#we are not getting paid at all but the experience alone is priceless we are having the best time anyway I'll cry I'm so grateful

[nipuni]

We just came back from filming some scenes for a period documentary in a museum and last saturday we were invited to the anniversary celebration of an historical train where we had first class wagons to ourselves and got to ride and visit the palaces and were on TV too, what is even happening I feel like I'm in a coma or something, how did we go from dressing up for fun to whatever is going on now lmao 😭

[mahamid110]

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[yukidragon]

Our Life Snippet - Lazy Morning Intimacy

So, who’s ready for an extra long serving of shameless fluff from the first draft of my fan novelization of Our Life: Beginnings & Always? My philosophy in writing this is if I can add some more fluffy cuddly moments, I absolutely will, and the Step 3 moment Reflection offers one such opportunity right at the very start before, well, those of you who have played this moment know what happens later.

Spoilers for those who have not played the Step 3 DLC! If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read any further! If you don’t mind spoilery stuff, well, don’t let me stop you, but I highly, highly encourage you to play through the game before reading any of this.

As always, thanks go to @gb-patch for their wonderful game and their lovely feedback for my work, as well as everyone who likes, reblogs, and comments on these clips I’m posting here. You are all awesome.  💖

...

It wasn’t often that Jamie had the chance to enjoy breakfast at the Holden house. Ever since their parents decreed that they were ‘too old’ for sleepovers, she and Cove didn’t have many opportunities to enjoy that particular meal together, which made today a rare treat. It wasn’t especially fancy fare, but it was lovely to be able to spend time with her boyfriend almost as soon as she woke up. She was glad she impulsively asked if he wanted to have breakfast with her when they exchanged their usual good morning texts.

After a pleasant meal filled with light conversation and tasty food, Cove invited Jamie to retreat to his room to relax and let the lazy morning linger before any big activities began. That was, if they didn’t just decide to take it easy for the rest of the day. Neither of them had any plans in particular, with no prior commitments with friends, family, or work to distract them from just spending the day together. It wasn’t officially a date day, per say, or at least neither of them called it that yet. So far, they just decided to do whatever came to mind while enjoying each other’s company.

Of course, the first thing that came to Jamie’s mind was to cuddle with her boyfriend. When Cove sat down onto the bed, she didn’t hesitate to take a seat beside him, leaning into him. He hummed happily in approval and looped an arm around her to pull her in even closer.

A mischievous smile tugged at her lips as a new thought came to mind, and Jamie leaned in even closer. Cove raised an eyebrow at expression, only to yelp when she unexpectedly pushed her weight into him and tipped him back onto the bed. She fell along with him, giggling as they tumbled onto the mattress

Cove let out a chuckle of his own once he recovered from his surprise. “When I said we could relax, I didn’t mean going back to bed,” he said with a wry smile. Even still, he allowed her to nudge him gently back to the headboard so that they could both lounge comfortably on the bed properly with their heads resting on the pillows side by side. 

Jamie flashed Cove a satisfied grin before she snuggled up against his side, nuzzling her cheek against his as she basked in his gentle warmth. “You also said to make myself comfortable,” she teased, her eyes sparkling playfully as she rested her arm across his chest. “I’m very comfortable like this.”

Cove felt his heartbeat quicken, and he smiled back fondly at Jamie, nuzzling her cheek in return. “Me too,” he said softly.

Though maybe he was a little too comfortable.

Cove couldn’t help but be aware of the fact that they were both lying in his bed together. A prickling of nerves rose up that he quickly did his best to tamp down to not ruin the intimate moment they were sharing. It was fine, no big deal, he told himself. They were both fully dressed, on top of the sheets, and it was broad daylight. They cuddled plenty of times like this before on sofas and the ground. Heck, this was nothing compared to when they shared a bed when they were younger.

The flickering of nervousness didn’t escape Jamie’s notice. She softened her expression and reached up to gently run her fingers through her shy boyfriend’s hair. She had intended to steal a kiss or two and see where that would take them, but she decided that could wait until later. Just enjoying this moment with Cove was enough for her.

The touch was soothing, and Cove slowly started to relax as he leaned into Jamie. The anxious air that had threatened to pull him out of the moment gradually dissipated as her comforting warmth slowly settled in. Soon, he felt at ease enough to slip his arm back around her, which she happily used as her new pillow. He couldn’t help but smile at seeing the content expression on his partner’s face as she smiled softly back at him.

A comfortable silence washed over the pair as they simply enjoyed the quiet moment of intimacy. At some point, Jamie went from stroking Cove’s hair to toying with it. His ponytail limited her in how much she could card her fingers through his hair, but there were plenty of long locks to ripple between her fingers.

It wasn’t the first time Jamie got the impulse to play with her boyfriend’s hair. Even before he was officially - or even unofficially - her boyfriend, she couldn’t help but want to run her fingers through those pretty pale green strands. When they were younger, Cove would jokingly try to avoid her hands, but always ‘failed’ to escape in the end, allowing her to have her way. Sometimes she teased him back by pretending to give up, and he would always pout adorably, which she would immediately chase away with a satisfying ruffle of his hair.

Occasionally, Jamie would go beyond playing to actual styling. She was no professional, but it was fun to wind her boyfriend’s hair into a braid or two sometimes. Cove never minded, even if the braids rarely lasted that long after she was finished making them. It also didn’t escape her notice that he would sometimes shiver or let out an adorable pleasured little mumble when she raked her fingers along his scalp. It was an enjoyable experience for both of them, and sometimes she suspected that was one of the reasons why he let his hair grow as long as he did.

Jamie had no such grand designs now. Today she simply basked in the freedom to enjoy the feeling of his soft hair sliding between her fingers as she listened to the happy noises her partner occasionally let slip.

Although much more at ease, Cove couldn’t help the small traces of nervous energy that left him with the need to do something with his hands. He ran his thumb across her shoulder with the hand that was limited by Jamie resting on the upper part of his arm. With his freer hand, he decided to return the favor she paid to him and ran his fingers through her long deep blue hair, starting with stroking back her bangs before sliding his hand down along the entire length of her hair until he reached the ends at her hips. The feeling was soft and silky, and she sighed softly at the attention.

On impulse, Cove poked one of the small buns on top of his girlfriend’s head. Space buns were her preferred hairstyle of choice nowadays, and there was something satisfying about poking them that he couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was the feel of them, or the way the bunched up hair bounced when poked that did it, but most likely it was because of the amused looks Jamie gave him whenever he did. She wore one such expression now, and he couldn’t help but chuckle a bit before giving her bun another playful poke.

Entertained, Jamie let Cove have her way with her buns, poking and prodding them as he pleased. The potential for innuendo wasn’t lost on her, but she let it go unsaid. As fun as it would be to make him flustered by suggesting that he might enjoy playing with a different set of buns she had even more, she didn’t want to interrupt the light, playful moment.

Jamie would just save that little bit of wordplay for later, preferably when the mood was good enough that Cove might take her up on the invitation.

Despite the steamy thoughts that skirted through her mind, Jamie did her best to focus on enjoying the lazy moment between them. It was lovely to just share such casual intimacy with Cove.

Jamie wasn’t alone in trying to ignore her more hormonal urges. As much as Cove enjoyed playing with her hair, focusing on touching her as he did made it impossible for him to stop thinking about the fact that they were both lying on his bed together. He was keenly aware of the gentle warmth of her body pressed against him, how soft and inviting her pink lips looked as she smiled at him.

Eventually, Cove realized he needed something else to occupy his hands if he didn’t want to risk disrupting the peaceful moment. Shifting about a bit, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket. Although Jamie raised an eyebrow at that and at being displaced from her cozy spot when he moved around, she held no objections as he turned his phone on and busied himself with it. Instead, she simply readjusted her position to get comfortable once he was settled again.

Sifting through missed texts and emails, Cove soon managed to distract himself from the urges that ruffled his nerves and relaxed back into the moment. He spotted a number of texts he missed from his dad, and for a moment he wondered if everything was okay until he realized Cliff just sent him a bunch of images last night.

A warm smile graced his face as Cove slowly scrolled his way through the photographs, nostalgia washing over him. Each photo brought him back to the moment it was taken, allowing him to lose himself in the priceless memories he shared with his friends, family, and especially the special person he held so comfortably close at that very moment.

Some photos brought back sweet memories, others a little more on the bitter side of sweet, and then there were the funnier ones. One such silly photo seized Cove’s attention, and he couldn’t help the burst of laughter that escaped him.

The sound immediately snapped Jamie out of her relaxed stupor and brought her back to the present. She raised an eyebrow at Cove, but he failed to notice her questioning look, too preoccupied by whatever was on his phone’s screen.

“What’s so funny?” Jamie asked as she propped herself up on her arm to get a better look at his face and catch a glimpse of the phone’s screen.

Cove finally turned to look at Jamie, his eyes crinkled with mirth and a smirk playing on his lips. “Dad scanned some old photos,” he chuckled. “You know…”

Now that Jamie was no longer using his arm as a pillow, Cove was free to use it to draw a rectangle in the air. “Printed out ones,” he explained, “back from when I was little.” He waved his phone a bit with his other hand. “He texted it all to me last night, I guess. I’ve been checking them out.”

Jamie sat up completely, her dark blue eyes flying open wide. “You were looking at your kiddie photos and didn’t tell me?!” she gasped, almost scandalized at missing out on something so priceless.

Cove barely resisted the urge to chuckle, offering Jamie a bent smile as his eyes narrowed playfully. “I was gonna show you.” His gaze then slid away to his phone as his expression turned a little more hesitant. “I just wanted to look at it first to make sure there was nothing super embarrassing. You never know with my dad.”

His mouth pulled into a grimace as Cove could easily imagine all sorts of horrors his dad might have captured on film to unintentionally humiliate him until the end of time. “I mean… what if there’s a photo of me getting potty trained or something?”

Although Jamie empathized with his worries, she couldn’t help but giggle at the fraught expression Cove wore. “Yeah, that sounds like something your dad would do.”

Cove could only respond by clearing his throat nervously, his eyes skirting away from Jamie as he sat up as well. While he hadn’t come across any particularly humiliating photo of himself, he couldn’t quite shake the fear of what his dad’s well-meaning actions might have left for him to deal with this time.

Jamie offered her boyfriend a sympathetic smile before adding a slight bent to it. “Hey, how about this - if you let me look at your embarrassing baby photos, I’ll show you just as many of mine. My moms have plenty of them.”

The offer was tempting. Cove couldn’t help but wonder what sort of photos Jamie had in mind, but the price was just too steep. He merely chuckled awkwardly and shook his head as he pointedly kept his phone tilted away from her. She huffed and puffed out her cheeks in a mock pout at him for holding out on her, which elicited a genuine bout of laughter from him.

Once Cove got his mirth under control, he smiled at Jamie. “Anyway, before we forget, I was laughing ‘cause I came across a Halloween one from when I was eight. The year I was a zombie, remember?”

Jamie dropped her faux pout and nodded, her eyes lighting up eagerly. Cove shook his head at her excitement, a wry grin gracing his face as he finally offered the phone to her.

As Cove watched Jamie eagerly turn to his phone, he couldn’t help but shake his head again, this time at his kid self. “I never even liked zombies!” he said, a little baffled that he ever was so enthusiastic for such a costume. “All I wanted was to show off my new scar. And I needed to be something scary. I couldn’t be a normal person who had a scar, according to my eight-year-old mind.”

The photo displayed on the screen showed Cove from ten years in the past, and a pleasant wave of nostalgia washed over Jamie as she saw him the way he looked when they first met, minus the pink cast and plus a fair amount of makeup and fake blood. Little Cove posed for the camera with his fingers hooked like claws, his mouth open as though letting out what was probably supposed to be a fierce roar. She could easily remember the noises he made that night as he pretended to be a zombie on the hunt for brains. His hair looked even more wild and disheveled than it did after the most energetic day of play, going well with the tattered and ‘blood’ stained button up shirt he wore. His face was painted in gray down to his neck, marred with an array of fake scars that couldn’t compare to the real one on his arm.

Cove looked from Jamie to the phone and chuckled softly at the face his younger self pulled for the camera. “I was a little dork.”

Jamie eyed Cove at such self-depreciation before poking him on the nose. “You were a little cutie,” she insisted. “And now you’re a big cutie.”

Cove blinked at the playful action before blushing at the compliment. He had no words to reply to it except for a quiet, flustered chuckle as he rubbed his nose.

Jamie grinned at that reaction before turning back to the photo. As much as she enjoyed how adorable Cove looked while pretending to be a fierce monster, it was impossible to ignore the scar displayed so predominantly on his arm at that time. Her smile softened at the edges at the sight of such a large, jagged line of fresh skin that was such a deep and angry shade of red. The scar was a pale memory in the present, but back then it looked so painful, and at the time she found it hard not to worry about him and his comfort after his cast came off.

Still, Jamie refused to let that put a damper on the story and focused instead on just how much fun little Cove was having posing for the camera and remembering the way they played around with their costumes that night. She could vividly recall how she pretended to run away from him when he playfully growled that he wanted to eat her brains, and the memory made her smile grow stronger.

“Dad really wanted to be useful, as usual,” Cove said, bringing Jamie’s attention back to him in the present. Though he noticed the flicker of sadness that crossed her face and realized the reason for it, he was glad to see her perk up again just as quickly. “He came up with the idea of being an undead person. It was pretty good, huh?”

Jamie chuckled softly and nodded. “You had the best Halloween costume that year, hands down,” she said playfully. “I remember you getting lots of extra candy when adults realized the scar was real.” Her smile widened as she remembered just how jealous Lizzie had been at how much candy Cove got that year, especially since he only offered to share some of that extra candy with Jamie. “It must have been your greatest Halloween haul ever.”

Cove couldn’t help but chuckle as well as he thought back to that legendary candy haul as well. It took him a month to finish it all even with Jamie’s help.

Still, the topic of his scar brought his gaze back to the picture. Cove couldn’t help but compare the way it looked in the photo to its current appearance on his left arm. “I can’t believe how much larger my scar used to be,” he said quietly.

Jamie watched as Cove turned his focus to his arm with a soft smile on his face. He traced his fingers along the jagged line of pale flesh that remained with him even ten years on. It was an action that she had seen him do countless times, but it felt more significant in that moment.

A soft sigh escaped Cove, but his eyes and tone were playful. “Look at how tiny it is now.” He gave Jamie a look with big, pathetic eyes. “How am I gonna pretend to be tough without a big scar?”

It was a struggle for Jamie not to laugh at the expression Cove wore. “You better not do anything stupid to get a new scar,” she joked with a faux disapproving frown as she wagged a finger at him. “No matter how much you like them!”

Cove grinned back at Jamie. “I won’t.”

“Good,” Jamie said with a satisfied nod. “You’ve already got the coolest scar, no matter how small it gets.”

Cove felt his cheeks grow warm and his smile turned bashful. “Thanks.” He ducked his head away from Jamie, pleased with their joking exchange. Once again, his eyes drifted down to his scar as he continued to trace it.

“I really do like having this,” he admitted in a soft, shy voice. “Even if it is kind of little these days.”

Jamie’s expression softened as well, feeling as though Cove was sharing a big secret with her. She couldn’t help but feel happy to hear that he liked his scar despite whatever pain it must have caused him to get it. It was always wonderful whenever he opened up to her like this.

Cove glanced up at Jamie, a gentle smile gracing his lips. “I like yours, too.”

The unexpected compliment caught Jamie off guard, and heat rose in her cheeks, turning them pink. She couldn’t help but smile as she felt her chest flutter with butterflies. He never failed to think of her as well, especially since he knew that she was self-conscious of her own scars.

Unthinkingly, Jamie brought her hand up to her upper arm and traced some of the countless jagged little white lines that marred her pale skin. There were matching scars in the same place on her other arm, as well as her thighs and her chest. Unlike Cove, these scars were not the result of an accident, but her skin not being able to keep up with her sudden growth during puberty.

Back during her early teenage years when the stretch marks were fresh and an angry purplish-red, Jamie always kept them hidden. Puberty had been rough on her, dealing a blow to her self-esteem as well as her body, and being covered in so many scars left her feeling ugly even though she never once thought of Cove’s scar like that.

It took time for Jamie to accept her scars, and she knew that Cove was a big part of why. Seeing the way he took such quiet pride in his scar always made her question how she thought of hers. More than that, he always made her feel beautiful, and he was always the first to remind her  whenever she needed it. That was why she was no longer afraid to wear clothes that exposed her scars like she did now.

Jamie scooted in closer to Cove as she smiled adoringly at him, placing her hand on top of his. “Thank you, Cove.”

Cove turned back to face Jamie fully. He finally let go of his scar so that he could take her hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. He felt at peace with his scar and was happy to see the same reflected on her face as well. Their scars held such meaning to them despite coming from unhappy sources.

Jamie squeezed his hand back as she drifted even closer. “Could I touch your scar?”

Cove blinked, taken aback by the request. Usually, Jamie wasn’t shy about touching him without asking first, particularly someplace as innocent as his arm. Still, he quickly realized why she might hesitate to do that now and smiled gently at her as he nodded easily. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

Jamie gave Cove’s hand one more squeeze before letting go of it. Lightly, she pressed her fingertips against the edges of his scar. With great care, she slowly ran her thumb along the entire length of it, following the jagged angles the old wound took. The pale flesh was rough when compared to the rest of his skin, which was soft, but with goosebumps rising quickly along his arm as she stroked his scar.

The touch, so delicate and gentle, left Cove feeling a bit lightheaded. Jamie’s touch always felt wonderful and often left him feeling butterflies, but somehow the feel of her paying such careful attention to his scar was particularly powerful. A choked breath escaped him and a wobbly smile played across his face as he lost himself in the feeling.

The dizzied smile Cove wore along with the light pink of his cheeks drew Jamie in with the urge to do more. She locked eyes with him, staring deep into his aquamarine eyes as she took a hold of his arm and raised it up towards her.

A quiet gasp escaped Cove when she realized what Jamie had in mind. He couldn’t look away from her dark blue eyes as she stared so intently into him even as she placed a soft kiss on the old wound that marked him. The feeling of her lips, warm and soft, pressed so tenderly against that particular place sent shivers up his spine, and he let out a tiny squeak.

Jamie smiled against Cove’s skin as she appreciated his adorable reaction, as well as the way he looked at her with overwhelming adoration. She kissed him again and again, tracing the entire length of his scar with her lips like she did with her fingers before.

It was impossible for Cove to stay still when Jamie was showing him such affection. He reached up with his free hand to touch her arm. With his thumb, he brushed aside the edge of her open sleeve, giving him better access to the countless little white lines marking her pale skin. The texture was interesting, feeling so similar yet so different from his own scar. Because of their size and number, he found his fingers constantly alternating between soft skin and rougher tissue. It was difficult to trace any one scar from start to finish like she did for him, so instead he sought out to touch every single one.

The touch was electric, and Jamie could feel her heartbeat speed up as Cove caressed her so lovingly. “Cove…”

Cove shivered again as Jamie murmured his name against his skin, setting off sparks that made his body burn pleasantly. It urged him to lean forward, his eyes gleaming with the fire she set ablaze inside him.

Jamie raised her head and instinctively matched his movement, drawing nearer to Cove as her eyes drifted closed. She felt his lips gently meet hers, and she melted into the tender kiss. She held a little more firmly onto his arm as she fell deeper into him, feeling like she might drown in the depths of her feelings for him.

Cove all too quickly lost himself in the moment and in Jamie. It felt so wonderful, so right to be her like this, to touch and kiss her. He loved her so much that it was almost overwhelming, but knowing that she loved him as well kept him grounded.

Eventually they finally drifted apart, breathless and dazed from the kiss, their faces flushed with heat. When Jamie opened her eyes, she saw Cove gazing back at her with his mesmerizing ocean blue eyes. The look he gave her was spellbinding, filled with so much love and adoration that made her heart hammer hard against her ribcage. It told her without words that the feelings he had for her were just as immense as hers were for him.

