#God finding a reference for that second pose was IMPOSSIBLE. Ended up having to make my own reference.

[mechazushi]

Guys, what happened? I think I blacked out for a second...

*looks behind me at my sketch book*

Oh Fuck.

@sanjipussyindulgence I'm sure you probably wanted Jayce more, but I was possessed sooo.... here.

@kafkahibinomybeloved Back on my White Haired Kafka agenda! Now with extra sluttyness!

@iceclew Just making sure you're seeing the current bullshit that I'm on.

MEN!

you have to wear this and nothing else

[andromedasstarship]

in the stars - chapter 5

pairing - aaron hotchner x reader 

warnings - canon-typical criminal minds violence, stalking, unhealthy coping mechanisms, drinking, angst

summary -  “Please,” he said, staring you straight in the eyes. “Don’t go.” 

a/n - i really love this chapter! cant wait to hear what yall think :DD also for reference i aged jack down just a year so hes 3 when haley passes away, about to turn 5 when reader & aaron get together. i dont claim any dialogue straight from Emma as mine! (emma dialogue is in italics) 

masterlist / series masterlist / read it on ao3 

chapter 4 / chapter 6 

-----

You were hyper-aware of the new way the team was looking at you as you entered the conference room. You shot a very anxious glance up towards Aaron, grateful for the very brief- but soft- glance he gave you before the business side of him took over again. You could feel the ghost of his hand hovering over that protective spot on your back again as he led you up towards the table. 

It felt like your eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, upon seeing the seemingly endless piles of photos in front of you. Your brain was struggling to process everything that was laid out in front of you and you felt your heart rate start to pick up; seeing it in person was worse than anything your mind had created in the drive here. 

“Y/N.” 

Your eyes shot up to meet the voice and you saw Spencer looking down at you with a look that was just on the edge of pity. “We tried to sort the pictures into piles of time relativity. Would you be able to go through them and help us create a firmer timeline?” 

You nodded at that, vaguely aware of Aaron pulling a chair out behind you. You gladly slid down into it. Seeing Emily start to pick up one pile and push them towards you made you nervously laugh, the stress of the moment and how uncomfortable you felt forcing it out. When the entire team gave you a weird look you said, “Sorry, it just reminded me of last time.” 

You gently picked up the stack of photos, trying to hold them as lightly as possible. The knowledge that the unsub had packaged these himself sent a shiver down your spine. You knew it was silly, but you somehow felt that by touching the photos you were somehow also touching the remnants of the unsub. 

The first stack you easily dated as around four years ago, just from your hair; you’d drastically changed it for a role. You thumbed through the photos and could feel the knots in your stomach growing even tighter. Most of the photos were blurry and relatively distant from you, as if the unsub was still getting comfortable with what he was doing. 

“This was four years ago, I had to change my hair for a role and I’ve never had it like that before or again.” You said quietly, pushing the pile back to Emily. 

She nodded, giving you a gracious smile before pushing the next pile towards you. Your face fell immediately; something the team equated to how much more personal these set of photos seemed to be. You fanned the stack out in front of you. There weren’t many, as if even the unsub could recognize the inappropriate- ha!- nature of capturing you like this. In all of them you looked worn down, as if a cloud was following you everywhere you went. 

“This was about two years ago.” You said flatly. It took a moment, but you could see everyone connect the dots in their head and suddenly the room felt very small. 

Thankfully, the next pile was rather average and you guessed that this was just an ‘extra’ pile of photos that didn’t really seem to fit into a cohesive timeframe. As you scanned over them, one caught your eye and you pulled it a bit closer to you. You pointed a finger at the sign behind you. 

“This is an exclusive club house, it’s difficult to get into. Security’s intense and everyone that enters has to sign in.” You informed the team. JJ reached out and grabbed the photo, putting it to the side for later.

You turned your attention back to the pile, making sure to give each photo a proper amount of attention, desperate to notice something useful. 

“This one,” you said, pulling a blurry photo of yourself out of the pile. You were moving too fast for the camera to properly capture you, but you recognized the outfit. “I was wearing this the day Officer Reynolds told me you all were coming, isn’t this the outside of the station?” You said quietly.

JJ moved that photo to the ‘save for later’ pile as well. You gently re-stacked the pile and passed it towards Emily, waiting for the next one. 

You watched as Emily seemed to be literally holding her tongue as she pushed the next pile towards you, a certain playful glint in her eyes. Once you were able to look at it, you couldn’t help but snort. You could feel Aaron tense up besides you, but you could find the humor in it. The ‘Aaron’ pile. 

You fanned the stack out like you had done with the others, giving special attention to the details behind you. These were much more difficult to place and a much smaller pile, considering how careful the two of you had been. 

“These must’ve been in DC?” You questioned, not really expecting an answer. You looked up towards Aaron, raising an eyebrow as if to give him the opportunity to share his thoughts. “Whenever he came to LA, I had an iron grip on our security but it was a whole different field in DC-” 

Your sentence fell flat as your eyes went wide, nearly surging out of your seat up towards Aaron. He gave you a worried look, unable to place the sudden anxiety that had taken over you. “What about Jack?” You asked worriedly, “if he knows about you he must’ve found out about Ja-”

Aaron stopped you, putting a very gentle hand on the top of your shoulder, “He’s okay, I promise.” He said, using his hand to lightly push you back into a seated position. You nodded at that, eyes still wide, but your body seemed to deflate, the tension slowly leaving you. 

The rest of the team was quiet, recognizing the personal nature of the interaction. But it was impossible for them not to notice the way your bodies reacted to each other. The way your body’s natural response to a stressor had been to move closer to him and the way he angled himself in a protective stance around you near simultaneously. 

Emily pushed the final pile in front of you and you couldn’t help the corners of your lips pull up in a soft smile. You fanned out the stack of photos, taking a good look at all of them. They all seemed to either be promo photos or film photos of your time filming Mamma Mia in Greece. 

“This is definitely from Greece. But some of these are definitely promo photos, it’s why I’m ‘posing’ in a few of them.” You said, pushing out one that visually made your point. 

“What about this one? It feels a lot more intimate than a promotional piece.” Emily asked, pulling one out from the stack. In it, you were standing on the dock, face close to the camera. You had a big smile on your face and your thumbs up. 

“On set, we had a handful of little disposable cameras that everyone could use.” 

“Do you have any memory of who owned the cameras?” 

“I…,” you paused, eyebrows scrunched tightly in thought, “I don’t know. The studio distributed all the photos after the movie came out. They’re pretty public at this point, it was five years ago.” You said weakly, feeling really disappointed in your lack of help. “I’m sorry.” You added. 

Morgan stepped up closer to the table. “Don’t be okay? Now we know that the unsub has connections in Hollywood and we know he must be wealthy enough to fly to DC on a whim if he thought you were there. That helps narrow things down.” He assured you. 

“Are there any specific photographers that you’ve noticed? Or any guy you feel like you’ve seen too many times and it’s no longer a coincidence?” Spencer asked. 

You shook your head quickly. “I’m really used to cameras flashing in my face.” You said impishly. “I can remember a lot of fans that I meet, but if it’s just someone behind a camera I don’t think I’d really notice it at all.” 

You felt Aaron move away from you and towards the computer at the end of the table. He clicked a few buttons and suddenly a woman's face popped up on the screen. You recognized her immediately from all the stories and photos you’d seen. Penelope. 

Aaron brought the computer closer to where you were and her mouth dropped open for the second time today. 

“Oh my god! Hi! Wow! I am, I am such a fan. I just-, you’re always so-” 

“Garcia.” Aaron interjected but you raised your hand at him, giving him a ‘shoo’ gesture. The rest of the team had to stifle their laughter. 

“Hi, Penelope right? I’ve heard so much about you.” You said sweetly, leaning a bit closer to the camera. 

“Wow! Okay, I can’t believe this is-” 

“Garcia, I need you to pull up visitor logs from a clubhouse that Y/N used to visit. I want you to cross reference it with other visitor logs of recent film sets she’s been on and her housing development. She’ll be able to give you a more comprehensive list.” Aaron interjected, and this time you let him. 

You turned back to the screen, giving Garcia another smile. “The clubhouse is called Royal Blue, the picture couldn’t have been more than…, I think three years ago? But I’m not sure.” 

“Alright…, okay the visitor logs seem to be locked tight, but never too tight for me. What are some of those movie sets?” 

“The earliest photo is what? Five years ago?” You asked, looking around at the agents for approval. “Yeah, five years. So Mamma Mia, to start, Little Women. I’m working on Emma right now.” You droned, listing various movie sets you’d worked on in the past five years. 

“Oh my god! I have so many questions about Mamma Mia. Like what was it-,” Garcia’s question trailed off as she caught sight of Hotch giving her a firm stare from behind you. “Right sorry, alright. I will break into the clubhouse and cross reference all of these lists to see if anyone comes up more than once. It was so nice meeting you, I hope we get to-. Alright, hanging up now!” Garcia said in a rushed voice. You watched her click a button on her end and the screen went black. 

You leaned back into your chair, staring up at the rest of the team . “So…,” you said, drawing out the word, “what now?” 

-----

“What are you doing?” Aaron’s asked, voice coming out from behind you. 

You comically froze, hand just short of picking your keys up from the table. You slowly turned to face him, straightening your tote bag over your shoulder. “Oh! There you are, I was just on my way to come find you.” You said lightly, trying to diffuse some of the tension in the room. Aaron didn’t say anything, waiting for you to go on. “Johnny and I have plans tonight.” You said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world  

On your part, you’d already forgotten about the whole ‘I’m on a date’ aspect on your earlier phone call with Aaron. In your mind, there wasn’t anything inherently suspicious about you going to spend time with him in the evening.

Aaron was viewing the entire situation in a very different light. When he had first come around the corner, he noticed how nice you looked. When the two of you had finally returned to your place you immediately went up to your room, disappearing for quite some time. He had originally thought maybe you were upset, the cognitive interview hadn’t revealed anything and even though he knew you didn’t really believe in their accuracy, he also knew how badly you wanted to be of ‘use’ for the case. 

In your time upstairs, you had changed your outfit and styled your hair just enough to give it that ‘unstyled-styled’ look. It’s not like you were glammed out or anything, the only reason you’d put on a nice outfit was on the off chance you were photographed- hopefully not by the unsub-, on your way into Johnny’s apartment. 

“And what is it that you’re supposed to be doing?” Aaron asked, trying to keep his voice as nonchalant as possible. 

“Um, nothing much,” You said with an awkward laugh, when he was still looking at you expectantly you tilted your head. “I’m supposed to go to his place and we’re gonna run lines for the scenes we’re filming this week.” You explained. 

“I can’t endorse you going out at night. Especially to someone’s home that we don’t have eyes on.” Aaron said firmly. 

You rolled your eyes at that, picking up your keys. “Johnny’s fine, he’s been in the same place as me when nearly all the bodies were discovered.” You argued, putting one hand on your hip. 

“With the recent development in the cases, I can’t let you do this.”

You started to walk towards him, intending to go around him. “Aaron-” 

His hand shot out and gently grabbed you by the arm, stopping you from getting past him. 

“Hey!-” 

“Please,” he said, staring you straight in the eyes. “Don’t go.” 

Your mouth fell open slightly in a mild form of shock. ‘We’re just running lines, I really need-” 

“I’ll do it with you.” Aaron interjected hurriedly. “We’ve done it before, I’m not too bad at it, huh?” He said teasingly. 

You pondered that for a minute. You and Aaron had run lines together plenty of times in the past, it was always something you got a kick out of, seeing Aaron try and morph into whatever character he was reading for. And while it wouldn’t be as productive as running them with your actual co-star, you reasoned it’d still be good enough. And as much as you hated to admit it, Aaron probably had a point about you not going out, especially in the evening.  

“Fine. I just need to go call Johnny and tell him something came up.” You huffed, pretending to be more annoyed than you were. 

“Here,” you said, reaching into your bag and pulling out your script, “I already have most of my lines memorized, I’ll just need you to fill in if I miss any. I have a pink sticky note denoting the scene we were going to start with. You’re reading as Knightely. I’ll meet you in the living room, alright?” You said, pushing the script into his hands as you walked around him towards the kitchen, pulling your phone out at the same time. 

----

“No, I’m just saying I think it’d be more believable or whatever if we did a few more like nonchalant meals before like, running errands together or something, ya know?” You said lazily into the phone, holding it between your ear and shoulder as you used your hands to mix up a drink for yourself. Out of the corner of your eye you caught sight of the Dalmore. You reached out with one hand and carefully pulled it down, still remembering exactly how Aaron liked to take a drink. 

“What meal really screams ‘we’re dating’? Dinner? That’s like the longest meal of the day, that’s gotta show some sort of commitment.” Johnny asked. 

“Hm…,” you droned, “well we just had a lunch. If we want to kick it into high gear, we should do breakfast. Perfect ‘just spent the night’ remedy.” You said with a snort. 

Aaron cleared his throat behind you and the sound made you jump. You pulled the phone away from your ear and saw you’d been blabbering for nearly half an hour. 

‘Oh. Sorry.’ You mouthed to Aaron, before pulling the phone back to your ear. “Hey Johnny gotta go, but we’ll figure it out later! Yeah…, for sure, bye!” You hung up and placed your phone on the counter. Then you grabbed the drink you had poured for him, holding it out. 

“It’s Dalmore.” You said plainly. 

“I’m working.” He responded. 

You rolled your eyes at that and held it out more aggressively. “Take it.” 

You watched happily as he begrudgingly took it out of your hand, though you knew it wasn’t too difficult for him. You picked up your own glass and tucked your phone into the waistband of your pants. “Ready? Sorry, got carried away.” 

While the two of you walked back into your living room, it was obvious something was bothering Aaron. You briefly wondered if something had developed in the case that he wasn’t telling you. 

‘What is it?” You asked. 

He looked down at you, confused. “What is what?” 

“Don’t play dumb, you have a tell.”  You explained, stopping to look up at him.  

“I do not have a tell.” Hotch replied annoyedly. 

“Yes you do.” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“If you want to be a baby about it, fine you don’t have a tell. Tell me what’s wrong anyway.” 

“I’m trying to understand why you lied about not having a boyfriend nor seeing anyone recently. We’ll need to fully vet Johnny and look into his files, even if you don’t see it becoming serious.” Aaron near spat.

You snorted. “What do you mean lied?” 

“You very clearly told me you weren’t seeing anyone, yet today has proven those claims to be false.” 

“I know that sometimes, I like to be a huge pain but I’m serious, what are you talking about? I’m not seeing anyone.” 

“Your co-star, Johnny? You told me you were on a date with him today. I just heard you on the phone make plans to stay with him overnight. I saw the pictures of-” 

“Stop! Oh my god, I can’t believe you actually believed that.” You said, unable to hold back the laughter that bubbled out of you. 

“Believed it? You’re the only who told me!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have assumed you read through the lines. Johnny and I have been going on publicity dates. We’re just friends.” 

“What were you supposed to be doing tonight then?” 

“We were legitimately going to run lines. Maybe get ice cream, we’re trying to determine the best ice cream in LA.” 

That’d explain the outfit, Aaron thought. 

“And the phone call I just heard?” 

“We were debating which meal screams ‘dating’. He thinks it’s dinner. I think it’s breakfast, ya know, cause it implies you spent the night.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me that, before.” 

“Don’t you remember when I had kinda the same thing with Timothee during Little Women? They made us hang out a bunch so the tabloids could just do their thing. I just assumed you’d fill in the blanks.” 

Aaron was staring at you as if you had two heads. It was almost like you could see the gears turning in that head of his. Internally, he was more than embarrassed for how upset he’d gotten over the idea of you with someone else. 

When it seemed that Aaron had nothing else to say, you started to walk again, not stopping until you were both back in your living room. You plopped down in ‘your spot’ on the couch, playfully patting the space a few cushions down that Aaron typically sat in. 

“Crack open that script, I hope you looked through it. If you’re making me stay home, you better be useful!” You said pleasantly, trying to change the atmosphere into something more playful. 

Aaron awkwardly sat himself down on the couch next to you, picking the script back up. As you watched him flip the script open and further acquaint himself with the lines you couldn’t help but feel a sharp pang in your chest. It was such an unavoidable reminder of the way the two of you used to run lines together when you were still dating. You had learned early on that Aaron best showed his affection through acts of service and he actually wasn’t that bad at delivering a line. Since the two of you were rarely together in person- it’s not like you’d let him waste a visit with you building a shelf or running an errand-, running lines with you was the easiest way for him to feel useful. 

-----

Four Years Ago

“Okay Jack, you ready?” You asked, smiling down at the young boy standing across from you. He was dressed up in his winter clothes, despite the blazing heat of the summer. You and Aaron had tried to talk him out of it, but he demanded it’d be the only way for him to fully get into character. And who were you two to deny him? The sweet boy nodded, barely being able to contain his excitement as he bounced up and down on his feet. 

“Alright, places everyone!” You yelled out, holding the diy paper clapperboard Jack had made for you. You held it out from your body and did a very exaggerated clapping motion. “Action!” You said, quickly throwing the clapperboard to the couch. 

“Carrots!” Jack said, his voice more than enthusiastic for the role. 

“Huh?” You said, heavily overselling your voice and reaction. Even with the one simple word, Jack was already in giggles, struggling to keep it together. 

He leaned in closer to you, standing up on his tiptoes. “Behind you!” 

“Oh! Right, excuse me.” You said, stepping to the side and gesturing to the ‘carrots’ behind you. 

You made your voice really low to play the next part. “Woh, a real howler in July, yea? Where ever could it be coming from?” You asked, placing your chin in between your thumb and pointer finger. 

Jack kept giggling at your ‘deep’ voice, he held his ‘script’ up to his face to read his next line. “The North Mountain.” 

You jokingly ran a hand in front of your face, signaling a character switch. “North Mountain.” You stage whispered. You ran your hand in front of your face again, going serious. “That’ll be forty.” You said, holding your hand out with a ‘gimme’ gesture. 

Jack smacked your hand gently to ‘give you’ the money. But after his face fell ever so slightly. “Can we skip to when Daddy gets to come in??” He asked, giving you those big eyes you couldn’t possibly say no to. 

You stood back, putting your weight on your back leg with one hand on your hip. “Hmm.., I think that could be arranged.” You reached over to grab the clapperboard. “Alright everyone! Back to places, but let’s start at ‘Hi everyone’, okay?” 

Jack nodded excitingly and turned back to where he knew Aaron was standing, partially hidden by the hallway. “Places daddy!” He urged, pointing to where he should come stand. 

Aaron came out from around the corner and you quickly covered your mouth with your hand, trying to hold in the laughter. Aaron had a big white hat on his head and had let Jack put a small orange dot on his nose. You and Jack had definitely double teamed poor Aaron, dragging him into your little ‘movie game’ as Jack liked to call it. The three of you had started doing this a few months ago, Jack loved ‘running lines’ with you and you were more than happy to oblige him. It had started when a sleepy Jack had stumbled into the living room one night when he couldn’t sleep and he saw you and Aaron running lines for one of your other movies. Jack had taken to it so much you ended up ‘hiring’ him to help you with your more child friendly roles. 

“Alright, alright. Quiet on set!” You said, making a big deal of you bringing your index finger up to your lips in a ‘shush’ motion. “Action!” 

“Hi everyone. I’m Olaf. And I like warm hugs.” Aaron recited robotically , very clear that he was reading directly from the paper. You smacked your hand back over your mouth, unable to control the giggles. Once you started laughing, Jack fell into his own fit of laughter; both of you fueled off the others amusement. 

Of course, when you finally pulled yourself back together, a quick look at the way Aaron was standing with fake annoyance across his face and his arms crossed tightly against his chest sent you back into fits of laughter. 

“Are you two done?” Aaron asked, no true malice in his voice. 

It was rare that the three of you all got to spend time together. He’d been wary of introducing you to Jack. It wasn’t really a ‘you’ thing, but it was more of how Jack would be able to deal with it. There were the typical worries, what if you and Jack didn’t get along? Or what if you two did get along really well but then you and Aaron broke up and it hurt him even further? While you never intended to try and replace his ‘mom’, you still worried that your chaotic schedule would somehow hurt him, skewing his perception of yet another ‘parental’ figure. Not to mention the issues with him being able to keep your identity and presence in his life a secret; he wouldn’t even be able to tell people like Uncle Rossi that his dad was seeing someone. 

But now, you’d been with Aaron for over two years. And Jack had known about you for about a year now. And everything had been going perfect. Jack was a stellar secret keeper, the unfortunate events of his childhood maturing him faster than any child deserved and he was able to fully understand the importance of the situation. The two of you had taken to each other quite quickly and every night the three of you would have a ‘bedtime’ call; even on the nights when Aaron was busy with a case you’d still call Jack on your own. You loved spoiling him with whatever hot new toy was popular among kids his age or getting him special early copies of movies before they came out. Aaron used to get on you about it, saying it wasn’t necessary, but you argued it was the most necessary thing in the world. 

And now here the three of you were. Nestled away in Aaron’s apartment in DC. You had just flown in after wrapping up a shoot abroad and were just in time for the start of summer. Even though your career was at a seemingly new high, you had managed to secure a relatively empty summer. After long consideration and planning you and Aaron decided it’d be a nice treat for Jack to go spend a month or so with you in LA. You’d consulted heavily with many of your friends who kept their children completely hidden from the spotlight and had hired an airtight security team to assist you the entire time. Aaron was supposed to come out when he could, but you were all aware of how turbulent his poor schedule could be. Schedule permitting, you all would spend the next three days at Aaron’s apartment before you and Jack took off. 

“Daddy! You sound like a robot.” Jack said, scolding Aaron. His voice brought you out of your thoughts and you looked down at him with a big smile. 

“Daddy’s just no good at this huh?” You asked, shaking your head. “He’s no match for our talent, Jack!” 

“This is really hot.” Jack said, holding up his arms. He must’ve been sweating his butt off in all those winter layers. 

“You’re kidding me! I wonder who could’ve seen that coming.” You said sarcastically, reaching over to pull off his big hat and zip down the first of multiple jackets he put on. “I’ve heard that ice cream cools you down…,” 

“Ice cream!’ Jack exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. He didn’t even look to his father for ‘permission’, knowing by now you had the most sway in the house. 

“Go put on some normal clothes okay? Wouldn’t be fun if you passed out in your ice cream bowl, huh?” You told him, ruffling his hair before he dipped under your arm, making a mad dash for his room. 

“He hasn’t even had lunch yet, you know that right?” Aaron asked, giving you a fake stern look as he walked over to where you were standing. 

You rolled your eyes at that, reaching up to snatch the white hat off his head, letting your arms fall loosely around his neck. “Does it upset you that I’m always the cool one?” You asked teasingly, reaching up on your tiptoes to press the gentlest kiss on his lips. 

He gave you one of his small smiles, reaching down to press a second kiss to your lips. “How was your flight in?” He asked, one of his hands wrapping protectively around your waist as the other one found its way by your hair, gently stroking down it the way you liked. 

You let your head relax against his touch and pretended to think for a moment. Instead of answering you reached up again, pressing your lips against his, pressing yourself closer to him. You both thought you could stay this way forever; it being the first time you saw each other, in person, in nearly two months. 

“Gross!” Jack’s voice seemingly cut through the two of you. Aaron was the one to pull away first, quietly laughing so only you could hear. 

“Later.” He promised in a whisper. 

You loosened your grip on him, turning to face Jack. “Oh Jack! Funny seeing you here, ice cream, right?” 

----- 

Present Day.

“Page 103, right?” He asked, skipping to the bright pink sticky note you had used as a place marker. 

You jolted out of your memories, feeling the heat rise up your neck as you prayed it wasn’t too obvious you had just completely zoned out. 

“Yep!” You squeaked out, “page 103, line 19, you start.” You said, waving your hands. 

“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my enemy, you will not ask me why, you are, you are determined, I see, to have no curiosity but I cannot be wise-” He started, keeping his eyes near glued to the page. 

You frowned, shaking your head a bit. “Stand up.” You ordered, already getting to your feet. 

“Excuse me?” Aaron asked. 

“Stand up,” you repeated, motioning upwards with your palms. “This,” you said, motioning between the two of you, “doesn’t feel right if we’re seated, we’re supposed to move around in this scene, it’s supposed to be painful.” You explained. 

He slowly stood up, looking at you for permission to start again. 

“From where you left off, please.” 

“I must tell you, Emma, what you will not ask! Though I may wish it unsaid the next moment-” 

“So do not speak it.” You cut in. “If you wish to speak to me, as a friend or to ask my opinion as a friend I will hear whatever you like.”

“As a friend, Emma. That I fear is a word, tell me Emma. Have I no chance of ever succeeding?” He asked, looking up at you for further approval, you nodded and he continued. “My dearest Emma, my dearest, you will always be my dearest most beloved Emma, tell me at once. I cannot make speeches, if I, if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more-” 

“Let’s do a different part, yeah?” You interrupted, voice incredibly tight. You ducked from his gaze, reaching to bring your glass to your lips. 

“Isn’t this the scene you have to practice?” Aaron asked, raising his brow at you. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you replied, taking a long sip, “any practice as the character will be helpful.” 

“If this is the one that’s troubling you, we should go over it.” He pressed. 

“Page 56, start at line 9.” You ordered, throwing back the rest of your glass. “Read it over, I’ll be back.” 

Before you could fully turn to go and refill your glass, Aaron lunged forward and grabbed your arm, pulling you towards him. The sudden movement caused you to stumble, throwing your hands out to steady yourself against his chest. 

“You’ve been drinking a lot.” He stated, repositioning his grip on your arm. 

“Am I not allowed to have a drink or two in my own home?” You challenged. 

“What are you running away from?” Aaron asked, his voice so gentle it made your knees weak. 

“You.” You whispered, after a long pause. You looked up at him with sad eyes and only found confusion in his. “I can’t, I-, don’t you see how funny it is? Your character is desperate for mine to be with and my character is the one to deny yours.” 

Your confession pulled sharply on his heart. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, not sure there were any words to appropriately apologize for how he had treated you. 

“Why didn’t you ever call?” You asked, voice so quiet he almost didn’t hear you. 

“I, I-” He stuttered, unable to think of an answer fast enough. 

“I waited for weeks,” you said, looking up at him with a look that nearly brought him to his knees. “I waited so long and you never called.” 

He brushed the hair out of your face, letting his hand fall gently against your cheek. His thumb caught a stray tear that had started to fall, softly brushing it away. “I don’t know.” He responded, his voice as quiet as your. “I don’t know, you didn’t deserve that.” 

You pressed your face into his hand, closing your eyes as you felt more tears managing to sneak past you. He was finally admitting words you had dreamed of hearing for years, but yet you were unable to find any joy in them. 

“You didn’t deserve that.” He repeated, sliding his hand towards the back of your head, pulling you firmly against his chest, while his other arm wrapped tightly around your waist. You let your body relax into his, slowly bringing your own arms up loosely around his neck. 

You felt him gently press the faintest of kisses to the top of your head. “I’m so sorry angel.” He mumbled into your hair. 

You pulled your head out from under him, looking up at him with big eyes. The two of you were silent, basking in each other's presence. Your eyes flickered down to his lips multiple times; something he duly picked up on. Just as you began to push up on your toes, nearly pressing your lips to his, eyes half closed in anticipation, his phone rang out. 

You froze, falling back onto your heels with a small sigh. “Answer it, I’m getting a refill.” You said, pulling yourself out of his grasp. He gave you an uncertain look, as if he wanted to pull you back in and ignore the call completely. 

You wagged a finger in front of him, shaking your head. In on fluid movement, you grabbed your glass and nearly ran out of the room

-----

It took you ten minutes to calm yourself down and another five to hype yourself up to return to your living room. And that was after you had made yourself a new drink. 

When you entered the living room, Aaron’s back was to you; still locked on the phone. The tension was clear in his shoulders and your eyes drifted down to his free hand that you knew would be clenched in a fist. It was. 

“Thank you Garcia, tell the team we’ll be there soon.” He said, pulling the phone away from his ear and hanging up. 

“Aaron?” You asked. 

He rolled his shoulders back, trying to loosen some of the tension from his shoulders for your benefit. He slowly turned back towards you, his face pulled in frustration. 

“LAPD just reported another body.”

-------

taglist - @mac99martin @iwaizumiee @kylorendrip @hqtchner @lieswithoutfairytales​ @ssahoodrathotchner @midsummernightdream @weasleylovers @evans-dejong @itsmytimetoodream @yoshigguk @28cnn @cuddlyklaus @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @yallgotkik @sunflowersandotherthings @averyhotchner @kimmy-k-k @uwu-sebastianstan @ivebeenthinkingboutu​

a/n - if youve sent a message asking to be tagged and dont see yourself here, let me know!! im so bad at remembering to move names to my taglist form!! tysm for reading! <3 ​

no permission is given to copy or republish my writing on any other platform or account. if you see this story outside of my blog or my ao3 it is stolen work. i do not own nor claim to own criminal minds or any of the character involved in it.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Gotham Comic Con”

The Joker and his girlfriend decided to attend “Gotham Comic Con” this year dressed as The Batman and Cat Woman. It took Y/N some time to convince her boyfriend but here they are about to have fun and nothing could spoil the event. Right?...

“Oh my God, this is awesome!” you giggle entering the venue designated for the yearly special event “Gotham Comic-Con” dressed as Cat Woman.

The Joker is right behind you sporting The Batman outfit and he flexes his knees a few times, growling.

“What’s wrong?” you ask although you have a clue because J’s been complaining about since he got off the van parked on Lot B5.

“I hate these stretchy pants! I don’t know how that asshole does it!”

“You’re the one that insisted to come as Batsy,” you reveal point out the truth. “You could have been anyone else.”

“Like who?”

“Cinderella,” you elbow him and your boyfriend is not a huge fan of the concept.

“Why??!!”

“The drama, obviously,” you keep walking alongside him and he’s definitely ready to blow at your insinuation when you gasp. ”Baby, I think that’s Bane!” you gesture towards a massive individual flaunting a Sub-Zero costume.

“How can you tell?” The Joker squints his eyes and the bubbly Y/N has to say it:

“I would recognize his physique anywhere! Plus, he still has the scar between his eyes,” you pucker your lips and The King mumbles a bunch of PG 13 rated things regarding his business partner.

Why?

Last week they got into a brawling and almost killed each other.

The reason?

Y/N.

The Joker believes that Bane always flirts with you (which he does since he likes to refer to you as “a breath of fresh air”); stuff escalated until you had to break it up: J ended up with a busted lip, Bane with a cut between his eyes due to The Clown trying to stab him in the head and you ended up with an inflated ego.

“Hello Mister B.,” you tap the pile of muscles and he turns around to see who’s bothering him.

