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fangirlovestuff · 4 years ago

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Child’s Play - Chris Evans x reader

a/n- Hey lovely people! the movie in this is completely made up with excessive use of random plot/name generators lol. also, the Melissa I mention is Melissa Fumero who I love and plays Amy on Brooklyn 99, and Anthony is Mackie who we all know and love. Enjoy! <3

Summary: You’re a director and you finally got to direct your husband chris in a movie. Now you just need to get through the press tour...

Word Count: ~1,780

Warnings: none that i’m aware of

You stepped out onto the stage when the interviewer called your name, waving at the crowd which was cheering and clapping.

"And without further ado, let's give a round of applause to Captain America himself, Chris Evans!"

Chris lightly stepped onto the stage, waving at the screaming fans as he took his place next to you. He reached out and squeezed your hand in his, and you returned a squeeze. You both tended to get nervous at these press panels and interviews, even if this one was one you were lucky enough to do together.

"It's so great to have you all here today! The entire cast of the hit movie The Invisible Lights!" the interviewer started and the crowd applauded once more. "First off, I want to start with a question for Chris," she said. He smiled and nodded at her to continue. "Your character in this movie, William Brown, is a sorcerer, but in a casual way, that's like his thing. For you, who, I believe, have never played a character with outright magic powers before, how hard was it to find a window and relate to him?"

"Yeah, it was actually kinda easy, even easier than some other characters I've played, because—"

"He's a wizard guys, it's not that complicated," you cut in and Chris laughed.

"Almost," he says and smiles, "but what I was gonna say before my lovely wife here interrupted me," you made a kissy face at him and he chuckled once more, "was that Will is actually just a nice guy, he experiences everything with the same compassion and excitement and fears just like us normal human beings do, and magic is just a cool bonus to that. So no, I wouldn't say relating to him was any more challenging than to any other character."

"Thank you, Chris, that was a great answer," the interviewer smiled. "Now Melissa, I actually have a question for you too," she turned to her, "we all know and love you as Amy Santiago, who is a very comedic character, so what drove you towards this part of Nancy, who's just a normal person who's trying to do her job and doesn't get to make as many jokes in this movie as other characters do?"

"Well, I think Amy and Nancy are similar in a lot of ways, you know, they're both very dedicated to their job and are very rational women, but what drew me to this was actually the differences between them. Nancy is less type A, she's a bit more unsure of herself and is more of a "normal person" whereas Amy is more the "nerd" type. Getting to play someone like that just appealed to me a lot."

The interviewer asked you a question next. "So how was directing this movie for you? What's it like directing your husband in a movie?" the audience cheers a little at that.

"Well, I gotta say it's one of the most fun sets I've been on, and not only because Chris was there," you smiled. "I was obviously a huge fan of Melissa and I was stoked she could do this movie with us, and really the whole set was very upbeat and just fun, especially the scenes we shot with the kids, who were lovely. The lead actor was… a bit much honestly. He's just…" you shook your head, sighing, and Chris laughed. "He's just too handsome for his own good. It's terrible really," you laughed.

"No, but honestly, working with him was so much fun. I've always known the talent he has, but being able to really witness it firsthand and going through the whole process of making a character and a movie with him was wonderful. "

The crowd "awwww" ed at that and the interviewer continued. "Would you say directing him was harder or easier than someone else, someone you don't necessarily know?"

"Listen, directing Chris… well, it's not that different than what I do every day," you shrugged and turned to Chris, "you do need a lot of chaperoning babe," you smiled. He laughed and reached for his chest like he always does. The crowd laughed as well and you gave a little giggle as well.

"It's true," Chris smiles and says, "she's always like, 'Chris do the dishes,' and 'Isn't it your turn to walk Dodge today?'"

"That is not true Christopher!" you put your hand to your chest as if offended. "Besides, that was a terrible impression of me, I can't believe you do this for a living!" you threw your hands up and shook your head in disbelief and you all laughed.

"Um, but to give a more serious answer," you turned to the interviewer once more, "I think in every movie you direct, you get to form a connection with the people you direct. The fact that Chris and I already have that connection is both a blessing and a curse because on the one hand, we're more comfortable trying new things and taking risks, but on the other hand that means it's easier for us to get off track and just kinda goof around instead of doing our jobs," you chuckled. "But I do think we handled it pretty well," you smiled.

"Well that leads me to my next question, which is for the rest of the cast who aren't you and Chris," the interviewer smiled, "how did they do with keeping it professional on set?"

Everyone laughed and you and Chris smiled at each other.

"Terrible," said Anthony, who played David, a police officer in the movie who was good friends with Chris' character. "Well, no, when we were shooting the actual scenes, they were fine, but every single break we had, these two-" he looked over at Chris and you, "look at them! They're making heart eyes at each other right now!" he rolled his eyes.

You and Chris looked away from each other and smiled while the crowd cheered a little.

"I think we were totally fine," said Chris while he took your hand in his.

"Well, I guess they weren't that bad," Melissa said.

"I have one more question for you guys and then we're gonna take some fan questions. So, what was it like working with the kids on set?"

"They were really cute," Melissa said, "so I had a lot of fun working with them," she shrugs and smiles.

"Speak for yourself," you said. "Well, okay, they were very cute and it really was a blast having them on set. We basically said for people who have relatives who were about the age we looked for that they should bring them because we needed a whole class. So my niece was there, Chris' niece and nephew, Mel's kid… we had a lot of fun, but in terms of production time, kids are kind of difficult. Not to say it's the kids who were there, because they were truly lovely and it's like that with all kids. So yeah, working with them was a really good time but also cost quite a bit of time and we already were short on time, so it was definitely a challenge."

You all took some questions from the audience and then the interviewer said, "Alright guys, we have time for one last question, who's next?"

A girl who was a bit younger than you came up to the microphone. "Hi! First of all, can I just say I'm such a big fan of all of you guys," she seemed nervous and you all smiled at her. "So, my question is a spin on an earlier question and it's for Chris – You've spoken a lot in the past about the importance of a strong-willed director to really bring in the movie nicely, so how was it having your wife direct you in a movie?"

"Wow, you're really setting me up to fail here, aren't you?" he laughed and you turned to look at him, an interested look in your eyes.

"Sure, well, I really can't say enough good things about her. Both as a director and just as a person, she's got a real talent of making people feel very comfortable and that definitely comes in handy on a movie set. She knows really well when she wants to listen and get ideas from us and when she needs to steer the ship herself a bit more, and I think I'm speaking for everyone here when I say that with her, the vibe on set is always a good one. She's very attentive to things that I would've never thought about that really make the movie what it is and she's very capable of standing at the helm of a movie and saying 'okay, this is what needs to happen and this is how we're gonna do it.' If I already thought the world of her before making a movie with her, I can't really tell you how much I admire her now. It's an embarrassment of riches really," he smiled at you and you returned it.

The audience "awwww"s once more. "Anything else you'll be making soon?" someone shouts suddenly. Everyone on stage laughs, but the interviewer starts talking so you don't have to answer the question.

"Sadly, that's all the time we've got, so give it up for the cast of The Invisible Lights! It was a pleasure having you here today, thank you so much!"

You all got up and waved at the audience before walking off stage.

When you left the stage, Chris came up behind you, circling his arms around you and splaying his palms on your belly.

"That was a close call," he said softly in your ear.

You hummed and leaned back into him. "Yeah, we're lucky the bump isn't visible yet," you smiled and craned your neck in order to kiss him properly.

"You know if it gets too hard, we can cut the press tour short right?" Chris says, looking at you with a worried gaze.

"If you keep saying that after every interview I'm gonna start thinking you don't want to be here," you laughed. "It's fine, really," you reassured him.

"Okay," he smiles and leans down to kiss you once more.

"Hey lovebirds! Didn't we just agree you were professional? Don't ruin that image!" Anthony yelled at you. The rest of the group has already continued, leaving you a little behind.

"Coming!" you both yelled and laughed.

"Can you believe in seven months we're gonna have the most perfect kid on this planet?" Chris asked while he moved to stand next to you and take your hand.

You simply beamed and squeezed his hand in yours. You couldn't wait.

Chris Taglist: @swatson06 @horny-nd-bored @shannon124 @perfectlyharolds @phoebe-21-99 @wintersoldierslut @iceebabies @wanessalopesueiros @sleepingpapermouse @steverogerswasalwaysworthy @holtzkinnon @angelicl-y @stydia-4-ever @thatoneperson5000 @fangirlfree @kaitcordx25 @bequeening @steve-barry-damon-logan @itscrazycherryblossomcollection @hollandxmarvel @darkwitchfromthesouth

if you wanna join / be removed from the taglist, comment/message me! this is a taglist for Chris and his characters. much love <3

#chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans fluff #chris evans imagine #director!reader #anthony mackie #melissa fumero #mcu #husband!chris evans

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cotncandyboifics · 4 years ago

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A Lovely Night: Chapter 5

AO3 Link

Masterpost

Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 6

Pairing(s): pre-established roceit & prinxiety, anaroceit, eventual anaroloceit, eventual intruality

Word count: ~2.5k

Story summary: Roman's boyfriends had had a rivalry since before either of them had actually met Roman. Running a bit late to a date night, Roman accidentally gets them to start dating too.

General CW: non-detailed description of an anxiety attack, non-detailed description of physical pain, food, kissing, potentially triggering descriptions of physical bodies, swearing, caps lock, school settings, s-xual innuendos, slight description of gore(imagery), vague descriptions of anxiety, Implications of an eating disorder, fatigue, dissociation, suppression of stimming, implied heavy restriction (ED), inner monologue-style anxiety description, eating,(will be added to as I write more)

Chapter CW: Swearing, slight description of gore(imagery), vague descriptions of anxiety, food, (let me know if i missed anything please!)

Author notes: i like this chapter a lot :) the stage has been set.

...

The next morning, Virgil had an opening shift at the knitting and sewing supply store he worked for. He'd found it the first week the three of them had moved to this town for college, and immediately took a liking to it, likely thanks to his long-lasting hobby of clothing alteration. He'd made some good money to save up in high school from making and selling custom hoodies and other clothing, even having taken a few commissions over the years.

It wasn't rare occurrence, that he was opening the store, and on this particular morning it wasn't so dreadful (once he'd pried himself away from his half-asleep boyfriends, who both vaguely grumbled protests at the incomplete cuddle pile as Virgil was getting ready). Virgil had gotten to his favorite coffee shop, where Janus' brother Patton worked, in time that it would be open and he also wouldn't be late for his shift, which was rare. It only worked out that way if Virgil's bus commute was perfectly timed.

Now caffeinated, and somewhat less-pessimistic-than-usual about the day ahead of him, Virgil retrieved the keys to the shop from his pocket, fumbling for a bit before finding the right one. He let out a breath as he found it, unlocking the door as he'd done a thousand times before and stepping in, shutting the door behind him and leaning his back against it. Virgil noted the clock on the wall, reading 5:02 am. The shop opened at 6, and he had more than enough sorting and stocking to do before then.

The next hour passed rather quickly. His co-worker Emile showed up shortly after him, and they both spent the rest of the time before the shop opened restocking and organizing the horrendous amounts of yarn and string and such supplies throughout the store and in the back room.

Shortly 6 am arrived, and it was time for the two of them to draw straws to decide who would man the register and help customers while the other continued stocking. Typically Virgil enjoyed the latter while Emile enjoyed the former, but their manager had insisted that they make the odds more random in order to get them both more comfortable in their unpreferred positions.

True to their manager's sentiment, Virgil drew the register stick. They both sighed at each other, and Emile returned to sorting through some cerulean yarn balls. Virgil made his way to the front of the store, unlocking the doors and flipping the sign to open, before making himself at home behind the register.

Generally, customers were rare at this time of morning, save for a few early-riser regulars. The bell at the top of the door chimed. Virgil didn't look up, expecting to see Margaret in her usual morning power-walk getup, coming in to check up on whether they'd gotten a shipment of lavender yarn yet.

"Morning, Marge. We still haven't gotten any lavender in, if-" Virgil halted his speaking upon looking up, feeling his throat constrict as he realized who had entered. At any rate, this person was certainly not Margaret.

The first thing that caught Virgil's attention about this new customer was their eyes. They were a burning blue, with small subtle mushes of gray here and there. Through their vaguely foggy colors, those eyes cut sharp like ice shards. The customer seemed entirely calm and stoic, however that did not extend to the ferocious - however not hostile - intensity with which they were staring Virgil down. Of course this intensity did not extend past their eyes, as the very slight twinge of a polite smile was seated at the corners of their mouth. Virgil briefly noted some seemingly familiar physical characteristics (although he was extremely wary to assume anything - what would be the chances of him and his boyfriends all meeting the same man individually, completely perchance?); shining black hair, square-framed glasses, the freckles, the pale and sunken nature of their face. Or, as Virgil certainly noticed, the subtle pronunciation of his cheekbones and jawline. They wore a black coat and a navy patterned scarf that appeared to be hand-knitted.

Virgil stumbled his way over to the closest register to the door - he wasn't sure why they even had two, they never needed to use them both simultaneously - and leaned haphazardly on the counter, propping his chin up on his palm.

"Sorry, hello, I thought you'd be someone else. Marge is usually the first in. What can I do for you?" His face felt really hot, and he was pretty sure that much was obvious to the newcomer, but he tried his best not to think about it.

The stranger didn't speak for a moment, merely leaning forward slightly with a furrowed brow. Virgil panicked for a moment, but followed their line of sight to the name tag on his hoodie. It was quite scuffed up, and the name "Virgil" was scarcely discernible through various smears of odd substances. Virgil quickly unpinned the name tag, beginning to rub away at the gunk with a sweater-covered thumb.

"It's Virgil, sorry about that," He spoke, hiding his hot cheeks behind his bangs as he scratched at his name tag feverishly. He quickly decided on just setting it down, wanting to give the newcomer his full attention.

"Good morning, Virgil," they spoke, and wow, was Virgil gay. The strangers' voice was deep and smooth, and reminded him a bit of Janus'. But this had a tactful, almost clinical and calculated sincerity, whereas Janus' was far more lilted and drawly. Regardless, Virgil felt his throat constricting a bit. He tried subtly coughing the feeling away. "I am in search of some high quality yarn, as a gift for a dear friend of mine. It is my understanding that this establishment is highly regarded for its products' quality?" Virgil tried not to stare. The stranger was running their fingers down and up the inside of one of the lapels of their coat very slowly, and that reminded Virgil terribly of Janus. He felt like he was in high school all over again, ogling over a tall pretty boy.

Regardless of his gay panic, Virgil cleared his throat. "Yeah, we try," His voice cracked slightly, and he tried clearing his throat again. "I mean, we have some pretty awesome suppliers, and we have a really, uh... Big selection of stuff. Do you, do you know what it is you want to get for your friend, exactly?" Virgil thanked any gods that existed had allowed him to formulate a coherent sentence, and he was glad to have the expectation of speaking temporarily off himself.

The customer tapped his chin with the side of his index finger, - which again, reminded Virgil painfully of Janus - humming as he continued surveying his surroundings. "I think he'd appreciate a selection of soft or pastel colors, and he adores the color blue. I think white would be a suitable addition as well. Do you sort your yarns by color?" he inquired, returning his heavy gaze to Virgil and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Virgil tried not to audibly gulp.

"Yeah, we do. here, let me show you to the right aisle," Virgil stepped away from the register, and tried to get out from behind the counter, only to completely trip over a cardboard box and fall directly onto his face.

"Goodness, are you alright?" the stranger paced quickly over to where Virgil was groaning on the floor, attempting to pull himself up onto his elbows. They reached a pale-white and very bony hand down to Virgil, who stared at it for a little too long before taking it gingerly.

The customer pulled firmly, and Virgil did too, and they both slightly miscalculated how much strength they needed to apply in order for Virgil to stand. Virgil stumbled forward just a bit as he rose. He looked up slightly and found himself nose to nose with the now wide-eyed man. Virgil yelped slightly, jumping away like a startled cat.

"Sh-shoot, sorry about that," Virgil took to fidgeting a bit aggressively with his hoodie strings, curling them around and between his fingers. "Uh, this way," he pushed a bit awkwardly past the man, looking at his shoes as he walked and willing away the burning heat he felt in his cheeks. Of course the first cute guy he encounters besides his boyfriends is right there when he falls on his face.

He paced over to the aisle with hues of blue and purple yarn, spotting Emile still working with a large box of cerulean. After a momentary panic and trying to wave Emile's attention without making any noise, the stranger turned the corner into the aisle Virgil had led him to. Virgil sighed to himself, annoyed at an in-no-way-at-fault Emile who still hadn't noticed their presence.

Virgil cleared his throat. "Hey, Emile, could you take register while I help this... customer?" Virgil had to take a moment to recall a phrase to describe him besides 'very beautiful man'.

"Uh-" Emile went to say he could help the customer for Virgil, since they were meant to stay in the vicinity of their assigned roles, but Virgil was looking at him with an intensity that blatantly said 'I am begging you to let me help this very gorgeous man to find his yarn and if you don't so help me god I will impale your severed and rotting skull on a rusty metal pole'. Emile chuckled a little shrilly. "Yeah, sure Virge," Emile slid past the two of them, making his way to the register as the chime of the door sounded again. "Welcome in, Margaret! Do-you-how-do?"

Virgil turned his attention back to the man looming slightly over him, leading him down the aisle to the softer and lighter shades. The customer was already scanning the shelves with a tactful intensity that made Virgil almost as anxious as it did further attracted to him.

"This variety is more than adequate," he spoke, almost under his breath, and Virgil tried not to shudder at the rumble in his voice.

"Um, great," Virgil piped up after a moment, and the icy gaze of the tall boy was on him once again. His cheeks felt real hot. "I can, get you a bag for... what you pick out? Er, a gift bag, if you'd like?" Virgil tapped the side of his fist into his hip a few times, trying to expel some of his nervousness. The stranger smiled softly.

"That would be excellent. Thank you, Virgil." He turned back to examining his options, and Virgil scurried off to find a gift bag.

The bags were all by the front register, and he grumbled a bit to himself on the way, preparing for some relentless teasing from his coworker for the next century at minimum. Emile was just waving Margaret off when Virgil rounded the corner, stepping behind the counter to rummage through some boxes for a gift bag.

