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marshmallow-phd · 3 years

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Echoing Laughs

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Supernatural, Wolf Au

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Summary: You didn’t care for boys that could be labeled as the “class clown”. Their type of jokes made you roll your eyes. Though you enjoyed a fun time yourself, you preferred the more subdued type, a Darcy over a Bingley. So why couldn’t you get the most obnoxious boy you’d ever met out of your head?

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4

“What do you think Ming would enjoy doing? And could invite Yixing’s friends to?” You took a big bite of the breakfast sandwich you��d thrown together in a hurry before running out of your apartment. Once again, you’d overslept after having difficulty falling asleep in the first place. There was no irony lost on you in that terrible exchange.

Ran - as well rested as ever - walked beside you, reading a gossip article on her phone. “Not much,” she admitted without looking up.

“So, a small thing at your place is out?”

Ran snorted. “With the amount of friends Yixing has, the apartment would max out the fire code.”

Wide eyed, you looked to your friend. “How does he have so many friends?”

The reply was a shrug.

Ran wasn’t nearly as curious as you were when it came to the Yixing/Ming dynamic, that much was obvious. Although, you couldn’t say exactly what it was that drove that curiosity. It was like an itch in the middle of your back that you couldn’t reach from any angle that you tried. The itch could be ignored, if you actually put any effort into doing so. Annoying, yes, but still sufferable. Only there was this tiny little string poking and pulling at you. And you didn’t want to ignore it. So you were going to yank at it until it snapped.

“Maybe we should just get dinner,” Ran suggested half-heartedly.

You mulled over the simplistic idea. Dinner - or drinks - could be a sure fire way of conversation and getting Ming to come along. It shouldn’t be too overwhelming for her or anyone else that came along. Maybe, if the table would allow it, you could even do some seat hopping.

You finished off the sandwich with a smile. Before Ran turned to head to the mathematics building, she wiggled her phone at you. “I’ll text Ming, see what she says. I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to execute your plan.”

A loving smile spread on your lips. “You’re the best, you know that.”

“I entertain your ideas because it’s fun.”

You blew your best friend a kiss and a wink before heading off to your own class.

Only half of the seats - old, squeaky, and scribbled on - were filled when you walked through the door. Choosing one at random, you unloaded the required textbook and color-coded matching notebook onto the limited space provided. A few rows over, a group of girls giggled in a volume that was hard to miss. Curiosity got the best of you. Sitting as still as possible, with a quiet breath, you strained to listen.

“Has he come crawling back, yet?” one whispered excitedly.

The one with Sleeping Beauty hair - Daisy, you thought her name was - shook her head. “Not a word out of him. But its only been two days. I expect a run-in next week.”

“You’re kind of mean,” said another one of her friends.

Daisy shrugged. “Stagnant relationships are boring. And I could tell he wasn’t as into it anymore, either. So why wait for him to end it?”

Though her methods were disagreeable, you saw her point. But if the spark started to fade, you put it in the water bucket and walk away. Oh, well. To each her own.

The professor walked in then, settling the class and ending the interesting conversation.

Class went by with extensive note taking and the occasional asking of a question. Everyone was attentive. No one goofed off or commented obnoxiously. It was something you appreciated about college over high school, especially with the longer you went on with your schooling.

When it was well into the afternoon, you were practically skipping to the meeting spot with Ran. Unfortunately, she hadn’t heard back from Ming.

“She hardly looks at her phone during the day,” Ran explained. “Too distracting for her workload.”

That was, regrettably, understandable, given the fact that she was trying to become a doctor. A profession that you couldn’t go into not only because the homework and testing would be overwhelming for you but the idea of working with blood made your stomach queasy. “Come on,” you sighed. “My stomach is rumbling.”

Your foot rapidly under the table. In your mouth, the tie string of your jacket laid horizontally between your lips, soaking the cotton strands. Since you and Ran decided to take a late lunch between your class schedules, the local diner was mostly empty. Beads of condensation rolled down the ice-filled plastic cup that previously had held your favorite soda. Almost as soon as it had been placed down on the table, you’d sucked it down so quickly that Ran didn’t even try to not laugh at you. And the food you’d ordered wasn’t even out yet.

“That hungry?” Ran teased as she sipped through the straw of her own drink.

You spat out the string, letting it swing down to your chest. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have put eating off this long.” Only a partial lie. You were a bit ravenous, but that wasn’t the true source of the anxiousness.

The real reason you were so antsy was the text Ran had gotten right before the two of you sat down.

Ming had said that she already had plans Friday night but Yixing suggested that you and Ran could join them. The offer hadn’t been answered yet. In fact, you hadn’t really talked about a reply.

“It was nice of Yixing to invite us,” you said, trying to be nonchalant in the sudden subject change.

“Mhm,” Ran nodded. The look in her eye was cheeky, mischievous. She knew what you were doing. The curse of having been best friends for so long. “So. Should we go?”

You dropped the hopeless pretense. “Might as well, right?”

The waiter finally brought out your food, light wisps of steam letting you know that it was hot and fresh. Your mouth watered while the greedy rumbling in your stomach grew. You thanked the waiter, advised that you didn’t need anything else and the moment, and then patiently waited for them to walk away before diving in.

Ran swiped at the keyboard on her phone with her thumb with expertise. She’d barely taken two bites before her notifications beeped. A reply already. “Friday. Six o’clock. Yixing and Ming will be at the apartment and will tell the others to meet us there outside.”

“Excellent.” You smiled through the chewing. Things were falling well into place. “Did she say who all else would be going?”

“No,” Ran said. “It just says ‘the others’.”

You chewed slowly on your food as you thought this over. It would be better if you had information on who else would be along for the events, even just knowing how many were coming would be helpful. You didn’t like not having all the details. That made it harder to create an exact plan. Not to mention, with no names or descriptions, you couldn’t do… research beforehand. How were you supposed to know who was taken and who was free to be flirted with? You would have to lean on your instincts and the clues given when the time game.

“You’re making that face again.”

Blinking rapidly, you frowned at Ran. “What face?”

“The face you contort into when you’re thinking really hard. When you’re plotting.”

You raised an eyebrow. “And that’s new since when?”

“Oh, it’s not,” she laughed. “I just wanted you to know that you were making that face. You might want to be careful on Friday.”

You stuck your tongue out on her. “The faces I make are cute. Anyone would be charmed by them.”

“Sure,” Ran sang. “Try it on Friday and we’ll analyze the results.”

“I think that’s an experiment we’ll execute at a later date.” You finished off your lunch and sat back satisfied.

Ran wiped her lips with a napkin. “Fair enough. Now let’s head back to campus. I have to get with a professor about a few homework problems that are driving me mad.”

While you rifled through your wallet, Ran waived down the water for your tickets. As soon as the meals were paid for, you left the diner to head back to campus to finish the day and ready yourself for Friday's adventure.

“What do you think about this one?” Baekhyun asked for what must have been the twelfth time. Rather than getting annoyed, however, Chanyeol merely chuckled from where he was - sprawled out on Baekhyun’s bed, flipping through an old magazine. Some help he was. Baekhyun turned back to the mirror, fixed the collar of his button down, and nodded. “Yeah, this’ll do.”

Without a single knock, Sehun poked his head into the room. “You done yet? The rest of us are ready to go.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “We’ll be down in a second.”

Sehun nodded once and then closed the door again.

“Do they know that you invited Daisy?” Chanyeol asked as he flipped another page.

“Nope.” Baekhyun popped his lips on the “p” and smirked. He looked over at Chanyeol. “You know they’d never shut up about it and ruin everything. Besides… invite might not exactly be the word. I more… let it be known where we would be tonight and what time.”

“So, she might not even be there.”

“Oh, she’ll be there, alright.” Baekhyun ran a hand through his hair to add volume to the roots, adjusting the front bits until they fell just so.

Shaking his head, Chanyeol jumped up from the bed and tossed the magazine aside. “This should be entertaining, at least.” He threw an arm around Baaekhyun’s neck and ruffled his hair.

“Hey!” Baekhyun growled threateningly in his throat as he pushed his best friend off of him. All Chanyeol did was laugh some more and hightail it out there before Baekhyun could retaliate in true form. Later. He’d get him back later.

Everyone was gathered in the kitchen when he stomped down the stairs. Well - almost everyone who was going out tonight. Junmyeon was still at the university going over the latest round of papers to grade. Yixing was already in town with Ming and it seemed Kyungsoo was down there with them.

“Finally ready?” Jongin teased.

“Finally ready?” Baekhyun mocked. He glanced around the room then furrowed his eyebrows. “Is this everyone?”

As if summoned, Jongdae emerged from the staircase. He didn’t look at anyone as he headed straight for the fridge. He said nothing as he opened the door, took out a green glass bottle, and let the door swing shut with a bit too much force.

He looked terrible. Dark circles bruised under his eyes and despite the blank expression he constantly wore, there was an echo of pain behind it. His skin was pale from lack of sun. Baekhyun couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone on a run with them.

No one spoke as Jongdae twisted off the lid and tossed the tiny piece of metal into the trash can. All eyes watched as he disappeared back up into the second floor. Minseok's eyes stayed on the stairs, filled with worry. Ji Yeon gripped his shoulder.

“He won’t even talk to me,” Minseok whispered.

“He won’t talk to any of us,” Baekhyun pointed out, although the older member did have a point. He was closest to Jongdae. If the latter wouldn’t even open up to his best friend… it must be bad. But there wasn’t anything they could do at the moment. If he wouldn't open up, there was no point in pausing their own lives. “Let’s go.”

They all piled into a couple cars to make the forty-five-ish journey into town. With Chanyeol and Sehun driving, however, it was more like thirty. As long as Junmyeon wasn’t with them, speed limits could be more of a suggestion.

Chanyeol pulled his jeep over in front of an apartment complex that Baekhyun hadn’t seen before. It was close to campus but still a few blocks over from downtown. “What are we doing here?”

“Ming invited her roommate, Ran, and her friend to join us tonight,” Minseok explained from the back. “We’re meeting them here. Come on.” He hoped out with Ji Yeon close behind. They all gathered on the sidewalk to wait.

Baekhyun’s foot was tapping against the concrete after about two minutes. His stomach was growling and he didn’t want to miss Daisy - if she really was going to show up tonight. That uncertainty made him anxious. If they took much longer, he was going to march up and knock on every door until he found the right apartment and forced them all out. For now, though, he simply leaned up against the brick building, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“We need to figure out what’s going with Jongdae.” Minseok came up next to Baekhyun and leaned his shoulder on the wall. “He’s looking worse.”

Baekhyun frowned. “Has he given you any sort of hint?”

Minseok shook his head. “Not at all.”

“We’ll figure it out. You know Jongdae. He can’t stay silent for long.”

“This is definitely a new record for him.”

“There they are!” Sehun shouted, stealing away their attention.

Out of the front doors of the apartment building walked five new people - two male, three female. Four of which Baekhyun recognized. Yixing and Ming were talking to Ran, who Baekhyun had met once or twice. Kyungsoo, on the other hand was talking to someone new. And as soon as Baekhyun’s eyes landed on that new female, something snapped into place. His eyes widened. He knew exactly what this was after hearing two of his fellow pack mates describe it in detail.

Oh, shit.

#exo #exo wolf au #exo wolf!au #baekhyun x reader #byun baekhyun #exo x reader #exo college au #exo college!au #exo supernatural au #exo werewolf au #exo werewolf!au #exo series #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #baekhyun x fem reader #The Untamed Universe #Echoing Laughs

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zeta-in-de-walls · 3 years

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Hey guys, I was having thoughts on the meta-side of the Dream SMP. Okay, so we know that Technoblade has done much of the scripting for this present arc, Tommy, Dream and Quackity have also done some in collaboration, presumably doing each of their own characters and motivations, and Tubbo and Fundy have also been involved too. Uh, this will be rambly as it’s a lot of unsorted observations.

Obviously these are my thoughts, and ideas purely based on my observations as a viewer but you can definitely tell that they’re all very aware of the fanbase and are likely very influenced by them. I could see this even in the Pogtopia arc where Tommy started reusing phrases before when debating ethics with Wilbur, eg ‘let’s lose as winners, not win as losers.’ or something along those lines and how Techno made a callback to his only universal language is violence speech in his wither monologue.

But wow, the scripting is definitely becoming a lot more obvious in this new season of the SMP. Not a bad thing at all, by the way, it’s just a difference. Clearly they’ve gotten more detailed plans and are more ambitious with what they convey in minecraft, with more players taking inspiration from Wilbur after how well he executed it. It’s also the difference in how the various people write, I’m sure.

Tommy and Tubbo have streamed the SMP for the longest and have very gradually evolved into the roleplaying and their respective approaches to it are very interesting. Tubbo’s streams are typically chill and usually involve him working on some sort of project - he’s very chaotic when with other people but is usually very reactionary when it comes to the roleplaying - doing most of his best stuff when bouncing off Tommy, or occasionally Quackity. On his own he doesn’t like to lead bits but is among the best at making other people’s bits work. Same with the RP! His character’s in a weird spot right now as the other writer’s seem to be writing him in quite an unflattering way and he doesn’t do solo, emotional performances all that much meaning he’s less sympathetic right now then he really should be. Like, Tommy garnered loads of sympathy during his exile as he gave a very expressive performance where Tubbo’s character also presumably feels very isolated and alone and he’s being manipulated by the people around him but he gives a lot less. This has made it easier for the audience to start siding more with Technoblade, the literal mass-murderer, over the traumatised kid who was manipulated into exiling his best friend and continues to face terrible choices with no good options.

While I can of course make less meta theories on why Tubbo should be appreciated more and what it says he’s got no real support and is compartmentalising his problems, in the end it’s how his streams work. Tubbo does plot related streams, and he does streams where he simply vibes - and even in the serious streams, he can joke around and cheerfully lampshade the goofiness by doing things like joking about wanting a good review from Techno while kidnapping him - that stuff is priceless and does not fit into the melodramtic scripts but it adds so much to the SMP and why it is so much fun to watch. Tubbo’s really good at making content better! He’s not afraid to look ridiculous, he will also unapologetically avoid engaging in too much melodrama himself when he doesn’t feel like it. I consider his character highly underrated in the plot right now.

Tommy knows what he’s doing. Even before the roleplaying really took off, Tommy liked to play a character and lead bits and the SMP shifting in a more scripted direction suited him exceptionally well. Tommy focuses heavily on streams with lots of content, only rarely doing more chill stuff - especially more recently. He has always approached streams with a plan - but usually their extremely loose and he has said that he’d sometimes just come up with an idea 10 minutes before the stream and improvise from there. Tommy’s good at improvising and seems to work best with a very loose plan. Where I think Techno likely came up with the plan for Tommy to get exiled from L’Manburg and then join forces with him, Tommy likely filled in how to play his character and - wow.

Tommy’s writing seems to be incredibly simple - each exile stream had no major plot points or anything and the plans that are there don’t even make logical sense (let’s throw a party in one day and let’s invite everyone but have Dream not send out the invitations so no one shows up - and I’m going to do this even with Philza and Fundy literally in the call.) but Tommy pulled every one of them off very well and proved to be compelling enough that no one cared at all whether the plot made sense nor did Tommy make much effort to justify that sort of thing - ‘cause he knows how the SMP works and how much the audience will go along with it. And instead, Tommy focused entirely on his characterisation and spent all his time exploring it. That’s how Tommy works - very simple plans, then improv in character into an engaging bit. He’s managed to pull off the most ridiculous things like that, and has confidence that the other streamers will support it - that’s how he’s prepared to try insane things like pretending to be Clarencio the llama. And, like Tubbo, he’s always willing to throw for content.

Then there’s Technoblade. He’s streamed the SMP a lot less - though he’s done so much more recently - but he’s spent a lot more time playing on the SMP, doing tons of grinding. He here for the RP but is also committed to playing the game itself very optimally. He seems to have a much larger view, taking in the bigger picture, of the story where Tommy has a very personal view. His approach to content is all about the fanservice.

He’s always trying to create big epic, moments, that both look and sound awesome. Like the butcher’s army plotline which let him both seem like an underdog, a victim against a mean group, and also an incredible badass figure who outplayed them all and came out as victorious. The butcher’s army were really given an antagonists role there, and were really made to seem unlikeable. Then he met up with fan-favourite Tommy and suggested a team-up with him. (This is also leading to the ultimate fanservice that is the Sleepybois team-up.) Techno’s got a very, dry self-aware sens of humour too and he’ll often make simple meta observations about the SMP - like noting that the pacing’s fast or teasing in the chat in the middle of wars. He’s also made himself into a bit of a meme what with logging just to say his name and leave.

I don’t know how much it’s just Techno of course, but the plot really seems to be heading in a direction that suggesting that Technoblade was Right. L’Manburg’s seeming corrupt, and Tommy is being seen as Theseus. At the time Techno first made the Theseus speech, I felt like the comparison seemed unfair - but now it’s like the plot itself has bent over to make the comparison make sense, and Techno’s one of the writers of the script. Techno also of course, prepared a vault to show Tommy so he could say ‘welcome home Theseus dramatically - total fanservice as fans were indeed talking about how cool saying a line would be, and then he absolutely did. The way Techno calls his viewers chatting as the voices in his head is also fanservice. It’s not like actually true, as Techno ignores the chat if they tell him information his character doesn’t know and meanwhile all the streamers interact with their chat too - so all chats have always been a part of the story and calling them canon is absolutely meaningless. Not a bad thing though - it is nice and makes the fans happy and makes them feel included. I don’t know if this sounds critical by the way - it’s not meant as such at all - all the streamers love engaging with the fandom, and Techno’s approach to giving lots of fanservice by providing so many epic moments is great. I just wanted to highlight it.

And those were some meta thoughts on the SMP right now and its writing. I don’t really think I had a point or argument. I just wanting to make some observations and my impressions. If you’re curious I am course a Tommy fan first. I love how he’s evolved with the SMP most of all and I appreciate his character-driven storytelling. His main weakness is probably getting too into bits and going too far and it’s so nice that the SMP is a place where even his weaker ideas are supported rather than shut down. I like how he’s able to improv so well and simply how he streams. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I love Tubbo best when he’s with Tommy as they bring the best performances out of each other. I find Techno interesting as a contrast to both of them, as he approaches so many things in such a different way.

#dream smp #tommyinnit #tubbo #technoblade #meta #analysis #long post #i don't know what this was #i should just ask for asks #so i can ramble with more direction #like i have a lot of thoughts #but they're not all as coherent as i'd like

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mostlymovieswithmax · 3 years

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Movies I watched in June

Now I think I’m comfortably in a rhythm to get these posts out. For one, I’m writing up short reviews either straight after watching a movie or sometimes it might take a few days. But June was a fairly good month in terms of the amount of films I watched. I got to go to the cinema quite a bit which is always fun. Anyway, let’s get on with it! If you’re looking for something good to watch (or maybe even something bad), I hope this list can help in some way to introduce you to new and different movies that maybe you’ve never heard of, or were thinking of checking out. Here is every film I watched from the 1st to the 30th of June 2021.

Bo Burnham: Inside (2021) - 10/10 Everyone was going off about how great this film is. An hour and a half of Bo Burnham in lockdown, singing songs and being upset is definitely a powerful hook and I have to agree with the general consensus because Inside blew me away. More thoughts on this in my podcast: The Sunday Movie Marathon episode 34.

Bo Burnham: Make Happy (2016) - 7/10 After watching Inside, I figured I’d rewatch some of Burnham’s older stand-up shows on Netflix. Make Happy is a lot of fun, injected with a lot of introspection from Burnham that really makes the special stand out, despite a lot of gags that just didn’t land for me.

Bo Burnham: What. (2013) - 6/10 It’s plain to see just how much Bo Burnham has grown over the years and how he has honed his comedy and music. ‘What.’ is a good stepping stone in the comedian’s career, showcasing loads of promise in him from a young age. There are some jokes that haven’t aged as well and some that straight up dragged, but overall the show is still enjoyable.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) - 3/10 Packed theatre for this one, obviously. People love a Conjuring movie, and I’d also say people love a good scare… but this movie isn’t scary, or good for that matter. More thoughts on episode 35 of the podcast.

The Conjuring (2013) - 6/10 After the horrendously disappointing debacle that was the third Conjuring movie, I decided to watch James Wan’s original movie and man, if this wasn’t better in literally every way. I don’t tend to love James Wan movies but I can’t deny he’s got so much talent in how he makes movies and it makes The Conjuring a lot more fun to see competent filmmaking in the horror genre in a way that actually creates an eerie atmosphere with creative uses of camera-work and editing.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 8/10 Normally I’m not big into the old slasher movies. I appreciate that for the time, perhaps they hit differently, but now I just don’t tend to connect with them. Wes Craven’s ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ is a bit of an exception. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not particularly scary, though it does employ a lot of interesting techniques and designs. Undeniably, the design for Fred Krueger is a staple in cinema, with the striped jumper, hat, scarred face and knives for fingers not leaving the mind of the general public any time soon. Elm Street doesn’t have too many kills but when it does, it is so effective and fun to watch. Craven was one of the greats, truly.

One Cut of the Dead (2017) - 8/10 This has to be one of the most engaging zombie movies I’ve seen in a long time. There’s a lot to spoil with One Cut of The Dead but I won’t go into that here. It is clever and funny, subverting expectations in ways I really didn’t expect. I really cannot recommend it enough.

Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones (2019) - 8/10 Since we’re watching Chappelle's Show for episode 45 of the podcast, I wanted to get an idea for what I was in for, so I watched Dave Chappelle’s stand-up show from a couple of years ago. Yeah, really funny, which I suppose is what you want from a stand-up special, but what makes it better is Chappelle’s commentary on the world at large and how he’s able to combine humour with intelligent criticism.

Fear(s) of the Dark (2008) - 4/10 A few years ago I think I watched this animated black and white anthology film on a New Year's Day when I had foolishly decided to pull an all-nighter and then go out with mates for ice cream. Never again. But I’d forgotten what I thought of this movie and decided to get the DVD for cheap on eBay. Perhaps I am doomed to watch Fear(s) of the Dark only when I am tired because I popped this on when it was nearing midnight. I was lucid enough to understand what I was watching though… and it was quite boring. These short films emulate the filmmakers’ nightmares - an interesting premise in theory, but pretty weak on execution.

The Bourne Identity (2002) - 3/10 We marathoned the first three Bourne movies for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, episode 36 so check that out for my expanded thoughts on this, the best Bourne of the three.

The Bourne Supremacy (2004) - 2/10 Immediately after, we did the deep dive into Supremacy, the second Bourne and the worst of the three (albeit by a very slim margin). Check out episode 36 for more.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) - 2/10 I really couldn’t care less about these terrible movies. It was a horrible chore to sit through them. Ultimatum was also rubbish. More gripes and discussion in episode 36 of the podcast.

