#and the feelings he only ever managed to develop for buffy

[coraniaid]

buffy/angel

I think Buffy's relationship with Angel is a hugely important part of her character and something which is vital to understanding all of her future romantic relationships. Yeah, maybe Boreanaz isn't the world's best actor (or second best, or third best, or ...) but Angel's hardly the only character in the first couple of seasons whose actor could be doing a better job and at a certain point all of the clowning on him starts to feel a bit tedious. I honestly kind of hate the way some fans of other ships will try to handwave away the importance of this relationship and pretend that Buffy wasn't ever really in love with Angel or that she'd be fundamentally the same person if she'd never met him. It just feels like a total refusal to engage with what is actually happening on screen.

That said: I don't ship it, no.

1) Why don't you ship it?

For me there are three main issues.

First, there's a bit of a pacing issue. The late Season 1 dynamic -- Buffy is attracted to Angel but conflicted about the fact he's a vampire and they definitely aren't dating as such -- is pretty good, I think, if not anything groundbreaking. As Xander says early on, Angel is "a very attractive man". He's a mysterious older guy who shows up now and then whenever there's danger and he's very pretty and brooding and troubled and he gives Buffy his leather jacket when she's cold and tells her to keep it because it "looks better on you". Buffy is into him. I get it.

That's how we start Season 2, too. In When She Was Bad Buffy tells Angel "there is no us" and claims she didn't spend the summer "mooning over" him, but we also see that she missed him and she tries and fails to tell him that. In Reptile Boy Buffy admits to Willow that she's been dreaming about Angel a lot but insists that "the vampire thing" means she can't have a relationship with him; Willow later gets angry with Angel on Buffy's behalf and asks him why he can't make time for a cup of coffee.

But by What's My Line?, just four episodes later, Buffy and Angel are definitely dating (he takes her to the ice rink, she claims that Spike has crossed a line because "nobody messes with my boyfriend"). So that gives the show just three episodes to go from "Buffy is attracted to Angel but they aren't in any sort of relationship" to "wait, yes they are" and I'm not sure it manages it. (Especially because the question of their relationship doesn't even really come up in The Dark Age.)

Are they already dating in Halloween, when Buffy dresses up to impress Angel and he tells her she's "not like other girls"? Are they dating in Lie To Me, when Angel seems jealous of Buffy's newly arrived ex-crush Ford and Buffy tells Angel she loves him but doesn't know if she trusts him? This isn't a rhetorical question: I genuinely don't know. In the same episode Ford asks Buffy if Angel is her boyfriend and her reply is "No. Uh, yeah. Maybe." before she asks for a break from "the tough questions". The show needs Buffy and Angel to get together, for Surprise and Innocence and everything that follows, but it feels like large parts of their developing relationship must be happening entirely off-screen.

That ties into my second problem, which is ... well, I'm not sure the show is actually very good at writing this sort of romance plot? It's a teen supernatural drama set in a high school, so all these rituals of first dates and crushes and saying "I love you" for the first time and putting labels like "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" to things are hugely important to the characters, but I don't think they really matter to the writers much at all. And more broadly I don't think I really share the writers sense of what is and what isn't romantic. (As I've said before, the Riley stuff in Season 4 explicitly shows us what the writers think a healthy relationship for Buffy looks like and it's kind of awful?) The speech Angel gives Buffy in Halloween about she's not like other girls (because said girls were uniformly "dull, simpering morons" who he "hated") is obviously meant to be romantic, but ... uh. Yikes.

And it certainly doesn't help that a year and half later Angel will give Buffy the "not like other girls" speech again and describe a completely different set of girls who he finds boring and hateful. (A scene that is, again, portrayed in a way I really don't understand.) For that matter, it doesn't help that in Becoming (Part 1) we get a slight retcon when we see that Angel didn't actually meet Buffy for the first time in Welcome To The Hellmouth ("truth is, I thought you'd be taller") but actually ... well. Was driven past her school in a dark car with tinted windows to check her out while she was a fifteen year old high school student. (In context, I want to believe that this is a deliberate choice on the writers part to make us feel uneasy about the basis of the relationship -- just like the choice in I Only Have Eyes For You to parallel it to a relationship between a teenager and his adult teacher -- but in practice I'm not so sure! The Becoming flashback gets brought up again in Season 3 but the framing when it does seems to suggest it's a lot more romantic than I ever took it as being.)

I find it easy to believe Buffy would be attracted to Angel. I find it easy to believe she is (was) in love with him and that the fact she was forced to send him to hell still haunts her years later. I just don't really think the show does a good job of showing how she goes from being attracted to him and "mooning after" him to being in love with him and not even noticing when he vamps out. I think the viewer just needs to do too much of the work. (Maybe this is something where the show suffers from being watched on DVD or steaming services on demand rather than at most one episode per week. In real time, over a month passed between Reptile Boy and What's My Line? which is plenty of time for the audience's imagination to fill in some of the gaps. On my last season-long rewatch I think I watched the three intervening episodes over the course of two evenings.)

And this ties into my third problem, which is that while I believe her relationship with Angel is hugely important to Buffy it never really feels like Buffy means that much to Angel. And maybe that is on Boreanaz's acting, at least a little bit. Maybe a better actor would have done better in the role. I'm not sure they would have been able to do much with the material they were given, but it might have helped.

But it's also down to the writing. Both in Buffy -- when, because Buffy is the main character, we don't really get to see Angel's side of things at all -- but mostly because of how Angel is written in Angel. There was a very deliberate choice on the part of the Angel writers (specifically Greenwalt, I think?) to play up Angel's past relationship with Darla in a way that reframes his relationship with Buffy. And while I understand that decision from a writing point of view -- the show needs to give Angel's character more depth, it doesn't want to live forever in the shadow of its parent show, SMG can't keep making cameo appearances -- and I do really like Darla as a character, it does a huge disservice to Buffy.

Because the retcon means that, while Angel is the hugely important figure in Buffy's life and always will be, to Angel Buffy is ... just a teenage girl he saw one day who reminded him of his old lover Darla. Darla is to Angel what Angel is to Buffy. It doesn't sit at all well with either of those "not like other girls" speeches he gave her. We know now that Angel met somebody "exciting" centuries before Buffy was even born. We surely don't believe Angel when he tells Buffy he's been with "hundreds" of girls like Faith but Buffy is the only woman he's ever loved. There's just this fundamental asymmetry there that makes it really hard to be emotionally invested in the ship. (To be clear: the problem isn't that Buffy isn't the first person Angel's loved, it's that so much of their relationship on her show involves him repeatedly telling her that she was, only for it to be later revealed that this can't be true. It makes him fundamentally dishonest in a way I don't think he was originally written to be.)

2) What would have made you ship it?

Hand on heart I'm not sure anything could have made me ship it as such.

Maybe there's some version of Buffy in which Angel never left for LA and we didn't get those 1996 flashbacks in Becoming and Season 3 really played up Angel's time in hell and had him more slowly rebuild his strength and memories before starting to think about a relationship with Buffy again that I'd have got more invested in. Maybe if Angel had stayed in hell for longer, and only come back in Season 4 (and Buffy could have been hiding him not just from her friends but from the Initiative). But I don't really think so.

Season 2 of Buffy is really good -- maybe the show's best, honestly -- and a huge part of that is the whole Angel-losing-his-soul side of things. I wouldn't want to change that. But once you've gone through that arc, once you've done the "Buffy sleeps with a guy she likes and afterwards it like he's a whole new person and she never really knew him at all" metaphor, I don't think you can go back to the status quo.

3) Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

As I said above, I think it's a hugely important relationship for Buffy and I'm a little suspicious of people who try to pretend it isn't. I don't hate it: I just find it a little underwhelming in execution. Angel and Buffy do have some nice moments together before he loses his soul. I don't dislike Amends as much as some people do, and I think Buffy's speech to Angel about the importance of fighting day after day and never giving up is good. I like the fact Angel comes back to Sunnydale after Joyce dies to check in on Buffy. I even like his cameo in the finale. It's a bit perfunctory, sure, and there's more than a bit of the deus ex machina about the whole magical amulet thing, but it wouldn't have felt right to Buffy's story for him not to be there.

(She should have asked how Cordelia was doing while they were catching up though. Make him lie to her once more for old time's sake.)

[gothmikewheeler]

ST hot take: I like Steve, but he isn't in my top 5 favorite characters from the show.

I liked his character development, but I just feel like he is constantly reduced to being the babysitter or a love interest for Nancy. He just feels stagnant and uninteresting because in every season since s2, he's always watching the kids, failing at asking girls out, and saying how much he still loves Nancy.

All we know about him is that he wants to have 6 little nuggets with Nancy to travel around the world with.

I like Steve, but I just wish there was more to his character, you know? But I understand why people like him so much.

im drunk so my response to this is my hot take top 5 characters:

mike (me n my girl have history and she is me sorry)

el

lucas

robin

jonathan

mike n el are my two absolute favs, the others i think are in no specific order... i am just inexplicably drawn to them despite and honestly maybe bc of the less than shit the narrative gives them to work with. and bc the fandom will go to lengths to defend and bring attention to every character except for the one who deserves it (lucas). i freaking love lucas, once dedicated a journal to him bc if there was ever a character that was overlooked it was him and NO ONE GAF. i think a lot of what ppl want will to be is alr in jonathan and i get wanting both bros to deal with their trauma but most ppl only care ab will's familial trauma. and robin... DO U KNOW HOW IMPORTANT FOR ME IT WAS TO SEE AN ALT WEIRD QUEER GIRL IN 2019. I NEED HER TO SURVIVE TO 1993 FOR THE PREMIERE OF THE X FILES.

is this me counteracting the steve obsession by talking ab literally anyone else? im a big fan of this ensemble show bc i love all the characters. im regretting not adding joyce up there. winona ryder >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

yet was i also there for djo before everyone was like "omg this is steve from stranger things????" "OMG NO HE LITERALLY WROTE A SONG ABOUT WHY HE DOESNT WANT ANYONE TO THINK LIKE THAT AB HIM". i was really into that one album, i listened to it on the way home from a house show the night it dropped in 2022.

steve never did it for me. my drunk confession. love him but he just became a caricature for the media bc GOD FORBID a multi season sci fi horror show contain multitudes and u cant just dumb it all down to mama steve. wow!! a character did a 180 in a season!! maybe we just need to watch more shows that have good writers who can manage to write character development. this shouldnt be that special.

and yeah WEIRD COMMENTS IN S4. i dont think men shld be allowed to write anymore. thats some buffy level character assassination (my philosophy is "she would not fucking say that": if a female character does smth i dont like it's bc a man wrote her. this rarely applies to men except for the male characters written by joss piece of shit whedon. this feels like one of those moments tbh. duffer bros icarus moment. someone send me an ask ab the under discussed misogyny of st and the uneven distribution of pain and torture and trauma amongst women and minorities on the show, i dare u.)

AND U KNOW WHY??? STEVE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE A COUPLE SEASONS AGO BUT WE CAAAANT BC WE'D LOSE VIEWERSHIP SO WE HAVE TO KEEP HIM ALIVE WITH NOTHING TO FREAKING DO EXCEPT BREAK OUR SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF IN TERMS OF INJURIES AND BE WEIRD TO NANCY. but im drunk what do i know. i heart steve, tho. follow for more takes bc i promise i will get wine drunk and go to bed early again

[adverbian]

Tag Game

Tagged by @voluptatiscausa and @kotias! ❤️❤️

How many works do you have on ao3?

19!

What's your total ao3 word count?

81,653. Less 2,655 for BooB Omens (the bad porn crack fic collaboration).

What fandoms do you write for?

Good Omens, entirely and completely.

Top five fics by kudos:

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Crowley’s been giving Aziraphale space to adjust to being on his own, finally free of Heaven. Now, a gorgeous American philanthropist has started hanging around the bookshop. Has Crowley left things Too Late? (Spoiler alert: There’s a very happy resolution.)

Is This Desire?: A smutty, sex-pollen meditation on desire and consent.

O You and Me At Last: News of one of Aziraphale’s past admirers has Crowley feeling a little… possessive.

one more river (and that's the river of jordan): They are alone now — they are free. They are both nervous, but eager, newlyweds. (My very first posted fic ever!)

In contenti e in allegria: Completely shameless PWP, honeymoon in Paris edition. With 69, galettes, and cheering from the peanut gallery.

Do you respond to comments?

Oh gosh yes! I love to say thank you and generally flail.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh gosh. I don't write much angst; my soft heart can't take it. I guess Revolver, a double drabble set in the late 1960s, ends with unresolved pining: "Aziraphale loosened the knot of his tie slightly, and swallowed. He wasn’t actually certain he could withstand The Firebird, not with Crowley so close. Maybe the be-bop had been the lesser evil, after all."

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh lord have mercy. I think nearly everything I've written has been deliriously happy in the end, because of who I am as a person (and the fact that I started writing fic because I actually could not stand the heartbreak of S2 for one more second without losing my entire mind; I was genuinely not okay).

Set Me As a Seal Upon Your Heart is probably the longest, happiest, most glowing ending.

Confiteor may have been the biggest relief.

Do you get hate on fics?

I have gotten exactly zero so far. People have been so lovely.

Do you write smut?

I write a lot of smut. I have.... 3 T-rated works, 4 M-rated works, and the rest are E.-rated. I'm actually surprised it's 3 T-rated. I thought it was 1. I guess I wrote a couple of non-smutty drabbles.

Craziest crossover:

Lololol there is a very smol Lord Peter Wimsey crossover in a footnote to one more river. That is so far the only crossover.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If I have, I'm blissfully unaware <- same as two prev....

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet, although I got (and said yes to) a request to translate Da Pacem, a sestina about Aziraphale and Crowley stealing hours to meet under cover of darkness to plan their resistance (and perhaps to engage in... other activities).

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Other than BooB Omens, no! (Which was an extremely loose and wild collab that just kinda happened one evening; I spent all of like 15 minutes writing a deliberately stupid paragraph.) I would love to collab more!

All time favorite ship?

Aziraphale/Crowley, always. I do not know why, but they have taken over my entire brain in a way that nothing else ever has. And I was there for Picard/Crusher, Mulder/Scully, and Buffy/Angel, which were a lot.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hnnnng I really want to write one followup to the Auprès de ma blonde timeline, but it's so so patchy and poorly developed as of the last uh six months.

What are your writing strengths?

I am told that I am good at multi-sensory smut, and humor, and that there is a smoothness and flow to my writing.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I do not know what I am doing with any sort of complicated plot! So far, the most plot I have ever managed was a very very simple and short-lived apparent love triangle in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. I am trying to write more of a plot for a fic containing Leonardo da Vinci, but that WIP has been superseded by Event Fics for the last few months. It will happen!

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Sure? I can almost do it if it's French (as long as I am allowed to look things up). (French friends, privately tell me how bad did I fuck it up in Auprès de ma blonde; I will sneakily fix it. I am sorry that I did not know you when I was writing it or I would have asked you to beta-read it!)

First fandom you wrote in?

Ahahahahaha, Baby-Sitters Club, if you count handwritten fic in a notebook that never saw anybody's eyes but my own. We're talking original-era BSC books here.

If you mean posted on the internet.... it was Good Omens.

Favorite fic you've written?

Oh gosh. I cannot pick just one.

Is This Desire? is probably the one that I feel the most accomplished about.

O You and Me At Last has what might be my favorite smut scene.

Exsultet was probably the one that took the most effort to write -- I still have a completely-different alternate version in WIPs that is getting closer to seeing the light of day.

And my newest fic, Gibraltar May Tumble, is probably the most I have ever had to trust the process while writing; it started out so larval and had to go through a whole metamorphosis.

Gosh I don't even know who to tag that hasn't already played. Er, @onedappercat, @wingsofopal, ???

[xxgotthedevilinsidexx-archived]

【❖】 ―――― DAMON SHOULD KNOW BY NOW SHE WASN'T EASILY INTIMIDATED OR PUSHED AROUND. It downright angered her to see Damon like this — it's not the first time and she's sure it won't be the last. Time and time again he's proven to her that he's not the monster he wants everyone to believe he is. This wasn't about her attempting to alter Damon, but rather on encouraging him to confront his inner struggles and release the pent-up anger that has consumed him for years. Despite his indifferent facade, his actions and the way he gazes at her reveal his true feelings. He has even endangered his own life for her sake. Such behavior is not characteristic of a cold-blooded killer. While he may deceive all those around him, he can't fool her. Buffy saw Damon as someone worth saving, yet the only person he needed salvation from was his own self. Even though she knows she shouldn't she has allowed herself to develop strong feelings for Damon — far beyond mere care. So no matter how hard he tries she refuses to allow him to just push her away.

