#why would he give second chances to people who quite literally sold him to Hell for cheap

[kawareo]

I understand people have different interpretations of character so I'm not saying mine is superior ir whatever, but I genuinely never saw what Gortash did to his parents as a proof of him still wanting to be loved by them

To me it screams mockery. "A good mother would never do such a thing!" Aka Sally is not a good mother and has to say it. "We are so proud of how far he's come!" He knows theyre not and that they don't like him so why not rub it in their face that that is what they'll always tell everyone. "We raised him under our roof and look at how far he's come!" They'll never be remembered for anything other than 'raising' him.

"We love him so much" they don't and they never will but he can make them say it over and over again because they will never change and he's rubbing it in their face that they're powerless and trapped watching themselves say things they'd never mean.

[xo-alie-xo]

PORTWELL LONG GAME OR RINA SLOWBURN.

You can only choose one poison.🍷

Listen up my Wildcats.🐱

We all ship each character with happiness. No matter how much you love to hate them, a majority of us simply adores the characters and want the best for them. Then comes relationships and it's okay to ship our favorites.⛴

I'm a diehard Rina shipper and I know in my heart that they are series endgame. The set up, the natural chemistry, their mutual understanding, the surprises and angst literally put me on chokehold. So I'm 100% a Rina shipper till the end. I'm here for the slowburn and their development rather than one shots. They are worth the pain. 😭❤

Let me start with Ricky Bowen now.

Ricky shouldn't to be with Gina because he's hurting her mentality. He's not insensitive on purpose. Like when he tried to stop Big Red from telling her his message to Nina because he KNOWS it'll hurt her.

If you think, that Ricky didn't understand clearly when Gina confessed, think again. He shushed her. Kept their thing a secret from everyone. He knows he feels some type of way and she feels something too. But this boy is so used to safeguarding his childhood norms and has very little adaptability. Hence, he pretended to ignore everything between them because his home stability was falling apart and he clinged on to Nina, his constant childhood love.

He's a traumatised 16-17 year old boy that needs to heal and grow. This episode was heartbreaking because he had to accept that he had to let Nina go because their once upon a time fairytale had become toxic.

People change. I'm not the same person I was when I was 16 lmao. Being together as childhood lovers means growing together and accepting each other's growth. Which Ricky couldn't. He clutched to the idea of Nini. Even his love confession. It was sooo sweet but all he did was focus on their history.

This boy needs time to heal and maybe seek professional therapy. It would be so DAMN HISTORIC if Disney decides to take psychological issues seriously and show how he's dealing with his anxiety, pills and psychotherapy. He needs to breathe before he can be with any girl for that matter. He's hurting and isn't trying to hurt anyone on purpose. Including Gina.

Him asking her for advice on Nini was a dumb, insensitive move. But he's trying to find a way to build some supportive friendship that they shared in early season one.

As for now, this boy needs to get his own grip on life and heal.

As for our Queen Gina

In Gina's confession, she focuses on their future. She basically said, "I wouldn't quit on a possible future of us being together despite obstacles. Because I never quit. But moving away isn't in my control." Ricky deep down knows this, encouraged her to say it, teary eyed, despite right after getting back together with Nini. Gina is his future. She went to his new house. And I also have this feeling that when she was given a chance to stay, she stayed partly because of Ricky. She left a chance to be with her mom because she prioritised their relationship. Because she never quits. 💪🏼

But she came back and found out Ricky has gotten back together with Nini.😭 What she doesn't know is Ricky got together with Nina before her confession, and after Gina kept dodging his messages. She's hurt and questions why she returned because she isn't particularly close to anyone. Hence, she was so silent at the after party. She thinks it'll be fine, "she'll live", and finds other reasons to find permanence. Her arc this season has been settling down in East High, despite the pain of losing and being 'betrayed' by Ricky, she finds other reasons to stay. 🏡

This kind of contrasts her with Nina. Nina left her dream school and came to Salt Lake because she missed her established home, and not just because of Ricky. Nina returned and was loved and embraced by Ricky Bowen.💕 Gina came back to a semi new place called Salt Lake because of her promise of a future to Ricky. But she got stabbed and she bled. 💔🗡

Think about her situation. She feels confused, alone, heartbroken, out of place and seperated from her mom. She's broken and hurting too. And she doesn't need more from Ricky's accidental or intentional 'sick burns'. That's the one line where he was such a jerk and I can't defend him here. 😠

Here comes the Caswells.

Her second family. A place of healthy stability. A home that accepted her. Ashlyn, her roomie and her confidante. EJ, the misunderstood boy who saw her value and bought her plane ticket.

Let's get to EJ.

At first, I wasn't too keen on seeing Portwell's development. But then that video chat where they talk about the possibility of her staying and him convincing her. Had me sold for a solid brother-sister relationship. Few episodes later, when Gina's pain seemed to be oblivious to everyone, he was the only one who asked her how she was, and saw her glow. The comfort she must've felt.

Not that she needs a man's validation, but she must be feeling like a second choice and feeling a little insecure because of Ricky. But EJ lifts her up and I genuinely saw her smile. This boy has her back whenever. The man she can lean on and truly sees how special she is. She no longer feels alone now that she has his entire fam and other friends. She genuinely feels a place of belonging and happiness when she's the apple of his eye. Notice how happy she is? How happy this boy is? She's going through her own issues and she has found ground with EJ.

I was very doubtful when they started hinting at a romantic direction. Because EJ would be used as plot device again for a girl to get to Ricky.😤 This man doesn't deserve to be second best to anyone, just like Gina.😑 That's why I'm still hesitant on shipping them at least temporarily. EJ needs to be something even more special to Gina. They need to show each other how special and treasured they are to each other despite feeling like rejects. They are each other's source of comfort.

I'm sure they can keep EJ at East High for the next season. Whether it's the drama club, or the AV club or going to a local college. So he will be there for Gina. I don't know how they can work out a relationship with much distance as Rini's fell out when she moved away. So, if EJ leaves again, it'll again shake up Gina. Her being worried whether he'll date college girls, second thoughts, etc. I don't want them to go through that. And if they do move on to romantic Portwell, make sure it's not plot device for Rina. So you can either have Portwell endgame or Rina Endgame.

Basically I want Gina to be treated so right that she understands she doesn't need Ricky. And when he does ask her out, and he makes her feel like a second choice or a rebound, she says NO. Because EJ has helped regain her self assurance. Eventually I want Gina to confide in EJ about her and Ricky. EJ is jealous but also angry about how Ricky has been hurting her. And becomes damn protective of his 'babe'. Ricky gets jealous of their relationship, restarting Ricky and EJ's old rivalry. But this time, it's not because Gina is his girlfriend, but because she's EJ's best friend who he has a crush on and wants what's best for her.

If it's meant to be Rina endgame

EJ- RICKY, YOU IDIOT! You have no clue how to treat her right. You don't put her first. You mislead her. Get the hell away from her! She's too powerful and beautiful, she doesn't deserve your scraps. I know how she feels for you. I wish I were you. I would treat her like a queen. I don't mind even waiting years till she's ready. She deserves that. You're so lucky you have even a small chance that I may never have. So get your act together, prove you're worth it to win her over. All I want is for her to be happy. Even if it's with someone else. And maybe then I'll stop threatening you to stay away from her.😠

Ricky- .....I don't know what I'm more scared of. Change, or losing the girl I fell for or YOU. Okay, losing her but you're a close second.😬

If it's Portwell endgame.

Ricky- I messed up. Make sure you don't mess up with her. You'll regret it forever.

EJ- I'd rather get hit by thousand basketballs than ever hurt her. I'll be her plus one and her best friend until she's ready to be with me. I know she's ready now too. But I want her to know I'm willing to wait till she graduates before we make it official. I'm in it for the long game.

As for their age gap. I'm 100% sure Portwell won't kiss this season. If they do, it'll be next when Sofia turns 18. They are professional actors who are cast because they are the perfect fit for the role and are expected to carry out the storyline. But I suppose fearing some outbursts, they might delay Sofia kissing anyone till next season. It's so weird because Olivia was maybe 17 when Matt was 21-22 when they kissed in season one. But no one had a problem with that. But for this, they do. Remember, they are professional actors. They are acting! Sometimes, actors are over 10 years apart (but above 18) and act as romantic partners.

As for their characters, they are only two years apart. That's hardly any difference once you're over the age of 18. Age of consent is 16. But adults above 18 are only allowed to have sex with adults above 18. So, age isn't a problem here because EJ is a gentleman and is genuinely interested in her and isn't trying to get in her pants. So age isn't the issue when it comes to dating. It's the maturity. Gina is very mature and gives very sound advice. But I can see EJ being patient enough till she turns 18 just to kiss her because he loves her. 😚

As for the Ashlyn remark, "You look like a kid to me rn". He was JOKING.😂 Don't take things out of context. I tell my cousin sister that all the time. But she's three years younger than me and a grown adult. I don't see her as a kid but it's just a cousin teasing her younger cousin that's she's a little immature. I'm Matt's age and I'm very mature for my age and since I was a teenager, I always matched up with boys a little older than me. Now that I'm in my early 20s, I've dated boys even close to 30. So age is just a number.

EJ dating Gina and giving her quick kisses is fine. But to have a strong sexual element in their relationship (including making out), he'll have to wait till she's 18+. And I'm sure for that he'll wait till she's ready even past her early 20s. Age is really just a number and we can't help who we fall in love with. Trust me, I've been there.😂 So I can see EJ feeling conflicted about his feelings that are clear at this point.

They might not be a perfect fit, but they make each other sooo happy. They deserve a lot more than a short lived fling.😟 They are either endgame or Rina is. You can't have both as a Rina unless you're an EJ hater who wants him to exist as plot device. Nope! He's sooo much more precious than that.

But Jack on the other hand....I'm okay if he's the one to make Ricky or EJ jealous. Because he's just been introduced and it's okay if a character is used, but only once, for someone else to realize their feelings. 💁🏽‍♀️

In short.

Ricky needs help and needs to be on his own. No girlfriends allowed.🙅🏽‍♀️🚫

Needs to give both Gina and Nina space for them to grow on their own too.🌳

Ricky needs to understand the core of his problems and become more adaptable via therapy. Maybe the psychologist will point out his unresolved feelings for Gina, or he will conclude it himself. And in comes Ricky-pining-for-Gina season three.

Ricky needs to fully get over Nina before he moves on to anyone. Same for Gina if Portwell were to happen. No one deserves to be second choice.

Gina isn't Ricky's cushion. She's a living person with strong feelings for him and shouldn't be subjected to share his pain. She already struggles with her own issues.

Ricky needs to stay single till he wins back Gina and prove he's worth it. He needs to show even if another girl wants him, he'll never quit on Gina ever again. Even if he has to watch her be with someone else. *cough parallels*.

It's either romantic Rina then Portwell endgame OR Portwell flirty besties but Rina endgame. You and I can choose only one because my boy EJ shouldn't be used as plot device for a girl to leave for Ricky ever again.

Portwell's age difference can be practically solved and isn't much of an issue unless they get hot and heavy before Gina turns 18 which is impossible considering this is Disney. 🤣🤣

Jack and Gina will be plot device material and purely so sentimental to us OG Andi Mack fans. More than any ship, this is what I'm looking for. Sort of an Andi Mack crack ship for season 3a. It's gonna be soooo funny. 😍😂

I respect everyone's ship. I see what you're seeing. And I'm not going to invalidate your ship. But unless it's done right, I won't jump from the Rina ship. I liked Rini. I like Portwell. I like AU Juffy crackship haha.😂 But as for me, I'm still holding on to Rina slowburn.

Preparing myself for the pain. 😭🔥

(But if I had to pair two characters without Disney getting in the way, it would be Gini. The power duo. Undeniable chemistry. They can be written so well because of their layered relationship and contrasting personalities.🤩 The classic rivals to friends to lovers. But that's a talk for another day lmao.)

Thanks for reading my opinion, Wildcat!🐱❤

[pinkoptics]

AU-gust 2021 Prompts

3. Hipsters / 16. Hippies

Erik detests hipsters and hippies and, to be honest, isn’t even sure what the difference is, nor does he particularly care. The things he will do for Charles…

Modern AU. Still have powers. Grumpy Erik. Adorable Charles. Meet Cute. Silliness.

3392 Words

*

Erik hated everything about this place.

Absolutely everything.

He could write a dissertation on its failings, which were abundant.

Its first sin was being directly across from his apartment building. When he looked out his window, he saw it. When he stepped out of the lobby doors, he saw it. When he pulled his car out of the parking garage, he saw it. It was an unavoidable part of every single day of his life.

Its second sin was what it had replaced. Previously, there had been a diner. A kosher diner. A diner that had tasted like his childhood. It had been a hole in the wall, never looked quite clean, but the coffee had been strong enough to caffeinate an elephant and the food almost as good as his mama’s. Most people had passed it by. Just another slightly dingy New York eatery that you didn’t give a second thought. Quiet. A refuge for those in the know. Then came the hipster gentrification, ruining not only his precious diner, but the neighbourhood in general.

Its third sin was its name. Plant. In and of itself the name ‘Plant’ was harmless, inoffensive. Just a word. It conjured images of a vegan eatery, bistro, restaurant, or maybe if taken 100% literally, a store that sold plants. All of which would have been fine. He had nothing against plants and, sure, he ate meat (kosher meat), but happily ate vegetarian dishes as well. But no, it was not a plant store or even a vegan eatery, it was a vegan coffeehouse. Coffee came from plants, Erik knew this, so the name passed on that technicality, but it did not scream ‘coffee.’ Why not ‘Bean’ if it needed to conform to the trendy one-word-naming that had for reasons unknown come with the gentrification. It was couched between ‘Table’ (a restaurant) and ‘Sweat’ (a boutique gym). Plant did not equal coffee, and that knowledge crawled under his skin every time he saw the stylized lettering.

Its fourth sin was the coffee. Erik wasn’t particularly picky about his brew, whether at home or out. Cheap diner swill, the finest Italian espresso, the Keurig at the office, the ridiculously expensive machine that produced the perfect cappuccino at Emma’s apartment, whatever. Plant’s beans were fine as beans went, the roast satisfactory, but then ruined with its accompaniments. They carried a variety of ‘mylks.’ Yes, with a ‘y’. He preferred lattes, and would have been fine with oat or almond— if only it was spelled with a fucking ‘i’. Every time he saw the pretentious letter, he felt the urge to take a sharpie and commit as many acts of misdemeanour graffiti as necessary until all the ‘y’s were gone.

Its fifth sin was its staff. He could have tolerated their always sunny dispositions (even if it were literally impossible for any customer service employee to be that happy all the time). He could have tolerated their ridiculous hipster (or was it hippy?) apparel, moustaches, beards and hairstyles (what was even the difference between the two?). What he could not handle was the way they called him ‘friend.’ Every. Single. Time. He could count his friends on one hand and none of them worked at Plant. Their ‘peace, love and joy’ vibe made him grind his teeth and wish he had a mutation that would allow him to send them back to the 1960s.

And yet…

“Good morning friend! Amazing day, right?” It was, in fact, pouring so hard the streets were borderline flooding. “Usual? Or do you want to try—”

Erik had long ago learned to immediately tune out the suggestions, but was sure he caught the word ‘sage.’ Who in their right fucking mind wanted sage in their coffee? Yes, he was inside the loathed establishment wasting precious brain cells wondering why anyone felt the need to mess with the simple perfection that was coffee and milk. Yes, he was there often enough that the employees knew him on sight. Yes, he had a usual order.

It wasn’t his fault.

It really wasn’t.

It was the fault of a pair of the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

This shouldn’t have been the case. The whole thing was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. The entire story more at home on the W Network or Hallmark, than in his very real, not-a-rom-com, life. And yet, here he was, having his 24th latte with mylk in a row and questioning his very sanity.

It had all started, just over a month ago, directly in front of Plant. To this day, Erik wasn’t sure whose fault it had been. He’d been on his phone, eviscerating a junior partner for a monstrous fuck up, and so livid that he was not at all paying attention to his surroundings. The blue-eyed man he’d run into, however, had claimed equal distraction, so perhaps the blame rested on both of their shoulders.

They had crashed into each other— papers flew, his phone flipped through the air and they ended up in a heap on the sidewalk, Erik atop the smaller frame beneath him. Already late for work, already pissed off with the junior partner beyond reason, Erik had been ready to re-direct his anger and tear whoever it was a new one, when the aforementioned blue eyes had arrested the words in his throat. He had admitted this to no one. Hell, he barely admitted it in the sanctity of his own mind because he was not a 12 year old girl, but a senior partner in one of the most prestigious architecture firms in New York. He did not go soft over a pair of gorgeous eyes (except, apparently, that he did), particularly when he hadn’t even seen the face that went with the eyes, which could have been grotesquely unattractive (it wasn’t).

The mouth that went with the eyes was absurdly red and absurdly kissable. The face angelic. To his eternal, internal embarrassment he had thought that exact word— angelic. He wished he could have blamed his temporary insanity on hitting his head, but having fallen on top, he couldn’t. If anyone had a concussion it was the ocean-eyed, ruby-lipped angel man. The ruby lips had spluttered apologies in a gorgeous British accent (not something Erik had until now found to be a turn on) as they scrambled off each other, righting clothes and belongings.

“Your phone!” the man had moaned. “Is it all right?”

The screen did appear to have a crack, but in another moment of lunacy, Erik pocketed it before the Angel could see and muttered something about it being fine. Instead, Erik helped him to collect the papers that had fluttered every which way, including the road, where they were already being demolished by a steady stream of vehicles.

“I hope those weren’t important.”

The man laughed, it was a very nice sound. “Not as such, no. I’m sure my students will be delighted to hear that their papers were torn asunder. They already mock me for printing them at all. I could mark them on my laptop like a proper 21st century individual, but there’s something about the feel of paper and pen that I just cannot let go of. It’s— and, as I go on and see your expression, I realize a simple ‘no’ likely would have sufficed.”

What did he see in Erik’s expression? A man besotted? Enamoured? Smitten? Any other number of words he had never used in regard to himself or anyone else in his entire life? Fuck. Erik tried to school has face into its usual disdain for the world and ninety-nine percent of the people in it, but if he was as in control of his facial muscles as he was of his thoughts, he knew he was failing miserably.

Erik handed him the last of the papers they could possibly retrieve. “I agree— about the pen and paper, I mean.” He did. As incredible as design software was these days, he always started on paper. The precision needed to draw the perfect straight lines and angles of a new building gave him a feeling of immense satisfaction in a way little else did.

“Oh, well, glad I’m not the only one who hasn’t forsaken the old ways.”

His smile.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Erik cleared his throat. “Let me buy you a coffee.”

Had he just said that?

Traitorous voice.

Was he gesturing at Plant?

Traitorous body.

He’d never been inside. On principle. Apparently, principle flew out the window for charming British men with cornflower (cornflower?!) blue eyes. The man blinked those eyes, as though not expecting the kindness.

Erik gestured at the papers. “I’ve clearly set your work back and I’ve ruined your—” cardigan. Erik blinked as his clothes came into focus. The man he was suddenly, desperately, attracted to was wearing a baggy, grandpa cardigan. Erik began to wonder if he had never woken up that morning. Maybe he was still in bed, across the street. Maybe this was a fever dream.

“Oh! I’ve dozens more just like it. It’s nothing.” He swatted ineffectually at the dirt covering one sleeve.

“Please.”

The man cocked his head. “Well… all right.”

So Erik had. In the end it had been a tea, not coffee. Earl grey with mylk. The interaction had ended there, awkwardly. Most likely his own fault. He didn’t do flirting with random strangers he’d just plowed into on the street. He didn’t generally do flirting at all. Moreover, he was now very late and had the junior partner’s fuck ups to fix before this afternoon’s meeting with their client. So, he’d left, stumbling over his goodbyes.

The day that followed hadn’t afforded much opportunity to think on the chance encounter. Not with employees to castrate and clients to placate. It wasn’t until he was home, looking out the bank of front windows at Plant that his thoughts drifted back to Blue Eyes. Which was, unfortunately, what he had christened him in his head because he’d never gotten the man’s name. Erik had gone to bed, mind clouded with thoughts, dreamt of him, and woken up with those same thoughts. Emma had always said his was one of the most disciplined minds she had ever encountered.

So much for that.

It was only a complete loss of that discipline that could possibly explain why he’d unnecessarily crossed the street the next morning and entered the obnoxious establishment for a second time, without even a moment’s hesitation. His eyes had immediately scanned for a mop of just overlong brown hair (yes, he’d noted that too, as well as just how much he wanted to run his hands through it). When they’d landed upon said hair, curling delightfully upon Blue Eyes’ forehead, Erik had been genuinely surprised. This clearly made the man a Plant regular, which should have been a point against him — a massive point — yet here Erik was, seeking him out regardless. Blue Eyes had looked up at him then, gifting him with a smile and acknowledging him with a nod, before returning to a set of what Erik had to guess were re-printed term papers.

Such was the story of how Erik had become a regular customer with a regular order.

Most days Blue Eyes was there before he came in, sometimes working on laptop or in a notebook, other times reading a book or a journal. Erik had caught a title once — The Oxford Journal of Genetics — which led him to conclude, that along with clearly being a professor, this proved the man must have a brain to back up the looks. Another point in his favour, as Erik had no patience for stupidity, no matter how pretty a package it came in.

Erik’s day was such that he usually needed to take his order to go. The few days where he could scrape together a few extra minutes, he grabbed his own table. He hadn’t once attempted to kid himself that it was because he enjoyed the ambience— that level of denial would have been absurd. No, it was clearly so he could spend a few extra minutes trying to stare, in a way that wasn’t blatantly obvious, at his… crush. Crush. He might as well think the word because that’s what it was. Only days after meeting him, Erik had caught himself, pen poised, about to doodle hearts on his notepad at a meeting. The mental pinch and knowing look Emma had sent his way had made him extra testy for the rest of the day. The wide berth everyone but Emma had given him was a testament to that.

And yet…

He never approached Blue Eyes. They exchanged nods, occasional hellos, but never anything more. Out of all of his out of character behaviour — and there was a lot of it at this point — this rattled him most. Erik had a reputation in professional and personal circles. He was confident, forbidding, occasionally arrogant, and brazen in pursuing designs no one else thought possible to execute. Erik went after what he wanted in life with borderline fanaticism.

He did not sit and observe from afar, mentally warring with himself, while also berating himself, for not having the balls to ask to join him, or buy him another tea, or inquire as to what he was reading. There were any number of conversational openings, but 24th latte in, he still hadn’t taken any of them. With each passing day the side of him that decided against it (or ‘chickened out’ as the nastier part of his mind supplied) became stronger and stronger. Blue Eyes hadn’t engaged with him either. Maybe he wasn’t gay. Maybe Erik wasn’t his type. Maybe he was already in a relationship. The chances that he was being just as melodramatic as Erik was being in his own head seemed slim. So, Erik continued to act foolish — alternately wondering how long he would continue to do so and how good a kisser Blue Eyes might be with lips like that.

It was on latte #26 that everything changed— no thanks to Erik.

He had decided to sit at a table that day and engage in his usual ‘I’m staring but I’m not staring’ routine. He was in the ‘not-staring’ portion, scrolling through his emails without really paying attention to any of them, when he was startled out of it by the chair across from him suddenly becoming occupied.

Blue Eyes.

“I can’t take it anymore.”

“Wha—”

“You come in here every day. Every day. Sometimes you stay, sometimes you don’t. It’s baffling because there is one thing I know for certain— you hate it here. No, you loathe it. And, there are literally dozens of other coffee houses within walking distance. You clearly don’t belong—” Blue Eyes gestured up and down at what was likely Erik’s three piece suit, then at Plant in general, where there wasn’t a single person so much as sporting dress pants. Erik counted at least two man buns, one head of dreadlocks and a form of baggy pants Erik didn’t even have a name for. “—and I am fascinated by things that don’t belong. Things that don’t make sense. Puzzles. You don’t make sense. There is no way the coffee is that good. And yet, here you are. Oh! Where are my manners? I’m Charles.”

Blue Eyes — no, Charles — extended his hand across the table and, reflexively, Erik took it, shaking it gingerly.

Charles laughed. “I don’t bite. I entirely talk too much, ask anyone, but I don’t bite.”

Erik rather wished that he did.

“How did you— my suit?”

Thankfully, Charles seemed to follow his meaning. “Oh no, the suit is only corroborating evidence. As is the way you look down your nose at everything in here. It’s your mind.” Charles tapped his temple. “Telepath. I swear to you I haven’t dug any deeper than the surface swirl of utter distaste for this establishment. Then I’d know, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t be here asking.”

Telepath. Blue E— Charles was a mutant. Erik was fairly certain his knees went a little weak. Good thing they were sitting. However… what on earth could he say? ‘I’ve essentially been stalking you’ hardly seemed like an opener that was going to get him where he wanted to be. Erik cleared his throat, buying time, as those keen eyes continued to look at him expectantly. While Erik wasn’t verbose, he also never found himself at a loss for words, except for here and now, where the truth was exceptionally embarrassing.

His pause, it seemed, went on too long because Charles jumped back into the fray. “Good lord, I’ve ambushed you, haven’t I? Clearly, you don’t have to answer the mad man who mowed you down on the sidewalk and then ambushed the peaceful solitude of your morning coffee. I apologize and will bugger right off if you tell me to. However, if it helps any, I don’t like it here either. It’s trying too bloody hard to be ‘on trend,’ isn’t it? For a cultural subset who pride themselves on not being pretentious they’ve entirely failed, haven’t they? And, I’m English, I know pretentious.” He laughed self-depreciatingly at that.