Cove leaned in again, this time resting his forehead gently against Jamie’s. With heavy lidded eyes, he simply enjoyed gazing deeply into her blue eyes that always reminded him of the night sky. No matter how many times he saw them, they always captivated him. He could lose himself in those beautiful eyes of hers.

The feeling of his warm breath tickling her skin made Jamie shiver a little, especially the way it brushed against her lips like the ghost of a kiss. With their heads touching, his hand on her arm and hers on his, she felt entirely entwined with Cove. It felt so right.

Time ceased to have any meaning in that moment as they gazed deeply into their partner’s eyes and drank in the closeness and warmth they shared. Seconds or minutes might have passed, but neither of them cared as they lost themselves in each other.

[cinnaminsvga]

🌷 social media au where y/n posts an advertisement looking for a new place to stay that is closer to campus, causing seven upperclassmen to make it their mission to recruit her into their dormitories 🌷

A/N: THIS TOOK FOREVER AND I KINDA RUSHED IT AT THE END BUT HOPEFULLY IT MAKES SENSE?? anyway, yoongi didn’t do anything stupid (depending on your definition of stupid) so no need to worry about him being cringey,,, i spared you all from the secondhand embarrassment but i won’t be so kind next time!! anyway... enjoy || W.C. 3.8K

prev // part 11 // next masterlist here.

By the time Seokjin’s phone begins to ring, Yoongi can already feel the dread settle deep inside his bones. The familiar coil of anxiety tightens around his throat like a vice, and Yoongi has to remember how to breathe to keep himself from fainting like a corseted Victorian lady. 

“Well, that must be her!” Seokjin chimes, promptly declining your call without a glance. Yoongi catches a glimpse of your contact photo anyway: it’s an unflattering angle of you from below your neck, giving the illusion of a multitude of chins. If it were any other time, Yoongi might have smiled like a lovesick fool. 

“Don’t you dare let her in here,” Yoongi seethes. He tries to sound menacing, but the effect is severely diminished by how badly his voice cracks. He tugs at Seokjin by the sleeve, but the older man refuses to budge. “Hyung, I’m serious. I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Are you done live-tweeting your confusion now? Finally got the memo? I always knew you were a smart boy,” Seokjin laughs, patting Yoongi on the shoulder with his tomato sauce-covered tongs. “Since we’re on the same page now, why don’t you change clothes while I finish cooking? I know your entire wardrobe is composed of the free t-shirts you got from job fairs, but it would do well to wear a clean, unstained shirt.”

Yoongi swipes at him, hissing like the catboy that he is. “You’re the one who wiped shit on me, asshole. And yes, I figured out what you are trying to do. You think you’re so slick, but I know that you’re just trying to embarrass me in front of Y/N!”

Seokjin shrugs. “It isn’t like I’m trying to be slick. I embarrass you all the time. Besides, I’m setting you up on a date with the love of your life! You should be thanking me, if I’m being honest.”

Yoongi stammers, his jaw dropping in shock. “Love of my–?”

Seokjin waves his tongs in his face, silencing him. “Oh, hush. Don’t even try to hide it, Yoongi. I figured out that you like Y/N. Your weird behavior finally makes sense! After years of you avoiding her, I always thought you were just bad at forming human connections, but turns out you’ve got a gigantic heart boner for my best friend!”

“Please don’t phrase it like that,” Yoongi groans, smashing his head against his kitchen counter. He hopes a few brain cells might have died, just so he can stop processing the words coming out of Seokjin’s mouth. “Actually, just please stop talking.”

Seokjin snorts in exasperation as if Yoongi was the dramatic one between them. “Point is, this is a favor that I’ve chosen to grant you from the goodness of my heart! As I said, I’m giving you the love life you deserve! So stop whining and get moving before Y/N gets up here.”

“There isn’t any goodness nor a heart inside of you. And more importantly, when was the last time you did anything for free, you capitalist bastard!”

Seokjin clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Yoongi-chi. You’ve already paid me for my services by offering me front row seats to watch you lose your fucking mind. And that, my friend, is priceless.”

“Aha! So you do admit that this is all just a ploy to humiliate me!” Yoongi shouts. He grabs a knife from his scabbard, pointing it threateningly at Seokjin. He doesn’t even flinch, instead gently guiding Yoongi by the wrist over to the chopping board where he had placed some garlic cloves beforehand. Without prompting, Yoongi’s hand begins to move, his culinary instincts taking over.

“Yes and no,” Seokjin admits as he grabs Yoongi’s cast iron pan from the top shelf (which he has never gotten to use since he bought it, ever since Seokjin had borrowed it once and placed it too high for him to retrieve.) “I’m honestly trying to help you out here, my dude. Besides, even if shit hits the fan, Y/N isn’t gonna think any less of you. She’s too much of an idiot to resent anyone.”

“Speaking from experience?” Yoongi huffs, eyeing him with intense vitriol. “Can’t say I understand how she’s gone this long without killing you.” The next time the two of them are alone together in the wilderness, he can’t promise that his hands won’t find their way around Seokjin’s throat, and it won’t be sexy.

“Hmm. Yeah, definitely,” he says, nodding absentmindedly. As he begins to season the steak, he hands the cast iron pan to Yoongi. “Start preheating this. We need it to be smoking hot before we can place the steak on there.”

“I know how to cook a steak, fucker. And who said you’re allowed to serve my Wagyu steak? I was saving that for a special occasion!”

Seokjin looks up from his ministrations long enough to raise a brow at him. “So going on your first ever date with Y/N isn’t considered a special occasion?”

Yoongi falters, eyes widening. “N-no, that’s not what I mean!” he defends hotly, but he quickly snaps out of it. “Wait, no! This is not a date! Not when both parties did not agree to any of this!”

Seokjin pauses from his cooking to place a perfectly manicured hand on his hip. “I mean, Y/N agreed to it, so are you going to reject her? Huh? Too good for her and my spaghetti?”

Yoongi scoffs, rolling his eyes. “No, she did not agree to this. She doesn’t even know you’re forcing her to eat lunch with me.”

“How can you say that with such certainty?” Seokjin challenges, puffing his cheeks. “You don’t even know what I told her!”

Except I do know what you said, Yoongi thinks darkly to himself. And more importantly, I know what she thinks you were implying. He is pretty sure that the words “crush on him during high school” have seared themselves underneath his eyelids forevermore.

But instead, he says, “Yeah, well. If what you told her is as vague as what you told me, I have a pretty good hunch that this is going to blow up into a huge misunderstanding.”

Like the absolute menace that he is, all Seokjin does is shrug nonchalantly. “Suppose you are right… Who cares? It’s not like the two of you are strangers, so I’m sure this is going to go great!”

“What the fuck? She is a stranger! I’ve literally only spoken two words to her in the past four years!” Yoongi seethes, his temple throbbing from an oncoming migraine. 

Seokjin ignores him, as per his want. “Grab that plate, will you? I gotta plate the pasta before Y/N starts calling again to let her into the building,” he says, nudging the tongs into Yoongi’s hands. Yoongi squawks, quickly turning the stove off to keep the food from burning. 

Seokjin tears off his (read: Yoongi’s) apron off, wiping his hands on his jeans with a quick smile. “Great! While you finish up here, I’ll distract Y/N for a bit in my room before I lead her in here, alright? You better hurry unless you want to keep her waiting!”

“Oh, like how you kept her waiting downstairs for the past–” Yoongi checks his wall clock, “–seven minutes?”

Seokjin cackles madly, rushing out the door. “Well, that’s where you and I differ, Yoongi-chi! I give no shits about how Y/N thinks about me, so good luck!” After sending Yoongi three flying kisses for good measure, Seokjin slams the door shut, leaving Yoongi to simmer in his bad life choices.

The worst choice that he’s ever made? Being friends with one (1) Kim Seokjin.

“God, just end me,” Yoongi mutters, placing his $80 steak on his pan. It sizzles deliciously, much like how his (nonexistent) love life is about to get burnt to a crisp.

x x x x x

“Took you long enough.” You watch as Seokjin taunts you with a funny little dance by the lobby of his dormitory, the building receptionist not even batting an eye at his eccentricity. That’s the sad side effect of living in close proximity with Seokjin: you start getting desensitized to most things, not even flinching at the sight of a man without a functioning central nervous system.

Seokjin slides his card to open the door, finally allowing you entry. “Sorry. Got busy preparing your lunch! Which by the way, you should be thanking me for.”

“The moment I thank you for anything is the day that you slip on your own cum and die,” you grouse, nudging past him to get on the elevator first. You punch the button for the 5th floor before rapidly trying to close the elevator door on him. Unfortunately, Seokjin makes it in time before his ass gets clamped by the two steel doors.

“Thinking about my cum? Oh my, Y/N… I know you’ve had a dry spell for too long, but I didn’t think you’d be that desperate for some of my butter,” Seokjin says, leaning closely to wink at you.

Against your will, your cheeks brighten furiously, weakly pushing Seokjin away from you. “You wish. At least I don’t spend my spare time loitering outside the campus gym to ogle all the sweaty hot people.”

“And the invitation to join me still stands by the way!” Seokjin singsongs, leaping out of the elevator once you reach his floor. You walk side by side until you reach his room, but you catch him shooting a furtive glance at his next-door neighbor.

“Is Yoongi joining us for lunch?” you ask, failing to keep your curiosity from showing in your voice. If Yoongi does end up joining you for lunch (which has never happened in the past four years, convincing you that he must have a personal grudge against you), then at least it can confirm to you straight away that whatever this “date” is just another prank by Seokjin. You don’t know if you should be disappointed or grateful if it is just a joke.

Seokjin beams in response, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “You know what? He is going to join us, actually!” 

He had been in the midst of unlocking his dorm when he changes direction, leading you to Yoongi’s door instead. He rifles through his other keys, and you notice one of them looks similar to his own house key, except with a Hello Kitty sticker on it. He pulls that key out and promptly unlocks Yoongi’s door without missing a beat.

What kind of weirdo must Yoongi be to give Seokjin a spare key to his dorm? You’d rather shit out a cactus than let Seokjin have free entry to your home whenever he pleases.

You hesitate by Yoongi’s door, feeling nervous all of a sudden. “Um, Seokjin? Are you sure it’s okay for me to–?”

“HONEY I’M HOOOOME!” Seokjin’s loud guffaw cuts you off before you can finish your question. He bursts through the door and leaves you by the hallway, and you watch as he nearly tackles Yoongi to the ground.

Yoongi, despite looking like he’s half the size of Seokjin on a good day, manages to keep upright despite how his back is now bent parallel to the floor. “Get off me!” he yells, roughly pushing Seokjin off of him. 

Seokjin tumbles to the floor, but the shit-eating grin on his face hardly wavers. He points at you by the doorway, a cheeky grin on his lips. “Look, Yoongi-chi! I brought a guest!”

Yoongi spares you half a glance before returning his attention to whatever he was cooking. “I suppose you did.”

Okay, this date is definitely a joke. Why the hell did you even think for a second that Seokjin might have been into you?

“Um,” you stutter nervously. You grind your heel into the carpet self-consciously, your gaze downcast. “Hello, Yoongi. Sorry for the intrusion, by the way…”

“It’s fine,” Yoongi replies, albeit a little curtly. He clears his throat, his face still tilted away from you so you can’t tell if he’s genuinely annoyed or not. 

You point a glare at Seokjin, who looks shamelessly pleased with himself. After taking a deep breath, you take your first steps into Yoongi’s home before gently closing the door.

As you look around at your new surroundings, you notice that his home is a lot cleaner than you would have expected, though you’re not exactly sure what you should have expected in the first place. It’s minimalist, but not in a barren type of way; it’s seems like Yoongi is fond of simple designs more than anything. It’s certainly a nice change of pace compared to Seokjin’s abomination of a room, with his vaguely yellow-stained bedsheets. 

The smell of freshly cooked pasta and meat being grilled catches your senses immediately. You watch as Yoongi flips over a hefty piece of steak, the aroma causing your mouth to salivate instantly. 

“I… What is… Huh?” you start, not knowing what to ask. You catch Seokjin snickering quietly to himself, but promptly shuts up when you mime punching him in the dick.

“It’ll be finished in a second. Why don’t you sit down?” Yoongi announces quietly, his gaze still fixed away from you. Confused but left with no other choice, you tentatively make your way to his couch, unable to relax as your spine remains ramrod straight and your jaw stays clenched. 

You hear Seokjin shuffling behind you until he eventually makes his way to sit with you, plopping onto the couch as if it were his home. “Ah… I’m soooo hungry. Smells good, doesn’t it?” he asks you, his brow wiggling too much to be considered normal. Either that, or he was having a stroke.

“Yeah, it does,” you say, greatly uncomfortable. You peek at Yoongi once more, who is still dutifully attending to the steak. Making sure he isn’t looking, you twist Seokjin by the nipple, causing the elder to let out a high-pitched squeal. To an outsider, it might have almost sounded like he was being pleasured. 

“Ouch! What the fuck was that for?” Seokjin whines, rubbing his tenderized nipples. 

“You know what that was for,” you hiss, keeping your volume low. “What the hell are we doing here? Why are you making Yoongi cook for us?!”

“For us? It’s for you!” Seokjin snaps back. “Didn’t you say you would only come over if you got fed? Well, this is how you get fed!”

“I was under the assumption that you would be feeding me, not him!” you seethe. You check back on Yoongi, who still hasn’t looked your way once. “The poor boy… No wonder he doesn’t like me! He must think I’m as bad as you!”

Seokjin snorts. “Of course he likes you! This whole lunch date wouldn’t have even fucking happened if he wasn’t assdeep in lo–”

“Lunch is finished,” Yoongi interrupts loudly, his spatula rattling loudly against his pan. The sudden noise makes you jump away from Seokjin, who appears vaguely triumphant. 

“T-thanks,” you stutter, standing up and resisting the random urge to shake his hand. Everything about this situation is so tense and awkward that it feels like you’re being filmed for a prank Youtube video or something. Knowing Seokjin, the odds of that happening are great. 

“That’s my cue to leave then! Bye! You guys have fun!” Seokjin says, jumping to his feet. 

You vaguely hear Yoongi gasp quietly when you launch yourself at Seokjin, just narrowly keeping from escaping. “Oh no, you don’t! Who said you could leave? You’re not going anywhere!”

But like the slippery snake that he is, Seokjin manages to wriggle out of your arms and hop over Yoongi’s coffee table to get to the door. “Too bad! I have classes to get to, so I gotta blast! Use this time to get to know each other or whatever it is that kids do these days,” he says, winking salaciously. With one final sputter of (evil) laughter, Seokjin makes his exit, leaving you and Yoongi to fester in some good ol’ fashioned discomforting silence.

“Um,” you say, just as Yoongi opens his mouth to say something too.

“No, you go first–”

“You go ahead–”

The two of you pause mid-sentence, staring at each other. You grin sheepishly at him, motioning for him to speak first. 

He returns your smile half-heartedly. “So, um… I just wanted to say I’m sorry for letting Seokjin rope you into this. I tried stopping him, but… You know how he is.”

You laugh, sounding a little crazed even to your own ears. That’s the longest sentence you’ve ever heard him speak! 

“Yeah, believe me… I am intimately aware of how he is. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t,” you joke. 

Amazingly, your little quip makes his smile widen, his cheeks puffing up imperceptibly. “Glad we can agree that Seokjin has the amazing ability to ruin people’s lives. It’s almost welcoming to find solidarity in a shared experience.”

“Shared experience? Try shared trauma. That dude is a walking serotonin sucker,” you say dryly. 

You don’t think what you said was remotely funny enough to warrant a laugh, but it causes Yoongi to let out a loud snort regardless. But the amusement on his face is short-lived, his cheeks going red in embarrassment. He slaps a hand to his mouth, breaking eye contact once more. “Oh fuck, that was so unflattering,” he groans, clearly mortified.

His blush, multiplied by his shy demeanor, makes you want to coo at him, but you doubt he’d take that too kindly. So instead, you change the subject to save him. “So, uhh… The food? You don’t have to give me any, by the way. I wouldn’t want you to waste your lunch on me or anything.”

Yoongi snaps out of his previous embarrassment, returning to the more familiar stoic expression you’ve come to associate with Yoongi. “No, that’s fine. Seokjin–er, rather… I made enough for two people, so it would be a waste if you didn’t eat at least some of it. But I don’t care either way if you want it or not.”

For two people? you wonder. So Yoongi had known Seokjin wasn’t going to join for lunch?

“Oh, if it’s fine with you…” you trail off, meekly making your way towards him. The spaghetti and steak look absolutely delicious, though you don’t need to tell him that when your stomach speaks for you. “Oh shit, that’s so embarrassing,” you say, your cheeks heating up this time.

Yoongi chuckles, shaking his head. “Haven’t eaten breakfast yet, I assume? That’s pretty stupid if you ask me. Don’t you have class until 5? How the hell would you have survived until then?”

You choke in surprise. Where did all that sass suddenly come from? “Excuse me? I’m not stupid! I would’ve been fine with a sandwich from the cafeteria if you must know!” you say indignantly. You’re too busy being offended that you don’t fully comprehend his words, failing to notice how he had known you had class until 5 in the first place.

“Sure, whatever you say.” Rolling his eyes, Yoongi starts shifting through his cupboards and pulling out a pink tupperware. He begins to load them with food, nearly overflowing the containers with how much he tries to stuff in them.

“H-hey! What are you doing?”

“Packing your lunch. You have class in a bit, yeah? It’s almost 11:50 and it takes around 15 minutes to get to the main campus. You won’t have time to eat here and make it in time,” he says, pointing you with a look. “Wait. Did you have coffee this morning?”

“Yeah? So?” you ask, defensive. “Are you gonna call me stupid again for not having caffeine or something?”

“No,” he grunts. “If you’re caffeinated, then that means it should only take you 7 minutes to get to class.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” you exclaim, but you can’t help letting out an incredulous laugh. “Wow. You’re kinda weird, did you know that?”

“You barely even know me, so how would you know?” he retorts. He finishes placing food into the tupperware and promptly clicks the lid in place. He offers it to you, smirking slightly.

You huff, but your ire is all for show. You aren’t actually annoyed by him–he’s just… different from what you expected. A little shy, a little rough around the edges… but you can tell he isn’t a bad guy. You understand why Seokjin loves to torment him; he seems like a fun person to tease. 

“That can be amended,” you respond, taking the tupperware from him. Your fingers graze the backs of his hand by accident, causing him to quickly retract his hand as though he’d been burned. You nearly drop the container in surprise, but luckily your reflexes save your precious food just in time. 

“Sorry. About… you know.” Yoongi gesticulates wildly, his gaze darting anywhere but at you. 

You smile secretly to yourself, amused. Ah. He’s like a human seesaw. Blushy one second and grumpy the next. “No worries, Yoongi. I’ll be sure to return this container soon, so don’t you worry.”

Yoongi shrugs. “Keep it if you want. I don’t care either way.”

Says the guy who has an entire cupboard full of color coordinating food containers. “Roger that, Yoongi.”

Yoongi walks you out the door, pausing outside the hallway with you. “Do you…” he hesitates, swallowing loudly enough for you to hear. “Do you… want me to walk you out?”

His sudden offer almost makes you want to laugh, but you have a feeling he wouldn’t find it amusing at all. Instead, you just shake your head with a smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t get lost. I think I remember where the door is.”

He pouts, his lips jutting out cutely. “Yeah, well. I was just trying to be nice, but you do you.”

You giggle lightly, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You were more than nice,” you say, winking for added effect. It does more than you thought it would, causing Yoongi’s cheeks to bloom once more.

With one last wave, you make your way out of the dormitory, your heart a little lighter than before. 

“Huh. That was weird.” You glance at the pink little tupperware in your hands, its warmth keeping your hands safe from the winter chill. As you walk to class, your thoughts are filled with nothing but a shy boy with soft hands and even softer cheeks. Maybe Tuesday isn’t going to be so bad after all.