WHEN HE STUMBLED BACK AND GOT HIS FOOTING SHE CAUGHT THAT LOOK IN HIS EYES. It was a look that would be unnerving to most. Following that look was always when Damon was the most unpredictable. She didn't realize it until he began talking, but she had a glimmer of hope that just maybe she had managed to sneak past a tiny crack allowing him to finally see the truth. The words he uttered resonated deeply within her. ❛ Don't patronize me, Damon. I'm a Slayer, I know there is no such thing as happily ever after, but would it be so damn wrong of me to ask you to be honest with me for once ? ❜ Things would never be sunshine and rainbows for either of them, not in the world they lived in but that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy what moments they could. No, he would rather fight and argue and try to convince her of things she knew he wouldn't do. As he tightly grasped her wrist, she chose not to pull away. Instead, she stood her ground, staring directly into his eyes. ❛ If I didn't trust you Damon we wouldn't be standing here right now, I would have dropped you the moment you got in my face. ❜ He knew her well enough to know that's exactly what she would have done. Even as he brought her wrist up between them she was completely unfazed, her heart rate and breathing steady and calm. With eyes still locked on his she moved her wrist until it was hovering just in front of his lips. ❛ Because I know you won't. If I'm wrong then prove it. Show me just how heartless you really are. The invitation is right there, all you have to do is take it. ❜

⚰️  ――――     DAMON  BELIEVED  HE  DIDN'T  DESERVE  ANY  CHANCES  AFTER  THE  HORRIBLE  THINGS  HE'S  DONE  TO  COUNTLESS  INNOCENT  LIVES. he  fully  convinced  himself  that  it  was  all  because  he  was  a  vampire  and  vampires  cause  pain  and  suffering  and  feed  off  the  fear  they  inflict  upon  others,  quenching  their  thirst  with  human  blood.  so,  why  would  he,  a  vampire,  let  himself  be  consumed  by  the  weakness  that  is  love?  emotions?  he  couldn't  because  if  he  did,  the  rushing  heavy  weight  of  his  guilt  would  engulf  him  into  a  darkness  that  he  did  not  want  to  tread.  why  couldn't  buffy  see  that  too?  why  has  she  spared  his  life  after  the  hurt  he's  brought  to  others?  sometimes  he'd  let  himself  slip  and  he'd  find  himself  helping  her,  sacrificing  himself  for  the  good  of  others,  and  every  time  he's  reminded  that  he  can't  let  himself  do  that.  he  deserved  an  eternity  of  loneliness;  he  thought  buffy  understood  that.

HE  STUMBLED  BACK  ONTO  HIS  FEET  WHEN  THE  SLAYER  PUSHED  HIM  AWAY  WITH  STRONG  FISTS,  CATCHING  HIMSELF  SO  HE  WOULDN'T  FALL.  he  wanted  to  approach  her  again,  instill  intimidation  upon  her,  but  she  was  quick  to  jump  onto  her  feet  and  began  spilling  out  everything  she  wanted  to  say  to  him.  her  words  stung  like  a  thousand  bees  and  caused  the  vampire's  eyes  to  open  up  to  the  truth  he  had  so  long  buried  far  beneath  the  surface.  she  was  right;  completely  and  utterly  right.  he  stood  there  for  a  long  moment  of  silence,  wholly  dumbfounded  by  this  revelation  buffy  bestowed  upon  him.  he  didn't  know  whether  to  feel  angry  or  sorrowful  or   —   relieved.  it  was  clear  to  him  that  she  knew  him  better  than  anyone  else  had.  she  saw  right  through  the  facade  he  tried  so  hard  to  keep  up;  walls  that  have  been  built  up  brick  by  brick  around  his  still  heart.  damon  always  thought  that  no  one  could  handle  who  he  truly  was  but  buffy   —   she  showed  him  that  not  everything  wasn't  as  black  and  white  as  he  painted  them  out  to  be.        ❛       maybe  you're  right,  buffy.  and  what  if  you  are     ?     what  do  you  expect  out  of  me  now     ?     did  you  want  me  to  confess  my  undying  love  for  you  so  we  can  prance  off  into  the  sunset,  live  happily  ever  after     ?       ❜     he  shot  back.  he  continued  to  lock  his  gaze  within  her  deep  emerald  eyes,        ❛      you  want  me  to  stop  hiding  who  i  am     ?      ❜    he  asked,  one  brow  arched  up  in  question.  he  stomps  over  to  her  and  grabs  her  wrist  tightly,  presenting  to  her  how  prominent  her  veins  were.  he  stares  longingly  into  her  eyes  as  he  speaks,  never  actually  looking  at  her  tempting  vessels,      ❛      do  you  trust  me  around  you     ?     i'm  not  some  whiny  little  stefan  who  eats  bambi  for  breakfast,  buffy.  i'm  a  vampire  and  i  eat  what  i  need  to  eat   —      ❜     he  expresses  to  her,  suddenly  bringing  her  wrist  up  so  it  was  presented  between  both  of  their  faces  in  a  faux  attempt  to  scare  her.  he  knew  deep  down  he  could  never  hurt  buffy;  not  even  if  he  was  withering  away  and  needed  to  drain  her  body  to  live,  he'd  never  hurt  her.  he  knew  this  but  he  needed  to  see  that  buffy  knew  it  too  and  the  only  way  he  could  is  if  she  showed  him  she  wasn't  scared  of  him.  his  eyes  were  pleading  as  he  stared,      ❛      what  makes  you  think  i  won't  hurt  you      ?       ❜

[gunterfan1992]

Episode Review: ‘Wizard City’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 4)

Airdate: September 2, 2021

Story by: Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, & Charley Feldman

Storyboarded by: Maya Petersen, Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, & Aleks Sennwald, & Haewon Lee

Directed by: Miki Brewster & Jeff Liu (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

An episode focusing on Peppermint Butler’s dark side is something that the fandom has craved ever since the little guy demanded Finn and Jake’s flesh in season two’s “Death in Bloom.” While installments like season five’s “The Suitor” and season six’s “Nemesis” did much to scratch that itch, the story of the Dark One remained mostly unknown…

And after “Wizard City,” it still remains largely unknown. But that’s OK, because instead of focusing on the character’s history, this special focuses on Peps’ quest to relearn magic at a magic school. Put most simply, this special is largely a fun excuse for the show to riff on Harry Potter and The Owl House-style “magic school hijinks,” and it mostly all works.

The special follows Peps quest to go to WizArts (a definite play on CalArts, the school that Pen Ward and Adam Muto, among many others, went to) so that he can relearn magic and once again become one of the greatest dark wizards of his time. Initially, Peps tries to make friends with cool kid Spader and his posse, but once they learn that Peps is not as talented at magic as they had initially thought, they kick him to the curb. It is at this point that Cadebra, Abracadaniel’s adorkable niece who is fascinated with stage magic, enters the picture. Cadebra tries everything in her power to befriend Peps, but Peps pushes back, since she’s not “cool.” It does not matter, though, because both Peps and Cadebra are sorted into the same “house”—the “Skink House—and are forced to work together.

While Peps and his cohort begin learning more and more complex magic, a secret cult of school professors, led by the otherwise caring Dr. Caledonius, are scheming to resurrect Coconteppi, a powerful dark wizard whose putrid heart has been discovered underneath the school excreting a very powerful ichor. The school cult kidnaps Spader and gives him some of the ichor to drink; they hope that because of his talent, he will be able to house the spirit of Coconteppi. This does not go as planned, and Spader is graphically killed (albeit off screen). (In a more humorous moment, Bufo, the scam wizard from season one’s “Wizard,” also ingests some of the ichor, believing himself powerful enough to handle it, but it kills him.)

Eventually Peps and Cadebra learn what is going on. Dr. Caledonius welcomes Peps, believing that he is strong enough to handle the ichor. When Cadebra’s life is put in danger, Peps reluctantly gives the putrid fluid a swig, which infuses him with the power of Coconteppi. Coconteppi-Peps then kills all the cult members before Cadebra manages to remove the ichor from Peps body. For uncovering a heinous plot, Peps is promoted to the highest house, “Salamander,” but he decides to remain a Skink and learn magic “the hard way” with Cadebra as his friend.

As I mentioned near the start of this review, “Wizard City” spends most of its time riffing on the “magic boarding school” trope, with much of the episode feeling like a light-hearted parody of Harry Potter: The characters, after all, are “sorted” into “houses,” they learn various types of magic from skilled “professors,” and they bunk in different parts of a large castle-like campus. Of course, Harry Potter didn’t invent the idea of a boarding school, but when setting your story in a school for magic, it is very hard not to lean at least somewhat into the Hogwarts relation. And this really is a double-edged sword, for while Harry Potter references can be fun here and there, they can also make the overall story feel like a fanfic parody. This special does a good job focusing more so on the characters rather than the setting, but I won’t lie, at times it did feel as if they show was really trying to make you realize it was making a Harry Potter joke.

Of all the characters introduced in the special, the breakout star is easily Cadebra, voiced by Chloe Coleman. Radiating a sort of Mabel Pines energy, Cadebra is the beam of optimism who shines brightly in an otherwise macabre special. There is something about her plucky personality and sense of wacky individualism that charms the viewer. I appreciate how the show compared and contrasted her with her uncle, the one and only Abracadaniel: like her uncle, Cadebra is a good person who wants to help others, but unlike Abracadaniel, she has a sense of courage and fortitude that results in her taking on a Coconteppi-possessed Peps at the episode’s climax. (Say what you will, Abracadaniel stans, but our favorite custodian would never have done that!) Thanks to her bravery and dedication to Peps, Cadebra is easily the heart of the special.

The episode throws an interesting little curveball into the mix by having the ‘ghost’ of Past Peppermint Butler constantly haunt Peps in the here-and-now. Past Peppermint, it seems, was so determined to become a great wizard, he cursed himself, so that if anything were to go awry, his Past self could materialize and set him straight. It’s confusing, but I do think that mixing the “overbearing parent” trope with a curse is a clever idea; it gives the whole special some dramatic heft. The whole setup is made even funnier by the special’s conclusion: After Future Peppermint Butler is ‘defeated’ and the day is saved, Peps reveals to Cadebra that he still wants to be a great and powerful dark wizard… but he wants to earn that power through hard work and determination. (Peppermint Butler might commune with demons, but he would never sell his soul to one for power; Glob helps those who help themselves, ya know?)

One of the special’s strongest points is its background art. Adventure Time always had some beautiful set pieces, and this special goes above and beyond to give WizArts an ancient sense of grandeur and mystery. Ghostshrimp, a freelance artist who was the show’s lead background designer during seasons 1-4, return for this special as a “visual developer”—basically, he mocked up a bunch of rough designs for the locales, and then the episode’s background artists worked up the final pieces in his style. On his podcast, Ghostshrimp mentioned how hectic he found Adventure Time to be, because he was used to taking his time on pieces. As such, the decision to bring him on for just development was smart, as it allowed him to still come up with iconic background designs while also playing fast and loose with everything. Hopefully the show will continue this approach with the Fionna and Cake miniseries that is coming up. After all, Ghosthsrimp’s style is the look of Adventure Time.

Another strong point for the episode is its voice acting. For one thing, you have your regulars like Tom Kenny and Dana Snyder, and Duncan Trussell, who all give a solid performance. But to voice many of the special’s new characters, the show brought on a bevy of fun actors: Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader, for instance, is now voicing Bufo, and he does a solid job hamming up his role as the old fogey. And then there’s Toks Olagundoye, whose British accent gives Dr. Caledonius a sense of knowledge and expertise. To my delight and surprise, SungWon Cho, an internet personality and voice actor perhaps better known as ProZD, was tapped to voice Brain Wizard, and he does an excellent job. And finally, Anthony Stewart Head, a very talented actor who I know best as Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, voices Con Wizard, and is even given a fun little ditty to sing. I can safely say that the voice acting in this special is likely the best of the bunch, and it’s obvious that the actors were all having a great time playing their parts.

What drags the whole thing down, in my opinion is the excessive murder. (I joked on Twitter that during the climax of “Wizard City,” it felt like I was watching an Adventure Time-ified version of Invincible!) Infused with the power of Coconteppi, Peps goes on a brutal killing spree, boiling Potable Wizard into steam, zapping Dimension Wizard into another plane of existence, smashing Berdzerd, and—perhaps most graphically—excerebrates (had to look that word up!) Brain Wiz. On Twitter, @sometipsygnostalgic​ argued that while, yes, the scene is startling, it does wonders to transmute “a poor Summer Camp Island knockoff [into] Adventure Time chaos.” The more I think about it, the more I think that’s a fair point; after all, this is hardly the first dark thing that has happened in Adventure Time. But the part that I cannot really stomach is the fact that Spader was murdered for no real reason, and the special ends without anyone really expressing their horror at the situation. Sure, Spader was a schoolyard bully, but he was also a child. And killing a child—either for the drama or the lulz—feels decidedly out of place in an Adventure Time episode. It’s hard to express, but it just felt unnecessarily nihilistic and mean-spirited.

All things considered, I think this was a fun episode, but it was somewhat underwhelming for a ‘finale.’ Much of this is because it had to air after the perfection that was the back-to-back “Obsidian”/”Together Again” wombo combo. But I can’t help but feel like this special just felt a little... off. A little too meanspirited, and it leaned a bit too much on standard tropes. Still, it was a fun spin, and I know that I’ll rewatch it.

Mushroom War Evidence: As Peps rides the bus to school, he passes a bunch of abandoned houses, some of which are buried in the ground. There is an unexploded bomb above the fossilized elephant in the school. Cadebra has a dream that takes place in the ruins of a city.

Final Grade: B+

[marigoldbaker]

celia’s buffy rewatch: welcome to the hellmouth

thoughts (based on notes) under the cut! i took some notes on the harvest as well, but i’m tired and it’s very nearly one in the morning, so i will likely be writing stuff up tomorrow.

the dissonance between giles now & giles later is so compelling and noticeable! multiple times over the course of these two episodes -- as well as the rest of the season leading up into halloween -- we see him fumbling at the concept of entering the battlefield, and being functionally useless when he IS on the battlefield. it's really interesting to notice how many places btvs falters when retconning in some new piece of information about a character. my focus has of course always been on jenny and how this affected her, but it's clear that giles as well gets the short end of the stick when it comes to this: there is simply no logical way to explain away the fact that giles does not know how to fight. there's an attempt made by the show itself to assert "oh, giles is just pretending, he's just hiding his past," but this is giles!!! any attempts at subterfuge are placed aside if they don't serve the immediate situation, and it is utterly implausible to believe in him being SO devoted to his cover story of "hapless watcher" that he actively places himself in harm's way as many times as he does in these two episodes alone. he's literally squirming helplessly on the floor in the face of a vampire. it's sloppy writing and i'm intrigued by it because i never see it commented upon in fandom.

angel and buffy's first scene somehow managed to resonate even less with me than i expected, and i didn't expect much. angel's characterization is really suffering here from the fact that they do not yet know that he's a vampire -- as of this episode, he's clearly only meant to be a cryptic messenger guy, and we are not yet getting that same sense of overblown broodiness. it's weird to see angel quipping and lightly laughing and saying things like "i don't bite" with a kind of playful intensity. he's acerbic in a way that feels more angelus than angel. it's off-putting, and it's definitely a by-product of the show still finding its footing. i'm interested in seeing how my buffy/angel feels develop as the next few seasons go on; i think that'll definitely be a focus for me as i continue to watch.

first song ever in the bronze is a BANGER. enough said.

i had to look this up even though it's pretty much fandom knowledge, but giles and buffy's "six inch rule" really jumped out at me as a total necessity after the first episode! i don't remember who drew the parallel between giles & buffy in this episode on the catwalk of the bronze, observing the dancing club-goers with giles's dispassionate narration (thereby implying that he and buffy are separate from all that) & spike and buffy five seasons later on the catwalk of the bronze, observing the dancing club-goers with spike's adjacent narration BEFORE HE AND BUFFY HAVE SEX. i think there's something really interesting there to be said about buffy's weird daddy issues -- i don't think that the show intended there to be a Vibe there between giles and buffy, and i think that it backpedaled literally as soon as it realized what it had created. but it absolutely exists. i was having this whole conversation with my dad about how jarring that scene is and he was like "yeah that is so absolutely not how you stand near a sixteen year old girl you barely know," which -- again -- makes sense that they'd institute that six-inch rule after that. it's not that there's chemistry, because i really do not think there is; there's cool exasperation from giles and outright antagonistic antipathy from buffy. it's that the framing of the shot and the physical closeness of the two of them both combine to evoke this weird pseudo-romantic image, and again i cannot get out of my head the fact that buffy repeats this scene with spike multiple seasons later. i think it says a lot about buffy's desire for paternal stability from a romantic partner, & it's ESPECIALLY interesting when considering her continued pursual of older men.

cordelia casually mentioning her bedridden mom was such a Moment for me! as always, we get these little snippets of a scooby's family life -- though oz is definitely the one we know the least about, cordelia is a close second, and the details we do get are chilling at best. her mom's bedridden in season one, her dad is committing tax fraud in season three...it's not clear if one is meant to read between the lines, but if we do, what we see is a girl who does not have any kind of parental attention outside of the ability to buy what she wants on her daddy's credit card. AND -- as always with the buffyverse -- the background information on these characters comes in through a one-off joke that is both never contradicted and never mentioned again. we're meant to take these moments as factual without taking them seriously.

i spent a lot of time looking at jesse in these episodes, because this is all we get of him, and i'm of the mind that he is incredibly important in a way that the show refuses to acknowledge! this show isn't good with death. we know that. it wants to play a little trick on the viewers with jesse -- make us believe in his importance, then kill him, proving that Anyone Can Die. he's sort of the precursor to jenny, who pulls this off in a way that is better than jesse but still clumsily hindered by the fact that Anyone Can Die really just means Anyone (Not In The Main Scooby Circle) Can Die (And Subsequently Never Get Mentioned Again). thing is, tho, we know nothing about jesse. he feels a little bit like xander if xander were a bit more blandly lecherous and openly into cordelia. the fact that he's xander's best friend is WILD to me when considering how easily the show moves on from his death, especially when we see the way the show is willing to long-form mourn jenny. obviously this is only the first episode, but it's wild to me that joss wanted to do The Jenny Thing, tried to do it with jesse, and didn't quite commit to that idea of killing a significant character & having there be narrative resonance until around a season later. i'm totally going to double back to jesse in the post i make tomorrow about the harvest.

i am also delighted by how many inventive uses of stakes we see in these first two episodes alone! the chair leg, the pool cue, the tree branch...i love that. i really do.

