#I thought of story boarding it but then I remembered how COMPLICATED the designs were

[hearts4pearlescentmoon]

I’m getting back into my fnaf phase because I’ve been seeing it a lot on my dash and I have something to say to you all

TURN THE LIGHTS OF IS A GREAT FNAF 4 SONG, I HAVE BEEN SAYING THAT EVER SINCE I FIRST HEARD THE SONG AND BEFORE I EVEN KNEW WHAT TALLY HALL WAS. IVE BEEN IMAGINING THE ANIMATION IN MY HEAD FOR YEARS

I’m not crazy, you are

[theladyofdeath]

Tempting the Fates {Chapter 4}

Summary: It’s the final semester of Aelin Galathynius’ collegiate career and she is so beyond ready to be done. Her schedule is packed full of nursing classes and labs designed to test her knowledge and hone her skills for the real world and her “big girl” job. However, she needs one last elective to graduate, so she decides to study a subject she’s always been fascinated by: Mythology. Who would have thought that a class about gods and goddesses living complicated lives would end up complicating her own in such an unexpected way?

Word Count: 2550

Chapters will be posted every Wednesday.

Tempting the Fates Masterlist

Shelby’s Masterlist

Tara’s Masterlist

Apollo

– God of light, prophecy, inspiration, poetry, the sun, music and arts, medicine and healing

Aelin tried to convince herself that she got up and got ready two hours early for class because of her busy schedule. She kept telling herself it was for the meeting she had with her advisor, about a possible internship at the end of the semester.

She knew that both reasons, while extremely important, were full of shit. She knew she’d showered, blow dried and curled her hair for Rowan. It wasn’t that she was trying to impress him. She’d already done that and the chance she had to be with him had come and gone.

No, now it was about proving to him that even though this class may be a gen ed, she was taking it seriously.

Dropping the class had crossed her mind. She really didn’t need to take it, she could still find a different one to pick up. But she didn’t want to think about the sort of impression it would leave about her.

If there was anything to know about Aelin Galathynius, it was that she was not a quitter, nor did she run from her problems.

Or heartaches.

With one last look in the mirror, and a whistle from Lysandra, Aelin was out the door and hurrying across campus. She grabbed a coffee on the way, but avoided her usual place, knowing full well that Rowan enjoyed the same famous cafe that she did.

He wasn’t there yet when she got to the hall, but she took the same seat she had the class before.

She wondered if Rowan would be looking for her this time.

She quickly shook the thought away.

With her hot coffee on the corner of her fold up desk, she was pulling out her notebook and a pen, waiting anxiously for class to begin.

For him to walk through the door.

Apparently he liked to be right on the dot, though, because students continued to wander in, but he did not.

She was tapping her pen against her notebook, doing her best not to stare at the clock. She was just anxious for her day to start. It wasn’t that she wanted to see Rowan.

Professor Whitethorn, she amended in her head. She had to quit thinking of him as Rowan. She couldn’t think of him like that anymore, his body pressing into hers, lips on her neck, as he—

Shaking her head, Aelin sighed and suddenly realized that the rest of the class had hushed. She was so focused on reprimanding herself for her highly inappropriate thoughts that she hadn’t noticed him come through the door and begin setting up for class. When she dared to glance towards the front, she found his eyes on her. He quickly looked away, going back to his laptop and setting up the PowerPoint on screen.

Maybe he hadn’t been looking at her.

Maybe it had all been in her mind.

But she didn’t think it had been.

He had been watching her.

“Happy Thursday, class,” he began, as the title page of his presentation flashed onto the board. “Glad to see you all showed up again. Must mean my first class didn’t suck.” Quiet laughter thrummed through the room. Aelin couldn’t muster a laugh, though. “On Tuesday, we covered the basics. So, today… Sorry, we’re doing that again.”

More laughter, especially from the pretty, flirty girls up front.

Aelin couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

Which, when she settled her eyes back on Rowan, he definitely saw.

Come on, get your shit together, she chastised herself. With her back straightened, she gave him her full attention.

She took dutiful notes, but his slides didn’t hold much in the way of information. They were mostly headers, with a few bullet points. Most of the important information, information she knew would be critical for homework or exams, came straight from Rowan’s mouth.

It was clear that he loved mythology, that it wasn’t just a class his aunt had tossed his way and told him to figure it out. He was a trove of knowledge and she noticed he had a habit of going on slight tangents when he got going on a topic he was clearly interested in.

After a student asked him to clarify what he meant about Hercules not being Zeus’ only son, he ended up talking for nearly twenty minutes about what the beloved Disney movie had gotten wrong. Aelin had stopped taking notes and was watching him go on and on about how Hades, while god of the underworld, was not necessarily a villain. He just had a job to do. A job that had rules that must be followed, or the consequences could damn not only him, but others involved. His eyes found hers again and the amused smile on her face fell as she made the correlation between their own situation and the story.

They held each other’s gazes for far longer than was appropriate, and Rowan cleared his throat, going back to the PowerPoint, and the  predetermined lesson plans he’d made, which didn’t include children’s movie breakdowns.

She watched him.

She listened.

And she found it all fascinating. 

Rowan peeked at the clock after going on and on, and stilled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I guess I’ll end there. There is an assignment due by tomorrow evening. You can find and submit it online. It’s an opinion piece. I want a little insight as to why you were so interested to take this class, or what you’ve found fascinating so far.” He sat on his desk, his legs hanging over the side, his feet nearly touching the ground as he leaned back on his palms. Aelin found it charming. “You’re going to write a short essay telling me of your favorite deity. It could be one I’ve talked about so far, or one I haven’t. It’s your choice. But, tell me why they are your favorite. Give me a little depth. And, remember, this is a college course. Grammar counts.”

The clock struck nine-thirty and everyone began packing up. Aelin had been so captivated by his voice that she had to snap herself back to reality.

She quickly packed up her bag, alongside the other students around her. She noticed then how young they all were, and she was willing to bet that she may be the only senior on the roster. As she was descending the stairs, she found Rowan’s eyes on her again, but he looked away as his attention was taken, thanks to the group of girls who’d been sitting in the front row. She heard vague questions of whether they could all write about Aphrodite, since they all related to her.

The scoff Aelin thought she’d kept to herself had apparently been out loud, since not only Rowan looked at her as she passed, but so did the three girls. With his attention on her again, she decided to give him a little wave.

“See you later, Professor Whitethorn.”

If there was some extra sway to her hips, it wasn’t on purpose.

At least that’s what she told herself.

Two and a half hours later, Aelin was starving. She’d just gotten out of an extremely complicated lab and she could barely focus over the growling of her stomach. Twice, the instructor had looked over at her, half expecting to find a dog stashed under the table she was working at.

So when the class let out, she was hurrying toward the cafeteria ready to get a salad from the salad bar and a big ass slice of pizza.

It was all about balance. 

As she was waiting in line to fill her plate with salad, she heard a voice behind her.

“Are you actually getting lettuce or just filling your plate with ham, cheese, and croutons?” 

Aelin looked over her shoulder to find Chaol, her ex, suppressing a smile.

Aelin chuckled. “If it’s the same price, you may as well pile up on the good stuff.” 

Chaol gave her a small smile. “Fair enough. It’s good to see you, Aelin. You look good.”

Things hadn’t ended the best between her and Chaol, but that had been just after freshman year. At least now when they ran into one another, they could have nice little conversations like this one.

No hard feelings.

“You too,” she said, and he did. He’d been in an accident the year before. They weren’t sure he was going to walk again. In all honesty, it was just good to see him on his feet.

“How long until your class?” He asked, sliding his tray along behind hers.

She glanced down at her watch. “About forty five minutes. You?”

“This is my long break,” he sighed. “I’ve got an hour and a half, but didn’t feel like leaving campus. Want to have lunch with me?”

“Sure.” Her smile wasn’t forced, it was easy and she was glad they could even do this, when three years again, they could barely be in the same room.

“I assume you’re getting a piece of pizza after this,” Chaol said with a smirk, nodding towards her plate. “So I’ll grab us a table while you get the rest of your lunch.”

She scoffed but nodded, and went off to get a slice of pizza. When she ordered her pizza, she also got a slice of cheesecake. It was his favorite, something she hadn’t forgotten, but it didn’t hurt that she liked it, too.

Finding him in the cafeteria, she sat down at the table across from him. “How’s Yrene doing?”

He blushed, and Aelin had to admit it was adorable. After his accident, he’d fallen for his physical therapist, and she was just as smitten with him. It must have been all the one-on-one sessions, because Chaol had never been one to let someone in. Aelin had met Yrene early in her med classes, but Yrene had specialized in PT and graduated in less than three years, taking as many classes as she could manage and even studying through the summers as well.

“It’s going good,” he said, at last. “We, uh, just moved in together, actually.”

Aelin lifted a brow. “That was fast.”

Chaol shot her a look.

Aelin laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, good for you. I like Yrene. A lot. You two are good together.”

Chaol cleared his throat before taking a bite of his salad. “Thanks.” 

Aelin chuckled, taking a bite of her pizza.

Chaol blinked. “What?”

“You get so uncomfortable when it comes to feelings,” she said. “Always have.”

His eyes narrowed at her. “That’s not true.”

Aelin stopped mid-chew and raised a brow.

Even Chaol couldn’t help but chuckle at the expression. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. What about you? Seeing anyone?”

Aelin hesitated, then said, “No.”

A slow grin appeared on Chaol’s mouth. “Didn’t sound so sure about what one.”

Aelin shrugged. “Better be nice or I’m not sharing this magnificent cheesecake with you.”

Holding up his hands in placation, Chaol went back to his salad. Rowan was a dangerous topic, one she wouldn’t share with anyone but Lysandra, so she summed it up quickly. “Met someone I thought I hit it off with. Turns out we didn’t work.”

He slowly nodded. Aelin knew he’d had a couple failed relationships between her and Yrene. “I get it, I’m sorry. Still sucks.”

Shrugging again, she turned to her salad. “It happens. Not a big deal. So if you’re living with Yrene, does that mean you and Dorian broke up? Or is he playing house with you, too?”

Chaol leveled her with a look. Chaol and Dorian had been best friends long before they came to the University of Orynth. They were both from Adarlan, both trying to get away from overbearing fathers, and decided college across the country was the way to do it. They’d been roommates every year and Aelin couldn’t even imagine Chaol living with anyone except Dorian. But now he was. “He moved into an apartment with Manon this semester when I moved in with Yrene.”

Aelin blinked. “Blackbeak? He moved in with Manon Blackbeak?”

Nodding, Chaol went on. “Apparently, they’ve been dating for about a year, without anyone noticing.”

Something in the way he said it told Aelin that he had noticed, but when Dorian had his mind set on something, there was no stopping him. And apparently, he’d decided to date one of the most terrifying women on campus.

Aelin’s response was eloquent. “Wow.”

Chaol grinned. “I like it when you’re caught off guard. It’s satisfying.”

With a scoffed she nudged his leg with the toe of her sneaker. “Well, I don’t. Dorian will be getting a very angry phone call this afternoon.”

“I’ll be sure to give him a warning,” Chaol promised.

Aelin chuckled, taking the last bite of her pizza. “It’s good to see you all happy, though. Really.”

Chaol’s eyes softened. “Thanks, Aelin.”

She nodded. “Even if I am terrified that Dorian will get eaten alive.”

Chaol laughed, and she had forgotten how nice Chaol’s rare, hearty laugh was.

She meant it. She was so happy for them, both of them. It was interesting how things changed over the course of a few short years.

Their conversation continued, as did the laughs, and before she knew it, Aelin glanced down at her watch. She had less than fifteen minutes to haul ass back to the nursing building for her next class. Chaol, who had much longer to sit with nothing to do, assured her that he could handle her trash and told her to get to class. With a hug, and a promise that they’d have dinner soon, all of them, even Manon, Aelin was hurrying out of the cafeteria building.

Somehow, the entire time she’d been having lunch with Chaol, she hadn’t noticed the set of pine green eyes watching her.

Rowan’s own break had been at the same time as hers, but the gen ed building was much closer than wherever she was having to run off to, so he had longer to sit and— there was no denying it— brood. They were halfway across the room, so he couldn’t hear any of their conversation. He had no clue who the tall man was she smiled at so often, but clearly they were very familiar with each other with how easily they talked. And he made her laugh. A lot.

