Too small for you anyway. No, you’re only going to want your ass played with from now on, yeah?” You couldn’t notice Wren’s tone getting possessive, dark. For the first time since that evening began, his thoughts strayed to his frequent bed companion, and for the first time ever, did he feel a rush of annoyance at the brunette. “Use your cock, and I’ll fucking punish you. Lock it up, ruin your ass, make you cry. I don’t wanna do that, baby boy, so you fucking listen to me, yeah?” 

“Please, please, Wren.” You whimpered, spreading your legs further apart to let him curl his fingers deeper. 

“Not until you promise.” He hissed, good humour gone as Remy’s betrayal made him angrier and angrier. Wren prides himself on being easy going, but his baby boy spurning him and looking so angry at him earlier? Fuck that. “Any cockwhores drool over you, beg for you to fuck them, you tell them no. Tell them you were trained proper, with an ass that can cum from fat cocks ruining it. Got it?” 

“Yes! Yes, please, Wren, fuck me!” You finally burst out, mindless babbling getting louder, but you didn’t care. 

He sighed happily before gripping your neck and pressing a strangely gentle kiss to your lips, tongue slowly pressing against yours with reverence. Too soon, he was pulling away, making you lift your hips a bit so he could free his own leaking cock, springing free and papping wetly against your ass. 

Grabbing for the lube, he quickly squirted some into his palm, oiling up his cock thickly before tossing it to the side, gripping your hips firmly. 

“I’m going to fuck you so good, baby, just how you need it.” He promised, turning your head once more for one final kiss before pressing his cockhead against your swollen rim, puffy from all the teasing. 

“Please.” You could only plead, breathless and lust clouding your brain. “Please, Wren.” 

That’s all he ever needed from you. Gripping your hips tighter, already etching bruises into the skin with his strength, he slowly pushed them down, his cockhead snagging on your prepared hole before slowly slipping inside. 

“Oh god… Oh… Oh fuck…” You whispered, never feeling so full in your life before. 

“No god here, baby, use my name.” Wren shakily chuckled, never ceasing to push your hips down to take more of him. 

You both groaned as he finally bottomed out, swollen balls throbbing against your skin, his cock leaking precum inside you already. He was too impatient to let you adjust, immediately beginning to bounce you on his cock. You were helpless to his ministrations, only being able to hang onto his side as he ruined you. Your voice got louder and louder, moaning breathlessly, but Wren was no better, swearing as he practically moved your body for you, bouncing your ass against his cock but also gripping your hips to move you back down as well. 

“God, fucking… Dammit. How will I ever fucking get anything done ever again? I’m going to leash you to my boots, have you ready to take my cock whenever I need it.” 

You couldn’t even form sentences, tears beading your lashes as your virgin hole was ruined, stretched out. You could only babble helplessly, cock already spurting out precum with every brush of his cockhead against your prostate. Wren gave a breathless laugh when he noticed your cries of pleasure, pressing the flat of his tongue against your cheek to catch the salty liquid. 

“Fuck me, you’re tasty in every single way. Cum from only my cock and I’ll eat the cum out of your ass later, wouldn’t you like that, baby boy?” 

“Uh huh.” You weakly agreed, gripping his fingers as he used you for his own pleasure. 

It was embarrassing, but you could feel yourself beginning to cum. Your virgin hole had never been violated this way, your cock, your fat, useless cock, already reaching its end as Wren whispered profanities into your ear, about having you in his bed every night, telling your mom he’s your little boyfriend while cum drips down your thighs. Introducing him to your stupid friends, knowing he’s stolen what they wanted all along, maybe fucking you in front of them. 

He was mesmerised as you finally came all over your exposed stomach, jumper having been pushed up to your nipples from Wren’s pawing. The thick, white liquid dripped down your sides, spattering on his floor but he didn’t care, in fact, he felt his balls tighten all too soon. Nothing like a virgin having their first orgasm that makes a seasoned whore cum too quickly themselves. 

He slammed your hips down, making sure to cum inside you as deep as possible, his own chest exhaling shakily against your back. 

“What a good boy.” Wren murmured, drunk off your body, his orgasm blinding his own thoughts momentarily. “My good boy.” 

You weakly nodded, legs giving out and leaning all of your weight on him, safe in his muscular arms. 

“We’re not done yet, I gotta warn you.” 