[popculturebuffet]

Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers (DT17 Season 2 Retrospective): The Most Dangerous Game Night! (Paid for by WeirdKev27)

Welcome all you happy people! As some of you will recall I do a lot of duck based retrospectives on this blog: Ride of the Three Cablleros! which took a look at all the Cabs major American adventures, Shadow Into Light, my Weblena colored look at Lena Sabrewing’s journey from abused teenager to magical protector, and the Della arc which I dind’t give a cool name but covered since Shadow Into Light read right into it’s final chapter and ended up perfectly synching up with the final month of the series. And of course i’m still working my way through the life and times of Scrooge McDuck with a plan to finish the main story in September barring any delays, sickness that sorta thing.

So it shouldn’t be at all a shock that having covered all of season 3 when it came out and covered the two season 1 arcs i’d be taking a look at Season 2′s three story arcs. So I probably would’ve covered them anyway.. but Kev, one of my patreons and the guy who commissioned Shadow Into Light AND Ride of the Three Cablleros, had expressed interest in doing the Glomgold arc from season 2 as it centers around his favorite character, Zan Owlson. He also wanted to do Della’s arc in time for mothers day, and was all too happy to combine both, and politely agreed to my request to do the Louie arc as well. To help soften the blow, I also suggested since he’s a patreon of mine on patreon.com/popculturebuffet he use his second review (You get one guaranteed review a month with 5 and he’s a 10 dollar backer so he gets two, and he’s earmarked marked one for House of Mouse through the end of the year)  to help soften the blow a bit, which means some weeks i’ll be doubling up on this one. He agreed and it’s thanks to him that all of this happened so thanks bud. It’s also thanks to him I have money in the first place and I wouldn’t be here without him.

As for why I insisted on the Louie arc it wasn’t out of greed but out of pragmatism. I covered the Della arc purely on my own time, and gladly did so. But back then I also kept making the mistake of shoving retrospectives back again and again and again and that’s why there’s a rather nasty gap in my New X-Men retrospective I think severely harmed it , and a similar one for life and times which wounded it. I don’t mind taking smaller gaps of say a month when needed, but I learned from the experience I can’t just delay things constantly out of convince and expect it to work.

Not only that but the Lena and Della arcs only interact in the very last part. With these arc? While they don’t really touch at first and run parallel much like season 1′s arcs did, they start intersecting heavily as soon as Della gets back. Raiders of the Doomsday Vault! touches on both Della’s recent return and Glomgold’s bet with Scrooge, Happy Birthday Doofus Drake! has the A-Plot centered around Louie’s plot and the B-Plot centered around Della bonding with Huey as part of hers. And the final four is one one long, sustained arc, finishing up all three in the process. So yeah it was a package deal and as such this will be my third largest retrospective at 17 parts including the prologue. (As i’ll also be covering Della’s four issues in the IDW Comic released back in season 1). For the record my largest will be my Tom Lucitor Retrospective as 24 (in part due to doing the eclipsa arc for the same reasons as Dellas), and ride of the three cablleros at 20 is in a close second. This is going to be a long ride that will take most of summer, so buckle up, get your Louie Inc signs, Glomgold’ posters to jump through and black licorice gum ready and join me won’t you under the cut as we start this fantastic adventure together.

We open season 2 with all but one of our heroes proudly posing as they enter a temple. Scrooge even has his treasure of the lost lamp outfit on. Louie.. just looks tired and bored. One of the things I love about these reviews is that I haven’t watched most of the episodes since they first aired. Sure i’ve revisited some of my favorites like Dangerous Chemistry and the 87 Cent Solution,  but I haven’t really DONE a full died in wool episode by episode rewatch of the series. I’ve got SO MUCH I haven’t watched, haven’t rewatched and haven’t even started, that I really DON’T have the time for it outside of my job. So it is VERY nice to get a chance to do so once in a while with it.

As such knowing Louie’s real motive this episode it makes this scene hit diffrently. On first airing Ducktales was back after a short hiatus, our heroes are operating at full speed and daringly charting through a temple: Dewey and Webby have become tighter than ever and easily stop a pit trap and Scrooge and Huey easily solve an arrow puzzle. But while at first glance Louie is just fed up because as he puts it later “I’m just loveably lazy”, knowing he’s really just burnt out, scared he’s going to die or worse like he likely thinks his Mom did because he’s not good enough.. it’s really tearjerking. Here’s an 11 year old who at his core feels he doesn’t belong in his family and just wants a friggin break from the dangerous shit they do. It hits even harder as a fan of the venture bros but i’ll save that for later. Point is he’s telling Scrooge he’s burnt out.

So then this happens...

It really is almost the exact same joke, but diffrent enough since for one, Family Guy’s is driven by the refrenece (And god how I miss how their refrence humor used to have an actual purpose), where as here it’s to set up something else and hints for later: Louie having parsed how most adventures to at this point. While Scrooge is right in pointing out how every adventure is unique.. Louie’s not wrong that there is a small pattern to it: The Whoah! , The “Wait, What?” and the Aggggh!. Scrooge scoffs.. but Louie is proven correct as Dewey Whoas, a mechanisim trggers (Wait what?”) And everyone screams as they run from a giant wheel.

Back at home though it’s even more apparent poor Louie is miserable while his family is just jazzed. I can’t BLAME THEM, but I can’t blame him either for being, tired, worn out and just wanting ONE minute where they aren’t adventuering. There are some nice touches though as Scrooge runs off and finds a map in the idol: We see Duckworth removing the Scrooge as a Prospector painting based on Carl Bark’s painting of him from the foyer and instead replacing it with the painting of Scrooge, Donald and Della. It’s a nice little acknowledgment of how things have changed.. from Scrooge being alone and running from a painful past to having accepted it and gone back to being a family man. We also get Beakley just casually picking up Louie to vacum.

In the Triplet’s room.. which by the way why do they all share one room? In universe I mean, I mean is it saving on the power bill or does scrooge have the other rooms filled. Only four bedrooms are occupied: the boys, webby’s , Beakly’s (Which we never see but implicitly exists), and Scrooge’s himself. While the mansion isn’t LIMITLESS, it has to have more rooms than that. Is the rest just storage?

Out of universe though I do get why and i’ts why I let this concept of sharing a room when you have enough for everyone in the first place slide: it allows the boys to interact more easily outside of adventures by having all three in the same location. This episode is a good example of that as it kicks off Louie’s plan admirably: Louie is burnt out while Huey is excited.. and in another hint of Louie’s true gift he casually notices part of Dewey’s woodchuck uniform he was looking after is undone, simply making a quip about a sewing patch. He gets the idea for a scheme from there: to finally get his break by convincing Huey he’s slipping and exploiting his brother’s tendency for manic episodes.. which as someone with those I highly don’t approve and is far and away one of the more questionable things Louie’s done. And this is in an arc that includes him nearly wiping out all of existence.

Still it gets Huey on board but Scrooge and the wonder twins are a harder sell. Dewey and Webby are so jazzed on frinedship their even speaking in unions “This Needs to stop!” “I’ve tried but they really do enjoy harmonizing”

Louie insists the adventuring is driving them apart and making them less close.. and while Scrooge insits it brings them closer together  he ends up proving his point when Louie fakes not knowing which triplet is which.. and Scrooge GENUINELY struggles with which one’s Huey and Which ones Dewey. Dewey’s face is at the top of the page.. and utterly and completely priceless.

And while I thought it was the same impressive face from night on Kilmotor hill turns out, nerp their uniquely hilaroius

Same mood though. But I do love this callback: almost a YEAR later, and Scrooge STILL is like...

But while movie night and make your own pizza night, which i’m pleased as punch to find isn’t just something my family does, don’t do anything one thing does... GAME NIGHT. Cue a glorious minute of David Tennant goofily shouting Game Night to everyone in the mansion. Seriously getting him was one of the series masterstrokes. The man has only done a few roles in voicework but damn is he a natural. Not eveyrone can adapt to it this fast. While I love Walton Goggins, it clearly took him a few episodes of invincible to get really comfortable with it. It’s why I have such respect for Voice Actors in general: I’ts not an easy job, it takes a lot of skill, and it can be often thankless. It’s also why i’ve made a concentrated effort ot more know of them by voice simply because they’ve earned that much.

Anyways Beakly pops Louie’s bubble that htis is not going to be relaxing for a very obvious reason: Scrooge is relentless against his enmies and game night makes YOU the enemy. He quickly has them pair off into teams, taking Donald right off the bat.

We also get one of the best jokes in the entire series “If you loose your out of the will” “(Genuinely suprised) I was in the will?”

It’s almost entriely in Tony’s delivery there. The surprise is just perfectly delivered. It’s also oddly touching as despite a decade’s estrangement and Donald understandably thinking he wasn’t in it in anymore, Scrooge NEVER removed Donald from it . Sure he’s thretaning it over game night but he clearly takes this ungodly seriously. Duckworth leaves to go do ghost stuff.. which is code for make up a flimsy excuse to run the fuck away. To make matters worse she’s stuck with Launchpad as a partner. Louie is left with Huey and immieditly regrets sending his brother into a panicy spiral as he’s already set up a creepy scheduling board.

So i’m going to go ahead and cover the Webby and Dewey Plot, and the acompanying Donald and Scrooge antics now to save us some time. I’ll come back to it at the climax of Louie’s plot obviously and to the episodes credit the pacing is exceptional, weaving in and out of both plots , Louie struggling to keep the whole shrinking plot a secret and the rest of the families game night, excelently, it’s just with my brain i’ts harder to do that in a recap so...

Game Night: Crush Your Enmies and See Them Driven Before You Scrooge goes to the Conan of Sumeria/Melissa School of Game Nighting. Or in short...

Why HASN’T there been a Conan musical? So he and Donald dominate the first round, Charades, with Scrooge easily guessing almost EVERYHTING Donald mimes. As Webby puts it “When you’ve been around donald for 30 years you get good at non-verbal commuincation”. Granted they have a commuincation breakdown that results in this magic.

So Webby understandably assumes that given their best friends and Scrooge and Donald, while reconciled, hate each other, that they have an advantage. She is wrong. Not the first time: she also assumed she and Lena were just friends. It happens. you get a few wrong everyone does. Instead we get a great bit of Dewey utterly failing to guess it’s Scrooge despite Webby being obvious because Dewey’s brain is a riddle for the ages. 

Jenga dosen’t really go great for either so they go solo for SCROOGEPOLY. Because of COURSE Scrooge created monopoly in this version. I simletaniously love and hate how eveyr piece is a top hat. I love it because it’s a hilarously quick gag.. but also hate it because one of Monopoly’s biggest draws is having so many diffrent peices. I mean some like the sports car make sense but then you have a dog for some reason and an ironing board. I mean I love that dog, he’s a good boy but I don’t understand why he’s in this. If anyone knows the weird old timey reasoning for either of these let me know in the replies or my asks. 

This isn’t bad stuff mind, it’s just not really deep in stuff for me to make fun of. Apart from Donald ending up in jail... again. At least it’s not as bad as say goblin jail or that time he had to carve pinocchio’s nose into a shiv to surivive whale jail.

Louie: “How Long Before That’s Not Enough?”

Okay I kid, the subplot is good.. but that’s th epotatoes.. this is the potatoes iwth cheese.. look I love meat but potatoes don’t get enough love. They just don’t and you can do all kinds of delicious things to them. It’s why a good third of side dishes at most restaurants are potato based. 

But yeah rolling it back a bit Louie is confident that even with the  this will be mildly relaxing.. then Gyro bursts in thorugh the double doors proudly announcing his invention and pries himself in, ignoring Louie’s desperate attempts to shut him out.

 Gyro is.. different in this episode. He’s peppy and while he’s mildly condescnding to the Gyropludians, more no that in a second, he’s far more enthuastic and freindly to everyone else and less of the awkward ballbag he’d been last season and would be again this season.

This feels like an ATTEMPTED course correct. See a lot of people, if understandably didn’t like how Gyro was in season 1. Fan of the original him from the comics and show iddn’t like the nice, friendly weirdo suddenly being a sour, condesencindg weirdo. Me I was FINE with the change from unintentional mad scientist to intentional one... I just feel they overdid it on the asshole as season 1 went on. In The Great Dime Chase he’s fine, he’s egosticial, angry and kind of a pill.. but he also clearly cares for his creations, rightfully hates the board for constantly doubting him, and is frustrated his creations keep going rouge. It was a nice balance. 

The balance got thrown off entirely however once Fenton entered the scene. The crew just leaned WAY to hard into hwo much of a shitweasel he was to fenton: giving him an office in the bathroom with a cool quip, trying to beat him up (even if his rage over Fenton’s dumbassery was warranted that was not), and finally trying to take the gizmoduck armor back not out of any real concerns but because he’s worried he’ll loose his job... his job iwth the man who freely tolerates his creations going insane and really dosen’t care about his own colateral let alone Gyro’s. It came off as disngenous and that he simply didn’t trust FENTON with it and wanted and excuse to take the armor Fenton had clearly earned. He also pit manny and bulb against each other for a job which just felt out of character even for him to possibly fire one of his children which felt horribly out of character. Toniing this down was a good thing.. I just feel they overcorrected. They tried making him the 80′s version with a slight ego here, and when that didn’t work they just downplayed him for the rest of the season. He’s still around, in fact we’ll be seeing him again soon enough, and he still gets some great jokes... he’s just not really focused on at all. But they managed to fix their fix in season 3: they did have Gyro be a dick to Fenton again but gave proper context, had him apologize and framed it less as a funny joke and more as him being abusive because he was abused himself and breaking the cycle. He also kept the supporting role but kept the shadiness in it, with the earpiece bit from “Louie’s Eleven” being a highlight. 

Gyro has a new device that can pick up tiny sounds and has found a tiny civilization in the ducks house, dubbing them Gyropudlians because he apparnetly likes Gullivers Travels. I do not really know what that’s about, nor have I seen any of the movies. Not even the jack black one made on a dare to see if they could actually sell a movie on the concept “This old story but as a jack black comedy”. And it went horribly wrong because they actually did get it greenlit and someone out there actually watched it. Not me... and I watched the Wrong MIssy entirely of my own volition. I’m not immune from making eye staining mistakes. This just wasn’t one of them. 

Gyro ends up getting shrunk down because he naturally attached a shrink ray to it because...

So Louie shrugs it off correctly figuring out the arc of that sort of story: Gyro becomes a god, he learns a life lesson that sort of thing. Also I do applaud them for making the lost tribe not horribly racist.. that is a hard line to walk. They just make them generic instead which.. still better than racist. “Not Racist” isn’t a very high bar to clear but given this version went out of it’s way to be inclusive while the original show.. what’s a good metaphor for this.. hrmmm... these rakes are all the racism in the original show i’ve encoungered so far and probably will in the future, and i’m sideshow bob. 

Eventually though the Gyropudlians decide to decalre war on the giants because unknowingly the Ducks have been destroying their civilizations time and time again.. mostly louie but donald clearly peed a civiliztion to death..and i’m not grasping at straws there he left the bathroom and the other two possiblities for the floating city are too horrible to comprehend. Or it was just the sink and i’m a bastard... i’m probably a bastard.

So they blast the shrink ray around the kitchen and get Launchpad, so now he’s a part of this cliche. Beakly finds them.. is highly supscious, and Huey’s lie is.. not convincing... but this gets her out of game night with her overcompeitive boss so she takes the out and gets the fuck out and is not seen for the rest of the episode.. probably for several days. Look she does a lot around the house no one’s going to question if she comes back after a mysteirous absence with someone elses blood on her apron and several thousnd ddollars in brazilian cocaine. The sweetest cocaine of all. Scrooge is just used to it by now. 

Anyways things continue to escalate as The Gyropuldians, Launchpad and Gyro launch an assault on the tower of infinity, aka the jenga tower and knock it over. The Good news is launchpad surivives and we get a great bit of the brothers hugging then awkarly and half assedly explaning it to cover. the bad news is the Gyropudlians considered it an act of war and have trained some flies to man the microphone shrink ray dealie. 

It’s here we get the best scene of the episode: Huey is naturally worried.. even more so after he sees Louie’s response to the unfolding chaos: Curling up in a fetal position and rocking back in forth muttering to himself this was supposed to be a fun night in. Huey finally has had enough of this and wants to knwo wha tthe hell this is all about, shooting down Louie attempting to deflect it with his usual lazy schtick. Even at his laziest he’d pride self preservation over doing nothing. This is something worse. And while Huey is furious his rage is coming out of concern. While Huey prides himself on his brain... he has the biggest heart of the three. He’s the most empathetic and the one most willing to reach out to the others when they need him. Not that hte others lack it, Dewey was the one to welcome Webby into the group the most after all, it’s just Huey displays it the most. So his anger comes off entirely as genuine worry at Louie acting out of character and trying to avoid doing what eveyrone else does. And his response.. is heartbreaking...

“BECAUSE I’MMom was great at adventuring, and she still got hurt. I'm only good at talking my way out of it. How long before that's not enough? NOT GOOD AT IT OKAY?!” 

Bobby Monihan.. really dosen’t get enough credit for this show. When he gets to really do something big with Louie he goes for it and he uttelry dominates the scnee here. Danny Pudi is no slouch mind.. but Monihan REALLy gets to show what he can do. His reasoning for his worries is also just as well delivered and heartbreaking. 

“Mom was great at adventuring, and she still got hurt. I'm only good at talking my way out of it. How long before that's not enough?“

It just.. stings a lot. To find that Louie’s exaustion wasn’t out of self intrest.. but just out of fear. That he won’t be good enough at best and that he’ll end up like his mom: lost or dead never to be seen again as far as he figures. As a third of this arc will bear out, tha’ts not even remotely true, but out of the three Louie is the most pragmatic so while he says hurt.. he thinks she’s dead. And if she, someone as capable as scrooge or as close as someone whose not him can be, could end up dead... he’s living on borrowed time. 

This is where the Venture bros comparison really comes out to me... because they had a similar if more spread out storyline in season 5, with bookish brother Dean, Huey if he lacked autisim but gained 80 dozen more issues, found out he and his brother Hank, aka Dewey in his teens, were clones because his dad is really bad at keeping his sons alive because he’s also bad at everything else including science, parenting, being emotinally open, making a cocktail that isn’t a crime against nature, sex, and not treating hank like garbage, which should fall under shitty parenting but I love my empty headed boy.

So why bring this up? Well besides self indulgance because I love both shows iwth a signifgant portion of my heart and frank flat out admitted to being a venture bros fan, and having Beakly take some cues from Brock, I love the accidental parallels here: both are arcs about a boy adventuer coming to grips with their mortality. Both withdraw, both are heavily depressed and both feel there’s no real light at the end of the tunnel for htem anymore. 

And both.. are drawn out of it the same way.. by a concerned brother pulling them out of their misery and self doubt:

It’s the same here... Huey helps Louie through it, understanding how he feels.. and like Hank did for Dean, proving to Louie he’s not alone. He points out that yes Della did get hurt.. but it’s because she went in alone. He’s got his family.. they won’t let him get lost or die.. because their not alone. The reason they can do all this stuff is because their together. Their all amazing alone.. but together their unstoppable. And i’ts fine Louie’s afraid.. but he can’t let that fear kill everyone he cares about.

So our boys run upstairs, but are a second too late as the gyro pudlians shrink the other four down, and the duo’s attempt to grow them just makes one of the gyropudlians giant instead. With things at their grimmist.. Louie finds his TRUE talent, looks at the situation. and takes charge. In the span of two minutes he completely turns the tide: he has launchpad crash his way out, which he does by pure accident because of course he does he’s nature’s perfect Himbo. He next has Donald and scrooge take on some guards to give Dewey and Webby some room and has Huey take out the giant with his sewing. His final part is to have Dewey and Webby work their way up to the ray gun.. which is a probelma s both have lost all confidence due to realizing they have nothing in common and can’t fathom how their friends. Scrooge’s reply? Of course their not.. THEIR FAMILY. It was then that a thousand debbigail shippers cried out and were silenced... I know I was one of them. I couldn’t speak for about a minute. It was awful. 