The Father (2021) - 10/10 Another trip to the cinema for this masterpiece. I tried very hard not to sob loudly in the theatre where aside from myself, the audience totalled three people. More discussion of The Father in episode 36 the podcast.

Drag Me To Hell (2009) - 2/10 I’m pretty shocked that Sam Raimi directed this. Usually when I watch one of his films, I can see his staple of fun gore, practical effects, crazy camera movements… but there was none of that here. It just felt like a really bad horror, indistinguishable from the regular affair, with no personality or passion. Drag Me To Hell might even have been one of those movies I’d avoided in the past when I was younger because it seemed too scary but no, it was just boring and bad and I feel like there’s something I’m not getting out of this that other people seem to be.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012) - 8/10 At this point, I feel I have to admit Wes Anderson as perhaps my second favourite director. His movies are just so nice and beautiful to watch. Moonrise Kingdom is a quirky love story between two kids and honestly, with any other director, could have been handled poorly because the story is quite simple. But Anderson injects so much of his signature style and personality into the film. A powerhouse of actors with the likes of Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis and Tilda Swinton, among a few of Anderson’s regulars, make Moonrise Kingdom a breeze. Good for a dark day to lift the spirits.

Nobody (2021) - 8/10 I needed something to fill an otherwise uneventful day, so I hopped on a bus and booked a ticket for Ilya Naishuller’s new action movie, Nobody. The film started and to my annoyance, the lights in the theatre were still on. When I go to the cinema I don’t really want to see the other people sitting around me, so I got up from my seat, abandoning the first two minutes of the film to find a member of staff to turn the lights off. After showing them that the lights were in fact still on, I took to my seat and watched the movie for what felt like a little while before the lights went off. Nobody is a really fun action movie. Perhaps similar in a lot of ways to John Wick, but with more personality to the main character. More thoughts on episode 37 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) - 8/10 After procuring the Criterion blu-ray from my local hmv, I delved into all the supplements it had to offer, including a making-of documentary, chats with the director, and a gallery of polaroid pictures from when they were shooting the film in India. The Darjeeling Limited is perhaps not peak Wes Anderson, but I do kind of love it. It makes me want to go on a journey to another country with my brother and sister, perhaps in ten to fifteen years. Here, the main characters are three brothers who travel to India seeking some kind of spiritual experience. Things don’t seem to work out that way, however, because I’m not sure how spiritual an experience you can have when you plan out an itinerary to schedule it. Fantastic performances all round and of course, beautiful direction and cinematography.

Face/Off (1997) - 3/10 Was I supposed to laugh? Maybe I was just too tired but I really couldn’t stand Face/Off. It didn’t feel particularly special and despite a couple of fun ideas, it was mostly quite boring.

Luca (2021) - 5/10 The new Pixar movie leaves a lot to be desired. The animation is really second to none and I can’t fault how beautiful the movie looks, more so when it’s set in this little Italian town than under the sea. The story is so uninspired though, with the basic premise being that the protagonists want a Vespa so they enter a competition to win the money to buy one. Also they’re fish that turn into people on dry land. Maybe that’s enough for some people, but I couldn’t shake the familiarity of Luca. It never went in any interesting directions and basically did exactly what I figured it would do. I don’t believe it’s out here to subvert expectations but I would like some creativity when it comes to the writing. Perhaps if I watched it again, I might like it less. It was pretty dull.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - 10/10 I’m a little disappointed with the Criterion blu-ray for Punch-Drunk love. It’s supplements host a couple of low-quality deleted scenes that were clearly deleted for a reason, and some weird artsy music videos that incorporated footage from the movie. I was quite shocked at how low-effort it all seemed. The movie itself is fantastic though and I do believe it to be Adam Sandler’s best performance (and I really liked Uncut Gems). He portrays a man who is constantly put down by his family, clearly has some kind of social disability, and on top of it all he’s getting scammed by a sex line. Amongst all this, he’s trying to navigate a new relationship and it’s so sweet to watch all the interactions between Sandler and Emily Watson. It’s a perfect melding of romance, comedy and anxiety, beautifully directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Fargo (1996) - 9/10 Another movie you wouldn’t expect to be so funny, especially since it’s based on this horrific true story about murder, deceit and money. But the Coen brothers know how to handle it. Excellent performances, beautiful colour palette, and a story that just gets more and more insane as it goes.

House (1977) - 7/10 House (or, Hausu) was a recommendation for episode 37 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast so check that out for more discussion. Generally speaking, this Japanese horror/comedy was bonkers. Insanely creative and abstract (which at points can detriment the film) with an almost Balamory-esque presentation. I was happy to find that the comedy was not lost on me at all; this is a hilarious film, albeit maybe not all the time.

The Princess Bride (1987) - 10/10 I reviewed this in my May wrap-up but this time around, I had recommended The Princess Bride for the podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 37. It all clicked this time around. It is such a fun, warm movie with a lot of laughs and superb production.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) - 8/10 Another Rob Reiner joint, a few years before The Princess Bride. This Is Spinal Tap is lauded as a masterpiece in comedic cinema and I might agree; this movie is hilarious. Shot in mockumentary fashion, it follows a band playing shows and trying to get gigs, coupled with the inevitable screw-ups of live performance and creative disagreements. It lost me every now and again but it’s still a must-watch.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) - 6/10 A decent Disney flick but certainly not their best. One highlight includes the villain singing a lament about wanting to have sex with Esmerelda and calling her a witch for giving him a boner.

Ponyo (2008) - 4/10 Not sure if I’ve ever disliked a Miyazaki movie before but I did not vibe with Ponyo. It came across as very baby and as such, there really wasn’t much to read into. The animation is fantastic as always but so much of it felt specifically tailored to a younger crowd.

Roman Holiday (1953) - 9/10 Classic romance at its best. I had heard on a podcast that this was the sexiest movie the guest had ever seen and while maybe not in the traditional sense of the word, I do get where they’re coming from. I was tearing up with just how lovely it all was, following a princess who runs away and spends the day with a man she meets in Rome (where it was shot on location), doing all the things she’s wanted to do but never could because of royal responsibilities. Fantastic performances from Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck who sell the chemistry of the characters so well.

F9 (2021) - 2/10 I’ve never seen any of the Fast & Furious movies and after watching the ninth in the series, I don’t want to. This is basically the Vin Diesel show; we watch him drive cars fast and punch people a lot. Wow! I don’t really understand what it (and forgive the pun) driving people to see these movies if they’re all in this same vein. As far as I can tell, F9 is the goofiest of the series so far and I’ll admit I had a chuckle or two at some of the truly implausible moments, such as a part where one of the team gets shot by about ten men with machine guns, yet manages to kill them all without being affected by the bullets… but overall, in this two-and-a-half-hour experience, I was largely bored.

Shaolin Soccer (2001) - 7/10 I love this movie! Shaolin Soccer is so much fun; it is goofy and out there and completely crazy, all by design. Steven Chow knew what he was making when he set out to craft this insane story of a group of guys using Kung-Fu to play football. The basic story itself is nothing new but it’s elevated by the infectious comedy and implausibility of what’s happening. Balls are kicked into space and across fields so fast the very ground is torn asunder. A man eats an egg off a dirty shoe. This is cinema.

Casino Royale (2006) - 7/10 I had seen a trailer at the cinema for the new Bond movie and I have to say, I’ve never really given 007 the time of day, aside from a few of the very first movies I’d tried watching a while ago. But the new trailer kind of got me hyped, so I wanted to watch all of the Craig era Bond movies, starting with Casino Royale. I had a great time! Even though there’s not loads of fighting or weapons or fast cars, the meat of the movie actually comes from this poker game Bond is playing against the villain, played brilliantly by Mads Mikkelsen. I was surprised to witness a bit of cock-and-ball torture in this 12-rated movie but I would be lying if I said it didn’t stick with me.

Quantum of Solace (2008) - 5/10 Immediately after Casino Royale, I jumped into the second of Daniel Craig’s Bond movies, Quantum of Solace. Sadly it’s quite weak, with not much going on aside from the general Bond fare. Mathieu Amalric’s villain lacked a lot of menace or motivation and generally, I’m not super worried about a brilliant story in a Bond movie, but even the action felt weak in this. Quantum of Solace didn’t exactly upset me but it failed to wow me in any way either. The saving grace of the movie is certainly Daniel Craig as the hero, capturing Bond and what he’s supposed to be.

Skyfall (2012) - 6/10 A marked improvement from its predecessor, Sam Mendes helms Skyfall, Craig’s third outing as Bond. Skyfall delves into Bond’s past as he seems to be slipping a bit, not as much the expert operative he once was. It would have been nice to see more of his fall from grace, as they don’t really show us how he’s become less efficient as much as they give other characters expository dialogue telling us how he drinks and does drugs and is haunted by childhood trauma. For me, that’s where the meat of the story lies and I would have preferred more of a character piece if indeed they were delving into that side of the character anyway. That being said, the fights are still better choreographed than the last instalment and the colour grading and scenery is often very visually interesting. Everything in Skyfall is better than its predecessor and it’s surely thanks to Sam Mendes who does a great job at directing.

Howl's Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Another go round for Howl's Moving Castle, as this was a recommendation for my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. My opinion, I feel, is unchanged. It's a fantastic film, and you can listen to more of what I have to say in episode 37. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 - 3/10 A pretty poor end to a poor series of movies. I'm surprised I've watched the Twilight movies as many times as I have but I also know I'll watch them again. Part 2 I watched with the YMS commentary track on YouTube which, again made the experience a lot better. But otherwise the series seemed to get better as it went along… until the last movie. Ultimately my biggest problem with it is that nothing actually happens and the plot feels like a late addition rather than a natural progression of the story. It’s basically a whole movie of set-up to a payoff that doesn’t even canonically happen. A big thing with YA adaptations in this era was making a final book into two movies, regardless as to whether it needed that much time or not. Breaking Dawn does not need to be two movies at two hours each. About ten new characters are introduced here and the film is afraid of killing even one of them off. It's the last movie! We're not going to see these characters again! Kill some of them! There's just no emotional weight to any of it and I hate to say I was disappointed with the ending because I have such low expectations for these films but man, this was so unsatisfying.

Frances Ha (2012) - 8/10 Life is hard. And I hate this movie because it shows me so much of what terrifies me about being alive. And I love this movie because it shows me so much of what I’m alive for. Noah Baumbach’s brutally honest depiction of growing up and fending for yourself struck me in a way I wasn’t expecting and I think it’s because I’m at a point in my life where I’m worrying a lot about how it’s all going to turn out. The titular character is burdened with the stress of working low-paid jobs and paying rent while juggling school and making time for her passion of dancing as she tries to connect with people she’s lost, as temporary friends and housemates come and go. She feels like a lonely character despite often being around a lot of people. Frances Ha is fantastic and heartbreaking and uplifting… but it made me feel bad so I hate it.

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mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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you’ve talked a little bit about this wrt dan, but i’m curious: what are your favorite seasons/arcs for the main gg characters? (serena, blair, dan, nate, jenny, vanessa) cause everyone’s personalities tended to uh, shift a bit from season to season and storyline to storyline, and i’m wondering which eras of those characters were your favorite?

oh, so i sat on this question for a very long time, and spent a ton of time thinking over it. here we go!

i loved the way serena was written in s1 and s2. she was so full of joy despite all the difficult things she’d endured, so bubbly and warm and... lively is ALWAYS the adjective that comes to mind for serena, despite how it’s a terrible pun. but yeah! she had an energy to her that was very childlike & genuine, and i loved that about her - despite the things she’d endured, she was so full of light (?? how do i describe this.) i know that serena’s arc gets notably more tragic s3 onwards, but i feel like the way she was written lost a bit of depth s3 onwards as well. she had a sharp wit, and a good sense of humour, she was playful and... most notably, she had this little giggle? that she literally NEVER does in the later seasons, which makes me sad?? she stopped laughing like a child at the age of, what, 19?? idk. in s1 & s2 serena had so many layers, and i feel like as the seasons went on they tried to, uh. keep only the surface layers? they didn’t really do justice to the character they started out with.

my answer for vanessa is actually the exact same, with slight modifications. vanessa’s energy in s1 and s2 was unparalleled. literally the best. i loved her and the way she was critical of everything and YET so ready to learn. compared to all these rich, privileged, white people... her presence was just SO good and so important to me, because the way she was so critical of the uber rich was something nobody else really was, and i think that perspective WAS valuable and should’ve remained, haha. idk what it was about s3, but i feel like they didn’t keep the crux of who vanessa was? it wasn’t a BAD vanessa season as much as an incomplete one. i felt they could’ve done so much more with a character like vanessa.... she’s so vibrant and full of life! and the way s3 was for her was very surface. and then in s4 they just demolished her character entirely. i’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: what jenny, juliet and vanessa did in 4x09 was TOTALLY out of character for vanessa. she would never, ever do that. and by the time s4 came around... someone else said this, i don’t remember who. but they said that vanessa was basically being used as a plot device more than as a character. notice how she’s always in the right place at the right time to overhear the right thing? it’s a travesty, because vanessa was just..... so significant to me. like her being there added so much value & even changed the tone of the show imo.

my blair feelings are very complicated. i think she’s fascinating, and i love leighton & her performance. i love book blair so much more than show blair, and idk why or how to explain it. i mentioned this in that post where i ranked the characters, but while watching blair in high school specifically i can’t EVER forget that she would probably hatecrime me, and even when she’s out of school she is still supremely racist at times. i actually liked blair best in s5 - and i know she was going thru ~tragic~ stuff (i think they dialled the tragedy too high actually, like, blair had TOO MUCH on her plate and from a storytelling point of view it was... ambitious, to say the least, to hope to bring all out of that out on tv) but like, keeping her tragedy aside. her capacity for kindness and care really shone thru while she was with dan, and i liked how the d/b relationship took her out of her comfort zone and her “but im a Waldorf!” bubble and let her, idk, be a person. i liked her in s4, too. i feel like blair is a really good, nuanced, fleshed out character as blair, and the way she clung to being a waldorf combined with her rich-white-girl privilege got kind of boring after a while because like. she’s not like louis? her character has so much depth. her character doesn’t need to be reduced to a title, because she’s SO much more than that.

i feel like i need to do a lot more rewatching when it comes to dan because i CANNOT be objective about him. he reminds me far too much of myself!!! down to his flaws and his mistakes and his issues – i was a precocious little shit in high school at times in very similar ways to dan, i like to think i’ve grown out of that (& am perpetually making an effort TO grow out of falling into those patterns) & that’s what i want for dan, too. dan’s arc feels real to me, because a lot of it is my arc, too. feeling lonely, out of place & unaccepted in high school --> being a popular kid in college… that hits really close to home. s1 & s2 are important seasons to me because i’m extremely protective of awkward, trying-his-best high school dan (he can be awful at times, but he can be earnest and sincere, too!) i feel like s4 is actually the best dan season – took me a while to get here, but halfway thru my s2 rewatch that’s how i’m leaning. but dan’s arc was very interesting to me, and i wish they’d kept his heart. trying to retcon him as evil fell absolutely flat to me, like. who are you convincing! one of my friends and i were joking about how georgie blackmailed dan into pretending to be gossip girl (she obviously has dirt on him that nobody else does.) anyway. dan’s arc felt pretty true until the end of s4. i wasn’t a big fan of how he was written in s5, i felt like something had been taken away from his character, but i don’t know how to say it better. you’re right though, i have gone over this a lot! so i’m not going to break my head over it, ‘cause we’re already a thousand words in and i still have nate and jenny to go.

speaking of jenny, though: i think dan’s storylines REALLY needed more of a big brother arc. the way he was characterised, especially in s1, was very “i would kill a man for my baby sister” and i have NO idea where that went or why they got rid of it. (actually, i do have some idea. fucking chip wiskers apologism & elevation of chair over literally anything else. sigh)

okay, now speaking of jenny in terms of jenny. i liked her s1 arc, like, her trying to make friends with these people & trying to keep her morals and realising she can’t do both was interesting. i think that should’ve been that with her clashes with girls in constance, though. and afterwards, either nothing happens, or she transfers out of constance, etc. jenny’s s2 arc makes me sad – she was exploited and treated like dirt in so many ways :( the jenny/agnes was interesting in s2, though, and there’s no way to interpret it that ISN’T lesbian. i’ve always felt like jenny’s feelings for nate in s2 are very comphet. jenny’s s3 arc made me even sadder than her s2 arc- she was alienating all her friends one by one, making everyone hate her, and just…… spiralling. she really needed a better support system. her s4 arc made no sense. like. why did she come back in the city to fuck with serena like that? it didn’t feel right.

yeah, all that said… i feel like there are many super intriguing elements of jenny’s storylines and arcs, like, even within canon events if things had been executed differently, it could’ve been actually good/empowering. but the writers hated jenny. and this show was never a feminist show.

ah, so… nate. he started out as a flake in s1 & s2. that’s his whole thing. he doesn’t know who he wants to be / how to get what he wants / how to get where he wants. he takes people for granted. he isn’t dependable or reliable, he lets people down (most notably, blair & vanessa.) and he means well, sure! but his life is like amber and he’s trapped in it. he doesn’t follow his heart, he’s too busy trying to please the wrong people, etc etc. in s3 he’s suddenly so ready for commitment, which always breaks my heart because vanessa!!! but anyway. s3 has a shift in his character, possibly him getting dumped at prom and realising that high school is over and one thing that tethered him to his family (being a kid, being a high schooler, being a minor, whatever) – one big thing that held him there is gone. so it makes sense that he starts trying to be his own person. i like s3 nate, and s4 nate. we see nate sort of gradually try and be a moral compass, and it’s interesting to me. when i write d/n fic something i really focus on is dan finding nate dependable, and i think that’s a value that builds in nate over time. nate of season 1 is not dependable, nope, no way. but nate of s4 seems like a decent friend to have. in s5 and s6 they more or less threw his entire arc to the wind and gave him so many shitty storylines (sage spence, wtf? nate would not do this. he’s been on the opposite end of this before, he would not carry the pattern forward, ffs.)

idk. this almost hit 1.7k, LMAO. i hope it made some amount of sense!

#anon #this is long enough to be a fanfic LMAOO #meta

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pickledbeefwastaken · 3 years

Text

The Unending Kindness & Patience of Dave Katz - CHAPTER TWO

New chapter below the cut!

Chapter 1 here:

(TW: vomiting, mentions of prostitution, mentions of domestic violence)

Klaus had figured out three more important things about Dave by the time he’d made it out the front doors of the hospital:

1. He was very trusting—naively so.

2. He was surprisingly hard to ruffle

2. He was really fucking beautiful.

Klaus had figured out three more important things about Dave by the time he’d made it out the front doors of the hospital:

He was very trusting—naively so.

After Dave suggested that Klaus should let Dave cut his hair for him, he’d gone on to further suggest that he come to his house for him to do this. Klaus. Klaus, who’d come stumbling into his arms with a head wound and had taken scissors to his head within five minutes of waking up. Klaus, who had only been half dressed and shoeless. Klaus, with track marks all up and down his arms. Klaus, who had hissed at Ben, who was very much invisible to anyone but him, right in front of Dave.

Dave had also left Klaus alone in the room while he went to get a nurse, figuring that Klaus would stay put and stay laying down like he asked him to (he hadn’t). Before Dave could come back from getting a nurse, Klaus was up on his feet and stumbling out of the room. He snuck quickly down the hall, managing to make his way almost entirely to the front doors before, to his utter bad luck, he ran quite literally into fucking DAVE. He’d caught Klaus and asked him why he was out of bed, and when Klaus told him he needed to go, Dave had just nodded and followed him outside.

He was surprisingly difficult to ruffle.

Dave hadn’t even asked why Klaus wanted to leave so bad. He’d just looked at Klaus and his wide, panicky eyes and took his elbow like there was nothing weird about any of this and helped guide him outside. He hadn’t gotten defensive when Klaus had snapped at him earlier, he hadn’t seemed too terribly weirded out by Klaus’s hair cutting stunt or the way his eyes drifted to seemingly empty spots in the room.

He was really fucking beautiful.

Dave’s expression had been surprised when he caught Klaus by the biceps as they ran into each other, big blue eyes looking into Klaus’s own. He’d smiled at him with dazzling white teeth, he let Klaus hold his strong arm for support as he led him outside and while Klaus had more pressing priorities than a hot guy helping him like an obedient service dog, he wasn’t blind, okay?

Now that he’d made his not so sneaky escape from the hospital, his energy was waning quickly. He kept his arm wrapped around Dave’s for support until Dave led him toward a bench to rest. He must have noticed Klaus’s sagging shoulders and labored breathing. While Klaus felt an instinct to do something to resist the kindness he was being shown, he was once again tired and Dave seemed nice and though he knew he shouldn’t trust him, he didn’t feel like he had much fight in him.

“Okay. So, can you tell me why we needed to get out of there so bad?” Dave asked, voice so stupidly, perfectly patient that Klaus looked at him like he suspected he might actually be an alien under all that perfect skin.

Klaus blew out a breath and leaned back against against the cool concrete, eyes shifting nervously to the doors of the hospital.

“Because I don’t have health insurance and if they figure out who I am, they’ll call my emergency contact who I was supposed to remove but I haven’t exactly gotten around to that yet,” he said honestly, “Plus, I really hate hospitals.”

He didn’t snark or joke or use any of his usual defenses to skirt around the truth. Maybe Dave would try to march him right back inside, but either way, he wasn’t in much of a position to fight if Dave wanted to take him anywhere right now.

Dave nodded slowly, “Okay. I can understand that. The doctors said that you had a pretty good concussion, but beyond that and the stitches, you’re probably okay. I’m sure they would want to check you out one more time before you leave, but that’s your choice.”

Klaus knew Dave was right—the doctors would check him again and take forever doing it and making him suffer in there for hours until they finally signed discharge forms and that’s assuming they’d let him leave without paying or at least giving a name so they could bill him later. Klaus shook his head. Concussions could be treated at home—they sucked, he remembered a particularly nasty one Diego had gotten after a mission gone wrong as kids, but it’d been fine to handle at home.

“No, I just need to get rid of this hair,” He said, leaning forward.

The shakes were setting in, making his hands tremble. He pressed them between his knees in an effort to still them. His spine and shoulders and hips ached in a bone-deep sort of way. Okay, so he needed to get rid of his hair and get a pretty good-sized score, one big enough to stave off his withdrawal with enough leftover to offer to Pete as a means to get back inside. Where was he going to find that though? He was half-dressed and most of his belongings were back at Pete’s. He had no money, no nothing, nothing worth trading except for himself, which he didn’t anticipate being easy considering the freshly stitched gash along the side of his head and the dried blood along his face and torso.

Okay, so he needed to cut his hair, take a shower, and then figure out a way to get money that didn’t involve prostitution. He couldn’t trust people not to be too rough with him right now, not when he was too weak to defend himself or endure much rough-housing. He was in so much pain that he was pretty sure he wasn’t even capable of getting it up right now, not that it was really a requirement. Still. Prostitution was probably out.

