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mirrorhoppingdays · 1 year

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not me and portrayal of twinship

Be forewarned, this is long as hell.

Normally when I think about writing about media depictions of twins (as a highly opinionated twin), two things stop me. One, nobody cares. Seriously, most people actively want to avoid understanding twins' point of view. It's my overwhelming experience. Two, it's just too much to delve into and I have thoughts about every little thing. I would digress until I became overwhelmed. But I think it might actually work to discuss this one facet. It might connect with a few people because fandom types are often actually interested in novel points of view and the emotional landscapes of others. And if I only talk about this one show that narrows things for me in a helpful way. So here goes.

As soon as Not Me starts with episode 1, there is an item on the balance sheet. We begin with the idea that twins can feel each others' feelings and feel when the other is seriously injured. We see this in Black & White's childhood and then again when White returns to Thailand after many years away. So, psychic twin connections. I'm both highly militant and oddly patient when it comes to twin depiction stuff. I don't love the psychic thing, but that's the variety of twinship media nonsense I'm willing to take on board *if* it's done well and it's worthwhile. When you begin a story about twins with a psychic connection and make it a central feature of your plot, you've essentially borrowed goodwill from me. If you squander it, then your balance will come due and you'll be left owing. If you use it well, I'll forgive the loan. So we start not on a bad note, but with higher stakes.

Pretending-to-be-one's-twin plots work okay for me. Why? Because as much as they might rely on twin resemblance, they can't work without the twins being different, whole people. That shouldn't be considered a positive because all characters should begin as whole people, but we know that doesn't always happen in general and it certainly doesn't always happen with twins.

We begin a whole big chunk of the story where the crux may be that White is sort of undercover as his own brother, but twinship isn't actually at issue much at all. It's about deception and risk, not twin connection or twinship. We do get constant reminders that White and Black are very different, and we get a lot of White trying and only kind of succeeding at pretending.

One thing that rings true to me is that he doesn't actually have to do all that great a job of pretending. If you don't know somebody has a twin, and to some extent even if you do, as a human being you'll default very hard to this-is-the-same-person. It's just necessary in every moment of our lives that we're not dealing with identical twins, so it's necessary to lean that way. Also, as a twin I know very well that the majority of people are highly unobservant about a great many things. And it's not like these guys have any reason to think this is some other guy, though it would have been a note of realism if at some point at least one of them had gone wait, is Black reporting on us to the cops or something because he's acting sketchy. They do point out that he's being weird, so that base is partially covered.

I did some Tumblr poking around before I was done watching, so I saw a few spoilery things. Thanks partly to that, I couldn't help but hope that Sean figured out comparatively early that White was not Black. That would have been kind of thrilling to see, honestly, as a twin. But I certainly understand how that might not happen, and I also see the efficacy (to the plot) of having him not figure it out too quickly. It's more interesting if he doesn't know right away.

Clearly Tumblr world loves memeing about how Black woke up from his coma when, possibly because, White hooked up with Sean (I'll be more coy in my wording than some). Twin-rep-wise, that's a wash to me, neither better or worse than the psychic connection trope. I'm already tolerating the psychic stuff, and I can't say it's not an interesting plot point. If you need Black to wake up, when else would it be? It probably borrows a little more goodwill, but again that's stakes rather than a deficit.

As someone who remains skeptical of the psychic twin connection trope, I will say this. The particular way Black wakes up kind of shows the absurdity of the whole conceit. I'm cool with it because this is melodrama and it *should* be bonkers, but it goes to show what you're playing with when you invoke that trope.

This is when stuff gets interesting, to me but I assume to everybody. White and Black are both running around in the world of the show, and crucially they're also interacting with each other. And some of what happens is honestly pretty great twin-rep-wise. I really have to hand it to writer/director Nuchy Anucha Boonyawatana—she must be a pretty empathetic, intuitive person. (Along with her cowriters.) She seems to have made an effort to put herself in both Black and White's shoes in a real human way. Like, well beyond what the story would require.

I wanted to avoid digressing too much, but I want to go back to the very first moment in the entire show. In that brief scene, White looks in a dark, foggy mirror and says these words in voiceover: “When you see somebody who looks precisely like you, every part of his body resembles yours, you must feel really strange. But for me, it’s special. I call that specialness ‘twins.’”

When I saw this scene, I won’t say I knew this would be a thoughtful treatment of twins. But I did find it promising. Part of what annoys me about being a twin is how non-twins, aka singletons, think that being a twin is great because on some level they think of their hypothetical twin as an extension of themselves. Your twin is not you, and your twin is not part of you. Your twin is a human being, and like any other human being in the world there are some moments and some ways when they can seem utterly unknowable, foreign, unfathomable.

Back to the point in the story where I left off.

There’s a big twin moment near the end of episode 9: White is confronted in Black's apartment by an unknown figure, only to find that it's his brother. White’s voiceover tells us what he's thinking, and he calls back to that brief beginning scene. Now that I’ve gone back to look at both moments, I can say that they’re very similar in length and rhythm. So I suspect our writer/director was not only deliberate about the echo but also exacting in how both moments play out.

White’s voiceover says: “I’d always imagined the day I’d see my brother again. It’s supposed to be a heartwarming moment. But now it’s happening. It’s surprisingly frightening. It’s as though I’m meeting my doppelgänger.” Of course this is a translation, but it’s worth noting that you can hear actor Gun Atthaphan saying “doppelgänger,” so you know there isn’t a ton of poetic license on the part of the translator here.

White and Black exchange some awkward pleasantries, and then Black echoes White, saying "You look so much like me, it’s creepy.”

If I hadn’t seen my twin in ten years (especially at that age), it would have been very surreal even if that person weren’t as menacing as Black seems to be. It’s just that there are dimensions to twinship that fade in your mind when you’re not actively engaged with them. I assume that regular degular siblings can experience this in partial ways or in flashes, but I don’t have any of those so I can only guess. Seeing your twin after a long time apart isn’t somehow magical in a good or a bad way. But your twin carries all the powerful associations of any close family member along with a similarly large number of associations to your own identity.

I chase catharsis in media, but I don’t usually experience it strongly. But there can be a catharsis in recognition of self, and that’s what I get from these moments. To be clear, I don’t feel some profound otherness when I interact with my sister. She’s a sweetheart and I feel very close to her. But the twin experience, for me at least, connects strongly and meaningfully to some very basic aspects of my human existence. The fact that one is a little bit alone even in the closest togetherness. The fact that other people are never fully knowable. The fact of my own identity and how its boundaries aren’t quite as firm and distinct as I might pretend they are. How much I need connection. The way so much about my perceptions and actions can be strongly influenced by others in ways I’m totally unconscious of. Some of this may sound hokey! But it’s difficult to express it any other way.

Moving on. White goes to meet their mother as Black, and just as their conversation is ending she makes it clear she knows who he really is. You might think that bit is meaningful to me, but it doesn’t strike a stong chord. Parents can tell their twin children apart, yes. Would it be harder after ten years? Assumably. What is it supposed to mean about her that she can? I don’t know; I’m not a huge fan of hers.

Black encounters Sean and is incredibly cruel to him, beats him, and it sucks. It annoys me to heap praise on actors for playing twins—actors play different roles all the time and that’s just doing two of them in the same project—but I have to admit that Gun Atthaphan not only does a great job playing dual roles, but a good job playing twins specifically. In a way it’s hard to understand now, having seen what we have as the audience, how Sean could fail to see that this isn’t “his” Black. But he doesn’t, because there’s no way anything else is possible according to what he knows about his world.

Sean sees White-as-Black again as White saves him from sketchy mercenary types, and then tries repeatedly to confront him. White doesn’t really explain and Sean doesn’t come to an obvious epiphany. But when Sean sees Black again, something has clicked. He attempts the trust fall White showed him and Black just stares on contemptuously. Black is smoking “again.” And we get to another big twin moment. This is episode 12.

Sean gets it. He says “You’re not the Black that I love.” He handcuffs himself to Black. They have an oddly realistic fight that involves various uncomfortable wrestling positions. And he says “You have a twin brother?” Black denies it, Sean insists repeatedly. And you see Black’s face change from contempt to anger as he says “Don’t you get close to my little brother again.”

This is a fun, climactic moment. It is, of course, adorable that Sean insists he won’t stay away from White, and honestly pretty adorable in an extremely grumpy way that Black is being protective. (Here again Gun is very convincing. For such a small, baby-faced guy he is genuinely menacing as Black.)

The moment is also true to my experience, though the only direct connections I can make aren’t exactly similar in circumstances. If your social world intersects heavily with that of your twin, there really are particular moments in many romantic relationships and even in many close friendships where the other person will sort of take a twin inventory with you. They don’t go on a spiel about how you’re cooler than your twin (unless maybe they suck as a person), they probably don’t even compare you exactly. But each person has to come to their own realization because (often at least) while they knew you and your twin are different people, they had to learn it all over again on another level. And they want you to know they perceive it.

There are smaller iterations of this phenomenon where people will emphatically tell you that while they have been able to tell you apart in the past, *now* they don’t even think of you as looking the same, now they can’t imagine how anybody *ever* confuses you. It’s not like this happens every single time I get to know every single person, but it’s so common in its broad strokes that I feel confident saying that the people around me and my sister share some common experiences in how they perceive us. And a change comes at a certain point that’s compelling enough that people are motivated to talk about it, try to make you understand.

Anyway, while this is a phenomenon that happens around me rather than to me, Sean’s insistence strikes a chord.

Sean finds White. White does a totally accidental trust fall, and it’s pretty cute.

White... decides to halfway drown himself to “remind [Black] of [their] connection”? Which makes some intuitive sense in the moment even if it sounds a bit silly. And is a little. Black finds him, they talk, Black concludes that he can’t stop White from staying with the group, going on their mission, and being with Sean. White stops Sean from going to the drug warehouse alone, at which point he says something that rings true for me as well. He explains why he hesitated to stay part of things, and says “I thought it wasn’t my place.”

When Black returned and demanded his phone, demanded White go away and not see the gang anymore, White went along with that because in a real way that was valid. White had genuine reasons for essentially stealing Black’s life, but that is what he did. White is an empathetic sweetheart so while he did get used to Black’s world he does feel guilty and out of place suddenly. But now he sees that things have changed, and he can’t go back to before all this happened. And of course he’s in loooove, so there’s that as well.

Then White tells the other dudes who he is (except for Gumpa, who knew the whole time) and it takes them a while to believe him. But when they do, they immediately do the twin inventory with him, saying how did I not see this earlier, etc.

They do their attempted heist, loads of shit goes wrong, they fall from various frying pans into various fires for a good while. They get away, things settle down. Sean does the twin inventory with White again and insists he’s completely able to tell White and Black apart now.

Then we have my final twin moment. White says he knows Black won’t be returning to the group. “Nobody wants to live in someone else’s shadow,” he says. “My brother sacrificed this role for me.”

This rings true for me. As a twin, you never want to think of yourself as interchangeable with your sibling. But at the same time many relationships and groups don’t have room for each of a pair of twins to feel comfortable. It’s not like you have to come up with some legalistic scheme for who “owns” a social group or anything like that. But at least in my sort of twin relationship, you’re never going to have a symmetrical relationship with a third person or a social circle. Even if you each have the same degree of connection to the same person, it’s different. And I can’t say it’s ever really been the same. One has always been closer, or more comfortable, or something.

Well, if you can believe it that’s not everything I could have said. But it’s a lot, and if you made it to the end I thank you. In case it doesn’t go without saying, I did find it worthwhile to indulge the psychic twin trope. What I got out of Not Me was worth the latitude.

#not me #not me the series #gun atthaphan #off jumpol #avoiding twin tags like the plague until i figure out which are not sketchy

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luvbugs-blog · 2 years

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panic - s. todoroki

inspired by the willow and oz scene in the "graduation" episode on buffy the vampire slayer (not the stupid show no netflix, but the one with sarah michelle gellar).

note: most of the dialogue is from or inspired by the episode mentioned above!! i don't want copywrite issues!!

warnings: implied smut, but it's a fluff fic. not proof read

enjoy!!

with the war inching closer, the air at UA was tense. everyone could feel it. everyone, it seems, except your boyfriend.

bakugo was even more snappy than usual, and with deku gone, everyone's mood was in the dumps. ochaco had lost her usual smile, and iida seemed even stiffer.

after a long day of classes, you trudge your way back to your dorm room, almost dragging your back behind you. when you make it, you throw yourself on the bed, your schoolbag abandoned by the door, which you hadn't even managed to shut fully.

what will become of you? of your friends? of your teachers? of shoto? there is a possible chance that you could die in the very near future. it seemed like yesterday you had just gotten your hero's license, and now you were about to risk everything for the sake of... strangers? the world? who knew what shigaraki had planned.

you were too tired to think about it anymore. you just wanted to be at home with your parents, but you couldn't tell them what was about to happen.

for a little while, you lay there, thinking about everything related to the war. how you could lose your friends, you could lose limbs, your life, how easy it is to just run away, etc., when your door creaks open slightly and you hear a small knock. a handsome face makes its way into the room.

"hey, baby. you know, you shouldn't keep your door open." you just sigh, not replying. shoto makes his way around your bed, carefully sitting next to your body.

"what's up, angel?"

"i'm just worried about the war, sho. what about you?"

he just hums and starts to stroke your hair. you wait a while, but he still gives no reply.

his eyes wander around the room, until they lock onto your cat, who lazily made its way out of your bathroom.

"looks like Walter has pretty nice digs in here. i really love your room."

you sigh again, moving so his hand falls off your head.

"sho…"

"what?" he asks, very gently.

"could you just pretend to care about what's happening, please?"

"you think I don't care?"

"i think we could be dead in two day's time, and you’re being emotional detachment guy."

"would it help if i panicked?"

"yes! it'd be swell! panic is a thing people can share in times of crisis, and everything is really scary now, you know? and I don't know what's gonna happen. and there's all sorts of things that you're supposed to get to do after high school, and you know what? i was really looking forward to them! like moving into a place of our own, maybe fighting alongside each other, being famous, maybe even the wacky notion of children! i would love to have children with you, and you know how much i hate kids and how pregnancy scares me. and... and now we're probably just gonna die, and i'd like to feel that maybe you would-"

your rant was interrupted when he grabbed the back of your head, grip tight on your hair, and smushed his lips on yours. for a few seconds, you stayed like that until you pulled away, slightly surprised.

"what are you doing?"

"panicking."

he maneuvered his head to continue what he was doing before, and the rest of the class didn't hear from the two of you until the next morning, when shoto walked out of your dorm room, instead of his.

author's note: OH MY GOD, I FINALLY FINISHED ONE. the ending is absolute shit, but I'm literally in my shitty school, and i so do not feel comfortable finishing this. i feel so paranoid that the teachers are watching me write fanfiction, and i am so not ok with that. school is kicking my butt rn, but i'm going to try to pump out some more fics soon... i don't want to say tonight, because that might not happen, so don't be mad. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE SEND IDEAS. i'm burnt out.

#todoroki shoto x reader #shoto todoroki imagine #shoto todoroki fluff #shoto todoroki #shoto todoroki x reader #mha todoroki #todoroki shouto x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki shouto x y/n #shouto todoroki x reader #shouto x reader #shoto drabble #shoto fluff #shoto todoroki drabble #shoto todoroki fic #shoto todoroki oneshot #shoto x reader #shoto x y/n #todoroki fluff

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kylekozmikdeluxo · 8 months

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Yeah... I'm gonna talk about FAMILY GUY... Long post, incoming!

Actually, I'm seeing some talk about FAMILY GUY, specifically early FAMILY GUY, elsewhere. As of late. Because the TED Peacock series, based on a now 12-year-old movie, is out. And apparently it's pretty good? Reminiscent of the early seasons of FAMILY GUY, which people who actually like the show consider to be the series' best seasons? I couldn't tell you.

Coincidentally, I've re-watched most of Seasons 1-3 now that my Disney+ plan includes Hulu. The seasons produced and aired *before* FAMILY GUY was here to stay. FOX had cancelled the show twice in the early 2000s, and when it came back for the second time, it never left. It's now one of those long-running cartoons, ubiquitous with the word "cartoon" you could say, a new season almost every year.

I'm gonna be a total hipster and say that I was onboard the FAMILY GUY train as early as mid-2003 ish.

I was in fifth grade, and was at the time starting to stay up later than usual to watch a little thing called [adult swim]...

FAMILY GUY had just started airing on [adult swim], almost a year after its then-final episode - 'Family Guy Viewer Mail #1' - had aired on FOX. A classmate of mine had told me about it, and little by little, I was watching FAMILY GUY regularly. Even on school nights, low volume, haha. I didn't want to get in trouble. Life in the early 2000s was different, to any smartphone-era babies reading.

I didn't know anybody else in school at the time, sans a few classmates, who watched the show. It was like we five or so kids were the only ones who knew of its existence in my town (along w/ the original [as] shows, like AQUA TEEN and SEALAB 2021), which is kind of wild to think. I think by mid-2004, I'd seen every episode of the show to date, including the one that FOX was too cold-footed to air (for understandable reasons, especially in the early 2000s. The episode in question is probably tame compared to what the show would later "get away with"). And it was on almost every night, so I only had to wait 24 hours to see a FAMILY GUY episode I may have never seen... So catch-up was pretty easy!

I think part of the appeal for me - at age 10/11 - was definitely "haha this is a naughty show and I probably shouldn't be watching it" (though weirdly, my mother and stepdad let me watch a SOUTH PARK episode or two, I don't remember that show being off-limits) aspect. Another reason is kind of weirder, and I came to this realization rather recently-ish. Around 4th/5th grade, some things bothered young me. Growing up autistic wasn't always easy, and my way of processing the way world can be and how unfair life can be sometimes kinda... Made me act strange, in ways? I definitely had this "old soul" kinda bullshit going on at certain points in my kid life, when I should've been loose and funny and laughing at fart jokes. And I was at times, don't get me wrong. It's not like I was miserable or anything, or bearing the weight of the world on my shoulders, but some days I'd feel... Strange. And I was weirdly anti-some things that the typical kid finds funny or amusing. I don't know if I can fully articulate it now on a tumblr post, but the long story-short is... [adult swim] was one of the things that helped loosen me up a bit.

Going into middle school at age 10-going-on-11 (I started school early?) was not easy, and that accelerated a lot of things, a lot of feelings, a lot of complications in my brain... And my embrace of [adult swim] started to converge with that, and by 7th grade, I was really, really loose. I swore more, I wrote edgy stuff, I upped like most of my original stories I was writing to PG-13/R-level, I was a silly little edgelord sometimes. But at the same time, unleashing a lot of *that* after a few years of this weird pseudo-old soul nonsense, bad habits, and general confusion was a very fun and freeing feeling!

This is why, despite a lot of shit that should've made that time in my life a nightmare, late 2004-early 2005 was a really exciting time in my life. I think just letting the proverbial hair down was a big reason why, alongside all of my hyperfixations that I always turned to when things really sucked. Things such as Pixar movies and BIONICLE and Cartoon Network stuff and various video games, etc. etc. etc. And smack-dab in the middle of all this was my nightly [adult swim] viewings before I had to get up at 6:30am to wait for the bus on cold-ass mornings. FUTURAMA, FAMILY GUY, AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE, THE BRAK SHOW, on and on... It was the stuff I could turn to.