[trainsinanime]

For the ask game: 13, 15, 17, 19

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

I’ve said this before: The Gorilla is not “Adrien’s only parent”. The Gorilla is the jailer who physically enforces the limits on Adrien’s freedom that Gabriel has set. That’s his job, and it’s one he actually does most of the time. In Gorizilla, Adrien and Marinette are trying to dodge him (and Adrien’s fans) long before he turns into an Akuma. In Origins, Adrien tries to dodge him when he wants to go to school.

Yes, the Gorilla is often bad at his job, and sometimes will let himself be bribed into being even worse at it. And yes, he has genuine affection for Adrien, more so than anyone else living in the Agreste mansion (Nathalie stans: Fight me). And I could imagine that someone else in the same role might be worse for Adrien. But still, when Adrien is running towards his freedom, the Gorilla is the person he is running from.

I don’t think he is irredeemable, far from it, and I’m perfectly okay with stories where Adrien decides to forgive him. I just think the fandom needs to acknowledge that there is something to forgive here in the first place.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

I’m still trying to sort my thoughts enough for a long-form post, but basically, I think the strict format hurts the show. There is only ever the one villain; there is only one plot; there is only one kind of threat. If you compare it to other shows in a vaguely similar conceptual space like The Owl House or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (what is Miraculous if not Buffy but happy), you can quickly see where it leaves a lot of development on the table because of those structural deficiencies.

Having multiple enemies in succession means the bad guys can have meaningful victories over the heroes, keeping the threat level up. At the same time, the heroes can make significant progress at times. Miraculous Ladybug just doesn’t have that, and the one time they did have a serious victory for the bad guy (exposing the other heroes), they couldn’t do anything with that.

The show also generally doesn’t have B-plots; at least no B-plots with any substance to them. The time spent on B-plots is instead given to the CGI battles, and to be fair, those can be a lot of fun. But that means there is really no opportunity to develop side characters better because there is no time; even the main plot often feels more like we’re watching a summary than a well-told story.

It also doesn’t help that the show is so strict about secret identities and amnesia for akuma victims and the like. Marinette can’t talk about superhero stuff with Alya (for most of the show anyway) and Chat Noir can’t talk about superhero stuff with Nino, which means those two don’t get any development. And Marinette can’t really reason with an Akuma victim, nor talk about personal stuff while in costume, so in the end the CGI battles are fun, but usually irrelevant when it comes to characterisation and plot developments.

The show seems to address some of these issues, especially with Rena knowing, but still, it’s far from ideal.

It’s a weird thing where it sort of balances out in the end; the show doesn’t seem to have the the time to develop any overarching story well, but it doesn’t have a good overarching story to begin, so it evens out. And they have given me enough bits for the minor characters so that I love all of them.

I’m a bit hesitant to post all this stuff because it makes the show sound horrible, which it is not. I genuinely love it and enjoy watching it. I just think that it could have been so much better if it had chosen a different format.

Not sure if this is unpopular, but it is a thing we’re not really talking about.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

Apart from “restructure the entire show completely and rewrite every single episode”, you mean? 😁

I think we could cut Lila, and instead give more time to Chloé. People keep acting like “Zoé is supposed to replace Chloé”, and no, obviously not; Lila is. People also keep saying “the writers hate Chloé”, and again, no, obviously not; if they hate anyone, they hate Lila.

Lila’s job in the show is to be the Cordelia Chase character; the antagonist for the non-superhero side of Marinette’s life. This is the role that Chloé previously had, until Marinette realised partly through season 1 that being the bigger person in that relationship is both easy and fun. But Lila isn’t a good replacement, because Lila has absolutely no character, no depth; she’s either conspiring to make Marinette’s life harder, or, more commonly, she’s functionally completely absent. The writers seem to have no clue what to do with her.

So either expand her role, or remove her. I’m leaning towards removal because Chloé could probably be a better antagonist; she has all the motivation and backstory, and the writers seem to genuinely enjoy making her the center of attention.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Honestly I am at a point where either the salt has died down, or I’ve managed to block it well enough, that I am basically very happy with the fandom. There are certainly a lot of hot takes I don’t enjoy, but my impression is that these are mostly the results of young people trying critical analysis for the first time, and I don’t want to be too harsh on that.

So… the thing that tends to disappoint me the most is really at the other end of the scale: I think the fandom is way too serious at times. The show is blatantly silly and cracky in every aspect, from its world building right up. Marinette may seem over-the-top, but in the context of the show, she seems to have about an average level of chill. Every single episode, if written as a fanfic, would be pure crack. The fandom is by no means a joyless place, far from it! But I think it could embrace the sheer insanity that is the world of Miraculous Ladybug even more. If you write a fanfic, and the Eiffel tower remains completely stationary the entire time, what are you really doing? 😁

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Thoughts on the Buffy book "Paleo": I enjoyed it. More than I thought I was going to at first.

My issue at the get-go, was I sort of thought we had too many PoV sections from the two new characters (who were only going to be in this book), so much so that I thought it was even taking away from the Scoobies. But then half-way through, we don't really get any PoVs from them anymore, so maybe it all evens out in the end. I maybe might have tried to distribute all the PoVs more evenly, though (but that might have been hard for a certain reason). And I do understand why the author needed the newbies to set things up, and wanted us to at least care about Kevin somewhat from the get-go. So it probably was no easy thing here.

This book is basically Jurassic Park. Daniel and Kevin resurrect four dinosaurs. One dino that I forget the name of, and then three Tyrannosaurus rexes. And the moment the dinosaurs showed up, I couldn't put this book down.

And back to the Jurassic Park comparison: this novel did a good job of definitely making you feel fear and dread when Buffy and the Scoobies were trying to find any of the T-rexes to fight them. And you also felt awful for the people who ended up getting chomped on. And once again, Buffy gets more trauma added to her belt in seeing these people get eaten, poor girl.

So, the main characters in this book are actually Buffy and Oz, which surprised me... I don't think that's ever happened in anything, ever. But I really appreciated it. I also really adored getting to see the two of them getting to spend more time together, and interact one-on-one, and again I wish we saw more of that in the show.

But one of the main plots of this book is being leery of who your mentors are, as Kevin's mentor, Daniel, is definitely not a shining beacon here (it's his idea to try and bring the dinos back), and it ends up getting Kevin killed (them both killed, actually). Which is sad, because I definitely don't think Kevin fully deserved that. But alas). And in this story, this manager is looking to sign the Dingoes, but Oz has to learn to be uncertain of her, as well, because she definitely is hiding some shady things and isn't everything she was cracked up to be, either. (And shout-out to Willow for being the first person to kind of see through her, in being concerned for Oz. And then shout-out to Angel, for digging up the dirt on her--after Buffy suggested he look into her--and for standing beside Oz when he shut her down.)

Also, Oz is definitely the MVP of this book, for coming up with the solution to killing the third T-rex--as he and Buffy fight it together--is to lead it to the swimming pool in Sunnydale High and to drown it, which is definitely the easiest kill they have with these things by far.

Angel actually wasn't in this book as much as he is in some of the other ones (Cordelia wasn't really in it at all, sadly. As a whole, this novels was lacking some of the PoVs that it usually has). But that scene at the end, where Angel was kept out of the loop for a lot of things most of the story, and then walks into the climax and gets the 411 from Willow... and just his lines and reaction to things is really, really funny. As is his having to keep knocking Giles out, unfortunately (as Giles is possessed by the same demon that influenced Daniel and Kevin were, and will try to bring back more dinosaurs himself, if he doesn't).

It's also nice character development(?) that we get a PoV from Giles during said possession, as he's trying to fight it, wondering if that is what Angel feels like all the time.

Anyway...

[heathenarmyimagines]

Title: Find Us

Summary: (Y/N)’s sleep study goes horribly wrong.

Pairing: Ivar x Reader

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine

Taglist: @ubbesgirl, @shewolf2000, @tis-itheapplepie, @atequila, @demoncrypt1066, @greennightspider, @badbitsh13, @fireismysaftey, @minarawr, @laketaj24, @hvitserksgirl, @blahblahcookiesdoma, @fabulous-peasent, @sforsammmmmi, @minmiin1d, @courtrae89, @letsloveimagines, @tomarisela, @titty-teetee, @beyond-the-ashes@elenawrit, @mblaqgi, @whenimaunicorn, @chuflisworld, @mystruggledlife, @moose-squirrel-asstiel, @syreni-dea, @trashqueenbitch, @alykatv, @mbaku-babygirl, @perfectus-in-morte, @beyond-the-ashes, @neeadinghugs, @readsalot73, @triumphantreturnofpies, @anarchy-is-coming, @tephi101, @alicedopey, @ivarslittlebadgirl, @jtrstp, @nejijjeoroo, @charlylama, @ivartheblessed, @captstefanbrandt, @fabulouschrissi, @ivarsrideordie, @3x5gurl, @the-writer-appreciation-blog, @lolabee9, @captainfoxy22, @young-ugly-god, @im5ftbutmythroat66, @bribyyy, @irishhiggins, @cadetomlinson, @keclleon101, @slutforragnarssons, @ltkeke, @meeeeeeeeeps, @lille-kanin, @opalscarab, @ssraven7, @ivarandersen, @concretewaywardangel, @funmadnessandbadassvikings, @sharon-is-tired, @cadetomlinson, @mystruggledlife, @chuflisworld, @justmarissa97, @lol-haha-joke, @weirdly-randomly-awesome, @inlovewithmakeupcomicsanim, @idonthavehusbandsihavelovers, @alexa040004, @buckythetinman , @burntmythroatskullingmytea,@jorunnravenslayer, @two-unbeatable-beaters, @buffy-the-vampire-blogger, @arses21434, @ltkeke, @captainfoxy22, @chinduda @letsshamelessqueen-m @my-soul-is-the-moon @we-are-transcendent

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six,Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine

Sitting at the table you had continued the research you had begun the day before, you had been knee deep in articles since you had sent your sibling off to school that morning and it was almost time for them to get out.

Not that they would be coming back home after school; your mother had to stay on location for a few days and for tonight you couldn’t hold down the fort because you had your own appointment.

Dr. Finehair said he had a specialist come in to conduct a sleep study to see if maybe it was a brainwave disturbance causing your sleeping problems and he wanted you to try and sleep as long as you could.

Without meaning to you had let your mind wander back to your phone call with Ivar yesterday.

After you hung up you spared a moment to think about how abruptly Ivar decided to end the call, it seemed like something was wrong with him.

You figured he would tell you when he felt the need to talk about it, so you went back to your research on Ivar the Boneless.

History was one of your favorite subjects because it’s like a story that really happened once upon a dark and twisted time.

The more you read the more you wanted to put it all aside and never look at it again, which was odd for you. Normally you loved the dark part of history, you believed that no country can ever grow without looking back at its history.

American history was your usual topic but this was a completely new ballpark, and Ivar the Boneless didn’t really feel like light reading. Especially when you couldn’t help but picture your best friend performing a Blood Eagle in order to avenge his father.

His father was another matter that needed researching, you had to look into as much as you could. Any small piece of information could be vital to figuring out this whole thing.

Whatever this thing was.

Your stomach growled and snapped you out of your own head, you sat aside your laptop and stretched before you stood up from your kitchen table.

The kitchen window gave your neighbor a good enough view that she could just walk by and see that you weren’t sleeping.

It didn’t surprise you that your mother didn’t trust you to stay awake on your own accord, because you also didn’t trust yourself to not take a nap.

God you needed a nap.

With a sigh you went and made yourself a quick bowl of ramen to ease your hunger without overfilling yourself.

It was about an hour before Ivar would be released.

He was going to drive you to the hospital and wait for you, meaning he would sleep in an uncomfortable waiting room or even worse his truck. It felt odd that he would do that for you, and even though you had asked him to, you thought he’d decline.

Suddenly your phone chimed with a message.

I’m leaving early be there in ten - Ivar

Cool, we can just chill until it’s time to go - (Y/N)

You looked at the phone and couldn’t help but second guess if that message was good enough, or if you should have added any emojis.

Ugh, this was not good, how could you have suddenly developed feelings for him; Ivar of all people. The guy you were trying to get to remember his past life.

A life in which he was married to you while being old enough to be your grandfather.

You groaned in mild annoyance and complete confusion as you went upstairs to change out of the pajamas you had been lounging in.

The minutes passed like seconds and soon Ivar was at your door.

Fighting the urge to double check yourself in the mirror you went downstairs to let him in.

‘Hey, I got your schoolwork.’ he said handing you a folder.

‘Boo.’ you whined as you looked at the assignments.

‘You’re welcome, not like I went out of my way to get them for you or anything.’ Ivar sassed.

‘Thank you, think you can help me with this...I hate math.’

‘I know, sure I’ll help.’

You led him to the kitchen and subtly motioned to the open window and waved at your neighbor who waved back.

The older woman looked at Ivar in confusion and Ivar waved politely before he sat at your table.

‘So are we starting with math first?’

‘Hell no, tell me about the man with no eyes.’ you said bluntly.

‘I don’t know much, man doesn’t like being in the public eye. Got rich through genius investments but he seems to come from old money despite the fact that no information on his family is available. My father said he was one of his first clients.

‘So it's not like he just time traveled to get here, he’s well established. Covered in mystery but still real, does that mean he’s been alive this whole time?’ you asked.

‘I would guess so but that doesn’t seem humanly possible.’ Ivar said back.

‘Maybe he isn’t human then, at this point we can’t afford to think too logically anymore, the new motto is if we can explain it then we can accept it.’

‘Inspirational.’ he hummed.

‘Thank you, I’m truly a poetic soul.’ you joked.

‘Yeah... there is more though, he knew too much.’

That got your attention, not because of what Ivar had said but the way he said it, like he wasn’t talking about something he’d experienced. It was as if he was talking about someone else he didn’t know.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He knew about my family, but it didn’t feel like he looked us up. He just...knew too much.’ Ivar tried to clarify.

‘What did he know?’

‘Dad was introducing us and he said this wasn’t all us...he knew two of us weren’t there and he was right. Bjorn wasn’t there and he knew about Gida...almost no one knows about Gida, Dad never talks about her except on her birthday.’

‘Who is Gida?’ you asked.

‘My sister, well half sister if you want to be politically correct. My dad’s first wife had two kids Bjorn and Gida, when his first company was just becoming successful he had to leave town a lot and on one trip he was told Gida had died of influenza.’

‘Oh my God, I’m sorry.’ you said sympathetically.

‘It’s ok, she died way before I was born, I’ve only seen a few pictures but I don’t know anything about her, but that guy did. He knew that none of us ever saw her and he knew she was sick, and I could tell that dad was surprised by him knowing.’

Now Ivar was looking off into the distance as if he himself wasn’t even here sitting at your table right now. It was as if he was mentally somewhere else, probably trying to come up with a scenario where his father would have talked about this girl named Gida.

‘Hey, calm down. We can put a pin in it for right now if you want to, I actually do need to get some of my homework done.’ you tried to comfort.

Ivar nodded and took in a deep breath and let it all out.

You actually managed to put most of your focus on stupid equations that no one would ever need in real life, but you couldn’t help but think about how hard this was all becoming now.

Ivar was in complete denial of who he must have been in his past life, anytime you brought it up he shuts down or starts bleeding. How much more proof did he need and what will he do when he can’t deny it any more?