A beat for his mind to catch up to the second verbal barrage and Erik finally had a response. “If you like it as little as I do, then why are you here?”

Charles’ mouth formed a perfect little ‘o’ of surprise. He scratched the back of his neck and, for a moment, looked everywhere but Erik. “Blast. I’m caught, aren’t I?”

His cheeks reddened adorably. Since when did Erik find anything adorable? Since now, apparently. This man broke all of his rules.

Charles gave an adorable (christ) little shrug of his shoulders. “I suppose I best come clean.” He looked Erik squarely in the eye. “You’re gorgeous. You bought me tea. I came back thinking I’d ask you out. But you’re so… I lost my nerve. Have been doing the same daily ever since.”

“I’m so… ?”

The cheeks reddened further.

“Entirely too gorgeous for me.” Charles gestured at today’s grandfatherly cardigan. “Besides that—”

“You’re perfect.”

Fucking hell. When had his mind decided to say things without his permission?

It produced another, adorable, surprised little ‘o’. “I’m sorry— What?”

In for a penny…

“I had never set foot in Plant before we crashed into each other. Never would have because I do hate everything about it. Everything except you, who I thought were a regular—”

“I thought you were a regular.”

“— and wanted to ask you out.”

“I’d never been here before ei— you wanted to ask me out?”

They stopped, collective words sinking into respective minds.

Charles threw his head back, laughing. “If I didn’t know better—“ He tapped his temple again. “— I’d think you’re having me on.”

His laughter was infectious and Erik found he was smiling despite himself. He gave his own little shrug. “I don’t lie.”

“No, you don’t, do you? I can’t believe we both—”

“Me either.”

“This is too much. Wait… Why are we still here?”

“I’m sorry?”

Charles leaned forward and plucked Erik’s latte with oat mylk from his hand. “Can I buy you a coffee? A real coffee? Where they know how to spell the word milk? At the cafe I actually frequented before I began co-starring with you in a romcom so terrible my sister wouldn’t even watch it?”

He was already standing up, as if assured Erik would say yes, which every single bone in his body was blaring loudly for him to do. It didn’t seem to matter to any part of him that he would be blowing off work, a thought he discarded as quickly as it appeared. Just another out of character thing to add to the list. He followed. “I’m Erik, by the way.”

Charles looked back, as he collected his belongings, and grinned sheepishly. “I know.”

That was the last time Erik set foot in Plant until exactly a year later. He ordered latte #27 with Blue-Eyed Charles on his arm, after having crossed the street from their apartment, to celebrate their first anniversary. As Charles smiled at him over his Earl Gray with mylk, Erik found he couldn’t quite hate the damned coffee shop as much as he had before.

[wlw-lovestruck-fiction]

Can I request a Viv Tang fic or hc?

It's angst, where The Poppy leaves MC to take the blame on one of their heists, promising that they would break her out, but never did. Yet despite that she never sold them out.

Then Nadia was the one who broke her out, manipulating her and plotting lies in her head to make her join Flashpoint.

The Poppy did do their everything to break MC out but everytime Nadia intercepts them. So when they finally tracked down where MC and Nadia is, on the location of their latest operation, they tried to reason to her. But MC's loyalty was too deep for Nadia maybe because Nadia also made MC think that she loves her or something.

And maybe the last words could be:

"Next time I won't hesitate to tell them to pull the trigger, maybe I'll be the one to pull the trigger myself."

Make it as angsty as possible please and thank you in advance!

Warning: Mentions of murder.

...

Prison life was hell. Try as she might, MC couldn’t endure it as well as she thought she could. There was an enemy in every shadow, in every corner. There was no one to lean against, no support.

The days dragged on and on, virtually endless, no help in sight.

MC remembered the warmth of the Poppy, their joyous celebrations, the life in their eyes as they planned a heist that would ultimately unveil in failure. No one had known then that it would go wrong, and MC couldn’t help but wonder if they would have cared. If they would have changed anything in the plan.

There wasn’t a moment in this damn place where people didn’t shove it in her face—no doubt it was on purpose, why the heck would they want to drag a failure like you around? —and scoffed at her when they saw her, not believing for a second that this scared little kid could belong to such a famous group.

Two weeks in, MC had abandoned any hope that she would be rescued. She was stuck for fifteen years in this place. Investigators would come in periodically, their eyes stone cold as they probed her for answers, but MC kept her mouth shut and looked away. They would get physical sometimes, intent on getting answers, but MC say nothing.

The memory of a place she truly belonged in was still fresh in her mind. She had always been an emotional person… it was no surprise she had no desire to sell them out. At least not yet. Give her a couple of months, and maybe she’d be bitter enough to do it.

Three weeks in, a blast had knocked the whole prison into chaos. The sheer relief that flooded her was only slightly evaporated by the spark of anger and indignation in her chest, but she still hurried out, thirsty for freedom.

She expected to see Vivienne’s impish smirk, hand extended in her direction, no remorse in her eyes, but was surprised by golden hair and a tight, crisp suit that had once been white, now marred by dirt and smoke and blood.

“Oh good, I was wondering how much target practice I would have before you showed up,” the woman said, her grin as sharp as a knife’s edge even though she was standing so casually, as if they weren’t standing at the edge of a broken prison wall but in a café.

MC froze, caught off guard. Someone—another inmate—ran behind her, intent on reaching freedom, and the woman whipped a gun in his direction so fast he didn’t even have time to react. His body joined the pile of bodies by the side, momentum making it flop like a sad, broken doll. The woman hums to herself as she reloads the gun.

“Hurry up, MC, I don’t have all day.”

“Wha—? But you just shot—”

She shrugs, nonchalant. “Yeah, well, since they are no use to me… I might as well practice my aim, no?”

“…I—”

“Hurry up and come here, MC,” the woman says, impatience making her voice firmer and deadlier. Her arm snaps up, the sound of a gunshot making the air vibrate, and MC covers her ears and flinches. Someone lets out a pained gurgle and the thump right behind her makes MC shiver. A swift glance reveals it’s a guard. “The cavalry has arrived—next shot is at your feet if you don’t move. Right. Now.”

MC has never run so fast in her entire life. The woman’s grin returns, pleased, and after one last shot, she guides MC out into a waiting helicopter. They are out of the prison without much trouble. Still a bit anxious, MC takes one of the seats, stiffly. In contrast, the woman lets herself drop in the seat in front of her and all but beams at her.

“Sorry about that—I like to make things dramatic. Name’s Nadia.”

“That was… a tad more dramatic than I would have liked…”

“You’ll get used to it in no time,” she replies, waving her hand as if it’s no big deal. She smirks and lets the gun drop on MC’s lap, who goes very still, staring at the device in horror. “Safety’s on, chill. I’d never do anything to you, MC.”

“You literally threatened me like three seconds ago.”

“Because we were going to get caught otherwise! I wouldn’t have acted on it, promise.”

MC chances a look at her eyes—there’s a dangerous amusement dancing in them, like the light blue of a river that doesn’t seem to have a very strong current until you are swept off into a certain death. There are no second chances with this woman, no false appearances. MC doesn’t realize how reliving this raw honesty is until it washes over her, and she wonders if right now she’s at the edge of the river. One wrong move…

“Thank you for getting me out of there.”

“No big deal. I heard what happened with the Poppy—figures they aren’t as noble as they make everyone believe.”

Those words cut into MC like a frosty knife.

“I… I thought they sent you to break me out…”

Nadia scoffs. “Me, working with stuck-ups like them? Now that’s a good laugh.”

“Why did you bail me out, then?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She leans forward. “The Poppy threw away some very valuable talent. As any proper thief would do, I claimed it for myself.”

“…threw away, huh?”

“They were quite satisfied with themselves, too. Imagine the fit they’ll have when they know you’re with Flashpoint now.”

It’s hard to believe her words. The image of a joyous Poppy is still fresh in MC’s mind, but Nadia’s words tint it a dull reddish-brown, just like a faded photograph. She thinks about Vivienne’s words, about her promise to break her out, and frowns.

“You speak as though I’ve already joined your little group.”

“There’s no other option, MC. I’m not letting a talent like you slip away… plus, don’t you want to get back at them? Show them what a horrible mistake they did?”

“…”

“Or just let them seethe silently in rage, sure. Can’t say I love your approach, but eh.”

Her fingers curl around the grip of the gun. “What happens if I don’t want to work for you?”

Nadia looks at her with keen interest, still with a lazy smirk. “Then you’d be volunteering for target practice.”

“I thought you say you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I don’t hurt my coworkers, no, but if you cross me—whoever you are—then you seal your fate.”

MC hums, looking at the firearm in her lap, moving her thumb over the safety. After a small pause, in which she glances over at the pilot, she moves her hand away.

“Fine. I’ll join.”

“Great!”

Flashpoint, true to its name, prefers more flashy heists.

MC wasn’t too comfortable with their modus operandi at first, but got used to it soon enough.

Nadia was a strict leader. Every conversation with her was intense and dangerous, especially when she was in a bad mood, but she was thorough.

She didn’t mince her words. She was as honest as could be, and after months caught in Vivienne’s game, Nadia was a breath of fresh air. MC couldn’t be really blamed for falling in love with her, right? In the end, Nadia was the only one willing to support her.

That’s why it had been such a surprise when, in the middle of their latest heist, the Poppy had intervened.

They had been as organized as always—Flashpoint was completely caught off guard, the communication lost. MC could deal with not knowing what happened to the rest, so long as she had Nadia with her.

Nadia had been strangely amused when the Poppy crashed their heist, not worried at all, gripping her knife without a care in the world. That was reassuring… at least during this forced encounter, MC would have her by her side.

And it was comforting to see that Nadia hadn’t taken out her gun yet.

Vivienne is the one who speaks, voice as demanding as firewood smoke, and MC goes deadly still when the seductress goes straight to the point instead of dancing around the subject as she usually does. “Nadia prevented us from breaking you out.”

Her words ring hollow. Now that MC has been out of her influence long enough, it’s easy to ignore her words. They are fake, anyway. They must be.

Nadia scoffs, wolfish grin still in place. “Blaming me now, huh? That’s low. I thought you would have come up with a better excuse.”

Remy instantly starts to explain the foiled attempts, and their most recent efforts to find Flashpoint now that MC was with them, but MC can’t look at him without remembering her time in prison—dark, dark, not an ally in sight, contempt in every corner—and it’s enough to make her bristle.

How dare they? How dare they spill these lies after leaving her to rot in jail? After lying to her for months, making her believe she was one of them?

The fact that they had left her to take the fall was insulting. If it had been Nadia, she would have stayed with her. They would have gone down together, guns blazing. Nadia was the type of person that gave everything or nothing at all.

Vivienne tries to speak again, a desperation in her eyes MC had never seen before, but the sight is oddly satisfying.

Nadia catches it, because of course she does, her smirk softening as she reaches for her gun and aims casually. “Better beg for your lives now.”

And Nadia’s also a very dramatic person, that’s for sure. MC almost wants to laugh at their faces, eyes trained on the gun, expression tainted with disbelief, but MC sees no point in killing them. Not like this, at least.

“What? You still don’t want to get back at them?” But even then, even with how much she’s itching to pull the trigger, Nadia lowers the weapon and scowls. “Fine.”

“Don’t come back to me with this bullshit. Next time I won’t hesitate to tell Nadia to pull the trigger. Maybe I’ll even pull the trigger myself.”

Vivienne sets her jaw and stands still, and MC gives her a small, triumphant smile before she follows Nadia out of the museum.

[ootori-sibs]

Winter lodge host club 6

It made no sense whatsoever to go to the town for a second time, but it was a nice day so she supposed it was alright. This time they didn't have to guide the guests around this time, so Haruhi was planning on spending some time with the twins. She'd spoken to them at breakfast and they agreed that they'd run off and grab some snacks before sitting at the nearby park. They'd made their break for it the moment Tamaki had finished his talk about safety- something he had also done the first time they'd been to town, mostly just general safety things but also reminding them of the locals who'd offered to give advice should someone get lost or scared. Haruhi thought that was sweet but the second he finished talking, her and the twins were off running to the nearest store that sold snacks.

Kyoya had decided to once again stay behind, though Tamaki had berated him for being so antisocial. Haruhi couldn't blame either of them, she just worried about his safety a little, at least Antoinette had been left with him, she ought to be able to protect him should the worst happen. So Haruhi was happy not to worry about him in the slightest, just spending time with the twins without a care in the world.

It did get boring just sitting at the park after a while, so they got up and decided to wander around the town for a bit again. The twins wouldn't shut up about people's outfits, bullying them to all hell, but Haruhi had to admit she found it amusing to hear them mock people with no restraint. Any other host would make a sly under the breath comment, or simply not speak at all, but the twins were a law unto themselves.

They bumped into Takashi and Honey again, so walked with them through the candy store, Haruhi's hand brushed Takashi's as they watched Honey go positively feral over all the candies and sweets. She really sympathised with him, it must be hard to keep up with such a high energy guy 24/7, it was hard enough to keep pace with the hosts as is. She would hold hands with him properly if there wasn't a chance the girls could see. They had come up for little chats a few times and Haruhi was happy to entertain the girls for a few minutes.

They stepped out of the store, Honey bouncing around with a huge bag of candy, babbling about everything and nothing. Haruhi noticed that Tamaki was in the next store over, looking over different kinds of coffee. It was a run-of-the-mill grocery store, which struck her as odd because they already had enough food, though she supposed that maybe he just ran out of interesting stores to enter. She points this out to the other hosts, curious, "what's he doing? We already have coffee at the lodge…"

The twins shrug, speaking in unison, "probably getting a gift for Kyoya, he loves coffee that one." They didn't seem bothered by Kyoya's apparent caffeine addiction in the slightest and Haruhi was more than a little worried about it- she remembered when Fiyumi had mentioned that his father had banned him from too much coffee and had to wonder if giving him coffee was inadvertently hurting him.

So they walked into the store, heading over to where Tamaki stood. He appeared to be murmuring to himself, something about Kyoya eating more, and needing to be treated for it- Haruhi found it funny how he treated everyone as if they were a dog, especially on the rewarding good behaviour front. It was incredibly amusing to see Tamaki debate with himself like this and she was about to interject but before they could say anything, he spun around to face them, holding two little bags. "Do you guys think Kyoya would prefer chocolate covered coffee beans or espresso chewys?? I can't decide!"

Haruhi sighed, guess they were doing this now. She looked at the bags, pondering the question for a moment, the twins suggested both, but that literally does not answer Tamaki's question. She thought that maybe he should get the coffee beans, they're more crunchy after all, but they are a higher concentration of caffeine… however, that might also be a plus. "The coffee beans I'd say," she told him, confident that she was correct. Tamaki thoughtfully nodded, putting the chewy bag down- where it was instantly picked up by someone else. They all collectively glanced at this strange, freezing in unison as they did so.

Tamaki was completely frozen, he knew that Haruhi had seen him but he hadn't expected to see the man himself, he heard the twins exclaim something vulgar in surprise, but Tamaki felt unable to speak. Hirano glanced at them, smiling slightly, though it was clearly forced, "oh hello, sorry I didn't notice you, I was completely in a world of my own." He chuckled to himself awkwardly, clearly just as unhappy to see them as they were to see him.

He swallowed his fear, unable to keep himself from thinking about Kyoya in danger, "Mr Hirano…" he gritted his teeth, faking politeness though he knew his seething rage would be clear to his friends, "how are you doing?"

The man, dressed in all black, smiled back, nodding in recognition of Tamaki's question, "well I'm just here because I needed a distraction from the mourning…" he trailed off after the word mourning, which explained the black. But that confused Tamaki slightly, who could he be mourning but Shin? Yet Haruhi said she'd seen Shin the other night…

"Mourning? So did Monsieur Tonnerre shoot your brother after all?"

"What?" Hirano seemed surprised by this, "no, we never found his body… only his clothes…" he took a breath, clearly choking back a son, which Tamaki found odd, "soaked in blood…" no doubt Kyoya's blood, Shin being the horrible beast he was. The clothes thing stood out to Tamaki for some reason, although he wasn't sure why…

Haruhi was frozen, he glanced back to see her standing there, clearly having a bit of an epiphany. A few seconds later and she bolted out of the store, dropping her bags. Tamaki picked the backs up as Mori ran after her, both worried about their little commoner friend. The twins were just looking at Hirano with disdain, clearly not believing a word he said, Honey looked sceptical too. Tamaki supposed he shouldn't be too trusting of the guy whose brother tried to kill Kyoya. He just quietly said his goodbyes to Hirano and ushered the other hosts out of the store.

"What the hell is up with that guy?"

Tamaki sighed, shaking his head, "that doesn't matter, we should just avoid them for now, why don't we go find some of the girls?" He suggested something that might keep the twins entertained, Honey could tag along with him if he wanted. He was worried about Haruhi but didn't want to bother her if she and Mori were about to have a moment, he wasn't going to be that guy.

Finding some of the girls, he quickly got his mind off the issue by entertaining them; asking them questions about what they bought, complementing them, sprouting some nonsense about how beautiful winter is- and it is beautiful, it's positively gorgeous. Now Tamaki's favourite season will always be spring, but his second has to be winter, there's just something about the snow, and cuddling up with a loved one… Kyoya gets so very cold so it's the perfect excuse for some much needed snuggle time. Winter brings out the best in people, even without Christmas to aid in it, there's so much fun, and warmth coming from each and every soul under the cool winter sun. There's nothing Tamaki likes more than watching the snow land on someone's skin, it's just so soft and beautiful, a gentle kiss from nature herself.

So he tells the girls this- omitting the comment about Kyoya of course, and they go crazy for it, sharing their own romantic ideas about winter. He loves hearing how others romanticise things he enjoys, it's such a wonderful thing to hear, everyone has a different kind of poetry in their souls and it feels so enriching to hear how others view the world. Like snowflakes, everyone is completely unique, but since everyone is so beautiful and unique, they all sort of blend into one, a pure blanket of soft snow, but to pause and look closely at an individual, to examine the true self, really makes the entire larger picture so much more worth it- god, he loved metaphors!

Umehito also enjoyed metaphors, he had a poetry book he was reading to the girls. It was gothic poetry, but he made sure to only read the passages that he felt they would enjoy, he didn't want to freak them out at all. He hadn't gotten a chance to speak to Ootori about sending the girls home yet, but he was currently alone with only a couple of guests so Umehito was planning to the moment he finished these poems. He wondered what Ootori would say, hopefully yes.

He wondered if it would be rude to send the girls home early though, he supposed Ootori didn't really give two shots about manners though, considering he'd fed them to the beast. Last time the guests were inconvenienced, Ootori had sent them flowers, so maybe he would simply do that if he did send them home. That sounded like something that the girls would go for.

The poems he read were the most innocent and romantic ones he could find, some featured some children befriending innocent monsters, some featured a woman in love with a ghost- it was really a mashup of pg horror content. Umehito was never one for any sort of flat tales or storybook endings, but the words and metaphors flowed like silk and water, he could tell them a poem that's a metaphor for death and their only response would be to think it's just a vapid rhyme about butterflies.

The girls at Ouran were vapid though, at least most of them were, he knew a few personally that were a little more three dimensional then others; Fujioka for one. She was quite a fun girl, pretending to be a guy was quite an interesting thing for her to have done, and Umehito would love to learn the motive behind that, but he hadn't really talked to her properly before, so he had no clue how that'd even go.

One of the girls had already fallen asleep, her head resting on the lap of the second, who was braiding her hair as she listened to Umehito tell the poems. Nekozawa didn't mind her falling asleep, he didn't take it to mean his poetry reading was boring as most would, he understood that poems were soothing in a way that most other things weren't- why else do people listen to music so much? Both of the girls had brown hair, but the sleeping girl had longer hair than her friend, so Umehito couldn't blame the girl for wanting to braid her friend's hair absentmindedly. They both heard the door upstairs slam open, the girl looked at him in concern, "that didn't sound nice, what do you think happened?"

He shrugged, not wanting to panic her but genuinely not knowing what the noise was other than the door going. "Someone was probably just excited to get back into the warmth, not to worry my dear."

"Don't call me that," her face was now one of disgust, clearly not enjoying Umehito's attempt to charm her like Souh-san would, "it's creepy."

Nekozawa nodded, point taken, he wasn't meaning to scare her, he was doing his best actually. It just so happened that he was a scary guy in general, Reiko wouldn't think he was being creepy, Reiko was his best friend… "my apologies, I won't do it again." Maybe he'd text his fellow club members, let them know he's doing alright. He wondered if they'd be worried about him, he couldn't remember if they'd let him know where he was going… probably not, knowing him.

[a-secret-bolton-vampire]

Young Griff, Part 1: The Pisswater Prince

So, I know I haven't done a super deep dive in a while. I kinda got stuck, then binged Sense8, The OA, The Americans, and Dark. It just got hard to write, and I feel into a bit of depression. But I finally managed to complete this, something I've wanted to write about for a very long time. This is part of the Daenerys essays, but the main focus is not on her, but rather the enigmatic Young Griff who appears in ADWD. As he was never seen on the TV show, we have little to no idea of what his future holds. Personally, of all the characters cut from the show, I most wish they kept Young Griff, because his presence is quite interesting. The fandom (and the in-world characters) are highly skeptical of his identity, and think he is destined for major things in the future of the story.

There is no doubt his existence is tied heavily to Daenerys's storyline, although perhaps not the way that is often recognized. This was originally going to just be one long essay, but I uncovered more and more that I found compelling enough to write, and so it became split into two parts. The first part will be about Aegon's role in the story; his identity, what he represents, why he is here. The second part will be about Aegon's future; his next moves in the Stormlands, possible allies, and how he might meet his end.

The Dubious Prince

What's curious is that apparently, Aegon's return has been considered by GRRM for quite a while. A mere 2 days before the publishing of ASOS, in 2000, GRRM was asked a question by a fan:

Fan: I was wondering if you could answer (or take the "fifth") one teeny little question I've been dying to ask for the past year: Are Aegon and Rhaenys, Elia's children, well and truly dead? GRRM: All I have to say is that there is absolutely no doubt that little Princess Rhaenys was dragged from beneath her father's bed and slain.

And then when ADWD is published in 2011, it is revealed that in fact, Aegon isn't dead, but secretly alive. This is something that was actually rumoured in Westeros, according to this entry of Aegon VI in A World of Ice and Fire app:

Rumors persist, however, that it was not truly Aegon who was killed, but some other infant, and that Aegon has been taken away to safety.

Aegon literally tells Tyrion the story of how he was whisked away to safety:

"That was not me. I told you. That was some tanner's son from Pisswater Bend whose mother died birthing him. His father sold him to Lord Varys for a jug of Arbor gold. He had other sons but had never tasted Arbor gold. Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away."

It's certainly a great story, that Aegon return from the dead, living in Essos waiting for the chance to take back his birthright. The fact Aegon is still alive is truly a miracle... but is he? Is this young boy who purports to be Aegon really Prince Aegon, son of Prince Rhaegar and Princess Elia? One of the most pervasive fan theories is that Aegon isn't a Targaryen at all, but secretly a Blackfyre, descended from the Targaryen bastard Daemon Blackfyre who rebelled and tried to become king (the Blackfyres are still Targaryens but don't tell them that).

It's such a popular theory that it is considered all but canon, as much as R+L=J is. Now, time for me to commit heresy: I do not buy this theory at all.

For those not in the know, some have pointed out potential circumstantial evidence of Aegon being a Blackfyre; he's supported by the Golden Company, a sellsword company that was made for the Blackfyres and ruled by them until Maelys died on the Stepstones. Dany sees a vision of a cloth dragon swaying on a pole in the House of the Undying, as the Undying call her the "slayer of lies". There is mention of Maelys being the end of male line of House Blackfyre, but no mention of what happened to the female line. There is a story about an inn that had a black dragon made of iron symbolizing the Blackfyres, and after Lord Darry (a Targaryen supporter in the Blackfyre rebellions) took it off, cut it apart, and threw it into the river, one piece showed up years later on the Quiet Isle, having reddened with rust (potentially symbolizing a Blackfyre returning disguised as a Targaryen). Illyrio is oddly emotional when talking about Aegon. Plus the entirety of the Pisswater Prince story sounds really out there and unlikely.

At first glance, I found this theory really compelling. There is all this subtext and reading behind the lines that you didn't see before, and on some level it makes some sense. Why introduce another secret Targaryen in book 5 out of 7 (8)? It also fits neatly with another theory I will talk about more in depth later. However, while it isn't a theory I think is necessarily 100% inaccurate and completely out there, I think it doesn't account for alternatives, and ultimately is an unnecessary plot twist.

The support of the Golden Company isn't all that suspect when you consider just what's been happening since Maelys died. The male line of House Blackfyre is over (who knows what happened to the female line), the Blackfyres no longer rule the Golden Company, they are gone. The Golden Company was also founded by Westerosi exiles who fled Westeros and supported the Blackfyres. The fact the Golden Company broke its contract with Myr and that "some contracts are writ in blood" more has to do with the fact that these people are mostly descendants of Westerosi exiles and want to return home. The idea of the Golden Company wasn't really to be a permanent thing, it was meant to be a means through which the Blackfyres had support when they invaded again, and when the Blackfyres were installed, those exiled lords would get their lost lands back.