"Sooo, Virgil," Emile started, tone entirely teasing as he leaned a little too far on the counter, tapping his orange pen on his lips.

"Don't. Say. Anything." Virgil hissed through clenched teeth, glancing up to give Emile another pointed glare for good measure. Emile chuckled lightly, leaning back on the counter a bit.

"Whaat? I won't! I'm totally innocent, see?" Emile puffed out his bottom lip and made his eyes look big. Virgil scoffed.

"Is that a cartoon reference?"

Emile grinned, shrugging. "Probably."

Virgil found the gift bags - finally - and began scampering off and away from the prying gaze of his overly curious co-worker.

Virgil helped the customer to find and collect the proper amount and variety of yarns that he wanted. As it turned out, it was a relatively easy task; aside from being impossibly and unintentionally charming, the stranger was mindful and courteous, and working with him was proving to be relatively easy. They bantered a bit, falling into a casual conversation as they searched for yarn, as well as while they walked back to the register for Virgil to ring his items up.

Emile gave Virgil a pointed look as he approached, trading him places as he walked with a skip in his step back to his yet unstocked shelves. Virgil rolled his eyes at him, stepping extra carefully behind the counter so as not to trip on any stray cardboard boxes. He leaned against the counter in front of the register, beginning to type numbers into it as though he knew the yarn prices like the back of his hand.

the customer stood at the counter before Virgil, vaguely examining his purchase as he watched Virgil slightly through his peripheral. He noticed the way Virgil bit at the inside corner of his mouth, worrying the flesh between his canines as he focused on adding the prices.

"Alright... your total is 82.53," Virgil said slowly, looking up at the stranger, who had - oddly enough - already been looking at him. The stranger glanced away momentarily, clearing his throat and reaching into an inside pocket of his coat for his wallet.

He produced a pristine black leather wallet, pulling a shiny navy blue debit card from between its folds and setting the wallet on the counter as he handed off the card. Virgil took the card and charged it, the customer punching in his PIN through the keypad.

A faint buzzing sounded from within the man's coat, and he reached in once more with knitted eyebrows. He pulled out what seemed to be his phone, eyes widening as he saw whatever was on the screen. Virgil couldn't see, but he figured someone must be calling him.

"My apologies, I must depart," The man spoke quietly, grabbing his gift bag of yarn and bringing his phone to his face as he made hastily for the door. Virgil didn't hear what he said when he answered the phone, but his brow was still furrowed when Virgil caught a glimpse of his face walking down the sidewalk out the store window.

"Bye..." Virgil said to the empty store front.

He looked down, seeing the customer's debit card still in his hand. "Shit." He saw the wallet set on the counter before him as well. He grabbed it, opening it to return the debit card to its proper place and see if there was a way of contacting the man within the wallet.

As he opened it, a white card similar in shape and size to the debit card fell to the floor. Virgil retrieved it, flipping it over to see what it was.

"No way..." Virgil was holding a driver's license. The name it was registered under was too familiar for it to be a coincidence.

He'd need to be giving one Logan Lattimer a call on his break.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #logan sanders #ts logan #ts virgil #emile picani #analogical #anaroceit #anaroloceit #theyre so gay oml

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abused-sides · 4 years ago

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Way to Please

Read part one first, read on Ao3

Trigger warnings: Emotional abuse, gaslighting, being called selfish, ableism, familial abuse, panic attacks, touch-starved Logan, food mention

A/N: This is a commission! Another thanks to @darkle-elkrad!! :D More info at the end

Disclaimer: J. is NOT Janus, he’s an unsympathetic OC.

Read on Ao3

Logan pushed the knob on his fidget cube in slow circles. It was a simple toy, all black, and usually hidden in his pocket. He currently had it pressed between his thigh and the car door. His stomach was knotted and he stared out the window almost obsessively, counting every mile they got closer to his new school.

“You messing with that toy again?”

Logan looked at J. He shoved it in his pocket. “Sorry.”

“‘S fine. People are gonna make fun of you for being a baby, though.”

Logan’s face heated up. “I told you I won’t use it in front of other people.”

They pulled into the college’s parking lot. Logan’s small life was packed up neatly in the backseat. J. turned the car off and sighed.

“You sure you don’t need help moving in?” J. gave him a look. “You know how you can get.”

Logan nodded once. “I know. But I can control that. I can move in myself, don’t worry.”

hesitated, then sighed again. “Alright. Get out, then. Call me tonight.”

“Yeah. Love you.”

“Mhm.”

Logan stacked up his three boxes and started towards his dorm. Luckily, J. had taken a few weeks off his own education and brought Logan down for a tour last week, so he knew exactly where he was going. He managed all the way to his room and fumbled for the key card in his wallet.

He nearly dropped his boxes, and his heart leapt into his throat. He caught them just fine, but the panic remained, fizzling slowly like water down a stopped drain. His fingers itched for his cube. He ignored it, and got the door open just before the anxiety peaked.

One half of the room was already claimed, half unpacked suitcases sprawled over the bed and wardrobe, so Logan dumped his stuff on the second bed. He immediately righted the boxes and tossed some fallen items back inside. He glanced over his shoulder.

He was alone.

He shoved his hand in his pocket and found the side with the buttons, mashing them down before flipping it to switch. He click-click-clacked it a few times as the tension slipped from his chest.

He took a second to look around the room. His roommate’s life was coated in black and purple. Band tees stuck out of the half clothes drawer, notebook upon notebook littering his bed. He had a purple and black plaid quilt tossed over a gray weighted blanket. An expensive laptop sat freely on the desk.

“...oh, come on, you are such an asshole.” The door opened and closed, and a boy with purple hair came inside, holding a phone to his ear with his arms full of sodas and candy. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck you, too. Sure. Later. Love you.”

Logan blinked.

The boy dumped his food on his bed and shoved his phone in his pocket. He raised an eyebrow. “Uh, hi.”

Logan nodded. “Was that a… girlfriend?”

“Nah, my brother.” He turned back to line his drinks on the shared desk. “I’m Virgil.”

“Logan.” He hesitated, then turned to his own bed, pulling out neatly rolled up clothes.

“I hope you don’t mind that I already picked my side.” Virgil grabbed another armful of clothes and went over to the wardrobe, punching down the fabric until he could layer more inside.

Logan couldn’t help but say, “You could fit more if you folded them.”

Virgil snorted. “There’s three other drawers. I’ll be fine.”

“Right.” His face flushed. “Sorry.”

Logan hung his clothes in the closet. They unpacked silently. Logan occasionally tapped his pocket, just to make sure his cube was still there.

Virgil sat at the edge of his bed and held out his hand. “Let me see your class schedule?”

Logan startled, then fumbled for his backpack. “Right— Uh, sorry, one second.”

He found it while Virgil watched with raised eyebrows. He handed it over. Virgil hummed, gray eyes trailing over the paper. He really was striking. He was loud in a way Logan never wanted to be, but Virgil didn’t seem upset by it. It was all clearly a choice, from the way he dressed to how he styled his hair. He lounged on his bed, taking up all the space without taking his combat boots off first, chewing on his nails— likely while the nail polish was chipped.

Nail polish. His middle fingers were painted black, the rest a strong purple. How did he have the confidence to wear nail polish? If Logan tried that, J. would make fun of him until he cried.

“We have some Gen-Eds together,” Virgil mused. “And an art class. How long have you been drawing?”

Logan swallowed and sat on his bed. It was clear Virgil wasn’t handing the schedule back any time soon. “Not long. I just picked it up last year, actually. It sounded, I don’t know, relaxing.”

Virgil grinned and glanced at him. “It’s frustrating, isn’t it?”

“It’s… hard. Harder than I expected.”

“Can I see?”

Logan hesitated. He reached for the box with his sketchbook, but Virgil held his hand up.

“It’s okay. No need to look so panicked.” He chuckled. “I’ll just look later. I was going to go look around campus, make sure I know where all my classes are. Wanna come with? We can check the Gen-Eds.”

Logan really didn’t want to— he knew where his classes were, and he planned on finding good spots for his stuff —but he nodded and stood. He glanced at Virgil’s bed, where he laid on top of all of his stuff. A few things crumpled and crunched as he rolled onto his feet.

“Cool.” He grabbed a Monster off the desk and popped it open. “Let’s go.”

Virgil wasn’t actually as loud as he looked. He had the confidence down, and he teased Logan quite a bit, but he was very… calm. Logan would never admit it out loud, but he was jealous. He could never be that sure of himself.

After finding their Gen-Eds, they agreed to stick together to find their other classes as well. Logan admitted to having already visited his— Virgil laughed —so they set off to find Virgil’s.

Once they got to the last class on the list, Virgil stopped. “Shit,” he whispered. “Oh, shit.”

Logan frowned. “What is it?”

The wind blew through Virgil’s bangs, revealing wide, anxiety-filled eyes. The courtyard was mostly empty, the occasional student passing by a couple dozen feet away.

“They put me in the wrong class.” Virgil pushed his hair back and drew in a shaky breath. “We agreed I’d be in the morning class, I— I can’t make this one, I don’t know— fuck.”

“Hey.” Logan took a small step closer. “Hey, it’s okay. We can just go talk to someone, right?”

Virgil shook his head quickly. His breathing was speeding up. “No, are you kidding? They’re probably so busy, this is stupid. I just— fuck, I’ll have to make it work.”

“Virgil, no.” Logan laughed weakly. “No, come on, we can fix this. Breathe, right?”

“‘Breathe—’ Right, fuck, I’m not… I’m not breathing.”

Logan held his hands out, and Virgil scrambled to take them. Logan held them tight. “Uh, just follow my breathing.”

Logan helped him right himself, a few tears slipping out from Virgil’s eyes, but he mostly got himself back together pretty fast.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Virgil gave Logan their schedules and pushed his sweaty palms down his pants. He wiped his face. “Sorry, that was… stupid.” He fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie.

“No, it wasn’t. I… uh, here.” Logan hesitated, then found his fidget cube and pressed it into Virgil’s hand.

Virgil looked at it in surprise. His fingers naturally found the side with the buttons, click-click-clicking. “Oh. Thanks. I had one of these last year but I lost it.”

Logan blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’ll give it back though, don’t worry.”

“Let’s go talk to the registrar. We can tell them your schedule is conflicting.”

Virgil stared at the cube. He flicked the dial a few times, listening to the light crank as it snapped back. “Are you sure?” He mumbled.

Logan forced a smile against his nerves. “Of course. Better to do it now then wait until it’s worse.”

“That’s true. Okay.” He laughed weakly and straightened his shirt out. “Right, you’re right. Sorry about this.”

“It’s fine,” Logan promised.

Logan walked with him down to the registrar's office and it ended up being an easy fix. Virgil walked out while rolling his eyes.

“I can’t believe that gave me a panic attack. Shit, I’ve had panic attacks over some dumb things, but… wow.”

Logan laughed. “It’s a… big day. Don’t worry about it. I, uh… I had a couple today, too.”

“Well, panic attacks make me hungry. Do you want to go grab something to eat?”

Logan nodded. “Sure.”

They stopped outside their dorm building. Virgil texted for a moment, then said, “I have a car we can borrow. Come on.”

They found a silver truck in the Junior’s parking lot. Virgil pulled the keys out of his pocket. “It’s my brother’s,” he said. “I’ve got a spare key.”

“Your brother sounds cool.” Logan climbed into the passenger side.

It was a very tall truck. His face heated up as he struggled a little to get inside.

“He’s an asshole,” Virgil laughed. “What do you want to eat?”

“Uh—” Logan’s mind blanked. “Um… I don’t— I don’t know, what do you want?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Um… Okay, well, I know a Chinese place close by that’s good. We can grab one to bring back?”

Logan nodded and relaxed into his seat. “Yeah. That’s good.”

Virgil pulled out of the parking lot. They took their food to go, Logan managing to find a kosher option fairly easily, and ate while flipping through Netflix. They found a show they’d both been wanting to watch and got stuck on it easily. They ended up watching the entire first season, only stopping to break open Virgil’s collection of snacks.

Logan went to bed that night, later than he ever had, feeling better than he ever had.

xxx

“Hey, I’m going to see my brother. Want to come?”

Logan looked up from his homework in surprise. “Um… sure?”

Virgil had been acting weird lately. He invited him to go somewhere or do something every day. If Logan showed the slightest bit of hesitation, he backed off, but there he was again the next day. If Logan did hesitate, Virgil wouldn’t let him go back on it. Logan didn’t understand it.

He’d also started acting more nervous around Logan. Less sure of himself. Logan worried he did something. But if he did, there’s no way Virgil would want him to meet his brother, would he?

He settled his homework neatly back inside his binder and checked a few things off his planner before grabbing his phone and wallet. He followed Virgil outside, where the streetlights glowed warmly against the dark sky, and across the courtyard. The Junior dorm buildings looked identical to the Freshmen’s, only a bit bigger. Inside, their lobby was much more taken care of, and looked more like a gameroom than anything. Groups of students sat with decks of cards, at vending machines, at pool tables. Instead of heading up to the dorms, Virgil led Logan to a small group of kids settled in bean bag chairs.

A boy with striking similarities to Virgil— all angles and bones, the same gray eyes —sat with another boy, covered in freckles, settled in his lap.

“Hey, Jan. Hey, Patton.” Virgil placed a light hand on Logan’s shoulder. The touch burned through his shirt, and Logan nearly sucked in a breath. “This is Logan, he’s my roommate.”

“Wow, you’re getting along with your roommate?” Janus asked in surprise. “I guess I owe Patton ten bucks.”

“You do not!” Patton rolled his eyes with a smile. “We did not make a bet, Virgil. He’s doing his thing.”

“I know,” Virgil laughed.

He pulled the last free bean bag chair towards them and yanked Logan down with him. Their sides pressed together, the bag molding them against each other, Logan couldn’t breathe. He managed to settle himself on the edge of the chair. His side was cold as ice, his heart racing. Virgil gave him a weird look before shoving it off and looking back to Janus.

Logan thought briefly when the last time he had a hug was. Surely not that long ago, right? Parents hugged their children all the time. But he couldn’t quite recall. If he’d been hugged recently, would he still have the strong urge to reach out and feel Virgil’s hair? To take his hand and trace Virgil’s fingers? To feel Virgil’s palm against his face?

Logan’s face flushed. Stop acting creepy.

“What are we playing?” Virgil asked.

Virgil helped him through the card game. It became obvious towards the third round that Janus was cheating, mostly because Patton scolded him loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Wait, he’s been cheating?” Virgil threw his cards down dramatically. “You bitch!”

Janus laughed as Virgil kicked the cards at him. Logan tensed.

“Stop fighting!” Patton sighed, but he was smiling. Why was he smiling? He batted his eyelashes at Janus. “Baby, buy me a snack?”

Janus picked Patton up, stood, then tossed Patton into the bean bag chair. He squealed.

“Don’t use that voice on me.” Janus leaned down and kissed him softly. “Totally unfair.”

“Oh, is it?”

They mumbled together for a moment between kisses. Logan was certain his face had never been so red. Virgil picked up a card and flung it at them.

“Gross! I don’t want to see my brother make out with anyone!”

Janus snorted as he pulled away and found his wallet. “That’s just because you’ve never made out with anyone.”

Virgil’s ears turned red. “That’s not true! Gah!”

Janus left to the vending machine, and Patton relaxed into the chair with a wide grin. “So Logan, what are you studying?”

“Physics,” he mumbled. “Are you two okay?”

Virgil looked at him in surprise. “Me and Janus?”

Logan nodded.

“Uh, yeah? Why?”

“You guys were fighting?”

Patton giggled while Virgil raised an eyebrow. “We weren’t fighting, we were joking. You don’t have brothers?”

“No, I have one. He’s two years older than me.”

“Alright… what’s his name? Maybe Janus knows him.”

“He doesn’t go to this school.” Logan found his fidget cube in his pocket and rolled his thumb around the metal ball. “He’s at a college in our hometown.”

“You moved away for college?” Patton asked in surprise.

“What’s going on?” Janus dropped into Patton’s lap and pressed several packets of gummies into his palm with a kiss to his cheek.

“Logan went to college out of state to get away from his brother,” Virgil said.

Logan’s eyes widened. “That’s not true!”

Virgil bumped their shoulders together.

“If Virgil tried going to college out of state without a good reason, I’d kill him.” Janus pulled Patton closer. “Seriously. I’d be worried out of my mind.”

“You don’t…” Logan hated to confirm Virgil’s suspicion, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “you don’t need, like, a break?”

Everyone stared at him.

“No,” Janus said flatly. “No, I actually love my brother.”

“Gross,” Virgil mumbled, but his ears were red again.

“I love my brother,” Logan insisted.

“Oh, we don’t doubt that.”

“I just— I don’t know. You guys were fighting yesterday morning, too.”

Virgil stared at him in confusion, until it clicked. He laughed. “You mean when I was on the phone? Lo, he called me a coffee gremlin so I told him to fuck off. It wasn’t a fight. We were just messing with each other.”

Heat steadily climbed up Logan’s neck. He closed his hand around his cube until it hurt. He wanted to curl in on himself, escape the conversation, and never see any of them again.

“What the hell does your brother call you?” Janus asked.

“It’s not a big deal,” Logan said weakly. “We’re just— we’re not as close as you, I guess.”

“Logan, it’s okay,” Patton said softly, face pinched with worry. “You can talk about it. No one’s here to judge you, we’re not trying to force you to be grateful for your family or anything.”

Janus squeezed Patton’s shoulder. “Yeah, we know about shitty families, if that’s what this is.”

“And that’s the vibe I’m getting,” Virgil added. “The shit Janus calls me doesn’t bother me. I tell him if he says something fucked up. What does your brother do?”

“I— I don’t know, I don’t know.” Logan pushed his sweaty palms against his jeans. “He just… gets mad sometimes. You know?”

“No,” Virgil said flatly. “What does he do when he’s mad?”

“He just… gets mad.” Logan’s voice trembled. He didn’t know how to get out of this. He made a big deal out of it, something that so clearly wasn’t a big deal, and now he was just stuck. “I guess he, I don’t know, he calls me selfish sometimes.”