And yeah.. I had been shipping Dewey and Webby up to this point, but it was becoming increasingly obvious they were being treated like brother and sister and then this happened. And in hindsight i’m glad I jumepd the hell off as they turne dout ot be blood related so I dodged a bullet there an found better ships for both. So no harm no F.O.W.L. clone accidental incest. 

Realizing this the two find their second wind and save the day. OUr heroes are restored and things are good.

The next day, Louie faces the music with Scrooge and is terrified, not helped by Scrooge being dead serious... but his worries are for naught. Scrooge instead only has one thing to say

“You saw all the angles”

Something the crew conciously did was have each of the kids mimic one of Scrooge’s tennants, something that was heavily implied before but made fully explicit here: Dewey is toughter than the toughies, Huey is Smarter than the smarties... and Louie is the oft forgotten Sharper than the sharpies. Scrooge even lampshades how that part of his motto is often left out. And of course as frank made clear post series, Webby made her way into the family Square. 

But back to the sharpie thing, I like this because it defines what that truly means, as it often comes off as similar to the smartie bit hence i’ts exclusion: It’s the ablitliyt to think quickly, strategize, a strategic, critical mind that can come up with a gambit in an instant and use everyone to the best of their abillity. It’s why for an example, Scott Summers is one of my faviorite x-men. Because while his eye laser things are impressive it’s this kind of cleverness and tactical insight, seeing all the pieces on the board and easily manuvering them, friend and foe, that makes him so awesome. And as scrooge muses it could make Louie even richer than he is. And in a truly touching gesture, Scrooge gives Louie the idol, confident in his Nephew’s potetial. His mother reached hers... he only needs time. So with that Louie’s arc truly begins and he hangs a shingle on the triplets door. Louie inc is born. 

Final Thoughts: This episode caught me by suprise: I remember it being decent.. but damn if it wasn’t amazing on the rewatch, with the knowledge of Louie’s weakness helping but really it’s just a funny, tightly paced half hour of television. It has great jokes, a great emtoinal arc and in general is jsut well.. great. I didn’t see this poteitial the first time because I was more hung up on fethry finally appearing, the cabs finally appearing.. all the things in the distance after this ep. But this ep is just damn good and I wish i’d put it on my best of list. Top shelf stuff.

Next time on Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers: The second arc starts up as FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD returns as an amensiac south african fisherman and it’s up to Webby and Louie to unravel his past to figure out why he’s acting like this and if this is another one of his insane schemes. We also meet Zan Owlson buisnesswoman of the year and person about to go through some undeserved shit at the hands of a stupid man.  Later Today: We return to Amity Park for more Danny Phantom and meet his second most intresting enemy as an innocent fuckup turns a spoiled brat into one of most dangerous enemies. Also PUPPIES and Tucker being the worst. 

Wednsday: We grab onto some more ducktales as Donald returns to Ducktales 87. And judging by the content warning so does racisim. 

If you liked this review stop my patreon RIGHT HERE. Seriously please do: you’ll find exclusive reviews, and if you join you’ll get acess to my discord, get to pick a short for my shortstravganzas, and help me reach my strech goals. And at my next one at 20, just 5 dollars away, ALL READERS will get a darkwing duck review a month and reivews of the two ducktales movie as well as the Danny Phantom TV Movie the ultimate enemy! 

See you at the next rainbow!

[maxwell-grant]

You've talked quite a bit about Shiwan Khan, would be OK with talking about the other villains who show up more than once, Benedict Stark and The Voodoo Master?

The Voodoo Master tends to get overshadowed by Khan by virtue of being less prominent and because, in a lot of ways, Mocquino does feel a bit like a prototype for Khan. Like Gibson was testing the waters of what kind of major supervillain he wanted the Shadow to have, and was gradually figuring details like the hypnotic traps and unique henchmen and mystic background and a fraudulent dark magician figure with Mocquino, before Khan blew it all up to bigger proportions. Twice already we’ve had instances where Mocquino was set to appear in a Shadow adaptation after Khan, and said adaptations got canned before he could show up (and I don’t think it does either character a favor if Mocquino comes after Khan). And of course Mocquino has the problem of being an ethnic supervillain whose identity and name are tied up to grotesque prejudice that twists cultures and beliefs into Hollywood boogeymen, and the novels sadly treat vodou beliefs far less charitably than how the other novels approach tibetan/asian mysticism. It’s definitely a problem, but not without it’s solutions.

Putting that aside, The Voodoo Master trilogy is very fun, the first novel in particular was the number one rated Shadow novel in a fan poll back then. Personally, my favorite is City of Doom because of it’s blend of gothic, urban and industrial settings, great battles even for a Shadow novel, and a spectacular finale, but they all have very strong points. And I do like Mocquino himself as a character. He is historically significant as the first true supervillain of Shadow Magazine (if you don’t count other odd criminals like The Black Master or The Cobra). He is different from Khan personality-wise in the sense that he is more of an old-school supervillain, who likens his conflict with The Shadow to a “game” they play, who likes to boast and brag about his powers and whose goals largely revolve around extortion. He has a vendetta against industrial society (although he himself employs industrial tactics, because he is a hypocrite), and said vendetta being largely just him trying to destroy it so he thinks people will fall in line with his cult more easily. Unlike with Khan, there’s no delusions or aspirations of grandeur and greater purpose here, it always comes down to crime and profit with Mocquino and he barely bothers to pretend otherwise.

He is resourceful and insidious and racks up a bigger body count than Khan on City of Doom alone, and there’s a real creepiness to his zombie minions as they are regular people stripped of all identity and forced into becoming walking meat shields. I think one way to make him work better on his own could be by playing up his ruthlessness and charm, and focus on the mind control/cult leader aspect. Make him the Jim Jones of Shadow villains.

Justice Inc redesigned him to look like Boris Karloff, divorced him of racist trappings, played up his dark magician persona and ballooned up his abilities into outright superpowers, all of which worked quite well as the closest he's ever had to an update And interestingly, there’s some odd Joker-esque aspects to him in his final appearence in Voodoo Trail:

Though almost silent, the explosion was forcible. The tank disgorged a greenish gas that spread like an expanding monster, filling the entire room that the trio had just left. 

There was something parched and withery in his face, particularly noticeable when The Shadow saw the Voodoo Master's profile. Mocquino bore the scars of flame, not only on his face, but upon the scrawny arm he extended from his robe. Those burns showed like livid brands: a fitting mark for a supercriminal.

That hissing sound in the zombi cave! It was gas, leaking from underground pipes that led into Manhattan. Filtering through the porous stone, it gathered other chemical elements. Mocquino must have discovered that leakage and noted its effects. He had put the discovery to his own use. 

...lips formed a grin so jagged that it was difficult to note where his mouth ended and his scar began.

Mocquino's shrill laugh told that he expected his men to overwhelm The Shadow through force of numbers.

Honestly, “Doctor Mocquino” I think is a better name for him than Voodoo Master. A Rogues Gallery isn’t complete without a major Doctor in there, and divorcing Mocquino of “Voodoo Master” and all that implies could be the better way of making this character work again. Play up the fact that he’s exploiting Caribbean religions and citizens for personal gain and roping them into his crime ring, maybe even have him use similar theatrics as The Shadow to paint himself as this great master of voodoo, but in the end, he’s always just Doctor Mocquino, an evil, rotten shyster who puts his knowledge to use for evil and evil alone. 

Responsible for the first and only cliffhanger of Shadow Magazine with the kidnapping of Rutledge Mann, Benedict Stark is easily the single worst scumbag out of all Shadow supervillains. Just this completely horrible, wretched monster who ends up being somewhat dissappointing and frustrating of a villain in my view. Despite having quite a bit going on for him, Stark is not really interesting enough to warrant the 4 novels he gets, and where as Khan and Mocquino usually escape The Shadow thanks to prior planning and last-minute escape and strokes of luck, Stark seems to get away with it only because the narrative says so, not nearly as impressive as the other two despite being far, far worse, which makes it you don’t want The Shadow to match wits with him, so much as you just want The Shadow to kill him as soon as possible. In fact, here’s what Stark gets away with in the first ten pages of The Prince of Evil alone:

He gaslights a man named John Harmon into thinking he was developing amnesia

Gets Harmon to sign away enough money to be bankrupted for life, and no one, not even his wife, believe him when he says he was conned

Causes Harmon to commit suicide. 

Then, while Cranston's talking with a friend of Harmon named Jackson who wanted to help him, the two go to Jackson's house to find it completely destroyed, his priceless belongings acid-ruined. 

Then, they find Jackson's dog dead, with it's throat slit, and a Bible scattered nearby with the story of the good Samaritan marked, making it clear that this all happened because Jackson tried to help Harmon. 

And then, as Cranston tries to stop one of Stark's goons from brutally assaulting a boy who was just paid by Cranston to watch his car, he gets attacked and knocked unconscious.

And THEN, the henchman gives the kid a brain concussion and then hauls him in front of a coming truck, with Cranston just barely saving the kid in time as the henchman escapes.

This is just the first 10 pages. Not even Spider novels usually start with this many atrocities happening all at once. Whatever problems Tinsley has as a Shadow writer, I’ll give him this: He definitely knows how to go from 0 to 100 in ways Gibson never would. The book obviously doesn’t keep this up forever (thank goodness), but The Prince of Evil is really all about building up Stark’s presence as this new ultimate Shadow villain, and I think the build up is quite solid up to a point.

He’s established as possibly the richest man in America. Where as Cranston is a millionaire, Stark is a billionaire, who owns “ailways and steamships, factories and mills all over the United States". Nobody knows what he looks like, nobody’s ever seen a picture of him, and Cranston, who knows everyone and everything, has never once laid eyes on the man. We also know in advance that he uses drugs delivered by chewing gum to turn his thugs into bloodthirsty savages who desire only terror and torture and inflict those at his beck and call, and we get a passage where Clyde Burke ingests one of these gums, experiences it’s effects, and ends up chasing down a mouse and killing it, for no reason other than it was the only living being nearby, much to his horror. And it very nearly develops into something even worse:

He could hear the snoring of a man sleeping inside a cellar apartment. Clyde halted. His fingers tightened on his iron bar. He guessed that the man asleep inside was the building janitor. He fought against a hot impulse that flared anew in his blood.

He wanted to kill that janitor! He wanted to smash at him with the iron bar until the man was battered and dead! Murder seemed so exciting. And so easy! Clyde could picture the terror of his victim as he struck at him. It would be sheer delight to maim the fool before he killed him.

The thing that saved Clyde was the thought of the chewing gum. He knew that the savage whisper that urged him on to murder was not his own brain talking, but the voice of a powerful drug.

Laying the bar on the concrete floor, he ran for the cellar exit. He didn't glance back. He was afraid that if he did, he'd be tempted to pick up the bar and commit a senseless and brutal crime.

The cold bite of the breeze was like a draft of cooling water against his parched lips. He began to get a grip on himself. Once more he was Clyde Burke, a normal human being who would go out of his way to avoid hurting a fly.

Stark has weaponized and mass-produced a drug that creates an army of Mr Hydes at his beck and call, that can turn even one of the kindest and most heroic characters into the series into a sadistic maniac itching to main and murder anything that’s in front of him, and that alone is not just a much more viscerally horrifying kind of mind control than what Khan and Mocquino use, it’s also got a an edge to it more suited for gritty urban drama. It’s an idea I definitely would have liked to see used again even after Stark’s out of the picture.

And then we actually get to see Stark for this first time, and he’s described as a grotesquely deformed baboon man leering at his beautiful secretaries, who deliberately employs the most attractive people to make his own deformities stand out further, and who is cartoonishly vile everytime he opens his mouth. He never really displays exceptional cleverness, compared to other Shadow villains, except for the fact that he keeps suspecting Cranston is The Shadow, and sometimes just seems to get really lucky. Stark tends to get much, much less interesting as the build-up evaporates and he has to stand on his own feet as a character, I barely remember anything he did in the following books. At the time, I thought Stark’s characterization was weak, and I still do. 

This text blurb here was used on a promo S&S did for Prince of Evil, and it starts by talking about incredibly well-liked people who are kind and how Stark is the opposite because he's evil. Of course, as we all know, evil and well-liked are not opposites. 

Stark may have been a tad more interesting had they went with the angle of him being a horrible monster who's also incredibly popular and beloved and friendly. About 70% of The Shadow’s villains are already middle-aged to elder rich businessmen pretending to be good, so maybe Stark being young and attractive and initially sympathetic-looking, atop being the richest and cruelest of them all, could also help set him apart. Sort of an evil Harry Vincent maybe. 

But instead he's so obviously and viscerally awful all the time he shows up, so incapable of restraining himself, that it's impossible to buy him as a deceiver who’s pulled the wool over society’s eyes. At the time, I thought to myself that he was just painfully obvious of a villain and too brutish and stupid for me to buy that he’s supposed to be the richest criminal genius in America. 

But then again, nowadays I’m well aware that wealthy and respected figures of society, who are cartoonishly horrible even openly in public, is just what billionaires are like, so maybe Tinsley had a point here. 

[d-noona]

BARTERED BRIDE - Chapter 4

Ch 04 - Lunch Meeting

Kim Namjoon is a ruthless financier used to buying and selling stocks, shares and priceless artifacts. But now Namjoon has his eye on a very different acquisition - Park Han Byeol. Left destitute by her father's recent death, Han Byeol walks into Namjoon's bank looking to extend her overdraft. As Han Byeol needs money and Namjoon needs a wife, he proposes the perfect deal: he'll rescue her financially if she agrees to marry him. But in this marriage of convenience can Han Byeol ever be anything more than just a bartered bride?

Masterlist

"I nearly kept you waiting," said Namjoon. "I came back from the bank at eleven to go run in the park. As I was coming home I saw an old man on a bench who was obviously in need of medical attention. That held me up."

"Do you run everyday?" Han Byeol asks.

"I try to. Are you a runner?"

Han Byeol shook her head. "I play tennis and ski. I don't do work-outs."

He slanted an appraising glance at her figure. Today, in place of a black suit, she was wearing a designer outfit bought on a holiday in Italy. It consisted f a fine jersey-knit top in lilac, a waistcoat in violet, and swirling chevron-striped skirt combining those colors with pink and pale pistachio-green. The audacious color combination was perfect with Han Byeol's dark hair and brown eyes. "You look in great shape," he remarked. "But people in desk jobs like mine need some kind of fitness regime to stave off the bad effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Come and sit down. What would you like to drink before lunch?"

She remembered his remark about the wine she had been drinking when he forced his way in the previous evening. Was he one of those people who drank only mineral water and made everyone who didn't feel on a lower plane? Han Byeol had no intention of allowing him to intimidate her. "A Campari and soda, please," she said firmly.

Namjoon said to the butler, who had been following them at a discreet distance, "A Campari for Miss Park and my usual, please, Curtis." With a silent inclination of the head, the butler withdrew.

"Let's sit over here, shall we?" Namjoon steered her towards a group of comfortable chairs near one of the windows. "Have you finished your packing?"

"Almost"

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep, she had worked on it till long past midnight. At half past nine this morning a dealer whom she had ought a lot of furnishings had come round to buy them back. Luckily Han Byeol had paid for them out of her bank account. Although the money in it had come from her father, technically they were her property, not his. As soon as his business had been forced into receivership, everything her father had owned, including the family home belonged to his business creditors. But the cash the dealer had handed her could go in her pocket. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing if, when Namjoon spelt out the terms of his trade off marriage, she found that she couldn't accept them. Looking up at the elegant cornice around the ceiling and the two crystal chandeliers, their chains swathed with coral tassels at the tops of the heavy cream curtains.

"Are you interested in architecture?" He sounded faintly surprised.

"Sometimes."

The butler came back with their drinks, hers a slight more vivid red than the coral linen slipcovers on some of the sofas, Namjoon's colorless except for a twist of lemon floating among the ice cubes. It could be in or vodka, or it could straight mineral water. Namjoon said, "This was my grandparents' house. My paternal grandmother still lives here when she's not staying with her daughters". I moved here when my father died. We had been living in Ilsan. I have an apartment near Gangnam but I thought you would feel more comfortable being entertained in the main house," he added with a gleam of amusement. After a slight pause, he added "I shall move out when I marry. The province is better for children, if their parents can choose where to live. Most people can't of course."

"Where are you thinking of moving to?" Han Byeol asked.

"I haven't decided." His expression was enigmatic. "Where would you choose to live, given a free choice?"

Han Byeol considered the question. Once the answer would have been "Wherever Yoongi wants to live." She said, "Ideally I'd like more sun than we get in this city. I wouldn't mind living by the sea, getting some fresh air...or a lake would do as long as it has mountains round it. I'd like to look out on mountains...big ones with snow on top."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Sounds as if New Zealand would suit you."

She shook her head. "I'm sure it's a beautiful country but it's too far away from Korea. Have you been there?"

Namjoon nodded. "The scenery's magnificent...when it's not raining. Unreliable weather. I went with old friends, you might know them since they run in the same circles you do. Where have your travels taken you?"

"Mostly to holiday places...the Caribbean in winter...resorts round the Med in summer. My mother's a passionate gardener. She doesn't like travelling alone, even in a group. I've been on some garden tours with her...the south of France, Ireland, California. Where do you for holidays?" Han Byeol takes a sip of her Campari.

"I used to go with my father who also liked someone with him. We went to Japan together and other Pacific Rim countries. I travel a lot for the bank. For pleasure I usually go to France, Greece or Spain. Where would you like to go for our honeymoon?"

The question, tacked on to innocuous small talk, took her by surprise. "I haven't agreed to marry you," she said coldly.

"If you found the idea unthinkable, you wouldn't be here," he said dryly. "Let's be straight with each other Han Byeol. I need you...you need me. It's a sensible, practical arrangement."

She knew that at least the first part of what he said was true, but she wasn't about to admit it. Was it pride that made her reluctant to fall in with his plan too readily? She said, "I'm not clear why you've selected me."

"You're very attractive...as I am sure you're aware." he smiles at her gently.

"Is that all you want from a woman? An acceptable face and figure? Don't you care what I'm like inside?" Han Byeol scoffed.

'I can make some intelligent guesses. People can't hide their characters," he told her casually. "Even in repose a face gives a lot of clues to its owner's temperament. Apart from yesterday's evidence that you have a short fuse, I haven't detected any characteristics I wouldn't like to live with."

His arrogance took her breath away. In that moment of shock, she was struck by the thought it would be both a challenge and public service to bring this man down from his lofty pinnacle and convert him into an acceptably unassuming person. But perhaps it was already too late . One of gran's favorite sayings was, "What's bred in the bone must come out in flesh." Namjoon with his long-boned thoroughbred physique and his handsome features, looked a descendant of generations of men who had felt themselves to be superior beings and never experienced the doubts felt by ordinary people.

In a different, more rough-hewn way, her father had been the same. Probably somewhere far back in Namjoon's ancestry, there had been a man like her father: a rough-diamond unscrupulous go-getter who had founded the Park Fortune. Perhaps if Mr. Park had married someone better equipped to handle him than her quiet and easily cowed mother, her father might have been saved from becoming an overbearing braggart. Whether, at thirty four, Namjoon's essential nature could be modified was problematical. But it could be interesting to try.

She said, "I don't find you as transparent as you seem to find me. It takes me longer to make up my mind about people;"

"You haven't had as much experience of summing up people as I have."

The butler reappeared. "Luncheon is ready when you are, sir."

They ate in a smaller room with a view of a large garden, an oasis of well kept greenery in the heart of the city. The surface of the round Regency breakfast table had a gleaming patina resulting from years of regular polishing' It reflected the colors and shapes of the red-streaked white tulips arranged in a what Han Byeol recognized as an antique tulip pot, its many spouts designed to support the stems of flowers which had once been costly status symbols. The meal began with potted shrimps served with crisp Melba toast, tiny green gherkins and white wine, which they continued to drink with the main course, chicken with minty yogurt dressing.