With the Blackfyre cause gone, the only thing left for the Golden Company is home. And that's exactly what Aegon is giving them, regardless of him being Targaryen. The slayer of lies visions are implying Daenerys is going to be confronting people who are in some way not true. Stannis (who is the first vision) is not Azor Ahai. This probably means that the cloth dragon represents a fake Targaryen, and in comes Aegon, out of nowhere! The first issue I have is that the vision has to be literal. Prophecies are very tricky, and the House of the Undying prophecies are extremely finicky. What does slayer of lies mean? Does it mean she literally kills the lies? Is it more metaphorical that she exposes people to the truth? And if Aegon really is a true Targaryen, then why is he the mummer's dragon and considered a lie to slay?

Disregarding the fact Varys was a mummer and he is working for Aegon, even if Aegon is a Targaryen, it's very obvious that they need to do a lot to convince people he is one. He has to play the part of Rhaegar's son, because everyone thinks he is dead. Meanwhile, Daenerys has to do literally nothing of the sort, because she has dragons. She embodies what it means to be a Targaryen, she is about to embrace her house words. As Illyrio tells Tyrion, Daenerys is a true Targaryen. But Aegon doesn't have dragons, so he needs to play up his Targness in some other way. Rhaegar was called the Last Dragon. Viserys called himself a Dragon. Aegon is about to try to take Rhaegar's place. But neither Rhaegar, Viserys, or Aegon are the Last Dragon; Daenerys is, and the lie is that he is the last dragon, and that Dany's existence itself is the way she slays the lie. As Dany thinks to herself after Viserys dies, "fire cannot kill a dragon".

Look at Aegon being someone piggybacking off words and looks for his claims. Meanwhile, Daenerys has all the proof one needs. I think the vision is much more esoteric than literal. While Varys's story is suspect and even Tyrion finds it unbelievable, it's not entirely impossible. Hell, Mance Rayder climbed the Wall and went to Winterfell in disguise as a bard twice. It makes sense for Varys to take away Aegon and replace him with another child during Robert's rebellion, when things were going badly for the Targaryens and plans had to be made in case the worst came to worst.

Another popular interpretation is that Illyrio and his wife Serra are Aegon's real son, but I find this to be incredibly flawed. Not only does Serra not really look much like a Targaryen (blue eyes instead of purple), but Illyrio's somewhat emotional confession that he can't see Aegon before he drops Tyrion off doesn't mean he is the boys father. The idea that you need to be someones parent in order to have a strong connection completely holds disregard for other kinds of relationships. Aegon is implied to have been raised for at least a bit in Pentos. Illyrio probably felt some affection for him and genuinely enjoyed his company.

To me, however, it's not really the alternative explanations for the evidence of a Blackfyre conspiracy that convince me Aegon is in fact Rhaegar's son. It's rather simple; what's the point of yet another secret identity plot twist? Consider how we meet Aegon. We meet him through Tyrion's POV in his third chapter, under the guise of the son of a sellsword named Griff, called Young Griff, his hair dyed blue in honour of his dead Tyroshi mother. Tyrion is immediately suspicious, but he's not entirely sure what's going on. We then get two more chapters of him aboard the Shy Maid, and during that time we are meant to be a little confused and unsure what is going on. It's a mystery of why Tyrion is on this boat and who these people are.

By the third chapter of Tyrion on the Shy Maid, the mystery is finally lifted, and all is revealed; Griff isn't Griff, he's Jon Connington, an exiled lord thought to have drunken himself to death. And Young Griff isn't his son; he's Prince Rhaegar's son Aegon, who was thought to have been killed by the Mountain in Robert's Rebellion. I think it's important to remember that it isn't just Aegon who is thought to be dead. JonCon is considered dead too! Two dead people aboard a boat plotting to retake Westeros. We already had a mystery handed to us, and the plot twist was already revealed. Another thing to consider is how thematically and symbolically important the journey down the Rhoyne is for Aegon. To me I think it makes a lot of sense for Rhaegar and Elia's son to be on the Rhoyne, especially since there is a lot of evidence that he and Dorne will eventually ally.

It's also important to remember that apart from a very few sly people, Aegon being secretly alive wasn't even a possibility on most peoples radar. It truly was something that came out of nowhere. While that can be used as a marker against him being Rhaegar's son, with the complaints of such a large character being revealed so late with seemingly no forewarning, I think that's honestly sort of the point.

Aegon's existence is already so large of a twist that it feels awkward to then put in another plot twist that he's actually a Blackfyre, something that really only has significance to the people who have read the Dunk & Egg novellas and know the history of Westeros very well. Although not entirely the same, it reminds me of "the Others are actually morally grey/the good guys" theories, which are in a similar vein of "George is always subversive and this is classic George". However, while the text does sort of lend credence to this theory being at the very most plausible, I feel it's ultimately an unnecessary plot twist built upon another seemingly unnecessary plot twist to try to justify his late entry and/or his significance (as can be noted, I detest calling him fAegon). The plot for Aegon isn't to be uncovered as this secret conspiracy of another ultra-double secret identity, it's about what his existence does to change the story.

Young Griff, Daenerys Stormborn, and Jon Snow

A large part of why the Blackfyre conspiracy theory is so popular is that it actually does have a compelling narrative link to the series. It's a simple progression; there are hints at a second Dance of the Dragons, vision of a mummer's dragon, a fake Targaryen, boom, Dany and Aegon fight. Dany thinks her claim is the best, but then someone appears who has an even better claim, and she fights thinking there's no possible way he could be real. It's an easy to follow trajectory. As always, people are welcome to disagree with my interpretation, but I think there is a far better reason for Aegon's role in the story; he's more foreshadowing for R+L=J.

For certain, there's more to him than just that, but I think this is something that simply cannot be ignored. He's another Targaryen. Yeah, it's kind of a meme to say X is a secret Targaryen, but I actually see the logic in why GRRM did this. Jon Snow is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and most likely is a trueborn prince. He is the one destined to have an extremely significant relationship with Daenerys. I plan to eventually write an essay on how R+L=J effects the characters and story by itself, but for preface; I don't buy that R+L=J is there just to make Jon have an identity crisis. Something as significant as that is going to have a lot of consequences and reasons to be around, some more than others. I do think there will be people who will learn the truth and at the very least, some people will believe it.

This is where Aegon's appearance becomes more significant. Here is a Targaryen people had no idea even existed, let alone was still alive. It kinda opens the floodgates for the world to question what is known about Robert's Rebellion. It also serves as precedent for the reveal that Jon Snow reveal. One Targaryen we didn't know existed is suddenly here. Is there another nearby? You can't simplify such a complex plot quite that easily of course, but I think it's significant to think about how the Young Griff twist applies to the story as a whole, and specifically RLJ. George maybe thought of this as the initial purpose for Young Griff, but as per usual, he definitely has other reasons to exist.

In fact, Aegon is a perfect foil for Jon Snow. Both are the son of Rhaegar, both are disguised as someone else, both are thrusted into a leadership position at a young age. However, Jon is unaware of his true parentage, while Aegon is. Jon is reluctant to embrace his identity in general (especially as lord commander) while Aegon is embracing his identity to his fullest extent. In a way, Aegon represents what Jon's life could have become in a parallel world. Instead of being taken as Ned's bastard to Winterfell, he is educated and taught his role and origin in Essos as plotting begins for retaking Westeros. Aegon is literally parallel universe Jon Snow.

Aegon is also a foil for Daenerys (who in turn is a parallel to Jon Snow). Daenerys grew up poor, constantly visiting nobles in the Free Cities but never getting anything in return. She was sold as a marital slave to Drogo. Her brother resented and abused her, and anything she learned she learned from Viserys, who was very unreliable. Yet she climbs up and becomes an incredibly powerful figure, and is now one of the most powerful people in the world. In contrast, Aegon was always protected, given safety, care, education, train at arms. In fact, it might be accurate to say that Aegon is actually spoiled. His interaction with Tyrion while playing cyvasse is a good indication of this. After Tyrion defeats Aegon when he follows the bad advice he gave him (making a point to not always trust people), this happens;

Young Griff jerked to his feet and kicked over the board. Cyvasse pieces flew in all directions, bouncing and rolling across the deck of the Shy Maid. "Pick those up," the boy commanded.

This is quite an extreme reaction. It even reminds Tyrion of Joffrey, and I have to agree this is a very petulant, Joffrey-like outburst. I don't believe Aegon is really anything like Joffrey, but both kids were pretty spoiled and given so much safety and care that when things don't go their way they get upset. Aegon is used to having everything given to him, and Tyrion is the first to show that he won't always win. In contrast, Daenerys has suffered some pretty severe losses; Rhaego, Drogo's khalasar, Drogo, Jorah's betrayal, etc. I have a hard time seeing Daenerys react so badly to this the way Aegon did. It also casts doubt on the speech Varys gave to Kevan as he dies that Aegon was molded to be this perfect king. He may have been raised to be that way, but the opposite might be true instead.

In fact, this might really be the true crux and core of Aegon's storyline. He's touted as the rightful king, this perfect prince who has been taught everything he needs, ready to be this hero who returns to Westeros to reclaim the throne. But Aegon is a deconstruction of that trope. He seems to have everything going for him, and is touted as this great king, but the truth is he remains relatively untested. All the privilege he has been given has only made him spoiled. The game of cyvasse he and Tyrion play is a lot more significant than I think it is given credit for, but that will be saved for part two when I go in depth about his future.

Of course, there has been a lot of pushback against the idea that Aegon is spoiled and that he's no different from Jon and Dany and that it should be expected he react like that to losing cyvasse at his age. While the cyvasse outburst doesn't mean he is going to be evil or anything, I think the context about this is important, and there is a lot more stuff I think hints that Aegon is not really the prince Varys believes him to be. Again, this will be saved for part two.

The Dragons Will Dance Again

In 2003, a fan asked George:

Hi, short question. Will we find out more about the Dance of the Dragons in future books? GRRM: The first dance or the second? The second will be the subject of a book. The first will be mentioned from time to time, I'm sure.

This is further supported by a quote by Teora Toland in the first Arianne sample chapter for TWOW:

"It is dragons." "Dragons?" said her mother. "Teora, don't be mad." "I'm not. They're coming." "How could you possibly know that?" her sister asked, with a note of scorn in her voice. "One of your little dreams?" Teora gave a tiny nod, chin trembling. "They were dancing. In my dream. And everywhere the dragons danced the people died."

The use of the language of dragons dancing is very noteworthy, and when connected with the SSM show in-text hints that a second Dance is indeed going to happen. Various theories include that this refers to Jon vs. Dany, Dany vs. Euron, Dany vs. Aegon, or Jon vs. Aegon. The most common theory in the fandom is Dany vs. Aegon, with Dany believing Aegon to be a fake Targaryen and refusing to acknowledge his claim to the throne. Instead of facing Cersei as in the show, Daenerys will face Aegon.

The extension of this theory is that Dorne will ally with Aegon, with an ambitious Arianne marrying Aegon, and a burnt toast Quentyn showing Daenerys's rejection, turning Dorne against Daenerys. When Daenerys invades Westeros, Aegon is to be the perfect prince while Dany plays the role of the evil Mad King's daughter. In retaliation of Dorne siding with a false Targaryen instead of a true Targaryen, Dany will burn the Water Gardens. On a narrative level it kinda does make a lot of sense. In the first Areo chapter, Doran mentions that the blood oranges are well past ripe. He has waited for his vengeance for 17 years, because he's so careful about the cost, but in the end all that waiting will do him in and the second Daenerys will burn the Water Gardens that were built for the first Daenerys.

There is just a slight problem... someone talked about the theory that Daenerys will burn the Water Gardens in the comment section of a NotABlog post, and GRRM very quickly shut it down by saying "the Water Gardens bit... uh no". Not that we needed GRRM to debunk this tired theory, it didn't make much sense in the first place since the Water Gardens hold no strategic value and burning it would mean Daenerys has to do it for no reason other than needless cruelty.

The bigger issue I have is that of Dany and Aegon even fighting in the first place. Despite everything, what a "second Dance of the Dragons" even means is incredibly vague. A Targaryen succession crisis? A Targ succession crisis leading to war? A Targaryen man fighting a Targaryen woman? Does it need to be on the same scale as the original Dance? We have no context other than this and it could mean literally anything. What's more, there is a very often overlooked SSM that kinda puts the dampers on this theory a bit;

The second Dance of Dragons does not have to mean Dany's invasion. Geroge stopped himself short and said he shouldn't say anymore. The response came because of my question of whether the dance would take place in ADWD because AFFC and ADWD parallel.

We will definitely see more of Aegon in TWOW, and we'll probably get to know him better. I'm not going to argue that Aegon appearing in book 5 of 7 is bad writing, because I don't think it necessarily is. Perhaps he won't be as major a character as the fandom believes him to be. However, if Daenerys and Aegon are going to clash, there needs to be time for the characters to interact and establish any sort of relationship. I think the idea that Dany hears of Aegon's existence and immediately thinks he is a fake and goes to war with him completely disregards both Dany's character and how you establish a tragic event like this.

The first Dance of the Dragons was not something that happened on a whim. It was the result of decades of hatred built towards two factions. They weren't always antagonistic to each other, but as the years passed, the blacks and the greens grew to hate each other more and more and more until it took the death of the king that kept them at bay to start a devastating war. Dany declaring Aegon a fake without ever having met him and going to war with him is incredibly simplistic. Also, think about it from Dany's perspective.

Viserys was an abusive asshole to her, yet she still thinks about him and even feels lonely. It's natural to want to have a family and someone to feel close with. Dany is warned about the mummer's dragon, yes, but she is also lonely and thinks all her family is dead, that she is alone in the world. So what would really happen if she learned Aegon existed? For sure there would be intense skepticism, but I think there is a part of her that will at the very least want to believe it to be true. Daenerys is very ambitious yes, but I don't think she would simply refuse to believe someone is her nephew because that means he has a better claim to the throne.

Besides, kinslaying is a huge taboo, and killing someone who claims to be her nephew without being sure is definitely going to not be the best option in her mind. And also, Aegon hasn't done anything yet to earn Dany's resentment, unlike Viserys. There might be some anger at Illyrio, some serious shock, denial even, but at the end of the day, this is one more family member she didn't know she even had. The show portrayed Jon's parentage as being a bad thing for her since he would have a better claim, but I doubt that will be the first thing on Dany's mind. In fact, she thinks to herself what would happen if Aegon was alive:

Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper's dogs had murdered her brother's son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.

There is a good chance that the emotions she feels when learning about Aegon will be a precursor to the R+L=J reveal with Jon Snow. Just more reason Aegon is a big step towards R+L=J being confirmed.

Although Daenerys is quite ready to leave Slaver's Bay for Westeros at the end of ADWD, Aegon's existence might motivate her to leave even more quickly and solidify her goal to get the Iron Throne. However, I don't think that Aegon is going to become a new main character. His appearance and his actions I feel are more important than his actual character. And hey, maybe the second Dance will involved Daenerys and Aegon, but I think there is enough reason to doubt it.

Next up; the Golden Company landing, Dorne, and Aegon's game of cyvasse, detailed.

[magicflowershop]

one day kitty; Atsumu version

《inspired by movie A Whisker Away》

✿✿ you wished to be with the person you like and wish granted. whiskers, button nose, tail, four legs and ears on top of the head; you turned into a cat. with this, you are given the opportunity to be with the person you want to express your affections to. but as a cat. and only in one day.

― haikyuu characters x cat!reader imagines!

❀ masterlist ❀

the wheel of names have spoken.

you know you hated your housecat the second you laid eyes on it when your mum took it home one day from the shelter, saying it was an abandoned cat

abandoned cat your ass 

that cat stole your body and turned you into a cat

she stole your human identity 

like, girl, wha- the auDACITY for her to have you wake up on her stinky litterbox while she’s havin the time of her life talking to your parents as if you were in that body the entire time

and the audacity of her to go to school and attend your classes, talk to your friends while you’re over there lurking in the shadows, glaring lasers at her from a tree branch

and the absolute audacityyy of her to obviously ogle over a guy from your class when you weren’t even interested in him to begin with

THE NERVE OF IT TO BE ATSUMU MIYA OF ALL PEOPLE

REALLY

why 

why him when he has so many fans and the fact that he’s perpetually ANNOYED by his fans like c’mon????????????????????

IN YOU’RE BODY AT THAT

now you’re just extra helpless bc there’s nothing you can do, you have no idea when you’ll get back to your original body, or if you’re able to get back to your original body at all :O

you also dunno who she made a deal with to get to this point in your lives

all you know is that you had a bad dream that morning, and saw a strange cat sayin you had one day

like what the hell is that supposed to mean

“hey what’re ya doin there?”

o wouldya look at that, a wild Miya twins appeared

you didnt notice that you were taking your sweet time contemplating abt life on that tree that three periods have passed and its now lunch break

the twins happened to see you while they were hanging out outside

so you was just staring at them,,, you had no idea what to do while they were there,,,, but it seemed like they were thinkin of saving you even though you’re not in trouble :v

so you was just starin at them

and they were starin back at you

then they left

LMAO

you were gonna brush this lil interaction off until you arrived,,, i mean your body,,,, i mean your housecat in your body 

then you got incredibly annoyed cause she was doin so hard so hard to get their attention when she ady got it, and Atsumu was as annoyed as you are sksskkd Osamu didn’t care at all so moving on

and now you got even mroe annoyed cause she was ruining your image in front of your classmates like srsly

so you dipped and decided this is all a fever dream and everything will get better tomorrow with you back in your body and with a good reputation in school as if nothing horrible happened, yes? yes :)

“there ya are”

until Atsumu picked you up from the ground while you were stealthily making your great escape,, then he started acting like he was lookin for you outta nowhere

and Osamu was lookin at him like he was insane sjksd but he figured this is a plan of Atsumu’s so he decided to play along and told your housecat (that was the host of your body) to excuse them bc they had a cat to take care of and that its vvvv urgent 

now kitty you is officially adopted by the Miya twins <3

and you didn’t like it one bit HAHAJSJ

you figure this wasnt such a bad thing and you werent allergic to these boys nyway so you let things happen, and let Atsumu scratch the top of your head while they were discussing things about you

:O

they werent talking mad things abt u nonono, they were talkin abt how strange you were acting when you’re literally one of the chill students in school,,, it was as if you were under a spell and suddenly you were in love with them lmao

Osamu proceeds to add the suspicion with the fact that he saw “you” staring at Atsumu during class like someone so lovestruck 

both you and Atsumu got goosebumps couple of the year amirite

so Osamu told him that this could just be a one-time thing (like strange conclusion but go off) and/or that you might’ve just confused him as your first crush lmao Osamu was just confusing himself but he was tryin his best to come up with explanations to ur behavior

so classes begin again,,, now Atsumu still dunno what to do with u ogling at him WHILE THE REAL YOU WAS A CAT WATCHING EVERYTHING FROM A TREE 

you was def ready to throw hands,, but thats a cat and ur against animal cruelty,,,,,,, tho its ur body anyway so whats the diff

meanwhile u coming up with a plan to end your housecat, Atsumu found you sitting on a tree and he was so shocked for his life bc last time he check he put you in a box with kitty snax, inside the gyms storage room, how in the world did you manage to get out from there??

the fake you sees you again while Atsumu was lookin at you from the window, and was enraged bc you’re taking the attention from her... hm

so you decided to face your stupid housecat head-on and get to the bottom of this bs and be grownups tgt bc no way are you just gonna donate your human life to an ungrateful animal

you look for the fake you at the back of the school, and now the Giorno theme is playing in the background sksk

“give me my body back”

“o pls can’t you just give me a one day chance?“

the audacity

“you ady stole it from me and you say this now?”

your housecat was smug enuff to tell you that she had the honors of asking a favor from a spirit cat who was the reason of all this,,, and who has also taken a liking to your human soul

your housecat just sold your human soul to a spirit cat 

so you just flew in the air to scratch your human face, you didn’t care anymore, its your body, whatever, the one experiencing the pain aint u anyway but your bitchy housecat that your mum seemed to have a deeper connection with than her own child

nyway that didn’t last long cause fake you was screaming help, other students found you two, and they got a hold of you while you were in your feral state and now you were terrified of possibly getting into the animal shelter fr,,,, fake you smirked at this possibility

until sum of ur school’s vball bois saw the commotion too and what do u know, Atsumu says that the cat is his and that he apologizes to the ruckus that the cat has done 

then it was your turn to smirk at fake you

so u spend time with Atsumu again for some odd reason that keeps the two of you tgt sweat drops looks away,,, you wonder why your mum’s cat is so attached and/or attracted to Atsumu like this???

you never remember them interacting at all since the very time you see them in the same scene is when you went to have your mum’s cat checked up in the vet and Atsumu was there with their dog too

whats happening

fast forward to dismissal, you’re quite thankful you werent in trouble, same as Atsumu since he managed to tell the other students to not tell anything to the teacher that he has a cat in school kdjsk sum rotten power he holds

but you decided to ditch him again and look for fake you

you found her talking to the spirit cat that she said,, so naturally you demanded said spirit cat to give your body back to you

the spirit cat smiled wider and says that, you haven’t finished your task yet if you want to get back to your original body, you have to wait till midnight

like what in the hell was that supposed to mean, you understood nOTHING

then your housecat goes and says “maybe i should extend my stay in this body, what do you think?”

SIS YOU WENT FERAL there is no way she’s staying in your body while you are sufferin like this, in which you do not deserve. watching your housecat ruin your life like its normal like cmon

“then if you’re gonna stay in my damn body then do it properly! don’t make me look like im a flirt!”

“i was never flirting with anyone!” 

“wdym?! you were staring at my classmate the entire time!”

“what was i supposed to do when its what your body felt like doing?!?!?”

...

w hAt

“what’cha screamin at the cat for, y/n?”

ATSUMU JUST ENTERED THE SCENE AS IF HE WAS INVITED AND PICKED THE CAT UP TRYING TO PROTECT IT AS IF WHAT HE WAS DOING WAS SO HELPFUL

“i’m not y/n”

NOW YOUR HOUSECAT JUST ADDED MORE GAS IN THE FLAME

“i’m y/n’s pet cat, that cat is y/n we switched bodies bc y/n has been neglected by her parents ever since i was taken for adoption... y/n has a crush on you so i just reacted the way her body wanted to react around you so i’m sorry i made you uncomfortable”

you couldn’t take the embarrassment anymore and jumped from Tsumu’s hands and ran your way to your house as fast as you can

you thought abt how stupid that was and how stupid you looked in front of him,, like pointing at a cat saying that thats the real you like who in the heaven’s name would believe bs like that

you were beyond embarrassed that you just want to sink into the ground and just disappear from life rn and never see Atsumu again,,, anyone is fine but Atsumu pls for the love of god

“well ofc its a narrower place”

didn’t you say anyone but Atsumu is fine pls for the love of god

“get outta there, i got yer mask”

he placed a mask beside you, so you chomped on that mask and pulled it out of the bush with you,, you see him there crouching down to your smol height, watching you in concern

you try to take off your mask yourself but it isnt working, you try to push your head to make your actual mask stick to your head but it isn’t working. nothing is working so you started crying in meow

now tsumu is just confused there and asked if he can comfort you,,, you glared at him like he was stupid 

“yer still a girl yknow, i gotta ask for consent”

how sweet 🥺

he started talking abt how he and ur housecat tried to talk it out with the creepy cat to get ur normal life back bc apparently you never wished for a deal with him even tho u desperately hated ur life at home, all in all spirit cat is a big ass scam, while he was unknowingly scratching the top of your head again but moving on

also that your housecat wanted to apologize to you bc she didnt want to take your life away from u, and that she never meant to hurt your feelings while running his hand down to your back and forgetting that you aren’t a real cat but again moving on

“is, is it true tho?”

?

“ya like me?”

dumass rly asked that while ur a cat lol 

“it’s a meow for me”

smoke escaped your nostrils like a bull, the stupid spirit cat was playin games withcha since he ady got exposed for his scams >:O

“ya just spoke”

you left Atsumu there with the mask between your teeths, dragging yourself back home, expecting to probably go back to normal once you wake up,,, but you have your mask back now hm

“don’tcha want sum help?”

k ykno he’s annoying when he wants to be but he literally had no reason to be annoying know i mean pls

“sure i like u it doesn’t m-”

you’re back to normal

“matter”

but wearing what you wore when you went to bed last night, in pajamas with no footwear, on the cold asphalt ground, blushing like a fool out of even more embarrassment, cursing at the spirit cat sum more from the back of your mind

that cat had no right to play match-maker after all that, even if he knew that Atsumu will naturally bring you hope since its night and give you a piggy-back ride since you had no slip-ons, asking for consent as well mind you

no right at all

stay tuned for more!

[masked-buffoon]

Chapter 11: Behind the scenes (Part 5)

Warnings: torture

Author notes: a part longer than the others, with a lot of... Eh... Dialogue. Hope you’ll like it! ;)

Kunikida and I sighed, exhausted by the situation. The illusionist had jumped in front of a moving train and had, obviously, not survived. He had revealed us rather important information about the Taikin family but, soon after, had given up on life for a reason we could not comprehend. Unless he had been threatened… Then, by who?

"This is getting annoying and nerve-wracking." My coworker let himself fall into a sofa, back in the mansion.

"We can't give up now, we have to find Yumiko-san's route with these videos…" I murmured, focused "Dazai, how was it with the servants?"

"Well~" He hummed, sitting next to me "I haven't found anything for the moment, but there are so many people, it's quite a hard job~ Couldn't you scan the entire place thanks to your ability, Ogawa~?"

"... You know that, were I to do that, I would collapse, don't you…? And I can't afford it, not when that case needs to be closed for the sake of innocent kids…!"