Rowan wasn’t sure why that was what grated on his nerves the most, but it unsettled him.

Seeing Aelin with someone else, someone clearly her own age, it all unsettled him. He didn’t like it. Almost as much as her parting words in class had.

See you later, Professor Whitethorn.

It’s like she was mocking him, yet at the same time, she clearly wasn’t. She was doing exactly as he’d asked of her, seeing him as her professor, not as her boyfriend.

No, he reprimanded himself. Not boyfriend. Hookup.

They’d had sex one time, that didn’t give either of them any claim over the other. It was a hookup and nothing more. And she was his gods-damned student.

She was off limits, in every way possible.

Yet he couldn’t figure out why seeing her with someone else, someone she should clearly be interested in instead of him, had him seeing red.

[lokiondisneyplus]

Yes, Loki series director Kate Herron knows about your fan theory about the show, the analysis you posted to social media. No, she won’t tell you what she thinks about it, or whether you were right.

“I follow all the conversations on Twitter,” Herron told Polygon in an interview shortly after Loki’s season 1 finale. “I don’t always weigh in on them, because I made the show, so they don’t want me weighing in like, ‘Actually, guys…’ I think that’s the whole point of art — it should be up for debate and discussion.”

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for season 1 of Loki.]

Loki has been a hit for streaming service Disney Plus — episode 6 of the show, the final installment for this season, was reportedly watched by more households than any of the platform’s MCU finales to date. The series has been a popular source of fan conjecture and argument, with one particularly big rolling conversation focusing on whether the budding romantic relationship between trickster Asgardian Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his alternate-universe counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is a form of incest.

Herron is willing to speak up about that one. “My interpretation of it is that they’re both Lokis, but they aren’t the same person,” she says. “I don’t see them as being like brother and sister. They have completely different backgrounds […] and I think that’s really important to her character. They sort of have the same role in terms of the universe and destiny, but they won’t make the same decisions.”

Herron says thematically, Loki falling for Sylvie is an exploration of “self-love,” but only in the sense that it’s Loki learning to understand his own motives and integrity. “[The show is] looking at the self and asking ‘What makes us us?’” Herron says. “I mean, look at all the Lokis across the show, they’re all completely different. I think there’s something beautiful about his romantic relationship with Sylvie, but they’re not interchangeable.”

Directing the final kiss between the two characters was a complicated process because it had to communicate something about each of them over the course of just a few seconds. Herron says the primary goal was creating a safe, comfortable environment for Hiddleston and Di Martino, and after that, she had to think about how to bring across Loki and Sylvie’s conflicting goals in that moment.

“It’s an interesting one, right?” she says. “Emotionally, from Sylvie’s perspective, I think it’s a goodbye. But it’s still a buildup of all these feelings. They’ve both grown through each other over the last few episodes. It was important to me that it didn’t feel like a trick, like she was deceiving him. She is obviously doing that, on one hand, but I don’t feel the kiss is any less genuine. I think she’s in a bad place, but her feelings are true.”

Herron says directing Hiddleston in the scene mostly came down to discussing the speech Loki gives Sylvie before the kiss. “That was really important, showing this new place for Loki,” Herron says. “In the first episode, he’s like, ‘I want the throne, I want to rule,’ and by episode 6, he isn’t focused on that selfish want. He just wants her to be okay.”

Loki writer and producer Eric Martin recently tweeted that he wished the show had been able to focus more time on two of its secondary characters, Owen Wilson’s Time Variance Authority agent Mobius M. Mobius, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer. “I wanted to explore her more deeply and really see their relationship,” he says, “But covid got in the way and we just didn’t have time.”

Asked if Loki and Sylvie’s relationship suffered from similar necessary edits, Herron says it’s true that the show’s creators and audience still don’t know everything Sylvie went through to make her so different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original version of Loki. “We’ve seen her as a child, but she’s lived for thousands and thousands of years, in apocalypses on the run,” she says. “I think there’s so much more to delve into with Sylvie […] You’re filling in the blanks. You see [her on the planet] Lamentis, and it’s horrific. And you’re like, “Well, what kind of person would she be, growing up in apocalypses? What kind of personality would that give her?”

Herron says Sylvie’s backstory actually reminds her of the 1995 movie Jumanji, where a young boy is sucked into a magical board game in 1969, and emerges 26 years later as a full-grown man, played by with typical manic energy by Robin Williams. “It’s such a weird reference, but…” she says. “He’s a little boy when he ends up captive in that game, and when he comes out, it’s obviously been a life experience. With Sylvie, it’s similar. She was a child when she had to go on the run, so she’s had a very difficult life. I would love to see more of it. As Eric said, she’s a rich character, there’s so much to be explored.”

Herron says, though, that during her time on the show, material about Sylvie was added rather than cut — specifically, those scenes of her as a child, being kidnapped by the TVA. “This was before my time, but I know in the writers’ room, there were lots of avenues exploring Sylvie on the run and what her life was like,” Herron says. “I wouldn’t want to speak more to those, because I wasn’t there when they were being discussed. But something wasn’t in there that was important to me — I felt we should see her [history] in the TVA. Me and the team were talking about how it made complete sense, because episode 4 is all about twisting the idea that the TVA might be good on its head. And so that’s something that came in later, once I joined, was seeing her as a child. I think we needed to see that, not to understand her completely, but to get an idea of her motivations, why she’s so angry at this place.”

Talking more broadly about the series finale, Herron says the last few episodes weren’t as heavily referential as the first episodes, which she intended as “a love letter to sci-fi.” While early images like the TVA’s interrogation rooms had specific visual references from past science fiction, episode 6’s locations were drawn more from collaborations with the crew.

“The idea of the physical timeline being circular, our storyboard artists came up with that,” Herron says. “I had in the scripts, ‘We move through space to the end of time,” and then me and [storyboard artist Darrin Denlinger] discussed how we could play with the idea of time, while also adding MCU nods. He was like, ‘What if the timeline is circular?’ I think that’s such a striking image, like the Citadel at the End of Time is the needle on a record player. I just thought that was such a cool image, but it wasn’t necessarily taken from anything.”

Episode 6 focuses heavily on the mysterious figure He Who Remains and his citadel, a space she says was largely conceived by production designer Kasra Farahani. “I remember he brought in the art of the Citadel, and I thought it was beautiful,” Herron says. “He said, ‘The Citadel has been carved from an actual meteorite,’ which I thought was such an inspired idea. And He Who Remains’ office is the only finished portion of it.”

She says there are only a few direct homages in episode 6, including the zoom shot through space, which directly referenced a similar sequence in Robert Zemeckis’ 1997 film Contact.

“And then I have my Teletubbies reference for episode 5,” Herron says. “I wanted the Void to feel like an overgrown garden, like a kind of forgotten place. And I realized I’d pitched it as the British countryside. I remember trying to explain it to ILM, who did the visual effects, and saying, ‘Oh, you know, it’s like the Teletubbies. It’s just rolling hills, but they go on forever.’ That actually was quite a helpful reference in the end, which is funny.”

Asked for her favorite set memory from shooting the season, Herron says it comes down to Tom Hiddleston starting a mania for physical exertion before takes. “Sometimes he runs around set to get himself in the right mindset before he performs,” she says. “He does pushups. You know, you’re going into an action scene, you want to look like you’ve just been running. And it became infectious across all the cast. We’ve got so much footage of — I think Jack [Veal] ended up doing it, who plays Kid Loki. I’ve got [shots of] him and Sophia doing pushups and squats, just to get ready. It was so funny watching that echo across all the cast. I think all of them ended up doing those exercises with him at some point. It was so funny.”

“That might be my favorite set story, but it’s honestly, not a sweet one,” she adds. “I would say my favorite thing is his enthusiasm. He’s a very kind empathetic person. We were filming this in quite tough circumstances, a lot of people were far from home and isolating, and he brought this warmth and energy and joy to the set every day. And I think that made everyone feel very safe and very bonded. I’m forever grateful to him for doing that.”

[gunterfan1992]

Interview with Fan Artist loycos!

(Art by loycos)

So a few months ago, I was absent-mindedly scrolling on Tumblr (or was it Twitter?) when I came across something: an Adventure Time fan comic by an artist named loycos. As a person embedded in fan spaces, I find fanart like this all the time, but this time, there was something special about the art I was seeing. It was so... show-accurate!

I don’t mean that necessarily in regard to the art style (although it does feel right at home in the Land of Ooo, while still being its own thing with its own flourishes), but rather in relation to the characterization; the way loycos wrote the characters was spot on. She nailed PB and Marceline’s dynamic as former lovers who deep-down miss one another. She nailed Finn’s naive heroism and his one-sided crush on PB. She nailed Jake’s goofball energy. It was perfect.

In the past, I’ve only interviewed people affiliated with the show’s production, but I thought I’d mix things up a bit and reach out to some fan artists that I think are fantastic. As such, I’m delighted to share with you an interview I had with loycos, who answered my questions about her art, her history with Adventure Time, and where her work is headed!

What is your 'artistic origin' story?

[It’s] kind of a corny answer, but I've been drawing since I remember myself. My earliest drawing memories are drawing Clifford (the big red dog) fanart when I was around 5 y/o. I was always more of a "fangirl" artist, [and] I would draw characters from my favorite franchises to illustrate my headcanons and daydream scenarios I'd put them in. That hadn't changed one bit since. I had since gone on to study animation and illustration in official institutions which forced me to design characters and worlds of my own, but when I draw for myself it's always back to fanart (or studies). I don't have any OCs.

Are there particular artists or styles that you were inspired by and/or like to emulate or allude to?

I'd joke that my artstyle is just a mesh of all the franchises I've drawn fanart for over the years, but honestly, is it even a joke? I think you can easily recognize I had a Disney Phase like every other teenager (I didn't have an anime phase though! I know, I'm an anomaly) and [Steven Universe] definitely left it's fat mark on my style too. Out of [Steven Universe]'s storyboarding crew (which I followed very closely over the years) I especially love Raven Molisee and Jeff Liu for their wacky expressions and proportions, and of course Rebecca Sugar for their fluid and carefree lines. When it comes to art in general, I tend to prefer stylized, colorful and brushy styles over realistic or gothic ones, So people like Hue Teo and Patri Balanovsky pop to my mind (and my artstation feed, seriously look them up).

How do you approach your projects; what is your general art process?

It really depends on the type of project I'm doing, though, my [Adventure Time] comics were all pretty similar in their conception: I write down all of my ideas in my notes so I won't forget them. Then I either roughly sketch out the entire comic as fast as I can, or I write a script (if the concept is specifically very dialog heavy) and then sketch it roughly. Then I do the lineart and color, nothing too complicated. The one thing I think is worth noting in my long comic process is that I draw all of my panels on the same document- that way it's easier for me to make sure the characters stay on model and that my panel layout remains fresh. So basically, the way you read the comics on tumblr, as a long scroll, is the format I work on.

How did you come to find Adventure Time? What made you join the fandom?

Adventure Time is one of those shows you just know about, so I don't remember how I first found out about the show. However, I do remember when I started shipping Bubbline—after the episode “Broke His Crown” aired. I somehow ended up in their Tumblr tag and was blown away by the (by 2016's standards) blatant representation. Despite my obsession with them at the time, I never actually watched any episode that didn't feature the girls' relationship. I only started fully watching the show recently. But I did consume a lot of fan content, which I think helped me shape my own headcanons and such. After my initial interest in 2016 I put Bubbline back on the back burner and kept on my [Steven Universe] ramage, until last year's “Obsidian,” which brought me back fully on board the Bubbline decks around 2 weeks before it aired, so I was in maximum hype mode when I watched the special. It did not disappoint [and it] really reminded me of why I loved these characters and their relationship to begin with. I started drawing my own art for the ship shortly after, when I felt like the hype around the special died down and there wasn't much to keep me sustained anymore. I make what I want to see ;)

As for joining the fandom, I don't know if I can be considered a member, seeing how inactive I am most of the time and my very limited list of [Adventure Time] mutuals. I am extremely flattered that my stuff caught ATimers attention in a positive way.

You've done some amazing Bubblegum and Marceline stuff. What draws you to their dynamic?