He saw the sun barely glimmering above the horizon, signaling the last of the daylight hours. Once he had managed to get his hair short enough and maybe even had talked Dave into letting him take a shower, that still left him on his own in the streets in the middle of the night. By the time he managed to steal something, the pawn shops would be closed. Dealers weren’t usually too keen on trades that didn’t involve sexual favors, so he wouldn’t be able to trade up until morning, which means that he didn’t have anywhere to go tonight. Shit, he’d be sleeping outside. He should have grabbed one of those hospital blankets on his way out, or at least a towel, something.

This was all making his brain hurt, trying to figure out how he was going to get through the night and it made him feel frustrated and angry and desperate. He kept his eyes down on his hand where they were pressed between his knees. He didn’t realized he was crying out of frustration until a fat, hot tear landed on his wrist.

“Alright then, I’ll help you get it cut. Come on,” Dave said patiently, standing and offering his hands to Klaus.

Klaus swiped quickly at his eyes and took Dave’s hands, grunting as he was hauled up to his feet, very carefully not meeting Dave’s eyes. He’d probably noticed his tears, but Klaus was hoping he’d do the macho, polite thing and let them mutually pretend the tears weren’t happening.

“Shit. Hey, it’s okay.” Well fuck, no such luck.

Klaus pulled his hands out of Dave’s grip and turned more bodily away from him, signaling that he really was not wanting to talk about it. He took off walking, steps smaller than usual, feeling stiff and woozy and to be honest, he had no idea what direction he was stumbling off into. Dave was back at his elbow after a few paces, touching with just his fingertips, more hesitant after Klaus had torn his hands from Dave’s.

“Okay, hey. Come on, this way.” Dave said, nodding his head in the opposite direction.

Klaus stopped and let out an irritated breath, but turned and walked in the direction Dave was indicating.

“You don’t even know where he’s taking you Klaus. You need to call Diego.” Ben said at Klaus’s side.

Klaus wasn’t having this argument again. He swung a hand weakly in the direction of the voice, ‘shh’-ing harshly and waving Ben off. He was too tired to deal with Diego’s shit, too tired to try to do any of this himself, too tired to care if Dave drugged him or held him down or tied him up or killed him, he was just too tired. The thought of having to go through so much tonight, sleeping outside, having to figure out what to steal and then actually successfully stealing said thing, pawning it, finding a dealer, and getting back to Pete’s while concussed and also beginning withdrawals sounded like Hell so he didn’t care what Dave did to him. It couldn’t be worse, could it?

Dave led him into the parking garage and Klaus followed, having to remind himself periodically to keep his eyes open. Before Klaus knew it, he was standing in front of a car and Dave was opening a door for him. He wasn’t sure that he remembered the entire walk over. He let muscle memory take over, the familiar motion of lifting one leg into the car and leaning down to sit being executed, but he manage to smack his forehead on the frame of the car before he made it in. Klaus gasped in pain, both hands flying to press against his forehead as shooting heat seared through his head accompanied by a throbbing ache that felt like it might burst through his skull. His knees buckled instantly and he went down.

He was caught just before hitting the ground by Dave’s arms under his armpits. The jolt from the catch alone sent another wave of pain through Klaus’s head and he nearly dry-heaved, though he wasn’t sure if it was because of the dizziness, the withdrawal, or the pain.

“Woah, woah, careful. I’m sorry, here. Let me help,” Dave said, voice gentle.

Klaus didn’t fight, he was boneless as he let Dave guide him into the car, with Dave taking more of his weight than was probably fair. He kept his eyes squeezed close and curled up in the seat. He was vaguely aware of tears on his cheeks, so he pressed both palms over his eyes, hiding his face against his knees as he breathed through the pain. It took another moment to register that Dave’s hand was on his calf, thumb rubbing slow, soothing circles there.

“Are you okay?” Dave asked softly.

Klaus sniffled and wiped his face before he opened tired eyes and looked at him, nodding minutely.

“Yeah. Just hurts,” he breathed.

Dave nodded and let go of Klaus’s leg, standing up from where he’d been crouched and though it was ridiculous and a testament to how messed up Klaus must be, he missed the touch. It had been kind and comforting and it wasn’t the kind of touch he often received.

Dave only moved a little though, opening the back door to reach in and grab something before returning to crouch beside Klaus. He shook out a warm, flannel-lined denim jacket and draped it over Klaus’s bare torso, tucking it up under his chin. Klaus just curled into it, pulling his bare feet up onto the seat to tuck under the coat too, feeling the ache in his spine that told him that the chills would be starting soon. He closed his eyes and tucked his face down into the collar, noting the scent. It was warm and soft and comforting and delicious and it made Klaus sigh in relief, snuggling in further. He was more comfortable than he’d remembered being in a long time.

“Thanks, Dave,” Klaus breathed.

He felt a hand ruffle his hair gently and then something wrap around him and click—a seatbelt, he realized—and then the door closed, the sound making Klaus whimper. Dave got in the driver’s seat and closed his door, again making Klaus stiffen and grunt. The car was started and then they were moving, which was awful, absolutely nauseatingly awful, but Dave turned the heater on and that felt nice and it’d grown dark out, so that was nice too.

He did his best to let his thoughts be lulled by the movement of the car, breathing in the scent at the collar of Dave’s jacket. He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he was being woken by a hand on his knee. He jerked, opening his eyes blearily under the wash of the car’s interior lights. His eyes found Dave and he relaxed a little.

“Sorry. We’re here, you doing okay?” Dave asked, voice gentle and patient as he removed his hand from Klaus’s knee.

Klaus nodded at first, but then felt a rolling sensation in his stomach and jolted a little, hands scrabbling for the seatbelt. He quickly amended his reaction into a shake of his head, a little too frantic, which hurt his head all over again and sent bile rising up his throat. It took two tries to get the belt unbuckled.

“Gonna be sick,” he breathed, scrambling out of the car like a baby deer on ice, thankfully caught by Dave.

Dave helped him to his feet and led him quickly the two steps to the grass just in time for Klaus to heave. His knees buckled, but Dave caught him yet again with an arm around his waist, supporting his weight. The press of the arm against his abdomen only made him heave again, harder this time. There wasn’t really anything in his stomach, but he spit out whatever stomach acid had risen, breathing hard through the spinning sensation that followed.

“F-fuck. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Dave,” he said, voice quivering.

“No, no need to apologize. It’s okay. Are you alright? Let’s get you upstairs and I’ll get you some water,” Dave said patiently—always so patient.

Klaus nodded, feeling a little more settled—still shaky and a bit nauseous and dizzy, but he didn’t think he was going to throw up again. Dave let Klaus go when he seemed confident Klaus could hold his own weight, returning to the car to close the door before coming back to Klaus’s side.

“Alright, let’s get you cleaned up, huh?” Dave said kindly, placing his hand against Klaus’s elbow in a gesture that was quickly becoming familiar.

#klave fic #klave #tua #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #dave katz #klaus hargreeves #klaus x dave #dave x klaus #tw: violence #tw: vomiting

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minimalisticmonstermash · 3 years

Text

What the Fandom (actually) thinks about the SPN Finale 15x20!

A short while ago I posted a Quiz [Which Part of Supernatural Season 16 are you?] and the post has 27 notes, so I thought barely anyone would have taken this, but it turns out actually a couple people did. And I´m so glad I did put in one free form question: “Would be please be so kind to sum up the finale in 3 words. (Or 333 if you want to...)” Because the past days I clicked through the notifications on the quiz, which is kind of tedious, but I could not stop cause what people put in there is a mood, a riot, the pure unfiltered truth, eloquent and outrageous in the best way! And so I collected the answers and tried to roughly group them. Which you can find under the cut. (If someone that took the quiz wants to be tagged or have the commentary removed please just message me!) Can you guess what the most common 3 words were?

The rare acceptance or praise not that bad // Not entirely horrible. // satisfaction and closure :D // good idea, shaky execution, ultimately fulfilling // epic love story

Grounded Truth & the well adjusted It was something // well that happened

CW & Network aka. put the blame where it (probably) belongs network fuckery afoot // Corporate Fuckery Ahoy! // network bullshit ruined everything // fuck the cw // Fuck the CW // Fuck you cw // cw ships wincest // FUCK ROBERT SINGER // Greed won

Make some Effort (@show) Lazy // half-assed fever dream // feverish dream (nightmare) // Could be better // Not comprehensible, stupid, low budget // How did buckleming do better // Fuck you, spn writers. Could have done better

Hate Crime A hate crime // literal hate crime // The hate crime // I only need 2 and it's hate and crime // subtle-but-not hate crime // hatecrime to all Homophobia Call Out Straight Gay Chicken// not gay enough // bad unsexy homophobic // Where's my gay? // horrific hetero nightmare // Homophobic queerbait bullshit // no homo shitshow // Bury your gays // silencing, erasing, ugly // Homophobic and incestual // homophobic disappointing stifd // Character assassination and homophobia // Stinky, censorship, offensive // Disappointingly heterosexual & bland You need to speak fandom for that why lamp wtf // It’s the turbo hell we were all sent to // Wheres the tapes??? Castiel centric so no cas? // So no cas? // Needs more Cas // No Cas, pathetic // where is cas // why no Cas // where was cas // yo a ti // where was castiel Bless you I released scripts for a reason

Deserving Better! Damn Right! They deserved better // They deserved better // They deserved better // dean deserved better // dean deserved better // dean deserved better // Dean deserves better // destiel deserved better // Destiel deserve better. // Jensen deserved better // dumb , idiotic , horrible and #deanwinchesterdeservedbetter

Trash, Shit & Garbage aka. The scatological truth FUCK THIS SHIT // Shit shit shit // Shit shit shit // total shit // Shittiest fucking shit// Total and utter shite. // Piece of shit // Fuck this shit // Complete utter shit // Fucking pointless shitshow // stupid As all fuck // That was shit. // A shit show // what a shitshow // An absolute shitshow // total shit show // a shit show // A shit show // total shitshow lmao // absolute shit show // A shit show // Rancid shit show // i would say it's a shitshow but that's mean to shit // Complete utter shit // fuck that shit // fuck that shit // fuck this shit // Absolute fuckin bullshit // fucked up shit // Utter shit bro // Distilled horse shit // Absolute horse shit // Absolute Horseshit. 3. // Absolute dog crap // Piece of crap // pile of crap // piece of trash // Steaming trash fire // Shit ass garbage // Gar ba ge // Fucking trash fire // Absolute garbage fire // A dumpster fire // piece of trash // unfortunate dumpster fire // Flaming pile of garbage // disaster dumpster fire // Unsatifying flaming garbage // Dumpster fire on ice. A mess. Underwhelming. Incomprehensible. Oof // I got 2: dumpster fire // Complete. Fucking. Bullshit. // Complete utter bullshit // utter gross bullshit // Shit fuck shame // hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck

Still won´t read any praise here The worst thing // a complete disaster // so fucked up // It was terrible // it really sucked // Man it sucked // Well that sucked // Fucking sucked bro // it fucking sucked // it sucked ass it was fucked // Sucked major ass. // It sucked ass // very not good :( // it was bad :( // Absolutely fucking awful // The very worst // bad. bad. wincest... // Bad bad bad // bad poop ending // bad funni yuck // horrendous nightmare fuel // A fucking nightmare // worst thing i’ve never seen in my life // an absolute atrocity // a fucking disaster it was terrible // an absolute disgrace // Just so awful // Really Fucking Bad // Literally the worst // Real real bad // Bad stupid bad // uhh very bad // crap bad lacking // horrible rude worst // awful // bad // bad // Crap // wack Ugh. // No // UGH // Bad, messy, dumb // Bad terrible worst ugh // Oof my dude // deep deep sigh 9000+ epic failure // Small dick energy

Demands! Suck my dick // Not it motherfucker

Thinking of all of us! We all lost

Summed up in 3 Words Bitch. Fucker. Ass. // Death age heaven // Dead, married, forgotten // Sam Dead Car // Dead, Sad, & Car. // Dead, Sad, Car // Slow shambling death // burns in hell // Absurd, wtf, huh // fucking odoriferous stench.

Not Canon & Fake & Insulting insulting. not canon // Unsatisfying, degrading, noncanonical // Disgusting Insulting Fake // sad, bullshit, not-a-finale // Embarrassing, ridiculous, insulting // disheartening, harmful, horrible // Terrible. Disgusting. Hilarious // Incomplete. Unkind. Nonsensical. // Traumatising, stupid, horrendous // horrible incomplete unsuccessful // Disgusting, disrespectful, unreal

Disappointments & Complaints very big disappointment // disappointing, disrespectful, baffling // An utter disappointment // disappointment of the decade // Fruitless, regressive, insulting, disturbing, and all-in-all just disappointing // the complete unpackage // supernatural finale clusterfuck // WRONG, Horrible, Offensive // poo rehash bad // Unnecessary character deaths Betrayal & Inconsistency Stupid awful depressing poorly written inconsistent betrayal // Boring betrayal // inconsistent, monotonous mess // inconsistent disappointing mess

Denial! Aka. The wise! Finale? What finale? // What finale ? // what finale? // Finale? What finale? Ohhhh yeah 15x18 was great // you mean 15x18? // Did not happen. // What the...what?? // What finale ??? // um.........what finale? // finale? what finale. // what finale? it didn't air yet. last episode that aired was 15x18 pffft // what finale :) // Does Not Exist // It never happened // That didn’t happen // No, i refuse, there was a finale??? // what finale?? // It doesn't exist // it doesn't exist // Weird of season 15 to end with 19 episodes and an open ending // what finale? the show got canceled after 15x18 // Finale? What finale? Supernatural isn’t over. I’m not in denial, you are // an atrocity i've erased from my memory // I Can't See Suddenly. I Don't Know// Don’t know her.

Consequences & Emotions (I hope you´re all okay, have a hug!) Oh my god it was awful. Hated it. Made me reactivate in the fandom. And obses over that show AGAIN. Oh, and yeah, yeeted me to a place so dark that I got me some new scars. // Ymmmmm, fuck the finale. It got me spiraling down back to depression and self harm. Didn't make sence. Badly written. Badly executed (well, except acting) // Never wanted to claw my own face off more than watching that heap of garbage // fuckin hated it // My heart hurts // Stupid unsatisfying pain // slap inthe face // I am unhinged // Im throwing up // I am sad // i went feral // Broke my heart // hurt my feelings / I wanna die // i hate it <3 // I hated it // I hate it // Extreme rage inducing // Trauma, It was // Oh. Oh dear. // Absolute soul crushing, sucked sunshine and joy out of this world and any other possible reality this abomination exists in. It hurt so much I actually disassociated and had a real life horrible week. Luckily anger finally swept in and fan fiction ultimately saved the day. // AWFUL. HARMFUL. DEPRESSING. I HATE IT // Waste of time // My villain origin story // Destroyed rewatch value

This is unfortunately too true disturbingly pro-suicide // odd lacking empty

Valid Questions: why’d’ya do that // Why why why

WTF?! What the … “The popular 3” What The Fuck // What the fuck// what the fuck // What the fuck. // what the fuck // What the fuck // What the fuck // What the fuck. // What the fuck // What. The. Fuck. // What The Fuck // What the fuck // what the fuck // what the fuck // What the fuck // What the fuck // What the fuck?! // What. The. Fuck. // What the fuck?! // what. the. fuck. (was that????) // What the actual fuck? // 1. What 2. The 3. Fuck // 'what the fuck' // The actual fuck? // What the heck, //// What the heck // What the heck // what the hell // What the hell? // what the hell

Narative & Character Development That was pointless // Failure of storytelling // 15 years of story and character development down the fucking drain // Fuck character arcs, no free will // Assassination of character // Lost character development // character development is dead // disjointed alien mess I don't know these characters what the fuck // boring, loveless, characters are ignoring // Season 1 Finale. // From darker timeline // Awful Forgetable OOC // piece of shit all the character development thrown out the window. cas deserved better (also to be with dean cause they are in love) // Underwhelming, disappointing garbage, a slap in the face of chatacter development. // the dark ending // The Chuck ending we didn't deserve. // a dumpster fire on the level of the GoT finale - all character dev & story arc thrown out. CLOWN VAMPIRES

The Jokers among us, or those finding a laugh in the grimmest things a comedy // Just a joke

Relateable: AAAA AAAAA AAAA // AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I see what you did there and I love you 333 // 333 // 333 // 333 // 333 variations of the word fuck I especially love you 666

Rebels! 4 words (sorry): they showed their hand // The end of hope (that’s 4 words but too bad)

Didn´t watch the Finale for various reasons Haven’t seen it, // i didn't watch it out of spite // haven't seen it yet for some reason // didn’t watch it // I didn’t watch it but everything that happened because of it activated the decade-old sleeper agent part of my brain that was a spn fan // I stopped watching spn in the middle of season 12... The finale was awful from what I gathered

Hello Stranger, we welcome you here I don't actually watch SPN I'm taking this for kicks bro

The Refusal (either of the finale or the question) Nope // No thank you // no // No // No thanks, fuckers // No thank you. // No // This is bullshit // haha what? No // Please, not this // Oh god no // noooooo oooo ooo // ....no. // No. It sucks // I will not <3 // no thank you // no no no // no thank you // Lmao wtf no // Nope. Just no. Refusal is self care! No, I won't let it hurt me again. // I can't, it's too bad

The offensive Wig! Party city wig // party city wig // party city wig // Homophobic, bad, wig // shitty sam wig // party city wig // Party City Wig // party city wig // Jared's fucking wig // bad, homophobic, party city wig // The Wig™ Blurry wife Sam's blurry wife

The Nail / Rebar! ( @the-rusty-nail-that-killed-dean @therustynailthatkilleddean you are recognized) nailed by dickbar // rusty nail wins // Rusty fuckin nail. // Nail Dean Death Clown // dean got nailed // Rebar. Cas helped.

All of those Dickbar, Blurry Wife, Driving for 40yrs,Party City Wig, Drone Shot (cringe) // absolute trash fire garbage, burn the party city wig and the cw down but keep the dog

Those with crystal balls expected i guess // disappointed, not surprised

Puzzled (Yeah me too) or Undecided or Eh i don’t even fucking know // Jggfdv // Huy // Meh // Meh // meh // it was bad ??

Let´s create great fanworks!! free real estate

Defies Categories and is good stuff everything for nothing. // traumatizing, badly-written, comedic // devastating yet obnoxious // God is dead but hegemonic masculinity is still kicking // maam this is a wendys // am so glad that I was a whovian. I've dodged two bullets. // F's in the chat // >:((

I´m sorry, I failed you with this quiz quiz was wrong // Dude. Dude you gave me "liking the finale" a minute ago. I assure you; i did not. "You have found peace" bro I haven't known a SECOND of peace since that ill-begotten nightmare of a shitstorm // [[“I STILL HOPE UR DAY WAS G”:]] HOW THE FUCK DID I GET THAT I LIKED THE FINALE PLS OP THIS IS NOT A MARK ON YOU OR ANYTHIG I LOVE U EVEN IF I DON'T KNOW YOU BTU PLS THE DEPRESSIVE STATE THAT I SPENT MY LIFE IN POST-FINALE DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE SHAMED IN THIS WAY I. PLEASE. I DID NOT LIKE THE FINALE. HOW DO I GET A DIFFERENT ANSWER PLEASE

Misha? Was that you? Rancid Nut Work

Particular Stuff Fuck john Winchester // [[“ Mj”; ]]fucking disgusting shitshow [okay so that was 3 words, but MAY I JUST SAY, c*w was incredibly disrespectful to Misha, Cas, Jensen, and Dean. Misha played a Cas for 12 years, and then he's not even in the finale? and Cas gets mentioned a whopping total of 2 times after he confesses his love to Dean?? and then, Jensen. 15 years of his life on Supernatural. Jensen turned down the role to be Captain America, and his best friend is Dean, the character he plays. But then Dean dies on a rusty nail, never getting to actually live his life? Dean died how he always thought he would- and he died as "Daddy's Blunt Instrument", finishing off his dad's unfinished case. J*hn Winch*ster ab*sed him and Sam mentally, emotionally, and possibly physically too, and does NOT deserve to get a Heaven at all, least of all, a Heaven right by Deans. Dean never got to live how he wanted to and was repressed as fuck, and this is all because of his dad, the resident shit head. And don't even get me started on the queer erasure, and racism. Kevin Tran deserved better. He, after through all he suffered on Earth, deserves to go to Heaven, not be tortured in the afterlife forever. I fully believe that it's just because he was Asian. If J*hn got into Heaven, why couldn't Kevin. Also, not to mention, Charlie, Rowena, Claire, Patience, Kaia, Crowley, Donna, and Jodi, and probably countless of other queer characters who were erased. They were silenced and fuck the cw for doing that. I could add so much more, but for now, have an excellent day and a wonderful year :)] // [[“Yellowcollins”:]] hat the fuck was that literally what the fuck. I’m convinced the writers did not watch a single episode they made past season 3. There was literally not a SINGLE character from season 4 onwards in the finale. LITERALLY. NO. ONE. and what about “family don’t end in blood” that they’ve been preaching since LITERALLY season 1??? huh??????? nah fuck 15x20, this will go down and the WORST ending in the history of endings.

[cookie] < for everyone that made it that far ;)

#mmnope

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dragonrajafanfiction · 4 years

Text

Dragon Dancer III: Justice

I opened my eyes to a dimly lit space. I was hooked to an IV.

As soon as I turned my head, I saw Chisei in a white shirt and black pants. In front of him was a table of munitions. The man looked rough, a hollow of his former vibrant and frightening self.

He looked at me briefly. “You’re awake. Good. You’ve already started to heal. I need to return you to your teammates.”

Return me? I sat up, wincing against the bandages under my shirt. My ruined dress was gone, replaced by a thin white top and a bright red hakama. “Where am I?”

“We’re back at the shrine. It’s far from Tokyo and the only safe place now.”

I watched him as he pulled a gun holster around his waist.

“Chime?”

“Resting. I’ll be sending him and Erii away, out of Japan. It’s the only way to be safe.”

“I wanted to tell you, the King controls Chime with a woodblock...”

“He told me...” He glanced at me and slipped throwing knives into the sides of the holster.

“You’re still going back to the city?”

He paused, eyes narrowing, full of hatred. “You think I would leave after hearing something like that? I’m not leaving until the King is dead.”

I gripped the blanket covering me. “My wish is for you to get out of here alive. You wanted to be free from Hydra, right?”

“You had the chance to leave as well didn’t you? You didn’t take it.” He replied.

“How do you know that?”

“I heard you and the owner of the Takamagahara talking.” He tossed his trench coat over his shoulders and smiled at my open mouthed shock.

“You were there!”