"You can rely on me — on us — for the rest if you need to, Ogawa." He assured "Just find the mentalist here, and get some sleep…"

"You always slack off…"

"Even she noticed it." Kunikida commented "She's right, we need her awake for the moment."

"But Yumiko-san's whereabouts are unknown because of that." Dazai defended "Not to mention Sakunosuke-kun could have been sold overseas for all we know…"

"He is still in Japan, you know that too…" I looked up at my friend, tiredly "Don't pretend you truly care about the case… You don't give a damn about that family…"

"Do you?"

"Not a chance." I smirked "I just want to protect two children and put in jail whoever needs to go there."

"... You don't actually mean it, do you…?" Our blond colleague frowned.

"I'm not a liar. I'll find the mentalist and interrogate them. You and Dazai work on the videos for now, we'll improvise afterwards." I said and stood up from my chair.

"But, Ogawa —"

"Let her go." Dazai prevented him from stopping me "Do what you do best, Ogawa."

"Indeed. Interrogating." I chuckled "Leave it to me."

I headed upstairs, towards the servants' quarters. At such a tardy hour, they had all gone to sleep, but, even so, lingering thoughts remained in their brains. From them originated dreams, another form of people's inner desires, albeit more… Fanciful. If anyone had thought about mentalism, it would show immediately. Quietly, I sat down in the middle of the corridor and closed my eyes to concentrate on the whispers coming to my mind uninvited. Chimeric images invaded my own thoughts, visions of whimsical worlds mixing up together. Something about mentalism… Anything related to hypnotism…

I found my culprit the moment a dream about illusions made its way to my brain. Immediately, I spotted the room where its owner was sleeping. As quietly as usual, I sneaked inside and identified the servant. It was a young maid, perhaps in her twenties. She slept so soundly that she would never notice if I were to smother her with a pillow. She would simply be put to sleep… Forever… No, I could not afford to do that. The information she could provide me was far more important than my anger against her. Even so, I did not use any delicacy as I woke her up and covered her mouth to stop her from screaming. With a clear gesture, I demanded her to follow me out of the room. She immediately complied, feared for her life. And I brought her back to the dining room.

"You were fast." Dazai noted, arms crossed and back against the chair.

"But I'm completely done for…" I groaned, shoving the maid toward him "After that, I'm going to sleep."

"Well, I'll let you interrogate her, then." He shrugged.

Kunikida only stared at me with a strange look. In his eyes, I could see a mix of disapproval and apprehension. Or was it fear…? And was it a tint of curiosity there…? I grinned slightly. It had been a while since I had last sat in front of someone to question them. I brought her to an empty room nearby.

"What do you want from me…?" She asked, completely panicked.

"Quiet." I ordered "I'm the one who asks questions here. And, oh, don't even think about using hypnotism on me, it doesn't work."

"I-I don't know… What you're talking about…"

I exhaled and closed the door, before tying her to the chair with a rope I had taken with me earlier.

"No use lying to me either. I'm basically a lie detector." I warned her "So I advise you speak up quickly. Where is Yumiko-san?"

"I don't know…"

"Alright, suppose you don't know. What's your name?"

"M-My… Name…? It's Isobe… Isobe Hanako..." She stuttered.

"Cute." I commented "Give me a minute, will you? I'll be right back."

With a smile, I left her in the room to walk back to the detectives. There, I grabbed Kunikida's computer.

"Hey, what —"

"I only need a minute." I typed quickly "All done, thanks."

"Ogawa… No need to go too far." Dazai told me.

"You know I hate cleaning blood…" I answered simply.

When I went back to Isobe Hanako, she still had a terrified look in her eyes. Calmly, I sat in front of her and scrutinised her face.

"Mmh… You don't look like a bad girl. I still can't believe you did that…"

"Did what…?"

"Harassed that poor girl until she committed suicide. You weren't alone, your friends in high school pretty much participated too, but you were the perpetrator, weren't you? The leader. The one behind the attacks." I crossed my legs to be more comfortable "What did she do to you, I wonder… Stealing your boyfriend? Getting better grades than you? Being more… Appreciated than you? Being more beautiful than you? So, what did she do to you?"

"How do you… How do you know that…?" She started crying.

"I'm well-informed. Now, if you don't want the world to know about the girl who mysteriously disappeared after making a classmate die, if you want to keep living quietly, without any troubles, it's easy. You can just answer my questions."

"No… I can't…"

I got closer to her so I could grip her shoulders tightly.

"My… You don't seem to understand… Very well, then. I will sell the news of your position to the media. And…" I lowered my voice "I will find dirt about your entire family. None of you will be able to survive the disaster coming to you and that is your fault. But don't worry… None of you will die… I'll only make sure that your life becomes a literal hell."

"No! Not my family…" She sobbed "Leave mom and dad alone… I'll talk okay? I'll tell you what you want to know, so leave them alone…!"

"That's a good girl." I smiled at her "Now… Where is Yumiko-san and why did you put her under hypnosis?"

"I… I don't know… Where she is… She… Went to find her son..."

"Oh…"

Swiftly, I grabbed one of her fingers and broke it. She screamed in pain.

"Needless to say, I hate lies." I shrugged it off "So?"

"You're a monster…" She hiccuped as tears ran onto her face.

"It's up to you whether you talk to me or lie to me. I'm not a monster, you're just quite stubborn. Hurry now, I don't have all night. I'd like some sleep too, you know."

"I… She… I received an order… I had to make her kill the mentalist Nazo Eita… I just told her… 'Kill Nazo Eita'... She went out and… She must be in Kabukichō…"

"Thanks." I took notes "Who gave you that order?"

"I don't know…"

I broke a second finger.

"Who gave you that order?" I repeated, without losing composure.

"His brother…!" She finally revealed "He's my teacher…! Please! Stop hurting me!"

"His brother… Oh… I see… It was the third one, Nozaki the Grand. Now you say so, he did change a bit his last name to create a whole new one…" I snickered "Smart… And he had his brother killed… Why would he use Yumiko-san for that, though…?"

"I can't say…"

"It seems you don't care about your fingers…" I sighed and reached for her hand "Are you sure about your answer?"

"S-She's the perfect… Culprit…" Her voice shook "Even if sh-she's arrested, Taikin-san won't be bothered… She's just a pawn…"

"Ah… I think I understand now… Thank you for your answer." I let go of her finger.

"Is… Is it over now…?"

"You're going to resign from this job." I stated "And you'll live far, far from that mansion."

"I… I can't…! That's my job…!"

"It's fine with me, then. Then, I'll have you arrested."

"W-Wait —"

I pulled out a gun and knocked her out with the pommel. She did not deserve that I wasted a single bullet for her. A dog who bit its master… It was useless. And it angered me.

"Make her sign a complete confession when she wakes up." I asked my coworkers "She's the one who ordered Yumiko-san to kill Nazo-san. He was pushed under the train. That maid obeyed the third mentalist of the list, Nozaki the Grand, who is none other than Nazo-san's brother. They worked together for the Taikin family."

"Ten minutes…" Dazai checked the time "You're getting rusty~"

"I only had a minute to look for information, after all. Had I had a complete file about her, it would have been much easier." I put my head on the table.

"She's… Asleep…?" Kunikida raised an eyebrow.

"Knocked out. Nothing too bad. We may need to call Yosano-sensei for her fingers, too." I mumbled.

"Violence? Truly, Ogawa, your skills are decreasing~" My friend laughed.

"Not at all…" I cracked a smile "It's just hard without information."

"Wait a minute… How can you two joke about that…?!" Our bespectacled colleague sounded upset "You basically tortured the poor girl, that's not interrogating…!"

Upon seeing my face, he quickly headed inside the other room, from where we heard a shocked gasp. His steps were quick to bring him back.

"You destroyed her hand…! And her face…!"

"Kunikida… I broke two fingers and punched her jaw… Don't exaggerate…" I rolled my eyes.

"If she even has a trace of psychological issues after that, I swear, you will not join the Agency, unless you step on my dead body…!" He menaced.

I immediately sat up, then clicked my tongue. The Agency… For a moment, most certainly due to exhaustion, I had forgotten about the rules of this world. Could I not interrogate someone normally…? Negotiating with them, instead of threatening them…?

"She won't have side effects… I don't think she will… I mean… I went pretty easy on her…"

I had the terrible feeling that I was worsening the situation instead of helping it.

"Easy…? For goodness' sake, Ogawa…! She's disfigured…! And her cheeks are still stained by tears, what did you tell her…?!" He argued.

"Fine! Fine…"

I fidgeted with my fingers.

"I… Did forget myself and use methods from underground organisations…" I admitted.

"Goddammit, you —"

"Calm down now." Dazai stopped the detective from grabbing my collar "It's done, now. It is true that the method was… Doubtful, but, at the very least, we have a confession. Besides, for knowing her, Ogawa did go easy on her, don't worry."

"I don't care what 'easy' means to you, but that girl… She'll be traumatised…! How do you prevent that, eh…?!"

"Why… People feared retribution too much and were too grateful to be left alive to really care…" I recalled "But you know… Usually… We just killed them…"

"And how am I supposed to react to that…?" He breathed out "I can't even believe I started trusting you…! You and I… We have nothing in common…! You can never belong to the Armed Detective Agency!"

I stood up and grabbed my coat to take my leave. That was my mistake. I had failed.

"Don't you want to sleep before going?" Dazai suggested.

"It's fine…" I assured him "I'm an idiot for letting my only chance to live slip through my fingers, anyway…"

I then turned toward them to offer them my brightest smile.

"Thank you for allowing me to try. Now, I know I can never reach that world you live in. It was very fun, these days with you…!" I waved at them.

I could see Dazai did not like that I had given up so easily. However, there was no way I could work righteously and save that family… They would have to try without me. And I… I would go back to my home.

[ava-jones]

Practice Challenge. Part 1

“Fuck him! Fuck his shitty new album! Fuck his ‘playboy’ reputation! I’m not going to lie about my life to fix a shitty situation he put himself in!” Ava screamed in the hallway a few feet down from her agents office. 

“Babe it’s not like I’m asking you to get married. Just go on a few photo-opt dates, then after Ethan’s album has been out for a few months you can quietly call it off.” Carolyn, the publicist being berated, argued. 

“That’s exactly the problem! It’s not like he’s some dude I’m actually interested in long term. I. don’t. Like. lying.” Ava huffed and leaned against the wall crossing her arms and glaring at Carolyn. 

“Don’t think of it as lying just as acting.” She tried to purswade. 

Ava just glared and chewed on the inside of her cheek as she tried to find some way to get out of this. 

“Common Ava, remember what I said to you when you were a kid, ‘sometimes you have to bend a little.’” She pressured. 

“Bend a little! I moved to Angeles! I changed my name! I rewrote Heart Full of Scars! I did your playboy magazine! I’ve done every single thing that you’ve told me too!” She screamed now getting some looks from other agents. One of them would likely let this outburst slip out soon, another ‘snobby two throwing a tantrum’ she could already see the headlines “Has Ava Jones gotten too used to the rich life? Illeans sweetheart has rotted.’ Probably something shorter but that was why Ava was not a journalist.

“You absolutely have not! You turned down the chance to speak with Scooter Burnt on his show! You barely got to the playboy thing and I had to convince you for days before you’d go! You’ve refused modeling opportunities and went against me and released ‘Do You’!” 

“And it fucking slaps! It got us 65.2 million views within 24 hours! Sometimes you’re wrong!” She yelled and turned to leave. 

“Where are you going?” Carolyn asked, running after her. 

“Home.” She huffed and put her hands in her pockets turning to take the stairs out. 

“Angeles or Sumner?” 

“Sumner!” She yelled back as Carolyn started falling behind. 

“For how long?” 

“Till you get me out of this mess!” She yelled back, turning the corner to the front door of her agents studio. Suddenly he bombarded her. 

“Please wait! Ava!” Ethan yelled chasing after her before grabbing her arm. 

She spun on him, “What! You tricked me into thinking we were friends then told the press I slept with you, why do you think I should give you another second of my time?” 

“Don’t you want to?” He asked with a raised eyebrow more than a little to calm for Ava’s anger.

“To what?” She asked, genuinely confused.

“Sleep with me?” 

Suddenly, Ethan wasn’t smiling anymore, in fact he was on the ground, a red slap mark across his face, security moving to stop Ava but hesitating, they wouldn't want to hurt Illea’s darling. 

“You whore!” Ethan yelled and lunged at her, the guards were much less hesitant with him. After all he was a has-been lunging at a will-always-be. Suddenly the door to the building swung open, the guards stopped, Ethan stood quickly and wrapped a hand around Ava’s waist. As much as she wanted to shove him off and make the sides of his face symmetrical she didn’t want to deal with even more bad press.  

He leaned down to her ear, “behave or I will fucking destroy you.” he whispered. 

“Yeah right, like you can.” She grumbled back through gritted teeth as a paparazzi tried to act hidden, wandering around like he was looking for a room as he held a camera close to his body, attempting to keep it under his bag. 

“Calm down, sweetheart. You’re the one escalating this.” He whispered as they shuffled together to the door trying to make their way out to their private parking deck. Ava quickly scanned her ID for the building and they slipped out of sight. 

As soon as the door closed behind them she shoved him off and down to the ground, “Never touch me again. I’m not the one escalating this, you’re the one who told the press I was ‘cute’ in bed, what the hell does that even mean? I am reacting. I am allowed to react to you being the shittiest person alive,” She rushed to her car and pulled away. 

She was never supposed to drive herself, just like she wasn’t supposed to hit other celebrities, or yell in hallways, or put up a fight. But lately she was feeling so tired. 

She pulled into an empty church parking lot and sat there for a moment, the air conditioning on as cold as possible, and she almost let it out. She almost let her lips quiver, she almost felt her tears pouring over, she almost called her Carolyn and pleaded for ‘out’. Out of singing, out of performances, out of autographs, out of stalkers, out of lies, out of men thinking that because she is a she in a position of power they can take it from her. Out of letting them. 

But, she didn't. She held onto her steering wheel, she popped open her glove compartment and took out a small cigarette box. Of course she would never risk hurting her voice. Instead inside was a picture of herself as a young girl with a boy. The two of them were about thirteen, they were having a picnic on a farm, drinking sparkling apple juice out of two champagne flutes, feeling so adult. Inside there was a small swatch of fabric. She held it closed and breathed it in, and the warmth took over and she was okay. 

She picked up her phone and called one of her top numbers, “Hey Ms. Rosado! I’m coming home for a while tonight. Do you mind if I swing by the house?” 

“Of course not! You know you’re welcome any time, baby.” The now elderly woman eased. 

****************************************************************

Sumner was always Ava’s heaven. It’s where she wasn’t Ava Jones at all. She was Avery Jacoby. Her family was from very rural Sumner. There were about 800 people in her town, mostly fours and lower. Her family had been fours for years until she bought their way into the two castes. The Rosado’s were a family of sevens who worked on their poultry farm. Angeles was loud, full of screaming cars, and people. All she had to hear at home was the chickens and cows. She pulled up on the dirt road which led not to her house, but to the Rosados. It had been un-lived in for the last six years. 

Untouched, Ms. Rosado couldn’t be in it anymore so she had moved in with Ava’s family. She couldn’t stand the silence, where her little boy had once run around with Ava, playing monsters vs heroes. Hearing Michael play guitar along with Ava’s singing. It made her think of his body, falling to the ground, the final seizure taking him at fifteen, it lasted for eight minutes before he passed on. 

Ava laid down in his childhood bed. Her best friend, her soul mate's bed. His smell surrounded her as she looked up at the stars painted on his ceiling, “Mike.” She called out softly covering her eyes with her arm. She knew he couldn't see her. She didn’t believe in all that “they’re watching from above shit. Why would he waste his time in heaven on that. 

“I don’t want this anymore.” She breathed out. 

“But I’m not giving up on us. We said it, we were gonna make it one day, you’re the asshole who made me promise I wouldn’t give up no matter what. Well now what? I’ve made it I think, but there always seems to be more to do. When is it enough? I need you to tell me. Why were you so shitty with your deathbed wishes. What does it even mean? Make it to your debut album? Check. Make it to your first sold out concert? Check! Have billions of fans worldwide? Done and done. But now what do you want me to become a triple threat take on acting and modeling? Do you want me to keep performing? I did all this for you after all! Pretty rude of you to leave me hanging here!” 

“Well do you still like singing?” She shot up at the response. Not from some magical ghost but from her younger sister, Katy.

“What are you doing here?” She asked defensively about her sister's eavesdropping. 

“Aitana said you were stopping by. I figured you needed saving before you turned into-” she paused and gestured to her sister, a crying mess in a child’s bed, “-that.” 

She paused for a moment and sat down next to her, “you know, we’d never want for money again. You’ve made enough for us and ms. Rosado to live like kings for the rest of our lives. Probably your kids too and grandkids. You don’t have to keep doing this, that is, if you don’t like it.” 

Ava sighed looking back up to the painted night sky, “I love singing, I’ll always love singing.” She mumbled. 

“But?”

“But, I hate the performing, I hate being watched, I hate being told who to date, who to talk to, what to wear, what I’m permitted to eat, how much to work out, scripted for in interviews.” 

Katy made a dramatic gasp, “Scripted? You? I thought you just really loved Nike shoes all the sudden.” she joked. 

Ava couldn’t help but laugh and lightly hit her arm. “You bitch, I worked hard to deliver those lines.” She grinned ear to ear. Being apart from Katy was one of the worst things about being in Angeles. 

“Seriously though, you look like shit. You don’t seem happy anymore. You know he wouldn’t want this. He didn’t care about fame he just thought it was what you wanted and wanted you to be happy. Clearly, you’re not, so quit.” She sighed before standing up. “It’s simple, just stop working.” She stood up. 

“You didn’t know him like I did.” Ava mumbled looking down at her hands, knowing her sister was right, but also remembering his eyes and how they lit up dreaming about their future together. 

“Whatever, I’m not going to argue with you about that. Mama’s making stew for dinner, we have to get back before she gives it to the pigs.”

*******************************************************************************************

A few weeks passed on missed calls, then a few months of avoided visits. The press panicked for a moment that Ava hadn’t been literally seen in awhile, but Carolyn released a statement that she was taking a vacation, fortunately for them the present is planned in the past so Carolyn had plenty of unreleased photos to put out, and even a few unreleased songs which she had previously called, “garbage” but was turning to in desperation.

Ava felt clean. She felt safe in the hills of Sumner, the sun healed her, her family was close, and the world was quiet. Until the letter came, then Katy was screaming. 

“Our selection letters came!” 

“Our what came?” I asked munching on my bowl of corn flakes. 

“Selection, duh- oh right you’re doing that “off the grid or social media cleanse.’” She said doing air quotes.

“How very Angeles of you.” My mom chimed in. 

“I’m not trying to be hip, I'm just taking a break!” I defended myself. 

“Well- to fill you in, Prince Arin is holding a selection! I thought he never would since he and that chick seemed so close to getting married. They were even engaged three months ago.” She gushed. The cereal fell off my spoon, 

“Months?” 

Katy looked confused for a moment, “Yeah months, not every mourns for years.” 

“Yeah no. No way in hell is he over that. He’s looking for a royal rebound.” I chuckled and went back to my food. 

“So you’re not going to apply?” 

“No I’m not going to apply, and you shouldn’t either. You’ll get your heart broken joining that.” 

“Well maybe I’m not going in it for my heart.” She replied. 

“What? Have I not been giving you enough money?” 

“More like there aren’t enough men in this town. I’m itching to have some fun.” She complained. 

“And I’m out!” Our mom said rushing off as Katy began to complain about how dry her sex life had been lately. 

“Well, I’m taking the drive to the post office this afternoon. Decide if you want to join by then.” 

“I’ve decided, no thanks.” 

A few hours later Ava sat in bed reading one of her old favorite books, she was enjoying some peace until her phone was buzzing over and over again in her drawer. She would shut it off but it was a burner phone that Carolyn had given her. It was an ‘when you want to get off the grid but I still need to reach you for an emergency phone.’ She groaned and pulled it out, 

“You better be dying.” 

“No but I’m going to put you in your grave if you don’t come back here and participate in the selection.” 

“Nope sorry I told you, I’m home until I say so. If that’s all I’ll see you someda-”

“I’ll let you out of your contract with Rainbow Companion Records!” Ava bit her bottom lip. RCR had signed her when she was just fifteen. She didn’t know better so she agreed to a 10 year lease with them. Getting out would really help her quit.

“Why would you do that?” She asked, there would be no advantage for Carolyn. Everyone was playing a game with each other at this level and she needed to know her angle. 

“You’re not going to quit. I’ve known you for years, you’ll take a break but ultimately come back. People like yo- like us are simple, we need the attention. After a while you’ll ask them to take you back. I know you’re too stubborn to accept that that’s what will happen, so you’ll agree to this because you want to ‘quit’ right now. It’s happened to so many of my clients.” She explained being shockingly transparent. 

“You really don’t know me at all.” She mumbled and thought for a moment. She was afraid, afraid that what Carolyn said was true. That she’d miss all that noise. But if it wasn’t she’d finally be free.” 

“What if I don’t get in?” Ava asked, needing to know the details. 

“Sweetheart, if you want it you’re as good as already in. I know people.”

“Okay I’ll do it.” 

“Great! I’ll send someone over in three days to fill out your appli-” She shut the phone. ‘No way in hell someone is doing that for me.’ 

“Katy! Do you have my letter?” She yelled in the hallway. 

*******************************************************

Just like that, Angeles flew in and popped my bubble. "We've hired some good photographers and journalists to wait at the airport. Just smile and say you're excited. I've also got some new sponsors for you, RCR really fucked me over on those negotiations so we need a bit more big billion bucks." Carolyn said as Aileen, my makeup artist, worked on lining my lips. 

Carolyn pulled a paper out of her purse and handed it over to her, mostly it was a list of brands with a few lines they wanted her to say, nothing unusual. She normally put up a fight over promotional work but if it was her ticket to a life without lying and screaming, she’d take it. 

“Now I set up the studio for that song that you sent me. It’s going to be a hit! We’ll release it a few hours before the selected announcements come out so the popularity boost from being announced on national television will bring everyone, even people who aren’t your fans, to your new video.” She explained. 

As soon as Ava’s jet landed in Angeles it was back to her old life. Back to the quick interview, “I was taking a break to be with family but I’m back now better than ever.” with a few ads thrown in there for the money. 

The night of the announcement she laid in the bath. She normally hated how alone she was in her Angeles apartment, but being able to bathe in peace was a nice perk. She pulled up the count down for her own video and waited. She didn’t like to watch them until they were released. In the past she had tried to help with the editing process but she was apparently too much of a backseat driver. She just had to trust that Jack knew her vision and would stick to it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyFiWkmkexI

She had decided to write this mostly due to her pure rage at Ethan, her director went a little off though making it into a whole scheming theme but overall she was satisfied. Next she switched to the channel with the selected announcement and waited. One named caught her eye ‘Emily Rose White’. She groaned and pulled up her phone, 

“You told her I was joining?”

“No that must have been actual luck, or she just wants to compete.” Carolyn responded. 

**************************************************

[sdra2writer-imaginesandhcs]

Sora x Syobai one shot please? I love your writing uwu.

Anon, can I say how much I ship these two? I low-key ship them a lot. Like, “I save all of their fanarts from Twitter” a lot. Most of their conversations are based on Syobai’s FTEs, in case you recognise these lines. I just changed it up a bit.

Also, I’m very flattered by what you said about my writing! I couldn’t help but smile very widely😊. I guess those nights I stayed awake until 3am really payed off!

How did we end up like this?(Sora x Syobai)

“Mr. Hashimoto!” Sora shouted the broker’s name as she runs after him.

Syobai tries his hardest to avoid the white-hair calling him, but Sora was able to catch up to him.

He shots her a dirty glare. “What do you want now?”

Sora panted, “Hashimoto, I have the 1000 monocrow coins”. Sora shows him her amount.

“Remember our deal?” Syobai recalls yesterday’s conversation with Sora.

“Deal accepted. I’ll talk to you for 10 minutes for 1000C”

“However, I can’t talk about anything over that price. Even this, I’m offering you a lot of service, since I’m using my time.”

“As expected, you’re a calculating person, Hashimoto.”

“Happy? Now scram. Since I didn’t receive any money today, there’s nothing else I can tell you”

Syobai groans in frustration. He now questioning himself, why did he even agree to this? At least he’ll get something from it.

“You didn’t gather money by doing something fishy, didn’t you? If that’s the case, quit it. You won’t gain anything by getting money like that”

Sora smirks at the grey-haired man, “Are you worrying about me? You’re more kind than I thought”

Syobai tensed up a little. There’s no way he’s being kind to anyone. Not even a single being can make him feel sincerity for them, “Shut up and state your business. What kind of consultation do you want today?”

Sora tucks a small piece of her behind her ear, “Actually, it’s not really a consultation, I want to know more about you”

“…..What?” Syobai was very confused. Why would Sora talk to the guy that stabbed her? That doesn’t make sense.

“Because we’re classmates” Sora finished her explanation. Is that even a good reason for her to talk to him? To get to know about his dark past?

“We’re nothing like….” he paused for a small moment because he remember he was given 1000C for a 10 minute talk.

He shakes his head, “Nah, since I received money, I lost. So, what do you want to know about me?”

Sora shots a curious look at the broker, “How do you spend money?”

Really? She’s really interested in that topic? Syobai doesn’t really believe that she’s interested on how he works, but it’s not bad to share a story or two. Right?

Syobai laughs, “What? You’re interested in that stuff?”