I'm gay.

OK, seriously now. I have a soft spot for extremely feminine, dainty characters that are very reserved, so PB immediately marked herself as an obvious fav, and the road to shipping her with Marceline (who is such an obvious candidate and a multilayered, fascinating character herself) was a short one. I know calling PB dainty is far from a true statement, but that's what she appeared like on the surface and that's what caught my attention. Another thing is that I love relationships between immortal beings, I think it always adds another layer of complexity to any relationship, especially a romantic one. The whole "getting older without appearing like you've aged" and "watching everyone you love die around you while you stay the same" can surely make 2 beings bond, right? It always felt like PB and Marcy get each other in a way no one else can, they are very different on the surface but share fundamental internal similarities. Oh, and the fact that they're EXES? The romantic tension and the longing? The familiarity and banter they had in every scene they shared?This hit the jackpot on literally every relationship trope that I love. I'd much rather watch a "getting back together" than a "falling in love for the first time" story.

All of this and the fact that they [are] gay. It's really that simple sometimes.

In broad strokes, what is next for you as an artist and/or as a fan?

I have a few [Adventure Time] comics ideas\scripts on the back burner and one that is in the making. I think I'll dabble into some Nintendo fanart cause I've been playing a lot of Smash Bros and [Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild] lately.

I’m so excited to see what comes next! Either way, a huge thanks to loycos for chattin’ with me! If you’d like to check out more of her art, visit her Tumblr and her Twitter page!

[twh-news]

We spoke to Tom Hiddleston about Loki, PowerPoint presentations and the nature of free will

Despite a decade of playing Loki in several Marvel movies and now a TV show, Tom Hiddleston isn’t tired of the role. “There is always something new to be found,” he says The edge.

This week is the premiere of Loki on Disney Plus, a six-episode series that marks the character’s first lead role. It is a story of time travel and branched timelines as Loki is captured by an organization called the Time Variance Authority (TVA). It combines action, humor and some old-fashioned detective work, while tackling serious topics such as the nature of free will. There are also some new faces on board as Hiddleston is joined by Marvel newcomers Owen Wilson, who plays a TVA agent named Mobius, and director Kate Herron, best known for her work on the first season of Sex education.

Prior to the show’s premiere, I had the chance to talk to Hiddleston about his time as a character, a presentation that made him feel like an “amateur academic giving a thesis on Loki,” working with Wilson and Herron, and whether our lives are predetermined. Typical Marvel stuff.

The following interview has been edited and abbreviated for clarity.

We are now at a decade where you play Loki. How have your feelings about the character changed or grown over that time?

I’m honestly just thankful that I’m still here. I find that I am always surprised and happy that I get another chance in it. Long before I was cast, Loki was just the most fascinating and complex character with such depth and range, and he’s been in Marvel comics in several iterations for 60 years, and he’s been in our thoughts, in stories we tell as humans, for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I find that even though it has been 10 years, every time I come back, there is always more to discover. There is always more to dig because these impostors are kind of mercurial and shape-shifting. So there is always something new to be found.

"“Loki is out of control. He’s a man on the run.”"

Now that you’ve focused this six-episode series on Loki, what were you looking forward to exploring with this? What were you hoping to dive into?

I think he’s really opening up and bringing out his many different identities and facets. In my preparation to play the character, I’ve always seen him have so many different and seemingly contradictory characteristics. You think, “How can all these characteristics exist in one person, in one being?” And yet they do.

Loki has always been a character in all MCU movies that seems to be very controlled. He seems to know what cards he has in his hand and how he is going to play them. And Loki, in the TVA – this organization that rules time – has gotten out of hand. He’s a man on the run. And he is motivated by a desire to understand. Suddenly he discovers that there is all this information that he does not have, and he has to get his hands on it. And that actually gives the series great momentum. Loki is on the back foot, everyone knows more than him, and seeing how he adapts, seeing how he improvises after that – if improvisation is possible in the TVA. That’s a question we’re trying to raise, whether you have free will.

I read about the Loki school you led to prepare the team for the character’s history. How did you prepare for that? Did you actually know it all, or did you have to do a lot of research?

I wish it wouldn’t be 10 hours long. I knew I had to summarize what I found useful to tell the crew. It came about thanks to Kate Herron, our director who has done an extraordinary job on this whole series, and he thought maybe it would be a good idea to get everyone together because there were so many department heads, different crew members – production design, costume design, cinematography, camera, sound, stunts – and wanting to make sure everyone had the same information about Loki, and it might be helpful to listen to my experience. I was trying to explain how we constructed Loki’s arc across the six movies he’s in the MCU and figure out what was useful in that arc and what we could leave behind.

I suddenly felt extremely nervous, as if I were an amateur academic writing a thesis on Loki. You’ll have to ask the others if it was helpful at all. But at least we synchronized the watches and we started from the same place.

"“If I were tall enough to use PowerPoint, I could retire and become a full-time professor.”"

So is there a PowerPoint file out there somewhere that will leak out one day?

If I was highly skilled enough to use PowerPoint, I could retire and become a full-time professor.

I did have a few clips. I thought there were some clips from the movies that could be helpful. It was interesting, even though it was about how the costume had changed over the years and why. And when does Loki wear the horns? Are the horns a casual thing? Are they a ceremonial thing like a crown? Is it an extension of an inner intention? Do the horns come out if he’s particularly evil? Why is her hair different? Sometimes he wears a cape, sometimes not. Sometimes he uses magic, sometimes he uses his own body to fight in combat. All questions that people were curious about.

I know this was meant for the rest of the crew, but was it helpful for you to go through this again as you prepared to jump back into the role?

Oh yes, absolutely, just to refresh myself about certain decisions we had made and why certain things were changed… sometimes you try to bring very elaborate and beautifully illustrated comic book panels into a physical reality on a movie set and figure out how to merge these two worlds. It was interesting. I got some great questions about how he moves the way he does and where certain things showed up in stunts, especially hair, makeup and wardrobe, how the clothes changed and why we made those choices.

It was interesting to refresh myself on the extraordinary input, because I carry the inspiration of great people with me. [Thor director] Kenneth Branagh and Alexandra Byrne, our costume designer; Bo Welch who designed the first Thor movie; Charlie Wood who was production designer on The dark world; the whole crew of Ragnarok; Mayes Rubeo, the costume designer of Ragnarok; and people like Douglas Noe, who has been doing makeup on Loki for a long time. So there was a lot to unpack.

Both Kate Herron and Owen Wilson are newcomers to the Marvel machine. Is it helpful to have such an external perspective?

Absolutely. Both Kate and Owen came in with so many questions because they hadn’t lived in Loki’s head for 10 years. They have a fresh take on it. Kate was so well prepared and so well researched; she even brought in new Marvel Publishing material that I’d never seen before, about Loki’s inner world. Owen came in and asked me a lot of questions about my experience. I remember him saying, “Tom, why should I?” you do you like to play Loki?” And I found myself saying, “Well, he’s just got this whole range. He can play the light keys, but he can also play the heavy keys in the bass clef. And somehow the character has both.” And he loved that way of thinking about it, he said, “I think I could say that on the show.” And so it was really his very intelligent question that took us elsewhere in the story.

Given the themes of the first two episodes, I have to ask: do you believe in free will?

I hope so. Free will is such an interesting, eternal question. I think people have asked to what extent we have the power of self-determination, self-realization, choice about our actions and whether we can control the course of our lives. It goes back to evolutionary or psychological arguments about nature and nurture and why we are who we are. Maybe it’s the journey of a lifetime to find out, to really take the wheel of your own life. Because we are set on a path in childhood, I think, often by accident – the misfortune of birth, where we were born and when – and we are propelled in many ways by the unconscious.

That’s a complicated answer. It’s a complex question. So I hope so. I hope true free will is possible. But for all of us, I think it can be a long journey of self-discovery.

[ah-ga-seven]

Till The End of Summer - Chapter 14 (The Finale)

>> series masterlist <<

Pairing: Choi Yeonjun x Reader

In a Nutshell: College!AU, Rich Kids, Friends to Lovers, Fuckboy athlete Yeonjun, Overprotective Best friend Soobin, contains all of TXT and other Idol cameos, Omnipresent perspective.

Synopsis: You and Yeonjun are caught up in a cat and mouse game because of unspoken feelings and endless pining for each others’ attention. With the summer break approaching and lots of college parties, will you finally get a chance to explore your feelings for each other; even though the world and Yeonjun’s reputation makes things complicated?

Word count: 12,3K

Idol Cameos: NCT Johnny, ITZY Ryujin, ATEEZ Wooyoung, Stray Kids Hyunjin, Enhyphen Sunghoon, Heesung and Jay.

Genre:  Fluff, SMUT, angst if you squint.

Warnings: explicit mature content, I put a bolded warning sign at the start and end of it so you can skip through if you want.

Month 1.

Yeonjun went back home to save the reputation of Choi Enterprises by dealing with Lita’s attempt to overthrow him and his mother.  

Apparently, she did a lot more than the things she was locked up for initially. 

Lita and her husband bribed members of the board, making promises they obviously couldn’t keep. “When we have the company, the world is yours” but those days never came. and the board members that were bribed were fired effective immediately.

Each and every one of them got disposed of, with their assets included like they were last weeks’ trash. And if that wasn’t enough, Lita’s unjustified psychosis stemmed from the fact that she used to sleep with Yeonjun’s father. Lita felt like she was entitled to the Choi’s fortunes because according to her; the only woman Daniel Choi ever loved, was her.  

The revelation had Yeonjun sick to his stomach as he sat next to his mother in court. Lita looked at him with pleading eyes, claiming to really love him as her own son before the judge announced her 15-year prison sentence for fraud, spying, embezzlement, and attempted murder.

Somehow Yeonjun felt nothing as he looked at her. He really didn’t. If anything, he was glad to close this chapter of his life for good, and look ahead of the road to recovering his soul.

You, on the other hand, were completely overwhelmed with your new surroundings. You threw yourself into your work to forget about your heartache and didn’t dare to talk to Yeonjun in case it’d open up your wounds again. It would cause for you to lose focus, and you simply couldn’t afford that distraction right now.

Month 2

The first month passed without any contact between the two of you, but that changed when you wished him a happy birthday. His heart thumped in his chest on his way to his 6th therapy session as he looked at your message. 

He was even more surprised to see that you sent him a cute card with a Polaroid picture of the two of you; all happy and smiley in the park.  

It was reassuring to him that you were still thinking of him, and that you hadn’t completely forgotten about him or moved on so easily, because lord knows he hadn’t.

When you asked him about Lita’s trial a few days after his birthday, you two started to slowly talk again from time to time. You’d check up on each other and made small talk, but it was nothing like it used to be.  

There was no depth, and the core of your conversations always had to do with how both of your studies were going, if you were taking care of yourselves or if you’ve had dinner already.  

You both figured it was for the better this way, otherwise your break up would have been for nothing if you didn’t use this time apart from each other to heal, especially since you promised to be better individually so you could be even better together.

If that was still what both of you wanted upon your return of course.

He missed you so much, and he was finding it incredibly hard not to check your socials at least once a day, especially when he realized how male-dominated your studies were at Brown.

Your Instagram feed and stories indicated that you were having the time of your life when you could. You were happy despite the crazy hours you spent in a lab with your research team. A team that quickly became your new group of friends at the University.  

There were 2 other guys and one other girl in your team. The girl’s name was Giselle, you seemed to be the closest to her out of all of them. One of the guys was named Chanhee who was quite obviously gay, therefore not a threat. But the second guy, Hwang Hyunjin… let's just say that Yeonjun wasn't a fan.

Month 3

Your almost daily texts and calls with your friends back home started to shift to communication on a weekly basis.  

It was hard to keep up with your friends back home while having to entertain a new friend group here, all while you spent hours upon hours in the lab, working on a possible treatment for neurological disorders.  

You knew that whatever you were getting yourself into with this exchange was going to be hard, but you didn’t imagine it to be this hard and frankly, you were feeling incredibly homesick by now.

You missed Soobin, the boys, Mia…Yeonjun. And one time when you came home at 10 PM after a long day that started at 8 AM; you broke down on the phone when Soobin called to check in on you.