“Y/N!” he excitedly exclaims, immediately unhappy at the sight of his business partner. “Joker…” the low tone greets.

“Bane…” J sneers.

“What are you two doing here?” Bane inquires.

“Having fun; I finally convinced him we should do this and mingle for once. No better way to spend the day,” the bubbly comment pleases your conversation partner. “So we dressed up and here we are.”

“I must say you’re like a breath of fresh air,” Bane admires your skin tight costume and stilettos which prompts The Joker’s disapproval:

“If you want fresh air, go outside!”

“Make me!”

Oh no! Not again!

“Are you here alone?” you change the subject and distract them from getting into a fight. Not that you wouldn’t enjoy it, but… too many witnesses at the packed Comic Con, it could end up in a total disaster.

“With my niece and nephew. I lost them for a second and I’m searching the premises; they can’t be far,” Bane reports. “Which reminds me: I should get going and find them otherwise my sister will go ballistic. I’ll see you later, Y/N,” he acknowledges you and ignores your man.

“Bye Mister B.,” The Queen snickers at the evident teasing.

“Just her, huh?” The Joker grumbles. “What about me? Did you forget we have a meeting next week???”

“Too bad and super sad: I’m not talking to you!” Bane’s attitude emerges.

“I certainly could care less because I’m not talking to you either!” The King strikes back.

“Then what are we going to do?” Sub-Zero’s better judgement brings up a good argument.

“Y/N will translate!” J proudly states.

Oh no! Not again!

That means they will snarl and make weird noises and you’ll have to guess what it means; an absolutely excruciating task that even a breath of fresh air can’t accomplish without losing it.

Maybe you should let them kill each other. 

“Fine!” Bane decides and distances himself from the couple while the Joker shouts since he has to have the last word:

“Fine!”

“Mister Batman?” the 5 years old dressed as a hobbit shily tugs on J’s cape.

“Hm?” the fake vigilante looks down. The little boy suddenly sneezes and wipes his nose with the fabric as the mad man is less than lenient at someone ruining the outfit replica he paid a fortune to have.

“Goddamn…” and he can’t finish his sentence because a large group of screaming children surround him in a heartbeat.

“Batman! Batman!” they jump up and down hyped up to see their hero.

“Go away!” J attempts to reason with the sea of kids he has no patience for. Of course nobody can hear him over the deafening sounds that attract more offsprings and parents.

“That’s so cute!” one of the moms gushes and takes a picture. “It’s delightful seeing a guy dressed as The Batman performing such a public service for our town!”

“He loves people, especially babies, “ you lie without blinking and immortalize the moment yourself.

“Awww,” a few people sigh touched by your praises.

“He must be a nice dude,” a kid’s dad concludes and you sweetly smile from under your mask:

“You have no idea.”

Somebody from the crowd places an infant girl in The Joker’s arms and the mob goes ballistic!! Rosie cheeks keeps sucking from her binky, glaring at the interesting person.

Clapping, cheering and whistling intensify whilst J feels compelled by his increasing popularity to lift the 6 months old above his head for everyone to see how cool he is.

This is not bad, The King enjoys an endless string of applause and the sudden explosion occurring in the diaper followed by quite a foul smell puts an end to his exuberance.

“Jesus!” he crinkles his nose, appalled. “Whose kid is this?” he yells and the thrilled parent waves at him, taking back the stinky, adorable bundle of joy. “Uncle Batsy needs to run!!” J makes up a random plan although nobody can hear him: the noise is overwhelming after he hyped them all up.  “Let’s bail before they trap me again! Pretty soon I won’t be able to walk, Princess. Everything is crammed in there, a total mess! I hate stretchy pants!!” he addresses his woman and quickens the pace until an atrocious abomination stops him in his tracks.

A specimen mocking The Joker wearing a purple suit is getting quite the attention: over exaggerated red lips smudged over the lip line, tattoo on the forehead that spells “Cabbaged”, a bunch of cheap golden chains from the Dollar Store around his neck and a sloppy green wig complete the assemble in a cringy manner.

You are equally speechless and The Joker manages to utter:

“What… THE HELL… is that????!!!!”

“Ummm… a Clown?” your sassy remark doesn’t score high marks as expected; you feel his eyes burning holes through you.

“You’re hilarious! Would you like to share your standup comedy talents on the stage??!” his index finger points at the platform meant to host a guest appearance from Bruce Wayne in the next hour.

Courtesy of “Wayne Enterprise” sponsoring the event: free food and refreshments for everyone under 18 years old.

You don’t answer and pout, upset J’s pissed attitude is already ruining your mood.

“I’m going to kill that buffoon posing as me!” he inhales full of spite and reaches for the knife hidden in his left boot.

“You can’t…” you hesitantly halt his movement. “Dozens of people, that’s just asking for trouble!”

“I’m not going to let a prick disrespect me!”

“You won’t, we’ll figure something afterwards. We can wait for him outside in the parking lot and take care of it without drawing attention! Please?” you beg hoping he’ll listen to you. “Pleeeaaaase!!!!“ you insist, perfectly aware he’s about to commit murder regardless. “I have a bunch of VIP passes to take pictures with celebrities. You promised J!” you stomp your high heels, exasperated. “You promised we’ll have a fun date!!”

“Why do I have to take pics with celebrities?! I don’t like anybody!”

The look on Y/N’s face: sheer disappointment; most of her features are covered with the mask yet he can tell.

“But I like you so the most I’ll do is take a selfie with you!” The Joker makes amendments on his own terms.

The Queen sniffles, trying to bottle up her emotions and she can’t help it: she bursts up in tears at her boyfriend’s candor.

Oh no! Not again!

Why?

The King of Gotham says nice things maybe twice a year and each time you struggle not to cry but it’s impossible: how can one resist such charm?!

Your complete meltdown makes him roll his eyes while your shaky hand takes a picture of the royal duo.

“Ugghhh…” J’s grimace turns your attention towards him.

“What is it baby?” you wipe your tears with his cape.

He would probably criticize such affront still there’s a pressing issue taking precedent.

“Princess, these tights are making my legs numb. I can’t feel my crown jewelry anymore.”

“Huh?” you forget to weep, startled.

“Cursed stretchy pants! I think I won’t be able to have sex for a month!” The Joker stretches his feet, uncomfortable.

“What??!!!” you raise your voice, panicked. “A month???!!”

Hell no!

Y/N grabs The Joker’s right hand and starts dragging him after her, yelling:

“Out of the way! Out of the way, it’s an emergency!!” whilst everyone is wondering how can someone wearing those 7-inch stilettos can march so fast.

“Where are we going, Pumpkin?!” J is inquiring and you yank at his arm, alarmed.

“To the car!”

“Why?”

Y/N doesn’t have time for explanations: she basically flies across the parking lot to get to section B5, opens the van’s back door and shoves J inside. He lands on his abs as you relentlessly pull on his boots, accomplishing to take them off in record time. Then you heave at his tights, huffing a storm at the stiff garment:

“I’ll be damn if I’ll wait a month for a ride in Funky Town!”

A mother and her 11 years old son pass by and she covers his eyes, horrified at the indecency as she guides him throughout the maze of vehicles.

“There are children here!” the woman protests. “Get a room!”

Luckily, she wasn’t heard by The Clown and his girl because… victory! The stretchy pants are off, J only in his boxers now.

“How are you feeling?” you roll him and he exhales, assessing the damage succeeding Y/N swift actions.

“Not sure, same?... Sit on my lap,” J offers and you don’t need a second invitation.

“Well?” you hold in the anxiety reaching high levels under these dire circumstances.

“Dunno, kiss me and we’ll see.”

You kiss him and he purrs.

“Well?” you interrogate again.

“Kiss me again!” he orders and you put more passion into it since your future happiness depends on it. “Hmm…” J groans. “I believe things are improving.”

“Yeah?” Y/N is about to have another breakdown although J didn’t say sweet rubbish; it’s just that kind of occasion.

“U-hum!”

“Then… what do you say we go home and celebrate your recovery?” you whisper in his ear.

“What about Comic Con?”

“Screw it!” you hop off his knees. “I’ll drive, you focus on your convalescence, ok baby?”

“Ok,” The Joker agrees and begins to stride around the van as Bruce Wayne’s limousine happens to drive by, the billionaire preparing to attend the event he sponsored.

“Stop the car!” Bruce commands at the weird view in the distance: a man wearing a replica of his Batman suit-- helmet, mask, gloves, cape… but no pants or boots, the bottom part of his attire consisting solely of underwear. “Right when you think you saw it all…” he shakes his head in denial, oblivious about who the person is.

Mister Wayne should at least have some empathy for the man enduring those tights for as long as he could; it might not be a record, but who could ever beat the real Batman at wearing stretchy pants anyway?!

Also read: MASTERLIST   

https://diyunho.tumblr.com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

You can also follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[minaofmayhem]

DRABBLE #13 - The Library

I’m happy to post the first Drabble requested by @merlinsluxuriousloungewear​! 😀 I really liked writing it with our fluffy Alexander ❤️ I hope you’ll like it ! Thanks for having proposed this idea! 😘

Let me know if you want to be tagged for the next ones 😀

Summary : Reading is your favorite hobby. You are doing your thesis in English Literature at Columbia University in NY. You spend all your time at the national library and there you meet a very interesting Swedish guy...

Pairing : Alexander Skarsgård x Reader

Warnings : None just fluff everywhere ! ❤️

“Ah...There you are Byron”, you say to yourself as taking the book from the shelve. You were searching for that damned book for 5 minutes now because someone had misplaced it. Going back to your desk, you mentally curse those who did this. How can it be possible to not respect the rules ? "We are in a library, for god sake". You sit down on your chair, in front of the place where all your stuffs were, and sigh. The book you were carrying finds a place next to the others in a muffle sound. 

You were actually working on a big project that you have to give back in two weeks for a final exam. The subject is “The English literature within the ages”. This is a real complex subject and you don’t have time to waste. You quickly take the books you need to complete your references in front of you, open them at the right pages and put your headphones on to lock yourself into your favorite workspace. You absolutely love working at the library but most of all with your favorite music into your ears. Well the library was quite quiet but you were always distracted. Sometimes because of a new incomer who just ask a bit too loud some informations at the desk or other times by distracted people who make fall their stuffs on the ground. It’s exasperating you but you can’t do anything against that. You love so much being here that you tolerate such things with your music on. 

Ten minutes later, you raise up your head from your book to choose an other one when your heart make a jump into your chest. At the main entrance, you recognize the guy that comes almost everyday since a week now. Well he’s quite noticeable cause he’s really tall, like he could take a look above the shelves! But what aroused more your curiosity was the fact that he looks absolutely gorgeous. It is not because some people consider you as a bookworm that you are completely out of reality. You watch guys like any other girl and had some boyfriends too. You can have feelings for beautiful men but this one is really special. It’s the first time that someone catch your attention like this.

As usual, he takes his wallet from his back pocket to bring out his member card. He shows it to the secretary at the entry and comes inside the library. As discreetly as possible, you follow him with your eyes. He really have a smooth walk for someone so tall. You notice that he is carrying a little notebook and a pen. He poses them on a desk just a few meter from you. Sometimes, you just pretend to check some things on your computer ; you really became an expert in spying these past few days. It’s incredible how fast you can develop some tricks to not be caught. After placing his stuffs, he takes a little piece of paper, probably with some references on it, and goes directly into the shelves.

You breath when he’s out of sight. “My god what are you doing (X/Y)”, you mentally say to you to get yourself up. This is really impolite to spy people. You know it and yet you can’t prevent yourself from doing it. This guy literally become an obsession, this is crazy. Since the first time you noticed him, you can't stop searching for him at the library. You noted that he was there every day in the afternoon. Sometimes, you were even checking your watch more than usual just to be sure that he will be here soon. You started to pay more attention to your appearance, wearing nice clothes, hoping for something. Maybe just a glance. 

Five minutes later, he comes back at his desk with three little books and sits. Behind your computer, you give some discreet glances in his direction until you finally get caught. He raises his head and his look directly goes straight in your direction. Immediately, the fire rises at your cheeks and you pretend to search for something into an other book. Your movements become a bit untidy and your hands are nearly shaking. You feel really stupid at that moment.

Did he notice your insistent glances ? Or was he just looking accidentally in your direction ? You really pray for the second option otherwise he'll really think you are a crazy girl or something like that. Now, because of that, you can't look at him anymore during the day or it will be very suspect. 

You go back to your work, a bit frustrated but that’s part of the game. Too bad but it’s like that. “What were you expecting after all?”. You close a bit sharply the Byron’s book and go to search some others. Now it’s time to talk about Shakespeare. You do a quick search for references on the net, write them on a piece of paper before going to the right shelf. After a little walk, you find the “English Theatre” shelf, settled on a isolated side of the library. with no desks or sofas to sit around. You go into the shelf and search among the books. You eyes looking quickly at the references and your note at the same time. After some seconds of searching, you finally find the first book you need.

“Oh no...”, you whisper as you notice that the books is situated at the last level of the shelf and of course, you are too short. Classic. You take a look around but there’s no sign of a stool that could help you. You sigh and search for an other solution. Impossible to ask at the help desk because you don’t have time to waste. Plus you know well the secretary and she’s quite slow when it comes to take decisions. 

“Ok then. If I really have to...”. You put your hands on the shelf, checking the strength. You are really thin and these are really old shelves made with strong woods. You won’t fall and it won't broke. At least, you hope so. When you feel that you have enough support with your hands, you put your two feet at the base of the shelf. Then you slowly climb, level after level. Luckily you had put a pants today. You don’t want to imagine what it would look like with a skirt...

At the second level, you try to raise your hand to grab the book but you are stil to short. You could just reach the start of the last shelf. 

“Damn...”, you whisper, out of breath. It’s quite hard to stay in balance in this position with your right hand up. You rise up a little bit and raise your hand again, a bit higher. 

“C’mon (X/Y), just a little more...”. You were just about to reach it when you suddenly feel that you were losing balance. Like in a movie, it was like the time just slow down as you were falling down. You close your eyes, knowing that you don’t have the possibility to grab something to hold you back, except books but it won’t really help you. You just wait for your fall until...

“Wow...are you alright miss ?”. 

You don’t fall on the ground, like expected, but into arms. You open your eyes and discover that you were just lying into the arms of the perfect stranger you were stalking. You open your mouth to say something but for a moment, no sounds come. You feel really stupid, even more than when you get caught. 

“Oh...Hum...Yes...” you manage to say, being shocked by what happened and embarrassed at the same time. He looks at you with a smile, apparently amused by the situation. It’s the first time that you see his face so close and you aren’t really disappointed. He really have a beautiful face, with delicate features and fascinating eyes. You feel the red coming again at your cheeks. Gently, he drops forward to let you feel the ground again. Your right hand lean on his shoulder as you go down.

“May I ask you what were you doing on that shelf ?”, he asks with a hint of humor. His voice his really cool and you notice a little accent but from where ? 

“Well...I just wanted to take that book”, you answer as showing him the little Shakespeare book that moved a little bit from his place. You then realized that you endangered and made a fool of yourself for just a stupid book. The guy lets out a smooth laugh and just takes it easily to give it to you. Being that tall can really be useful! 

“Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. Good choice”, he reads the title on the cover. You grab it and thank him with a shy smile. You feel the red coming back again and you try to calm yourself. 

“You had chosen a good one too”, you declare as showing him the “Othello” he was carrying. He looks at it and smile. God, he’s so delicious when he’s smiling.

“Oh yeah”, he answers as showing it. “I was doing some searches for a role I’m going to play soon. Some kind of a medieval tragedy, you know”. So that’s why he was spending time at the library...He was maybe an artist. You feel surprised by the fact that he is easily talking to you, like if you knew each other for a long time. But you really enjoy his company and you don't want this little chat to end.

“Then maybe I can advise....” you say as searching for “Macbeth” among the books in the shelf. Of course, this one was at your level so you quickly take it to take him. “It will help you more for medieval tragedy”. 

“Wow, are you a Shakespeare’s expert or something?”.

“Not really”, you laugh a little, “I’m learning English literature so Shakespeare is of course in the program”. He whistle, impressed apparently but it make you feel a bit embarrassed. 

“Well...Since Shakespeare has no secret for you...Would you like to take a coffee or something with me? You could share me all your advices ?”. He proposes that after coming a bit closer. You look at him, in disbelief. 30 mins ago you were just stalking him behind your computer and now he was proposing to take a coffee ? That was really an unexpected day. You couldn’t missed this opportunity.

“I’d love too. After all, I owe you a coffee, you just saved my life”, you answer with a little smile, placing a lock of your hair behind your ear.

“You’re right. I’m Alexander” he says as showing you his hand with a big smile. 

“(X/Y). Nice to meet you”. 

[somilkyshaky]

Skam España - Season 2 - Episode 1, Clip 6: Las amistades peligrosas

Hey you! Finally, we’re finishing the first episode! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go check this post; here you go for the first clip and here for the last I posted, the fifth clip.  

Well, let’s go for a 7 minutes clip (prepare yourself a lot of time, it’s going to be long, but like LONG).

Hi everyone! Today we’re here for a new tutorial: “How to prepare yourself for a date with your crush?”. I’m sorry, but the music and the fact that it almost takes 30 seconds of the clip is clearly here to take it with humor, and tbh, I live for this shit.

“Nah.”

What I love is that it’s so accurate. For example, we all screamed to our mother to not go open the door for the person ringing (what I mean is that it’s great because the viewer can immediately relate to Cris).

Another touch of humor, we discover she tried, like, A LOT of sweater. I mean, at this point I can’t say anything but that I love Cris. (Oh, and poor teddy bear who doesn’t know his fate yet.)

“Breathe, you’re great.”

The music stopping and coming back and stopping again when the door closes, the teddy bear and this face. You don’t know how much I’ve laughed with this clip; everything is meant to be funny.

“Now is the moment of your life.” god this song xD

--

Look at her breathe out again, I love her (and wow, this door is... dark).

Yep, you’re right my dudes, she checks her out.

No but more seriously, look how chill she seems. The chin is high, hands in the pocket, her shoulders are opened, and I mean, this look (+little bonus for the left raised eyebrow), 100% confident; BUT I can’t help myself thinking that she must be freaking out internally (we can notice the movements (swings maybe?) she does with her body, most of the time, we let out our “anxiety”, our stress with these kind of gesture, so yeah).

“Hello, I’m awkwardness! I’m the one who makes you pose as a dummy. I’m sure you’ll love me!”

“OMG THE LOVE OF MY LIFE IS A DUMBASS, AND SHE IS CLUMSY AND AWKWARD AS FUCK, MARRY ME ALREADY!” (I’m sorry, sometimes I think I’m funny even if I know I’m not.) 

“I hate myself.” (relatable btw)

Everything in this clip is brilliant. It’s such a funny way to show something real and still be accurate. I’m sure we all had the opportunity to see ourselves in Cris at the moment, this clumsiness/awkwardness; I’m sorry but I’m a gay mess like Cris, I’m just happy to have my representation. (Oh, and the little “vale” from Joana is cute af, it’s not awkward or anything, it’s perfectly in character: confident but reassuring)

--

Okay so… the next sequence is like… we’re going to have a lot, but when I say a lot, I mean A LOT of things to say, because these two are a fucking goldmine. What I’m trying to tell you is that we’re here for a loooong time together (but I’m sure deep down you like it).

Cris being like “Okay, does she like my room? How does she react?”

Btw, her room is like, wow. They really did a good job with the decoration. Yes, I know, we all saw it, the “LIPS”; “KISS”, I know. Oh, and I love her laptop. I’m sure I can’t see a lot of references but, yeah, we already have too much to say x)

I love how Joana is looking at the entire room. Joana is me. I already said it in other clips, but Joana “sees” thing, she is observant (to me it’s a quality).

I’m so bad at catching it, but Cris’s reaction at the length of the film kills me. Plus, am I the only one laughing so hard as she tries to do small talk? xD (which btw doesn’t work at all because Joana doesn’t complain about the film)

Joana, a complation: Confused Joana – “Meh” Joana – Shocked Joana. 

God… This face kills me. More seriously, at the moment, they really aren’t on the same wavelength. Cris complains about the film, when Joana just says she likes it. Cris’ all reaction is really interesting. It’s like the “typical” teenage reaction in front of a school work, but at the moment, there’s also this need to just- say something; because she’s like this, she’s the one who talks for the sake of talking. She talks without really thinking about it; but let’s keep this for later okay? (Oh, and yes, Joana’s gaze, but it’s going to be like that in the rest of the clip so…)

Some teasing. I like that. There really is a chemestry between these two that I love. I like how Joana is like “Oh I see, she’s going that way” and Cris is completely in character and is just “pitching into” her, in a way? (trying to translate a french thought in english is a disaster, believe me).

Thank god, I like to see some repartee. It’s so fluid, you need to remember that they know each other for literally, 2 DAYS, and we already have this kind of complicity. Brilliant.

Look at these happy girls.

I don’t know how to interpret the fact of Joana’s smile slowly fading and then her gaze quickly going back to the laptop, as if she was realizing something or I don’t know. It’s impossible to catch it in pictures, but just look at her after the joke. Plus it’s hard to interpret it because we have a “jump cut”:

We see her smiling and looking at Cris. So… I don’t want to misinterpret things so I’m just going to shut up and continue. Even if maybe (and I say maybe because the rest of the clip proves me wrong until the end), there’s Eloy and the fact that she knows she shouldn’t get to close from Cris even if she wants to.

--

“Guys, you’re annoying, I’m on a date.”

More seriously, the filming is pretty nice; we have the camera moving from a shot where we have both of them to a shot with only Cris and her messages, maybe to show that she doesn’t pay attention at what is Joana doing anymore (which also means that the rest of the time she was indeed paying attention at every single movement of Joana).

To support my thoughts, when her mother interrupts them, we come back to a shot with the two girls; she isn’t “captivate” by the messages anymore.

Little bonus for the “please Mom don’t say something stupid, don’t ruin this” face.

I live for this shit.

Joana still being a meme + the iconic “My friend heard you” because it’s so fucking accurate (don’t lie, we all said it once + send some love to your mom btw, she deserves it, even if most of the time she embarrasses you).

Joana’s face be like “I was laughing, but I’m trying to not show it because I know it’s already awkward enough, so I’m just going to smile and be reassuring.”

--

“Stay chill. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Stay calm. Stay fucking calm. OMG is she really doing this? There’s so much tension. Send help. Please.”

I’m sorry but the “We’re good with what we have.” ? I don’t know if it’s the exact translation, but it’s so ambiguous. I love that.

“Don’t show anything. You’re not destabilised. Stay chill. WtF the TeNsiON. I’m FucKiNG DEstaBiLIsed.” + Joana clearly looking at how Cris is reacting, she’s such a tease (not in the bad way though, I’m not insulting her calm down). Yes, don’t worry, I didn’t forget. BOLD+1500.

Come on, just look how proud she is, while Cris is dying internally xD I’m dying too btw.

Some interesting body language though, the fact of Cris trying to get back her shit together by sitting straight and Joana having her chin really high and her shoulders open; it clearly shows who is at ease and who isn’t imo x) + (yes there’s a lot of things happening) Cris crossing her arms in front her is a way to “protect herself” (not from Joana, but from the overwhelming) and most importantly to “control” herself and kind of find a way to seem more confident or at least not affected.

Cris coming back with her small talk and Joana being like “Yeah, act as if nothing just happened, I saw you panicking anyway.” But more seriously, it’s interesting to see that Cris is a fucking mess. I mean, she tries her best to sound and appear confident, but FUCK she isn’t xD And btw, one of Cris’ most important characteristic is her joking all the time to get rid of every “problematic” situation (it’s not something bad, but I don’t think it’s good either, as we could see in the last clips).

Joana just laughing at Cris’ “joke” and not continuing the conversation is me in 90% of the interactions I have with people (but it’s not what’s important). The most important is that, in a way, it reinforces the fact that they still aren’t really on the same wavelenght, and I think Cris can feel it because of this little look:

It’s also clearly a moment (before this look) where Cris is trying to get back her composure + this little look is there to check if Joana is still in a “teasing mode” or not with her (I think); but tbh, I don’t feel a lot of awkwardness in all of this.

--

Her phone saving her, just look how fast she grabs it xD (Nope, I didn’t miss Joana’s thing she always does with her nails/fingers, don’t worry.)

Yes guys, you’re used to it now, this is “worry”; not the BIG worry though, but the mouth dropping a little, the eyes openning, the movement backward. It’s not a lot, but it’s here.

“My crush or my friends?”

Joana, baby girl, it’s not really allowed to look at someone else’s phone/messages. She is so sneaky xD

But yes, a sweetheart.

(I don’t talk a lot about the movement both girls do with their legs, but, well no, I don’t want to say it’s “anxiety” because in the moment it’s not, but it’s still a way to let the “pressure” out, you know? I mean, we all do this kind of things unconsciously when we are with people, especially when we “like” them. Anyway.)

Joana smiling as she looks at the bowl (+shaking her head) because Cris just placed it between them is PRICELESS.

Btw, Cris not answering for a party is… wow? I mean, they didn’t place all of this in this clip for nothing. It allows them to show that Cris is maybe, yeah no, clearly interested by Joana. It just reinforces things.

Cris’ little glance at Joana (did I already say she’s clumsy? No? She’s so fucking clumsy and I love that).

Joana noticing the glance, but she doesn’t glance, no no no, she STARES guys and we’re here for this shit.

She notices Cris’ discomfort and embrassed smile, but keeps staring.

And then we have THIS; but this time, there’s nothing awkward, to me it’s just really cute. Oh, and of course, all this dynamic with their glances and stares shows even more that Joana is way more confident and at ease than Cris.

(I’m wondering if it’s really acting or just Tamara and Irene messing around, trying to hold a laugh and just being two dumbasses. Nah, I think they’re just amazing at representing simple things. Yes, I’m having a debate with myself, just keep reading!)

That’s cute.

Look at this proud and happy Cris. We’re finally seeing her a little more at ease, her chin is higher and her shoulders starts to open, because yeah, during the past 2 minutes (more or less) we have her shoulders really tensed and closed with her head really low, kind of forming a “protection” around her; but now yeah, she’s finally relaxed thanks to Joana being all the time so chill, smiley, not awkward and reassuring in her own way.

--

2:50 of the clip and I already have 23 pages on my Word. We’re not even at the HALF of the clip, I’m already dying. Anyway, I already haven’t said a lot of things but everything is brilliant, so let’s continue and start having some real conversation between these two.

--

FIRST. How did these two end up in this position? One of the other mysteries of Skam España.

A thought just like that, before this shot the movie was only a music, whereas here we have a conversation; maybe it’s showing that Cris finally pays attention too what is said (I don’t know).

(Little disclaimer, I never read “Les liaisons dangereuses” (because yeah, it’s French) but I tried to understand the story to be sure that I’m not missing too many things about what’s going to be said. Anyway.)

--

Look at how Joana seems so interested by the movie, so “in it” (French thoughts sorry). Plus, I think it’s the first time we see it (it’s going to be recurrent later) but she plays with her necklace. It’s the first time they want us to notice that necklace btw. We know that the movie is about relationships, love, etc… and the particular moment they’re watching is important because it’s a “““break-up”””. I find it interesting to make her play with her necklace at this specific moment because it’s one of the first hints about BPD. She feels more affected than others by this kind of scenes.

And YES, Cris’ stare. Plus, we go from this shot to this shot:

Here we literally have Cris’ point of view, what she sees + this close shot gives something really intimate. I love it.

She can’t stop staring, that’s… wow.

Joana noticing the stare and looking up.

Cris looking back at the laptop. It’s not really an embarrassed smile though, there’s nothing awkward here. Yep, Joana looking at her lips.

Joana shaking her head in disbelief is the entire fandom in front of Cris being a gay mess. CRIS’ SMILE THOUGH. And yes, there’s NOTHING awkward, that’s super cute I’m dying.

“Is she really…?”  (I love how the close shot, which represent intimacy, is thrown away and we come back to a larger shot when the mother interrupts the intimacy)

“Yes, she is…” + Joana being a cute adorable dork when she laughs + thank you for giving us some representation with our periods! (and yes, I’m not that surprised by this situation, my mom is literally the same.)

SO MUCH COMPLICITY I’M DYING. DO YOU HEAR ME?

--

(yes, Cris is looking again at Joana, but come on I can’t put every gaze in picture xD) The famous “No puedo evitarlo”… Let’s be completely transparent; this whole clip is a HUGE foreshadowing for their entire relationship, and I’m here for it.

Cristina “seriously?” Soto Peña or Cristina “I’m judging you; a lot” Soto Peña, choose your fighter.

Disappointed Joana (+ a bit annoyed).

Btw, Cris dropping her opinion on the characters with no argument and just saying that he is a son of a bitch and that she is an idiot, is so much in character + “I would tell him to fuck off”, well darling… you won’t... and you will, in a way.

What I love about all of this, is that this clip is here to show what is Cris’ vision of love and relationships at the start of the season because they need a starting point to show how much she is going to grow through this season.

Still “not impress” Cris, and yes, another hint for Joana’s BPD (the fact of not being able to control the feelings, even if in this case, it touches everyone and it’s just Cris who doesn’t realize it. It’s hard to act coldly and we have here another characteristic for Cris and Joana, they’re different on this point, we have a more “mature and rational” Joana) + It’s really discreet, but Joana glances many times at Cris lips (yeah, that’s it).

--

OUF. Disappointment. Again. It’s really hard to catch Joana’s “annoyance”, but her rolling her eyes at Cris’ joke is priceless. They really aren’t on the same wavelength (at least, for the movie, they really are at ease with each other, but not on their thoughts/belief). Oh, and Cris still joking about everything… (though, I think it’s just her way to “flirt” maybe) just let’s keep it for later.

“No, I’m serious” and we go from a wide shot to a close shot. Joana brings back some intimacy; the shot makes the viewer understand that it’s going to be important in the next seconds. Brilliant.

And oh wow… we never saw Joana like that before. The head is forward, the jaw is a little clenched (what I mean is that her mouth is “hold”, it’s not dropping), the gaze is straight ahead, the eyebrows are a little frown, and maybe the nostrils are a little wider (not sure) + the tone is- I wouldn’t say “harsh”, but there’s still some anger/annoyance behind it + the big annoyed sigh before she starts talking + the gestures/movements she does with her head to reinforce what she says, they are quick and short (btw, when she said “the count is a son of a bitch”, the movement with her head says no, she doesn’t agree with what she says, yes guys, the details, it shows a great acting too) + the “right?” to end her sentence. She’s confronting Cris, no jokes allowed; and tbh, I like that, I like this part of her character.