You just chuckled weakly, lightly smacking him with your hand and Wren just kissed your neck, pulling you closer. 

Outside, Niki was sprinting for the house. 

His camera pressed to his chest protectively, struggling to run with his throbbing hard on but still managing to remain unnoticed by the farmhands clocking out. His cheeks were blushing, to such an extent he looked feverish. As he quickly climbed the steps to the main house, excitement built in his stomach, for when he returned to his red room, to develop his treasures. 

But sadly, Niki himself rounded a corner and smacked into a solid chest. He had less balance than you did and fell on his ass, his camera clattering next to him. 

“Fucking watch where you’re going, stalker.” Remy snapped at him, sneering down at his downed brother. 

“Sorry.” Niki said carelessly, lunging for his camera only to have a boot slam down on his hand. 

“What have you been doing now?” Remy smirked, leaning down to pick up the camera and turn it on. 

“Nothing! Don’t touch my stuff, or I’ll tell dad-” 

“Father would be more interested in your sick little red room, and your weird thing for his new whore’s brat.” Remy swung his leg and kicked his stomach, letting Niki splutter and curl in on himself. 

Remy smirked at his pathetic younger brother before letting his eyes flick to the small previews on the camera screen. As per, lots of simple shots of you sitting alone, or looking gloomy. He rolled his eyes, flicking through each one before reaching the videos, pressing play as he hoped to find something embarrassing. 

“Don’t-” Niki warned but it was too late. 

Filmed from Wren’s window, the same one the farm boy would lean out of and murmur for Remy to climb in just a few nights ago, showed him playing with your ass, kissing you. His hands shook as he turned up the volume, your whines and Wren’s filthy, disgusting, perverted, loving words filled the echoing hallway. 

His eyes drifted down, fixed on the way Wren handled your cock, struggling to close his entire fist around you. The precum dribbling. The way you thrust your hips uselessly. 

Remy dropped the camera to the floor and smashed his boot down on top of it, not caring how Niki protested, kicking at him to get his foot off of his prized possession. 

No, he didn’t care. He turned on his heel and walked off, gloved fingers curling tight enough for the leather to hurt, as Niki hopelessly sorted through the ruined remains of his camera, plucking the memory card up and holding it against his chest like a lifeline. 

Kofi

Masterlist

AO3

[dragoneyes618]

The Riveras, living and dead, watch Coco:

All the Riveras, both living and dead, suddenly get transported to a small movie theater.

This is a couple of months after the epilogue.

None of them know how they got there. I don't know how they got there or who decided they should all watch the movie now either.

Everyone starts freaking out - the dead Riveras because suddenly there's a bunch of living people, and the living Riveras because suddenly there's a bunch of skeletons. They don't immediately recognize the skeletons as their relatives at first.

Except Miguel. Miguel doesn't freak out.

Miguel assumes that somehow they all got cursed despite it not being Dia de los Muertos, figures they'll be able to go back home with the dead family's blessing, and is running around hugging his Mamá Coco and Papá Héctor and everyone.

Then the living Riveras realize who these skeletons are, and there's a lot of hugging and crying and introducing and talking about everything that's been going on in their lives, because it's not every day you meet your dearly missed relatives from the other side of the veil, and this applies to both sets of Riveras.

Baby Coco, who will be called Baby Coco by her entire family up until her wedding day and maybe even beyond that, is about a year old and is being passed around from dead Rivera to dead Rivera as they all coo over her cuteness.

Especially Héctor. Héctor just melts. "Look, Imelda, she looks just like our Coco!"

Baby Coco isn't scared of the dead Riveras and actually finds all the new skeleton faces with sparkly designs on them fascinating. She keeps reaching up to touch everybody's cheekbones.

This is about when the living Riveras realize who Héctor is.

Cue Miguel's frantic explanation of "This is Papá Héctor and really he's a good guy! He didn't mean to leave Mamá Coco and Mamá Imelda! He wanted to come back but Señor de la Cruz poisoned him! Abuelita, no, not the chancla!" All before Héctor even has the chance to get a word in.

The thing is, after reading Héctor's letters, he certainly didn't seem like the kind of man who would abandon his family, which was the hope Coco had clung to all these years. In fact, his last few letters mention that he plans to return soon.

The last letter was sent from Mexico City. Héctor's remains were found in Mexico City.