He was so shocked at your tears that he was ready to jump on a plane, but you stopped him from doing so. Knowing that you needed to push through and confide in the friends you made, whom you’ve started to hang out with a lot more, especially with Hyunjin.  

He reminded you a lot of Soobin, the way he was gentle yet in for dumb shit matched well with your own personality, and hanging out with him felt liberating. He introduced you to his friends and spent time with you and your lab partner and roommate Giselle whenever he could, which made your time at Brown a lot more bearable than you had anticipated.

Yeonjun was slowly starting to enjoy life again. He caught up with his studies, kept going to therapy, had regular calls with his mother, and spent time with his friends whenever he could. He started to pick up his neglected hobby of dancing again, finding comfort in the art form with Wooyoung and his crew.

Month 4

Yeonjun’s mother sold Choi Enterprises. She was completely done with the company as it wasn’t hers to begin with. The stock prices had risen for the first time since Daniel’s death paired with the whole Lita ordeal, so she took the chance to get rid of her past with a simple transaction.

She consulted Yeonjun about selling the company and the house he grew up in, for which he agreed, glad that they could finally close that dark chapter of their lives while getting a fresh start with new surroundings.  

With all of this newly acquired money, she opened a new headquarters of her own luxury fashion brand, closer to Yeonjun; only an hour away to be exact.  

She was determined to be a better mother and get to know her son, and the only way to do so was by actually trying. He was happier now that the burden of having to take over Choi Enterprises one day fell off of his shoulders.  

For the first time in a long time, he held the reigns to his own future again and his mother assured him that she’d support whatever he wanted to do in life both mentally and financially.

From there on out things started to look up for them.  

They went on café dates every Sunday, and sometimes he’d visit her for an entire weekend where they would bond by cooking or shopping together. 

During one visit, Yeonjun helped her pick some pieces for Fashion week, which made her pleasantly surprised by Yeonjun’s out of the box and daring passion for fashion. She suggested he’d take a minor in fashion design next to his regular Business studies and after giving it a good thought, he did, enjoying it a little more than he thought he would.

Month 5

You were doing better too. The hard part of your research was over with, and you had a well-deserved break which you spent with Giselle, Chanhee, and Hyunjin. You decided on having a mini-vacation and go sightseeing, rent an Airbnb somewhere in the state, and just chill.

Everything was fine until the last night of your trip, where you got shitfaced drunk and ended up sleeping with Hyunjin.  

You were single, so there was no reason to feel guilty, especially since the last time you even talked to Yeonjun was over a month ago, yet you still did.  

Of course, you had to talk to Mia about it, who only told you to remember that when you’d return in a month; you’d probably never see Hyunjin again, and that was enough for you to start distancing yourself from him.

The guy obviously had feelings for you, and you felt bad for friend-zoning him after being intimate with him, but the fact of the matter was that you just didn’t feel the same way about him. None of it would matter in a few weeks anyway, because you’d be heading back home, to your friends...and to Yeonjun.

Month 6  

Brown had offered you to stay and finish your studies at their facilities but you kindly declined. The experience was great, but you couldn’t put yourself through one more year of this type of curriculum, and you desperately wanted to see your friends' faces again by going back to the place you’ve called home for the past three years.

To your new-found friends’ disappointment, you were getting ready to leave as the weeks passed, packing your things little by little and meeting up with all of the people you met one last time before parting ways for good.  

It felt bittersweet though. Not only did you learn a lot about neuroscience, but you learned a lot about yourself as well. You grew as a person, matured, and blossomed by being more independent. Not having Soobin or your other friends to fall back on really pushed you to become more self-dependent, which was one of the perks of being away from them for so long.

You respected yourself and put yourself first and promised that that’d be a piece of knowledge that you’d be taking back home too.

Now.

Yeonjun couldn’t believe half a year had passed already. But what he really couldn’t believe was that he’d be seeing you again tonight.  

He stood in your apartment with the guys and Mia, organizing your things and cleaning up the place for your surprise welcome home party. Being in there felt weird, almost foreign to be exact.

It’d been half a year since he stepped foot in here, and even though you were gone for so long, the place still smelled like you. If it wasn’t for the empty shelves, missing bedsheets, and plastic covers over your furniture; it’d almost seem like you never really left.

He opened your bedroom door to see Mia struggling to make your bed and chuckled lightly at the sight. He walked over to her, grabbing the other ends of the sheets to help her out.

Mia gave him a faint smile and stopped her movements for a second to look at Yeonjun. “Are you excited?” She asks with a big smile. Lord knows she was, her best friend was finally coming back but Yeonjun didn’t really know how to answer Mia’s question.

“More nervous than excited. We checked up on each other from time to time but it’s not like we really talked or anything.”

Mia pouted at Yeonjun’s insecure facial expression. One she hasn’t seen from him that often. Especially lately. Mia and Yeonjun have gotten a lot closer in the past six months, which was a nice change for the both of them.

“It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. You’re not the same Yeonjun you were six months ago. And that’s a good thing. She’ll appreciate the change.”

“Gee, thanks.” Yeonjun snickers as he throws a pillow at Mia’s head. It hit her straight in the face, messing up her hair which made both of them erupt in loud laughter.

“Asshole,” Mia says straightening out her hair.

“What’s going on here?” Soobin asks with a big smile on his face as he enters your room.

Soobin hasn’t been able to wipe that damn grin off of his face all day. He was so excited for you to come back and honestly the mood with the boys and with Mia has been amazing lately.  

“Yeonjun is back to his old ways,” Mia argues as she tries to throw the pillow back at him, but Yeonjun swiftly caught it, giggling to himself as he fixes it before putting it back on your bed, where it belongs.

“Well, quit messing around and hurry the fuck up, I’m picking her up in an hour.” Soobin says clapping his hands together to try and give orders, but neither Yeonjun nor Mia were phased by Soobin’s attempt to assert dominance. Both of them rolled their eyes before getting back to the task of making your bed.  

It was adorable how stressed yet giddy Soobin was to see you again. Everything had to be perfect before you arrived so he could relax and make sure you’ll be able to relax after your flight too.  

He ran around your apartment like a stressed mother; making sure the boys weren’t messing around too much so that everything planned out smoothly before the guests arrived.

Soobin waited for you patiently…at the wrong exit.

You immediately recognized his tall form when you were skimming the crowd, wondering why he wasn’t there yet, but when you saw his back facing the wrong arrival hall; you knew enough.  

It’s so Soobin of him to face the wrong way. You smile to yourself as it gave you the perfect opportunity to scare him.

You chuckle as you walk towards him while pulling your suitcase with you. He was concentrated on the people exiting the gates, hoping to see you and growing more and more restless as you didn’t show up, but little did he know, you were right behind him.

“Who are we waiting for?” You ask in a serious tone as you stood beside him with your arms crossed while following his gaze onto the crowd.

Soobin’s head snapped into your direction so fast you swore you heard a bone crack.  

His eyes widened before he smacked his bunny-like lips in confusion, looking you up and down before a huge smile crept upon his face that you could only mimic.  

“YOU’RE HERE!” Soobin shouts in shock, relief, and joy at the same time while pulling you in for a tight hug. He inhaled your scent while twirling you around, and all you could do was giggle as he smothered you in his hold.

God, you missed him, and judging from the way he wasn’t letting go of you, you could tell he missed you too.

“Ugh, I missed you so much. How was your flight? And look at you! Did you change up your hair? You look good, happy, healthy. Ugh.”  

You couldn’t even respond to anything he was saying as he wrapped you into his arms again. Normally you’d fight him for being so clingy, but this time you let him have his way for a few seconds…until it got hard to breathe.

“Soobin, I can’t breathe.” You protest softly as you tap his chest to let go which made him laugh in response, holding you at an arms-length. “Sorry y/n. I just…we’re never separating for that long ever again,” he says with a serious yet playful look on his face.

“Agreed.” you beam up at him as you link arms, walking towards the exit.

“Did you have a good flight?” he asks as he pets your hair, not believing that you were standing next to him right now.  

“Mmh, there was some turbulence so I couldn’t really rest. I can’t wait till I’m home again so I can sleep,” you mumble before you let out a yawn as you drag your feet on the tiled floor of the airport.

Soobin gulped. He didn’t know how you’d feel about the hoard of people in your apartment right now, all ready to celebrate your return when all you really wanted was to get some rest after your long travels.  

He felt guilty for a second but also knew that you’d probably forget all about your tiredness when you’ll see all of your friends again.

“Uhm, the car isn’t that far. Give me that,” he says as he takes your suitcase from your hold.

“Everyone quiet down! They’re coming up right now!” Taehyun announces while he cut the music.

Everyone frantically found a spot to hide. Some giggled as it got dark, some held on to each other cause they couldn’t see shit and some were nervous wrecks like Yeonjun.

You weren’t suspecting anything as you dragged your feet to your apartment. Soobin was acting weirder and weirder; fumbling with his keys, dropping shit, and constantly checking his phone, but you were too dense and tired to notice.

You struggle with your lock and let out a yawn. Soobin stood closely behind you, taking a deep breath as the door swung open.

Before you could even close the door behind you or find the light switch, all of the lights turned on in an instant, followed by a loud ‘SURPISE’ yelled out by at least two dozen people who were occupying your living space.

You flinch, your eyes nearly popping out of your skull and stumble backward, just so your back could hit Soobin’s tall form.

He laughed hysterically clapping his hands together like a seal, followed by everyone in the room.

“Oh my god.” Is the only thing that you were able to get out as you covered your face at the overwhelming sensation.

You didn’t even realize you had this many friends? I mean you knew all of them of course, but you didn’t comprehend the fact that they were all here to welcome you back.

The music turned back on and Mia was the first one to launch herself into your arms which had you immediately defrosting in her hold.

‘BITCH!!!” she yelped. “I MISSED YOU SO MUCH.”  

She clung onto you and twirled you around making the adrenaline and confusion in your body shift to pure happiness at seeing their faces again.

You can’t believe they did this, and suddenly you don’t feel tired anymore.

“Y/N!” Beomgyu squealed your name as he hugged you, followed by Taehyun and Hueningkai who all patiently waited until it was their turn to hug you.

You were so caught up in shock and bombarded with love, that you didn't have time to scan the room for other familiar faces. Instead, you just let them come to you one by one as you stood glued to the floor, smiling, hugging and chatting away with all of the people that seemed to have missed you so dearly.  

Yeonjun stood in the corner of your living room, watching the whole ordeal. A smile crept onto his face at how happy and healthy you looked. It’s almost as if he saw you for the first time again. Making him realize that love at first sight really was a thing…even in this form.

He took a sip of his drink, still watching you carefully until someone nudged his shoulder.

“Shouldn’t you go say hi to your girl?” The taller and older guy leaned against the wall next to Yeonjun after nudging him, making him look up at him.

“Hyung, I don’t even know what to say to her. She’s so happy right now, I don’t wanna ruin it.”

Johnny furrowed his eyebrows, cocking his head to the side. “You don’t think she’ll be happy to see you?”

“I don’t know anything right now.” Yeonjun sighed, watching you join Hueningkai and Beomgyu for a selfie with a big smile on your face. “When is the last time you two spoke?” Johnny asked, taking another sip of his drink.  

“Like two months ago.”

“Damn…”

“I know.”  

and just as the picture was taken, you spotted him across the room.  

Your eyes locked, making Yeonjun freeze in place. “Shit,” he gulps, downing his drink in one go to calm his nerves which made Johnny laugh at his antics.

“Relaaaax. Did you see her eyes light up just now? I think she missed you too,” he assures him, throwing an arm around his shoulder for comfort.

This seems odd? Doesn’t it? Yeonjun and Johnny being all friendly with each other.

During Yeonjun’s never-ending therapy sessions, the school’s counselor wanted to connect Yeonjun with someone with a similar background. You should’ve seen both of their faces when they met during a group session, but after realizing they had such corresponding backgrounds, you know; the neglected rich kid kind, they haven’t stopped talking to each other and oddly became very close friends.

It was nice for Yeonjun to have an older brother figure in his life since he’s the oldest in his own friend group, and it was even nicer for Johnny to find out that Yeonjun wasn’t such a big dick after all. Oh, and the part of having someone who gets his struggle was great too, even in the form of Choi Yeonjun.  