While they ate Namjoon talked about plays and art shows he had been to recently. It was the kind of conversation made by strangers at formal lunch parties and although his comments were interesting Han Byeol thought his choice of subject was irrelevant to this particular situation. When the butler had withdrawn, leaving them to help themselves to a fruit salad with fromage frais, or to selection of more substantial cheeses, she said, "Why do you want a wife when you could go on having girlfriends and a change them when you get bored?"

Offering her elegant Waterford compote, its apparent fragility emphasizing the powerful but equally elegant form of the hands in which it was cradled, he looked at her with unexpected sternness. "I have a responsibility to my line. I need sons to carry on the traditions established by my predecessors."

She found this solemnly irritating. "Are you expecting me to provide proof of my fertility?" Before she could add that, if he was, he could forget it, Namjoon said, "No, I'm prepared to chance that."

"Big deal!" Han Byeol said sarcastically.

She had a feeling that Namjoon wouldn't hesitate to divorce her if she failed to live up to his expectations in some way. But although he struck her as a monster of cold-hearted self-centeredness, she couldn't deny that he was extraordinarily attractive. Every movement he had made since they sat down had heightened her awareness of the lean and muscular physique inside the well-cut suit and the long legs under the table. His hair was dry now but still had a sheen of health. There was nothing about him suggestive of stress or tension. He seemed entirely relaxed. Yet why did he need to arrange a businesslike marriage instead of falling in love the way people usually did?

Wondering, suddenly, if he might be in the same situation as herself, heartbroken, although it didn't seem likely, she said, "When did you dream up this scheme?"

"It's an idea I've had for some time...probably since my contemporaries started divorcing. I have about a dozen god-children, most whom now have step parents, some official, some not. I don't want that for my children."

"Did you parents stay married?" she asked.

It seemed to her that his face underwent a change. His lips didn't tighten. His eyebrows didn't draw together. But there was a subtle hardening and chilling, reminding her of the impression she had received that morning when they sat on opposite sides of his imposing desk/ Now they were at a table designed for a more intimate and relaxed conversation. But she sensed a change in the atmosphere and knew she had trespassed in an area of his where she was an unwelcome intruder.

"They separated. They were never divorced," he answered.

Han Byeol wanted to ask hold he had been when the separation happened, but something made her hold her tongue. Later, going back to the flat in the taxi he had laid on for her, she regretted her curiousity.

When-in-two people were going to marry, there shouldn't be any "No go" areas between them...or at least none of that nature. His past girlfriends were not her business, but his family life certainly was. She shouldn't have allowed herself to be put off. From now on she wouldn't be, she told herself firmly.

[10boys]

MLQC : Oral (receving)

♡ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Victor:

- Victor loves to get his wee wee sucked !

-But the glory in the action is more so getting to watch you sloppily lick and suck at his tip, face beated red and flushed from your view vice versa

-His #1 material for getting of is your visuals and how you react to him, so having a front row seat to the view of you, exposed and desperate for him makes his ego go insane

-I mean??? On your knees infront of the CEO as hes leasurly laid back in his chair throne,He lays shirtless for you to watch as his chest raises and falls , his fist gripped on your hair to keep your mouth in the spots that please him best. He’ll look down at you with knitted brows, his eyes fluttering with each new wave he recieves

-His long cock will stand straight up, shamelessly and proud. The slightly red tip will stand out aginst his black trousers, unbottoned and slid down just enough to free himself for you (yes i know we all wanna suck on them smooth thighs but he likes his Tough Boy™️ image when hes in his usual dominant mood) the sight of it alone causes a heat to form, clenching your thighs and jaw as to not drool over the image infront of you

-He keeps his jaw locked to contain his moans, but most of the time low breathy groans steadily escape his lips, especially when you keep eye contact , puppy dog eyes looking into his as he watches your body squirm below him for touch wowowie when this man does it he does it

-He is not of fan of starting off with himself though, his oral pleasure usually comes after tedious teasing sessions all focused on you, like said before, he loves knowing what he CAN and WILL do to you, and you probably suck 10x better after anyway. Seeing the desire in your face sends him over on its own and we wont even begin to talk about your whimpers around him

-Our Victor is definitely being treated aswell, before the buttons came undone you were sucking at his neck, hands running through his hair (his favorite), nipping at his ears. You whisper to him about how much you’ve thought of him and how he makes you feel , soon bringing his tent to life. Your tongue trials down over eatch nipple giving them both the appropriate amount of attention as your hands explore all he has to offer. Never in a billion years will he tell you how much he loves being adored and fawned over by you

-Victor is definitely a fucking kinda guy and prefers to finish himself inside of you (protected or not ya know whatever you’re into) , so when you go down he likes to just simply watch your tongue make its way around him. Kiss him up and down, suck at his balls, rub his head against your tongue, its all a show for him and it’s absolutely priceless. Play with his precum and tell him how good he taste and that is the end. Hes now trying to see how far he can fit in :)

-When he’s ready to cum tho his face will be a bit more expressive, his usual tightened face will soften as his mouth opens slightly. His low grunts will become faster and more throaty. His tight grip on your hair traves more so to the back and sides of your head, keeping it in place allowing him to utilizes his hips to softly thrust himself into your face. Although Victor loves to ruin you he’s still very gentle, he sees you as something precious to him, and like glass if he’s too rough he’ll break it. His cum tho? Anywhere really, depends on the mood. Mouth, face, chest,.. but you have noticed that his wave hits a little harder when you look into his eyes mouth wide open ready to taste whatever he has for you it may not taste good but who cares its victor

Lucien:

-Going down on lucien is not only delectable and delicious, its an experience very close to god

-Lucien, a lot like Victor, loves seeing you squirm for him. Out of all the boys Lucien is the most sensual when it comes to your guys’ more intament moments, and, as we all know, he LOVES to fucking tease

-First lets get his image ready, 2k19 birthday card Lucien, white robe loosly tide around his petite waste making his chest appear much larger, as though it’s about to burst. You leasurly lay beside him as he uses one hand to lightly play with your ear, his soft delicate fingertips leave mint-like shivers down your spine as his hand travels down your ear to your neck to pull you closer to him.

-His gaze compaires to the hot sun as heats your skin, a smile spread on his face as he watches you blush and twitch for him. His exposed body so close to your own has a million fantasys running wild, and he knows it. He loves it. The only thing breaking you from your thoughts is the new found wet warmth that quickly ran across your lips.

-And with that, a tongueing session has began. Your hands lovingly interlock as your tongues slowly run agaisnt each other. Lucien loves his view and his control, he’ll hold your chin still as he demands you to “ Be a good girl and stick it out for me”. As your mouth hangs open for him to use as he pleases, he looks down admiring the very spot that will soon have him shooting loadssss lmao srry

-His lavender eyes lock on yours as he exposes his own tongue, giving you a view as you watch it slowly decend onto yours. The tip touches your own as he dances and plays against you. You whimper immediately upon contact, much to his liking. This man loves the intimacy of your mouth, and he will use it as he pleases. He’ll suck, give long licks, exchange spit, put his thumb in your mouth wow why is he not in my mouth :(

-By the time he’s done having his fun,his buldge is shamelessly parading from under his robe (possibly even accompanied by sticky pre-cum if he was truly enjoying himself). Due to all the restless moving and groping his thighs have made themselves known, peeking from under his robe. The sight intices you, and who would our Professor be if he didn’t immediately notice what has your attention? He graps your hand to lay agaisnt his chest, the soft supple flesh glides under your fingertips with ease, encouraging you to wonder. As your hand traces down further and futher , our gentleman unties and exposes himself at your same pace, all with that same Lucien glare. The view of your man layed back, robe undone and ready just for you was enough to make your jaw drop. As you venture lower your fingers begin to feel soft fine hairs, signaling you that treasure is near.

-That was the end for him and you, as you were now bent over for a better position to please him with. Your face was presses to his V-line, licking along his natural curves and dips. Your ass hung loosely in the air competeing for his attention. His brows raise slightly upon first contact, his usual luke-warm temperature now consumed in nothing but a blaze of heat. His white robe still lays over his most intimate area, creating a most delectable view for you as it enhances your imagination of what’s underneath. And boy if he wasnt juicin then hes jucin now.

-the thin material of his white robe sticks with ease to his wetness, allowing undertones of his pink tip to show itself. Lucien lays there, face flushed. He shoots you his sexy smirk as reassurance to continue playing at your discretion. Lucien likes to swallow most of his noises (until he gets heated enough to cloud his head). He’ll shamelessly spit praise and questions at you though,it’s something that gets him incredibly off omg imagine phone sex, “You like that ?” “That feels good huh?” “Touch whatever you’d like angel, im yours” “your mouth..you use it so well”

-You allow your thumb to run across his tip earning a sharp inhale, the friction from the fabric mixed with your gentle hands creating a delectable wave for him. As you move your hand back you watch as he twiches under his robe, one ball falling into view. Your hand caresses his sack in view, and you swear you’ve never came untouched but today might be the day. Its warm and soft as it takes up your much smaller hand. Lucien seems to be enjoying it too, as his gaze that’s usually on you is now fixed on your ass to further get him off. His brows tightly knot and as he bites his lip concealing his low grunts and groans. His balls tighten in your hand causing you to lick your lips in anticipation. You slowly peel away the damp cloth, a small string of cum streching out as the robe is disgarded. And there he lay. In all his glory , he spreads his legs wider as he twiches again, silently desperate for your mouth. Lucien is a very patient partner, although he has his rough moments and definitely rougher desires he’ll maintain his composure for your likening.

-You position yourself over his leg, allowing you to grind and relieve even a little bit of what feels like the screaming heat in your core. You bend down to first lick and suck on his balls earning a breathy inhale from him. The long-lasting teasing definitely paid off as you watch his hips immediately begin to slightly buckle and thrust into your warm mouth. He extends one arm to begin caressing your face, but the gentle act quickly turns as it begins traveling down, first dipping your shirt, exposing your hung chest to him.He’ll fondle them in sedating awe before leaving them to wonder your ass. You might even feel fingertips brush against your most inner lips, his ego enlarging after feeling your byproduct of him.

-Once he’s finally in your mouth you both moan in unison, the satisfaction of his taste is hypnotizing as you subconsciously bob your head onto him. It didnt take long for his pre-cum and your spit to create the perfect sensation for the man who truly deserves it. The usual shit-talker lucien is silent, eyes squeezed shut as his mouth loosly hangs open you swear you seen drool. His heart eyes are hooded as he opens them to gaze down at you. Large cock absolutely covered in liquids, the spits traveled down leaving web-like strings across your chin and chest. Lucien is very large, so you use your hands to work what can’t fit (unless you’re a BIG BITCH who can just throat that shit, go for it luvs, it aint me tho)

-A thin layer lf sweat lightly coats his dark bangs draped over even darker eyes. His realease is approaching. His orgasms are usually very forceful, he likes to pent himself uo for his moments with you. As he comes nearer his chest rises and falls to drum of his quickened breathing, one hand gliding across his chest to stimulate his nipples. His head is leaned back exposing his pale neck sheen in his sweat. His long body spread about the bed becomes restless, hips bucking and thrusting as higher pitched moans begin to escape his mouth. You feel him twich in your mouth and ready yourself to take it. His hands grip your hair as his body caves into itself, he twiches and bucks until you taste a familiar taste in your mouth. His body stiffens until the spurts are no more. He immediately relaxes his muscles with heavy breathes.

-

Ahh this was a bit longer than I anticipated! Its also my first headcanon so pls take it easy on me as i find my fit, I wrote victors at night and luciens at work...i think the deference in detail is obvious lol but then again lucien is my second fav so i got carried away!! Theres alot of (uneeded) forplay in his even tho it was supposed to just be oral... i dont think anyone’s complaining tho haha. I want these to come out very steadily so i will be making Gavins and Kiros in another post VERY SOON ! Since im new my inbox is open to request! Ty - myk

See Gavin , Kiro

[shipitrealgood]

Rizumo Week 2020 Day 3: Wedding

If you expected me not to be super late with this one too, then you don’t even know me. But I tried to make this one more romantic (which my brain struggled to write), so hopefully that helps take the sting out of it!

@the-new-rizumo-week-blog

Rin tugs at the starched white collar of his button-up shirt, groaning loudly as sweat trickles down his temples. “Man, it’s boiling out here,” he whines, trying desperately to flag down one of the many waiters carrying pitchers of ice water.

His companion jabs him in the side, seeming to only get more irritated when he yelps loudly in response. “Pipe down,” Izumo hisses, “we can’t draw attention to ourselves.”

He rubs his side. “Yeah, yeah, Shura’s orders…”

“No, you idiot. This is their day. They should get all the attention.” She gestures in front of them.

A recently wedded bride and groom sit side by side at a lavish table, their eyes focused solely on the standing maid of honor as she tearfully recites her toast. To their right sits an as-of-yet unused dance floor with a DJ rechecking his equipment and acoustics. To their left, front, and pretty much everywhere else under this tent sit their extended family and friends, a startling amount of people brought together to witness their union.

Silky linens drape across the ceiling, serving to disguise the tent’s basic structure, while the embedded fairy lights seem to bless the happy couple with their mystic light. More white tables and golden chairs are crammed together in this space than really seems wise, especially given the early summer heat, but only the guests’ children (and Rin) seem to be complaining. There are several buffet tables off to the side, thankfully still with the food covered so as not to distract the guests, but the half-demon can tell even from where they sit at the back that there is some premium cuisine waiting.

It’s the first Western-style wedding he’s ever been to, and though beautiful, good lord it must have been expensive. If it weren’t for their mission, he’s pretty sure he’d never get the chance to experience something so fancy in his life.

Still, he looks back at Izumo, chuckling even through the disgruntled glare she sends him. “What?” She grits out.

“You really are nice, Eyebrows.”

She jabs him again in the same exact spot. “I told you to quit calling me that!”

The bruise he’s developing almost convinces him to listen to her, but it can’t be helped; both of them were dressed by Shura for the occasion, and Izumo, in that lace red dress carved with intricate designs, looks… unsettlingly nice. Like, pretty. Like a really pretty girl.

Rin finds it hard to look directly at her, much less call her by her first name. It’s a lot easier to deal with an angry, violent Izumo, so he lets his elementary school boy instincts take over. A strong urge to tug on her ponytail overtakes him, but one look reveals that her peppy new hairdo has exposed the nape of her neck, where a few locks of hair cling to her glistening skin—

He tears his eyes away, forcing himself to calm down. Ooh, that was dangerous, dangerous. At least he knows now that he’s not the only one suffering from the heat…

These thoughts seem to only be making him feel hotter, though, so he instead runs over the details of the mission again. A report came in that one of the many, many guests here (seriously, were there hundreds?!) is actually a demon. While his precise motivations are unknown, the report indicated that he had some great plan in the making that could bring harm to everyone there, and he had to be brought down before that could happen.

However, some quick reconnaissance revealed that the only time they’d be able to get to him would be at the reception, which meant they had to find and deal with him discreetly—a stealth mission, as Rin liked to call it. The size of their team also had to be minimal to avoid arousing suspicion, so Shura brought along Rin and Izumo, stating that she “couldn’t afford to take her eyes off Rin, and their cover would work better with one of the girls.”

He hadn’t really minded, though when he questioned later why she hadn’t considered Shiemi, Shura gave him that mischievous smile he feared and said, “I trust Izumo to keep a reaaaal close eye on ya.”

Maybe he should’ve paid more attention to the ominous feeling he got from her words… but considering how easily Shura had gotten them in, continuously weaving tales of her being a widower of a distant cousin, of Rin being her step-son (“That’s right, I’m a mother—oh thank you, I do look too young! Nyahaha~”), of Izumo being his betrothed since they were little and how she’s practically family already… He probably shouldn’t doubt her, no matter how embarrassed her lies made him.

“So beautiful…” Izumo whispers, catching his attention. Unfortunately for her, he cranes his head in the direction of her gaze before she can hide it. The blushing bride lies in that direction, smiling endlessly as she accepts congratulations and adulation.

Rin hums. “So you dream of that kind of thing too, huh?” It was intended as a simple question, more conversational than anything, but it sends his companion into complete silence. When he looks back to her, her eyes are distant and pained. He’s not sure why, but his instincts tell him that he messed up and needs to start panicking.

Thankfully, Shura picks that moment to swagger on up, playing the part of an indulgent partygoer almost too well. She stumbles and grabs onto the back of Izumo’s chair, feigning a moment of rest to lean down and mutter, “Possible target located. Go blend in on the dance floor and move on the code word ‘private’.” She’s off to the dance floor before either can react, already cozying up to a man who’s too interested to refuse.

Rin stands immediately, all too eager to put his energy to good use, and anxiously extends his hand to Izumo.

She contemplates it for a moment—he starts panicking because oh god, is it too sweaty, he should try to wipe it off, but she’s definitely already seen it and probably thinks he’s gross—before she takes it, standing with a grace that he never knew she had.

Right when they reach the dance floor, the music suddenly shifts, and—oh, god. Oh god, it’s a slow dance. Rin hears snickering and glares at Shura, who’s clearly aware of his dilemma and enjoying it immensely. He somehow just knows she set him up for this—but judging by the way she’s clinging to the target, it was probably for the sake of the mission, he realizes with a sigh. His mentor sure has a way of killing two birds with one stone…

Awkwardly clearing his throat too many times, he slowly shifts their hands and ghosts his other hand over Izumo’s waist. She rolls her eyes and pulls him much closer, planting both of his hands on her waist and linking her own hands behind his neck. She forces him to sway gently with her because Rin is frozen, his brain completely blue-screening, just a constant chant of oh god oh god too close pretty girl smell good.

“Have you got a clear lock on Miss Kirigakure?” she whispers, snapping him into a completely different sort of flustered. He robotically turns to check and realizes that Izumo had dragged him closer to eavesdrop, their pose mirroring every other couple around them. That knowledge helps him relax, his shoulders slumping in relief as he heaves a big sigh.

Fingers dig into the back of his neck and the pain reminds him to focus. “Owww— yes, we’re good!” he whisper-shouts. “But man, Eyebrows, you’re really good at these kinds of missions, huh?”

Although looking directly at her is still a challenge, it’s quite obvious that Izumo’s glaring at him as she ‘accidentally’ steps on his foot. “Whoops,” she deadpans. “Sorry, Satan Boy. Anyway, I don’t think it’s that I’m good at them so much as you’re extremely terrible.”

His eye twitches. The tip of her ponytail is right there, just dangling right by his fingertips… but his aching toes and side advise against it.

They sway in silence for a moment, listening in for the code word over the soothing lull of the music. A soft giggling alerts Rin to the fact that the bride and groom have joined in. They look at each other like there’s no one else in the world, like every clichéd fairytale and love song has come to life between them. It’s as inspiring as it is beautiful, and despite the odd circumstances that led to him being there, he wishes these two strangers every happiness in the world.

And hopes beyond hope that even the son of Satan can have that someday too.

“About what you said earlier…”

He looks down at Izumo and is surprised to see her staring at his chest, furrowing her brow and worrying her bottom lip. “I wasn’t really… allowed to think about something so happy for my future. Loving someone— trusting someone to that extent… It all seemed utterly impossible.”

When her eyes grow distant this time, he understands. The memories she relives aren’t just her own anymore. So when his grip on her reflexively tightens, drawing her nearer—it feels as though she’s sheltered from the world in his arms, his warmth a gentle, firm reminder that she’s not alone. Izumo looks up to him, feeling a wondrous sense of security and unrestrained joy, and a glorious smile blooms upon her lips.

“But thanks to you all… I have that freedom.”

Rin’s heart pounds violently in his chest.

All the things he’s been acutely trying to ignore flood his senses all at once: her face, usually sharp with hostility and anger, is soft and warm and mere inches from his own; a pretty red dusts her cheeks, matching her sparkling eyes, two priceless rubies; her slender waist, her silky hair… and god did she smell good.

Was Izumo always this beautiful? And—this beautiful girl in his arms, blushing so prettily just for him—was she maybe—

“—nyahaha~ maybe we should go somewhere private?”