By some miracle you finished all your assignments with mild confidence that it was at least a B+, Ivar was apparently putting all his focus on helping you.

Pretty soon it was time for the two of you to head out if you wanted to get to the hospital in time for your appointment.

The ride was uneventful, just casual talk about school and plans for next weekend; pretty much you talked about anything but the elephant in the room.

While you rode you were very proud of yourself for keeping things casual. It was as if you had pushed aside that mild panic you felt about the possibility of you having a crush on the guy next to you.

At the hospital you filled out some papers while Ivar was chatting with the lady at the desk, it was the same one from your first visit.

Her name was Helga, she was a blond woman who looked no older than twenty seven tops, but she spoke to Ivar as if she were an forty year old aunt.

��Are you her ride home? She could be here for a while, your mother will worry.’ Helga asked.

‘Mother always does, I let her know I’d be home late if it makes you feel better.’ he assured.

‘It doesn’t.’

You felt kinda awkward interrupting to let her know you were done with the papers.

She took them and led you into an examination room where a male nurse took your vitals and gave you a gown to wear.

After a minute Dr. Finehair came in with another doctor who you had to assume was the specialist who would be conducting the study.

‘Hello Ms. (Y/N), I’m Dr. Finehair.’

You made a confused face and sent a looked between the two men.

‘My little brother, if it helps you can call him Halfdan.’ your doctor explained.

‘Don’t worry the smarter one is in charge.’ Halfdan smiled politely.

It was strange how easily his charm seemed to relax you, but you guessed as a doctor he had to have amazing bedside manners.

‘I’ve looked over all of your test results and it seems to be nothing physically with your body, other than what could be expected from an exhausted teenager.’ he said as he began placing little stickers on your temples, scalp face, chest and legs.

Both doctors were very nice and the small talk did help to pass the time while Halfdan was placing sensors on your body.

‘The main purpose of the study is to see what your brainwaves are up to when you go to sleep. If there is anything unusual then we can know what to focus on and see what tests need to be run on you. OK?’ he explained.

‘I understand, how long do I need to sleep?’

‘As long as you can, did you need any sleeping aids, I see it’s been prescribed to you.’

‘Not necessary, I’m ready to crash whenever you give me the go ahead Doc.’ you smiled.

‘Oh well don’t let me stop you, we are going to leave the room, the sensors are connected to a machine, we will monitor the room as well record video.’

‘What if I have to use the restroom? I guess I should have asked before you started.’

‘It is fine, we can disconnect you, all you have to do is let us know.’

‘Alright you are all set to go, we will leave you to it ma’am.’

The two men left and it only took you about thirty seconds to go to sleep.

******************************************************************* Ivar’s POV

The hospital was unusually quiet today, not empty by any means, but it seemed nothing horribly urgent had happened since he’d gotten here.

Every person that came in was calm and in good enough shape to explain why they were here and what they were feeling.

Of course that would be expected because this hospital was a bit out of the way, too far from the busy highways where most car accidents tend to happen.

There was also the fact that this was a very expensive hospital, with amazing security, top of the line technology and the best doctors you can get.

All of his surgeries had been done here, because on top of all those other great qualities this hospital assured each patient complete privacy. No matter who the patient was or how much money their secrets were worth.

Ivar was sitting there, in one of the uncommonly comfortable waiting room chairs, scrolling through social media on his phone when a sudden wave of lightheadedness hit him.

His vision blurred to the point where he had to sit his phone aside and shake his head in an effort to clear his head.

‘I see you Boneless.’

Ivar flinched at the sudden voice, but more than that he flinched at the name.

He looked up and what he saw was impossible, so very impossible that even the thought of it made him think that he was going mad.

There is no other explanation for what was sitting in the chair across from him.

It was himself.

His own face, slightly hidden behind a thick and graying beard, but all the same it was obviously his face. His eyes, nose and teeth...his face.

‘No.’ he breathed.

‘But yes, you wouldn’t believe what all had to be sacrificed for us to chat, and I’m sad to say that my being here is not good news.’

‘You aren’t here.’ Ivar whispered.

‘No, not really; neither are you, not completely. Neither of us can ever truly be anywhere until we are together. Until you accept that you are me, I did my part; I died...and I waited.’

‘Waited for what? For two teenagers to meet to clean up a mess you made thousands of years ago?’ he snapped angrily, barely managing to keep his voice down.

‘I didn’t want to do this, I saw no point in it. I was fully prepared to accept the punishment the Gods felt I deserved, but it wasn’t just me...and it isn’t just you. Everyone you love and care about, they are all being punished for my deeds, our deeds.’

‘Your deeds.’ Ivar spat.

‘Our...deeds.’

‘Ivar.’

This time Ivar jumped clean out of his chair, partially due to being so suddenly startled but mostly to look away from this thing with his face.

Herald was there and just the look on his face told him something was wrong; horribly wrong.

‘What happened?’

‘Helga is calling her mother now, Ivar I need you to be calm. I can see how much you care for her and I know you will worry, but losing your composure won’t help anything do you understand?’ Herald said seriously.

‘Tell me what happened.’ Ivar repeated quietly, almost certain he didn’t want the answer but he needed it all the same.

‘(Y/N) is brain dead.’

‘What? She was just here for a sleep study. What the hell happened?!’ Ivar hissed.

The hairs on the back of his neck was standing up and he couldn’t think of a time where he had been this scared.

‘We don’t know. I wouldn’t even be saying any of this to you if her mother hadn’t listed you as one of (Y/N)’s emergency contacts.’

‘Tell me!’ Ivar snapped.

Herald sighed in mild annoyance but his look remained professional.

‘Her vitals were excellent, no sleep aids were administered. Neither me or Halfdan can explain what happened, I was monitoring her on camera and he was watching her brainwaves. Out of nowhere the waves flat-line and she is seizing up.’

‘She had a seizure?’

‘Yes. A non epileptic seizure, but a seizure nonetheless; we had to risk sedating her before she hurt herself. I wish I could tell you something, anything to explain what went wrong, but I don’t know. I checked her for every physical condition I can think of as a medical doctor and there is nothing to see.’

Ivar was speechless, he didn’t know what to say, even if he did he wouldn’t trust his voice to say it without breaking.

‘When her mother arrives I will explain it to her and what happens next will be her decision.’

‘Can I see her?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes, but do not move her. We are not sure what is causing the problem and we won’t know until we can get her in a CAT scan.’

‘CAT scans, do you think it’s cancer?’ Ivar asked, his eyes wide and his heart filled with dread.

‘I can not say, even suggesting it with no test done I could lose my license. For right now I need you to keep calm while we try to figure out what exactly is happening.’

Ivar nodded in understanding, he listened to the room number and made his way there; all the while thinking about everything.

He thought about the imaginary creature that spoke to him in the waiting room.

“My being here is not good news” that’s what he said and he was right.

He remembered when he had first met her in the hallway; he couldn’t stop thinking about her in class, when he saw her at the table with his brothers he was happy to see her. Even happier that he liked her and saw her as a great friend.

A friend was something he’d never had before and he had thought this was why he wanted to keep her so close, but it wasn’t.

Ivar knew that now, he wouldn’t be this worried and concerned for a friend.

He loved (Y/N), he loved her and right now she was brain dead because of the actions of a dead man.

Because of his actions.

[comradesummers]

Top 5 buffy characters and top 5 angel characters?

Hi, thanks for asking!

Pretty sure that I’ve answered some version of this before but I’m not going to pretend I’m even remotely consistent about these things, so here we are.

Buffy Characters:

5. Rupert Giles

Giles is one of those characters that frustrates me a lot. He’s part of an inherently exploitative system and I’m not sure that, until the final episode, he ever truly extricates himself from that system. The best parts of Giles are his rebellion against the council and the worst parts of him are his ideological ties to them. But that’s what makes him so interesting. Because the man who defies what he’s been taught and loves this group of misfit children like a father is always at odds with the ruthless utilitarian he thinks he has to be. It’s a fascinating series long conflict, and though it’s not always handled as well as I would like, it does always make for a wonderfully flawed but thoroughly lovable character.

4. Willow Rosenberg

Willow is a character I struggle with because she’s the one that reminds me the most of myself. Some of these similarities are rather superficial: we’re both Jewish lesbians that pride ouselves on our academic merits. But on a deeper level, I find Willow’s insecurity and her desperate need to appear strong and important and worthy at all costs to be so painfully relatable that I have a hard time engaging with her at all. I don’t need to explain how incredible her storyline is over seven seasons, how much she grows and changes and evolves, because you know all that already. There’s no denying she’s an incredible character. And the fact that she resonates so deeply with me to the point that she makes me uncomfortable is maybe the best demonstration of what a good character she is.

3. Faith Lehane

Faith was initially introduced as the dark mirror to Buffy (which is why I believe her to be fundamentally tied to BtVS in a way that she isn’t to AtS). But her great accomplishment throughout Buffy and Angel was her evolution into her own character, separate from Buffy. And that’s also Faith’s character arc. At first, she is only able to compare herself with Buffy. She’s angry and jealous of Buffy because she believes that Buffy has everything that she never had and rightfully deserves. And, in many ways, she’s right to be angry. Yet her choice to direct her anger and resentment towards Buffy, as opposed to the real culprits (the council for one, along with all of the adults in her life) is what leads her to destroy herself. It’s only after she’s able to recognize her own self-worth outside of Buffy that she can truly do good and be good and be with Buffy. It’s a remarkable journey to behold and I love her so much.

2. Tara Maclay

I liked Tara well enough before season 6, but season 6 was when I fell completely in love with her. She becomes the show’s anchor that season as the only responsible adult who’s making good decisions, even when those decisions are extremely painful for her, like breaking up with Willow. And in a season dedicated to every other character fucking up, she’s truly a breath of fresh air. But more than just her function as a contrast to the other characters, season 6 really emphasized for me how beautifully and subtly she had developed throughout the show. Her ability to stand up to Willow is such a stark contrast to the Tara who was unable to stand up to her father (not that I’m blaming her for not being able to confront her abuser, I’m just pointing out how the contrast between these scenes demonstrates amazing growth on Tara’s part). Tara initially has no sense of self-worth, but as she develops, she comes to understand her own value and refuses to allow anyone to diminish it. It’s a beautiful, lovely story, and I will forever be bitter that she didn’t get the happy ending she so richly deserved.

1. Buffy Summers

Buffy Summers is my favorite fictional character of all time, as is evident by pretty much every single post on this blog.

Angel Characters:

5. Winfred Burkle

I have some issues with Fred. This is mainly because Joss Whedon’s obsession with this particular type of nerdy and adorable female characters makes me uncomfortable. But Amy Acker is a great actress and I can’t help but find her charming regardless. I think the episode that really sold me on Fred was Fredless. Like, the idea that she can’t face her parents because she doesn’t want to admit to them or to herself what she’s gone through is really heartbreaking. It’s the first time I was able to see Fred as more of a character than a caricature and I realized that I really liked that character. Also, fuck the writers for killing off their only remaining female character just so that Wesley could manpain about it.

4. Lilah Morgan

Lilah is by far the best villain on the show. She was, with very few exceptions, one of the only bad guys who was actually fun to watch. I particularly love that the writers never felt the need to redeem her in order to make her sympathetic. And she is sympathetic. You feel for her a whole lot, probably because Stephanie Romanov is such a pro. But she’s still a terrible, evil person through and through and I love that for her. Why the writers thought it would be a good idea to kill her off is truly beyond me.

3. Lorne

Another character who deserved better (sensing a theme here). Lorne is such an interesting, layered character with a wonderfully bizarre backstory and an interesting way of seeing the world. Yet, despite how wonderful he is, he was always pushed to the background to further another character’s story. And that’s not even mentioning whatever the writers thought they were doing with him in season 5. Also, why couldn’t he have been openly queer? Anyway, RIP Andy Hallet, who was an absurdly talented man who managed to create this incredible character in spite of all the writers’ bullshit. 

2. Charles Gunn

Gunn was never just the muscle. The man ran a neighborhood watch/vampire hunting ring while he was still in his early 20′s (I assume? Do we actually know how old he is?). He’s a strategist and a leader in his community. He’s funny and charming and a good man and he deserved so much more love and care and development because he’s truly a fascinating character. But all the writers saw was a black guy who made quips and I am still so angry about it. Anyway, I love Gunn, he is, by far, the best man on the show and possibly in the entirety of the Buffyverse.

1. Cordelia Chase

Cordelia was pretty much the only reason I decided to watch Angel. She’s the best part of the whole show, her character growth is absolutely phenomenal, and I love how she grows as a person while still remaining wholly herself. I love her so much and I’ll forever be bitter about what the writers did to her and how terribly Whedon treated Charisma Carpenter.

[evelhak]

“Ancient” wlw ships

This is such a self-indulgent post but I need to get my thoughts out. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about all the girls I shipped in fiction when I was a kid and didn’t realize I was shipping them.

I mean, they pretty much all had boyfriends or ended up marrying a man, and I was pretty much on board, in my eyes it was just some part of the story that needed to happen, because it always did. I think the common thing with these characters was that the female best friend was, at least more often than not, narratively more important than the guy, or just seemed to have a much greater emotional impact in the story.

Thinking about this has been so fun and eye-opening that I just feel like sharing a list of my biggest ancient wlw pairs that I only now, years later, realize were totally in love in my mind, I just didn’t have a concept for it yet. I’m sure that’s relatable for some people, but maybe there’s someone out there who was shipping these same characters??

This will include mild spoilers. And it’ll be long.

1. Cornelia & Elyon from W.i.t.c.h.

I COMPLETELY lived in these comics when I was 8-12 years old, and nothing in it was as compelling to me as Cornelia and Elyon. Guess I was already a sucker for best-friends-to-enemies-to-friends-again, even though I didn’t realize I also wanted them to become lovers. Best friends was all there was to me back then, that was the name I assigned to the highest form of love in my head. Which I still don’t see as invalid? I just didn’t realize I would’ve related to the romance aspect between best friends a hell of a lot more than I did to any of the relationships the W.i.t.c.h. girls had with their boyfriends. Cornelia and Caled was almost as bad as Buffy and Angel! Cornelia and Peter was just boring af. All the other W.i.t.c.h. girls’ boyfriends were all equally boring to me except for Will and Matt, but that was because their struggle to admit their feelings for each other was written in a funny way, not because their relationship had any actual depth.

But Elyon and Cornelia would’ve been perfect! I mean if your best friend has the ability to understand you so well, that with her magical intuition, she can draw you a picture of a guy you’re going to fall for, a guy she has never met... why would you even want to be with that guy anymore? Why wouldn’t you just be with her instead?? What Cornelia and Caleb had was limerence (I actually applaud the comics for eventually treating it as such and showing how it was harmful to both of the characters!) but what Cornelia and Elyon had was true love that transcends dimensions. Cornelia never gave up on Elyon, not even for a moment, after she became the W.i.t.c.h. girls’ enemy, and when she was in trouble, Cornelia had a hunch from another dimension, and she didn’t hesitate to come to her rescue. (The fact that during the same mission she also manages to fall for the dude Elyon drew for her in the past seems more like an accident, to be honest. The real deal was patching things up with Elyon, it was both more emotionally impactful AND more plot-relevant!)

It was also really sad to read the comics sometimes, because Elyon was absolutely my favourite character, and she wasn’t around much after the first arc, being a queen in another dimension. But every time there was a flashback to when Elyon was still living on Earth and being cute with Cornelia I was like MOOOOORE.

2. Sora and Layla from Kaleido Star

If you haven’t watched this anime you’ve missed. SO. MUCH. This is probably my favourite anime ever. And it features another type of ship I LOVE. Which is partners in some sort of activity, usually sports. When it’s written well it’s just so impactful and intense. These girls are routinely risking their lives in their passion for acrobatics, so they need to have absolute trust in each other. And oh boy is the relationship between them written well. I love it when two characters initially don’t get the way the other thinks or sees the world, but as they grow closer, it’s the other’s way of thinking that really unlocks something huge for them.

Also what’s so compelling about Sora and Layla is that there really isn’t anything like them in any other anime, that I’ve come across, at least. These partnerships are always between two guys in a sports anime, the partnership is at the heart of the story and the emotional stakes are so high it’s no wonder most people don’t want to ship these guys with their intended female love interests. Kaleido Star takes this even further because the guy who is in love with Sora is literally a joke, or the fact that he’s in love with Sora is a running gag, and nothing more. All the focus is on Sora and Layla as partners, and how they change each other's lives for the better.

Also the way Sora pines for Layla when she’s away or not paying enough attention to her is SO... I mean you don’t even have to think it’s romantic for it to absolutely melt you. Although it feels pretty heavily romantically coded, and it doesn’t even feel like queer baiting, because it’s just SO real and honest. And how Layla can’t stop thinking about how Sora is changing her as a person. There’s no question about the fact that the relationship between these women is the true meat of the show.