(Okay, maybe you’re right, having such a deep conversation about love at the first date is a little bold; bold+1502)

(Just look at when Joana sits up) she was smiling, and now we have… a destibalized Cris (yep, again). I like how she looks up, a little to the right, it means that she’s really thinking about it + yes, she’s clearly avoiding Joana’s gaze (it takes her 6 seconds to look back at her). Oh, and I LOVE how the camera is moving between their two faces. When Joana talks, she is in the shot because Cris is looking at her; when Cris is talking and NOT looking at Joana, we only see her on screen, but when she finally looks back at Joana we have this shot :

I already said it no? BRILLIANT.

Yep, Joana seems “calmer” (good job, you see, you’re making progress!); the eyebrows are a little raised, the mouth is slightly curved, and wow, she’s like, really listening to what Cris is saying, just look at her eyes, she’s so attentive.

Look at Joana slowly starting to smile again, we see you girl.  Oh, and Cris thinking she’s bad and talking about her grades starts to show some insecurities, even if she’s joking about it + she’s right even if Joana doesn’t confirm it, there’s revenge in the story (and btw later in the season too, so much foreshadowing).

--

I don’t know why, I just like this shot/scene in general. It’s intimate, they’re really listenning to each other (those gazes god…), and their conversation is pretty deep.

--

Yep, looking again at her lips.

I love how they “exchanged” the shots, let me explain; now, when one of them is talking, we have the camera focused on the other, we literally see how they’re looking at each other and it means so many things: the most important isn’t their face anymore, it’s the words of the other, it’s how they’re touched by them; it’s deep because what we see on screen is Cris (okay), but it’s also Cris “seeing” herself react to Joana, how she feels about Joana’s words (you see? Yeah I know it’s really far from just looking at the body language, and maybe I’m completely misinterpreting, but it’s important). GOD I REALLY LOVE THIS SHOW BECAUSE IT’S BRILLIANT.

Oh, and on a more “down-to-earth” analysis, the frown shows that Cris is really focused, she’s attentive, even if her eyes and the curves of her mouth are more like “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

Guys, I’m not joking. Find someone who looks at you like that when you’re talking. This is beautiful.

God… on close shots like this, so many things are happening; when I said “goldmine” earlier, I wasn’t joking guys; I really invite you to do the same, just take the time to look at the details (if you noticed the little eyebrows relaxing, and then raising really quickly; and her mouth opening a little and also relaxing around the words “happy/love story”, I’m proud of you!)

“I don’t really agree with you, honey.” The raised but at the same time frowned eyebrows, and the little movement of her head shows “surprise”, or more like “um- wait.”

“But what kind of love is that?”, thank you Cris. Wow… finally we have Cris having a deep and serious talk. And I like her vision of love (because yes, she has one!); she doesn’t understand the point of suffering: “all the count does is make her suffer”; we have a really sweet and soft Cris here.

Lips again, it’s getting redundant baby girl + when the camera was moving from Cris to her, she was already looking at her lips.

Exactly the same face from earlier, still in the “confrontation”, but this time I also see a little more “disgust” maybe, or “disbelief” (the mouth is a little more opened and the eyes are wider) but in my head it means some kind of “are you serious?” but weaker (you know? God, I really don’t have the level to do this kind of things in English).

I don’t know how to interpret the return to this shot; but I think it’s because they want to include these two in the same shot because the “when you love someone, blah-blah…” will have a real meaning for both of them later in the season, because they will both suffer of the absence and of being ignored by the other. And YES, Joana queen of foreshadowing.

I’m not talking a lot about what is said, because I don’t really like this vision of love. I know that suffering is a part of it (but it’s not love which makes you suffer, it’s how you deal with it) and that Las amistades peligrosas have a really “complicated love story”, but to me, it’s clearly not healthy. Maybe it’s love, but not the “good kind” of love, you know? Also, OF COURSE, it’s a new hint for Joana’s BPD; they suffer way more than others when it comes to not being able to spend time with people they love + all this conversation shows “something new” about Joana; I mean, it seems that she way more experienced than Cris about relationships, etc.

(Yep, Cris is a little taken aback by the “and?”)

To me, Joana’s face means some kind of “You really don’t understand what we’re talking about, don’t you?” (but soft). It’s like she’s trying to find something on Cris’ face or in her gaze (it’s really a feeling I have, I don’t know why? what? how? I just follow it and I don’t think I can interpret it; I only can notice it and share it with you).

Lips, AGAIN (and yes, her head is leaning forward). And this time, yeah, Cris was staring at her eyes she can’t have missed it; and guess what?

“Let’s look away and try to talk about something else” (yes, you’re good, you noticed that Cris’ mouth is way more opened, congrats! A little before she moves her gaze, you can see it slowly opening, even maybe her chin “trembling” but it’s really discreet).

(Do you realize that that there are so many things happening each second?) When Cris starts talking, Joana’s chin quickly rises, kind of a “come back to reality” – LIPS. AGAIN. – “What is she talking about?”.

Okay, that’s cute.

But with this joke, we come back to a wider plan; the intimacy and depth are gone.

Wait, I just realized this now but, look at their legs, they are SO close, omg.

--

“Oh, maybe I was wrong, my future wife is brilliant.”

Again guys, find someone who looks at you like that when you’re talking + this “Sí”; I’m dying + on the shot before Joana looks at her lips (it’s not surprising anymore) + just look how attentive she is, it’s really cute + yes, we’re back with the “intimate shot”, and the fact that we see the reaction of one girl when the other is talking.

“Excuse me, what?”

Look at her, she is so unconfident about everything she says, she can’t believe Joana likes her idea.

Yep, we’re back with that. “I said it just to say something”, one of Cris’ most important caracteristic. She thinks what she says isn’t important, or serious. Joana is, right here, the only one who takes what she says seriously. We thought that Cris is someone really confident and everything, but with this first episode we already have A LOT of hints showing that she maybe doesn’t have a that strong self-esteem as we thought, and this is a really important point.

Joana, queen of reassurance.

Can she be cuter? Come on, that’s amazing she’s so proud of herself, thanks to Joana. They already have so much “power”/effect on each other. 2 DAYS GUYS, 2 DAYS. And, yes, close shot again, we keep jumping between intimacy and “normality”, it becomes more and more fluid and natural between these two (I love this show so fucking much).

“Vale”- “Vale”; just go dig my grave.

Happy girl.

And OMG we’re playing again with the shots, Joana is looking at Cris and then we have this:

And then the camera isn’t moving anymore, we only have cuts to show each girl, the rhythm is a little faster.

Lips + LIPS guys, no subtlety anymore xD

“OMFG iT’s HApPeNiNG!”

No but more seriously, I can’t catch the reaction in one picture; but the mouth and the smile dropping in the blink of an eye + her eyes widening + her body slowly going backward and raising a little.

The funniest is that we don’t see Joana at the moment, we only see Cris’ reaction and it only gives more “suspense”. This is BRILLIANT.

--

The camera moving with Joana, WHILE she looks at Cris’ eyes + Her gaze shifting between her eyes and her lips + Cris being completely somewhere else, trying to look away; she doesn’t process at all what’s happening.

This is cute, but at the same time I can’t help but laugh and I don’t know why xD (it’s not awkward though). Yes btw, bold+1550.

THIS. It doesn’t last long, but wow… There is so much intensity; and at the same time, it shows so many things about how they both feel. Cris is completely lost, her mouth, her jaw and her eyes, she has no control of it (wide eyes, mouth a little open; you can see this expression even more before the eye contact, because there Cris already had a little movement with her chin, kind of realizing what’s happening) + she doesn’t move at all.

At the opposite, we have a “determined” Joana, she knows what she’s doing; I mean, everything is in her gaze + the mouth and the jaw, she has a total control of it + well, she is leaning, like LEANING forward; and we stan.

This is cute; these little smiles, it takes all the rest of the awkwardness away (and there wasn’t a lot left).

It’s hard to describe everything, so I’m giving you some leads: Joana doesn’t have a lot of things to say here, her face isn’t moving a lot, everything is in her eyes, and of course some movements with her lips. On the other hand, Cris is WOW; her eyes shifting all the time and her mouth are SO EXPRESSIVE; take your time to look at everything, because in what? 5 seconds, there’s a lot.

(I’m wondering if the smile is maybe more Irene than Cris, because it quickly goes back to something a little more “apprehensive”; just a thought like that, no real analysis just a feeling.)

This last gaze… at this point I just let myself be carried by so much intimacy and tension.

Just a quick remark, it’s not a secret but Joana is so much more at ease, because Cris really can’t “stabilize” her gaze and keep the stare as Joana does.

And yep, we’re back to the same situation than in the second clip. We have Cris who immediately breaks the connection, while Joana stays in it. In any case, I don’t know if she really was ready for a kiss (let’s wait 3 long weeks now xD).

When I first watched this clip, I wasn’t really surprised by the mom coming; I mean, they didn’t make her interrupt them multiple times for nothing.

Oh, and bold+1600 just for remaining so chill and keeping this little smirk during all the “leaning forward” thing.

--

“For fuck sake.”

We stan a queen rolling her eyes 24/7 – We’re used to it now guys, worry, again. Her face is really like “No come on, don’t tell me you’re leaving.”; that’s cute.

(Okay, quick remark again with the shot, we have Cris’ pov who’s looking at Joana, blahblah, you understood.) A lot of people think “Now we know it, it’s Eloy texting her, she knows she almost fucked up and she’s just fleeing”; and I’m not so sure about that. First, yes of course, worry and annoyance: the worry is here with the openned mouth just before and the huge breath she takes, and annoyance, with the loud sigh, the thing with her lips, her eyes and the cold “I have to go”. Here is my opinion: if it really was Eloy, that she was supposed to meet him for exemple, why would she had asked Cris to watch the movie, perfectly knowing the length of it? No, I think it’s maybe her parents asking where she is, because maybe she hasn’t told them she was out because her reaction is close to a “I’m screwed” + a quick reaction and decision like that, I think hints again for BPD (when I say hints it’s stupid because it’s just her reacting to the world around her, but I think you understand what I mean).

Cris being so desperate: “Already?”; “Um, shouldn’t we finish the movie?”; it’s cute though, she doesn’t want her to leave, but damn it’s so clumsy xD

New aspect of Joana, she is a little destabilized and we don’t have her usual confidence. She is really avoidant with a quick, low, and weak “yes”; she is already grabbing her jacket, kind of fleeing Cris. A messy excuse “I’ve already seen it” (why are you here then? xD I mean, I know it’s not a lie because there’s a chat about it, but it just makes me laugh) + her voice is “different” you know? Yeah, really, we have a completely other Joana here.

“Fuck.”

“I’ll walk you out”, Cris really tries xD

And damn we really have Joana “pushing her away”; it’s like in the blink of an eye, she completely changed even if she’s really polite and everything, and it’s brilliant

+ Here (pictures) we have Joana with the joke and this cute smile which gives her back some confidence - but then we have the other gaze with all the “composure” she tries to keep fading again.

Some hope with the “Well, I’ll see you on Monday, right?” + You even can see (before the picture) on Cris’ agreement, we have a smile forming and she seems so relieved, that’s cute (an yes, close shot on Joana, so Cris’ pov).

--

Fuck, those pupils.

Cris’ emotional journey be like:

“What the hell just happened?” – Queen of eyes rolling (god, this sigh).

“It’s so unfair!” (her eyes shifting everywhere, kind of processing the situation) – The most interesting face, because I’m not sure how to interpret it. I hesitate between two things: a movement to bite her lips or cheeks or whatever; OR it’s a “common” movement, we do this kind of thing when we’re speechless, when we want to talk but nothing comes out, as if our mouth follows our thoughts but our throat doesn’t; it helps us to regain our composure in away (+ there’s so much frustration; again, all of this is here to add some humor).

We have a movement backward, to breathe a little, to let things out; and just look at this adorable gay mess, she’s so cute + “Well… at least we spent some time together, it’s not that bad…” – “Fuck, of course that’s bad! I hate my life.” + Cris closing her eyes as the ending screen comes, come on, stop being so on top…

--

Bold score: 1600 (congrats Mrs. Bianchi).

What I love with this clip is that it tells us what’s going to happen (they’re going to have the “No puedo evitarlo” and the “don’t you love me?”; they’re going to suffer; Cris will go through all the stages of what she calls “idiot” here). It just allows us to have a starting point for Cris and Joana’s growth through the season; and this is brilliant. And yes, we are fucking clowns.

Anyway, we finally finished this first episode! It was long, but so interesting to do. We already have so much information about Cris and Joana, that’s brilliant. Again, a quick reminder, I don’t pretend to be an expert or whatever, I just share with you my thoughts, and of course there must be a lot of mistakes and I’m sure I forgot a lot of things.

I’m going to take a little break with Skam España, which means that the next analyses won’t come soon, and I’m pretty sure I won’t do all the clips because it takes me too much time; but yes, definitely, I’ll write other reaction, don’t worry about that!

I hope you enjoyed, thank you so much for reading!

[pengiesama]

Panopticon (Fic, TGCF/Coraline AU, HC/XL)

Title: Panopticon Series: Heavenly Official’s Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu) Pairing: Hua Cheng/Xie Lian, Jun Wu & Xie Lian, Jun Wu & Mei Nian Qing

Summary:

Jun Wu has built a very splendid home for Xie Lian, with gifts and friends and wondrous sights just for him. He will be very happy there.

Xie Lian won't take this house arrest lying down.

(Inspired by the book/movie Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.)

CONTENT WARNINGS: Horror, Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Gore, Bittersweet Ending

Link: AO3

Read on Tumblr!

Eight hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Xian Le. 

--

--

“Why does she want me?” Coraline asked the cat. “Why does she want me to stay here with her?”

“She wants something to love, I think,” said the cat. “Something that isn’t her. She might want something to eat as well. It’s hard to tell with creatures like that.”

– Coraline, Neil Gaiman

--

 Eight hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Xian Le.

The kingdom had four treasures: beautiful women, music, riches, and its crown prince.

 “And this is…”

Forgetting himself in his excitement, Xie Lian took the sword down from where it was displayed on the wall to examine it more closely. He turned it this way and that, examining the pommel, spying down the length of the blade to see the fineness of its edge.

“…jingeom, Four Dragons!” Xie Lian exclaimed. “Unmistakably! A Four Dragons blade can only be crafted once every twelve years, you know, and only by the finest blacksmiths.”

“Just so,” Jun Wu confirmed. “Foreign pieces often find their way into my collection. I don’t discriminate when it comes to quality.”

Nor did Xie Lian, but it was nigh-on impossible to keep his attention on a single dazzling artifact when he was surrounded by hundreds more. Xie Lian had already handed off the blade to Feng Xin, and was back to eyeing up the rest of Jun Wu’s collection. Jun Wu laughed; a warm, delighted sound.

“Xian Le is so knowledgeable! But so hard to impress.”

He was clearly amused, but Xie Lian would hardly deny the sentiment. He was Xian Le’s crown prince, after all – he’d seen the best, thought he could do it better, and then proceeded to do so. It was simply the natural way of things.

Xie Lian had already stacked more discarded legendary swords into Feng Xin’s arms like so much firewood. (Feng Xin’s soul had long since left his body at the sight of Xie Lian’s shameless behavior in the Heavenly Emperor’s own household, and he simply stood there like a statue, numbly accepting whatever Xie Lian handed to him.) Xie Lian squinted at the blade he currently had unsheathed, frowning slightly.

“This is…a fortune-telling blade?” Xie Lian inquired aloud.

“Ah, yes, that old stick,” Jun Wu said dismissively. “I don’t put much stock in that sort of thing. Lovely craftsmanship, though.”

“Mm,” Xie Lian agreed, re-sheathing the sword and handing it off to Feng Xin. He, too, cared very little for fortune-telling; much to the chagrin of his teacher. But the fact that Jun Wu shared his opinion made his heart buoyant with pride. “Neither do I. I wish you’d been around to get me out of all those dull divination lectures, before I ascended…”

Even so, seeing that blade in front of him, he found himself trying to recall those lessons…though he could now confidently proclaim that fortune-telling was a frivolous pursuit, he was admittedly a little curious to what that reflection was trying to indicate. Butterflies, dancing on that gleaming surface…

Jun Wu made a sympathetic noise, and reached out to pat Xie Lian’s back. “Dreadfully dull indeed – and wholly unsuitable for Xian Le. What a waste, to have you cooped up indoors staring at star charts instead of cultivating your swordplay! It truly speaks to Xian Le’s innate talents that he was able to ascend so soon despite these obstacles.”

Xie Lian bubbled with happiness at Jun Wu’s words; at his agreement and praise. Even that touch to his back didn’t feel as overly-familiar as it should – he supposed if anyone was permitted to pat Xian Le’s crown prince like a child, it would only be the Heavenly Emperor himself.

“In any event, Xian Le doesn’t have to worry about any of that silliness anymore. And if that Head Priest of yours still tries to lecture you for falling behind in your lessons, just call on me.” Jun Wu leaned in, his expression comically grave. “I’ll give him a lecture he won’t see coming.”

Xie Lian laughed at the very thought of Jun Wu scolding Head Priest. Perhaps he’d have him write lines, just as Head Priest had assigned Xie Lian when he outsmarted those silly riddles of his!

He reached for another sword.

“At this rate you’ll have gone through my whole collection before the sun rises!” With a flick of Jun Wu’s sleeves, the swords in Feng Xin’s arms rose up and re-arranged themselves on the walls. “I’ll have to work hard at adding new pieces, so Xian Le always has something to see when he visits…”

At long last, Xie Lian had found a sword that piqued his interest. He went through a few practice poses with it as Jun Wu spoke; testing its balance, testing its reach. His skillful feet, his step as light and spritely as a deer’s, barely made a sound on the polished floors. His robes billowed and swirled with his graceful movements, blooming about him like the petals of a heavenly flower. The blade sang like a bell as Xie Lian sliced at the air.

Jun Wu circled him, evaluating his form. He reached out and gripped Xie Lian’s elbow, tilting it up just a bit to straighten up the point of the blade. The adjustment was slight, so slight that even a trained eye could hardly see it. But it resulted in a form so perfect, so divine, that it looked like a statue formed at the hands of a heavenly architect.

“I should fetch you a flowering tree branch,” Jun Wu said. “Then you’d be fit to for mortals to paint. Though I don’t think your shrines can hold any more icons of you…”

Xie Lian puffed out an annoyed breath. “They can just use my other statues and murals for reference. I have more than enough, and they can make do. Even when I was small I loathed sitting for portraiture.”

It was such a waste of time, standing still for hours while a royal painter squinted and sketched. A true artist would only have to see him once!

“They truly don’t understand you, Xian Le,” Jun Wu murmured. “Don’t worry. Now that you’re here, you don’t have to concern yourself with any of that, anymore. You’re beyond what they could ever comprehend.”

Jun Wu’s hand came up to pat his head, to stroke his hair.

“Shall we retire to my study? You must be in need of some refreshments.”

“No, thank you,” Xie Lian said, and it was the truth – he never was a big eater, and it was something of a relief that the worship he received now was nourishment enough. “I should go back to my temples and address prayers. The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming soon, and I wish to give a strong showing.”

Gods did have duties, of course, and Xie Lian did have so very many prayers to answer. All the same, there were few among gods, ghosts, and mortals who had such confidence that they could rebuff an invitation from the Heavenly Emperor himself.

But Xie Lian was the one and only crown prince of Xian Le.

Jun Wu laughed again. “Xian Le is truly hard to impress, indeed. I wish him luck. But please, don’t hesitate to come calling whenever you wish. I promise to show Xian Le many more splendid things.”

 --

 Eight hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Xian Le.

The kingdom had four curses: idleness, corruption, excess, and its foolish prince.

 “I must say that I didn’t expect Xian Le to drink down the wine during our game so readily. And that play – the human realm is so full of wild ideas!”

Xie Lian tittered a nervous laugh at the mention of the play. “Y-yes, um. That play was…truly something.”

After the Mid-Autumn Banquet concluded, he’d been unexpectedly invited to the Great Martial Palace for after-dinner tea. The sky was still ablaze with lanterns, and Xie Lian was still too dazzled and dazed by the sight of them, and the thoughts of the person who’d sent them heavensward, to give much thought to refusing the summons. And so here he was, having tea and sweets with Jun Wu in his personal study.

It brought back old memories – of himself as a foolish seventeen-year-old, rattling off the history of every weapon mounted on Jun Wu’s walls, as if the Emperor wasn’t aware of their properties and lineage! Such arrogance he’d shown, back then. Lecturing for hours, talking his ear off. But Jun Wu had stood and listened to him go on and on, a fond smile crinkling his eyes and mouth. Truly, the Emperor had always been so kind to him.

“Do you know that it’s a tradition for the runner-up of the Lantern Battle to host dinner for the winner?”

Xie Lian blinked and tilted his head curiously. “No? That seems unfair, though. Like salt in the wound.”

Jun Wu chuckled fondly, as if he’d expected such a response. “Yes, well. Being that I usually win, most of the other gods leap at the chance to host me at their palaces. It’ll be me doing the leaping this year…and my leaping muscles are so out of practice! Xian Le has given me a splendid chance to exercise them. It will be an event you won’t soon forget.”

Xie Lian was suddenly exceedingly thankful that Hua Cheng had sent up so many lanterns. Even if it was just on a whim, a second-place finish would have had him hosting the Emperor of Heaven at his Puji Shrine! He could not have borne up under such shame.

It was as though Jun Wu could read the thoughts flitting through his mind. “Shall I pay a visit sometime? To this shrine of yours that I’ve heard so much talk about.”

“Ah—”

How to respond? His little shrine was much too humble to receive the Emperor himself, no matter how well Xie Lian swept its dirt floors! He knew he shouldn’t have put off fixing the roof for this long. And he’d been meaning to mend the curtains he’d salvaged, but with his sewing skills, they would likely look better if they stayed torn…

“It—it may not be to your lordship’s liking. It’s quite cramped, you see; I’ve been hosting – many visitors lately—”

“Surely proof that Xian Le is a gracious host, and all the more reason for me to come calling.”

Xie Lian shifted uncomfortably. He had no face to lose, honestly. Less than a year ago, he had been sleeping on the streets; having even a leaking roof over his head was an improvement. But to allow Jun Wu to see the state in which he lived – his tiny, tattered little home, with bare cupboards and junk piled in every corner – filled him with an acute sense of shame. The Emperor had always been so kind to him, thought so highly of him. And his pathetic state was all that came of that trust. The shackles on his skin prickled uncomfortably, like marching, biting insects.

Jun Wu smiled magnanimously. “Well. I hope you’ll receive me, one day. Perhaps in the home I built for you here.”

To his further embarrassment, Xie Lian often forgot the Palace of Xian Le even existed. He could only nod, further shamed by his own careless, ungracious behavior.

“I suspect that it is not to your liking.” Jun Wu leaned his head on his hand, and regarded Xie Lian with an air of gentle concern. “You seem to prefer a shabby little hut in the human realm to the comforts I’ve provided. I personally designed it. I personally funded it. I sent word to you when it was finished; I would have liked to spend an evening in your company, to catch up on all these years. I waited for days for you to finish whatever business kept you in the human realm. Days into weeks. And now, here we are at the height of autumn, and you still haven’t spent a single night there. You must understand my confusion.”

Xie Lian’s cheeks flushed hot. “I’m…it’s—”

“The pantry is always full of the finest produce from Heaven’s trees and fields.”

“I—”

“I’ve filled your wardrobe with many fine ensembles. Windmaster, too, has sent over piles of clothing that he must think suits you. He seems so terribly fond of you.”

“That’s—”

“Is it perhaps that your neighbors have been discourteous and unwelcoming? Excepting Windmaster, of course. Understand that the stars in the night sky must not concern themselves with the jealous sputtering of an innkeeper’s candles.”

“It’s…it’s just—”

“If Xian Le would prefer, I could make whatever arrangements necessary to make him feel more at home. He need only ask.”

The generous grace being shown to him was so utterly undeserved that Xie Lian could never dream of accepting it. He was not the spoiled little prince that Jun Wu remembered – so full of promise and potential, so desperately foolish. He preferred to live as he was now – busking on street corners, gathering scraps, washing the same two pairs of robes in the nearby stream. Chopping wood for the fire, chatting and laughing as Hua Cheng helped cut and gather and carry. Cooking the vegetables he’d been offered as thanks for helping in the fields, and eating with Hua Cheng by his side as the fire crackled into embers.

(It went without saying that Hua Cheng would not be a welcome guest in the land of the gods. This, too, was something that could not be overlooked.)

A life holed up in the Heavens, in a sumptuous palace, far away from the troubles of the other two realms. Perhaps it suited the other gods, gods that were greater than him. But it did not suit Xie Lian. Not anymore.

He was at a loss on how to explain his feelings.

“I…I can’t stay tonight,” Xie Lian said. “I’ve been looking after two human children. And dealing with my cousin.”

Jun Wu gave a sympathetic wince at the mention of Qi Rong, and the sight of such a silly, human expression on the Emperor’s face made Xie Lian give a brief titter of nervous laughter. “Ah. Xian Le has always leapt headlong into trouble. He needn’t worry tonight about moving house, but one hopes that he’ll consider sometime in the future, once his various errands have concluded. I look forward to being your guest.”

With that, Jun Wu lifted his head from his hand and saluted Xie Lian, allowing Xie Lian to return the salute and beat a hasty retreat to his humble home.

It would not be the first time he’d disappointed someone who had faith in him, and it surely wouldn’t be the last.

 --

 Two thousand years ago, there was a kingdom known as □□□□□.

The kingdom had four treasures: beautiful women, music, riches, and its crown prince.

 “I waited for you, after the Mid-Autumn Banquet. I would have known the moment you set foot in this palace that you’d come. But you never did.”

“…”

“I built this palace especially for you, Xian Le. Do you think I do that for every god that comes through the heavenly gates?”

“I never asked you to,” Xie Lian spat.

“I wonder who taught you to be such a scornful child,” Jun Wu sighed. “All those years in the mortal realm have taken their toll on your manners. Or perhaps it was the company you’ve kept, recently. I think some time for reflection in your quarters is in order.”

Jun Wu stopped at the door to the Palace of Xian Le, and waited for Xie Lian to trudge up before he continued speaking.

“Not that I was asked to, but I’ve taken the liberty of making some adjustments to make you feel more at home. I want this to be a place you’re comfortable in. A place you can while away many happy years, a place where I can always come calling and see a smile on Xian Le’s sweet face.”

Jun Wu briefly stroked a hand over the fall of Xie Lian’s hair, down his back. The old, sick memory of White No-Face’s tender embrace flared in Xie Lian’s mind, and he whirled away; nearly falling down the stairs in the process.

“Careful,” Jun Wu chided. “Clumsy.”

Xie Lian choked as he was pulled out of his freefall by Jun Wu’s grip on the shackle about his neck. He clawed at his throat, gasping for air. Jun Wu opened the door of the palace, and dragged Xie Lian inside; dumping him unceremoniously on the floor at his feet.

“Welcome home,” Jun Wu said gently, warmly.

“Welcome home!”

“Welcome home!”

“Your highness!”

“Your highness!”

The palace of Xian Le was the palace of Xian Le.

“Lianlian,” his mother said, approaching him with the warmth and carefree joy he remembered from his earlier years. “I made us dinner – your favorite! You must be so hungry from training all day!”

The fine porcelain bowls lined up on the table were filled with discolored, rot-smelling sludge. This was, in itself, not cause for special concern, or something particular to this nightmare that Jun Wu had thrown him into. While it was not Xie Lian’s “favorite”, he could recognize it on sight (and scent). Taste, too, most likely. It had tasted the same going down as it had coming back up on that morning when he’d dined next to his parents, while they dangled from the ceiling by their necks.

His father – hale and healthy – chuckled. “Don’t worry, son,” he said in a stage whisper, winking as he did. Xie Lian could not remember the last time he saw the king act so jovial, so warm to him. “There’s plenty of fresh meat buns from the cooks in the kitchen.”

“Your highness!” Feng Xin and Mu Qing said in unison, then startled theatrically at that fact. They harrumphed dramatically, and crossed their arms, determinedly not looking at each other.

“I’ll get you a change of clothes—”

“He needs to have a bath first, idiot!”

“He can change his clothes and then have a bath! Then change his clothes again!”

The palace of Xian Le was the palace of Xian Le and the palace of Xian Le was filled with the people that Xie Lian remembered so well even after so many years. They should have been dead. They should have been dead or should have drifted so far away that Xie Lian could hardly recognize them anymore. But here they were, as they had been. Exactly as they had been, save for one fact: every familiar face was grotesquely twisted into a half-smile-half-frown. There was not the courtesy of masks, just flesh and sinew rearranged into an impossible expression of despairing bliss. Heart in paradise.

Xie Lian began to tremble.

Jun Wu leaned down to whisper into Xie Lian’s ear. “There’s a swingset in the back garden,” he said. “Your mother told me how much you loved to swing when you were a little one.”

“She didn’t tell you anything.” Xie Lian’s voice was tremulous with fear and fury. “She’s been dead for eight hundred years. Because of—”

Jun Wu cocked an eyebrow. “Because of me?”

“Because of me,” Xie Lian snapped. “Don’t interrupt.”

Jun Wu’s eyes went soft. He knelt and helped Xie Lian to his feet; his touch and voice filled with compassion. “It’s not your fault. Oh, it’s not your fault, Xian Le.”

He pulled Xie Lian into his warm, unrelenting embrace. His heart beat under Xie Lian’s cheek, steady and strong. Thump thump, thump thump.

“The frailty of others is not your responsibility,” Jun Wu said. “Xian Le should not blame himself for others’ shortcomings. For others’ failures. The burden is not his to bear up under. This is a lesson that I’ve tried so hard to impart to you, and save you further pain.”

Xie Lian wished he could flay off his own skin, and grow a suit of new pink flesh that wouldn’t bear the memory of this touch. He felt a nudge to the back of his knees, and a head pressing itself to the underside of his palm; like a dog begging to be petted. He looked down, slowly, dreading what awaited him.

The sight of Qi Rong gazing up at him adoringly struck Xie Lian with a nostalgic vertigo that threatened to make him vomit even more than the smell of his mother’s stew had managed. He wore the face of the innocent child he once was, before grief and loneliness and madness had warped his mind. The smile-frown on his face was present, but his mouth was sewn shut with dark thread. Qi Rong could only make small, animal noises from the back of his throat as he continued to bump against Xie Lian’s palm; finally taking his hand and pressing it firmly to his head.

“I thought it would be best for everyone if I took care of that vile mouth of his,” Jun Wu explained. “Less noise. Less spitting. Better diet regulation. He’s much more manageable now, don’t you agree?”

Qi Rong nodded in agreement, and continued to pet himself with Xie Lian’s hand. Xie Lian yanked his hand away, finally, and stumbled out of reach. Qi Rong made an awful squealing noise at the loss, like a starved pig denied a bucket of scraps. He toddled after him in hot pursuit. Xie Lian could hardly hold himself back from kicking him clear across the room.

