well you can hate fabrevans but let’s not pretend that lucky wasn’t the cutest duet ever

okay i have a broad idea

jealous/protective chad meeks martin x fem reader but they aren’t dating yet just “friends” but ofc it ends with a confession

YEAHH LETS GO !!

Jealous? — Chad Meeks ★

PAIRING: Chad Meeks x fem!reader

SUMMARY: reader has been talking and hanging out with a boy recently and chad gets jealous but it ends in a cute little confession ofc :)

WARNINGS: none !!

He watched with squinted eyes as he stared at you down the hall. You were against a locker laughing with some guy you had met in the Library recently, Isaac. You were supposed to be Chad’s best friend but it feels like he’s being replaced. What he doesn’t want to admit is it’s because he’s had a huge crush on you since high school, and you guys had gotten extremely close since the incident in Woodsboro.

“Dude, if you keep staring you’re gonna burn a hole in their heads.”, Anika joked while Mindy wrapped her arm around her and joined in. “Yeah, I don’t understand why you won’t just tell her you’re in love with her.”

Chad quickly turned to look at Mindy with a puzzled look, “What? I’m not in love with her- were just friends.“

“Sureee ‘friends’ ”, Anika said in air quotes, “I guess you aren’t jealous of her little friend either, right?” She smirked while Chad scoffed. “I am not jealous.” He said matter of factly and looked back at you and Isaac again.

Mindy rolled her eyes muttering a ‘Whatever’ and walked off with Anika while Anika laughed.

He stood there thinking about it for a minute. He wasn’t jealous. All he’s ever wanted is for you is to be happy and safe and protected. Just because he wants to make you feel that way and doesn’t want anyone else to, doesn’t mean he’s jealous!! Or maybe he was just in extreme denial. He huffed out a breath and turned to walk away while giving you another glance.

Isaac was really close to you now, a little too close for Chad’s liking. So, he did the only logical thing he could think of, go up to you and show that prick you’re his. Though it isn’t even official but he’d get to that later. He walked up to you and you noticed him immediately with a bright smile and greeted him, “Chad! Where have you been? I didn’t see you this morning.”

“Sorry I had to help Ethan with some project he’s been working on. We still on for the movie tonight?”

You grimaced remembering you had made plans with Isaac. Chad looked confused then looked at the smirk on the guy’s face. Fucking asshole. “I guess you already have plans?” Chad asked slightly annoyed.

“I’m sorry Chad I completely forgot about the movie. I’ll make it up to you!” You grabbed his hand “You free tomorrow?” Chad slightly frowned but slowly nodded his head. “Yeah, just promise to text me later.” You smiled genuinely, “Of course! See you later.” You let go of his arm and he walked away.

He hated this. He thinks he hates it more than he should, but could you blame him? You guys always hung out, you were always around each other. He could tell that Isaac liked you by the way his eyes darkened when you grabbed Chad’s hand, but Chad couldn’t tell if you liked Isaac. You were always sweet and genuine to everyone and he loved that about you but you were friendly to the point where some might mistake it as flirting.

time skip to the next day

It was all of you hanging out at Sam’s apartment preparing to watch a scary movie. Chad would have preferred it to be just the two of you but he’s just glad he gets to spend time with you, since everything’s felt distant lately. Mindy got the popcorn ready and sat on the couch with Anika and Tara, Ethan sat on a chair by the door, and Quinn and Sam were in the kitchen talking, not really interested in the movie. So that left you and Chad alone on the second couch together. He silently thanked whatever higher being let this happen because it allowed him to put his arm around you when the movie started.

He thought he was being casual about it and glared daggers at Mindy and Tara for giggling at him. What he didn’t see was the grin on your face when he did so. Everyone could tell he liked you, and you liked him too but were a little more subtle about it. The only person you told was Mindy but assumed other people could probably tell with how you acted around him.

All you wanted was him and nobody else, you can’t count the amount of times you’ve ranted to Mindy about him. She always fake gags and rolls her eyes but she can tell you really care for him. If anyone was good enough for her twin, it was you.

Your phone buzzed in your lap and you checked it, it was a message from Isaac. Chad didn’t mean to look at it but he did. What was he supposed to do? It was right there.

Isaac

hey you almost done? I want to see you

Chad was visibly annoyed and you felt his arm tense around you. You looked up at him and gently asked, “Chad? Are you okay?”

“Hm? No, yeah, I’m good. Why?”

You shook your head, unconvinced at his response. “Cmon I want to talk to you about something.” You stood up and signaled for him to take your hand. He gave you a questioning look but took your hand and followed you anyway. You went into your room and heard Mindy whistle at you guys before you shut the door.

He wasn’t sure why but he was nervous. Not wanting to make anything more awkward than it already was, he spoke first, “Is everything alright?”

“I should be asking you that.”

“What do you mean?”

You sighed at his stubbornness and took a step closer to him. You looked at him and he looked everywhere but you. “Why wont you tell me what’s bothering you, Chad? Is this about Isaac?” You grabbed his hand and that plus the name Isaac got his attention. He looked at you with his eyes slightly wide and shook his head. “Isaac? No, of course not, why would you even think that?”

You rolled your eyes, “Chad every-time you hear his name you practically wince. Do you not like him?” He looked away again, “Chad, We’ve been best friends for years now, you know you can tell me, right? I wont take offense to it.”

Friends. He hated that word. He hated when you said it to describe your relationship. He knew you were of course, but he wants more than that. Maybe it was time to finally tell you. He began to speak before being interrupted by your phone’s notifications.

Your phone buzzed again. You tried to ignore it but it happened again and again. You rolled your eyes and took it out of your jean pocket.

“Isaac?” Chad asked you and you nodded before putting your phone on silent and sitting it on your desk. “I’ll deal with him later. Right now I’m focused on you.”

He scoffed at your words and that left you confused.

“You haven’t been focused on me for weeks, Y/N.” his voice was stern, “It’s been Isaac this Isaac that. I need to help Isaac. Oh sorry I’m hanging out with Isaac. You don’t have time for me anymore!” He didn’t mean to raise his voice at you and felt his heart sink at the look on your face.

“I’m sorry-“

“No, you’re right. I’ve been a bad friend to you, Chad and I’m really sorry. I don’t care about Isaac like I care about you. What can I do to make it up to you?”

He smiled and decided the time to ask you out would be now. What could go wrong?

“You could go on a date with me.” His voice was soft and quiet. You perked up and at first he thought your shocked expression was a disgusted one and was going to apologize before he saw the bright smile that appeared on your face. “I’d love to.”

“What? Really?!”

“Yeah, really.” You chuckled at his face. He was really cute when he was clueless. “Did you think I would say no?” Now it was his turn to laugh, “A little bit, yeah.”

You shook your head and kissed his cheek. “Of course not. I’ve liked you for years, dumbass.”

He was even more confused now. There was no way. You liked him? You were an angel, he didn’t think he could attract someone like you, you were perfect.

He looked at you and kissed you softly, you happily returned it and put your arms around his neck. When you both pulled away he kissed your forehead, “I’ve liked you too.”

“You’re hot when you’re jealous by the way, you know that?” you smirked while he scoffed and playfully rolled his eyes. “I was not jealous-“

“Yeah, Yeah, save it�� You giggled and it was your turn to kiss him this time. He held your waist and pulled you closer to him. Now, you really were his.

This is lazy but I hope you enjoyed <3

tags: @beary-rambles

Fire on Fire - Chapter Six

this is finally going somewhere! i had to cut this chapter in two otherwise it would have been six thousand words so… sorry for the cut😬

Warning for sucidal thoughts in this chapter.

chapter five // chapter seven

“She did not!” Aelin laughed loudly, still in her nightclothes. “Why do we always miss that?”

“Miss what?” Sam asked as he entered the room, two bowls of cereals in his hands. He gave one to Lysandra and brought two spoons so Aelin could eat in his bowl. Lysandra and Aelin just woke up, it was four in the afternoon and Aelin didn’t eat anything since last night, so she was starving.

Aelin, Lysandra, Nehemia, and Sam might have partied a little too hard last night. So this morning, Aelin and Lysandra decided to stay home. Sam didn’t look happy about Aelin missing class but he didn’t say anything, knowing Aelin’s mind was made. He came back from school an hour ago and woke them up.“Gods, I love these cereals,” she moaned at the taste. Aelin loved food, and it showed on her body. The only good thing about her injury is that now she didn’t have to pay attention to everything she ate to fit in stupid costumes. She might miss dancing but she loved food more.

“I finished the last box, by the way.”

Aelin nodded, making a mental note she’ll have to ask Quinn to go grocery shopping as soon as she could.

“Leave me some, Lys,” Nehemia said as she threw herself on Aelin’s bed. She was glad to have a gigantic bed when the four of them were home, which is almost all the time lately. Nehemia threw her hair behind her shoulder, silently asking her friends to pay attention to them.

“That color suits you, Mia,” Aelin smiled and it was genuine. Nehemia had fresh new braids, they started black but ended in a deep ocean blue. The girl never wanted boring colors in her hair and almost everything suited her. Lysandra and Sam agreed with her, making Nehemia smile arrogantly. But Aelin knew that Nehemia was hiding a real smile behind that.

“Might dye my hair blue to match you,” Aelin said and Nehemia looked thrilled.

“Don’t you dare!” Sam said, turning to Aelin and almost spilling the cereals and milk on her bed. “Your hair is so pretty. Buy a wig but don’t you dare dye it.”

“Excuse me?”

He pouted, “Please?” Even with this ridiculous face, he stayed beautiful. She loved the twinkle of mischief, the hint of exasperation at her, and the kindness that made her feel good, the kindness that made her want to be the best person she could be.

“Okay,” She sighed and he had a victorious smile drawn on his face. “Let’s go for the wig.”

He smiled and kissed her, pout-ring all his love for her in it. She could spend years kissing him. “You two are gross,” Lysandra complained, Sam and Aelin pulled apart and Aelin sent her best friend a vulgar gesture.

“Anyway, Lys, what did we miss?” Sam asked again, this boy was the most curious of the four. He liked to hear gossip about everyone.

“Ansel was high at Nox’s party two days ago.” Aelin was sad they missed a party just to be at a Gala, but her parents were home for once and demanded that she was with them.

“You’re joking?” Nehemia asked and laughed as she took Lysandra’s spoon to eat some cereals. The brunette threw the dark-skinned girl a look that promised violence.

“You’ll never see me taking drugs, that’s for sure,” Aelin sighed and rested her head on Sam’s shoulder. “God, I already regret drinking twice in a week.”

“Good,” Sam said and she rolled her eyes.

The four friends spent hours talking and laughing together. They practically all lived at her home, anyway. Sam and Lysandra’s families were fucked up enough, so they spent their time here. Nehemia’s parents worked too much to notice that she didn’t come home most nights. Aelin’s parents were never here either, so she welcomed the company.

When it started getting dark outside, Aelin’s phone rang. She had no idea who called her but it could be one of her parents, calling her from wherever they were now or even Aedion who had a habit to lose his phone.

“Hello?”

“Aelin?” A deep voice asked and Aelin thought she recognized it in the back of her brain but she couldn’t put a name on who it belonged to.

“I’m not trying to be rude but, who are you?”

The man laughed and the sound gave her chills. “It’s Arobynn Hamel. Your mother was supposed to give you my phone number but I guess she forgot.”

Her body froze. Arobynnn Hamel. Of course, she knew that voice, she had watched enough interviews of him to become familiar with it, she even met him two days ago. She sat straighter in her bed, attracting the worried gaze of her three friends. With a more serious face than they had ever seen, Aelin motioned for them to remain silent.

“Oh gods, I’m sorry, Mister Hamel. She didn’t give me your number, I’m very sorry.” She was so embarrassed, Mala knew how much Aelin would be mad at her mom for it. Her friends looked surprised at who called her.

“Calm down, Aelin. It’s okay.” He comforted her as he laughed softly. “And call me Arobynn.”

“Alright.” She said and waited for him to explain why he was calling her, not that she wasn’t happy about it because she was. She just knew she would embarrass herself if she opened her mouth and started talking.

“Are you doing anything tomorrow night?” He asked and Aelin furrowed her brows. That was weird but exciting at the same time.

“No, I am free. Why?”

“We didn’t have a lot of time to talk Saturday and I think it’s a shame. I am still in Orynth for two days and would like to talk with you. Your mother told me you wanted to be an author or work in the publishing industry, is it true?”

“Yes,” it was the fastest answer of her life. Yes, she had always dreamed of working around books.

“From what I’ve heard, Aelin Galathynius, you are special. I’d like to see that by myself. Allow me to take you out for dinner tomorrow and we can talk about your future.”

If Arobynn Hamel helped her… She could become a successful author. She could picture it, a small house, Sam at her side, a study full of books she wrote, a life away from the spotlight, a happy life. It’s exactly what she wanted. Special, he thought she was special.

“Dress code?”

He laughed again and Aelin couldn’t help but smile. “Something like the dress you had on Saturday should be good. I’ll pick you up at seven, is it good for you?”

“Perfect.”

They hung up and she looked at her friend, still surprised, and smile. She was thoughtfully happy.

“Aelin?” Aedion asked, tearing her from her daydream. “You there?”

“Sorry. What is it?” She was tired and hungover, she didn’t get lots of sleep last night and she was feeling the effects. Dorian had left early this morning, long before anyone woke up. It was better than having to face Aedion’s judgmental looks.

“I asked if your scholarship got renewed for next year, Lysandra got the answer in the mail yesterday so you’re supposed to have yours too, right?” She looked up from her bowl of cereals, confused for a second. When she met Rowan Whitethorn’s face, with the same confused expression as her, she remembered.

Lysandra, Aedion, and everyone else believed she got a scholarship, frankly, she had no idea how they believed her. But they never had a reason to distrust her, that’s probably the reason.

Most of her relation with Arobynn was secret and the money he spent on her was part of the lie.

“Yeah, everything is taken care of.” She smiled, it was the truth in a way. She dared to look at Rowan and she didn’t why, didn’t know how, but she knew he didn’t believe her. She could see it in his frown and eyes.

“Good,” her cousin smiled as he drank his coffee.

She smiled back, he was worried for her, she knew it. It’s exactly why she didn’t tell him anything, he didn’t need the stress. “I’ve got everything under control.”

---------

“What are you still doing here?” Arobynn asked, startling Aelin. She had been too busy on her computer to hear him coming. “It’s past nine, we finished hours ago.”

They both had worked for hours today and she was tired. “What are you still doing here?” She asked.

“I asked first, darling.” He sat in his chair in front of her. She was still in her seat, the chair almost belonged to her for all the time she spent on it. She wanted to be annoyed at him but today had been different. He had been different. He wasn’t the Arobynn she had known years ago but he was close, closer than he usually was lately. Aelin was pretty sure he hadn’t had a drink all day, which could explain his mood. That was a good thing.

“I’m writing and waiting for my cousin to check his damn phone so he can pick me up.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Broken,” she grilled through her teeth. The damn truck had decided not to work this morning, causing Aelin to have a nervous breakdown. “A friend of mine had a look at it and told me it would cost me more to repair it than to buy a new one, so here I am, depending on my cousin.” She hated it, hated to depend on someone. But it seemed to happen a lot lately, so she might have to get used to it. “What are you doing here?” She repeated.

“My meeting lasted two hours,” he said, his voice hard.

“Ah, sucks when you have to actually do your job, right?” She remarked and didn’t know if it was a reproach for the way he over-worked her or a teasing. Maybe both, she didn’t want to wonder about it too much.

“Someone’s feisty today,” he joked and she fought a small smile. “Ready for Monday?”

“I already told you no, Arobynn.”

“Why not? You finish the school year in four days.”

“I have a job, Arobynn. I can’t just-”

“Everything’s taken care of.” He cut her off with a smile. It was the kind of smile that told her he had done something and was feeling rather proud of it.

“What.”

“Did you know Rofle was my friend? After a drink or two, he agreed to let you come back in September, right after your internship at Hamel Publishing.”

“And you did that after I told you no?” Her tone was rising. “And are you friends with everyone here?”

He rose from his seat to stand right before her. She had to raise her head to look him in the eye. One of his calloused hands rested on her cheek, caressing her cheekbone. "You know how powerful I am." She did, Arobynn wasn’t just a successful author or the CEO of a publishing company, those were just hobbies for him. He had grown up in a rich family, had been raised to be like every rich people. He had learned how fake smiles and words were weapons, how to manipulate people. He had a way to manipulate everyone he called his friends, whether it was a picture, a video, or a letter. He had something on everyone. “I once promised you I would make you shine, Aelin. I won’t let a shitty job ruin that promise.” For years he had told her she was special, he had told her she could reach the stars should she just let him help her. And for years she had believed him, so she decided to do it again. She only nodded and it seemed to be enough for him.“I’m calling a cab for you.”

“No.”

“No?” His voice was surprised. “Is it because of the money?”

“For fuck sake Arobynn I can afford a cab ride,” that was a total lie, but he didn’t need to know that. “I just… can’t.”

Understanding and pity flashed on Arobynn’s face and she had to keep herself from yelling at him for it. “You still can’t?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” She said voice hard that didn’t let room for questions.

“Pack your things, I’ll drive you.” This was what Arobynn from four years ago would have said, what the Arobynn she had come to know would have said. In a flicker of hope, she said yes. Hope that she could erase what happened between them, that she would forget like Arobynn repeatedly asked her to, and just start again because she didn’t know how to survive another person leaving her.

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

It was the middle of the night when Rowan heard her cries.

At first, he had ignored them, trying to give her privacy. It was unusual of her to let someone hear her, so Rowan thought it might be very bad. But after five minutes of cries, he couldn’t stay in his bed anymore.

When he walked into her room, his heart broke a little. She was in bed, sleeping, trashing against the sheets, crying, and trying to talk. Even with only the light from the bathroom, he could see the pain written all over her face.

He couldn’t take it, he couldn’t just walk back to his room and ignore her. So, he shook her shoulder, trying to wake her up but it didn’t work. She kept jerking in her bed as if she was fighting with the pillows and her blanket.

“Aelin,” he said, using both his hands to shake her. “Aelin,” he repeated louder. Her eyes jerked open, she turned her head several times, trying to figure out where she was. Her whole body shook and a second later she leaned over the bed and vomited her guts out. Rowan held her hair back, avoiding touching her directly so as not to overwhelm her.