Records show Ernesto leaving Mexico City around the same time and rarely returning. He also never made any mention of the true writer of his songs. He also, obviously, never got word to Imelda about her husband's death, leaving her to draw her mistaken, tragic conclusion that affected generations of Riveras.

None of this was actually proof that Ernesto killed Héctor, but it all looked pretty suspicious. Miguel in particular was adamant that Héctor must have met with foul play, probably from Ernesto - "Who else would it be?" Miguel had asked multiple times. "Héctor wanted to go back home but Ernesto wanted to get famous with his songs so he poisoned him!"

"What makes you say it was poison?" Miguel's mother had wanted to know.

Miguel had shrugged. "I mean, if he'd killed him some other way it would have looked suspicious. This way it just looked like he'd gotten sick."

The result of all this is that the Riveras finally know that their grandfather/great-grandfather/great-great-grandfather was not actually a good-for-nothing heartless musician who left his wife and daughter behind without a second thought. But he still left. And a lifetime of being raised to dislike musicians, and hate one musician in particular, is hard to overcome.

(In the Rivera household, "musician" was an insult. "He's as bad as a musician," for example, when speaking of some extremely disliked acquaintance.)

Most of the Riveras, now, are a bit reserved but are okay with getting to know Héctor. They want to get to know him, actually - he certainly didn't seem like a bad person from the letters, and they want to see what he's really like.

Elena, meanwhile, pulls out her chancla and thwacks Héctor a few times.

"Mija-" Coco holds out a hand towards Elena.

"That's for leaving Mamá and Abuelita!" Elena finishes with satisfaction, and then abruptly says, "So. That musician-" - and this time she doesn't mean Héctor - "killed you?"

"Ah - Sí!" Héctor, discombobulated, nods his head vigorously.

Elena's eyes narrow. "But if not for that, you would have come back?"

"Sí," Héctor says again. "I would have done everything in my power."

Elena starts muttering a litany of insults against Ernesto de la Cruz. Héctor allows himself to smile. He wants to get to know his living family, just like he wanted to get to know his dead family. But first, he wants to make sure they know that he always, always wanted to come back to his girls. And it looks like he's actually succeeding.

"Ah - disculpe - how he kill you?" Franco wants to know, and Héctor's smile slips.

"He poisoned me," is all he says. He doesn't like thinking about it.

"Hey!" Rosa points at Miguel. "That's what you said! How'd you know it was poison?"

All eyes turn to Miguel. The dead Riveras rustle and murmur amongst themselves.

Miguel coughs and looks around nervously. "So, um....remember last Dia de los Muertos when I had a fight with you all and I ran away and...?"

"Yes?" Enrique says slowly.

"And I told you I got locked in the de la Cruz mausoleum overnight?"

"Yes?" Enrique says again.

"So..." Miguel coughs again. "That was a lie." He smiles apologetically. "I apologize for that."

Héctor bursts out laughing.

Héctor is very eager to get to know his family. Miguel runs around introducing him to everyone, all the while trying to quickly explain his adventure in the Land of the Dead.

It doesn't really work, because it's not the kind of thing you can easily explain in five minutes while trying to get everyone to realize that your long-lost great-great-grandfather is pretty much the greatest guy ever, in your opinion.

"So you turned into a ghost?"

"The guitar was cursed?"

"Wait, so why don't the rest of us turn into ghosts whenever we touch anything on an ofrenda? I've probably taken things off ofrendas a hundred times! To put them back right afterwards, Mamá Imelda, I was just moving them around, but I didn't get cursed!"

"That's why you thought de la Cruz was your great-great-grandfather?"

"So what happened to Héctor - I mean Papá Héctor's picture?"

"You refused her blessing? For music? What did you plan to do then?"

"Frida Kahlo?"

Eventually everyone figures out that they're supposed to be watching some sort of movie. So they all sit down and settle in to watch a movie.

Baby Coco takes turns sitting on everybody's lap.

Except Oscar and Felipe's laps, because Oscar and Felipe's laps are occupied by Manny and Benny. Oscar and Felipe declare that Manny and Benny are their favorite great-great-great-nephews, no offense to Miguel and Abel, but clearly, los cuates, the twins, are always the best. Manny and Benny are very proud.

The movie starts.

Miguel's narration: "Sometimes, I think I'm cursed."