3. Anne and Diana from Anne of Green Gables

I read these books over and over again as a kid, and the Netflix show renewed my love for these two. They are kind of ridiculous, but SO cute. Looking back, it seems obvious that they had a crush on each other, they were just SO giddy all the time they were alone. Sure, you can excuse all their romantic gestures (like changing locks of hair, and vowing to never leave each other with joined hands and grand words) with saying Anne just romanticizes everything, but it never really felt like just that to me.

I’ll never forget how devastated Anne was about Diana getting married, and I don’t remember the wording but initially she wished she could keep Diana to herself for their whole lives. And every time they talked about marriage it was something they were both gonna do not as individuals, but rather the emphasis seemed to be on the shared experience, and how their children would be best friends and all that. It was all about them together. Like their romantic fantasies were nothing without the other somehow in the picture.

I don’t hate Anne and Gilbert but I don’t love them either. Gilbert has always been just sort of “meh”. He’s okay, but also the kind of love interest that can never compel me much.

4. Chocolat and Vanilla from Sugar Sugar Rune

Seriously, this would have been SO GOOD if it was canon.

Think about it, best friends, chosen to compete against each other for the throne. These witches go to the human world to attract male attention and collect feelings from the men, turning the feelings into heart shaped crystals and whoever collects more will be the queen. I mean... the story was good as it is but if they had ended up together and been queens TOGETHER?? That would have been the best story. It could have had SUCH a compelling best-friends-to-competitors-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers storyline! There would have been room for so much character development.

And if my memory doesn’t betray me the story would not change much at all if they didn’t end up with the guys they do end up with! Especially Vanilla’s guy is like an afterthought and Chocolat’s guy is... well, a sum of my least favourite tropes, including the one that will remind everyone about Mortal Instruments a LITTLE too much, so he can get lost for all I care.

I cried many times while reading this, and it always had something to do with these two girls.

5. Yoko and Liao from Yoko Tsuno

Okay, these two might have a problematic age gap, I’m not sure, but I didn’t know of that possibility as a kid, they just looked the same age to me. I was a huge Yoko Tsuno fan as a pre-teen, and there were so many interesting female adventurers in this series but for some reason the dynamic between Yoko and Liao was my favourite, even though Liao only appeared in one album. I just really felt like I needed to see more of these characters interacting and where their relationship would develop.

There was something about them that seemed rather original to me then, and a nice change. The reader had already gotten used to Yoko as the hero, she was always saving the day everywhere, she was like The Doctor in a way and not only because she time-travelled. She is simply badass. In Liao’s story there’s a prophecy about a girl who speaks to a dragon and saves everyone, and Yoko thinks that girl is her because she’s from the future and knows the dragon is a machine, but it turns out to be Liao, and that was somehow really satisfying. Yoko treats Liao obnoxiously in the beginning, doesn’t give her much credit, but is deeply humbled after Liao needs to save her ass multiple times because she’s just too sure of herself. It was cool to see how Yoko really needed to grow in this story and realize her limitations, and how wrong she was to treat Liao the way she did and look down on her just because Liao was physically weak, had a temper, and came from a much earlier time period than Yoko.

By the end they are clearly very attached to each other (Liao weeping in Yoko’s arms and Yoko confessing how full of herself she was when they met) and respect each other, and I just really would’ve liked to see where they would go from there. I thought about them meeting again A LOT when I was a kid.

That’s my big five! :D I could go on but this is already long, I need to sleep, and these are the characters that I’ve been thinking about the most lately. If you read this far for some reason it would be cool to hear if you have any similar (or different) experiences.

[prose-for-hire]

Btvs Headcanons:

Hc: You work in a store they frequent, meet them that way, and feelings develop. How each character would show you that they care about you/ask you on a date after getting to know them. 

Edited to include Oz. [Jenny Calendar hc is separate here ]

Warning: one small mention of sex. and in one hc the store is a butchers

I thought this would be fun, maybe a little different than my usual. You can request some people that aren’t on here if you like. Or a different job or scenario where you would meet them.💜

Spike:

- you work at a 24 hour store, he comes in at weird times of the night

- You catch Spike stealing and take pity on him, letting it slide (he looks a bit gaunt, maybe he’s not eating properly)

- There’s no cameras the place you work is crappy so you maintain eye contact and just nod at him, allowing him to take whatever it is he’s concealed under his leather duster

- He’d start to come in and either blatantly steal so you would catch him and talk to him or buy lots of stuff he didn’t need with money he had ‘borrowed’ from one of the scoobies

- He talks a lot and appears to be trying to impress you, it makes you smile

- But also he’s very attentive to you and asks you things about yourself, wanting to learn everything he can

- He starts waiting for you, watching through the glass, going through whole packs of cigarettes making sure you’re okay and no customers are being nasty

- He will come in and threaten to drain them dry if they say one more horrible thing to you, it’s happened twice

- He follows you home before eventually offering to walk with you

- He’ll probably bottle all of his feelings up for a long time, professing his love in a very heartfelt speech and crashing his lips to yours before actually asking you on a date

Angel:

(I’m so sorry if you don’t eat meat)

- You work at the butchers and Angel used to come in all the time really early before the sun rose

- You were embarrassed such an attractive man saw you in your overalls smelling of raw meat

- Too embarrassed to ask yourself why he wanted so much animal blood

- You soon had his regular order ready and waiting for him, he always seemed to be in a rush. This meant there was a little time for you to talk because he already had his order

- You instigated, asking him lots of questions with you getting one word answers (you think he’s not interested and stop)

- But he’s just trying to keep his distance, he knows what happens when he gets too involved. Things seem to go wrong

- He eventually bumps into you after work one evening, not able to stay away completely

- You work long hours so he’s trying to make sure you’re getting home okay by hanging back in the shadows

- Eventually starts to offer to walk you and you happily agree, chatting nonstop about the delivery or what you were taught that day about slicing into something

- He enjoys just hearing you talk, not able to help smiling at the way you animatedly recount your day to him, eventually one day he’ll offer for you to visit his place making a date out of it

Xander:

- you probably work with him, one of the many jobs he took on after high school

- you both work at a pizza place, he delivers you make the orders

- he acts really weird around you at first, dropping things and stumbling over his words when he speaks to you

- he cracks some childish jokes but you laugh along with him, finding him sweet

- he grins wide when you start to joke back, pulling funny faces behind the manager’s back when it’s turned

- He’ll be thinking of asking you on a date for a really long time, probably since he first met you

- He’s nervous and he doesn’t want you laughing in his face, he probably doesn’t think he has a shot with someone as great as you

- But he just rushes out and says it one night when you’re both grabbing your jackets to leave

- You smile, scan his face to check he’s joking, then nod and say you’d love to

- You go to the Bronze, have a contest to see who can catch the most peanuts in your mouth (if you’re allergic, it’s some other competition, maybe who can finish their drink the fastest)

- He might let you win and then just lean straight in and kiss you when you celebrate

Buffy:

- Buffy comes into the late night store you work at for gum or snacks (something she can carry while she patrols) she recognises you as her regular cashier after a few months.

- I feel like she has a lot on her plate, forgive her for not noticing you straight away

- She’s probs trying to get over someone atm or struggling to trust after her last relationship

- You’re extra friendly with her and she realises after talking it over with Willow that you were actually flirting

- Realises the brief interaction she gets with you makes her feel happy. Real happy and she doesn’t have to be responsible for anyone but herself when she’s chatting away with you

- Starts to ask you questions about yourself enjoying your company. Every time without fail she asks when you get off work, she’s concerned you’re always walking home in the dark

- starts to loop back past your store when she’s on patrol, pretending she was still in the area when you got off

- offering to walk you home a lot, accidentally dropping a pile of weapons once and having to pretend she was doing a woodworking class

- she eventually asks you on a date, encouraged by her friends to make the first move, and you’ll go to the Bronze, dancing and laughing the whole time

Faith:

- you work at the convenience store near the Mayor’s office

- She comes in on her way back to her crappy motel

- she feels a bit conflicted about sneaking around behind Buffy’s back but your bright smile to greet her almost makes her forget

- you caught her eye pretty much the first time she saw you waiting by the register

- she usually asks for some smokes and started to offer to share one with you on your break

- if you smoke, you say yes, if you don’t you say you’ll still come outside with her on your break to keep her company

- you’ll mostly talk with her chipping in at first and then she finds out how good it is to vent to someone

- your break’s over but you tell her you don’t want her to be on her own struggling through her thoughts

- you ask if she can wait, but she doesn’t really do waiting around

- she does give you the address to the motel she’s staying at though and she’ll smoke every hour until she sees you walking

- this is your first date, the one you count as your first date anyway

- you spend the whole night talking, sometimes even laughing. You make her feel like a person, not just a Slayer

Cordy:

- you work at the mall. Specifically a boutique or somewhere Cordy regularly visits

- she’s kind to you but a bit abrupt if you start talking about anything that isn’t a sale

- her dad no longer has any money and she’s a struggling actress after hs and you overhear her phone conversation about how hard everything is

- she wants this pretty dress that you know she’d look beautiful in

- you offer her your employee discount, telling her to keep it quiet

- after that, she specifically requests you and after her fifth visit realises she has been coming and looking forward to seeing you more than the dresses

- this means she’s in deep

- she won’t beat around the bush, she’ll ask you if you won’t ask her

- “Bronze. 8pm” with a little wink, hauling her shopping bags with her before leaving

- You have a great time and you meet up again she does little fashion shows for you before you go out, liking your eye for fashion and asks you to help her choose outfits for your dates

- She’ll want to go public places for dates to show off your relationship

Giles:

- Book store (obviously)

- You’re the most knowledgeable about his particular interest (cough, demons, cough) and he is attracted straight away to your apparent intelligence

- You already know about demons and everything, having studied it extensively as well as running into a vampire late one night and managing to get away unscathed

- He marvelled at this and you tell it so casually, explaining that you just did what the books told you and put it in practice

- He’s lonely really, always hanging around people a lot younger that don’t take him as seriously as he takes himself, but you do

- You think he’s fun to be around, he probably doesn’t wait too long, asking you for a drink the first or second time he meets you.

- He knows life’s too short, especially in Sunnydale

- You appreciate his dry humour and the way he isn’t just bookish, he has a lot of really great qualities

- You haven’t seen him as Ripper, but you know it’s there. He’s open with you and he’ll tell you about his past. He believes in trust

- You go on a lot of dates after that first drink, you even get introduced to the Scoobies and become a kind of parent figure too

Riley Finn:

- you bag his groceries at the supermarket.

- He’s always polite, makes you feel like a human being not just somebody serving him

- Always chats about the weather or something generic that won’t compromise his job, but he likes talking to you

- He occasionally makes a comment to make you smile because seeing your real smile, not the one you put on for customers, is so much sweeter

- He’ll probably come in regularly, same time, same day every week for his shopping now (bc you’re there)

- Bumps into you accidentally while you’re stocking a shelf and helps you pick everything up, smiling at the way you get a little flustered, insisting it was his fault not yours

- He’ll probably ask you if you’ve ever heard of the Bronze, which of course you have because that’s the only half-decent place in town

- Says he’d really like to see you there, like maybe tonight, so you go and have a really great time

- He says he doesn’t want to wait to see you again, but he’s very respectful will probably give you his number so that you can call him first and you don’t feel pressured into a second date or anything

Willow:

- You work at a magic shop

- you help her find the ingredients to a spell she’s been itching to try and give her little tips

- She really likes that you know lots about magic and what ingredient you could swap out for a better result

- You’ll grow close, she’ll pop in and tell you how well/badly the latest spells went

- She’ll tell stories in her characteristic way and you’ll smile at how cute she is and her fun vocabulary you’ll find yourself picking up

- You’ll offer to meet her and help her out with some spells

- She’ll bounce off the walls in excitement

- Probably spend the whole day making sure her dorm room is ‘just right’ for you to see and that she’s made sure about ten times that Buffy is definitely going to be out

- You’ll do the spell, it’ll be a big success because working together shows you that you have this amazing connection

- Then you’ll be talking and sharing loads for hours

- She’ll take you to the Bronze if it’s not too late, if it’s too late she’ll ask what you’re doing at the weekend and invite you then

Tara:

- Also at a magic shop. Probably specifically the Magic Box, after Giles takes it on

- You’re a Scooby and Tara’s moved to Sunnydale for college. She wanted to check out the magic box straight away

- You catch each other’s eye and she looks a little shy

- Starts to stutter when you make conversation, but you’re patient with her, giving her time to finish her words that have become jumbled in your presence.

- She asks for help with finding something only when she absolutely has to, but you’re always kind with her when she does and she smiles so bright when she finds what she’s looking for, scrunching her mouth to the side a little when she looks back at you

- You start to recommend places in Sunnydale for her to check out, trying to gauge if she would be into you or not. You eventually offer to take her and show her around and she nods excitedly

- You both have a really great time and she makes you feel special. She talks a lot more now she’s comfortable with you

- you suggest you could try some magic together, only if she wanted

- She does, you meet up a lot and you date and magically create a cat to own together

- You both have a long, happy life together 

Anya:

- You work in the magic box with her. I feel like you both didn’t get on at first

- you didn’t understand her and she felt misunderstood, making her snappy and blunt with you

- eventually, you started to understand she needed a bit of time and you explained yourself more. Why you were doing things, being patient with her and fully giving her everything you could to help her understand the reasoning

- she really appreciated it, nobody ever did this for her without some level of teasing

- she explains about being an ex-vengeance demon. You can’t say you’re shocked (you live in Sunnydale and work in the magic box)

- you were patient with her and she quickly asked if you could start having sex trying to plan out your relationship

- you told her you would rather get to know her first, especially considering you worked together (leading to a chat about workplace relationships going wrong, which leads to an anecdote about her knowing this because of her vengeance days)

- but the feelings were undeniable and you started dating very quickly

- she’ll probably start dropping hints about marriage or the equivalent very soon too

Oz

- you work at a record store.

- He comes in pretty regularly, but he doesn’t really say much

- Not until you notice a record he’s holding and start to gush about it

- Your manager told you to talk to customers and encourage them to buy more, but this wasn’t that. And he could tell

- He loved your enthusiasm and he wanted to get to know you

- You caught his eye probably one of the first times he saw you working behind the counter, humming to a song which happened to be one of his favourites

- He just knew then that he wanted to date you

- whispering, “who are they?” but to himself because he always come into the store alone (he wants the experience, just him and the music… and maybe a glance or two at you)

-  He might bring some fliers in one day, asking if the store will put them up, advertising Dingoes’ latest gig

- He’ll say you could come, if you want, with a characteristic shrug

- And you’ll obviously say yes and he likes how excitable you are, you contrast with his chill vibe

-  And you go and have a great time

- then you talk after, telling him how cool his band is

- You’ll hit it off, finding his phrasing and humour endearing. He’ll gift you a guitar pick from your first sort of date. He’s a romantic

- You’ll mostly come to wherever he’s playing and have a date after

-  he’s very sweet, very caring. Always offers to take you somewhere else for a date but you insist on supporting him and getting a drink after

- won’t be much of a talker, but you will always feel loved by him 

[ghoste-catte]

multiples of 3 ✌🏼-sgmdrcklee

@sagemoderocklee you’re really trying to kill me lol

This got long as heck so I’m throwing it behind a cut. Read on for answers and fic recs! (Mostly the fic recs)

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

This is a tough one to answer for me generally because I tend to spit words onto the page and once I have written them I no longer remember writing them. And 2020 has stretched on so long that as I’m looking at some of the stuff I wrote in the beginning of this year, I hardly remember what’s even in it. I think at one point someone (@goblin-draws maybe?) mentioned a line in Sleeptalk with Me where the innkeeper calls Kankuro “chubby boy”, and I was like “Oh ... did I write that? Yeah, sounds like something I’d have someone say to Kankuro ...” 

It might be easier to talk about this in other terms. One of the scenes I worked the hardest on this year was the fight scene in Chapter 3 of Skeleton Key. The original draft of the scene was a lot shorter, and a lot of the backstory for Misaki’s revenge quest was elided. The scene as originally written was clunky, confusing, and as my lovely wife/beta put it sounded “like a Naruto villain” was doing the dialogue, when previously she’d found Misaki sinister and intriguing. Which wasn’t what I wanted. I basically entirely overhauled the scene and re-wrote it several times. I wouldn’t call it a ‘favorite’ scene (I hate writing fight scenes generally; having chosen to immerse myself in a fandom about ninja where much of the drama comes from battle is my eternal regret), but it is a scene that I put a lot of effort into, and I’m moderately satisfied with the improved product that resulted.  