For Christmas in 2004, I was given a newly-released FAMILY GUY DVD called "The Freakin' Sweet Collection"... I probably wore that poor disc out. Creator Seth MacFarlane's 5 favorite episodes, ones that I still find to be bangers to this day, plus some bonus features. FAMILY GUY was a prime special interest of mine at the time, and eventually I went to a music store that went out of business many years ago and picked up the DVD sets compiling Seasons 1, 2 & 3... And subsequently wore all of those out throughout 2005. They're but gone, now... Though some stores sell a whole box set with like, what, the first 10 seasons of the show for a fair price? I may or may not buy that if the discs aren't updated from the original 2000s versions. Anyways, FAMILY GUY, yeah... I just really, really liked it back then.

Really, I was the perfect age for it at the time. FAMILY GUY has always been contested, regularly seen as one of the nadirs of animated trash. You can definitely make a case for that. As much as I dig early FAMILY GUY, some of its humor really has not aged well, and is indeed offensive in many ways. For me, I feel those pre-2nd cancellation seasons have a charm to them to shines through the more egregious stuff. A charm that noticeably fades away from Season 4-onwards. You see, being from Connecticut, where MacFarlane was born... FAMILY GUY is *very* New England to me. After all, it is set in a fictional Rhode Island town, the state the neighbors me.

The show started airing in 1999, and while I wasn't watching it back then (let alone had even heard of it), I feel a lot of the character interactions, dialogue, and setting really do capture the feeling of being there. In a New England state, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Little nuances and such, the way Peter and Lois joke about things in particular. Such as this scene from Season 2's 'E Peterbus Unum':

youtube

I don't know how to put it in words, but it's very New England to me. My family and I interacted like this quite frequently. Plus, you have Peter's voice being inspired by a security guard that Seth overheard when attending the Rhode Island School of Design, a very New England accent. Lois, too, to some extent. I hear a middle-aged Connecticut mom or aunt in Alex Borstein's delivery, whom she based on a relative of hers. Maybe that's why I initially connected to this show more so than THE SIMPSONS back in the day (and at that time, THE SIMPSONS was on its not-so-beloved seasons), I was too inept to grasp THE SIMPSONS' wit. It hit just right, I think, back then.

Now, upon learning that the show had been cancelled and that it was actually coming back... Within a few months... You bet I was excited? I remember the Sunday the fourth season premiere aired, my family and I gathered around to watch it, and I just remember all of us laughing like hyenas throughout. The episode had so much wackiness and a bunch of cameos as well. We also watched the AMERICAN DAD! episode that dropped right after, but I mostly remember when I first saw 'North by North Quahog'. What a night that was, lol. And you just, went home... Didn't tweet about it. I didn't have any message board accounts at the time, either, so... A couple of classmates to talk to about it, that was it. A lot of my classmates apparently still hadn't seen the show by this time. I mostly remember being ahead of the game when it came to this show, liking it before it was cool, you could say. Once others in my school started referencing it, it was like "I had you beat by almost 2 years." I also remember getting a T-shirt depicting the Griffins beating each other up, as seen in the episode 'Lethal Weapons'. And I remember some of the other kids thinking that was so cool, and one teacher - who probably couldn't stand me, to begin with - calling me to the front of the class to see exactly *what* was on that shirt. Surprisingly, I did *not* get in trouble...

(Not my photo, this is from an eBay listing... But it was THIS exact shirt. Only thing was missing was the horse's ass portrait!)

Later in the year, a DVD called 'Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story' was released, which I instantly put on my birthday list. It was kinda billed as "The FAMILY GUY Movie" when it was coming out, and of course my 13-year-old arse fell for it... And wore that DVD out, too... And then it aired as three separate episodes - albeit with missing footage because this was a DVD release and not a primetime TV airing - the following spring. Still, I have fond memories of getting that DVD and many others. The early DVD era was just so fun back then, what with interactive menus and much more care put into bonus features. And with less distractions back then, I feel you felt more immersed in the movies and content on the discs... Just sitting in your bedroom, you hadn't owned a laptop yet, smartphones didn't exist... Just, entranced in whatever it was you had on. It gets even more bittersweet nowadays, as stores and companies are trying to phase out physical media. How obtuse... But that's another rant for another day...

I would continue to watch FAMILY GUY regularly, and then slid off by around 2008-09ish. The show was beginning to change for the worst, I felt, and I definitely felt that original spark from the early seasons was kind of gone. The simplicity, the New England vibe, the characters feeling a lot more real and not just springboards for whatever dumb stuff they were coming up with. Seth's involvement was apparently minimal by this point in time, as he already had AMERICAN DAD!, THE CLEVELAND SHOW, the first TED movie, and other stuff in the works or bubbling up at the time. By 2011-12ish, I was getting rather actively pissed off at the show, and only checked back in when that "Brian dies" publicity stunt had happened. Otherwise, I've seen very few episodes of the show afterwards, and most of them didn't impress me... Outside of, surprisingly, a few selections from the Disney batch. Quite something! If you time-traveled to 2004 and told me that Disney was going to own this cartoon that I was watching on [adult swim] late at night without my folks knowing, I would've told you to get out of town!

But I hold a special place for those first three seasons, and watching the DVD sets of them back in early 2005, as an unhinged middle schooler. I won't posit that early FAMILY GUY is some kind of underrated gem in the history of television animation. It really is, in most iterations, perhaps the personification of that old Chuck Jones quote about "illustrated radio". Television animation that you don't watch for the animation or visuals, but solely for the writing. It pretty much is that, even if the designs of the Griffins are instantly recognizable and iconic. And it arguably had a bad influence, not the fault of the show or its creators, but of the way things go.

I came to the conclusion that Season 2 is my favorite of the original three. For me it was the most focused, the characters were at their best, banger jokes a minute and clever use of pop cultural references. I can even sense some of Seth's Cartoon Network roots in a lot of it, which is no surprise given that this show evolved out of a project he developed for CN. Season 1 is only seven episodes long and they were figuring things out, Season 3 has highs that equal that of Season 2's best moments, but I feel that parts of it kinda plant the seeds for what the show would eventually become. It noticeably gets denser, a little meaner, characters are more out-of-character, it tries to be even more offensive than before and sometimes really not sticking the landing. And yet, that's mashed up against a legit emotional episode like 'Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows'.

In fact, those last four or so half-hours... Especially with the redone end credits music that re-imagines the theme song as a big band production, there was a weird sort-of... I dunno, finality to it? And that's not counting the S2 leftover that FOX wasn't keen on airing... I mean the original ending of S3, 'Family Guy Viewer Mail #1'... It was if they knew that Season 3 was going to be the end? You had the aforementioned Wallows/Swallows, then 'Stuck Together, Torn Apart', then another "Road To" episode with 'Road To Europe', and then 'Viewer Mail #1'. Like four really well-done character-focused episodes with some heartfelt moments, even... And then as a coda, three fun skits based on wacky ideas... Like, had the show ended there in early 2002 with the recalled Weinstein episode popping up somewhere else in the future... That would've been a fine way to go out, honestly. Even as a preteen back then, I felt just that watching these episodes... So it was a big surprise to me when I found out that Season 4 was a go. And S4 would use that same 2nd rendition of the end credits theme, so that was even more unusual for me.

Yeah, FAMILY GUY... It's a part of my weird-ass life. And there's probably whole holes of other stuff related to this show and other things that I could waffle on about regarding my preteen years, but... I'll just cap it off here, lol.

#Youtube

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yeonchi · 9 months

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Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special Review Part 3/3: The Giggle

Air date: 9 December 2023

"RTD did a prototype regeneration and I have mixed feelings about it. Wait, what? He really said that? Oh, thanks a lot, RTD, you're Shirakura 2.0 now. #RIPDoctorWho"

This not-so spoiler-free thought is how I'm opening the review for this special. Although details of the bi-generation were leaked online previously, the concept may be familiar to you if you've read about my personal project in Kisekae Insights. It is because of this that this review will be a crossover with a filler instalment of Kisekae Insights, for which I'll also be repeating the same content for the sake of that series. Don't be surprised if you read that instalment and it's literally the same things I'm going to talk about in this.

By the time I finish writing this review, enough time will have passed for you to have watched the episode by now, so hopefully that justifies my not-so spoiler-free thought. Regardless, spoilers will continue after the break.

Apologies for the delay in getting this review out. I've been really busy this past week especially with what I had planned for this review. Stay tuned to the end for my future plans of these reviews. No, seriously, I mean it.

What the left thinks freedom protesters want

After a cold opening in 1925 Soho with a man called Charles Banerjee buying Stooky Bill from the Toymaker's shop to test the new invention of television with John Logie Baird, we cut back to the present day, where London is in a peaceful protest chaos. The Doctor sees a man trying to fight a car and he goes to ask him what he is doing; the man, who can't drive, insists that he has the right to the road because he paid for it with his taxes. When asked why he can't stand on the kerb and be safe, the man tells the Doctor to blame "them" because things changed two days ago (which would have been when the Doctor and Donna left in the TARDIS) when people started thinking they were right and refused to change their minds. Yeah no, when people wake up and realise the cookers were right they (ideally) band together and protest the government. This is just society losing common sense.

The Toymaker, dancing amongst the chaos, briefly dances with the Doctor before UNIT comes for the Doctor and Donna. Upon arrival, they are greeted by Shirley, Kate Stewart and, much to the Doctor's surprise, Mel Bush. Kate and UNIT explain the situation to the Doctor and Donna; the Doctor, Donna, Wilf and Mel aren't affected due to long-term travel in the TARDIS making their brainwaves out of sync while the rest of UNIT aren't affected because of an arm brace device called the Zeedex, a creation of the Vlinx. Kate uses herself to demonstrate the effects of the situation on society by having her Zeedex turned off and going full Karen; something inside the brain is causing spikes that make people lose common sense. A slight problem with using Kate as an example; Wilf wasn't affected by the spikes despite being in the TARDIS for a couple of hours at most, but Kate was invited into the TARDIS a couple of years back and she was only in there for a couple of hours as well (at most), so by that logic, Kate shouldn't be affected by the spikes. However, I suppose you can argue that the spikes didn't affect Kate and Wilf as much due to their brief time in the TARDIS.

The Doctor and UNIT speculate as to what could be the trigger for the spikes; Kate notes that the KOSAT 5 satellite was activated two days ago to fully connect the world online, but there is nothing strange being transmitted from it like the old Archangel Network had. As the Doctor notes that everyone has access to a screen for the first time in history, Donna realises that the spike peaks are like a tune; Mel sings the tune and everyone (but the Doctor and the Vlinx) reacts to it like they heard it before. Shirley finds the exact same notes in a clip of Stooky Bill from 1925 and the Doctor realises that it isn't a tune, but a giggle in everyone's head burnt into every screen since the invention of screens.

The Doctor gives Kate permission to use the Galvanic Beam to destroy KOSAT 5 due to all world leaders being affected by the giggle before going back to 1925 Soho with Donna. You know, I honestly like how the Doctor's attitude to UNIT has changed over the years. When UNIT was reintroduced in the revived series, the Doctor was wary of them and he had an aversion to them using weapons, but now that Kate has been Chief Scientific Officer for over a decade in real time, the Doctor is able to entrust Kate with taking down a satellite in a situation such as this.

In the Toyroom

Upon arriving in 1925, Donna notes that the Doctor just keeps charging on and that he hasn't stopped for anything, speculating that his old face came back because he was wearing himself out. Except for that time when he willingly spent 900 years on Trenzalore to keep the Time Lords and Daleks from starting another Time War. Or when he spent 24 years on Darillium with River Song. Or that time when the Doctor stayed with the Ponds for a year- ok, bad example, but you get my drift.

Dismissing the subject, the Doctor and Donna head into the Toymaker's shop. The Toymaker knows Donna's name while the Doctor begins to realise who he is. The Doctor tells Donna to go back to the TARDIS and Donna says that he never told her to do that. Except for that time the Doctor sent Donna back to the TARDIS to get her away from the ATMOS gas. Or that time the Doctor teleported Donna back to the TARDIS to get her away from the Vashta Nerada before she ended up being saved.

The Toymaker runs back into a corridor and the Doctor and Donna follow; they end up entering his domain and they get separated. The Doctor encounters Charles, who has become a puppet after trying to see the Toymaker to cure the giggle in his head and losing a game against the Toymaker. Donna encounters the rest of the Stooky family and is attacked by them, though the manages to destroy Stooky Sue and scare away the Stooky Babbies before reuniting with the Doctor.

The two then find themselves before the Toymaker in front of a stage, where he gives Donna a proper catch-up on the Doctor's adventures with Amy, Clara, (lady) Bill and the Flux. The Doctor then decides to challenge the Toymaker to a game of cards; as the Toymaker mentions all the godly beings he has won against, he mentions the Master and someone he never dared face, The One Who Waits. The Doctor asks the Toymaker why everyone thinks they are right in 2023 and he says that he made every opinion supreme, turning cancel culture on its head so that everybody wins, but everybody loses as well.

The Toymaker wins the game, but counting the Doctor's previous encounter with him, they are at one-all and this is a best of three. The Toymaker decides to meet him again in 2023 before collapsing his shop. The Doctor and Donna manage to escape and they head back as well.

"Hai, si, ja, hold tight!"

UNIT fires the Galvanic Beam at KOSAT 5 and takes it out. The Doctor and Donna return and has UNIT use some software to hopefully track down the Toymaker, but as a song begins playing, the Toymaker makes his appearance in a song and dance sequence before disappearing through the floor. OK, I have to give credit here, this sequence beats the Master dancing to Boney M's Rasputin in The Power of the Doctor. Also, Neil Patrick Harris, being American, had never heard of the song where as "all Brits know it as if it was Happy Birthday". He had it set as his alarm ringtone and listened to it 30 times every morning (according to him), which really deserves kudos.

The Doctor tells UNIT to search the building for the Toymaker. Suddenly, they notice that the Toymaker is manning the Galvanic Beam, having thrown the staff off the helipad. The Doctor asks the Toymaker why he won't use his powers for good, to which the Toymaker states that good and bad are nothing to him. In the ensuing confrontation, the Toymaker shoots the Doctor with the Galvanic Beam, noting that by his rules, the next game will be played with the next Doctor. Donna and Mel go to the Doctor as he begins to regenerate, finally ready to accept his death, but then the regeneration stops as he notes that it feels different this time; the Doctor asks Donna and Mel to pull on his arms, separating the Fifteenth Doctor into the Fourteenth Doctor and giving him half of his clothes. The two Doctors push their hands together and they separate.

The Fifteenth Doctor notes that he bi-generated, something that is supposed to be a myth (how the fuck would you know, Fifteen). The two Doctors then challenge the Toymaker to a game of catch, where the one to drop the ball loses. The game is played and the Toymaker drops the ball thrown from Fourteen to Fifteen to himself; for the Fourteenth Doctor's prize, he banishes the Toymaker from existence, or rather causes him to fold up and drop back into his box (that was originally his shop) as he tells the Doctor that his legions are coming. Kate has a soldier take the box to the deepest vault and bind it in salt.

Later, the Fifteenth Doctor notes to the Fourteenth Doctor that he is running on fumes; noting everything that has happened since facing the Toymaker as the First Doctor. The Fifteenth Doctor isn't experiencing any averse post-regeneration effects because Fourteen is the one doing the rehab, out of order. Donna reiterates how Fourteen regenerated back into his face and found Donna because the time has come for him to come back home. As Fourteen wonders if he can let the TARDIS go, Fifteen suddenly goes and takes a mallet, speculating that the Toymaker's domain could still be in play because Fifteen hasn't gotten his prize yet. Heading outside with Fourteen and Donna, Fifteen hits the TARDIS with his mallet and it bi-generates, giving a (slightly) newer TARDIS with a wheelchair ramp and a jukebox. Fourteen and Donna part ways with Fifteen as he leaves in his new TARDIS.

Sometime later, Fourteen then goes to have lunch with the Nobles and Mel (at a house that he bought if this is to be believed), revealing that Fourteen has had adventures with Rose and Mel and that Wilf is shooting moles who have force fields. And so the story ends with the two Doctors already off on their separate ways.

Bi-generation

Right, we need to talk about the bi-generation scene and just straight up, I like the idea in execution, but not in principle. To explain it, I'm going to do a crossover special between my Doctor Who reviews and the Kisekae Insights series. For those of you who are reading this in my review, expect to see this again in a filler instalment of Kisekae Insights as I repeat basic facts fans will already know. For those of you who are reading this in Kisekae Insights, hello again and welcome to content grubbing hell. Join me for the ride and I hope you noted the spoiler warning before the break.

Firstly, a little explainer for those of you who are unfamiliar to Doctor Who. The concept of regeneration was created for Season 4 in 1966 when William Hartnell's failing health and poor relations with the new production team meant that he was becoming more of a burden, and so, it was decided that he would depart the series to be replaced by Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. Since then, different actors have portrayed different Doctors over the years and with the modern series, a cycle has popped up within the fandom in relation to their reactions to departing and arriving Doctors:

With the cancellation of the classic series in 1989, Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy wouldn't get his regeneration scene until the 1996 TV movie featuring Eighth Doctor Paul McGann. However, the failure of the TV movie in the US led to the series being shelved again in the UK, with a regeneration seemingly nowhere in sight. Then, the series was revived in 2005 with Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston and Paul McGann would finally get his regeneration scene for the 50th Anniversary in 2013, additionally revealing a previously unknown incarnation of the Doctor who fought in the Time War played by John Hurt. In addition to an aborted regeneration as the Tenth Doctor played by David Tennant which created a new meta-crisis incarnation, this meant that Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith was the final incarnation of the Doctor's first regeneration cycle of twelve regenerations.

However, the Doctor was granted a second cycle of regenerations, which led him to regenerate into Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi. In the following incarnation, Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker would learn of a revelation that destroyed everything we knew about the Doctor; the Doctor was actually a being known as the Timeless Child, who could continually regenerate upon death. The Child was experimented on by its "mother", Tecteun, going through numerous incarnations so that she could unlock the secret of its regeneration and grant it to herself and her people to become the Time Lords. Personally, I am of the belief that Rassilon, one of the Founding Fathers of the Doctor's (actual) home planet, Gallifrey, created or discovered regeneration as we knew it without all the cultural appropriation bullshit with the Timeless Child. In either case, Time Lords were limited to twelve regenerations.

And so we get to the 60th Anniversary. After regenerating back into David Tennant, the Fourteenth Doctor gets into a confrontation with the Celestial Toymaker and is killed, but instead of regenerating as normal, he bi-generates, with Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa splitting away from him.