When she lay back down in bed, she was still crying, her limbs shaking as if she were hypothermic even though Rowan could see the sweat glistening on her skin.

Rowan had only seen one person look so wrecked in his entire life, himself. He saw it every time he woke up and looked into the mirror. It was worse ten years ago because he had no idea how to hide it, in a decade he learned how to conceal everything. How to recognize which night was most likely to give him a nightmare, learned how to stay quiet while he felt like dying inside.

“You should take a shower,” Rowan said, voice softer than he has ever used with her. He had been wrong, so wrong.

“I don’t think I have the strength.”

“To shower?” He asked but there was no judgment, he only wanted to make sure.

“To live.” Her small voice broke and his heart did too. When she looked up at him, eyes filled with tears, Rowan didn’t see anything but desperation and loathing. He knew it wasn’t directed at him but at herself.

“Come here,” he said as he slid his arms under her body. “We’re gonna clean you up, okay?” He lifted her up from her bed, avoiding the content of her stomach on the floor as her weak arms curled around his neck and he guided her to the bathroom.

————

@sheharahu // @morganofthewildfire // @thestoriesyoutell // @fromthelibraryofemilyj // @swankii-art-teacher // @itsforeverinnocent-blog // @becarefuloflove // @imnotsogoodatthis // @rowaelinismyotp // @a-court-of-milkandhoney // @feysand-loml // @surielandiareendgame // @live-the-fangirl-life // @story-scribbler // @loves-books // @fangirlprincess09 // @theysayitscrazy

i’m about five years too late and nobody asked for this except me and i need to just get this out of my brain because it’s 2am so here’s a list of things i wish happened on glee that didn’t HERE WE GO:

- new directions being actual teenagers. just them hanging out. going to group sleepovers. giant study sessions (because school exists in this universe?) like remember in tpp when they were eating lunch together ? that’s what i wanted MORE of. just them being actual friends. a sleepover episode is all i wanted imagine all the abba songs we could have gained from that episode

- a halloween themed episode. the closest to this that we got was the ‘thriller/heads will roll’ mashup which YES was iconic but im greedy and it’s not enough. my idea for a halloween episode is that the gang gets trapped inside the school after staying behind to idk rehearse? or something? and then things get progressively worse as they start to go a little mad, thinking the school is haunted and they split up into pairs trying to find an escape and they think they’re seeing ghosts/someone lurking around the school and they’re getting real spooked but it turns out it’s just sue fucking with them lmao

- kurt and finn being brothers. THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE and sadly after furt we are left with crumbs. why ?? WHY?? little moments like finn saying that he’s driving back home with kurt or them saying they can’t do something because they have a family thing would have been good enough. more scenes of them hanging out in their home with their parents would have been *chefs kiss* but alas. it never happened because glee writers are bastards

- based off my last point: sam actually living at the hudson-hummel house because he actually did live there? but nothing is ever said like what’s the dynamic there why weren’t kurt and sam and finn close if they all lived together for what? like a year? was sam living in the mf shed? did he ever get close to carole and burt?? where tf did he live when everyone went off to college did he just stay in their house lol who knows not me LMAO

- blaine dealing with his trauma ? mental health was never dealt with very well on this show. emma’s ocd was just ignored after she got married or whatever and blaine mentioned his trauma once and then it was ignored until it was mentioned in passing a few seasons later and even he just brushed it off and it was never brought up again like wtf. i have no idea how they wrote a whole episode about hate crime in bash and they never once thought to have blaine and kurt have a single conversation together, let alone a conversation about how they’d both been victims of a hate crime. AND THE ONLY TIME BLAINE DOES MENTION IT IS IN TESTED WHERE ITS JUST USED AS A REASON FOR THEM TO FIGHT AAAAAAAA no wait im calm it’s okay. i just would have liked to have seen kurt and blaine have an emotional moment together in that episode that didn’t include blaine singing and kurt being knocked tf out. just sayin.

- kurt dealing with HIS trauma !! again, glee gets bad points for talking about mental health and it just is crazy that they had so much potential with kurt, ie: depression, anxiety, ocd (kinda?) his bullying, being literally assaulted (i see u ryan murphy taking that whole plot line so loosely mmhm) and then shoehorning in the fact that he was suicidal AT THE SECOND TO LAST EPISODE when they had a whole episode about suicide and they could have mentioned it at any time but ofc they didn’t because the writers just wanted to shove in as much as they could in the flashback episode AYE AYE AYE the potential!!!! oof.

- literally just more tina. jenna ushkowitz is a fantastic actor/singer/preformer and she was criminally underused. i like the episode props because of two reasons: one. everyone switching characters was amazing. and two. some actual tina scenes. even if she.. technically was rachel but also herself or something? either way. i digress

- this is just in general but MORE ABBA AND ALSO THE CARPENTERS and also some sound of music songs would have worked GREAT but they already had like a million songs and as the show progressed they veered away from old songs and more towards popular songs at the time to help chart numbers blah blah blah whatever it’s cool. but also how did they only do a few abba songs that is criminal

- a more fleshed out ending that wasn’t so rushed. like rachel won a tony and everyone else is just? there? why is sam at mr shue’s house ??? how did artie get up the stairs? did quinn graduate from yale? and where tf was kurt and blaine’s child during ‘i lived’ because burt and carole are vibing in the audience and rachel isn’t pregnant so like? is the baby just?? alone somewhere in the wings?! lmao where are u bby girl!! but once again i know they didn’t have the time to do it so idk it’s fine what they did it just sucks we didn’t get more! but again. fanfic exists so yah im all good

- more of blaine’s mum. or mom, in this case i guess. why cast gina gershon and then give her ONE line like ? ik there was a whole deleted script that explained why she was there but i love that up until that point blaine seemed like he genuinely murdered his parents, lived in their big house all alone and when people got suspicious he just told them that they were “out of town” :) either way pam is great i love her and i wish she had more to do in the one episode she was ever in. not even a moment with blaine?? wasted.

- more of cooper anderson, matt boomer is so fucking funny everytime i think of the emotion tornado i bust a lung laughing like it’s so fucking stupid but oh my good i love it. (and if you haven’t watched the special feature of cooper’s transformers audition tape please please watch it because it’s just so funny.) ik he was just a special guest but i wish they got him back for at least the wedding ep but guess my mans was just busy. boo ;(

- going back a couple of points, i wish they’d done a whole episode like props. every actor here just shines when they’re impersonating each other. finn and puck as kurt and blaine is beautiful and quinn and sugar is incredible. also idk why they refused kevin the right to wear the cheerios skirt; they could have put a little more effort into some characters but that’s glee for ya lmao but yeah. a whole episode like that would have been so much fun

- they should have let chris colfer write more episodes. purely for the fact that he wrote with his own bare hands the whole scene where lea michelle’s character gets dragged down a road by dogs. this guy. it’s a shame he only got to write one since he actually did a really good job! i would have loved to have seen what other episode ideas he had :)

- glee in the summer! obviously it only was centred around the school year but after season 3 who honestly gave a shit about the glee club and mckinley lmao i wanna see them in SHORT SHORTS and POOL PARTIES but nope we just got september - june so like rip all my hopes and dreams

- WHAT HAPPENED TO DALTON? bitch just burst into flames ?? and for WHAT?? oh yeah plot convenience smh this is so sad i wish they’d either written something better than “we need the warblers to team up with new directions so uhhh the school burnt down” like. it’s a private school. if the school is gone and they’re just staying at mckinley what are the parents paying for? they’re just cool with sending their kids off to public school now? every adult in this universe has been murdered by these kids, haven’t they? they’re just doing whatever they want jfc

- a wedding was a good episode. ish. and yknow, huge kudos to them because gay marriage wasn’t legal in the us at the time so im less harsh on the fact that they definitely threw up the rainbow flags and made it less about the characters getting married and more so “we have gay characters and look they’re getting married what a concept” but i do wish we could have gotten some more married!klaine since they don’t really have much to do after this understandably but a little moment alone together after the wedding would have been nice :) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE IM TELLING YOU

- get rid of the hummelberry friendship and send mercedes to new york instead. i have nothing else to add to this other than the fact that i mourn the fact that kurt and mercedes went from bffs to just. school mates. this is tragic this is traaaaagic !! and all for more of the rachel berry show smh

- every day i wonder what was going through carmen tibideaux mind when she watched the kurt hummel preform not the boy next door and was like :) and then watched rachel berry have a breakdown on stage and then proceeded to give rachel the spot at nyada and kurt gets payed literal dust. and THEN she had the nerve to tell him it was because his performance had no heart. AND HOW DID ADAM GET IN THIS BABY GOT BACK MOTHERFUCKER?! nyada is a circus school oh my god !!!!! kurt deserved better im telling yall he deserved so much better

there’s so much more i could rant about but im going insane im so tired and i need psychological help after watching glee so im gonna leave it here and say peace out homies it’s been fun but i need to sleep so bad

Hello -are you new here? Welcome if you are!

So your Deep Dive into Blaine Anderson is quite a lot to think about. It’s really mostly your head canon and not actually what happens in the show? Not canon?

When first introduced he becomes Kurt’s friend, who he has a crush on. He was subsequently called a mentor to him, but that’s not how we first see him. He’s just another teenager at this point, who Kurt falls in love with.

Most people don’t actually call Blaine whiny and clingy - only a small proportion of the fandom for a variety of reasons. Just like every character had their flaws and their critics. Most people like Blaine.

Blaine was a confident happy pupil at Dalton, and I don’t think he was putting on an act. But of course, there are other sides to him that we don’t see initially.

Yes, Blaine was assaulted at a Sadie Hawkins dance. Yes, he suggests on at least one occasion that he doesn’t have a good relationship with his dad. We don’t know for certain anything about Blaine’s relationship with his parents. But he does still mention them throughout the five seasons, indicating he lives with them, and that they were upset after Shooting Star.

Blaine attended prom with Kurt in season 2: it was hard for both of them, but they stood up to the bullies together. He also attended prom in season 3. So by Sadie Hawkins in 4, he rejects Tina’s proposal because he has a crush on Sam, not because of any apparent continued fear of school dances. Likewise, in Tina in the Sky with Diamonds, he’s happy to be there - he seems to have fact moved on from the assault trauma.

Do you think he had a close relationship with the Warblers? They were friends in 2, in fact they all looked up to him as charismatic lead singer who made the song choices. But they betrayed him in 3; in 4 Hunter and Sebastian tried to get him back to Dalton to secure a win at nationals, and then there was the drug issue. I’m inclined to think they were using him, and not genuine friends or family. He made his genuine friends, apart from Kurt, in season 4 at Mck.

Yes he was happy at Dalton, or so it seems. He wasn’t present when it burned down - he came back from his honeymoon to discover it had been burnt down. Yes he was upset, but bounced back quickly as the Warblers became part of the ND. A plot line really to insureBlaine had nothing to stay in Lima for, and could return to NY with Kurt. I don’t feel he was traumatised by it.

The wedding of course was Britannia’s wedding, and they had managed to get Blaine’s mum there, which was a nice touch. So the absence of dad and Cooper is not particularly shocking. And yes, there is part of deleted plot that the parents had divorced but a lot of plots were changed over the course of the show, so nothing can be gained from this.

I don’t agree Blaine raised himself. He dresses beautifully, he is beautifully mannered and follows etiquette. There must have been someone around to teach him these things. He never says his parents are not there, yes we don’t see them, and we can head canon a distant relationship, but it’s not certain. He calls his mum after SS, he is obviously close to her. He mentions them in Feud, and in Loser like Me. He has a sibling rivalry with Cooper - we don’t know how badly that affected Blaine: but Cooper does seem to care for him and be proud of him.

There’s no indication mum had a drink problem - yes she’s drunk at the wedding. Mmmm a lot of people get drunk at weddings. Santana and Quinn got drunk in I do - does that mean they have a drink problem? Blaine certainly doesn’t have a drink problem. In fact, he doesn’t drink a lot - we see him drunk on two occasions. We see several of the ND also drunk on occasions, but they don’t have a drink problem. In the scene with Dave, he appears to have a coke in front of him, and likely he drove. He said himself he went to the bar because he was lonely, and that’s probably the only place in Lima he would actually meet other gay people . By this stage, he was in therapy, had a job and was moving on: no suggestion he’s hanging round a bar because he’s depressed.

His relationship with Karofsky. Yes many in fandom hate it. I don’t love it. But let’s remember: they do seem to have a warm relationship, Blaine speaks fondly of him, there’s the gentle cheek kiss and eye contact when they split, which speaks volumes. Blaine looks happy to be with him. He tells him he admires him. Blaine is getting on with his life - as far as he’s concerned Kurt is in NY, they may not see each other again for a very long time. Blaine didn’t date Dave out of spite - Dave was there when he needed company, Dave had suffered himself - he was a good support to Blaine when he needed it. Why would he date him for pain and abuse, or punishment. He was in therapy, he was getting better and he was genuinely happy. Why would he feel guilty about the split - it was Kurt who called it off.

Blaine is one if the happiest, most likeable characters . He is loved by his friends and teachers - he is talented, high achieving, ambitious and kind. He’s generous, he cares for his friends, he will do anything to help his friends. He is great fun to be with. Yes, he’s insecure and suffers from loneliness which means he makes rash decisions. He’s not extremely depressed, he has periods when he is down - don’t we all?? He’s not suffering , depressed, sad individual but the opposite most of the time - fondly regarded as a ray of sunshine. If I was having a bad day, I’d want Blaine as my friend to cheer me up.

He’s not suicidal - I can’t see what you are saying re On my way - he isn’t in camera shot most of the time . He’s not rubbing his wrists or looking sad, he confidently states he wants marriage equality in 50 states - another thing that’s very important to him. Because he wants to marry. And he wants to marry Kurt. Cough Syrup is an excellent solo - at the time he sings it , no one is aware about Dave. Blaine had his own stresses that day - mostly to do with Sebastian. Kurt is the one who has been lonely, depressed and suicidal. Not Blaine.

He doesn’t have an eating disorder - we see one episode where he overeats because he is a new city. Then he feels bad because he’s put on the weight, and pulls away physically from Kurt. He’s not got an eating disorder. He enjoys sport - we see him at gym, boxing, aerobics and he dances a lot with friends.

Also, you make a big jump to assume he’s been sexually abused or assaulted. In fact, there is no indication of this at all. If that’s your head canon, that’s fine, but there’s nothing in canon that says this. Or nothing in his behaviour that says this. Plus I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick regarding Tina, and his reaction to the vapo rape and Sam teasing Tina. Watch it again, Blaine isn’t upset.

There’s a lot I could go into about his relationship with Kurt but it’s already a long ask. Please feel free to chat to me about any of these!!! I note you think Blaine and Puck would be a good friendship, but that’s a chat for another day!!!

Look forward to a pleasant discussion with you!!

I'm fairly new to the Glee fandom, it'll be one year in the summer (I think August?)

It's a mix of canon and headcanons that are heavily supported by canon, I tried to specify what is what.

Most of the people I've seen that don't like Blaine or only like him in season 2 say he's whiny and clingy, and I'm happy to see that not a lot of people on Tumblr say that. More people do on Instagram, which is where I see most of the hate directed at him (he's still very popular there though!)

I've seen a lot of people say that he's mostly himself in the later seasons, it may not have been a mask at Dalton and could have been a personality change maybe impacted by the environment/who he surrounded himself with. In a deleted scene it says that his mom (maybe both parents? I just remember his mom specifically) isn't home much because of work - but I usually think that she's home late at night and on most weekends (nothing to support it, just what I think)

For the school dances, that is pretty likely, but the Sadie Hawkins specifically could have also brought certain memories back. I won't go into detail but I also have a bad experience related with a certain type of event, similar events don't bring back memories but that one specifically does, it does depend on the person though.

I think it depends on the person if he had a close relationship with them. Trent, for example, yes, but this is supported the most by canon. I also believe he was close with Nick and Jeff, but that's not as supported, and looked up to David, Wes, and Thad. But I don't really see them spending much time with him.

I don't think Blaine did have a drinking problem, I tried to specify that in the analysis but I think I wasn't clear because you're the second person to ask about that, just that he may have picked up the coping mechanism when he was in a bad place but to a lesser extent. The reason I think his mom may be is because (again, deleted shot) there was a shot in which Puck was holding her up and nobody seemed to be in a similar state, Quinn and Santana in I Do weren't as drunk as Pam appeared to be in that shot. But again, since it was deleted, I'm not entirely sure if it counts (I literally forgot it was a deleted shot until I rewatched the episode which is why I didn't point that out.) I do think Blaine and Dave got closer throughout their relationship because it did seem healthy, I don't think Dave was ever abusive because he changed a lot from the beginning of the series. It could have been something Blaine expected knowing his past. During the breakup, Blaine asks if it was something he did, which would be a reason why he'd blame himself. And I also don't think Blaine dated him out of spite, that's very out of character for him. But I've seen a lot of people say they think he might have it that don't like him because he dated Dave. Since writing the analysis (it's been a few months) I actually changed my opinion on Blainofsky, I still don't love it but I don't really hate it either.

In On My Way, he does rub his wrists, but it is kind of hard to see. You have to be watching him closely, and I don't think I would have noticed had it not been pointed out to me. I really think he needed more backstory and more of a look at his mental health - while he does seem happy most of the time, he does have signs of mental illness in his darker times, so it could just be how he feels in that moment, or he could be covering up feelings of depression or anxiety when he seems happier. And Kurt was definitely depressed and suicidal - I meant to write something on him as well but never got to it...

The eating disorder thing has been pointed out by a few other people as well, and a lot of people say it could be just stress eating, or it could be disordered eating which could potentially become an eating disorder had Kurt not intervened. There are warning signs that he could have potentially developed one - most notably a desire for control, which is a very common cause.

I wasn't even going to discuss sexual assault at first, I never considered it. The only reason it was brought up was because of the article I linked in the analysis and every point I made was from there.

And the mention of Tina and the vapo-rape thing, again, you're not the first to mention it so I'm probably wrong about it and I'll admit that. I had it pointed out that he was upset by one person and I haven't seen the episode in a while.

I'll probably look more into the character and update the analysis because lately a lot of people have been asking about it (honestly idk why it's suddenly popular since I did it a while ago but- I'm not complaining!)