6. least popular fic this year

By far my least popular fic by kudos ever is Pitch Perfect. Which makes complete sense to me. It’s a fic where I’ve written 2 characters who are men in canon as cis women, which pushes a lot of uncomfortable buttons for a lot of people. It contains F/F smut, which is something that a lot of people who choose to read GaaLee probably aren’t out there looking for. And people comment and kudos less on smutfics, I assume because they don’t want their username attached to porn or because they’re embarrassed (which I totally get, no shame there). It’s a modern AU with a sports twist, and AUs are often less popular than canonverse in my experience. I will say though that it has a surprisingly high number of private bookmarks compared to other fics with comparable hit and kudos counts. So I assume people are just a bit more shy because the premise is so ‘out there’. I will say as far as my fics go, it’s one of my personal favorites and probably one of the most intimate and true-to-life things I’ve written? So it actually is a little comforting to know that something so vulnerable has relatively little attention. 

9. longest wip of the year

If we’re going based on stuff that’s partially published but not complete, my Gaara-adopts-Shinki fic On My Way Home is my longest in-progress fic at just over 20k words, although technically I started it in 2019. It will probably end up being right around 40-50k when it’s complete, which might end up situating it as my longest fic ever? 

12. favorite character to write about this year

Okay, this is an easy one. I love writing Kankuro. I think he is hilarious. He is the devil on my shoulder and a creature of pure id, and every time I write a line of dialogue for him it’s the summation of my rudest thoughts about a situation put in the crudest possible terms. If there were a megaphone directly from my unfiltered brain giving running commentary, that would be Kankuro.

15. something you learned this year

I have learned SO much this year! This is only my 2nd year properly ‘focusing’ on writing fic and investing any substantial time into it. I think the biggest thing I have learned, though, is how to overcome a lot of my self-consciousness about writing stories with NSFW elements in them. Starting out, I was so extremely shy and mortified about writing fic at all, much less things like hugging or (god forbid!) kissing. So taking on the smut prompts I took this year and really buckling down on learning to write the mechanics and emotions of sex has been a massive learning experience. (And sorry, by the way, if I haven’t gotten to a prompt you sent me in January yet. I do intend to write all of them eventually!) 

18. current number of WIPs

Ah. The call-out question. My general fic process is idea -> outline -> wip -> edit -> ready to post (where the final draft sits in my docs until I gin up the courage to actually post it). So skipping fics that are just “ideas” on the big mega-list, I have 3 fics in the “outline” stage, 13 fics in the partially written “wip” stage, 1 fic in the “editing” stage, and 2 that are complete but yet-to-be-posted. So, like, 19 total in the offing. (The “ideas” list is even worse lol.)

21. most memorable comment/review

This is such a difficult question because every single comment I get makes me do a little dance for joy. That’s not an exaggeration btw I really sit there and like bounce around in my seat for a moment before I open the Ao3 email. I am not an especially emotive person irl, but there have been times I’ve been brought near tears by comments. I’ll also occasionally show them to my wife like !! look at this nice thing this person said !! and she’s indulgent enough to actually read them. There have been a couple comments that have really stuck with me, that I starred in my inbox and return to frequently, but I don’t want to bring attention to someone else without their permission. I will say there was one person recently who mentioned (not in the comments on one of my fics) that they had found someone who does physical binding of fanfiction and they were about to ask my permission to do that, but then the person who does the binding only does certain ships that she likes ... so that, just, absolutely floored me. The idea that someone might actual want a physical copy of my stupid little ninja fanfictions is, like, so truly immense and completely overwhelming?

24. favorite fic you read this year

You can’t make me pick just one!! (For reference, I have bookmarked right around 180 fics in the past year, and that’s not including fics that I just read, really enjoyed, but didn’t think I could ‘handle’ a second time around.) So, skipping over the ones that AREN’T Naruto ... here is a brief sampling of some faves:

Silica by deepestbluest (rated E, GaaLee, ShikaTema, and Kankiba) - An absolute emotional powerhouse of a fic that manages to skillfully interweave three complex relationship dynamics, satisfactorily resolve them, and give you ALL the sandsibs feels in just over 10k words. 

Childhood Not-Friends (series) by MegaWallflower (rated G, KakaGai) - @megawallflower is a KakaGai god for good reason. Absolutely adorable relationship development fics (five of them!) with the premise that Kakashi thinks he and Gai have been dating since they were kids ... Gai just hasn’t been clued into it yet. These stories will give you heart-eyes.

The Bright Side by gidget_goes (rated T, GaaLee) - This is the Buffy AU I never knew I needed, because I’ve never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But truly you don’t need any Buffy knowledge to enjoy this fic. @gidget-goes command of imagery is masterful, and the way they manage to snap from snark to tugging at your heartstrings is awe-inspiring. Gaara breaks my heart in this. And did I mention Kankuro wears a 10-gallon hat? Because Kankuro wears a 10-gallon hat. 

Nature vs. Nurture by Bidiza (rated T, GaaLee) - So introspective and so poetic. This looks like a WIP but it’s actually multiple oneshots, although by the end of the second one you’ll be dying for the rest of the promised series. 

I’m a Fool to Want You by BeelieveRosemarie (rated M, GaaLee) - Turns out @tuttiefruttiegaalee isn’t just an amazing artist, they’re a writer, too! Slow-dancing that will break your heart. Listen to the Frank Sinatra song while you read this for extra tear-jerking effect.

Let Love be Known (series) by TenTomatoes (rated G, GaaLee) - This is the twist on the arranged marriage trope and Beauty and the Beast that I didn’t realize this fandom was missing. I’m absolutely obsessed with their concept of Gaara as the Beast

I Could Be by LilacNoctua (rated T, GaaLee) - I know I big up @lilac-writes Worthwhile series a lot (deservedly so, because it’s so good it makes you look at the series and go “Why the fuck didn’t Kishimoto make this canon exactly like this?”), but this story made me absolutely die between the butterflies in my stomach and how hard I was laughing. There’s one line--you’ll know it when you read it--that absolutely bowls me over every time I re-read this. 

And Then Continue by EgregiousDerp (rated E, GaaLee) - Obviously I’m biased because this was a gift, but @egregiousderp writes some of the the best characterized porn I’ve ever read. You will read this and go “Wow! This is exactly how it would happen!” It’s such a tender, beautiful exploration of Gaara’s insecurities and a very real feeling first time, for all its soft edges. 

Cake by citronelle (rated E, KanKiba) - I don’t even know what to say about this one other than ... phew, this is extremely well written, extremely hot, and extremely in character. Just read it. I promise it’s worth it. 

Saudade by YumKiwiDelicious (rated M, GaaLee) - I’ve run around reccing this to just about every person on the face of the earth at this point. If you’re in the GaaLee Discord you probably saw everyone salivating over every new update of this fic and with good reason. The twists and turns of this fic will have you on the edge of your seat, second guessing every single moment. And it will break your heart in the meantime. What more could you want?

the love potion commotion by floating_cats (rated T, NejiSasu with background GaaLee) - One of those fics where you wish the author’s sense of humor was your own. So many hilarious moments in this story, and it brought me a new appreciation for a ship I never would have even considered. 

Finger Lickin’ Good by whazzername (rated E, GaaLee) - Whazz is another one of those authors where I literally want to rec every single thing she’s ever written, she’s just that good. (Speaking of which, if you haven’t read Fools Rush In and its sequel Degrees of Separation, you’re missing out on the best possible Metal origin story of all time. Don’t deprive yourself of this.) But this story is just ... so incredibly in character for a situation that reads like crack. It’s handled with the utmost straight-facedness and it’s so. freakin’. good. 

heart lines by winterberry_holly (rated M, NejiTen and GaaLee) - I don’t even have the words to describe how perfect this fic is. It’s a truly beautiful exploration of Tenten’s relationship with her palmistry hobby and with the people in her life. My heart ached with every single line. 

Standing on Ceremony by kuroashi (rated E, GaaLee) - This is just ... such a beautiful wedding story. So lovely, like getting the best possible warm hug from someone you love. If that love one was slightly strange and socially inept, because, well. It’s still Gaara doing Gaara-things. @baphometsss is another one of those authors whose handling of smut scenes is so stupendous it makes me wildly jealous. 

Thrall by RokiRiot (rated T, GaaLee) - Idiots-to-lovers with a magic AU twist! This is such a wonderful story, and Gaara’s internal monologue is absolutely amazing. And Lee is Deaf in this fic, which I never ever get to see and which absolutely made my entire day/week/month/life. 

Make-Out Consequences by LuxaLucifer (rated M, KakaGai with background canon Boruto ships) - I laughed so hard reading this that I had to take a breather to stop crying. That’s not an exaggeration. The characterization in this fic is impeccable and the humor is to die for. Naruto’s buffoonery truly shines here, and the author’s wit is just beyond anything I could even properly summarize. Hysterical. A++. 

Thirteen Strokes by Luna_Lee (rated T, GaaLee) - Again, like, if you aren’t reading literally everything @sagemoderocklee writes, are you even really a GaaLee fan? But this fic is beyond even for one of Eeri’s incredibly excellent writings. The worldbuilding in this, the cultural notes, the imagery ... it’s all so lush and so fulfilling and so beautiful. It’s a story about love and it’s a story that you can tell has love poured into every single line. I can’t recommend it enough. 

Checkmate by shadowstrangle (rated G, GaaLee) - The pettiness vibes ... this is so funny. Such a cute story and I love Gaara’s sense of humor here. Not a lot of writers give him a sense of humor, but I love how @shadowstrangle gives him a slightly odd, slightly left-of-center take on humor that still manages to be so funny. 

To Court a Village by FanFictionEngineer (rated G, GaaLee) - Another one where my bias is perhaps slightly obvious, but the premise of this fic is amazing. I love cultural misunderstandings, and the idea of Lee trying his hardest to court Gaara ineptly is just so perfect. 

affliction of feeling by theformerone (rated E, SakuHina) - One of those ships that it would never have occurred to me to seek out but that absolutely works with how the author’s set it up. The dynamics here are delicious. It’s so rare to find good F/F porn but this is one of them for sure. 

Tried and Tested by twentysomething (Rated M, KakaIru with background canon Boruto ships and GaaLee) - Iruka’s narration in this story is just incredible. I haven’t laughed this hard reading a fic in ages. And the concept alone (that Naruto can’t be promoted to Hokage until he passes his chuunin exams ... as an adult ... and Sasuke gets dragged along for the ride) is just brilliant. Amazing concept, amazingly executed. 

a fireside waltz by winterberry_holly (rated M, GaaLee) - I really tried not to rec a single author more than once here but for this one I had to. I got about halfway through this fic and immediately started running around ringing the town crier bell like READ THIS FIC! READ THIS FIC! An absolutely smoldering Regency AU with such beautiful, intimate dance scenes. My heart was racing every single time their fingers brushed. If you don’t read anything else on this list, at the very least read this. 

27. favorite fanfic author of the year

I really can’t pick just one. I am lucky enough that @egregiousderp passes me her drafts under the table before (or without) publishing, and getting to read those is a private treat of unparalleled proportions. Some of my favorite things I’ve read this year I can’t even rec because they’re her unpublished stuff. 

30. favorite fandom to read fic from this year

This is gonna come off strange because I just wrote such a long Naruto reclist, but I recently watched What We Do in the Shadows, and found an incredibly talented group of authors in that fandom with really amazingly good dialogue and narrative voice. I also read a lot of fic for the new It movies (even though I couldn’t watch the 2nd one for ~reasons~), and damn if there isn’t a talented crop of authors in that fandom, too. And finally with ATLA making its way onto Netflix, I had the chance to start watching that for the first time and found a ton of really good fic there as well! 

fanfic end of the year asks!

[centaurianthropology]

A List of Older Fandoms for Quarantine Viewing

I thought it might be fun to put out a list of older fandoms or smaller fandoms that might be of interest to folks here.  As we’re all still stuck with quarantine, perhaps you’re looking for some new/old media?  Perhaps this list could help?

This is halfway between a rec list and a charting of my own fandom history.  For anyone looking for some new fandoms to check out that are various flavors of interesting and a little older, check ‘em out! 

Feel free to add your own!

In no specific order (other than maybe my DVD shelf??)

Patrick O’Brien books/Master and Commander - this was a fairly good-sized fandom back when the movie ‘Master and Commander’ came out.  A must-watch for anyone who likes historical fiction, age of sail, and powerful homoeroticism.

David Drake’s Royal Cinnabar Navy series - did you ever want Master and Commander in space, but Stephen Maturin is a librarian named Adele Mundy who is a sharpshooter and utterly terrifying and wonderful and beloved ace representation?  Fair warning: this series contains grapic descriptions of violence from an author who’s still working through his Vietnam PTSD.  Here be dragons.

Adam Adamant Lives! -  an Edwardian adventurer got frozen in a block of ice by his arch-nemesis The Face, thawed out in 1969, and now fights crime with a young woman sidekick and an actor-turned-butler who spouts limericks.  It is a completely insane show and joyously dumb.  Everyone involved is having a whale of a time.  It’s hard to come by, but so worth watching it for the pure silliness.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I can’t believe this has become a fandom some people haven’t heard of, but here we are, far enough out from the massive cultural impact of Buffy that I need to remind folks.  1990s series about a cheerleader-turned-vampire slayer, struggling with both the supernatural and with high school (which is much worse).  

Angel - spinoff of Buffy, and in some ways my preferred series?  It has so many problems, and the writing of seasons 3 and 4 is quite weak, but the characters are strong, the stories are solid, and Alexis Denisof’s Wesley Wyndam-Pryce remains one of my favorite character arcs in television.

Marble Hornets - here’s another fandom that doesn’t feel like it should be old, but it’s now over a decade since its premiere.  One of the early webseries, Marble Hornets is still one of the best.  Well done horror with occasionally iffy amateur acting, easily overcome with a surprising touch for cinematography.  I’m a sucker for amateur film, especially when it’s well done and ambitious.

Babylon 5 - This was the first fandom I posted about on here, and still one of my great loves.  Arcs before arcs on television were a thing.  Huge overarching stories playing out over seasons.  Great political intrigue on a space station.  The grandest, most tragic Shakespearean romance that ever played out between two middle-aged alien diplomats.  

Carnivale - HBO prestige show before they had prestige shows.  Bought the DVDs on the cover art alone, and they were so worth it: “1934.  The Dustbowl.  The last great age of magic.”  Like most HBO shows, every possible content warning does probably apply to this show, though it’s not nearly as extreme as Game of Thrones, so if you could watch that, you can probably watch Carnivale.

Firefly - space western courtesy of Joss Whedon.  Only one series long, but really well done.  Probably Whedon’s best work.

Homicide: Life on the Streets - early 1990s police procedural with a twist: it wanted to be a very accurate, realistic portrayal of a homicide unit, based on a documentary novel.  The characters all feel real, you’re certain they all smell like cigarettes, coffee, and sweat.  Also, can we applaud a show that has a female homicide detective who doesn’t wear makeup, has frizzy red hair, and never wears heels?  Kay Howard is such a fantastic character.  Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss and John Munch and Gee are all such wonderful, real characters.  Another great show for prestige-television-before-it-existed.

The Last Detective - British detective series about a detective who gets small, mournful cases ignored by everyone else and solves them mostly through dogged work rather than brilliance.  This show is the most melancholy show I have ever seen, shockingly good in the quietest way possible, and remains one of my favorite detective series ever.

M*A*S*H - have you ever wanted a proper tragicomedy billed as a sitcom?  There’s a reason this show is still considered the greatest sitcom ever made.  Fair warning: the early seasons really haven’t aged well, and a lot of the comedy doesn’t land.  But if you’re willing to stick with it to the later seasons, you’ll find a show that shifts toward one of the greatest tragicomedies ever.  

Sapphire and Steel - 1970s/1980s British horror/sci-fi show about two mysterious beings that appear to resolve science fiction reinterpretations of horror concepts.  Despite a shoestring budget, the writing is phenomenal, and the acting is perfect, particularly the icy intimacy between the two leads, David McCallum and Joanna Lumley.

Sherlock Holmes - before the modern interpretations, there was the 1980s series starring Jeremy Brett.  If you want the single most accurate interpretation of Conan Doyle’s work, with characters who feel and look like they’ve stepped off the page (and the series that singlehandedly rehabilitated the character of Inspector Lestrade), this series is a must-watch.  This has been my go-to comfort viewing for years.

    Also, if you’re a Sherlock Holmes nut, and you’re desperate for more content, and willing to navigate a Cyrillic DVD menu for subtitles, might I suggest the late 70s Russian Sherlock Holmes series?  Vasiliy Livanov’s Holmes is such a different interpretation of the character, and he’s a delight.  And Vitaliy Solomin’s Watson is possibly my favorite Watson ever.  He’s so done with everything.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - sort of the forgotten middle child of the Star Trek series, but in many ways it’s one of the most ambitious.  It was a rival/developed at the same time and somewhat by the same team as Babylon 5, so there are some striking similarities (space station, overarching stories, etc), but while B5 manages the political intrigue better, DS9 does a war better.  It’s the darkest of the Star Trek series, investigating the more tarnished edges of the utopia.  The characters are more deeply developed and flawed, and I love them all.  Andrew Robinson’s portrayal of tailor-with-a-mysterious-past Garak is probably the best character Star Trek ever created in any series.