Oscar and Felipe burst out laughing. "You asked for it, Miguelito!"

Imelda glares at them.

"Asked to be cursed?" Luisa asks.

"If this is what I think it is, then you'll see, it'll explain everything," Miguel says, which does not help Luisa's nerves at all.

As it becomes clear that the movie is indeed showing the events of the Dia de los Muertos before last, Miguel assures his family multiple times that no matter what happened, he's totally fine, right? This was over a year ago, so there was no need to get worried about anything or fuss over him. This all happened already. He was totally fine.

His family does not find that reassuring at all.

Miguel's narration: "The papá left with his guitar, and he never came back."

It is almost possible to feel everyone not looking at Héctor.

Héctor opens his mouth.

"Don't apologize," Imelda snaps.

Héctor closes his mouth.

The papel picado Imelda gets rid of all the instruments in the house.

"So that's where my trumpet ended up!" Felipe exclaims triumphantly.

"You played the trumpet?" Abel asks.

Felipe nods. "Sí, we both did!"

Oscar nods. "We weren't skilled, though. We didn't really know how to play - it was just for fun."

"Your decision to ban music suddenly makes so much sense," Héctor says to Imelda, who smiles, just a little.

It's the first time either of them have been able to joke about the music ban. Unseen by Héctor or Imelda, Coco and Julio smile at each other.

Elena chases away the men singing "La Llorona" and hits the mariachi talking to Miguel with her chancla.

"Well, they should know better than to sing near the zapateria," Elena says with a self-satisfied sniff. It may have been over a year since she first relaxed the music ban, and then lifted it entirely, but she still has her Rivera pride, and she is not Imelda's granddaughter for nothing. "And showing Miguel a guitar! Everyone knows you don't sing or play music near any Riveras! Well, everyone knew," she amends, and Imelda and Coco smile at her.

All the other Riveras nod resignedly. Yes, everyone in Santa Cecilia certainly knew that no music was allowed near any Rivera.

Miguel talks to Mamá Coco and tells her everything.

Julio and Coco hold hands when the onscreen Coco calls Miguel by his great-grandfather's name.

"Wow," Rosa says as the onscreen Miguel demonstrates his different methods of running. "You weren't kidding when you said you told her everything."

"So that's what happened to those pillows!" Elena declares when Miguel jumps on them and they explode in a puff of feathers.

Rosa says, "You have to have talent to be in a talent show."

Rosa glances awkward at Miguel. "Um, sorry."

"It's fine," he assures her.

Abel's shoe flies up to the ceiling.

Everyone laughs, including Abel.

Imelda tells Elena and Berto to make sure he learns how to use that machine properly. Berto assures her that he already has.

Coco asks when her papá is coming home.

Héctor feels terrible, knowing that Coco's waiting and longing for him as a little girl left its mark on her so that when her memory was fading this was the time she was stuck at. He tries to apologize to her (for the umpteenth time) but she just hugs him.

Coco doesn't recognize Elena.

"I'm so sorry, mija," Coco says softly.

"It's not your fault, Mamá," Elena replies. Reliving this is hard for both of them - for Coco, remembering the days when her memory was deteriorating and she couldn't remember where or when she was, or even who her beloved family members were; for Elena, watching her mother slowly deteriorate to the point where her mind was like a little child's and she couldn't even remember Elena, stuck in the same endless loop of waiting for that no-good musico to come home.

Except maybe that musico wasn't quite as no-good as they'd all thought. Elena sneaks a glance at Héctor. He'd wanted to come home, hadn't he?

Elena decides that Miguel will start joining the others in the workshop making shoes, and everyone except Miguel celebrates.

Enrique feels terrible that he didn't notice how unenthusiastic his son was about the idea of making shoes.

Miguel sees the guitar in the photo and draws the mistaken conclusion that Ernesto de la Cruz was his great-great-grandfather.

"Of course I recognized my Papá's guitar," Coco says. "I just wish I'd had the faculties to tell Miguel my Papá's name..."

"Let's have the guitar in the photo, he said," Imelda mutters.

Héctor glances at her half-nervously, half-humorously.

"It'll be a nice thing to show our grandchildren, he said."

"Ah, Imelda..."

"It'll keep Coco occupied so she'll sit still long enough to have our picture taken, he said."

"Well, I was right about that, wasn't I?"