Thank you for the ask, I hope I kinda cleared things up... And I appreciate the criticisms and your input!! If you wanna keep talking about this or anything else, feel free to send another ask or DM me :)

this is my first post

Hullo. This is my 3rd time rewriting this, because sumthin’ kept fucking up every time I tried to write it. But let’s hope this time goes smoothly cause I got a lot to say. I don’t have anywhere else to put this, so I decided, why not come to Tumblr and see what everyone else thinks. So, let’s get started. I have been a Gleek since I was in 6th grade. And as much as I know that the show is cringey and hard to watch, my sister and I genuinely enjoyed it (although now we mostly watch it ironically). And we always had a favoritism system going, our favorite characters were blatantly obvious, and we were fishing for least favorite characters when we could. So, our lists of favorite characters/ships looked a little something like this: Favorites: -Kurt Hummel -Finn Hudson -Rachel Berry -Santana Lopez -Brittany S Pierce -Blaine Anderson Least favorites: -Quinn Fabray -Noah Puckerman -Terry Schue -Sue Sylvester -Jessie St James -Sebastian Smythe Favorite ships: -Finchel -Klaine -Brittana -Wemma And even though that doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with that set up in particular, I’m going to explain to you why my views have changed. Especially on my least favorite characters. And disclaimer!! Any and all of these characters that I list on my least favorites have nothing to do with race, gender, disability, sexuality etc. They are solely based on personality and how their actions affected others. That’s it. That’s what I’m basing it off of. Same goes for my favorite characters as well. And believe me I will give a lengthy explanation for each and every one of them I promise. So I’m going to be listing the least favorites from LEAST bad/toxic to MOST bad/toxic. And don’t be upset if one of your favorites are on here. Just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean you can’t like them. Just make that clear. These are only things that I’ve picked up and I’ve noticed throughout the show and watching back important clips and such from the show. Coming in at #7: Mercedes Jones: I know what’s coming already. And I’m going to have to tell y’all this loud and clear. Mercedes is not a diva. She’s just a bitch. I’ve never liked Mercedes, and not because she was black, but just because she had an awful personality and she was awful to the people around her. I think the only time I really saw her being nice to someone was when she was dating Sam, or when she was dating that football player. And a few times when she was with Kurt. The main problem I have with her is in S1E3: Bust Your Windows, she busted Kurt’s front windshield all because he had a crush on someone else. And I can guarantee you guys this. If a guy did that to a girl, like if Kurt had done that to Mercedes instead, y’all would’ve been outraged. She had no reason to bust his window like that and then get all sassy to him when he got upset about it. Coming in at #6: Santana Lopez: And this is another character that y’all are so set on saying that she’s a diva. But no. Santana is a straight up bitch. And before you guys say “she was closeted/insecure/outed!” etc, Kurt was also insecure and closeted in the first season and he was never rude to anybody in the way Santana was. And secondly, Finn didn’t out her until S3E6: Mash Off, and I can tell you she had been acting like a huge bitch way before then. All I have to do is pull up all of the times she’s been anti-semetic to Rachel, fatphobic to Finn and Lauren, attacked people’s insecurities and was just being god awful. One of my least favorite scenes from her is when she went on that entire rant about why Blaine and Kurt didn’t work out, and she attacked Kurt’s teeth, his sexuality, his dancing, his s3xual appeal, and just about everything Kurt was insecure about. All because he said that he thought Santana and Brittany were too young to get married. And I honestly agreed with him, Britt and San were 19. Definitely too young to get married, and Kurt was just trying to relate his failure with Blaine to warn them that getting married this young wasn’t something that they wanted to do. But no. Santana didn’t listen to him trying to reason with her, she just told him basically “you suck, Blaine really hates you, get your crap together.” And I have always had a problem with it. Not to mention she called Quinn a slut. And no matter what situation you are in, I don’t believe it’s okay to call any girl a slut. Actually, I don’t think it’s okay to call anybody a slut. Because I’m bringing this back. If Finn had called Quinn a slut, you guys would be all over him and cancelling that character so fast, but as soon as Santana says it, it’s okay? That never sat right with me either. And again, the way she relentlessly bullies Rachel for everything she’s insecure about, especially her height and nose is not okay. It doesn’t matter how much you dislike someone. Making fun of her nose to the point where as soon as she breaks it, she’s immediately thinking of getting a nose job. That is not okay. And there’s a speculation that Santana was the one who pushed Rachel over the edge to try and fall into bulimia. And I don’t doubt it. Santana is not a nice person. And her internalised homophobia does not excuse anything that she’s said or done. Not to mention she has Britt wrapped around her finger and she knows that she’ll do anything she asks. Like when Santana was fantasizing about forcing Britt to break up with Artie if she became Prom Queen because it would be “the law of the land” that is absolutely inexcusable. Because we all know Britt is naive and has some sort of DD or autism, and the characters in the show take that and use it to their advantage. Especially Santana. Coming in at #5: Artie Abrams: Now before you come for my ass, let me tell you. I actually used to really like Artie. He was pretty high up on my ranking Glee characters lists that I used to make all the time. But now that I’ve rewatched and I’ve noticed more things, I just cant like him with a good conscience. Remember in season 1 when Tina told him that she doesn’t really have a stutter? Well, if you remember, he broke up with her after that. But if you were closely watching the show, you should’ve realised that Tina has some sort of social anxiety, (not that I’m excusing her faking a disability), but she has a reason for doing it. She (presumably) took up the stutter because she needed a way to avoid having to speak so much in public. Which is totally understandable! Artie didn’t have to break up with her. She confided in him to finally tell him what she had been hiding for so long and he just breaks up with her??? Are you kidding? That just goes to show that one of the only reasons he was dating her was because of her disability. If he broke up with her so fast for not actually having one. Even though she had an actual reason that she did it. Another thing about Artie that I hate is that he called Britt stupid. And that is a huge deal. Everyone in the school calls Britt stupid or something along those lines (even Santana) and as soon as she finds the one guy who doesn’t think that way of her, he breaks her trust. She technically did cheat on him, but as I said earlier, she bends to Santana’s every order and she has some sort of DD or autism and didn’t understand that it was cheating. She even told Artie she didn’t understand it. And instead of sitting her down and explaining to her and giving her a second chance to prove her new knowledge to good use, he just calls her stupid and makes her cry. And then this one is obvious. Artie didn’t fucking wear c0ndoms while he was having s3x with those two girls in New York and didn’t actually tell them he had chlamydia. Which just pissed me off so much it makes me angry just talking about it. Coming in at #4: Finn Hudson: Oh ho ho. Finn Hudson makes me so angry. Let me just start off with everything he did (and didn’t do) to/for Kurt. Starting with the infamous “faggy scene” after Kurt tried to make amends with Finn for all the arguing they had been doing by redecorating their room. As ugly as it looked (lmao), he did his best to try and appeal to what a straight guy would like without making it too masculine so he would feel comfortable sleeping in there too. He tried to appeal to Finn’s interests as well as his own and had to do it all on short notice. But as soon as Finn saw it, the first thing he said was “are you freaking insane?” and Kurt just deflated. If you watch the scene, you can see it. You can physically see Kurt’s hard work all go to waste because of that comment. But then Finn follows it up with saying “I can’t live here, I’m a dude.” That line for me is the one that really made me dislike Finn very very strongly, because he not only said Kurt wasn’t a man to his face, he also views Kurt as nothing but his sexuality. That is further proven when he describes how uncomfortable he is around Kurt just because Kurt has a crush on him. And yes, Kurt was creepy, but after then, when they started living together, he just tried his best to make Finn feel as welcome and as comfortable as he can make him feel. But then sees that everything has been pointless, because Finn makes it a point to tell him that he puts his underwear on in the shower before he comes out when Kurt’s around. And that’s just fucked up. And a lot of people say that Finn “didn’t mean it” when he said the f-slur, but let me tell you something. You don’t just accidentally say something twice out of anger. If you really didn’t mean it, you would apologise right when it left your mouth. But Finn’s lack of an apology only proves that he meant every word of what he said. Next is when Finn refused to help Kurt out with Karofsky. I can only talk briefly about this because it actually makes me so fucking mad I can’t explain it. So, Rachel asks him to help Kurt out and confront Karofsky, right? And Finn refuses. Because, and I quote: “We both know I can help him more if I stay on top.” And I think he even says “Kurt will be fine” too, completely ignoring the fact that Kurt is so terrified to go to school, he’s losing weight (there are speculations that he cuts), but Finn doesn’t care about that. He only cares about the fact that he needs to stay popular. Oh and the fact that Karofsky plays right guard and wont guard him during the football game is he’s pissed and they’ll lose. He picks FOOTBALL and POPULARITY over his soon-to-be stepbrother’s MENTAL/EMOTIONAL/PYSICAL H E A L T H. I cannot explain how angry that makes me. Not to mention, the amounts of times he’s played victim. Especially with Rachel. One time that really pisses me off is when he goes “have you ever thought about what I’m going to do in New York?” and Rachel starts stammering over herself and assuring him that she’ll find something that he fits into since he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with his future. And then he asks her about California and Puck’s pool business. Even though he knows Rachel has been set on New York and NYADA since she was a little girl. He knows that she has all of those ambitions and she has an entire plan in her life and she’s already trying to shift those plans to fit Finn in with her. And for him to tell her that he wants her to give all of that up to come with him and Puck to California is actually more selfish than Rachel is. Oh! And not to mention he outed Santana too. Let’s not forget that. In front of basically the whole damn school too. He also kissed Emma. And he also cheated on Rachel with Quinn. And then actually broke up with Rachel when she made out with Puck a bit because she wanted to get him back for cheating on her and sleeping with Santana (even though it doesn’t excuse what she did at all, I just think Finn was being a hypocrite.) And he also cheated on Quinn with Rachel in the first season, and he led Rachel on for the entire first season, Or most of it at least. Coming in at #3: Mr. Schue: I’m just gonna speed through this: -He was a creep/pedo with both the girls and the boys -He had a savior complex and tried to force Emma’s OCD away and fix it instead of help her -He encouraged Emma’s crush on him even while he was married -He twerked with a bunch of minors -Suspended a minor for not wearing a bra she was uncomfortable in -He dealt really badly with Rachel’s crush on him -Never listened to his students’ input -hallucinated children while he was sick -Was very awkwardly touchy with his students -His best friend was 19 -refused to stop twerking even when offered the exchange for a trans student to use a staff bathroom to avoid getting bullied -overreacted after finding out Terry wasn’t pregnant Now the moments you’ve all been waiting for. Coming in at #2: Noah Puckerman: Now I was stuck on Puck for a while, I didn’t think he really was that bad of a guy for a long time. But just one thing Quinn says was enough to sway me and put him this high on my list. In one of the earlier episodes, Puck starts teasing her and being a dick after finding out she’s pregnant. And so she says: “You got me drunk off of wine coolers and I was feeling fat that day...” Now if you break that sentence down, she literally says “you got me drunk.” implying that Puck himself wasn’t drunk when this all took place. Meaning, Noah Puckerman r@ped Quinn Fabray. She never cheated on Finn. Puck purposely got her drunk just so he could get what he wanted. Especially considering she never put out and she was president of the Celibacy Club. Now must I say anything else? No. I didn’t think so. And finally, coming in at #1: Blaine Anderson: I know Blaine is everyone’s smol bean gay bb boy. (*gag) but I have to tell you that he is not a good person whatsoever. I’ll give him credit though. In the 2nd season he was really sweet and I actually really liked him. But as the seasons progressed, he got worse. In S3E5, Blaine and Kurt go to a gay bar together, and Kurt helps Blaine out after he gets too drunk. Then as soon as he tries to get Blaine in the car, Blaine starts coming onto him and kissing his neck and trying to convince him to have s3x with him, even though Kurt keeps repetitively saying no. And then he plays the victim after Kurt blows up at him and says “well I’m sorry for trying to be spontaneous and fun!” and then proceeds to walk home, getting mad at Kurt for nothing. Then in another episode. I think it was later in season 3, Kurt meets Chandler. And Blaine had been ignoring him for a while before that, so Kurt starts talking to Chandler only because he makes him feel good about himself. And he obviously thought it was okay because Blaine did the same thing with Sebastian but called him all the time and flirted with him and dirty danced with him etc. So when Blaine goes through Kurt’s phone, he finds the messages and makes a huge deal out of it and accuses Kurt of cheating on him. Then publicly humiliates him in front of the Glee club with a song about cheating. And then proceeds to go and cheat on him anyway. And then as soon as they were going to NYADA together, Blaine didn’t like all the attention Kurt was getting after he started to get more fit and more attractive and he was extremely jealous of him and over protective, not letting Kurt have any other male attention. At all. And Blaine is just super stingy with Kurt and doesn’t let him live his life and then pays victim whenever he gets confronted by him. Oh and not to mention he dated the one person that made Kurt’s life a living hell for the longest time and decided to rub it in his face. So there we have it folks. My new least favorite Glee characters and all the reasons why. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Sonic Vs Harley: Send In The Hedgehogs - Quill’s Scribbles

Unless you’ve been meditating in the desert for the past couple of weeks, you’ll know that there’s a bloody epidemic going on in the world right now. The coronavirus outbreak has dramatically changed our very way of life for the foreseeable future, and us plebs have been having to get used to all these alien concepts such as social distancing, self isolation, vaccines being good and Gal Gadot murdering John Lennon with a tuneless rendition of ‘Imagine.’ These are scary and uncertain times we live in, and this goes double for the movie industry as productions are halted and/or delayed, and cinemas around the globe are shutting shop. This means that streaming services, initially dismissed by pompous filmmakers like Steven Spielberg as being lesser than cinema, has now become Hollywood’s saving grace. Oh the irony!

But I’m not here to talk about that. Today I’m here to talk about how a blue CGI hedgehog seems to be more profitable than Margot Robbie.

Jokes aside, this is actually a fascinating topic of discussion in my opinion. Both Sonic The Hedgehog and Birds Of Prey (I categorically refuse to type the whole title because I’ve got better shit to be doing other than trying to remember how the fuck you spell ‘fantabulous’) were released within a week of each other just as the coronavirus outbreak was gathering steam, and yet the box office earnings of both films are poles apart. Sonic has now become the highest grossing video game movie of all time and is, at the time I’m typing this, the second highest grossing film of the year, beating even Disney Pixar’s new film Onward if you can believe it, whereas Birds Of Prey... well... it’s not exactly flopped as such. The film’s low budget protected it from that, but it’s hardly what you’d call a success, making just shy of the $200 million it would need to break even. How did this happen? Especially when you consider that public opinion of both films a year ago would have you believe that the opposite would have happened. Everyone was massively excited for Birds Of Prey, especially after the string of successes DC have had with Aquaman, Shazam and most recently Joker, whereas Sonic...

...yeah, lets not talk about that.

Now before we start, let me just make absolutely clear that this is just my opinion. Mu subjective opinion. Normally I’d expect my readers to be smart enough to know this, but I’m talking about a DC movie here and I know from personal experience how ‘passionate’ a certain tin foil hat wearing portion of that fanbase can be sometimes. You may recall back in 2016 I received rape and death threats when I had the gall to say that I didn’t enjoy watching Suicide Squad. You know? That beloved classic that nobody fucking remembers or talks about anymore? Also there was that time when Harley Quinn fans started spreading fake rumours that the Sonic movie was homophobic in the hopes of salvaging Birds Of Prey’s box office earnings. And yes, I know it’s not all DCEU fans that are like this, etc. etc., but considering that it only ever seems to be DC fans that pull shit like this, you’ll forgive me if I’m not exactly in a very generous mood right now. Basically, if you’ve seen Birds Of Prey and liked it, that’s great. More power to you. I’m not even suggesting that Birds Of Prey is a bad movie. I’m just exploring the reasons why I think the film may have underperformed and why, possibly, Sonic The Hedgehog overtook them despite outside circumstances. This is not fact. This is just my opinion. It’s my opinion. An opinion. A subjective opinion. It’s my opinion. Okay? Okay.

Also I should point out that out of the two films, I’ve only seen Sonic, not Birds Of Prey. Believe it or not, this will be relevant later on. Again, this is not about the quality of either film. This is merely my subjective observations regarding their respective marketing and box office performance.

So why, according to the fans and the media, did Birds Of Prey underperform at the box office? There are three popular reasons for this. The first is obviously the coronavirus. Less people willing to leave the house and buy a ticket, therefore less box office earnings. Makes sense, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. Lets not forget, Sonic The Hedgehog came out a week after Birds Of Prey and practically steamrolled over the competition despite coronavirus fears. So I’m not entirely convinced of this. The second reason is that Birds Of Prey only has niche appeal because it’s based on a lesser known comic book property. Again, makes sense, but so was Guardians Of The Galaxy and Deadpool, and they were both hugely successful. Obviously I’m not saying Birds Of Prey needed to be as big as those movies. Even if it just made the same amount of money as Shazam did, it would have been successful, but it didn’t. The third reason is good old fashioned sexism, and yes, I agree that may have been a contributing factor, but I think it’s naive to place all the blame on the anti-SJWs who feel threatened by a gang of women kicking butt. Look at the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters for example. That film received a tirade of misogynistic comments from butthurt fanboys, but it still made roughly the same amount of money at the box office as the original Ghostbusters did. The reason it flopped wasn’t because of the fanboys, but because of Sony spending a stupid amount of money on the thing in the hopes of jumpstarting a shared universe. If Ghostbusters 2016 had the same budget as Birds Of Prey, Sony would be laughing their way to the bank right now.

No I think there’s a little bit more going on here. Lets bring Sonic into the discussion and explore it, shall we?

The most blatantly obvious reason for Sonic’s success and Birds Of Prey’s relative failure is the age rating. Sonic is a PG, family friendly film with a cuddly animal as its main character. The film even stars Jim Carrey being his usual goofy self. Kids love this shit and parents will no doubt be prepared to risk a zombie apocalypse to let their kids see it. Birds Of Prey, on the other hand, is a hard R. Strong bloody violence, sexual references, everyone says ‘fuck’ a lot. No kids allowed. Of course that hasn’t stopped films like Deadpool or Joker being such giant hits, but they didn’t have to contend with a global pandemic. Plus, according to what I’ve heard from certain critics, apparently Birds Of Prey’s R rating doesn’t seem wholly justified. That if you were to cut back on the swearing and the gore, it would make no difference to the film. Now you see this is something I’ve been afraid would happen ever since Deadpool’s surprise success back in 2016. That studios and filmmakers would take the wrong lessons from it and make their films R rated just for the sake of making them R rated. We see this with movie studios all the time. One studio finds success and suddenly everyone tries to copy it without considering why it was successful in the first place. The reason Deadpool as well as other R rated films like Logan and Joker worked is because the films justified their R ratings. You couldn’t have told the same story without that R rating. An R rated Harley Quinn doesn’t seem necessary, especially when you consider that there have been Harley Quinn adaptations before that did just as well without being strictly for adults. Hell, the original Harley Quinn story from the Batman animated series was PG rated. So the inclusion of a R rating feels less like a genuine artistic choice and more like trend chasing. And now that Joker has become the most profitable comic book movie ever made, I fear this is only going to get worse in the future.