Doctor Who is a series that is all about change. Aside from changing Doctors, the entire show itself changes every so often, from companions to the production team and much more. Regeneration for Time Lords is likened to the death of one incarnation and the birth of another, and like it or not, the dying incarnation in question needs to learn to move on. The Tenth Doctor famously said "I don't want to go" immediately before his regeneration and the Twelfth Doctor initially refused to regenerate before an encounter with the First Doctor pre-regeneration made him realise that the universe still needed the Doctor. The Timeless Child revelation ends up being a piece of fridge horror when you realise that Tecteun repeatedly killed the Timeless Child in her pursuit of regeneration (some people may say it isn't fridge horror but that's because I didn't realise the implication until much later).

Following the premiere of the special, Russell T Davies, in his everlasting inability to shut the fuck up, explains how with this bi-generation, all the other previous Doctors bi-generated as well, explaining how the other Doctors appeared in the memory TARDIS for Tales of the TARDIS. With that point, I don't agree, I think those were the Doctor's "Guardians of the Edge" from The Power of the Doctor projecting themselves into the memory TARDIS. The implication here seems to be that the previous incarnations bi-generated and continued to have adventures in some way. So much for Fifteen saying that bi-generation was a myth, because if this is supposed to be a rare occurrence, then RTD’s theory clearly goes against it.

With all this in mind, the bi-generation takes away the gravitas mavitas of regeneration and leaves it without any meaning. If the Earth is in danger again, do the previous incarnations just go, "Oh, we'll just leave it to the latest one" like they lost their powers and their powers are with a legacy character like in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger or Kamen Rider Zi-O? Nah, at least the Gokaigers returned their legendary powers to their original Rangers.

"But Azuma, Fifteen said that this was a rehab for Fourteen, he doesn't have to go through the standard post-regeneration instability because Fourteen's doing it for him on top of meditating on his past!"

I admit that I missed the rehab bit when I first watched it as I was thinking about how to address the bi-generation for this review. I thought bi-generation was a trick or a prize caused by the Toymaker, but it clearly wasn't seeing how the Toymaker reacted in surprise when it happened.

Regardless, the implications of bi-generation are still yet to be explained. Can the bi-generated Fourteenth Doctor (and maybe even the other Doctors) regenerate himself or will he have to merge back with Fifteen ala the Watcher? How is the Valeyard supposed to fit into this? If this was truly meant to be a rehab for Fourteen, then why did Fifteen bi-generate the TARDIS? Oh, but I guess we can't leave Fourteen without a TARDIS like how Eleven was basically stranded on Trenzalore for 900 years. That'll give him an excuse to forget about the emotional baggage Fifteen left him. How long can we expect Fourteen's rebab to go for? As long as it takes for Clara to finally decide to face her death at the hands of the raven, because this bi-generation was RTD doing a Moffat and Clara-ing Fourteen. (Side note, I can slightly forgive this if both Fourteen and Fifteen can regenerate and one of them becomes the Valeyard.)

The Timeless Child revelation makes all this even worse, because assuming the Doctor can regenerate unlimited times again at this point, it's all boiled down to "It's magic, we don't have to explain it." Hell, I didn't even bother counting how many regenerations the Doctor has in his second regenerative cycle at this point with the Master force-regenerating the Doctor into himself and then Yaz going to great pains to reverse it, that is how much the Timeless Child revelation made me stop giving a fuck.

OH, FUCK OFF.

Look, if the bi-generation was just between Fourteen and Fifteen, leaving it as the mythically rare occurrence that it should have been, then I would have been fine with it, but RTD implying that it echoed back and affected the Doctor’s past just so he can begin a “Doctorverse” is just bad, especially when we don’t know the full implications of bi-generation.

"But Azuma, didn't you do bi-generations as well in your personal project? You've got Doctor Whooves, the Pony Doctor and Storm Dasher, plus you've got all of Hiroki's prototypes in your stories. You even mentioned prototype regeneration in the not-so spoiler-free thought for this review!"

Oh yeah, it's coming. I haven't forgotten about that.

The Kisekae Connection

I could give you some links to previous instalments of Kisekae Insights where I talk about Hiroki Ichigo and his prototype regenerations, but since I'm padding out the review and I want to repeat things on Kisekae Insights, I'm going to do a full essay here, but before that, let's talk about two other connections related to the rest of the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials.

Meta-crisis

The meta-crisis plot point was used for several characters in my personal project.

Kyōko Izumi was a new prototype introduced in December 2011. Immediately after his regeneration, not all of his appearance changed until during a crisis involving the Sycorax, where the TARDIS console opens and Kyōko received the power of the Time Vortex, giving him his new appearance. Once the Sycorax left, Kyōko began to have a mental breakdown like Donna did until the Doctor wiped his memory of the past few hours. Entrusting Kyōko to the care of the Lucky Stars of Saitama, the Doctor explains that until his regeneration stabilises, he cannot be reminded of him or he will die. The events of The End of Time take place during a time when Kyōko's regeneration hadn't stabilised yet and is a significant plot point in the story. The power of the Time Vortex gradually left him as well during that time.

In the serial Parallax of Love and Time (which forms the first four episodes of my Series 4), the meta-crisis plot of Journey's End is adapted with Doctor Whooves and his companion, Derpy Hooves, creating a non-cross-eyed alter ego within herself known as the DoctorDerpy, or Ditzy (Doo) as she would call herself. Derpy would be left in Ponyville with the Meta-Crisis Doctor Whooves, also known as Time Turner, while Doctor Whooves would get killed again and regenerate into his next incarnation. Derpy did not require her memories wiped because Equestrian magic can alleviate the strain of a Time Lord consciousness in ponies.

The same plot point would be repeated again when I actually adapted Journey's End for real in Series 5's The Return of Antoni. Fifi Forget-me-not used a prototype replica Soul Talisman (from a Parallax War universe) to regenerate herself, but she managed to siphon off much of her regeneration energy into the heart of the TARDIS before her appearance could change. Storm Dasher would end up looking into the heart of the TARDIS and become part-Time Lord as Derpy, in her Ditzy alter ego, appears and saves the TARDIS from being destroyed. Like with Derpy, Dasher did not require his memories to be wiped; in fact, becoming part-Time Lord and representing a new Element of Harmony, Time, were precursors to him becoming Ultraman Ginga and evolving into an alicorn years later.

Trans character

I didn't include this in my topic about trans issues for last week's review because I didn't want to distract from them, especially given how I handled the subject.

Towards the end of the Salacian Time War in Series 7's opener, a new male prototype who would be known as Korasuke Hayashi was born. As he was left in the care of Yuno at the Hidamari Apartments, Korasuke would need to disguise himself as a female to even be there and so, with Yuno's help, he assumes the persona of Kumiko Hayashi.

During the 50th Anniversary Series, a mishap during an adventure caused Kumiko to become permanently female, though unable to have children. Uniquely, this happened without Kumiko going through things like mental health evaluation, hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, which is why I acknowledge that this is far from being an accurate portrayal of trans people. (I don't know if this was mentioned or not, but the Doctor might have offered to find a way to make Kumiko a boy again but Kumiko refused because of reasons I'm about to explain now.)

The reason why I made Kumiko permanently female was because I started to forget that she was actually Korasuke, so I decided to get that out of the way. I don't think of Kumiko's old name as a deadname because I didn't use it much, so that name didn't stick with people and therefore Kumiko isn’t fixated on people deadnaming or misgendering her.

Oh no, a male in a female-only space, I guess I'm cancelled by TERFs now. Oh wait, I basically blackfaced the transgender experience, so I guess I'm cancelled by the trans community for being a transphobe now. Lol calm down, you clearly don't understand that this is (fan)fiction and that I acknowledged that this is not an accurate representation of being trans.

Can Kumiko be non-binary as well? I don't know, think what you want. She's already transgender anyway.

Bi-generation case 1: Quad-generation

In The End of Time, the Doctor regenerated into his next incarnation, but three other individuals regenerated from him - two of them got their own TARDISes. For additional reasons that are detailed in previous instalments of Kisekae Insights, the Doctor ended up using six regenerations in one go, creating three ponies with a regeneration each and splitting away two human lives that had merged into him.

Of the three ponies were two Time Lords, Doctor Whooves and the Pony Doctor, and an Earth pony named Jee Gun who later became Storm Dasher. Long story short, Doctor Whooves gained a meta-crisis incarnation, then the Pony Doctor sacrificed the regeneration he had so that Doctor Whooves could regenerate again.

Although the reason why this quad-generation happened wasn't explained initially, the Doctor would make use of a Time Puncher used by Girl Power to ensure that the existences of the three ponies would be cemented - a future revision is expected to slightly change this by having the Doctor input some history that the Time Puncher apparently missed, unintentionally becoming the reason for their existences in the first place.

The difference between this and the bi-generation is that the old (David Tennant) incarnation doesn't stay around, though you can say that he did end up becoming Doctor Whooves for a time.

Oh, and by the way? At the end of my Doctor Who series, the Doctor regenerates into himself for a final time and it is later revealed that he and the TARDIS became one, repairing the TARDIS' chameleon circuit while also allowing the Doctor to assume whatever form he wants, so the Curator and the past Doctors can still be things without this bi-generation mess.

Bi-generation case 2: Prototype regeneration

This case is the closest analog to the bi-generation we saw in the episode and yet in my opinion, is better than it. For one thing, the character in question who can bi-generate is NOT the Doctor and for another, the mechanics of it have been thoroughly explained in multiple lore dumps over the years, basically repeating the same thing I'm about to describe.

The Fifteenth Doctor was right when he said that bi-generation was a myth because I did write it as a phenomenon that only happens to one person. To explain it, we'll need to look at the Doctor's origins from the POV of my personal project. Enjoy this description copied verbatim from #2 because it's taking long enough writing two posts at the same time as it is:

During the Time War, the Time Lords were desperate for more soldiers and resurrecting their dead wasn’t enough for them. As such, Lord President Rassilon invented a virus, suspended in Mako energy, and spread it on Earth at some points in history. While the virus would have no effect on the infected, it would sometimes result in the souls of their offspring being harvested and transported to Gallifrey, where they would become new Time Lords. The human “shells” would be left with corrupted chromosomes and/or brain activity as a result. Other humans documented these genetic and neurodevelopmental disorders over the years, resulting in what we know today as disorders like Down syndrome and autism (though I should note that the Time Lords probably didn’t cause every disorder known to mankind).

At essentially the same time, the Shinra Electric Power Company worked on the Jenova Project, injecting a number of people with Jenova cells in the process. By chance, one of those people had a child *1 with someone who was infected with Rassilon’s virus and also a twin *2 that they were unaware about until its birth. Unfortunately, in the present-day view of the project, Shinra had already fallen and there are no plans for a “reunion theory”. *3

After the twins were born, they had to be taken to another hospital due to complications. In the middle of the night, the Time Lords were extracting the child’s soul (the other babies in the nursery were chanting an angelic prayer in the process) when the twin suddenly emitted a blast of Mako energy, causing everything to go silent. In reality, that soul was knocked out of the Time Vortex and landed on Gallifrey long before the Time War. That soul became the Time Lord who would be known as the Doctor. My backstory is that he was found by Omega and raised like any other Gallifreyan. *4

The child would later be diagnosed with autism. Uniquely, due to the Time Lord and Jenova DNA in him coupled with whatever remnant Mako energy there was (I dunno), the child also had the ability to regenerate, but it would create another body in the process and he was also susceptible to regenerating following emotional distress (like a broken heart or something, think Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). The child would keep on living as the “archetype”, while the new body created would take on a separate identity and live as a “prototype”. The process varies each time; either the child would regenerate into the prototype and the archetype (or real self) would manifest sometime later, or the child would regenerate into his next incarnation and the prototype would manifest later. As for the twin, well, everyone forgot about him because of the Time War, so he was put up for adoption as if he were an orphan. However, he did not share his brother’s regeneration abilities. In the story, they meet each other again and basically, all is well.

*1: Hiroki Ichigo *2: Parker Zhou *3: Until Soulbound Series 4 *4: See? No Timeless Child bullshit here.

So in summary, the Doctor was born from Hiroki Ichigo due to circumstances and Hiroki is able to bi-generate as a result. You know, seeing how Fifteen was basically leaving his emotional baggage to Fourteen for his "rehab", I think I have a better tl;dr explanation for my version of it: "Oh no, my family or someone who was supposed to be close to me hurt my feelings! I guess I'll regenerate, become a different person and escape my emotional baggage because I'm too much of a snowflake to cope!" God, I fucking hate myself.

Like the Doctor, Hiroki has gone through a forgotten regeneration (Hayato Kisaichi), a meta-crisis regeneration (Takumi Kamijō/Kumiko Hayashi) and a female regeneration (Momoka Mizutani). In fact, with the exception of the meta-crisis regeneration, Hiroki was the other two prototypes for a short amount of time before they separated, meaning that I predicted bi-generation nearly a decade before RTD showed it to the world.

The main reason why bi-generation works better for Hiroki than the Doctor is because regeneration is different for Hiroki than any other Time Lord. Also, it is made clear that Hiroki has the same twelve regeneration limit of other Time Lords (barring certain exceptions) and the prototypes are unable to regenerate themselves. The way regeneration works for Hiroki is that he is still the same person who only changes slightly with each regeneration - in fact, you could say that the prototypes were new incarnations that split off from Hiroki instead of him regenerating into each one, but by that logic Hiroki would have had three female incarnations before Jodie Whittaker debuted as the Thirteenth Doctor. Then again, Steven Moffat made Joanna Lumley the Thirteenth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death, so this isn't the one-up I thought it would be.

Hiroki's final regeneration is made to be different from his original self because it signifies his final victory in the fight to be a different person, his ideal self. Despite this however, Hiroki's problems always have a way of catching up to him, and while he has found a way to conquer each and every one, there is one big problem that he has neglected for a long time, but that is a story for another day...

You know, over the years I've come to realise that "prototype" and "archetype" are inaccurate words to describe my version of bi-generation, but now that I've actually seen bi-generation for myself, maybe there were better names that I could have used:

prototype regeneration = bi-generation

prototype = splinter

archetype = original

No, I'm not going to revise all mentions of "prototype regeneration" to "bi-generation". I may be doing revised editions of my stories, but the prototype regenerations (among other things) are a core part of them that changing anything about them would make my stories drastically different. I'm not an SJW revisionist.

This concludes the Doctor Who review/Kisekae Insights crossover. And now, we take you back to your respective hells of series. They don't get any better than this.

The Celestial Toymaker

This episode featured the return of the Celestial Toymaker, now known only as the Toymaker, played by Neil Patrick Harris. His first appearance was in the third season of the classic series, played by Michael Gough. The Toymaker was a being who loved to play games with others, but he hated to lose and the games would always be rigged in his favour. While he would never cheat, as he was bound by the rules of the games set by himself or his opponents, he could bend them to some extent or conveniently forget to mention them. He also had the power to manipulate reality and if he were to lose a game, that power would briefly be granted to his opponent so they can claim their prize. Hmm, could the Toymaker have been behind the Desire Grand Prix of Kamen Rider Geats? Nah, totally not at all.

The "celestial" element of the Toymaker was toned down in this episode, though the Doctor does mention the word once. In the 1966 serial, the Toymaker is shown dressed like a Chinese mandarin, or a bureaucrat in imperial times. Huh, I wonder if they had a Central Bureaucracy. Oh, wait.

Anyway, because of that, SJWs in the 21st century thought that this was problematic because of "cultural appropriation" (also, the serial contained the use of the hard-r n-word in the traditional form of a counting rhyme), so RTD decided that this white villain would be played by a white man. On top of that, RTD wanted to acknowledge this by giving the 2023 Toymaker a racist aspect by having him speak in German and French accents in addition to British and a little bit of American accents. So I guess being (or God forbid, acting) German or French is racist now? Also, I can tell that some German words were made up in the Toymaker's lines. That's just as racist as people mixing Asian sounds together and making up Asian words that make no sense in their original languages. Look, jokes aside, this isn't a "shut up RTD" moment because this wasn't his fault. The problematic elements have been there for years.

There's a little aspect of the Toymaker's "racism" that I must disagree with:

The Toymaker: "I really must apologise for the rain. You must be used to sunnier climes." Charles: "I was born in Cheltenham."

Yeah well, I'm from Queensland. We get cyclones. OK, I'm not really from Queensland, but this isn't the racist attack you think it is, RTD.

The song used in the Toymaker's song and dance scene, Spice Up Your Life by the Spice Girls, had a problematic lyric that goes "Yellow man in Timbuktu/Colour for both me and you". The Spice Girls have revised that line in future performances so that it becomes "happy people in Timbuktu", which doesn't fit the syllables of the original line. RTD acknowledged this and so the line was covered up in the episode. You know, with my usual aversion to political correctness gone mad, I'm the kind of person who actually doesn't care about the line and I'm Asian. In fact, thanks to China's One Belt One Road Initiative, that line has never been more accurate.

If you didn't get the joke, Timbuktu is a city in Mali and Mali, like many African countries, is a member of the initiative. Although Mali is a landlocked country, it is expected to benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area. In fact, a Chinese company has set up Konyobla and Karan villages in Mali with solar-powered electricity and water pumps. Granted, they are very far away from Timbuktu, but they'll get there sooner or later.

Also, Chinese singer Nicholas Tse 謝霆鋒 (famous for hosting a cooking show that makes Gordon Ramsay look like Ncuti Gatwa) sang a song called 黃種人, which literally translates to "yellow people". And it's not just him. Other Chinese singers have sung songs with nationalistic themes that make reference to "yellow skin". Again, this isn't a "shut up RTD" moment because this is more of a dig at the Spice Girls.

Also, the last line of the song before the Toymaker disappeared - did the "Hai" get blorted out in it? I know the line was misheard for many years, but there was nothing problematic about it. However, when that line was replayed again in Unleashed, the "Hai" didn't get blorted out. What the hell, sound team?

Anyway, of the original 1966 serial, only one episode of four was recovered (the audio remains intact for all four episodes), so the entire serial is set to be re-released in an animated format with a reconstruction of the three missing episodes and a new remaster of the recovered fourth episode. The animation style is... rather controversial, apparently.

Other general thoughts

Clearly the London scene at the beginning of this episode (and Kate going full Karen) was meant to satirise the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-22, what with everyone being right and all (hence why I titled that section "What the left thinks freedom protesters want"). Donna suggests to Kate that they distribute the Zeedex to everyone, to which Kate shows her a clip of Trinity Wells (RTD's go-to American news presenter played by Lachele Carl) on her own show, talking about how the Zeedex is a conspiracy to control and monitor humanity, a clear satire of vaccines and vaccine mandates. One question, was there ever an intention to distribute the Zeedex to the wider population? It just sounds like a lot of money and time wasted when you could just have UNIT use the Zeedex while the Doctor tries to solve the situation. That being said, if that was the case, then it can be presumed that Trinity Wells knew about the Zeedex from leaked or stolen information.

Wilf is featured in this episode, however Bernard Cribbins was not due to his health, hence his appearance was done with a stand-in, an archive line from Series 4 and a mention at the end. When I heard Wilf say to Donna, "You go with the Doctor" in the preview clip, it felt a bit heartwarming because it reminded me of how Sylvia was so hesitant regarding aliens and distrusting of the Doctor back then (even more so when Donna's memory was wiped) while Wilf was a lot more open-minded and sympathetic to his granddaughter. RTD apparently had a version of the episode where Wilf was revealed to have died to acknowledge Bernard Cribbins' death, but Phil Collinson opposed it.