Sora nods her head as she started listening to Syobai, “Yes, it’s more important to know how to spend money than earn money”

“This is a huge topic, so I’ll tell you slowly later on. Fat chance I’ll tell you with only this amount of money.” He turns his head away from Sora as he cautions her.

Then, he started telling her stories of his dealers and what deals they made.

The broker noticed that 10 minutes already passed by, “Well, times up. This is it for today. Do you want an extension?”

“Probably next time” Sora declined his question. As Sora left Syobai alone, she felt really proud. She actually had a conversation with Syobai Hashimoto, the ultimate broker, and the biggest bastard in this island, but she doesn’t mind talking to him now. She had a fun time anyways.

****************************

A few days has past by. The two got closer, but their deal wasn’t off the hook.

The other day, Syobai was making a proposal on making Sora his assistant, but she refused. He gave her his business card anyways just in case she reconsiders.

Sora didn’t want to work for him, but she still planned to keep the card hidden in her room just in case she becomes interested. After all, he did say that he trusts her now.

Syobai has to admit, but he would be very lucky to have her as his assistant. It would be a big advantage for his business. He thought to himself that maybe Sora isn’t an annoying person after all.

Then the next day after that, he started persuading her to work under him.

It just made Sora confused. First, he tells her to go away and never talk to him, but now, he’s interested for her to become his assistant. Even if Syobai used soothing words and convincing proposals, Sora still refuses to work for him.

But today was different, Syobai suddenly brought Sora to his room. When Sora entered his room, she saw many guns on the walls, many storages that probably has drugs, and coins scattered on the floor. She didn’t really mind the dangerous room atmosphere in his room though.

After Syobai offered her to take a seat, Sora started getting curious in why did he invite her to his room, “What is it? This feels so sudden.”

“Just shut up and listen.” Sora just shrugged and decided to not question it anymore. The good part is that he did invite her to his room. So, that’s a good start to becoming friends.

“It’s a story about some low-life trash scum. The oldest scenery he can remember is an unfamiliar crossroad in a Southeast Asia. He was on a trip with his parents……”

“That’s what he thought.” Now, Sora is invested in what Syobai is saying. She’s now wondering who that person he’s talking about.

“But his parents were nowhere to be found. He looked for his parents, until he was caught by a couple street thugs. Was at the brink of being sold as a slave. Instinctively realising this was not a matter of his parents, but his own life and death, he ran away without a second thought, and at this unfamiliar road in an unfamiliar country, he had to survive with no food or shelter.” As Sora absorbs more information about the child in the story, she’s starting to realise who that person is.

“He needed money first. Without money, you can’t do anything. He did whatever he could. If it could get him another penny, he would even eat someone’s shit.” It’s kinda sounded funny when he said that, but not in Sora’s matter. Instead, she’s starting to understand Syobai more.

“But how much can a scrawny kid earn? He knew this he was gonna die soon if something didn’t happen. So that’s when when he started touching the bigger earnings.”

“Bigger earning?” Sora questions Syobai.

“Well, stuff that I’m doing, but more beginner stuff.” Syobai answers her question.

“And that’s when he realised that he had talent.” Yep, this is the only thing Sora needed to confirm who he is talking about.

“Hashimoto, is the boy in the story you?”

Syobai never thought that someone could figure out that boy in that story was himself, and it had to be Sora who figured it out. Heck, for some reason, he trusted her even though he told himself not to get close to anyone. Well, she was more intelligent than he thought, which impressed him a lot.

But he didn’t want confirm that he’s the boy in the story, “Who knows. I’ll leave it to your imagination. You can believe it whichever way you want.”

“Know what, times up. It’s time for you to go.” He started pushing Sora to the exit of his room.

“Don’t give me money or get in involved with me from now on.”

Sora didn’t want to end things with Syobai. She really liked him. Now that she understands Syobai, she doesn’t want to leave him behind. Even bastards like him has feelings too. Syobai really needs someone who he could trust. A friend to keep him company.

Maybe she could be that friend.

“Syobai, stop” She told him sternly, but he just ignored it.

Then Sora pushed his grip away from her, “I’m not just gonna end things with you. You know that I collect a lot of monocoins just to hang out with you.”

Now that Sora mentioned that, she really did. He literally got 4000C from her. That’s a lot of money to collect. Until now, he’s been questioning himself why she would pour all of her money on him? He knows that she wants to talk to him, but why’s that?

“Syobai, I don’t care if you think of yourself as trash, because to me, you’re not fully trash. I know deep inside of you, you really do need friends to talk, and guess what I’m doing” Syobai stayed silent.

“I’m trying to become your friend because I like you. I know you don’t like it when people say it, but it’s true. I don’t think of you as a meaningless person. The past few days we got to know each other, it made me consider you a friend of mine.”

He felt weird. It’s the first time someone thought of him as a friend. He only thoughts the reason why Sora hangs out with him because she wants to tease him, but that’s wasn’t the only reason. He doesn’t know what to do in this situation. He just stares at her with nothing else to say except,

“Get out.”

“Aw, do you need a hug?” Suddenly, Sora hugs his chest.

What the hell is happening? Why does she want to hug the person who almost killed her? Syobai’s head is now filled with questions he couldn’t figure out the answers. He didn’t like this. He doesn’t like hugs.

But, he doesn’t hate the hug that Sora gave him. She is unexpectedly warm and cozy.

Wait, what the hell did he just think?

“Y’know, you smell like cinnamon and cigarettes mixed together” Sora describes the scent of Syobai since she is close to him.

Syobai sighs. Maybe she isn’t too bad of a company to him, “Whatever.”

*******************

Their first murder happened, and so did their first trial. Luckily, they all found out the culprit, who was Hajime.

They all boarded the monocruise ship and they all met Teruya Ootori. Now, they’re in the second island.

Sora and Syobai were just walking around a small village, until Syobai decided to enter one of the houses and find something useful. Sora tried to stop him, but he already broke into one of the houses before she could protest.

2 minutes later, Syobai went back to Sora with two Crow cards. Sora looks at him suspiciously, “You didn’t steal those from that house, didn’t you?”

Syobai shrugs, “It’s not stealing, it’s more like finding something benefiting.”

Sora pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing, “You know that someone lives there, right? You could’ve have stole something from a person who saved those cards.”

Syobai took a puff from his cigarette and puffs out the smoke, “I don’t care. Besides, these houses look abandoned. Now come on, I wanna check the other houses if they have anything interesting inside.”

Sora couldn’t help but chuckle at Syobai’s way of earning money, “So, is this the most mediocre thing a broker does to find money? Breaking into houses?”

Syobai grins playfully at the white-hair, “What do you think? A broker must do anything to gain anything that could benefit them. If not, what’s the point of looking around this village?”

On the same path the two white-hairs are, Hibiki seems to be shouting at Kanade to carry her because her feet were tired. By accident, while Kanade broke down in tears after her twin insulted her, she bumped into Sora. Making Sora fall forward onto Syobai.

Making their lips crash together.

Syobai.exe and Sora.exe has stopped working.

The two were internally screaming inside. This was so sudden and unexpected. Who could’ve expect that they’re both gonna be each other’s first kiss?

After 3 seconds, they both immediately pulled away, “I got an important errand to run! Goodbye!” They both say the same thing to each other in unison as they walk away from each other.

“Oh my God! Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” Kanade apologised to the two of them in tears, but Sora just ignored her and covers her face while Syobai gave Kanade a glare and ran away.

Sora questions herself, “Did that really happen? Did I kiss the ultimate broker?!”

Syobai is now panicking, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! This better be a dream, because if it is, god, please stab me now.”

Hibiki went beside Kanade and started blaming her, “Great! Now you made things more awkward thanks to your clumsiness!”

Kanade started crying again, “Ahh! P-please don’t get angry with me! It was a-an accident, I swear!”

*********************************************

The two grey-hair didn’t have any communication with each other for the past week due to the awkward tension between each other, and just when things got worse, a murder happens. The murder of Kokoro Mitsume.

What makes this more interesting is that for the first time, Syobai actually helped in finding out the culprit during the trial, even if he did little.

Nighttime approached. Even though Sora’s supposed to be in her room sleeping, she didn’t feel like going to bed. She decided to view the balcony of the monocruise. Once she got there, she just takes a deep breath and stare at the stars shining at night.

“Hey.” Sora heard a familiar voice behind her her. She turns her head back, only to find Syobai Hashimoto standing leaning his back on the door frame while taking a puff out of his cigarette.

“White hair, what are you doing out here this late?” He glances at her before directly staring at the floor.

Sora turns her view to the dark sky again, “I couldn’t fall asleep. That’s all.”

“Should I believe that you’re not planning on a murder?” Sora can sense that Syobai is teasing her a bit.

Putting the awkward tension beside, she teases him back, “What about you? Are you sure that you’re not doing something violent this time of the night?”

Syobai chuckles quietly as he went beside Sora and join her in watching the view. Well, this is the first time they’re both alone in a week. So, expect that they’re both perplexed by each other’s presence.

Sora starts to get curious, “Syobai, why are you here anyways?”

Syobai looks at her and sighs, “I have a lot in my mind right now.”

“Is it about business?” Sora guesses, leaving out the kiss incident as a topic.

Syobai shakes his head as he turns his head back to the skies above, “Not really. It’s about other personal stuff.”

Sora sighs and debates whether or not they should just talk things out or just leave them be, now that they’re both alone, “So, is it about what happened last week?”

Syobai points his eyes towards her, “If I’m gonna be honest, that incident has been in my mind for the past week.” Sora eyes widen. She thought that the broker didn’t give a care about last week. He didn’t seem to make a big deal about it the past week. Was he really telling the truth?

“What did you think about the incident?”

Syobai sighs. He really has to admit everything. It’s not like him to be honest to people or talk to them about problems and stuff like that. He’s kinda new to “expressing feelings” kind of thing.

“I don’t understand these emotions. I feel disgusted, but at the same time, I didn’t really mind the kiss. I don’t know what to think about. The only emotion I’m feeling is just a burning feeling in my chest that I’m not used to.”

“So, you’re just flustered?” Sora smirked at the suppressed broker standing right beside. Syobai just turns his head away from Sora. He’s probably getting his face red by this.

“Know what? I’m gonna admit it, I like-like you a lot.”

Syobai almost chocked on his cigarette when he heard those words come out of Sora’s mouth. Did she say that she likes him? Like-like him? As in, romantically?

“You’re joking, right?”

Sora shakes her head, “Nope, I’m telling the truth. I hate to admit, but I do like you a lot.”

Syobai has no clue what to do in this situation. He doesn’t understand why Sora takes a liking to him. He’s just some scum waiting for death to come. Hell, she even confessed to the guy who stabbed her!

“And why do you say that?” Syobai questions her, feeling unsure of how he feels in this situation.

Sora smiles faintly, “You’re pretty much an interesting guy to hang out with. And I know you’re a big softie under that rubbish you show to many.”

Wow, now he’s being complimented. This is really new to him. God, now he’s panicking. Although he did calm down a bit after Sora touched his hand.

“Screw it. I don’t think it’s that bad to experience this atleast once. She’ll be gone before I know it anyways” he though this to himself.

“As long as you don’t tell anyone about this, show obvious signs about this, and get involved in my business, then I’ll give this a shot.”

Sora softly grins at Syobai. He really was considering being with Sora, “I knew you have feelings inside of that stone heart of yours.”

They both stare at the night sky one last time before Sora says, “Well, it’s getting late. I should go to bed before Monocrow appears and remind us of the rules.”

She starts to walk away, until, “Oh yeah, one more thing!”

She grabs ahold of Syobai’s red tie and pulls his face closer to her’s, kissing his cheek.

“Goodnight Hashimoto!” She greeted him before leaving him alone, making him a bit flustered.

What did he get himself into? First, he started becoming friends with Sora, then he accidentally kissed her, and now he’s dating the white hair he bonded with over the past month.

Whatever. He’ll just see how far this “relationship” can go. He’s predicting that she will end things in 2 weeks. Yep, he kinda believes so.

**********************************

It’s been almost a month, and the newly-couple are still together. It’s also been a month since a murder happened, so that’s good at least.

As the weeks passed by, little by little, Syobai started to open up to Sora. Their recent activities are exploring the island, staying in his room and watching a movie in a tv that Syobai stole once, and the best of all, quoting memes and vines.

Due to Syobai’s influence, now Sora is occasionally qouting vines around the girls, which is making them confuse because they don’t know that much memes and jokes.

There were also an embarrassing moment they had together when Syobai accidentally walked into Sora fitting her swimsuit. His reaction was priceless! His face was becoming a tomato after seeing her figure. He’s probably gonna have a nosebleed. From embarrassment, Sora threw her shoe at him. She did get him an ice pack and apologised to him after releasing her anger.

Until now, no one has figured out their secret relationship, which is honestly good news since they rather not get bothered by other people.

Their relationship went from Syobai shooing her away from him when he’s busy or total quietness to them teasing and bickering each other. Just enjoying the company of each other.

Syobai did expect Sora to leave him before a month has even gone by, but she still stayed by his side. He doesn’t like to say it to her, but he kinda enjoys her company.

Every day, Sora usually hugs him from his back and gives him a peck on the cheek, but she didn’t do that today.

Due to that fact that Setsuka tricked Sora into drinking caffeine the other day, she couldn’t sleep well. Now, she’s pretty much about to faint from sleepiness.

Sora tiredly yawns, “I’m gonna go to bed! Goodnight Syo!”

As Sora stands up to reach for the door, Syobai couldn’t help but miss her daily affection. He was pretty annoyed with it at first, but he started to feel cozy with it after a week of her doing it.

“Sora, wait!”

Before Sora could turn around, Syobai hugs her from her back.

“You forgot this.” Syobai mumbles in Sora’s hair. Sora heard it anyways.

She felt really surprised by the broker’s action. She’s usually the one who shows affection to him, not the other way around, but it felt really good to see Syobai showing affection to her.

“You really do miss me a lot. Don’t you?” She giggles lightly.

“Shut up” he started acting in denial now. She knew he was lying, but she will consider it for today.

There was one thing she wanted to do to Syobai that they haven’t done in a while. Sora smirks at her plan, “Oh what the heck?”

Then, she turns to face Syobai, grabs hold of his face, and brings it closer to her face, giving him a kiss on the lips.

He was completely caught off when Sora did this. He doesn’t know how to do this!

“Fuck, she got her tongue inside my mouth! What the hell im I supposed to do?” He questions himself.

He studies Sora’s expression to get a bit of information. She looks really relaxed. He decided to relax himself. After he did, he pulled Sora closer and kissed her back. He’s actually enjoying this moment with her.

After they pulled away, Syobai suddenly starts laughing and he brushes his fingers in his hair, “How did we end up like this?”

Sora chuckles along with Syobai and crosses her arms, “It was just one accident that started all of this.”

Hmm… and now Syobai is thinking of thanking Kanade for all this. After all, she was the one who caused the accident.

And they don’t regret that accident from happening.

[centineoah-blog]

I Hate Everything About You - Part 1 (Noah Centineo)

She’s the daughter of Robert Downey Jr., struggling to find her own name in the industry, while he’s the internet’s collective crush, learning how to deal with his new-found fame. What happens when they get cast together in a TV adaptation of her favourite book series?

Word Count: 2.6 K

Pairings: Noah Centineo X Reader

Warnings: None as far as I’m aware, bit of love/hate if you're not into that, bit of drinking, spray tans, paparazzi

There is just something incredibly satisfying about kicking back, putting your feet up and lying in the sun, doing nothing at all. The sound of the waves crashing, little kids squealing all around and the sultry rays of the sun beating down on you, warming you up from within – it’s summer at its absolute best. Which is why, I’m sprawled out on a deck chair on Santa Monica Beach, California, sipping a Piña Colada – I’m only seventeen but here with my very lenient mother – With a pair of shades shielding my eyes and the rest of my bikini-clad body exposed, so as to work up a tan. Hard work, I know, since I’ve been at it for nearly four hours now and there isn’t even a toasty hint on my skin to show for it. My complexion is pasty and uneven, which I have no idea how because I’ve been in California all my life. The least I should have is beautiful, evenly bronzed skin.

Ugh, I think in frustration, I should’ve just gotten one of those terrible, orange, spray tans to match the president. At least they’re easy to get.

Correction to my earlier statement, then – There is just something incredibly satisfying about kicking back, putting your feet up and lying in the sun, doing nothing at all, when you’re capable of tanning! My back is stiff and I’m sweating like a pig, as there is hardly any wind today. The humidity has resulted in my hair going beyond frizzy and I’m completely unrecognizable, so at least there is no chance of any paparazzi getting candid shots of me and making them viral with headlines like- ‘Y/N Downey shows off sexy bikini bod!’ Or something equally ridiculous.

Now, I said ‘unrecognizable’ and ‘paparazzi’ so you must be wondering what the hell that’s about. No, no, I’m not some narcissistic bitch with an absurdly high opinion of herself. Although, you aren’t that far off. Let me explain.

My name is Y/N Downey. I’m an up-and-coming actress although people hardly refer to me as that. Generally, people know me as the only daughter of Robert Downey Jr., one of America’s most successful and famous movie actors, and I’m not just saying this cause he’s my father. You might also know him as Iron Man but to me, he’s just dad.

Obviously, since my father is ‘the great Robert Downey Jr.’ everyone just naturally expects me to be a stuck-up, spoilt brat who gets everything handed to her on a silver platter. They think it’s all a piece of cake for me, that I don’t have to work for making a name for myself since my father has so conveniently made it for me.

Wrong.

To this day, my father has never pulled any strings or called in favours to get me a part. In fact, that was his one and only condition when I expressed that I wanted to take up acting as a profession. He made me promise that I’d never use his name to get my way and work hard on my own to achieve something. Luckily, and not to be too full of myself or anything, but I’m a good actor. I suppose it has something to do with being in my dad’s company, since it can’t be genes. That’s because I’m adopted, and the Downeys are the only family I have ever known.

Anyway, every single role that I have done until now, I’ve got it through legit auditions in stinky and badly lit rooms. Mr. Downey has never influenced any aspect of my career. So, you see, I’m just another teenaged girl with a big dream. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. But except for the fact that my dad is a big movie star and I live in an unreasonably large house, and have more cars than I could possibly want to drive and I’ve never been to a public school – whaddup, homeschooling! – Really, I’m just the same as your typical teenaged girl.

So that’s my story. Now let’s get back to the present day. It was all my mother’s stupid idea.

“We never spend any quality time together.” She’d cooed the night before. “How about we head to the beach tomorrow? You could sunbathe.” She’d added temptingly and like the idiot that I am, I was sold by the allure of a tan. 

Hence, my discomfort now. Hell, last night I’d even thought I’d go for a nice little swim down here.

My brain wanders off on its own trail – Is this day ever going to end?! And what the heck is up with the sun? Move a bit dude, go shine your bright face in someplace they need it.

I groan in irritation.

My mother snaps her head to me. She pushes up her sunglasses to her head and glares at me. 

“If you’re so annoyed, you shouldn’t have come.” She growls.

“You made me.” I mutter quietly.

“I didn’t make you do anything.”

“Of course you did. You held up tanning like a bait and you knew I’ve always wanted to –” I’m cut off by the sound of my phone ringing. I fish it out of my bag.

“Ava!” I’m met with a shrill but pleasant greeting from my agent, Joanna.

“Hey Jo!”

“So guess the best thing that could’ve possibly happened?”

That’s how Joanna Preston always talked. Whatever you wanted to find out, you guessed. I think she’s incapable of forming non-interrogative sentences. It gets annoying a lot of the times.

“Um, everything in the world is made of chocolate?” I ask, unsure.

Joanna laughs. “No. Hint – it has something to do with Colors.”

My heart stops. There’s only one reason Joanna’s calling me about Colors.

“Someone’s making a movie about it?” I breathe in disbelief.“Better.”

What’s better than a movie?

“Someone’s making two movies about it?” I question dubiously.

“Someone’s making a TV Series about it.” She states firmly. Oh, non-interrogative! Perhaps there is hope for her yet.

A little gasp escapes my lips.

The Colors trilogy is my favourite book series in the world!

“And guess who the best agent in the whole wide world is?” She’s back, ugh, never mind.

“You, obviously.” I say rolling my eyes.

“That’s right!” She exclaims. “And guess who landed the lead?”

My jaw pops open.

“Me? They just gave it to me? No auditions or screen tests?” I ask, disbelieving.

“Yeah!” She squeals.

I furrow my brows, not quite understanding where this was all going. Joanna must’ve been able to sense my apprehension because she promptly launches into an explanation.

“Apparently they loved you on Teen Wolf and they wanted a new and fresh face, so they decided you’d be perfect. I’ve managed to find out that they’ve practically finalised you but of course, they’d still like you to show up and read some lines but that’s purely formal. The part is yours!”

I did a two-episode cameo in the third season of Teen Wolf and it was received very well. More importantly, it resulted in me becoming friends with Tyler Posey. He is pure perfection.

A dumbass grin spreads over my entire face.

“Do you know who’s playing Mason yet?”

Mason is my almost-character, Ali’s love interest in the books.

“Yeah, but he’s in the same condition as you. In fact, I suppose they’ll be asking both of you to go down there together.”

“Who is it, though?” I can’t contain my excitement.

“Noah Centineo.”

I almost fall out of my deck chair.

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

It’s been nearly two weeks since I found out I’m almost playing Alison in the TV Series adaptation of Colors and today, I’m going to be finalized. Or I’m hoping to be, since I’ve been called down today for my ‘audition’ and I’m absolutely thrilled and raring to just go down there and bag it. A couple of days ago, the producers contacted my agent, Joanna, and gave them the final dates for the trial. Also, just as Joanna had predicted, Noah Centineo, is being called in to audition for Mason and we’re auditioning together. I must say, that, I’m not thrilled about. 

I’m not exactly sure why I get hostile at just the thought of this guy and somewhere in my head, a rational voice answers that it’s because of how much I love this character. Mason Scott is my favourite fictional character and if some douchebag with cool hair messes it up, then as a loyal fan, I have every right to have a vendetta against him. It could be that he’s the biggest actor at the moment, answers the rational voice again but I ignore it. Of course it had to be him. I am sick of seeing him everywhere, and how everyone is obsessed with him. Honestly, how is it that someone who literally just blew up overnight, lands a role as big as Mason Freaking Scott?! He must have pulled in some serious favours. 

It suddenly dawns on me, then, that he would probably be thinking the same thing about Robert Downey Jr.’s daughter getting the lead – that it wasn’t my skill that got me this part. I quickly brush it off.

“Blue or beige?” I hold up two identical blouses, trying to decide which one to wear to the audition.

“Definitely the beige. Wear the brown skirt with it.” My mother comments from her spot on my bed.

My mother and I had a tiff about this role earlier, since it’s gonna have a fair bit of nudity in, but I’m happy to tell you that I was able to finally get through to her about how big this role is for my career.  Everybody’s excited to see a reboot.

My dad helped as well, explaining the whole situation to my earlier apprehensive mother and now she’s supporting me whole-heartedly. Or she’s pretending to, but either way, I’m glad she’s accepted that I’m going to do this and that she’s really cool about it. 

I, on the other hand, am a sack full of nerves right now. I might appear to be confident and, quoting my own self ‘raring to go’, but on the inside I’m. Freaking. Out. It’s like a dream role and I do not want to mess this up in any way. I don’t want the makers to have second thoughts about casting me; I don’t want to give them any reason to so much as even think about someone else. And obviously, that leaves zero room for error on my part. None. Nada.

So, clearly, there’s no pressure!

My head is pounding as I walk into the studio, script in hand. The audition is the part when Mason first takes Ali to his apartment and tells her about his lifestyle and what he does for a living, letting her know what she’s in for if she agrees to be with him. I know all my lines by heart and my dear friend, Tyler, and I have been through them almost a hundred times but it’s still a rather difficult scene if you consider the acting side of it because it really shows Ali’s innocence and her willingness to step into the dark with Mason.

Speaking of, where the hell is this overrated hero?! I’d really like it if I could just run through these lines with him at least once before the main audition.

I’m walking around the studio with an expression that says I own the place because people keep stepping out of my way, when, really, all I’m doing is being annoyed as I try to find my arrogant co-auditioner.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a bit premature calling him arrogant. Seriously though? Who on earth would just waltz in there and read their lines with an unknown person, for the first time, to audition for the role of a lifetime? An arrogant person, that’s who, because even I am willing to swallow my pride and look for this brat for a little practice.

I somehow end up walking to the kitchen, well not somehow because I could murder a coffee right now, and surprise, surprise, Mr. Centineo is sitting right there with his posse. I stop dead in my tracks as soon as our eyes meet and he stares at me for several seconds, not blinking. And then, slowly, he raises a brow as he gives me a relaxed, deliberate once-over.

And it pisses me off.

Like, I know I’m looking nice right now but seriously dude, I’m about to be your goddamned co-star! Show a little respect, for god’s sake!

To be honest though, I don’t even know why I’m so offended. Maybe it’s his gorgeous hair. I notice that there are three other guys sat next to him and I assume those are his ‘buddies’; they look the type – all dude bro-ish in their stupid hoodies and ripped, skinny jeans. Not that I have anything personal against hoodies or ripped, skinny jeans. Or dude-bros, for that matter. But I wasn’t told I could bring my friends.

Ass.

Finally regaining my ability to walk, I make a bored face as if I audition for huge shows every day, and then head straight to the counter off the side of the room, ignoring him completely. Behind me, I hear snickers and hushed voices as I’m pouring my coffee in a paper cup. I roll my eyes.