“I was there for a while. And I am free from Hydra. Turns out that the King had planned for this. I’m not sure how he got the location of the White King. But he attacked as soon as she started her rampage. Immediately after the tsunami, he had forces in place to take us down in the chaos.”

He pulled black gloves over his hands. “Minamoto Heavy Industries was taken. Kaguya is gone. Yasha is dead. We lost Fuma in the escape... Hydra is completely defenseless. I thought we had won the war. Turns out the Devil Clan never cared about their own deaths or loss of territory. They had their ace in the hole... all our efforts were useless.”

He stopped. “Had I known I never would have....”

“But you didn’t know.” I said, raising my voice. “None of us did! This is all complete... insanity. The only person who had any clue about what was about to happen was Lu Mingfei! And I need to tell you something! Listen!”

He finally turned to me.

“I believe Lu Mingfei has been having prophetic visions. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But he told me he’s been dreaming about something terrible happening to Erii. He said first with water... and now with fire. Did he say anything about that?”

From the way his eyes shifted he seemed to be recalling something. He answered. “When he was with me, he did have frequent nightmares. About the sea and an unseen enemy. He said it was a dream of the future.”

“Now he dreams of fire.” I whimpered. “And Erii...”

“Thank you for telling me. I’ll get her out... Immediately.” He walked to me tucking under my arm to lift me up and carry me out to the waiting helicopter. It was still dark outside.

“Where are we going?”

“Anjou put out a call for you all to meet him at the Tokyo Meteorological Institute.”

“And what will you do? Are you going to come fight with us?”

“Heh. Unlikely. Anjou probably has his own ideas. For all I know he’s here to get you out.”

“No! I won’t leave here-”

He gave me a sympathetic look. “He’s already taken over Tokyo at this point. You don’t have a say in anything any more.”

My heart sank even as helicopter lifted. He was right. As we soared over the landscape, we stayed silent. I realized that he was saying goodbye. It was unlikely that we would see each other again, at least, not in a dragon slaying capacity.

“Keep in touch. Please? Don’t delete my number.”

“Why?”

“There’s so few people who are like me. Even surrounded by other hybrids, I feel lonely. And Mingfei will worry about Erii.”

He didn’t answer. I got the feeling he wanted to leave everything behind and that I was part of a past he no longer wanted.

Tokyo was a city becoming a ghost town. Lines of cars were backed up and people were abandoning them and walking with whatever they could carry. I felt a deep sense of failure. I was supposed to prevent this. I was sent here to stop this very thing.

I leaned my head against back of the seat, too miserable to even cry about it.

We landed. Chisei got out with me. I found I was already able to walk on my own, though it was still very painful to do much else. We went slowly to the elevator which we took down to a hall that led to a large conference room.

As soon as the door opened, I saw Anjou with Johann and Nono. They were sitting around a table discussing something. Turned out I was late to the meeting.

A man I didn’t know was saying. “I will contact the chief executive now, but he was out of contact and being evacuated. I'm not sure of his status.”

“I only need the coordinates!” Anjou was saying. “As long as he’s still alive let him talk to me. That arrogant bastard has already messed things up. That’s the least he should be able to do to help!”

I scowled. “Hey!”

They all turned to me. Johann stood up, eyes wide. “Meixiu!”

Chisei chuckled and squeezed my shoulder. “I am indeed and arrogant bastard who made a mess of things.”

Johann approached and I easily swapped Chisei’s arms for his. His hug hurt and I grunted in pain.

“You’re injured!”

“Is just a flesh wound!” I tried to joke, but the pain in my eyes said otherwise.

“Water storage well number 13, Design code Red Well, in the mountains near the Tama River. Here are the coordinates.” He handed the seething Anjou a piece of note paper.

“Principal. I’m sorry, I tried I really tried...” I pulled away from Johann.

“I will not accept any apologies from you young lady.” Anjou’s cold eyes brooked no argument. “Your mission was very simple and became... very complicated!”

I’d never seen Anjou so furious, gazing at Chisei who took it with numb indifference. But the man had lost everything and I couldn’t stand that Anjou was going to take his anger out on him.

“I won’t testify against him! He was only doing what he thought was right!”

Anjou cut me off. “You’ll be permitted to stay in this room so long as you don’t say another word.”

Johann’s hand squeezed my shoulders. “Easy...” He whispered, guiding me to a chair.

Anjou handed the note to a man behind him. “Johann, Nono, let me talk to these two alone.”

Johann left me and walked out. Nono glanced at me but looked away before I could read her expression. The door shut.

For a while, no one said anything while Anjou gathered his thoughts.

“When I came to Japan,” He began. “...you were one of the few people I wanted to meet. But you kept refusing to meet me. This is the first time I’ve traveled abroad to meet a former student and have been repeatedly rejected. You even received my scholarship, only to waste it.”

“It is my pride as a student to be able to get the principal's scholarship... it is my prerogative as a patriarch to refuse to meet you.” Chisei said quietly. “Unfortunately, I am not a good student and I have not learned the most important things from you.”

Chisei then looked at me. “I am not a competent patriarch. Those people who believed that I was the coming Amaterasu died for me. and I failed to give them a brand new future... and now my clan is at its end.”

I didn’t want to hear that from him. But I wasn’t allowed to talk any more, so I avoided his eyes and silently brooded.

“And after so many years, you’re still being pursued by your past, Chisei.”

“You mean Chime? Someone told you?”

“You told me.”

I looked up at Chisei.

“You forgot? You told me years ago, back when you were at Cassell. We were drinking together when you told me this story... only you talked about it like it had happened to someone else. At that time you were asking about the cost of justice.”

“I... have forgotten. I thought I would never tell anyone that story.”

He told me. Perhaps I’d grown closer to him than even he realized.

“Then you forgot what I told you about justice?”

Chisei looked a little sheepish. “Can you... please tell me again?”

The atmosphere had relaxed quite a bit. My ears perked up.

“You remember Benedict’s book?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“He talked about an ultimate justice. That so long as this person obeys this justice, then the world will never reject him. Because it’s above the individual.”

He pulled out a cigar as this was a very long lecture for him. He lit it, letting the smoke curl over both sides of his face.

“However, there is no justice that can exceed the individual. For some people, revenge is justice. For others, protection is justice. If your brother’s happiness is he most important thing in your heart, then you should be willing to take on the entire world for him. You think you paid the price for ‘justice’.”

He turned to look at Chisei. “But the justice you obey is not what you really want. The Justice you obey is taught to you by others. It is not your individual justice. So now, even though you did what you thought was right, you’re tormented by your conscience!”

Chisei glanced away, looking all the world like a scolded child. “For you... revenge is justice, principal!”

“It is! Haha!” He laughed. “My life has been summer and it has been winter. When I met my friends I was lonely and poor in life. But they turned it into summer. I belonged. I had true friends. And then... the dragons took that all away. The remainder of my life is growing shorter. There no one else like me in the world. No one shares my experiences, my memories. I am truly utterly alone. My revenge is all I have left. So... it is my justice.”

He took a long drag on his cigar and I lowered my head. I’d never thought of the Principal as a lonely person but who else had lived as long as he did?

“But,” He’s voice brightened. “...it is not the only justice. Let’s take our genius, Carli here for just a moment.”

I gave him a deer in the headlights look.

“Chisei, you and your organization have left her life an absolute misery! You destroyed everyone she loved. And you pursued her with the intention of killing her. And yet. I say one word against you and she leaps to your defense! Do you know why?”

Chisei shifted, uncomfortable. “I...”

Anjou’s expression changed to one of bewilderment as he gestured to me. “It’s because she has no concept of hatred! It’s not in her nature, not even a little bit!”

I looked at Chisei who avoided my eyes.

“She’s the only one I’ve ever met like this. At least, to this extraordinary degree.” He puffed his cigar. “Now... some would look down on this. After reading the reports, it was clear that she was slow to act to escape from the Takamagahara. She took unnecessary risks in attempting to align with the people pursuing to kill her. Things could have easily gone another way.”

“It took another man’s hatred to finally move things forward. These are facts. However...” He took another puff.

“It’s also a fact, that had Chu Zihang been leading, your brother would be dead. You probably would be dead as well. The mission would have succeeded on a mountain of death. Had Nono been lead, likely similar circumstances with perhaps a lower body count.”

“Many would say, Carli’s route was much more difficult. Much more fraught with danger. Much more risky. Slow! However, unlike her loved ones, your loved ones are still alive.”

Chisei didn’t look at me.

“Carli?”

“Yes... sir?” I asked hesitating.

“Do you regret anything you’ve done here in Japan?” He looked directly into my eyes with a laser like intensity.

“Um...” My eyes shifted a bit, thinking. After that moment’s consideration, I answered. “No sir.”

He turned to Chisei. “Do you see the difference?”

A memory popped into my head, Johann Chu at my bedside. My voice saying: Don’t tell me what to do!

I lowered my eyes again, examining the grain of the wood on the table, chewing my lip.

Chisei took a deep breath and let it out. “After this many years, it’s great to listen to your lectures again.” He said.

With that Anjou ended his lecture. “From this moment on, the control has been transferred to Cassell College. You have a good rest. I hope we can all see the sun rise tomorrow.”

“You’re using the space based kinetic weapon on the White King?”

“I no longer need to discuss the White King with you, Chisei. I know you wanted to stop it on your own, but you failed.’

I looked back up again.

Anjou gave me a hard glare, that was dampened by a smile that appeared after it. I was still not allowed to talk.

Chisei took the rejection in stride. He got up, slowly bowed to Anjou and left through the long corridor. I stood up and pursued him. “Chisei!”

He paused.

“Please... be safe.”

He turned away, walking back to the helicopter.

I turned away to find Johann who had been waiting on the other side of the hall. I threw my arms around him.

“Are you alright?”

“Neither of us will face consequences.” I looked up at him. His expression was blank but his eyes were kind. I was happy to see him. I stretched up to kiss him and then flinched. “Ow.”

“The lounge is right over there. Go sit down. I’ll get you something for the pain.”

#Chisei Gen #Anjou #Johann Chu #Nono #JUSTICE #Dragon Raja #Fanfiction #Writing

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myevilmouse · 4 years

Text

In Defense of The Rise of Skywalker

Or...how I learned to stop hating and enjoy a movie

Spoilers and random thoughts below the cut.

I hate the abomination that was/is The Last Jedi. Let’s get that out of the way. I’ve already explained the hundreds of reasons why, the biggest and most unforgivable being the character assassination of Luke “I call him Jake” Skywalker and the invalidation of every victory of the OT. I resent this making people lump me into a “gatekeeper” sect, or accuse me of racism (Rose was annoying and ruined Finn’s heroism, jeopardizing hundreds of lives for her own selfish reasons without building up a convincing romance and blah blah etc). It has nothing to do with her gender, race, or anything. It has to do with poor character development and inconsistent motivations/messages.

I’m also not a huge fan of The Force Awakens, mainly for its lack of originality and the treatment of Han/Leia, but otherwise I thought it was OK. I liked Finn, wanted him to become a Jedi, found Poe to be a worthy heir to our antihero mold. Rey left me indifferent and Kylo Ren was a temper-tantrum throwing teenager, but anyway...

Let’s keep that as background/context and not get bogged down.

Since they announced the title of this movie, I have been livid with rage. How dare they use my man’s name to sell their disgusting imitation of a beloved universe? I was certain, ever since it was announced, that Rey would take Luke’s surname, despite having treated him so horribly in TLJ, despite having done nothing to earn it, despite having spent far more time with Leia, so if anything a Solo/Organa family name would make more sense. It was just to sell tickets and I was furious.

I read all the spoilers. Worst fears: confirmed. I looked at leaked photos. I raged over the inanity of the plot and the sad conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, which in my mind will always end with ROTJ.

Still, I love Mark Hamill, and I decided to treat this film as a MH film. The completist in me required theatrical viewing. Rare to get our man in a cinematic release. So I went, ready to hate watch, prepared to dull the bitterness and betrayal with wine.

But….JJ Abrams directed a fix it fic. And it’s good. This film not just address the real injustices and horrible story decisions of TLJ, but also addresses some of the major problems of TFA too.

I tried to go in with an open mind, but obviously I had many preconceived notions, and already knew almost every single story point and character beat. I was ready to roll around in my hate and slam the abomination. I want to emphasize that I am one of those people that was COMPLETELY prepared to hate EVERYTHING about this.

There are flaws.

But there is so much that is great.

I really really liked it.

No one is more shocked than I at my own reaction. I was ready/willing/wanting/primed to hate everything about this. Please keep that in mind. Hahah and no one is paying me to write this post 😉

I decided to write this because I also read all the negative critical reviews online from the pro critics yelling FAN SERVICE. And I’m like…damn straight? Ever since George Lucas made Han shoot second, fandom has understood that we understand this franchise better than film executives. We aren’t concerned with adding an extra dewback or improving special effects. We love these films the way we first experienced them, and they cannot and should not be “improved” to the ultimate detriment of the brand.

I’m here to tell you that the critics are not being fair. The spoilers on reddit were true, but the movie works. Let’s accept, before we go further, that Abrams couldn’t entirely rewrite the mess that he stepped into/helped create. So I can’t defend the fact that Finn isn’t a Jedi yet or the mess that is the new Rebellion/failure of the old. I, like many fans, wish we had been given a different/better story from the beginning. Sadly, we were not.

That is something we don’t have to accept (I certainly don’t consider these films “canon” in my mind—Mara Jade forever!) but let’s approach this film in the spirit it seems to be intended: An attempt to address the very valid criticisms loudly voiced about the others in the trilogy, with the caveat that we are stuck with TFA and TLJ no matter how much we hate them.

First, the music is amazing, as we all knew it would be. The acting is stellar.

Some of the things Abrams “fixed:”

“Rey is perfect/Mary Sue/good at everything”. There is a conscious effort in this film to show her training, with Leia as her Master. There is a good scene foreshadowing her final struggle, where she strains to hear the voices of Jedi past and fails. There are several signs that she is not a Jedi yet, including how Palpatine talks about her, and perhaps my favorite, when she tells Leia she hasn’t earned Luke’s lightsaber.

Me: Damn straight you haven’t.

And Leia AGREES, keeping Luke’s weapon because Rey isn’t ready for it. She’s still learning.

Further proof of her non-Jedi status, when Rey is killed, she doesn’t join the Force. She is a corpse. On the other hand, Ben Solo, once redeemed, disappears as we would expect a good Jedi to do. A clear distinction between the two of them.

And speaking of Leia:

Leia’s character: TFA and TLJ Leia is weak and sends other people to fight, whereas our brave Princess from the OT is volunteering for suicide missions, grabbing weapons from the hands of her rescuers, and running into danger for a good cause. It always bothered me that she didn’t go after Kylo herself (or with Han). In this, we see her as a Jedi Master, training Rey, with her own lightsaber. Leia is once more a badass, true to her character. A legitimate Jedi who also joins the Force (although not sure why it took her so long post-mortem, that was weird).

Luke’s character: Hello, I am A LUKE FANATIC. The biggest sin of TFA and especially TLJ was this idea of Luke hiding out and becoming the disgusting, pessimistic coward he was shown to be. Abrams ignores this pretty much entirely, starting with the revelation that Luke was actually going on missions with Lando to hunt for a Sith artifact to help the Rebellion. Luke kept notes, he was busy and ACTIVE. He wasn’t giving up; he was leaving a trail to help anyone who followed. The best ‘fuck you’ in the whole movie was Luke catching Anakin’s lightsaber when Rey throws it away. The ultimate rejection of his TLJ characterization.

Luke’s conversation with Rey echoes very much the ROTJ “you must confront Vader” conversation. There are many echoes of ROTJ but given the restrictions on what we are working with, I accepted this parallel. Much like Luke had to face his unfortunate inheritance, so must Rey. It’s not terribly original, but these films aren’t.

I also loved the simple line “I was wrong” when Rey asks why he did what he did in TLJ. This to me is simply “Rian Johnson was wrong/The Last Jedi was wrong.” There is no excuse that is acceptable, but this is a filmmaker acknowledging an injustice, and I appreciated it. (Did I mention these films are not canon for me? They aren’t, just giving credit for this attempt.)

Han’s character: I hated SO MUCH how they turned Han into a failure in TFA. A buffoon, not even a good smuggler anymore, a failure as a father, a husband. When I heard he was going to be in this I was like HUH? But this “memory” of his father that Kylo Ren sees after Rey heals him and departs, after he’s lost his mother, is another attempt to redeem the injustice to Han’s character. Han is the one in the movie who brings Kylo Ren back to the Light, not Rey. It is a very short scene, but effective. The acting is poignant, with the “Dad” working for me. Maybe I’m a softie. But I appreciated this brief proof that Han Solo, in the end, didn’t suck as a father, and ultimately, even as a hallucination, inspired the love that saved his son.

Chewbacca got a medal: I said Abrams was fixing things in the sequels, but I admit I was choked up to see this fixit from A New Hope. Finally Chewie gets the medal he is LONG overdue.

Team dynamic with the new characters: Finally we understand why these people care about each other. They go on shared adventures, they have banter (and some good jokes, not the stupid bathos of TLJ), and there is finally some sense of camaraderie that was discarded in TLJ. There are several references to Rey’s “new family,” clearly referring to this band of Rebels, and it was far more compelling than in earlier films.

Finn’s Force Sensitivity: I, like many, desperately wanted Finn to be a Jedi. Since TFA, it seemed inevitable! I loved how he used the lightsaber, how he seemed to have Force abilities (that were never really explored). TLJ ignored that potential completely, sidelining him on that stupid Canto Bight quest and pulling him away from Rey. There are so many signs that he is destined to be a Jedi in this film, I was thrilled to see them. Knowing things without explanation, doing amazing things, sensing things, trusting his feelings, it’s another ‘fuck you’ in my opinion, to RJ for ignoring this former stormtrooper’s destiny in favor of overblown set pieces and pointless CGI theatrics. When he says, towards the end “I can feel it,” I wanted to fist pump. YOU GO BE A JEDI FINN! THE FORCE IS WITH YOU. Personally, I would have loved for Finn to be the main protagonist of all three films, but I appreciate us getting what we got, since we can’t get what we want.

Stuff that worked:

The Wedge cameo: Yeah.

Lando: Wonderful. His dialogue, especially at the beginning, does a lot to fix our view of Luke.

Kylo’s redemption: See above re: Han. I’ve seen a lot of criticism about the kiss. I get the whole “female character’s purpose is to validate the evolution of the male” criticism, but I want to point out a couple things about this. First of all, it’s not a “Reylo” kiss. Kylo is gone. This is well after Kylo is redeemed. He’s been of the Light for a while before this, it’s clearly Ben at this point. It’s also obvious Rey knows that, and like Luke forgave Vader for his abuse, she forgives Ben Solo for his. So I understand also the criticism that is making people puke about Rey kissing her abuser, but again, Luke sheds tears for the father he loves, who maimed and traumatized him. Star Wars is about redemption and forgiveness that accompanies it, and I don’t have the same issue with this. If she kissed KYLO without him being redeemed before he died, for example, I would be disgusted. This is not that.

The cinematography/pacing/story: So many critics and the spoilers made it sound like this was a convoluted mess. I went to see it with a non-native English speaker and neither of us had any trouble following the plot. Yeah, a lot happens, but it all is linear and consistent within the film.

The humor/dialogue: Felt way more Star Wars-y and better placed than the last two films.

The Jedi Helping Rey: As much as I thought I would hate this, it was really well done, largely, I think, due to the foreshadowing during her earlier training. When Palpatine says all the Sith live in him and we know what she’s gonna say but it still works SO WELL. I was rooting for her and I’ve never been a huge fan. But at that climactic moment, I was a believer.

Major flaws

Of course there are some. For me the most major:

A Jedi Strikes Not In Anger: In every single lightsaber battle (pretty sure, I only saw the film once), Rey is the first to strike. She always seems to be fighting from anger and with negative emotion. This is not at all Jedi-esque and I found it particularly jarring in her duels with Kylo Ren. This bothered me more than almost anything else in the film because it is never addressed. She fights ANGRY and she fights FEARFUL and then somehow when she’s supposed to strike down Palpatine, she has it in her to resist. This, above all else, makes me not like her as the “heir to the Jedi”. I thought it was a real problem, and makes her ultimate evolution at the finale less convincing.

Rey Skywalker: I get why they did it, but I stand by my earlier thoughts regarding taking the Solo or Organa name. I have nothing against adopted families. And I found it SLIGHTLY more palpable because since the Emperor refers to Ben as “the last Skywalker” and then since he transfers his entire life force into her, you can argue that she has “Skywalker” literally in her spirit now. OK fine. But I still don’t really think she earned it. She came CLOSER than I thought she would and I didn’t ultimately want to burn down the cinema as I expected I would want to.

Force Resurrection: No. Just no. This changes so much and makes so much of the earlier films moot. Why wouldn’t Anakin just resurrect Padme? Don’t get me started.

Other random new Force things: Like Force Ghosts touching shit. Yeah I know Obi Wan sat on the tree in Dagobah, I know, but we keep learning new and more powerful Force shit each film. Teleportation of objects (that lightsaber?!), astral projection, rapid healing, and now playing catch with your ghost friends. I get they are important to the story but it feels lazy. But my exception here was Luke catching the saber because FUCK YOU RJ. 😊

Redemption=Death: I wanted Kylo Ren to die for his sins too, but I recognize this strange thing we have going on in the GFFA that if a baddie goes good they die. It’s the equivalent of the horror movie “fuck and the killer gets you” trope. I didn’t necessarily mind Ben dying, but it seemed … lazy.

The final shot: It was a mistake to even touch this iconic moment. It wasn’t earned. Make your own legend/iconic moment and leave my farmboy his.

Something no one can fix: The sucky destinies of Luke Jake, Han, and Leia. They didn’t live happy lives, they didn’t see the end of tyranny, they all died with only the hope of success. I will never forgive the attempted destruction of the legacy of the OT (attempted cause it’s still how it all ends in my world), this disregard of the triumph of the Rebellion over the Empire, and I will never believe that the New Republic failed so completely and miserably. Bring on the EU/Legends and forget this shit.

Final thought: I went to this expecting the cinematic equivalent of a back alley abortion and instead I got what felt like an apology. An entertaining and polished and sincere apology. We deserved better, and I think the people who made this film realized that and did their best. TROS had to wrap up something that was divisive and imperfect and misguided, and tried as hard as it could, in my opinion, given what they were working with.

It was a good movie. Ambitious, with flaws, but I am glad I saw it, and I hope you will be too. <3 May the Force be with you.

#tros spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #ix spoilers #my thoughts

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heyyyharry · 5 years

Text

Chapter 2: Boss

(from the Flatmate Trilogy: Two Hearts, One Home)

...in which Y/N deals with more problems at work, and Harry makes a life changing decision.

Word count: 4.1k

Chapter 1: Honeymoon - Y/N and Harry go to Greece for their honeymoon and run into a couple they hate.