I have a weird irk about using the definite article when addressing aliens in normal conversation like their name is a title. It's always "the something", like "the Meep" or "the Vlinx" when you could drop the definite article and nobody would bat an eye. You could do that with "the Doctor" and just address him as "Doctor" like everyone has because it's a title.

The Toymaker talks about what happened to the Master; the Master begged the Toymaker for his life in exchange for one final game, but he lost and he was sealed in a gold tooth- okay, that is too many teeth for a mouth, the rest of the teeth have to be fake. Anyway, after the Toymaker was defeated, a hand with red nail polish picks up the gold tooth- alright, I know this is a direct rip off of the signet ring from Last of the Time Lords and I know what RTD is getting at. Can we fucking not, please? Moffat killed off the Master, then Chibnall resurrected him to deliver the stupid Timeless Child retcon before killing him off again. Can we just have an incarnation where the Doctor doesn't have to face the Master again- oh right, the bi-generation. Really wrote myself into a corner with that one. But still, surely there are loads of other Time Lords that could be brought back? With Mel back in the picture, can we finally have a return of the Rani maybe? Hell, you brought the Toymaker back and made him like the Master, because everything he did is totally what the modern series Master would do.

Also, the Toymaker tells the Doctor that he made a jigsaw out of his history, which some fans have interpreted to be a retcon of the Timeless Child. Ahahahahaha, no it isn't. If we're supposed to believe that this was the Toymaker's doing, then why did we get the Tecteun double-down in Flux or the mention last episode? Yeah, RTD's not going to retcon the Timeless Child because he has to give face to Chibnall (as part of the Fitzroy Crowd), but he mentioned that this was a "loosening of the rules"; fans can say anything about the Doctor now, whether he was really half-human as the Eighth Doctor, whether he was actually the Timeless Child or the other. Yeah, I sure do appreciate this attempt at "ignoring" the Timeless Child retcon, not that fans could do this already or the extended universe was breaking the rules before later stories defined them.

During the bi-generation, the Fifteenth Doctor is left without pants (because Fourteen took them), and so for the last 15 minutes of the episode, he is just walking about in a shirt, an untied tie and briefs, the absence of trousers which I didn't notice initially. John Barrowman got cancelled for less than this (quite literally, in a manner of speaking) and he got thrown under the bus because of Noel Clarke (albeit indirectly).

Mel Bush was a companion of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. Her debut was in Terror of the Vervoids, the third serial of The Trial of a Time Lord saga which showed Mel being from the Sixth Doctor's future at the time of his trial and thus her introduction was left to extended media. She stayed with the Doctor through his later regeneration before she decided to leave and travel with Sabalom Glitz, the Doctor now travelling with Glitz's former companion Ace. In this episode's recollection of events, Mel travelled with Glitz until he died at the age of 101. After attending a space funeral, Mel decided to head back to Earth on a Zingo (space Uber?), but she found herself with nothing on Earth (she describes herself as an orphan here but that only applies to children, not adults). She had a cameo at the end of The Power of the Doctor and in this episode, she is shown working with Kate and Shirley at UNIT.

Say what you will about these specials undermining Donna's character development, but she truly got a happy ending in the end and she deserved it. She's got her memories back, her mother likes her and the Doctor, and she's got a high-paying job at UNIT (£120k plus 5 weeks' holiday). Heck, the Fourteenth Doctor and Mel got their happy endings as well; Fourteen doesn't have to go and Mel finally found another family after losing hers.

The Fifteenth Doctor's TARDIS has a wheelchair ramp now, "bringing it into the 21st century" as Shirley says. Apparently on set, this was known as the "Tharries Ramp", something that was confirmed by Benjamin Cook after RTD was inspired to do so from watching his videos. It's nice and all, but... Tharries once bugged Bowlestrek and NoelZone to do a stream together with them (he even casually refers to himself as a "mini Bowlestrek" lmao) before turning on them to hang with the likes of Channel Pup and Mr TARDIS, even going to far as to copyright strike the stream for "privacy violations" because he was clearly ashamed of it. Congratulations, RTD, you pandered to a left-wing grifter. Sure, being disabled doesn't mean that someone is evil, but it doesn't mean that they are incapable of evil just because they are disabled (case in point Davros). Evil doesn't discriminate whether you are disabled or not.

In the end, Donna believes that the Doctor got his old face back and found her because it was destiny telling him to come home. Somehow, I find that hard to believe given how the DoctorDonna was the cause of the Doctor and Donna meeting in the first place, helped by Dalek Caan. Maybe this could have been the Toymaker's apology offering or something, which would also explain how the Doctor's clothes changed when he regenerated back into his old face. Or maybe it might also be the work of The One Who Waits, possibly the Meep's "boss" mentioned in The Star Beast.

The anniversary roundup (and RTD’s work behind the scenes)

Oh, you thought I was done with this review? I haven't even covered the topic I was planning to cover for this week. God, this is going to be longer than a Content Cop at this point.

After signing back onto the series as showrunner in 2021, RTD has been working non-stop to make the 60th Anniversary the best it could be. At the time of writing, production is currently ongoing for Series 15, due to premiere in 2025, and promotion for the 60th Anniversary goes way back to the end of The Power of the Doctor. RTD and Bad Wolf have really taken the opportunity to make up for the irregular gaps and lack of promotion, two of the most frustrating shortcomings of the Chibnall era's production. Christmas Specials are back and the show is back on Saturday nights, which is a real plus.

While reviewing the 2022 Specials, I did get a bit pissy at the news that there wouldn't be any series until the 60th Anniversary. In addition to this, Series 14 and 15 will be eight episodes long with an additional Christmas Special. While mulling over this for the past year, I realised that a significant amount of the RTD and Moffat era's shortcomings came from having to produce 13 episodes and a Christmas Special in 9 months. Although the Chibnall era had its series reduced to 10 episodes each, Chibnall had to assist rookie writers which resulted in the series finale only being a first draft; all the other shortcomings came down to inexperience, incompetence or neglect.

On top of that, production values have evolved over the past 60 years to the point where we need to consider quality over quantity particularly with the amount of work required to produce an episode of a series like Doctor Who. The equivalent of 21 full-length episodes in the First Doctor era cannot be achieved with all the work, time and budget required in current year, which has necessitated the reduction of episodes in production over time. With these factors in consideration, I suppose I can accept that this is the cost of getting a series every year in this new era.

In terms of extended universe content, the Fourteenth Doctor is special in that he had his debut in comics before his first episode. Following his regeneration, the Fourteenth Doctor received a 14-issue long comic run in Doctor Who Magazine from November 2022, titled Liberation of the Daleks. The Doctor was not known to experience any post-regeneration complications, presumably due to going back to a previous body for a new incarnation.

As we got closer to the 60th anniversary, the episode titles for the specials were released six months prior in a reveal trailer. At the start of November 2023, BBC iPlayer in the UK launched Whoniverse, which hosted all content related to Doctor Who including all old episodes and spinoffs. Notably, the very first story, An Unearthly Child, is not available in the back catalogue due to a rights dispute with the inheritor of writer Anthony Coburn's estate, his son Stef. Stef claims that the BBC "offered a pittance" to him to relicense the story after cancelling it, claiming that his father also owned the rights to the TARDIS as well and that the BBC effectively "killed" his father by registering the TARDIS as a trademark in 1976 without asking permission or offering payment. Stef has also been known to be against the concept of regeneration, let alone the Thirteenth Doctor being a woman, but regardless of this or any insinuation of Stef being racist or anti-woke, I think we can agree that it is spiteful of him to hold back An Unearthly Child from the Whoniverse, not that it isn't available on physical media or other sources already. The BBC hasn't given their side of the story as far as we know, so there's not much more I can say on that. It's really saying something when even the notorious Ian Levine is speaking out against Stef and has been since 2013 according to a Twitter search.

As November began, we got Talking Doctor Who, a documentary hosted by David Tennant featuring archived interviews from mostly past Doctors. There was also a six-part spinoff, Tales of the TARDIS, featuring omnibus editions of classic serials bookended by newly filmed scenes of the Doctors and companions in a memory TARDIS, an initiative presumably inspired by The Power of the Doctor as Tegan and Ace got a chance to appear again with their respective Doctors. According to Screen Rant, it fixed mistakes from said special by acknowledging a relationship between Tegan and Nyssa, had the Seventh Doctor acknowledge his manipulation of Ace, and fundamentally, bringing the Doctor into the companion therapy process. The article's writer says that the memory TARDIS is a "giant middle finger" to Graham's Companions Anonymous group, but it's not like it's impossible to have both things. Like I said before, this is where RTD stated that the bi-generated Doctors could come in, but my theory is that they were the Doctor's Guardians of the Edge being projected into the memory TARDIS.

On 23 November, The Daleks in Colour premiered as a colourised cut of the original 1963 serial that beat the Beatles in ratings and saved the show from cancellation before it even started. Compressing a 7-part serial into 75 minutes has honestly got to be a hell of an ask for editor Benjamin Cook, which isn't helped when people are panning it for things like the jump cuts and repeated flashbacks to things like the anti-radiation drugs. This version also has updated visual effects, a new soundtrack and additional Dalek voices from Nicholas Briggs. I thought it was alright, but other people may have stronger feelings than I do about it. I think it could have been better if it was 90 minutes long.

Following this, An Adventure in Space and Time was replayed, but with the ending changed to show Ncuti Gatwa instead of Matt Smith (along with more edits to the scenes showing the filming of the first serial due to rights issues). Apparently Mark Gatiss designed the scene so that it could feature any Doctor for any anniversary they decided to replay it. I'm a bit meh on this, but whatever.

On 25 November, after The Star Beast was broadcast, a documentary Doctor Who: 60 Years of Secrets and Scandals was broadcast on Channel 5 in the UK, covering various topics mostly relating to the classic series. In addition to this, BBC Radio released various audio documentaries relating to the classic series, the Wilderness Years and the modern series. A number of Doctor Who figures were invited on My Life In A Mixtape, where for an hour, they play the songs that defined their lives. Katy Manning (who played Jo) also narrated an audio special featuring an interview with composer Murray Gold by Richard Latto of BBC Radio Solent. I didn't care for it, but I did also listen to Surviving Doctor Who, where Toby Hadoke defined one word or phrase for each letter of the alphabet, and Doctor Who: 60 Years of Friends and Foes hosted by Sue Perkins, which explores how the show reflected the social history of the world across the decades.

Summary and verdict (and the future of these reviews)

If you've read up to here by now I'm sure you're tired of me ranting like a cooker gaslighting you into thinking I'm right or a lefty putting walls of text in a meme in an attempt to convince you why a half-Indian actor playing Isaac Newton isn't racist, so I won't belabour my verdict any more than necessary.

I liked the episode. Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker was great, we saw Kate Stewart and Mel Bush again and the Doctor and Donna got their happy ending. However, where it fails is the bi-generation, because the concept takes away the gravitas mavitas of regeneration and the implications of it are not fully explained. Unfortunately, there are no plans for David Tennant to return, at least for now. It's not as bad as the Timeless Child retcon, but it is up there.

Rating: 5/10 60th Anniversary cumulative total: 16/30 (53%)

In conclusion, the 60th Anniversary Specials were a return to form for Doctor Who after the Chibnall era all but killed it. I won't say that it's a good starting point for new fans because although it may be so, you should binge at least the first RTD era in order to understand the DoctorDonna storyline. It also sets up The One Who Waits as something that will be important for the Fifteenth Doctor's era and also lays the groundwork for another reboot of the series.

RTD did double-down on the Timeless Child again, but instead of pussying out like Chibnall did in Flux, he leaves the door open for fan interpretation by implying that the retcon was a game by the Toymaker, nonsensical though it may have been.

The Message is still prevalent throughout the three specials, but as I said in my spoiler-free thought for the first special, you have to be willing to overlook it in order to find enjoyment in this series (unless you clearly don't have a problem with it in the first place). While I am okay with the "woke" politics (belittling though they may be), I wasn't okay with RTD's stupid justifications for certain decisions he made in production, such as the decision to have the Doctor regenerate his clothes as well, justifying the portrayal of Davros without his life support wheelchair or the bi-generation working retroactively so that all the previous Doctors still exist in a sense.

Sure, RTD has done some phenomenal stories in his era which is deserving of our respect, but let's not forget how he treats critics and detractors on social media. Do you really want to support or care about the opinions of a showrunner who has a stick so far up his ass that he thinks he can say things like these and have sycophants (in both the access media and social media) support him doing so?

I compared the first RTD era to writers Naruhisa Arakawa and Yasuko Kobayashi with producer Naomi Takebe in Toei tokusatsu. Replace Naomi Takebe with Shinichirō Shirakura post-Super Hero Taisen/Twitter (Zi-O, Zenkaiger, Donbrothers) and you get the RTD2 era in a nutshell. Say what you will about Shirakura or even Chibnall, at least they didn't outright insult fans on social media.

With all that being said, I would like to announce that I won't be continuing to review the RTD2 era after these specials. The main reason isn't because of RTD or the bi-generation (though they are contributing factors), but it's because I've been feeling a bit burnt out on Doctor Who after watching Wild Blue Yonder and dealing with a few real life problems around that time. Also, I promised my fans an original story for the 20th anniversary of Sea Princesses in October 2024 and right now, I'm stuck doing side stories and tie-ins when I've barely made any progress on the main story. I'll still continue to watch Doctor Who as a casual fan, it's just that I might limit myself to posting thoughts about episodes if they're important for me to post about. I did consider doing reviews without restating the plot, but I thought it would be better if I stepped down from reviewing instead of trying to force out cut-down reviews.

How do I think The Message was handled during the 60th Anniversary specials compared to the Chibnall era? I expected to find more SJW red flags in the first two episodes of Series 11 than I found in these specials. Although I was dense to a lot of things back when I started the Thirteenth Doctor Reviews, I have to give Chibnall credit for the Timeless Child revelation and Flux because they enabled me to spot and call out RTD's bullshit during the specials.

At this point I'm feeling more apathetic to the current state of Doctor Who than anger and that's mostly because I've been emotionally detaching myself from the show once the Moffat era came to a close (this was also because I wanted to branch my personal project away from the BBC canon and do my own thing with the Doctor after Twice Upon a Time). The Timeless Child revelation was the terminal cancer for Doctor Who as I knew it, the double-down was the fatal blow and despite the return of RTD giving me hope, the bi-generation was the death knell. Although the Ncuti Gatwa era is slated to be a reboot, it's really just going to be "same same but different".

Speaking of Ncuti Gatwa, I will make a few comments about what we know. His new costume (I'm pretty sure he'll have different costumes in each episode) reminds me of Series 4 Donna Noble's look, and I'm sorry, but that is not a sonic screwdriver. Call it a remote if you like, but I'm surprised they didn't make it a flip phone. At least the Fourteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver won't go to waste now that we know he's still around.

RTD has also stated that the show will be taking a step towards fantasy, something that will annoy people who knew it as a hard science-fiction show. I'm interested in seeing how it plays out. When I was in Year 10 English class, I mentioned to my friends how Doctor Who was a sci-fi show. My teacher overheard it and he made a counterpoint that it was a fantasy show. Thinking about it, he did have a point there as Doctor Who (and other sci-fi shows really) can be considered fantasy shows with a sci-fi setting - a science fantasy, if you will.

Before I sign off I will say one final thing about Christopher Eccleston. At the 2023 For The Love Of Sci-Fi convention in Manchester, Eccleston was asked what it would take for him to return to Doctor Who, and he said, "Sack Russell T Davies, sack Jane Tranter, sack Phil Collinson, sack Julie Gardner and I'll come back." Eccleston has been very open with what happened on Doctor Who given what we heard and I've also covered it in the Doctor Who 10 for 10 post for Series 1. I think if he were asked this at Dragon Con in 2021, before we knew that RTD was coming back and that the show would be produced by Bad Wolf, he would have said, "Get Doctor Who away from the BBC," meaning "Move the production away from BBC Studios".

That is it for my Doctor Who reviews. If you have managed to make it this far, thank you for reading this and a big thank you to everyone who has read and interacted with my reviews. Sorry I won't be able to continue reviewing the rest of the RTD2 era in depth and sorry I took longer than usual to finish this review. I feel like I've neglected myself over the years to dedicate myself to my internet audience and I hope to refocus my priorities to balance taking care of myself with content creation.

Despite the death of Doctor Who as I knew it, I hope the new Doctor Who will at least continue to be as enjoyable as it was over the past 60 years.

#RIPDoctorWho

#doctor who #doctor who 60th anniversary #fourteenth doctor #RIPDoctorWho

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being-of-rain · 2 years

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Thoughts from my Classic Who watch, season 7 edition. Is this overall my favourite season so far? I think so! This was a bit of a long one because I found a lot to gush about liking in these stories.

I have kinda mixed feelings about the third Doctor and his era, so I was interested to see how they’d develop during my Classic Who watch. But I knew I really liked a lot of his first season, and watching all of it over two days confirmed that for me! The four stories just feel like such a coherent unit and dedicated to their aesthetic of modern earthbound sci-fi adventures with an official agency dedicated to the paranormal. Each of the four is a classic telling of a different type of tale you could do with that setting. I’ve seen lots of people compare the show to the British sci-fi serial Quartermass, but never having seen that, I couldn’t help but draw parallels instead with The X-Files.

The seven-part format of the other stories don’t bother me too much, but I’m really glad that Spearhead From Space is only four-parts. Unlike the others, I don’t think it really has anything political to say, and is all aesthetic- but that’s not a downside when your aesthetic is this good. The asteroids, the silent and efficient attempt to kidnap the Doctor from hospital, the eldritch abomination growing out of plastic in a scientific coffin. Channing- the actor who played Channing deserves all the praise, he barely ever changes expression but he’s never not creepy and very obviously the bad guy. And the autons! Living mannequin dummies is such a classic and easy horror trope, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them done as efficiently as they are in Spearhead (sorry Nikola Orsinov). Coming alive in the background of the shot at the end of episode 2, surprising the hunter’s wife inside her home in episode 3, and gunning people down on the street in episode 4 are as scary as the Autons have ever been. As for the regulars, the Brigadier is incredibly fun, and I love it when he’s obviously enjoying himself like he is in his first scene. The new Doctor is funny and it’s interesting to see how he reacts to being stuck on Earth, trying to run off mid-story and acting rude to a lot of people (Two was incredibly polite to the Brigadier compared to how Three treats him). But the standout for me was Liz Shaw, I love her so much. Her first scene with the Brigadier is fantastic at establishing her character and how much she won’t compromise on who she is and what she believes (Science!). It’s hilarious to watch her and the Doctor immediately become best friends by bonding over annoying the Brig. Like I said in my last watchthrough post, I love a strong female character in classic who, and Liz just feels so incredibly human too (yawning and daydreaming about sleep while working all night, what a mood). She even gets to be the once to ultimately save the day by fixing the Nestene-zapping machine she made with the Doctor! Oh, and having a hospital cleaner call the press who mob the Brigadier as soon as he arrives there is hilarious and was the perfect way to immediately ground the series in modern-day Earth, fantastic.