You couldn’t believe your eyes. You didn’t expect him to be here for some reason and the last thing you expected was seeing him with Johnny’s arm around his shoulder in a non-threatening way.

Mia chuckled as she followed your gaze. “Yeah…so, they started hanging out a few months ago.”

“How even?”  

“I don’t know maybe they started to bond over being your rejects,” Taehyun says making Mia and Beomgyu cackle with him, but you couldn’t quite see the humor in it. You had only returned to your friends for 5 whole minutes and they were already being annoying.  

Soobin noticed your slight annoyance and chuckled, rubbing your back in comfort as he was the only one to notice how nervous you really were to talk to him again after all this time. “Go talk to him, he’s just as nervous. Trust me.” Soobin says into your ear so only you could hear, and you give him a small nod in response. Smiling at the encouragement you so desperately needed.

You’re a bad bitch. You got this.  

You look at him once more as he talked to Johnny.

For some reason, his whole aura changed from the last time you saw him. His features matured a bit, he lost weight and he completely embraced having a mullet. Ok…hot.  

He was breathtaking. Even after all this time of being apart, he made you feel the exact same way and all it took to remind you of that feeling was one look from him.  

He decided to man up and make his way through the crowd to greet you, but you beat him to it as your legs automatically walked over to where he was standing.

Johnny sensed the sudden electricity in the air as you approached and decided to go in for the hug first to give Yeonjun some time to collect himself. “Y/n!” Johnny coed as he enveloped you into a big bear hug. “It’s so good to see you again. How are you? How was your exchange?”  

You’re snapped out of your trance, but you still feel Yeonjun’s eyes on you as you’re trapped in Johnny’s embrace. You collect yourself as you let go of him, trying to avoid Yeonjun’s gaze for now but it was almost impossible because of how close he was.  

“I’m good, it was good. A lot of sleepless nights but it was totally worth it.” You give him the quickest answer possible; you weren’t quite sure where to start the conversation with Yeonjun but the longer the two of you ignored each other, the weirder the tension between you two was getting.

He took a deep breath, giving you a warm smile before averting his attention to Johnny. He not so subtly told him to leave with his eyes, which made Johnny suavely exit the conversation by announcing that he needed a refill.

“Hey…” you start.

Yeonjun’s eyes glistened as he looked at you with adoration. “Hey.”

You looked good. Your skin had a healthy glow, and your new haircut was working wonders for your features. He was entranced by your beauty for a second before realizing his stare might be creeping you out, though you didn’t even notice, cause you were staring at him too.  

You were completely caught up in your own perception of time. Everything seemed to slow down now that you were looking into others eyes again after all this time and just as you were about to open your mouth to speak, some kid you didn’t know accidentally bumped into you roughly.  

The sudden impact made you lose balance as you jolted forward, straight into Yeonjun’s arms. Luckily, he swiftly caught and stabilized you.

He looked at you in shock, making sure you were okay as he grabbed your shoulders before turning his attention to the random kid who somehow got an invite to be at your welcome home party, in your house, without you even knowing who he is.

He quickly apologized, but you feared for what was about to happen. The Yeonjun you left 6 months ago was a dick and a hothead, he’d make the kid regret running into you like that but to your surprise Yeonjun straightened out the freshman’s clothes and gave him a small side smile.  

“Be careful kid, we just got her back,” he says in neutral yet friendly tone.

That’s it? No threatening glare? No sarcasm?

He seemed to notice your dumbfounded facial expression and chuckled. “Anger management classes,” he explains with playfulness evident in his voice.

“You’re kidding?” you scoff in amusement.

“Nope. I’ve turned into a complete softie, just for you.”  

You teasingly shove his shoulder and laugh loudly. The sound made Yeonjun’s heart flutter as he watched your face contort into pure joy and cuteness. He felt the sudden urge to squish your cheeks together and litter your face with kisses but he withheld himself from doing so, and reciprocated your giggles with the sound of his own laugh as he raked his hand through his long locks.

This small moment of flirty teasing made the both of you realize just how much you had missed each other as you were quick to jump back in your old ways.

You both should’ve known that worrying about any awkwardness between you two was stupid. After all, you were friends before you even started dating; and luckily that dynamic returned quickly because he was just as big of a casual flirter as you were.

Suddenly it felt like you were starting all over again with him, it felt like the first time you tried to connect with him on that damn picnic that started the timeline of your relationship.

Somehow the universe granted you the opportunity to hit the reset button and do things right this time, and you couldn’t be happier now that you realize how stupid it was to worry about the inseverable connection you two seemed to have to each other.

Even after all these months and all those miles of distance, Yeonjun still felt like home.  

He gave you a shy smile, realizing you were staring at him with hearts in your eyes while you expectantly gazed into his dark orbs.

His eyes weren’t hollow anymore, for the first time in ages his happiness felt genuine and you couldn’t wait for him to tell you all about it.

“How about we…ditch your party for a bit and go take a walk,” Yeonjun suggests, giving you a hopeful yet mischievous look as he held out his hand for you.

You boldly lace your fingers through his and lead him out of your apartment without a second thought, ignoring stares from literally everyone.

Oh my god, history really was repeating itself. Your mind flashes back to the walk you took with him that night at Johnny’s party; you lead him out of Johnny’s kitchen the exact same way right after the fight you had with an overprotective Soobin about trying to date Yeonjun.

You got Yeonjun a little flustered, which is a first, but he was happy with your directness. He couldn’t wait to be alone with you in a more private setting and if that meant leaving your own party, then so be it.  

Fresh air hits your lungs as the chilly spring night welcomes you outside. Your apartment was way too crowded and way too hot which made you sigh contently as the cold wind created goosebumps on your skin.

Yeonjun looked at you and stopped in his tracks while diverting his gaze at your still intertwined fingers.

You look back at him, confused as to why he stopped walking, but before you could ask questions; he pulled you towards him, trapping you into his strong arms. One of his hands made its way to the nape of your neck to slowly pat your hair as he leaned his chin on the top of your head.

You just let it happen, wrapping your arms around his torso while burying your face in the crook of his neck. The familiar scent of soap mixed with his expensive Chanel Bleu cologne hit your nostrils and the butterflies in your tummy start to flutter again after being on rest for six months.

Whole. That’s how you feel in the moment.

“You have no idea how much I missed you.” You mumble into the hug, not wanting to look up at him out of fear that he might not have felt the same, but by the way he was holding you right now, you should know better. The insecurity of not being good enough still had its ways of fucking with your mind, even though you had no reason to be.

Yeonjun opened his eyes at your confession, not being able to hide how happy he was to hear that his feelings were mutual. He hid his grin by burying his face into your hair again as he giggled before pulling back slightly to see your face. You were trying incredibly hard to hide the heat that had risen to your cheeks but it was to no avail as Yeonjun mumbled something about how cute you were right now.

He was so worried you didn’t feel the same. He was convinced you forgot all about him at Brown. Your Instagram stories were filled with the countless parties you went to, the new people you met accompanied with the fact that your posts were littered with suggestive comments from guys he could only assume you met over there.

Yeonjun’s biggest fear relating to your return was that you utilized those six months away from him to move on, but as selfish as it sounds; he was so incredibly glad that you hadn’t.  

“Look at me.” He tried to cup your face but you didn’t let him, giggling into his chest as you protested.

The two of you must look absolutely pathetic to bystanders right now. You were completely stuck in your own world, acting like high school kids who were brand new to love, but somehow that’s exactly what you were.  

He chuckled lowly, as you tightened the hold you had on his waist. “Ah, whyyy…Look at me, come on.”

You do as you’re told, and when you look up you are greeted by the most beautiful smile you’ve seen in your life, making your breath hitch in your throat at how boyish yet manly he looked just now.

“Ok, I’m looking. Now what?” You challenge as you take a hold of his wrists as he cupped your face.

He didn’t know if he’d move too fast if he kissed your lips right now, so he decided against it while giving you a sweet kiss on your forehead instead.

“I just wanted to see your pretty face up close again. Instagram doesn’t do you justice, angel.”

“Oh, shut up.” You giggle, rolling your eyes as you push yourself out of his hold. You hate to admit it, but the little pet name made your heart skip a beat. You pretend to run from him, but he snatched you back in no time by tugging at your elbow with laughs and giggles. You give in and link arms with him as you resumed your walk through your neighborhood and look up at him to check if he was really here with you right now.

This whole thing just felt too good to be true. Here you thought he’d moved on from your relationship, but the confirmation that he hadn’t was nice, to say the least.

He looked down as he felt your eyes on him and smiles at you before looking at the path ahead of him.

“What?” he asks with an amused tone, but you just shake your head in response.

“You seem different.”  

“How different?”

“Like you aren’t carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders anymore type of different.”

He nodded understandingly and stopped in his tracks to look into your eyes again. His hands traveled down to yours, lacing your fingers together once more before he sighed, tucking a stray piece of your hair behind your ear for you.

You gave him an expecting look, squeezing the hand that was still intertwined with yours to assure him of the fact that you’re listening, which earned you a small smile.

“It’s cause I’m not. While you were changing the lives of others with your research, I was changing my own. At first, I thought the whole therapy thing was a hoax. I didn’t understand why talking to some stranger would fix me, but it helped me come to terms with a lot. I learned about acceptance and moving forward. And I learned that in order to be able to love someone in a healthy manner, I’d have to love myself first. You know…on a deeper level than just my handsome face” he jokes trying to lift some weight off of his words.

You roll your eyes, but secretly love his arrogance, making a low chuckle escape from your lips before you return to seriousness again.

“I’m so proud of you.” you say, and you mean it. You’re amazed at how clear his mind seemed to be. It’d usually take Yeonjun a good minute to collect his thoughts before he could talk about how he felt with you, but right now it came out so naturally, it was almost odd.

He gave you a weak side smile, making eye contact once again. “I’m nowhere near the finish line though. I can’t promise you that I’ll never fuck up again because I’m learning as I go, but what I can promise you, is that my heart and my feelings for you are unchanged. I haven’t stopped thinking of you, not once. The thought of being with you again was my driving force and I need you to know that.”

He caressed your cheek while you let his words sink in and suddenly you feel tears prickle your eyes.  

You were at a loss for words, completely lovestruck by his incredibly sweet and wise confession.

You hold onto his wrist for leverage, your breathing turned shaky and uneven as a tear escaped your eyes.

Here you thought he had completely moved on from your relationship. But god, you were so wrong, and you couldn’t be any happier.

“I promised myself to never make you cry again,” he joked lightheartedly as he wiped another tear away from your cheek, making you sniff in response, wiping them away with your sleeve quickly.  “They’re happy tears.”  

He looked into your eyes again, searching for answers and maybe even permission. He wanted to take things slow; give you time to reflect and time to adjust to being back home, but he simply couldn’t help himself.

When you leaned into his touch, he knew you basically gave him an okay to proceed.

He inched his face dangerously close to yours, lightly brushing his plump lips against yours. His hesitation made you smile, so you pull him down to your level by the back of his neck as you initiated the kiss.

He froze for a second at your dominance but quickly relaxed in your touch soon after he realized that you seemed to want this just as much as he did.

Kissing him was like muscle memory. It felt natural and blissful and suddenly you find yourself wondering about how you were able to live without this feeling of pure euphoria for over six months.

His love was like a drug, and all it took was one kiss to break your sobriety.

He pulled back, quickly assessing his surroundings before he realized the two of you were basically making out in the middle of the street.

He pulled you into an alleyway and pushed you against the wall of a random apartment building, his hands holding on to each side of your face delicately yet roughly as he kissed you with so much fervor, it almost made you dizzy.  

“You really had me thinking I lost you forever,” he mumbles as his lips disconnected from yours.

You weren’t given the change to respond as his lips found their way to the soft spot in your neck. He still remembered every sensitive inch of your skin and used it against you all too willingly; wrapping his hands around your throat as he kissed and licked a pattern from your jaw to your neck.  

A breathy moan left your lips as he started to suck possessive marks onto your neck and you instinctively wrap your arms around his waist, letting him do as he pleases, too entranced by the delicious feeling. You jumped up and he caught you by hooking his arms under your thighs, stabilizing you against the wall as you kept making out.

You giggled at his eagerness, a little flustered at the fact that you were in public; even though it was nighttime while being in a neglected alley; it still felt wrong.