“That’s quite enough,” Jun Wu scolded. He brought his boot down on Qi Rong’s back with a sickening-sounding crack. The pig-squealing doubled in volume. “Ugh. Well, if he was completely manageable, I suppose this home of yours wouldn’t quite feel as it should. Still, I’ll have him taken away and trained a bit more.”

Obeying this implied order, the shadows on the floors shivered, and dozens of rats scurried forth to collect Qi Rong and drag him away to parts unknown. Xie Lian immediately recognized them as the rats of the ruined city at Mount Tonglu and heard their whispers as they went. your highness your highness your highness your highness your highness as your highness commands

“It’s late,” Jun Wu stated. Feng Xin and Mu Qing both stepped forward in unison, and stood at Xie Lian’s sides, ready to escort him to his chambers. “But I hope you’ll find your new home comfortable. I’ve made sure to stock and staff it with everything I remember you adoring.”

But there was a notable face absent.

“Your memory must be going, then,” Xie Lian said. “Someone’s missing.”

Jun Wu’s eyes narrowed. “Do tell. Who could I have forgotten? I know Xian Le very well. Who could Xian Le possibly care for so much that I don’t know about?”

Jun Wu stepped forward. Xie Lian stepped back, but did not break eye contact. Feng Xin and Mu Qing obediently kept step with Xie Lian, strolling backward with his every move.

“Is it perhaps the former Windmaster? No, Xian Le did not even care enough to search for him. Perhaps if he did, then he would have retained the use of his limbs. The two little children he cared for in his earthly hovel? No, hardly a thought spared for them when it wasn’t convenient. Sealed that snake priestess into a pickle jar and set her on his shelf to forget about...even though Xian Le seems to like children so much, he does not seem to be especially good at caring for them.”

Xie Lian’s back hit the wall. Jun Wu stepped into his space, leaning in close, until they were nearly nose to nose.

“I wonder what happened to that filthy urchin you stopped my parade to save?” he quietly asked.

He reached up to tug aside the collar of Xie Lian’s robes, to expose the silver chain there, and –

“I meant Head Priest, you old bat,” Xie Lian snapped.

And he did, in fact, mean to refer to his old teacher. He tugged the collar of his robe back into place, and tried to will his heart from hammering its way out of his ribcage.

Jun Wu smiled, and gave Xie Lian back a modicum of personal space.

“Ah,” Jun Wu said. “Xian Le is correct, how silly of me. I’ve been having some…difficulties with your teacher. He doesn’t seem to want to join us in this happy home of ours quite yet. But he’ll be convinced soon, just be patient.”

Convinced? Xie Lian was certain that he was surrounded by illusions; mindless shells painted to look like the people he remembered. They were merely empty vessels for Jun Wu to puppet as he pleased. They did not need to be convinced of anything. They were not who they looked to be. They were not his long-dead parents, they were not two long-lost friends, they were not a child long-lost. Xie Lian was certain of this. He was certain.

Jun Wu gave the order for Feng Xin and Mu Qing to take him away to his chambers and get him ready for bed, and gave the order for his parents to remain at the dinner table to keep the food and company ready for Xian Le when he was ready for it. The king and queen simply bowed their heads at the order, and sat dutifully in their seats, idly stirring the foulness in their bowls.

“We’ll be waiting right here, Lianlian,” his mother said. “I’ll leave a midnight snack out for you.”

 --

 Eight hundredHUNDREDfourHUNDRED years ago, THERE WAS a kinngdom knnownn as □□□□□.

The kinngdom had four TREASURES: □□□□□, □□□□□, □□□□□, and its crownn prinnce crownn prinnce crownn prinnce CROWNN PRINNCE.

 Xie Lian walked on his own, flanked by Feng Xin and Mu Qing, and was led into a bathing chamber to be scrubbed down. The bath was pleasantly warm, scented with fragrant herbs, and big enough to swim in. Ruoye shifted on his person, clearly wanting to swim around and wash up, but unwilling to leave the safety of his master. Xie Lian patted him gently, bidding him to stay put. The reflection of heavenly light on the crystal-clear surface of the water hurt Xie Lian’s eyes; he would not be able to keep track of the white silk under these conditions. Thankfully, he was still so filthy from the volcanic ash at Tonglu that the bathwater turned black in short order.

He knew he’d had a long day, but…it made Xie Lian flush a bit. Hua Cheng was so generous to have allowed Xie Lian to embrace him when he looked like this! And not just embrace, but…Xie Lian flushed harder and brought a hand to his mouth, huffing into it to check how his breath smelled.

“If his highness would tip his head back,” Feng Xin said.

Xie Lian tilted his head and allowed his hair to be rinsed clean. He eyed Mu Qing from this position. Mu Qing was folding and re-folding every piece of fabric that he saw, making unintelligible noises of displeasure as he worked. Indeed, a quite perfect likeness of the Mu Qing he knew. What was quite unlike the Mu Qing he knew was this…complacency. It would take more than threats from a mad god-emperor to make Mu Qing placidly march in lockstep alongside Feng Xin. Likewise, to make Feng Xin sit and wash hair like a docile housewife while Mu Qing sighed and complained in his vicinity.

An idea came to Xie Lian’s mind.

“Feng Xin, Mu Qing,” Xie Lian said. “I have a joke for you both.”

“Yes, your highness,” they said in unison.

“A horse walks into a teahouse, and says to the owner, ‘I’ll have a pot of tea and a plate of candied almonds.’ The owner says back, ‘By the gods! A talking horse!’”

Xie Lian finished speaking, and waited for a reaction. Feng Xin and Mu Qing both laughed in delight, laughed with their distorted mouths.

“Your highness’ sense of humor cannot be beat,” Mu Qing said.

“Yes, his highness is as talented in words as he is in the blade,” said Feng Xin.

The last time Xie Lian had told them that joke, Feng Xin shattered a rib from laughing too hard, and Mu Qing was so incensed at the noise of his horrible bleating that he broke a chair over his head. It went without saying that Mu Qing did not find the joke funny at all.

Convinced. Jun Wu only phrased it like that to rattle him. These were simply soulless magical constructs, of that Xie Lian was sure – quite sure. But this did not answer the question of why Jun Wu had not simply made a construct of Head Priest to round out this vile little stage play. It was not a matter of power – the Emperor of Heaven himself had more than enough of that, enough to create walking, talking copies of two heavenly officials. Creating a copy of a cultivator – no matter how ageless and immortal – would have been child’s play in comparison. It didn’t make sense.

Xie Lian was old enough to know when to lay low, when to wait for an opportunity. He allowed the puppets of his friends to finish washing and dressing him, to turn down his bedsheets and stoke the brazier beneath the bed. He allowed them to close the curtains, put out the lamps, close his door. He was not locked in. This was, of course, his new home. He had no thoughts of escaping; if there was a way to escape this realm of Jun Wu’s own making, Xie Lian had yet to think of it. And so, he lay in bed, to think.

Tap, tap.

Tap.

Tap, tap.

Xie Lian wearily turned his head towards the tapping noise. A full-length mirror was set into a large wooden vanity, and in the mirror, he saw his room reflected. The high ceilings, the carved jade pillars, the swooping silk canopy of his bed. He saw himself, sitting bundled in the sheets. He saw a hunched figure, standing just behind the glass, peering around the side of the mirror as if they were a prowler peeping at an inn window. The figure was wearing a half-smiling-half-frowning white mask.

Xie Lian rolled his eyes and sighed. Honestly, hadn’t Jun Wu had enough of trying to scare him today? He was trying to sleep. He made a big show of yawning and rolling over, hoping he’d get the message.

Tap, tap.

Tap.

…But, just in case he didn’t…

“Fuck off, old man,” Xie Lian shouted over his shoulder. “Go get eaten by those rats of yours.”

The tapping stopped briefly as the figure behind the glass pondered these words.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Xie Lian flew up, worried that the glass would shatter and he’d have to fight in his nightwear. Ruoye roiled around his limbs, distressed at the noise but ready to fight for his master’s sake. The figure stopped pounding at the glass with their fist, satisfied that they finally had Xie Lian’s attention.

With a bit of spiritual energy, they frosted the window glass in a thin sheen of ice, and began to write to him with their fingertip.

The characters were mirrored, of course; backwards and tricky to parse. But Xie Lian knew that elegant handwriting well.

“Head Priest,” Xie Lian said.

Mei Nian Qing quickly brought one finger to the mouth of the mask he was wearing, and Xie Lian immediately fell silent. This message was easy enough to translate: be silent and wary of eavesdroppers. Xie Lian nodded, and waited for him to finish writing.

Heavenly Capital locked down. No way in or out. You are well?

Xie Lian wrote back with his own finger.

Been through worse. Where are you? Why is Head Priest wearing that unsightly mask?

Mei Nian Qing was still for a long moment, then turned his head to the side to show Xie Lian the truth of it. Xie Lian choked back the panic that threatened to tear a scream from his lungs.

A line of black stitching attached the mask to his face. The stitching itself told the story far more succinctly than a finger on iced glass: at his chin, forced and sloppy, with torn skin and fingerprint bruising. Evening out as it proceeded, ending with a stitch so fine that a god of embroidery would praise it. The skin there was unbloodied and worked so finely that it was as though the needle used was spun from a fairy’s whisper. It was clear that Mei Nian Qing had stopped struggling, towards the end, and Jun Wu had rewarded him with tenderness. Or what passed for it.

Mei Nian Qing wrote a simple phrase in the ice:

I’m sorry.

He let the characters hang there, frozen in frost and glass, and stared down at his lap. Xie Lian was not about to let this conversation end like this. They were alone here, and they would band together, and flee together. He wrote phrase after phrase, insistently, even as Mei Nian Qing continued to sit there motionlessly.

Where are you?

Are you alone?

Is someone watching you?

He’s made copies of my mother and father.

Mei Nian Qing’s attention appeared to be drawn to the last phrase. He stared at it, the mask hiding whatever expression it had stirred. After a few moments, he began to tremble. He crumpled in on himself, clutching his head and tangling his hair in his hands. A sob tore from his throat, causing Xie Lian to startle as the sound shattered the silence.

“I knew it’d made him angry,” Mei Nian Qing sobbed. “I knew he’d thought me pathetic. But I was alone for so long, you have to understand. I needed – I needed them – I needed them to play cards with— I didn’t mean it as an offense. Your highness. Your highness, please, you have to understand, I’m so sorry…”

“Head Priest! Teacher!” Xie Lian whispered frantically. “It’s fine, I understand! None of this is your fault! Just tell me how to get to you, I’ll come find you and cut that ugly thing off your face!”

His pleas fell on deaf ears. Mei Nian Qing continued to sob, babbling to himself in increasing hysteria about solitude and cards and your highness, your highness, your highness. Xie Lian leapt to his feet, his martial god brain taking over. A person trapped behind glass: the simple solution was obvious, and that simple solution was to smash the mirror with his fists.

“Hold on! I’ll be right there!”

Not even needing a command, Ruoye wrapped around his hands and wrists to protect him from the soon-to-be-shattered glass. He flexed his fingers, readying himself to strike.

your highness

Xie Lian’s fist stopped mid-swing.

your highness your highness your highness

bad ungrateful awful I’m telling

Xie Lian recognized that raspy sound. He whirled just in time to see a rat scurry off; out the door and into the halls. Whatever that rat wanted to “tell” Jun Wu, it couldn’t be good. There was little time for Xie Lian to make assurances to Mei Nian Qing that he’d be right back, or to stay put or hide himself or just try to stay alive. The most he could do was close the door of the wooden vanity, hiding the mirror from view, and race after the rat down the hall.

The rat was smaller than the others he’d seen at Tonglu; suitable for reconnaissance, and fast enough that even Xie Lian’s fleet feet had trouble keeping pace. It also made a small enough target that Ruoye couldn’t strike true. He lashed out over and over, like a lunging snake, and each time was thwarted. All the while, the rat chittered in its awful voice:

your highness your highness yourhighnessyourhighnessYOURHIGHNESSSSSSSSSSS AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL THEY CALLED YOUR BEAUTIFUL MASKS UGLY—

The rat’s tattling cut off with a garbled shriek.

Xie Lian finally caught up, and found that the rat had met its end at the claws of a sleek black cat. The cat stood poised over its kill like a beckoning statue, washing its ears and purring so loudly that Xie Lian could hear it from ten paces away.

Briefly pausing its bath, the cat looked at Xie Lian. It winked its single eye at him slowly, continuing to purr. A red ribbon was tied around its neck.

“San Lang.” Though he was tearful with relief, the words felt punched out of Xie Lian’s heaving lungs. He collapsed to his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Th…thank you…”

The rat’s corpse dissipated with just a flick of Hua Cheng’s tail. Hua Cheng trotted over immediately, and before he even could think about hesitating, Xie Lian scooped him up and bundled him close to his chest.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng said, low and soft. The sound of it alone was enough to soothe Xie Lian’s frayed psyche. “You’re unharmed?”

Xie Lian nodded. Hua Cheng’s fur in this form was so silky soft, so pleasant to bury his face in. So much so that Xie Lian almost forgot to question the why of it.

“…you’re a cat,” Xie Lian finally noted aloud.

“Yes indeed,” Hua Cheng agreed.

Oh, Xie Lian could almost see that bratty little smirk on his face. Hua Cheng patted his paw against the pout of Xie Lian’s mouth, playfully.

“If gege wishes for me to explain myself: I came here in disguise and found myself…temporarily locked into this form, for the time being. Nonetheless, as a cat, I enjoy many benefits in a situation that calls for stealth. It becomes all the more simple for me to slip into places unnoticed, unseen, unheard. Such as into this palace, or into gege’s sleeves with his Ruoye, to fly out with claws bared at a moment’s notice.”

Ruoye swirled around Xie Lian’s arms, clearly miffed at Hua Cheng for inviting himself in to Xie Lian’s sleeves without consulting their current resident. It wouldn’t do for them to be cooped up in there together – how could Hua Cheng do any clawing, or Ruoye any whirling, when they would have to jostle around each other? There was only one solution.

Hua Cheng let out a startled mrrp! as Xie Lian stuffed him into the breast of his robes to be carried there. It wasn’t an ideal solution – he was in his nightclothes, and the lack of layers made hiding him difficult. Though Hua Cheng was small in this form, he was still large enough that there was a noticeable bulge. Xie Lian arranged him this way and that, until he was mostly hidden in the wrap of his sash around his waist. Hua Cheng’s soft fur tickled his bare skin.

“I’m sorry. Please bear with it for now,” Xie Lian said apologetically. “Once I’m dressed, we can find another way.”

Hua Cheng was silent for a long moment.

“…of course,” he finally managed.

Eavesdroppers everywhere, Xie Lian belatedly remembered. The bedroom was hardly better than an open hallway, but at least there was the illusion of privacy in the former. He and Hua Cheng could discuss what to do next, there…how to free Head Priest, how to escape from this place, then came the matter of how to escape from the Heavens themselves next, then…Jun Wu surely wouldn’t take any of that lying down, so, then…

Then…

The thought of taking the head of the man that had done so much to him, done so much to so many others, should have filled him with glee, or at least some sort of righteous thrill of justice. But there was nothing but a cold sense of duty, tempered by a pathetic little whimpering at the corner of his mind. The Emperor was always so kind to me. The Emperor always believed in me. The Emperor has always showed me heavenly grace and compassion even when I’ve done nothing for eight hundred years but disappoint him.

And? So what?

What’s your point?

Eight hundred years had given Xie Lian plenty of time to disappoint a lot of people and none of them had reacted half as badly as this.

“Gege is being very quiet,” Hua Cheng said. He squirmed a bit, and Xie Lian suppressed a giggle as his whiskers tickled his skin. “One hopes that he’ll tell this San Lang his thoughts.”

“It’s nothing,” Xie Lian said.

“Forgive my insolence, but I sense that’s not the truth.”

Eight hundred years of humiliation and regret and shame. Xie Lian thought he was used to it, by now. It was painful enough to disappoint someone he once considered an idol, a father figure, a beneficent authority. Xie Lian once thought that if he could live through that, he could survive anything the world threw at him.

But…then he’d met Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng, who was always so kind and generous, who believed in him no matter what and smiled at him like he hung the moon and stars.

I’ll just wind up disappointing him, too.

He’d survived so much. But he couldn’t bear the thought of the sadness and pity in Hua Cheng’s eyes when he eventually found out the whole of the crown prince he’d carved in a thousand perfect images.

Xie Lian set his hand on the bedroom door, and quietly replied:

“It’s not. I’m sorry.”

Maybe one day he’d be brave enough to tell Hua Cheng the full truth of himself. He doubted it.

He opened the door and saw Jun Wu sitting on the edge of his bed. Jun Wu smiled at him.

“Xian Le is up past his bedtime. He won’t be at his best if he doesn’t get a full night’s sleep.”

“If anyone needs beauty rest, it’s you,” Xie Lian snapped. “Aren’t you sleeping for four?”

Jun Wu’s expression darkened. “That was very rude.”

“Is that the group consensus?” Xie Lian was pushing his luck, but he could feel Hua Cheng purring against his skin, encouraging him. He gestured to the door. “Get out if you want me to sleep so bad. Go bother someone else.”

Jun Wu rose off the bed. Hands resting behind his back, he strode over to where Xie Lian stood at the door. He was so much taller than him. Even now, bolstered by fury and Hua Cheng’s closeness, Xie Lian could not help but feel small.

Jun Wu wore a tired, sad expression.

“Does Xian Le always treat the ones that love him with such cruelty?” he asked. “I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. Whether his noble parents or the lowliest of ghosts, he awards devotion with the heel of his boot.”

Xie Lian went pale. Jun Wu stroked his hair, moving his hand down to cup Xie Lian’s cheek and tilt his face up to look at him.

“But I still have faith that he can be made to see sense, to be a grateful and dutiful child. Eight hundred years I spent refining you, so you could direct that boot of yours where it belongs – onto the backs of those who caused you so much misery, those common folk you wanted to save so desperately.”

“Go bother someone else,” Xie Lian hissed, again. “Just leave us be.”

Jun Wu’s eyes went dark, like those of a predator who’d scented blood. “‘Us’? Who could Xian Le be referring to?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Xie Lian stepped back, trying to reclaim some breathing room. “You know what you did.”

Jun Wu’s eyebrow raised. “In this instance, Xian Le really has to be more specific.”

Incensed, Xie Lian stormed over to the wooden vanity.

“Sewing one of those ugly masks of yours to Head Priest’s face and throwing him into this mirror, how’s that for specifics—”

Xie Lian nearly tore off the door of the vanity when he opened it to reveal…

…a completely normal mirror.

Xie Lian barely had a moment to process when he found himself roughly shoved to the side by Jun Wu. He couldn’t find his footing quickly enough, and fell to the floor hard. He only just managed to avoid landing all his weight on where Hua Cheng still wrapped around his middle; instead feeling the impact spark pain up his hip and spine. Jun Wu paid him no mind; instead, he clutched the sides of the mirror, white-knuckled. He wore the expression of a madman – wild-eyed and furious.

Without a single word, he pulled his fist back and brought it down upon the glass. A single flick of the pinkie from the Martial Emperor was enough to topple fortress walls. But the mirror did not crack.

Jun Wu’s jaw tightened enough that Xie Lian could hear his teeth grinding, like two swords against each other. The skin of his face was rippling and shivering like a disturbed pond, and – suddenly, horribly – the flesh of his cheek opened into a mouth; bursting forth with tongue and teeth.

“MURDERER! BLACK-HEARTED SINNER!”

Xie Lian had seen the Human Face Disease progress to the point where the lesions could shriek, to where they could babble nonsense. This, however, was the most erudite subject he’d ever encountered.

Jun Wu turned away from the mirror, and reached his fingers up to his cheek. He felt about blindly for the thrashing tongue, then grasped hold of it; only narrowly avoiding getting bitten in the process. He then pulled. The wet sound of tearing meat filled the room, punctuated by the sound of garbled shrieking from the bloody, toothy carbuncle on Jun Wu’s cheek. Jun Wu himself made no sound. He worked his jaw a few times, as if checking to make sure he hadn’t ripped out a tendon in the process, and tossed the tongue to the side. It splatted against the floor, still twitching.

Jun Wu composed himself. Spiritual energy crackled around him, healing his wound and re-applying the glamour that hid the curse and kept him pristine.

“Don’t let me see you out of bed again tonight,” Jun Wu said. “We’ll talk about your behavior in the morning.”

With that, he strode out of the room. The bedroom door did not slam, but clicked shut quietly. The rats scurried out of the shadows and greedily grabbed up the tongue, darting back out of sight.

“Gege. Look at me. Gege!”

Xie Lian blinked. How long had Hua Cheng been perched on his chest, staring at him and papping his nose with his paw?

“Sorry,” Xie Lian said. He picked himself up a bit, wincing as the motion sent more pain through his bruised hip. He settled Hua Cheng in his lap. “I…I shouldn’t have said anything about Head Priest…”

“Dianxia is not the guilty one in this situation,” Hua Cheng said in a deliberately measured tone. The fur along his back was raised, and his tail thrashed slowly but furiously. “This one should have not hid himself like a coward. If he lays hands on you again then his life is forfeit.”

“San Lang doesn’t need to fight this battle on my behalf,” Xie Lian said. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to pop out then, anyway. We still need to lay low and find a way to get Head Priest, and make a break for it…”

“Can dianxia please explain the situation with his teacher?” Hua Cheng asked. He tucked his tail under his paws, unable to keep it under control. “I’m afraid I was not present.”

Oh. Xie Lian felt a little foolish. He’d gotten so used to Hua Cheng being by his side all the time, that he…forgot that he sometimes wasn’t. So Xie Lian explained; or explained what he knew, which wasn’t terribly much. But Hua Cheng sat and listened, curled on Xie Lian’s lap, allowed him to smooth down his fur.

“…so, not a prison, but a hiding spot,” Hua Cheng observed. “There’s no way you could’ve known.”

Xie Lian smiled wryly. “That excuse only goes so far. I have no choice but to get Head Priest out of here, no matter what.”

“As his highness commands,” Hua Cheng replied. “I will follow you no matter what.”

Xie Lian did not doubt his sincerity. But he wondered if he’d still say that, knowing the whole of him.

He thought of his various failures as a son; how he drove his parents to humiliation and poverty, how he couldn’t spare them any kindness the night when they finally took their own lives. He thought of how Mu Qing and Feng Xin suffered and suffered until they could take no more and left and were immediately better for it. He thought of all he didn’t do for Qi Rong, and what he’d become.

He thought of the devotion of a masked ghost, and how he’d met it with nothing but coldness and disdain. He thought of how he’d forced him to sacrifice his very being to pay for his own sins. He thought of the white flowers he’d ground under his heel.

He was often staggered by his own capacity for cruelty. In this, Jun Wu spoke true.

 --

 Six hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Long An.

The kingdom had four treasures: brave heroes, epic tales, splendid banquets, and a mysterious ancient coral pearl.

 Dressed, ready, and with Hua Cheng re-stuffed down the breast of his robes, Xie Lian was ready to march out his bedroom door and start knocking on every mirror in the household to track down Head Priest. But the moment he flung open the door, he found himself facing not a long, dark hallway, but a quiet night garden.

“I should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy,” Xie Lian sighed.

Hua Cheng arranged himself so he could peer out from the collar of Xie Lian’s robes, and eyed their surroundings critically.

“We’re not alone,” he said.

Indeed, they were not. The false Qi Rong – the one wearing the face of his child self, mouth stitched shut – stared at them from behind a tree with an expression that could only be deemed as hungry. Xie Lian stared back, debating on whether it would be best to simply run away and do his level best to find an exit that would lead them back into the palace. Before he could make a break for it, false-Qi Rong pointed to the swing hanging from the tree.

Xie Lian’s heart twisted, despite himself. This wasn’t real. This was nothing but a puppet.

“…I’m sorry, I can’t right now,” Xie Lian said. “I need to go back to the palace.”

False-Qi Rong pointed at the swing again, insistently. Xie Lian steeled himself and began to walk away, but was stopped in place by a sharp squealing cry. He whirled around and saw false-Qi Rong tearing at the stitching around his mouth; his efforts doing nothing to break the thread, but succeeding immensely in bloodying his skin.

“Stop! Stop it!” Xie Lian rushed over and pulled his hands away. “San Lang, can you cut that stitching with your claws?”

Hua Cheng stretched out a paw from over Xie Lian’s collar, and extended his nails. “As gege commands. Bring him close and keep him from squirming.”

Hua Cheng’s claws were sharp, and made short work of the thread. False-Qi Rong patted his face with his hands for a few moments, not daring to speak just yet. Then, that half-smile-half-frown twisted in glee.

“…he told me to stay out here in case cousin crown prince wanted to swing,” false-Qi Rong said. “I stayed awake all night in case cousin crown prince wanted to swing.”

“I can’t right now,” Xie Lian said. “I need to get back to the palace.”

False-Qi Rong positioned himself behind the swing, waiting not-patiently. He tugged insistently at the braided silk ropes.

“Cousin crown prince said that I could always push him,” false-Qi Rong said.

“Another time,” Xie Lian said, before he rose to his feet.

“I’ll scream if cousin crown prince doesn’t get on the swing!” False-Qi Rong had already spiraled into hysterics, which was very much in line with the real Qi Rong. “I’ll scream and then he’ll come out and see that you’re out of bed!”

There was no question about who “he” was. Perhaps earlier, Xie Lian would have steamed on ahead; heedless of the threat. But right now Jun Wu’s temper was…unpredictable. And with Hua Cheng here to be protected, he could not take any chances.

Xie Lian stiffly sat down on the swing, and allowed false-Qi Rong to push him. False-Qi Rong, just like his true self back then, was not very good at pushing. Instead of giving measured pushes with his arms, keeping him on a steady straight path upward, he simply rammed his entire body into Xie Lian’s back, sending Xie Lian swinging in random directions. Occasionally, he’d fling his arms around Xie Lian’s middle with a joyful cry of “cousin, cousin!” and be dragged along the ground behind him as the swing whirled from the momentum.

How could eight-hundred-year-old memories still be so painful?

It didn’t take long for the false-Qi Rong to tire himself out. He dangled limply from Xie Lian’s waist, his arms locked there tight. Xie Lian twisted in place, looking down to see those massive dark eyes and eerie, twisted smile staring straight back at him.

Out of all the puppets, Jun Wu seemed to have the least control over this one. Moreover, Jun Wu himself seemed…like he might be otherwise occupied right now.

“Thank you for pushing me,” Xie Lian said. “Have you seen Head Priest around?”

The false Qi Rong smiled even wider.

“Pat my head. Pat my head and I’ll tell cousin crown prince what happened to that moldy old man.”

Xie Lian lowered his hand and began to stroke the puppet’s hair. The false-Qi Rong made a blissful noise, and pressed his head up desperately into Xie Lian’s half-hearted pats.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng said quietly. “I understand your motives. But tread cautiously.”

“Of course,” Xie Lian said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“Gege, you know full well that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s what I meant,” Xie Lian countered.

After a few more strokes, false-Qi Rong finally spoke, no louder than a whisper.

“He got mad at that sad look. Your old teacher wouldn’t stop with his sad faces. He got so, so mad. He sewed a mask on him so none of us would have to see.”

“…and then?”

“Then your stupid teacher ran away and hid. He got even madder. Then he went to go see cousin crown prince. Now he’s even more mad.”

The false Qi Rong shivered. Xie Lian felt a twinge in his heart. This was nothing but a puppet, enchanted into existence by a man hellbent on breaking his mind. All the same, Xie Lian couldn’t help but feel compassion for it. A puppet in the shape of a child he once knew, a child who Xie Lian once felt responsible for, once upon a time. Brutalized, terrorized, forced into the garden at night like an unloved dog.

Slowly, Xie Lian bent down, and wrapped his arms around the false Qi Rong. He felt him stop shivering. He felt him go completely still. He felt his small hands creep up to his sleeves and fist there.

“I love you, cousin crown prince,” the false Qi Rong whispered. “Can’t you stay here with us? I’ll stay out here and I’ll push you whenever you want.”

“I’m so sorry,” Xie Lian said. “I can’t.”

“Then I’ll leave with you. It’s so scary here.”

Xie Lian closed his eyes. A single thought from Jun Wu would cause the enchantment to dissipate and these puppets to dissolve into dust. He had no spiritual energy of his own, certainly not enough to support a being like this.

But he couldn’t live with himself for the next eight hundred years if he didn’t try.

Xie Lian moved from the swing to kneel on the ground, putting himself at eye level with the false Qi Rong. The false Qi Rong wiped his damp face and nose with his sleeve. Still had those awful habits of his.

“Do you know how to get out of here?” Xie Lian asked.

False-Qi Rong gave a shaky sigh and nodded, but was otherwise silent.

“You can’t tell me, can you,” Xie Lian observed. “He won’t let you.”

Another nod.

“Well,” Xie Lian said. “You can meet us there, then. Go wait by the way out. I need to find teacher first, then I’ll come find you. I’ll find my way there and we’ll all leave together.”

The false Qi Rong gave a loud snorting sniffle, then wiped at his face again. “I can leave with cousin crown prince?”

“We can try,” Xie Lian said. “You might not…be able to last long on the outside.”

“I know,” the false Qi Rong said. “Some of the other mes and the other others before us tried to run away. I’ve seen what happens. But they didn’t have cousin crown prince with them.”

Xie Lian was silent. Finally, the false Qi Rong disengaged his grip on his sleeves, and hesitantly moved a few steps back.

“Cousin crown prince is the best,” the false Qi Rong said. “I’m really happy that I could meet him.”

With that, the false Qi Rong bolted into the bushes like a fleeing animal. Xie Lian called for him, and heard no response.

The palace loomed over the garden’s tree-line.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian said. “Is it possible that…those puppets are truly acting on their own?”

Or is it just another one of his head-games, was the unspoken but obvious addition to that inquiry. Luckily, as always, Hua Cheng understood him.

“Puppet magic seems to be quite popular with those of his generation,” Hua Cheng noted. “But there’s such a thing as being too skilled. Perfectly imbuing them with all the memories and mannerisms of a person, then hooking them up to a spiritual energy source of that magnitude…it’s not surprising that they’ve started acting out.

“In addition, there’s the matter of the personality they’ve been assigned. A construct modeled after your cousin should be expected to be especially disruptive and unmanageable.” Hua Cheng gave a heavy sigh. “Ah, but gege must never let his real cousin know that I ever implied any compliment.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Xie Lian assured him. “He wouldn’t believe us even if we told him.”

 --

 Fifteen hundred years ago, a new and glorious Heavenly Kingdom was founded.