“Like when?” Patton asked. He’d leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees, brows knitted.

Logan stuttered through a few stories off the top of his head. He’d tried to tell them in a casual way, insist that it wasn’t a big deal and he was fine, but everyone was so… concerned. Virgil’s fists clenched around his hoodie, Janus’ eyes narrowed. Logan ducked his head. He was shaking.

He scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry, I think I— I think I need to go.”

“Logan,” Virgil sighed. “We can stop talking about it, but come on. You can’t like the way he treats you.”

“Does it matter?”

Everyone paused. Logan pressed a hand to his forehead.

“No,” Janus’ voice dripped with sarcasm, “of course not. People can just do whatever they want to you with no consequences.” He waved his hand. “Who cares, right?”

Logan froze up. His muscles were pulled taut, eyes squeezed shut, his body wilting like a dead flower.

“Janus,” Patton scolded.

He sighed. “Sorry. Look, of course it matters. Come on, sit down. Everything is fine.”

Logan didn’t believe that. But he sat anyway. He answered their questions. He explained everything as honestly as he could.

Part of him wanted to defend J., to insist that it really wasn’t that bad and J. loved him. But Logan wasn’t sure if J. did love him. He’d heard how Virgil talked about Janus, and there wasn’t a doubt in Logan’s mind that J. would never talk about him that way. He’d seen how Janus looked at Virgil, sometimes angry but usually in a protective way. It wasn’t like anything Logan had seen from J.

Hearing them throw around the words ‘abusive,’ ‘manipulative,’ and even ‘gaslighting,’ was hard. Logan jammed the joystick on his fidget cube around so much he almost broke it, bouncing his leg up and down, eventually having to get up and pace. He kept waiting for the snapping, for everyone to tell him how annoying he was being and that he needed to sit and be quiet. They didn’t.

It was almost uncomfortable.

The conversation eventually moved— Logan was simultaneously relieved and disappointed —but everyone looked at him different after that. Before Virgil and Logan went back to their room, Patton offered a hug. Logan hesitated, and was about to step into Patton’s arms, when Virgil grabbed his shoulder— just long enough to make him pause.

“You don’t have to say yes,” he said flatly.

Patton’s eyes widened. “Oh, gosh! Right! Of course not. Sorry, Logan.”

Logan cleared his throat. “It’s okay.”

On the walk back, Virgil said, “We’re going to have to work on that.”

Logan shoved his hands in his pockets. With Fall kicking in full force, it was freezing outside at night, their breath coming out as fog.

“Work on what?” He mumbled. His body was heavy, eyes lidded.

“Your whole people pleaser bullshit. You don’t have to say yes to everything. It’s okay to not want to do something.”

Logan swallowed. He shrugged.

Virgil stepped in front of Logan and crossed his arms. “We need to set some boundaries, or else I can’t be friends with you. I’m not going to hurt you because you won’t communicate. I won’t be like J.” Virgil stared for a moment, eyes swiping over Logan’s face. His eyes softened. “I won’t be mad. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”

“I don’t…” Logan’s heart thumped in his ears. He pressed his thumb against the buttons of his cube. “I don’t really… I don’t know how to handle being touched.”

Virgil’s eyebrows raised. “Oh? I mean, okay. So don’t touch you, then?”

“Maybe, just… I don’t know, not that often?” Logan bounced on the balls of his feet. The cold had wormed its way into his bones, and he felt like if he didn’t move he’d either go crazy or freeze to death.

“Come on, let’s get inside.” Virgil nodded towards the door.

They didn’t talk until they were settled into their beds and the lights were off.

“Thanks for telling me,” Virgil said. “I’ll talk to the others, too. You can always reach out if you want.”

Logan’s eyes watered. He was grateful for the dark. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, Lo.”

“Goodnight, Virgil.”

xxx

Virgil and Logan laid on their stomachs, on the floor. Notebooks and textbooks were spread out in front of them, covered in highlighter and pen.

It was a few months after Logan had confessed about J., and a few things were becoming apparent. 1) Virgil was not giving up on him. Neither were Janus or Patton.

2) J. probably, almost definitely, did not love Logan.

Every day it was becoming more and more clear.

Logan had never been treated the way Virgil and his friends treated him. Sometimes they argued, sometimes Logan was so frustrated and confused he wanted to cry, but they never made him feel like he wasn’t important. Every fight was important. And for the first time, he was able to move on from them. Even when things weren’t quite resolved, even when there was still more to talk about— that didn’t stop Virgil from inviting him out to dinner, from joining him to study, for putting on a bad horror movie.

“Alright,” Virgil sighed, pushing the textbook away and burying his face in his arms. His voice came out muffled, “if I look at American History anymore I’m going to die. What next?”

“Uh…” Logan cleared his throat and looked at their stack of remaining textbooks.

Semester finals were coming up in the next month and Logan was severely behind in Calculus.

“I don’t— I don’t know, what do you want to do next?”

Virgil picked his head up sluggishly. He blinked at Logan for a second, hair mussed, wrinkles under his eyes. He grabbed their stack of textbooks and dragged it closer.

He hummed as he looked through it, then pulled the Calculus and Economics textbooks. He shoved the others away. “Which one?”

“Um…”

“Come on, I’m good with either. Which one?”

Logan hesitated, then pushed away the Economics book.

“Cool.” Virgil flipped the textbook open. “Come on, I want to get this done.”

Logan flushed. He scrambled to find his notebook and flashcards, struggling to focus. A sturdy feeling of control settled over Logan’s bones, something he didn’t think he’d ever felt before.

xxx

“Almost ready to go?”

“Uh, yeah, just let me—”

Logan yanked the blanket down his bed, then pushed aside his pillow. He relaxed and snatched his fidget cube, shoving it in his pocket.

“Okay.” He straightened up. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

They left their dorm and headed downstairs. They’d planned to meet Janus and Patton in the parking lot so they could all go to this arcade nearby. Janus had jokingly (jokingly?) called it a double date.

“Yeah, there’s this zombie game you’d really like,” Virgil rambled as they stepped outside. He immediately tensed against the cold and stepped closer to Logan. Logan shuffled against him, their shared body heat negligible.

The parking lot appeared ahead and Logan stopped.

“Lo?” Virgil frowned. “What’s up?”

got out of his car and grinned as his eyes landed on Logan. He waved.

“Um…” Shit. “I— I don’t know, uh—”

“Logan!”

Virgil looked over his shoulder as J. headed towards them. His face darkened. “Is that J.?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey!” J. stopped in front of them and grinned. “Surprise. Come on, let’s go grab dinner. Who’s this?”

“Virgil.” Logan stepped closer. “My roommate, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Well anyway, let’s go.”

“Actually,” Virgil said in annoyance, “we had plans. Maybe you can call ahead next time.”

quirked an eyebrow. Logan’s blood ran cold as J.’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll have to reschedule. He’s my little brother, I’m sure you can find someone else to drag along.”

Virgil scoffed and glanced back at Logan, then stopped. “You’re not really considering this, are you?”

Logan looked between them, helpless. He was terrified of upsetting either of them, but there was no way to please both of them.

“I— I don’t know. J., we had plans,” he said quietly.

“You can reschedule.” J. grabbed Logan’s arm and pulled him closer. “I haven’t seen you in forever, don’t be selfish.”

“You don’t have to do what he wants,” Virgil insisted. His eyes were on J., face scrunched in a glower.

“What’s up with you?” J. asked in frustration. “You’re acting like it’s a crime to take my little brother to dinner. Just lay off, will you?”

He stormed away, dragging Logan behind him. Virgil huffed. His footsteps echoed away.

Please don’t be mad.

Logan forced himself through dinner. The entire night crawled by, full of passive aggressive comments and insults Logan had forgotten how much he hated. He didn’t understand why J. came all the way down here just to ridicule him. Couldn’t he do that over text like he usually did? Didn’t he catch on to why Logan stopped answering?

After J. drove him back to campus, way after nightfall, he grabbed Logan’s arm before he could escape. “We need to talk.”

Logan shoved his hand in his pocket. He flicked the switch, over and over, click-click-click—

“Will you stop playing with that fuckin’ toy? I’m being serious.”

“It calms me down,” Logan mumbled, pulling his hand out. “Sorry.”

“I don’t like Virgil,” he said flatly. “I don’t like how he treats you and honestly he’s fucking rude. You’ve been pulling away. Mom and Dad haven’t heard from you in months. I haven’t heard from you in longer. That’s not fair to us just because you have this new friend.”

Logan stared. What the hell was he supposed to say? I like how Virgil treats me a whole fuckton more than you do. He couldn’t say that. Even if he wanted to, which he wasn’t sure he did.

“I’ll talk to him about it,” he lied.

“Talk to—” J. barked a laugh, “no, ask for a new roommate. I don’t want you talking to him at all anymore, okay?”

Logan swallowed. “He’s my best friend.”

“That’s a problem. He’s not good for you.”

He pulled on the door handle a few times. “Can I go? I get it, I’m sorry.”

“You clearly don’t get it. If you did—”

Logan pulled on the handle a few more times as J. droned on. His body was lighter, his head foggy. He could see himself tugging, tugging, could watch J. getting angrier and barely made out his mouth forming the words ‘stop with the fucking door.’

Then he was outside.

peeled out of the parking lot, tired squeaking over the pavement, and Logan hurried to his dorm.

Virgil paused the T.V. as Logan got inside. He panted, chest heaving. Did he run? He didn’t remember.

“Logan?” Virgil stood. “Hey, what’s going on? What’d he do? Did he say something?” He hurried over.

Logan stumbled through the story. Virgil’s glare deepened with each word, and every time Logan tried to make it better, Virgil just got angrier.

“Stop apologizing,” he snapped. “Come here, you need to sit down.”

He held out his hand, and Logan hesitated, before taking it. As Virgil led him to the bed, Logan focused on the texture— soft and cold. The pad of Virgil’s thumb was pressed against Logan’s palm. He craved more and he wanted to rip his hand away.

Virgil sat Logan down, then took his back back and knelt down. “Where’s your cube?”

Logan shook his head.

Virgil glared. “Did he take it?”

“No! I just— I don’t need it.”

“You clearly do. Come on, have I ever made fun of you for that?”

Logan hesitated, then fumbled to get it out. Click-click-click. Click-clack-click-click.

“Come on, follow my breathing. It’s okay. We’re going to figure this out. You don’t need him. It’s alright.”

Virgil slowly got Logan back in his body. His breathing became his again, and he was reminded of where he was. He gripped the covers, rubbing his fingers over the plush.

“I’m sorry,” he managed. He still panted a little, his head light.

“Sit here. I’m gonna grab some water.”

Virgil came back and sat next to him. He handed Logan the water, who gulped it down. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. Virgil took the glass back, their fingers brushing, and set it on the desk.

“I don’t think you should talk to him anymore.”

Logan flinched.

“I know. I know it’s confusing. It’s your decision. If you want to stay in contact with him for a little longer, I’m not going to hold that against you.”

Logan looked up in surprise. “What? But you want—”

“It’s not my life. I think he’s an asshole and I don’t think he deserves you, but I’m not going to make choices for you. Not these.”

Logan’s eyes watered. He looked away.

Virgil sighed. “You don’t have to do that. I won’t make fun of you.”

He buried his face in his hands as his body shook.

Virgil cleared his throat. “Usually when Patton cries, he wants hugs, I don’t… um… what do you need?”

“What?” Logan’s voice cracked, and Virgil repeated himself. “A blanket?”

Virgil reached around and pulled the blanket around Logan’s shoulders. He whispered “One second,” and rushed over to his bed. He dragged his weighted blanket over and settled that around Logan’s shoulders, too.

Logan got his tears out while Virgil refilled his water. He took it with clammy hands, wiping his nose. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

“You should get some sleep.”

Logan nodded. He started to take off the weighted blanket, but Virgil held his hand up. “It’s alright. Keep it tonight.”

Logan hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t.”

He swallowed. “Thank you. I— thank you.”

Virgil smiled awkwardly. “Get some sleep.”

Logan settled into bed as Virgil turned the lights off. He brought the weighted blanket up to his nose, eyelids fluttering closed. It smelled like Virgil. It was warm.

Logan was safe.

xxx

Over the rest of the school year, Logan slowly worked at cutting off his parents and J. Virgil helped him, even through the hiccups. There was a moment Logan thought he could fix things, that he and J. could reconcile— then J. gaslit him and Logan almost switched colleges. Virgil made it clear what J. was doing, and Logan hadn’t spoken to J. since.

The two eventually agreed to get an apartment together after college. Logan got a part time job to keep his mind busy, and he barely had any free time between that and the studying, but he spent most of it with Virgil.

“And how satisfied were you with your roommate this year?” The registrar asked as Logan sat in the oversized armchair.

“Um, he was good. I liked my roommate.”

“Would you like to continue rooming with him next year?”

She barely finished speaking before Logan blurted out a ‘yes.’ She laughed and noted it down. Logan met Virgil outside afterwards, and they headed towards the Junior parking lot.

“You said yes to rooming next year, right?” Virgil asked.

Logan nodded. “Yeah. You?”

“Nah, didn’t feel like it.” He smiled. “‘Course I did. You can’t get rid of me.”

Logan laughed. “What do you want to eat?”

“I think I’m gonna force Janus to buy me a pizza.”

He wrinkled his nose.

Virgil snorted. “What, you don’t want pizza?”

“That pizzeria you like is disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Come on, we eat there too much. Can’t we get something else?”

Virgil pretended to think about it for a moment, before rolling his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. You can pick this time. I’ll tell Janus and Patton to deal with it.”

Logan grinned. They made it to the parking lot and piled into Janus’ truck. Logan told them what they were eating for dinner, and as Janus headed that way, Virgil nudged Logan with his elbow.

“I’m proud of you,” he murmured.

Patton had turned the radio on. Pop music blared through the speakers, but Logan could hear perfectly with Virgil’s mouth close to his ear. Not enough to touch. Just close.

Logan flushed. “For what?”

“You’ve come a long way this year.”

“But I still—”

“Shh. Not focusing on that right now. I’m proud of you.”

Logan’s stomach filled with butterflies. Virgil pulled away with a grin, then yelled something at Janus, who flicked him off.

Logan settled back with a smile.

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hello-im-not-a-possum · 3 years ago

Text

14. Smoke

Tom tries to get his voice to sound less humiliating by picking up an old vice of his; smoking. The Ink Demon does not approve. “N-not because I CARE about him, you idiots!” He just thinks Tom’s new voice is too funny to destroy with smoke. (Set in the FIFE AU after Tom’s Bargain, AKA: “If it bites, curses, claws, and hisses, It’s very unwise to ask it for wishes”)

The Ink Demon glared at the wolf disapprovingly as he grabbed the lighter.

“You know, Allison’s gonna be soooo heartbroken when she finds out you picked up THAT old habit again…”

Thomas rolled his eyes and reached for the notepad, only to be betrayed by it as it was too full of his concepts for an ink proof prison to hold Sammy in and keep him from escaping. There wasn’t even a single bit of space left for a single word for him to write.

“Well, c’mon big guy! Use your mouth-words!” The Demon crossed his arms, looking like a mother scolding a child. “If you’re gonna go through alllllll the trouble of SUMMONING A %@^&ING DEMON LORD WHO’D KILL US ALL WITHOUT HESITATION BEHIND OUR BACKS, you might as well use the fancy new voice box he gave you!”

“I down't wawnt tuwu tawk wight now.” Thomas growled as he saw the demon smile in that way where it was obvious he was holding back laughter out of the corner of his eye, only to snap back into his angry/disapproving pose when he turned to look at him. “i'm nowt in the mood fow iwt.”

The mechanic grabbed the pack of cigarettes and walked out of the house, hoping to put enough distance between himself and the nagging demon to actually hear himself think.

When he thought he’d walked far enough, he leaned against the graffiti-covered wall, took a cigarette out of the pack, and lit it up.

-----

Smoking with a wolf’s muzzle was weird and kinda hard, especially since he wasn’t used to doing it. He was half expecting to accidentally swallow a few as canine instinct mistook them for food. He was definitely expecting the coughing fits, and was expecting them to be bad as since he was a cartoon, his actions and the ways the environment interacted with him tended to be exaggerated at times that he felt were inconvenient.

“Fuck uwu Sammy Wawwence…” He grumbled under his breath as he lit up his sixth one. “Fuck uwu, youw dewusions of gwandew, youw stupid, god awfuw shape-shifting abiwities, youw cowawdwiness, awnd whatevew the fuck awwowed uwu tuwu be capabwe of doing ovew hawf the shit uwu've done duwing this… nightmawe!”

“HEEEEEY TOMMY!”

The wolf gritted his teeth as he heard the sound of a large inkwell rolling towards him at high speeds, and was tempted to punt it away when it rolled around in a circle and landed upright, but the exhausted looking cartoon demon popped out of there *just* has he had his kick ready and primed for it.

“I…*huff* finally found you! Jeez Louise, would it kill ya ta hear a guy out before storming off?! Oh that’s right! It will.”

The wolf raised an eyebrow.

“Look, smoking as a human’s bad and all that jazz, smoking as a toon is also technically bad, but only in the sense we only show villains smoking so when you smoke, you’re saying “Look at me! I’m a terrible person.” get yourself some cigarettes made of ink and you’ll get some glares, but nothing worse than that. As for smoking normal, non-ink cigarettes meant for HUMAN consumption’s even worse for you as a toon! Look at yourself, you’re made of INK! You’re flammable as *%#@, the only reason why you haven’t sentenced yourself to death by being fired up from the inside out is because you got lucky!”

“Nice twy asshowe, uwu cawwed 'wowf' too many goddamned times, how duwu I know if uwu'we tewwing the twuth ow nowt?? I suwe as heww can’t!”

“Well, I’ve been HELPING everyone as much as I can!” The demon clenched his fists. “I get it! I’m ‘Drew’s demon-son’ and ‘we’re just two sides of the same *@#^ing lying coin’ and all that $#*!... But unlike Drew, I’ve been trying to make this right!”