Wattpad link

Y/N wasn't a workaholic, she kept telling herself that, but it did feel good to finally get back to work after her honeymoon. The trip was doubtlessly wonderful, and she'd never felt more loved in her entire life. If she'd had a choice, she probably would've picked to stay on the island with Harry. But let's be realistic, how could they afford another expensive holiday if they neglected their jobs? Now it was time to focus on what really mattered for their future together. Money.

Besides, Y/N did miss her desk at the office, and even though her co-workers weren't all angels. She was sure some of them missed her, if not all. When she came back, they would rush to her with open arms and said—

"The proposal you sent me was crap."

All eyes in the room shifted to Y/N, who was still trying to figure out what was happening. She'd heard that everyone who had worked with Catherine Daniels had all the worst things to say about this woman. They said that she was terrible to people, that she was afraid of no one and wouldn't take criticism from anyone in this firm, that the only reason she was head of Media Relations was because she'd been here the longest. This was actually the first time Y/N had spoken face to face with Catherine, and she kind of understood why the nickname Catherine 'Dictator' existed.

"But that was what the client—"

"Enough with the same excuses." Catherine scoffed. "You people in Client Service has one simple job, to negotiate with the clients so it's easier for us, the ones who actually have to do the hard work and handle the journalists."

Y/N almost said sorry for something that wasn't entirely her fault, in hope that it might put an end to the tension between them. Thankfully, Kate showed up just in time to back her up. She gave Catherine a dirty look, pulling Y/N to her side.

"Go terrorize the people on your team, Catherine."

"Elizabeth is on maternity leave." Catherine responded with a sarcastic chuckle. "Who else would I blame this for? You?"

Elizabeth was the head of Client Service, Y/N's department. Unlike Catherine, that woman was the sweetest and she would never talk down to any of her team members. While watching Kate and Catherine arguing, Y/N really wished Elizabeth would magically appear and make everything better again.

"Mr. Coleman will take over Liz's responsibilities until she gets back," Kate chided as she put both hands on her hips. "So maybe you should go tell him how crappy you think the proposal is? He'll be in his office tomorrow morning."

Y/N almost forgot. There was someone in this company that Catherine was afraid of after all.

"Feels good to be teacher's pet, huh?" The hateful woman whispered to Y/N before turning back to Kate and said through gritted teeth, "if she doesn't send me a better proposal by tomorrow, set me an appointment with Coleman. He needs to know when to fire his favorite employee."

As Catherine stormed away, Kate turned to her wide-eyed friend, looking extremely pissed off. It couldn't be more obvious that she loathed that woman as much as anyone here; however, Y/N's tolerance of such rude behaviors was the main reason she was fuming with rage.

"You shouldn't have let her talk to you like that!"

"She was just...trying to do her job," Y/N mumbled, giving Kate a shrug. "I mean...it's probably difficult to deal with the media."

"Sis, it's the client who pays you money to deal with the media, so believe me, if the client wants the moon, you give them the moon! No question asked!" Kate slammed both hands onto the table, nearly causing Y/N's coffee cup to fall over. "Catherine always puts herself first and shits on all the others anyway. But don't worry, Jack will definitely defend you."

That was exactly what made Y/N worry. Jack would defend her, or at least try to fix her mistakes. After all she wasn't only his employee, but also his friend and might've been something more in the past. Even though she knew he would always be fair, these people in the office did not, and they might just assume she was getting special treatments simply because she was his favorite. The smartest solution here was to give Catherine what she wanted. Not because she was afraid of Catherine (maybe a bit), but because she didn't want Jack's reputation ruined for helping her, again.

"Screw. Me!"

"Later, I'm washing dishes."

"Haha, funny." Y/N shot her husband a glare as he turned to check her reaction. He expected her to laugh along. She always would no matter how lame his jokes were. But this time all she did was breathe out and carry on with whatever she was doing on her laptop. She'd been working ever since she got home, and only stopped to eat dinner before getting back to work again. Harry was surely worried. The last time his wife worked this hard, she ended up passing out on her desk after consuming too much coffee, he nearly had a heart attack that day.

"Maybe..." He dried his hands and headed towards where she sat at the table. "Maybe you and I can Netflix and chill tonight?"

Y/N giggled when his breath tickled her neck and he laid a soft kiss on her shoulder blade, throwing in a sweet "I love you" as if she didn't already know. Her husband was just trying to distract her from work, and even so, she let him. She should be distracted for a little while for her brain to function again, and he seemed to be in need of a little affection. When she turned to him, their lips met for an urgent wet kiss which sent him down on his knees by her side.

"Come on," he muttered, all out of breath as his lips curved into a slop-sided grin. One of his hands were resting on her hip, the other on the backrest of the chair. "Play with me and I'll let you go."

"Play with you?" Y/N chuckled as she cupped his face. "Is this why you let Layla and Niall watch Treasure tonight?"

"That's the kind of parent you think I am?" The man faked a faint gasp that made his wife giggle. "Actually, Layla's having dinner with her dad's family, and her stepmother is allergic to cats so..."

"So you let her use our daughter as a revenge tool." She jokingly lifted an eyebrow.

"Are you calling me a bad parent then?"

"Harry! No!" Y/N burst out laughing when her husband took both of her wrists with one hand and started ticking her with the other. She fought to get away, accidentally slipping right off her chair and collapsing right on top of him. Now the table had turned, she blocked his arms and executed the tickle torture until he laughed so hard he couldn't breathe.

"I surrender! Surrender!"

"You cannot surrender after what you did to me, baby. That's not the rule." Y/N knew he could've stopped her easily, yet he still let her win. So she showed some mercy by letting him suffer for a little more before raising her hands to call a truce. Harry combed his fingers through his messy locks, breathing heavily and flashing her a lazy smile.

"I'm done playing with you. Can I please go now?"

When she patted his chest and attempted to move, Harry quickly sat up, fingers clutching her thighs to keep her still. He knew she could just brush off his hands and get back to work, but it was her choice to stay in his lap. So he flashed her a cheeky grin. "But I'm not done playing with you."

"Baby, I'm serious." She sighed, gently stroking his hair. He was like a baby now, pouting and nuzzling her neck, pleading for attention, which she would gladly give him if Jack's reputation and her own weren't hanging by a thread. "I need to get this proposal done by morning."

"You're always working overtime and now you're working at home too," he said with a big frown. "I feel like no one beside Jack acknowledges your effort."

"Exactly! Thank you! I mean, I love my job but I gotta admit most people in PR are assholes." Harry couldn't hold back another smile when she turned serious and started counting on her ten fingers to illustrate her point to him. "So take ten people at my office, four of them will hate me, the next four don't give a damn about me but they love the drama and believe dumb rumors anyway, the two people left are Jack and Kate."

Harry pressed a kiss to his wife's cheek, laughing as he tried to cheer her up, "positively speaking, your two supporters are your boss and your boss' assistant. You still win."

"If you put it that way," she said, beaming at him. "Well, I'm only working this hard because we need money for our future family. So when we finally get super rich, it's over for them. I might even quit the job and we can go on honeymoon every weekend. Sounds great, huh?"

Harry stayed on the floor after his wife had kissed him and returned to her laptop. "Feels good to just imagine," she said in a sing-song voice. However, he knew there was also truth behind that joke, that everything could be much better if they were wealthy people, that she could have the life he'd promised them both, no more extra hours at the office just to impress people who weren't so nice to her.

The opportunity was right on the table, all he needed was to swallow his pride and seize it. And because of her, he might actually consider working things out with his dad.

The next morning, Harry could barely pay attention to anything else. He sat in his office, staring at a half-finished email to his dad's assistant which he'd written last night, trying to decide if he should send it. He just wanted an appointment with Devlin, but then what? What was he gonna say? He didn't want to just apologize for doing nothing wrong only to get this over with. And would Devlin trust him enough to hand him the CEO chair after everything? Maybe he should phone Y/N and ask for her opinion. Even though she'd been on board with this idea since the beginning, and even trying to convince him to go for it, he didn't think he should make this decision on his own. But on second thought, he should wait until he saw her at home, because something like this shouldn't be discussed over a phone call.

There was a knock on the door when Harry was having a debate with himself. He shut the laptop and told the person to come in, Olivia then entered, wearing a massive grin on her face.

"Got you coffee!" She exclaimed happily and placed the cup down on his desk.

"Oh, thanks." He raised an eyebrow as she sat down in front of him. "What's the occasion?"

"Well, yesterday was my birthday so today I bought coffee for everyone."

As soon as she said it, Harry's face scrunched up in guilt. He pinched the bride of his nose and muttered under his breath, "shit. I...I'm sorry, Ollie...I forgot."

"Nah, it's fine." The blonde giggled as she shook her head. It didn't take an expert to see that she was in a much better mood than usual. And Harry was already suspecting a reason behind her strange attitude. "I had the best birthday though," she confessed, the grin on her face grew twice bigger.

Harry recognized that grin. He'd been in a relationship for five years, how could he not? It was as clear as daylight! "Okay, who is he?"

"He?" Olivia arched an eyebrow. Harry knew her better than most people, and that right there was her iconic 'I-know-what-you're-talking-about-but-I'm-just-pretending' face.

"The guy who made this birthday so 'special'."

"Why is the word special in air-quotes?" Olivia giggled. Then it only took a couple seconds for reluctance to wash off the happiness on her face. He was second guessing if it was something he'd said that unintentionally upset her, but he didn't really need to ask as she was gonna tell him anyway.

"There's something I want you to know."

"Okay." He nodded, eyebrows furrowed as he leaned forward, getting a bit impatient. "Is the guy a drug dealer or...?"

"No! Jesus no!" Another soft giggle escaped her red lips. "It's Jack, but—"

"I knew it!" Harry shouted and slammed his fist onto the desk, almost giving the girl a heart attack. Then he started laughing as her cheeks turned pink. "I saw you two dancing at my wedding and I knew it!"

"Okay, calm down," she told him, rolling her eyes even though his reaction was undeniably adorable. "It's not about Jack. Well, it is kind of related to him, but mostly you and...your dad."

"My dad? Are they doing business together?"

"Kind of..." Olivia pursed her lips while fidgeting with the pencils right in front of her. It seemed like she was struggling to find the right way to break this news. "More like...Devlin's selling Styles Corporation to the Colemans."

"You're joking?" Harry's eyes went wide as his mouth hung opened. He was hoping Olivia would crack up and tell him he'd been fooled, but she seemed too serious for him to believe this was just a lousy prank.

"Jack told me last night. I just assumed after...what happened, Devlin wouldn't discuss this with you in advance."

"We don't even talk." Harry blew up his cheeks, tapping his fingers on the desk impatiently. Now their conversation had sunk back to silence. While Olivia was trying to come up with something to say, Harry kept on staring at the email he'd been hesitating to finish. After what seemed like five seconds, there was another knock on the door. A co-worker showed up to tell Olivia that Mr. Davis wanted to speak to her.

"I gotta go now," she said, standing up fast. "Talk to you later, Haz?"

"Sure." He gave her a nod and watched her strut towards the door. But when Olivia reached for the handle, instead of leaving right away, she lingered there for a moment before turning back to him.

"What are you gonna do?" She asked, looking slightly worried.

"I have an email to send," he told her with a smile.

Even though Olivia didn't get what her friend meant, she accepted that simple answer anyway and walked out of his office.

"Y/N, there you are!"

Kate grabbed Y/N the moment she'd just arrived at the office. She wasn't even late, but from the way many others were staring at her, she guessed she'd missed a whole lot already.

"Tell Catherine I'm gonna send her the proposal right away," she uttered and attempted to walk away, but Kate pulled her back just as fast.

"Haven't you heard?"

Y/N shook her head quickly. She'd rarely seen Kate this excited while at work, and now this girl was smiling as if she'd just won a one-month trip to Bali. So what Y/N hadn't heard might be some actual good news.

"Jack fired the bitch this morning."

"What?" Y/N's jaw went slack as her eyes popped opened. "Is it...because of me?"

"No, silly." Kate snorted, eyes rolled upward. "From what I've heard, she's been selling our ideas to one of our competitors."

"For real?"

"Yup, that's why she got so fed up and asked for a more detailed proposal. The first one you did was great."

"So I just...stayed up all night for nothing?" Y/N's face scrunched up in annoyance, but her question was ignored when Jack stepped out of his office and spotted her speaking to his assistant.

"Mrs. Styles?" He raised his voice, causing everyone to stare at Y/N, who didn't even flinch. As he repeated once again, Kate had to nudge the girl to remind her she was being called, and it was only then that Y/N snapped back to reality. Her whole face turned red from all this excessive attention. It was ironic how she kept forgetting her new name which was probably the one thing she could never shut up about.

"Five minutes," Jack simply said before shutting his door.

Even though Kate leaned in and told Y/N "you're the last person he'd fire, don't worry", the girl was already shaking in her boots. Catherine had been working at this company for ten years and Jack made the decision to fire her in a minute. What if he thought Y/N had something to do with this and fired her too?

Oh no. She swallowed hard before heading straight to his office, ignoring curious stares that were shifting her way. She wondered how many of these people were wishing for her to suffer the same fate as Catherine, still she must put her trust in Jack Coleman.

Right? Right, she assured herself.

Taking a deep breath, Y/N opened the door slowly. The creaking sound caught Jack's attention as he looked up from the computer and urged her to hurry up.

"Okay, before you fire me, you need to hear me out," Y/N spoke as soon as she closed the door. "I have absolutely nothing to do with this."

"With what?" The man looked so confused, and now she was also confused.

"So I'm not here because I'm in trouble?" She asked quietly.

At this point, Jack couldn't keep a straight face anymore. He shook his head and began with a chuckle. "No, why would you be in trouble, Y/N?"

"I...I don't know...Why am I here then?"

"I need to discuss our new strategy with the head of Client Service." His answer seemed to confuse her even more, so he pressed his lips into a smile, and finally told her, "you're promoted by the way."

Those words together had turned Y/N paralyzed. Her limbs became stiff and her expression hardened. Now she could only hear different voices in her head shouting at each other. Was he joking? He can't! It's not April's Fool! But even if it was, Jack's not the type of person to joke about these kinds of things. Am I dreaming? Should I pinch myself?

"Y/N?"

She pinched her own arm when he called her name.

Yup, definitely not dreaming.

"Uhm, I have a question..."

"Sure, go ahead." Jack started beaming when he saw the way his employee was fidgeting with her own fingers and nipping her bottom lip. He had imagined a much worse reaction, so she was actually doing better than his expectation.

"Why?"

"Why?" Honestly, Y/N was very grateful that Jack was patient with her. But his calmness was driving her insane. Now she was on the edge of her seat and she wasn't even sitting down! She was literally sweating when he leaned back and knitted his hands together. "Well, since Catherine no longer works here, Elizabeth will be the new head of Media Relations, leaving her spot empty. And I think you're a great choice for it."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" This question made Jack lift an eyebrow. He didn't say a word, yet she knew he wanted her to explain. And so she did. "Everyone here said that I got special treatments because you...uhm..."

"Because I had feelings for you?"

She swallowed hard and nodded quickly. Now she was glancing at all directions in the room to avoid looking at her boss when he stood up.

"Well, they weren't entirely wrong," he said, leaning back against the edge of his desk and crossing his arms. Those words were all it took for her eyes to shift back to his face.

"I did have feelings for you, and I've always thought you were a great person. But this isn't high school, Y/N. I don't make decisions based on my feelings for someone. If you can do the job well, then congrats, you get the job. If not, then you have five minutes to pack your things and go."

"But people—"

"When you work in this industry, you should care less about what people think of you, and more about what you think of yourself," Jack asserted, smiling back at her. "Are we good now?"

Y/N nodded to agree without adding anything else.

"Great. Now bring your laptop in here, there's a lot of work for you."

Once again, her answer was a single nod as she hurriedly reached for the door handle. But right before she exited the room, Jack stopped her quickly.

"I almost forgot," he said with a soft smile. "Welcome back, Mrs. Styles."

"Baby, I'm home!!!"

Harry chuckled as his wife jumped right into his arms the moment she walked through the door. She held him so tight, almost squeezing the air out of him, and he could already tell that something big had happened to her at work.

"I have great news!"

"So do I!" He happily declared while grinning from ear to ear. "But you go first."

"I got promoted!"

Those words pierced right through his ears like a bullet. Speechless, he let her drag him into another hug but this time all that he could show was a half-broken smile. Y/N instantly felt his reluctance and drew back to look him in the eyes. Her grin fell as fast as his when she noticed something wrong.

"You're not happy for me?"

"I am. I am, I'm just—" He paused right there. What could he possibly say now? That he'd had lunch with his father and agreed to take over Styles Corporation in San Francisco? That he'd done it for her but now she'd got promoted and would most likely not willing to quit and move to another country with him? No! He couldn't tell her any of that!

So instead of saying the truth, he gave her exactly what she wanted to hear. "Sorry, I'm just shocked. Wow, baby, this is great!" He laughed, squeezing her hands even though he'd never been more anxious before. "I'm so proud of you. You're a boss now!"

Y/N leaned in and kissed his lips, mumbling a quiet "I love you" as she believed without his support she wouldn't have gotten this far. Her excitement had put him in a much tougher spot and now his heart was beating like a drum.

"So," she pulled back to hold his face, still smiling like the Cheshire Cat. "What's your good news, love?"

Shit.

He widened his eyes at her question, lips pressed together tightly. "Well...uhm...Olivia bought free coffee for everyone at the office today."

"That's it?" Y/N gave her man a funny look. However, there was no sign that showed she was suspecting anything. It was almost normal for him to make no sense sometimes that his excitement over free coffee would actually make sense.

"Yeah. Now that I think about it, it's actually not as exciting as your good news." That was a terrible white lie, but Y/N was too thrilled to see it through at this point.

"We need to celebrate!" She declared, bouncing up and down like a child on Christmas morning. "I'm gonna cook a big meal for both of us and we're gonna get so drunk tonight!"

Harry held his breath as he watched the woman he loved dance her way into the kitchen. She had never looked happier, which made him feel even worse. He was blaming himself, still a part of him justified his impulsive decision by saying he'd been given no other choice. Had he waited to come home and discuss it with her, the Colemans could've sealed the deal and taken the company right under his nose. He thought he was doing it for both of them, mostly for her. But unfortunately, he couldn't have seen this coming.

Now standing in the middle of his living room like a stone statue, Harry asked himself the same question Olivia had asked him before, what are you gonna do, Harry?

#flatmate!harry #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfictions #harry styles fanfics #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles writing #harry styles series #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #husband!harry

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chloe-clegane · 4 years

Text

My Devotion and Mah Protection, Our Love - Chapter 5

My Favorite Gift is You

Summary - It’s Royal Announcement day!

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

AO3

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

A few days later they celebrated Ezran’s birthday. The desserts flowed freely, in fact, there were no other meals, just dessert. The whole eating unwholesome foods in extreme portion sizes was no joke. Contributing to the overload of sweets made Rayla feel a bit… unethical? Enabling? Disgusted? Her own misgivings aside she knew Ezran would appreciate her idea for an Ultimate Deluxe Super Moonberry Surprise Cake, it would be the perfect gift… if she could pull it off.

Rayla woke up early that morning and after some kissing and cuddling with her favorite human, she met with Barius. She explained her vision and the baker was a little distressed when he realized she didn’t have an actual recipe. But he was able to approximate what she described. Barius insisted that he should make the sponge. But figured she would be able to execute the filling and frosting easily enough. She figured it couldn’t be that hard so she followed instructions and got to work.

Most of Ezran’s day was spent with Zym, he’d flown to Katolis with an escort of three skywing dragon guards. He was only able to stay for 2 days so he and Ez were getting in as much quality time as possible. When Rayla left the kitchens to go find her family, she was shocked to see Ezran riding Zym. The dragon had grown considerably in the almost 3 years since he’d hatched and was bigger than a horse now, but Rayla still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The two kings zipped around the castle towers and through the clouds, Ez whooping and Zym happily chirping.

Rayla came up behind Callum and took his hand, he turned his attention from the sky to smile at her. She gazed up with him “Been quite a’while hasn’t it, since all this started. Funny how they’ve both grown up so much but still somehow managed to stay exactly the same. A couple o’goof balls.”

Callum chuckled “Yeah, it’s true.” He smiled and brought her hand up to place a kiss on it. “The world has changed so much, but somethings, the people you love, they stay the same. Like how amazing you are for example.”

As always his words warmed Rayla’s heart but when he leaned in to kiss her she wiped her head back up to the sky when she saw the aerial duo heading into a tower, grazing it and thankfully not smacking into it full force. “Oye!!! EZ!!! TOWER!!!!” Rayla screamed up at the teen.

“WE’RE OK!” He yelled down and waved, Zym nodded in agreement.

“DON’T BREAK YOUR NECK! I WILL BE SO PISSED!” Callum screamed back. Some of the color drained from his face. “PAY BETTER ATTENTION!” He looked like he was ready to go all mage wings and bring his brother down himself.

Amaya also looked distressed. Frustrated she wasn’t able to scream after him she nudged Janai to make girlfriend do it for her. Even Bait had turned purple.

“Teenagers are stupid” Rayla sighed.

“Hey, we weren't... technically still aren’t” Callum defended.

“Seriously? We’re just lucky our bullshit paid off” She laughed “I climbed the side of that” She pointed “wall. Thinkin’ I could kill a child in cold blood, almost fell to mah death about three times doin’ it. And you kept playin’ with lightnin’ even though you din’ know what you were doin’, nearly killed me I might add!”

He chucked “But I didn’t kill you! So it’s fine.”

“Oh you’re right, that makes everythin’ fine. Wasn’t stupid at all.”

He pouted at her sarcasm but then narrowed his eyes at her “Human Rayla”.

“Don’ go there! I was amazin’ at that! How about Elf Callum or WiNtEr LoDgE, nO wInTeR, nO hUmAnS?”

“Owch” he glared “you've made your point and we should definitely stop this there. I still want you to marry me and I worry this conversation won’t end well.”

She laughed “Aww you’re less stupid now” she cood and he continued to glare back at her. But held her hand anyway. She squeezed it “Like I said, lucky. Our stupidity might save the world.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and they continued to nervously watch the air show, screaming every time the teens tried to do barrel rolls and loops. The March day was cooled by the breeze but warmed by the sun, winter was truly at its end and the group enjoyed welcoming the spring.

Soon it was 3rd dessert meal (second lunch?) and the group had it out in one of the courtyards as a picnic. This was the planned time for presents and so everyone had their wrapped packages or hidden gifts with them. Apparently, hand made was a theme. After all, what do you buy for a king? Amaya and Janai were the only ones who didn’t make their gift. It was a sunforged dagger. His aunt felt at 13, it was about time he had his own weapon. Ezran looked a little intimidated by it but thanked them nonetheless.