The pair springs into action, leaving Rin’s arms noticeably bereft as they flank Shura and the target off the dance floor.

He tries sneaking peeks at Izumo, but her stony expression conveys single-minded focus on the mission—until he catches her peeking at him too. Her whole body jumps when they lock eyes, and even though she quickly whips her head away from him, he still watches in fascination as a furious red colors her skin, all the way from the tips of her ears down to her shoulders.

It sends a thrill through him, one that tells him to hurry up and finish this mission so he can figure out what the hell this—this—whatever this is, this potential between them is.

And when they round the corner and he catches one last glimpse of the newlyweds, he sends them another blessing, ironic as it may be coming from him. Because thanks to them, to people like them, to all of their loves—it gives kids like him and Izumo a chance to dream.

[frogsandsanderssides]

My Contest Entry

Hope you like it, @stop-it-anxiety !

(VIRGILS POV)

My hands were shaking and my eyes were sore and red from my most recent panic attack. I was on the floor of my private bathroom, drenched in sweat and tears. I was thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve eaten (I figured about four days) when I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I went from the bathroom and wiped the tears from my eyes. I didn’t have to try that hard to cover up when I had a panic attack, as the other sides had never really paid much attention to me. Of course with the exception of Patton, Thomas’s morality. He had always been too caring. He had always checked up on me and made sure I’d eaten a days worth of food. He would probably be shoving waffles down my throat if it hadn’t been for me storing all of the food in my mouth at meals and spitting it out the moment he left the room. Logan, on the other hand, didn’t have many deep emotions towards anyone, especially me. Though I do feel that he might have a little crush on Patton. But never mind that. I never felt a need to hide anything from Logan, seeing as besides the occasional “eat, you need to keep your immune system strong” he doesn’t seem to care. He’s all about facts. To him, I eat enough for me to stay alive. Then there’s Roman, who I feel like doesn’t really care about me at all. Even though I will NEVER say it to his face, I have to admit that I am impressed by him, as he always keeps a positive attitude. Though, I guess that’s expected, as he is Thomas’s creativity. I’ve always wanted to be positive, but that just doesn’t seem like me. I’m Anxiety, always the bad guy. Roman could never like someone like me.

Then another knock at the door. I groaned as I trudged over to the entrance and opened the door.

“What do you want Pa- Oh,” I looked up to see the prince staring at me.

“Virgil, I was just checking up on you,” he started. Why would he ever see if I’m okay? “I thought I had heard crying or something in here.” Roman let himself into my room and sat on my bed.

“Well, I’m fine now. I doubt you really care anyway about whatever I’m going through.” I pushed him back up and started opening the door for him.

“Virgil, I know you just kind of joined our little group, but all of us, me included, are worried about you. You haven’t been out of your room the past two days,” Roman sighed. He closed the door and stood in front of it. My only way of escaping besides the balcony was blocked. Guess I have to listen.

“Look, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Princey, but I don’t exactly fit in here very well. You shouldn’t even worry. I’m Anxiety, I experience a few emotional lapses every few weeks. Just leave me alone,”

“I’m tired of all of this angsty ‘leave me alone’ and ‘emotion lapses’ crap. You haven’t eaten in days, as far as me and the others can tell. So, like it or not, I’m making you dinner tonight and you will choke it down no matter how bad it is,” Roman demanded. I figured I’d just let him have this one thing.

“Fine. I’m only doing this for Patton though,” I grumbled.

“Whatever keeps you eating. And by the way, Patton and Logan are out for the night. They went to the movies and will be eating dinner at some fancy place,”

“Well, I guess that’s fine. Mom and Dad need their time alone,” I joked. To my surprise he actually laughed. Wow, that’s cute. Wait, what the hell am I thinking? Roman is not cute. He’s a narcissistic little prince. I found myself blushing anyway. The way he laughed almost took all of my last panic attack’s aftermath effects away.

“So, it’s almost six. We should start to make dinner. Wanna help, Virge?” Roman asked. He showed his puppy dog eyes.

“Whatever, I guess,” I kept my head down, trying to cover the blush seeping through my pale foundation. And to make matters worse, he grabbed my frickin’ hand. He flung the door open and pulled me through the hallway. “Let us go” he chanted as we ran to the kitchen. Well, this should be fun.

Word Count- 752

Chapter 2

(ROMAN’S POV)

I was pulling Virgil into the dining room when I looked over to see him as red as my sash.

“What’s wrong? Why are you blushing? Aw, am I making you flustered?” I laughed. He didn’t answer, just blushed and covered his face even more. Whatever. He looked pretty attractive flustered. What am I thinking? Never mind. He’s a dark, emo nightmare. (But he could be my emo nightmare.) I pulled him into the kitchen, looking through the cupboard to see what we should cook.

“Have you ever cooked, Virgil?” I asked.

“No- No never in my life. Patton always cooks for me,” he seemed almost ashamed, covering his face.

“It’s alright, calm down. I can teach you. Why are you covering your face like that?” I moved closer to him, my face inches from his. I pulled down his hand from his face and put it in mine. When I realized what I was doing, I started blushing almost as much as he was. We started a standstill, staring into each other's eyes for almost a minute, I’m guessing. But it felt like forever.

“So, what are we cooking!” I almost yelled, pulling away from him.

“You tell me,” He moved to the counter getting ready to cook.

“How about some steak? Rare,” I said, knowing very well that it was Virgil’s favorite.

Chapter 3

VIRGIL’S POV)

How did he know it was my favorite? It was probably just a coincidence. We started getting the ingredients together, brushing off what had just happened. It didn’t mean anything to him. It couldn’t have. He hates me. He says so all the time. I mean, it must mean something when he gives me all of those horrible nicknames.

It was awkward making dinner. There were no interactions between the occasional longing look and blushing every time we saw each other give it. Finally we finished, sitting down at the dinner table.

“This is actually pretty good, Princey,” I smirked at him, scarring down the food. It was amazing.

“Please, everything I do is great!” He boasted.

“Of course my dashing prince,” I swooned sarcastically. “Especially your nicknames for me. They are just great! They don’t make me feel like a raging dumpster fire and complete trash at all!” Shit, did I say that out loud? Princey’s eyes widened, soon replaced with a worried look.

Chapter 4

(ROMAN’S POV)

My eyes widened by his remark. Did I really make him feel that bad? I thought I was just poking fun. I really care about him. I really do.

“Virgil, do I actually make you feel that way?” His eyes welled up with tears.

“Of course not, Roman,” He used my proper name. He never does that. “Just kidding, of course,” He finished. As soon as those four words came from his mouth, he reached his breaking point. He fell to his knees, failing at trying to hold back sobs. Yet, he looked up at me. And smiled.

“This doesn’t mean anything. You should probably go to your room, Roman. I’m fine, I swear,” Virgil said through choking sobs. I couldn’t bring myself to leave him. I knelt down onto the kitchen floor where he was laying and gently put my arm around him. He tensed at the contact, but soon melted into it. I whispered into his ear,

“I am so, so truly sorry for making you feel this way. I feel absolutely awful,” He just cried even harder, grabbing my sash in the process. I knew that I should be comforting him, but I couldn’t help feeling the least bit flustered from him being so close.

“Is there anything, anything, that I could do for you?” I asked, putting my hand on his chin and lifting his face to mine. We were almost kissing. I could feel his breath on my lips as he said,

“Could we, could we just watch a Disney movie or something?” Virgil asked with teary eyes. “And, don’t tell Logan and Patton about the panic attack, alright?”

“Of course, my Emo Nightmare,” I picked him up bridal-style causing him to squeak and grab a hold of my sash again. That was probably the cutest thing that he has ever done. I carefully laid him on the couch. And, much to my surprise, he cuddled into my chest. This was much different than he would normally address this kind of situation. I chuckled at his red face.

“So, what are we watching?” I asked him quietly.

“Something about dressing in drag and doing the hula,” He weakly laughed.

“Lion King it is, then.”

Chapter 5

(VIRGIL’S POV)

Roman and I cuddled and watched the Lion King. Well, I was watching his face for the most part. The way he reacted to each scene in the movie was priceless. I’ll admit it, he’s the cutest Prince I’ve ever seen. Somehow he looked so much better than me, even though we have the same face. I just can’t believe I had a panic attack in front of him. I couldn’t really control it though. All of Deciet’s words were just popping in my head.

You know he doesn’t love you.

None of them do.

Those names that Princey calls you are true.

Stop struggling.

You can’t escape me.

Just leave this world.

I was just so surprised that Roman helped me. Maybe he likes me.

Never. No one but me ever will. You should never have left me, Virgil.

That’s probably true. Nevertheless, I clung to Roman for protection.

Time skip brought to you by Patton’s. Second. Cookie.

(PATTON’S POV)

Me and Logie has just gotten back to the mind palace from our first date. Logan has recently told me that he was ‘attracted’ to me and that he would ‘like to take me for a romantic outing’, as he put it. Of course I said yes! Though I was worried about leaving the kiddos home alone together. I just know they have feelings for each other!

“Come on, My Star. Let’s go in the house,” Logan said.

“But first!” I kissed him SMACK DAB ON THE LIPS, pulling back to see a smiling, blushing dope. But as we opened the front door, I almost screeched. VIRGIL AND ROMAN VIRGIL AND ROMAN. We see Virgil with his hand around Roman’s sash and his face buried in his neck. Meanwhile, Roman was snoring quite loudly and protectively holding Virgil, both arms around him, as Virgil was almost on top of him. I took a picture (or maybe like three hundred) for blackmail purposes. Then, I quietly led Logan up to my room. Time for cuddles!!!

Chapter 6

(Roman’s POV)

I woke up to find my arms around a pillow, in place of where my emo cuddle buddy was. I groaned and stretched out my arms, when I heard a cheery,

“Good morning!” Patton said.

“Morning, Padre,” I was still tired. Me and Virgil had probably fallen asleep at around twelve. Usually I don’t stay up that late. I need my beauty sleep.

“How was your night in with your boyfriend?” Patton said with a very exaggerated wink. UGG DAD.

“What, n-no. Me and Virgil aren’t dating, we are just friends…” I sighed.

“You like him, don’t you. YOU LIKE HIMMMMM. ROMAN!” Patton yelled.

“Quiet down, Dad. And no, of course not! Last night was just a flute,”

“A flute is a wind instrument and a fluke is an unlikely occurrence. Get your facts straight, Roman,” Logan walked into the living room with his book and opened to the middle.

“I can’t keep my facts straight. I’m not straight,”

“He’s not straight because of Virgillllll! My son has a boyfriend!!” Patton giggled.

“Nooooo. Me and him are not- whatever. I’m going to my room,” I trudged up to my room as Patton and Logan high-five. I went past the others’ rooms as I tried to get to mine. That is when I heard the singing.

Chapter 7

Purple is Virgil Singing.

Red is Roman.

Blue is Both.

(Virgil’s POV)

As Roman started to stir from his sleep, I got off of him and groggily went to my room. To be honest, for some reason I didn’t want to leave his arms. They almost comforted me. But I knew for a fact that Roman didn’t like me like that. I went into my room and picked up my guitar. I have always loved playing and singing. It was just such a good escape from my anxiety. Or myself, I guess. I picked up the guitar and tuned it. When I was satisfied, I strummed the first cord and started singing.

If I never felt this love

If I never knew you

I would have no inkling of

How precious life can be

For some reason I was in the mood for a love song. And Disney. I guess Roman had rubbed off on me.

And if I never knew you

I would never have a clue

How at last I'd find in you

The missing part of me

I think I might like him. Why, though? He is a Prince. Too good for me. My head started spinning with thoughts dancing around in my head. Before I knew it, I was crying. But I continued nevertheless.

In this world so full of fear

Full of rage and lies

I can see the truth so clear

In your eyes

So dry your eyes

I looked behind me and saw the man himself. He must have seen my tears. I went speechless.

And I'm so grateful to you

I'd have lived my whole life through

Lost forever

He grabbed my hand and pulled me up from my desk chair and threw my guitar on the bed. He spun me around and started swaying with me in his arms.

If I never knew you

If I never knew you

I'd be safe but half as real

Never knowing I could feel

I choked out the words, since I was in awe of what was happening.

A love so strong and true

I'm so grateful to you

I'd have lived my whole life through

Lost forever

If I never knew you

I thought our love would be so beautiful

Somehow we made the whole world bright

I never knew that fear and hate could be so strong

All they'd leave us were these whispers in the night

But still my heart is singing

We were right

If I never knew you

There's no moment I regret

If I never knew this love

I would have no inkling of

If our time has gone too fast I've lived at last

How precious life can be

I thought our love would be so beautiful

Somehow we'd make the whole world bright

I thought our love would be so beautiful

We'd turn the darkness into light

And still my heart is singing

We were right

We were right

We danced back and forth to each other.

And if I never knew you

I'd have lived my whole life through

Empty as the sky

Never knowing why

By the last line, I was a blushing mess and Roman was smirking, something I had never seen before. We started slow dancing, holding each other close.

Lost forever

And suddenly, he kissed me.

To all all others looking at this, reblog/like if you like the fanfic!

[xxonceuponafuckxx]