"And look what happened!" Imelda gestures at the screen. "He thought - Miguel, what were you doing on the roof like that?"

Miguel dances around on the roof excitedly.

Everyone tells Miguel not to do that because it's dangerous.

Miguel says, "You know this already happened and I didn't fall, right?"

"Well, you better not do it again," they tell him, which actually won't be a problem, because after the Sunrise Spectacular Miguel developed a fear of heights and he hasn't been on the roof since.

Miguel: "I'm gonna play in Mariachi Plaza if it kills me!"

The dead Riveras all groan.

"Bad word choice, Miguel," the twins tell him. "Bad word choice."

"Well, I know that now, don't I?" Miguel says.

Elena smashes the guitar.

Enrique winces.

Luisa rubs Miguel's shoulder.

Elena apologizes again.

Imelda takes responsibility for it. "After all, I raised my daughter and grandchildren to do nothing less."

Miguel breaks into the tomb.

"Wow, I never would have taken you for a lawbreaker," Rosa says.

"I was going to put it back," Miguel says defensively.

Oscar and Felipe: "Oh, hey, Miguel - Miguel?!"

"Took you a moment there," Imelda mutters as everyone laughs.

Héctor tries and fails to cross the bridge.

"None of you recognized him?" Enrique wants to know.

"None of us had ever actually met him," Victoria explains. "Well, except for Tíos Oscar and Felipe."

"And we'd never seen him in death," Oscar adds.

Imelda, in the Department of Family Reunions: "That man is dead to us!"

Imelda opens her mouth.

"Don't apologize," Héctor says.

Imelda closes her mouth.

Clerk: "Technically, she can add whatever conditions she wants."

"Not helping," Miguel mutters.

Miguel takes the guitar two seconds after promising never to play music again.

"Mijo..." Enrique sighs as everyone else laughs.

Miguel: "I need to visit the restroom. Be right back."

Clerk: "Should we tell him there are no restrooms in the Land of the Dead?"

"Your faces," Miguel mutters, laughing.

"I cannot believe we fell for that," Imelda sighs.

Officer: "Disturbing the peace, fleeing an officer, falsifying a unibrow..."

"That's illegal?" Abel asks.

"That's what I said!" Héctor says excitedly.

Héctor tries to bribe a police officer with tickets he doesn't have.

"Um, isn't bribing a police officer also illegal?" Rosa asks.

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact," Héctor admits.

Miguel and Héctor meet and agree to help each other.

Héctor starts giving Miguel a lecture on stranger danger and how you should not just immediately trust some shady conman who says he can give you what you want if you'll just do a favor for him, because who knows what dark illegal dealings you could get wrapped up in?

"But it was you!" Miguel protests. "You wouldn't have put me in danger."

"Yes, well, you didn't know that then, did you?" Héctor points out.

Miguel meets Frida Kahlo.

Miguel's cousins are very impressed that Frida asked for - and took! - Miguel's advice.

Shantytown.

"Papá paraded me around there after I crossed over," Coco says with a reminiscent smile. "Showing me off to all his friends, all the tías and primos. I get the royal treatment whenever I go down there. They've heard a lot about me-" Héctor is smiling at her fondly - "and they all wanted to meet the reason Papá tried to cross the bridge so many times. Everyone else gave up after the first few years, but not Papá."

"Everyone knows Juanita."

Héctor looks nervously at Imelda and Coco.

"I recognize that song," Imelda says slowly. "You sang that song. In front of Miguel?!"

"It was Chich's favorite!" Héctor says defensively. "I wasn't gonna deny him this! Besides, I made sure to-"

"And her...knuckles, they drag on the floor."

"Oh, gracias a Dios," Imelda mutters, as everyone else laughs. The twins in particular find this hilarious.

"See?" Héctor says.

"What's the real words?" Miguel wants to know, and everyone suddenly remembers that there are children present.

"Nothing you are going to find out anytime soon," Luisa tells him sternly.

"In my defense," Héctor lifts a finger into the air, "I was seventeen and half drunk when I wrote that."

"Half drunk?" Oscar and Felipe say simultaneously. "Really? We would never have guessed."

"I still haven't been able to find out the real words," Miguel says grumpily. "No one will tell me."

"Good!" All the adult Riveras say.

"I'm thirteen!" Miguel objects.