Another factor that needs to be considered is audiences’ trust and expectation. Sonic The Hedgehog’s journey to the big screen has in some ways become the classic redemption story. After the initial reveal of Sonic the Manhog, fans were understandably pissed off that a beloved video game icon was given such a grotesque re-imagining for the sake of ‘realism’ (snort). As a result of the backlash, the director Jeff Fowler announced they would revise the design and the film was postponed for three months in order to fix it. The result was a Sonic design much closer to the games and this generated a lot of goodwill from the fans. Subsequent trailers were much better received and there was a lot more positive buzz around the movie. Birds Of Prey on the other hand demonstrated the inverse of this. Everyone was hugely excited, but as we got closer and closer to the date of release, audience anticipation began to wane. The trailers received little fanfare. In fact a lot of people were largely unimpressed by it. Why?

Well first we should address the elephant in the room. The fact of the matter is Sonic has a bigger and much more passionate fanbase than Harley does. That’s not to say Harley isn’t a popular character. She is. But I think Warner Bros and DC seriously overestimated how much people wanted to see Harley Quinn get her own movie. She may have been the best thing about Suicide Squad, but considering what a total trainwreck Suicide Squad was, that’s hardly saying much, is it? I mean the villain Sandman was the best thing about Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. That doesn’t mean I want a whole movie based on him. It just means out of all the things I hated about Spider-Man 3, Sandman was the thing I hated least.

And that’s another thing. The fact that Birds Of Prey didn’t try to distance themselves from Suicide Squad I don’t think did them any favours. While Suicide Squad was a commercial success at the time, people haven’t exactly been kind to the film in subsequent years. I mean feel free to read my review of Suicide Squad for an exhaustive list of reasons why the film was less than enjoyable to sit through. One dimensional characters, poor editing, ugly colour palette, casual sexism, David Ayer trying desperately to look cool and edgy, I could go on. So when the first trailers for Birds Of Prey came out and we saw the neon colour scheme and Hot Topic wardrobes make a comeback, I can’t have been the only one who was slightly put off.

Which leads me to the biggest issue of all and that’s the stonking unoriginality of the whole thing. For all their boasting about how feminist and progressive they are, what is it about Birds Of Prey that makes it stand out from other comic book films? Granted Sonic wasn’t wholly original either, but at least they had the novelty of a blue CGI hedgehog to piggyback off of. Birds Of Prey really doesn’t have anything if you think about it. Here’s the impression I got from the trailers. It has the same aesthetics as Suicide Squad, so already I’m getting PTS style flashbacks, and its story doesn’t seem all that intriguing or unique. Think about it. A violent anti-hero has to protect a delinquent child from some sadistic big baddie. How many times have we seen that done in these films? Terminator 2, Deadpool 2, Logan, even Ghost Rider has told this story before. The fact that the characters in question happen to be women doesn’t change a damn thing. They even have Harley Quinn breaking the fourth wall. Like... guys, come on! Surely we can do something more original than this! It feels like the only thing Birds Of Prey has going for it is that its main protagonists are all women. But after the likes of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, that’s no longer a real selling point anymore. You need something else to entice people. Something that Birds Of Prey sorely lacks.

Now I’m sure any Birds Of Prey fans reading this must be getting pissed off at me, so I’d just like to remind everyone yet again that I’m not necessarily saying Birds Of Prey is a bad film. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen it. And that’s kind of my point. A week or so ago, my friend and I knew this was probably going to be our last opportunity to go to the cinema for quite some time, so we knew we had to make our choice of film count. We had a choice between Sonic The Hedgehog and Birds Of Prey, and we ended up going to see Sonic. We don’t regret it. We had a good time watching Sonic. It was a fun movie, well made and surprisingly moving at points. (interesting to note, Sonic also has the main protagonist protecting a child plot, but unlike the films I mentioned, Sonic’s story is told from the perspective of the kid. It’s a little thing, but it’s enough to make the whole thing feel fresh and unique because it’s something not even the games tend to acknowledge. Sonic is a kid and the film plays around with that, which adds to its overall charm). Maybe Birds Of Prey is a better movie than Sonic. I don’t know. But that’s not what this is about. When picking which film we would watch, it was the factors I mentioned before that we considered and I suspect what many other people took into consideration too. Basically we looked at these two films and thought to ourselves which one would we be prepared to go outside and risk our health for in order to see it in a cinema. In the end, Sonic won because, out of the two films, it looked more exciting and more unique than Birds Of Prey, and ultimately we trusted that this film could deliver what it promised. Is that fair? Probably not, but sadly that’s often how these things play out. 

Birds Of Prey may have had a good critical reception, but it ultimately shot itself in the foot thanks to some of its creative and marketing decisions. And if studios take anything away from all this, it should be that relying solely on the gender of the main characters as a means to sell something just doesn’t cut it anymore.

miasswier’s ultimate glee ranking: no 14

14: Original Song

Written by: Ryan Murphy Directed by: Bradley Buecker

Overall Thoughts: I feel like not putting this episode in my top ten is probably an unpopular opinion. Honestly, I love this episode, but the amount of Finn/Rachel/Quinn that I’m forced to sit through is exhausting. Literally everything else is awesome, though. It’s funny, it’s serious, and it’s a great ensemble episode. Also, Klaine.

What I Like:

I love all the original songs! I love the shitty ones, I love the good ones… I wish they’d done more original songs instead of just forgetting about them after “New York”

Klaine is basically the main plot of this episode, and I love that. I really, really, love that.

The Brittana scene at their lockers is awesome and cute, and then turns to hilarious so quickly as soon as Sue gets involved.

Sue literally throwing sticks at Mercedes head is so immature and ridiculous.

I really like that the episode opened with a musical number! This is actually one of the few episodes where there’s just a shit ton of musical numbers and I actually think it works. I can’t think of any song I would remove from this episode (usually I can think of at least two). It just works.

Fuck “Trouty Mouth” makes me laugh so goddamn hard. I also love how after, when Puck starts singing his song, Santana turns to Sam like “what the fuck” and he just throws it back in her face. God, they could have been the absolute best frenemies. It’s too bad Glee didn’t give them that much to work with.

“Hell to the No” is amazing as a song, as a performance, and also because it gives us the first hints of Samcedes (YES I KNOW I’M REACHING HERE LEAVE ME ALONE)

I LOVE the “Blackbird” performance. Kurt is so gorgeous in his mourning outfit, and the way he is genuinely upset about losing Pavoratti is so sweet. The fact that Blaine is the first one to jump in with the back-up has always made me happy, especially since it’s the first time we actually see Blaine doing back-up vocals. And then, Blaine’s face as he realizes that he actually wants to be with Kurt, that he wants to give it a shot, that screw just being friends and screw worrying about screwing it up, being with Kurt is worth it. UGH. I LOVE THIS SCENE.

The Klaine kiss scene, which I can still literally recite from memory that’s how many fucking times I’ve watched it.

Considering how much Kurt was about “the touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets” one episode ago, he sure as fuck dives in fast for that second kiss.

I do really like the scene where Rachel is writing “Get It Right”. Breaks my heart.

Rachel getting MVP. I wish they had kept this tradition up, but I’m also fully aware that Rachel and Finn would have literally won every single one of those awards, so I’m also kind of glad they didn’t.

“We got each other out of all this. That means a lot more than some lousy trophy, don’t you think?” JUST STAB ME RIGHT IN THE HEART.

The short scene before the Warblers go out between Kurt and Blaine.

What I Don’t Like:

Look, I don’t want to get too into details about this, because I feel like I have fully expressed my frustration with the Quinn/Finn/Rachel love triangle over the past 106 reviews, so all I will say is this: the fact that they took Kurt and Blaine’s first duet as a couple and made it about the Quinn/Finn/Rachel drama makes my blood boil to this very fucking day.

Also, this is more a frustration about Rachel than it is about the whole Fuinchel shit, but why is it that Rachel literally cannot feel good about herself unless she is putting somebody else down? It’s not enough for her to be a good singer, she has to be better than Mercedes, Kurt, and Santana. It’s not enough that Finn loves her, she has to go out of her way to remind everyone that Finn chose her over Quinn. It’s like it matters more that she beat Quinn than it does that Finn wanted to be with her. It’s SO annoying. And Quinn is right: it’s a sign of immaturity, and it’s too bad they didn’t really let her mature from this until like, season six.

The fact that Finn acted like he spoke for the entire Glee club when he said that they should do original songs, implying that everyone agreed because Finn agreed to it, not because Quinn agreed to it, which is really why they were all down for it. It’s particularly annoying considering he acted like nobody would agree with him if he’d stood up for Rachel on this back in “Comeback”.

It does suck that they’re back to their formula of Finn and Rachel being the only ones to sing at a competition. I don’t mind “Get It Right” as a Rachel solo, but I really wish “Loser Like Me” had been an actual group number instead of a Finn and Rachel duet masquerading as a group number.

Songs:

Misery: I really like this performance. I think it’s hilarious, and it really sets the tone for the episode (especially the Klaine story). As a song, well, it’s one of those ones that I listened to on a constant loop and now can’t hear outside of the context of the episode because I just overplayed it way too much.

Only Child: Hilarious. It’s too bad we only got to hear two of Rachel’s terrible original songs. I know there were at least a dozen more that were so terrible even she scrapped them without even showing Finn.

Blackbird: I’ve already talked about this one above, but seriously. Such a good performance. Amazing vocals, too. Why did Kurt barely get solos again?

Trouty Mouth: The height of comedy. Will anything ever be as iconic as this?

Big Ass Heart I mean, it’s hilarious, and Will’s faces are so fucking funny throughout, but he is still calling Lauren fat through this song.

Hell to the No: Again, iconic. I love it.

Candles: I actually don’t mind it as a song, but it has always sat wrong with me that the first song Klaine sing as a couple is a break-up song, and that it actually mirrors the Quinn/Finn/Rachel stuff more than their own relationship. Ugh, Glee.

Raise Your Glass: Love this one! An amazing performance and an amazing song!

Get It Right: I also really like this one. It’s one of the few moments on Glee where they actually let Rachel be genuine in her pain, her guilt, her anger, and her sadness. So often all of the emotions Rachel displays are born from a sense of injustice towards herself, most of the time unwarranted, and then when she actually is in her right to be angry they underplay it. It’s nice, for once, to see her react accordingly to a situation. Plus, it made for an amazing song.

Loser Like Me: I’ll be honest, I prefer the acustic version from “New Directions” to this version. I do still like it, but it does also feel like we’re stepping back into season one, where Finn and Rachel are the only ones allowed to sing.

Final Thoughts: This is really a fantastic episode. It’s hilarious, it’s emotional, it’s real. Aside from the nonsense still being forced down our throats regarding Finn/Quinn/Rachel, it’s really well-rounded and just plain good. Like, really good. Plus, the beginning of Klaine! I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sheer joy I felt the first time I saw this episode. I was totally spoiler free, and genuinely didn’t expect that they would get together so soon. I still feel that same joy watching it now, even after a million re-watches. It just never gets old.

2.15 Sexy

Rating: 5/5

Best Song: Landslide. Possibly one of the best in the whole series.

Memorable Quote: “Kurt, when you’re ready, I want you to be able to do everything. But when you’re ready, I want you to use it as a way to connect to another person. Don’t throw yourself around like you don’t matter. ‘Cause you matter, Kurt.” -Burt

General Notes:

Did we really need Holly Holliday to come back?

Yes Blaine, it’s totally platonic of you to keep checking on Kurt to make sure he’s got his sexy look right.

Also, where is “Animal” filmed? In a warehouse? Do they just have access to a warehouse? And a foam machine, or whatever it’s called?

Huh, this plot about Puck and Lauren’s sex tape being child pornography has not aged well

Blaine’s voice when he says Kurt is blushing does something to me. Hope you guys are ready for four seasons of me just talking about how in love I am with Darren Criss. Sorry not sorry.

Also, totally platonic look on your face when you find out Kurt’s watched porn, Blaine

Ugh, Blaine going to Burt about Kurt’s fear of the sex talk is really incredible. I can’t imagine how awkward and uncomfortable and terrifying that must have been, but Blaine did it anyway. For Kurt. And he has a good point. I am not a gay man, but I learned a lot about sex the hard way because it wasn’t really explained or taught to me and I didn’t even know how to look it up. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for people interested the same gender because that shit’s just not taught at school.

Also, baby!Blaine not being supported enough by his dad kills me. But it does highlight how special the Kurt/Burt relationship is and why it’s so important to show that on television.

Someone I knew once said “Landslide” was the most important song ever written and they were right

I wish it had just been Santana and Brittany singing it though.

Also, poor Sam. He just doesn’t get it and I think it’s really sweet that he wants to be as close friends with Artie. And Artie’s just sitting there like, “Harold.”

But really, so much of Sam’s storyline is that he wants to be accepted and loved. He is immediately kind to Kurt when they meet, agreeing to be his duet partner even though he might get teased, he immediately goes too hard too fast with Quinn, he wants to be accepted on the football team, he works out his body to unhealthy measures to look good to be accepted. Someone please love this boy the way he deserves.

Not as good as Arrested Development’s version of “Afternoon Delight.”

Burt brings up a good point, Kurt did ask him to research sex between men so that he could ask him questions.

That speech from Burt is probably the most important speech in the series??? How many times do gay boys or even boys in general get a sex talk like that?Burt always delivers.

Ugh, Santana and Brittany’s declaration of love. Santana crying because it’s a genuine reaction to what’s happening instead of being played as a joke, Brittany having a real moment to be a person instead of a comedic role. It’s all so good.

fallout | thanksgiving, 2k19.

who: quinn fabray, an underpaid secretary, randall fabray, carole hudson, mention of others.

what: sometimes, you think you’ve prepared for the worst, and then what you’ve prepared for is actually the best, and there’s a whole world of hurt headed your way.

where: quinn’s house, the gazette, a church, the hudson home

when: thanksgiving week (Monday - Thursday), 2k19

warnings: brief description of stylized blood/injury, really unfortunate parental interaction, spiraling thoughts, religion

wc: 4.8kish

It had been a very long, and mostly very bad week.

Her one accomplishment - James Evans, safely tucked away to dry out for the first time in a decade - had been drowned out by the ripples that came from it.

Sam had been bad enough. She’d been trying to comfort herself about it, that at least she knew where they stood, at least he’d been honest about how he felt and what he thought of her, finally, a response and reaction she’d never known she needed to question.

So she’d been wrong.

It didn’t happen often, but it did happen.

(Would it ever stop being so devastating?)

So she’d been wrong about her relationship with Sam. So she’d been playing his words over, and over, and over in her head for nearly twenty-four hours now, reconciling him with the old, old memories that had become shaken loose after her trip with James. Lunchtime snacks and after-hours holiday visits…

(She never had gotten that recipe from Mrs. Evans, and no one else’s chocolate cake quite came close. She’d spent a long time trying to find one that did, before concluding that it didn’t matter how expensive the restaurant or how well-trained the chef, better than Maggie’s just didn’t exist.)

She tried to make herself feel better about it. About Sam, believing the worst of what she thought of herself on the worst of her days; the worst of what was whispered about her, the worst of what nipped at her heels and caught her up in a whirlpool that only dragged down, down, down.

To some people, she’d always be the one who dumped trash on Rachel Berry.

Apparently ‘some people’ included Sam Evans, the kid that used to practice his funny voices and impressions on her and not be satisfied until she laughed. Sam Evans, the guy who’d just - let her work at his dead mother’s bar because Quinn badly needed somewhere to work. Sam Evans, who--

Whose relationship she’d ruined and whose father she manipulated into the right choice. Sam Evans who, apparently, genuinely believed she didn’t and hadn’t ever cared about him. Sam Evans who hadn’t even been wrong when he’d accused her of only reappearing in their life because her life was a mess. Everything he’d said was etched permanently into her brain, irrefutable and damning. Sam, Sam, Sam, and the safest she’d felt in a long time, down the damn drain.

She tried to make herself feel better about it. This was, of course, a lost cause, so when that didn’t work, she banned herself from devoting any more time or energy to thinking about it. There were bigger fish to fry, or at least more threatening men to defend herself against.

She had been ready for Sam’s righteous fury, for his dropping of her like so many hot rocks. She thought she’d been ready for the rest of it, too.

She was, again, wrong.

She really didn’t care for it, being wrong.

Quinn ignored the calls. Four calls, two voicemails, and a handwritten note tucked into the crevice of her front door. The message was clear on all of them: there was no avoiding the train that was bearing down to her, and there was nowhere to go that it wouldn’t hit her, at full speed.

Still. She managed to postpone it for one full day; one full day of grace. Tuesday. She didn’t speak to anyone except patrons at the bar; Sam didn’t come into work. She got to retreat into herself, be nothing more than a girl with pink hair who served strangers drink. She got a full day to recover from the battle the day before. One day to lick her wounds and try to find a new stable ground to plant her feet on.

On Wednesday morning, when Quinn opened the door to take Shelley out, she was met with--

“Margaret?” Quinn said, eyebrows raising briefly in surprise. She recovered herself quickly and straightened, acting like she wasn’t in her pajamas, like her dog wasn’t currently begging for love from her father’s secretary.

“Good morning Miss Fabray,” Margaret said, attempting in vain to dissuade Shelley from her determined pursuit of pets. “Mr. Fabray would like a word.”

Quinn made a quiet noise of understanding, then let Shelley pull her around Margaret. “I’m engaged today. I’m unable to meet with him.”

“He, uh, ah, well, he said that if you said that…”

Quinn waited, then rolled her eyes. “Margaret, just say it.”