Soren went second, his surprise was a shockingly not terrible ceramic statue of Ez and Zym hugging. The sculpture wasn’t good, but you could tell who the figures were supposed to be so Rayla felt that the dumb oaf had at least accomplished the goal. Ezran was a little confused but when he figured it out he seemed to really enjoy it. Bait was entirely unimpressed by it, and maybe a little jealous it wasn’t him made in clay.

Callum was also miffed that Soren had made an art project, he muttered into her ear “art is my thing!” She laughed and rolled her eye’s at him. Her fiance’s gift was of extremely better quality, so if it was a competition he still won, but if cake counts as art Rayla thought this could be a very close race. Callum had done a detailed color pencil drawing and had it framed, it was a family portrait. Ezran sat in the front and Rayla and Callum stood behind him, each with a hand on his shoulder and Bait was in his lap of course. This art piece was much better received by the glowtoad than Soren’s.

Ethari had made a simple bracelet of silver and purple braids. It was the kind of thing Rayla knew he could make easily and quickly with tools he probably borrowed. It was modest but as always the workmanship was impeccable. Ezran thought it was amazing.

Finally, it was her turn, she rolled the huge cake around the corner on a tea cart.

Ezran gasped. “Rayla it looks delicious! Give it, give it!” He reached out scrunching his fists.

She laughed as she cut him a generous piece. The purple sponge and gooey red filling looked great! She felt a little smug as she handed Ez the slice. He took a huge bite and his face scrunched, he coughed a little. Rayla felt her face fall, why did he look like that, she wondered. Then Ezran smiled and kept nodding. “Wow Rayla, it’s so… thoughtful of you to make this, wow!”

“Do you like it!?” she asked cautiously.

“Mmmmhmmmm” he continued to nod.

Everyone else cautiously sampled it, everyone started gagging.

Soren hadn’t caught on to everyone's hesitancy and took a large bite, his response felt overly dramatic “Ugh blah” He spit it directly on the ground. “That’s terrible. hack hack. I think it’s poison! I’m too young to die!”

Rayla looked hurt but then crossed her arms and scowled at her friend “Wow Soren you’re sure bein’ an arse about this. I go to all this trouble, and you can’t even be nice? It can’t be that bad.” Now she stupidly took a huge bite and was immediately filled with regret, “so salty! Egh, what did I? Water!?”. She realized Ethari had never even taken a bite of his piece, his lack of faith was added salt in the salty, salty wound.

“Rayla, it’s ok. I really appreciate it!” Ezran tried to comfort her but she had already stormed away red faced and humiliated.

Ezran found Rayla outside “That squirrel was right, you are in a tree!”.

She and her bruised ego were hiding. When she saw him she turned away “just leave me with mah shame!”

He started climbing, it took him a minute but he made it up and nudged her so he could sit next to her. Luckily it was an old sturdy tree. “I meant it when I told you I appreciated the effort.”

Rayla made a noise somewhere between a whine and a chuckle and tossed her head back “Thanks, but also I’m still sooooooo sorry”

“Seriously Rayla.” He insisted. “But you know what my real favorite present is?”

She still had her eyes up and her shoulders slumped “Hmmmm Soren’s statue was pretty good... very lifelike” her words were heavily laced with sarcasm.

“You know? I do like it” he smiled “Soren put a lot of effort into it, same as you. Want to guess again?!”

She took a moment to think “Well I know it wasn’t the fire dagger, I’m pretty sure yer afraid of it.”

He laughed “yeah, you got me there. But really, my favorite gift, is’s you Rayla.”

This time she actually righted her posture and made eye contact. “Me? What do you mean, me?” She was honestly confused.

“Yeah, you. When you guys came and told me you're getting married, it was such a good surprise. My favorite thing out of all of this is knowing in a few months you’ll really be my sister.” she felt her prickly mood soften as he continued “In a way, I’ve already thought of you like that for a long time. But now, it’s real and official! Best birthday ever!” His sincerity, something she’s always loved about him, was acting as a salve on her wounded pride.

“Oh, Ez” Rayla smiled, his sentiment was humbling and she exhaled some of her negativity “I feel the same way about you, I’m happy to have you as a brother too. Now come’ere.” She pulled him into a hug and they stayed together for a while kicking their tangling feet and talking. Catching up about all kinds of things. He told her weird stuff animals say sometimes and that he met their shadowpaws. Apparently they’re both very nice but don’t think they’re getting nearly enough fish. Rayla made a mental note. He also confided in her some of his worries. There had been rumors about underground meetings to talk about hating and not trusting elves. Now that ambassadors and scholars have started visiting Katolis, and now… her, not everyone is happy about it. Rayla thought about keeping the procession incident to herself but decided to fess up about it. He understood why she didn’t want to worry anyone but they both ended up going quiet for a bit to sit in their worry. It always broke Rayla’s heart to see these things on his shoulders, he was too young to carry so many burdens like this. So she broke the tension with a few jokes and they hugged before returning to the group for 5th dessert (dinner?).

After a few more days in Katolis it was time for everyone to part ways. It was decided that the Wedding would be in 3 months, as they wanted at the Moon Nexus. With the mages disappearing suspiciously and Aaravos and Viren’s location unknown, they had to be careful about having politically important guests all in one place. The exact date and location would be kept private and invitations would be hand-delivered along with illusion medallions to the human rulers. Lujanna would be assisted in creating a burrier hiding the Nexu, similar to the one that protects the Silvergrove.

The public announcements of the marriage would be made when things were settled. After that Rayla would be made an official Princess of Katolis. That scared her, absolutely boggled her mind. Never in her life had she thought things would turn out like this for her. The most terrifying part was the fact that until Ezran had his own heir, which at 13 was a long way off, Callum would be next in line for the throne, which would make her a queen. That thought was horrendous for a number of reasons. But for every negative or worry Rayla’s joy and excitement was tenfold.

Ethari went home to the Silvergrove and Rayla and Callum left for Lux Auria with Amaya and Janai. Callum worked on his fire spells and she helped investigate the 3 Sunfire elf mages who had disappeared. She traveled alone a few times to the Silvergrove to visit Ethari, flying on a twin tail tooth tiger, courtesy of Janai, made the trips easy. The more things came together, the details, her vows, the dress, everything felt more and more real. Soon she’d be bound forever to her best friend, and it was the most spectacular thing she could imagine. She was counting down the days, they both were.

#My Devotion and Mah Protection Our Love #rayllum fic #older rayllum #Rayllum #THE DRAGON PRINCE #Callum #Rayla #fluff #my fics #myfic #zym #Rayla is a bad cook feels like a trope whoops #there is only dessert #do a barrel role

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slit-the-rasceta · 5 years

Text

For you, I’ll stay | I : The Hill

written by — @hardskzhours // @slit-the-rasceta

Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, Jongno-gu District. January 9, 1996, Tuesday. 22:30 hrs.

“It’s going to be a long night,” she thought, while fixing her desk for the fifth time. There was a haphazard pile of file folders, an unboxed diskette pack, and coffee cup stains all over her table calendar. She quickly reorganizes the file folders, placing them in chronological order, then according to crime. Then, she matches the diskettes (which contain additional data such as interrogation footage) with each pile. Lastly, she makes her way to the pantry to refill her mug with coffee, humming along to a tune that was receiving more airplay recently.

It was an uneventful night, to say the least. As usual, she worked overtime, working on organising the paperwork and records of each case—from instigation to case management. She loved it initially, but now that she’s six months into this new assignment, she could feel herself wearing down with how emotionally, physically and mentally taxing everything is. It wasn’t so much the quantity or frequency of the load, but the content itself.

Seeing death, rape, theft and disappearances on a daily basis was starting to take a toll on her mental health, and even if she learned how to compartmentalize, there was something about seeing all the details that made her sleep less and less these days. The photos of dead bodies or visages of crying relatives would disturb her to no end, and having to type out each case report even if it meant tagging it as a cold case, was something that never really sat well with her.

Her direct senior, the only female Inspector in the agency—the only one who is actually nice, unlike the rest of the police force who talk about her during lunch breaks and agency dinners—tell her that the feeling of being “uninvolved” and “useless” will soon pass. “Besides,” she tells her during one of the rare nights that they’re both doing overtime, “You’ve got potential.”

She sighs, wary of the compliment. “I just… I wish I could be doing more, sunbae.”

“You’ll have your fair share of fieldwork and interrogations, Yuna.” she says, patting the younger girl’s shoulder. “Just keep working well, and the Chief will soon see your potential.”

That last line resonated with her the most. She knew that the Chief was a firm leader—he did routine inspections, called people in his office to ask for status reports and he’d set all sorts of deadlines. But he was also known for being experienced in reading people just with one look.

So the question was, what was his assessment of her?

Did the Chief view her just like how the rest of the agency did—an Assistant Inspector who was only fit for clerical work even if she had graduated at the top of her class? Did he even notice her presence in the building—or was she too conscious of all the judgmental stares thrown her way because she was the first female recruit in a long while?

That was it, she thought, not noticing that her cup had overflowed.

With a sharp curse, she flung her hand away from the scalding beverage, and moved to grab some tissues—her mind thoroughly forgetting the questions that had darted in her mind not a minute ago.

As she dabbled the tissue on her hands and shirt, the police hotline rang, disturbing the silence of the otherwise empty floor. Alarmed at the prospect of a crime or report coming in at this hour, she runs towards the desk of the patrol and public safety unit.

“SMPA, what is your concern?” she asks, voice surprisingly level. When there wasn’t a response, she asks again, this time a notch louder.

“Kidnapping,” the voice cuts through the radio silence, its texture a rich timbre with a raspy undertone. Caught off guard at the mention of a kidnapping, she scrambles for a notepad and a pen. “23:00, 804-1, The Hill, Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu. Kim Jiho.” In hastily written script, she takes note of the details, not once interrupting the man on the line.

“Who is this? Where is your intel from?” she finally asks, after she hears mere breathing sounds. “Hello?”

“The victory song is undefeated.” he says, and with a finality that sent shivers down her spine, the line dies.

“Wha—“ she exhales, overwhelmed with the situation. It wasn’t unheard of for random tips to come in the station, that much was true. But a tip at this time? And with that much detail? She was wary enough that there wasn’t any crime traffic recently but this is proving to be the suspicious exception.

Shaking off her doubts, she dials the home number of Inspector Park, the head of the patrol and public safety unit. She knows he’ll definitely give her an earful for calling at such a late hour—and to his house no less, but if what the man said was true, and if her gut was right, someone was after the daughter of the Minister of National Defense.

At the sixth ring, he picks up and greets her with a litany of questions. “Who is this? Do you have any idea what time it is? Whoever you are, you better have a damn good reason for waking me up!” he rattles off, temper flaring.

“This is Lee Yuna, sir.” she says, surprised at how stable her voice was. “Assistant Inspec—“

“Ah, the personal assistant.” his tongue clicks, and even if she didn’t see, she knew he was shaking his head. “What is it? Here to ask help again in records-keeping?”

At that, she presses her mouth in a thin line, stopping herself from giving him a piece of her mind. She knew that they would always find fault in whatever she does but sometimes she wants to just put them in their place and prove herself.

But now wasn’t the time to do that.

“No, sir.” she starts, fisting her hand. “There’s been an emergency call to the patrol and public service hotline. A tip was given about a kidnapping at The Hill—“

“Let me stop you right there.” he expels a deep breath, clearly uninterested with her report. “You do know what the Hill is, right? Or do you not even know where it is?”

“It’s in Yongsan-gu. Where the Ministry of National Defense is.” she says, foregoing the other details and taking the opportunity to transition to the most important part. “Sir, you see, this could actually mean that—“

“This means that there is no kidnapping. I mean, if you’re trying to pull a joke, it’s a terrible one. Hell, there’s hardly any crime in that area!” he gives a dry laugh. “That’s The Hill, it’s an executive residential area, guarded and all that. As you said, National Defense is there and so are diplomats and expats. No one in their right mind would attempt a kidnapping, let alone a break-and-entry.”

“But the caller gave a name, possibly that of the victim. We should send a team, I have the address. I could lead the—“ again, he cuts her off. At this point, a vein was threatening to pop at how unprofessional he was being, but she’d rather not break out into an argument with her direct senior—especially when he was clearly already annoyed at her.

“So this is why you really called, huh?” he chuckles. “Look, no one knows how you got in, or what strings you pulled to pass the Academy, but at the rate you’re going, you’ll never lead a team—much less my team.” the certainty in his voice washed over her, causing her to remain silent at his blatant jibe. “So go back to whatever you’re doing and don’t even attempt to call me or anyone from the agency to waste their time with your tall tales.” the other line clicks, ending their phone call.

Exasperated, she puts down the receiver with a little too much force than was necessary. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” she mutters, putting on her coat, muffler and grabbing her car keys.

30 minutes. She’ll have to pray that she makes it. After all, she doesn’t have much time.

—

804-1, The Hill, Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu. The Kim Residence. 23:00 hrs.

The gate to the subdivision alone rendered her speechless. Pure brass balusters and a towering guardhouse greeted her, complete with intimidating security personnel who wasted no time in asking for her identification.

“Assistant Inspector Lee, from the SMPA. We received a tip about criminal activity taking place in the vicinity of this subdivision,” she starts, not giving any specific details. “This won’t take long.” she adds, as a last ditch effort to convince them that she means business.

“Alright,” one of the guards lets her through. As she rolled up her window, she catches a muffled dialogue between the two. “Isn’t she a little too young to be an Inspector? And criminal activity? Talk about absurd.”

Scoffing, she speeds up to the address the caller gave and in a few minutes, pulled up in the driveway of the Kim Residence. But she was too late. There, standing by the facade of the house, was the Minister himself, with blood on his hands and a shell-shocked expression.

“My daughter…” she hears him mutter. From within the house, she hears distant voices screaming for someone to call the police. “Dial the police! Or call the National Defense for all I care! Someone do something!” the voice got louder as she linked it with a face—Kim Jisook, the Minister’s wife. As if seeing the police lights atop her car, both husband and wife felt their knees give way.

She makes haste to catch the both of them before they fall, and as she does, she gets her shirt stained with blood, and scrapes her elbow with the force of their weight. Not minding the sting of the wind blowing by her scraped skin, she pulls out her walkie-talkie, and radios the police patrolling Seoul that night.

“This is Assistant Inspector Lee Yuna, does anyone copy?” she starts, practically shouting. For some reason, she felt an adrenaline rush at the development of events. “Repeat, this is Assistant Inspector Lee Yuna, does anyone copy?”

After a few beats, a voice breaks through the white noise. “This is Inspector Minho, copy. What’s your 10-13?”

“I’ve got a two zero seven.” she says, forgetting that she hadn’t even scouted the area for verification that a kidnapping actually took place. “10-8 at 804-1, The Hill, Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu. Send a medic for shock treatment.” she rattles off, surprised at herself for actually being able to focus and act given the situation.

Then again, this was her job. Her first fieldwork—albeit unwarranted and unapproved.

“Copy that, 10-4. I’ll run code. ETA twenty minutes.” he affirms his direct response before ending the dispatch call.

—

804-1, The Hill, Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu. The Kim Residence. 23:20 hrs.

After twenty minutes, two police cars pull up the driveway. One belonged to Inspector Minho, the other was the patrol for back-up. He closes the gap between them in five, quick strides, hands in his coat’s pockets.

“What happened?” he asks, ready for a briefing.

“There’s nothing definitive yet…” she trails off, mentally berating herself for not even scouting the interior to study the scene. “But I’ve spoken to the family.”

“You mean you’ve spoken to the Minister of National Defense.” he supplies, his breath fogging up in front of him. “What did he say?”

“The family heard screaming coming from the garage, and when he came down to check,” hesitant, she clears her throat as a stalling method. “He found her daughter bruised and bloodied, unconscious. According to him, she was forced to inhale ether, and her hands were tied.”

“Attempted kidnapping?” he asks, stealing a glance at the mansion’s façade.

“High chance for it.” she answers, clearing her throat again. “Listen, Inspector, I received a tip in the agency around an hour ago—saying something about a kidnapping taking place at this time, at this exact address.”

He raises his eyebrows, evidently taken aback at this new piece of information. “And?” he asks, expectant.

“And I think this is a set-up.” she declares, sure of something for the first time that night. “Whoever is behind this, wanted us to come, thinking it was a kidnapping when it was an assault and break-and-entry.”

“What are you getting at, Lee?”

“There’s a reason why Ms. Jiho was assaulted and not kidnapped. They’re telling us something.” she says, handing out her notepad which contained the details of the emergency call a while back.

“승전가?” he reads, confusion etched all over his face. “What is this supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know… yet.” fuelled with conviction, she fists her hands at her sides, no longer feeling that sensation of helplessness or uselessness back in the agency when she was working on records-keeping. “But I’ll find out.”

—

51-7, Gocheog il-dong, Guro-gu, Seoul. Assistant Inspector Lee Yuna’s Residence. 02:00 hrs.

Finally back at her apartment after filing the case and sending off the Minister’s family with words of certainty about exhausting their whole force on the job, she slumps on the sofa, feeling her body become dead weight.

“God…” she sighs, fatigued. “That was a long night.”

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fatebreaking-a · 4 years

Note

☀️

I like how this is literally indecipherable on desktop, so I had to go onto my phone (where it was still indecipherable) and then open it in safari to figure out which one this was.

☀ What’s your rp pet peeve?

It’s this one and not the other one right above it that also looks like a sun.

Emoticons, man.

Well, that was fun and all but- rp pet peeves. Stuff under the cut. Pour one out for the entire community, because I’m about to take a pound of flesh from everyone.

There’s a lot of stuff in here that boils down to just being a good writing partner and all that, trying to advance the action in a natural way, and so on… and I think a lot of it can boil down to either a lack of awareness or a lack of experience. People get better at writing by writing, so I find it hard to really be frustrated and stay frustrated by someone who falls into some of these pitfalls. So you’ll notice I don’t really target things that have to do with writing skill as much as I target ‘attitude’ and ‘conscientiousness’. There is a lot that bothers me though, so here’s a short list.

Criticizing the way other people have fun. This is a big one. What this boils down to is conversations about how “this ship isn’t realistic” or “your ideals on writing are dumb” or “you take writing too seriously/not seriously enough.” I’ve seen all of these. And I used to know someone on a forum-based RP site that would actively go out of her way to criticize that people would include a lot of introspection in scenes that were fast paced. For instance, using poetic language, or talking about how they’re feeling, what the situation was, “he felt like he was up against the tide, that his heart was being torn in two, a cut made deeper with every clash of their blades” - stuff like that. She hated it. And she made sure everyone knew that she did not approve of how much they were writing, because it was ‘not realistic’. And yes, there is definite merit to the claim that people do not have time to introspect about their entire lives and their relationship to their allies and enemies between sword swings... But so what. I don’t think it’s wrong to advocate for shorter, simpler posts with less descriptive text, and to manage in 200 words instead of 600. That’s great. Simplicity has value, being concise is great, ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, whatever. But the problem, the problem was that she would criticize others for writing in a way that they enjoyed. No one got on her case for writing less, but she was so grating on this point that eventually people just did not want to be around her.

It was something I’ve experienced even here. Finding the balance between “writing to improve your ability to write” and “writing just to have fun” are two separate matters. People forget that individuals exist from both camps, and I have known people (multiple) who say ‘this is important to me, I’m growing my skills using RP as a medium’ but fail to empathize and recognize that not everyone has the same viewpoint. Caring about things that make you feel something over technically good and well executed writing does not make you a problem.

And as a big follow up, I find that this is a big issue in life in general. I think that people often forget how much time it took them to learn a certain thing, recognize their own investment, or recognize the disparity between their own idea of ‘common knowledge’ vs actually common knowledge. When I joined the community, I did not know what private, selective, independent, mun, muse, or mutuals meant. For someone who’s brand new, these are terms that can be hard to decipher. And it’s the similar with ships - I think that people forget that not everyone who comes to RP is from a writing background. Some of them may just have enjoyed reading fanfiction, or may have enjoyed their favorite bot lane duo, or they have a main and their partner has a main and they like the aesthetic. So long as it’s not inherently problematic (incest, pedophilia), it’s cruel to degrade someone and call everything that doesn’t make perfect sense a ‘crackship’. Fanart also has a big role to play in this. Do I personally like Sona with Ka/yn, Yas, Sy/las, Jh/in, or Dra/ven? No, I don’t. I don’t, but equally, it’s not right for me to get in someone’s face for liking it. If you love MF/Sona because it’s a fuckin’ sick classic wombo combo bot lane... that’s cool, more power to you. I wish people would ease up and remember to just let people have their fun. There’s a Jh/in that follows me, who politely asked if I shipped it and I said no, and then there was no hard feelings at all. And that is ideal for me. Really.

T h e f t.

And being ultra conscious of it. I am in a very unfortunate circumstance that many of my Sona hcs are very similar to another blog in the space. I found that out by accident, and we reached similar (but also different!) conclusions. But now I am terribly terrified of ever speaking to them, because gods above I want to lift all my duplicates into the air, kiss them, and scream about them... but I don’t want anyone to feel anxious that I’m copying them. It’s also why until about a week ago, I only followed one other Sona blog ever - written by one of my very, very close friends. I never want people to feel like I’m stealing from them, but I also want my duplicates to feel comfortable on my blog! I want them to feel okay about reblogging art of their characters if they like it or talking to me about things... And I’ve put in a lot of effort to be very divergent with my portrayals, but I still ended up in this situation. I won’t name names ( and I really hope that no one bothers that other Sona, because she’s a genuine sweetheart and deserves love and appreciation ), b ut... This is a big issue for me.

And it’s exacerbated by the fact that some people are lazy as fuck and actually just straight up steal ideas. It’s not ‘inspired by’, which I usually take care to do, giving proper credits or speaking about where I got information from or from whom or that it is on some level almost collaborative (because this is a collaborative space where we interact with each other, but that’s another topic). But I mean some people just recklessly steal and because we all have anxiety (TM), the line between coincidence, inspiration, and theft blurs. Understand that on some level, plagarism is an ethical dilemma, and I exist in the camp that says “hey man that’s cool come talk to me” - but I can exist in that camp because I insist on a very divergent interpretation that is almost ‘theft-proof’. I do not think any other Sona blog will ever have this combination of headcanons: “is a construct inspired by a house spirit, made up of one part crashed titan goddess, three parts demons, and each demon is represented by one of the strings of the instrument, which by the way shattered because bad reasons”. But if you’re not me, it’s hard to... stay loose about it.

And it’s hard to not get jealous.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. Alright I wrote down a list when I actually got this ask, so let’s run off that. ( Yuki, you fuck, you’re not done? Fuck no I’m not done. ) These next ones are big for me.

MISREPRESENTING YOUR WANTS / YOURSELF

what does that mean, you ask me. It means this. It means pretending to be interested in ideas or interactions, even if you’re not interested. I do not ever want to be in the situation where I am happily chugging along, talking about a dynamic, and then find out that the other person isn’t as interested.