I do love that, despite it being a mistake and no matter how unnecessary it is, every Dr Who fan I know always calls this story by its full on-screen title, Doctor Who and the Silurians. It’s just... such an aesthetic. The Dr Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks of TV Who. I also love that of the four season 7 stories, only the first has a completely malevolent alien force. For a show that preaches accepting people despite their differences, Doctor Who sometimes gets complacent in showing Humans Good Aliens Bad just because of its format, and it’s been nice seeing the Third Doctor era actively reject that complacency so often. Certainly I don’t think the Silurians (the creatures or the story) would be as remembered or loved by Dr Who lore if they had been portrayed as purely out-and-out villains, and the Doctor and Liz silently driving away from the exploding caves makes for a really sombre ending. There’s some good horror in this story too, like the build-up of the disturbed man drawing figures on the wall of his room, and Liz being attacked alone in the barn. And of course, oh god, this really is a too-real story after the worldwide pandemic. Seeing government officials ignore quarantine rules simply because they didn’t feel like obey them was so accurate to real life. And my brother and I groaned and yelled at the TV when Dr Lawrence said “Why should I waste my time having useless injections against an imaginary epidemic?” Jeezy Creezy.

The government conspiracy in The Ambassadors of Death gave me such X-Files vibes, and my brother pointed thought that UNIT had so many security lapses in it that they should find another job. I really liked that once again the aliens were reasonable, and this time a peaceful solution could be met with them, and meanwhile it was the xenophobic officials and army general who were the real villains. Of course, the horror in this story also endeared itself to me. I’ve been getting more into horror recently, and I’m clearly find a lot of examples of it that I like in Doctor Who. The ambassadors approaching people slowly and impassively in their spacesuits, the cliffhanger where one is reaching out right behind the Doctor, and the moment where Liz sees one without its helmet are all fantastic. There was some funny unintentional comedy in this story too, like when there was an extended sequence of global satellite dishes working together to co-ordinate where in the world a signal was coming from, and in the end the world map shows that it was coming from England, shocker. Or the end of the serial which wraps up so abruptly, with the Doctor shaking peoples hands and saying his goodbye the moment the general gets arrested and saying he has other places to be with no further explanation. He really does hate doing the busywork of tidying up afterward.

Literally what could be more iconic than making an evil version of a character with an eyepatch. Nothing. It’s kind of a surprise that Doctor Who hasn’t done more with parallel universes, but if it had to just do one then Inferno was a good outing for the concept. The way it used the drilling and seeing a world just slightly ahead of our own but already facing total destruction was very clever. And the visual of the lava approaching at the end of episode 6 is one that’ll always stick with me. I’m glad that it was that horror which got brought up the next season as something that really stuck with the Doctor, and utterly terrified him. I’m not sure what else to say about this one that I haven’t said is great about the other stories- the aesthetic of a down-to-earth agency (or forced-down-to-earth in the Doctor’s case) facing something huge, unknown, and deadly. The largest obstacle and initiation of most problems being humans’ greed, pride, and bureaucracy. And of course the regulars, who are always fun. Benton gets his largest role since The Invasion here, even ignoring his evil duplicate, and it’s easy to see why he’s brought in for some light comic relief in future seasons. Evil Brigadier is both enjoyable and hateable like only the best characters can be. And Liz! It’s such a shame that she only had one season, because she’s just so lovable and smart, she’s probably one of my favourite companions so far. Even when the story sidelines her, she’s always putting up a fight, for what she believes in and against those who’d keep her down (unfortunate that she didn’t win that fight against the producers. I wonder what an AU of season 8 where Liz stayed would look like?)

#my thoughts #this again gets rambly #I shouldn't wait so long after watching the episodes to write these because I start to forget jsdlkfj #Three #Liz #The Brig #unit #autons

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visd3stele · 3 years

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The beauty and his beast - wolfstar fic

summary: two different nights, years passed, some things changes, but some never do

TW: nightmares, PTSD, trauma, non depictive child abuse, themes of suicidal thoughts

A/N: I loved writing this, but I am so nervous about it. What do you think?

requests ; masterlist

fanart credit picture down below: @lunopal

Ragged voices licked his ears. Three different ones overlapped in a cacophony of hissed whispers and dooming laughs. From where he stood in the middle of his cell, Sirius could see a silhouette standing in the open door. Open, because there was no way he could escape. Three Dementors floated in a circle around him, so fast he could barely tell them apart. Black smoke, a burning smell and shadows whirled under low hoods, bringing him to his knees.

The man in the door curled his lips in a terrible grin. The Dementors were his and with each mind they broke, with each soul they ate, the wizard gained a sense of pride and morbid joy.

Sirius knew it. He knew the man, back in his school years - how far they seemed now! But Sirius also knew he was delusional. The Dementors bow to no one. They have no law, no caretaker, no master. Only their purpose.

Continuing to swirl around his frail body, sinked in to a third of what it used to be, bony edges poking out through dirty thin layers of clothing, the Dementors closed in on Sirius. Flashes of memories flew before the Animagus' eyes. James' empty ones, still open in a silent plea for his sacrifice to be enough to save his family, his brown hair dipped in his own blood, body angled in an unnatural position with his hand stretched forward above his head as if reaching for his best friend. Lily's tears, yet to dry and evaporates, stained her too pale face, the red of her hair sprayed around too lively; no blood pools formed around her lifeless body, laid on its belly as it fell onward, as if leaping away from her son, so the baby won't have to see it. And finally Harry, his godson, crying in his crib, a brown-red crust shaped like a lightning forming on his forehead; his green, small eyes, swollen, puffy and trimmed with red followed his godfather as the man turned his back on him and ran outside.

Sirius cursed loudly, beginning to shackle the chains trapping him in place in case he tried to escape the daily visit of the Prison Warrant and his guards. But the now twenty five years old has stopped trying to run a long time ago. What good would it be? There was nothing - no one - waiting from him out in the world. No, Sirius trashing around the cold, dirty dais, snapping the metal biting in his wrists, bruising his effervescent skin and almost cracking his bones as well was his attempt to run from his own mind. If he could just wipe the haunting memories away with a shook of his head, a twist of his back or punching and kicking the thick walls.

Fragments of thoughts he wasn't sure belonged to him invaded his mind. "Your fault. Traitor. Another Black." And, worst of all, one pained howl, a desperate scream in the night. Sirius wasn't sure if he heard it, or the dark creatures around toyed with him, but Remus' wild, feral yell of pure hurt reverberated inside the bars of his mind. The young wizard shut his eyes closed tightly, hoping to brush away the sound, the voices. Failing to do so, he released a scream of his own, only a hint of Padfoot, the big, black dog, his alter ego, printed in it.

The thirty four years old man yanked up. The bed sheets were soaked in his sweat, the blanket throwed on the floor. Sirius passed a shacking hand over his face, feeling the hot air leaving his mouth in short breaths, than big inhales with no exhale, the burning of tears on his warm red cheeks and the running nose. His lips felt sewed together all of a sudden, as chill after chill entered his body, cooling off his face too quickly.

It was just a nightmare, he knew. He escaped Azkaban, has been a free man from over a week already. But Sirius Black couldn't let the twelve years in prison go. The things he saw there, what the Dementors showed him day after day, carved their way in his brain, refusing to leave. Yes, he may have been wrong: his family and living friend welcomed him back. Harry was warming up to hid godfather, Nymphadora Tonks was eager to know her uncle, Andromeda even reached out, sending letter after letter and Remus - well, Remus hugged him tight and apologized for believing that filthy rat's lies. The werewolf spent his days, from first ray of sunshine until the last drop of sunlight. But the nights he went home. The nights when ghosts came to play, wounds teared open and pain leaked like blood from Sirius' heart, Remus was gone.

He tried to remember a time they didn't share a bed - before Azkaban, of course. Not in a sexual way, though it came to that in the late years of Hogwarts too. But simply for the comfort they each found in the other. It started in the second year, Sirius recalled.

Four twelve years old boys in a room seemed like a receipt for disaster. In a way, it was. After finding out their friend's secret, James, Sirius and Peter decided to sneak in the herbology cabinet, get Mandrake leaves and become Animagus. Seeing as they got away with it, the four created their enchanted map and become the Marauders, messers Prongs, Padfoot, Moony and Wormtail, waltzing their merry way through Hogwarts.

Not everything was merry and joyful, though. And despite their reputation, the wizards could be grave and serious when need be. Like one night, when Sirius woke them all up with his cries. The grey eyed boy stood on top of his bed covers, knees drawn to his chest, hands tangled in his shoulder length hair. He leaned back and forth, trembling. Front teeth bit in his lower lip to prevent him from making more noises as silent tears rolled down his face.

The other three boys thought Sirius saw a mean spirit, the haunted glassy look in his eyes only proving their theory further. But no danger threatened in the shadows of their room. No monster lurked in the darkness.

James was the first to get up and surf his way to the pure blood. Remus followed closely behind while Peter watched everything from the safety of his bed. Sirius' episode truly spooked him.

"Padfoot, mate, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. 'm sorry. Go back to sleep."

James and Remus changed worried looks at the sourness of Sirius' voice. Their friend would usually be the epitome of confidence, yet now he seemed to desperately try to shrink and disappear. But it was late and they were tired, so the boys decided with a swift nod that they'd pick up the subject in the morning and climbed back under their covers.

Remus jolted awake. Two out of his three best friends were sound asleep. Sirius still stared at the wall in front of him, breathing jerky. Due to his fine, superior hearing, the werewolf discerned the Black boy's muffled whimpers, sounds that kept him from sleeping.

"Sirius, why are you so afraid?" Remus whispered.

" 'm not afraid, Moony. Sleep."

"Can't. Werewolf remember? I hear you trying to not cry. You can cry, you know."

"I know." Sirius said in a tone that clearly showed he doesn't. With a sigh, Remus threw away his blanket, slipped his feet in his shoes and trailed his legs over the dorm's brick daises until he reached his friend's bed. The brown haired boy signed Sirius to scoop over, which he did, to both wizards surprise.

Later, when talking about that night, Padfoot admitted he was too tired, too shocked and too lost in his mind to think and only acted on auto pilot.

Remus brought the blankets to cover them both, still seated as they were. "Do you need a hug?" Sirius hesitated before answering, but eventually he nodded twice, a quick movement as if the boy was ashamed to admit it and wanted to pass unnoticed.

But Remus smiled softly and wrapped his hands around him. Sirius clinged onto his friend. The warmth of the gesture, the cozy closeness of a settled, stable body, a person that cared deeply about him and only him as a being, set the restrained tears free. Remus held Sirius until his body stilled and he could feel no more tears soaking his pajamas.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Sirius swallowed, but the words demanded to be spoken. "Yes."

"Alright. I'm gonna ask you questions and you can answer with yes or no. It's your choice if you want to elaborate. Sounds good?"

"Yes." Sirius said and for a moment his usual, ironic self showed up.

"Was it a nightmare?"

"Yes."

"About your family?"

With a shudder, the grey eyed boy forced out another "yes."

"Your brother?"

"No."

"Your parents, then. Did they - did they do something to you?"

"Yes." Remus' arms tighten around him and he clunged harder to his friend as well. In the safety of the Gryffindor dorm, shared with his most trusted peers, comforted by the scarred boy he became an Animagus for, Sirius stumbled over his thoughts. The dream weighted heavy on his mind, but he didn't know how to let free of those horrible images that haunted him. Not images, memories. Sirius feared that if he said anything they'll become real. Not that they weren't, but they happened in the past. Talking about them, invoking them, would feel like living through them again.

And yet, part of him wanted to talk. He needed someone to know. Sirius couldn't be sure why. Maybe to hear that it was nothing, that it was ok and he shouldn't be such a weak ship. Or maybe to hear it was normal and he wasn't alone. That is how parents love and his didn't hate him after all. Or just to show someone how broken he were, hoping to be picked un and patched.

So, speaking slowly, but evenly, Sirius retailed his nightmare to Remus. In his sleep, the twelve years old boy was hanging some muggle posters in his room: bands, promo for concerts, normal things a boy his age would own. He smiled broadly, music turned on quite loud, muggle music, when his parents bursts in. Walburga and Orion both yell, but Sirius can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s pretty clear they are very upset with him, though. And the reason couldn’t be more obvious.

“Sirius Orion Black!” his mother shrieked. “Ungrateful, worthless child! You are a stain on the family’s name.”

“You should be ashamed of you. As much as I am for being your father. Well, say something. Look how upset you made your mother!”

“Sorry,” he’d try to say, but his voice would break, too small to be heard by the angry adults. Which only worsened their state. Sirius watched frozen in terror as Walburga took her wand. Only his head seemed to be able to move, and he was shacking it vigorously, wiping his cheeks with it. The young wizard tasted tears on his tongue as he repeated the same words over and over again “no, please, ‘m sorry!” It did nothing to help.

Remus stayed in his bed that night.

°•▪︎~▪︎•°

The moon shone mockingly on the window. Last night has been a full moon and Prongs, Padfoot and Wormtail failed to properly contain Moony. It happened quite a lot in their first days as Animagus. As normal, they got better over the years, the four boys falling in rhythm like an oiled machine. By the time they reached excellency, though, mistakes happened. James, Peter and Sirius thought less of it, but Remus took it badly.

As he laid in the dark, blanket drawn to cover his head as he hugged his knees on the side, the young werewolf tried to remember what happened last night. What if he killed someone? What if he will next time the boys won’t be able to restrain him? Is it worth living like this, a danger to himself and the ones around? What if he hurts his friends?

“I can hear your mind working from over here y’know?”

Remus straighten up in shock. “Padfoot?”

“Well, it’s not the Fat Lady. What’s on your mind?”

Remus shrugged, but Sirius wouldn’t stop pestering him until he poured his deepest fears and doubts.

“You won’t”

“How do you know this?”

“You won’t, Moony,” Sirius said more firmly this time.

“Alright.” Remus clearly didn’t believe him and his worries still troubled him as he turned to lay back down. He heard footsteps, then felt the mattress shifting as another body climbed over his bed covers. “I know because I am Sirius Black and you are my friend.” Less than an hour later, both boys were sound asleep.

Sirius slept in his bed that night.

°•▪︎~▪︎•°

It became a tradition. At first, they'd wait until one of them woke frozen in pain and panic, then they'd stay together and talk silently until they could sleep again. Later, Sirius and Remus would wait until James and Peter were out to decide who's bed to sleep in, knowing one of them - or both - ought to need the comfort.

The man kept trembling. His sobs caught in hiccups, leaving him out of breath. He did it. He left Harry for revenge. He practically made the choice for James and Lily, selecting Peter as secret keeper. His brother died and instead of mourning him, Sirius rejoiced bitterly in his cell - until he found out how he betrayed the Dark Lord.

He was just another Black. An evil presence in the world, despite his efforts. Gryffindor or Slytherin, it mattered not when his genes crafted him. Sirius tried so hard to be good, brave, loyal and the only thing he managed was to disappoint everyone. He was a nuisance and a burden and the a stain on the world. It'd be better if his sorry, useless existence would be wiped off the surface of the Earth.

Such thoughts clouded Sirius' mind when a light knock pulled him out of his head. "May I come in, Padfoot?"

The man almost broke at the nickname. Only one single person now would know to call him that. The weight of the realization hit him and another wave of tears carried the air from his lungs.

Receiving no answer, Remus kicked the door open, worry written all over him. The werewolf was panting and sweating from running, eyes wide close to terror. "Padfoot!" Seeing his oldest friend's state, he rushed to his side and hesitated only a moment before drawing him in for a hug.

"Nightmare?"

"Yes."

"Azkaban?"

"Yes."

"Dementors?"

"Yes. They-" Sirius gulped, shame tightening up in his throat. He was a thirty four man, for Godric's sake! And yet he cries like a baby. But the path he and Remus trailed off to, simple questions, any type of answer, so familiar and soothing he couldn't stop. "They tortured me. Showing me their - James and Lily's - death over and over. I left Harry, Moony. I stepped inside the house, saw that beautiful, brave child, suffering and I took off after bloody Pettigrew!" Before Remus could say a thing, Sirius continued, teeth so barred that words barely spitted out. "I heard you screaming too. I don't think that was real, but it sounded so broken, Moony. Twelve years, over twenty four full moons alone. 'm so sorry. It's all my fault."

Remus inhaled sharply, pulling Sirius even closer to him. He rubbed circles on his back, leaning to whisper in his ear "It was not, Padfoot. I should have trusted you more, star. If anything, it's my fault for spending so much time alone. So much, in fact, that it seems I neglected you, our agreement."

“It was my fault.” Sirius insisted.

“No,” and not letting him time to argue, Remus added “I know so, Sirius, because I am Remus Lupin and you are my... friend.”

Sirius pulled away only to find a reluctant smile playing on Remus' face. His body reacted before his mind could process its moving. He moved on the right side of the bed, still avoiding the other wizard's eyes. "Why are you here, Remus?"

"I couldn't sleep either. Thought to check on you as well. And good thing I did. You looked..." The professor didn't know how to finish that sentenced. Hollow. Empty. Dead. Scaringly close to death, in fact.

"Merlin! Thank you, Moony. You don't look bad yourself."

Remus chuckled. "Are you feeling any better?"

"No. You?"

"No."

Both men laughed. A bitter sweet sound passing through silence, taking with it any sign of discomfort that existed.

"I'm glad you came."

"Me too."

109 notes · View notes

maidragoste · 3 years

Text

Long Hair | Tetsuro Kuroo x Reader

I write this after watching the episode where Kuroo says that he likes girls with long hair. My heart is broken hahaha

Summary: In an attempt to get Kuroo's attention, you grow your hair out.

You always had short hair. Kuroo knew you since you were a child and he had only seen you with long hair for the first few months he met you until one day you showed up in the park with short and uneven hair, it was evident that you had cut it yourself. When he saw you he laughed but you didn't cry or complain, you smiled at him and replied that at least you looked better than a rooster making Kenma laugh.

Every time someone asked you why you don't grow your hair, you reply that it is more comfortable to have short hair. As soon as your hair grew a little, you complained that it was uncomfortable making Kuroo laugh.

So imagine Tetsuro's surprise when he saw your hair start to grow and you didn't complain a bit or go running to the hairdresser to get rid of the length. Now it is so long that you could make a ponytail when before your hair wasn't enough for that.

Kuroo couldn't help but wonder if you were in trouble with money and that's why you couldn't go to the hairdresser because he was willing to help you...He couldn't pay for your cut but maybe if he watched a lot of tutorials on YouTube he could cut it himself. It shouldn't be that hard right?

"Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea" Kai opined after listening to Kuroo "Why does it bother you so much that she grows her hair out?"

"It doesn't bother me" he clarified quickly "It's just weird"

"Girls change their image all the time," Kai said without giving it much thought.

"Yes, but..."

"You're jealous," Yaku stated, interrupted.

"HEY? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?"