The kingdom had four curses: idleness, corruption, excess, and its two-faced emperor.

 Leaving the garden was so simple: simply opening the elegant doors back into the palace brought him back to where they left off. They found themselves in a hallway, meticulously decorated with all manner of things that Jun Wu was so certainly convinced would suit Xie Lian’s tastes. That being: swords. Swords, swords, swords. Vases of flowers with arrangements of colorful spring blooms; none of which included the tiny white flowers Xie Lian adored the most. Then more swords.

“It’s like he thinks I never matured,” Xie Lian griped. “Even when I was seventeen I had other interests!”

Hua Cheng was on guard again; tense and ready to pounce. He eyed every sword warily as they passed, as if they’d spring off the wall at any moment.

“…San Lang’s home is much more tastefully decorated,” Xie Lian said, hoping to soothe some of the tension.

Hua Cheng did give a brief huff of laughter at that; or a chuffling noise that passed for laughter.

“I can assure dianxia that ‘taste’ never factors into the equation when it comes to my approach to home décor.”

They did not have a chance to continue the discussion. They both fell silent as their ears caught the sound of Jun Wu having a furious one-sided argument, just a hallway away. Xie Lian looked around for a good hiding spot, and, in a split-second decision, he settled upon one of the vases with the garish blooming arrangements. He wriggled his way into the tall vase, and stoppered it back up with the flowers to complete the ruse.

“Gege does manage to find creative solutions.” Hua Cheng seemed to be holding himself back from laughing, despite their situation.

“If San Lang was bigger, I would have needed to be even more creative,” Xie Lian whispered back.

The vase allowed them to hide, and also allowed them to eavesdrop. Xie Lian strained his ears, trying to determine who Jun Wu was arguing with, to determine who had made him so furious.

“…you think you can just stay in there forever, don’t you. It’s all you know how to do. Run and hide. Thought you could just run and hide forever and that I’d forget. That I’d just forget! As if I didn’t recognize you the instant you came to tutor my Xian Le. Did you think I’d let you hurt him the way you all hurt me? And you did. You did! His world fell apart and you just judged and lectured and ran away again! Imagine how much kinder the world would have seemed, if his beloved teacher had stayed by his side in his time of need. I should have struck you down the moment you set foot on those temple steps. But my Xian Le needed a good education, needed the best. He needed to cultivate and ascend. There was no other way; by my side, I could protect him from the world. From you.”

It sounded like Jun Wu smashed one of the floral vases. His heavy breathing was so loud that it seemed to echo through the halls. After a long moment, he continued in a carefully measured tone.

“What bliss it must be, to be able to consider the time we spent side-by-side nothing but ancient history…to play the role of wandering cultivator, to make little dolls of our brotherhood and play with them all day. It must be so much more pleasant, without me to intrude on the four of you. You want me to just forget! It’s so easy for you to just forget! Do you think it’s that simple for me, or Xian Le!? He still freezes up like a frightened little bunny at the very thought of my creation, even after eight hundred years. And after two thousand years, the hatred you all have for me is still carved upon my face.”

It seemed like an eternity before they heard Jun Wu’s steps trudge down the hall; crunching on the shattered vase pieces before disappearing out of earshot. Xie Lian waited a few more minutes before moving to peek out of their hiding spot, and then, carefully climb out, supporting Hua Cheng with one hand the whole way.

“Are you alright?” Hua Cheng asked quietly.

“He’s getting senile in his old age if that’s how he remembers things,” Xie Lian said. “‘Freezes like a bunny’. I kicked him into a tree! And I’d like to understand how he thinks a bunny could control a statue the size of a mountain—”

“Gege! Stop joking around!”

Hua Cheng’s tone was so frustrated, so serious, that Xie Lian was taken off-guard. Hesitantly, he looked down to meet Hua Cheng’s gaze.

“If you’re hurt, if you’re scared, if you’re sad, if you’re angry, please, tell me properly,” he said. “You saw the cave, and you now understand my feelings towards you fully: I love you, no matter what. I am truly a simple man when it comes to this.”

Xie Lian was silent.

“Do you believe me?” Hua Cheng asked.

“…I believe San Lang loves what he knows of me,” Xie Lian finally said.

He loved the dazzling prince that saved him as he fell, he loved the steadfast warrior that descended in a futile attempt to save his country, even if it ended the way it did. He loved him so much that it built the foundation of his continued existence in the world. This, Xie Lian believed.

He did not know of the fallen wretch that became the White-Clothed Calamity. He did not know the cruelty he was capable of. If he ever found this out, Xie Lian knew the consequences: Hua Cheng’s love for him would evaporate, and with it, that foundation…and then…

“I love the whole of you,” Hua Cheng said. “There is nothing, nothing, that could change this.”

“Thank you,” said Xie Lian, for he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I feel the same,” he said, because it was the truth.

They came across a spot in the hall strewn with broken porcelain and crushed flowers. A mirror hung on the wall. Clearly, they’d happened upon the spot from where Jun Wu had just departed. Hesitantly, Xie Lian peeped into the mirror.

“…Head Priest?” he whispered.

There came no answer, and there was no sign of him in the glass. There were, however, several fist marks in the glass, and spindling cracks like spiderwebs. An entirely ordinary mirror, holding no Head Priest, and wholly vulnerable to the misplaced fury of a ranting madman.

“Lianlian?”

Xie Lian felt his blood go cold at the sound of his mother’s voice calling for him.

“Lianlian? Are you out there? I heard you. Your mother’s here with your supper still.”

Slowly, Xie Lian walked toward the source of the voice. He peered into the room from where it had called him, from where she was still calling. Lianlian, Lianlian, it’s getting cold.

It was the room he’d seen when he first entered the palace; the grand receiving room, where his false parents had sat with their twisted smiles and empty black eyes. They still sat, exactly where he’d left them. The bowls of rotten-smelling sludge still sat, exactly where he’d left them. His false mother tittered in excitement at the sight of him.

“Darling! Darling, wake up. Lianlian’s here again.”

His false father was sleeping, face-down in his bowl. His snores blew bubbles in the sludge, sending more foul smells airborne as they popped. His false mother giggled; one voluminous sleeve over her mouth, as befitting a refined lady.

“Oh, your father’s always so hard to wake up. But he’ll be so excited to hear that you came to visit!”

Xie Lian took one step forward, then another, making his way to sit at the table with his parents. He stroked Hua Cheng’s furry head, silently pleading with him to trust him. Hua Cheng silently understood.

His false mother happily pushed over “his” bowl, and, with a proud flourish, plucked a flower from the table centerpiece and placed it atop the mountain of sludge.

“Presentation is important,” she said. “It’s called ‘The Reflective Pond That Allows One a Glimpse of the Heavens’.”

The flower was dissolved by the sludge in a matter of seconds, sending up green smoke and a burning smell. Xie Lian idly wondered what his false father’s face would look like right now, if he were to wake up.

“Thank you,” Xie Lian said. “How long has he kept you here?”

“It’s been eight hundred years since then, Lianlian. You should know that, silly thing.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Xie Lian kept his voice deliberately even, calm. “How long has he kept you here?”

His false mother’s smile faltered, if only for a second.

“I don’t know what you mean,” his false mother said. “Eat your supper, Lianlian. It’s getting cold.”

“You’ve been here longer than the others,” Xie Lian observed. “Long enough to know things. Long enough to know that playing along was your only option.”

His mother was always the picture of courtly grace. She knew how to entertain guests, how to comfort her husband, how to pamper her son. She knew how to read a situation, how to be spared as a target by the backstabbing Xian Le court. She knew how to play dumb.

It did not surprise Xie Lian in the least that she was the longest-lived of the puppets here.

“It’s getting cold, Lianlian,” she said.

“Do you know where Head Priest has hidden himself?” Xie Lian asked. “Once I find him, I’m going to get us all out of here.”

“It’s getting cold, Lianlian,” she said.

“I’ve already told…my cousin to meet us at the exit,” Xie Lian said, not quite ready to call the false Qi Rong by that name, not yet. “You’re welcome to join us. My father, Feng Xin, Mu Qing; they’re all welcome. I…I can’t guarantee that any of you will survive out there, not for long, but it’ll be better than living like this…”

“It’s getting cold, Lianlian!” his mother nearly shrieked, grabbing onto his hand and shoving his spoon into it. “Eat it before it’s cold!!”

Baffled by this outburst, Xie Lian stared at the spoon, then his bowl. The sludge looked…odd; odder than normal, anyway. It looked like someone had buried something underneath it.

Xie Lian dug away a little pit in the center of the bowl; moving the gelatinous goo around until he saw a reflective, shiny surface. A hand mirror. And clearly one that was enchanted heavily enough to keep it pristine against the onslaught of the stew that hid it.

Xie Lian carefully pulled the mirror out, and wiped it down with his napkin.

“—your highness!” wheezed Mei Nian Qing. He gasped for breath behind the glass. “Thank goodness. I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted…”

“Good to see you well, Head Priest sir,” Hua Cheng greeted him warmly. “I will be happy to remove that unsightly mask for you, if you’d take a moment to come out of that mirror.”

Although his expression was obscured by the mask still sewn to his face, Mei Nian Qing’s confusion was clear in the tilt of his head.

“Lianlian never said anything about wanting pets,” his false mother said at the sight of Hua Cheng poking his head out of Xie Lian’s robes. “Does Lianlian remember his fourth birthday? He’d been given a pure white pony of the finest pedigree, with a golden saddle and bridle, and little bells to jingle when it pranced. The moment we put Lianlian in the saddle, he cried and cried…”

These puppets having the memories of their true selves was essential to breaking free of Jun Wu’s control, but perhaps there were some drawbacks. Oh, how he hoped Hua Cheng would forget about that little anecdote. But he knew he wouldn’t. Xie Lian felt his ears burn.

“This…isn’t a pet,” Xie Lian finally said. “Head Priest, this is San Lang; he transformed to sneak inside, and then got stuck…”

Xie Lian caught Mei Nian Qing up on all that had happened in the past few hours, told him of Jun Wu’s increasingly erratic behavior, told him of his plans. When he finished, Mei Nian Qing remained silent.

“…they won’t survive outside of this home,” Mei Nian Qing said quietly. “Please trust in my experience on the subject of puppets. Even if your…gentleman ghost friend…were to support them with all of his considerable spiritual power, it would not be compatible. They would fall apart like clay.”

Xie Lian’s fingers stopped brushing through Hua Cheng’s fur.

“…I thought that might be the case,” Xie Lian replied. “But…”

“If we escape, he is certain to destroy every last one of them in his rage,” Mei Nian Qing said. “Whether they colluded with us or not. Die inside, die outside. Unless we consent to be jailed here for the rest of eternity, their fate will be the same.”

A heavy weight pulled on Xie Lian’s heart. More deaths. More deaths for people who committed the crime of having been associated with him, once upon a time.

“Your cat. Is he handsome, when he is in the form of a man?”

Xie Lian stared at his false mother, trying to parse her question. She gazed at him evenly. Even with those black empty eyes and twisted smile, she seemed tender and sincerely curious.

“…yes,” said Xie Lian, finally. “He is.”

“Gege flatters me,” Hua Cheng said. “I am nothing in comparison to his beauty, I assure you, my lady queen.”

“Does he take care of you?” his false mother asked, voice soft and urgent. “Does he speak to you gently, and support you no matter what?”

Xie Lian clutched Hua Cheng closer and closer with every phrase.

“Yes,” he said.

“And I will continue to do so,” Hua Cheng said. “For eight hundred years and many more.”

His false mother nodded.

“I…know I’m not your true mother,” she said. “But I have her memories, and I love you as she did. And I think…for her, it would be enough to see you one more time, and to know that you have someone who loves you so completely. Knowing that, I could…I could…ccccc…ccccccccc…”

His false mother’s jaw suddenly went slack. It went slack, then drooped, and drooped; until it dropped from her face and fell into her supper bowl. She stared at it for a moment as it dissolved there, then turned to look once more at Xie Lian with black, black eyes. They could still shed tears.

“…uvvvvv…annnnn….”

She began to melt like clay, like mud. Xie Lian wailed in dismay, lunging forward to try and hold her together with nothing but his embrace. It was over in seconds. His false mother was gone. His false father, melted into his soup. The false Qi Rong…the false Qi Rong…

“I told Xian Le that he wasn’t allowed to leave his room again. What a mess he’s made. I think I stepped in his cousin on the way here.”

Xie Lian’s fists clenched at the sound of Jun Wu’s voice. Jun Wu strolled into the room, tsking his tongue in disappointment.

“I made them so you’d have someone to love you, even when I was away,” he said. “And all you can think about is how to best kill them. I can’t imagine what they thought of you, hearing you talk like that about them.”

“Fuck you fucking gutter pig,” Xie Lian spat.

Jun Wu frowned. “I was going to make you some fresh ones, but if you’re going to curse at me, then maybe you need some time alone for a few months.”

Jun Wu moved to grab Xie Lian’s arm. Xie Lian wasn’t fast enough to take a swing at him before Hua Cheng lunged out of his hiding spot in the breast of his robes.

Jun Wu stumbled back with a shout. As if part of a coordinated sneak attack, Ruoye whipped out of Xie Lian’s sleeves without being directed, and wrapped himself around Jun Wu’s wrists to bind them behind his back; allowing Hua Cheng to flay apart Jun Wu’s face and eyes with abandon. Xie Lian leapt to his feet, joining the fray with a windup kick to the gut. Ostensibly the goal was to aim for his meridians to block his spiritual energy, but there were few things more satisfying than knocking the wind out of someone you really, truly disliked.

Even as a spiritual weapon, Ruoye had limits. Xie Lian felt him begin to tear. If he tore, there was no one to repair him, and – and Hua Cheng – he had to think fast.

“San Lang, get away! Ruoye, return!”

Coordinated enough to sneak attack, but not coordinated enough. Perhaps Ruoye was too swift in his retreat, perhaps Hua Cheng was too slow in his. Regardless of the cause, the result was Jun Wu seizing Hua Cheng by the scruff, and hurling him across the room hard enough that he crashed into the jaded ornamentation on the wall. Hua Cheng slumped to the ground, unmoving.

“San Lang!” Xie Lian cried.

“Inviting friends over without asking me first,” Jun Wu snarled. His face resembled bloodied, butchered meat; both his eyes were utterly mangled and sightless. “Horrible little Xian Le. What does he think of you now, seeing all you’ve done tonight?”

It was hard to tell, amidst the damage already done, but three more mouths had appeared on Jun Wu’s face. Mouths and eyes and tiny arms and legs; sprouting from his wounds like little flailing worms.

“MURDERER!”

“BLACK HEART!”

“SINNER! LIAR!”

The mouths screamed and cursed and screamed.

“WHAT WILL HE THINK OF YOU, XIAN LE? SEEING YOU AT YOUR WORST?” Jun Wu shouted, trying to make himself heard above the chorus. “Your dear teacher saw me at my worst and fled, fled for twelve hundred years, acted like we’d never known each other! Acted like we never meant a thing to each other! That’s our fate, Xian Le, that’s what happens to us! Abandoned and forgotten, until we force them to remember!”

Xie Lian cradled Hua Cheng’s tiny, bloodied body, fully ready to defend him with his very life.

“You’re a monster who ruins lives,” Xie Lian spat. “Of course no one would want to stay with you.”

Jun Wu laughed, and laughed, getting louder and louder by the second.

“I’m the monster? I’m the monster that ruins lives?” he asked. “Have you told your sweet Crimson Rain about your tenure as a Supreme-to-be?”

With a wave of his hand, Jun Wu conjured another puppet:

A puppet of a young man, clad in black, with a smiling white mask.

Xie Lian froze in place. He could barely hear anything over the hammering of his heart.

“Go ahead, Xian Le,” Jun Wu said. “Treat him as you did. Call him worthless, call him useless, crush his offerings under your heel. Offer him your hand to kiss and then use it to strike him across the cheek. Order him to sacrifice himself to atone for your own sins. This is the great god you worship, Crimson Rain.”

Here he was, standing before him. The reminder that he was a failure in all things: a failure as a god, a failure as a demon, a failure as a decent human being. Here he was, standing before him, the truth of what he really was; laid plain before Hua Cheng.

The jig was up. It was finally over, and it was just as painful as Xie Lian feared.

Perhaps Hua Cheng would hate him less if he was forthcoming with an explanation. It was worth a shot. Xie Lian squeezed his eyes shut, took a shaky breath, and began to explain.

“San Lang…back then, after Xian Le fell, I…I was so hateful and bent on revenge, and I made a pact with a ghost—”

“I was…taller…than that…”

Hua Cheng’s voice was more resonant, now; richer. Xie Lian looked down. Hua Cheng, human and handsome as could be, smiled up at him. Smiled like…

Smiled like…

With effort, Hua Cheng slid off Xie Lian’s lap and slowly made his way over to where the puppet of that nameless ghost stood; silent and motionless. Hua Cheng looked it over, critically, and plucked the mask from its face. There was nothing beneath it but blank blackness – of course Jun Wu did not know his face, for the ghost had never removed his mask, even for Xie Lian. Hua Cheng put the mask on his own face, and turned to show himself.

“I love you, no matter what,” Hua Cheng said. “Do you believe me?”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian said, wretchedly.

“I’m here,” he said.

“I’m so sorry for everything, back then. I didn’t deserve your love.”

“I love you, no matter what. God or demon, prince or pauper. Enshrined in the heavens, cast down into the dirt. ‘Deserving’ or not. The point of it is that it’s you.”

Hua Cheng went to his knees in front of Xie Lian, hand to his heart.

“I’ll say it as much as you need to hear it,” Hua Cheng said. “And then more, for my own pleasure. I love you, no matter what. Life into death and far beyond.”

Xie Lian flung his arms around Hua Cheng, dragging him in for a kiss.

Jun Wu was not the type to allow these interludes.

“Isn’t Xian Le lucky, to have such a faithful believer?”

Xie Lian drew back from Hua Cheng’s mouth, glared hatefully at the monster still lurking in their midst.

“Xian Le is so…dreadfully…horribly…lucky…” Jun Wu hissed, stumbling blindly forward. His face was still a jumbled mess of flesh; sporting eyes and mouths that were not his, arms that tore fresh wounds and tore at his eyes just as quickly as Jun Wu tried to heal himself. “Do you think…if I had a believer half as faithful, for all those lonely years…that things would have turned out like this?”

Xie Lian couldn’t answer. Jun Wu laughed quietly at the silence.

“Ah, but you wouldn’t be able to relate. I suppose we aren’t quite as similar as I once thought.”

Jun Wu stumbled into the dining table, adding bruised shins to his list of injuries. He toppled to the ground, and lay there, still; allowing the wretched carbuncles to tear at his face.

There was a great and terrible silence.

“I’m so tired, Xian Le…it’s been a very long night. Your host needs to rest a while. Can I trouble you to adjourn to your Puji Shrine?”

It almost seemed too good to be true. Xie Lian cautiously rose to his feet, helping Hua Cheng up in the process. Jun Wu twitched his fingers against the floor, and a door appeared; inlaid into a previously-blank stretch of wall. The door opened to show the streets of the heavenly capital; being cleared of Jun Wu’s supporters by an army of sentient farm produce in war armor. They saw the Rainmaster pass, atop her ox, with Ling Wen hogtied behind her.

Xie Lian turned to look briefly back at Jun Wu. Once his idol, once a mentor, once someone who cared.

“I won’t be coming back,” Xie Lian said.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Jun Wu said. “I don’t think I was a very gracious host today. Farewell, Xian Le.”

Before he turned to leave, Xie Lian gestured at the silent figure standing over Jun Wu’s prone body.

Head Priest? he mouthed silently at him. Come on. I don’t think he knows you’re here.

Mei Nian Qing smiled faintly. The mask was off his face, now; set carefully on the dining table. The remnants of the stitching were still visible on his skin.

He saluted Xie Lian.

Farewell, he mouthed back.  

“Your highness,” murmured Hua Cheng.

Xie Lian nodded, and returned his teacher’s salute. With that, he walked out the door with Hua Cheng in tow. The moment they set foot outside, the palace door clicked shut with an air of finality.

When they looked back, it was gone – gone, as if it had never existed at all.

 --

 Two thousand years ago, there was a kingdom known as Wuyong.

The kingdom had four treasures: beautiful women, music, riches, and its crown prince.

 “Your highness. I hope this teaches you to use puppet magic more cautiously. It’s very exhausting to one’s spiritual energy reserves, even for one like you.”

Mei Nian Qing touched his arm, just lightly enough to let him know where he was.

“…Nian Qing,” Jun Wu said. “I can’t see, so you’ll need to tell me. Crimson Rain was that ghost?”

“It seems so.”

Jun Wu snorted a brief laugh. “He was that street urchin, he was that soldier, he was that ghost fire, he was that ghost general…honestly, you’d need to be a fortune teller to predict such a thing.”

“Mmm.”

“And I haven’t had one of those by my side for years.”

“If you’d ever listened to my lectures, you would’ve been able to do it yourself.”

“Oh, for the clarity of hindsight.”

Heedless of the blood, the flailing limbs and spitting mouths, Mei Nian Qing reached to touch Jun Wu’s chin.

“Your highness,” Mei Nian Qing quietly said. “I think it’s time for us to rest. Both of us.”

Jun Wu covered Mei Nian Qing’s hand with his own, and tilted his head towards the warmth he felt, radiating from Mei Nian Qing’s thigh. He heaved a heavy sigh, and was then silent.

 --

 Four hundred years ago, there emerged a dazzling city in the realm of the ghosts.

The city had four treasures: freedom, riches, gourmet soup, and its beloved king.

 “San Lang,” Xie Lian said flatly.

“Her name is Porkbun,” Hua Cheng said, referring to the white pony that he had allowed onto their bed. “Does gege like his anniversary present?”

For the first time in their new life together, Xie Lian considered divorce.

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title : Making sense

Author : @alyssaleandra (komakaikoma on twitter)

For : @fhantomhives

Rating/Warnings : G, mentions of Hinata’s surgical scars

Prompt : for the fic - first date; for the fanart - soft forehead touch

Author/Artist’s note : I hope the recipient enjoys!! I tried to make something very gentle and heartwarming! There is an image embedded within the story.

-

Things are hard when the former Class 77-B ship off to real life Jabberwock Island. Unlike its virtual counterpart, it’s been abandoned for who knows how long, and it shows. There’s insect infestations to counteract, living quarters to rebuild, water sources to purify… Hinata never imagined he’d see his friends farming, but here they are with Imposter (who everyone still affectionately refers to as Togami because it’s familiar) assigning tilling duties for the week. They can’t rely on Naegi and the others on mainland to supply too much, lest they out their location to those who’d prefer to see the Remnants of Despair at the bottom of the ocean.

Hinata knows that the others are looking to him for some measure of guidance, even if no one’s said anything outright. He’s Kamukura Izuru, after all. The Ultimate of Ultimates. The one who babysat everyone’s pods until each was safely out of cryosleep and in recovery plans that mainly he (and later Tsumiki) was responsible for formulating. But if he’s being honest with himself, he’s had his fair share of being an Ultimate, and he’s happy to take the supporting role to more charismatic figures like Sonia and Togami. The irony of longing for a normal life is not lost on him, but he thinks undergoing a major brain surgery, surviving a killing game, and getting spit out into a completely changed real world is enough excitement for a lifetime. He’s earned a bit of normalcy.

…So of course he’d find himself fawning over Komaeda Nagito, of all people, once things have settled down around Jabberwock. Hinata’s bewildered by it when he realizes what’s happened; it’s like an errant seed found root in his heart while he was distracted with fixing cottage roofs, then budded while he was modifying meal plans, and then the second he had a chance to breathe and check in on himself, full blown feelings had blossomed right under his nose.

It’s hard, and a little frustrating, that it had to be Komaeda, because nothing’s ever been easy with Komaeda. Hinata had nursed something of a crush on the boy when they’d “met” in the virtual world and he thought that Komaeda was just a kindhearted oddball with a pretty face. That whole thing got dashed to pieces during their time in the program once he realized there was at least a few dozen more layers to Komaeda he had yet to scratch the surface of, let alone come close to ever comprehending. It was unthinkable, for a time, that he’d ever be able to feel anything other than confusion with a tinge of what he can only describe as unease towards Komaeda. Now, though, with everyone recovering and filling in the cracks left by their past lives, he feels a bit like he first did on that digital shoreline in the beginning.

Except, no, it’s more profound this time because he feels like really understanding Komaeda is something that’s within arm’s reach for him, rather than an amorphous, far-off concept.

He can’t pretend to fully follow all of the hope-obsessed boy’s fervid ramblings about life and fate, but… nowadays, it’s almost endearing. It’s just routine enough that it’s become comforting. Like Komaeda’s some piece of music that was too dense and intimidating for Hinata to really appreciate the first time he heard it, but now he’s developed the taste for it.

It helps that Komaeda’s achingly pretty, and Hinata’s always been slightly weak for the quirky pretty ones. Even during their conflicts in the program, Hinata had to reel himself out of those serene gray eyes sometimes—really yank himself out of a few unwanted idle daydreams about the Ultimate Luck who caused everyone so much grief, and yet—and yet—Hinata never could shake the desperate desire to figure him out. He’d always thought if he could solve the inscrutable puzzle that was Komaeda, just maybe they could be on equal footing again someday.

And so, it’s somewhat frustrating that it had to be Komaeda because Hinata knows by now how complicated Komaeda likes to make things for himself (and everyone around him), but it also makes perfect sense that the living science experiment known as Hinata Hajime would set his sights on the shining beacon of maladaptive coping mechanisms known as Komaeda Nagito. Since when has Hinata ever taken the path of least resistance for anything?

They aimlessly spend time together just like they did back in the program before things really went south. They do chores together, tag-team scavenging together, and spend cool off periods walking down the beach together. Komaeda still tends to fret over doing anything where his misfortune flares could pose a threat to Hinata, but they’ve managed to go unscathed thus far.

They’re sitting hip-to-hip on the sand and watching the sunset after a particularly lengthy conversation about their childhoods, when it occurs to Hinata that this is basically a date. He feels his heart kickstart at the notion and a heat creep across his face, and he’s suddenly scared to move or even so much as glance at the boy next to him, lest Komaeda be made aware of Hinata’s sudden onslaught of self-consciousness. He’s kept completely quiet about his festering feelings for Komaeda and never once dared to imply that anything between them means any more or less than what he has with everyone else on the island. He’s shy, sure, but he also just isn’t certain of Komaeda can handle that kind of information. He can practically see the spiral that would unfurl if Komaeda were to confront the reality of knowing that someone cared for him.

“Oh, sorry, did I say too much? Ahaha… I never know when to stop talking…”

Hinata’s ears tune in to the sad note in Komaeda’s voice, and he realizes he’s been spacing out. “No, no! I just got lost in thought, sorry about that.” His throat feels tight, and there’s a dozen things he wants to say but doesn’t know how to. “Um… Komaeda?”

“Yes?” Komaeda tilts his head, attentive.

“I was wondering if… well, if you wanted to—to come over to my cottage tonight?” It’s funny, really, the way everyday words rattle up his ribs and get stuck on his tongue like they’re something profound or difficult, given everything else he’s been through by comparison. It’s funny and embarrassing and so normal that it would make Hinata laugh if he weren’t preoccupied with not humiliating himself in front of Komaeda right now. “Just to… I dunno, hang out. Maybe we could… watch one of the movies that Asahina-san sent over for us.”

Komaeda’s eyes widen just a little as he processes this invitation before relaxing back to their usual calm state. “Hinata-kun, aren’t we hanging out already? Or am I mistaken?”

“W-well, yeah! But this is…” Hinata’s voice drops to a fragile murmur, “…different.”

“Different? Hmm… I see.” Hinata isn’t sure what it is that Komaeda sees, and that makes him nervous. The slightly taller boy stands up and dusts sand off his bottom. “I’d be happy to accompany you.”

And he smiles, framed by oncoming nighttime and high tide, and Hinata’s heart stutters. Okay, cool, he accepted it without being weird. Even if I didn’t really explicitly call it a date or anything. God, my collar feels tight right now. He tugs at the offending collar and tries for a casual smile. “Cool. Cool.”

They follow the road back to the inland.

Silence transpires, and in the bit of quiet, Hinata takes note of Komaeda’s hands swinging gently at his sides. Hinata’s never thought about the idea of holding them before, at least not in public, but once it crosses his mind, he can’t stop thinking about it. How would Komaeda react if he just… went for it? Would he be startled? Angry? Beyond that, how would it feel? Would it be clammy? Soft? Would it feel good? …Well, the hand closest to him is the metal one, so that’s irrelevant.

A past Hinata might have been content to let the idea remain as just an idea, but the Hinata now knows that if he wants something, he should probably chase after it without sweating the details so much. He reaches out and takes the mechanical left hand into his right. It takes Komaeda a moment to notice, due to a lack of nerve endings.

“Oh…” he says faintly, too caught off guard for much else.

“Sh-should I not…?”

They’ve both stopped walking so that Komaeda can stare down at their point of contact. He’s yet to put on any kind of discernible emotion about it. “No, it’s okay. It’s—nice. But it’s scary, too.”

“Scary??” Hinata’s grip loosens, prepared to drop the other boy’s hand and forget he ever tried.

“Because it’s so nice.” Slowly, carefully, internal mechanisms work together to tighten Komaeda’s hold on Hinata so that the connection isn’t lost. “It’s… hard to not wonder when my luck might strike again. And I know you have luck now, too, somewhere inside of you… But…” He shakes his head and dismisses the thought. “Never mind. Let’s get going.”

Hinata wants to protest and prod Komaeda into finishing what he was saying, but the gentle pull of Komaeda’s hand takes his attention by the reins. He hasn’t rejected Hinata, and he isn’t running away. That small realization fills Hinata with relief that he didn’t know he was hoping for. His step feels lighter as he catches up to his friend’s side.

-

Hinata sets up a tape on an old CRT that Souda put together, sits on the floor with Komaeda, and immediately finds himself regretting suggesting a movie. It’s impossible to focus with so many things weighing on his mind and the subject of his inner turmoil right next to him.

As if sensing Hinata’s thoughts, Komaeda leans against him, so warm and tangible on his shoulder. It seems he’s equally unengaged with the movie before them. “Hey, Hinata-kun. Would you mind telling me that you hate me?”

“…Huh?” The odd request catches Hinata off guard. “Why on earth would I ever say that??”