Send Me An Angel

~~~~

Belle had been hiding since the angels fell, hiding from the humans who had enslaved her race. She had watched as her kind had been trapped, taken by the humans and forced into a life she’d never expected. The humans had always spoken so highly of her race until they actually saw what angels were. Angels were beautiful, but they lost power after falling. It was easy enough to own them, to force them into servitude.

However, Belle was smart enough to be wary of the humans and she’d managed to stay hidden for a long time before she was finally found. When she was captured, Belle struggled as hard as she could until they caught her and brought her in. A collar was placed around her neck and she was taken to auction, purchased and sent to her new owner. That word made her want to vomit, something she’d never really experienced before. The cage she was in was ornate and pretty, looking more like a cage for a priceless bird rather than what it was actually for. But, it was still a cage and Belle was very much aware that it was a cage.

When she was left in the man’s room, Belle looked around while remaining wary of her surroundings. She was gagged with her hands behind her back since they had said something about Rumple needing his sleep and not wanting her to disturb him.

Gold wasn’t exactly used to how the angel stuff worked. He didn’t know much about the process at all actually, but when his son fell sick and the doctors couldn’t help, he thought that perhaps an angel could. So he’d sent one of his employees to buy one for him, too busy running his successful law firm and trying to take care of his suffering son to go himself. He’d told them to tell him as soon as she got here, but he didn’t get much sleep and so when his men had discovered that he was finally asleep, and in his bed at that, they left her tied in his room without him realizing.

He awoke the next morning, still feeling rather tired because this was the first good sleep he’d had in… probably weeks. He stretched and slipped out of bed, sliding his feet into his slippers and grabbing his cane that he kept by his bed. Only when he was one his feet did he see the woman in the cage, bound and gagged. He froze, startled, and cursing himself under his breath. He hadn’t wanted her bound. Ugh, he should have sent Dove. Dove would have done it right.

“Hi, sorry,” he told her instantly, coming over to the cage. It took him a minute to see they’d left the key on his dresser, so he had to walk over there before going back to her. “Um… it wasn’t supposed to be like… this,” he muttered, unlocking the cage before reaching in to gently help her out and onto her feet, careful not to touch anything other than her arm. “I won’t let it happen again,” he told her, gently taking the gag out of her mouth so she could respond before he moved around behind her to see if he could get her hands free.

Belle was confused when the man apologized to her, still wary of him despite the fact that he seemed genuinely embarrassed about her treatment. “I didn’t expect much different. They locked me up as soon as they found me.” She sighed, not liking that something so simple could hold her back when she knew that she had more than enough power to incinerate everything in this room if she’d only had her true power.

She didn’t trust him, refusing to trust any human since she’d fallen. Before, of course, she’d enjoyed watching them. They felt things so passionately, even when the outcomes weren’t good. Their wars even were works of art. But, she’d never expected them to do this. She hadn’t thought they would keep something magical and turn it into a commodity. “Your race doesn’t seem to know how to treat things that are different, even when you claim it’s beautiful.” She bit at her lip, trying to move her hands in an attempt to help him. It didn’t really do much, but she knew she’d definitely feel better with her hands unbound.

He winced a bit when she told him about how she’d been treated. By humans. He understood all too well that his race wasn’t exactly peaceful, and he couldn’t claim to be the exception to that. But he still felt bad for the way this angle had been treated. And of course the selfish side of him worried that she wouldn’t be willing to help heal his son because of her justified distain of humans. Which would mean that any concern he showed her would probably be seen by her as him trying to get her help.

“Yeah, I guess we aren’t very good at being respectful of others,” he admitted, fiddling with the knot before finally managing to get her wrists untied. “I can’t say I’m much better than the others. I can’t free you, and I know that must be hard. But I also don’t want to be completely horrible to you. You’re going to have your own room, and be free to walk about the house and yard.” Which was huge, mostly since his ex-wife had thought since they could afford a mansion, they should live in one. “And I don’t actually want much from you. I just… are miracles still something you can do? My son is sick, dying. And… you’re my last hope.”

Belle gently rubbed at her wrists once they were untied, looking up at him as he explained what he wanted with her. “I am not completely sure if miracles are still within my power. We’ve lost a lot of power as a collective since the fall.” She sighed, biting at her lip. She was a bit nervous what it would mean if she couldn’t perform the one task he’d wanted her for, worried that it would mean trouble for her.

Surely, he knew she didn’t have her full power. He had to. There was no way she could be kept prisoner by these humans if she still had her full range of power. They would have stood no chance against her power and she easily would have disintegrated anyone who had dared to look at her, let alone getting so far as to actually touch and imprison her.

“Your son’s illness may not be a problem that I can fix without my grace. And, I’m afraid, there is no way to restore my grace in this position. I would be willing to try, I suppose. But, I do not want you thinking that I am making you a promise. I am not sure that I have enough power and I do not want to make promises I cannot keep.”

Gold nodded slowly when she told him what he had feared would be true. She wasn’t sure that she could do miracles. He didn’t know what he was going to do if she couldn’t, how he was going to go about helping his son. But at least it wasn’t a definite no. There was a chance that this angel might be able to help his son, so he didn’t want to worry about what would happen if she couldn’t. Not unless it actually got to that point.

“I understand,” he told her. “I know this isn’t a promise. Trying is all I can ask of you.” It was, after all, all he’d been able to do for the past months, so he couldn’t really expect much more from the angel. Besides, if she couldn’t do it maybe she’d know something else that might help, something that modern doctors didn’t know of. But again, until she tried he didn’t want to have to think about possible alternatives.

“So I’ll take you to see my son now, and then you’ll probably want some food?” He wasn’t actually sure if angels ate food, now that he thought about it. “Or a bath or… whatever. Basically, you can do whatever you want after you’ve come and taken a look at my son, okay?” he asked.

There was no telling what this would mean, especially since that was the only reason that he’d wanted her here. The funniest part of all of this was that she could have certainly saved his son before she’d fallen, but she’d never have seen him and paid enough attention to save one person.

Belle nodded a bit, sighing again. Food. She had never needed it before, but she did experience hunger since she’d fallen. It had confused her at first, but she understood it now. “Yes, I think that would be fine.”

Belle was nervous to see his son, worried about what would happen when she met his son. She wasn’t sure that she could do anything to help him and she wasn’t sure what that would mean for her. But, she didn’t really have much choice in the matter.

Gold was glad that she didn’t argue any. Honestly he’d half expected her to try and bargain with him, telling him she would or could only help his son if he freed her. Naturally, that was something he couldn’t do. If he did, the government would be after him. And yet, if she’d forced his hand, he very well might have done as she asked.

He did feel bad for making her see his son before doing anything else, but the boy had been sick for so long. He just wanted to stop his suffering. So he made a beeline for the boy’s room, trusting the angel to follow. It wasn’t like there was somewhere else for her to go.

He opened it softly and came to kneel by the bed, ignoring the pain in his bad leg. “Hey son,” he greeted softly. “I brought someone here to meet you.”

“Who?” Bae asked groggily, trying to focus on the woman behind his father. That was when Gold realized he’d never asked her name. That wasn’t nice of him. He waited for her to answer, hoping she’d introduce herself to his son.

Belle bit her lip as they entered his son’s room, nervously looking at the boy as she stepped closer. “My name is Belle… Hello, it’s nice to meet you.” It was partially true, though she had wished that it was under different circumstances rather than her being held captive by humans in a weakened form. She stepped closer to him, looking over him for a moment. “What’s wrong with the boy? Perhaps if I know, I can try to focus my power on that rather than just trying to heal him completely. If… If I knew what exactly was the… the fatal part…” She was learning how to be less blunt, trying not to upset the father as she talked about his son. The man’s son was the only thing really keeping her safe from harm and she didn’t want to risk losing that bit of protection.

Gold watched as the angel introduced herself to his son, smiling softly. She was treating his son well after all, and he was always happy to see that. Then she asked him what was wrong with Bae though, and his smile slipped away. “He has cancer,” Rumple explained.

“And the chemo doesn’t work,” Bae chimmed in. “But what do you mean by focusing your power? You… you’re not an angel, are you?” he asked, eyes wide in awe and excitement. “You’re really a real angel? That’s so cool! But… you’re not one of the captured ones are you?” he asked, a frown on his face as he looked at his dad. “You aren’t condoning angels being captured, are you?”

“I… this was my last hope of helping you Bae,” Gold told his son gently. “And surely she’s better off here with us than….”

“Those are just excuses Papa,” Bae said, crossing his arms. “You need to let her go.”

“So I can be arrested and put in jail for who knows how long?” Gold asked. “You don’t understand what people will do to keep things this way.”

“I understand it’s wrong though,” Bae shot back.

Belle looked at Bae with surprise as he spoke up, shocked that he would so openly talk about such an unpopular opinion. “It’s alright… I understand. It isn’t his fault I’m trapped here. They would only find me again if he released me. So, really, it isn’t worth troubling yourself with.”

She sat down on the bed beside him, gently coaxing him into her arms. “You’ll be alright. Just let your mind go blank. Let yourself relax.” She hummed softly, something she had tried to avoid before. She didn’t like humans knowing about their healing power, knowing how they could soothe humans into calm sleep with their voices. Belle held him against her, getting petting his hair as she coaxed his head against her shoulder. “Sleep. Sleep a beautiful, dreamy sleep.”

Once Bae was asleep, Belle quieted and focused her energy on searching through him. This human was sweet, truly he was. He seemed to be a kind boy and Belle worked even harder to heal him. She’d wanted to save him to protect herself, but now she saw that he honestly was deserving. Belle held him tightly, shivering as her grace started to spread from her body and into his. She couldn’t know if it had worked until after, but she was going to give it all she had.

The light started to dim, Belle’s grip on the boy slowly starting to relax as she leaned back onto the bed with him. She was out, falling into a deep sleep as her energy had been depleted by trying to save Bae.

Gold was a bit surprised when the angel told Bae not to worry about her. He wished things were different, that he could let her go, but there wasn’t much that he could do about that. The laws were the laws, and he couldn’t go around breaking them. Things would only end up worse for both him and Belle. He just… well he was glad she understood that.

He watched as she held Bae in her arms, gently talking to him and getting him to fall asleep. It was sweet actually, watching them. Bae fell asleep rather quickly, laying in the angel’s arms as she did… something. It wasn’t like he could see what she was doing, but he knew that she was doing something, helping him. She seemed to exhaust herself though, because soon she was asleep just like his son.

Gold slipped out of the room for a moment, flagging one of his servants down and getting them to bring food up for himself, his son, and the angel. Then he went back into the room, replying to emails on his phone and looking up repeatedly to make sure they were both okay. He figured the best thing to do was let them sleep, but he wanted to be here when they woke so for now this was all that he could do.

Belle was exhausted, using far more of her power at that moment than she’d used since falling to Earth. But, this had been worth it. She knew it was. This boy was kind and he was sick to the point that there was no other option for him. Belle was so weak since she’d fallen, honestly surprised that she could even manage to get that much power.

When she woke up, her head was throbbing in pain and it felt like her eyes were going to shoot out of her head. Her stomach hurt, her body hurt. Everything hurt. It felt like she’d been hit by a bus; like she’d fallen from grace again. That pain was not one she was too keen on feeling again, but there she was.

Belle turned a bit, sighing out in relief as she checked on the boy. He was fine. She couldn’t quite tell if it had worked or not, but she felt something different now. It seemed like he wasn’t in pain. She sat up slowly, holding her head in her hands. That was far too much power. She wasn’t supposed to use that much power. Even before the fall, the other angels would have scolded her for this. She kept wincing in pain, differing spots demanding her attention as it took center-stage.

Gold looked up when the angle shifted, glad to see she was awake. He noticed quickly that she was in pain though. She’d hurt herself to help his boy. He couldn’t lie, he’d figured that might happen. But he was very sorry it had. She’d been so willing to help, and it felt wrong for her to be in pain because she’d helped his son.

He stood and made his way over to her, staying quiet so as not to wake Bae. “Are you alright?” he asked her. He could ask her if Bae would be alright in a moment, but making sure she was okay was the more pressing concern. “Do you need anything? I sent a servant to get food, so you’ll have that soon. Does… does Motrin work on you? I can get some of that too.” She was, after all, willing to hurt herself in order to help his son. Of course he was going to do everything in his power to help her.

“Anything that will help, I can get. Just say the word.” He might not be able to cure his son, but being rich had his perks and so he should be able to get the angel almost anything she could ask for. If only giving her freedom was an option.

She shook her head, biting at her lip in pain. He wasn’t really making sense to her since she didn’t really know what he was saying. Belle didn’t understand him, even without the pain distracting her. “Motrin? Like, another spell? I am out of power… I can’t…”

Belle had pulled similar stunts before the fall, but it felt so different now. The pain was so much more intense. It felt like she’d just held onto an exploding bomb, absorbing all of it rather than just being ripped to shreds. Normally, healing did hurt. But, it was nothing like this. Belle didn’t know how to handle this much pain, had never been personally subjected to this kind of feeling.

Some part of her realized that this was his fault, which made her want to be away from him and to buck against all of these new human rules for her kind. She wanted to run and never turn back, but she knew better. As much as she couldn’t run before, she really had no hope to go anywhere in her current condition. “Humans are constantly in pain… You cause pain, feel pain, and repeat the cycle until you all finally die. It’s exhausting. Exhausting, miserable creatures…”

[michigantomexicali-blog]

Trusting God in Infertility

I rolled my eyes as I read the words “Wait five years.” I knew by the handwriting it was my grandfather who wrote it. Instead of writing a baby name suggestion like everyone else, he wanted to give advice on when we should have kids. It’s family and I guess that’s normal. Everyone else at our wedding suggested names like Bertha, Paco, or their own name because it is such an honor to name our children after them...

I knew that once my husband and I were married it wouldn't be long before we would get pregnant. I never took birth control and we were always open to the idea that if it happened we would be happy even if it was an accident. In our first year of marriage, we did what we had to do to avoid getting pregnant. As our first anniversary came around, we started to talk about trying to have children. Confident and happy we enjoyed every moment of it. I read every book you can read before getting pregnant and asked all my friends with kids about what kinds of prenatal vitamins they took. I even began dreaming of what the nursery would look like because I was going to be pregnant soon and I wanted to be more than prepared.  

Just like someone who gets diagnosed with a sickness, never thinking it could happen to them, I never had a thought in my mind that getting pregnant would be something difficult. With my strong faith convictions, trouble getting pregnant wasn’t even on my radar. After all, in high school, my friends would always laugh and say that my babies would just drop out of me because of my wide hips.  

It’s insane that time has gone by so fast, but here we are five years later and it seems like my grandfather's suggestion became more like a prophecy. I’ve never publicly shared anything about this issue because I always believed that when the positive pregnancy test happened, when the miracle finally came, when it became a testimony not just a test, then I would share it. But I’ve simply changed my mind. So at the end of this story, you will not find out that I am pregnant because as of now there is no bun in the oven.

Not getting pregnant is the first thing in my life that I’ve had no control over. If I've had relationship issues, I fixed it. Job problems, I found a new job. Money issues, I worked it out. However, when you encounter something you can’t control and your faith seems to be challenged more than ever... it changes you. For the first time in my life, my “authority as a believer” hasn't done the trick. No matter how positive I’ve thought, how much I’ve confessed, how hard I’ve believed, I am still not pregnant.

Faith is what my entire life is built upon. If I don't have faith, I have nothing. That is the thing, I’ve seen it work so much in my life that I know it’s real and it does have power. When I was younger, if I asked for something in faith, it happened. When I asked God for a car to go to bible school, I received it without paying a dollar. I asked for my entire tuition to be paid for and weeks later, supernaturally, it was paid off. I prayed for the job I interviewed for and you guessed it, I got it. You couldn’t convince me otherwise that faith doesn’t work.    

Yet, it seems I haven't had a period in the past three years where I don’t cry. It’s like clockwork, I feel the cramps, try to fight it, hoping that it’s just an early pregnancy sign and then bam, there it is and I'm crying on the bathroom floor. This last month was just plain deceiving. I was four days late and began to think that this could be it, but it ended up just being an evil game.

Infertility is extremely difficult because of the emotional turmoil. Hopes are high every month and then they get thrown on the floor and stomped on every twenty-eight days and it is an intense roller coaster of emotions. Plus, every girlfriend who was with you trying to get pregnant together when you first started is already on their third kid. It is the most insane emotional experience I’ve ever been through.

So, when I need guidance I look to one-of-two places, the bible, and my husband. Yes, I said husband, and thank God for husbands, real men who are there with you through it all. Their friendship and love are priceless. They deserve so much just for living with us hormone-crazy women. I find myself saying things like, “I am so angry!! Baby can you make me some dinner, please.” Like I have no idea...but for now, I’ll blame my hormones.

Anyways, many people in the Bible faced circumstances that were out of their control, including infertility. Yes, as much as I believe the spike in infertility is probably something in the water, thousands of years ago women were struggling to get pregnant, including Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth. They each were getting older and there was no baby in sight. Each had their doubts, Sarah even laughed when God told her that he would give her a child. Yet, suddenly, God came through and made it happen.

It brings me to my favorite word, TRUST. It’s been one of my deepest convictions since I was a child. Trusting God is something that comes naturally to me. After years of building my faith, it is a part of who I am. I have renewed my mind in the Word of God. Believing that God will take care of me and that His plans are good has become easy. These women also had to learn to trust God. They trusted that He was faithful and that He was a giver of good gifts. You know, faith comes through hearing the Word over and over again, so if you’re looking to get more faith, keep reading the Word, going to church, and start now by confessing that you trust God no matter what and He is going to work out your situation.

Let’s take a moment to look at the sons God gave to these women because you’re going to find out that these barren women gave birth to some amazing men. Sarah’s son, Isaac, was the promised son from God to Abraham and became a foundational ancestor of the nation of Israel. Rachel and Jacob’s son, Joseph, got sold by his brothers into slavery and ended up becoming the second in command of all Egypt, saving the nation of Isreal during a seven-year famine. Hannah and Elkanah’s son, Samuel, was dedicated to the Lord and became a prophet to all Israel who then anointed King Saul and King David. Elizabeth and Zachariah’s son, John, was spoken about by Jesus using these words, “Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” Matthew 11:11

It blows my mind that these women who had the same struggle that I find myself in today, had crazy world-changing, history-altering, God-given babies. We don’t know the details of their stories, but we do know that they had a desire to be moms and God fulfilled it with a bonus of having children who changed the world. I’m sure those women all shed many tears, felt discouraged, alone, and felt like life was simply unfair. I know that is how I’ve felt many times, but we have to remember that weeping only happens for a moment and joy comes in the morning.

Many women I know today who struggled through infertility are either pregnant as I write this or have already become mamas. My sister-in-law Elizabeth is now pregnant after eight years! Praise God! God cares and His sovereignty and grace are real. I don’t know when I’ll have my miracle, but I do have a testimony even if my miracle hasn’t happened yet, and it is this; that I am still here, still trusting, not turning my back on His word, and like a child, I will still believe for what I am asking for.

It is time to hold on and believe that God hears us and will answer our prayers.

-Morgan Gutierrez   

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?    How long will you hide your face from me?  How long must I wrestle with my thoughts    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,  and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

 But I trust in your unfailing love;    my heart rejoices in your salvation.  I will sing the Lord’s praise,    for he has been good to me.

Psalms 13 New International Version 

[downeystarkjr]

ALREADY GONE - Captain Swan AU - CHAPTER 9

Emma Swan was never one to believe in ghosts or in any superstitions of the kind. However, her beliefs are soon to be tested when she moves into the beautiful yet mysterious Jewel Cottage. The manor known to be the home haunted by Captain Killian Jones.

The story can also be read on AO3 here

(This is one of the two stories I was working on for the Captain Swan Big Bang 2017 - it’s still a WIP but I have quite a few chapters complete that I really wanted to share)

(PS. Thank you to @ab-normality for your priceless help in being my beta for this story so far!)

Other chapters found here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Chapter 9 

“Buckley sure does love his walks doesn’t he?” Emma laughed, laughing more when the adorable canine barked as if in agreement to her words. “And he’s playful too, aren’t you a bundle of energy little fella?” she asked the dog sweetly, showing Buckley the ball she bought him from town when she was exploring Storybrooke with Ruby before her best friend had to leave.

The dog grew all the more excited and panted happily in anticipation. He watched Emma’s hand moving in front of him as she held onto the ball, waiting for her to throw it. “Go and get it buddy!” she encouraged and finally threw the ball and without a moment’s hesitation, Buckley ran over to chase after the ball.

“Aye and he’s loyal too” Killian nodded and glanced over to watch Emma interact with his pet dog as they walked down the field behind Jewel Cottage. It made the ghost smile to see how loving Emma was with Buckley and how the canine reciprocated Emma’s kindness by giving her his trust. “I don’t think I told you this before love, but I found Buckley when he was a stray puppy trying to seek shelter in the middle of a snow fall. I couldn’t allow him to freeze to his death and he’s been living with me ever since,” he admitted and chuckled when Buckley returned to them, placing the ball by Emma’s feet as his way of telling her that he wanted Emma to throw it again.

Emma was touched to hear Killian open up to her about how he came to meet Buckley. There was something she loved about how the Captain raised the dog alone despite being a spirit. He may be smug and flirtatious but with how kind Killian was with his beloved canine companion, Emma suspected there was more to his character than he was letting on.

Though Emma didn’t pick up on it, Killian was warming to having Emma around. He glanced round to Emma while she paid attention to a rather excited Buckley as he walked a small distance ahead of them. Since the departure of his friend James Barrie, Killian didn’t like having another human keeping him company on his strolls, that was until he crossed paths with Emma.

“She just had to be another author, what are the chances?”  

Killian thought to himself with a silent chuckle, giving another glance towards the new inhabitant of his home. With anyone else who dared to show any interest in moving into his home, he would have been sickened at the thought of them joining him. Especially not down the route the three of them were walking down that afternoon.

“Something funny Killian?” Emma asked and quirked an eyebrow when she noticed the apparition chuckling. Her tone wasn’t intimidating but curious.

“No Swan, I’m just enjoying the company,” Killian assured, sincerely giving Emma a compliment before looking ahead again. He found himself quite glad that he accepted the American in his home. The ghost usually despised the company of other people, however with Emma, Killian couldn’t deny that he didn’t feel so lonely now that she was around. In fact, due to what he knew about Emma, the Captain felt it his responsibility to look out for her. “Heed caution here love, the terrain turns rough when we divert from the path,” Killian advised. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Emma had not expected Killian to give her such a compliment and was unable to stop the faint blush appearing on her cheeks. “The feeling’s mutual Captain,” she smiled and nodded in acknowledgement to her new friend’s advice, oblivious as to the reason why Killian was so concerned about her safety. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, where are we going? Or are we headed to nowhere in particular and just enjoying the lovely warm spring afternoon?” she questioned.