“Uwu duwu know thawt uwu'we the weason why I was despewate enough tuwu gow tuwu him in the fiwst pwace, wight?”

“Huh?”

“Inky, I twied tuwu awsk uwu fow my body bawck, whewn uwu wefused, I asked fow a body simiwaw tuwu my owd owne, I wouwd've settwed fow being a cawtoon if I stiww wooked somewhat human wike Susie does! Heww, I wouwd have settwed fow uwu juwst giving me my VOICE bawck! But duwu uwu know whawt uwu did instead?”

“...What did I do then?”

“Uwu said no tuwu aww of thawt awnd instead of coming fowwawd with the twuth uwu juwst made excuses at evewy tuwn awnd couwdn't even wook me in the eyes whewn uwu made thewm. Awnd duwu uwu know why? Because uwu awnd I both uwu thawt uwu wike seeing me wike thiws: as 'youw cweation'...” The mechanic got up in the demon’s face and jabbed his finger into his chest. “Inkweww Bendamnin Dwew, uwu'we nowt doing thiws because uwu wawnt us tuwu be bettew, uwu'we doing thiws because uwu wawnt us tuwu be YOUWS instead of JOEY’S.”

“I... Well... you’re ri-” The demon’s shocked and somewhat guilty expression fell into a frown. “If I’m such a ‘Joey Drew 2.0′, then why would you turn to SAMMY *%#@ING LAWRENCE of all people!? I’ll admit that this whole reformation thing was a lot harder than I thought, but Sammy hates your guts and I’m convinced the only reason why he doesn’t try to kill you is because he think’s death’s too good for you or something!”

“I didn't know thawt thawt was Sammy's summoning ciwcwe, wituaw, whatevew. I didn't even make the connection thawt the cocky, weiwdwy fwiwtatious, cannibawistic fish demon thawt wiked tuwu wiwe me up because he couwd was the same entity as the masked woony ink monstew thawt wouwd apowogize tuwu a stwangew if they pouwed soup own him.”

“...I’m Sorry...”

“Huh?”

“Everything you said about me was right,” The Ink Demon fidgeted with his gloves nervously. “I was being childish and greedy and I’m sorry that I hurt you when I was only thinking about myself and what I wanted from this new situation. I was so focused on the fact I was making new bodies so that people wouldn’t be suffering in their current ones, I never once stopped and asked myself if the bodies I made made them happy too.”

“Wow...” The wolf stared at the demon in a subtle mix of pride and awe. “Thawt's actuawwy weawwy matuwe of uwu tuwu say. I down't even think thawt joey wouwd even get those fiwst two wowds out of hiws mouth, wet awone twy tuwu expwain whewe he went wwong.”

“But don’t forget that YOU *#@$ed up here too!” The Ink demon jabbed Tom in the chest twice as hard as he did to him. “The reason why everyone in the crazy inky town hates your guts is because in addition to your involvement with the ink machine, your whole ‘lone wolf’ thing makes you impossible to work with! Allison TRIES to get other people involved in her ‘lets kidnap a mentally unstable searcher’ plots, when she’s here, she interacts with the people around her! You just lock yourself up and do things behind everyone’s backs! Can’t you at LEAST run some of your ideas through someone else before doing them? I’ve seen the blueprints for your torture machine/prison and I gotta say, even if I was still an excellent super villain demon lord at the time of seeing that $#*!: NO. That’s WAY too far! I don’t even think that’s the slightest bit ethically sound and it’s 100% a violation on privacy, even for a creature that’s in a hive mind. Seriously: Talk. To. Other. People. You. Edgy. &!*^#.”

“...In hindsight; I shouwd've at weast asked Buddy whawt he summoned in the studio awnd why he did thawt instead of juwst bwindwy doing dangewous shit awn my own...”

The wolf grumbled as he blew out a puff of smoke.

“That’s the spirit! Now come with me, I think I know a way to get your voice deep and gravelly without you turning yourself into smoked wolf brisket.”

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #Thomas Conner #ink demon #on model ink demon #batim fife au #ink demonth #fanfic #tw smoking

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headofhelios · 3 years ago

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Ok I am a single follower but I like hannibal tv but would enjoy ur movie thoughts I like some of the books too and have been meaning to get around to the movies 😳😳

OKAY I'M EDITING A READMORE ONTO THIS LOL I REALIZED THATS SOMETHING I CAN DO! so now my incredibly waaayyy too long answer abt my thoughts on 2002 will is under there. apologies bc this is less "movie thoughts" and more "2002 movie will thoughts" but well thats how the chips fell

GOD okay sooo for the record i am reading the red dragon book and am like 7 or 8 chapters in and full transparency im not like. enjoying it lol. the book pisses me off with its misogyny (all the women in it are either dead or it feels like you're supposed to think theyre Selfish Bitches or theyre just there for like. bizarre and uncomfortable sexual moments like the guys talking abt that woman in the elevator, or that one part of mrs. leeds diary which is like. i guess could be there to Show Her Humanity or whatever but 1. there are more ways to do that 2. the book doesnt seem particularly concerned with her humanity considering she's barely even given a first name and so far the novel hasnt seemed to disapprove of how will thinks of her as a possession of her husband) and its inconsistency with will's most important character trait or whatever (he's so intensely, extremely empathetic towards EVERYONE, even serial killers, which makes him really good at finding them! and he can never turn this off, to the point where every time he has a conversation with someone, he ends up mimicking the way they talk, even if he tries to stop! but also he never empathizes with the victims or HIS OWN FUCKING WIFE? HELLO? so it really feels less like "extremely strong empathy for everyone that he cant control" and more like "he can empathize with serial killers extremely well and also other people if we want to Make A Point in one scene instead of letting the point show through the whole book") BUT UHHH ANYWAY. MOVIE THOUGHTS. THE MOVIE THOUGHTS YOU ASKED FOR COMING RIGHT UP!

okay this is what i am worried will either 1. draw annoying tv will graham stans to my blog like flies or 2. end with me being hanged in the town square BUT. it must be said. i prefer 2002 red dragon will graham to tv will graham. and quite frankly? so far? i think 2002 red dragon will graham is better than book will graham. i cannot lie.

my reasoning: because 2002 will actually empathizes with more people than serial killers and his boss! y'know! like you'd assume someone with constant extreme empathy would! the difference between the first scene with molly in the book vs in the movie are SO striking to me now that i've read that part of the novel. in the novel he seems very... rough, i guess, and like he doesnt care about molly's worries. he doesnt seem to see things from her perspective, which especially feels like a kick to the gut because MOLLY! SEES! THINGS! FROM! HIS! PERSPECTIVE!!! she literally empathizes with him more than he does with her! what the fuck! MEANWHILE in the movie, he does seem to care about her. his assurances that he wont get too involved seem like assurances rather than him trying to get her off his back. he hugs her and tells her he loves her and i actually believe that yeah, he loves her, he knows she's worried about him, and he wants to comfort her and ease her worries. and the victims! AGAIN such a stark difference to me! in the book, will is like... uncomfortable empathizing w the red dragon, of course, but he doesnt seem to empathize with the victims all that much, ESPECIALLY not the women. he doesnt care about them. he sees them as possessions belonging to their husbands and its so fucking gross. despite already suspecting that the red dragon chooses families based on the women, he decides to waste time focusing on the husbands as a way of "asking permission to look at [their wives]." what the fuck? meanwhile in the film, he feels for the victims so much that he can barely even say that the kids were shot in bed! when he watches the tapes, he focuses on the women! because that's his fucking job!!! and we see him empathizing with them! wow!!

siiigh okay im gonna stop talking abt the book vs the movie now bc again im only like 8 chapters or so deep. but now we come to tv will vs. 2002 will, which is admittedly gonna be more subjective and part of that it bc i cant remember a whole lot of specifics from the show bc my memory is Very Bad. but anyway

let's get the shallow stuff out of the way. yes i prefer ed norton's face to hugh dancy's. call hugh dancy "gender" or whatever have your fun i support you and your right to call any blood covered man a gender but by god is that not even REMOTELY my experience. next shallow thing to get out of the way: ed norton's line delivery is like music to my FUCKING ears compared to hugh dancy's i am so sorry. like the jokes about will shaking like a damp chihuahua before taking 5 minutes to stutter out "he's killing them....... On Purpose, jack." are funny and all but christ i had SUCH a hard time watching the show bc of that im not lying. literally hearing 2002 will just say "he's not keeping them. he's eating them." nice and quick, matter of factly is better than well im actually gonna end that sentence there but you get the idea. like YESSS you little blonde bitch get to the point i love you!!!

OKAY NOW less shallow points but also less uhh idk man i just dont remember a lot of hannibal. but basically: after seeing how caring 2002 will is, i'm kind of... idk i'm just so over tv will and how abrasive and harsh he is in comparison. like i fell in LOVE with how vulnerable 2002 will is, how he feels like he cares deeply about the people around him (and honestly... idk i cant remember a moment in the hannibal tv series that made me feel the way i felt when 2002 will can't say "the kids were shot in their beds". it's like... yeah this is a guy who feels so deeply for everyone around him at all times. i believe that.) and i just dont remember getting that same feeling from tv will. i have been gently spoon fed the most excellent chocolate pudding and everything else in my memory is just a snack pack. i guess tv will has those moments (what comes to mind is when he brings gideon to hannibal's house and is crying and he says "please dont lie to me") but idk they just didnt really do for me what 2002 will does. and then their scenes with reba! wow! i rewatched the tv version after watching red dragon, bc the film version made me tear up, meanwhile the tv version i barely remembered and i wasnt sure if that was just bc of the different mindsets i was in while watching them or what. and ok i just rewatched the tv version again and like... yeah. it's the wills lol. i LOVEEE tv reba SO much she is giving everything in that scene!! she sounds so like... broken, both bc of dolarhyde's apparent suicide and bc of finding out who he was + what he was doing, she sounds so fragile and guilt ridden! she's amazing!! but will. idk. tv will's delivery just seems... idk this feels dumb to say but it sounds like writing. i admittedly LOVE the line "people who study this kind of thing say that he was trying to stop because you helped him." and his delivery there is good. but between tv "you didnt draw a freak, you drew a man w a freak on his back" and the 2002 version, the 2002 delivery seems more genuine while the tv delivery sounds rehearsed. idk overall the 2002 version of that conversation just makes me feel more? its like. idk i can feel the 2002 version gently holding my heart while the tv version is a scene that is nice in h/nnigram gifsets or w/e.

umm ok this is already suuuper long and my brain is getting a bit mushy so i'm gonna start wrapping it up lol. i'll probably compare book will and 2002 will again after i finish the book, and then i miiight rewatch hannibal, or at least parts of s3. but right now my thoughts are basically: book will is a fucking dick who has an easier time empathizing with serial killers than with his wife. tv will is a nothing girl after being so completely catered to + also idk he doesnt have the same fragility that i want from my wills now. and 2002 will is my little caramel apple. he has this delightful vulnerability and feels like he cares so much and empathizes with more people than serial killers and his boss and 4 people in a diner for one scene! 2002 will made me care about will graham! which is honestly kind of a feat!

#long post #like so so so long #my condolences anon and also anyone following me who doesnt want this on their dash #but yeah 2002 will is my booboo bear my cinnamon swirl coffeecake my little heavensent angel #and ed nortons performance made me feel more than hugh dancy's #i think ed norton does a really good job at giving his characters that kind of vulnerability and i LOVE that!!#like yeah whatever 'you're gat arent you dont you just think hes hot' sure say that but also like #have you seen him in primal fear? its a movie thats a firm Its Complicated for me but his performance is so good and he feels so vulnerable #and even in fight club and kingdom of heaven i think he gets that in there! idk i genuinely think he's a good actor #personal #red dragon #if im writing an essay i may as well put it in my tags #asks #anonymous #<- FORGOT TO ADD THOSE TAGS. anyway #EDIT: NOW FEATURING A READMORE LOL.

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words-for-holland · 5 years ago

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Quarantine Series: The Birthday Week

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Summary: It’s Tom’s Birthday Week! So much planning, food, and surprises....and a special promise from our favorite Q.S. Couple.

A/N: It’s been long overdue...Is it too late to say Happy Belated Tom?! 🥺

A/N: Happier Part 3 comes out this weekend!!

Check the Rest: Burnt Out | A New Look | Secret Cuts & Kisses | Breaking Friendships

May 25, 2020 (T-Minus 7 Days)

An almost average Monday. Its the start of Tom’s Birthday Week and Y/N is trying her best to get ahead of the game and prep up for an over-the-top birthday party for her boyfriend. Well as over-the-top as it can get when you’re stuck in Quarantine because...well...Covid.

The only problem, she didnt know where to start. What party to throw, games to play, food to make, playlist to create, and above all the gift. This year Y/N wanted to give Tom something that held a lot of sentimental value to represent all the love she had for him. While Y/N was lucky enough to have someone like Tom to spoil her and show her just how much she meant to him, she wanted to do the same for Tom. So, she went to the spare room, which had now become her new work space and started googling away.

May 26, 2020 (T-Minus 6 Days)

The next day, Tom and the boys went out for their daily Golf match, while Y/N stayed behind to continue party planning. She made sure to be discreet about it and pretended that she had to take care of a few things for work. In reality, Y/N facetimed her best friend, on advice of what to get Tom for his 24th.

“C’mon Im serious Nico. I want to give him something special this year.” Y/N groaned when she knew her best friend wasn’t giving her the answers she wanted.

“Im sorry, Y/N. I dont know what you could give him. You’ve know him better than anyone else.” Nico reasoned, as Y/N continued her helpless groans, banging her head on the table. “Look Im sure what ever you come up with, Tom is going to love it no matter what.”

“But that’s the problem I don’t know what I can come up with. Our first year together I got him clothes, last year it was golfing gear, I don’t know how I can top that.” Y/N continued to stare at the desk picking up and dropping her pencil repeatedly. “I just know that I want it to be something he can always look back at and know that I’ll always be there for him.”

“Wow. You really like this kid don’t ya?” Nico questioned, but of course she knew the answer to that...anyone did.

“Yeah...more than anything.” Y/N smiles back as she thinks about Tom.

“Well what about a promise ring?” Y/N’s ears perk up at the suggestion.

“Like uhhh a men’s promise ring? Do they even make promise rings for men?” She questions, though isn’t opposed to the idea.

“No, Im talking about a donkey’s promise ring.” Nico rolls her eyes. “It’d be cute and not to mention empowering because you’d be making the first move. Empowering women is super attractive.”

Y/N stops to give it some thought. It would be cute to have a ring for him and see him wear it everywhere knowing he would carry a symbol of her love. Of course it’s nothing like the real thing when couples get married and all, but it’s a step toward that direction. “Ill think about it.” She says.

May 27, 2020 (T-Minus 5 Days)

Y/N had finally given the idea a good 8 hours when she decided to find the ring. She scrolled through pages and pages to find the ring but none of them spoke to her or looked like it was meant for Tom. The more she scrolled the more anxious she got, slowly biting ther thumb nail as she continued.

“You know if you’re gonna do birthday shopping for someone in the house, the kitchen might not be the best place to do it.” A deep british voice popped up from behind.

Y/N shrieked and jumped, quickly closing her laptop, afraid she had already ruined the surprise. Until she turned around and saw it was just Harrison. “Ugh, was it reallg necessary to do that?” She whined. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Of course wheres the fun in simply asking what you’re doing.” He laughed, pulling a chair next to Y/N as he watched her scroll through pages or rings. His smile growing ever so slightly. Y/N looked at him with suspicion.

“Okay I know that smile...clearly you know something I don’t.” She states. “Is this a bad idea?”

Harrisons smile dropped quickly as he profusely shook his head. “What? What? No...I just uhh — actually yeah the rings are not a good idea.” He blabbers. Y/N looks at him, waiting for Harrison to continue. “I mean think about it. If you buy a ring for Tom and he starts wearing it everywhere. People are gonna suspect that he’s getting married or worse find out about your relationship. I don’t know if you wanna risk that.”

Harrison was lucky to be a gifted actor as he improv-ed his answers on the spot in hopes that Y/N did not find him to be too suspicious. If she called his bluff and found out, Tom would make sure Harrison would never see the light of day. “You should go for this necklace. I think it suits him and has a touch of your style.” Harrison points out to a necklace he truthfully thought she should get him. With that, he quickly left Y/N to be on her own in gift shopping.

May 28, 2020 (T-Minus 4 Days)

Y/N’s planning was 70% in the clear. The necklace was ordered, Sam was helping out in planning the food, Harrison and Tuwaine were arranging the golf diversion plan, and Harry was keeping Tom busy making sure he wasnt suspecting anything. Although that didn’t stop Tom from bothering his girlfriend a couple of hours of the day. How could he not, the boy missed his girl.

“Y/N..” Tom cooed as he wrapped his hands around her, kissing a small part of her shoulder. “Can you take a break from whatever arts and crafts thing you got going on and cuddle with me?” He continued as he placed another kiss.

“Babe, I’d love to more than anything but I wanna finish this up so I can at least accomplish one thing during Quarantine.” She explains.

“You accomplish a lot of things darling, and you can accomplish another if you just come and cuddle with your needy boyfriend, who happens to be turning 24....in 4 days.” He hinted, places kisses by ear.

“Oh and I suppose that gives you special treatment?” Y/N challenges, letting out giggles as Tom continued to kiss where she was ticklish the most.

“I would hope so. Now, what do you say?” He smiles at her, placing the small strand of black hair behind her ear.

“Okay you win.” She whispers.

May 29, 2020 (T-Minus 3 Days)

Tom and Harry were busy hosting the Pub Quiz, while Y/N and Harrison took the time to create the decorations for Tom’s party. The theme... Spiderman, but what else was new. Harrison drew up webs and spiders on the deflated red and blue ballooms, stashing them in a paper bag to be inflated the day of. Y/N started on the birthday pub quiz answer sheets, customizing them to have that personal touch of Tom. Everything was going smoothly until, she needed more glue.

“Crap, Im gonna check the closet. I think we have a few spare sticks of hot glue.” Y/N stated, as she got up.

Harrison eyes started to display signs of panic as he quickly got up and raced her to it, guarding the closet door. “Uh...there’s no more. I already checked.” He squeaked.