Grow up, boys.

I dump two packets of sugar and stir it vigorously. Putting on the lid, I turn around and my coffee is knocked out of my hand.

“ARGH!! The fudge!” I growl.

I’m surprised at my ability to control myself. I had a whole variety of choice expletives I could’ve used in this situation. I look up and standing in front of me is the newest bane of my existence. And he’s smirking.

I reward him with the stoniest face I can manage.

“Hey, I’m Noah.” He says and okay, I’ll admit it, his voice is So. Hot. 

No! I’m furious right now, I can’t think about that. What the hell is he playing at? I need an apology.

“You spilled my coffee.” I mutter in quiet fury as I point out his first misdemeanour.

“Whoa woah, not the friendly type, are you?”

“I suppose I wouldn’t be either if my dad was Iron Man.” He adds with a snigger. My jaw pops open.

How dare he?!

Strike Two. I’m overwhelmed by how much I want to break his pretty little jaw.

“What the hell?! You have no right to say that.” I yell.

Further to my irritation, he grins – teeth and all. Perfectly straight, white teeth and all. But, anyway.

“What?” I snap.

“You’re fiery.” He remarks in amusement and the next thing I know is a sharp, stinging feeling in the palm of my hand and Centineo’s shocked expression.

Okay, so I might’ve slapped him.

Before I can react or try to apologise – not that I was going to, he clearly had three strikes, but it’s the thought that counts – I get a call from Joanna.

“Y/N, they’re calling you in now. Stage 36.” 

“I’m coming.”

“If you see Noah on the way, let him know they want him too.”

“I haven’t seen him.” I bark as I hang up.

I walk around Noah Centineo in a huff and he stares after me, dumbstruck, as I walk out the door, still holding the cheek that holds proof of my assault.

Now how’s that for ‘fiery’?

Part 2

[chaniters]

SUGAR VICE

Anonymous asked:

What about a fun past!one where a kid approaches the Rangers and they all think the kid wants a photo with them all... But nope the kid walks past them towards sidestep! I'd love to see how the Rangers react. Gender can be anything you wish!

Here goes! I’m (hopefully) starting a new series of shorts with this one!

Sugar Vice.

“Why are we here again?”

“Because… we have to be.” Elyise answers plainly.  

“And… how long do we *have* to be here in this parking lot?” It’s not that you lack patience… But you’re honestly very hungry. There is the “LDL Records” building next to you, an office building next to it, and a Pizzeria on the corner opposite to you. People are having dinner enjoying the comfortable weather on the tables outside.

“Stop bugging me, you know I don’t know how it works either”

“Can’t we wait in San Benito’s?” You point at the pizzeria. “I’m starving!” you complain.

“No!” she insists in a hushed voice. “We have to be here. Right here.  It doesn’t work if we’re not here. If we go there, then we’ll be changing things and…”

“What If It’s my treat? I’ll pay” You offer.

“Gods, it’s not about money!”

“But I’m hungry!!!!”

“Just how old do you say you a… ”

And then, all the lights go down.    

And half the windows at the LDL records buildings explode in flames. The fire is enough to illuminate the whole street.

Lights come back up, and you notice a figure walking out of the building, followed by a pair of modded thugs.

A plump figure wearing a strange outfit with red and white stripes, a striped squirt and high shoes. White makeup over their face. He’s approaching the people eating at San Benito’s outside tables with a smile full of completely white teeth.

“Good evening ladies and Gentleman” he greets them all as they scream and tried to escape.“I will be your entertainment tonight”

Elyise and you leave your hiding place and make a run to try and get behind the villain. She doesn’t need much telepath training to sense the threat just as well. No need to speak while you sneak in behind the parked cars and hurriedly cross the street. She’s a psychic, and a minor telepath. You have your own line of communication. Of course, it’s not perfect. Although older than you, she’s never received any proper training and thus her ability never flourished, being relegated to the role of a mere empath. Until she met you that is.  Not that you’d have agreed to help her if she was more powerful… then she’d be a threat. As it is, she can’t find any of your secrets even if she wanted to, and you’re more than happy to help her understand her powers.

“First of all, I’ll perform a trick… Watch!” he raises his hands.

Fuck. You hurriedly pass on what the villain’s mind is telling you to Elyise. She nods, and stands up firm, focusing her powers. She’s quite strong when using her Psychokinesis. And her precognition works wonders, except it never shows what she wants to see.

The figure turns his hands through the crowd, and a crystal-like formation erupts from his arm flying straight into the civilian. Very sharp, glass-like crystals.

“A gift from the Candymaster!” he laughs.

But Elyise is faster. The couple that was about to be impaled is projected backward, dodging the crystals narrowly.

The villain, Candymaster looks perplexed. And then he notices You and Elyise in her purple costume.

“Well that was FAst!” he smiles, delighted. “I didn’t expect for a hero to answer that fast. And Now I have two! You’re going to make little ‘ol me blush!” Then he pouts “Too bad you’re a tad bit too late right? That whole building on fire… oh well… Let’s get to it… Good thing I came prepared”

He motions to the Thugs, who charge at you. You duck and hit the one charging at you in the stomach, then kick his teeth off as he tries to regain his breath. Elyise uses her powers to lift the other one in the air. You shoot at him with your energy gun, stunning him.

As you turn back to Candymaster, he is sending some sort of candy-shaped drone flying above.

“Ohh you two are good! This will be so much fun.”

You aren’t sure what the drone is supposed to do, and the thoughts coming from CandyMaster are a bit too random for you to correctly read.

Music. The drone is playing a song. And old song.

And the CandyMaster starts dancing… Elyise and you look at each other and then charge at him. No point making sense of this lunatic, you agree.

That was probably a mistake.

——- 15 seconds later ——–

“To the left! Left!” you yell at Elyise. SHe manages to leap to the left just in time, as another crystal emerges from the ground, destroying the pavement and nearly impaling her.

“Hahahahhahahaa” Candymaster laughs sounds like a little child and it’s just freaking you out. “This is soo good!!! PLEASE KEEP IT UP!!” He adds in a much more grave voice. He lowers his hand, and more crystal shards form, this time falling from the sky.

Even anticipating his movements, it’s hard to dodge sharp stuff on free fall. You manage to get out with a mere cut on the leg and consider yourself lucky.

“I’ve been told he can’t be sold/ He’s not vicious or malicious” the drone’s song keeps going

“JUST DEE-LOVELY! AND DELICIOUS!” Candymaster yells hysterically exploding in laughter as he follows the track. He’s still dancing, raising and lowering his arms, commanding crystal shards to erupt from every direction. That baby-like laughter is going to haunt your nightmares. This is hell.

You dodge as shards appear next to your feet. Fuck. You haven’t even been able to get close to him yet.

A large red metal mailbox flyes straight onto the Candymaster, and is stopped as another shard appears. Elyise is doing her best too.

“Oh, nice! You almost get me! ahahahaha!” Ohhhh how you fucking loathe him. You pull out your energy gun and start shooting, but he just places shards in between you, and soon enough you’re the one running for your life instead.

“Aww… I love it! You are making this a TON of fun Sidestep thank you! I would totally give you a hug! Come closer for your hug! Oh… no? Well, then let’s try something different…  Looky here Sidestep baby!” he calls. Irritating you even more.

As you face him again, you notice he’s holding a  kid by his arm. The poor fellow is terrified as the CandyMaster runs his fingers through his cheek.

“New game! You give up, surrender, and I let him go… Or else.. you know.. I stuff him with candy! ha!!!  Yeah… I think that’s fair enough!.” He addresses the terrified crowd around him. “What? Don’t be mad at me! I know Y'all wanted a twist, didn’t ya?”

You and Elyise have a split-second talk with your minds. the decision is clear. CandyMaster is too unpredictable but you can both agree he will kill the kid if you do nothing.

Fuck. You step forward.

“I surrender, Candymaster!” you say walking with your hands up. With your abilities, you can probably dodge his next attack. If you’re lucky. And then Elyise can give you some support and try to get the kid to safety…“Let him go!”

“Oooh .. Don’t ya love heroes! always doing stupid stuff like this! You know I’ve always been a fan! I’m going to have a bite of you once you’re covered in delicious fondant!” The mental image sends shivers down your spine. Yeeesh. He points a palm at you and…

You hear a shot … and the drone explodes, music going silent.

“WHO DID THAT?” he asks looking around?“

"I did it.. What are you going to do about it you clown punk?” Steel asks standing behind him

“Wha…?” Candymaster starts to say as he turns but never ends the sentence. Steel’s fist breaks his jaw in a single movement. You blink and rub your eyes… IT literally broke his jaw. There are pieces falling off. What in the…

“THAT … WASN’T… NICE!” A harsh voice cames out of the CandyMaster as he holds his broken and cracked face with his left hand. Then he extends his right hand and sends a whirlwind of crystal spikes at Steel, who deflects them with a kevlar riot shield extending from his armored arm.

“What the hell… ?” Elyise can’t help asking in disbelief as some pieces of the Candymasters jaw bounce all the way to her boot. “Is this guy for real? Am I dreaming?”

No time to ponder on that. You take the chance to snatch the kid and run back, away from CandyMaster. “HIde behind the cars and get out of here ok?! Run to your parents!” Fuck. The kid is too terrified to move. You hold his hand and give him a small mental bump. You make him feel safe. Everything will be alright as long as you’re here. He finally nods and runs down the street.

Steel finally ducks behind a car. Great. You’re back where you started.

“OH AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET OFF EASY EITHER!” he says turning to you. You are shocked to see his cracked jaw is reforming… he seems to be literally made out of the same crystal material.

You evade the next spikes, but one of them gives you a nasty cut on your side. You thank the universe for the nanomesh shirt, which seals the wound instantly. Still, it stings like hell.

Candymaster sends a huge spike at Elyise, but this time she looks straight at it… and it stops in the air. You can’t help feeling a bit proud. Her Psychokinesis is improving rapidly since you agreed to help her train her mind.

“Enough of that!” the spike flies back at the CandyMaster, going through his chest, more pieces of him falling down on the street as his entire body is covered in cracks. .

The villain stumbles back.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Look what you’ve done… do you have ANY Idea what it cost to make this costume ?” he seems furious… and not dead. You begin to wonder what’s going to take to finish him off. “Now I’m going to …”

You start sprinting with your gun drawn... Time to find out!

But then your mind feels another presence.. up.. in the sky.. it’s…

You stop in your tracks, right in time to avoid the wall of fire surging in between you and CandyMaster.

“Stop fooling around!” a male voice yells “We should have been gone 10 minutes ago!”

You notice a massive male figure taking hold of CandyMaster. He has mechanical wings attached to his back.

“I was just having some fun with my new friends here! You can’t blame me! I get lonely!”

“We’re going before they kill you!” and with that, a jetpack between the wings activates and the both of them fly away. Steel takes a few shots at them but fails narrowly

………………. A few minutes later……………..

Elyise and you are sitting on a bench. You're telling her you're ok for the 10th time when Steel finally approaches, his arms crossed.

“That one… was… interesting” He doesn’t seem to be trying to be hostile right now. For a change.

“Yes!” Elyise says looking at him. She doesn’t really know you two don’t get along. Good for her. “IT freaked me out! He was reforming too! And look… !” she holds a small piece of one of the murderous crystals “These are actual candy! You think he’s made of it?”

“They are?” you ask. You can’t help it… you lift your mask to reveal your mouth and lick it.

“AWWW THat’S JUST GROSS!” she yells. Yeah… you might have issues.

“I know… but .. it’s… really good candy?” You feel very confused while you pick up several other large fragments from the ground.

“Stop that!”

“Yeah.. sorry,” you say a bit embarrassed. But you put it all in a bag. For later.  “It’s not my fault you wouldn’t let me have dinner”

“I’ve Never seen something like it.” Steel interrupts in a  more serious tone  “I know who he sounded like tough. If voice recognition software works, he’s Vito Costa.., former mobster. And he’s gone completely insane.”

“Wasn’t he sentenced to death?” She asks. You remember it too…it was in TV a while ago.

“I guess he offered to take part on experiments,” You say before you realize you shouldn’t even talk about this.

Steel gives you a LOOK. one of the “I know you’re up to something”looks. The ones you hate. Fuck, you should just keep your mouth shut around him.

“Yes, you’re VERY well informed Sidestep… as usual… Voluntary experiment programs on death row are generally just delayed executions tough. I guess this one worked and no one bothered to tell the public he escaped.”

“Well, that’s our government for you!” You’re just SO GLAD it was Elyise who said it and not you. Reminds you why you like hanging out with her.

“Hhm..” Steel just looks at the ruined Building Legend Records tower. “Did you see that?” he points.

“What?” you look up. There is a large “V” sign written in fire over one of its walls. More than likely the flying guy who rescued CandyMaster. “Oh… what does that mean?”

“It means there’s a new power in town. Los Diablos Legend Records has always been in Hollow Ground’s pocket. Whoever "V” is… they are leaving their mark, showing off their power. The other guy was Balrog, and he’s a heavyweight villain. I almost catch him a few years back.“

You notice Ortega and Anathema coming along.

"Hey” Ortega speaks

“Hi” you reply. You’ve been avoiding him for a few weeks after that kiss at his place. You have no idea what to say to him.

“Hey.. can I get a picture?” the shy voice startles you. You notice it’s the same blond kid from before.

“Sure thing!” Anathema says. LEt us gather and…

“No! I want a picture with him” he says pointing at you.

“Oh,” Anathema just laughs. “Sure thing! As long as Sidestep’s up for it?”

You blink. You generally don’t like pictures… but you’re not heartless..  

“Ehr.. right. Sure! Come over here!” you say awkwardly.

Anathema takes a picture.

“Can I have a video too? My brother’s not gonna believe this!”

“Oh sure!” you say. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Daniel! And I’m a big fan!”

“Alright… start recording Themmie!”

“Hey! I’m Sidestep, and this is my personal friend Daniel here with me! He’s been really brave, and we’ve just defeated CandyMaster!”

He yells in excitement as the video ends. He shakes your hand… and then you do a fistbump. Good thing you’re a telepath or you wouldn’t have ever realized what he wanted when he extended his fist at you. He hugs you and then leaves, a bit embarrassed.

“Wow, you’re great with kids!” Ortega comments. The words just make you feel 50 shades of awkward all over you.

“I know right?” Elyise goes on “Sometimes I feel like he’s a kid in the body of a young man!” Ok, the knife is just digging too deep.

She approaches you and whispers a few words to you.

“It’s done. That’s what we had to do. You needed to save that kid”

“Why? Who is he?”

“No idea,” she says turning and saying something to Anathema.

You sigh. No sense trying to understand how her precog abilities work. You can just hope it’s all for the best. And you’re glad you saved the kid.

Luckily it doesn’t take long for Steel to make a comment about you not saving the Legend Records tower, which you use as an excuse to get into a fight, and walk away avoiding any more remarks about your age…  And especially, avoiding Ortega.

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

Next chapter: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181655004514/shy

________________

My Fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

[angeltriestoblog]

Second sem (and freshman year) recap

It’s pretty hard to believe, but another chapter of my college journey is finally over and done with. Since I had ended the first half of the school year in such high spirits, I didn’t really believe upperclassmen when they warned that things were only going to get harder from there. In fact, I even thought I’d be the one to prove them wrong! I mean, with a class schedule that looked like this, how would I run out of time for all the things I both needed and wanted to do? My Tuesdays and Thursdays were practically free, save for that one Math class I had to attend in the morning that I surprisingly never cut.

For the most part of the semester, I was in a chill state compared to everyone else. I claimed that I had successfully adjusted to the demands of higher education to the point where I found what once was an unreasonable workload to be manageable. I was able to make time for my home org’s activities and devote enough attention to the only project I was deployed to, which I touched on a bit in my first recap blog post (linked here in case you want to jog your memory). As previously mentioned, I was assigned as one of the Documentations Heads under the Information Management department of the Career Building Program, a three-phase event that gives its participants a glimpse into the corporate world. We kicked things off with a resume writing workshop that I was lucky enough to join. The facilitator assigned to me gave useful insights that I was able to apply in the creation of my own curriculum vitae, which I am keen on using when it’s my turn to apply for internships and jobs in the future. I obviously don’t have much on it yet, seeing as I’m just a freshman, but the idea of filling it up with more experiences over the years is exciting me in ways I cannot explain.

Our group was even given the opportunity to explore the studio of the country’s biggest network, where we were briefed by executives in communications and IT and toured around the sets of our favorite shows. We even ran into Luis Manzano while he was filming Minute to Win It! Unfortunately, I wasn’t scouted by any representative from Star Magic and spontaneously put in a love team with Donny Pangilinan, but I guess that’s alright.

I also went to Talent Night with some friends (not in pictures: Gela's boyfriend and ICA barkada), which is shocking since I’m honestly not the type to attend parties like this. I’ve always been the girl who stayed home and binge watched YouTube videos on a Friday night. But, I guess the drunk confidence of those I was with rubbed off on me and I managed to pull through! It was also a plus that Timmy Albert was one of the performers: I do pass him by along the corridors quite frequently, but it’s just different seeing him sing and play an instrument in front of a crowd, especially since I’ve loved Roses and Sunflowers even before I got into Ateneo.

One surprise that I definitely did not see coming was participating in Daloy, our annual program that revolves around corporate social responsibility. This year, we decided to shed a light on how this could be seen in the Philippine clothing industry, so it seemed fitting to hold some talks featuring prominent figures in this field, as well as a fashion show to exhibit the collections of local brands that advocated sustainability. I was really interested in the concept when I first heard of it, and initially wanted to go as a mere audience member - little did I know that I would be tapped by the committee to model! To this day, I don’t know how or why I was chosen: from what I know, there were even screenings held a week prior to the event to determine who would get to walk the runway. But, I was messaged three days before and in that short span of time, I had to fit clothes, find pieces in my closet to match them and perfect my walk (which took several tries on my part, given the fact that when shy, I’m stiff as a board).

Agreeing to join was a huge step out of my comfort zone - the closest I’ve ever come to strutting on a catwalk was back when family members would ask me to “walk like a fashion model” as a kid during reunions. So, the fact that it had all paid off in the end, and that I was even complimented for the way I looked and performed beyond what was probably expected, was definitely a huge confidence boost for me. I couldn’t have done it without Nelly, Daloy’s project head who patiently guided me through the entire process before the show.

Shoutout as well to the other ACTM upperclassmen who were so friendly to me this school year. We may not have any pictures together, but you deserve a spot on this post nevertheless: Gella, my "boss" (hehe) who was always so patient when I asked questions and even went out of her way to say such kind words about my writing; Sam Que who made me feel like we had already known each other for so long even if we had just talked for the first time, and Ysagab who constantly reassured me that I was doing a good job even if I was looking like such a rookie.

My presence in events wasn’t limited to those of ACTM, though. I also went to the Loyola Film Circle’s Under the Stars, where I was able to see the live performances of OPM acts and watch one of my favorite chick flicks beneath the beautiful night sky. Since it took place the day after Valentine’s, I was surrounded by Ateneans and their significant others (who didn’t hold back at all when it came to publicly displaying their affection), but I didn’t even mind since I was content in the company of both my college constants and high school friends.

I dropped by Sulyap as well, which was the culminating activity of the Ateneo Heights Writers Workshop and the launch of the chapbook of their fellows. It was one of the busiest Fridays of the school year, but I still made it a point to go, because I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to be a part of something organized by my dream org, Ateneo’s premier literary publication. As much as I love my course and the people in it, I have to admit that I haven’t been able to exercise much of my creative side. So being in a room full of like-minded individuals and hearing them speak lengthily about their works and the process that brought them to life was a refreshing experience, a much-needed break from the usual routine. My personal favorite was Unica Hijas by Mikaela Regis, which revolved around a lesbian couple trying to make their relationship work despite the fact that they study in a conservative, all-girls high school - a setting which is all too familliar to me.

It’s also worth noting that I was sorta able to tick a particular item off my freshman year bucket list. And I say sorta, because… well, you’ll see. It’s been a dream of mine ever since to watch a UAAP basketball game live, show up to the arena in a bright blue shirt, cheer as loud as I can when a player makes a point and raise my fist in the air while Song for Mary plays in the background. But, even if I’m consistently in school by 6am, I was never able to get tickets - I couldn’t match the efforts of some fans, who would camp overnight just to get their hands on them. But, just when I thought there was no more chance for me to show my school pride at a match, my friend Mika offered me a free ticket to the Ateneo Lady Eagles’ volleyball match against FEU at the Filoil Arena one Wednesday. We weren’t really on speaking terms before because we were from different cliques, but after bonding over K-Pop, I saw how nice and chill of a person she actually is. So, I didn’t want to turn her down even if I was hesitant to go at first. You see, I was never a fan - in fact, I didn’t know how the game went despite the PE lessons I had back in Grade 5. (Ms. Abella, if you see this, I’m sorry.) But, it didn’t take a lot of convincing for me to agree and I ended up enjoying way more than I thought I would. Fortunately, I was able to catch on when it came to the rules of the sport: the energy of the crowd was contagious as well, and the performance of the players was way too good it was impossible not to shout either out of triumph or frustration. Once we made it to the finals against UST, I even found myself waiting for announcements on where to buy tickets. I didn’t get any though, because they were either sold out due to the ever-increasing demand (ALE fans don’t play around) or there was a conflict in schedule (hi, Enlit play).

Despite this, I streamed the last game and screamed like I was actually in the venue myself. Apologies to all our neighbors, who probably thought someone was getting killed in the house beside theirs. I was so proud when they brought home the championship after three years, I even bought a Team Ateneo shirt (it’s not that hard to guess whose name is on the back) and went to the bonfire with my friends Gwen, Julia and Lou. I had hoped to meet and take a picture with the players, but they were already far too wasted when I arrived. Like, seriously. I saw Maddie Madayag chug a whole bottle of Mule right before my eyes.

So, you could say that it was all fun and games (quite literally) for me until hell weeks eventually rolled in. Plural form intended. I found out that all my professors were just holding back every major requirement until the very last stretch of the semester. Suddenly, my schedule was chock full of presentations and final papers, comprehensive exams and extra classes that put my time management and endurance to the test. I spent many days in Matteo Down just like before, but also started going to the floor above it in case I wanted to suffer in the company of more people. The studying would only continue once I got home: I’d pull all-nighters despite my brain’s and skin’s desperate cries for help, as manifested in my worsening acne. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that stressed in my life, and it’s scary to think that that’s only the tip of the iceberg in the Ateneo.

Coping mechanisms I’ve picked up to help me deal with these unavoidable circumstances would be trying every restaurant along the Katipunan area whenever I had free time (which I will elaborate on more extensively in another blog post, so do watch out for that!) and eventually discovering Pancake House’s corned beef hash, which I love so much I once had it thrice in the span of a week. Another one would be the addition of yet another emotional support K-Pop boy to my collection. After watching My ID is Gangnam Beauty over Holy Week break, I fell in love with Cha Eunwoo and his god-tier visuals, mild demeanor, impressive English skills and heartfelt determination. This led me to binge watching reality show episodes and furiously putting the entire discography of Astro on loop. If you look at my Last.fm, you could see how Crazy Sexy Cool easily climbed to the top of my most played songs, sitting prettily at the #1 spot with over 300 plays in just a little over two months.

Although I constantly had to bear the pressure and stress on my shoulders over the past academic year, I am eternally grateful to Ateneo for equipping me with lessons both within and beyond the realm of academics that have helped me grow into someone I never imagined, but am happy to have turned into anyway. When my naive and starry-eyed self first entered college, I had such high hopes for what my experience would be and proceeded to map out the next four years of my life in accordance with the vision I had in my head. Having just broken free from the metaphorical chains of my previous school, I found it to be the perfect time to transform into a student who excelled academically, had a long and winding list of extracurricular activities and easily built a vast network of connections thanks to her pleasing and magnetic personality. If I got lucky, maybe I’d have one of those so-called “college blooms” and even get myself an actual boyfriend!

This isn’t something unique to me, I bet a lot of people entered this new stage of their lives with the same mindset so I wasn’t the only one in shock upon realizing that it doesn’t always play out that way in real life. Because of these ridiculous expectations we have implanted in our heads, that basically state that we have to be successful in everything we do and fast, we subconsciously keep ourselves from enjoying the process. In our desire to aim high and aspire for perfection in all that we do, we could end up failing to acknowledge the small yet equally important wins we gain along the way: the friend we make outside of our block despite the sheer discomfort we experience in meeting new people, or the answer we gave in class that impressed our most intimidating professor could appear minuscule when placed beside our goal of being straight-A student who’s active in seven orgs. In addition, we deprive ourselves of the allowance to make mistakes, stray from taking the detours and breaks we need to remain functional human beings and often drive ourselves to the point of fatigue and burnout. And when we are still not flourishing and thriving as planned, we fall prey to toxic comparison: we pit ourselves against others who don’t have the same background or circumstances as we do and question why our progress doesn’t match with theirs.

This is obviously such a toxic way to go about things. Talk about sucking the fun out of what’s supposed to be the four most enjoyable years of our lives. Thankfully, over time, I did some growing up, if you will, and channeled the power of acceptance - both of what I am and what I am not, and the will of God (or whichever supreme being you've placed your faith in) who meticulously planned out what’s ahead of me before I was even old enough to know what school was. I now work to the best of my ability, confident that all I have to do is put in my share of the hard work and see where it takes me, and am also more gentle with myself when I make mistakes.