He smirked against your neck when he felt you hesitate, and placed a soft yet wet kiss on your lips before letting go of you. He made sure you landed back on the ground safely, straightening out your clothes for you. “Maybe we should head back,” he says with a dark gaze, acting as if he didn’t just litter your neck with marks and bruises. He licked his pouty lips in amusement at the sight of what he had just done to you, knowing all too well that people would be able to see what happened while the two of you were gone.

You playfully shoved him aside, completely oblivious to how bad it really was but when you stepped into the elevator and saw your own reflection you gasped and shot Yeonjun a look of pure panic and distress. “YEONJUN!” you gasp loudly. “You can’t be fucking serious.”

“I’m sorry I just…couldn’t help myself.” he licked his lips again, cockiness emitting from his entire being. He inched closer to you to give you an innocent kiss on the top of your head and pulled the hair tie out of your hair, making your hair fall past your shoulders to cover the hickeys.

“This’ll do.”

“Oh my god, I hate you.”

He scoffed, casually smacking your ass in response.  

On the remaining way back to your apartment you were constantly fixing your clothes and hair, trying to let it nonchalantly fall to the front but you knew it looked rather ridiculous.

You had hoped your friends were too intoxicated to notice but when you stepped foot in your apartment with Yeonjun closely trailing behind you, all eyes were on you again.

How long were you two gone for? 10, maybe 20 minutes?

“Hyung.” Taehyun grabbed Yeonjun by his collar, turning him around which made Yeonjun frown at the younger one.

“For fucks sake.” Taehyun sighs dramatically, wiping something pink from the corner of Yeonjun’s mouth with his index finger.  

…it was your fucking lipgloss.

Yeonjun’s ears turned a bright red as he started to chuckle nervously. “Now I lost the fucking bet with Hueningkai. I thought it’d take at least a week before you two would start simping over each other again, it hasn’t even been an hour….AND OUTSIDE?” Taehyun sucks his teeth as a sign of disapproval, looking you up and down before his eyes lingered on your neck. “Animals. That’s it. That’s the description.”

“Pay up, loser. I told you.” Hueningkai cackles as he throws his arms around both Taehyun and Yeonjun’s shoulders.

“Y’all made a bet? An actual bet on our relationship?” you ask in pure disbelief. It was so like them to turn your emotional turmoil into their own amusement, but you couldn’t really be mad at them.

Your friends know the two of you better than anyone and probably saw this coming way before you did.

“Venmo me later.” Taehyun mumbles to Hueningkai in defeat while walking off, and you can’t help but chuckle at the irony of it all.  

All of these months left in pure insecurity about your relationship with Yeonjun. Nights of pondering about your future, worrying if he had moved on or not. It was all for nothing

Yeonjun and you move like magnets, and no course of time could really drive you apart because when you’re reunited, you will always find your way back to each other. Always.

He looked at you a little dreamily, it still wasn’t sinking in that you were back. For good. And all his.

He snaked his arm around your waist as he stood behind you, resting his head on your shoulder as you told your friends all about your adventures.

He was clingy, you were clingy and neither of you was hiding it for anyone. You’ve had your fair share of secrets with Yeonjun and you were more than glad that those times were over with.

At around 4 AM most people left, and you were left alone with the boys, Ryujin and Mia.

You were on the couch, perfectly comfortable on Yeonjun’s lap as you leaned into his chest. One hand was rubbing your back in up and down motions while the other had found its way under your shirt and onto your waist. His cold fingertips grazed over your bare skin and suddenly it was way too hard to stay awake.

The chatter of your friends became background noise as your eyelids grew heavy. But you were shortly awakened out of your slumber as you felt Yeonjuns lips on your temple.  

“You must be so tired after that flight and this whole circus,” he whispered with an empathetic pout, yet all you could do was nod as a response.

He chuckled at your cuteness and fixed a piece of your hair, kissing your forehead again before you buried your face in the crook of his neck.

“It’s funny how nothing has changed, yet everything is different,” Beomgyu says as he stares at you and Yeonjun with a loving smile.

Beomgyu might be a little shit with a smart mouth, but he cares for his friends. Seeing the two of you be so content in each other's presence made love emit from his pupils. Even though Yeonjun had been doing so much better the best couple of months, nothing compares to the pure happiness and giddiness that Gyu was seeing from him now, and that was all because you were together again.

Beomgyu wasn’t the only one to notice, because it was literally all of them, and especially Soobin.

Soobin who literally rebelled against any type of relationship between you and Yeonjun was smiling at the sight of you in his arms fondly. His two best friends finally found solace in each other after all the shit that both of you had been through together, and it made him sentimental.

A year had passed since the two of you started dating unofficially, though this was the first time in that whole year that Soobin was completely okay with it.

You were long gone and off into dreamland by now as Yeonjun looked at you with a small smile on his lips, but when he looked up to check why everyone had stopped talking, he was met with six pairs of twinkling eyes on him.

His pupils darted back and forth between them in genuine confusion. “Why? What’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Soobin sighed contently. “For once, nothing is wrong.” he says as he leans forward to hug Mia from behind who was sitting between his legs on the floor.

Taehyun chuckled at Soobin’s dramatic statement and Hueningkai hummed in agreement.  

“Not to get all simpy or anything, but with her being back it feels like our little dysfunctional family is whole again.” Beomgyu mumbles as he let his head drop onto Ryujin’s shoulder.

“Let’s try to be less dysfunctional,” Hueningkai says with determination.  

“We can be less dysfunctional if you can clean up after yourselves and fold your own damn laundry so I don’t have to start a fight with you every 5 seconds,” Taehyun argues as he throws a pillow at Hueningkai's face. Making him laugh as he got in in the face with full force.

“Why can’t we just…have one peaceful moment…just one.” Soobin says rubbing his forehead in agony.

Yeonjun chuckled at the banter of his little brothers and looked back at you. “I don’t know guys, maybe that’s our charm,” he says leaving all of them in pure confusion as they looked at him for clarification.

“What do you mean by that.” Mia questions as she raises a brow at him.

“We’ll literally walk through fire to be there for each other, right? We go through things individually but will never fail to be there for each other in times of need, and I think we need to embrace our worst mistakes and arguments so we can grow from them. After all we’ve been through, I know we’ll be together forever. So, I say cheers to being dysfunctional,” He says with a proud smile, picking up his drink from the side table to raise it up in the air for a collective moment of cheers.

Dumbfounded by Yeonjun’s odd display of maturity and wise words, they all comply, raising their glasses in the air followed by a loud cheer to being “dysfunctional.”

The sudden loudness of their voices woke you up, completely out of it and sleep drunk; you lift your head from Yeonjun’s chest, squinting your eyes at your friends as you rub the sleep out of your eyes.

“Did I miss anything?” you say, your voice laced with sleep and confusion.

They all burst out into laughter at your current state paired with your obliviousness and messy bed hair.

“Nah, just six months of incompleteness,”  Yeonjun says as he pecks your lips.

Mia stayed over that night and helped you unpack and clean your whole apartment the next day, which you were super grateful for but...you’d be lying if you said you didn’t wish Yeonjun would’ve stayed the night.

The fact of the matter is that you haven’t had time for a serious talk with him yet, because you know, tongue punching each other was of higher priority than hashing things out with actual words. Which meant you hadn’t really talked about your relationship status or how things will be moving forward.

“The last game of the season is tonight. Are you going?” Mia asked as she plops down on your couch with you.

“The last one? Already?”

“Yeah we’re gonna go celebrate after.”

“Even if they lose?”

“Girl, you know they don’t lose.”  

You roll your eyes and laugh at Mia’s overconfidence in her boyfriends’ team. You were about to give her a definite answer before your phone started buzzing.

[Yeonjun, 12.44 PM]: Hi baby.

[Yeonjun, 12.45 PM]: Is it ok if I come over? I’ll bring us coffees from that café you love so much. 😌

[Y/N, 12.45 PM]: Yesss please 🥺

You giddily smile at your phone, wanting to squeal with excitement but you hold it in and Mia seems to notice. “Oh god, is it him?”

“Yeah, so.” you glare at her with playful intent “Let me be happy. He’s changed so drastically; I almost couldn’t believe that last night’s Yeonjun was the Yeonjun I left six months ago.”

“Yeah, he’s been working super hard to change and the whole thing with his mom helped too.”

“His mom? What do you mean?” You ask in genuine confusion, Mia bit her lip as she furiously shook her head. “Listen, I’m never, ever going to meddle in your relationship ever again. When he gets here, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it.”

You chuckle, nodding in agreement until your attention is averted to your phone again as it buzzes in your lap once more.

[Hyunjin, 12.46 PM]: Hey sweetheart, did you have a good flight?  

Oh….

Your eyes shoot to Mia’s in panic and she frowns, taking your phone out of your hold to read the message.

“Oh my god…is this your little slip-up?” she asks with disgust evident on her features.

“What do you mean slip up? I am a single woman,” you argue, but Mia wasn’t having it.

“AM?”

“WAS? GIRL, I DON’T KNOW. It was a fling, nothing more.”

“Flings don’t call you sweetheart and ask you how your flight was.” Mia says squinting her eyes at you.

“Mia…”

She sighed, visibly irritated with how naïve you were being, but you couldn’t have known that you’d fall back into Yeonjun’s arms that fast, and it’s not like you ever dated Hyunjin. He was just a friend…who you’ve slept with once.  

“Listen, girl. I love you...but after everything Yeonjun has put himself through to be a better man for you, you better ghost this motherfucker right now or else.”

“Jeez, I will. It’s not like I like the guy. And since when are you team Yeonjun?”

She relaxed at your statement, slouching back into the couch. “A lot has changed y/n. He was a good friend to me when you weren’t here, that’s all.”

You nod understandingly, realizing that Yeonjun and yourself have a lot to talk about; maybe even more than you had hoped for now that Hyunjin reminded you of his existence with a mere text message.

Mia left soon after, wanting to give Yeonjun and yourself some privacy for when he got here, which wasn’t long after she left.

You opened the door for him, and he smiled at you. He was wearing a black beanie, an oversized black t-shirt, and those damned gray sweatpants of his that you love so much. Your heart did a thing at the sight and he quickly kissed your cheek before he rushed his way into your living room, trying to find a place to set down the coffee cups that were burning his fingertips at the touch.

“Careful.” You mumble as you watch him struggle. When he put the coffees down on your salon table, he quickly made his way to you again to properly kiss you this time.

He cupped your face, pulling you into him as he started to steal chaste kisses from your lips. You giggled into the kisses as you tried to untangle yourself from him, slapping his chest playfully to shoo him away.

He let go with a smile, taking your hand to lead you to your couch. You could tell by his whole body language and the way he skipped through your apartment that he was happier than ever.

You hoped you wouldn’t ruin that happiness by telling him about Hyunjin, but it shouldn’t matter because he didn’t matter. You only wanted to tell him just so you weren’t keeping any secrets anymore; cause god knows how that went the last time.  

“How’d you sleep?” he asks you as he hands you your coffee. You happily take it from him and keep your eyes on him as you take a sip. “Fine, it was weird being in my own bed again, I missed it though.”

“Yeah? Anything else you missed?” his gaze was piercing into you as he took a sip of his Americano, fully aware that he was fishing for an ego boost.

“Theres this guy I kinda missed, I guess his name is Yeonjun.” You shrug as you take another sip; your flirty playfulness is one of the things that he loved about you, it kept things spicy.

“Oh him? He wanted me to tell you that he kinda missed you too,” he says with an amused glimmer in his eyes.

You chuckle. “Good.”

Suddenly the two of you fell quiet, but it wasn’t an awkward quietness; it was more of a realization that your endless flirting had to turn into somewhat of a serious conversation.

“Yeonjun…”

“Hmm?” his eyes softened at the way you called his name, he set his coffee aside turning to you completely to show you that he was listening attentively.

You sigh, not knowing what else to say other than the following. “I love you and I want to be with you.”

His eyes grow in size, a little shook by your directness but he composed himself as he fixed his posture quickly. “Why do I feel a ‘but’ coming?”

“I mean it, but I need to be honest with you too,”

“About what?”