Y/N raised her one eyebrow in suspicion. “I’m pretty sure there’s a couple.” She fired back, trying to pry Harrison off the closet. “C’mon Harrison. This isn’t funny.”

“I think it is.” Harrison continued to stall. Y/N rolled her eyes, coming closer to him, wiggling her fingers. She tickled his sides, knowing it was his weak spot. His grip started to loosen as he let out fits of giggles. Y/N took the opportunity to quickly open the closet, and grab her glue sticks. She looked around to find if anything was suspicious or worth hiding, but there was nothing.

“You know...you’re acting really weird.” Y/N stated as she walked back to the table to continue her project. Once she was out of Harrison’s sight, he quickly texted Tom about the dilemma. Only to receive:

Time to find a new spot then.

May 30, 2020 (T-Minus 2 Days)

It was Tom & Y/N’s turn to wash the dishes after dinner. The irony both had no clue what one was planning for the other. They were always the type to be truthfully honest to each other, but a few little playful secrets couldn’t hurt. “So, is it just me or is Harrison acting really...strange?” She asked her boyfriend. Tom looked at her, pretending to not know what she was talking about.

“Umm..not sure. He seemed fine to me....Why? What’s happened?” Tom asked casually, focusing on the dishes.

“You know for someone that’s really good at acting, you’re a terrible liar.” Y/N laughed out loud, only to get splashed with water. “Touche. But seriously, he gets so nervous around me. Like someone’s out to get him if I do something he doesn’t expect. I wanted to get glue sticks yesterday in the closet and he straight up guarded the door, saying I wasn’t allowed....in out own closet?! I swear it’s like he’s hiding something in there.”

“Haz, you div.” Tom muttered under his breath.

“What was that babe?”

“Uhh nothing. I was just saying Harrison is a piece of work. Even I couldn’t tell you why he was acting like that.” He lied.

“Uh..huh.” Y/N responded, not buying anything but rather just letting it be.

Tom placed the dishes on the rack, while he came up behind his girlfriend, huggling her tightly from behind. “It’s whatever. But, lets just go back to our room, lay under the sheets, watch some Netflix....have a good time.” He smirked, kissing her temple. “And just cuddle like there’s no one watching.”

“Mmmm. Now that sounds like a plan.” She whispers pulling him to their room.

May 31, 2020 (T-Minus 1 Day)

Y/N only had 1 day left to prepare everything for Tom’s big day. She made sure to stay on top of everyone’s tasks and prepped her gifts for Tom tomorrow. Y/N was extremely proud of everything and everyone that was taking part of her little project. A rare sight anyone would ever see, but the most thing she was proud of was how secretive they were able to keep it that Tom didnt suspect a single thing.

“So, got anything planned for tomorrow?” Tom asked Y/N as she was cooking pancakes.

“Mmm I dont know. Am I supposed to have something to do tomorrow?” She teases.

“Well..” He starts as he takes the spatula out of her hands. “I hear it this div’s birthday tomorrow.” Tom grabs Y/N’s waist, picking her up and placing her on the counter. “And I hear he just wants to spend it with his girls all day long.” Y/N’s legs locked around Tom’s waist as he continues his not-so-obvious birthday wish.

“Oh there’s gonna be more than one girl at this birthday of his huh? He must be quite the player.” She smiles at him, fingers thresding through the small brown hairs at the nape of his neck.

“Well yeah because Tessa is his princess but Y/N, this really cute adorable hot girl who doesn’t think she’s hot but should really start seeing it...that HIS princess.” He explained, kissing every visible spot on her face. “It would make his 24th. Trust me.”

Y/N pretends to stall and think about his wish. He knew he was going to get Y/N and Tom time together no matter what, but where’s the fun in just expecting it. “We’ll see about that birthday boy.”

June 1, 2020 (Party Time!!)

The boys were all out celebrating Tom’s birthday at the golf course at the start of the day. Of course that wasn’t until Tom made sure to get some extra love and attention from his girlfriend first thing in the morning. Y/N quickly rushed to get the decorations in place, while Nikki, Tom’s mother helped in setting the table and getting the food ready with cleR and concise instructions from Sam to ensure they couldn’t mess it up.

“Y/N this was such a wonderful idea. I cant wait to see his face when he comes home.” She exclaims, giving Y/N the most comforting hug.

“Thank you Nikki, I just want it to be perfect for him this year. I mean we’re all in Quarantine and all of us are finally together in one place.” Y/N explains as she places the final ballons up by the doorway.

“Well of this is how you prepare for a birthday, I can’t wait to see how you prep for your wedding.” Nikki responds, only half joking.

“He hasn’t even proposed yet!” Y/N laughs, though the thought makes her stomach flutter in the best way possible. Being married to Tom was all she could ever want in life.

“Well, dont you worry. Im sure it’ll happen, that boy can’t gona second without you I’d be surprised if he doesnt....May just have to chastise him if he takes too long.”

Y/N was starting to grow a bit suspicious. This whole week alone was filled with suspicion. Harrison acting weird, Tom being extra needy and cuddly, Nikki talking about marriage. “Was Tom going to propose soon? “ she thought to herself.

Just in the nick of time, the boys had all arrived after an intense game of golf. They came in bursting in conversation about how great it was, who deserved to win, and of course how Dom was always getting beat at his own game by his sons. Of course the festivities didnt start yet, until Tom took a moment to shower and dress up. It wasnt that he needed to, but for him..it was extremely necessary for today.

Y/N went up to grab her presents for Tom in the work closet, when all of a sudden, a small box landed on her head. She looked up then down towards where the item fell, only to see a sparkling pink and clear diamon cut ring. “Oh my god” she muttered.

“Bullocks.” Tom spoke out loud wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his torso.

“I...uh..Im sorry Tom. I swear I wasn’t looking for it I was just trying to get my gift so I could give it to you. I didnt know this was your hiding spot.” She frantically explains picking up the box and giving it to him.

Tom looked a little disappointed as he stared at the ring. He had worked so hard to keep it a secret from everyone only to get it ruined on his brirthday. “No no no. It’s fine Y/N, really. I just...I was planning on giving this to you next month on your birthday.”

Y/N opens her mouth realizing how bad she messed it up. “Oh my god. Tom Im so sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He laughs. “Actually kinda glad you found it. So now I can do this”. Tom gets down on one knee, his towel still wrapped around his torso. “Y/N, I have loved you more than I could ever love anyone in the past 3 years I’ve known you. I swear I could have sworn I was going to marry you the day I met you at the Marvel office with your little black Dell notebook in your hands. Your humor, your kindess, your sympathy and empathy for all living things makes me love you even more. Will you make me the happiest birthday man on earth, and marry me?” He proposes.

Y/N tears up and shakes her head vigorously. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” She cries, repearing the words as she hugs him on the floor. They lean in giving into a passionate kiss, still holding onto each other. Y/N and Tom couldn’t believe it was real. Just a couple of seconds they were boyfriend and girlfriend..now they’re engaged. “Wait. I almost forgot about your presents.” She quickly speaks out grabbing the bag.

“Darling, believe me you were my present. I am beyond satisfied right now.” He chuckles.

“I know, but I got you these too!” Y/N pushes the bag to him. Tom shakes his head as he opens it up find a silver necklace with a retangular pendant, and a major jar full of post- it notes. He observes the necklace and opens up the retangular pendant to find a picture of Y/N and him during their firsf year together. He smiled back at the memory, now seeing as to where they’ve ended uo. Stronger and better than before. Next, he opened the major jar pulling out a small card that read:

For whenever you’re down, need a laugh or missing me.

He picked up a post it note that more pictures of them during their time together with a note saying:

“Remember that you’re the reason we all smile. You are a warm loght of happiness that does not stop giving to the world.”

Tom tears up at the gift. In all his years, no one has ever given him soemthing that held so much sentimental value. “I love you so much Y/N. Thank you for this...for all of this.” He whispers, placing a gentle kiss on her lips.

“Your welcome. I hope you know you mean the world to me too, and I just wanted your birthday to be perfect.”

“It already is...because I have you.” He looks back at her and smiles.

“Cmon birthday boy. Get dressed, we have a party to attend to and news to share .” Y/N laughs as she helps her boyfriend...I mean fiance up. Who said that quarantine birthdays were boring?

Taglist:

@hollanddolanfangirl @parkerspillow

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader

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snowdice · 4 years ago

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Goblin Brain Study Session Fic 1 [Day 54]

Because I don’t want to just have walls of text for my Goblin Brain Study Session posts, I’m separating them by days. If you want to read the previous chapters, click the links below. Chapter 21 and what’s done of chapter 22 is under the cut.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 My Master Post

See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. Also, if you’re interesting, don’t forget that I am constantly updating the timeline as I write. :)

I have a zoom meeting in about an hour. Not sure if it will take long because it’s just supposed to be an organization meeting, but the time slot is for 2 hours. So... I’m not sure if there will be a random 2 hour break in this or not... But, anyway, time for Janus to murder his Virgil’s dad.

Chapter 21

Emile’s car, of course, did not have a built-in button that would let him into the bases outer gates like Remy’s would have. Instead, Remy had to get out of the car and put his face in front of the security camera. He waved and someone must have seen and recognized him because the gate swung open to let them through.

Remy climbed back into the car and Emile drove up towards what appeared to be an abandoned factory.

“Since you’re not an agent they’ll want us to go inside the shell building instead of down to the parking garage for security,” Remy told him.

Emile had never actually been to the base. He usually met with Logan at another location or sometimes Emile’s office and he met any patients in his office as well. Thus, he had absolutely no idea what parking garage he was talking about or where on Earth it could be, but he could figure out where Remy must want him to go because there was only one building in sight.

He drove down the driveway towards what looked like the main entrance.

“Weird,” Remy said as Emile pulled up in front of it. “There’s another car here.” They exchanged a glance.

Remy mumbled something that sounded like “damned kid,” under his breath. Then they were both scrambling to get out of the car the next moment. Remy went ahead of Emile because he knew more about this place and also Emile would not be able to stop him.

The door had been left slightly ajar and Emile could hear voices as they approached.

Emile heard Virgil’s voice (and thank god Remy was right about where he’d been going) say “you know my dad?”

An unfamiliar voice responded with a shocked. “Remy’s dead?” which was right when Remy made it to the door.

Without missing a beat, Remy threw open the door and said, “Quit telling everyone I’m dead!” Now Emile loved a good animated movie reference usually, but today he couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

There were a few seconds of silence before the one figure he didn’t recognize finished the quote by saying, “Sometimes I can still hear his voice.”

“Dad?” Virgil asked sounding all types of vulnerable and confused.

“Kid,” Remy said, “you are the bane of my existence. I’m dead for 5 minutes and you skip town?”

Emile watched Virgil’s face as he quickly adjusted to the fact that his father was not in fact dead, but simply an emotionally constipated idiot with a flair for dramatics. He narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah, and where have you been, old man?”

“Running after you once the wrist tracker said you’d booked it 50 miles away by the time I knew you were missing! Which then stopped tracking.”

“Yeah, well I threw it out a window because I thought you were dead and I’m not stupid.”

“Well your lack of stupidity has made my life a living hell for the past few hours.”

“Right back at you not-dead dad.”

Remy snorted a bit. “Come here pipsqueak. Your old man deserves a hug after you nearly gave him a heart attack.” Virgil still looked a bit sullen but went in for the hug anyway.

Virgil caught sight of Emile over Remy’s shoulder and drew back from the hug. “Uncle Emile,” he said, sounding relieved. “I tried to call you.”

Emile turned to glare at Remy.

“Oof,” Remy said. “Yeah, that one may have been my bad too.”

“I,” Logan interjected. By the look on his face, Emile could tell that his willingness to let Remy and Virgil have a moment was wearing thin, “also tried to call him.”

Remy just shrugged. “Yeah, well, boss, someone drilled it into my head not to give out secret critical information on unsecured lines and I am definitely critical.”

Logan gave him an unimpressed look and Remy shrugged and winked at him after a moment. He dug the flash drive he’d stolen out of his pocket and tossed it at Logan. “Oh, and also this.”

Logan caught it and raised an eyebrow at it. “What is this?”

“Enough information to want to kill me for it,” he paused. “Of course, that’s not a high bar considering she tried to kill me before I stole it.”

Logan put the flash drive in his chest pocket. “I’ll decide if I’m going to kill you after I look at what’s on this.”

“Fair enough,” Remy agreed.

“So, you’re a secret agent?” Virgil asked.

“Yep,” Remy confirmed. Virgil looked over at Emile.

“Don’t look at me,” Emile said. “I’m just a run of the mill psychiatrist.”

“Who gives therapy to secret agents,” Remy pointed out.

“Even secret agents need therapy sometimes,” Emile said, “and I already knew about the organization.”

Virgil turned back to his dad. “I’m mad at you,” he said.

“Ah,” Remy said. “Yeah…”

“Teach me to shoot a gun, and I’ll forgive you.”

“NO,” both Emile and the man he didn’t know said at one.

“Trust me,” the other man continued. “He doesn’t need to learn how to use a gun. He does just fine with a knife.”

Remy considered Virgil suspiciously for a few seconds. “What did you do, you little shit?”

“Remy,” the other man chastised.

“He’s heard a lot worse,” Remy waved him off. The other man frowned at him, but Remy just turned back to Virgil. “Now, what did you do?”

“I needed a ride,” said Virgil.

“What about a knife?”

“The knife… helped me get a ride.”

“Did you kidnap Patton at knife point?” Remy asked. Virgil just shrugged. “Kid!”

“And you allowed that to happen?” Logan asked, Emile presumed, Patton.

“He wasn’t exactly scary,” Patton said.

Virgil looked almost affronted. “I was terrifying!”

“Sure, you were kiddo,” Patton said. Virgil pouted at him.

“From what I understand, he also incapacitated one of Nelson’s men with pepper spray,” Logan interjected. He eyed Virgil. “We should have a conversation at some point in the future.”

“Logan,” Patton chided. “He’s 15.”

“I’m aware of his age,” Logan said.

Virgil looked at him. “Would you teach me how to use a gun?”

“Hey, if anyone is going to teach my child how to use a gun, it’s me,” Remy insisted.

“No one is teaching him how to use a gun,” Emile said. “He doesn’t even have his driver’s license yet.”

“If I agree to take drivers ed… then I can get a gun?” Virgil asked.

“Maybe,” Remy said.

“No!” Emile exclaimed.

“Okay, but Janus is not allowed to teach me to drive. He’s the one who told me the gas pedal was the break on that golf cart. I don’t want to crash another vehicle into a body of water.”

“Wow,” a new voice said from the door. Emile looked over to see a group of damp people walk into the building. Emile did not recognize four of them, but he did recognize the fifth. The speaker turned to Janus. “You must be cursed.”

A woman in the group turned to Logan. “We found your kids,” she said.

Chapter 22

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Janus did not respond to Roman’s quip about the car. Instead, he shoved past Roman the second he heard the boy’s voice. Roman recognized the kid immediately from the pictures he’d been sent along with his mission directives.

“Virgil,” Janus said, crossing the room to get to his little brother without regard to anything else. “Thank god. Are you alright?” He grabbed his face and titled it as though to look for injuries. Nothing about what Roman had learned about Janus in the past few hours would have prepared him for the way he descended directly into mother-hen mode, cupping the boy’s face with delicate fingers.

He was even less prepared for when Virgil shoved his hands away with an eye roll and a “I’m fine, Janus,” and Janus immediately started to cry.

Janus pulled Virgil into a hug, and Roman winced in sympathy for Janus’s injured ribs when the kid hugged him back tightly. They should really get that checked out as soon as the two of them had their moment. “I’ve been worried sick about you,” he said, voice all types of wrecked. The past few hours of worry that Janus had kept careful hold of lashed out suddenly, and it was even more than Roman had anticipated. “I showed up to the house, and you were gone, and the window was broken.” Virgil was getting a bit wobbly lipped himself, and Roman couldn’t exactly blame him with how gutted Janus sounded. “Where did you go? How did you get here? How did you know to come here? Did Logan send someone else after you?”

“Dad let the name slip,” Virgil explained, “and Mom sent someone to pick me up, but I’d already accidently heard that she’d killed him with the radio Dad keeps in his room. So, I really didn’t want to go with the man, and he was mean especially when I said no.” His voice cracked a bit as he spoke and he too started crying. “I didn’t know where to go or what to do. At first, I just wanted to get out of the city so Mom couldn’t find me. Once I was out, I decided to try to get here because dad said he worked with the owner, and no one was answering their phones.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Janus said. “That was my fault. I broke my phone. I should have thought about you wanting to call me.” He pulled back to kiss Virgil ever so gently on the forehead.

“Hey, what gives,” another man said, and Roman blinked because that was Remy Gates and Remy was definitely supposed to be dead. “I was dead, and I didn’t even get that much of a heartfelt reunion.” Janus seemed to freeze for a moment and then turned to him.

#study break stories #janus sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #creativitwins #patton sanders #virgil sanders #platonic moxiety #emile picani #remy sanders #logan sanders #kidnapping #murder mentioned #guns #car crash

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fly-pow-bye · 5 years ago

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ThunderCats Roar - “Panthro Plagarized”

Co-Executive Producer: Victor Courtright

Supervising Producer: Nate Cash

Producer: Marly Halpern-Graser

Story by: Joan Ford

Teleplay by: Lesley Tsina

Directed by: Jeremy Polgar

A tale of stolen forks.

The episode starts with the ThunderCats looking impatiently at a stack of breakfast burritos spinning in the microwave, with WilyKit and WilyKat asking if they're done yet. Apparently, looking at a timer on a microwave is too much for at least the ThunderKittens and Lion-O. This feels like a similar opening to Prank Call's. However, this time they show the breakfast burritos right at the beginning, so there really isn't a joke here besides them taking this much too seriously.

Eventually, the burritos are done, but, uh oh, when you take a burrito right out of the microwave without letting it cool, it's too hot to handle! All four of them struggle with this factoid as if they were in that part of the infomercial where the family struggles without the brand new and useful product. They may as well have put this scene in black and white, but instead, it's just color with generic one color backgrounds. Cheetara eventually sprays the others with juice to cool them down, that action not ruining the burritos because pineapples.