"And I'm a hundred and eighteen, chamaco," Héctor tells him. "You're all children to me."

Abel is laughing silently to himself.

A thought strikes Héctor. "Hey!" he says. "I thought none of you listened to music until last year! How do you know the real words?"

No one will answer him.

Chicharron fades away.

The room goes quiet. Héctor takes off his hat.

The trolley ride.

Miguel apologized to Héctor for not believing him. Héctor is like, "Look, no need to apologize, I wouldn't have believed me."

The competition.

Everyone agrees with Héctor about it being "such a sweet sentiment... at such a bad time!" "You kind of had a lot riding on this, Miguel!"

"I know, I know!" Miguel says.

The dead Riveras come looking for him.

"You didn't see him right there on the stage?" Gloria asks.

"Well, no," Rosita admits. "Habit, I suppose - we were used to automatically avoiding music."

Miguel runs away and Imelda sings to him.

Imelda shrugs. "I wanted to show him that I used to love music as much as he did. And if I could choose family over music, he could too....because I believed that it had to be one or the other." She smiles at Miguel. "You proved me wrong."

"First time you'd sung in ninety-five years and your voice was still beautiful," Héctor says, lovestruck as always and wanting to avoid heavy and difficult conversation topics.

"If I'd just mentioned your name we could have cleared this whole thing up right then and there," Imelda mutters.

Miguel falls into the pool and is rescued by Ernesto de la Cruz.

There are many shoes thrown at Ernesto.

"He seems so nice," Rosa says slowly. "Like you wouldn't think that he'd..."

"I know," Miguel sighs.

Ernesto parades Miguel around the party.

Miguel spends the entire time apologizing to Héctor over and over until Héctor tells him to stop.

Imelda spends the entire time muttering how she cannot believe that Miguel thought she actually married Ernesto.

Héctor sneaks into the party.

Rosa wants to know what is it with Héctor and dressing up as Frida Kahlo. Miguel tells her she hasn't seen anything yet.

Héctor finally confronts Ernesto and realizes the truth.

Héctor mutters that he is an idiot for not realizing this sooner.

Imelda tells him sternly that he most certainly is not, because why would he think that his best friend would poison him?

"So you two really were best friends?" Berto asks, who, due to recent events, has become interested in researching family history with his brother in his spare time, although not nearly as much as Miguel.

Héctor sighs, looking at his great-grandson who is over twice his age. "I thought we were."

The flashback to the poisoning.

Manny and Benny start crying.

Baby Coco doesn't, because Miguel is playing peek-a-boo with her in an attempt to distract them both from the events onscreen.

Héctor is grimacing, his face in his hands, his fingers pressed to his forehead, because it's not very pleasant reliving the moment of your death.

Coco is hugging him and crying.

So is Imelda.

Elena is glaring at Ernesto's figure onscreen with the kind of hatred she used to reserve only for her grandfather. No one makes her Mamá cry.

Héctor attacks Ernesto.

"YEAH! GET HIM!" Rosa and Abel cheer, and Manny and Benny make noises of agreement.

There are many more shoes thrown at Ernesto.

There is a brief intermission while all the Riveras troop forward to collect their respective shoes.

Ernesto refuses to give Miguel the blessing and has Miguel taken away.

Some more shoes are thrown at Ernesto.

Manny's and Benny's shoes fly forward about two rows of seats and lightly land on Imelda and Héctor, respectively.

Even baby Coco joins in, throwing one of her tiny new spotless Rivera shoes in the general direction of the screen. It lands in the lap of the person sitting in front of her, Victoria.

Miguel is thrown in the cenote.

Shoes are thrown again, this time at the guards, with many insults.

Enrique and Luisa hug Miguel, and he buries his face in their shoulders and doesn't look at the screen. It's an unpleasant memory to think about, after all.

Then Elena and Franco line up to hug Miguel.

Enrique and Luisa are horrified at the danger their son was in.

Héctor spasms, flashing gold as he approaches the Final Death.

"I'm so sorry I forgot you, Papá," Coco tries to say.

"It's not your fault, Coco," Héctor cuts her off. "You were very old. You couldn't do anything about that. You already remembered me for longer than I'd ever thought you would."

Héctor and Miguel realize they are related.

"ABOUT TIME!" everyone says.

Héctor sings "Remember Me" to the picture of Coco. Flashback to him singing it to her as a little girl.