"Well, it is obvious that Y / l decided to change his image to attract the attention of a boy"

Yaku wasn't an idiot. It was no coincidence that right after Kuroo said that he preferred girls with long hair over short hair you decided to grow your hair out. I might haven't known you for a long time but it was evident that you liked Kuroo. And from the face he was making, Kuroo seemed like he liked you too. Yaku wondered which of the two would be the first to confess.

"They shouldn't talk about someone when is not present," you said, crossed your arms, from the classroom door, drawing the attention of the three and making them feel ashamed.

"I'm sorry" Kai apologized.

"So it is true? Do you want to get a boy's attention? " Tetsuro asked, earning a bad look from Kai for being so blunt.

"Yeah, but he didn't get it the way I wanted" you replied with a shrug.

"Well that boy is an idiot," Kuroo said.

He was about to name all your qualities and tell you that you don't need to change your appearance just for someone when you said:

"Yes, Kuroo, you are an idiot" you smiled and the named felt his chest drop.

"Well, I think it's time to go," Kai announced.

"Wait no, I want to hear the nonsense that Kuroo is going to say" Yaku complained as he was pushed by the other boy until they finally got out.

"Earth calling Kuroo," you said raising and lowering your hand in front of him hoping to see some reaction.

"I like you too" he admitted making your smile grow bigger.

"Well, do you want to be my boyfriend?"

"Hey, this isn't romantic at all," he complained.

"Do you want to plan something and ask me?" you challenged him, raising an eyebrow.

"My proposal will be so romantic that your friends will be envious when you tell them" he assured with a smile.

"Good, but don't take that long, maybe someone could confess to me and you're left without a girlfriend" you teased and turned around.

You blinked and suddenly you were on Tetsuro's shoulder. The idiot lifted you up like you weighed nothing. Now they were in the hallways calling everyone's attention because he kept shouting "Y / n Y / l is my girlfriend."

Your friends didn't feel any envy when you two ended up in detention.

first time writing haikyuu so sorry if it's too oc

132 notes · View notes

sweetestlamb · 4 years

Text

The Greatest Show

Summary: Come on, get into it.

Author's note: I haven’t been inspired to write for this fandom in a while because honestly the writers are doing amazing, everything I think of is pure filth because I am eagerly awaiting their next kiss. But episode 17 broke my brain with their squash the rumor scene, the growling and grunting that So-Bong was so unaffected by. These two need a tent, desperately. Enjoy my royal pervs, here is my offering.

p.s. picture borrowed from @tomorrowsdrama- thank you for the screenshots of this amazing moment!

He's doing what he must to survive, that's all. End of sentence. He takes no pleasure in slamming the King into the closest surface and rubbing their body against him like a cat in heat, not in the slightest. Rumors are weeds, you have to rip them out for flowers and crops to flourish. That's all they're doing, weeding the garden of Joseon so it can flourish for their future child.

That's what he tells himself as they cross paths in the royal hall, the King is flagged by the entire royal court animatedly discussing something of seemingly vast importance if their volume suggests anything. As he takes a step forward, Court Lady Choi seizes their hand halting them in place.

"Your highness you just not approach the King when he is with the Royal court. It is not proper. We just simply bow as they walk by."

But he doesn't care about propriety or appearing decent and well-behaved in front of these corrupt old bags, they are simply larger weeds that need to be disposed of. Smirking at their potential outrage, he grins evilly letting that fuel him even more before pulling up their dress to run over to their Cheoljongie. He looks bored out of his mind so it can also be considered a good deed, he's such a giving wife.

"My King!" Her voice rings out as he calls to his husband, who immediately looks over at them warmth filling those expressive eyes. Without hesitation the King bounds over to them happily, his movement only slightly faster than his usual glide ever the diligent King.

"My Queen, I have missed you."

The members of the backstabbing clan look disgruntled at the King's sudden departure, grumbling and pointing at them as if they have committed the highest crime.

If they think this is inappropriate then they're in for a huge surprise.

Looking down demurely, he thinks of his younger days when he was a junior understudy for the school play his acting prowess would come in handy now.

"Not as much as I have missed you, my love." He whispers the word of affection, reaching up to caress the King's cheeks softly making sure to appear infatuated. He has to force that after all because he doesn't do that naturally, despite what the royal maids claim. They are just confused, So-yong has a soft face that appears adoring at time despite his true emotions.

With a soft whimper he throws himself into the King's arm, feeling those strong arms encircle her small waist, lightning zips through their veins but he ignores her bodily reaction.

We're just acting, take the memo! He internally berates the other inhabitant of this hormonally charged body.

But when Cheoljong strokes their neck and easily lifts them off their feet, he gasps loudly clinging to him harder for balance and because her knees suddenly feel weak.

"Your majesty, we do not have time for such....improper dalliance. You must not do this in such a public venue." One of the old farts stage whispers sounding positively scandalized and it revs him up even further. As he feels the King starting to retreat he jumps forward, wrapping their body around the King's like a limpet.

Cheoljong's eyes sparks to life the new position placing them eye to eye, panting softly onto each other. The air between them is charged and thick like a bowl of porridge.

"Your highness, I agree you mustn't do this." Court lady Choi pleads with her, averting her eyes away from the tangled couple.

He looks over Cheoljong's wide shoulders to see the Royal court affronted and wide eyed and Court Lady Choi with a similar expression, Hong Yeon is trying desperately to smother her smile as she averts her eyes. Sending her a secret wink, he pulls the King's head forward staring hungrily at his lips.

"I cannot resist, seeing him awakens such deep passion inside of me. Just one?"

He looks at her dazed, as if he's forgotten everyone surrounding them.

"Just...one?" He questions, confusion morphing into sudden realization as he watches them slide their tongue across plush lips.

"Oh."

Ignoring the cacophony of voices around them, he closes the miniscule space between them puckering up and kissing the soft skin of the King's cheek. Cheoljong tries blindly to catch her lips when they retract but he places a slim finger on his pursed lips.

Shaking their head lightly, he starts to slide down the King's hard body feeling the tight muscles even through the layers of fabric.

"We must save the rest for later, my heart. Come and visit us soon." He rubs at his stomach fondly, staring up into Cheoljong’s red face, he looks good enough to eat.

Wait what. Who thought that? No, it's the baby talking I'm just hungry, that's enough of a show.

Bowing deeply at the men, he steps around the King who is still frozen in his spot. Gathering himself he turns to the royal court with an innocent smile, "I apologize, I could not control myself. I will take a long walk to reflect on my behavior."

They collectively stare at her with gaped mouths as she walks off regally, shoulders straight as if nothing happened. After a few steps he turns around, calling over their shoulder, "Don't keep me waiting!" And then to add the proverbial cherry on top, he curls their finger before letting out a roar to which everyone jumps looking bewildered, except the King whose eyes could pierce a hole through their face.

He looks like a starved man. Maybe they should make him some more ramyeon?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To say he's flustered is a bit of an understatement considered the problem in his pants. Logically he understands the Queen's actions earlier, she'd merely been doing what they had both agreed to feigning affection to dissolve those erroneous rumors that were circulating the kingdom. But he would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying this immensely.

His Queen was an enigma he had even up on fully understanding, instead choosing to accept her and all that came with her. And her feelings for him were part of his confusion, she seemed to fluctuate between her emotions without rhyme or reason. He never knew which version of her he would be receiving at any given moment. So having her acting the way he'd only imagined in his dreams was both satisfying and unsettling.

It would be most difficult to go back to their normal, he wanted her in his arms always. Desperately yearned for intimacy that didn't dissipate when the sun peeked over the horizon.

Pushing his work to the side of the table he sighs leaning back into his seat thinking about his Queen.

"Why must she be so confusing?" He groans to myself thinking about their first night together, how passionate she'd been his ears burn remembering the sharp pain of her teeth sinking it. He had bite marks in... interesting places from that heated encounter but her behavior after had been consistent only in it's in inconsistency.

Running away from him, even going as far as hiding. Then just as suddenly she stopped avoiding him and they settled into comfortable nights together. However, they hadn't been intimate since despite his many efforts, he just wanted a kiss those plush pink lips were so tempting and today they'd been so very close. He needed that kiss like he needed air, he didn't care who was around. If she had kissed him he wouldn't have controlled himself, he would have hungrily devoured.

"Your majesty it is getting late, we must leave now if you wish to see the Queen." The head eunuch interrupts his inklings, bowing low in respect.

Is he ready for this? His control feels paper thin at the moment. But he did promise and they have an image to uphold.

Gathering his strength he rises, "Alright, let us take over leave. I shouldn't keep my Queen waiting."

The walk to Daejeon Hall is short but it feels like he's traversing miles, despite his previous concerns he is now eager to see the Queen. Her face is gorgeous at all hours but there's something about her face lit with candlelight, knowing he's the only one who is allowed to see her at such hours.

Accelerating his feet, he almost races to her ignoring cries from the head eunuch in the distance. Every second not spent in her company is a second wasted.

The Queen's Court lady announces his arrival before they all bow walking backwards out of the room before sliding the doors shut.

"You took your sweet time, I told you not to keep me waiting." She glares at him, pouting slightly bringing all his attention to her mouth.

"I apologize my Queen there were pressing matters to deal with." He lies easily no attention of clarifying his meaning, she doesn't need to know that dousing his arousal was the pressing matter at hand.

"Whatever. What's more important than me?" She scoffs looking offended turning away from him.

He lowers down into a crouch, crawling across the room until they are side by side. The Queen gasps at his unexpected closeness, staring at him with wide eyes and open lips.

Grasping at her hands he stares deeply into her gorgeous eyes solemnly with no humor in his voice, "Nothing. You are most important to me, both of you." Reverently he reaches out a hand to palm at her still small belly, impatient to see her round with his seed.

Her face slowly softens as he rubs her stomach and then she places her hand atop his, no longer resistant to these fleeting moments of intimacy.

Instinctively he starts to lean forward, laser focus on her lips as he inches closer to her. When he's close enough to breath into her mouth she snaps from her haze, moving back marginally he almost growls at her he's so frustrated, he's barely able to swallow the sound.

"What are you doing? There's no one to put on a show for."

He peers at her searching her face, her pupils are dilated and he can feel how fast she's breathing each puff landing on his face, her expression near identical to their last night together. But she's stopping him. Even though she clearly desires this too.

He thinks back to her behavior earlier too, she was brazen then comfortable climbing him in front of so many others all in the name of squashing the rumors.

She needs an excuse to do this.

He should feel offended by this epiphany but instead it brings him resolve, she clearly still hasn't fully let him into her heart but she feels something for him she's more than proven that to him. If she needs to draw a line to be with him then so be it for now, he will prove himself to her everyday.

"There are several court maids and servants outside your room, they are pretending they are not listening but they are. Sometimes your imagination can be even more powerful than reality."

She looks towards the door, eying the shadows through the thin covering before turning back to him and nodding in understanding.

"Okay. Let's give them a show."

Without warning she knocks a marble vase to the ground, the loud crash filling the room as it makes contact with the floor.

Then she moans. Loudly. A suggestive gasping moan that goes straight to his chest before zinging lower, tucking at his loins.

She pushes him when he sits silently merely staring at her, "You need to play along too. Come on, get into it."

There's it is again. That damn phrase.

Get into it.

If only she knew how into it he truly was. Grabbing at her ankle and tucking her underneath him, he slams his arms on either side of her head before groaning deeply, "My Queen, please."

Pride explodes in his chest when he sees a deep blush glide across her face. Not unaffected.

"Am I getting into it enough for you now?" He whispers darkly, itching to lower his weight and kiss that delicious look off her face.

Surprisingly she stutters out, "Ye-a-ah. You seem very into it now, nobody can see us though. We don't need to be like this." She motions between their bodies, unable to meet his gaze now. She motions between their bodies, unable to meet his gaze now. She's right but he also knows that he can't miss this chance, he has her right where he wants her and besides squirming distractedly she hasn't shown any desire for him to move away.

"Do you want me to stop?" When she doesn't immediately answer he begins to move backward giving her space but she latches onto his forearm, tight.

"Wait! Maybe we should commit even if they can't see us, it'll help us play our roles better." She reasons and he smiles, razor sharp. She wants this just as badly as he does, he's studied her long enough to read between these lines.

Swiftly he rolls them over so she's on top, pressed together from shoulders to feet her long braid swinging over and brushing against his cheek. Gently wrapping it around his hand he uses it to bring her closer, her breath hitches seductively and he whispers, "Louder. So they can hear you." Without waiting for a reply he tugs at her hair again harder this time and the sound that escapes her lips is orgasmic, a high whining moan that sets his skin on fire. Emboldened and aroused he grabs her neck, speaking into her opened mouth "Do you like that my Queen?" Her eyes are glazed over as she sways as if intoxicated by him.

"Cheoljong, kiss me."

It's too quiet for anyone's ears but his and that makes him even hotter, this wasn't part of the show. This was just for him, just for them.

Always one to seize the moment, he yanks her down to meet his eagerly waiting mouth swallowing the moan that rolls off her tongue. The kiss escalates immediately with both twisting and licking, wet sucking noises soaking the room as they bring apart to gasp for air and crash back together, chaotically and perfectly. When he feels a wondering hand graze his groin he can't resist the urge to thrust up into her touch. Wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her even closer, although there is no space between them.

When he pulls back, her eyes remain close as she licks her lips as if chasing his taste on them. His cock jumps jealously.

"I want you." He admits, wanting to make it clear if his intentions are not already crystalline to her. He wants no room for misunderstandings tonight.

She stares wordlessly before reaching across his body and then he sees the oil in her hand, he hadn't noticed its presence next to them but he eagerly takes it from her.

"Are you comfortable?"

"Don't go soft on me now, bring back the guy who was pulling my hair. Do you want me to call you Daddy too?"

His breath hitches at the word, he doesn't understand why but hearing her makes something dark coil in his belly. She lifts an eyebrow at his heavy silence, "You're so kinky."

He stares confused again, nothing new to him but he stores the word away for further inspection of its meaning. "Is kin-ky bad?" He asks reaching down to lower his pants and cover himself in the thick oil coating each inch of the hard pole.

She doesn't answer right away, avidly watching him stroke himself to fullness before rubbing at the bulbous deep scarlet head, serving to make him almost painfully turned on. "No, kinky is good. I like kinky." She tugs her skirt up and his eyes bulge when instead of seeing the various layers he should see there is only bare skin.

Had he been seduced? It feels as if he has been but he doesn't care enough to question her or pause this for a second. He would happily be her fool.

Gripping at her hips he rubs against her, groaning when her wetness smears across him obscenely. She grinds down onto him meeting him head on, they are definitely on the same page now.

Unable to wait for even another second, he envelopes her in his arms before sliding into her smoothly her natural moisture and the oil easing the way until he is completely encased. She moans long and wailing as he slides to the hilt, he groans loudly joining her as she scratches roughly down his back even through the sturdy material he can feel the burn. Absently he considers gentling his moves, she is pregnant and more fragile after all. But she must read his face and be vehemently against his plan because suddenly she rises up, slipping off his hardness before slamming back down the loud smacking of skin filling the room.

"It's time for the main event. Don’t stop now.” She challenges him, squeezing around his erection.

Pushing his reservations to the side, he gets into it full heartedly thrusting hard before capturing her mouth in a harsh kiss, hissing when he feels her teeth tug roughly at his bottom lip, his lioness has returned. He teasingly roars into her mouth and she laughs around his tongue, breaking free only to latch on his neck sucking hard. He hopes it leaves a mark.

Her laughter causes her to tighten around him and he groans at her vice like grip on his cock, he can feel himself nearing the end. Recalling their first night he suddenly grabs her neck, squeezing lightly and when she whines in a broken gasp he tightens his hand and delights as she melts slowly limp in his hold, he supports her weight easily bucking into her tight heat. When he thrusts up a second time he feels her wetness gush around him before he loses himself, his climax tensing his body as he slowly falls apart.

The entire kingdom will surely be in an uproar tomorrow.

He's looking forward to it. That will teach them to spread rumors about their intimate affairs.

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In the hallway, Hong Yeon brings her hands to her hot cheeks feeling overheated from the King and Queen's boisterous gathering. Every court maid is blushing as they look discretely at the door with every moan and groan that escapes. She hopes this will qualm the rumors in the kingdom, she cannot take this for much longer. Court lady Choi had left to retrieve water after their first moans and had yet to return, she surmised if the Queen were not already with child she would have been impregnated again going by the sounds they were making. It was all too obvious to her, despite the Queen's strange behavior at times, they were desperately in love with each other. She'd never seen two people who were more crafted for the other.

Anyone who thought otherwise was a fool.

#queen cheorin #mr. queen #squash the rumor.#do it for your kingdom #no touch princess #smutty smut #they just have so much chemistry I can't resist #my offering

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chuuyas--boo · 3 years

Text

The "Judge" and The Sinner.

Tw: Violence, language, murder, Self harm

(Partially based off of 3 episodes of Angels of Death; Episode 4: A sinner has no right of choice, Episode 5; Don't let me kill you just yet, and Episode 6; Zack is the only one who can kill me. Some torture methods will be skipped over/changed slightly because most human beings can't endure all of the torture Zack and Rachel (Mostly Zack cause he's an idiot) went through without dying.)

The elevator doors opened and Riley slowly walked out onto B3, immediatley noticing the machine guns mounted on the walls, as if the last floor wasn't difficult enough; Running from the sweet but obsessive and insane ginger haired grave-keeper; Eddie.

A single bullet was fired from one of the guns, just barley missing Riley's arm causing her to stumble back, just as more bullets were fired rapidly, getting closer until they stopped, only inches away.

"Great...trying to fill me with bullet holes huh?"

"Hiii~! Terribly sorry I'm late! It took you so long to get here...I nearly dozed off! Still...I'm surprised you weren't killed just now! You sure have incredible intuition dear~"

"What..."

"Y'know something? I had a feeling you'd be a great sinner~! ...I must've needed some excitement cause that woke me right up!" "That's great and all miss...but I don't really care...Could you just let me through...?"

"I supposed I can do that~"

Bright lights shined on Riley and she narrowed her eyes so it wasn't so harsh.

The iron bar door slid open and Riley walked through, and walked down the hallway to a room with locked doors.

"You said you'd let me through..." her voice was calm yet slightly irritated.

"My~ You're so impatient! At least let me finish putting on my makeup!"

Riley let out a huff of annoyance.

"There's a certain procedure each criminal must go through before their punishment is assigned~ If I were you, I'd start getting ready now. In fact I'll even open up a room for you~"

One of the doors unlocked and Riley went in.

(ignore the fact Zack and Rachel are there, it's a room with the mugshot board(?), a camera, and a table with a bin with the name boards)

"Every legitimate criminal has a mugshot, right~? Take a pretty one for me! ...Oh and it's not a proper mugshot without your name board, of course~"

Riley walked over to the table, grabbed her name board out of the bin which said "Riley Morgan" on it, in letters that looked as if they were painted with blood...which wouldn't be surprising if it WAS blood.

"How am I supposed to do this by myself..."

Riley huffed, and moved the camera closer to the wall, hung the name board around her neck and quickly took a picture, narrowing her eyes slightly at the flash.

"There..."

Taking the name board off and tossing it to the side, Riley grabbed the photo and held it up towards the security camera, and the iron bars slid out of the way.