What can the ThunderCats possibly do with this problem without scalding their hands in the name of breakfast? Could they just wait for the burrito to cool down? Could they just use a paper towel or a fork?

They do use a fork, but not just any fork. Panthro happens to have that brand new and useful product that solves the ThunderCats' burrito problems. That might not be the best term for that, but I am keeping it anyway. It's the Gravity Fork(TM); it allows someone to pick up a hot breakfast burrito without burning their hands. One can do that with a regular fork, but this one makes the burrito float. I can also assume it makes the burrito safe to eat, since I would imagine being able to burn one's hands and being able to burn one's esophagus isn't mutually exclusive.

They all heavily praise Panthro for his amazing invention, and he tells them it's no problem, because he always plays it cool. Lion-O even gets to tell Panthro he saved breakfast, including him walking to a title card that says "Breakfast Open". That could only mean Panthro is going to lose his cool, and that Breakfast will eventually be closed. Otherwise, that title card would be completely pointless.

Missing from the table is Tygra, who barges in the door and asks if anyone wants to go jogging across Third Earth with him. He was apparently just as interested in the burritos as the rest of them are with his jogging offer, as the ThunderCats only nuked 5 of them. Either didn't want the breakfast burritos, which makes more sense, they only had 5 of them, which will be disproven later, or they decided Tygra wasn't important enough to include in their breakfast plans, which is my guess considering what happens next.

As they eat their burritos, Tygra ends up getting beaten up by someone outside. While Lion-O gets out of his seat and calls for the ThunderCats to help Tygra, the rest of them just say "okay, we'll do it" in a way like, as if saving one of their teammates was just like having to pick up their toys. Yeah, it's just one of the ThunderCats getting beaten up, it's not nearly as pressing as that too-hot burrito problem. At least Lion-O seems to care, though it is odd that he's relatively the voice of reason here. He’s supposed to be the Baby King, but it seems like we're just seeing the Baby Jester's Court here.

That someone turns out to be Vultureman, appearing by himself for the first time. Here, he's using his brand new and completely original Gravity Pincer(TM)! With this amazing new weapon, he can pick up cat-like superheroes without any risk of getting pummeled by a bola whip!

Panthro: Vultureman, this is low, even for you!

Lion-O: Yeah, just because Tygra likes jogging doesn't mean he deserves to get beaten up!

Of course, that's not what Panthro was talking about, because nobody cares about Meg Griffin Tygra. Instead, Vultureman's big crime is that he plagiarized Panthro's idea. At least Cheetara seems to come to her senses in this scene, as she's the one who points out they should be focused on saving Tygra. They rush in, and...

...Pincer Crush, ThunderCats Down, womp womp. Unlike a certain other rebooted superhero group, at least it looks like they kind of tried. Even WilyKit had the idea to come up from behind and throw a smoke bomb, but Vultureman's Gravity Pincer was just too strong. It was so strong, it's even able to crush that puny Gravity Fork, which falls right out of Panthro's pockets when he gets crushed by a door. Carrying eating utensils when going outside is normal, apparently. Victorious, Vultureman flies away using his completely original idea.

Panthro: I can't believe it!

Lion-O: Don't worry Panthro, we'll find a way to stop him!

Yes, they just repeated the joke twice in less than a minute. Of course, Panthro's still upset about the plagiarism. However, there is one thing to ponder: Panthro just invented the Gravity Fork, how did Vultureman come up with such a similar idea? He is supposed to be the genius of the Mutants of Plun-Darr, but there’s clearly much more to this story than a mere coincidence.

Panthro flashes back without terrifying the other ThunderCats with the swishing, and we see that he drew up the blueprint for the Gravity Fork, calling it perfect. He then decided to throw that perfect idea in the garbage, because he wants his ideas to be better than perfect. He ends up making that gravity fork anyway, so I can't see how this makes any sense. Did he make an identical blueprint that's slightly better drawn, making it a marvelous blueprint?

After throwing it away, Vultureman pops out of the garbage and plunders the idea. I'm surprised they didn't go with that; he is a Mutant of Plun-Darr, after all. I'm assuming he's thinking about how Vultureman would have stolen the idea and him just dumpster diving it is not literally what happened, but I can see this silly show's version of Vultureman really thinking putting on that little mask is going to fool anyone.

As Panthro tells himself he shouldn't throw away his ideas, Tygra, who is totally fine after his thrashing, points out that Vultureman is invading the Berbil Village, using the totally cool and much better than any fork Gravity Pincer to destroy the village using the Ro-Bear Berbils. Of course, those Berbils don't seem to mind, because, as shown in this series' first episode, they seemed to have no problem getting repeatedly electrocuted for saying Mumm-Ra. Even the ThunderCats themselves can't help but call Vultureman's new weapon cool, not entirely seeing it as a plagiarized weapon.

Them repeatedly calling the Gravity Pincer so cool even when it's used for evil is certainly taking a toll on Panthro's coolness with the situation. He's less concerned about saving the village than he is about showing that he could make a far better gravity weapon than Vultureman could. He even says that if he wanted to, his version of the Gravity Pincers could launch a Ro-Bear Berbil right into the sun, making that ridiculous expression above. At least that expression has more than two frames of animation.

To help these Berbils, Panthro goes to his room to make something that can disable the Gravity Pincer. After a few minutes, in which Vultureman forces the Berbils to begin building a monument to himself, Panthro comes out with some altered Fighting Sticks that can transform to...

...his brand new Gravity Claws! They're so powerful, they can lift the entire refrigerator and crush it without Panthro needing to use any kind of super strength. This is actually a bit of progression with this plot: this started with Panthro helping out with breakfast, and now Panthro, in his hubris, has completely ruined breakfast by breaking their cooling device. Lion-O exclaims that Panthro killed breakfast, and he has to unhook that "Breakfast Open" title card. I told ya!

They go out in the ThunderTank, as the Paw Garage Door opens...only for the ThunderTank to go out of the Cat's Head's mouth, completely negating any purpose for the garage door opening. Can a joke be so silly, it's awesome?

It's also night time now, even though it was all bright skies just a scene ago. There was no indication that him inventing those claws took hours. A day-to-night transition would have really helped here. They make it to the Berbil Village, which had already been ramsacked, and Panthro takes to take Vultureman on himself. He really wants Vultureman to admit his transgression, after all!

Not only does he not admit his transgression, his giant monument, the one that was mentioned but not seen earlier, commemorates that he invented the Gravity Pincer. This shows that he does share Panthro's pride of inventing things, even if he didn't entirely invent them from scratch. This does make Panthro look a little less ridiculous. Emphasis on "little".

Using one of the Ro-Bear Berbils, he even decides to put a giant TM right next to the name, because, in his words, he wants to prevent his ideas from getting stolen by copycats like him. That's a double insult; it's a lie and it's a pun on his race!

If Roar can give us nothing else, at least they can give us a decent fight scene, as Panthro's Gravity Claws are matched up with Vultureman's Totally Original Gravity Pincer. No, really, I really like this fight scene: it shows. In fact, they seem to be evenly matched, with even WilyKit remarking:

WilyKat: I can't tell who's winning.

It's fine; not every battle needs to be one-sided, especially not like the Vultureman battle in the beginning. One of the shots even has him snap his fingers to turn the rock shards into pebbles. Yeah, Panthro's essentially has the Infinity Gauntlet, except it only has powers on space and there's two of them.

Just as soon as it looks like Panthro's getting the win, the Pincers start to work again, moving a giant ball of lava. He then uses the nearby lake to cool that molten rock into a regular but still really, really hot rock. He splits that rock in half, and decides to do the same to the pincer after Vultureman calls it an amateur move. I almost thought he said, "dammit, you", but that's what he actually said. The fight is over!

Except it isn't, as Panthro still wants Vultureman to admit that he stole nifty lifting things, so he would get nothing. He lost, good day sir! However, Vultureman just doesn't want to admit it, so Panthro does what any inventor who hasn't completely lost his cool would do...

Panthro: Oh yeah? Let's see what the moon thinks about that!

This is shown to alter the gravity of Third Earth, as the Ro-Bear Berbils, the ThunderCats, a nearby waterfall, and even a mountain starts to float in the air. I'll admit; this part is actually pretty well animated, too. I guess that's why they weren't drawing backgrounds in that "too hot burrito problem" scene; they were saving money for this.

Vultureman, and the rest of the ThunderCats for that matter, tells him to stop, but Panthro says that he can't. Vultureman starts to cry at this, drawn as ridiculously as possible with him sobbing waterfalls, saying it wasn't worth the possible destruction of Third Earth just to steal Panthro's ideas. He finally gives Panthro an apology, knowing his and Third Earth's life will probably end about ten seconds later.

And, in ten seconds, he just easily puts the moon back in orbit, revealing that he was just lying about not being able to reverse his big mistake. The mountain and all the Ro-Bears fall down too, and the latter are still smiling even if Panthro was destroying Third Earth just to get an apology. They never seem to care about anything, really; they care about as much about what's going on around them as the ThunderCats seemed to care when Tygra was in danger.

There's another The End title card, or just END in this case, coming after Panthro didn't get any flack for his actions whatsoever and him learning absolutely nothing. Sure, he almost destroyed the planet, but at least he didn't steal anything!

How does it stack up?

We get another neat fight scene with two people who can alter gravity with some pretty cool and decently animated scenes. Even with some of the more silly bits, like the entire opening where everyone except for Panthro has forgotten how to enjoy microwavable food, the plot that surrounds it isn't that bad either.

I'm not going to dock this episode for being over-the-top, as that's kind of the entire point of this episode: Panthro taking things way too far over something so minor, and at least Lion-O seemed to be aware of this at some point. There's no real progression with that, from beginning to end, Panthro's totally cool with everything he did. The best I can say for this episode is that it's like Boggy Ben, but it's not as irritating as Boggy Ben. 3 cats.

Next, the Warrior Maidens arrive, and they sure aren't going to knock on the door first.

← Secret of the Unicorn 🐈 Warrior Maiden Invasion →

#fpb tcr #thundercats roar #fpb reviews #cartoon network

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jgroffdaily · 5 years ago

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Jonathan Groff is not, he says, “a serial killer sort of person”, which will probably come as a relief to the millions of adoring families who know him best in wholesome animated form, as the voice of mountain-dwelling ice harvester Kristoff in Disney’s Frozen.

What drew the 34-year-old actor – nominated for a Tony for his Broadway performance as Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening and his scene-stealing turn as King George III in Hamilton – to the dark, murder-heavy Netflix drama Mindhunter was, he says, precisely what a radical departure it was from his previous roles.

His FBI profiler Holden Ford is, as he puts it: “This corn-fed, all-American, earnest Midwestern guy, having an existential crisis, finding meaning and purpose while talking to incarcerated sociopathic murderers.” Groff tells me all this, it should be noted, with an enormous grin. Apparently, the only major note that David Fincher, Mindhunter’s director, ever has for his leading man is to stop smiling so much. “[Fincher] would be like, ‘We’re rolling, and, Jonathan, stop smiling. And you’re still smiling, you’re still smiling, and… action.’”

Television, of course, hardly needs another FBI drama, but what elevates Mindhunter above the procedural is not only Fincher’s precision direction, but also the tension inherent in Ford’s mission. Set in the late Seventies and based on the career of real-life FBI profiler and “serial killer whisperer” John Douglas, “Holden is pushing for understanding and curiosity, rather than simply dismissing these killers as crazy,” says Groff. Using the emerging social sciences of criminology and psychology, he hopes to gain some understanding of what motivates these apparent monsters.

The first series saw Ford interviewing notorious murderers Richard Speck, Ed Kemper and Jerry Brudos; season two, which begins this week, will delve into the Atlanta Child Murders (in which an estimated 28 children were killed between 1979 and 1981), and see the protagonist land an interview with “the rock star of the serial killer world”, Charles Manson.

There is also the added layer of Ford’s personal development; over the first season, he grew from a buttoned-up boy scout (literally drinking milk from the bottle in an early episode) into a skilful manipulator of his subjects; some critics have gone further and accused him of sociopathy.

“I never saw Holden as a sociopathic character, but he definitely wants to win,” says Groff. I agree about the sociopathy but, I suggest, Holden is perhaps guilty of wielding empathy as a weapon. “Yeah, I love that – weaponising empathy!” Groff cries, excitedly. “That might be the title of my autobiography.”

It’s early on a Friday morning in Los Angeles and, in spite of the unusually anti-social call time, Groff, boyishly handsome and sipping on a Diet Coke, is infectiously bouncy and Tiggerish. During the filming of Mindhunter, he has, he tells me, been listening to the audiobook of Fosse, Sam Wasson’s bestselling biography of the legendary Broadway choreographer and film director, on which the current show Fosse/Verdon was initially based. After finishing the book, he went back and watched all of Fosse’s films.

“He does such a good job of capturing that drug of being on stage, and the sadness that you get when you come off stage,” he says. “The huge rush of performing and the let-down afterwards. I get both happy and depressed about it. I don’t want to love it this much, but then I do, but I want also to have perspective.” He waves his hands in the air as if to bat away his only apparent torture: loving this job, which he is incredibly good at, a little too much.

Groff grew up in Pennsylvania, in a conservative, Methodist family, but his parents encouraged his theatrical ambitions, driving him several hours each way to audition for musicals in New York City. He won a place in a touring performance of The Sound of Music and deferred his spot at Carnegie Mellon University. At 20, he was cast in Spring Awakening, earning his first Tony nomination at 21, in 2007.

Television roles followed in Glee, The Normal Heart and Looking, the critically acclaimed but short-lived HBO drama about the lives of gay men in San Francisco. His parents, he tells me, “didn’t watch that one”.

Openly gay himself, in Mindhunter Groff is playing straight, in a role that features a solid amount of sex scenes as well as psychosexual content. Ryan Murphy, his former showrunner at Glee, and the creator of Pose and The People vs OJ Simpson, was so moved to see this, Groff tells me, that he rang to congratulate him.

“He got really emotional about it, partly, I think, because when he first met me [Groff made a pilot with him during Spring Awakening, which was never picked up] I was still in the closet. Then I came out, owned my identity and, thankfully, still get to play all different kinds of parts. Ryan said: ‘I know that it was something you were scared about, but you worked through your fear, and now here you are, getting to do this amazing show, and not being defined by your sexual orientation.’”

Did he really worry that if he came out he’d never be given a “straight” role again? “Totally,” Groff cries, slapping his thighs. “No agents or producers had ever said: ‘Don’t come out of the closet, it will ruin your career,’ but it was an unspoken thing. And there were no out gay movie stars as examples. But then I fell in love, at 23. And I thought, ‘OK, if I come out, and I only do off-Broadway plays for the rest of my life, I am totally happy with that – that’s what I moved to New York for. So maybe I won’t be a romantic lead in a movie – who cares? I would rather be doing cool stuff with people who don’t give a f--- than pretend to be someone I am not.’”

Happily, that couldn’t be further from the case. While filming the second season of Mindhunter in Pittsburgh, he’s been simultaneously reprising his role as Kristoff for Frozen 2, due out in November. “It was the dream,” he beams. “To be able to sit with Charles Manson, and then drive to New York to pretend to be in a blizzard, singing a Disney song.”

But, in truth, he’s never really stopped being Kristoff. “I make Voice Memos for kids,” he reveals. “I sing for them and do the reindeer voice, which they get really excited about. I do a lot of King George Voice Memos too, actually.”

He was in Hamilton for only two months, in the spring of 2015, but made enough of an impact with his campy, knowing performance, to earn another Tony nomination.

“It was like being in the eye of the storm,” he says of his spell in the Broadway phenomenon. “I listened to the Bill Gates Desert Island Discs the other day; he has My Shot from Hamilton as his final song. And I thought, ‘Oh my god, that’s right, I met Bill Gates – he came to the show.’ You really can’t take it in, in the moment, but looking back, I’m like, ‘Wow, I really met Beyoncé?’”

Given his experience in voicing Frozen, one might assume Groff would be a dab hand at recording audiobooks. Not so, he says. When he was asked to record the audio for John Douglas’s latest non-fiction book (his 13th), The Killer Across the Table, “it was SO hard,” he says. “So much harder than I thought it was going to be. I never made it through one page without f------ up.” It did mean, however, that he finally got to meet the legendary FBI agent in person. “We’d emailed before, but getting to meet him was a great moment. He loves the show, and even talks about it in the book that I recorded.”

This second series is launching at a moment of renewed obsession with Manson, thanks to the 50th anniversary of the murder of Sharon Tate, and the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I wonder out loud whether the period that Mindhunter explores, when serial killers began to be studied seriously, was also the moment that they also began to be glamorised in popular culture.

“Yes, David and the writers try to address that question. You have Holden, who is a sycophant and obsessed with Manson, and you have the Bill Tench character [Ford’s FBI colleague, played by Holt McCallany], who is like: ‘Dude, these people are disgusting and deplorable.’

“David is uninterested in creating conversation in which any one person is right and any one person is wrong,” says Groff. “He likes to hold a bunch of different perspectives at the same time. That’s what makes it worth working on, that’s what makes it worth watching.”

Mindhunter, series one  and two, are available  on Netflix

#jonathan groff #interview #press #!

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ericsonclan · 5 years ago

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The Graveyard

Summary: Prisha meets Willy and learns a bit about the backstory of the Ericson kids.

Read on A03:

It was her first time out this early in the morning. Prisha stood in the front yard of Ericson’s School for Troubled Youth, surveying the grounds. Ever since she’d gotten here, she’d only spent a few moments at a time outside, dropping by to pick up food and then withdrawing back to her room. It was strange spending so much of each day indoors. She didn’t like it.

She didn’t like a lot of things these days. Prisha glance down, looking at the sling that cradled her left arm. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that despite the bandages it would never truly heal. It was useless now, a growth that would flap against her side as she tried to make her way through life one-handed. Part of her was terrified she couldn’t do it, couldn’t survive if that was her new lot in life. A bigger part of her pushed down those thoughts, since there wasn’t space for them. She was too busy surviving. In that sense, nothing had changed. As ever, she took things one day at a time. That was the only way to keep living.