“While I was at Brown, I kind of…flirted off and on with one of my lab partners and well…I slept with him…once. I swear it was only once and I-” he cut you off by raising his hand so you’d stop your nervous rambling and sighed. He knew exactly who you were talking about, because he had seen that motherfucker all over Instagram and had honestly seen this confession coming from miles away. 

He was glad you told him though, cause he'd feel worse if you tried to hide it from him.

Though you didn’t post about him, Hyunjin did post about you, and basically tagged you in all of his Insta stories or group pictures. Yeonjun shamelessly cyberstalked the guy. It wasn’t one of his proudest moments, but he had to just to stay sane.  

“Baby, we were broken up. You don’t have to justify what you did or didn’t do at that time. It’s not like I expected you to turn into a nun.”  

You raise your brows in surprise at his mature response. “You’re not mad?”

“No. As long as it’s over with.”

“It is, I promise.”  

“Good,” he sucked his teeth as he watched you. “Also, it’s not like anyone can fuck you as well as I can,” he states with a devious smirk as he pulled you close, making you gulp in response to his choice of words.

He chuckles at how easily intimidated you were by him and takes the opportunity to tease you.  

“Did he?”  

“N-no.” you stutter, innocently staring up at him. “He didn’t”

“Good girl.” He says, biting his lip while letting his thumb ghost over your lower lip.

His choice of words made your stomach turn but you knew better than to let lust get the best of you once again.

“Yeonjun…” you breathe his name like a warning, trying to avert the tension. “We…we need to talk.”

“We can talk.” He shrugs, pulling your legs towards him aggressively so you’d slide down. Your back was now on the couch as he parted your legs, settling himself in between them before hovering over you to kiss over the bruises he left last night. “After I give you a little reminder.” He smiles against your skin, pulling your shirt over your bra so he could kiss a trail down to your belly button.

“God I missed you,” he says digging his nails into your waist. "So fucking much."

(Warning: heavy smut ahead!)

Your mind goes into overdrive as he unties the tie to your sweatpants, and as he does so you stare at the outline that had formed in his own.

He didn’t waste any time, pulling down the waistband of your joggers with one swift motion while you helped him by lifting your hips off the couch.

He discarded of your clothes faster than your mind could comprehend but then you noticed that he was fully clothed, when the only thing you were wearing by now were your panties.

You pouted, pulling at his waistband but he grabbed your wrist, pinning your hands above your head so he could look at you, beautiful, bare, and all his.  

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful.” His lips found their way to the sensitive nub of your breast as he eagerly licked and sucked on it while his fingers found their way onto your still clothed heat.

He rubbed his middle and index finger over your clit, making you moan at the sudden stimulation.

He pulled away, making his way down to your core as he littered your inner thigh with more and more hickeys.

You were eagerly moving your hips by now, trying to get him to kiss you where you wanted him most, but he was taking his sweet time and you were losing your patience.

“Y-Yeonjun…” you moan his name. He finally rewards you by pulling your panties aside. Licking his lips at your glistening arousal, ready to feast on you as if it was the last meal he’d ever have.

“Fuck.” He says with admiration to no one in particular, placing a soft kiss on your pussy before he started to slowly kitten-lick your sensitive nub. He lowly hummed in approval at the taste of you and fastened his pace slowly.

You gasped, arching your back to give him better access as he started to eat you out like you’ve never experienced in your life.

His skill was baffling, he had your brain melting and legs shaking while he struggled to keep you still.

“Ah…” you arch your back once more, trying to get away from the overstimulation but he held you down with his strong arms.

“Who are you running from baby, stay still.” He ordered with a low voice before getting back to business, and with ten more seconds, he had you cumming in his mouth as the vibration of his low hums drove you over the edge. You cover your own mouth to muffle your loud cries, but he pulled your hands away from your face, wanting to hear you fall apart for him.

“That’s it baby.” he mused in approval, finishing you off with one last lick before he came back up to assess your fucked out state. “So fucking good for me.”  

Your chest was heaving up and down rapidly as you were trying to catch your breath. Once again you lost to the charms of Choi Yeonjun, but he was nowhere near done with you.

He quickly got rid of his own clothes and pumped himself a few times while looking straight into your eyes.

This man is a god, and he knew it.

His mischief returned when he realized you were watching him. “I think I got you wet enough, right baby?”

You almost forgot about his grit, your mouth salivating at the sight. Any slick you could build with him was a gift, because the last thing you wanted was for him to start a fire down there, cause that’s just how big he was.

You sit up which surprised him, but when you spit in your hand and pumped him a few times to slick him up some more he chuckled lowly as he realized what you were doing. He moaned in the form of a sharp exhale as your pace fastened, but he didn’t let you take control just yet.

“Scared?” he teased, keeping his eyes on you as you twisted your wrist a little more.

“No.” you huff.

“Then turn around.”  

You comply without a thought. You were both sitting up on your knees while your back leaned against his chest. You threw your head back and he kissed your forehead sweetly. guiding himself into you while his other hand held onto your waist to stabilize you against him.

You curse at the stretch, digging your nails into his thighs for leverage as he fills you up.

You both moan as your walls clenched around him. His arms snaked around you from behind as he took a hold of your neck, pinching down on the veins on each side of your throat as he slammed his hips into you continuously with long and deep strokes.

The choking sensation made everything so much more intense, especially when the fingers of his other hand started to rub circles on your still abused clit.

Your eyes rolled back as your vision got blurry, tears prickling your eyes at how good you were being wrecked right now.

He let go of your neck, putting his hand on the small of your back to push you down on the couch so your ass was up, and your face was down.

He started to pound into you mercilessly, his rhythm and pace perfectly alternating as he grabbed a fistful of your hair. “You’re mine,” he grunted as he felt himself getting closer and closer by the physical stimulation of your tightness and the mental stimulation of your moans and mewls.

It didn’t take long before you both reached your highs as he was prone boning you into heaven.

Your orgasm washes over you, and right after you came, he reached his own high.  

He pulled out right before he busted, releasing himself onto your back with a loud growl.  

Your eyes flutter closed; way too fucked out to function as you catch your breath. You feel his weight move off of you to grab one of the napkins on your side table that came with the coffees, and wiped his cum off of you with a cocky smile on his face.

You built up the energy to look back at him, and when your eyes meet all you can do is giggle with him at how ridiculous you two are.

“So…I guess now we can talk,” he says with a smirk.

- end of smut -

Once you fully recovered from having your back blown out…quite literally. You came out of your bedroom after a quick change of clothes.

You walk into your living room while you pull a clean shirt over your head.

 Yeonjun was still on your couch, watching you with a big boyish smile on his face as his gaze followed you.

“All good?” he asks, opening his arms for you. You nod in response, excitedly making your way into his arms. He moved you on top of him so you were on his lap and kissed your cheek sweetly.

“Where do we even start.” You think out loud as you start playing with Yeonjun’s hair. He threw his head back in solace, letting you massage his scalp softly.

You chuckle at his reaction, stopping your actions which made him lift his head up immediately, giving you a kittenish angry face. “Why’d you stop.”

“Because it’s been an hour since you got here and all we do is dance around the subject,” you say as you move off of him. You turn sideways, leaning against the armrest of your couch while you drape your legs over his lap and sigh.

After deciding that Yeonjun would go first, he told you everything. From the progress he has made with his therapist to the baffling information of his mother selling Choi Enterprises and moving closer to the Uni for him. He told you about their relationship and his interest in the fashion industry. He’s been spending time with his friends in the dance studio again after years of neglecting his hobby and his grades are improving drastically compared to last year too.

He’s been doing well both mentally and socially. Even though he still has his bad days, he’s a lot happier than he was before. You listened attentively asking questions and making sure you understood every detail to your best ability.

When it was your turn to start talking, you realize just how sadistic your exchange was now that you’re explaining the details out loud. You told him about the crazy schedules, spending days from 8 am to 10 pm in the lab, neglecting your health just to forget about your heartache. You were being brutally honest, and you saw Yeonjun’s jaw clench at the revelation.  

If he knew you were having such a hard time, he would’ve contacted you more, but you explained to him how the experience made you stronger, harder and less of a cry baby.  

You spoke about your new gained independence and soon realized that, where Yeonjun needed emotional cradling, you needed to be hit with the real world without the safety net that your friends and parents always provided for you.

The two of you had been talking for over two hours, and finally came to the inevitable question.

“So…what does that make us.” You sigh as you played with his fingers.  

“Really, the ‘what are we’ question?” he chuckled, watching you play with the ring on his index finger.

“Well. Do you have an answer?” you mumble, letting go of his hand.

“I’m yours,” he says, putting his hand on your thigh while his other hand tugged on your chin to make you look up at him.

Your eyes grew in size, swallowing harshly when his fingers moved from your chin to caress your cheek. “And I don’t want to take things slow anymore, I love you too much to relive the dating phase."

“Me too,” you agree with determination. He smirked contently, leaning into you to feverishly kiss you on the lips.

“You know what that was?” He asks as he pulls away with his face still in close proximity.

“What?” you question with a giggle.

“Our first kiss as boyfriend and girlfriend.”  

You slap his chest, bursting into laughter at his cheesiness. The sound of your laughs and giggles filled the room as he started to kiss you all over your face and neck, leaving you breathless and ticklish at his touch

“I love you, Choi Yeonjun, but I think you have an important basketball game to get to.”

Of course they won.  

Yeonjun made the winning point which meant he had something to brag about all night.

You were at a local diner with all of the boys, their teammates, and respective girlfriends or boyfriends. Drinking, talking, and overall having a good time.

When Mia, Ryujin, Soobin, Taehyun, Beomgyu and Hueningkai heard the news about your new relationship status, they basically congratulated you as if you announced that you were getting married.  

The whole thing was just way too funny, and Yeonjun dragged you around all night to introduce you to everyone.  

The freshman on the team were so confused when Yeonjun introduced you as his girlfriend because they had never heard of or seen you before.  

“Hyung, Imma be honest with you, I kinda thought you were gay.” Sunghoon admits as he apologetically scratched the back of his head.

“…S-same” Heesung states, looking at you both with apologetic eyes as well.

Yeonjun looked at them a little funny as he burst into laughter, pulling you closer to him. “Why?”  

“Because well, we haven’t seen you with a girl all year, and with the way you look, I don’t know. 1+1 was gay I guess.” Jay, another freshman explained their point of view a little further, which had you cackling at the situation.

“Oh my god, so you little shits were the ones spreading rumors about me and Wooyoung!?”  

“N-no! NO!” The kids protested, but Yeonjun was already playfully grabbing them by their collars to scold them.

You laughed at the whole ordeal, love emitting from your eyes as you watched Yeonjun be in his popular guy element again.

You zoned out for a bit, absentmindedly listening to how Beomgyu and Hueningkai were telling a story about that one time they took Yeonjun’s car for a joyride in the middle of the night without his permission.  

Yeonjun noticed your mental absence, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to pull you into his chest, softly kissing your temple.

“What’s wrong?”  

You shake your head, sentiment getting the better of you. This is the most complete you’ve felt in a while.

You kissed him with fervor, your hands lacing through his dark locks before you pulled away to place a small kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“I’m just really happy right now,” you say as you smile at each other lovingly.

1 year later.

Graduation was around the corner.

It was insane how fast time flew. You celebrated your first-year anniversary with Yeonjun the night before and were now laying in his bed the next morning, slowly waking up just to feel the soreness of what he did to you last night.

You groaned in agony at the bright light, even after all this time; you still weren’t a morning person.

You noticed how Yeonjun was missing from the bed, so you got up to look for him. Putting on his large shirt to cover yourself as you made your way to the boys’ living room.

Soobin was on the couch with Taehyun and Hueningkai looking you up and down with disapproval.

“Jesus. Did you get hit by a truck in there?” Taehyun asks as he clicked his tongue.

“Shut up smart-ass. Where’s Yeonjun?”  

Taehyun chuckled, being completely used to your grumpiness in the morning by now. If Yeonjun wasn’t staying at your place, you were staying at theirs; so they were more accustomed to having you around like this.  

“He said he had to run a quick errand; he’ll be back soon,” Soobin replies with light amusement in his eyes at how roughed up you looked.

“Hey, next time…be a little more quiet.” Beomgyu tells you as he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room.  

“My room is next to Yeonjun’s you know.”