“It’d be the greatest comfort to me right now. The bad luck of being hated by you… maybe it’d make everything even. Maybe I could enjoy being at your side like this a little longer without fearing what might come next. But I’m too much of a coward to actually try to make you hate me anymore.” He outstretches his right hand, flexing and relaxing the muscles. Even as he talks of being hated, he nuzzles closer into Hinata’s shoulder, as if afraid Hinata really will say he hates him. “I used to try so hard to invite disaster in my life when things were going too well. It scared me so much to enjoy the quiet moments. It scares me even now, to be close to you and have your friendship. I always tell myself that I need to stop being selfish and push you away for your own good, but… then I see you every morning, still alive, still smiling, and my greedy heart can’t help but want to bask in you.”

He shifts and makes direct eye contact with Hinata. As frank as he can be at times, Komaeda always tends to direct his gaze elsewhere during conversations. His hand, or his feet, or just somewhere in the far distance. It always makes him feel unreachable. But this time, his stare is open and earnest. “After everything that happened, I wonder what my standing with luck even is anymore. I died in the program… but then I was alive. But then I had the apocalypse and my own horrible actions to clean up after.” He reflexively rubs where metal and flesh meet on his left arm. “So in the end, was that all good luck or…”

And Komaeda cuts himself off, like he’ll never find an answer unless he just takes action already, and he leans into Hinata and brushes trembling lips against a dumbstruck mouth. His eyes are rife with a dozen conflicting emotions, as Komaeda often is, but this time it feels as though one wrong move will make him burst and everything will come spilling out unfiltered. His eyes widen in something akin to surprise, as if he wasn’t in control of his own actions. Before Komaeda has the chance to overthink things or run away, Hinata catches him by a jacket lapel and pulls him close. He uses his other hand to wrap gently around the back of Komaeda’s head, reveling in soft white curls, and pulls their foreheads together.

“Do you feel them? The scars, I mean.” Hinata pulls his short bangs aside. “Sometimes I forget they’re there. But they remind me of everything we all went through… that we’ve seen hell and death and everything in between, and we’re still here. In the grand scheme of things,” he gestures between them, “this isn’t going to be what ends the world. …At least, that’s what I think.”

Komaeda’s quiet, for a bit. He inhales like he forgot to breathe. Then he breaks, and laughs, and laughs. His eyes water from the force of it. “Aha-hahaha! Hahaha! Ha…” He holds Hinata for support, and Hinata holds him back. Once the fit has passed, he sniffs and straightens up, face still slightly quirked with hysteria. “Perhaps—perhaps you’re right. Maybe it’s arrogant to think luck cares that much about what makes me happy. Maybe it never cared. I’ve been wondering about that lately. It’s a scary thought.”

On the surface, it’s a pessimistic notion, but for Komaeda to yield to the idea that, to some extent, things just happen and that he should do something that makes him happy without psyching himself out of it for once, is the kind of paradigm shift Hinata expects only a virtual death and rebirth could have brought about. “Luck never cared about what any of us wanted. Not just me. And maybe it’s giving luck too much credit to say that it’s what brought me to you.” Then Komaeda does something unexpected—tilting his chin upwards at a pretty angle and kissing the raised skin of Hinata’s forehead scars. “But whatever did, I’m glad for it. I’m… unspeakably glad that you’re still here after everything, Hinata-kun.”

It’s always a toss-up with Komaeda on whether or not his penchant for saying really vulnerable things will embarrass him. This ends up being one of the times where it does, and he flushes a bright red and looks away, direct eye contact finally too much for him. He’s nearly confessed to Hinata once before, but that was ages ago in the program, under far different circumstances. Perhaps this is the first time Komaeda’s ever been really honest about how much Hinata means to him. No wrapping it up in vague non sequiturs about talent and hope. Just, “I’m glad you’re here.”

It’s more powerful than a typical confession in some regards.

“Me too. I’m glad you’re here, too.” Hinata feels his face burning as well, but he tries to will himself to remain cool. “…This feels pretty dumb to say now, but I was trying to ask you on a date earlier. So, uh, this is a date. …If you want it to be. I feel like, after… y’know, everything, we need things like this. Normal things.”

Komaeda smiles genuinely, and fondness bears down on Hinata full-force at the sight. “I figured that was what you were trying to get at. It’s really funny, Hinata-kun, when I look at you and think about how your sheer will power broke us out of the killing game and probably saved us all, and yet you can’t even ask someone out without being absurdly awkward about it. I think it’s something I like about you.”

Hinata burns more furiously but can’t find the words to retort, instead opting to fold his arms and stare at the ceiling. “W-well… yeah. Those are two totally different things!! Maybe if lives were on the line, I could find it in me to ask you out a little more tactfully…”

“Hmm, I see, so saving lives is easier than trying to date me, huh? I suppose that’s fair…”

“Hey, you…” Hinata snags Komaeda’s jacket lapels again and pulls him close. The banter ceases, and the two enjoy a normal date, like they deserve.

[tarithenurse]

All is fair in Love & War - 6

Pairing: Loki x reader Content: Some angsting and maybe some pining? Could it be? A few hints at something sexual, but nothing explicit. Plot-thickening. A/N: I’d love to link to past chapters or my masterlist, but yeah... This is a semi-AU in the sense that it is in a sort of medieval/fairy-tale setting, but Loki and MCU’s version of Nordic mythology still applies. I’ve taken the liberty of tagging people who’ve reposted, but if you do want a tag pls let me know.

6. Purpose

Loki and you are walking through the halls of the keep. He is constantly talking about the history of the country and its people, drawing surprising parallels to your homeland. It is true, that he could most likely tell you anything and you would not know any better because the few details you know of the past have been passed along by the fireside in the winters when the elder were telling stories from their youth or their grandparents’ times. Now you find yourself hanging to his every word.

“The Jötun are not traditionally a united people as you know from the Asgardians or the Alfheimars,” the god is explaining, “and this has made them wary of everyone outside their own clans, their kin.” Loki continues to explain their old laws of blood guilt, where the first one to draw the blood of another for any other reason than self-preservation is at fault.

Pondering this, you walk in silence next to the tall man before finally saying out loud what you have concluded. “Sire, does that mean that the mistrust together with the…ongoing conflict…” You do not want to actually label it as an invasion. You cannot do that. Yet. “That’s the reason for leaving me to die? It’s the closest to vengeance without straight out killing me themselves. Passiveness means they haven’t drawn blood, so to speak?”

The tall man walking beside you, studying you carefully, stays silent. Together you enter the great hall, and whatever was on your mind is gone. Logically, you are well aware that this keep is far from the grandeur of palace in Sjöblik with its polished, coloured marble and creamy sandstones, and the golden decorations which add an aethereal atmosphere to the place. This hall oozes raw power. Dark, roughhewn slabs of granite glittering in the torchlight while massive wooden beams bring an addition to the warm glow with their amber hues. Still, the long benches and tables, a multitude of different furs, and a firepit as long as five men lying head to toe creating the centerpiece are not enough to draw the attention from the throne in the far end of the hall.

“Is that…glass, your highness?” The heat of the fire is behind you already as the two of you step closer to the crystalline structure.

A soft chuckle erupts from deep in Loki’s chest. “No, little mortal, it is not glass.”

You let him pull you up the few steps of the dais to see the god take his seat leaning on the armrest with the legs casually splayed. A slight motion brings your gaze to his pelvis before you can stop yourself, and you feel the shame heat your cheeks.

“Feel for yourself.” His smirk is audible, creating a suspicion that he is not only referring to the throne.

Choosing to ignore his lewdness, which you are beginning to suspect is the best course of action in these cases, you trace the armrest with the fingertips finding the surface to be cold as…

“Ice?” Palming the surface, you feel a wetness form where your hand touches the seat of the king.

“Yes. That is our true element, we thrive in the cold of winter.” Quick as a snake, he has wrapped you in his arms, locking you in place on his lap. “Besides, in the winter there is time for other activities that bring heat.”

Squirming to get free quickly proves to be a bad move on your behalf as you can feel Loki’s excitement through the layers of clothing you both wear. Mortified, you stop moving, unless considering the rapidly beating heart. Even your breath is shallow, timid in fear of what something as natural as a moving chest might cause.

The chuckle bubbling from within the god’s chest floats into the cool air surrounding the throne. “Ever the shy little flower, but I know what you desire, mortal.” A hand works its way under the dress and shift to find your thigh prickling with goosebumps. “There is no need to play coy.”

“Play?” In your outrage, you manage to push yourself partially onto your feet before he drags you back down. “Sire, I’m not pretending anything! It was a moment of weakness and I won’t give in again!”

His face is hidden behind you, and still you know that he is no longer amused. A drop in temperature is the first warning, the painfully tightening grip is the second. But the chill in Loki’s voice is what truly gives it away.

“Be careful what you say next, little mortal.” Thin lips brush lightly against the shell of your ear in sharp contrast to the rough way the god is handling you. “What do you want?”

“I wanna know what’s really going on!” you nearly yell in exasperation before clasping your hand to your mouth, afraid of what he might do to punish your insolence.

The dangerously familiar cold hand circles your wrist and tugs at it, gently but insistent, to free your self-imposed muzzle. Then Loki flips you around on his lap easily, so you straddle him chest to chest, locking your arms behind your back which makes it impossible for you to turn away. For a second you are lost in the cold beauty of his face with the sharp bone structure and the eyes full of a smoldering darkness capable of making you forget time and place. Get a grip! Blinking furiously, you begin to trace the intricate pattern carved into the ice of the back of the throne. Don’t let him enchant me.

“You will explain what that is supposed to mean, pet,” Loki purrs, but the cold is not gone from his voice, “and you will look me in the eyes as you do so.” Spine like a worm, you scold yourself when your eyes meet the green emeralds he has been bestowed. “Now talk.” A silent battle rages, but you lose it the moment he speaks your name.

“Your highness…” Your voice falters slightly, but you carry on. “I thought I knew what was going on…why we were fighting against the Jötuns and why the obvious enemy was you.” Needing to swallow, you grab the chance to consider the next words carefully. “My people are starving, suffering from disease and the great sacrifices made for the cause. We’ve all lost people dear to us…some more than others…”

You had thought the first death would be the only one. In your sorrow, you had returned to your childhood home and retaken your place among parents and brothers. You had been wrong.

“Who did you lose, my dear?”

Startled by the gentleness in Loki’s voice, you answer without thinking. “Everyone. My husband, parents, brothers…” Biting your lips, you focus on breathing deeply.

“That is why you joined the army.” Something strange flickers in his eyes. “The women of Midgard are not required to serve, they have to volunteer.”

It is true. Where men of all ages have to comply to their king’s call, the women are not bound so because they are considered less resilient. Perhaps the difference is greater among the nobles. Whichever the reason, you had quickly succeeded in the training and were send to the front.

“You know what I and anyone else were told,” you shift the subject from the more personal aspects, “ ’the Blue Monster of Jotunheim is attempting to destroy all of Midgard and it’s only through sacrifice that we can succeed’…or so they said.” Closing your eyes, you can still see the king on his balcony, addressing the new troops. “It never occurred to any of us that our king might be lying, our commanders living a different life than that of the rest of us…” a sigh escapes you, “and part of me can’t accept it because trusting you goes against…everything I learned until the day I tracked you down.”

His hands have already loosened the grasp, now they rush to cup your face tenderly, making your eyes meet once more.

“You did seek me out of your own volition that night,” Loki murmurs, “hoping to kill me or be killed.”

There is no reason to deny it, so you just shrug. Tears are stinging your eyes, but you refuse to let them fall, refuse to show any weakness. And really, you have lived to get a glimpse of the truth. At least a possible alternative to the truth. It means you will have to either trust Loki blindly or that you observe and listen, considering every new bit of information until you have found the truth on your own…whatever that may be.

“You’ve done as you promised, sire.” You force a crooked smile. “You’ve broken down my world, but I won’t give in to see any enchanted creation you please in its stead! I’m gonna figure out what’s real and where my place in that world is. Even if the Midgardian king has been plotting and scheming…well it doesn’t mean that you’re any better.”

“Yet I can give you the skills and tools you need.” The calculative stare is unwavering, and you know he has a very valid point. “And I will not let you go freely.”

Of course not, still, the admission is frightening. “Why not? What risk do I pose? I have no home, no loyalty.”

“Easy for you to say when you possess valuable information about my forces and abilities.” Loki’s smile is unnaturally broad. “No, you will not leave Utgard yet…but I will teach you everything you need to become a spy infiltrating your homeland.”

Oddly, that does not mean he releases you from his grasp, and as the seconds and then minutes drag by in silence, you feel a toe-curling awkwardness steal over you. Loki, however, is unfazed. Long fingers rearranged the yellow fabric of the dress before moving on to the armrest. You try to not watch. You most definitely try not to think of what those fingers are capable of. Thankfully, your captor is too occupied with what he is doing to notice the heat in your cheeks.

What is he doing?

Nimble digits move over the glistening surface, revealing a miniature scenery of mountains and forests stretching into the air. It can only be magic. No sculptor would be able to create such detailed figures without the most delicate tools. The ice forest contains a range of different trees, though most are pines like in the woods at home…squinting, you lean closer to study the landscape. Jagged mountain-arms stretch around the little village at the side of the glacier stream, and you know before laying eyes upon it, that you will find a quarry.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Freaks” Part 1

Y/N is a metahuman with several peculiarities, but one could say the weirdest is her heart: it is gated by four locks that make it impossible for the woman to fall in love. Also one could say she’s manipulative, cunning and ruthless. Sounds familiar? Maybe that’s why The Joker is the perfect candidate to help her finally get something she always desired: a one of a kind heir.

“Yoooo-hoooooooooo, Mister Jooo-kkkeeerrr!!!!” Bane skips along the poorly lit corridor since it’s almost 11 at night and the Arkham inmates are supposed to be asleep. Yet they’re not: the ruckus woke them all up and now they are standing by the glass walls facing the hallway, wondering what the heck is going on.

The real Bane sighs, completely unappreciative of you borrowing his physical appearance.  

“Hey, cut it out!” he admonishes as Y/N passes by and she decides to stop for a moment.

“Hello there handsome,” you swing your hips while walking towards him and The Riddler snorts, entertained: his cell is right across so it’s not like he can miss the show.

“If you’re going to mimic me, don’t do stuff like that!” Bane hisses through his mask, irritated.

“Apologies honey,” you wink and continue. “Far from me to purposely chop your masculinity to pieces,” but seductively sway on the tip of the heavy boots, taunting more because... who’s going to stop you?

“Seriously?!” Bane growls and you cut him some slack, transforming into The Joker for a few seconds.

“Jeez, don’t get worked up,” you smirk and blow the green hair off your face. “I’m looking for this guy, I know he’s here too.”

“Why are you looking for him?” Killer Croc punches his fists together, hoping he can twist your presence in his favor.

“I need him for breeding purposes,” you serenely admit as The Clown Prince of Crime rolls his eyes three padded rooms up from your present location.

“I told you before I can help with that,” Harvey Dent flips his coin in the air, not understanding why his offer was rejected numerous times.

“Me too!” The Riddler grins. “You should forget about the man that repeatedly refuses your advances and pick one of us,” the mastermind gestures at the cells containing prisoners willing to take on the task.

“I want him,” you revert to your human form, Mr. Freeze gasping with admiration: he’s been a fan for the past two years. “He’s the only male I’m compatible with for procreation on this continent and nobody else will do.”

“How do you know?” Deadshot addresses the burning question.

“I just know, ok?” you pout not wishing to get into details. “That’s why I’m here to bail him out. I helped his men clear the area so we can rescue the father of my future baby.”

“Ugghhhh,” a displeased and very loud protest is heard from The Joker’s cell.

“There you are,” you light up with the happiest smile and abandon the captives held in pretty boxes lined up on the south side of Arkham Asylum.

“Hey Y/N,” Jonathan Crane smacks his lips, “if you get me out of here also I’ll give you two millions.”

“I’ll give you double!” The Penguin shouts and Bane promises:

“I’ll give you three!”

The offers keep on pouring in and the shapeshifter is not a person to say no to easy money.

“Might as well,” you press the yellow buttons outside everyone’s incarceration chambers, leaving the best for last.

“Hiiii Mister Jooooker,” you drag the words and he grumbles, squeezing past you as soon as the glass slides enough for him to emerge from the cell.

“Shut up!” he barks and you couldn’t care less about his crabbiness.

“Your crew is waiting outside,” you giggle and turn into Frost, escorting the grouchy Clown in the direction of the exit you know it’s safe to take.

“Would you look at that?” The Shark teases, not being able to contain his laughter.

“Holy shit!” Panda tries to keep it together yet it’s impossible: the real Frost gives them a dismissing glare, annoyed Y/N is lovingly holding The Joker’s arm as they come down the stairs, definitely engaged in some sort of argument.

“That’s obviously not me!” Jonny mutters and there are more disrespectful remarks from the henchmen patiently waiting for their boss.

“It’s still funny as hell!” Richard underlines and swallows his sentence when Y/N posing as Frost kisses The Joker’s cheek.

“One more sound out of you jerks and I’ll bash your brains in!” Jonny threatens because he’s sick and tired of Y/N playing charades at his expense.

Thankfully you switch to your old self immediately after but the team is glad they’ll have something to tease Frost with in the weeks to come. Although it can be overdone: under the apparent calmness he has quite a wretched temper.

“Delivered as agreed,” you cheerfully announce to his gang and follow J even if he’s not thrilled about it.

“Get lost!” he angrily stomps, pushing you away when you grab his hand again.

“Stop being so rude!” you remodel your body after his and he takes a deep breath, staring back at another fabulous J courtesy of Y/N.

“Stop mimicking me!!!” he sneers and Panda comments in a low tone, convinced he’s far behind to safely say it:

“Two Jokers. God Forbids!”

A couple of goons nearby snicker and the amusement abruptly halts when you raise your voice:

“I heard that!!!”

“Huh?” J inquires.

You just lift your shoulders up, not wanting to distract him from what he has to focus on: making sure he fulfils your demand.

The First Lock  

“You’re still here?!” The King of Gotham comes out of the bathroom, intensely drying his wet hair with a towel. “I thought that by the time I’m out of the shower you’ll be gone.”

You gaze at his naked body, reckoning it’s a nice coincidence to be compatible with such a beautiful specimen. Could be much worse.

“Why don’t you want to help me?” you ask and The Joker is aware what you’re referring to. “I’ve been begging you for a year; I must emphasize I’m losing hope and I will probably have to move to another continent in order to find a new prototype that could give me an heir.”

“Not my problem. Why do you want a kid?” he tosses the towel on the floor and digs around in the closet for a pair of boxers.

“So I won’t be alone,” the disarming reply makes him tilt his head to analyze the stubborn metahuman that pesters him on a regular basis about crap he doesn’t give a damn about. “The storm is coming,” you shift the subject when the lighting strikes the dark skies in the distance at 1:23 in the morning.

J gulps, uneasy: he saw the 6 feet creature for a split second and it certainly startled him.

“Apologies, Mister Joker,” you try to fix the mistake because it’s evident his reaction is below excitement standards. “The fire bolt must have projected my true nature. You only tolerate the pretty side, don’t you?” the sadness in your demeanor confuses J. “They all do…” Y/N whispers to herself. “Is this better?” you transform into Poison Ivy, then Cat Woman, then a random blonde girl with big boobs; by the seventh option The Joker had enough.

“Cut it out!” he finally finds his favorite underwear and you stand by the bed, opting out to be your human self for his sake.

“Can you please help me?” a disappointed woman pleads since he’s getting ready to go to sleep.

“Why would I help you?” The Joker snaps, hoping you’ll disappear from the premises and let him rest at the mansion he found refuge at after breaking out of Arkham.

Your eyes get teary and he never saw you show any type of weakness before; it’s sort of uncomfortable even for him.

“Because us freaks have to stick together.”

“Speak for yourself!” J gets mad at your affirmation and doesn’t know how to react to the tears rolling down your cheeks. “Mmmmm,” he debates, deep in thought: the insane Clown was captive for almost three months and a half and they surely don’t allow any conjugal visits in that shithole. Not that he has anybody in particular that would come to tend to his urges.

“If I help you,” the sudden switch in mood makes you pay attention, “will you quit bothering me?”

“Y-yes, of course! I swear!” you wipe your eyes, full of hope for once. “Since we’re a match it will only take one time! I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”

You watch J take off his boxers and don’t blink when he yanks you in his arms, afraid he might change his mind: he’s not the most well balanced individual on the planet.

“No kissing,” you dodge his lips. “I only need the technical stuff.”

He gives you a cold stare, fed up with the infernal plague:

“You don’t get to make any other requests!” The Joker pulls you into a passionate kiss that unexpectedly shatters the first lock of your heart.

“Wait, wait…” you part from his soft lips, kind of drunk on the intimacy. “Did you hear that?!”

“Hear what?” he shoves Y/N on the bed and slowly crawls on top of her.

“That deafening noise.”

“Nope,” J purrs while carefully listening anyway. A strong thunder shakes the ground and he grins: “I heard it.”

“Not that, it was something else,” you attempt to explain and he buries his face in your cleavage, protesting the unwanted dialogue: 

“After chewing my ears for months, less yapping would be nice!”

You smile, delighted to have tricked The Joker with your fake tears; you sure counted on him being trapped inside the Asylum without any feminine presence to grace his existence and it payed off in the end. Making yourself available when nobody else is around brought the desired outcome: Y/N always gets what she wants.  

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

The Joker moans in his dream, unhappy with your wiggling.

“What is it?” he cuddles up to your body and it feels soft.

“I’m pregnant,” you yawn and he puffs in disbelief.

“Already?... We had sex a couple of hours ago.”

“U-hum,” you say and let him caress your skin, unaware your true essence peeked from behind the human shell. “It shouldn’t take too long. By morning I will have my heir.”

“That fast?” J opens his eyes since the pillow talk is actually interesting.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice I’m different,” you hum with your eyes closed, exhausted from the energy you have to channel into the tiny life growing inside your womb. The soon to be mother is so impatient she won’t skip accelerating the process at the expense of her own vitality.

“No kidding,” The King of Gotham mumbles, smitten with the apparition peacefully dozing off in his arms. The storm outside is wreaking havoc and each time lightning illuminates the blackness J can inspect the delicate feathers covering your body: when he touches you they change colors, red butterflies flying out of the pressed skin. He curiously pokes one and the illusion shatters into glowing dust resembling small fireworks.

The Joker has no clue that he is the first soul to ever see you like this; earlier he didn’t have the opportunity to comprehend what he saw, but he’s sure taking advantage of the situation now to understand what he’s looking at.

“Oh,” he touches your tummy that seems to expand with each passing moment: something is moving and he foolishly smirks without realizing.

Whatever is developing inside Y/N he helped create and strangely enough he can’t wait to see the result.

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

The Second Lock

J drags his feet on the wet grass, watching you admire the sunrise. He woke up and the bed was empty: made him wonder if you vanished without a trace. Yet there you are, waiting for him in the backyard since you figured you owe him this much.

“Mister Joker,” you chuckle, holding something wrapped up in a blanket. “I’m off to my house: thank you for participating in this project,” the indifferent metahuman blurs out: it’s the only speech she prepared. “I requested that everyone owing me money from last night should send it here,” you gesture at the huge duffel bag at your feet. “There’s 35 million dollars in here, all yours as a thank you for helping me.”

“Hm?” he crinkles his nose, insulted at the gift. “Do I look like a prostitute?!”

Why is he getting angry?... That’s a lot of money for a one night stand.

“They get paid for sex, don’t they?” he enlightens the puzzled Y/N. “What’s that?” J nods at the bundle you gently rock.

“My baby.”

“You gave birth?!” he forgets his hurt pride, not believing it’s already done.

“Yes, about 45 minutes ago,” you kiss your daughter’s forehead and her innocence makes your chest tightly constrict before the second lock of your heart is broken to pieces. “Did you hear that?” you interrogate the man you don’t need anymore.

“Hear what?” The Joker rushes to glimpse at the newborn as you step back, discontent he’s trying to take her.

“That horrifying bang! How can you not hear it?!”

“I have no idea what you’re rambling about,” he forcefully snatches the baby from Y/N’s embrace, grunting at her resistance. “Gimme, I wanna check out what I made!”

He parts the blanket aside and…

“Waaaaah,” the mesmerized parent holds his breath:

The sweet angel has wings embedded with neon green feathers, the same shade as J’s crazy hair.

“Are you done?” you attempt to reacquire your treasure and he slaps your arm.

“Little bird…” J runs his fingers along her wings and the mini-metahuman fusses a bit, already establishing a connection with her dad.

That’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid before it’s too late.

“Mister Joker, I have to go, ok??!!” you seek to remove the baby from her father.

“Stop bothering me!” he sucks on his teeth and begins striding towards the mansion while the panicked Y/N runs behind him.

“What are you doing? Give her back!”

“What should we name her?” The Joker ignores your outburst, totally struck with this overwhelming emotion washing over him.

Oh no, she’s already getting under his skin!

“WE?!” you shout, exasperated. “This is MY descendant!”

“You said I participated in the project so she’s half mine!” The Clown implies the obvious.“I think we should name her Emma, I always liked that name,” he adds to Y/N’s dismay. “Pretty bird…” J shuts you down as soon as you open your mouth to protest, stroking his daughter’s feathers.

He’s already addicted and this is a complete disaster!

“I’ll tell my boys to get baby supplies,” he decides without taking into consideration any opinions you might have about his plan.

“Why?!” you cringe at the proposal simply because The Joker is not part of the equation; but your daughter is already bonding with him and that’s something mommy can’t break: she has her own will and set of abilities enabling her to already make choices. You’re not sure why she’s making him believe he could be included into a two party family; there’s no space for a third, otherwise it would be a three party family and that won’t work.

“Don’t you need supplies for her?” he enters the master bedroom where the infant was conceived only hours ago.

You’re still on the patio, fuming at his absurdities.

“No, I have to go home! I’ll take care of it! Listen Mister Joker, I’m not expecting anything from you! ” you underline the truth and his witty response baffles Y/N:

“I was sure expected though to get naked and have sex right after escaping Arkham, huh?!” and The Joker protectively covers his daughter’s ears, his messed up brain figuring out she shouldn’t hear that. “Where’s home anyway, huh?” the tirade continues.

“That’s none of your business!” you shriek and he repositions Emma in his arms, preparing to lecture her mother when he gets distracted by the growth spur.

“Did she just get…bigger??!!!”

“Yes,” you join him in the middle of the room, explaining things you shouldn’t because frankly you should be at your residence by now. “She’s using capabilities inherited from me in order to speed up her evolution and then take a break to recharge around one year old landmark.”

“Fascinating,” J gushes while placing Emma on the couch: the baby is napping, not bothered by the quarrel anymore. “Wait here; I’ll go instruct my men on what we need.”

This is the limit to make you lose your marbles.

“There. Is. No. WE!” you thud on the wood floor and The Joker watches you get taller and taller until you can barely fit under the vaulted ceiling, electing to show him what he’s messing with. The metahuman transforms into the nightmare she really is: dark and sinister, covered in black feathers with sharp, long claws and fangs ready to tear apart the human trespassing a fine line.

That’s not what The Clown saw last night: you keep the beast caged but now IT needs to come out, otherwise he won’t understand the seriousness of his circumstances.

“You are not needed!” your heavy steps make the ground shake. “You are not wanted!” you corner The Joker between the table and the couch Emma is resting on. “Don’t stay in my way or you’ll regret it!!!! I’m taking my daughter and we’ll go: don’t try to stop me or I’ll kill you!!!” and you bend over to snarl in his face, prepared to shred him to pieces.

Eerie silence while J is gathering all his strength to put up with the fucked up events leading to this moment.  

“You two can’t go,” he straightness his back, so stiff one could think he swallowed a broomstick.

“Why not?” you smell his skin, antagonized.

The Joker tries to look as imposing as possible but he’s still half your size; nothing else in his mind besides some words of wisdom he’s about to repeat:

“Because us freaks have to stick together.”

You unravel your tusks, displeased with his strategy:

“Speak for yourself!”

That went down the drain fast, J thinks while the hideous mug a few inches away from his face doesn’t bulge. His eyes wander off to the sofa and he gasps:

“Where’s the baby?!”

A sharp claw points towards the ceiling and he looks up only to notice Emma snuggling in her blanket.

“Oh my God!” his eyes get big. “What is she doing there?!”

“Snoozing!”

“She’s gonna fall!” The Joker circles around you, worried about the angel.

“She’s not going to fall; she’s comfortable,” you huff and reach to caress her.

“Where are the wings?!” J glares at the gigantic mother tending to her peculiar offspring.

How many people have witnessed such bizarre sight? NONE. And yet The Clown is asking questions without a trace of disgust or judgement; only pure curiosity.

“They’ll come and go, she can’t fully control them yet.”

“Can you…can you turn into your usual self?” he suggests. “You’re very ugly like this and it’s spooking me out.”

“Do you know you’re interested in us because she’s making you?” the monster bites without using her fangs. “You’re useless, yet she wants you around.”

“Oh yeah?” The Joker’s attitude escalates despite the sticky context. “You’re useless also since you chased me until I slept with you; she exists thanks to my help! You should be ecstatic!!”

“Money is not enough?!” you gradually switch to the Y/N he’s familiar with even if you’re still mad.

“I have money,” The King of Gotham pretends not to be relieved by the welcomed transmutation.

“Then what do you want?” you attempt to compromise for your daughter’s sake.

“My birds,” he calmly admits.

You debate on his stupid reply: is J deaf and didn’t catch the memo?! He might be because he keeps on telling you he didn’t discern the odd, loud noises you heard twice so far.

You are not aware it would be such a blessing to hear those sounds again: it could mean the unconventional family Emma is trying to keep together might actually work.    

Also read: MASTERLIST

Diyunho(.)tumblr(.)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

[sweetbitterbitten]

continued from here

One of the countless benefits of being in the neighborhood watch was the ability to get any new news first. Eyes and ears of agencies old led one to be incredibly well informed. Especially on fronts personally manned. She’d not yet been assigned to him a few months when already the first casualty staked it’s claim. The chatter on the wire was all abuzz, some deal gone south, some retribution in the cards to be dealt and doled out. Some recalibration in his ill-fated stars spun about. She’d slipped from the flat, sensible shoes speeding down flights of stairs before the order was half over. Her people wanted him alive and alive is what he would not be if she arrived any later than precisely, impossibly on time. Blocks from where the intel had locked as the predetermined destination of the arranged hit, a crack like that of a car backfiring pulled her up short with a savage jerk, manipulation akin to that of a marionette’s strings. A sickening nervous riot roiled mid belly and from there she sprinted faster than the blur of street lights could register. Her keds screeched to a forceful stop feet away from his battered and bloody boody, prone and unprotected on the ground; caught for a moment in speechless horror at the scene so gruesomely splayed. Old fashioned sacrifice on an eldrich-new aged altar. So much the river of red run ‘round him - a moat, and he, the conquered castle. Beaten, bludgeoned and reduced to rubble. He makes a sound - so opposite, so awfully opposite from what she has encountered personally from him in the past. That wild dog in the pants of a panther, control just barely tethered to a flimsy pole. This weak, helpless resonation of sound from his throat, churned by the gut, slashes at her with such fear - such desperate disbelief- it all but renders her immobile. But life is life, and she must have his. Her superiors demand it, and her limbs heed the call. Vaulting to his side over a disarmingly twinkling, and inconveniently placed road stall, she lands harshly beside him in a puddle of his own crimson composition. “jesuschrist. jesusfuckingchrist.” Her hands hover, hesitating to touch - to unintentionally cause him further harm. Still, stock must be taken, monitored within an inch of perfection to pull off salvation. And though she is no nurse, she’ll serve well enough. For now. 