Everyone is crying. Even Elena.

Imelda shows up with Pepita.

Everybody cheers.

The Riveras sneak into the Sunrise Spectacular.

"See?" Miguel tells Rosa.

The living Riveras find the dead Riveras (plus Miguel) all dressed as Frida Kahlo very amusing.

"Nice job pulling that off with your mustache, Papá," Elena actually tells Julio, who chuckles.

Carmen, who is a fan of Frida's art and has several reproductions of her more famous works, asks "How did you get Frida Kahlo to help sneak you in?"

"We explained that Ernesto was a lying cheating murderer," Miguel explains, "and she was like 'I always thought there was something off about him! No wonder he never comes up with anything new and doesn't bother to show up at rehearsal! How can I help you?'"

Imelda smacks Ernesto with her boot.

Everybody cheers again.

At about this point Abel and Rosa start chanting for the onscreen Héctor and Imelda to "Kiss! Kiss!"

Imelda: "That's for murdering the love of my life!"

Héctor: "I'm the love of your life?"

The dead Riveras, who had a front-row seat to Héctor and Imelda talking and arguing and talking and the rekindling of their relationship and Héctor hovering nervously around Imelda and showing up randomly with flowers and Imelda dancing (!) with him and asking him point-blank what she could do to try to make it up to him and making a point of calling him "mi amor" at least once a day: "HE SURE IS!"

Miguel piping up, "That's what I heard!"

"I don't think that was quite the right moment for that, mijo," Enrique tells him, but he is laughing along with everyone else.

Imelda sings onstage.

It takes everyone a moment to realize that both Héctor and Imelda are singing along with the onscreen Imelda.

Elena looks somewhat scandalized.

Eventually, though, she relaxes and watches her abuelita do what once brought her joy, and now, it seems, does again.

"Of course I knew the song she was singing," Héctor says in answer to the unspoken question. "Of course I was able to play along. It's her favorite song! We used to perform this in the plaza! Me playing and you singing, remember, Imelda?"

"They were very popular," Oscar and Felipe affirm. "Second only to...well, Ernesto."

Ernesto shows up and they try to snatch the photo from each other in the guise of dancing.

Yet more shoes are thrown at Ernesto.

The Riveras are out of shoes so they all have to get up and collect them again.

"Didn't anyone wonder who you were, Mamá Imelda?" Gloria asks.

"Yes," Imelda says. "What with everything that happened afterwards, and piecing together the truth about Ernesto and Héctor...we had to deal with quite a few questions. From the police, from journalists, from random strangers on the street..."

The way she fingers her boot leaves everyone in no doubt to how she dealt with some of those questions.

Imelda nearly gives Miguel the blessing.

"Wait, but you didn't have that picture when you came home," Rosa says to Miguel. "You didn't put it on the ofrenda."

"Um," Miguel says.

Ernesto grabs Miguel.

The living Riveras gasp in horror.

"This already happened," Miguel tries to assure them.

Ernesto throws Miguel off the roof.

The living Riveras scream in unison with the dead Riveras onscreen.

Baby Coco bursts into tears.

Nobody even throws any shoes. They all gather around Miguel and hug him, "Mijo, Dios mio, Gracias a Dios you're all right," and Miguel doesn't even protest or point out that this was over a year ago because reliving the moment you fell almost to your death is not very pleasant.

Ernesto is projected on the screen in front of the audience.

"Wait, so they all saw that?" Miguel asks.

"They saw everything," Imelda confirms. "You accusing him of murder. Him trying to kill you. Everyone knows everything he did now."

The audience boos him and throws food at him.

Everybody cheers again.

Miguel, back in the Land of the Living, runs home as fast as possible.

"RUN!" Abel and Rosa yell.

"This was last year!" Miguel points out. "I did this already!"

He did do this already, and they all remember Miguel running home at dawn after disappearing all night, but it's different now, seeing it again, and realizing what was at stake.

"Why did you take the guitar?" Luisa wants to know.

Miguel shrugs. "I don't know, I didn't really think about it. It just felt like I should. It was my real great-great-grandfather's, after all. Besides, it was a good thing I did."

Miguel tries to get Coco to remember her father.

Pretty much everyone has tears in their eyes.

Miguel sings "Remember Me" for Coco. Coco sings along.