On a somewhat lighter note, I’ve also been able to form my own opinions about very controversial issues on campus: an example of which would be what I think is the best CR - the answer is definitely Arete. You can’t go wrong with its triple killer combo of aircon, bidet and strong WiFi connection. The only possible downside could be the fact that there are usually a lot of people, so it’s not the best option if you’re planning on being loud and… um, smelly. The secluded and fragrant Leong Hall and ever-reliable New Lib restrooms come in second and third place respectively, while honorable mentions include the 2F Kostka CR (but only from 6:00-7:00am, when no one else is around) and this one specific stall in the Socsci building that's spacious enough that I can bring all my belongings inside with me.

Another point for discussion would be the superior place to eat on school grounds: this might cause an uproar, I’m aware, but I still believe it’s JSEC, despite the stark price difference compared to other cafeterias on campus. I was set on trying something from every stall before the school year ended, but I was too fixated on my top picks: I don’t have any regrets though. In fact, I wish I had more of the beef salpicao with calamares on the side from Casa Paella, the Superbowl from Blendabowls and The Coop fries with garlic aioli served on the side. Besides the fact that the food served is satisfying beyond measure, I enjoy the chit-chats I have with the ates and kuyas manning the stalls, who never fail to ask me how I am and tell me about the cute chinito boys they see on campus that they think I might like.

Although I can’t completely rule out Gonzaga, because of this particular stall with quality liempo and a kuya who always gives me a five peso discount. (I’ve been told he does this with girls he finds cute, but I have yet to confirm that). Also, it’s the only place on campus that I know of that sells fresh fruits by the kilo - perfect for those days when I try to convince myself to go on a diet before I relapse and binge eat at Pancake House.

A lot of people do say that ISO sisig is worth the cross-campus walk it’ll take to get there (e-jeep rides are more recommended! An experience in itself! Especially if you’re seated in the back, where there’s a constant feeling of being sucked in a vacuum! But, I digress) - it might just be a matter of preference, but I think it’s overrated. A destination that deserves more attention is the Cervini Hall cafeteria just by the university dormitories. I’ve only been there a grand total of two times so I don’t exactly have any specific favorites on the menu that I recommend, but I’d definitely still go for the homey ambience.

As for superior study places, Matteo Down has been tried and tested several times: I do prefer getting a place opposite to the entrance though, because it does get distracting having to see people enter and go out the door so often. What was supposed to be a study session often ends up becoming a game to see how many people are wearing a striped shirt today. I usually spend time on the fourth floor of the Rizal Library, and get the couch as often as I can because of the comfort (and charger) it provides.

Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to power through this year without the help of my closest friends: Sevi, Gwen, Raya and Christine. I always had this nagging fear in the back of my head that I wouldn’t be able to find a tight-knit group once I got to college, but thank you for proving me wrong. Thank you for letting me be my true self, for entertaining even my most random thoughts and for accepting all the kalat that comes with being my friend. I sincerely hope that we stay together and have more Gino’s dates in the future along with Chloe!

To Gela, Jill, Shar (and Dom, but we don’t have any pictures together except for the last one HAHAHA) - I didn’t expect at all that I’d be writing about you guys. I was so intimidated by all of you at first, because I felt like we were so different in terms of our upbringing and environment. But after getting to know you, I came to realize that you are seriously some of the most down-to-earth, chill people ever. Thank you for always providing quality chismis, volunteering to find me chinito boys to date and giving me apps to make my IG stories look cuter.

To the rest of X1, we weren’t exactly the most united and we knew that - it’s just that we were probably the most diverse out of all the groups in our batch, and with that comes clashing personalities and differing opinions and interests. But, nevertheless, I am content with the time we managed to spend together, where I was able to get to know all of you!

To the friends that I made outside of my block (and even my course), thank you for laughing at my jokes and telling me that I'm fun to talk to. Hopefully, we get to hang out more and maybe even have common classes in the future hehe

To my Enlit section, we barely spoke to one another during the first semester so I fell under the impression that you were all stoic and no fun to be with. But, I was proven wrong eventually. I wish I was able to talk to more people in LL, but to the classmates I was closest to (Dootie, Cyrah, Czarina, She and Jessa), I will never forget our side comments and mini-rant sessions. I heard we’re having another English subject come sophomore year, and I really hope I end up with you guys again.

All in all, there is no other word that could sum up the experience that was my freshman year in college better than “adventure”. It was every single emotion on the spectrum All At Once, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world - in fact, during the first half of the semester, I admit that I’d entertain thoughts of alternate universes where I’d be an Iska/Lasallista/Tomasino out of sheer curiosity, but now I just can’t imagine myself anywhere else. Anyway, enough with all that drama. I’m going back to school in three weeks to start my summer term, which we fondly (lmao) refer to as intersession. So, there’s technically nothing to miss.

Hope the rest of you enjoy the summer break that I unfortunately will not be able to experience until I graduate from college! Wishing you nothing but love and light, always.

Angel

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 9/10/21 - MALIGNANT, THE CARD COUNTER, TIFF 2021, LANGUAGE LESSONS, THE ALPINIST, EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE, FAUCI, and More!

Before we get to this week’s releases-- and there are a lot of them, though not necessarily wide releases -- I probably should mention that the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is beginning this week up North across the board. I was unable to go in person, more due to the money than any worries about COVID. (Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on at the border right now between America and Canada, but I figured I better wait it out before attending TIFF in person… until I can actually afford it.)

This year’s TIFF offers a lot of premieres, most of them taking place in physical theaters in Toronto, such as Edgar Wright’s, Last Night in Soho, (which just premiered in Venice) and Universal’s musical, Dear Evan Hansen, as well as David Gordon Green’s horror sequel, Halloween Kills (which also just played in Venice oddly). Other movies playing TIFF include Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, and The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, both which star Benedict Cumberbatch. Mihael Peace's Encounter, starring Riz Ahmed and Octavia Spencer, and docs like Julia (as in "Child") and Attica. There’s even a doc about the Canadian rock band, Triumph! (I’m looking forward to that one.) Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the German film, The Guilty, starring TIFF regular Jake Gyllenhaal, will have its premiere, and many, many more. Too many to watch, let alone write about, but I’ll try to review a few of these over at Below the Line and maybe some here. (There are also lots of movies that premiered at Cannes in July that will play at TIFF, and some of those will also play at New York Film Festival later this month, which is where I’ll see them.)

A movie that I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time and is finally seeing the light of day is James Wan’s return to horror, MALIGNANT (Warner Bros.). Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll have a chance to see this before Friday, which is a bit of a bummer, but I’ll look forward to seeing it with the common people in a theater. Because I’m looking forward to this movie so much, I haven’t even watched the latest trailer, so I really don’t know too much about it, which may be for the better.

Of course, you know Wan’s name from some of the most successful horror franchises of the past two decades, starting with Saw in 2004. After a few movies that didn’t do quite so well, Wan reteamed with his Saw collaborator Leigh Whannell for Insidious in 2010, which also did very well and created a similarly successful franchise. (Whannell would go on to direct the third movie in the series, the respectable sci-fi thriller Upgrade, and then he directed 2020’s The Invisible Man for Universal, which was also a substantial hit.) Meanwhile Wan went on to direct The Conjuring in 2013 and its 2016 sequel, The Conjuring 2, based on the true case files of supernatural investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by regular Wan collaborator Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Both of those “Conjuring” movies opened with $40 million+, and you guessed it, they also led to hugely successful franchises for Warner Bros with spin-offs galore.

Although Wan has been making big studio mega-blockbusters like Furious 7 and Aquaman in recent years -- and he’s hard at work on a sequel to the latter -- Malignant is his return to horror after a whole five years, which certainly is exciting for horror fans and those who love Wan’s style of horror particularly.

One thing that’s become fairly obvious from writing about box office over the past couple decades is that horror movies are rarely sold on the names of their stars, although Wan has a fine lead in the form of Annabelle Wallis, who just so happened to have starred in the 2014 The Conjuring prequel called Annabelle, which did quite well. (No, she did not play the title doll Annabelle, if you haven't seen it.) And that’s about it. The fact that Wan can do whatever he wants these days, and he decides to return to the horror genre without stacking the deck with all sorts of name actor, is pretty impressive. Even Saw had bigger names actors like Carey Elwes and Danny Glover!

Although I don’t know much about Malignant, it’s definitely giving me vibes of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, the horror master’s return to horror after making three “Spider-Man” movies. Although it’s well-loved by horror fans, it ended up opening with just $15.8 million in the summer of 2009. That’s a little daunting when you figure that Malignant is opening in September and in the second weekend of a huge blockbuster like Marvel’s Shang-Chi.

But there’s something else that’s been bugging me, as excited as I am to see the movie. I’ve been doing this a long time, and Warner Bros. has become almost legendary for screening all their movies in advance… every single one. I can maybe think of two examples of movies that didn’t get advance critics screenings. Malignant is screening for critics but only on Thursday night with an embargo Thursday at 10pm. That is not the move of a studio confident in a movie they’re releasing. Maybe it’s to avoid spoilers or maybe it’s ‘cause Malignant returns Wan to the craziness of the Insidious movies rather than the more commercial and mainstream horror of The Conjuring movies. I don’t know, cause I haven’t seen it, but I'm still gonna go see it on Friday night, ‘cause I like James and want to fully support his movie.

But that adds another layer of foreboding to the horror movie that will also be on HBO Max Friday, and it’ll be so easy for the curious to just hit “play” on their remote to watch it that way, which is what I think most people will do. Because of this, I’m struggling to find a way that Malignant makes more than $13 million, taking quite a distant second place to Shang-Chi in its second weekend.

Opening in roughly 500 theaters Friday is Paul Schrader’s THE CARD COUNTER (Focus Features), which stars Oscar Isaac as former prison inmate and professional gambler, “William Tell,” who drives around the casino circuit making money by playing blackjack and poker. He meets two people on his journey that changes the course of his path, the first being Tye Sheridan’s Cirk (Yes, with a “C”), a young man whose father ended up killing himself after serving time in military prison for crimes at Abu Ghraib. Tiffany Haddish plays La Lina, a woman who sees Will’s talent playing cards and wants to put him in her stable of players. The relationship between these three characters is what keeps the movie interesting even when there are only a few minor dramatic fireworks.

If there’s any doubt that Schrader, a significant Hollywood player in the ‘70s and ‘80s, is firing on all cylinders then The Card Counter confirms that 2017’s First Reformed was no fluke, as Schrader remains valid and important well into his 70s. Like First Reformed, this film features an undeniably solid performance from Isaac, who plays such a subdued character, an enigma who every so often truly explodes.

Sheridan's sheepish Cirk seems like an odd choice in road companion, although Haddish proves to be quite a counter (pun intended) to Isaac, as she seems far more comfortable in Will's world. Trying to understand Will and what he sees in Cirk and why he joins the World Poker Tour circuit despite wanting to remain anonymous is what keeps The Card Counter so invigorating. (One odd thing is that despite the title and the opening which literally teaches the viewer how to count cards while playing Blackjack, in most of the movie he’s actually playing poker.)

Folks who enjoy poker movies and the intricacies of Vegas and the gambling community in general should really enjoy The Card Counter for that aspect alone, but then there's the past of the main character, which ties into Abu Ghraib and the horrors of the tortures committed there. Some might feel that two decades after 9/11 isn't the best time to bring those crimes back to the forefront, but Schrader ably explores what it must have been like for the military torturers after they were convicted.

Few screenwriters and filmmakers could pull off what Schrader does in terms of combining these elements, as the story weaves itself through these very different worlds. Frequent Schrader collaborator, Willem Dafoe, takes on a smaller but still significant role as “Gordo,” Will’s commanding officer who trained him to torture. Even so, one of my favorite moments is a scene in a diner where Will performs a card trick for Cirk that would make the late Ricky Jay proud just adds to one's enjoyment.

I will say that I wasn’t as thrilled by the movie’s last ten minutes, as it feels like Schrader ran out of steam in terms of how to resolve all the pieces of a puzzle, leaving a couple pieces out before completion. Regardless, The Card Counter is a constantly compelling film that keeps you invested in the different characters’ behavior as things happen to and around them.

As far as box office, The Card Counter isn't getting a very wide release but with so many movies in the top 10 quickly dropping away leaving movies like Shang-Chi at the top, it should leave room for Schrader's film to inch its way into the top 10 and maybe even the top 5!

A movie I’m unlikely to see and know very little… okay… nothing… about is the faith-based SHOW ME THE FATHER (Sony/AFFIRM Films), which will open in about 1,000 theaters on Friday. Okay, fine, you twisted my arm, and I looked it up. This is a new documentary about fatherhood from the Kendrick Brothers, the duo behind faith-based hits like War Room, Courageous, and Fireproof. I've seen none of those movies, though I know all of them exceeded expectations, but this is also a doc, and those rarely do as well at the box office. I wish I could give you a definitive number for this, but something makes me think it won’t make more than $2 million, even if the religious right seem less worried about COVID and vaccines and wearing masks in movie theaters than everyone else. Expect it to end up in the bottom of the Top 10 with lots of confused movie writers not knowing what it is.

Kristen Bell and Kirby Howell-Baptiste (who have appeared both on The Good Place and in Veronica Mars together) co-star in the comedy QUEENPINS (STXfilms), which is being released straight to Cinemark Theaters on Friday and then it will be on Paramount+ on Sept. 30.

In the movie, based on a true story, Bell plays Connie Kominski, a suburban Phoenix housewife who thrills to saving money with coupons, hatches a scheme with her best friend JoJo (Howell-Baptiste) to sell coupons via mail, not realizing that what they’re doing is illegal as they rack up millions of dollars. Unfortunately, they have Paul Walter Hauser’s Loss Prevention Manager Ken Miller on their tail, and he teams with postal inspector Simon Kilmurry (Vince Vaughn) to try to catch them women trying to scam the supermarkets.

This movie, written and directed by Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, actually is based on a true story, but it took me a little while to get into it, and it definitely had its ups and downs. The first thing one has to get past is the fact that this is essentially a heist film that involves illicit coupons, and at first, Connie writing letters of complaint to companies comes across a bit like a Greenberg for middle-aged women. (Note: that film's star, Ben Stiller is one of the movie's exec. producers.) On the other hand, Kristen Bell tends to be great in this kind of role and you can tell she's worked with Ms. Howell-Baptiste from their organic chemistry as best friends. Joel McHale has a tougher time fitting in as Connie's husband Rick, but that actually works in this case. (A little trivia fact: McHale, Howell-Baptiste and Natalie Morales, whose directorial debut is reviewed below, all appeared in BenDavid Grabinski's Happily, as did Stephen Root, who has a small role in Queenpins.)

Queenpins eventually falls into a steadier pace with the introduction of Hauser's character and then bringing Vaughn into the mix, although the two of them have very little interaction with the two female leads, as the film instead cuts between the two duos. Hauser essentially seems to be playing a jokier version of Richard Jewell here, constantly trying to get more involved in the case and wanting to be deputized by Vaughn. The two of them work well together, and there's only one unfortunate scene involving… it's too disgusting to mention, but it's where the film needlessly delves into gross-out humor, and that's also where it falters.

As much as the law in this movie act like buffoons, the two ladies don't seem very much smarter, doing idiotic things like buying Lamborghinis and guns in order to "clean” the illicit money from the coupon-selling scam. Because of that, Queenpins gets sillier and sillier and feels less like any sort of possible true story as it goes along. The movie basically comes across like a less skilled version of Butter, but in that case, it was a movie that shouldn't have worked but did. In this case, it's the exact opposite.

Cinemark Theaters only has about 331 theaters across America, including a lot in Texas, California, and Ohio, but honestly, I don't think awareness is high enough for Queenpins for it to make much of a mark, but even if it makes less than a million, it could theoretically break into the top 10 this weekend, but I think it will fall just short.

The movies above are the only ones that may be going even remotely wide, so because of that, this weekend’s box office will look something like this with Shang-Chi remaining #1 with relative ease, Malignant taking a distant second, and Candyman and Free Guy fighting it out for #3.

1. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Marvel/Disney) - $33.5 million -56%

2. Malignant (Warner Bros.) - $13.6 million N/A

3. Candyman (Universal) - $4.8 million -53%

4. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $4.5 million -42%

5. The Card Counter (Focus) - $2.2 million N/A

6. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $2.1 million -48%

7. Paw Patrol: The Movie (Paramount) - $2 million -50%

8. Show Me the Father (Sony/AFFIRM) - $2 million N/A

9. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $2 million -30%

10. Respect (MGM) - $600,000 -57%

--- Queenpins (STXfilms) - $445,000 N/A

It was tough to pick a “Chosen One” this week, because there are a few decent films, but I had to go with Natalie Morales’ directorial debut, LANGUAGE LESSONS (Shout! Studios!), which she co-wrote and co-stars in with Mark Duplass. I saw it at SXSW back in March, and I loved it just as much a second time around, due to the simplicity of the premise and just how much Morales and her co-star do using similar Zoom technology we’ve all been using for the past 18 months. Duplass plays wealthy Californian Adam, whose husband buys him a series of Spanish lessons, given over Zoom by Morales’ character Cariño, who lives in Costa Rica.

You might think after over a year of mostly communicating with family and friends via Zoom, we’d be so sick of it that a movie that uses that as a conceit would be absolutely horrible, but maybe that’s why it’s easier to connect with what Morales and Duplass were attempting with this terrific piece of work. How these two people from different backgrounds interact begins slowly as might be the case while getting online language lessons from a new teacher. As they become more comfortable with each other, there’s more playfulness, as they begin to open up to each other. (Adam's Spanish teacher definitely has a dark side that comes out as things go along.)

I’m not sure if there was a lot of improvisation involved with the script as with some of the films Duplass did with the wonderful Lynn Shelton, but however they put this film together, it works in a similar way where it’s charming and funny, even during some of the more emotional moments. Because Duplass’ character is declared as gay fairly on, there's none of the attempts at making this some sort of meet-cute romance, as may have been the case with a studio movie. There's also never anything lascivious or creepy about their relationship, which makes some of the moments a little confounding, but ultimately, it all pays off.

Even though there’s a certain aspect of the movie that makes you want it to be kept organic and authentic-feeling, there is some gentle scoring by Gaby Moren that’s kept far behind the dialogue that does add something subliminal to the film.

Language Lessons is absolutely delightful -- definitely one of my favorite films of the year -- maybe because it thrives on its own simplicity by just having two actors doing what they do best.

Another great movie coming out in select theaters Friday is EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE (Amazon), starring Max Harwood as Jamie New, a fairly normal gay 16-year-old from Sheffield, England… other than the fact that he wants to be a drag queen. His mother Margaret (Sarah Lancashire) supports him, as does his best friend Pritti (Lauren Patel) but Jamie risks the ridicule and mocking and bullying of his entire Year 11 class as he proclaims his desire to attend prom in drag. This is the feature debut by Jonathan Butterell, a choreographer who directed the original stageplay.

I honestly wasn't really sure what to expect when I went to a theater to see this with a real audience. For one thing, I had no idea it was a musical. I had seen Max on some morning show talking about the movie and how it was based on the true story of Jamie Campbell, a British teen who wanted to be a drag queen, but I don’t remember him saying anything about singing or dancing. And the music and performances are all terrific, including all the young actors playing Jamie’s schoolmates, who have more than a few spectacular numbers to show off their own skills. (They’re kind of like the Greek chorus for the film.)

Harwood is exceedingly likeable, which is why he can carry this film, but it’s then an even bigger joy when Richard E. Grant shows up in a mentor role, as former drag queen “Loco Channel.” Grant has proven countless times he can do anything, and though his singing voice takes some adjusting to, it also leads to two absolutely amazing moments. Same with Lauren Patel and Sarah Lancashire, who each have numbers that would bring down the house on a Broadway stage but just gets the tears flowing as you’re watching on the screen. Sharon Horgan, who was just in the recent drama Together, plays more of the antagonist role as Jamie’s disapproving teacher, and her one number does not show that singing is one of her talents. (She does okay, and gets through it, at least.)

That aside, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is a truly wonderful musical (and movie), one that took me quite by surprise, since I wasn't expecting something a bit more "Free to Be You and Me” (look it up). In fact, Harwood shines, and the cast around him does as well; the fact this musical was able to bring out so many emotions from me offers proof positive that it's a true winner.

Jamie is opening in select theaters this Friday, and then it will stream on Amazon Prime Video starting Sept. 17. I recommend going out and seeing it in a theater if it’s playing near you; it’s a real crowdpleaser, for sure.

Also launching on Amazon this Friday is the series, THE VOYEURS (Amazon), starring the terrific Sidney Sweeney (who many will know from Mike White’s The White Lotus on HBO Max) and Justice Smith as a young couple who move into a loft apartment in Downtown Montreal after which they become interested in the sex life of their neighbors across the street (played by Ben Hardy and Natash Liu Bordizzo).

I’ve really been looking forward to the action-thriller KATE (Netflix), starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who I love, so sue me. It also stars Woody Harrelson, who I’m also a fan of. Directed by Cedric Nicholas-Troyan (The Huntsman: Winter’s War), it has Winstead playing Kate, a kick-ass assassin who has 24 hours to get revenge on the man who tries to kill her, eventually teaming with the daughter of one of her targets. Harrelson plays her handler.

The fact that this movie, starring one of my favorite actresses playing an assassin and doing a bit more action than we've seen from Winstead in a while (Birds of Prey being an exception), comes so soon after The Protégé with Maggie Q may only be a coincidence, but whoever is making these movies clearly knows what I'm all about. This one also has a very tiny sci-fi angle as well, and much of it is set in Tokyo, so it has both those things going for it, too.

Is this Winstead's best role or movie? No, probably not, but it does show her versatility, the fact that she can do something like Scott Pilgrim and other types of genre, but also do serious drama, and this is much stronger a venture into a Japanese yakuza thriller by a Westerner than last week's Yakuza Princess. Much of that comes down to Winstead and Harrelson, who do a much better job selling even the weaker dialogue, because you can tell they're both taking it very seriously. Like Yakuza Princess (and Kill Bill, a model for both of them) Nicholas-Troyan leans heavily on his soundtrack and on some of the more stylish visuals, but at least this one offers other things beyond the constantly-circling camera in certain scenes.

Let's face it that watching Winstead taking part in some pretty impressive and violent fight and stunt sequences would probably be more than enough for me to enjoy this even, if there are moments that rip-off Kill Bill so obviously but again, better than other similar rip-offs. Eventually, Kate gets sidled with a young teen girl, Ani (Miku Martineau), the daughter of one of her victims, and that does take away from the "sole assassin” aspect but does give it more of the feel of The Professional. Maybe that would work better if Martineau didn’t seem much older than the teenager she was meant to be playing, which might be due to the fact that she swears more than Samuel L. Jackson. In some ways, Ani offers something more akin to Black Widow with a third act twist that few will see coming.

Ultimately, the movie works well as an action movie, if not slightly marred by its overuse of clichés. It probably will come as no surprise that I prefer seeing action movies like this on the biggest screen possible in a theater, and in fact, this did get a nominal theatrical run last week before streaming on Netflix Friday. Winstead's badassery does wonders at making sure that fans of her and the genre won't be disappointed by its few flaws.

Also hitting Netflix this week (today, in fact) is the doc BLOOD BROTHERS: MALCOLM X & MUHAMMAD ALI (Netflix), which has a fairly self-explanatory title. I haven't seen it yet.

A movie that people who liked the Oscar-winning Free Solo will also want to check out is Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen’s THE ALPINIST (Red Bull Media/Roadside Attractions/Universal), a documentary about the 23-year-old solo mountain climber Marc-André Leclerc, whose amazing climbs were counterbalanced by his elusive behavior that kept him mostly under the radar for so many years.

This is a very different movie from Free Solo, though. That was about Alex Honnold's determination to make one singular climb, while Leclerc was already making just as many impressive climbs at a younger age. It's pretty obvious that Leclerc was destined to climb even bigger rock faces as Mortimer (whose previous film, The Dawn Wall, was sadly overlooked with all the push behind Free Solo) and Rosen finally catch up with him.

I don't really want to say too much more about the film or Leclerc, since it's best to learn about him through the movie and the amazing interviews compiled by the filmmaking duo. There's a good reason why mountain climbing continues to be of interest to the casual non-climbers like myself. Great films like The Alpinist find ways to glorify these amazing climbers without glossing over how dangerous mountain climbing can be as a sport or hobby.

The Alpinist had a Fathom Event on Tuesday night, but it will also be getting a moderately wide release in theaters through Roadside this Friday as well. You can read my interviews with the filmmakers over at Below the Line, too. Also, I mentioned another Universal doc, Under the Volcano, a few weeks back, and I have an interview with those filmmakers over at Below the Line, as well.

Another doc of note out this week is FAUCI (NatGeo Documentary/Magnolia) from directors John Hoffman and Janet Tobias, which looks at the life and career of NIH Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, but it doesn't deal with the last year and a half where Fauci's main focus was fighting COVID. No, this goes back to earlier in his career, to when he started at NIH, meeting, working with and eventually marrying his wife, Dr. Christine Grady. (Nope, I had no idea he was married either.)

More importantly, the movie follows Fauci's role in the discovery of HIV and AIDs and the conflicts between the government and protest groups like ACT UP who didn't think Fauci and the government did enough to help the gay community fight against AIDS and certainly not fast enough to make a difference.

Hoffman and Tobias’ doc has a fantastic interview with Fauci at its core that sometimes gets a little cutesy, but also allows him to talk candidly about his efforts in fighting disease, including the efforts to help fight Ebola in Africa where it was so debilitating for those who couldn't afford medicine that the USA had to step in.