Walking out of the door; into another hallway, but this time with poorly drawn images of what seemed to be torture methods.

"They're illustrations of punishments I designed, for sinners just like you~! I'll give you a choice,...there's more than one way to punish a sinner you see~, So I've got a variety of painful options waiting for you! Of course...if you'd rather spend the rest of your life rotting in a cell...it's always on the table~!"

"What kind of pathetic person would decide to rot forever..."

"Oh~? Too bad...and here I was hoping I'd get to keep you forever! ahahah~!"

Silently Riley walked into one of the rooms, filled with dolls...life size wooden dolls in rows of chairs...with what looked to be an electric chair in the front. "She- She's really trying to fry me to death!"

But suddenly the iron bars slid open.

"Ahaha~! I know you wouldn't survive that kind of punishment! I'd like to see a little sinner like you suffer for longer~ So I ever so kindly let you through!"

Riley hesitated before walking out of that room, into another hallway, with a door that had a warning sign on it. "Doesn't seem like the best of ideas...but it's the only chance I've got"

Opening the door open, Riley imagined sitting in the electric chair and being shocked over and over until she eventually died and shuddered, once inside the door locked behind her. "Great..., as if it wasn't bad enough to be locked in here, it really stinks!" scrunching her nose at the smell, she noticed a corpse in the middle of the room.

Sighing, Riley walked over to one of the blood stained windows, pulled her knife out of her pocket and bashed the handle against the window as hard as possible, but nothing happened, not even the slightest crack.

The TV's in the room turned on, showing Cathy.

"Hiiii~! Did you miss me dear?"

"Like the plague." Riley said flatly.

"Let me give you an explanation of the room you're in right now! And you'd better listen closely if you want to live. I got a little carried away with the design~ It's completely sealed, making it impossible for air to get in or out! The window glass has been reinforced, so you won't be able to break it! And the best part...I'm about to fill it with something veryyy special! If you stay in there long enough, you'll be on your way to a nice, peaceful death. It's poison gas~! Obviously I wouldn't confine you to a place like that with no way out...in fact, here's a gift~ I've mercifully provided a gas mask! As long as you do your best, of the utmost faith you'll escape! Oh, and of course I think it'd be a bit boring if I let you sit in there forever, so I've added a time limit! I knowwww~ I'm sooo thorough! After your time runs out you'll be given another gift! A gas so potent the mask won't do any good against it! That's all for now, have yourself a good time in there, and try not to die, okay~?"

Sighing, Riley glanced at the gas mask in the middle of the floor as the poison gas began to flow into the room, noticing the cracks in the eye lenses "Yeah...that won't be all that helpful..." and then walked over to the corpse on the floor and crouched down.

"There's writing..."

Riley gently shoved the body out of the way and read it

"The one with the ugly foot, the foolish killer who stomped out life with the right foot..."

Pausing as the writing got more difficult to read Riley huffed and then continued.

"It says something like...if you feel guilty get rid of your right foot, if the crime and punishment are equivalent, light will shine in hell."

Riley hesitated before grabbing the right foot, and walked over to the scale and placed it on one side, then grabbed the bag that was placed on the table and set it on the other side of the scale and watched as it balanced out.

The gas started to get to her, and Riley started coughing as it got harder to breath, quickly running over to the gas mask and putting it on, despite the cracks in it, it'd be better than nothing. The gas mask helped a little, but made it harder to see.

"This is stupid! Why the hell bother providing something if it's only going to make it harder you sadistic bitch?!"

Letting out a sigh of frustration Riley looked around hoping something had happened, and noticed the safe in the corner of the room had opened slightly, inside was a wire and a key card. Grabbing both, Riley walked over to where the key card would be inserted and put it in.

The gas stopped slowly and Riley smiled to herself, glad she had figured it out.

"My, my~ What a smart sinner you are~!"

"You're the one that made me come in here in the first place..."

"And you're the sinner who got yourself into this place~! You coulddd chose to rot in a cell~ It's still an option on the table dear~"

"Like I'd decide to do that! I'd rather die immedatley."

"My, my~ someone's eager to be punished for her sins~!" "Not like I can leave this floor till I'm "punished" anyway..."

Cathy laughed as Riley walked out of the room, down a hallway very slowly, the gas still taking its toll. Eventually she sat down against a wall where the cameras wouldn't see her and fell asleep.

Waking up with a jolt, Riley shook her head trying to get rid of the thoughts from the nightmare. Getting up and slowly down the hall, into a room with a smashed doll house, half expecting to be required to do something, she sighed and glanced at the TV in the room.

"I'll let you pass through this one~ I didn't know enough about you to mentally torture you so you're lucky!"

"and you said I took a long time to get here, in that time you could've figured out more about me, but why would you want to? I'm just an ugly, pathetic, useless, boring bitch."

"Oh~? I don't think you're boring! You're actually quite an interesting sinner~ You're smart and I like that about you~ You remind me of that gorgeous sinner; Eddie~!" Not knowing if that was a good thing or not, Riley slowly walked down another hallway, separated in two by a wall in the center with barbed wire on the top, stopping at the table. The door up on the ledge opened and Cathy stepped out.

"How nice to finally meet you in person~!" Riley just gave her a cold glare "You gonna let me through or not?" "My! You shouldn't be so rude to a pretty lady like me~! In order to continue, you must inject yourself with those syringes, one contains vitamins and the other contains dangerous drugs!" "Which is which?" "AHAHAHAHA~!! It doesn't matter! I won't tell, besides I forgot~! Once you inject every last drop I'll gladly open up the door for you! You might wanna hurry though...or else someone you love will die~" and with that, Cathy went back the way she came.

"Great...this could kill me, I'll probably die anyway..."

Grabbing both syringes, Riley looked at them; one of them contained green liquid and the other was yellow, but the colors didn't give any hints as to which was the vitamins and which was the drugs, it wouldn't matter since she'd have to inject both. Quickly Riley injected both into her arm, tossed the empty syringes to the side and the door opened.

"Stupid bitch...my heads pounding..." Riley stopped in the dim hallway and leaned against the wall with her hands against her head.

The so called "dangerous drugs" just brought out the voices in her head, telling her to kill someone, or something and they only got more persistent by the second.

"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Riley's voice had gone shrill, laced with insanity as it echoed through the dark empty hallway.

Continuing to walk down the hall as the voices got more and more persistent until she walked into a large room and the door slammed shut behind her, locking.

"Glad you could finally join your sister and I~! It took long enough..." There was a girl standing in the middle of the room with long dark brown hair and blueish green eyes.

"What does she have to do with this? I want nothing to do with her! She left me and Jack, and Jack died!!"

"Oh~, you don't want revenge~? All those voices in your head telling you to kill her but you just can't? Maybe you aren't as great of a sinner as I thought..." The brunette glanced at Riley "R-Riley don't...please..."

"Oh but why not!? Huh? WHY NOT LEXI!? Why shouldn't I? You left us alone, and Jack died. Why shouldn't I rip your throat out right here right fucking now?! So you can go be pathetic somewhere else? Nahhh~ I'll kill you myself, slowly and painfully and see how you like it!"

Fear shined in Lexi's eyes as Riley stepped closer

"Scared~? You should be!" Cathy laughed as she watched the two

"AHAHAH~!! I've provided you with a gun as well~ Kill her as you'd like!" Riley grabbed the gun and pointed it right at Lexi's head.

"You could've avoided this y'know? But you didn't...and now you'll pay for it!"

"RILEY PLEASE!" "You're gonna beg to live? Pathetic. If you're gonna beg, do it right, you don't look nearly as pathetic as he did." "W-wh-who d-did?" "You don't know? AHAH! Go on~ Tell her~!" Riley shot a cold glance at Cathy, enough to make her shut up, temporarily. "You're clueless...Jack? Yeahhh...I did it. I killed him." "YOU WHAT?"

Lexi attemped to grab the gun out of Riley's hand only to have it pressed to her chest.

"He begged me to, so I did." "You whore-" "Do you WANT me to pull this trigger? The trigger that'll end your pathetic existence?"

"Do as you please...it doesn't matter anymore..." Riley pulled the trigger but nothing happened.

Cathy giggled and then bursted out laughing.

Silently Riley pulled the knife out "You'll die one way or another~" and pointed it at Lexi's throat.

"Please...-"

Without saying anything, Riley took the knife and slid it across her arm, blood gushed down her arm but she seemed unbothered.

Silently Cathy got up, and walked down the stairs to where the siblings are "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE KILLING HER!" "Did I say I wasn't going to..?" The drugs would've worn off at this point, but because Riley was younger and smaller they hadn't yet, without hesitating she flicked the knife back towards Lexi

"RILEY PLEASE! Can't you hold back?" "Hold back!? IF I COULD I WOULDN'T BE HERE!" "Sinners can't control their bloodlust~ Just accept it!" Lexi stepped back only to stumble and fall

"Get up. Now." Lexi didn't get up, so Riley grabbed her arm and jerked her up making her stand up and quickly plunged the knife into her stomach over and over, blood gushed out and covered the floor around them, Cathy laughed as Riley plunged the knife deeper every time until she stopped and Lexi's body fell to the floor, limp and dead.

"My, my~ You ARE a great sinner~ Now you'll get your punishment~!"

Riley just glared at Cathy silently, her eyes seeming cold and dead.

Without warning the 4 guns in the corners of the room began firing, not knowing what to do, Riley ducked hoping they'd stop before they got to her, unfortunately they didn't and one shot her in the leg.

"You'd look great filled with bullet holes~" Collapsing on her knees, Riley glared up at Cathy "So would you" and pointed the gun at her, forgetting nothing had happened when she pulled the trigger last time.

"Go on~ Shoot me~!" "Why are you so eager to be shot?"

"Just do it! Unless....you aren't as great of a sinner as I thought~" Riley pointed it at Cathy's head and pulled the trigger but nothing happened "AHAHAHA~!! Foolish of you to think I'd actually give you a loaded gun!"

Despite the blood gushing from the bullet wound, Riley shakily got up "So...are you gonna kill me or..." "No. A sinner like you is much too interesting to be killed~!"

Riley sat on the floor, watching blood pool around her, and her sisters dead body in silence.

#Tw: Violence #Tw: murder #Tw: Language #Oc: Riley Morgan #Oc sibling: Lexi Morgan #Oc sibling: Jack Morgan #Catherine Ward #Angels of Death oc #satsuten #satsuriku no tenshi #tw: self harm

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kate837 · 4 years

Text

I Love You

I completely recommend watching 2x14 Borrow or Rob, and the beginning of 2x15 Draw O Cesar Erase a Coward, before reading this fic. While this fic is AU it does have many similarities and minor details that it couldn't hurt to watch the episode first! Anyways enjoy!!!!!

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Kurt had a day.

Not bad. Definitely not good. Just... A day.

A day he'll never forget actually. It was so full of ups and downs. From Shepherd plunging a knife into Sean's heart, to joking with Jane about whether or not he could handle Rich Dotcom. From shooting Rich to... Jane's date. That hurt. When Shepherd shoved a knife through Sean Clarke, Kurt's adrenaline spiked, he felt so alert for so long, he thought he would throw up. He got the same feeling from Jane. Except it was everytime she moved, spoke, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, etc. Her admission of her date was too much. Kurt went straight home, got a damp rag, and laid down. Staring at the ceiling.

Though he did have to say, it still wasn't the worst part of his day. He felt bad. Witnessing first degree murder should automatically be the worst part of your day.

But when it comes to Rich.....

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Kurt and Rich were sneaking through the secret underground tunnels of Jamison College, in order to get into the Deadalus gathering.

"This is interesting." Rich says, while coming to a stop.

"What?" Kurt replies shortly.

"Well this is the door, but the handle's different."

"Different how, Rich?!"

"Wel- well it's not there anymore?? Probably on account of all the hookers I snuck in it." Rich gestures to the handless door.

"Ok, so what's behind this door?" Kurt inquires, looking around.

"The closet. What are yo-"

"Stand back."

Kurt, with a running start, kicks the door in to find himself deep within the walls of a massive walk in closet.

"Aaaaa just how I remember it."

"SHHHHH!" Kurt puts his ear to the door, the one still on it's hinges, just in time to hear the gasps of attending guests and a soft female voice hushedly asking someone to notify security of the discrepancy.

"Shit."

"What?" Rich asks, genuinely confused.

"The guests are getting security to come check out 'the noise in the closet'."

"Oh. What are we gonna do Stubbles? I'm a sly guy but how do we explain that?"

"Oh God, why do you hate me?" Kurt says looking towards the ceiling.

"What? You're acting strange Stubbles, like weirder than normal. I mea-"

Rich was cut off by Kurt's large hands cupping both sides of his face, to kiss him. Without separating he backs Rich against a near wall, mimicking the earlier noise. Rich squirmed at first but expectedly went along with the unexpected.

"Come on Stubbles, you can at least use some tongue!"

"Shut. Up." Kurt snarls. "Actually. . . I need you to make some. . . noises." Kurt says while blushing furiously.

"Security is on their way." Tasha notifies through comms.

"Yeah you guys better get out of there." Reade warns.

"And say what? Oh hey haven't seen you in a while, please excuse my entering through a closet?!" Rich whisper-yells.

"Everyone shut up!" Kurt also whisper yells. "Now Rich I need you to moan a lot. Loudly."

"You could always make me Stubbles!"

"Rich!"

"Kurt what the hell are you doing?" Reade asks, growing increasingly concerned about his teammate's mental health.

"Rich just do it!"

"OOOOH! STUBBLES, YES!" Rich practically screams.

The party guests turn a side eye. But the security, like Kurt hoped, were turning away, figuring that the noise came from two enthusiastic partygoers. Or if the other patrons were anything like Rich maybe more.

Of course Weller didn't know that yet.

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"Ohhh. Now i get it, I can't believe this is working." Reade says, half laughing at the ridiculous noises coming out of his earpiece. "Hey Kurt it's work-"

"Will you shut up?!" Tasha butts in.

"What are you tal-"

"He doesn't know that they stood down yet." Tasha says wriggling her eyebrows. "Hey Kurt most of the security guards stood down but you still have a couple incoming. . . You might need to amp it up a bit!"

Her and Reade try and fail to stifle their laughter after Rich let's out a completely overexaggerated 'UNGH'!

"Come on Stubbles, they're not buying it, you're gonna have to join me if you wanna get out of here."

"Why me? God why me?" Kurt says again looking up.

Kurt let's out a loud and breathless 'Oh God' that completely undoes all of Tasha and Reade's composure. They are hysterical by now. They completely lost it when Rich and Kurt started harmonizing!

"Stop! Stop!" Tasha said. "I can't take it anymore." She pulls herself up from the floor of the van, where she fell from laughing so hard.

"Yeah guys, the security's gone. They're long gone." Reade adds, clutching his stomach.

"Yeah Rich so goo- wait what?!"

"Yeah you're clear." Tasha clarifies.

"You could have compromised this entire op!" Kurt says furiously.

"We all know that's not why you're mad Stubbles. And as the bible states-"

"I swear to God Rich, if you say another word I will shoot you."

"Another word."

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Kurt flushed red just thinking about it. What was he going to put in his field report?!

He turned to lay on his side to take in the fresh scenery of the wall instead of the ceiling. After laying there for about two minutes, he finally got up to fix himself dinner.

While gathering ingredients, Kurt's mind inevitably wandered back to Jane's date. Everything about it tore at him. What she'd be wearing, what she'd eat, would she cover her tattoos, would she wear makeup. . . . . . . .

His thoughts were interrupted by a phone call.

It was Jane.

A million questions ran through his head. Why is she calling him? Shouldn't she still be out on her date?

He lunged for the phone but then. . . He stilled. Didn't move a muscle. He picked up his phone, turned it over, and resumed gathering ingredients.

Once the phone eventually stopped buzzing, Kurt's inner turmoil came to play.

'Why didn't you answer?! Jane could be in trouble!'

'Be rational Kurt. She's on a date, probably just calling to let you know that she'll complete her paperwork tomorrow, since she's busy.'

'Look, everyone knows you're in love with her, but you can't act like some overprotective boyfriend whenever she's around.'

Kurt shakes his head. He wasn't in love with Jane Doe. Was he?

'Of course you are! That's why you lunged for the phone as soon as you saw her name, but put it down when you realized she was still on a date.'

'No. If I was in love with her, I would have immediately answered.'

'No. You love her so much that you realized that if she's having fun, even with another man, you wouldn't want to ruin that. That's love.'

'What am I supposed to do? I can't love her from afar.'

'This may be selfish but what if I proposed the idea that Oliver is Sandstorm?'

'It could work. But why not just tell her how you feel?'

"Because I'm just not ready yet." Kurt voiced sadly.

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First thing the next morning, Kurt was walking up and down the hallways, over and over again. In order to 'accidentally' bump into Jane on her way to Patterson's lab.

After three consecutive minutes, Jane appeared. She was wearing this loose, pastel green shirt, that roughly covered all of her upper body tattoos as well as bringing out her eyes. She paired it with tight blue jeans, which she almost never wears, and a few silver rings on her right hand.

"Wow." Kurt whispered. What looked like any other outfit, looked stunning on her. He almost forgot to 'bump' into her.

"Jane!"

"Oh, hey!"

"You get Patterson's text yet?"

"Yeah, heading there now."

They walk in silence for a few heartbeats, until they turn into a secluded hallway.

"Jane wait." Kurt says while gently grabbing Jane's arm.

"Kurt, what is it?"

"After you told me last night, about your date. I started thinking. . ."

Jane subconsciously starts to hold her breath. Her expression wreaks of hope.

"Hey! Glad I found you two, Patterson's got something." Tasha pops in.

"Yeah." Kurt says releasing Jane.

Saved by the bell.

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The debrief, while no longer than usual, felt unbearably long. The charged energy from Kurt and Jane's previous conversation still radiated off of them.

While any hope of continuing it was completely shut down by the tattoo clues pointing to three different entities, causing the team to split up completely. Kurt with Roman, Jane with Tasha, and Patterson with Reade.

This was going to be a longgg day.

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The team finally reconvened at about 5pm. They had just finished the field reports. All three of them. It was exhausting.

Fortunately for Kurt his adrenaline spiked right back up about an hour later when Tasha, so graciously, reminded the group that they never filled out the field report for their Deadalus mission. Which caused Reade and Patterson to burst out into a fit of giggles.

"What's so funny?" Jane asked, looking to Kurt, smiling.

Kurt goes wide-eyed. She doesn't know.

This was going to be a long night.

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The team had just finished catching Jane up while writing the 'going to be extremely redacted' field report.

"Wait I'm still confused. If you just wanted Rich to moan, why did you kiss him?"

All eyes look to Kurt.

"We- well I was under the impression that security was going to be charging through the door at any second." He says glaring at the pair of agents who were strategically avoiding his gaze. "And when they did, if they saw us. . . you know-"

"We don't know, Weller!" Patterson howled.

Kurt glared.

"Yeah I kind of want to know how far you were willing to take it Assistant Director!" Reade joined in.

"We're done here." Kurt said as he walked out.

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Jane had just walked out of the locker room to be met head on with Kurt.