“He said you would meet with him, whether you liked it or not, and it would be very unpleasant if you make him wait.”

Quinn shook her head. “You’re the one he sent?”

“Miss?”

“If he wanted to threaten me or drag me in by my hair he could have sent Thomas, or Uri, or Edward. Why did he send you?”

“He--he said…”

“Yes?”

“He said that I would be best suited, since you wouldn’t be able to…”

Quinn arched an eyebrow. “Yes? What am I unable to do?”

“Fight me?”

Quinn blinked. It became immediately apparent that Margaret thought Quinn was going to challenge her to fisticuffs.

Which, okay, she had pink hair, a big dog, and a face that said ‘don’t fuck with me’, sure, but--she wasn’t violent. Why was her father telling people she was violent?

Quinn chose to be amused.

“I see,” Quinn said, letting Shelley drag her back toward the door. “Well. You’ll just have to tell my father you were unable to collect me.”

“Miss Fabray,” Margaret said, her voice coming out considerably weaker than she wanted it to, “he told me that I wasn’t allowed to return unless it was with you.”

Quinn stared at her, deadpanned. “Are you going to stage a sit-in on my porch, Margaret?”

Margaret gave a shaky nod. “I was told to do whatever was necessary, as your presence is required in Mr. Fabray’s office.”

“I see,” Quinn repeated, looking for amusement and only finding deep, overwhelming irritation. “Well, I hope you stay warm out here.”

Quinn went back inside.

Pathetic.

She fed her dog.

She ate breakfast.

She had to go to the gym.

She had to go to work.

She had to get out of her damn house, and there was a captor waiting for her just outside the door.

Why didn’t this house have a goddamn back door?

Quinn growled to herself and stalked back into her bedroom. She could climb out a window…

Instead, she found clothes.

She didn’t try very hard. When she ‘found clothes’, she truly found them - a pair of jeans she didn’t remember buying, or ruining, with holes in the knees and what looked like paint stains on them. Were they even hers? Quinn had no idea, but she put them on and they fit, so she decided it was acceptable. She grabbed a t-shirt from her ‘probably needs washed’ pile, one of her new ones that she’d cut the neck off jaggedly to emphasize the artwork, which was for some metal band Quinn had barely heard of, but she’d enjoyed the aesthetic enough at the time.

(Several things had been hilarious in New York that didn’t seem to translate to Castleport.)

She put it on, grabbed her leather jacket, slid her rings onto her fingers, affixed her black choker, and opened her front door. Margaret still stood there, like an obedient, anxious lapdog, all eyes and ears and hope/fear. Her eyes got wider as she took in Quinn’s look, which made Quinn almost want to smile.

“Let’s get it over with.”

Margaret had driven, and the only reason Quinn didn’t insist on taking her own vehicle was because she was running out of gas, and it wasn’t as though her father’s office was so removed from everything that she needed a car to be safe on her escape route. The ride was silent - Margaret didn’t even turn the radio on, which made Quinn want to find the loudest and most obnoxious station she could find.

Before she could, though, they arrived, and Quinn glared up at the building.

Once upon a time, it had been her favorite place in the world.

And now?

Quinn got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, stalked up the steps. Margaret hurried after her, trying to explain something or stop her or something, Quinn didn’t care what she was saying. Quinn ignored her all the way to her father’s office and let herself in, shutting the door behind her.

Her father sat behind his desk, and was having a conversation with a man standing next to him. The man wore a deep blue suit, had thick glasses, and had attended each and every one of Quinn’s birthday parties.

“Pat?” Quinn said, momentarily drawn up short.

What on earth was the family lawyer doing here?

To his credit, he seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him. Her father, if he had a reaction to her look, it only presented itself in a beat-too-long’s worth of silence.

“Sit down,” Russell said. It was not an invitation so much as it was an order.

“No thank you,” Quinn said, pursing her lips. “I won’t be staying long enough to sit. Well done on the acquisition, by the way. Really top notch sending that poor girl to stalk your daughter.”

Russell ignored her, continuing like she hadn’t even spoken. “I assume you know why you’re here.”

Yes. “I don’t have a clue why I’m here.” (He’d taught her to be obstinate and to lie when necessary when he let her curl up in his office chair and eavesdrop on his business deals and arrangement. The amount that could be gained from withholding information was mindboggling, he’d told her once, and he’d proven to be right about that, a thousand times over.)

“Pat?” Russell said, lifting two fingers as an instruction. “Show her, please.”

Pat spared Russell a glance - Quinn couldn’t read it, but something like doubt crossed his face. “Miss Fabray,” Pat said, holding out a file for her. He could have walked around the desk and handed it to her, like a normal person, but it wouldn’t have surprised Quinn to learn that her father had chained him to the desk. 

Quinn stepped forward and took the file, though she didn’t open it. “What is this?”

“A notice of legal action being brought against you, on behalf of Mr. Russell Fabray.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Legal action,” Quinn repeated. “Is it a crime to--”

“Make unauthorized purchases on someone else’s credit card? Yes, it is. I have few friends from the Sheriff’s department standing by, just to make sure.” Russell said. “Pat,” he continued, leaning back in his seat. He looked like a lion that had just dragged back the biggest wildebeest and was looking forward to getting the king’s share of the meat.

What an asshole.

Pat nodded to the folder and Quinn opened it, reluctantly. “Do you recognize this purchase?” Pat asked, and Quinn scanned the document at the top of the pile.

A list of transactions from her father’s credit card.

One was highlighted in yellow.

It read the name of the facility she’d enrolled James Fabray into, along with the amount charged to the card.

Fuck.

Quinn, though, had been raised by two newspeople with strong opinions on other people’s idiocy, and so she knew not to admit anything without her own lawyer in the room.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Quinn said, flipping the file shut, “and I don’t know why I’m here.”

Russell sighed. “Thank you, Pat.”

This was Pat’s cue, apparently, because he nodded and hurried out of the office, closing the door behind him.

“You’re suing me?” Quinn finally asked. “You’re taking me to court? That’s a very classy move, Daddy.”

“Do not,” Russell said, his voice having lost every ounce of the bored professionalism it had contained when Pat was in the room, replaced with the worst sort of blackness, the kind that made Quinn’s worst sound like a kitten who’d gotten hold of a helium tank, “dare to lecture me on classy, Lucy, when you show up dressed like--like--”

“Like?” Quinn prompted, pretending that the use of her old name, her first name, wasn’t the fastest way to get under her skin. She wasn’t that girl, hadn’t been for a very long time. “Please, Daddy, tell me.” Quinn crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Like that.” He spat the word and Quinn tried to find it in her to be disappointed that ‘that’ was all he could come up with, instead of hurt, like ‘that’ was the worst thing he could have come up with.

“I fail to see how what I wear is any of your bus--”

“I don’t think you understand the situation,” Russell said, leaning forward. He folded his hands together and Quinn knew that look in his eye - victorious and cruel. “If I wanted to, I could destroy you with two phone calls.”

“...And?” Quinn finally said, though it didn’t come out as blase as she wanted. “What--”

“Here is what is going to happen,” Russell continued. “You are going to work to pay off that debt.” Russell nodded toward the folder. “Or I will take you to court and win, handily, and I don’t think all the god-awful makeovers in the world would prepare you for prison.”

“Pris--”

“You are going to work off the debt. You will be reporting to the Gazette’s Editor-in-Chief, Michael, first thing Monday morning. You will spend the intervening time…” Russell looked her over, “making yourself presentable.”

Quinn’s head was spinning. “I have a job. I’m not working for the Gaz--”

“You do not have a job,” Russell said, “not anymore. Your ‘job’ is not one that is acceptable for someone who, for the moment, carries my last name. It is time, well past time that you remember that you are a Fabray, and that you must comport yourself appropriately. Monday, 8 AM. Your paycheck will be garnished up until the point that I see fit, or until this debt is paid.”

So she wasn’t going to be drawing a paycheck, Quinn realized numbly.

Wait. Wait a minute. No. No.

“I am an adult,” Quinn began quietly, “and that means that I am free to dress how I want, work where I want, and do what I want.”

“An adult,” Russell echoed, followed by a derisive snort. “An adult takes responsibility for her actions, and you...have never done that, not once in your life. No. You are clearly a child. A disappointing child at that - when you actually were the age you’re acting, you had so much…” Russell sighed. “Promise.”

“I’m an adult,” Quinn repeated, her volume rising, “and you can’t make me--”

“That can,” Russell said, nodding to the folder in her hand. “Tell me. Who was this for? One of your streetrat friends from school? An ex-boyfriend? Or that profe--”

“It’s none of your business,” Quinn snapped, straightening her spine.

“It was my money you used, Lucy. That makes it my business. It would become my business would I named that...that...facility in my suit, on the grounds of accepting an unauthorized payment. I would make it my business when I bury the corporation that runs that disgusting program. It would be my business when I own them just so I can have the distinct pleasure of shutting them down.”

“...You can’t do that,” Quinn said, voice coming out very soft. No, no, no, no, it wasn’t just James in that building, there were other people, other people who needed that place--

“I could,” Russell corrected, something like a laugh escaping him that sent chills all the way down Quinn’s back. “I may choose to be gracious and allow this theft, as you will be paying it back. With interest. Beginning Monday morning, 8 A.M. You will be dressed appropriately, you will have that thing out of your nose, and you will not violate the dresscode by sporting any…” Russell dragged it out, “unnatural hair color. You will come prepared with three pitches for Michael, and if you are lucky, one may be considered.”

Every word he spoke was a nail in her coffin. She could feel it, feel the walls of her old life thudding shut around her. Prison, she thought, couldn’t have been far off from how she felt.

Goodbye freedom, goodbye life, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

“...If my paycheck is going to…” Quinn wagged the folder, “how, exactly, am I supposed to pay my rent.” Quinn swallowed, crossed her arms. “Feed myself.”

“You should have thought of that before you made this decision,” Russell said. He’d already picked up his glasses and was looking through paperwork on his desk. Quinn waited. When he flicked his gaze back up to her, he let out a noise that somehow said I-can’t-believe-I-have-to-answer-this-question without saying a single word. “I have contacted your landlord. You will be moving out this weekend.”

“What?”

“And, as you will be moving into my home--”

“What?”

“--you will not need to concern yourself with…” Russell waved a hand, “groceries and the like. Your meals will be tended to by the household. You will go to work with me every day and return home with me for dinner every evening, and you will not be permitted to socialize with anyone who has been…” Russell sniffed, “influencing you like this. Your mother and I agree--”

“Mother? You agreed on something?”

“--that this childish fit you’ve been throwing has gone on long enough. It is well past time for you to return to your life.”

Her life.

“...I want to stay with Mother.”

(It was an echo from a decade and a half ago, when they first told her they were separating. It had been as true then as it was now.)

“Your mother does not wish either of us to be in her home at this time,” Russell said, sounding bored. “Your mother and I have agreed that it will be better for you to stay with me until further notice.”

Her life, in his house, eating his food, working at his paper, writing what he wanted her to write and seeing the people he wanted her to see.

“...I...I’m an adult,” Quinn repeated, because it was all she had. She was gobsmacked. “I’m not a teenager anymore, Daddy, and I make my own decisions--”

“Then you deal with the fallout.” Russell nodded to the folder once more. “It’s your choice, Lucy. Either be here, Monday at 8 AM, or see me at the courthouse Monday, 8:30 AM. I’m sure there’s a public defender that would be awake at that hour, assuming they aren’t exhausted from defending the town drunks against public indecency charges. Which, speaking of indecency, how is your friend’s father? The one who owns that moneysink of an establishment? Mr. Evans?”

Quinn bristled and she bit down against the whip-sharp retort. He was trying to needle her, and he was succeeding.

“Is there anything else.”

“I’ll see you Monday.”

Quinn stalked out of the office, and the building, and the property, and kept walking.

And that had been Wednesday.

By the time Thursday rolled around, her unbridled fury and fear had given way into numb acceptance. All the time she’d spent carving herself out of the expectations placed on her shoulders. All the time she’d spent looking for what she actually wanted. All the time she’d spent trying to convince the people in her life that she wasn’t like that, that she was getting better, that she was a good person. All the time she’d spent to overcome the tragedy of her birth, and for what?

For nothing. For less than nothing. It not only hadn’t mattered, but it had insured that her future, for the rest of her life, was even worse than what it would have been if she’d shut up and fallen in line when she’d had the chance. She was going to be her father’s prisoner, and for what?

Quinn was doing laundry when she remembered why. A little piece of paper fell out of the back pocket of her jeans, and when she bent down to pick it up, tears welled in her eyes.

For what? For this.

Quinn crumpled the paper and finished throwing her clothes in the washer. Her clothes for her new look needed to be clean before she put them into vacuum-sealed bags and stored them in big storage totes for the rest of forever. Because she was apparently moving this weekend.

Thursday, though, was Thanksgiving. She’d been planning to do what she could to prepare for her own personal hell, then drinking a lot and watching the dog show before she fell asleep on her own dog and had to stumble to her room hours later to sleep it off.

That wasn’t in the cards.

(Why did she think she’d get anything she wanted, at this point? Really?)

Her phone rang.

For a moment, she thought it would be fucking Margaret, calling to yank yet another rug out from under her, some other thing Quinn loved that she’d have to give up in just over 72 hours.

She nearly ignored the call.

But her mind drifted to Santana, and she wondered what trouble she was getting into today, so she turned her phone over and--

“Shit,” Quinn hissed, hurrying to answer the call before it went to voicemail. “Carole! Hi!”

“Quinn!” Craole’s voice was as chipper and sunny as a day in June on the other end of the line, and Quinn literally felt some tension ease out of her shoulders with just that one word. “Happy Thanksgiving!”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” Quinn replied rotely, because that was what you say to people who wish you Happy Thanksgiving, especially people who had no idea that your list of things to be thankful for was getting shorter by the minute. “I hope you’ve been resting?”

“Please,” Carole tsked, “it’s not like Finn would prepare dinner. He’d go out for Kentucky Fried Chicken and call it set.” She laughed, and so did Quinn, because - well, Finn hadn’t ever really exactly excelled in the cookery department.

“Is everything alright?” Quinn asked, as their laughter died down. “Is Finn okay?”

“Oh, yes, he’s fine, or he will be, if he’s let off in time for dinner. Otherwise he may stage a riot right there in the office, which will be nothing compared to the fit I will throw if they try to keep my son from coming home at a reasonable hour on a holiday--”

Quinn refrained from reminding Carole gently that crime and criminals didn’t take the day off, because at this point she was well-familiar with Carole’s feelings regarding her son’s occupation and how frequently it cut into their family time.

It still caught her off guard, hearing a mother genuinely care about her child.

“Anyway,” Carole said, cutting herself off with a huff, “what time will you be here?”

Quinn blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“What time will you be here?” Carole asked, which didn’t make any more sense the second time around. “I’m planning for everything to be done by five. Do you think you could make it by then?”

Quinn opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Thanksgiving was a day for family, but her family had conspired to shackle her to their plans and she had a Fabray-shaped knife dangling over her head, and she had never been less happy to be a Fabray, and Carole--

Tears welled in Quinn’s eyes and she quickly cleared her throat. “Yes,” Quinn answered as quickly as she could, “yes. I’d love to come. Thank you.” Thank you, thank you, thank you. “Should I bring anything?”

“Nothing but your smiling face! Oop, I need to stir. See you later! Happy Thanksgiving!”

The line went dead and Quinn set her phone down dumbly.

There went her plan. She wasn’t going to be getting very drunk and falling asleep anywhere while the Macy’s parade ran on repeat in the background.

She was going to Thanksgiving. To a family Thanksgiving. Hosted by the woman who had become more of a mother to her than her biological mother could even try to be.

She was going to Thanksgiving.

(Maybe she had a little bit to be thankful for after all.)

Quinn hadn’t been planning on making any stops on her way to Carole’s. She’d been planning on a bee-line, so she could be there for as long as possible and soak up every bit of comfort she could from the cozy Hudson house, but she found herself at a standstill - literally.

She stood in front of the church - her church.

She’d found her old silver cross necklace when she was digging through her room. She’d gotten it as a Confirmation gift from her great-grandmother, and she hadn’t worn it regularly since high school. She hadn’t worn it at all since college.

But now it hung around her neck, tucked beneath the hem of her shirt, resting against the hammering of her heart.

She needed it, now, more than ever.

Quinn walked up the steps and went inside.

It was more or less deserted, which Quinn was relieved about - she didn’t have the strength to explain herself to anyone with questions about her presence there, or her hair, or anything at all, so she hurried down the aisle before someone could appear to irritate her, and--

And what?

Quinn stopped, staring up at the figure of Jesus Christ on the cross. He was sickly thin, with blood painted as oozing from His hands, His side. The crown of thorns sat sharply on His head.

It must have been so awful, being up there like that, Quinn thought, not for the first time. It was grotesque, the image in front of her, one repeated in different styles and designs all over the country, the world - but there was a reason it persevered as one of the most recognizable symbols of the religion.

There was something compelling about sacrifice.

Quinn knelt in front of the statue, her pink hair falling forward as she bowed her head. Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned…

She didn’t know how long she knelt there, just that her knees were sore and achy by the time she stood back up. She was about to leave, really, she was, but she saw--

Quinn made her way over, rummaging her purse as she walked. By the time she arrived, she’d come up with a dollar, which she slid into the donation box in exchange for a long matchstick. She lit it off one of the many candles burning on the altar, and carefully caught another candle’s wick, watching as the fire jumped from match to candle. She blew the matchstick out once she was sure the little flame had caught, then set the matchstick in the trash bucket beneath the altar.

Please, Quinn thought, as strongly as she could, as loudly as she could, please, God, or Mary, or Jesus, or someone, Quinn’s hand found the silver cross and wrapped around it, tightly, please, God, help us. Help me. Please.

She watched her little candle catch and dance in the air currents, then forced herself to look away. She tucked her necklace back beneath her shirt and hurried back out of the church, suddenly more anxious than ever to get where she’d been going.

(Was it too late to look into the local convent? Quinn bookmarked that thought for later.)

Arriving at the Hudson house was sort of - not strange, exactly, because she’d been there dozens of times, especially while Finn was enlisted. She’d visited every time she came home; sometimes she’d come home just to visit with her. She knew Carole was lonely, and consumed with worry for her baby boy, so Quinn would find excuses to bake something and bring it over, and let them both be distracted for hours with a bottle of wine and shared memories. They caught up more than two people who emailed all the time needed to, but Quinn was not complaining - she loved Carole.