Prisha made her way across the yard, looking over all the different aspects of the school. It certainly was a well-fortified place. The walls were strong, the gates reinforced, and they always had someone on watch. Louis waved to her from the watch tower as she strolled by. Prisha raised her arm in greeting, feeling odd making the gesture. When she’d fist met Louis, Clementine and Violet, she’d assumed she’d never see them again. That was the way with things these days. Every interaction with a stranger could be your last. The only constant if you were lucky enough was your group. She’d expected to stay with Ed, Rita and the others for the long haul. Now they were all dead and she was here. Living with a group she couldn’t make sense of.

Why did they take her in? She’d already proven herself to be utterly useless, needing help with even the simplest tasks. These people already had their hands full too, with children and Violet being badly injured as well. It made no sense to bring her here. She was just another mouth to feed in a world where liabilities could be fatal. Maybe they’d come to their senses and kick her out soon, now that her injuries hadn’t proved fatal. She wouldn’t blame them for it. She already owed them her life; how could she demand more? If that happened, she’d simply have to find a way to make it on her own. Again. Somehow.

As she made her way through the front yard, Prisha noticed a burnt section of the school. She drew closer, examining the structure of the ruins. Whatever had happened here must have resulted in a huge fire. An entire section of the school had burnt down, bricks scattered across the yard. To salvage the area was clearly beyond anyone’s current capabilities. They’d need to lay the bricks by hand, and there was no need for that given the multitude of available buildings on the campus. This place was truly immense.

Rounding the corner, something new caught Prisha’s eye. Grave markers. To be able to do such a thing, burying your dead… Prisha envied them. But at the same time, she recognized the immeasurable loss that each of those markers represented. There were eight in total, a far smaller number than the children this school must have initially held. Prisha wondered which death had led them to lay the first marker, and when the last one had been made. There was a boy standing by the graves. He looked to be in his early teens. From what she’d been told, this must be Willy, the other kid who had helped carry her back to the school. She should thank him. Now didn’t seem like the appropriate time though. He was crouching in front of one of the graves, speaking animatedly as he held up some sort of contraption. She should probably just go.

As she turned to leave though, Prisha tripped over one of the loose bricks.

The boy spun around, looking at her with wide eyes.

Prisha froze in place, an apologetic wince on her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,”

“No, that’s OK,” the boy responded, tucking the item he’d been displaying at the grave behind his back. “You’re Prisha, right?”

“Yes. And you’re Willy?”

The boy nodded.

“I heard you were one of the people who saved my life. Thank you,”

Willy shrugged. “I didn’t really do much. Violet carried you most of the way back herself. I just made sure she didn’t drop you and that your arms and legs didn’t get caught on stuff,”

“Still, it was an important contribution. I appreciate it,” Prisha looked towards the graves. “May I ask who’d buried here? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,”

“No, it’s OK,” Willy scooted around so he was facing the markers once more. “Those two are for Minnie and Sophie. They were twins, Tenn’s sisters. He died too, but only after we figured out that Minnie was actually alive and killed Sophie. But then she died for real and so did Tenn. Brody’s over there, and Marlon. He killed her because she told Clem about what really happened with the twins, then A.J. shot him ‘cause he thought he was a monster. That one was made years ago when a bunch of kids died all at once. And that one’s for Miss Martin, the old school nurse. She’s actually buried over by the greenhouse, but we made this one for her after we found her body,”

“Wow, that’s… a lot. It must have been hard, losing them over the years,”

“Well, Ms. Martin’s and the group graves have been here, a while, but the rest was made…’ Willy thought for a minute. “A year and a half ago. The twins’ ones we made two and a half years ago, but a year and a half ago is when Minnie actually died,”

God. All those graves at the same time? Prisha looked at them, examining the lettering of each marker. They all looked fresh. The group must maintain them well. That meant most of this graveyard was formed years after the world fell apart, after the kids had known each other a long time. These wounds were far fresher than she thought. Wounds… what if… Prisha looked up. “Violet’s eyes, they were…”

“Damaged in the explosion,” Willy looked down at the ground. “I didn’t think any of us would be inside when it went off,”

“You rigged the explosion?”

Willy nodded. “To get rid of the Delta. They were trying to kidnap everybody. They got Omar, Aasim and Violet. But we got them back. I wanted to make sure they could never ever come back again. So I made a bomb and we put it in the boiler of their ship. We planned to get everyone off before they started the engine, but Violet was trying to help Minnie and-” Willy’s voice cracked a bit as he recalled the memory. “It went off with them still inside,”

Prisha noticed the change in his voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you to dredge up so many painful memories,”

“Naw, it’s OK. It’s good to know who you’re staying with, right?”

Prisha gave a wry smile. “I suppose so,” She paused. “Wait, you said that Minnie turned out to be the one who killed Sophie. Did Violet know that when she stayed onboard to help her? Is that when she died?”

“No, she died later, on the bridge. And Violet knew then, but…” Willy’s sentence lapsed as he tried to find the right words. “Minnie used to be Violet’s girlfriend. So she didn’t want to give up on her, no matter what,”

This story had so many twists and turns to it. Prisha didn’t feel like she had a grasp on it at all, but she was sure of one thing: these kids had been to hell and back. They were survivors in the purest sense of the word. There was one more question that was nagging at Prisha. She wasn’t sure if she should press any further. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. “I noticed you left one of the graves out. It was the one you were talking to a minute ago. If it’s not too much, could you tell me who it belongs to?”

Willy’s eyes fell. With that one question, she’d made him sadder than he was recounting any of the horrors he’d already mentioned. But he didn’t stay silent. “That one belongs to Mitch,”

“Was he… your brother?”

“Might as well have been,” Willy sniffed, and Prisha could tell the tears wouldn’t be held back much longer. “He got killed protecting us when the Delta came here. He wouldn’t have let them take anyone, not while he was alive to fight,”

“He sounds incredibly brave,”

“He was. He taught me everything: how to hunt, how to carve weapons… everything about bombs too. How to make ‘em and how to set ‘em off. He made a bomb to scare off the raiders. Without it, we probably all would’ve been taken that night,”

“Is that what you have there?” Prisha gestured behind his back. “A bomb?”

Willy nodded, bringing it forward. “I wanted to show him my latest design. I’ve been practicing making them in case we need them again if anybody else attacks. It’s not as fun making them anymore without him around though… and I don’t want to have too many around. I can’t have anyone else get hurt by one,”

“Can I see?” Prisha asked, crouching down in front of him.

Willy nodded, pushing it forward.

Prisha examined it thoughtfully. A crude design, but very effective. “I notice you’ve compartmentalized the different elements to keep them all separate until activation. That’s smart. They’ll be perfectly stable in storage,”

“You know about making bombs?” Willy asked, eyes wide.

“I know the theory, though I’ve never had practical experience in making one. It’s an important skill though, crucial when it comes to defending a place as large as this school,”

“Exactly! I figure if I make enough of them, then if we ever have anyone else lurking around the school, bang! We take ‘em out before they even get inside!” He looked up at Prisha, suddenly growing somewhat shy. “Do you wanna… see the rest of them? I have lots of different designs. They’re in one of the empty classrooms of the old school buildings,”

“I’d love that,” Prisha smiled warmly. “I’m sure I could learn a lot from you,”

“Then follow me!” Willy exclaimed, jumping up and beginning to run back towards the front yard. “It’s right around that corner!”

“I’ll be right there!” Prisha called after him. He’d already disappeared from her line of sight. She looked back toward the markers. To have lost so many of their own to outsiders and yet to open their home to one? These kids were odd. Her last group had been open and caring, but they’d had nothing to lose but each other. They had to band together to survive, to find food and shelter each and every night. This group had everything: food, water, medicine, a safe location… and they shared it so openly with her. It left her flabbergasted.

Talking with Willy though, seeing how open he was to share his story with her and how ready he was to let her further into his life… maybe that’s just how they were. She’d thought that her last group had been the only good people left in the world, but this group’s kindness was unparalleled. Even though it’d be ridiculous to expect it, she hoped she could stay. Maybe with time she’d adapt to this new life with one arm and prove herself useful again. She really hoped that could be the case.

“You coming?” Willy’s voice rang out from the yard.

“Yes, sorry! I’m right behind you!” Prisha rose to her feet, brushing the dead grass of her legs with her good hand. She liked it here. She hoped she could stay. One day at a time though. One day at a time.

#prisha twdg #wily twdg #twdg #telltale the walking dead #twdgs4 #grief #loss #fanfic

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scrapyardboyfriends · 5 years ago

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Jenny’s Belated Live Blogging - 14th August 2019

- Well so far, I still kind of like Al as a character. I mean, obviously he’s a terrible father and not a good guy but I like him as an antagonist. He’s got that charmer kind of personality, always up to something but so far he seems competent. I also like that we can see the two sides of him, both with his family and talking on the phone to, I presume, Kim. It’s something I feel like is missing from say the Nate story because we still don’t even know if there is more to that. Does he have something against Cain or not. We don’t know because it’s all just vague right now so it could go either way. They’re not tipping their hand at all and if there is a twist, I don’t think it’ll really help such a lackluster story. But so far, with Al, I kind of like where it might be going. And we always need more sort of villainous/antagonistic characters. It’s just better when they’re ‘love to hate’ kinds of characters rather than ‘please get off my screen now’ kinds of characters.

- Plus, I do think Al being around fleshes Billy and Ellis out more and I like that. It gives them another layer.

- I still don’t know what to make of this Amy/Cain situation with Kyle. Every time they’re left to their own devices, they sort things out. And then someone comes in and has something to say about it and it falls apart again. I wish they’d kind of make up their mind. But then we still have the fire stuff hanging over Amy so who knows where it will go.

- April is sweet. I always love her and Marlon and I’m glad they remembered Donna today. I love how much April tries to look after Marlon and his disastrous love life and I feel bad that they are going to lose Jessie too. Curious to see how it happens because I definitely don’t see her getting back with Al like April suggested.

- I do like Al just continuing to call Marlon ‘Backstreet Boy’ haha.

- Sam, Lydia and Samson are also very sweet together. I really hope this is the end of the waiting though and they will actually get married this time because I don’t want to wait anymore. And if they could...you know...get married like next month so maybe Robert can wear one last non court suit and do a little dancing, that would be great. Make it happen ED. Please. And since Aaron will know by then, maybe Aaron would consent to dance with him. Wow, I’m making myself sad again.

- The Zak and Faith stuff was actually way better than I expected. I kind of loved how much they drew on the past and their history together and that she was just sort of caught up in the moment of reliving that time and just kissed him. I’m not sure what the point of it all is in the long run, but I thought they were good scenes and they actually really play off of each other well. If they wanted to properly build to them being together in the future, I don’t think I would hate it. I also liked hearing them talk about Cain and how proud they are of him and also the whole debate over whether or not they regret what happened back then vs regretting Cain. It’s a lot more muddled than our own debates in the fandom on a similar subject but I thought it was an interesting discussion nonetheless.

#belated live blogging #emmerdale

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sleepyfan-blog · 6 years ago

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Plans

fandom: IBVS by @onebizarrekai

characters and pairing : Drew Jovel, Nevin Jovel, Edward Quinton, Barry Price, Christopher Jackson, Isaac Beamer, Nedwarvin

warnings: none

summary: Drew, Barry, Chris and Isaac plot to get Nevin and Edward to get along better.

tags list: @anxiety-is-married-to-depression @angelofthehalfmoon @trainwreck-of-skeletons @hisame-amadashi @therandomskelekey

"You want me to knit a what?" Edward asked, frowning a little bit at his childhood friend as he tried to understand just where the hell this was trying to go.

"A sweater! Come soon, I know that you knit things, and that you're really good at it. Do it for me... Please?" Barry asked.

"Okay... Fine. Whatever. You better get me the-" Edward grumbled, sulking a little bit. Enough yarn to knit a sweater was more than what most people thought would be "Give me the dimensions of the sweater you want me to make."

"Great! Here's the pattern I want you to use, and that should be enough yarn to last you for the whole sweater." Barry responded with a bright grin, pulling out a small booklet, turned to a specific page, as well as a big bag, filled to the brim with black, red, and cyan yarn.

"Cool. I'll tell you when it's finished." The self-proclaimed school king responded, pulling out the first skein of yarn and getting to work as the two of them started to study together for their history test- a lot of dates and times that they needed to learn.

Three months later, Edward came up to his best friend, carrying a cardboard box "Hey, uh... You know that thing you asked me to make? It's in here. I just finished it last night."

"Great, now come with me." Barry responded, a bright grin appearing on his face as he drags his friend through one of the tunnels, into his lair. The rest of the Supernatural Investigations Club is waiting for him, though Nevin looks as confused as he feels at the moment.

Drew pushes his brother right next to Edward and asks with a bright, sweet smile on his face "Would Nev, Ed... Please close your eyes and raise your arms over your head for slow count of thirty, please?"

If Barry or Isaac asked them to do that - or even Chris, who was also glaring at them from Edward's throne - they would have demanded to know why... But they knew that they could trust Drew to make sure that the other three didn't do too much weird crap to the two of them. "Okay." They responded at the same time, complying with the request.

There was an odd rustling sound from beside and next to both of them, and Error had a suspicion as to just what was going on. "... twenty nine... Thirty..." He called out, resigned.

Drew clapped his hands together before gesturing at the both of them, and the large sweater that they were trapped together in "This is your get-along sweatshirt. You two are going to be stuck in that until you figure out how to get along."

"But we have classes. Different classes..." Nevin started, staring at his brother - how could his own flesh and blood betray him like this! The handsome prick was such an asshole and deserved more than one punch to his stupidly handsome face.

"It's a half-day, remember? And we all have the last class as study hall, so it's not like anyone is going to go looking for us." Drew reminded his brother with a grin "And Grandma's not going to be home until late tomorrow."

"And I already told Ed's parents that he was going to be having a sleep-over with me and a few of his friends, so guess where we're crashing tonight~!" Barry smirked, leaning against a wall and humming a little, very much pleased with himself.

"And don't even think about trying to destroy that sweater, either of you. I've used my Ability on it, to make sure that it stays on the both of you, no matter what." Isaac chimed in. "We all walk home, so it's not like we have to take the bus."

Error glared darkly at these traitors, folding his arms over his chest- and jostling the emo Nightmare "Oh come on! this is childish!" Entirely accidentally he jostled the other. It wasn't as if feeling the other's body heat next to him felt nice or sent a flutter through his chest or anything like that...

"No, what's childish is your two's refusal to get along! We went through glittery, pastel hell three separate times... And things would have ended so much faster if the two of you got along and actually trusted each other!" Cross growled, glaring darkly at the both of them. "Why we're cursed with a bunch of wacky-ass bullshit on a weekly basis that we have to race to solve, I don't know. But we... All of us... Have to trust and care for each other, or we'll fail and things'll get worse."

"Okay, captain doom and gloom, we'll work on getting along better." Nevin grumbled back, trying to pull away from Edward, huffing a little "Pull out the touchy-feely games and shit. Do trust falls - Edward first. But let us out of the damned sweater."

"No." Isaac, Barry, Chris and Drew said at the same time "We won't let you out of the sweater until you two can prove that you can genuinely get along."

Wow. They were really serious about this. Nevin, who could sense their feelings about this, let out a quiet sigh and shrugged "Fine. If that asshole will cooperate with this... Mess... So will I."

Edward blinked a little- Nevin gave up first? Huh. Or maybe Nev had a plan up his sleeve - he wouldn't put it past the other. He was pretty crafty. "Agreed... So... Now what?"

"We wait for school to end, and the six of us will head over to Drew and Nevin's place for a slumber party. And by that, I mean we catch up on homework and try to work out where the next bit of trouble is most likely going to come from." Chris growled, his eyes flashing a little with determination. Everyone else agreed, and they settled into the lair to wait.

"Would you quit trying to run, you giant asshole! We're still stuck in the same sweater!" Nevin hissed, stumbling a little bit as he leans against Edward, trying his best to keep up with the other's much wider stride - the other was at least a foot taller than he was.

"Hey! It's not my fault that you're short as hell." Edward grumbled, shortening his steps a little bit so that the other would be able to catch up.

The others were up ahead, and Nevin muttered under his breath "This calls for vengeance."

"Against those scheming assholes? Absolutely. Do you have something in mind?" Edward asked, raising an eyebrow at the other.

A wicked smirk appeared on Nightmare's face, and he nodded a little, motioning for the other to stop, motioning him to bend down. "Come here and I'll whisper it to you."

With only a moment's hesitation - as that smirk never boded well for whoever was on the end of Nevin's displeasure, Edward complied. After all - the other did come up with some of the best plans in the group in their year or so of working together against the forces of Weirdness. "... Okay?"

Nevin went up on his tiptoes, cupping his mouth with a hand as he whispered to the other what his plan was, his eyes dancing with mischief and determination.

Edward sucked in a deep breath, his eyes widening a little, before he whispered softly back "Are... Are you sure that will work?"

"They know that you're bi and I'm gay... So..." Nevin pointed out with a small grin “And it would qualify as us getting along… So… You in?”

Nightmare’s plan to… To… A light blush warmed Edward’s cheeks at the thought, and he wondered if… But no. This was just to get revenge on the others, right? Nothing more. His heart sank a little at that, but he agreed, a mischievous smirk appearing on his face as he answered earnestly “Sure, let’s go for it. But not like immediately, or they might get suspicious.”

“Of course. We’ll wait a couple of hours before going for it.” Nevin agreed, nodding seriously, his eyes alight with mischief.

Drew stared in utter surprise at the sight before him. He closed his eyes, pinched himself very hard, and when the pain registered, it proved to him that he probably wasn’t dreaming. He supposed that he should be happy for his brother but he really didn’t want to see the other doing that with someone in their living room. “I SAID THAT YOU SHOULD MAKE UP WITH EDWARD, NOT MAKE OUT WITH HIM!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, startling the kissing pair of teenagers apart slightly and causing Barry, Isaac and Chris to come barrelling into the room at top speed.

Nevin rolled his eyes, flipping the four of them off before he tugged Edward in closer again, continuing the kiss for another minute or two before grumbling “Did you have to screech out our eardrums, Drew? What the hell was that about?” Both Nevin and Edward were blushing - as was everyone else.