"Kurt, hey!" Jane says, surprised.

"Hey."

"Umm. . . I actually wanted to talk to you."

Kurt raises his eyebrows in obvious confusion, cueing Jane to continue.

"When we were. . . Uh you know- outside of P- Patterson's lab. You didn't finish." Jane stumbles through her words as a new wave of nervousness hits her with full force.

"Oh that." Kurt says, grabbing Jane's arm, mirroring his earlier gesture and leading her away from the locker room door.

"Jane, I was up all night and I couldn't stop thinking about it. We need to be careful. Sandstorm feels like it's everywhere."

"You think Oliver is Sandstorm?"

"Yes. . . No." Kurt shakes his head.

"Kurt you're not making any sense." Jane says studying him.

"I know. I know. I just- no I don't think he's Sandstorm."

"Then why did you-"

"I've been trying to come up with reasons of why you shouldn't date him for the better part of 13 hours."

"Kurt wha-"

"And I got nothing, because the only reason is that I love you."

Jane goes wide-eyed. It was as if all the air was sucked out of her.

"I love you Jane."

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#part two?#ILY #ily #I Love You #im back #blindspot au fics

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ultimate-cinephile · 3 years

Text

RANDOM THINGS I THINK OFJJK CHARACTERS

I will not apologize for this. I'm very tired and I just want to roast Naoya.

Naoya Zenin

oKAY- so admittedly, i probably shouldn't even know of this man's existence, but i hate him

and my only thought is

If you simp for him, are you okay?

anD I'M A DAZAI AND AND DABI SIMP

exhibit a

he looks like this

he looks like a toad

actually that's an insult to the amphibians

secondly, he'd probably shove you in the mud (especially if you identify as female) just so he didn't get his shoes dirty

i would 100% play him the intro to new york torch by the amazing devil

basically, my only thought is that he should go die in a hole.

NANAMI KENTO

i started this show for gojo and this guy-

how dare he be on screen for 0.2 seconds and steal my heart like this??

i just know he'd be the best husband ever

calm and attentive

he'd pick up on small stuff

if you argue, which would probably be rare since he's definitely more so in favor of trying to talk it out, he wouldn't lash out. he'd wait for you to calm down and then he'd still calmly talk it over.

10/10 would marry this man

YUJI ITADORI

since i'm marrying nanami, we're adopting him

this is my c h i l d

my brother calls him emo natsu (he hasn't watched it yet) and i'm beginning to kinda doubt how much i disagree with him-

i don't care if he's emo or not

we'll jam out to mcr together

TODO AOI

my initial thought was "iF HE DON'T QUIT BULLYING FUSHIGURO-"

my second thought was "okay my brother would like him-"

and i was right. this is my brother's favorite character. he knows nothing about jjk except what a couple of character look like and about todo's type of woman, and he likes him based purely on that.

JUNPEI YOSHINO

the first episode he was around my thought was "okay who is this kid and why do i care that he's being bullied?"

don't get me wrong. i don't condone nor care for bullying for a boatload of reasons. however, i was watching it with a couple kids (their parents were okay with it) and we were just more invested in what was going on with itadori at the time.

by the time that they un-alived him, i was in tears. i loved him.

his death is the reason that i'm kinda scared to keep watching jjk. i'm on episode 14 or 15 and haven't touched it in like a month-

best boy and no i don't take constructive criticism.

NOBARA KUGISAKI

she's a lesbian

sorry buddy. i don't make the rules.

i really love how easily she matches energies with those around her.

it's really cute to me.

RYOMEN SUKUNA

iT'S BECOME INCREASINGLY OBVIOUS

I CAN DENY IT NO LONGER

i'm a sukuna simp

which is weird because i went for so long like "i'm pretty take it or leave it with you"

but then a lot of art accounts that i follow were like "yeah we're gonna mix sukuna with x character" and i quickly realized that if you mix sukuna with p much anything, it's gonna be hot.

i saw a naruto fanart but make it ✨s u k u n a✨

i'm not a naruto simp. i don't even watch naruto.

but it looked g o o d??

after that i was like "okay maybe i like sukuna more than i care to admit-"

MAHITO

"yeah go to a cliff and jump off and if you survive then jump again"

d i e

b u r n

i hate this man wayyyy more than i do naoya-

this is another one i'd play the intro for new york torch for

if you read this thank you. this is really the rant of a tired woman. no one asked to hear this. i'm not even entirely sure why i took the time to write this nor put the effort into doing it. so if you read this, i sincerely thank you. if you're new, i highly recommend looking at some of my other stuff bc this is not the peak of it.

catch ya later

- cammie <3

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #cammie's 3am thoughts #it's technically only 11:30 where i'm at but still #seriously #if you take nothing away from this post #check out the amazing devil #jaskier from the witcher is in it #and their music is really good #if you're here for song recommendations #fair #and farewell wanderlust #oh!#and that unwanted animal #okay i'm going to shut up and go to sleep now #good night :)

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hqprotectionsquad · 4 years

Text

Dating! For Science (Kuroo x Reader)

this is for my bestie, ate, and just wonderful person to know, io!!! i’ve gotten to know you over the past few months from the network and let me tell you, it’s probably the best decision i’ve made concerning this fandom. i know this isn’t easy, but you take all of your responsibilities with such grace and i’m always inspired by you. i don’t know anyone else who would have their nickname on the server be writeiolite (lara’s #1 fan) and that just makes me so happy. you make me so happy!! because of you, i have true friends from around the world and of different ages and i actually write!! i’m so honored to know you and i just love you so much. thank you for being you, io! i hope you have a wonderful birthday <3

summary: Kuroo’s tweaking his AI program for his senior thesis and he just needs one thing left to make this true to life: a fake girlfriend. After deliberation, you step in so that he can avoid hurting his reputation and another girl’s heart. What could really go wrong? pairing: Kuroo x F!Reader tw: cursing word count: 3010 a/n: lightly inspired by Black Mirror and the episode “White Christmas” even though that episode doesn’t really have anything to do with fake dating? i was more inspired by their ability to go into someone’s mind, thus leading to the AI aspect of this fic!

There's something about Kuroo that has always drawn you to him. Maybe it was his eyes, his height or hair. You still don’t quite know. But ever since your second year of college, your eyes never left that rooster-headed man. Lucky you; he chose the seat next to yours over the other ones in the lecture hall because he claims you had the best spot, so "sitting next to you is the next best choice."

It's been two years since then, and he won't leave you alone. He insists this is for the best because his best friend doesn't attend college near you two and you're the closest friend he has. Over everyone, Kuroo Tetsurou chose you and will continue to choose you, and you don't really understand why.

The moonbeams shoot into the room through the window. Lately, you've been needing to stay over at his apartment, just to make sure he's still alive. He's been begging the world for his artificial intelligence program to work. He wants something fresh and unpredictable to present for his senior thesis, something that his classmates would envy at and the committee would be in awe of. He'll defend his program swinging, you know that for sure. After moments of just sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him hunch over his desktop computer, the chair swishes and he turns to look at you. "(Y/N), can you proofread this for me?"

“What is it?” You stand to get a closer look and you guide the chair back to the correct rotation. Your arm hangs around his shoulders as you slot your eyes to see better. “Is this a—”

“It’s a girlfriend application.”

“Tetsu, what the hell?”

“What?” His palms face towards the ceiling as his forehead creases. “I need to make my AI as accurate as possible. How else am I going to make it realistic?”

Now, you tilt your head. “You...you’ve never had a girlfriend?”

Kuroo’s lips drag into a frown and he shuts his eyes for a few seconds as if he’s shutting off the rest of the world. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

“But Tetsu, you’re so charismatic. I thought you must have had a few girlfriends by now.” You think back to all of the times you’ve attended parties with him. He’s essentially been the life of the party and he’s always had people surrounding him while playing beer pong or just funneling drinks down his throat. How could have not had a girlfriend at this age considering his background?

“You don’t have to shove it in my face.” Kuroo drags his fingers down his eyes, nose, and lips.

“You’ve had hookups, I’m sure?”

“Yeah, but a girl sneaking out of my bed at seven in the morning isn’t the same as having a full-on relationship.” Under his breath, he says, “I wish it was because then I’d be having hookups left and right.”

“You’re so weird.” You laugh at his comment and soon enough, he’s laughing along with you. You settle back on the edge of the bed and he follows suit.

His body weight sinks into the mattress, bringing part of you down with him. "It's one of the last parts of the project, and you know I've been working on it for a while now. I just want my program to be as real as it can get. I know it'll be flawed, but I've got to try to make it perfect as I can, you know?"

"Yeah." You mutter, trying to drown out your blaring thoughts. What you're thinking right now...it's absurd and you shouldn't have it on your mind. But if it all worked out, then maybe you'd— "Kuroo, what if I was your fake girlfriend? For maybe a month, give or take. This way, you don't scare people off and you're with someone you already know."

You can tell he's considering it, based on the way his eyes dart in many ways. "But shouldn't the point of dating be that you get to know someone new?" Kuroo's eyebrow slides up and it's hard to believe that he's never had a proper relationship before. "I know you fairly enough."

"You know me as a friend. It's different when you approach someone as a girlfriend and it's different when it's a hookup," you justify. "I don't even know your favorite color, and I'm pretty sure you don't know mine."

"Isn't it purple?"

You'll be honest, you've never really considered yourself as a "favorites" person who naturally sought out what they loved the most. You found better use of your time instead of boring through magazine quizzes to show what you liked the best. But after thinking, you shake your head. "It's red."

“Why red?” He asks and it brings you back to all of the photos you’ve seen of Kuroo in his old high school volleyball uniform. He’s shown you many and when you first saw them, you were surprised he didn’t comment on how you were biting your lip or looking back and forth to see how he’s changed. And he really hasn’t done much of changing except for growing an inch taller and his hair being somewhat neater, but he looked so confident when he was on the court. The red fabric of his uniform hugged his figure in all the right places. The photo where he’s speaking to all of his teammates—would it be wrong to say you swooned?

It’s his color. Even now, if he searches through his drawers and checks his hangers, his current wardrobe will have splatters of red all over. Maybe red wasn’t really anything to you until you met him. Because it is his, it is now yours.

“Because it’s a passionate color. It’s love, anger, pain; it’s everything.” For a moment, you forget why you’re here and you have this stupid grin on your face, and then you remember and reality pulls you back. “I’ll be your fake girlfriend.”

“Are you sure? Because I don’t want this to be the reason why we end up falling apart, because you’re a really great friend to me and I love our friendship—” He’s speaking at a pace of a million miles a minute and you’re lucky you can even hear the words he’s saying.

You nod your head once. “I’m sure.”

While you don’t start off anything that day because Kuroo said he wanted to plan everything out before you begin, you also take that day to just be friends and bask in the current relationship you have with one another. Everything’s going to change from this point on, and you know it and he knows it.

You’ve got to admit it; the next time you meet, you’re scared of what’s to come. How do you greet him? How will he take all of his emotions and collate it into data for his prototype? Don’t you feel like you’re being used?

But you volunteered for this. You told him he should date — fake date — someone he already knows. You just wanted that person to be you. Seeing him with someone else would just be twisting a knife into your side. At least you get to control your feelings in this situation.

“(Y/N), it’s good to see you,” Kuroo greets you as you find him in the restaurant you were meeting in. He stands to hug you and you’ll admit, he’s actually trying to form a meaningful relationship, of some sort at least.

“Thanks for buying me dinner, boyfriend,” you wink as you say the last word. He even pushes in your chair when you go to sit. Kuroo settles across from you. He mentions something about already ordering for the two of you but you can’t really focus because he’s wearing an outfit you’ve never seen before. Yeah, those are jeans and a t-shirt, but his winter coat hugs his sides in a way you’d never expect. Your hope is that he actually dressed up for you.

After a waiter comes by your table to place your plates of noodles, Kuroo unloads his information for the AI prototype and he’s not afraid to release it all at once.

“So I have these guidelines I typed up for you,” he hands over this folder. It’s incredibly neat, as you expected of him, but there has to be over ten pages in here. Guessing by the first page, none of the papers will have blank space. “It’s just outlining my hypothesis, my expectations, all of that. You might not have to read it all because it's mostly for my records, but I highlighted the things that I think would be most helpful."

You wipe your hands with the napkin from the table and sift through the materials. "Tetsu, you highlighted mostly the whole thing," you mutter. Taking a glance at the expectations page, you raise your eyebrows. "You said that you expect to not fall in love with me?"

Kuroo bites his lip. "It's more like if I write that down, then it has a better chance of coming true. You'll only need to date me for as long as I need to collect experiences and data. I don't want to let you go as a friend."

You don't bother to respond because you've moved on to the rest of the page. "Wait, you want us to consummate our relationship?" You say this almost too loudly, and Kuroo taps your hand repeatedly to tell you to lower your voice. You press your palm to your lips and after seeing nobody is looking in your direction, your hand returns to the table. “Are you being serious here, Kuroo?”

Kuroo sighs. "I was just thinking that sex would also help in gaining experience."

“You’ve had hookups before.”

“Well, isn’t sex different if you have it with someone you’re dating?” Kuroo can’t quite meet your eyes when he says this.

“So what, we’re essentially friends with benefits now?” You bite back your silly smile and wait for his reaction.

His mouth opens and closes. Finally, he says, “I don’t want to say yes, but basically.” After a beat, his words rush out, “You’re still my girlfriend. That’s established. Girlfriend with many rules and such. Fake girlfriend.” He emphasizes on the word fake, and suddenly, it becomes your least-favorite f-word.

Still, you smile. “Fake girlfriend it is.”

You’re thrown into everything pretty quickly. He introduces hand-holding, and soon after, kisses. He’ll come pick you up after your classes for dates. “For science,” he says all the time. You really can’t believe he’s not your real boyfriend because he’s such a great kisser and after this all ends, his lips will no longer belong to you. Your heart says you should, but knowing he literally writes down his observations after you do anything romance related, your brain says absolutely not.

Now, it’s been about three months since you’ve began “dating” Kuroo Tetsurou. He blames the duration of time on the project, and now, this contracted relationship has an "indefinite" completion, says Kuroo. Through all of the dates, cuddling, and etcetra, he’s probably the best boyfriend you’ve ever had. That’s not saying too much, but whoever you date next will not be able to match up with Kuroo. There are definitely times when you forget that this is all for his artificial intelligence thesis because it all feels so natural, especially when you hold his hand while walking down the street, and when you catch him smiling down at you just for a few seconds. He’s not perfect and you hate it when he talks with food in his mouth, but everything else is pretty good.

Or at least you thought.

“(Y/N),” he calls out when you’re at his apartment on a Saturday afternoon. Nowadays, you’re at Kuroo’s place. You have study sessions with him, eat dinners, and close off nights with his arm around you when you watch a movie. He’s seen almost all the parts of you and you don’t even mind. He molds a spot for himself in your heart and he doesn’t even know it. All he knows is that you’re the fake girlfriend for his project, and maybe a trial girlfriend before he truly finds the one he loves.

You’re digging into the refrigerator, scanning the shelves and drawers to find a perfect movie snack. Would chocolates and gummy worms go well together? Or maybe fruit for a change...

“(Y/N), come here,” Kuroo reiterates as he’s relaxing on the couch in the other part of the apartment. After you find your snacks — you give into the dark chocolate to pair with the salty popcorn — you make it over to the living room, settling the candy on the coffee table.

“What’s up, babe?” Pet names flow out easy like the water in a river and you don’t know when it started, but it turns out Kuroo has taken a particular liking to this one. You settle in close, tucking yourself into his side with his arm still resting on the top of the couch.

“I was thinking about the AI thing,” Right, because this isn’t supposed to be real. “I think sex is the next thing we have to accomplish and I think that’s essentially all I need for the project.”

You have to blink a few times, just to make sure those were the words that came out of his mouth. You shift your body to face him and you’re no longer pushed to his side. “That’s it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Kuroo shrugs with his lips pressed together. There’s a chill that rushes through your body. You should have stuck to the contract because you know Kuroo did. You know that he did not stray from it for a second, despite all of the hugs and kisses you’ve shared. You knew this was coming, yet you still don't want to see it in front of your face. The two of you live in this cloud of smoke that this project has forged, and Kuroo will be fanning it away soon.

You don't know what to say anymore. On one hand, it would be simple to ignore your sense of direction and throw away every platonic feeling you have for Kuroo, just to try and work out a relationship without strings. On the other hand, your actions directly affect Kuroo and you'd feel horrible if you messed up his project, whether if it was because you abandoned ship or acted on your feelings and your relationship turned sour.

Any way you think of it, nothing comes out right.

“(Y/N), come on, talk to me.” He pats the hand that rests in your lap, but still, your head won’t get out of this fog. Is this what it’s been this whole time? You should have paid more attention to yourself, to see the exact point where you let yourself go and live in this cloud of smoke.

“I don’t know what to say.” You don’t look at him. “Is it wrong to say that I don’t want to do it? That I feel used?”

“You said this was like friends with benefits when we first began. You saw and read everything in the folder I gave you. This isn’t supposed to be real, we were supposed to be together for this project.” Kuroo sighs. “For God’s sake, (Y/N). You offered. You literally offered, and you did not have to do this.”

If you felt like crying before, well, now you’re really crying. You’re trying to have some sort of semblance of a composure, but with you wiping your eyes with the back of your hands every few seconds, it’s hard to know what exactly you’re feeling.

“(Y/N)...” Kuroo longs to reach for you, but you shift farther from him on the couch, making creases in it. You’re sure he feels like the bad guy now, but this is nothing but your fault, and you’d like to own up to it, if only you’d stop fucking crying. “(Y/N), come here.”

When you finally look up at Kuroo through your oceans of tears, you can’t tell if it’s your currently impaired eyesight or if he’s also shedding a few tears.

“Look, I like you a lot, and I like you romantically. I won’t lie about that. I have for a long time, and when you said you’d be my fake girlfriend, I was scared. I’m not the best at knowing lots of things that aren’t academic, but I know for sure that these things never turn out right.” Kuroo takes your hands when you inch toward him. He rubs the back of your hands, the pads of his fingers sopping up your fallen teardrops. The man here is unfolding the hardened layers he used to have, revealing his softer insides. “Fuck, maybe I thought,” Kuroo stops to stand and pace back and forth in the room you’re in. “Maybe I thought if I threw myself into my work and take everything logistically and treat it like a project with no feelings, then it could all be justified in my head.”

You don’t know what else to think, so you just do.

You mute his next words with your lips and when you release, you’re sure you look like a mess with the tear stains along your face, but he tells you you’re beautiful anyway.

“Be my girlfriend. My real girlfriend. Nothing for the project, though I’m pretty sure I had enough data from the point of two weeks in.” There’s Kuroo’s cheeky self, the one you’ve known and been longing for.

“You’re so stupid.” You roll your eyes. “God, my boyfriend is so stupid.”

He lifts you into a bridal carry, the crook of his elbow caressing the back of your knees. “Do I still look stupid?” But he doesn’t let you answer his question. His lips are on yours. Your hands press against his cheeks and his hair brushes against your face.

“I like you a lot, stupid.”

“And I like you a lot too.”

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