And Carole loved her.

(It seemed the list of people who loved her was also getting shorter by the day.)

The only strange part was going to be having Finn there this time, but--Quinn wasn’t really nervous about that, not really. Finn was like a Great Dane, or a Mastiff; big, intimidating, and more comforting than the most expensive security system money could buy. The way Finn took up a room, the easy way he smiled, how he acted when he was around his mother…

Quinn smoothed her still-very-pink hair down and let out a breath, then knocked on the door.

Maybe, just maybe, there really was something to be thankful for this year.

Two Ghosts Ch. 9 | Brittana

Happy Brittanaversary! (A little early bcuz timezones are weird) Thanks for everyone’s patience and kind reviews once again. Ya’ll are awesome. Enjoy!

             Twenty-five minutes fly by and before Santana knows it, she’s heading onto the field. Brittany and Quinn are already there talking while the squad warms up and Santana feels like she could actually pass out from all the anticipation. She genuinely has no idea how Brittany will react, but she knows she has to reconcile. At least, for the sake of the squad.

           Brittany’s back is to her when she walks up but Santana puts on her brave face and takes a deep breath, “Hey Q. Hey Brittany.”

           Quinn smiles in greeting as usual and says, “Hey Santana.”

Brittany remains icy, her eyes focused ahead of her as she says, “I thought you’d be in New York by now.”

           Quinn’s brow arches in question at Brittany’s tone and she looks to Santana for an explanation, but Santana remains focused on Brittany.

           “Can we talk after practice?” Santana asks, forgoing responding Brittany’s snarky comment and dodging Quinn’s inquisitive eye.

           Brittany just crosses her arms and continues to give Santana the cold shoulder.

           Both of Quinn’s brows arch in question this time.  

           Santana does her best to ignore Quinn as she fights the urge to roll her eyes at Brittany; she forgot how stubborn and petty Brittany could be when she’s angry but she knew getting Brittany to talk wasn’t going to be easy.

           “You can’t ignore me forever..” Santana mutters.

           This time Brittany turns to her and dark blue eyes narrow in her direction. Brittany’s glare has Santana wanting to run for the hills, but the slight redness of Brittany’s eyes stops her.

“Why not? Just so you can tell me about my life that you clearly know so much about?” Brittany asks, “I’ll pass. I have nothing more to say to you.”

           Santana falters as her heart sinks, she deserved that, but she’s determined to make things okay. She rather have the awkwardness of before than the anger and hurt it has been replaced with.

           “You don’t have to say anything,” Santana replies but it sounds more like a plea, “You can just listen and if you don’t like what I have to say, you can just leave.”

           Quinn eyes them both curiously but she notices that some of the girls on the squad have taken an interest as well.

“Looks like you need something to do,” Quinn tells the squad and gives them a glare, “Wind sprints, go!” The girls quickly disperse, and Quinn turns back to Santana and Brittany, “I don’t know what you two have going on but you can’t bring it here. You can’t let it affect how you coach. These are teenagers, they love drama, so if you want them in your business feel free to continue but we’re adults and we can be professional. Ultimately, we have a job to do so sort your shit.”

Santana looks to Brittany expectantly, “Please?”

           Brittany frowns slightly but nods before looking to Santana a little less angrily, “I’ll give you ten minutes after practice.”

           Santana smiles weakly, “Thank you.”

           “Whatever,” Brittany shrugs then turns back to watch the squad.

 \\

             Two hours have never gone by so slowly for Santana, but by the end of practice the tension is so high that even the squad tiptoes around them. When Quinn dismisses the girls for the day, they’re all too eager to get the hell out of there. Even Quinn packs her things quickly and barely gives Santana and Brittany a second glance before she’s saying a quick goodbye and heading to her car. It’s eerily quiet as Santana and Brittany pack their duffle bags, their backs to each other’s.

           At the sound of Brittany zipping her duffle closed, Santana stands and takes a deep breath, “Bleachers?”

           Brittany stands too and nods.

           They walk together in silence, the gap between them even bigger than normal, but they settle on the first step and dump their bags at their feet. Santana’s heart pounds wildly as she tries to find the words to start.

           She peeks at Brittany who’s staring out in the distance, the setting sun turning everything golden, and tries to remind herself that Brittany used to be the easiest person she could talk to. Once upon a time she could tell Brittany anything so freely. Whatever Santana had on her mind, Brittany was there to listen always.

Although things are extremely different now, the memory is comforting and it gives Santana the courage to speak.

“So I just wanted to talk about yesterday,” Santana starts and she eyes Brittany curiously for a reaction. When Brittany barely blinks, Santana isn’t surprised. She just takes another steadying breath and continues, “I wanted to apologize for how I acted. I was hurt and overwhelmed and, I don’t know, I guess a little jealous?”

Santana pauses because it’s the first time she has admitted that last part and she takes another peek at Brittany but she remains unmoved, “I said a lot of things that were way out of line and I shouldn’t have lost it at you like I did. It’s just, being back here brings back all these feelings and memories that I thought couldn’t affect me anymore. I thought I had moved on and I was doing better, but I guess not.”

Santana glances to her side but Brittany continues to focus her eyes elsewhere. She closes her eyes as her shoulders droop, “I’m just really sorry, Brittany. I’m sorry for the things I said and how I’ve been acting lately. I guess I just don’t know how to be around you yet, but that’s no excuse. I know things aren’t great between us and they’re not how they used to be and I know we may never go back to being us but I don’t want to be the kind of exes that can’t stand each other. Despite how things have turned out, I still care about you and I do want what’s best.” Santana pauses again and realizes that tears have gathered at the corners of her eyes. She swallows hard and lowers her eyes to her fiddling hands, “I may suck at showing it, I know, but I really do want you to be happy, Brittany.” From the corner of her eye, she sees Brittany glance her way but she chooses to keep her eyes lowered, “And what I’ve realized from being back, is that I’ve missed you so much, I’ve missed having you in my life,” Santana admits and finds the courage to meet Brittany’s eyes this time. Blue eyes flickering back and forth, searching, but Santana just smiles softly, “I’ve missed my best friend.”

At that, Brittany’s lips part and her bottom lip trembles ever so slightly but she quickly looks back out at the horizon like she’s trying to hide. Brittany doesn’t say anything and Santana can’t really blame her, so they just sit silently together looking out at the setting sun. The longer Brittany stays quiet, the further Santana’s heart plummets. She didn’t think of the outcome of this conversation; she didn’t think of the possibility that Brittany really doesn’t want anything more to do with her.

Santana nods, sort of accepting that could be a possibility, and looks out at the horizon too, “Maybe I’m too late, maybe too much time has passed and whatever we had between us can’t be fixed, but I hope one day we can try again: to be friends. Even if that means being supportive of your relationship with Trou- I mean, Sam. I can totally do that. If he is what makes you happy, I won’t get in the way of that. I won’t make another comment about his abnormally large mouth or anything, because I’m an adult and I can be nice.”

That causes Brittany to look at Santana again, but this time she’s fighting a grin.

Santana looks back, perplexed, “What? I can. I can be nice.”

Brittany just shakes her head, her smile growing, “As much as I would’ve loved to see that, Sam and I aren’t dating.”

Santana’s eyes widen, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah,” Brittany says, “That’s not a thing. Hasn’t been for years.”

“B-but you guys were-“ Santana stops herself as she tries to recall solid evidence, “At the funeral together?”

“I didn’t really want to go alone,” Brittany shrugs, “Funerals are weird. Everyone’s sad but we all sort of hated Sue at some point and now we all talk about how great she was, it’s just really weird.”

Santana’s brows furrow and she racks her brain for more proof, “He’s always around after practice? He waits for you..”

“He’s a part time personal trainer,” Brittany replies easily, “We work out together sometimes. I get a free gym membership, it’s pretty awesome. They can get so expensive.”

Santana lets out a sigh as she cradles her head in her hands, “I feel like such an asshole.”

“So you should.” Brittany smirks but it quickly fades to a frown, “You said a lot of hurtful things, Santana, things I never would’ve thought you’d say to me of all people.”

“I know,” Santana admits guiltily, “I was just so..” Santana pauses and closes her eyes to keep from crying, “It doesn’t matter, it’s no excuse.”

After a moment, Brittany purses her lips and says softly, “You didn’t even let me explain. You just attacked.”

If Santana wasn’t feeling guilty before, the feeling has worsened now. All she does is shake her head, “I’m so sorry, Brittany. I-I had no idea, I just..I thought-

“No, you didn’t think. You assumed.” Brittany clarifies but her tone isn’t filled with annoyance. She just speaks simply, “I shouldn’t have to explain my friendship with Sam though, that’s the worst part, you came up with this story in your head and you ran with it. I couldn’t even defend myself and what hurts the most is that you actually thought I’d settle for Sam.”

Santana looks up at Brittany but there isn’t anger in her eyes.

“He’s a great guy. He made me laugh at times when I didn’t think I could. He was there for me when things got hard and I love him for that.” Brittany explains and Santana tenses at the word love because she’s not ready for what Brittany has to say about him, “But I wasn’t in love with him. I figured that out early on and I knew it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to continue if I wasn’t fully invested in our relationship. I knew I wasn’t out of love yet but I knew I wasn’t ready to be in love with anyone else yet either. So we’ve just stayed friends over the years and that’s all.” Brittany pauses as she eyes Santana, trying to decipher her facial expression, but not even Santana knows how she feels about all this new information. She can’t believe how quickly she jumped to conclusions and she remembers how hurt Brittany looked yesterday and how she felt like she was about to go off on her but didn’t.

“Was that what you were going to say yesterday? Before you left?” Santana asks tentatively, “That you weren’t together?”

Brittany sighs and looks up to the sky as she nods, “I thought about telling you the truth, but I didn’t think it mattered anymore. You had your mind made up about me already so what was the point of explaining anything?”

All Santana manages to mutter is, “Oh.”

           “I really wanted to tell you as soon as he and I broke up.” Brittany looks back to Santana, “That was two weeks after you left for New York.”

            Santana just blinks, completely stunned, “Why didn’t you then?”

           Brittany just looks down at her feet and shrugs.

           Santana’s lips just part, but nothing comes out.

           “If I would’ve told you, you would’ve turned around and come home.” Brittany explains and Santana finds herself tensing at the word home too. She hasn’t felt like she had a home in awhile, even Lima doesn’t feel like home anymore. “But I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t ready, I hadn’t even graduated, and I couldn’t hold you back from moving forward. We were at two different places in life and I couldn’t be the reason you had to stay. When I told you that you had to be somewhere as big and bright as you are, I meant it. I couldn’t turn around and say wait for me. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Brittany,” Santana mumbles in disbelief, “You should’ve told me..I-I could’ve, I don’t know, I could’ve done something. I could’ve helped.”

The corner of Brittany’s mouth quirks up in a grin but her eyes are show anything but happiness, “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d drop everything for me and I couldn’t let you do that. I had to do this on my own. I had to learn how to be without you just like you had to learn how to be without me.”

Santana’s heart plummets again and a lump forms in her throat, “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

Brittany nods solemnly, “I know and I’m sorry for that, but I did and I can’t take that back now. I know you think that everything’s your fault and you have this urge to fix things, but this isn’t all on you, Santana. It’s on me too, I am also to blame.”

Santana just bites her bottom lip to will herself not to cry.

“I’d try to call but I never knew what to say so I never went through with it.” Brittany adds, “I didn’t want to be a reminder for you of this place. I didn’t want you to feel guilty or pity me, I didn’t want you to worry. You were finding your way already and I was still stuck at the starting line and I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. But I told myself if you would’ve ever called, I’d take that as a sign that you’d still want me around and I’d answer. I knew that was silly though so I just kept telling myself I’d call you when I was ready instead, but..” Brittany pauses as her eyes well, “As you can see, I’m still stuck here so..”

Santana’s lips part but she doesn’t know what to say. She hates this side of Brittany because it seems so out of place; sometimes she forgets that Brittany can be just as small and insecure. But she can’t help but feel guilty for leaving Brittany alone in all this, even though Brittany says she shouldn’t. She’s always been Brittany’s protector, she has always looked out for her growing up, so maybe Brittany’s right. Santana had to go so Brittany could learn to be her own protector?

“I just studied hard so I could graduate and I worked on myself so that maybe I could catch up to you, and I tried to make it out of here but,” Brittany pauses again as her voice cracks. Santana wonders if she’s talking about her time at MIT since she’s yet to hear about it from Brittany herself. “It was hard. We both let too much time pass. I let too much time pass and now we’re here, just two strangers..ghosts.”

           Santana heart aches for Brittany because she can hear the pain and she can’t imagine what it was like for Brittany to push through alone. She has missed so much and she wonders if she’ll ever catch up on those years, but she also decides Brittany is worth the wait. It’s sort of eye opening to know what Brittany has thought this whole time and how she’s been hurting just as much and all of this could’ve totally been avoided if either of them would’ve just picked up the phone. In a way, they both cared so deeply for each other, trying to make the right decisions for one another, that it all backfired and they ended up doing more harm than good.

They sit silently, both focused on how the sun hides behind the tree line. Brittany remains quiet and Santana just processes everything Brittany has said and she wonders how they ended up like this: two strangers sitting on a bench filled with regret and guilt.

           “I can’t change the past, but I hope you know how sorry I am.” Santana says finally.

           Brittany just sniffles and nods, “I do and I’m sorry too. I hate that we’re like this, like we don’t know how to be around each other. It sucks.”

           Santana chuckles a little, “It does.” Then she wonders aloud, “So what do we do now?”

           Brittany ponders a moment but then she turns to Santana and smiles, eyes watery and red, “Maybe we can start over?”

           Santana smiles back, “That sounds like an awesome idea.” She then holds out her pinky to Brittany, a gesture that used to come so easily for them, and asks hesitantly, “Deal?”

           Brittany takes Santana’s pinky in hers and nods confidently, “Deal.”

favorite glee headcanons?

god dan and phil really need to come back don’t they? we’re talking about glee in 2019, i’m….

ANYWAY last weekend @racheldaddow and i got drunk and watched season 6 of glee and actually talked about some of our headcanons so this is a well timed ask

by far our favorite right now is trans boy sam evans.

we were talking about how the way they wrote bieste (in their attempt to write a better trans character than that poorly researched, poorly written storyline with unique) wasn’t great because we’d actually liked that bieste was just, you know, a non-feminine woman. but that we DID want a trans character. and then natasha suddenly came up with trans sam - it would make sense, as to why he suddenly transferred to mckinley in season 2 (starting at a new school where no one knew he was afab) and why he was really focused on being visibly masculine, but wasn’t homophobic at all about kurt (i know, i know, he could just be a nice jock who’s not homophobic, but we LOVE trans sam ok). i’m probably not phrasing this all right - natasha is the one who’s actually nb and could probably talk about this more than me

another favorite headcanon is the hudmel blended family, or specifically burt hummel just basically adopting his kids’ friends (in this case sam, who canonically lives with the hudmels for a while, and blaine). listen, we all know blaine’s relationship with his parents isn’t great, and natasha and i can’t really get behind the idea of burt hummel being a “keep your hands off my son i have a shotgun” kind of dad. like, he’s DEFINITELY protective of kurt, but in the sense that he knows their shitty town hates kurt, and he wants the best for him and wants him to be safe and happy, not in the sense that he wants to follow weird gender roles and safeguard kurt’s virtue or some shit (something that was common in a lot of fanfics back in the day). so basically we don’t buy the idea that blaine was never allowed over unsupervised, or that burt constantly regarded him with suspicion as the guy who dared date his precious son, you know? evidence of blaine pretty quickly being accepted into the family:

in season 2, episode 20, blaine and finn are sitting on the couch in the hummel house chatting as kurt puts together his prom outfit upstairs, and burt comes home from work (still in his blue collar shirt with the name tag sewn on, so clearly, just straight from work) and before he’s even fully in the living room, before he can even see who’s there, he’s saying “good news boys. my buddy enzo from the tux rental shop is giving you half off” then asks them both what kind of tux they’re gonna go for. couple things here:

1) he wasn’t talking to kurt and finn when he came in saying “good news boys”, he was talking to blaine and finn. not only was he not surprised blaine was there, he seemed to completely expect it, like it was already routine at this point. as if, why would blaine not be at the hummel house when burt got home from work? he’s always there

2) he thought to ask for a discount not just for finn, but for blaine too. who again, is just his son’s boyfriend of a few months. there’s not really any reason for him to get blaine a discount, or to be helping him out with his prom outfit at all. kurt and blaine haven’t been dating for years at this point, so it’s not like he’s a part of the family and it’s not like he’s burt’s kid (except…. he basically is)

just the casual way it’s all handled stood out to me, and told me burt is used to blaine being at their house all the time (likely far more often than blaine’s at his own house) and has already taken on a sort of paternal role with him. (natasha likes to think that in the scene in Sexy, when blaine admits he and his dad didn’t work on a car together to bond, but more likely because his dad hoped it would turn him straight, and that blaine envied the healthy and close relationship burt and kurt had as father and son - that was when burt realized he was about to adopt another son sjkdfhj)

and then the next year, when finn brought sam back and was like “can he stay” burt was just like, i already have three sons, why not have another

we get emotional thinking about how SAFE a kid like blaine must have felt in a house like this, compared to his own

some notes natasha has sent me about this

.

basically we just very much  love the idea of the hummel home being basically a sanctuary because burt is such a good person and he loves all his kids (carole is also wonderful of course, from what we did get to see of her in canon)

ok last headcanon, and maybe it’s wishful thinking - but quinn is bisexual. i’d say lesbian but i do think she genuinely loved and was attracted to puck. or as i put it to natasha “she’s a kinsey 5, she’d be a 6 if not for puck”. now, i was a big faberry shipper back in the day (faberry was one of the only ways rachel was tolerable to me lol) and i always felt some of quinn’s hatred for rachel came from her stirring these emotions in quinn - emotions that perfect, popular, religious quinn didn’t want to confront. and her interest in finn was 100% comp het at the beginning, and by the end she was just blatantly using him to fit the mold and be the girl that her small world thought she should be. and then, like, canonically, she slept with santana lmao. quinn is bi

oh natash also has a headcanon that kurt goes to FIT and blaine goes to columbia and becomes a civil rights lawyer - but that’s not so much a headcanon as it is a complete au because we know how they turned out 10 years on and that didn’t happen. but it’s an au i fully support

there might be some i’m forgetting because almost all these conversations recently when natasha and i were drunk, but yeah those are the ones i’m recalling rn!