Hope those of you looking for new things to watch and dig into might find something in this list!

[buffyversefanfiction]

Slayer of Slayers

Warnings:I do not own, nor do I claim to own any of the copyright or characters within the Buffyverse which includes but not limited to the television shows Buffy and Angel, as well as the Darkhorse comics series’ continuation.

15+ Strong to moderate violence, Graphic to mild descriptions of gore, and torture, sexually charged scenes, sexual innuendos, mild to strong language, and practices of witchcraft.

M/M, F/F, M/F, GEN, OTHER +

PART FIVE LINK HERE

Part Six - What You Left Behind

Theo Frey had confronted his parents Buffy and Angel, fought with them, and even almost killed one of them, but in the end, he could not find himself capable of the kill despite managing many kills before that. If anything, he had thought he would only become more ruthless after becoming a vampire but clearly things were not that straightforward, but could it really be that dying made him more human? No, surely not he thought as he ran out of the backdoor of his former family home only to find himself hit by a shovel to the head, not seeing where it came from, or who was holding the shovel, as everything suddenly went to black…

Ruby Moon, the former best friend of Theo Frey, joined Theo when he first left Riverborn to become a lackey for the deranged vampire Drusilla in a bid to protect her best friend but instead, she too found herself briefly seduced by the darkness, of the magical kind, but as she spiraled further and further into the dark acts she began to see changes within herself she did not like and soon she started to see Theo experience the same changes at the hands of Drusilla and her right-hand guy Tobias. She had tried multiple times to convince Theo to run away with her, but he was in too deep and so the young witch was forced to save herself, leaving her best friend behind, as she returned home to Riverborn to live a relatively normal life which led to her graduating from Riverborn High, going on to college, and marrying her best friend’s former crush Lucien Knight but through all the changes, and developments in her life, she could never shake the guilt of not being able to save Theo from the crutches of Drusilla and Tobias. Her now-husband Lucien Knight’s life was as far from normal as possible going on to join a top-secret government organization run by ex-initiative operative Riley Finn, an organization which unlike the initiative itself worked alongside slayers, witches, and even werewolves to achieve their mission, protect the innocent. Ruby and Lucien’s relationship started out as a friendship formed in the wake of losing Theo but grew over time into something more solid, eventually leading to the two falling in love and getting married, a marriage that nobody saw coming but somehow worked very well for the two of them. “Well, if it is not the witch who loves to ditch…” Theo said as he awoke to find himself chained to Ruby and Lucien’s bed within their bedroom, as the husband and wife stood above him, hovering over him, clearly revealing themselves to be Theo’s kidnappers. “I heard you two got hitched but has the marriage already gone that stale you’ve started chaining folk up to the bed?” “I never ditched you, Theo, I pleaded you to come with me, but you made your choice, you were never going to leave that life because you believed you had nothing left in your old life, but you always had me,” Ruby replied to him, making it clear to her friend that she never left him out of choice. “I never should have left you and for that, I am truly sorry, but I cannot allow you to just keep hurting people especially now you’re a vampire.” “You may have left but you did not leave with clean hands dearest friend, or have you forgotten your own kill count?” Theo responded, taunting the witch who at one stage in his life was his best friend. “And as for the whole vampire thing, am I wearing a sign or something?” “Once you have been around enough vampires you start being able to spot them,” Lucien said, finally breaking his silence and adding something to the hostile conversation. “Drusilla manipulated us both got me so hooked on magic I could not think straight but your drug of choice was vengeance, towards people she wanted you to hate, and you did everything she said,” Ruby argued with Theo, before going on to say. “I also know you still have a soul somehow which means despite all the odds, all she did to you, to us, that you are still able to be saved.” “Listen love if your conscience stopped you from getting dirty with the big players that are on you and nobody else but do not go blaming one vamp for your miserable life which includes marrying my sloppy seconds.” Theo cruelly mocked his former friend, as well as her marriage to his former lover. “You are not the guy I grew up with, you stopped being him the day your parents died but that does not mean you cannot ever be him again,” Ruby responded, refusing to react to his attempts to infuriate her. “I know you better than everyone, including those vampires who you claim as family…and I know somewhere deep down you are still a good person.” “And if you prove us wrong…if you really are too gone to be saved…then before the day is over, I’ll slam open those curtains and watch you burn

until there is nothing left on that bed except for your ashes.” Lucien warned the vampire, making it clear that he was ready to save or kill him.

Buffy sat on the doorstep of her son Theo’s adoptive family home, the place he grew up, as she remained shaken by her first meeting with her son, the hatred he had for her, the fact he was now undead just like his father, and the opportunity he had to take her out and was not unable but unwilling which meant despite all the darkness residing within her son there was still some light in there somewhere. “There’s no sign of him anywhere my guess is he’s hiding out while the sun is out who knows maybe he will come back tonight,” Willow said to Buffy as she sat down on the doorstep next to her friend. “I do not think he’s coming back, not again, the only reason we found him this time is that he wanted to be found and something tells me he may never want to be found by us again,” Buffy replied with a saddened sigh, speaking for the first time since her confrontation with her son. “I will find him, Buffy!” Willow promised the slayer, making it clear she was not giving up on Buffy’s son anytime soon. “I do not know when or where but I promise you I will not stop until I find and help him, the proper way this time with no slayer prisons.” “I hope your right Will, I hope we can get through to him, but what if we can’t?” Buffy cried, feeling defeated not only by her son’s hatred towards her but the guilt she felt for the tragic life he lived without her being there to protect him. “I wonder if he came back here for any other reasons, I mean he grew up in this town, right? I know his parents are dead but what about other family members? Or friends he may have grown up with? We should go to the High School, wait till night-time, of course, break-in, and hack into the school system to find out what year he was in, who he was in with, and possibly look for some old files, photos, or perhaps a yearbook to see who his people were.” Willow suggested, hoping to give Buffy hope. “At the very least you’ll get to learn more about your son before his world got torn apart and maybe there’s something in that information which could help us help him in the long run.” Buffy’s face lit up for a moment as she wiped the tears off her face, realizing that Willow’s idea was a stroke of genius, that maybe just maybe learning more about Theo’s life before everything went to hell, that maybe it would help her understand her son more perhaps even get through to him, or who knows to find somebody within this smalltown who could get through to her son.

“I guess a lot has changed since our days in High School judging by the fact you have a vampire shackled to a dead and it seems normal to you,” Theo said to Lucien, as the vampire remained chained to Lucien and Ruby’s bed within their bedroom, as he began plotting his escape as he noticed the sun starting to set. “After you left town with Ruby everyone just assumed you went crazy and killed your parents, then this team of specialists took over the case, and before I knew it, I found myself embroiled in the mystery of it all leading to the supernatural being my day-to-day job I guess,” Lucien replied to the vampire he once loved. “I joined a private organization specialized in working with, helping, and hunting the supernatural from time to time, by the time the whole world had realized what the hell was going on around us I was already working to help solve the problem…problems.” “One could say you chased after me and settled for the rest of the supernatural…and that is clearly not all you settled for…” Theo teased the first man he ever loved, before going on to ask. “Do you remember the last time we were together?” “You mean when you asked me to skip town with you? It’s not something someone easily forgets.” Lucien admitted reluctantly, piquing Theo’s curiosity. “Do you ever wish you came with me?” Theo asked, intrigued to know the answer. “No!” Lucien answered honestly. “But I do wish I found a way of making you stay…” “Probably a good thing you did not join the party you probably would have just wound up addicted to the magics like Ruby or a soulless vampire like the rest of the gang,” Theo told Lucien, before going on to say. “I know you did not take a vamp hostage without getting in some blood…and I’ve not eaten in a while…do not worry I won’t bite, as long as it’s not pig blood you’re serving.” And just like that Lucien went downstairs towards the kitchen to get fresh blood in a pouch bag from the local hospital that Ruby and he acquired before abducting Theo, and began pouring the blood into a glass, knowing Ruby said not to feed him until she got back, but foolishly believing he was getting through to his ex, which is of course exactly what Theo wanted him to believe. Lucien returned to the bedroom, a glass of blood in hand, ready to feed Theo, unwittingly becoming prey to the predator, as he reached out to hand Theo the glass, Theo grabbed a hold of him and pulled him into his grasp with all his force, Lucien unable to break free from the vampire’s hold. “You smell as good as you did back then!” Theo stated as his face turned into full vampire mode and he sunk his teeth into his ex-lover’s neck, draining him of his blood but cautious not to take too much, after all, Lucien was his leverage for his latest prison break.

Elsewhere in Riverborn, Buffy, Angel, and Willow had waited for the sun to go down before breaking into Riverborn High School, specifically the principal’s office, as the slayer and vampire worked their way through endless files within filing cabinets while leaving the computer hacking to the tech-savvy witch who was more than willing to hack or spell her way into gathering as much information about Theo Frey as possible. “Well, I’m in the records regarding his grades before dropping out and they’re quite impressive, not like Willow Rosenberg impressive but not far off either, perhaps he would’ve got there if he finished school,” Willow informed Buffy and Angel as they continued searching through the school files. “I’m going to load up reports, detentions, warnings, etc.… to see if there is anything about who his circle was, and if not, thankfully the yearbooks are now all online these days so that should show us actual pictures of his friends…if he had any that is.” “Can you print out any pictures you find of him?” Angel asked the red-headed witch nervously. “I know it may sound weird, but I have hardly any pictures of Connor before everything…it’d be nice to have some of Theo, even one picture.” “Of course, the minute I get to viewing I’ll get to printing!” Willow replied awkwardly, knowing she was partially to blame for Angel not seeing his son Theo grow up over the years. “Print me out some copies too!” Buffy said with a sense of sadness, knowing pictures were all she could ever have of her son’s past even if it would never make up for all the time, she had lost with him.

Meanwhile, back at Ruby Moon and Lucien Knight’s marital home, Ruby had just walked into the horrifying scene of a shackled Theo in full vampire face, strangling an unconscious Lucien, with bite marks on the victim’s neck, as Theo held his neck tightly with both hands, ready to snap his ex’s neck if Ruby so much as made one single move wrong. “Girl, he was all fine and funky for our teenage selves but we’re playing in the big games now and humans are just so fragile and expendable.” Theo taunted his former friend, as he applied more pressure on an unconscious Lucien’s neck. “But that does make awfully good cannon fodder…” “Please do not hurt him, Theo!” Ruby pleaded with the slayer of slayers turned vampire. “You do not want to hurt him!” “Maybe I do or maybe you want me to, after all, what kind of wife does not take the husband’s name and I know we’re all modern now, but he did not take your name either,” Theo responded knowing he had the brown-haired witch exactly where he wanted her. “But what would I know about marriage? All I know is you’re about to be a widow if you do not get these chains off me right now.” “If I do let you go what’s going to stop you from killing him anyway and then me?” Ruby asked him, knowing the chance of either her or her husband surviving this ordeal was rather slim. “You can either choose to believe there is still enough humanity in me to not kill my former best friend, enough to stop me killing a man I once love, or believe me to be the monster I truly am,” Theo stated before chuckling sinisterly. “Not like you really have a choice…” A choice Ruby did not have, she’d either not free Theo and watch him kill her husband, or free him and hope he does not kill them both, and so she released Theo from his chains and to her surprise, the vampire just left, without attacking, or threatening her, he just walked down the stairs, out the house, and out of sight, without any intention of bringing her any harm, and whether he meant to or not at that moment he had convinced the witch that now more than ever her best friend was still in there somewhere, and perhaps just perhaps, she had grown a little closer to bringing him back.

Following breaking into Riverborn High, Buffy, Angel, and Willow had discovered some more information about Buffy and Angel’s son Theo, learning he was quite the academic achiever, never missed class until he dropped out that is and was always with his friend Ruby Moon, who just so happened to go missing the same time as Theo, the difference being that Ruby returned to Riverborn less than a year later. With their new information, Buffy and Willow waited until the next morning to track Ruby down, hoping she had more information about Theo, or even hoping he had reached out to her after returning to his hometown, not realizing they had missed Theo himself by a matter of a few hours. “I’m not saying this friend is going to be the answers to all our problems but at least she is going to provide answers in general about your killer kid.” Willow tried to reassure Buffy as she knocked on the door of Ruby and Lucien’s front door. “If she’s willing to speak to us that is,” Buffy replied as Lucien opened his front door to the vampire slayer, and witch. “Willow Rosenberg, my wife is a huge fan of yours.” Lucien greeted them, instantly making it clear he knew who Willow was, before going on to say. “And I’m guessing by your blonde-haired companion that your Buffy Summers.” “I guess the government constantly trying to hunt us down makes us kind of famous everywhere now,” Willow said, surprised by the stranger’s sudden knowledge of her and Buffy, remembering how much things had changed for them both in recent years. “I work for Riley Finn; he talks highly of you both,” Lucien admitted to them both. “I do not think I’m supposed to say who I work for but oh well you are friends of his, so I hope that saves me from being fired.” “Talking of your wife being such a fan, is she in we kind of need to talk to her about a certain situation.” Willow wondered, eager to get to Ruby and get some answers for Buffy and Angel. “My wife is going to be super pissed she missed you, but she’s gone out of town…” Lucien began to explain as Buffy noticed the bite marks on her neck, assuming correctly that Theo had left his mark. “He’s been here, hasn’t he? Theo Frey, the slayer of slayers, and now newly turned vampire.” Buffy questioned him knowing she was getting somewhere. “We are looking for him and if you have any leads…” “I was worried that one day he pissed off the wrong slayer…I’m sorry Buffy I really because trust me after him taking a chunk out of my neck and getting my wife into all sorts of trouble I would happily hand him over to you but my wife’s convinced she can get through to him so I can’t be the one to get him killed, she would never forgive me.” Lucien apologized, assuming that Buffy and Willow were there to kill the slayer-turned vampire. “I do not want to kill him I want to stop him from killing others,” Buffy replied urgently. “Please, he’s my son I just want to help save him from himself before it’s too late.” “Hold up…Theo Frey is Buffy the vampire slayer’s son? I mean we all knew he was adopted but his birth mother being the legend herself.” Lucien responded looking gobsmacked by Buffy’s revelation. “Yeah, she’s his mum and Angel’s his dad but right now all we need from you is to tell us where he’s heading so we can safe your wife from being his latest target and hopefully save him too.” Willow snapped at Lucien, making it clear he had to tell them all he knew. “Where is he going?” “Back to where he considers home or that’s at least what Ruby reckons, back to the city of angels so to speak,” Lucien revealed to them both, as the slayer, and witch realized Theo had gone back to the last place he considered himself happy, the demonic dive bar he had with his recently dead lover Tobias.

Several days later, a determined Ruby walked into the infamous demonic dive bar located within a shady alleyway somewhere in the city of Los Angeles, stunned to see the place almost in ruins, having been wrecked during Theo’s showdown with Faith and not being fixed since. She looked around at the place she knew Theo would have loved running especially with Tobias and for a moment she felt saddened by Tobias’ death, not because she felt sorry for the vampire himself but because she knew how much Theo loved him, and how rare it was for Theo to care about anyone especially after the death of his parents. “I personally never got the appeal of Tobias; I mean he was painfully beautiful of course but other than that I really did not get it,” Ruby claimed as she found Theo staring into thin air, sitting at a corner table of the bar looking somewhat defeated. “But I get he meant something to you and for that, I am truly sorry.” “Listen, witch, I gave you a free pass for old times sake but if you are going to keep pestering me, I’m going to have to kill you,” Theo replied to his friend as he turned to look at her, his eyes clearly red raw from crying. “Have you ever wondered how Drusilla randomly just showed randomly show up into our lives the same night your parents were mysteriously murdered by a vampire? Does not take a genius to figure out she’s your parents’ killer and something tells me deep down you already know that.” Ruby replied to the vampire, revealing to him what she already believed he knew and just did not want to admit. “Do you not think that thought crossed my mind a hundred times?” Theo snapped at the witch, as he rose from his chair furiously. “Dru said she saw it coming and did not stop it which was a hard pill to swallow but I did…but Tobias promised me that she never took their lives and I believe in him more than I’ve ever believed in anyone.” “Well, your undead lover not only lied to you about Dru killing your mother but according to strong evidence from a corporation who specializes in the supernatural he may have killed your father or at least knows the vamp who teamed up with Drusilla to take out your parents,” Ruby confessed to the slayer of slayers, refusing to let him be in denial any longer. “Face facts Theo if your parents never died then you would never have run off with them and they knew it! I get you to want vengeance so how about you get it on the bitch who really deserves it?”