Fingertips trace the matted hair away from his mauled face, managing to catalog the damage done to the cheek and more. She curses low, a litany to rival any prayer, were it not for it’s uncouth characterization. Over and over again, hardly breath at all, more whistle hissed between grimacing lips and teeth - tenderly trying his chest. fuck. his ribs. fuck. And that shoulder, god that shoulder...fuckfuckfuck. Well past her range of skill to heal. Her features screw up, furrow in frustration, molars chewing the inside of her cheek fretfully. Drawing blood of her own. Salty, tangy, iron-infused. Jesusfuckingchristfuckinghelpher. She cannot call an ambulance. Hospitals are too public, too pronounced a presence to parade themselves into. Those who did this were likely to find him easily enough and finish what they had begun before she could radio her dispatch for back up. This was only meant to be a reconnaissance mission. Nothing more. But already it had defied its preconceived labels. First with their impromptu and unconventional introduction...And now? Midnight mob run-ins? She ran a hand through her ragged hair in cross contemplation, precious seconds slipping in equal measure to the auburn streaks snagging, tussling in her panic. Specifics could be settled some other time. Safety and seclusion were the prime directives now. She cast about vainly for some source of either aspect, damning every darkened window or shut door -who stays inside while a man lies dying? - and exhaled a jagged, rasp of laughter coughs out in recognition of their local. Not half a block from an unused and all but derelict stock/store room (one of the several scattered throughout the city, should the occasion call for them, to be used at any agents descretion).  “Goddamn blessed by god, is what you are, Nigel Paininmy Arsehole.” The grumble conjoins with the grunts of her efforts to raise him onto her petite shoulder, half dragging his dead weight as much as she can muster. One painful cement sideway block at a time. Maneuvering him within the space beyond border door and the facade wall after was nothing short of miraculous. Divine intervention for his damned soul. For whatever purpose, the universe prepared to place no impediment on his continued existence. Laying him with all gentleness and absolute relief on a stock of blankets by the back wall, she once again checked his wounds before laying a discerning palm to his burning brow. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ An hour after morphine and antibacterial were injected into his system, saw her as fraught and frazzled as his prone form. Blood was an inherently transferable medium, clinging to her canvas as she sought to clean his. A pile of soaked and sanguine enspunged cloth was stacked off to the side. Antiseptics applied. The sting of alcohol permanently branded in her nostrils. The scent of sweat as his body rebelled against infection and hers fought fear. She was wrecked, roughened by the night - but - immediate danger seemed to have passed as much as could be possible. She was so worn, weary...though without visible wound. Sleep could have won with no more but a whisper, and would have, had the dilemma she’d pushed aside in light of the current urgency, not reared its foul little head in reminder. She was meant to alert the home base of happenings such as these. But that would surely mean capture, custody, and questioning. At full health, her directions had been to follow, record and report accordingly. Strictly noncontact cautioned. Sin begins with curiosity and ends in a lie. It had been curiosity that had crept her too close. Close enough for a hand to clamp about her arm, an arm to pin her choking, scrambling, squeaking to a wall. Field mouse against a fucking jackal. He’d spared her with rough and rude threats to do worse should he catch her treading on his tail again. Acquiesence was the only available avenue if she wanted to escape alive. And so...it was readily given. But to her watchers she revealed none of this. No hint or reference to it ever having happened. They would have replaced her had she done so. The slippery slope, or so they liked to say. Strangely enough, though for certain she’d kept her distance thereafter, determined to slide no further - her mark, the half man- half animal, seemed to amuse himself in encouraging her agenda from afar. A tip of a teasing salute given or a saucer and cup of coffee sent to the seat she sightsaw from across the street, her civilian paper pathetically posed as a prop in hand. Always with that same self-satisfied smirk. So often earning a returning scoff and a deft roll of her eyes. But she never refused the caffeine. Keeping watch was a full-time job. The flirtation, however, seemed to fill her thoughts more often than her actual charge. Dangerous. Deeply dangerous, under any circumstances but particularly these. Unheard of and improper for an agent of her training: desk clerk. paper collector. note taker. If she proved herself incapable, or more disappointingly, compromised and unethical, she’d never be allowed to ascend - let alone keep her position. The arguments teemed, like beetles, or maggots on the bone. Chittering, jittering away until even the motion of shaking her head could not dislodge them. The only alternative was to drown them out. Rising, joints popping from a spot too long anchored on her knees, overseeing his recovery, she retrieved his shirt (the removal of which had been necessary in assessing and dressing his incapacitated arm) and walked stiltingly to the basin in the corner. The rushing flush of fresh water from the faucet above clattering in the steel bin was enough to eventually cover the roar of her concerns as she began to clean the stains lodged in the cloth. She had done well enough for herself thus far, keeping hidden that which would rather be. She could continue, chaperone free. He would raise no objection or alarm, she assumed. After all, fair trade wasn’t it? Professional courtesy and all? Occupation feeding occupation. By the time she’d wrung the last of the final rinse from the fabric and hung it up to dry, she knew this would be but another secret she’d keep. Another lie she’d tell.

[pinkbubbles-and-bigtroubles]

Slow Hands (Girls Talk Boys part 3)

Fingertips puttin' on a show Got me now and I can't say no

Each chapter has a song title attached so I could keep my files straight on my phone but it ended up really working so I kept it.

Warnings: drinking, smoking, drug use and cursing and a little bit of smut

Previous Chapter

Camille was on edge. Her entire body hurt from dance practice. It was only the second day but she was dying. She adored dancing and she adored Tom but it was kicking her ass. However she might  lose a little of the weight she'd accumulated over the past year. Stress eating was one of her many weaknesses. Tom was being so patient and sweet. Camille was determined to do her best for him. She played “Fly Me to the Moon” on the speakers and went over her dance steps as she organized the studio. The house still wasn't put together and the mess was getting to her.  She hadn't been able to find her favorite pen in four days. The last time she'd seen it was the night they'd moved in and also the night she'd last seen Calum. She frowned at the thought swore to herself she wasn't bothered. She heard the guitar downstairs and knew Luke had come over for his lesson. Luke had managed to find an excuse to pop in to see Cher every day so far. Camille thought they were cute together.

Cher had asked Luke to teach her guitar and he in turn had asked her to teach him how to draw. It became not so much a lesson as a conversation featuring beer, artwork and a guitar. Cher could not remember seeing blue eyes like that before. The way his smile faded into serious concentration and the way his blonde curls fell in his face when he played made her swoon.  It was impossible to focus on the learning guitar when she kept staring at the way his fingers moved. The only thing that kept her from getting totally overwhelmed was the fact that Luke was a huge dork. A tall beautiful goofball. Cher sat back on the couch with her feet tucked under Luke's thigh and began to sketch him as he played. Cher was usually too intimidated to draw the  guys she was into. She was amazed she felt so comfortable around him. It was a shame he'd never make a move. After a while Luke realized what she was doing and began to strike silly poses and make faces. Cher threw her pencil at him and went to get them another beer. When she came back she noticed Luke had set his guitar aside and was biting his lip nervously.

Cher began to set the beers down on the coffee table when she felt Luke grab her arm and her waist at the same time pulling her into his lap. “What're you doing” she asked him. “Kissing you” Luke murmured against her lips before his mouth was on hers. Cher moaned into his kiss shifting herself so she was straddling Luke. Tangling her hands in his hair she pressed her body down on his growing bulge. She was glad he'd worn basketball shorts instead of his usual skinny jeans. Between that and the thin material of her dress there wasn't much fabric between them.  Luke bit her bottom lip as his hands slid the straps of her dress down exposing her naked breasts. His thumbs flicked over her pierced nipples causing her to shiver. Luke then twisted and tugged ever so gently causing a growl to erupt from the back of her throat.

Cher pulled back from Luke's mouth and pulled his hair back exposing his throat. She began working from his earlobe to his collarbone nibbling, sucking and kissing until Luke was a squirming moaning mess under her. Cher moved her lips back to Luke's consuming both of them in a deep kiss. Cher had one hand behind Luke's head while the other slid into his shirt her fingers grazing his chest and stomach. Luke's breaths became faster and more shallow as Cher continued to rock against him. She felt her own sensation grow as Luke moved to regain some control by kissing and biting on her neck.  It was too late Cher kept up the steady motion of her hips against him. “Please I'm gonna..don't” Luke pleaded into her mouth as his hips thrust upwards against his will seeking release. Cher was so close as she pressed her chest into Luke's, and buried her face in his neck. Her fingers would leave tiny bruises as she gripped his shoulders. “Oh God please” Luke whispered as Cher rubbed herself down into him finding her release pressing down onto his lap. “Yes Yes Yes “ she hissed into his ear placing her hand between his legs stroking his erection before she continued to grind on Luke. His eyes flew open as he whined “oh fuck ” and Cher felt his hips buck underneath her violently as he came.

Cher was still in his lap when Luke raised his head his blue eyes meeting hers. “That's never happened before I'm sorry” he mumbled. Cher shushed him with a little kiss “don't apologize I'm the one who did it” she smiled at him. She'd never made a guy cum in his pants before and the fact that it was sweet beautiful Luke turned her on even more. Cher wanted nothing more than to drag him into her bedroom and fuck him until they made each other sore. She didn't want to move to fast and have Luke catch feelings. Cher didn't want a relationship and guys never believed her when she said that. Guys who claimed to be cool with a friends with benefits package always turned needy and clingy once they realized she had no need for a boyfriend.  Cher didn't want to think about all that right now. She stood up still between Luke’s outstretched thighs. Pulling her dress straps onto her shoulders she bent down and kissed Luke lightly on the tip of his nose. “You can use the bathroom to clean up if you want “ she whispered to him before stepping back and heading to the kitchen to get some water.

Behind her she heard Luke get up and shut the door to the bathroom followed shortly by footsteps descending the stairs. Cher saw a flash of pink out of the corner of her eye followed shortly by a hushed voice “please tell me you didn't fuck him on the couch. We just got it.” “We didn't fuck” Cher replied matching her low tone “we didn't even take our clothes off.” Camille wasn't buying it “that's not what it sounded like and you've got a big wet spot on your dress so.” Camille and Cher both froze when they heard the bathroom door open. Camille reached into the fridge trying to act normal as Luke walked into the kitchen. “I should probably get going and oh hey Camille” Luke stopped when he saw her. “Oh hi Luke, did you have a nice lesson” Camille kept her tone light but she saw Luke start to blush. “You could say that” Luke mumbled looking at his feet. It was then that Camille saw the wet spot on the front of Luke's shorts. Her eyes went wide darting to Cher who quickly shook her head shooting back a look that said “don't you dare say it.”

Instantly Camille regained her composure “Cher I've looked through this entire place three times and I still can't find my pen are you sure it's not in your room” she asked changing the subject. “Cam I swear I've looked through my room and my car and it's not there” Cher rolled her eyes. Luke suddenly laughed and both girls looked at him. “It's bright pink and really shiny?” Luke asked. Camille nodded and felt her stomach drop. “Calum has it” Luke told her turning to Cher “Babe I gotta go, text me later.” He gave Cher a hug and then kissed her on her forehead and her nose smiling at her before turning to leave. Luke was halfway out the door when Camille found her voice. “Wait why does Calum have my pen” she called out. Luke's voice echoed back at her “you'd have to ask him.”

“That night on the back porch” Cher teased her. “He must've kept it”

“You're saying he stole it? It's bright pink.” Camille was trying to remember any details beyond Calum's presence.

Cher texted Luke who quickly replied. “No, no, no Luke says he got high and put it in his pocket. He forgot he had it till the next day.

“You and Luke seem to be getting cozy very quickly” Camille winked at her.

“He's gorgeous and fun, what do you want me to say” Cher was laughing.

“I thought you liked Ashton” Camille raised an eyebrow.

“I like them both. You've seen how hot Ashton is, or did Calum distract you from noticing any of the other guys” Cher was still giggling.

“Oh I noticed, you know I adore Tom already. Harry is gorgeous, but he's entirely too charming. Makes me suspicious. Ashton is dead ass sexy, but we would not get along.” Cher held up her hand and Camille stopped.

“How can someone be suspiciously charming?” Cher questioned

“That man could charm the feathers off of a bird and the scales off a snake. He's Lord Byron. Mad, bad and dangerous to know, but in like a good sexy way”

“You know it turns me on when you drop historical references into conversation” Cher dodged the towel Camille threw at her. “You and Ashton are too much alike. Both of you want to be in charge. What about Luke? Hmmm?”

“Luke? Be serious, he's been all over you like a beautiful labradoodle since we got here. He is insanely good looking and seems really sweet. Try not to snatch his soul would you?” Camille was only half joking.

“He is so beautiful.” Cher sighed “He's fun too.”

“I see that, you should probably change your dress” Camille replied, her phone buzzing.

“You should worry less about me and figure out how you're going to get the nerve to ask Calum for your pen back” Cher was interrupted by a loud squeal from Camille.

Looking towards her friend Cher saw her go deathly pale to bright pink flushed. She was afraid for a moment until Camille broke into the biggest smile.

“I'm gonna be on ESPN. Stephen got me on as a guest fantasy analyst.” Camille was almost speechless, if that were possible.

“That's amazing. When?” Cher was excited as she was.

“A couple weeks. It'll be as fantasy drafts really kick in” Camille suddenly felt panic mix with joy. What if she didn't look good enough for tv.?

Cher saw the clouds move in on Camille's sunshine. She crossed the room and wrapped the smaller woman in a hug.

“Camille don't doubt yourself. We've come all this way to start over. You left him behind, now leave what he said behind with it. We moved out here to this gorgeous place. We've got Cody. There are super hot guys crawling all over this place. You've already got one so caught up that he's hijacking your stuff.” Cher felt Camille relax as she pulled away wiping tears.

“ I don't know why I get like this.” she sniffled.

“Listen, he had a long time to tear you down. It's going to take a while to build yourself up again.”Cher told her. “We need to get you laid.”

“Calm down. Let's get my pen back first.” Camille changed the subject.

“Oh he's in the plans for both” Cher teased her.

“He's got a girlfriend” Camille rolled her eyes but she couldn't help but feel a bit excited to have a chance to see Calum again.

Chap 4 Pink Lemonade

[0poole]

Some more thoughts on Let’s Go, now that I’ve finished it (and also Firered)

I mean, I haven’t captured Mewtwo yet, or fought all of Red/Green/Blue, so I’m not COMPLETELY done, but I basically know exactly what’s up with the game. Even better, I played through Firered again (Not really again? I don’t think I ever finished it before) so I have a better reference for what people universally consider to be “Good Kanto.” I’m even going through Heartgold to get another slice of the Kantonian Pie, and also to try and actually conquer my least favorite Gen (Least favorite, not worst)

But yeah, I mean... Let’s Go is infinitely more enjoyable in pretty much all aspects compared to Firered. Like, all aspects. Literally not a single aspect is more enjoyable in that game. Note: More enjoyable =/= universally better. You may like the past games, but honestly I can’t like them, at least compared to the modern stuff. The biggest thing? The Physical/Special split.

Oh my god, I had no idea how much better that one change made the games. Some Pokemon are straight-up unusable because their type is Special, while they have better Attack. Case in point: I took a Hitmonchan from the Fighting Dojo in Firered, expecting a heavy-hitter in 4 different types (with the elemental Punches). Guess what? Kinda sucks when each elemental Punch is special, when the Punching Pokemon only has 35 Special Attack. Why even give him those moves then? Why did anyone think this was okay? Genuinely, this is one of the few things that seems like legitimately bad game design. What’s the point of having a Physical Pokemon have a type that’s Special, like with Kingler? He only has 50 Special Attack, but 130 Attack, and yet in that generation his STAB type was always Special. You could make do with other Physical types, but then it just makes him being a Water type so pointless. I did end up using Kingler in my Lets Go playthrough as retribution, and he was so much fun to use, mainly because Kingler is just a really cool Pokemon, and also walks behind you sideways, which is just a neat little detail that obviously was going to be a thing, but I love it anyway

I guess I’ll piggyback off of that. I LOVE the personality given to each Pokemon just by them walking behind you. Who the hell knew that Bellsprout was such a speedy lil boy? It always wanted to run in front of me, and I never saw Bellsprout as having that kind of energy. Since my sister also got the game, I was able to actually use a Golem in my playthrough (I always use a Geodude/Graveler at least for a while in basically every playthrough of every game, since it’s such a good mon to use in game, but I ditch it eventually since I usually can’t trade stuff) and I loved watching him roll into a ball behind me. I also was able to use a Gengar, and, even though it’s weird that you can ride Haunter but not Gengar, It was neat to see him phase through everything. 

Then, Rapidash. OH MY GOD Rapidash. IT’S. SO. FAST. I’m riding a flaming horse in a video game (that isn’t an MMO). I also had a Dodrio who wasn’t as fast so I never really rode him, but riding around on a Rapidash was actually one of the coolest things that could happen in any Pokemon game ever. I did not miss bikes one bit. Although, there was a bit of an issue here: Whenever you got a little too close to a wall, sometimes, since it was so big, it would return into it’s Pokeball for a second, making you return to normal walking speed, only for it to come back out a second later, making you go right back into hyperdrive. It was a little jarring, but it’s still pretty easy to avoid the walls. There was enough open space that it was still super fun, though.

That all being said, my team did end up being Kingler, Golem, Victreebell, Rapidash, Dodrio, and Gengar. That is, no Eevee, despite having Let’s Go Eevee. It was super cute and all (and having it run through the vents of the Rocket Hideout was in second place underneath riding Rapidash in terms of cool stuff) but I really never wanted to use it in battle... Even though it’s not egregious in my mind, it’s special moves were kind of lame by how powerful they were, and they’re names are still pretty dumb... Since I didn’t have to keep it in my party, and it would just stay on my head anyway, I just decided to ditch it for the classics I never got to use before. I did love how it was the replacement for HMs, but I also don’t really get why they couldn’t just keep the past HM names... Again, it’s not egregious, but the new names were much dumber...

Another thing I wished they improved from past games: The music. There was no Rival battle, Team Rocket Grunt battle, or Rocket Boss Giovanni battle music, like in the past. That’s super lame. It was all the same, plain trainer battle music. WHY? We have themes for each of them now, so why not remix that? It’s literally one of those things that no one has nostalgia for, so why keep it that way? Most of the time I just kept the music off, partially because I don’t really like orchestrated covers of Pokemon music that much, and because it got old after a while. I did like that the Snorlax fight was put on the same intensity level as the Legendary Birds and Mewtwo, though. Even though I wasn’t in any danger of running out of time or losing to it, I did feel the sense of urgency.

Then, the big one: Catching. I was actually travelling for most of my playthrough, so I used handheld mode for catching most of the time, and it was completely fine. I still needed to aim, but I could actually feel where I was aiming before I threw the ball. Then, I returned home, and tried to catch literally anything... Either I just don’t understand how they work, or the motion controls are actually terrible. If any Pokemon merely hops off to the side, it’s impossible to hit it. You can aim off in that direction, but it still won’t work. It’s weird, because if the Pokemon stays in the middle of the screen, it’s almost too easy... It almost always hits right in the center, so you just have to time it right. 

My biggest gripe with catching is the berries you have to use. They are technically useful, but... they only affect one single throw... Like... you only get 5 whole Golden Razz berries for the whole game (as far as it seemed), and yet if you don’t get lucky for the one throw you use them on, they’re just gone. The weirdest one is the Nanab berries, which only make the Pokemon stop moving for a single throw. It’s great if you’re planning on using the Master Ball, but otherwise they’re completely worthless. Also, I don’t even think I bothered to use the Pinap berries... All of this, combined with the fact that the skill of your throw (Nice, Great, Excellent, etc.) Don’t seem to affect your chances of catching the Pokemon either, even though they have every right to. It seems all they do is multiply the EXP you get after, which doesn’t help when you have to waste 30 Ultra Balls on a Chansey anyway. I got so many Greats and Excellents, but it doesn’t matter because it just broke out, and then lo and behold it got caught on the one measly normal throw I made on it. 

As far as I can recall, that’s all the possible negatives I can think of, to be honest. Even though all of these are painted as negatives, I’d still much rather have these mechanics over the alternatives in Firered. In that game, I just didn’t want to waste my time catching ANY Pokemon, whereas I actually wanted to catch ‘em all in Let’s Go. I’m still working on that. My sister even bought Let’s Go Pikachu after completing HER copy of Let’s Go Eevee just because she wanted to catch every Pokemon. This girl has a pretty limited amount of money in her allowance, and a need to buy a lot of stuff, so her spending her money on that of all things really testifies to how much she enjoyed it. She’s not even a PokeManiac like I am, either.

But, I’ve saved the best for last. The one, biggest improvement to Kanto that Let’s Go made was: The Movesets. I honestly had no idea how absolutely horrible the movesets in OG Kanto were until I played through Firered. Beedrill was practically unusable, even beyond its terrible stats, because it got basically nothing to work with. Now? It gets OUTRAGE. Also, it learns Twinneedle upon evolving, like it should have, and gets Poison Jab pretty soon after. It even gets normal Rage, because literally every single time Beedrill appeared in the anime, it was angry and chasing down whoever decided to fall into its turf. Why wasn’t this a thing before? 

Side bit: I loved that Jesse and James were in this game. Honestly, they are my favorite characters in the anime (even above the plethora of waifus) and I’m so glad they exist outside of it now (even though they did exist in Yellow and also even though Meowth doesn’t talk)

Back to the moves, the TMs were very interesting. At first, I was kinda sad Brock didn’t give you Rock Tomb, but Headbutt was an interesting alternative to say the least, since basically any Pokemon could learn it. It was a straight and easy upgrade to Tackle, which practically every Pokemon knew at that stage anyway. Also, the buffs to Absorb and Mega Drain were completely unexpected, but welcome nonetheless. It’s a bit odd making Mega Drain the wanted endpoint for my Victreebell over Giga Drain, but I got used to it. I also loved the Coach trainers, how they each used Pokemon with a specific move, and then gave you the TM for that move once you beat them. It was a great way to let the player stock up on TMs without having them just find a simple secret hidden behind HM. 

As for difficulty, it honestly wasn’t as easy as people said it was... Sure, it wasn’t insanely hard, but it was a very fair difficulty. I did actually have to try against some of the Gym Leaders, and the Coach trainers did knock out a few of my Pokemon too. It was very fair to me as someone who knew exactly what they needed to do, so to a newbie I think it’d pose an OK challenge. The massive level curve after you beat the Elite 4 was a bit annoying, and I’m still trying to grind my way up to level 60 so I can use all of the XL candies I stocked up, but I can appreciate that they aren’t letting you sweep everyone just because you beat the game. Maybe that’s just because grinding is super easy now... I actually stopped playing Firered at the E4 because I really just didn’t care enough to grind to a level where I’d actually have a chance against them. That’s way too many hours just to do something I only kinda want to do to begin with. Seriously, I don’t know why people were okay with it in the past...

All of this just makes me super excited for Gen 8. I did enjoy the partial Go mechanics, but I will love to have back the usual stuff in the next games, not to mention having new Pokemon is always fun. The only thing I’m kind of pessimistic about is that they might end up using the same old models for each Pokemon in the next games, since they all already have walking AND running animations, like the ones used in Lets Go. They’re just getting a little old, is all. Plus, I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, but I really just want certain flying Pokemon like Charizard, Dragonite, and Xatu to just stop flying in their idle battle model. They really don’t work like they are now, since they aren’t designed to be constantly flying at all times (as seen in their 2D sprites and official art). That stuff just bugs me. They made it that way for Airborne battles in Gen 6, but since those types of battles don’t exist anymore, those animations are pointless...

But yeah, Let’s Go was fun, much more fun than Firered, and I have high hopes for the next Pokemon games.

I’m seriously feeling the stasis of the franchise right now, though. We need some reliable leaks and/or official announcements soon, or I might go nuts. 

[lodelss]

After a Lifetime Apart, COVID-19 Prison Release Reunites Mother and Daughter

“You’re on the list.” It took a few seconds for Chalana McFarland to grasp what was happening. Her name was one of just a few on the list of people who would be released from prison early due to COVID-19. Behind her stood a line of dozens of other women waiting to see if they made it. Only some of them had. But as Chalana received the news, they started cheering, and caused such an uproar that the correctional staff had to reprimand them. That’s when it finally clicked for Chalana — after 15 years in prison, she was finally going home.  Chalana immediately contacted her daughter. “I was watching a movie with my roommate when I got the news,” says Nia, who is 19 and lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she attends university. “At first I was like, ‘What?’ I didn’t think it was real. Then I just fell over crying. I couldn’t even talk. Later, when we talked on the phone, I could hear the happiness in my mom’s voice that this was all finally going to be over.”

A number of prisons and jails across the country have begun to release people who are vulnerable to COVID-19 due to age or underlying health conditions, or people who are incarcerated while awaiting trial. This is the result of pressure from public health officials, advocates, and corrections officials. But the coronavirus poses a threat to all incarcerated people. It can spread rapidly in jails and prisons, where social distancing is impossible, access to hygiene is lacking, and medical care is inadequate. If even one person becomes infected, the potential outbreak could be devastating. There are already more than 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in state and federal prisons and jails combined, and this is despite the fact that testing is impossible in most facilities. Facilities including Rikers Island jail in New York, Oakdale federal prison in Louisiana, and many others have already seen deadly outbreaks.

Chalana knew that as a Black woman with asthma, high blood pressure, and sickle cell trait, she was at a higher risk. She feared that her 30-year sentence in federal prison for mortgage fraud would become a death sentence if she remained in prison.

“My greatest fear is to die in here,” she told the ACLU by phone from the prison. “We try to stay away from each other so as to not pass it,” but there is only so much they can do.

The FCI Coleman facility in Florida houses roughly 400 women. Chalana describes their quarters as tightly-packed cubicles with three walls and no ceiling — about the size of a walk-in closet. Each cubicle contains a bunk bed, but because many of the women are elderly or have medical conditions that impede mobility, the bunks are often cut in half and laid side-to-side, taking up almost all of the floorspace.

“Only one person can move around at a time,” says Chalana. “You can look over the wall and see the person next to you. So if someone gets COVID-19, they’re going to give it to the next person and probably the person on the other side of the wall as well.”

The women at Coleman have already suffered other infectious outbreaks this year. In the winter, flu and Legionnaires spread throughout the facility, hospitalizing several women and overwhelming the prison’s already-overstretched medical staff.

“Sometimes you had to wait if you had to vomit or had diarrhea, because all the toilets were full,” remembers Chalana. “All night long it sounded like a TV war because people were just coughing, coughing, coughing. It was horrible.”

Approximately 40 percent of people in jails and prisons suffer from at least one chronic health condition, and jails and prisons tend to have substandard health care, even on a good day. Often, there are simply not enough medical staff to treat the hundreds or thousands of people living in the facilities.

“It’s not humanly possible to treat the number of people they have,” says Chalana. She says that if someone feels they are sick, they need to fill out a slip and give it to the prison’s medical staff, who then determine whether they need to see a doctor — without examination. Those who are selected can wait up to two weeks to actually see the doctor. The procedure is no different for people with COVID-19 symptoms, who are sent back to the dorms while they await care. “It’s like Russian roulette,” says Chalana. (The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment on the care provided at Coleman.)

“The longer you’re here, the more you realize that you have to take care of yourself and the others around you as much as possible, which means that when someone’s sick, we all pull together to see what kind of over-the-counter medicines we have to help the person,” she says. “We make tea. We make chicken soup. We do what we can to try to help each other, but when it’s something that’s viral like the coronavirus, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The threat of COVID-19 came to light gradually at Coleman. Most of the women learned about the virus from friends and family members on visits or phone calls. “Once we saw the news about the county jails, and what was happening at Oakdale, that’s when the alarm went off that we were really in danger,” says Chalana, referring to the federal prison in Louisiana where the COVID-19-related death toll is rising.

“You feel helpless,” Nia tells the ACLU. “There’s someone that you love and care about so much, and it seems like no one else really cares about them. So I was just praying, hoping, and waiting because there was nothing I could do.” Inside Coleman, Chalana was concerned about her family’s safety, too. “We worry about them just as much as they worry about us,” she says. “My parents are both 76 years old, and I worry every day that they’re going to go to the market and contract COVID, and I won’t get to see them while they’re still alive.”

Nia was only four years old when her mother, then an attorney, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for mortgage fraud, a first-time offense. The average sentence for mortgage fraud is 22 months.

“I came to understand that justice and fairness can be incongruent,” she says. “As an attorney, wife, and mother of a 4-year-old, my life as I knew it came to an end.”

Nia was too young to remember. “I don’t have a lot of memory of my mom not being behind bars,” she says. “My whole life I’ve always imagined what it would be like to have my mom actively present in my life. I didn’t expect that to happen until I was in my 30s.”

For the last 15 years, they have stayed connected as much as they could through letters, video calls, and regular visits. Chalana would mail Nia items she made in prison, like bags she knitted for her to take to dance class and folders she decorated for school.

“It was like cool, customized stuff that nobody else had,” says Nia. “And it made me feel like she was there, even though she couldn’t physically be there.”

Still, there were always significant barriers between them. They have never been able to spend more than a few hours together at a time, and that time is always shared with others. Chalana has never seen Nia dance or play basketball, and she missed her baptism. She’s missed every graduation since kindergarten, including Nia’s high school graduation, where she delivered a speech as senior class president.

Nia’s speech was about her mother.  “It was about not letting your circumstances define your destiny,” she tells the ACLU. “Just because you’ve been dealt certain cards in life doesn’t mean you can’t change and be a successful person on your own.” She wrote the speech with Chalana’s help and read it to her over the phone for practice. 

Now Chalana hopes to see Nia’s college graduation. But most of all, she looks forward to spending time with her daughter without any barriers between them.

“I’ll finally get a chance to know who my daughter is,” says Chalana. “To just snuggle on the couch with her and find out whether she’s as much of a Star Trek fan as I am, or if she doesn’t like asparagus or something like that.”