i was wondering if you could explain the descriptions on your fgc posts and how they relate to the characters? i'm v interested

oooo for sure

don’t you (forget about me) > don’t you try and pretend, it’s my feeling we’ll win in the end. 

this one’s kind of obvious, the back half of the lyric is my brot3 tag for blamtina - they’re altogether hopeful kids that go through some (a lot of) shitty times. they’ll come out on top in the end, they’re sure of it.

here comes the sun >  here comes the sun and i say, it’s all right.

it’s a metaphor!!!!!!!! dani’s the sun, you fools!!!!!!!!!!! i don’t want to say that santana spent all of s4 hung up on brittany, but santana spent all of s4 hung up on brittany. i have no doubt she hooked up with her fair share of beautiful ladies, but she definitely didn’t date - i don’t think it’s because she was waiting for brittany to dump sam (okay she was, but not so they could be together again), i think she genuinely just didn’t feel super comfortable with it - she never really dated brittany, they were best friends and then they were girlfriends too and santana doesn’t want to leap into that minefield for the first time with just anybody.

enter: daniella perea, struggling musician who picks up a job at spotlight to help pay the bills and gets along with everybody, which is fucking rare because 90% of that diner’s staff are broadway divas in waiting (and santana) so people take notice and santana doesn’t want to like her, but she does. she really does.

so moving on from britt is hard and it’s scary, but it’s alright. she has dani. they’ll figure it out.

creep > i want a perfect body, i want a perfect soul.

i almost picked like twenty different lyrics here because it’s a Very Them song, but i feel like this speaks very well to their characters: this lyric is rachel in a nutshell, she doesn’t just want to the best, she wants to be perfect. it speaks to brody because it’s the antithesis to him: he doesn’t care to be perfect, he just wants to be himself (who, lucky him, happens to be very talented).

sidenote: i think brochel really work on that level, rachel challenges brody to want to be better while brody can remind rachel that being less than perfect is perfectly okay. i’m still sad about how they treated him.

never can say goodbye > though i try and try to hide my feelings, they always seem to show.

listen, i hate to draw riverdale/glee comparisons, but quinn’s veronica lodge. you want fire, cheryl bombshell? sorry, but my speciality’s ice. quinn wants to be cold, wants to be this untouchable ice queen but-

she just isn’t (just like veronica, funnily enough). quinn fabray feels so much and isn’t that just the worst? i don’t think quinn wears her heart on her sleeve the way so many characters on this show do, but she feels things very strongly, much to her own annoyance. whether or not the world sees isn’t really up to her either, as much as she wishes it was.

(on the riverglee comparisons: santana is cheryl, puck is reggie and sam is archie. i know people cast finn as archie but ehhhh. i don’t have anything super solid on anyone else, but rachel is probably betty and kurt is probably kevin (i’m not saying that because they’re both gay, more “i exist solely to prop up betty/rachel when needed”). jbi is evelyn from the farm and i will hear No Arguments on that.)

being alive > i’ll always be there as frightened as you to help us survive being alive.

i’ll be honest, there is an infinitely more kurt line in this song (someone to crowd you with love/someone to force you to care/someone to make you come through) but um, this is literally one of my top 3 musical theatre songs and that lyric is one of my absolute favorite lyrics ever, musicals or otherwise. 

but this line does relate to kurt (and blaine, i guess- this song is clearly meant to implicate him- for the first time, i really know what it means) well enough. i know there’s a fuckton of kurt and death meta but i don’t claim to know him well enough to make sense of any of it so we’ll look at this very shallowly - i think kurt experiences life quite differently to the normal person, and we can owe that to his mother’s death or the long term bullying or whatever tickles your pickle, but he does seem a little... removed, i think. i don’t think he’s afraid to be alive, but i do think he has a long list of reservations about being alive. i think that’s where blaine generally works for him, because blaine is so alive - even if he’s scared to death about it (see: sadie hawkins, the slushie incident, literal depression), sometimes. 

i’m not here to shit on any ships, but i do wish i shipped klaine more. oh well. i’ll always have s2.

i feel pretty/unpretty > i was told i was beautiful, what does that mean to you?

i know this is a quinn line (and a very good one at that), but i find it interesting when i apply it to both of the girls. quinn and rachel are both very beautiful, though in clearly different ways - and they both have trouble believing that. or more accurately, quinn finds herself beautiful but not her self. 

anyway. i wonder if quinn’s parents ever called her beautiful, before she was quinn. they seem incredibly shallow, even if judy develops away from that - i have a headcanon that lucy was very close with their pastor (not...in a creepy way jdsdlaks) and he was pretty much the only positive interaction she had with any elders until after quinn was a thing but ANYWAY he always told lucy that she was a beautiful person but only tells quinn that she looks lovely. that informs a lot of this performance (especially this line) for me. anyway. whatever.

so to rachel: her brief interactions with her fathers make me think that she grew up being told she was beautiful quite often, but then her peers are always telling her differently - i have no doubt that places more esteem in her father’s opinions, but i’m sure that being told two different things would confuse the fuck out of a kid. quinn was likely spearheading the “crazy berry is ugly” craze in their freshman year, so. i don’t know. the what does that mean to you? is an interesting question for that line of thought.

being good won’t be good enough > i’ll be the best or i’ll be nothing at all.

please, she said emphatically.

everytime > every time i try to fly, i fall; without my wings, i feel so small.

listen. what a marley mood.

it’s all coming back to me now > there were things i’d never do again, but then they’d always seemed right.

rachel Fucks Up A Lot. we been knew. i do think she learns from a lot of her fuck-ups (not all, see: leaving nd for cabaret and then leaving funny girl for that’s so rachel), but she did genuinely think she was doing the right thing a lot of the time (see: telling finn about drizzle’s true paternity and robbing puck and quinn of that opportunity) and i don’t think she’d change much, if she had another chance - she just wouldn’t go repeating the bare majority of fuck ups.

hand in my pocket/i feel the earth move > and what it comes down to, my friends, is that everything’s just fine, fine, fine.

listen, considering this is their proposal song, i would’ve hoped for something a bit more meaningful. but i do think that there is something to the simplicity of this song, - brittany and santana are happy. they have no issues this season (outside of britt’s bridezilla tendencies) and as much as they’ve always been the type to get their feelings out via song (see: landslide, songbird, mine), they’re definitely at a point where they can just. talk about their feelings.

their song is simple because they are too, finally. what it all comes down to? they’re fine, fine, fine. :P

human nature > see that girl? she knows i’m watching, she likes the way i stare.

another song i almost picked like, five different lyrics for lmao. while the others spoke nicely to characters, this lyric is quite indicative of their mid-s3 relationship (mercy is still w shane, sam’s trying to push in on that) and uh, i think this is an unpopular opinion. so. hang tight, kids.

while mercedes and sam were certainly attracted to one another, i think there’s a few more things at play here: sam likes being in a relationship, knows that he and mercedes could be good together and he’s trying to recapture being sixteen again, so dating the girl he’d been embarking on something with is a pretty great way to do that. mercedes? i think she likes the attention, likes actually being noticed. she likes the way he stares, basically. (i’m dropping lyrics into explanations now, sue me.)

crazy/u drive me crazy (you guys are all on notice for letting this flop, btw) > tell me i’m not in the blue, that i’m not wasting my feelings on you.

marley’s spent all episode being warned against jake, but i think it’s interesting that she’s basically seeking him out here and asking are they right? his response leaves something to be desired (tell me i’m the only one you’ll see) but at least it’s a conversation they’re having? it does speak well to marley for the rest of the time she’s on the show - she’s best when talking her issues/concerns out (see: her eating disorder v her wanting to stay abstinent, neither end well for her but she seems more at peace with the latter) while jake is. jake.

(i love jake always!!!!!!!!!!)

and finally, need you now > guess i’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all.

i changed this like, twenty times. the alternative was their ship tag (and i wonder if i ever cross your mind/for me it happens all the time), but i think this speaks a lot more strongly for their characters than that does to their relationship. puck and rachel are both very all-or-nothing characters, but 99% of the time they’re going to pick all. it fucks them over a lot of the time, but i don’t think they regret it much.

(this genuinely isn't judgey fodpsapid) but quinn, puck and santana having rachel's ambition is...a lot.

i mean, it is.

it also isn’t.

like, rachel definitely outpaces all of them, don’t get me wrong – rachel has lived her life being told she is going to be successful, and i think that changes things. quinn grew up believing she was doomed to live the life of her mother, puck grew up being told he was just like his father (which is mostly fan-canon but i feel like there’s enough Illusions in actual canon to back it up) and santana grows up in what qualifies for the Hood (adjacent) in lima, ohio – but like, rachel grew up with dads who worship her. who tell her she is going to be amazing because she has to be. her peers always say cruel things, but rachel trusts her fathers so much more than she does her peers, so girl grows up knowing she will be successful, if she works for it.

but then there’s puck, too. puck who is a young jewish kid in what is predominately a protestant state (on that line: i know quinn’s evangelical but what is mercedes actually? where we given anything more than just plain christian? also sam? why did glee never expand on anything??? ugh) so already feels like a fish out of water – but he (canonically, at least) only has two peers his age who share the same faith. jacob ben israel, who is disgusting, even from a young age (is it canon that puck’s always bullied him?) and rachel, who i truly do believe he grew up knowing, even if i don’t think they were the best friends fanon likes to paint them as. he grows up in a heavily jewish household but in a community that does not share his faith, or even respect it, and that’s hard. add to it a burning desire to not become his father (i’m not sure if it’s actually canon that his mother told him he was just like his father, but it’s a headcanon i hold very close to my heart) and a mother working her ass off to provide for him and his sister, and kid is fucking angry.

so puck has anger issues, which i feel is mostly backed up in canon anyway – which is his passion. his ambition blooms from this – a burning desire to prove everyone wrong, the need to get the fuck out of lima. i do think finn and puck have a very deep friendship, but it’s one that adds to both of their insecurities. finn is the Golden Boy, he is (seen as) kind and talented. puck is the Bad Boy, he is charming and capable. they spend their lives being compared and i think puck is mostly reserved to coming second (hence his anger at finn going off-book and joining glee) but he also maintains that he Wants to beat finn, wants to be the best. puck has selfish ambition (but really, what ambition isn’t at least a little selfish?), but he has so much of it.

remember his first Real line? i’m not like everyone else in this cow town, i got star potential. kid makes it very clear he’s getting the fuck out of lima, no matter what his peers think. i do hate how glee handled him in s4 (he got out of lima sure, but he didn’t do anything, which i feel was such a disservice to him – he struggled with school because he isn’t a learner, but he’s always been a doer, let’s not forget the kid had an actual business at 16) but i hate what they did with most characters in s4, so i tend to ignore it for everyone bar the newbies and finn. the unravelling of klaine was interesting too, if only because we saw how co-dependent they actually were. otherwise fuck s4. (santana and rachel both had Moments, now that i think about it.)

anyway, like – of the four, i think puck has the least ambition. i also think he has a lot more purpose than say, santana, so his ambition is a lot more Realised. 

and then there’s santana, who i think has the clearest ambition in the show, even if it’s constantly overshadowed by rachel’s. i believe santana’s family is religious (her abuela definitely is but we don’t know too much about her parents actual lives despite actually meeting her mother, it’s of my personal belief they are religious but non-practising) but santana fails to perceive any proper value to religion.

(this is going somewhere, i swear.)

santana also doesn’t have a Great Big Dream, she eventually settles on wanting to be famous but that feels so much like a cop-out that i fail to see any value to it. she doesn’t particularly live for cheerleading or glee club either. 

what i’m getting at here is that if santana has ambition (she does, i’ll get to it) she doesn’t have purpose to go with it. and ambition without purpose can be fucking dangerous and santana is such a good example of that.

onto her ambition: i do think it’s pretty clearly shown within the show, even from the beginning of her character, as underdeveloped as she was. of the three cheerleaders, she’s the one who wholeheartedly throws herself into sabotaging the glee club – we don’t see too much of her in the first half of s1, but i believe she was working away at some of the weaker characters (read: artie, because santana lopez genuinely does read super prejudiced, but i’m probably still salty about her biphobia) until the back half came along and girl turned it up, went after finn hudson and took his virginity (i have so many feelings about finntana, mostly in a platonic sense but there was a glee meta years ago on them sleeping together that still sticks with me) and took so much pleasure in quinn fabray losing her status (quinn and santana read weirdly similar to finn and puck, but i don’t think their friendship is anywhere near as deep so they have less reason to empathise with each other) and girl was fucking messy.

it was great. i lived for it.

then s2 happened and we met santana lopez, properly – the girl from the hood (adjacent) who was so angry and so scared and wanted so much. and the season was full of ambition from her, even if stupid little ways – wanting to win the duet competition and knowing her and mercedes would be the match-up, knowing she wants to keep sleeping with brittany so tricking her into thinking it’s not cheating (we can talk about who was the real bad guy of the two of them for that for days but the correct answer is both, because brittany pierce is not as dumb as she seems but santana lopez still had full intent to make b cheat on artie), rejoining the cheerios at the first opportunity because she wants to win, no matter the consequences (i’m not sure how i feel about the three of them ditching the competition because it’s just a weird situation but this isn’t a finn hudson meta). and she cares about glee club a lot, of course, for a lot of reasons, but you cannot tell me she’s so upset about finn and rachel losing them the competition solely because… what? they ruined it for the club? no, they lost it for her. fuck them for that.

s3 is really the season i point to to prove the girl lacks purpose, so we’ll skip over that to s4 – santana is on her own, for the first time. she’s on a scholarship to a big school relatively far from home and she doesn’t handle it well, of course. gets super untethered. and then visits home and remembers Santana Lopez, The Star. so she goes to new york and still lacks purpose, sure, but she has a stage. she just has to figure out what part she’s playing.

and this is where the danger comes in, because santana sees her friends succeeding – rachel mostly, but kurt too – and gets restless. does stupid shit like her yeast-i-stat commercial. but most importantly, decides her life’s mission is playing fanny brice. which isn’t stupid on its own, but like, for someone who cares so much about her friends it reads so strange that she would actively go after something that clearly matters so much to what we pretty much assume is her best friend. the deterioration of rachel and santana’s friendship was written awfully so i won’t go into it, but like. god. someone give this girl a purpose so she has something worthwhile to invest herself in and stops sabotaging all her relationships.

so santana has bucketloads of ambition (i’d rank her third of the four) but she has nowhere to put it and it fucks her over every single time.

and then quinn. oh, quinn. ohhhhhhhh quinn.

quinn has so much fucking ambition – she has a life planner from age six. she details every moment of middle school, every moment of high school, every moment of college, every moment of life. she’s going to go to an ivy league college (she thinks she’d like brown, her dad went there, but yale sounds nice and freeing) and she’s going to study law and she’s going to become a family lawyer. she’s going to help kids get away from abusive parents and she’s going to make sure everyone she comes into contact with is safe and happy.

on the flipside, lucy quinn fabray is already resigned to living her mother’s life. doing a short course in real estate and then becoming a realtor. she’ll marry a nice boy, maybe finn hudson, and they’ll buy a house with a white picket fence and have 2.5 children and a dog. 

quinn fabray’s ambition is fucking tragic, because it was killed before even getting the chance to thrive – and it’s still there, of course. in some ways. when she tells finn she’s pregnant, she says i really thought i had a shot at getting out of here. when she’s wondering whether to give up drizzle or not, she knows she shouldn’t – her religion doesn’t look on the act kindly and i’ll never forgive glee for overlooking quinn’s faith post-s1 – but it would allow her to move on with her life.

quinn fabray is tragic, because she loses her future-husband to rachel berry, who has all of her ambition and none of her fear (or all of it, but quinn doesn’t get to see that, nobody gets to see that). she loses her husband to everything quinn wanted to be, and it’s awful.

s2 sees quinn not gaining her ambition back, as she hoped. or maybe as i hoped. s2 sees quinn getting back with finn. s2 sees quinn telling rachel that she’s wasting her time with lima because she’s going to be successful and they aren’t (or rather, quinn isn’t). 

but it comes back, eventually.

i don’t know when. s3 fucked quinn over so bad. but it comes back.

and she writes so many fucking essays about her emotionally neglectful father and her child who she loves so fucking much but had to give up and her friends, her glee club, who helped her through fucking everything.

it comes back.

quinn gets accepted into yale.

quinn gets accepted into yale.

rachel and kurt are (eventually) accepted into a prestigious performing arts school, which is perfect for them, but let me reiterate – quinn (and mike actualy) gains admission into one of the most prestigious schools in america. 

quinn fabray is going to be fucking amazing, and she knows it – she’s going to live her own life, the one her mom wanted to life, but was always too scared to pursue. quinn knows how short life is, she also know she can’t let anyone drag her down – quinn is going to motherfucking yale and she is going to be fucking wonderful. 

there’s a quote i’ve always used for quinn – i can’t abandon the girl i used to be, so i carry her. and quinn carries lucy with her every single fucking day – and lucy gets to see her ambition realised, gets to see herself succeed and become everything she dreamed of.

and it’s amazing.

so maybe nobody has rachel’s ambition, not really. but a lot of glee club have their own wild ambitions (mike, mercedes and tina all come to mind).

but i do genuinely think puck, santana and quinn all come very close to the standard rachel set, in such different ways. 

and i think that’s wonderful. 

TDB Rewatch: Michael

The middle of season three continues to be not that bad - if I focus on just being mindlessly entertained for forty minutes and don’t think about it that hard.  Like Rachel - I don’t really get the whole Michael Jackson thing, but that’s okay! For a tribute episode, this does very well, though it keeps the time honored tradition of having too much music and too little plot.  The music is nice, the covers are fine, and I don’t find myself egregiously irritated with the episode - even if the couple of things I do think are really wrong with it have to do with Kurt. 

Thoughts: 

You know what this episode had going for it? Barely any Will and no Sue.  

There really isn’t any big overall story - beside the whole ND v Warblers thing.  It’s just a lot of tiny plot threads that they pull on to fit with the music.  Which is fine.  It works, for the most part.  This episode is still mostly music. 