It’s fine to be mellow about it dude. I would rather know that you’re like... just okay on it all. I don’t want you to be polite and ‘spare my feelings’ and force yourself.

I want you to have fun. Have fun. God just have fun, you know? Please. There are a ton of interactions I’m “just okay” with, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I can be just okay with stuff and it’s fine. Not everything needs to click instantly but like...

Only showing interest to appeal to me or spare my feelings kinda sucks. It doesn’t last forever. It feels really bad. And eventually when things fall apart, it feels even worse. Like oh you really just did not care that much. Or you didn’t enjoy writing with me? Or what is it? See: jealousy/anxiety. Just be honest.

I think you especially have seen this with me, but I have a penchant for just being sincere and honest about how I feel about things. At least a little bit.

Don’t share things people tell you in confidence.

Fucking duh but it needs to be stated. Sometimes people gotta vent. It happens. And I get that ‘talking behind someone’s back’ is not great, but expressing frustration is a real thing that has real value. And then finding out that those things were shared. If I didn’t bring it up with them myself, I didn’t want them to know. Duh. I’m not talking to be catty but because I’m upset. S h i t. Some of the drama that I’ve seen happen from others doing this (and not to me, but in various cases) was entirely unavoidable. I’ve seen so many variants of this. It’s dumb dude. It’s dumb.

Hard vs Soft statements (Stating opinions as facts)

This is another one that gets me. I come from a world where we write, ‘Sona tries to’ and so on to others. Tumblr as a whole doesn’t seem to conceptually engage with the idea of ‘interrupting actions’ and accepting that interactions are a little malleable. And it in turn reflects how others speak about characters.

I never see, “I think Sona is”, I see “Sona is.” This is such a minor little thing, and I’ve come to accept that it’s part of the culture, but it can be terribly frustrating when others speak about your characters. I often say things like “I see Sona as” or “Because of xyz, Ori/anna would probably-” etc. But that isn’t something that I see here from some people. I know that I do this a lot less these days, in part because I have acclimated to the culture.

Incidentally, there are some joke versions of this that are also frustrating. People can really think they’re being funny, but end up just shutting you out of the conversation entirely when they say ‘No’. I might be a little too sensitive to this though, in that I often disengage from conversations because “it’s not really about my interpretation, so it’s better if I not say anything because it’s not relevant and doesn’t contribute.”

Really, I’m just a weenie baby, but I know when someone’s being rude vs when it’s just my own anxieties. I don’t expect everyone to have unshakable confidence, I also don’t expect that everyone be quivering in their boots. Some people can be really, really dismissive and it’s kind of not so great because it comes along with them otherwise being pretty neat.

Last one: Misrepresentation of data / using a ‘preponderance of evidence’ when there really isn’t that much.

How do I even put this.

CONJECTURE IS NOT FACT.

Phew. Okay that’s done. That right there is a big problem (and in combination with the pet peeve before that, it gets worse.)

Something to understand is that sometimes there is no good reason to pipe up to correct someone. Often, people are having a visceral, gut reaction and it’s very emotional. Criticizing that ignores the intent (that they’re frustrated), so it’s often a good idea to let it be.

But that doesn’t stop me from seeing that facts are poorly stated or misrepresented. The community likes to talk about league so I see it in OOC posts, and I also see claims that are just wrong. They’re misstated, exaggerated, or phrased in such a way that you could accept them - except one fact check will prove otherwise. But again, why get in someone’s face when they’re frustrated?

But this leads to some people feeling ‘complicit acceptance’. Which is in itself another problem that I won’t get into.

I as a person tend to be pretty rigorous. If I see facts and I can check them with a quick google search, I often do - especially League. It’s so easy to check a champion’s win rate or popularity. Other people do not always exercise this rigor.

“Alright fuckface but that’s talking about league and not rp.”

Yeah okay you make a fair and valid point, except for the part where you missed bullet points 2-4. I’m more talking about the general attitude people have but let’s talk specifically more about RP.

There’s content. A lot of content. And most of it is really vague, because that’s how R I O T G A M E S does things. We still can’t get a straight answer on whether Sona’s adopted mom, Lestara, is alive or not. H u h?

And this often leads to us making connections and conclusions based on the limited data we have. We’re extrapolating, taking what we know and trying to figure out something new.

Except when we get a new data set, sometimes our extrapolations don’t work anymore.

Except we just spent three months world building around our guesses ( because that’s what they are)

Oops I’m divergent now.

That happens. A lot. My entire blog was evidence of that, where I made extreme guesses and then accidentally got validated as Demacia went full grimdark. But it even happened last year, when suddenly we gained new information! Mage registration! That’s a thing! And it changes how we perceive things.

And you may be thinking, ‘ok fine but what does that have to do with misrepresentation’ and it has this to do with it. People will make conclusions based on their own view, then solidify these conclusions as ‘fact’.

For example, I wrote a small article on how “magical sight was not a reasonable power to have” and then soon after, Mageseekers appeared. Oops. Oops.

And these extrapolations get treated as though they are really fact. The line between what is ‘real’ and what is ‘assumed’ blurs. The truth is this. Unless it’s directly and unambiguously stated, it’s basically not fact. “But we can conclude-” I know. And then we’ll get new information and that’ll change. Ideas in this fandom are like balloons, you need to tie them down with text evidence or they’ll just float away before you even know it. I can talk about how Sona is a literal genius level intellect all day, and tomorrow I can be proven wrong by one little shift or clarification in the lore. ‘Within months’ - okay how many months? Fifteen months? Three months? Unknown.

And this leads me to preponderance of ‘evidence’. This one is long because it bothers me a bunch.

‘Preponderance of evidence’ (quotes required) is basically the situation in which someone goes and tells me:

“Listen buddy, I have these seven pieces of evidence, so I can reasonably conclude that [x] is true.” And that’s solid conjecture and extrapolation and I accept that.

Except that maybe you seven pieces of evidence aren’t all solid pieces of evidence.

Oh.

Oh no.

And that’s happened. I have seen evidence pieces one, two, four, and six all be good. And pieces three, five, and seven are a stretch at best.

But because they have so many pieces of evidence, it’s hard to critique back. Because they still do have four good pieces of evidence!

But the strength of the conclusion increases with more accurate and valid data points, and if your data points aren’t-

And that’s the rub, basically. Sometimes I see people fit evidence to their conclusion without even realizing it. Some of the most intelligent, rigorous, and well-versed writers on this site I’ve seen do it.

And it sucks.

And it’s a peeve because here’s the truth.

The truth after all this talk is this very important fact.

I don’t say anything about these things to people because I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun or engagement.

People make mistakes and say many things because they are passionate about what they’re talking about. Often that’s the case. And harmless conjecture misunderstandings are not the end of the world because this is not academia.

except that one time I wrote a writeup on how Aphe/lios isn’t mute but whatever.

And so while I have said all these things and have a lot of these feelings, I also think there’s no point to saying most of them directly to the person that bugs me. What good will it do? To someone who is reacting with their emotions and just wants to get their frustration out, or is speaking passionately about something... Just let it go.

And so often I let it go, even if I disagree. I have an opinion, but I don’t go out and toss it back in your face. I just get mad quietly and grump about it.

And that’s why I end up being a very ‘stay in my lane’ person.

The end.

If you read all the way through this, I’ll give you a cookie tbh. Many cookies. This is almost 3000 words and 7 pages.

#yuhl #ooc #long post tw #//3k words I'm sorry dash.

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nobodys-pearls · 5 years

Text

Hit on Me Ch 17

Wow so this took a while but I’m finally wrapping this story up because I refuse to leave it unfinished! I hope y’all like it and bless you to whoever actually reads it because I know it’s been a while.

Read on [AO3]

Summary: the squads’ vacation in Venice comes to an end and some important truths are revealed

Max was surprised at how different Venice at night was compared to Venice during the day. The tourists from the cruise ships were gone. The sounds of footsteps and conversation were the only things that filled the cozy silence of the empty streets as he and his friends weaved deeper into the city. The water from the canal was dark and caught the little light that was available from electric restaurant signs and the moon. This Venice felt more real to Max. It quieted his nerves, it made him feel safe. Nothing about it was overwhelming or unpredictable. He heard the quiet rumble of Alix’s roller skates as she skated in a circle around him.

“So what do you make of that?” Alix asked, her voice quiet as she looked ahead at where Adrien and Marinette were walking in front of them. Marinette laughed at something Adrien said, and Adrien seemed to lean into her without noticing. A small smile spread across Max’s face as he watched them.

“When I first met Adrien, you know, that day in the park I told you about? He told me that falling in love only takes a moment,” Max said. Alix furrowed her brow in thought.

“I think it takes more than a moment,” Alix began. Max looked at her in surprise. “There’s one moment that makes you realize ‘this person is something special’, but more moments need to come after that, you know? You have to see different sides to them, the good and the bad. You need to watch them grow, and see how you grow as well. Otherwise you’re falling in love with a mask, and I don’t think that’s real love.” Max turned to look at her, watching as she skated slowly next to him, her gaze pensive as she watched the water lap up to the left side of the street. Then she smiled and met his gaze. “I’m not an expert on romantic love, so I’m just speculating here, but I feel like it’s a lot like friendship, and that’s how I came to love you, you know?” She bumped his shoulder. “I knew you were cool the moment you tried to build your own robot from under your desk when we were supposed to work on our multiplication tables, and the more I got to know you - like how you like your pizza and your favorite video games and the bigger things like what you’re afraid of and what you want out of life - the more I cared about you, and if anyone hurts you,” Alix paused, “I’ll suplex them six feet into the ground.” She looked at the ground, letting out a laugh and rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. “Maybe that didn’t make a lot of sense -” she began, beginning to drift away on her skates. Max reached out to grab her hand.

“I love you too, Alix. And I think you’re right - a moment is good, but a collection of moments - that’s something special.” Alix looked back at him once more, her smile warm as she gave his hand a squeeze.

“But I do think that Marinette has had plenty of moments to fall in love with that dork. She’s practically talked my ear off about him,” she reasoned. Max looked at her quizzically.

“Didn’t you just meet her recently? On the plane here?” Max asked. Alix’s eyes widened and she let go of his hand to skate in front of him and in a large circle.

“That’s how bad she’s got it. It only took me a day to figure it out,” Alix offered, but Max looked unconvinced. He opened his mouth to question her further when Adrien turned around to look at them.

“We’re were!” he declared with a grin, gesturing to a small restaurant up ahead. Alix seemed to slump her shoulders in relief and Max watched as she skated up to Marinette, linking her arm with hers and causing Marinette to laugh in surprise. Max shook his head and smiled. He’d get to the bottom of whatever he was missing soon enough - he always did.

“And that’s why Bellini and Spritz are two staples of Venice and represent two different sides of Venetian history and culture,” Max finished, taking a sip of his wine. Marinette rose her brow, looking impressed.

“So which one is better?” Adrien asked. Max crinkled up his nose.

“Bellini, at least that’s my opinion. Spritz tastes like bad orange soda.”

“Hey, I like it!” Alix protested, setting down her glass filled with dark orange liquid and throwing her napkin at Max’s face. He quickly dodged it, fixing his glasses and looking at Alix in disbelief.

“You could’ve injured my eyes!” he complained.

“You wear glasses!” she shot back, gesturing to his face. Max pouted - she had a point there.

“I think I may be a little drunk,” Max conceded, and Marinette laughed behind her hand.

“That reminds me of the first time Kim and I got drunk,” Marinette began. “We were in lycée -”

Adrien raised a brow at that.

“Underage huh?” he asked, a teasing edge in his voice. Marinette blushed and rolled her eyes.

“We live in France, not America. Anyway, we were in my parent’s bakery and we decided to have a bake-off.” Max smiled, shaking his head.

“None of this is surprising,” Max said. Alix nodded her head in agreement and Marinette laughed.

“We had this bake-off and Kim kept trying to throw towels at me to distract me. He even threw flour in my hair,” Marinette explained, giggling at the memory. “I still won, of course, but he definitely put a lot of effort into it. By the time his girlfriend came to pick him up for their date we were both a mess, but she was cool with it. She even helped me put frosting in his hair.”

Alix cackled, a delighted look in her eyes. ‘Man, I wish we were friends back then. We would’ve had so much fun.” Marinette smirked.

“I mean, we’ve already executed a kidnapping together. I think we’re already making up for lost time -” then Marinette’s eyes blew wide and she quickly looked over at Max, who was sliding his fork distractedly through his empty dish. Then he felt eyes on him and looked up, meeting Alix and Marinette’s gaze.

“This girlfriend - she’s Ondine, right? The girl from the beach?” Marinette and Alix glanced at each other, and then Marinette cleared her throat awkwardly, sitting up in her seat.

“Yeah, her and Kim dated on and off throughout lycée,” Marinette explained. “They met on the swim team.”

“Ondine said something about him being a terrible boyfriend. Do you know what that was about?” Max asked. He wondered where Kim and Ondine were right now. They were probably getting dinner, or they went back to the beach, catching up and using inside jokes and having fun and why didn’t Max join a swim team when he was in lycée -?

“Max,” Alix said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her and gave her a small smile, reaching to give her hand a squeeze, letting her know that he was alright. And he was alright. It was just - a lot.

“I think that’s a story for Kim to tell you,” Marinette said, a conflict in her eyes as she bit her lip. She looked guilty.

“I get it,” Max said, giving her a comforting smile. She smiled back.

“How about we head back for the hotel? It’s a beautiful night, we can take the long way,” Adrien proposed, stretching his arms.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Max said, moving to stand. The others stood as well, heading out of the restaurant and into the night air, Adrien making sure to thank the waiter on the way out. Max waited next to Alix as she put her roller skates back on.

“Don’t think I didn’t hear that comment about the kidnapping,” Max said, and Alix froze. “How long did you think you’d be able to keep this secret from me?” Alix blew her hair out of her face and moved to stand.

“It took longer than I thought for you to figure it out. I think Kim’s obliviousness has rubbed off on you.” Max laughed and bumped her shoulder. She shot him a grin and glided in a circle around him before coming to a stop and throwing an arm around his shoulders.

“Are you good?” she asked, looking him over. Max looked out at the tangle of streets that lay before them, at how Adrien and Marinette seemed to gravitate towards each other again.

“I never thought I’d be the jealous type,” Max admitted. Alix scoffed.

“You’re not jealous. You’re curious. You just want to know more about him,” Alix explained, and Max realized that she was right. His chest felt a little lighter, less weighed down by guilt.

“Thanks, Alix,” Max said, and Alix gave him a soft smile. Then she looked ahead at Adrien and Marinette and shot Max a grin. Not even a second later she sped down the empty street and broke Adrien and Marinette apart, the two of them looking at her in surprise as she flung an arm around each other their shoulders.

“Mind if I join you on this lovely stroll?” Alix said, batting her eyelashes up at them. Adrien and Marinette looked at each other with wide eyes, and then they turned away, blushing. Max watched this all unfold, biting back his grin and shaking his head.

Life was definitely more complicated than it was when it was just him and Alix, but it was more full, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything.

So Marinette was Ladybug. Honestly Max was embarrassed that he hadn’t figured it out sooner. The evidence was all there. Kim had mentioned Marinette needing extra cash, and she always had this secretive look in her eye when they talked about the PFL. It was just a mask and some pigtails, seriously, how did Max not pull it all together sooner?

He guessed if he was being fair with himself, he had been pretty distracted by a pair of storm-gray eyes and a grin that could make your heart melt for the past few months.

Max sighed and let his legs dangle from where he was sitting on the hotel balcony, looking down at the water. He adjusted his glasses. Everyone else had already gone to bed, but Kim wasn’t back yet. Max tried to fall asleep anyway, but he couldn’t. There was too much on his mind. There was too much of himself to be alone with. The buzz of the alcohol had worn off a while ago. Now everything felt almost too clear.

“Adrien is Chat Noir,” Max said to no one, the words coming out of his mouth before he could really process them. But when he actually thought about it he smacked himself on the forehead. Seriously, how did he miss all this? They look the same . Max laughed, running a hand through his thick curls. “This is quite a mess.” He thought about Adrien and Marinette, Chat Noir and Ladybug, even Alix and Chloe. Relationships were always so complicated. Wires got crossed and misinformation happened and then the whole machine would shut down and explode. And that terrified Max.

So Max told himself that if he loved someone, he had to be really sure. He didn’t want to break anything. He didn’t want to make the wrong choice, or go into in blindly. Love was this chess game where every move had to be practiced and precise. That was the only way that he could come out of it with a win.

But then someone barged into his life and taught him that it wasn’t that complicated. That love could be pretty simple, actually. The same person with the storm-gray eyes and the heart-melting grin. The same person who had told Max that he was in love with him like it was the easiest thing in the world - like it wasn’t just a chess move, but a given, a fact, an inevitable . Max let out a soft laugh, shaking his head.

Le Chien Kim. How did he make everything so effortless? How did he manage to contradict everything that Max had convinced himself was true? Alix joked about Kim being oblivious, but Max wondered if Kim saw things that most people didn’t, including Max himself.

Then he heard the door to his room open slowly, and turned to see Kim’s head poking in the doorway. Kim met Max’s gaze and his eyes widened in surprise as he came into the room.

“I didn’t think you’d still be awake. You didn’t stay up because of me, right?” Kim asked, moving to join Max on the balcony. He sat down next to him, legs danging off the ledge as well. Max could feel Kim’s warmth as their sides pressed together.

“No, I just couldn’t sleep,” Max said quietly, fidgeting with his hands in his lap. He could feel Kim’s eyes on him. “How was your night?” Max asked after a beat of silence, still looking at his lap. He felt Kim shrug.

“It was good. We got dinner and then ended up going back to the beach. Ondine wanted to see if I was rusty,” Kim said, a fondness in his tone. Max couldn’t help but smile. That’s what he assumed they’d be doing. It sounded like Kim.

“Were you rusty?” Max asked. Kim laughed.

“Thankfully my morning runs have kept me in shape enough to keep up, but Ondine was definitely better than me. She’s training for the Olympics right now.” Max’s eyes widened in surprise.

“That’s really impressive,” Max said. Kim rolled his shoulders.

“Yeah, she was always really impressive. She’s actually in Venice for a short vacation. She heads back to America to train tomorrow.”

“Oh, so you won’t be able to see her for a while,” Max said.

“Yeah, it was weird to see how much we’ve both grown up. I mean, we have our own lives now. It just sucks that we drifted apart. She was one of my best friends.”

“And your girlfriend,” Max pointed out. Kim sighed.

“Yeah, I think that’s what made us lose touch in the first place.” Max turned to see Kim looking out at the water, a small smile on his face and a bitterness in his eyes. He turned those sad eyes on Max, reaching out to hold his hand. Max let him take it, feeling Kim’s thumb rub against the back of his hand.

“What’s wrong?” Max asked, finding himself leaning into Kim, searching his eyes. Kim’s shifted his gaze downward and then found Max’s eyes again. There was pain there, Max could see it. He squeezed Kim’s hand, waiting for him to speak but also reminding him that he was there.

“Remember when I told you that Dels liked to call me a ‘raging bisexual’? And how I had crushes on Marinette and Nathanael when we were younger and just kind of knew who I was?” Max nodded his head. Kim puffed out his cheeks. “For a long time I honestly didn’t know who I was,” Kim confessed, his voice quiet. “Or at least, I ran away from it all.” Kim paused, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair. “I felt like something inside of me was broken, and if I just ignored it it would just fix itself. Like, turning a computer off and then turning it on again and it suddenly starts working the way it’s supposed to,” Kim explained in a rush, looking at Max before looking away. “So I dated Ondine. And I really did like her - we were super close and we had a lot in common - but there was also this guy on the swim team that I liked.” Kim took a shaky breath, and Max rubbed a comforting hand along his arm. “Whenever I was with him I would get nervous and my face would heat up - it was so embarrassing. Pretty soon Ondine could tell that I didn’t feel the same way about her as she did about me. And I came out to her. She was the first person I came out to. I hadn’t even come out to Marinette. I hadn’t even come out to myself , not out loud, at least. I was terrified. The worst part was that she was so understanding about it. I knew that I hurt her, and yet she just smiled and told me that we could just be friends. She even offered to help me get closer to the guy on my swim team, except we found out he was straight so that was a dead end,” Kim said with a laugh. “I wasn’t the best boyfriend to her, because there was a lot about myself that I had to love first before I loved anyone else. We stayed friends, but we couldn’t help but drift apart after all that. And that was my fault.” Kim turned to face Max, taking both of his hands. “I’m reckless. I make mistakes. I’ve hurt people in the past because I didn’t understand my feelings.” He paused. “But every time I fell down it brought me closer to you, to this,” Kim said, his eyes wide and full of meaning. “Every moment has lead me to this one. Every failure has taught me enough to be able to say that I love you .” Max’s breath caught in his throat, but Kim kept going. “I meant it when I said it the first time and I mean it when I say it now.” Kim shook his head. “And you don’t owe me anything . I just couldn’t live anymore without you knowing. I know it slipped out the other day unplanned and I know that I can be impulsive and I don’t think things through and I say the wrong things and I -”

“Kim,” Max said, and Kim stopped, looking at him with wide eyes. Max shifted so that he was facing Kim fully, crossing his legs under him. “I’m really happy that you shared that part of yourself with me. I know that it couldn’t have been easy. And I wish that we knew each other in lycée so I could’ve thrown frosting in your hair too.” Kim laughed.

“Marinette told you about that?” he asked, a genuine smile tugging at his lips.

“I wish we all new each other in lycée,” Max continued. “I wish I knew you my whole life.” He paused, looking down at the water. “We thought that this was hard, remember? Back when we found each other in that elevator, for the second time?” Kim nodded his head. “We thought that this was complicated and that we were complicated and that we could get hurt -” Max stopped again, meeting Kim’s gaze. “There was something that I wanted to tell you at the park, and then at the beach.”

“I remember,” Kim said, looking at him in curiosity. Max took a deep breath.

“I’ve gone my whole life searching for answers, searching for truth and absolutes that cannot be argued or contested, searching for something stable and dependable. I was searching for you , Kim,” Max said, and Kim’s eyes widened. Max let out a breathless laugh. “My whole life I was searching for you, for this .” He squeezed Kim’s hands. “Because right here I have my truth, my absolute. I love you, Le Chien Kim. And it’s scary because this fact won’t change or fade or be rewritten - it’ll always be here. It’s scary, but it’s also all that I’ve ever wanted.” Kim continued to look at him in disbelief, eyes wide and unknowing. Then Max watched as tears began to finally well up in Kim’s eyes, a wide smile breaking across his face and lighting up the night. He freed his hands from Max’s and moved them to cup Max’s cheeks, leaning in.

“Can I please kiss you right now,” Kim said, and Max could feel Kim’s hands shaking slightly. “Like, if I don’t kiss you right now I might actually die.” Max grinned.