The upcoming release — any day now — is hard for Chalana to talk about without getting emotional. Her reunion with her family was always going to be momentous, but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an added element that perhaps wouldn’t have been top of mind under different circumstances: their health. Chalana knows she is also lucky to be able to reunite with her family while they are all still healthy.

Though Chalana made the list of releases, her fight to get out of prison isn’t over. Today, she’s sifting through a mountain of paperwork to leave Coleman — which is much harder than getting in, she’s realized. She still doesn’t have a release date and the thought of it is still surreal: “It’s sort of like, ‘Okay, God, please let this all be real.’”

The world Chalana returns to will also be far different from the one she left behind 15 years ago. She’s returning to a pandemic-stricken world where people are staying six feet apart and wearing masks in the street, where stores and restaurants are shuttered and whole cities and states are required to shelter in place. But she’s not worried about what life will be like under quarantine.

“Every day people are saying how frustrated they are being quarantined and how they’re going stir crazy inside,” says Chalana. “Well, that’s our lives every day. Just imagine what you’re going through now on quarantine, but you can’t control what time you go to bed, eat, or shower. You can’t watch TV, you have no internet, you have no computers. That’s a small taste of what our life is like in prison.”

And to those who might say, “You did the crime so do the time”?  “We get that,” says Chalana. “But at the same time, we’re people too. We’re your mothers, your daughters, your neighbors, your friends. We’re just people that are in a situation where we can’t be protected.”

Published April 23, 2020 at 08:40PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2VRL4Hb

[lunawings]

Yuri!!! On Stage Event Report!

So today (4/29/2017) I went to the Yuri on Ice Yuri on Stage event. To clarify though, I was not at the actual Tokyo event, rather a live viewing at a local movie theater. Which of course does alter the experience but it’s the next best thing. At first I thought the theater was only doing the afternoon session, but very last minute I ended up being able to attend both!

For starters, the voice actors of most the skaters were there +Nishigori. When everyone came out they more or less came out in order of popularity from lowest to high so it was all like... YURI ON STAGE... Here is Nishigori!!! to start which got a good laugh. 

(Georgi just existing always got a good laugh too.)

Characters of voice actors who attended: Yuri, Victor, Yurio, Phichit, Chris, Georgi, Minami Kenjiro, Leo, Guang Hong, Seung Gil, Emil, Nishigori.

Characters of voice actors who did not attend but appeared on video: JJ, Michele, Otobek.  And Kubo-sensei.

Victor’s voice actor cosplayed for both showings. First he was in a suit, and second he was in a black shirt and pants like his the new figure. YES he did the pose. He even dyed his hair. Apparently he kinda killed it dying and redying it though. 

Yuri’s voice actor was wearing a necklace that could have possible been interpreted as a silver medal. 

After everyone came out and introduced themselves with a key line from their character, we moved into the talk show section. Unfortunately I don’t have that much to say about this part because they just talk so much so fast that I only understand about 70% to begin with and only half of the jokes... 

Georgi’s voice actor was the moderator and they split up the characters into different groups. Afternoon session was.... Teens: Yurio, Emil, Leo, Guang Hong Kyushu: Yuri, Kenjiro, Nishigori 20-somethings: Victor, Chris, Phichit, Seung Gil

Evening session was...  Not not just cute: Guang Hong, Emil, Chris, Leo? “My Pace”: Victor, Emil... Phichit? (I might have mixed up some of these... sorry I don’t remember.) Surprising gap: Yuri, Yurio, Seung Gil, Nishigori

Kubo-sensei was very involved in this section. It was funny because at other events I have been to the voice actors were always like “lol well I think my character would be like this...” but at this event she kept interrupting like the voice of God to be like “Well, ACTUALLY.....”

Chris was only in the “cute” group because of his cute butt.

He put Chris character badges on his butt to show off too.

I think Kubo-sensei said something about when she starts drawing Chris she just starts with a butt.  The “My Pace” group refers to the characters all having a “do whatever I want” attitude. They came out wandering all over the stage. I had no idea how to translate “surprising gap”... it meant like, characters who have two sides to them. Like Yuri with his eros, and Seung Gil when he got really upset after losing. 

During the “gap” group Nishigori’s voice actor describes the gap with a very long convoluted story that ended with the birth of the triplets? So they were like Kubo-sensei did you know about this? Apparently she DID write it... then forgot about it. 

At one point they were talking about who they look up to as voice actors, and Kenjiro’s said he looked up to Yurio’s voice actor. This was during the Kyushu men segment, so he wasn’t on stage. But they pushed him out and made them sit VERY CLOSE. It was... a moment. 

There were a lot of innuendo jokes about how Phichit’s name sounds like “pichitto”, Japanese for “tight” or “snug.” For example: Phichit’s ass is pichitto.

Anyway, next came the world quiz section. 

So they separated everyone into four groups. During the afternoon session they drew cards from a box on stage, but for the evening they just did it in advance to save time. 

Every group got a table with a buzzer. They really liked the buzzer. 

So basically, what they did was they translated an anime scene into another language featured on the show and had a native speaker read it. Then the voice actors had to guess which scene it was.

In the afternoon session the language was Thai and it was basically impossible to guess right away. SO they had JJ’s voice actor, good old Mamoru Miyano, appear on the screen give a clue. He basically just gave us the Thai word for “onsen” then showed a several minutes long JJ montage to the theme of King JJ and then told us to enjoy “JJ On Stage.”

Also during the Thai reading the guys were laughing because a part of the Thai sounded kinda like “chinsuko” which sounds like an Okinawan snack which sounds like “penis.” Anyway.

After two more clues, first “hold back”, and then “internet” I was able to guess the scene and so did Yuri’s voice actor. (It was the Chinese restaurant scene.)

For the evening show however, the puzzle was MUCH easier. Even in the original Russan I could make out “piroshki” and a very heavily Russian-accented “katsudon.” You could tell from their reaction that the voice actors knew it too. But if someone guessed too early we would miss Mamoru Miyano’s clue so everyone stayed silent. 

Mamoru Miyano gave us the Russan word for “grandfather.” And at this point somebody (I forget who) said “Well clearly we all know it’s the scene where Yuri and Yurio eat piroshki--” BUT TOO BAD because we were shown the JJ video anyway ahaha.

So at this point everyone knew the answer but to keep the segment going they just decided to fuck around instead by buzzing in and saying random words in Russian. Phichit’s voice actor tried to make “miso soup” sound like a Russian word and the hosts got mad at him when he defined it as “japanese soup made from miso” without any other ingredients. Yuri and Guang Hong’s voice actors were on the same team with Phichit and both were wearing glasses so they were all like “which one is which???” and Phichit’s actor didn’t have glasses so he had to improvise with his hands and this foam thing he found. Victor’s voice actor tried to use the “grandfather” clue to tell long fairy tales “a very long long time ago there was a grandfather....” It’s so hard to describe well but this was so amazing and everyone was just having such a great time. 

Oh, and the Russian speaker’s name was Emil so we had a brief WHOS THE REAL EMIL contest. (If they were speaking English surely they would have said “would the real Emil please stand up?”)

So anyway, Kubo-sensei had to chose the winner in the end and she picked Yuri’s team twice in a row. This is interesting because she got to put gold medals on the winners both times. After that the winners also got to eat samples of the katsudon piroshki they are currently selling at Namja Town. 

After that they did some script reading of key scenes and it was very artistic and beautiful. While Yuri, Victor, and Yurio were reading on stage they somehow raised a TINY ice skating rink where a woman did Yurio’s Agape in the afternoon and free skate in the evening (or at least as much as she could on a tiny square of ice, no jumps or anything). 

And now, what you have all been waiting for... the original drama. 

(No, this was not animated. They could not. They just stood and read a script. Quotes are of course translated from memory and probably not 100% accurate.)

It starts off with Victor reading something vague about how unforgettable the previous night was. Yuri is making noises that sound increasingly sexual until we realize... actually he’s throwing up.  Phichit: Green stuff is coming out of Yuri’s mouth... I have to put this on the internet!! 

Seung Gil: I have something to say to you. Yuri: What do you mean, you’re just looking at me with that same unreadable expression as always. Seung Gil: Put some clothes on.  Yuri: HUAAAAHHHH.

So Yuri is naked with Russian written on his back that Yurio translates to “Overcome Chihoko” and a strange cap on his head which is actually Victor’s underwear. And his body is extremely sore. And he remembers nothing. And Victor is gone.

Yurio: Yuri Stinking Katsuki what did you do with Victor. Yuri: Don’t say “stinking” like it’s my middle name.... 

And so, piece by piece we figure out what happened. So the setting is that everyone is in Hasetsu for a “Onsen on Ice Victor With Friends” show and the night before they were all drinking at the Katsuki place. Victor is poking Yuri’s soft belly. But Chris comes into the picture and soon Drunk Yuri starts to get whiny and jealous...

Yuri: Victor... stop looking at Chris... look at me.... Victor: I am looking at you.  Yuri: No you’re not. Victor...... let’s do it...... Victor: ...........................do what Yuri: Do... what people do when they drink..... And to be honest I do not know exactly what he said next, but from the next few lines I gathered it was a drinking game where you get naked. So Yuri was like “SO I LOST THEN” but the others explained that.... ACTUALLY, Yuri then ripped Victor’s clothes off to practice a naked Eros routine and then also needed his underwear for a coronation ceremony. I may have missed a couple things but I’m pretty sure this is not supposed to make sense in the first place and Yuri basically wants to die. 

SO everyone is blaming Yuri for Victor’s disappearance when detective Minami Kenjiro steps in to solve the case. He mentions Yurio is the only one with a motive since he found a list Yurio made of different names for a show he is planning to take over the Victor With Friends show with. I wish I could remember them all but the only one I remember 100% accurately is Yuri on Tiger. Yurio denies it though. But also apparently Otobek came up with half of them. Also Yurio has no idea who Minami is even though they were “rivals” in junior.

To make everything worse we suddenly find out from Nishigori from the triplets that the skate otaku are flipping out because the Victor With Friends show will not have Victor in it. Somehow they found how he is missing. SOMEBODY uploaded photos to the internet of their get together... PHICHIT! 

But this is a blessing in disguise because now they can check the photos. And they find... Seung Gil kissing Nishigori.... AND IN THE BACKGROUND is Victor stretching out Yuri. (”Oh, that’s why I am sore all over,” says Yuri.)

Georgi then comes in to reveal that Victor and Yuri actually had a fight last night (Phichit: YOU... GOT DIVORCED...?!) , but about what he does not remember... he rattles off some words that sound vaguely like “penis” before they realize it’s “Chihoko”! The word on Yuri’s back! So, it’s in Russian, and if Yurio and Georgi didn’t write it, that must mean... VICTOR. 

So then Emil comes in, who apparently came to Japan on jet skis or something, and informs them that he knows where Victor is... He’s at Hasetsu Castle... on the roof, naked. 

So they all run down there and it’s revealed what really happened. 

While they were stretching Victor commented on how Yuri’s belly is soft but his back is rigid. Yuri says of course he can’t compare to Victor, but there is someone more limber than Victor... “Sha... Chihoko...”

Okay so. The joke here is that Victor hears this and thinks it’s the name of Yuri’s ex-lover and gets jealous. But the thing is, I have NO IDEA what Yuri was actually trying to say? It had to mean something because people in the theater were laughing. I know it also sounds vaguely like “penis” but that alone cannot be the joke... HELP. 

EDIT: OKAY. I think I got it. It’s a mythical carp which bends backwards. I should have known this because it’s also Nagoya thing. The statues of them are on Nagoya castle too. This ties in with them going to the castle in the end OF COURSE.

(EDITEDIT: Guys I’m sorry but it’s NOT that Yuri was saying Victor was too tense. I know you must think I’m nuts but grammar wise Yuri was comparing Victor to a person or an object. I know that sounds like that could make sense but you’ll just have to believe me. The whole point was that Victor IS flexable... but not as flexible as “Shachihoko”... Yuri even refers to “Chihoko” as “aitsu” as in “that guy” which makes Victor’s blood boil. And once again the castle part completes the joke.)

So Victor writes “Overcome Chihoko” in Russian on Yuri’s back and then goes off to train. There is this whole montage of scenes from the anime as Victor reflects on the fact that Yuri had a past before him but... VICTOR IS HIS NOW.

So, in present time Yuri shows up at the castle to find Victor bending over backwards on the roof:

Victor: IS THIS BETTER THAN CHIHOKO? Yuri: WHO THE HELL IS CHIHOKO. Nobody is better than you. 

In the end he convinces Yuri to strip and do stretching too as the skaters below gaze up at the amazing one in a million sight. 

Phichit: MY BEST FRIEND GOT REMARRIED...!!!!

The end. 

What followed was a live performance of “You Only Live Once” and a really cool ending ceremony. Everyone came out with laser pointers imitating the fireworks in the ending. Then they showed a slideshow of photos from the event (as in stuff that JUST happened) also to mimic the anime ending, and finally at the very end they showed a time lapse photo revealing that the voice actors were not waving the laser pointers randomly. They were spelling out the words “thank you”....... AWWWWWWWWWGHHHH--

So at the afternoon show the end was the end.

This meant if there was going to be any announcement it would be in the evening show. As it wound down I was skeptical there would even be one because Kubo-sensei actually said something about taking a “season off”... and I was like NO... NOOOO.

But then the display dimmed and we say that one card which said “All new original movie has been decided!” I wish I had more info, but that was it! No key visual or date, just... we’re getting a movie! It’s coming! It’s not a second season, but, I guess they have their reasons. 

[nancydhooper]

After a Lifetime Apart, COVID-19 Prison Release Reunites Mother and Daughter

“You’re on the list.” It took a few seconds for Chalana McFarland to grasp what was happening. Her name was one of just a few on the list of people who would be released from prison early due to COVID-19. Behind her stood a line of dozens of other women waiting to see if they made it. Only some of them had. But as Chalana received the news, they started cheering, and caused such an uproar that the correctional staff had to reprimand them. That’s when it finally clicked for Chalana — after 15 years in prison, she was finally going home.  Chalana immediately contacted her daughter. “I was watching a movie with my roommate when I got the news,” says Nia, who is 19 and lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she attends university. “At first I was like, ‘What?’ I didn’t think it was real. Then I just fell over crying. I couldn’t even talk. Later, when we talked on the phone, I could hear the happiness in my mom’s voice that this was all finally going to be over.”

A number of prisons and jails across the country have begun to release people who are vulnerable to COVID-19 due to age or underlying health conditions, or people who are incarcerated while awaiting trial. This is the result of pressure from public health officials, advocates, and corrections officials. But the coronavirus poses a threat to all incarcerated people. It can spread rapidly in jails and prisons, where social distancing is impossible, access to hygiene is lacking, and medical care is inadequate. If even one person becomes infected, the potential outbreak could be devastating. There are already more than 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in state and federal prisons and jails combined, and this is despite the fact that testing is impossible in most facilities. Facilities including Rikers Island jail in New York, Oakdale federal prison in Louisiana, and many others have already seen deadly outbreaks.

Chalana knew that as a Black woman with asthma, high blood pressure, and sickle cell trait, she was at a higher risk. She feared that her 30-year sentence in federal prison for mortgage fraud would become a death sentence if she remained in prison.

“My greatest fear is to die in here,” she told the ACLU by phone from the prison. “We try to stay away from each other so as to not pass it,” but there is only so much they can do.

The FCI Coleman facility in Florida houses roughly 400 women. Chalana describes their quarters as tightly-packed cubicles with three walls and no ceiling — about the size of a walk-in closet. Each cubicle contains a bunk bed, but because many of the women are elderly or have medical conditions that impede mobility, the bunks are often cut in half and laid side-to-side, taking up almost all of the floorspace.

“Only one person can move around at a time,” says Chalana. “You can look over the wall and see the person next to you. So if someone gets COVID-19, they’re going to give it to the next person and probably the person on the other side of the wall as well.”

The women at Coleman have already suffered other infectious outbreaks this year. In the winter, flu and Legionnaires spread throughout the facility, hospitalizing several women and overwhelming the prison’s already-overstretched medical staff.

“Sometimes you had to wait if you had to vomit or had diarrhea, because all the toilets were full,” remembers Chalana. “All night long it sounded like a TV war because people were just coughing, coughing, coughing. It was horrible.”

Approximately 40 percent of people in jails and prisons suffer from at least one chronic health condition, and jails and prisons tend to have substandard health care, even on a good day. Often, there are simply not enough medical staff to treat the hundreds or thousands of people living in the facilities.

“It’s not humanly possible to treat the number of people they have,” says Chalana. She says that if someone feels they are sick, they need to fill out a slip and give it to the prison’s medical staff, who then determine whether they need to see a doctor — without examination. Those who are selected can wait up to two weeks to actually see the doctor. The procedure is no different for people with COVID-19 symptoms, who are sent back to the dorms while they await care. “It’s like Russian roulette,” says Chalana. (The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment on the care provided at Coleman.)

“The longer you’re here, the more you realize that you have to take care of yourself and the others around you as much as possible, which means that when someone’s sick, we all pull together to see what kind of over-the-counter medicines we have to help the person,” she says. “We make tea. We make chicken soup. We do what we can to try to help each other, but when it’s something that’s viral like the coronavirus, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The threat of COVID-19 came to light gradually at Coleman. Most of the women learned about the virus from friends and family members on visits or phone calls. “Once we saw the news about the county jails, and what was happening at Oakdale, that’s when the alarm went off that we were really in danger,” says Chalana, referring to the federal prison in Louisiana where the COVID-19-related death toll is rising.

“You feel helpless,” Nia tells the ACLU. “There’s someone that you love and care about so much, and it seems like no one else really cares about them. So I was just praying, hoping, and waiting because there was nothing I could do.” Inside Coleman, Chalana was concerned about her family’s safety, too. “We worry about them just as much as they worry about us,” she says. “My parents are both 76 years old, and I worry every day that they’re going to go to the market and contract COVID, and I won’t get to see them while they’re still alive.”

Nia was only four years old when her mother, then an attorney, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for mortgage fraud, a first-time offense. The average sentence for mortgage fraud is 22 months.

“I came to understand that justice and fairness can be incongruent,” she says. “As an attorney, wife, and mother of a 4-year-old, my life as I knew it came to an end.”

Nia was too young to remember. “I don’t have a lot of memory of my mom not being behind bars,” she says. “My whole life I’ve always imagined what it would be like to have my mom actively present in my life. I didn’t expect that to happen until I was in my 30s.”

For the last 15 years, they have stayed connected as much as they could through letters, video calls, and regular visits. Chalana would mail Nia items she made in prison, like bags she knitted for her to take to dance class and folders she decorated for school.

“It was like cool, customized stuff that nobody else had,” says Nia. “And it made me feel like she was there, even though she couldn’t physically be there.”

Still, there were always significant barriers between them. They have never been able to spend more than a few hours together at a time, and that time is always shared with others. Chalana has never seen Nia dance or play basketball, and she missed her baptism. She’s missed every graduation since kindergarten, including Nia’s high school graduation, where she delivered a speech as senior class president.

Nia’s speech was about her mother.  “It was about not letting your circumstances define your destiny,” she tells the ACLU. “Just because you’ve been dealt certain cards in life doesn’t mean you can’t change and be a successful person on your own.” She wrote the speech with Chalana’s help and read it to her over the phone for practice. 

Now Chalana hopes to see Nia’s college graduation. But most of all, she looks forward to spending time with her daughter without any barriers between them.

“I’ll finally get a chance to know who my daughter is,” says Chalana. “To just snuggle on the couch with her and find out whether she’s as much of a Star Trek fan as I am, or if she doesn’t like asparagus or something like that.”

The upcoming release — any day now — is hard for Chalana to talk about without getting emotional. Her reunion with her family was always going to be momentous, but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an added element that perhaps wouldn’t have been top of mind under different circumstances: their health. Chalana knows she is also lucky to be able to reunite with her family while they are all still healthy.

Though Chalana made the list of releases, her fight to get out of prison isn’t over. Today, she’s sifting through a mountain of paperwork to leave Coleman — which is much harder than getting in, she’s realized. She still doesn’t have a release date and the thought of it is still surreal: “It’s sort of like, ‘Okay, God, please let this all be real.’”

The world Chalana returns to will also be far different from the one she left behind 15 years ago. She’s returning to a pandemic-stricken world where people are staying six feet apart and wearing masks in the street, where stores and restaurants are shuttered and whole cities and states are required to shelter in place. But she’s not worried about what life will be like under quarantine.

“Every day people are saying how frustrated they are being quarantined and how they’re going stir crazy inside,” says Chalana. “Well, that’s our lives every day. Just imagine what you’re going through now on quarantine, but you can’t control what time you go to bed, eat, or shower. You can’t watch TV, you have no internet, you have no computers. That’s a small taste of what our life is like in prison.”

Chalana knows there are some people who will say “you did the crime now do the time.” “I get that,” she says. “But at the same time, we’re people too. We’re your mothers, your daughters, your neighbors, your friends … I don’t deserve to die in here, and none of these ladies do.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/after-a-lifetime-apart-covid-19-prison-release-reunites-mother-and-daughter via http://www.rssmix.com/

[d-dumais-blog]

Religious Symbolism in Kemono Friends

DISCLAIMER

I’m going to be discussing Kemono Friends and its comparisons to Christianity as I see them.  I feel it’s only fair to provide a short disclaimer here at the top.  For starters I mean no disrespect to those of faith.  I realize that I’m comparing your lord and savior to a cute anime girl named bag chan, but I hope you’ll understand and appreciate these comparisons all the same. Second, I do not think this show is in anyway trying to convert children, or anyone for that matter, to any religion.  I think that religion is used here as a guiding story structure.  The writers of the show simply pulled from the best selling story of all time, the bible.  Third, I’ll provide my personal context here at the top so you do not feel as a reader at any point that I’ve mislead you.  I’ll be writing using the capitalized letters for God and Father and the like because it helps delineate that I am specifically referring to the proper noun name used in Christian stories and not referring to any other gods in other faiths.  I am currently non religious and uncertain of my faith.  I have however previously spent years working for the church in various capacities, and I spent time studying theology both in early schooling and into my college courses.  I don’t write this article to try and change your mind about anything, or even to change how you think of this series.  I simply thought my perspective and insight was interesting so I wanted to share it with you all.  Lastly I’ll add that this was originally written at the end of March, but has been edited and posted here now since it never saw the light of day previously.  With all that out of the way let’s fall down this rabbit hole together.  

Kemono Friends is an exceptionally well developed children’s show that succeeds in creating an intelligently designed world where the story unfolds.   I don’t simply use the term intelligent design without reverence and understanding of its meaning in a broader context. Intelligent design is a term used by Christianity in describing God’s creations and plan, and I believe at its core Kemono Friends draws heavily from Christianity in developing its themes and characters.  At first glance when comparing the two my mind goes to the Old Testament stories of the Garden of Eden, where humans and animals cohabitate and communicate peacefully together.  There’s even an Apple representing knowledge in the Library, but the apple has already been eaten and the ceruleans represent a clear and present danger that suggests the story must take place later on.  I instead assert that the story of Kemono Friends is the story of the Gospels, the story of Jesus Christ himself, with Kaban acting as the savior or Messiah figure.  Furthermore I believe the entirety of the Holy Trinity is present in the show: Kaban as the Son, Lucky Beast as the Holy Ghost, and Mirai as the Father.   These connections vary in strength for these three, with Kaban’s comparisons to Jesus being the strongest and the focus of this blog post.  

We’ll begin with our protagonist, Kaban and her similarities to Jesus.  Kaban travels from area to area solving problems for the many Friends she encounters through her journey.  Others describe her journey as heroic; they say she stops wars and builds bridges, and a certain amount of mythos begins to form around her.  Though she is similar to the Friends, she knows that she is somehow different and ultimately her goal is to discover who she is, where she came from, and where she belongs.   While these are all clearly analogous to the story of Christ, right down to performing “miracles” in the eyes of the Friends she encounters, they are also the traits and story of most great heroes. The writers behind Kemono Friends knew for Kban to be a true Christ like figure the similarities needed to go further, and further down the rabbit hole we shall go.  Kaban is born from nothing and quite literally has an immaculate conception.  It’s not until the final episodes that we finally see how Kaban entered this world. She’s a spherical ball of light that forms into a person as the safari hat falls on to it.  There are no parents, hell there aren’t even any other humans near her when she bursts into existence.  Her birth isn’t the result of science, of some experiment taking place on the island.  Her birth into the world is a miracle.  An unlikely savior is impossibly born into the world to travel across it helping those she passes, teaching where she can, and at the end, through self sacrifice saving them from the evil that is threatening their peaceful lives on the island. Her death and revival are also miraculous.  

If Sin is the evil that Jesus died to save his followers from, then clearly the ceruleans represent that sin and evil.  The ceruleans look to consume and destroy the light and the life of the world they inhabit.  They eat Friends and return them to their “original” forms; in the series we are led to believe the Friends turn back into normal animals before the sandstar turned them into Friends, though this is never shown.  Think about that for a second though, ceruleans, or in this context sin,  comes and washes away the blessings given to the Friends that allow them to live and communicate effectively, reverting them back to more primal and basic animals without reason and understanding.  In Kaban’s attempt to rid the world of this evil, she is forced to sacrifice herself in order to save Serval from the beast.  She is swallowed up into the darkness where she remains for far longer than anyone.  While inside the monstrous cerulean her body returns to a spherical ball of light, just as she was at her immaculate birth.  When she is finally pulled from the darkness she transforms back into the girl all the Friends know and love.  The giant cerulean is defeated and light begins to shine on the island once more. All the Friends assume that because her original form is human and she was never transformed into anything, being eaten by the cerulean didn’t affect her and that all humans must turn back into humans after being eaten.  This assumption made by the Friends is of course false.  Only the Messiah could be reborn after being eaten by darkness, and we know this because all other humans fled the park in fear of the ceruleans. If the ceruleans truly posed no danger to the humans there would be no purpose in evacuating, and more knowing figures, like Lucky Beast, would not have been frightened for Kaban. There are even contextual clues of a battle foguth between the humans and ceruleans in the form of abandoned weaponry and empty bomb shells.  I think it’s fair to make the assumption these were used by humans against ceruleans because the show never introduces another threat, and it’s clear that the friends don’t know anything about these weapons cause they are never mentioned.    In the final moments of the show Kaban leaves to go where she believes and hopes she belongs, off into the unknown across the ocean to a new island.  If the first island represents our earth, covered in sin, then the new place she heads that is free from such hardship must be Heaven, and like Christ guiding his apostles, Kaban ventures forth with Serval and Friends close behind.  

The next figure in the Kemono Friends Holy Trinity is Lucky Beast acting as the Holy Spirit. Beforew e get too deep I’ll admit these connections are far weaker than those of Kaban and Jesus, but this is fun so follow along and be willing to perform some mental gymnastics along the way please.   In scriptures, the Holy Ghost is the omnipresent part of God that acts as the guide. Lucky Beast is very clearly the guide in this series, doing everything from driving the bus to explaining attractions and directions.  Lucky Beast is also omnipresent because there are a countless number of Lucky Beasts spread across the various areas of the park that can all at once act together to accomplish a singular goal as shown by Lucky Beast gathering all of the Friends across the many areas in the final episode.  Lucky Beast’s white colors are also reminiscent of the white dove the Holy Spirit embodies in scripture, though I admit this would be more evident if its shape was that of a dove, though perhaps that would be too on the nose. Similar to the Holy Ghost in the Bible, communication with Lucky Beast is facilitated through Kaban.  Lucky Beast only ever communicates directly with Friends upon Kaban’s initial passing.  The Holy Ghost is also seen in scriptures as the communicative vessel for the Father which in this series would be Mirai.  Mirai speaks through and is eventually seen through the eyes of Lucky Beast, and it is through this connection we find out what little we do know about the only older figure in the entire series.  

Mirai is the Father in the Trinity that is Kemono Friends. The connections here become even scarcer, which makes perfect sense.  If Kemono Friends is the story of the Gospels, then it makes sense that the Father is rarely shown, because that is similar to the gospels in the Bible.  The story of the father is written primarily in the Old Testament, and we’d need to see the prequel to Kemono Friends (oh please please please yes) if we’d like the full story on Mirai.  Here I’ll try and break down what we do know.  Mirai was part of the park staff, meaning she was part of the ruling body of the park in charge of attractions and Friends alike. To be more specific, she is the only known staff member of the park until Kaban assumes the responsibility in the final episodes of the show in order to overcome the ceruleans.  We know that she was doing research on the sandstars and was responsible for the discovery, if not creation, of the Friends. She lived among the Friends until the ceruleans began consuming the island, just as the Father lived among humans in the Garden of Eden until sin took root.  We also know that her hat is worn by kaban for the entirety of the show, and is the initial catalyst for kaban turning from a ball of light into the savior the world so desperately needs.  She is more knowledgeable than any other character in the series and thus appears omniscient.  She also embodies and represents the place Kaban feels she belongs, just as the Son must sit at the side of the Father, Kaban must go to be with Mirai.  Mrai’s character helps embody both what is good about the show and faith.  Her character isn’t fully understood, and the viewer is left thirsting for more knowledge. Just as Christians are taught that they do not understand God, they should want with all they have to be close to Him and to know Him better.  

To recap, Kban is born from nothing and resembles the only known authority figure in the world.  She sacrifices herself to protect her friends, comes back to life shortly there after, then ultimately succeeds in protecting her friends from harm.  Lucky Beast is a guiding figure that only communicates through Kaban unless otherwise ordered by Kaban, and has information on Mirai.  Mirai is the only known authority figure who is shown to be at least partially responsible for the creation of Friends, and is a ruling party over the park.  I’m willing to put on my tin foil hat for this one! Hope you’ve been following along at home if not I’ve got a very easy to follow wall of notes that will help this all make sense.  

Kemono Friends isn’t a show with a dark twist; it’s not a deconstruction of any existing genre.  Kemono Friends is a kids’ show that tells the same story countless parents and preachers across the world have been telling children for centuries, the story of a savior that came to travel the world, a savior that made many friends, the story of a savior who loves her friends so dearly she will give herself to protect them from evil.  Kemono Friends succeeds where other shows fall short because it is both extremely deep in its symbolism and themes, while remaining approachable and friendly towards children.  It’s incredible that such a great show was born from such a troubled past.  The series is based on a failed license.  The phone game it draws inspiration from was shut down a month before the show began airing.  The studio, Yaoyorozu, has yet to achieve critical or commercial success prior to this series.  The entire staff is rather unknown, and they should be celebrated and heralded as the most unlikely of success stories.  It seems unlikely that we’ll ever get to see the prequel Old Testament story of the park before ceruleans, and that might be sad, but ultimately it’s okay because the story told here is so complete and well done.  I tip my hat to you Yaoyorozu, you’ve made a fan out of me.  

PPPS. PPP is awesome just a pppublic service announcement