So, I suppose - let’s do this by song... 

Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ - Ah, Blaine this overjoyed ball of sunshine.  I think the Mercedes and Santana upset that they didn’t do MJ and ND v Warblers both wanting to do MJ for Regionals is a weak tie in for doing MJ, but eh, it’s fine.  I mean - all these songs relate to different plots, so I can understand the general theme.  

There’s a lot of underlying Blaine backstory and development that could have been explored in this episode - his issues with the Warblers, why he’s hanging around Sebastian and telling him things, how he feels about having a slushie to his face, how he doesn’t feel like he fits in at McKinley still, stuff with Kurt -- but, you know, Darren had to be on Broadway and Finchel needed more screen time so.... 

Bad - I like this song in concept, and Santana and Blaine teaming up is actually pretty cool.  But this performance is dark, literally, as in I can’t see most of what’s going on.  It isn’t the best shot one.  

I genuinely like Santana in this episode - from her attitude being used at someone not in ND, her conversation with Kurt, and taping something to her underboob, I feel like /this/ is how they should have been using Santana more often. 

Scream - So, um, anyone wanna talk about Artie’s anger issues.  His little speech is 4th-wall breaking relevant, but in character it seems a little off.  But it doesn’t get picked up on so....  let’s chalk it up to the fact that it’s meant for this song.  Kevin McHale and Harry Shum Jr knock this song out of the park.  I really do not like listening to it, but -- it’s visually stunning, and a fantastic cover. 

Never Can Say Goodbye - Quinn’s voice is a bit weak on this one, but I do like this song for her.  And I like that they got her into Yale.  Congrats, no more irritating Quinn story lines!! (Mostly) 

While I’m rolling my eyes at more obligatory Faberry - I kind of question Rachel’s logic and reasoning here.  I’m going to go ask my bf’s ex if it’s okay if we get married.  I mean really??  I do agree with what Quinn has to say, though.  Both Finn and Rachel want to get married for /bad/ reasons.  And while Quinn is going the opposite way with it - mostly cause she’s realizing that she doesn’t have to have her whole life planned out, she is correct in that - they’re kids, and you don’t know what you want at 16.  

Human Nature - another song I’m not really that into - but Mercedes and Sam are lovely together.  And giving Mercedes a story line that’s not about competing with Rachel is always a plus.  She has a genuine conflict here.  

Ben - hey, it’s that one time they decided to sing about a rat to the gay pirate.  If you listen to the lyrics, the song does make sense, and they do sound nice on it.  Still -- why does Finchel need to be involved in this scene at all? Oh because Kurt needs to feel bad for getting a finalist letter because Rachel did not.  Oh god...  

Before I get into that, though.  Taking a step back from the Klaine issues - they don’t bother me too much.  I mean, Blaine does take that slushie for Kurt, and they are holding hands with each other.  But, yeah, when you examine it further, it is frustrating that they remain three feet apart while Finchel gets to make out in every scene they’re in.  Letting the gay couple be physical shouldn’t be an issue -- but alas, it was 2012, and it still was on prime time tv. 

Meanwhile - let’s talk about Kurt and his NYADA finalist -- which is a nice little scene with his dad, albeit slightly overwrought - but you know, this is soured by a) him having to emotionally prop up Rachel and b) the fact that he ultimately doesn’t get in.   Doing meta and the podcast has given me distance to not be as irritated, but I’m still epicly rolling my eyes. 

Smooth Criminal - Santana v Sebastian is brilliant, and this number is the best one in the show.  It’s actually rather dark and tense, tbh.  Also - 2Cellos - you go dudes. 

I Just Can’t Stop Loving You - Did this episode really need a Finchel duet? Really??  Long gone is the cutesy couple from season 1 - and now they’re talking about marriage proposals and both wanting to get married for very, very wrong reasons, and it’s just painful.  I say - make it stop, but we have 11 more episodes of this.  

Black or White - This is the song I listen to the most! I like it.  Also my massive love to Trent Warbler. 

However, I will never understand why they made Kurt give back the tape - other than the want Seb around ep 14.  But seriously, I side-eye the whole Kurt taking the higher road cause they need someone telling the morale of the story.  While I’m softer about season 3 on some levels - what they do with Kurt during this season, I am not. 

You’re a vegetable, I eat off you.  

Story of My Life 21/24

Kurt reflects on the past twelve years of his life, coming to realize that one man in particular has affected him far more than he ever thought he would

For the @klaineadvent prompt “Variation”. I’ve been looking forward to writing this chapter for basically the whole fic, so it is unsurprisingly a little long. Warning for Kurt being incredibly dense and stupid (I’m sorry, I promise his revelation is coming). 

I hope you enjoy, and I’ll see you soon!

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September 1st, 2022

To: Kurt From: Blaine I bet you anything that the surprise announcement is that they’re dating.

Kurt chuckles as he reads the text from Blaine. He shakes his head and quickly taps out a reply.

To: Blaine From: Kurt I’ll take that action. $10 on Cooper got a role in an actual play.

The subway rolls into his stop, and Kurt stands up, keeping his phone in his hand. He steps off as soon as the doors open, not daring to look down at his phone until he’s fully out of the station.

To: Kurt From: Blaine Only $10? You don’t believe in yourself enough.

Kurt laughs, taking long strides in his attempt to get to Rachel and Cooper’s new apartment sooner. Whatever the reason for this impromptu invitation, Kurt knows that there will be alcohol, and he’s had a long week. He’s ready to unwind with his friends and celebrate whatever it is that Cooper and Rachel have to tell them.

He reaches their building quickly, climbing the short stairs to the front door and buzzing to get in. They buzz him in easily, and Kurt grins when he sees Blaine inside, waiting for the elevator.

“They live on the third floor,” Kurt says in lieu of greeting. “Are you really that lazy?”

Blaine doesn’t look back, but as Kurt reaches him he can see that he’s smiling. “I already worked out my legs today. I deserve a break.”

Without meaning, Kurt finds his eyes falling down to Blaine’s legs. He has to admit, they’re pretty fantastic. Nice and muscular, firm thighs wrapped in too-tight jeans, leading up to a gorgeous, plump…

He forces his eyes away, shocked at his brazenness. He feels like a total creep, standing here checking Blaine out. He shakes his head and sets his gaze on the elevator doors, ignoring the blush creeping up his cheeks or the heavy beating of his heart.

“You don’t really think they called us over just to tell us Cooper got a role, do you?”

Kurt snorts, thankful for the distraction. “No, but I have a hard time believing they’re going to tell us they’re dating. I mean, it’s been ten years. If it was going to happen, it would have happened already.”

“You never know. Sometimes it takes a bit of time for feelings to catch up.”

Kurt glances over at Blaine, but looks away again when he sees him staring at him a little too intensely. “I don’t think Cooper really needed to catch up on any feelings.”

“I didn’t mean Cooper.”

The elevator arrives, and they step in as Kurt says, “Even if that is the case, I don’t think it’s really healthy for Cooper to just be sitting around waiting for his feelings to be returned. Don’t you think it would be healthier if he got over his crush?” He presses the button for the third floor, then turns to face the front of the elevator.

“I think we both know by now that it’s more than a crush.”

Kurt can feel Blaine’s eyes on him, but he forces himself to keep his eyes on the elevator doors.

“Regardless. I feel like Cooper would be a lot happier if he let himself move on, since I think it’s clear by now that his feelings won’t be returned.” He tries to keep his voice casual, despite the harshness of his words.

“Maybe Cooper doesn’t want to move on because Rachel recently ended a serious relationship and has been spending a lot of time with him lately, and he sometimes catches her checking out his ass.”

Kurt whips his head over to Blaine, eyes wide. “Blaine…”

The elevator dings and the doors open, but neither moves to get out. “Have you dated anybody since you and Elliott broke up?”

Kurt licks his lips, heart speeding up in his chest. “I thought we were talking about Cooper and Rachel.”

“Really, Kurt?” Blaine shakes his head, though his lips are curved up in a slight smile. “You really thought we were talking about Cooper and Rachel?”

Kurt sighs, heart pounding wildly in his chest. “No.”

Blaine raises an eyebrow, almost cheekily, then steps out of the elevator, leaving Kurt staring after him.

The doors start to close, so Kurt hurries to step out before they do, feeling like the wind’s been knocked out of him.

What the hell just happened?

*

Tina and Quinn are already there when Kurt and Blaine walk into the apartment, which Kurt is surprised by. As far as he knows, Cooper has made no effort to include Tina or Quinn in any hang out at their new apartment since they moved in.

Thankfully, Sam and Mercedes arrive a few minutes later, happily announcing that they managed to get a sitter last minute, so they are child-free for the rest of the night.

“Okay, we’re all here,” Tina says, though the glance she sends at Kurt lets him know that she and everybody else is just as aware as he is of Elliott’s absence. Honestly, Kurt was a little worried that Elliott would be here today. Not that it would be wrong for Cooper and Rachel to include their friend in whatever announcement this is, but Kurt hasn’t even spoken to Elliott since he moved out of their apartment back in April. He isn’t sure that the first time he wants to see him again is in a group hang out setting.

“Yeah, tell us what the announcement is, we’re kind of dying,” Quinn says.

Cooper and Rachel share a smile, then Rachel raises her left hand, revealing a beautiful, sparkling ring.

“Cooper and I are engaged!”

Kurt’s jaw drops as he stares at the ring on Rachel’s finger.

“What the fuck,” comes Sam, voicing exactly what is running through Kurt’s head.

“Were you two… dating?” Blaine asks. “Did I miss something?”

“Nope,” Cooper says, wrapping an arm around Rachel’s waist. “We’re skipping that part.”

“Skipping…” Kurt shakes his head, finally finding his words. “You can’t just skip dating!”

“Well it’s not like we just met,” Rachel says, rolling her eyes. “Besides, we’ve been talking, and it turns out we’ve both had feelings for each other on-and-off for like, ten years. That’s a commitment in and of itself.”

“Not really,” Tina says, though she says it quietly enough that Kurt isn’t sure if Cooper and Rachel are meant to hear.

“Look,” Cooper says, pulling Rachel closer to his body. “I know this seems hasty, but even if we didn’t go straight from friends to engaged, we both know this is where we’re going to end up. I know without a single doubt in my mind that Rachel is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Why go through an unnecessary formality? We’ve already waited ten years. I’m tired of waiting.”

Rachel grins up at him and says, “That’s exactly how I feel, babe.”

“I mean, I think it’s great,” Mercedes speaks up. “When you know, you know, right?”

Kurt can’t argue with that logic. He knows what it feels like to know in your gut that something is wrong. He personally hasn’t experienced it the other way around, but he isn’t about to claim that it can’t happen.

“Look, I’m going to congratulate you,” Kurt says, stepping forward toward Cooper and Rachel. “But I also need you to know that I think you’re absolutely crazy, and I’m going to remind you of that every single crazy second that I spend helping you plan your wedding.”

Cooper grins and pulls Kurt into a tight hug. “Thanks, man,” he says.

“Seriously,” Kurt whispers, hugging him a little closer. “Congratulations. You two are perfect for each other.”

“I’ve always thought so,” Cooper says, pulling away and winking at Rachel. Rachel laughs, then brings Kurt in for a hug as well.

Once Kurt has accepted his hugs, everybody else comes forward to give hugs of their own. Kurt steps back and watches, smiling softly. Blaine is the first up there, throwing his arms around Cooper enthusiastically, and then doing the same with Rachel. Both Rachel and Cooper laugh at Blaine’s antics, and Kurt just shakes his head, his smile fond.

After his hugs, Blaine heads over to where Kurt is. He holds his hand out, palm up, and says, “I’ll take that ten dollars now.”

Kurt shakes his head instantly, though he’s still smiling. “Your bet was that they would be dating. They were very explicit about not doing that. Bet cancels itself out. Nobody wins.”

Blaine pouts. “I was closest.”

Kurt shrugs. “Those are the rules.”

“I never agreed to those rules.”

“Sucks for you, I guess,” Kurt winks, and Blaine chuckles. He turns back to Cooper and Rachel, watching them with a softness in his eyes that warms Kurt’s heart.

“Hey,” Blaine says, voice lowering slightly, head tilting slightly toward Kurt. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable earlier.”

Kurt feels his smile falter, and his stomach tightens, though he isn’t sure he understands why. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable.”

“You sure? You looked pretty uncomfortable.”

“I was just surprised,” Kurt says. “Besides, I should probably be apologizing to you.”

“For what?” Blaine asks, looking at him like he’s crazy.

“For, you know. Looking at you. Inappropriately.”

Blaine snorts, then smiles up at Kurt like he’s precious. “There is no way you could look at me that I would consider inappropriate.”

Kurt blushes. “Still.”

“Fine,” Blaine says, nudging their shoulders together. “Apology accepted.”

Kurt smiles down at him, then turns his gaze to Cooper and Rachel. “Think they’ll actually make it?”

He can feel Blaine’s gaze on him as he says, “Yeah. I don’t have a single doubt about it.”

*

Mercedes finds him a few hours later, falling into the seat beside him on the couch. Kurt leans into her instantly, taking a sip of his fourth glass of wine, feeling warm and pleasantly buzzed.

“You having a good time?” He asks her.

“Always am with you guys,” she says, arm slinging over the back of the couch, hand coming down to play with his hair. “Even if I miss Eva dearly and cannot wait to go home to her.”

“Of course,” Kurt says, sighing happily at her ministrations.

She turns toward him slightly, giving him a careful look. “Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

She narrows her eyes a little, as though considering what to say. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Blaine since you and Elliott broke up.”

Kurt nods, eyes fluttering closed. He loves when Mercedes plays with his hair. “It’s been nice. Everybody else is coupled up, so it’s cool to hang out with somebody who’s also single.”

“Right,” Mercedes says. “And that’s all it is? Just hanging out with a fellow single?”

“What else would it be?”

“I don’t know. Flirting? Seeing where things go?” Kurt opens his eyes slowly, sitting up slightly so that Mercedes can see the confusion written on his face better. She raises an eyebrow and says, “I saw you two, earlier.”

“So?”

“So, I’m just wondering if you’re finally going to pull your head out of your ass and give that boy a chance.”

Kurt scoffs. “I don’t have my head in my ass, Mercedes. This is Blaine we’re talking about.”

“Yeah, exactly. It’s Blaine, who is gorgeous, and kind, and your best friend, and available, and in love with you.”

“He’s also Blaine who is Cooper’s younger brother.”

Mercedes rolls her eyes. “You know he’s been more than that for a long time now. Hell, Sam and I hang out with just us and Blaine quite a bit. Remember two weeks ago, when I asked you to babysit Eva? That was so Sam and I could go out drinking with Blaine.”

Kurt tuts playfully. “I can’t believe you asked me to babysit so you could go out and encourage underage drinking. For shame, Mercedes.”

Mercedes sighs, placing her hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “Except it’s not underage drinking, Kurt, because Blaine is twenty-three.”

Kurt’s heart stutters in his chest. He finds himself glancing over to where Blaine is talking to Rachel animatedly, one hand holding a glass of wine and the other moving animatedly. “Wow,” he says, noticing the slight stubble growing on Blaine’s jaw, and the width of his shoulders in his jacket.

“See, this is what I’m talking about, Kurt. You always said that the reason you couldn’t like Blaine was because he was just a kid. Well, he isn’t a kid anymore. He hasn’t been for a long time. We’ve all noticed it, we’ve all accepted it. Why haven’t you?”

Kurt continues watching Blaine, throat drying. “I don’t know,” he says, eyes roving over Blaine as though seeing him for the first time. “I guess to me Blaine is still that thirteen-year-old boy sitting on Cooper’s bed in our dorm room. Maybe he always will be.”

“He isn’t that boy anymore, though,” Mercedes says. “He hasn’t been for a long time.” She runs her hand softly between his shoulder blades. “And honestly Kurt, I love you, but your refusal to see that is almost becoming cruel.”

Kurt swallows thickly, tearing his eyes away from Blaine and turning to Mercedes. “I can’t just force myself to have feelings for him,” he says. “Not liking somebody back is not a crime.”

“Yeah, but the fact that after all these years you refuse to even consider him? Even for a second?” she shakes her head. “Look, Kurt, I can’t tell you what to do, and I know you wouldn’t listen to me even if I could. I just think that you’re closing yourself off from something that could be really fantastic, for reasons that don’t even exist anymore.” She pats his back gently, then stands up slowly. “Think about it, okay? Because really, I think we all know that you could never do better than Blaine.”

She walks over to her husband, leaving Kurt with thoughts swirling in his head. His eyes go back to Blaine, and he sighs. Twenty-three-year-old Blaine. When the hell did that even happen? He feels like he’s somehow been fully aware of Blaine’s adulthood, while at the same time completely oblivious.

Blaine’s eyes flick over to him, and he smiles at Kurt softly before turning back to Rachel. Kurt sighs.

Mercedes is right. He really will never be able to do better than Blaine. Blaine is basically the best person in the entire world, and Kurt knows that they’d make a good couple based on their platonic chemistry.

Still, he can’t just flick a switch and turn feelings on. And honestly, the idea of giving Blaine a chance only to realize what he already knows – that he will never be able to have romantic feelings for the boy (man, he reminds himself) – sounds even worse than never giving Blaine a chance at all.

What is he supposed to do? Walk up to Blaine and say, “Hey, I know you’ve had a crush on me for a good ten years. Want to give it a shot, no strings attached, just to see if I can get over the fact that, in some ways, I still see you as the thirteen-year-old younger brother of my best friend?” There’s no other variation he could try. No matter if he tried to sugar coat it, the truth would still be there.

To Kurt, that seems crueler than not giving Blaine a chance. Besides, it’s like Mercedes said earlier. When you know, you know. Kurt has known that he and Blaine will only ever be friends for a damn long time.

He lets his eyes roam over Blaine’s body, reminding himself that it isn’t creepy because Blaine is an adult now, even if Kurt’s brain keeps trying to tell him that he’s still a kid. He looks over those gorgeous legs, up to an out-of-this-world ass. Moves up to a tiny waist, perfect for holding on to, then to his broad shoulders, perfect for leaning on while watching a move. Finally, he reaches Blaine’s face, with its perfect jawline, amazing mouth, and sparkling eyes.

He sighs. It’s almost too bad that he’ll never be able to have those feelings for Blaine. The man sure grew up nicely.

Part Twenty-Two: Width