“I don’t think that’s scientifically possible but -” Whatever Max was about to say was interrupted by Kim’s lips pressing fiercely against his own. Max leaned into his touch and kissed back, fighting back his smile and he held on to Kim’s arms. Kim grabbed Max’s waist and gently leaned him back, Max feeling the cool tiles of the balconcy on his back as Kim positioned himself over him, still kissing him. A few lingering moments later Kim pulled away, looking down at Max with so much love and fondness in his eyes that it took Max’s breath away.

“You really love me?” Kim asked, his voice close to a whisper, a note of disbelief in his tone. Max laughed and grabbed the front of Kim’s shirt.

“Come back here and I’ll show you that I mean it,” Max said, and Kim grinned, moving down to kiss Max once more.

In that moment all of Max’s fears and worries and insecurities flew away into the sky, settled in the depths of the Grand Canal. In that moment there was only Kim, a fact so simple and yet so important that Max knew it would be carved in his heart forever, and in his heart is where it always belonged.

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prepare4trouble · 5 years

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Good Omens fanfic - Looking Like This (5)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Unfortunately, the problem with drunken ideas is that although they seem to make a lot of sense in the moment, the instant one sobers up and actually thinks about them with a clear head, it becomes embarrassingly obvious how terrible they really were. The other problem with drunken ideas is that they are rarely co-operative, meaning that drinking with the intention of obtaining them is, more likely than not, going to end up with a very drunk angel, a very drunk demon, and a grand total of zero ideas.

Or at least no ideas that would help to resolve the situation.

“Adam,” Aziraphale said triumphantly.

Crowley considered this. “The antichrist kid?”

“Former antichrist,” the angel corrected. He was slurring his words slightly, and his hair — or rather, Crowley’s hair — was a mess. Crowley wasn’t sure why, all he could think of was that the angel had been messing with it, and had inadvertently undone the careful styling. They were three bottles of wine in, and had used the last of the good stuff and moved onto the slightly newer vintage. It wasn’t quite as nice, but it got the job done just as well.

“Yeah. But doesn’t the ‘former’ part mean he hasn’t got powers anymore? And even if he did, why would he waste his time like this? Hasn’t he got better things to do?”

Aziraphale frowned, thoughtful, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I have no idea what children do for fun.”

“Well, I think we can safely say it’s not this,” Crowley assured him. Although, honestly, he wasn’t sure either. He reached for his wine glass, found it empty, grabbed the bottle instead and poured himself another. He tipped the remainder of the bottle into Aziraphale’s glass to top it up, then took a long sip.

“It’s a shame Shadwell doesn’t really have a magical finger,” Aziraphale mused. “Maybe he could use it to, you know…” he pointed at Crowley to demonstrate, then flinched. “Or maybe not. He seemed rather intent on using it to banish demons, not help them. ”

Crowley squinted at him. The fact that he was drunk enough for there to be two identical images of his own face spinning before his eyes did nothing to make him feel better about the situation. He was going to have to sober up soon, or he was going to fall asleep. The last time he had done that, he had woken with a hangover so bad that he hadn’t even been able to muster the energy to miracle it away. He had lain in bed for hours, or possibly longer, until Aziraphale had shown up uninvited and helped him out.

“What are you talking about, fingers?” he slurred.

Aziraphale shook his head. “Never mind. This isn’t working, is it?”

As loathe as Crowley was to admit it, Aziraphale was right. “I’m sobering up,” he said. “But not all the way. Just enough that I can only see one of you again. This is weird enough without another me swimming around in front of me. I don’t swim.”

“Me neither,” Aziraphale said. “It’s something I always wanted to try though, but I never managed to find the time.”

Crowley forcibly ejected around half of the alcohol from his bloodstream and felt instantly better. He reached for his glass and took another sip. “You never found the time? In six thousand years, you never found the time?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “You know how it is, things kept coming up.”

Crowley tilted his head forward to allow his sunglasses to fall down his nose a little, then peered at the angel over the top. He was halfway through the manoeuvre when he remembered that he wasn’t wearing them. It was too late; he was committed. He peered anyway.

Aziraphale either didn’t notice, or was too polite to comment on it. “I know, I know,” he said. “If things kept coming up for six millennia, I obviously wasn’t that interested in trying it. Honestly, I kept getting to the edge of the water, dipping my toes in, and finding it too cold.”

It occurred to Crowley that he had no idea why they were talking about swimming.

“But I hear they have heated pools in the city,” Aziraphale continued. “Maybe I should try again.”

“You don’t want to do that,” Crowley told him.  “I don’t? Oh.” Aziraphale frowned, thinking about it. “Why not?”

They’re one of ours.” Although, no, because he couldn’t really include himself in anything that belonged to Hell anymore, and he didn’t particularly want to. “Hell’s, I mean. And they really put their hearts and souls into it. You’ve got kids peeing in there, adults peeing in there. You’ve got changing rooms where the floor just won’t dry so that it’s impossible to put your socks back on comfortably, and you’ve got hairdryers that are fixed to the wall so you’ve got to do gymnastics to get your head in the right place, and vending machines that never have the one thing you want, and…”

 “Alright, alright. I get the idea,” Aziraphale told him.

“And chlorine,” Crowley added, because he was on a roll now. “Nasty stuff, chlorine. You know humans used it to kill each other? Much lower concentrations of it in a pool of course, but snakes have a very sensitive sense of smell, so do us both a favour and wait. Swim when you get your own body back.”

Aziraphale went very still. “If,” he said, after a long pause.

“If what?”

“If I get my own body back.”

Crowley hesitated. Aziraphale was right. “I, uh… yeah,” he said.

Aziraphale sighed deeply, then made a visible effort to sober up too. He straightened up a little in his seat. “Do you have any idea why we were talking about swimming? We were supposed to be coming up with theories.”

“Not a clue.” Crowley tried to think back through the conversation, but got nowhere. “Back to theories, then?” Not that either of them appeared to have any.

“Maybe…” Aziraphale said hesitantly. “I mean — this isn’t going to be helpful at all, but hear me out anyway — maybe it’s just one of those things.”

Crowley stared at him in disbelief. Now he was a little more sober, he was going to need something better than ‘one of those things’. “One of what things exactly?” he asked. “One of those ‘oops I accidentally swapped bodies with someone and we can’t swap back’ things? Yeah, those things happen all the time. Never mind, eh?”

“I mean,” Aziraphale said. He raised a hand to his head and ran his fingers quickly through Crowley’s hair, mussing it even more. Crowley gritted his teeth. “I mean maybe it’s something you can only do once, you know? Maybe that’s why Agnes said to choose wisely, because whatever we decided, we’d have to live with it.” He paused. “Or die with it, I suppose.”

Crowley didn’t like the sound of that. He looked down at his… Aziraphale’s… hand and flexed the fingers a little. “I don’t like that theory,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t get to change things because we don’t like them.”

“Says the angel who just averted the apocalypse because he didn’t want to lose his favourite sushi restaurant.”

Aziraphale gave him a disapproving look that was almost a glare, and Crowley had to admit that with his current face, it looked pretty impressive. “That’s not the only reason, Crowley,”

Crowley smirked, “Oh, I know. There’s that little Italian bakery two streets over as well.”

Aziraphale’s glare grew a little more intense. Which reminded Crowley, there were a couple of things he was going to need to talk to him about if this situation carried on for much longer. He held up his hands in mock defeat, “Alright, alright, sorry. But all joking aside, I don’t like that theory.”

He really didn’t, and as far as he was concerned, that was a perfectly acceptable point of view. It wasn’t like Aziraphale had arrived at the idea after months of research, or that he had some kind of precedent to call upon. All he had done was thought about the wording of the prophecy and made an educated guess. No, not even an educated one, it was just a clutching-at-straws style guess. And he had already used that particular line in the prophecy to back up the idea of switching in the first place.

“I don’t like it either,” said Aziraphale, “But it’s all we have at the moment. Maybe when things have cooled off a little, I could contact Heaven, see if they could shed any light on the problem. I’m sure somebody will have the answer.”

Crowley’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Oh yeah, great idea. ‘Uh, ‘scuse me Gabriel, me and my mate the demon here swapped bodies the other day to trick you into thinking we were impervious to hellfire and holy water, but now we can’t switch back. Don’t s’ppose you could help us out, could you?’ Yeah, I can see that going really well; definitely won’t end in another execution attempt.”

“That is not what I was suggesting at all,” Aziraphale told him. “For a start, I certainly wouldn’t approach Gabriel. And I’d have to leave it a long time before I even thought about going back there, of course, by which point we’ll hopefully have sorted the whole thing out for ourselves.”

Crowley shook his head. What Aziraphale didn’t seem to understand — or perhaps didn’t want to understand, was that there would be no more contacting Heaven, or Hell, for either one of them. And he understood why that was going to be a difficult idea for the angel to get used to, he really did, but he needed him to understand it.

“Aziraphale, you can’t contact Heaven,” he said, as gently as he was able. “Not ever. We’ve burned our metaphorical bridges, there’s no going back. You get that, right?”

Aziraphale nodded. “Of course I do.”

“They don’t forgive,” Crowley continued. “They might claim that they do, but they don’t. Take it from someone who knows.”

He was struck, as he was from time to time, by a memory. One of pain; of a sudden and intense loneliness so deep that it threatened to destroy him from within, and of the sensation of falling. It was a memory of confusion, of fear, and of loss; of everything he had once been burning away, twisting into something new, and it had hurt. A memory of waking up on the filthy, damp ground of Hell, to a reality changed forever, and knowing there was nothing that he could do about it. No chance of reprieve; he hadn’t even been given the chance to explain.

He closed his eyes briefly, and with effort pushed the memory aside. It still hurt, even after all that time. It probably always would.

“They don’t forgive,” he repeated.

As he opened his eyes, he found Aziraphale staring straight at him, his eyes wide with understanding. They were not Aziraphale’s eyes, and the strangeness of the situation hit him anew. He looked away, embarrassed. Without meaning to, he had given too much away. He hadn’t, and wouldn’t, voice the thoughts in his head, but somehow Aziraphale had understood him anyway.

“I won’t contact them,” Aziraphale promised him. “Ever.”

And this time, Crowley believed him.

The angel sighed deeply and sat back in his chair. “Ever,” he repeated, and Crowley honestly couldn’t tell whether Aziraphale found the idea terrifying, or exhilarating. Probably a little of both.

Crowley glanced at his wrist and found his watch absent. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed at the arm that was currently Aziraphale’s instead, and manoeuvred it so that he could see the time. “It’s late,” he said.

Aziraphale nodded. He fiddled with the strap of the watch, unfastened it, and handed it over without comment. “Yes. I suppose I should be going.” He made a move to get to his feet.

“Uh… you should be going?” Crowley asked, momentarily taken aback. One or the other of them noticing the time was usually his cue to leave. “You want to leave me here? In your shop?”

“Well,” Aziraphale frowned. “Want to might be a little strong, but I don’t have a lot of choice. Just because we’re not talking to them, doesn’t mean our respective head offices aren’t keeping a close eye on us. It might look a little odd if ‘I’ move into your flat and ‘you’ decide you prefer the bookshop.”

He was right of course. It was so obvious that Crowley would have slapped himself, if he had been the kind of person that went around slapping himself. He wasn’t. He was more like the kind of person that would go out of his way to make sure nobody realised when he failed to notice something. “Yeah,” he said. “Obviously.” He fastened the watch around his wrist. “So, how were you planning on getting to my place then?”

“Well…” Aziraphale began, then faltered. “I suppose I’ll… I mean…”

One thing Crowley was one hundred percent certain of was that Aziraphale wasn’t getting hold of the keys to his Bentley. He was, of course, under no illusions that the angel couldn’t get into and drive the car without the keys if he chose to do so, but Crowley was willing to bet that he wouldn’t do that.

Now he thought about it, he wasn’t sure Aziraphale even knew how to drive. Another consideration that wouldn’t technically matter if Aziraphale decided to put his mind to it, but again, Crowley couldn’t see that happening.

“And anyway, I’ve got plants there than need looking after,” Crowley added.

Aziraphale relaxed at that, on slightly more familiar ground. “Oh, I’m completely capable of looking after plants. After all, I posed quite realistically as a gardner for a number of years, and the gardens of the American Ambassador’s residence never looked better.”

“Yeah, but don’t forget I was there too,” Crowley reminded him. “I saw what you thought passed for gardening. You miracled the plants better — that’s cheating, you know. And you told the boy to be kind to slugs and greenfly and all the other garden pests.” He had also never once heard Aziraphale talk to the plants under his charge, not only did he not shout at them, he never even exchanged a ‘good morning’ with them. Not even the ancient oak tree he had been so fond of sitting under during the summer.

No, Aziraphale wasn’t getting anywhere near his plants. Not unsupervised, anyway.

“So what do you suggest?” Aziraphale asked.

It was obvious that Aziraphale already knew the answer, he just couldn’t suggest it himself. That was just how they did things. He looked away, stealing glances at Crowley out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the offer he knew was going to come.

Crowley was half-tempted to suggest something else just to see what the angel would do. He didn’t. “I suppose we could always both go back to mine. Y’know, if you wanted.”

“And that won’t be suspicious, the two of us spending the night at your flat?”

He shrugged. “Nah. It’s not like they don’t know what’s been going on now. Honestly, it’s probably what they’re expecting to happen.”

This was the part where Aziraphale turned him down. The part where he said he couldn’t. The reasoning behind the rejection always varied; that Heaven would disapprove, or that someone they didn’t want to notice might notice, or even just that Crowley himself was moving too quickly — after almost six millennia that one had stung particularly badly. Crowley braced himself, preparing for an uncomfortable night in the bookshop. Possibly the first of many nights in the bookshop, if they couldn’t fix their little problem.

“Oh, I don’t…” Aziraphale began, then hesitated. He glanced away, then back again, and then nodded. “Actually Crowley, that sounds like a perfect solution.”

Crowley stared. That wasn’t right. Aziraphale wasn’t sticking to the script. Of course, he no longer had a reason to; Crowley himself had made him promise that it was over between him and Heaven now. He was a free agent. And so was Crowley.

“Yeah?” he said, because he was an idiot, and apparently he wanted to give Aziraphale the chance to change his mind.

Aziraphale nodded. “Yes,” he confirmed. “But only if you sober up before you get behind the wheel.”

Crowley got to his feet, reached into the pocket of Aziraphale’s jacket that was hanging from a coat hanger on a cloak rack that hadn’t been there when they had entered the room, retrieved his keys and headed for the door, very deliberately not looking behind him to make sure the angel was following.

#good omens #good omens fanfic #crowley #aziraphale #nothing much happens in this chapter #but I had fun writing it #my dislike of swimming pools might come across a bit #I may be projecting a few of my dislikes onto the characters #see also chapter 2 #meringue #bleh

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deltaengineering · 5 years

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Winter Anime 2019 Part 4: That’s all, folks.

Over already? This is a pretty thin season with not a lot of shows, so it’s not that surprising that there’s not many good ones either. Still, a weak showing. Oh well, let’s get it over with. There were a few decent ones in the last batch.

Circlet Princess

What: Dimwitted schoolgirl is good at some vaguely defined virtual fighting sport, changes school based on it, finds out relevant club has been abolished. Forecast says: 5 member plot incoming.

❌ I think it’s already clear this show isn’t very ambitious, and not very well written either. A game adaptation at its laziest.

❌❌ Man, this girl is STUPID. What the hell.

❌ The rest of the cast are less stupid (which isn’t hard), but that just means they’re so forgettable they might as well not exist.

❌❌ It looks cheap, and by that I mean really really cheap. The character design is ISO standard anime and it’s mostly on model, but that’s as good as it gets. The animation just sucks. That’s a death sentence for an action/sports show with terrible characters.

Bermuda Triangle - Colorful Pastrale

What: Japanese Spongebob, as in cute mermaids. Doing things optional.

❌ To make this quick, this is almost exactly Pastel Memories, only every problem is just a little less extreme. It has fewer characters, it’s looking slightly better, there’s a tiny bit more going on, the setting is mildly more interesting. That still means it is:

❌❌ 1. A boring mess in which a handful of samey girls do nothing of much interest in a location that should be unique, but isn’t.

❌❌ 2. Conspicuously cheap. It even has the same sightline problems.

❌❌ 3. Featuring a character model sheet that is “off” even under the best circumstances. This time due to the very offputting decision to give everyone blobby triangular irises.

❌❌ Unlike Pastel Memories (which was an ad for a mobile game) this is an anime original, so it really has no excuse being this lame.

♎ I find it amusing that Pastel Palettes are providing the OP for an anime, and it’s not the one currently airing that they’re actually characters in.

Endro~!

What: Kiraralike comedy thing in a generic JRPG setting.

♎ Namori character designs, so it’s like Spyce in that it just seems like the Yuru Yuri cast cosplaying a genre. But hey, Namori character designs do look good.

❌ I’m not as done with generic JRPG settings as with generic isekai settings, but it’s still a real problem since the former is now a subset of the latter. Mildly making fun of it does not improve things much either.

✅ The tone is cutesy and pleasant. I find this much preferable to something like Mahoujin Guru Guru, which is pretty much the same thing but with abrasive, high-intensity slapstick instead.

✅ It’s backing that up with generally high-quality, agreeable pastel looks.

❌ Not being annoying is a start, but beyond that this seems very middle of the road and predictable. I don’t get much out of the genre “parody” and simply being cute is still not an unique selling point in anime.

Grimms Notes The Animation

What: Did someone say JRPG? This is a mobile one, vaguely based on fairy tales as the title implies.

✅ This universe runs on the idea that every NPC’s fate is controlled by a preset story they’re aware of. You could make a good story about that if you took it seriously. It even does that somewhat, but only to the degree that you’d expect from a throwaway sidequest in a moderately well-written JRPG.

❌ And the reason for that is that it has to make room for being a JRPG, of course. Read: It’s irritatingly mechanics- and combat-focused. Stuff like the characters changing form when in fights just seems overly complicated and adds nothing.

❌ Said combat looks competent, but not good enough to make up for detracting from what could have been an interesting setting. Merc Storia did this aspect far better (by usually not doing it at all).

❌ So it ends up being better than expected, but then that only amounts to a disappointment.

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai / Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

What: Kaguya and Miyuki are in the student council of a prestigious school and HATE HATE HATE each other. Specifically, they hate the part where the other one won’t just finally admit their love.

✅ The joke here is that it’s operating on full intensity at all times, over the most simple matters. It’s pretty much Kaiji, only about dating - complete with hammy narrator. This is another one of those shows where I can’t say with certainty that it’s solid, but I had a blast during the first episode.

✅ Regarding Quintuplets, I made it clear that I love me some sparks in my romantic comedies. It doesn’t get much more explosive than this.

✅ The characters are comparable to Quints too: Smart scheming upstart vs. rich scheming ojou, with a simpleminded girl in the middle that ends up winning more often than not simply by not overdoing it.

✅ The visuals are just as over the top as the proceedings depicted. Occasionally a filter massacre, but mostly cool.

♎ The long-term viability of this show depend entirely on whether they can consistently come up with scenarios that work, which isn’t a given. Also, this is so intense it might become tiresome - I already felt some fatigue towards the end of the first episode. We’ll see, I guess.

Kakegurui ××

What: Some weirdos think they can crash the party at Hyakkaou with an intent to scare the daylights out of Yumeko and Midari, of all people. Let’s just say they were not as prepared as they thought.

✅ As you might have guessed by me watching the sequel, I liked Kakegurui. It has its problems, but if you’re down for some crazypants madness, this show delivers.

✅ This is one of the better episodes of it too, because it gets right into it and the game they play is dead simple. Kakegurui was never about smart moves or strong characters, so not having anything detract from our girls deriving the entirely wrong sort of pleasure from danger is a plus.

♎ Sadly, the OP is a step down (though still great) and the ED is simply an inferior, overcomplicated version of the magnificent original one. They seem to know this too, because they play the OP cut of Deal with the Devil in its entirety for a montage. The rest of the production is on par with the original though, so it’s fiiiine. Oh well.

❌ It got Netflix’d again and the subs situation is dire. Since this is one I actually like, I might have to wait for the official release.

Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai / The Magnificent Kotobuki

What: Piston-engined fighter plane pornography.

✅ This delivers where Girly Air Force failed: Close to zero exposition, the majority of the episode is just planes dogfighting with barely any talking either. And that part is executed really well. I think the plane startup sequence alone is as long as the total of Girly’s airtime.

✅ Guess what, it’s Tsutomu Mizushima, previously known for unbridled panzer (und girls) pornography, and boy can you tell. However, this cuts out a lot of GuP’s bullshit: A plane doesn’t have the cast of K-ON in it, it’s not over-the-top zany, and whatever this universe is, it can’t be as insipid as GuP’s. The classy milwank exists you guys, we found it.

✅✅ The music really helps here, sky pirates vs zeppelins just wouldn’t work without some classic swashbuckling orchestra background. Fat sound mixing on the dakka too. It’s great.

♎ Can’t really say much about the narrative because we kinda skipped that in this episode aside from the obvious, but Mizushima’s Shirobako collaborator Michiko Yokote is writing it, and that’s a good sign.

❌ Now we’re getting to the elephant in the room though: There’s no way the planes wouldn’t be CG in 2019, but the characters are CG too, and their animation is mediocre. Also, they did the KADO thing where they 2D-animated the side characters that aren’t important enough to model. This has the funny side effect that you can tell who’s going to die real soon by them looking better. It’s far from great, but probably a worthy tradeoff if the mechanical side is this extensive and also delivers.

✅ This is definitely not for everyone, since you have to have more than a casual appreciation for those magnificent girls in their flying machines. I do, though.

revisions

What: A chunk of Shibuya gets teleported to the dystopian future, local doomsday prepper gets handed a large robot because he’s special.

❌ A Goro Taniguchi joint being a poorly conceived scifi mess? Say it ain’t so! I especially dig the tryhard English jargon (mecha: “String Puppet”, monsters faction: “Revisions”, particular monster, I think?: “Civilian”, tacticool operetah: “Balancer”).

❌ Works very hard to characterize the main character, to the detriment of everyone else. A for effort, but you made an unlikeable asshole though.

❌ This is another full CG show, with the quality of the animation being curiously variable. Sometimes it’s well above average and sometimes it’s painful. There doesn’t seem to be much method to it.

✅ Tries to establish stakes by being mondo edgy and graphically murderizing some poor bystanders. It’s adorable.

❌ If you’re really jonesing for some mecha, you can watch all of this on Netflix right now. It’s not like you have any alte- wait, Egao no Daika has mecha too. Well there you go then. That’s a better show.

#anime #impressions #winter2019 #Bermuda Triangle #endro #grimms notes #kaguya-sama #circlet princess #kakegurui #koya no kotobuku hikoutai #revisions #The Magnificent Kotobuki

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