[winifredsandersonsbitch]

“While It Lasts”

Faith Lehane x Reader

Warnings: cursing, underage drinking, almost violence, sexual themes (but not quite smut). Non- gender specific reader.

Description: Your relationship with Faith is... a little complicated. All you want is to be friendly, but it’s obvious to everyone that there’s something brewing just under the surface. One night while you’re out partying, a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven causes you to act on the tension.

The more you try to make Faith feel welcome or include her in the group, the more she tries to turn it into something sexual. During group movie nights, she maneuvers herself onto the couch or the floor or the easy chair with you to share your blanket. Everyone thinks you’re breathing is quickening at the scary parts, when really you’re trying to keep Faith from touching what she shouldn’t.

At the Bronze, she brings you drinks, insisting that you need help loosening up. She pulls you onto the dance floor, grinds up on you as the others talk about Angel and impending doom. You smell the sweat of the bodies on the dance floor, feel her hips rock against yours, and let the music move through you.

It’s all in good fun. Faith’s flirty with everyone, especially Buffy. It seems to you that she craves closeness so much she’s willing to manufacture it, but she also never stops working to dismiss it. She needs to escalate to romantics so she has an excuse to drop people when she’s through with them.

You care about her, though, and you don’t like seeing her cut off from the rest of the group. It’s hard for her to make friends at the high school when the only social skills she’s developed are related to fighting.

On nights when the Hellmouth is quiet, or, at least as quiet as it will ever be, you go to your fair share of parties, making up excuses about sleeping over at a friend’s when you’re too drunk to come home. It’s a way to take the edge off, to wind down from all of the near-death experiences. The people in Sunnydale are different, sure, but at least they’re interesting.

So when one of your friends tells you about a college party going on this weekend, you decide to bring Faith along.

You leave for the frat house around 11. Your mom has realized by now that if Buffy can be trusted to fight monsters, you can be trusted to go out with some friends. She waves goodbye from the door, crossing her arms in an I’m-anxious-but-I-know-you’re-growing-up way. She doesn’t go inside until your sedan has made it all the way to the stoplight at the end of the street.

You pick Faith up ten minutes later from the “apartment” where she’s been living, which is really more of a motel. She’s dressed in a slinky black dress that leaves her tattoo (and pretty much everything else) fully visible, her lips coated in a layer of her signature dark red. You’ve kept it a little more casual, not wanting to seem like you were trying to impress her or anyone else, but you’ve still left a lot more skin on display than usual. Her eyes wander downward and you resist the urge to cross your arms over yourself for cover. When she flicks her gaze back up to meet yours, she’s smirking.

“You look good. Do you save these outfits for when I’m not around or something?” She pops her gum, leaning against the doorway. Her dress rides up higher on her thigh when she angles her hip out. You try not to look.

“They’re not exactly pro-monster-hunting and Snyder would dress code me for sure,” you laugh, dangling the keys. “Wanna drive?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Your car is your baby. You don’t even let Buffy drive it unless Mom forces you. But Faith can handle herself behind the wheel, even if she is a little reckless. And you’re feeling more than a little reckless tonight.

“Knock yourself out.”

Seeing her in the driver’s seat is something else. She’s totally confident, totally in control, with none of the slightly desperate loneliness that you sometimes sense from her. She shakes her hair back behind her shoulders, turns the key in the ignition, and she’s off.

If you hoped she would gun it, you’re disappointed. She’s over the speed limit for sure, but by an amount that no one would question in a town with as many problems as Sunnydale. On occasion, she checks herself out in the mirror, fiddles with the dials on the radio until she finds something loud and sexual, takes her eyes off the empty road to drink you in. She rolls all the windows down until it feels like you’re caught in a hurricane, a storm of your own making, both of you screaming with the wind and then erupting into laughter.

She pulls onto the street adjacent to the frat house, hopping out of the car with her feet planted in a power pose, hands on her hips. Her hair is wild from the wind in a way that calls to mind witches on broomsticks and demon women making deals at crossroads. Part of her is feral, unwilling and unable to be grounded in anything but the moment.

“I’m feeling good about tonight,” she says, surveying the clear night sky, the moon hanging low over the trees. She slams the car door, comes over to meet you on your side. “What about you?”

Your breath catches in your throat, all of your thoughts about how gorgeous she looks bubbling to the surface. When you respond, your words come out slow and syrupy. “I think you’re right.”

She’s immediate in front of you, an Amazon clad in the colors of the night, her eyes dark and hungry. “Let’s go then.”

She grips your hand tightly in hers, leads you onto the sidewalk and down the street. At some point, she slips the car keys into the front pocket of your jeans for safekeeping, and your body throbs with the closeness of her. Every so often, your entwined arms knock against her thigh or yours, sending a jolt up your spine.

This is Faith, you try to convince yourself. Faith, who trains with Giles and Buffy. Faith, who has slept over at the house countless times.

But everything about tonight is different.

The frat house is packed. You can barely get in through the front door thanks to the crowd of drunk, horny teenagers. The music pulses with a thrumming beat that has them all swinging their hips, knocking into each other, breathing in a heady combination of sweat and pheromones. You’ve missed this, the simplicity of a party, the company of strangers. It makes you feel a little high, like you’re floating above yourself, like you’re walking on air. There’s nothing like it.

Faith doesn’t feel the same religiosity of the moment.

“Move it or lose it!” she yells, dragging you behind her and elbowing people out of your way. She gets you as far as the kitchen before a jock whips around to face her and calls her a bitch.

She shoves a hard fist right up under his nose and growls, “Call me a bitch again and see what happens.”

He’s going to, if for no other reason than to stand his ground in front of the people nearby who have been craning their necks to look. Before he can open his mouth or she can deck him, you tug on Faith’s arm, squeezing past a couple necking in front of the counter. She reluctantly lets herself be pulled away, but she holds up her middle finger to the guy on her way out.

She finally lets go of your hand to grab a cold beer out of the cooler and it makes you feel... empty. Before you can wonder at the feeling, she closes your fingers around a wine cooler.

“You’ve always liked that fruity, girly shit,” she says with a grin, tossing her hair back over her shoulder and cracking open the tab. She takes a long swig, leans back, wipes her mouth and smears her lipstick the tiniest bit. “Guarantee there’s a game of truth or dare going on upstairs. Wanna find it?”

You would go find hell with her, if that’s what she wanted. Right at this moment, she has you more dazed than alcohol ever has, including that night at Tina Gardener’s when you were so drunk that Buffy had to come pick you up in the middle of the night. She had only been 14 and she didn’t even have her license yet, but she managed without crashing and then snuck you into the house. The next morning, you’d had a wicked hangover, but Joyce never found out.

You weren’t exactly a lightweight, but you and Faith were drinking so much so quickly that you stumbled a little as you went up the stairs. She had found a bottle of vodka stashed in the cabinet, which had probably been reserved for later in the night. A minute later, she had you sipping straight from the bottle.

“That’s right, baby,” she croons, holding onto the bottle with one hand and you with the other. Her Slayer strength keeps you upright as you brush past other couples going down into the heat of the ground floor. “Tonight’s all about you. Cut loose.”

When you reach the second floor, you knock on doors until you find the game room, where a group of college kids are sitting around in a circle. An empty wine bottle is the centerpiece, illuminated only by candlelight. It’s decidedly cult-like, with all the moaning and groaning from nearby rooms leeching in, but this is a ritual you know well.

Without being asked, the others widen the circle to include the two of you. You take a seat next to a girl with spiky purple hair, serious eyeliner, and six piercings. She bites her lip, traces the carpet in front of her with an infinity shape.

“You’re cute,” she says, baring her teeth like a hyperactive puppy. The freckled boy next to her swats her knee.

“Francine, play by the rules,” he chides, but he’s eyeing Faith. She soaks it in instead of leveling her usual glare, happy to bask in the attention for the moment. Still, if he tries to touch her, you’re betting on a broken wrist.

“Aw, they don’t mind,” she whines, but she pulls back.

Clearly, these are not the coolest kids, at least not in the frat/sorority definition of the term. You and Faith always seem to end up here sooner or later, sharing space with the kids who didn’t go to prom. You don’t mind, exactly. It’s quieter up here in the study room, more intimate. And these kids are less predictable than the jocks downstairs. You’re only worried how Faith is going to treat them once she gets tired of playing.

“If you’re finished,” a redheaded boy across from you sniffs, “we can get started again.”

Faith’s lips brush your ear, her voice low and conspiratory. “Jesus, I hope neither of us get stuck with that one.”

You stifle a giggle, feeling the vodka warm you like an embrace. Faith passes the bottle back to you as the redhead goes over the rules of seven minutes in heaven, like everyone doesn’t already know.

Well. Considering the crowd you’re currently with, some of them might actually be first-timers. In this room, you’re probably actually one of the more experienced players. That, along with the drinking, takes a considerable edge off.

The girl next to you, Francine, spins first. When the bottle lands on a blond boy with braces, she’s visibly disappointed, flicking her eyes to you before leading him into the bathroom across the hall.

Next, it’s your turn, and since there is no shortage of rooms in the frat house, you can spin right away. The bottle makes a full circle before landing directly in between Faith and a shaggy-haired boy who’s cute in a shy, future-librarian kind of way.

You stand up, wobbling only slightly, and reach out a hand to him to save him from having to make the first move, but Faith closes her fingers around yours instead.

“I’ve got this one, champ,” she tells him, and he yanks back like he’s been burned.

“What are you doing?”

She leads you from the room without answering, knocking on doors to find one that’s empty, and then pulling you inside.

“Playing the game. Did you think I was going to let you kiss that loser? You deserve better. Hell, his blow-up doll deserves better.”

You don’t like it when she gets like this, all catty and rough around the edges. She knows it, too— sees it in the way your shoulders stiffen. As an apology, she helps you into one of the beds and sits criss-cross next to you, lets you lean your head against her. In the darkness, it’s easy to pretend that it’s just the two of you here, no raging party downstairs, no other people coupling up in the room next door.

“Seven minutes in heaven,” she scoffs, winding herself up again, and you feel the words come from her mouth. She’s animated, motioning with her hands, but careful not to shake you off. “It’s just an excuse for a bunch of geeks who couldn’t get some any other way to hook up.”

“I dunno,” you say, your voice soft. “I think it’s kind of fun. I mean, I used to be one of those geeks.”

It’s been a long time since you felt like you were some kind of outcast, but you can sympathize with the need to belong. To be loved. You only want to show her that some people take longer than others to grow out of that phase, but she takes personal offense.

“No, you weren’t.” Faith is insistent, and she jerks her shoulder so that you almost fall on top of her. You regain your balance, hands spread to hold your weight. She doesn’t notice. She’s frowning, her eyebrows drawn together. “You’re smart, okay, but you’re not some kind of weirdo. You’ve got social graces. Just look at you here with me. You think I’d hang out with someone who wasn’t on my level?”

You don’t answer. You’re not afraid of making her mad, but you don’t want to ruin the night out for either of you. It’s not often anymore that the two of you get a pass to do whatever you want.

Sensing your discomfort, she angles her body toward you, strokes your hair lightly. In the dim sliver of light coming from under the door, you can see the slope of her nose, a flash of a smile. “What, did I make you nervous or something? Come on, it’s me.”

“Not nervous, only—” Only she’s so close to you now that you can feel her warm, vodka-flavored breath against your cheek. Only her eyes are dark and deep like the bottom of a well you’d gladly drown in. You lose your train of thought and maybe it’s just the alcohol, but her perfume is the sweetest thing you’ve ever smelled. It’s sharp and heavy, pulling you under, dragging you upside down and sideways.

“Only what?” Her red lips form an O. She’s teasing you. She knows. You sit up, try to scramble back, too aware of where your hands are still positioned by her hip, but her fingers lock around your wrist. Not hard, not bruising, but commanding all the same.

Stay, they say. Don’t shy away from this. Don’t write it off.

“I—”

You’re glad she kisses you then, if only to shut you up.

You want to smear her lipstick, have it printed on your face like in the movies, but she’s not in any hurry. Her mouth is steady, in control, soft and wanting and unyielding. She slips you her tongue, pulls you into her lap, purrs with a grin you feel against your own.

“Relax, baby. Daddy’s here.”

Under other circumstances, a laugh might gurgle up from your throat, but Faith’s not joking. She’s setting the tone, her hands finding where you’re sensitive and squeezing, searching for the spots that will make you sigh against her. When her lips leave yours, you sag a little, but then she bites at your earlobe and nearly has you singing.

“Nerves, baby, it’s all about nerves,” she says, unzipping your jeans and yanking them down, her hands wandering between your thighs. When your try to make a reciprocal gesture, she pinches your ass, making you yelp. “What did I say earlier? Tonight’s about you.”

After that, you rest your head on her chest as she explores, letting her do as she wishes. There’s some gasping on your end, rocking against her fingers to create more friction, toe-curling spasms of pure bliss. She’s breathing you in, working you for the finale. She knows exactly what buttons to push to make you pop, always has.

You call out her name, eyes squeezed shut, biting your lip, and she’s running down a long list of pet names, each one more ridiculous than the last, as one hand reaches down your shirt—

Then the door opens, letting in a shock of white light. You blink like it’s the second coming. Like aliens have landed on planet Earth and have come to announce their plans. Who else but Jesus or aliens would dare interrupt this?

“Seven minutes are up,” the redheaded boy says. He squints at your position curled into Faith, where you’ve frozen like a deer caught in headlights. His smile takes on a decidedly more predatory look, but before he can make any suggestions, Faith stands up, sending you rolling off her lap and back onto the bed. She makes it to the door in three quick strides.

“Fuck off,” she says, slamming it closed on him. Then she turns to you. She’s been taken out of her element, her chest rising and falling with short angry breaths. Then she leans against the door. Locks it.

“Not going to flake out on me now, are you, babe?” she asks, crossing her arms. “Because that wouldn’t be fair, so close to the finish line.”

“’Course not.” Your voice is a little shaky from the stimulation, but she knows you mean it. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a quitter.

“Good.” The bed is small, but you scooted up against the headboard in your surprise, creating enough room for her to crawl the short distance over to you on her knees. The mattress’s squeak is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. “Where were—”

There’s the sound of shouting downstairs and red and blue lights color the side of Faith’s face. She shoves the window open to reveal cop cars pulling into the driveway, sirens squealing. You tug your jeans up sharply, almost tripping over the legs as you stumble off the bed to stand next to her.

“Do you trust me?” she asks, surveying the roof and ditching her heels. You’re not sure that the answer should be yes, but it is. You take the hand offered to you, still sticky with sweat and other more intimate fluids, and follow her out.

Below, there are cops ducking people into squad cars and giving breathalyzers to minors, but everyone is too preoccupied to notice the two of you. Faith’s feet grip the shingles, keeping you grounded. You keep slipping, thrown off by your own drunkenness and the fact that this is not exactly your area of expertise, but she never lets you fall.

The house is surrounded. It makes you kind of irrationally angry, how many cops have been brought in to make this bust when you all know there are much worse things prowling the streets than some underage drinkers.

Even so, Faith could make it out if she were on her own. She’s athletic, nimble enough to make the jump off the roof and then run until she’s clear. But with you in tow, there’s no chance in hell. The vodka went straight to your head.

You do make it to the back of the roof, all the way up the triangle-shaped peak and then halfway down so that you’re in the shadows, away from the streetlights and nestled underneath one of the windows. It’s a little cold, so Faith wraps her arm around you, drawing you in so close you can hear her heart beating. Quicker, with the adrenaline, but steady and sure. Not like yours, which feels ready to pop right out of your chest.

“We’ll hang out here for awhile and climb down when they’re gone,” she says. She squeezes your shoulder, grinning. “It’ll be like a rooftop campout. A novelty.”

You laugh, despite the cold and how all the alcohol you drank earlier is beginning to make you sick to your stomach. “Everything about tonight has been a novelty.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, even though she was probably thinking it, too. Her arm goes limp and her smile slides right off the roof. You backpedal.

“That’s not what I meant,” you say, fumbling. “Tonight’s been—”

“It’s been great. Thanks for inviting me.”

Her voice is suddenly flat, dull. She watches the policemen below with an avoidant fascination.

“I like being around you.”

You don’t know how to fix this. You don’t want to hurt her, but what else can you do except scare her off? You know how Faith operates. She has her fun, then moves on. You’ve seen it a million times. You’ve been jealous a million times. She’s never indicated that flirting with you was anything more than that.

She meets your eyes finally, brushes your cheek with her lips. “I like being around you too, peaches. Now let’s enjoy the show while it lasts, ‘kay?”

You nod, focusing on the teenagers below who are hopping fences and pretending sobriety. You watch the lights until your eyes ache, until there’s nothing else in the world to you except red and blue. That, and the weight of Faith’s arm across your shoulder.

While it lasts.