Everyone's definitely crying again.

Coco and Héctor sing along, quietly, to each other.

Coco recognizes her family. Her mind is restored.

"It was like I'd woken up," Coco murmurs. "Like I'd been half asleep the whole time, my mind was all fuzzy and foggy...and then suddenly, the song woke me up. It brought me back. I remembered everything."

"It's actually been proven that music can improve the memories of people with Alzheimer's or dementia," Rosa says. "It can bring up memories of their childhood or even present-day. It can improve their conditions for longer periods of time."

Everyone looks at her.

"What?" Rosa says. "After all that-" She points at the screen. "- happened, I was curious, so I went to the library and read some books about it."

Coco tells her family stories about her father.

"You listened to her," Héctor says slowly. "You didn't know anything about me then. You didn't know that I'd died. You still thought that I'd left Imelda and Coco. But you still listened to her tell you about me."

"We didn't know anything about you," Elena agrees. "But this was the most lucid Mamá had been in years. Since Abel was Miguel's age. Whatever she was saying, we were going to listen to her."

The epilogue; Dia de los Muertos of only a couple of months earlier.

Everyone cheers when Héctor gets through.

Proud Corazón.

Miguel, Rosa, and Abel sing along with their onscreen counterparts. Manny and Benny sing too.

Baby Coco also tries to sing along except she can't really talk yet so her singing sounds like "Ay mi fa ba ba ay mi he ba ba ba ca ba ba."

Miguel says proudly that he's sure his little sister will be the best singer when she grows up.

[thevoiceofthepeople]

Let's Write Your Story

Character Name: Seda Bea

Age: 28 (Pre timeskip) 30 (Post Time Skip)

Birthday: April 24th

Sexuality: Pansexual

Home Sea: The South Blue, from the Peach Islands.

Occupation: Traveling Biographer and Anthropologist

Dream: To write about everyone in the world and encourage people to keep records of their lives for the future generation.

Personality: A bit of a chatter box, willing to carry on a conversation with anyone at any time, about anything, just as long as she can learn more about them. She's cagey about her own life but as a side line observer to other people's lives, she thinks her addition will take away from getting a proper account of living history.

About:

Seda grew up in the South Blue, listening to the stories of both pirates, marines and sailors alike about the amazing things they saw on their trips. She’d hide under tables and marvel at the stories about the “giant frigg’en knights in the sky, hand to god” and the “bird so big, you should have seen it, bigger than the boat”. 

She would retell the stories over and over in her head until she got home so she could write them down and hold them in history forever. 

But her favorite stories were the ones her father told her about her mother, since she never got to meet her after dying in childbirth. She found hearing these stories helped connect her with half of who she was and she soon understood that some people didn't have that same privilege.

After her father passed from pickling his own liver and working himself to the bone caring for her as a single father, she went out to sea at the age of eighteen to start on her dream of making sure everyone has a piece of their life saved in story form for their families and anyone else to have to learn about them.

This attempt nearly ended in disaster, as she took her father's old fishing ship out to sea and it took on water from lack of maintenance. Half drowned she was plucked out of the water by some navy ship and able to sail safely to her next destination. On the ship though she realized how much she enjoyed traveling with a "novel" crew, getting to interview as many of the young sailors as their commanding officers allowed.

This began her long, and dangerous practice of ship hopping. Either by working or paying, she traveled from island to island by way of whatever ship was at the harbor each day, until she found a ship traveling to the grandline that was willing to take a scrawny girl along with them. This gave her a good eye for spotting dangerous people and crews, though she still has some battle scars from not fully discerning the true intentions behind some of the people she traveled with. But none of this detoured her. This did push her to seek out a form of self protection by way of the Pasa Pasa no Mi, the Paper fruit. This bit of protection allowed her to travel to more dangerous places and find treasure enough to set up a comfortable life for herself on Sabaody. She rents a decent sized cabin amongst the groves and works as a librarian in one of the libraries. She found it was a good place to meet a lot of traders and merchants as well as interesting pirates and the like to talk to. But after seeing the slave auctions and other unsavory actions of the world nobles, as well as getting bits and pieces of event happening around the world as a direct result of world noble's taxes and barbaric practices, she's found herself itching to travel again to see first hand what's going on in the world. As well as create a hidden archive of stories of the "little people" that the world government and it's nobles see as beneath them.