“I… So… Wh-what the hell? Why were you making out with him? Unless…” Drew’s eyes light up, and a mischievous smirk appears on his face “You admitted to Edward that one of the reasons you were antagonizing him so much was because you wanted his attention~!”

“I… N… S-Stop… Stop right th-there!” Nevin stuttered, the blush on his face darkening further “I swear to everything we hold dear if you finish that sentence I will end you Drew.”

Edward cleared his throat awkwardly “I… He… We kinda… Just sort of kissed. But I… I do like you a lot, Nevin. You’re smart and strong and handsome.”

“I...Uhm…” Nevin was blushing really darkly now, and seemed to take a little bit to process this information “I really like you too. You’re infuriatingly handsome and I want to kiss your cute face.”

The self-proclaimed school king nodded, very darkly blushing as well “Please… uhm… Please do kiss me again.” They started kissing again, and their four closest friends all left the room, Drew giggling a little bit.

He was so glad that his plans for Ed and Nev came to fruition. Now, all he had to do was to make sure that the rest of his plans came together, and thing might be fixed this time and stay that way.

#my writing #IBVS #nedwardin #nevin jovel #Edward quinton #Isaac beamer #Christopher jackson #drew jovel #barry price

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ruinedthatfriendship · 6 years ago

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Miscommunicating

A/N: Super brief ED / self harm mention because Simon is an idiot sandwich. Also, this is really long.

Not in love with this, but I did commit to sharing these so here we go...

Simon cut through the backstage chaos easily. There were, after all, benefits to being Simon Cowell--Demi could say what she liked about his being humble and down-to-earth, people still tended to get out of his way.

It had been a surprisingly good audition day for the X Factor so far, and they’d found plenty of young talent to send through to boot camp. He was feeling cautiously optimistic for the season, especially now that he’d just finished convincing the producers to put Demi back in her rightful seat next to him on the panel.

He smiled to himself, turning the corner toward her dressing room. Her laugh was infectious, she was witty and beautiful and somehow made everything around her brighter. In fifty four years, he’d never felt this way about anyone before, and he tried to pretend that didn’t scare him a little bit.

Simon raised his hand to knock on her door, but paused. The door was ajar, and he could hear Kelly’s voice floating from inside. Probably there to bother Demi about the two of them, he surmised. They’d had to tell her about their relationship after she’d proven herself just a bit too observant, and Kelly’s new favorite pastime was sticking her nose in it.

He heard Demi’s sigh, and then a rustle of fabric that signaled his brat flopping down onto a couch. “I don’t know, Kelly.” He could picture her nose wrinkling up. “I don’t know what to tell him.”

Simon hesitated, lowering his hand fully and rocking back onto his heels. He had a bad feeling suddenly that this wasn’t a conversation he should be hearing, or wanted to hear, but he couldn’t tear himself away.

“Just tell him the truth,” Kelly suggested, prompting a sarcastic groan from Demi.

“Oh, right. ‘Hey, sorry, just kidding, not actually into you ‘cause this other guy totally puts you to shame, please don’t say anything or my career could blow up.’ That would go over well.”

Kelly giggled. “You are so smitten.”

The heart that Simon definitely did have felt heavy in his chest, and he swallowed. Oh. He shouldn’t have been all that surprised. She wasn’t like the other girls he’d picked up in the past; she was too good for him, and he too old for her. He should have known she’d come to her senses sooner rather than later. Walk away now, Simey.

He wasn’t entirely sure when his internal thoughts had adopted her voice, but a flash of anger ran through him, an instinctive reaction to the hurt. Demi had integrated herself so completely into his life, initially without his permission, and he clearly meant so little to her. And apparently she’d made him a glutton for punishment, too, because he couldn’t walk away if he tried.

“I thought we could be friends,” Demi was saying. “Keeping everything a secret with Simon just complicated things, and I didn't say anything, and he’s got the wrong idea. He thinks I’m still going to fall in love with him, or something, and now it's getting out of hand...” She trailed off.

So she didn’t think he was worth the trouble. Simon’s mouth twisted into a grimace, his earlier good mood entirely evaporated. He cursed himself for rearranging the seating already. How in the bloody hell was he going to sit so close to her all season, knowing this?

“And it’s not even like we’re together anymore. I just...haven’t totally, officially clarified that we aren’t. But I love him so much, Kelly,” her voice was muffled, as if she had covered her face in her hands. “Nothing’s happened, obviously...but it just feels like I’m cheating on him, now. It’s gross. I don’t like it.”

That was the final gut punch for Simon. He spun away from her door and made his way into his own dressing room, still reeling and trying not to show it. Her words echoed in his head. Not together...love him so much…

Of course he’d always been aware of how much Wilmer meant to Demi. And that he was handsome and younger and didn’t have to be hidden. He shouldn’t have been surprised. But it wasn’t like his Demi not to be direct about it. His Demi. Not anymore, he thought grimly.

And clearly she was too scared to talk to him about it.

Don’t worry, sweetheart, he thought sarcastically. I’ll make it easier for you.

~ Demi’s POV ~

She hadn’t had a chance to see Simon over their lunch break at all, using it instead to hash out the awkwardly-persistent-Wilmer situation with Kelly’s input while he met with the producers. They still weren’t sitting together on the panel, either, and she’d thoroughly missed her grumpy old British man.

Smiling, she let herself into his still-empty dressing room after the auditions had finished for the day, sitting herself down on his couch to take off her heels. He’d be along shortly, and her presence would hopefully make for a nice surprise.

She was still working on the strap of one platform shoe when the door swung open, revealing a rather haggard looking Simon. Granted, the afternoon’s auditions weren’t nearly as stellar as the mornings, and he had looked a bit sick after his lunch meeting, but she wasn’t sure what had warranted this particular expression. He looked like someone had kicked Squiddly and Diddly.

“Hey,” she said softly, still bent over her shoe but looking up at him.

She watched him glance toward her, and then his eyes shuttered as the I’m-Simon-Cowell mask fell firmly into place. Demi knew it well, but not with her, not with the door closed.

“You okay?”

He strode to his makeup chair and sat down without really looking at her, pulling out his phone. “Fine, thank you,” he said briskly. “If you don’t mind, I do have some calls to make.”

Finally succeeding in wrestling her shoe off of her foot, Demi just shrugged, lying back on the couch. She refused to let him get to her, even though she wasn’t quite sure why he was using a tone like she was a tone-deaf auditionee getting brushed off. “Sure, I’ll just wait. Kelly and Paulina have gone off somewhere, I was thinking we could get dinner before we head back to the hotel.”

“Not interested.” He cut her off crisply. “And I do need to get some work taken care of, Demi, thank you.” A short dismissal, garnished with British manners.

At that, she sat up fully. “Okay, I know I call you a grumpy old man, but wow. What the hell, Simon? Need some coffee?”

Simon scowled and finally turned to face her. “Is there anything you need to say to me, Demi?”

Possibly the longest stretch of conversation they’d ever had without him calling her ‘brat’, or something else teasing, or trying to touch her. Demi sighed. This wasn’t her Simon; this was the man that made contestants cry.

“N-no,” she hesitated. “Not particularly, I guess.” Just wanted to see you…

“Well that’s fine then.” He paused, the kicked-puppy expression intensifying, and warring with his sharp words. “I don’t have time for you right now, Demi, I’ll see you on the panel tomorrow.”

Trying to pretend his words weren’t a knife through her heart, Demi picked up her shoes and stood, still leaning over habitually to reach for him. His shoulder tensed under her hand, and she drew back, feeling the sting of his unexplained rejection. “See you later, then. I love you,” she added after a pause, before opening the door and walking slowly into the hallway. It didn’t escape her notice that he didn’t say it back.

By the time she made it to the audition site the next morning, she was trying so hard to convince herself that it wasn’t her body Simon had suddenly decided to take issue with. She still felt too fat sometimes, still wondered how he found her beautiful, only this time, he wasn’t there to contradict her darker thoughts. She was subdued through her makeup prep, trying to resist the urge to check her phone. She already knew Simon hadn’t responded to any of her texts, she’d been listening almost obsessively for the buzz of a notification.

Part of her wanted to provoke him in full annoying-Demi fashion: @SimonCowell, stop ignoring me! or something similar. But although they’d certainly had their fights before, it was easy to shout back when he was shouting. She could keep up with him in a yelling match, hold her own in teasing banter, but she was used to diffusing his ice-cold comments on other people, not herself.

Whatever was going on with him was beyond her understanding for the moment, and she just had to keep convincing herself that it wasn’t her. Or trying to, anyway.

For once, she almost wished to be taking a seat on the opposite side of the panel from Simon. Usually she’d be elated to be back in her seat beside him, but Demi didn’t really feel up to dealing with their shit on camera. She shook her hair back from her face, smiled at Kelly, and did her best to focus all of her attention on the audition happening in front of her.

“I really liked that,” she smiled at a young, hopeful teen girl. She had a bright, popstar sound and a lot of promise. “I think your take on that song was really original, and I was impressed with your vocal range.”

She’d barely gotten those words out when Simon cut in. “I completely disagree. There was absolutely nothing special whatsoever about your performance. I’m not going to remember it in ten minutes. And Demi clearly needs to raise her standards.”

The girl was still voted in with three yes’s to Simon’s single no, but the exchange left Demi feeling wrong-footed. She bit her lip and took a sip of her water, doubts creeping in from the corner of her mind.

Simon took every opportunity in the next three hours to go after Demi. He made a point of contradicting her opinions, voting against her, and managing to throw in cutting comments that had even Kelly and Paulina raising their eyebrows.

The lights were dimmed, focusing on the contestant singing in front of them, and she took the opportunity to lean over and smack his bicep. “What is your problem?”

Simon arched an eyebrow at her. “Problem?”

“I don’t know what is going on with you, but stop taking it out on them! And me,” she added, rolling her eyes. “She was talented!” Demi was referring to the last girl he’d chased off in tears.

“She sounded like Madonna on helium. Is that really a risk you want to take? You did lose all of yours first last year.”

Demi grit her teeth, trying to push down the lingering sense of failure she always felt whenever that was brought up. Simon knew that, he knew how devastated she’d been. Hell, she’d cried on his shoulder. “That was low,” she glared. “Look, Si, why won’t you just tell me whatever is on your mind?”

“Lot of that going around at the moment,” he returned dryly.

“Simon? Demi?” Kelly was prompting, snapping Demi back toward the stage. The young man was awkwardly holding his microphone, shifting from foot to foot and waiting for feedback. While she frantically tried to organize her thoughts about a performance she hadn’t listened to, Simon dove right in.

“Completely ridiculous,” he was saying. “Which I suppose puts you right up Demi’s alley. I thought the song choice was horrendous, your attempt to make it interesting has completely backfired, and you’ve managed to give me a headache. Though that could also be from this one’s inability--” he turned in his seat to glare at her, “to differentiate between real talent and below-average nonsense.”

Kelly opened her mouth angrily, but Demi cut her off by standing up suddenly and walking away from the table. In her haste, her heel caught and she stumbled, her hand coming down on the edge of the desk to steady herself. Paulina reached out toward her, but Demi pulled her hand back. “I’m fine!” she snapped sharply, mostly trying to make herself believe it.

Somehow the fact that Simon, who was always in a losing battle to keep his clumsy brat upright, had said nothing at all made it worse. Her eyes stung, and she pushed her way to her dressing room with her head held high and a sob caught in her throat that she refused to let out. She knew that once she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop crying.

Her thoughts were a chaotic jumble as she leaned weakly against the wall, her breath catching. What is so wrong with me? What did I do? Is he trying to get rid of me? Is he ashamed of me? I’m not pretty enough for him. I shouldn’t have eaten breakfast. Her eyes flitted to her makeup table, and she clenched her hands into fists. She would not go looking for an eyeliner sharpener. She was doing so well. She would not let Simon fucking Cowell take that away from her.

Three short knocks on her door. Speak of the devil…

Rolling her eyes and swiping underneath them wearily, Demi pushed herself off the wall and wrenched the door open. “What?”

Simon walked in past her without her invitation, leaving her to pull a face and shut the door behind him. “Come in,” Demi said sarcastically, cursing herself for the hitch in her voice. She turned to face him, tears glistening on her cheeks, and watched his mouth twitch slightly. Without a word, he turned and picked up a box of tissues, pushing it toward her like a habit he couldn’t quite break.

I don’t want Kleenex, I want a hug. I want you to snap out of it and tell me everything’s okay. She took the box anyway. “What did I do, Simon?” she whispered wearily, trying her best to wipe her eyes without smudging her makeup. She didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore. “That’s not you, that’s not banter for the ratings, you’re just being mean and I don’t know why.”

When he didn’t reply, she went on. “Look, if I’m not good enough for you, you can just say so. I know I’m not skinny like Kelly is.” Demi looked down at her shoes briefly. “I’m--”

“Demi, stop.”

When she finally met Simon’s eyes again, he was back to looking like a kicked puppy. “Darling, believe me when I say you’re beautiful.” Again with the contradiction. Like Jekyll and Hyde or something, and she wanted to believe the side she’d fallen in love with was the real Simon, but doubts kept creeping in. Reflexively reacting to her pain, but still going on causing it.

Demi let her head fall back against the wall with a dull thump. “Then why--”

“Just stop it, Demi.” Simon interrupted again. “Stop pretending. I didn’t take you for the kind of girl to string a man along, you know. I heard you.”

She wrinkled her forehead, sniffling. “Heard what?”

Simon’s eyes rolled and he made a face that would have been comical in some other situation. “With Kelly, I heard your conversation.”

“What conversation?” Demi pushed, wracking her brains. What could he have heard? What the hell could she have said recently? All she felt like she’d done lately was talk Kelly’s ear off about how amazing he was, poor woman.

“I know how you feel, you don’t have to pretend--”

“Simon?”

“--I know Wilmer’s--”

“Simon!” she shouted. When he finally stopped rambling and looked at her, Demi threw her hands up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“ ‘Hey, sorry, just kidding, not actually into you ‘cause this other guy totally puts you to shame, please don’t say anything or my career could blow up.’” he quoted perfectly, voice measured and his face closed off once more. Daring her to do something else to hurt him.

Demi’s heart stuttered in her chest in sudden panic, and she covered her face with her hands. Oh my god.

“So,” Simon said briskly, clearing his throat. “I--”

“Oh my God, Simon, no!” Demi blurted, pushing off the wall in a rush and almost tripping in her haste to cross the dressing room. “No!” she repeated almost frantically, desperately trying to stop him from getting the wrong idea any more than he already had.

Simon looked vaguely alarmed by her reaction, but started automatically toward her when her high heeled foot wobbled again, and they met in the middle, Demi crashing into his chest. She was crying again, tears sliding once more down her cheeks even though this time she didn’t even know why. Simon was an idiot, but he was her idiot and she could fix this. She could fix this.

She brought her hands up to his cheeks, tilting his head to look at her, her eyes flicking rapidly over his face. Under the base makeup they always put on anyone going under the cameras and lighting, he really did look awful, with bloodshot eyes to match hers. My fault.

“Simon,” she whispered sadly, resting her forehead against his.

His hands came up automatically to hold her waist, but she could still feel how tense he was. “I don’t--” he started roughly.

“Wilmer won’t stop texting me,” Demi blurted out in a panicked rush. “He wants to get back together and I don’t know what to tell him without telling him about you, and I want to be able to trust him to keep the secret but I know he’d probably flip and--and I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, and…” she trailed off, taking a shaky breath and then repeating for emphasis, “I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking about him. I love you, okay? I love you.”

Simon exhaled in a rush, his hands tightening on the fabric of her print dress, and Demi suddenly doubted both of their abilities to stay upright. She carefully steered them backward toward the couch, kicking her shoes off to tuck her feet beneath her.

“Why didn’t you say something?” she murmured into the fabric of his sweater, curling against him. “You could have just asked me, you know.”

Simon pulled her the rest of the way onto his lap until she was securely tucked in his arms, but said nothing. Instead, he dropped his head to her shoulder silently, inhaling the scent of her hair and pressing a soft kiss to the skin just beneath her cap sleeves.

It was the slight quiver she could feel in his lips that cued her in to the fact that the mighty Simon Cowell might actually be crying. His unnatural silence was followed by a ragged, uneven breath, and Demi’s heart broke.

She shifted carefully against him until she could wrap her arms around him, fresh tears pooling in her own eyes. “Simon,” she whispered desperately. “It’s okay, I’m sorry, I’m here, I love you.” Everything she needed to say to him in that moment.

Simon’s arms circled around her back, hugging her against him. “I’m sorry. I was an ass, I--” he whispered thickly, still collecting himself in the waterfall of her currently blonde hair.

Demi laughed weakly, finally pulling back to look at him. “You’re an idiot.” she told him flatly. “But I love you. And I’m not leaving you. I mean, God, the only thing I ever tell Kelly anymore anyway is how much I love you. Not Wilmer. You.”

At that, he captured her lips in a messy kiss that tasted of mints and lipstick and tears, one hand coming up to tangle in her hair and hold her closer. And Demi would have loved to stay there for the indefinite future, but, finally, she tore herself away, catching her breath.

“They’re going to want us back out there.”

Simon pulled a face, smoothing a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb. “No,”

Demi laughed, the weight off her chest, as she tried to pull him upright. “Come on! We can’t just leave them with two judges.”

He made an exaggerated show of reluctance, finally standing while she slipped back into her heels and did her best to put her makeup back together.

Demi reached for the door, only to be stopped one final time by his voice.

“One more thing, brat,”

She turned, rolling her eyes at him with mock annoyance. “Yes?”

“I love you,” Simon said simply, leaning down to kiss her once more. Demi blinked up at him, momentarily amazed by the depth of emotion he could make her feel. And the chaos. And somehow, it was all worth it.

She reached up to wipe a bit of her lipstick off of him with her thumb, her hand lingering teasingly against his mouth for a heartbeat. “We’re continuing this later,” she promised with a smirk, making her way back into the hallway before he had time for a reply.

#dimon #demi lovato #simon cowell #fanfiction #here we go again!#brief ed mention #ugggh #i'm sorry for this one

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