But AIDS is really the crux of the film's exploration of Fauci's past achievements (and partial failures), and watching a younger Fauci talking to the AIDS activists in a rousing speech is one of the highlights, as is watching the present-day Fauci tearing up while talking about an AIDS patient who died.

I’ve always had a bit of a skewed perspective on epidemiologists and infectious disease doctors due to a few incidents when I was fighting cancer, and Fauci has annoyed me for the good part of the year by being so wishy-washy and negative towards movie theaters (which led to a full-year of closings in NYC with no major super-spreader cases since they reopened). But this documentary definitely helped change my mind about Fauci, maybe because the general public really never had a chance to meet or know him or his work before COVID hit.

Fauci is quite a fantastic doc in terms of shining the spotlight on a needlessly controversial figure who has been politicized despite having held his position through six administrations. I would definitely point someone to this doc if they still feel negatively towards the country’s top epidemiologist. It helps to humanize Fauci much like the RBG doc did for the late Supreme Court Justice.

Seriously, there are so many movies this week that there’s no way I’m gonna review everything, but you can read about a few of them below.

A music doc hitting New York on Friday and then opening in L.A. on Sept. 17 is Tom Surgals's FIRE MUSIC: The Story of Free Jazz (Submarine Deluxe), exec. produced by Nels Cline and Thurston Moore (who happens to be playing his first NYC show in a couple years this Sunday). It covers the free jazz movement of the '60s and '70s that produced the likes of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane. The movie features archival footage from the '60s jazz scene and interviews with key players, including critic Gary Giddins. I'm not going to review this, but it's pretty good, because I definitely had a phase when I was really into this type of jazz, basically all-improvisational with less structure than the jazz that uses charts and such. I know that a lot of people hate or misunderstand the musical style but it's quite stirring, as is Surgal's film. I do feel you'll already have to be a fan of the musical genre to enjoy the movie, though.

Hitting Apple TV+ on Friday is the filmed version of the Broadway musical, COME FROM AWAY (Apple TV+) -- similar to last year’s Hamilton and David Byrne’s American Utopia -- which is being released on the streamer to coincide with the 20th anniversary of 9/11, since the musical is loosely based on the events. It was filmed earlier this year, 14 months into the pandemic that shut down Broadway with a fully-masked audience watching Broadway’s first live performance since the shut-down. This is one of the MANY musicals on Broadway that I’ve never gotten around to seeing but it involves a town in Newfoundland, Canada where a plane lands on 9/11 as they’ve been diverted following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Claire Lewins’ doc THE WONDERFUL: STORIES FROM THE SPACE STATION (Dog Star Films/Universal Home Entertainment) features footage from the International Space Station and interviews with the astronauts who have been involved with the extraordinary space project. I hope to watch this over the weekend, but it sounds like my kind of movie.

Already on Apple TV+ (it debuted Tuesday!) is Bailie Walsh’s BEING JAMES BOND, a documentary about Daniel Craig’s run as 007 over the past decade plus, which you can rent for FREE on Apple, so go do that!

On Monday, FX and FX on Hulu will debut the first few episodes of Y THE LAST MAN, the new series based on the Vertigo comic series by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra that I absolutely loved. Set in a world where every single male human and animal has died, it stars Ben Schnetzer (Pride, Warcraft) as Yorick, who is -- you guessed it-- the last man on earth. He’s also an escape artist/magician, trying to survive with his pet capuchin monkey, Ampersand, as he goes across country trying to find his girlfriend Beth who left for Australia before the event. It also stars Diane Lane (as Yorick’s mother, who becomes the President), Olivia Thirlby (as his sister Hero), Ashley Romans (as Agent 355), Missi Pyle, and lots of other actresses (because all the men are dead). I’m slowly making my way through the series, and I like what I've seen so far, but the first three episodes will premiere on Monday.

A few other movies, a couple that I’ve seen, which I just don’t have time to review…

Nicholas Cage stars in Sion Sono's PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (RLJEfilms), which opens at the IFC Center this Friday. He plays a bank robber who is sprung from jail by Bill Moseley's "Governor" whose adopted granddaughter (Sofia Boutella) has gone missing. Cage's character is allowed to go free to find her, but he's put in a suit that will self-destruct in three days if he doesn't return. So it's kind of like The Suicide Squad, and though it has an interesting cast (including Nick Cassavetes, who also appears in Queenpins this week), I don't remember liking this much at Sundance earlier this year. (I actually don't thnk I got through the movie.)

John Pollono adapts his own stageplay SMALL ENGINE REPAIR (Vertical) to the screen with John Bernthal and Shea Whigham playing life-long friends Terrance and Packie with Pollono’s Frank, who are overly protective of Terrance’s teen daughter, Crystal (Ciaro Bravo). A chance encounter turns into a night that spins out of control as the friends have to make a tough decision about how to resolve the situation. I was pretty mixed on this movie even though Bernthal and Whigham continue to be great in everything they do. (I just think Whigham's recent movie, The Gateway, was better.)

Hitting the horror-streaming network Shudder (I have a subscription, because I’m a fan) on Thursday is Ruth Platt’s MARTYR’S LANE, a ghost story about a 10-year-old girl named Leah (Kiera Thompson) who lives in an old house with her family but whose mother has grown distant. At night, she’s visited by a guest who challenges Leah in exchange for more information about the house and her family.

Saul Williams stars and writes the score for Charles Officer’s AKILLA’S ESCAPE (Vertical), a crime noir about an urban child soldier set in Toronto and New York with Williams playing Akilla, a 40-year-old with a covert cannabis operation that goes legit. As he’s ready to cash out, he’s robbed by a group of masked youths. Akilla captures one of them, a mute 15-year-old named Sheppard that is associated with the Jamaican crime syndicate founded by his grandfather.

Jonah Feingold’s DATING & NEW YORK (IFC Films), which premiered at the Tribeca Festival a few months back, stars Francesca Reale (Stranger Things) and Jaboukie Young-White (The Daily Show) as Wendy and Milo, two Millennials who are thrown together at the worst time in their lives for romance, as they meet on an app called Meet Cute, have a first date, and then ghost each other before being thrown back together into an unconventional romance. I’m usually a fan of the rom-com genre, and I often can even withstand one that takes place in New York City and uses my town in a completely unrealistic way to show how romance can flourish here. (*koff*BULLSHIT*koff*) But then you throw in the M-word (Millennials), and this grouchy old man could barely get through this movie, though I’m not even remotely surprised it premiered at Tribeca. It seems very much like a Tribeca movie, and yes, that was meant in a pejorative way as the former “Film” festival has lost its way over the years. I’m half-kidding, the movie is entertaining enough, and I’m sure younger people will enjoy it more than I did.

A few other films I didn't get to this week…

DOGS (Dekanalog) AZOR (MUBI) BAD CANDY (Dread)

That’s it for this week. Do we have any new movies next week? I think Clint Eastwood has Cry Macho

[thatonelucky]

The Ache Only A Heart Can Take

I’m back! I haven’t written anything in months and I had a sudden burst of needing to write this so enjoy! Also, I’m hopefully going to be updating Twist of Fate soon! Watch this space ;)

Click here to read on A03

               She knew that the feeling was wrong. Nothing was right about the abundant mass that weighed heavily in her heart, making her feel sick to her stomach at any given opportunity. Her eyes grew heavy as if she had taken one too many sleeping aids, but she knows that she’s drunk with exhaustion, maybe drunk in general.

               Betty had never been the one to pick up a drink, let alone neck one too many back in a grimy pub on the outskirts of town. Her pastel skirt and cashmere sweater stood out against the mounds of dirty leather and greasy hair. She would’ve cared if this was any other circumstance. There was nothing indifferent about the ripped material covering the seat of the bar stools or the chipped wood that blistered her porcelain skin with any slight movement.

               New York had been a rough move; anyone could have told her this. But the situation was fucked and there was nothing else she could’ve done. Running away was the only option she had right now. Granted, she had imagined it a slightly different way. People change, plans change, everything changes and the sooner she came to terms with that, the sooner she could move on with her life. That’s if she could ever move on.

               They had a plan, much like her older sister had a plan. If there’s one thing Betty could take away from the family curse it’s that happiness doesn’t come. You’re left to fend for yourself in a limbo of self-loathing and loneliness. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They had a plan.

               Betty rubbed at her temples, growing more agitated the longer that she thought about it. This was all his fault. The black hood swooped in and made her destroy the one good thing in her life. She should be blaming the black hood, but she can’t help from blaming Jughead. He didn’t even talk to her to see if it was true, he just took Archie’s word for it and jumped straight on to Toni instead. He was supposed to love her.

               Her fist slammed back down to the table. He loved just like his mother. Tap out when it gets too hard and quit when you’re a step away from the finish line. Her legs were aching but she wasn’t able to notice before she reached out to grab her whisky glass. She used to grimace at the potent stench and deem it unholy. With that exact thought in her mind, she brought the glass to her lips and took another gulp, sucking every last drop from the bottom of the glass.

               By now her vision was a swirling mess of colours and people that she’d never see again. Their unfamiliar faces never burning into her mind. Sat here, she was as insignificant as them. They didn’t look at her and think of perfection or the blossom blood flowing through her veins. She used to think that Jughead looked at her and saw more than that. But maybe all he saw was a fragile girl and an opportunity too good to pass. Betty Cooper’s a buffet, take what you want and go. She chuckled to no one in particular. What a pitiful life.

               “I’m cutting you off. Maybe go home and sleep some off.” The bartender smiled sweetly at Betty almost patronisingly. She had to be in her 30’s with auburn hair fashioned in a frizzy bob with delicate features. Her warm brown eyes acted as a second smile that Betty hailed with open arms, quite literally.

               “Ooo, thank you Sylv, you’re the only one who cares!” Betty deprecated to the woman across from her. Sylvia rubbed Betty’s back smiling into her shoulder. The embrace was swiftly cut off when Sylvia walked around the other side of the bar, hoisting Betty up onto her feet. “M’ good. I got this. Thanks again.” Betty was far from sober but she knew she could get to her uncles apartment in one bit.

               “No worries Betty sweet, take care of yourself.” Sylvia helped her out of the door and then resumed her bartending duties. Betty knew all of the staff here, she’d become accustom to trudging towards this very bar every day after work to drown her sorrows in a drink. She wasn’t an alcoholic, she’s gone weeks without a drink and been fine. But there was a sense of comfort in forgetting that your life is a downward spiral that destroys anything and everything good in its path.

               The walk home was a scenic route, the winter air left a sharp bite in the air but she couldn’t feel it. The cars passing left a scent of burning petrol in the air, one too many needed a new exhaust in Betty’s opinion. Life was at a standstill, the whistling of the air through the trees left her feeling dizzier than she was previously. The only thing running through her mind was that they had plans. Real plans. She ran her fingers through her golden locks, wishing to pull them back into a tight pony tail but not having the heart to.

               The first time Betty and Jughead had talked about a future together was in 2nd grade when the kids got a visit from the local dog shelter. All of the kids took part in a fundraiser to promote adopting the dogs in the shelter and donating to ensure that they could carry on saving lives. It was one hell of a day, Betty had played with almost a hundred dogs but one caught her eye. The golden retriever must have been a foot smaller than Betty, licking her face at any given chance.

               “Winston! That’s my nose you silly puppy!” Betty giggled cheerfully to the golden dog. Jughead had found himself gravitating to the soft laughter, finding a comfort in the melodic sounds of his best friend. They played happily with him for a while until Jughead spoke up.

               “Betts, when we’re older can we have our own Winston?” Jughead’s eyes went wide with hope. Betty smiled down at him and ruffled the beanie on top of his head. Later on Winston was sold to a loving family, but Betty knew that one day she could have her own Winston with Jughead and it would be perfect.

               Betty smiled at the thought of her young mind believing that everything could turn out right. A stray tear leaked from Betty’s eye as she walked through the gardens and into her uncle’s apartment complex. The warm surroundings of the lobby couldn’t melt Betty’s ice cold heart. She begged herself to stay calm but nothing could keep the agonizing pain from stabbing at her chest, leaving her bleeding on the floor.  The was the ache that only a heart could take.

               “Betty, you have a visitor.” Her uncle James knocked on her bedroom door, waking her up from her slumber. She had always hoped that the last few months of her life had been a dream, but she always woke up in the same place. Betty grumbled into her pillow.

               “I’ll be out in a minute. Tell Veronica to put her bags outside the door.” Betty sighed heavily. Veronica had known about her plan to leave Riverdale and helped her to make it happen. In turn, Veronica stays with Betty in the Holidays. She had refused to let her best friend leave her side forever. Though, since there had been no more murders after Betty had left, she doubted she would ever return to Riverdale.

               “Okay, where should the ginger put his cases?” Uncle James smirked as Betty flew out of bed and straight into the living room. James wasn’t lying, right before her eyes stood Archie and Veronica drinking tea with James’s husband, Rafael. They all seemed focused on the conversation they were having, not yet noticing Betty’s arrival.

               “Yeah, I mean it’s Betty’s choice. That kids happy to wait 100 years for her.” Archie chuckled lowly, a look of guilt on his face. Betty wondered for a moment who they were talking about but soon put 2 and 2 together. She stepped out from around the corner and faced the 3 of them.

               “Who?” Betty’s voice croaked loudly as 3 heads snapped to face her. Veronica smiled widely and ran to hug Betty. Archie followed in suit, squeezing the life out of his friend. Betty was only focused on one thing. “Who, Archie?  What’s going on?” Betty stepped out of the embrace. Archie had a sheepish look on his face before he spoke up.

               “Jughead. He’s, uh, in the bathroom.” The world started to spin and not like last night. Betty’s head was spiralling with words and questions that wouldn’t have answers. Her body went numb at the thought of seeing him again. She couldn’t breathe. Everything got worse a few seconds later when she heard the bathroom door open down the hall. There was nothing she could do. Why was he here? Why now? After everything that he did to her, why is he here?

               “Betts?” The voice that she had been dreaming of spoke from behind her. She couldn’t face turning around. After months of her thinking he’s completely forgotten about her, he’s behind her. “Betts, look at me. Please.” He begged her, the sense of urgency in his voice pleading for her to just look at him but she can’t.

               “We’ll give you two a minute.” Rafael ushered Archie and Ronnie along with their bags to Betty’s room. The closing of the door was the only sound that could be heard. Nothing was said. Nothing could be said. What was there to talk about? Betty risked everything to protect Jughead whilst he skipped off with Toni. Betty sat in the nearest chair, her eyes trained on the curling of her fist forcing her knuckles to go white.

               “Archie told me everything. About the, uh, the black hood calling you. And what he made you do.” Jughead’s voice cracked with sadness, his intense stare burning into Betty’s chest. He knew the truth, that’s why he’s here. She feels guilty enough as it is, the guilt eats her alive. “Betty just say something, anything, please.” His plea didn’t go unnoticed.

               “You didn’t even call me, or text me to see if it was true. You just blindly believed anything Archie said. Then I saw you with Toni at pops. I was nothing to you.” Betty seethed. She was flaming with rage, the closure she had dreamed off finally being given to her. Jughead didn’t look shocked at her outburst.

               “I know.” He whispered. These words were only making Betty angrier. She wanted to scream and shout at him in an attempt to dull the ache in her heart but all she could do was cry. She just cried exactly like she had been doing for the past 8 months. “Hey, Betts no, no don’t cry.” Jughead reached over and she let him. She rested her head in the nape of his neck and it felt like home. It felt like the most home she’d been in a while. He smelled the same, he looked the same and he felt the same.

               “Why didn’t you love me?”  Betty sobbed into his chest. Jughead felt his heart shatter in to a million pieces once again. He loved Betty with every inch of his soul, Betty is his anchor. Without her, his world stops turning and he knows he’s done wrong. He was hurting so much and Toni was there.

               “I never stopped loving you, Betts. Are you kidding? You’re all I have.” Jughead let a few tears slip, putting his palms on Betty’s cheeks and lifting her eyes to lock with his. Many unspoken words were said between the two. Communication is key to any relationship and that was made apparent on that night. Things didn’t go back to normal straight away. People were hurt, times were tough. But Betty knows that at the end of the day, Jughead is the one she wants to sleep next to every night and wake up with every morning. And that’s all that matters.

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

"crazy detention stories"...go

They’re really not that crazy I don’t think but fine- but as I had detention at least once a week for 3 years you’re only getting the highlights here:

So again, I only ever got detentions because I was late to school basically every day. Every single day, the office wrote me a late slip with my name spelled horrendously wrong. Different spelling every day. The most famous butchering was writing my name as “Millie Hoagie”. On my very last day of high school, I was predictably late, and they spelled my name perfectly correctly.

So listen my ‘reputation’ in school was basically “quiet good girl who’s never done anything wrong, ever, in her life” and “teacher’s pet” and the like. And despite the fact I was there every time all the ‘Bad Kids™’ who were also always in detention were always incredibly surprised to see me??? Like they never got over it. Every time I walked into the damn room at least half the class would be like “MOLLY YOU DON’T BELONG HERE YOU’RE INNOCENT!!” 😂

Also despite the fact I was basically invisible in the school as a whole all the trouble makers knew me by name because, and I quote a kid from my 10th grade Spanish class who was trying to hook up with me at the time here, “Guys like me are afraid of you, Girl, we’re just plain out scared that we gonna corrupt you!” and I still don’t know what he actually meant by that???

Bu anyway, this apparent rep usually gave me an upper hand with the teachers monitoring the detentions. Because, you know, some were fine, some were bitchy, some were insane. But all of them were pissed about the fact they had to be there instead of heading home.

The rules of detention were literally just ‘stare at the wall and don’t talk’, depending on which teacher they might let the students do homework. But since I was apparently a great person and always had the class’ incredulous response to me being in the room, they usually let me get away with sleeping or reading a book lol.

Of course…no one said any of the other kids were inclined to following the rules lmao. These were like, all the class clowns™ shoved into one room. Things always got real funny real fast.

It would always start off with the coughing game. If you’ve ever stepped into a school you should know what that is.

It would then escalate to everyone in the room playing catch whenever the teacher looked away for a brief moment

Detention was always in the health classroom so someone always tried to steal a limb off the skeleton without being to obvious

Some teachers would let people talk ‘quietly’ so jokes were fucking abound

One time I was minding my own damn business and a kid slides me a note saying ‘in like five minutes ask to go to the bathroom but head downstairs to the English wing’ before he snuck out without the teacher noticing. I get down there and he’s at one end of the hallway and another boy is at the other end. Upon seeing me, these boys run full speed down the hall at each other, leap up in the air when they get to the direct center, high five with full force, both scream in pain, and then hit the floor, clutching their hands. I was cracking the fuck up and trying to convince them to go to the nurse but they wouldn’t listen. I asked the guy why the hell they did that. He told me ‘because we wanted a witness and no one will ever believe you’ 😂😂

One time my sorta-neighbor Mike comes in and the teacher asked why he had detention and apparently, the principal had asked him where to find his friend Jose, and Mike responded “he’s out picking cotton” and the principal flipped out at what he perceived to be a racist joke and gave him a month detention. But the thing was, Jose was in an agriculture class and he was literally outside picking cotton that they had planted there earlier. Jose found it fucking hilarious and refused to tell the principal to get his friend out of trouble.

As I haven’t been inside a school building for quite some time now I don’t know if turtling is still a thing but it was…quite an epidemic for my senior class.

It’s when you turn someone’s backpack inside out right? But it was a full blown war with these kids. Trust no one. Never leave the room. Never look away. Holy shit. One of the best moments of this occurred in detention, when a boy reached to get a book out of his backpack to find it was gone. After 15 minutes of searching the room, he found it, turtled, hidden in a filing cabinet in the front of the room. Everyone, including the teacher, was loosing their shit, because how did someone pull that off so quietly and invisibly without someone noticing??? No one fessed up. The class was in fear of the turtle ninja for the rest of the month, but they never struck again. No one ever discovered who it was.

Guys: It was me.

One time it was raining and the teacher was in a bad mood so he insisted all the windows stay open. He left for a bathroom break or something and this one poor kid, who was now completely soaked as he was stuck with a window seat, just said “fucking bye” and just…climbed out the damn window. Left his backpack and everything. Didn’t see him again for at least a month.

There was one guy who always sold ice cream out of his bag when the teachers weren’t looking. Where he was getting it from and how it stayed frozen is beyond me.

Oh my God sometimes all the indie singer kids would just come and sit on the floor outside the classroom and talk loudly to annoy us??? The hell were they trying to accomplish??? Your singing ain’t special and you won’t be famous, please let us die in peace.

One kid had detention because when we were running laps in gym class he jumped up to hit the arch of the ceiling and accidentally set off the fire alarm. The teacher that day insisted on continuously referring to him as ‘the delinquent’, as if no one else in the room had broken the rules or something

One time one of the gym teachers was in charge of it and long story short he started doing the jersey turnpike. True horror.

One time the teacher got a call and she had to go down to the office and the second she was gone this one kid’s friend runs in with a huge tray going “Y’ALL I STOLE THE LASAGNE CUPCAKES FROM THE FOOD AND NUTRITION CLASSROOM” and we dined like kings.

Everyone would sometimes just break out in song for no God damn reason

One time one of the guys in charge of the detention was A) Not someone anyone recognized as a teacher and B) Potentially Stanley Tucci. Like…I was about 80% certain that this guy was Stanley Tucci.

He refused to confirm or deny or even give a name

One time I was really absorbed in my book when all the sudden a letter flew onto my desk, an anonymous sender that just said “You have a soft, sexy voice.” Neither of which is true, I’m pretty sure, and I could not for the life of me figure out who sent it omfg

One time a teacher was freaking out because he went to a psychic over the weekend and was told there was a lot of activity around him so I looked him straight in the eyes and told him I’m a medium and I can see that the devil had marked his soul and he threw me out of the room and refused to take that class for detention ever again😂

It was a hot summers day. The ceiling fans were on their highest setting. A boy nudges me, with a small carton of ice cream in his hands under his desk. “What do you think would happen if I scooped out a huge chunk of this and threw it at the fan?” he whispered. “Jamil, no.” I pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears. Soon, the room was filled with confused screams.

Apparently all the other regulars™ had bought me candy grams around Christmas time so they were confused when I showed up to detention with no candy and apparently the student council member sent them all to the other Molly in the grade because she was the popular one and this lead to about 12 boys grumbling for two and a half hours like “The one damn time I attempt to be a gentleman” and “I know where she lives” and “Gonna gingerbread her fucking locker” I could not stop laughing

Oh God okay one time the teacher we had was literally. Off the charts.

Like there’s the chill teachers, and then the bitchy teachers. And then this lady. She literally reminded me of Stubel

So I didn’t even know who she was but I walk in and do my shy smile/quiet ‘hello’ thing and take out my book so she immediately zeros in on me as ‘the good kid’ as usual

But she literally seemed to think every other person in this class was a hardened criminal holy shit. She was all over the place barking orders and yelling. And of course, you’ve got a room full of class clowns, like they feed off teachers like this. So the madder she got the more ridiculous they got. I was literally almost in tears trying to force myself not to laugh because I didn’t want to risk her turning on me omfg

So she yelled and flailed about the room and they kept going with jokes and paper wasps and lying about their names and just doing literally every thing they could possibly do so this woman wouldn’t have the chance to rest

This escalated with every minute and came to a resounding end when the teacher decided the Australian Kid™ was chewing gum and picked up the trashcan and shoved his face in it, screaming at him to spit it out as he yelled back “YOU’RE ONLY DOING THIS BECAUSE IM AN IMMIGRANT”

he was in charge of all the bullshit that day and it was hysterical but he wasn’t the one chewing gum loudly that was me

The vp came in to see what all the yelling was about to find a teacher shoving a boy’s head in the trash, one boy shirtless as another drew tattoos on him, the phone off the line with it’s cord wrapped around a kid’s neck, two boys dueling with skeleton arms, one kid with her leg out the window, a kid tying a skeleton foot to the ceiling fan, rubber bands and paper wasps flying from every angle, three people turtling backpacks, someone brandishing an epi-pen, sexual hangman being played on the chalkboard, someone eating ice cream and fanning himself with money, and me, crying into my book with my hand literally bleeding from all my efforts to not laugh at what I was witnessing

We never saw her in detention again😂

My one younger friend got a detention for being late and was really shaken up about it and I tried to tell her she’d be fine but then she got caught sliding me chocolate animal crackers during it, and subsequently got another detention because of this; somehow I was not viewed as an equally guilty party and didn’t get in trouble

This one guy came in complaining “You guys all told me to get a twitter and I get thrown in twitter jail my first day!” “That’s like a thousand tweets in one day, how the fuck did you mange that?” “Bitch I had a lot to say about McDonalds!”

One teacher came in and was like “I don’t feel like helping with homework but does anyone wanna learn how to hack a computer?”

Someone got caught pouring water out the window but when the teacher looked to see why she saw the youngest of the goats™ standing under the window with it’s mouth open waiting for more

One time the teacher wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom and after I asked for like the 5th time he said “It can’t be that important!” so I just pulled a pad out of my backpack and silently sat it on my desk while glaring at him and this 40 year old man looked like he was about to pass out and he finally let me go

I remember our final detention of senior year we were told that if we skip it we can’t graduate so everyone went into that room with a ridiculously nostalgic attitude and one guy finally stole the skull off the skeleton and we fucking tossed it around the entire time while singing and blatantly ignoring the teacher’s complaining lmao

I know there’s more but it’s 7am and this is long so all in all like…I do not miss high school but some memories are bearable lmao