Emma didn’t have any qualms against having no destination in mind for their walk, it gave her a chance to take in just how beautiful the fields near her home truly were. What made it all the more perfect was that she could still hear the distant sound of the ocean. Emma could imagine herself working on her writing out there in the peaceful countryside. There was nothing like this back in America, it was wonderful.

“Actually Swan, I was intending on paying a visit to an area nearby, we’re almost there,” Killian corrected calmly, keeping an eye on his companion to make sure she didn’t trip over the stones on the bumpy surface. “I’ve never brought anyone here before, but I trust you,” he revealed, whistling to Buckley to distract the dog from chasing after a butterfly that had caught his attention.

“Oh..?” Emma was surprised by how welcoming Killian was after being so adamant to keep humans away. He had told her glimpses of his life such as his wife, his friendship with the author of Peter Pan and now here he was taking Emma somewhere that held some personal importance for the ghost. “Well then lead the way… but thank you Killian, you didn’t have to let me join you today and I appreciate it,” she smiled, wanting Killian to know she was grateful for allowing her to move in instead of trying everything he could to rid her from Jewel Cottage. She never should have made such a rash judgement of Killian the night they shared their first conversation. He was kinder than he initially seemed.

“Aye,” Killian replied simply and stayed quiet for a few moments until they arrived their destination. Buckley stopping by the Captain’s feet with a sad whine that was comforted when Killian petted his head gently. “It’s alright my boy, don’t worry,” Killian assured and checked that Emma was alright too, encouraging her to sit down on the grass. He didn’t want her to be exhausted from the trek in her condition.

“Killian I’m fine, I don’t need to rest, really,” Emma insisted, passing Killian’s offer as being his attempt to prove to her that he was a gentleman. “So what is this place?” she asked, slowly beginning to develop some idea where they were when she noticed the small group of similar looking stones dug into the ground.

“Wait..” Emma uttered, her green gaze watching over Killian as he moved over to crouch in front of one of the stones. One of the graves. The grave of his late wife. She stepped closer, staying quiet to avoid upsetting Killian further when she noticed the mournful look in his eyes.

“It’s alright to talk about it Swan, they have been dead longer than I’ve been a ghost,” Killian spoke out to break the silence. “These fields are part of the Jones Estate, my grandparents, my parents, my brother and my Milah are all buried here.”

Emma felt a pang in her heart towards Killian when he said that, understanding the reason why that area was so meaningful to him. She couldn’t help but feel like she was intruding despite Killian having agreed to let her join him on the walk. This was a personal moment for him.

“You must find it difficult being here…instead of having them around..” Emma mused with sympathy for the Captain. It would be heart-breaking for her to be in Killian’s situation, to be a ghost without family and having only the graves as a reminder of the loved ones he lost long ago. Emma did often wonder why Killian was a ghost while none of his family had the chance to be an apparition. What was keeping him here? Surely, the answer had to be more than just his worry for his beloved Jewel Cottage. How was she going to get him to open up to him when Killian insisted his death was purely accidental?

“Actually love, this helps me feel closer to them, even before I died I would come down here to visit my family,” Killian corrected, seeing Emma glance over to the grave beside his late wife’s. “Anya was my mother, she was the sweetest woman I knew. You would have liked her, she had a love for reading and wrote a few short stories of her own, alas they never got published but the stories she came up with provided my brother and I with entertainment as children,” he chuckled. Killian recalled how his mother tried to get some of her writing published but to no success. Which sadly was quite common for female writers while Killian was growing up. “I must have inherited my adoration of the ocean from her. It was being so close to the ocean that made my mother love this town so much.”

“I have to agree with your mom, Storybrooke is the perfect place to live,” Emma smiled. She honestly couldn’t wait to start work at the school, it would give her the chance to get to know more of the people in town. Although, she was also looking forward to getting to know Killian more, she was intrigued by his past and wished she could help him. It was clear how he still dearly missed his family.

“Aye? Do you think so? I suppose you’re right, there is a certain air about this town,” Killian nodded with a heavy sigh but shook his head to drag himself out of his thoughts where he was recalling the happier times with his wife.

“Yeah, despite the presence of modern technology, being here is like taking a trip back in time,” Emma replied, making sure that Buckley wasn’t roaming too far from them.

“Oh you should have seen Storybrooke in my time. It was glorious,” Killian pointed out. “As much as I enjoyed my time out at sea, I always did love being welcomed back home after spending months out on the ocean.”

Emma didn’t think that Killian ever spoke about his time at sea. She was reminded that he was indeed a Captain of the Royal Navy. He must have seen a lot of the world during the voyages he captained. Emma wondered what Killian did experience out on the high seas, what sort of ship he sailed and what the ventures were like. She knew the Navy of the modern day was considerably different to how it was back when Killian was still alive. How did his Navy career end? Was it because of losing his left hand? Did he lose his hand as part of an incident while being in the Navy?

The American was going to reply before noticing that Killian’s attention had returned to the gravestones before him. Emma saw the mournful look in his ocean blue eyes, Killian really was a man who had lost everyone he loved and cared for, Jewel Cottage was all he had left. However, again the same question entered her thoughts, what was keeping Killian here? Why was he being stopped from moving on?

Judging by the dates written on the graves, Emma could guess who was Killian’s brother and who were his parents. There were also a few graves that caught her eye, mainly because the dates meant those buried beneath the headstones must have died as infants or children. Were they perhaps the children of Liam? The older Jones sibling? Emma didn’t think they were Killian’s children. Never did he mention them or give any indication that he was a father, although Emma knew Killian had been a married man.

To avoid offending Killian by disturbing him during such a deeply personal moment by Milah’s grave, Emma stood up, slowly stepping away to give him some privacy. “What are you doing there Buckley? Huh? Buddy?” Emma asked Buckley sweetly, moving over to him when she heard the canine whining as he lay on a patch of ground in front of a stone that had been overgrown with plants and moss. It was clear that it was another grave, though less cared for than the others.

Carefully, Emma knelt down and moved some of the foliage from the headstone to see what was engraved on it. If she turned round as she did so, Emma would have noticed Killian realising her interest in the grave. The ghost stood up in silence, walking over to Emma but kept a distance between them. There was a reason why he didn’t care for that grave, Killian didn’t like the reminder of it.

When she managed to clear enough of the plants, Emma traced her fingers across the name written on the stone. Captain Killian Jones.

Emma was at a loss for words, she shouldn’t have been so surprised but with the presence of Killian still remaining, it didn’t really occur to her that of course Killian would have had a grave. Why was it so unkempt? Emma was confused and intended to question the apparition about his grave but grew startled to see Killian towering over her, causing her to jump with a hand against her chest. There was something eerie about the way he had just crept up behind her and looking at her instead of at his own grave.

“I’m sorry Killian I…I didn’t mean to pry, Buckley was whining and I wanted-…” she began to apologise before the Captain raised a hand in reassurance.

“You weren’t to know love,” Killian shook his head and stepped away from the grave, not wanting to be near where his body was buried. “But I’d appreciate it if you could now leave my grave well alone,” he insisted, not wanting to converse about his body’s resting place.

However, Emma had other ideas. “You’ve kept the graves of your family in such a good condition, but not yours..”

“Is there a point to that rather odd observation?”

“Killian why?” Emma asked, still insistent that Killian talk to him instead of trying to avoid the issues that bothered him. “It’s as if you’re trying to hide the fact your grave even exists,” she stated with furrowed eyebrows.

“Why would I want to acknowledge it Swan?” Killian countered, reluctantly opening up due to Emma’s persistence. “A grave is supposed to be where someone is bloody well laid to rest. However, unlike the rest of my family, I’m still here. Being a ghost isn’t exactly restful.” He knew what was keeping him from moving on but there was nothing he could do about it.

Emma’s expression held an emotion of sympathy for Killian and gently bit her lip in thought. “Tell me what happened,” she requested kindly, looking up into Killian’s eyes. Emma wasn’t an idiot, she knew the ghost lied to her about the cause of his death. “It wasn’t the gas heater that claimed your life was it…? Killian please, let me try to help you.”

It was at her words that caused Killian’s own words to be choked up in his throat. He took a moment to compose himself and fight off the threatening tears before they fell. “My death was far more violent than I originally implied. I intended on bringing an evil man to justice, risking my life in the process,” he explained, a tinge of anger in his tone. “It didn’t turn out the way I hoped and in the end, I paid the price while he and his descendants continued to get away with their crimes.”

“Is that why you’re still here after all these years?” Emma asked. She had no idea who was responsible for Killian’s death or that the ‘evil’ man’s family were still connected to the town of Storybrooke. “Because you have unfinished business here that you can’t resolve? What can I do to help you?”

“Why love? Am I such dreary company that you want the manor to yourself?” Killian chuckled to hide his unease. He was unsure if he actually wanted to move on if given the chance, the Captain had grown quite used to living as a ghost. And now he had met Emma. For the first time in quite a few too many years, Killian was enjoying the presence of another person. He liked having Emma around and wanted to get to know her. But Killian was a ghost, how could he expect the woman to become close with him.

“Killian come on,” Emma sighed, trying to show Killian that she really wanted to help in any way she could.

The Captain did doubt if he would be willing to move on. However, if he did accept Emma’s offer, perhaps his heart could be put at ease knowing justice was done. It was about time those who wronged him and so many other innocent souls paid for their misdeeds.

“Swan there might be a way, for you to help me,” Killian finally replied with an answer Emma was hoping for. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Emma was a writer. No one else could have helped him since other people were either too naïve to welcome the thought that ghosts were real or too afraid of the ghost that haunted Jewel Cottage. “You’re an author are you not, love? One that lives in a haunted manor that everyone does their best to avoid,” the Captain began, gaining Emma’s curiosity. “I provided you with the perfect inspiration for your next writing endeavour. Me.”

“You want me to write a story inspired by you?” Emma asked feeling a little confused. How was that going to help with Killian’s unfinished business?

That where Killian had more knowledge on the matter. He was aware of the impact the written word could have, especially one written in truth. “On the contrary my lady, I was hoping you’d write a story about me,” he corrected. “My memoirs to be exact.”

Tagging a few users who might like the story. I’d love to know what you think! @yayimallamaagain @phiralovesloki @lenfaz @flipperbrain @cocohook38@hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @xhookswenchx @teamhook @resident-of-storybrooke @fairytalesandtimetravel @aye-captn @wellhellotragic @sambethe @goldengirlschildhood @sherlockianwhovian @captainswanbigbang @themilahskillybear @the-corsair-and-her-quill 

[anoptimisticsnarker]

So, we start this episode off right where we left off last time. Jonathan and Nancy are screaming for each other, only Nancy is the Upside Down and Jonathan is in the real world. Holy shit, that gateway closed up quick. Good thing Nancy got out before it did, though I think she's traumatized from the whole experience. Don't blame her.

Oh shit, Steve just saw Nancy and Jonathan together in her room, Jonathan likely just calming her down after the hell she went through. But Steve lacks that kind of context, and he did seem concerned about her in the car. I know I don't care for Steve and Nancy together, but you can see the heartbreak in Steve's face as he's watching through her window. (What is with everyone just creeping on each other...?)

Wait, so a girl named Jane was taken years ago and the mom, Terry Ives, wasn't able to get anything on it, nor were any of her claims substantiated. Oh... is Eleven really this Jane girl? Hmm, the plot thickens there... If it is true, then damn, we can add kidnapping to the list of things the researchers have down. Everything I learn about them makes me like them less and less. But Joyce and Hopper are on the case! Hope they can get something from her.

Nancy wants Jonathan to sleep with her in her bed. I know it's because of the trauma, but all I can smell is potential drama. Also, El didn't go back to Mike's. I think everything that happened finally got to her. And Mike, he put a lot of trust in her and it's been broken due to what's happened. Yesterday was just intense for all.

Oh, Jonathan and Nancy are on the case to try and find whatever the creature was. In spite of the fear she has, Nancy is still going through with it. What a trooper. And their theory of it being attracted to blood makes sense given that both Barb and the deer had blood on them when it appeared to them. Will, I don't remember if he had blood on him or not; if he did, then the theory really is sound.

When did Dustin become the source os reason in the group? Seriously though, I'm glad someone is able to see all sides and realize everyone had a hand in what happened the day before. He was all "shake Lucas's hand, or you will be banished from the party", which is so over-the-top, but I love it.

Nancy snuck out the house (presumably with Jonathan), and El slept in the woods last night. How did we get here, folks? (That was rhetorical, obviously. lol) Well, so much for making up. If anything, the talk they had just made everything so much worse. Despite Dustin trying not to split the party, it happened anyway. I get why Lucas would be hesitant to try and find El, but Mike is right. Without her, they're not nearly prepared enough to deal with what's in the Upside Down.

Again, simple mundane things cause El to go into flashback mode. Even something as simple and plain as a grocery store was enough to set her off. And then she just cruises out and steals a shitton of Eggo Waffles. I saw this out of context back when the show was new, but seeing it in context makes it even funnier. She did everything she could to get those damn waffles. (There was going to be a "Who raised you?" joke, but then I remembered where she was before, and got sad again.)

Terry looks absolutely gone. Neither Hopper nor Joyce speaking got through to her; all she was able to do was stare at the television. Also, Lucas is going to find the gate alone. Yeah, that doesn't sound like a great idea, but sometimes you can't stop people from doing what they want. I like the talk Mike and Dustin had, though them finding the aftermath of El's bulglary amused me too much. The collective "Oh shit" look they had was priceless. One thing though; who is watching them from afar?

Um, the more I hear about Terry's daughter, the more I do think Hopper was on to something when he said Jane being miscarried might have been covered up. Too much about what Terry described adds up to what Eleven can do. My friend Erin said Hopper and Joyce's storyline parodies conspiracy theories, and I see how the comparison was made because... Whoo boy.

Nancy and Jonathan going shopping... Somehow I didn't picture it happening like this. The cashier is just giving the biggest look of "What the fuck are you two doing with all of this?" and "I don't get paid enough to deal with this shit.". Their banter is cute.

...To bad it's ruined because of Steve and friends. I swear, for every small step Steve might make, he takes three large ones back. He lacks any context on what Jonathan and Nancy went through, made a gross assumption about her, and then prodded Jonathan to the point where he snapped. Worst part of all is that he, as of right now, got away while Jonathan is the one whos is getting arrested. Ugh, Steve better make the best turnaround ever because I really, really don't like him right now.

So, they really didn't get anything from Terry specifically, but Hopper isn't going to give up on finding Will. I feel like hearing "twelve years" was a lot for Joyce, but she at least knows she has a chance. Hopper doesn't. And I love how the scene ends with the two hearing that Jonathan is currently being held at the station.

Speaking of that, the person who is talking to Nancy sees what is so obvious to everyone but her at this point, Jonathan has fallen for her through all of this. I guess it is true that you don't notice how others feel for you no matter how obvious.

These bullies are actually relentless. I know they have names; I just don't care enough about them to try and remember them. Either way, they chase Mike and Dustin down for God knows how long, trying to stab them, only to have Mike jump off a cliff so Dustin wouldn't get his teeth cut out. Thank God El showed up in the nick of time to keep Mike from dying. She did break one of the bullies' arm, but given he was about to stab someone, fair. Though, I think doing all of that took it out of her. (I failed to mention how earlier she was just chilling in the woods, eating waffles. Iconic.)

Oh shit, they found El. And she's with Mike and Dustin. I do find it too be too much that they;re pulling out straps on three children, but these people clearly don't care about the safety of the youth. Though, they don't know (or maybe do know and didn't make it obvious) that Lucas was spying on them from a tree for a while, so he knows what's coming. Hopefully he's able to reach the others in time because we all know despite their fight, he's going to try and keep his friends and El safe.

[ts1989fanatic]

Spencer Pratt Reviews Taylor Swift's Reputation Tour

"If the world felt more like a Taylor Swift concert, I don't think there would be wars."

If you've paid any attention to Spencer Pratt's Snapchat in the last eight months or so, then you know he's one of Taylor Swift's biggest fans, if not the biggest. On Saturday, he finally got to live his dream of seeing Reputation performed live, when he attended Taylor's show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena with his wife Heidi and their son Gunnar. It was the first time Spencer had ever seen Taylor, but he's already thinking about rearranging his schedule so he can go see her in Colorado. Here, Spencer weighs in on everything from the openers to the costumes to Taylor's mid-concert surprise guests.

On the opening acts, Charli XCX and Camila Cabello

"My only issue is I wish the openers just covered Taylor songs. I kept thinking they would be so good if they were singing Taylor songs."

On meeting Taylor

"Right when Camila Cabello is winding down, I'm like, 'Oh my god, I don't think we're gonna meet Taylor, she's gotta go on stage.' And then I get an email like, 'We're coming to get you guys, stay in your seats.' Then we go backstage and Taylor's mom talked about how wild it is that we met Taylor ten years ago...and we're still in each other's lives. I was like, 'We're in Taylor's life? AHHHH!' Taylor brought up my hummingbirds and was talking about what a pure love it is. Then it hit me, I was like, 'Are you on Snapchat?' And she's like, 'No.' She only knows my IG story. I was like, 'Oh my god, I'm quitting Snapchat again.' So Taylor in her freakin' robe in her dressing room, holding Miracle Baby. I'm gonna have to have Heidi talk."

Heidi: "So we get in there and they're so nice offering to take the photos, and then I put Miracle Baby in her arms and he was so happy. He loved her. She held him for a while and he's really heavy, so I think she was probably like, 'OK, here's your baby! I’m not babysitting, I’m about to go on stage!'"

"I just run right in and I'm like, Please take Miracle Baby! Give him your energy!' My dad can't even hold Miracle Baby, he's so heavy. I could have gone home for the rest of my life happy right then and the show hadn't even started. She literally left us and walked on stage. I started thinking she's not a human. That's the level."

On the opening number

"She has this like trailer going off about all the media [that starts the show]. It's kind of like a little highlight sizzle reel about how the media was turning on her, like a little movie. It got me so pumped up. I was like, — sorry media — 'I HATE YOU MEDIA, WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO TAYLOR?!' And then this ghost says, 'REPUTATION,' and then it's like, [sings opening notes of "...Ready for It?"] 'Are you ready for it?' Then '...Ready for It?' drops and it's like, oh my god. The album is insane bumping loud in your car on eight espressos, but two skinny margaritas, front row, when that goes off? I swear to god I thought I was gonna explode.

I didn't realize until last night, but her album is designed for a stadium tour. It’s designed for that level of sound and light. The coolest part about getting there at 12:00 is watching hundreds and hundreds of 18-wheelers with the Reputation art on them loading in. It looked like she was invading Pasadena. My heart's pounding right now thinking about it.

It was easily the most fun at an event I've had in my whole life, times 100. And the fact that I'm looking over and Miracle Baby's got his headphones on, right there, like could reach out and touch Taylor. He's listened to this album as much as I have. He's a real fan! It was just so magical."

On his run-in with Taylor's security

"I had the most realistic dream a couple months ago [where] Taylor grabbed my phone from me and did a Snapchat with my phone, and that ended up happening. Then also in that dream, Taylor's security jumped over a fence and tackled me. They thought I was some crazed super stan. I told people all this stuff months ago, I’m not making this up."

Heidi: "I heard!"

"Heidi heard. But last night out of nowhere, all this security and the sheriffs jump over the fence and surround me and grab my diaper bag that I'm carrying. Like, 'How did you get this backpack in the building?' It's not really a diaper bag, I just call it the diaper bag because I put diapers in it, but it's the biggest Gucci backpack you can buy. Keep in mind you're only allowed to have a clutch the size of, like, a sticker, or a clear handbag the size of a sticker. It couldn't look more suspicious. And I rushed the stage into the Snake Pit. Heidi said I looked like a psychotic fan. So they all circle me and grab me and open up my bag and everything. I'm like, 'It’s just diapers! We're with Taylor!' So they emptied out my whole bag right there in the front row. My dreams literally were like premonitions."

On how Taylor's performance compares to other concerts he's seen

"I think everybody else should just quit. There's no competition. Nobody's gonna bring that level of performance. How does she do that? How many espressos is Taylor getting? She is running and flying, she's in cages, crossing stages."

Heidi: "You're turning into a poet!"

"Flying in the air, in these like...Heidi, help me! Help me, Heidi! Nobody's even in the realm of this. I never went to a Michael Jackson concert, but I...feel like it's that level of superstardom. I don't think anyone's ever gonna catch this. Maybe people say things about her right now, but 20 years from now they're gonna look back and be like, 'Who was this?' Obviously I knew she was a huge superstar, but I didn't appreciate the level of actual performer. You think of performers that are good, and everyone's like — I'm gonna have the Beyhive coming for me — Beyoncé's amazing. She's also got like 15 years on Taylor. Fifteen years of performing and practice, and Taylor in my opinion is right there at that level right now. People are gonna be like, 'How did you say Taylor's like Beyoncé?' Well I said it, OK? I said it."

On Taylor's fans

"Taylor's fans are like the best humans. I've never been anywhere where the energy was just so electric but, like, pure. I felt like I was at a birth or a wedding. It felt like everyone was like a big family. Everyone's dressed up like it's freaking Halloween, too — the amount of time and energy people put into their looks and outfits and makeup. I'm so upset this isn't every Saturday night.

My only issue with the whole experience is it's over. If the world felt more like a Taylor Swift concert, I don't think there would be wars. I don't want to shade anybody, but you don't need to take a bunch of drugs and go into the desert for Burning Man. Have a skinny margarita and go to a Taylor show. You need to trip out? You don’t need to go to EDC and OD. Just put on one of these Taylor wristbands and just get in the middle."

On the merch

"I got a black hoodie, I got the Taylor PopSockets, I got the snake ring, I got the Rep hat, Heidi got the gray sweater. My one issue with the tour is they don't sell baby clothes, but then when Taylor was holding Miracle Baby in her dressing room, she did say he's definitely the youngest human in the entire building, so it made me think that's probably why they don't sell baby merch. I'm not sure how many babies are buying merch."

On Selena Gomez's surprise appearance

"I'm not gonna say which one, but Selena's best friend DM-ed me and was like, 'It's gonna be so amazing.' I felt like she was telling me she knew the secret, so I was telling everyone I think Selena's the [guest], and when Selena came out I was like, 'Oh my god, everything in my brain is happening!' Selena gave a talk that was like — I mean I'm all about women empowerment and all the hashtags women wanna have, I back that — but whatever Selena said I was just like, 'Say that every day on the internet!' It was like, 'Yes, girl!' And then after meeting Taylor, obviously we only knew Taylor for so little time, but I was like, 'I feel that Selena! That is who she is! Yes! I'm voting for her!'"

On the other celebrities in attendance

"Kobe Bryant was sitting to the left of us. That's when you know Taylor's a superstar, when I was not even Snapping him. I was like, 'I don't care about you, fool.' Any other setting I'd be like, 'Kobe, Kobe, I love you!'"

On the stage, costumes, etc.

"It's definitely on a Cirque du Soleil level. If Taylor wasn't even there and they were just playing the music with the lights and the pyrotechnics, it would be worth paying the money, like if it was just a live show in Vegas without her. That's how good the dancers are, the costumes. When were backstage with these dancers, their costumes are legitimate like, Mad Max, Game of Thrones–level leather. I bet each costume is like 10 grand. They look like action movie outfits. The snake that comes out of the stage? It's like Universal Studios level. It looked doper than King Kong. I was like, 'How's she beating King Kong right now?'"

On how much he'd spend to see Taylor, if Taylor hadn't gifted him with a VIP pass

"I would easily drop 25 hundo. Because it's a priceless memory! People are like, 'They're so high priced,' but when you see the amount of budget that goes into it, there are a lot of people that are needing to get paid. That money is not all going in Taylor's pocket. I saw 200 18-wheelers. The gas alone! She performs for hours. So you spend $2,500, I'm obviously not good at math, but if you do the math on that, what you're actually paying Taylor per minute? She's worth more than even that. She's a wizard. Let's just go ahead and say it. She's a dang wizard."