“Oh shut up hyung, I hear you and Ryujin almost every night,” Hueningkai says rolling his eyes, which made you crack your first smile of the day.

“Oh nooo, not my pure baby Hueningie” Soobin pouted as he trapped Kai in between his legs for a hug.

“Hyung, you’re gonna have to let go soon. Literally. When you guys graduate you don’t get to live here and baby me anymore.” Hueningkai protests as he tries to push Soobin off of him.

Soobin pouted, making you immediately feel bad for him. 

When Yeonjun and Soobin would move out, Jay and Heesung would move in, which meant that Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Hueningkai had to hold down the fort as seniors for one more year until they graduated, and the thought alone made Soobin feel uneasy.

Soobin and Mia were officially moving in together after graduation. They had planned their whole futures together and both had job offers in the city from their internships.

“I’ll still come over…every…weekend. You know, just to make sure.”

You drift off into thought, realizing how Yeonjun and yourself have been living your lives in the moment without concrete plans for the future together.

Since your apartment was off-campus you still got to live there after graduation. You had gotten an amazing job offer because of your research at Brown, which had major corporations battle it out with outrageous contracts, salaries, and promises to your favor so your options were most definitely open.

Your future looked bright, as did Yeonjun’s who’d be working as a Creative Director for his mothers’ luxury brand...but how did you two miss the mark on planning a future together?

Were you that caught up in your own world to realize that adult decisions had to be made soon?

Yeonjun walked in, interrupting your thoughts. “Oh, hey guys.”

He set his keys on the kitchen counter, giving you a funny look. “I texted you to get ready.”

“Oh..shit, I didn’t check my phone, Sorry. Give me 20 minutes.”

You didn’t question why he wanted you to get ready, he’d probably take you out for breakfast or some shit, so you weren’t suspecting anything, but Yeonjun could sense that something was off about you.

During the car ride to your unknown destination, he looked at you as you stared out of the window. You were lost in deep thought about the whole graduation thing and didn’t even notice how the houses on the streets were starting to get ridiculously big as you drove further and further into a random neighborhood

He grabbed your hand, kissing the inside of your palm while rubbing those comforting circles into your skin.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, trying to look at the road while also looking at you from time to time.

“I’m just…worried about life after graduation. I don’t like change.”

Yeonjun raised his brows in surprise, a soft smile tugging at his lips as he turned the corner into a brand-new built street filled with massive villas.

The neighborhood looked peaceful, not too flashy and private. Maybe even a little too perfect to be real.

He pulled up to a random house, parking his car on the driveway. The confusion was evident on your face as he opened the door for you, reaching out to take your hand.

He helped you out of the car and you give him a look, chuckling at his awkwardness. “Uh…are we here to see someone?”

He sighed, back hugging you and leaning his head on your shoulder as the both of you looked up at the house.

“What do you think of this place?”

“It’s…beautiful. But I don’t really get why we’re here.” You giggle as you feel him kiss your neck and you turn around to face him, trying to find answers in his eyes.

“If you want…we can stay here.” He bit his lip nervously. “You know, after graduation.”

“W-what? I’m confused. Like Till The End of Summer?”

He shook his head, laughing once again while snaking his arms around your waist at your innocence and obliviousness. “You’re so cute,” he muses, pulling out a set of keys from his pocket and suddenly realization hit you as pure shock takes over your features.  

He bought the fucking house.  

He couldn’t help but laugh at your shocked Pikachu face. He had been planning this behind your back for so long and it was incredibly hard to keep this a secret, especially since literally everyone knew about it but you.  

You didn’t know what to do or say, completely frozen and shocked as you look at the house with big watery eyes.  

He pulled you in for a deep and passionate kiss, giving you the keys to the front door with a big smile.  

“Till the End of Our Lives.”  

Bonus Chapter 15

[redxblueihateloveyou]

I'm surprised people see Tadashi as the victim in his relationship with Ainosuke, when it's Tadashi the one who time and time again takes away Ainosuke's agency, without being able to see that he is throwing him unto unhappiness. I can't help but think that if Tadashi was not working at Shindo's house, Ainosuke would have maybe left or broke with the family. But he can't do that if he wants the relationship with Tadashi going on, seing how Tadashi is set on enforcing the family rules...

Hmm.. I def agree with the fact that Tadashi is not what most fandom makes out of him, my man (I mean, Adam’s man) is a 100% Slytherin. But I disagree with blaming him for this, after all the revealed info. The environment they were both raised in made their situation complicated.

I like Tadashi a lot, he’s probably my fav thing about this anime, bc he’s a dark horse, and I’m once again surprised, that so little ppl see him for who he really is, portraying him as an innocent puppy, which he is definitely not.

Now to why I think both Tadashi and Adam are victims of the dad and aunties in this situation. 

We can of course say “if only they told each other how they really feel...”, but like we can say it about any love story really. Every author knows it’s no fun. The truth is that yes, they both hurt each other, and yes, if they were honest about their feelings things would’ve been different, but as I’ve already wrote under that “toxic” commentary on YT, lets look at the whole situation from both of their point of views:

We know that Adam when he was little always treated Tadashi as an equal, he never ever thought of him as someone lower than him and after their fall out, the only reason for this “harsh” treatment (well, besides their confirmed kink) was that Adam tried to get a reaction out of him, so Tadashi would stand up for himself, bc Ainosuke got mad about Tadashi caving to his dad’s wishes and abandoning him, when he needed him the most. 

But now, knowing the fact that Tadashi was his dad’s secretary and was under his control, let’s see it from his perspective: Tadashi wanted to stay by Adam’s side, Adam’s dad implied that if Tadashi did say smth, he’s gonna be.. well, dismissed and they won’t see each other ever again. That’s what caused Tadashi to stay silent in that moment. Ainosuke instead saw this as a “he’s not on my side” thing, well, because. Tadashi won’t tell him his problem, bc dad and aunties control everything, so even if he does tell him, what a teen would do really? He didn’t have any powers back then to make his dad do anything. 

And that’s when it all gone to shit, since they both were hurt for their own reasons. It’s easy to say leave the family, but 1stly nobody explained to Adam still that he’s physically and psychologically abused by his family, he sees it as them “loving him” and sadly also loves them, bc nobody told him, that love wasn’t supposed to be like that really. He definitely feels that smth is not right and feels emotionally exhausted there bc of this treatment, but did he ever consider leaving? I really don’t think so. He feels obligated to be worthy of a family, who “loves” him.

Do you think, for example, that Akashi Seijuro hates his dad for what he did to him? No. Does he understand that he wasn’t at fault for what happened to him and that his dad instead of comforting his child after his mother’s death, who was his only safe haven, made everything worse? I don’t think he does. Like his mom gave him basketball, an escape from all that family’s obligations and strictness. After her death, it was the only thing left that brought him joy, but his dad ruined even that, saying that if he’s gonna be bad at it/lose, he’d take it away from him too. Does Akashi see this as emotional abuse? No, he sees it like “well, I have to be the best bc I was born in such powerful family, so if my dad says that I must be best at everything, then I must.”

I personally hate such parents a lot. To me it doesn’t matter if Adam’s dad didn’t know about aunties hitting his child. Like if he was too busy to notice this and have no time for his kid and made his childhood miserable, it doesn’t make it any better really. 

Same as with Akashi’s dad. Some are like “he was probably also grieving about his wife”. Emm? He was like this from the beginning, bc he treated Akashi not as his son, but as his heir. And yes, that’s different things. Same with Endeavor and Todoroki. Your child is not your post production thing.

2ndly they were too young, even if they knew about each others feelings and he didn’t feel obligated and told everyone to fuck off, they’d be on the streets now, but also Adam’s dad doesn’t seem like a guy who’d leave them alone really. Also eloping seems very romantic, but I don’t think it is, esp when you’re teens. Did you want him to sell some expensive watch and go live on Hawaii or smth? Bc finding a decent job there would be difficult at this age, esp with everyone knowing who your dad is. Chen Ke from “Antidote” survived bc he was 27 and had connections and some great friends. Adam was in high school, where would he go exactly?

Now let’s go back to now. Obviously all this time it didn’t even cross Tadashi’s mind that for Ainosuke he comes first and that he would throw everyone under the bus to make Tadashi stay with him. As we see at the end, he legit believed that Adam was planning to send him to jail and didn’t get that he said it just to shaken he up and that he knew who he’d set up for this from the beginning. 

To Adam obviously it doesn’t matter whether they’re in a quarrel or not, he would never him go. Yes, he’s mad at him, he’s angry and hurt, but Tadashi’s still the person he needs the most, he’s still the person who brightens his days, even tho he deliberately behaves like he annoys him. He always looks at him and looks at him and looks at him, but then hisses smth to hurt him. Bc he knows that he needs him, but he also hates that he needs him, bc he thinks it’s unrequited.

And that’s how their classic romance goes in hellish circles. No one wants to talk as usual. Adam is mad Tadashi is like that bc his dad turned him into a slave with no opinion, while Tadashi is scared that Adam would be taken away from him bc of his ugly family. 

Now I still think that no one and I mean no one can take Tadashi from Adam now, he is his precious. So my plan is... if Tadashi made aunties do smth against him or to get rid of him, aunties will go for sure. The problem is Tadashi still doesn’t get that he comes first, so we’re stuck in this hell still.

So anyways, my point is Adam’s heart basically sings “you got a hold of me, don’t even know your power” to Tadashi, but he doesn’t hear it, bc of his insecurities, the way he was raised and his status. But yes, he holds all the power. He’s both Adam’s sanity and insanity. No matter how cheesy it sounds he was basically his only ray of sunshine in the darkness, if you take it away, that’s what it leads to, that’s why Ainosuke-sama needs more ppl who care for him. I don’t want anyone to die next time, just cause Tadashi and Adam fought about where to put their new couch lmao. I’m kidding, but you know what I mean. And kill the aunties, pls seriously, we need to be free.

Also ppl need to remember that like lots of animes/characters are parcially inspired by some other animes/characters, also the chosen seiyuus are also very important, there are lots of stuff like jokes and references, that creators use, from characters being fully inspired by smth like “Assassination classroom” characters based on KNB, to little stuff like Levi dressed in Akashi’s uniform in chibi AOT bc Hiroshi Kamiya. Utsumi already said before stuff like she sometimes think of a perfect voice for the character and then fully forms him, we also know her clear love for sports animes. So yes, I doubt Tadashi/Kuroko thing is a coincidence and even tho someone was like “zone? is this knb or smth?” I was like no, zone is actually a common thing in sports, even tho most associate it with KNB including me, it’s not like its their invention, but there were things inspired by this for sure, and from other sports animes too and no, I don’t mean the basic sports anime tropes, I mean, like way too specific things, some character designes, too. And yes, Langa appearence and personality wise is a rinharu child for real, I can literally split his scenes in “that’s Haru”, “that’s Rin”.

That’s why I’ve said that this situation in fandom reminds me of Kuroko/Akashi situation a lot, bc same as here in KNB ppl for some reason automatically thought that Kuroko is this innocent sheep and Akashi is the wolf (but also like it was Akashi who chose to dress as red riding hood, while Kuroko was a wolf lmao), not even seeing who is in reality more dangerous and who can easily control who. It just buffles me bc it’s not some deep analisys really. I mean once again there’s a reason for the saying that the sub holds all the power over the dom. 

And like just bc someone yells or threatens ppl constantly doesn’t necessarily mean he is a psycopatic killer, and just bc someone is quiet and doe-eyed, doesn’t mean he isn’t. I didn’t think we needed to explain this to someone, but aparently we do?

And it honestly kills me just how superficially ppl are watching things these days. It really gives me war flashbacks to stuff like the last mdzs s1 episode, where ppl started to comment things like “how LZ can be so heartless” lmao. Or that anonymous ask “do you think haru misses rin?”. Like you don’t see thing at all? Grey substance no needed, while watching things?

P.S. I also would die to see Adam vs Tadashi race just bc I for some reason can bet all my money, that it’s the same situation as with Akashi refusing to ankle break Kuroko, no matter how mad he is. I just can’t imagine Ainosuke hitting Tadashi in the face with a board. Like 100% sure he wouldn’t even try tbh.

[chromium7sky]

The Devil wears Armani | chapter 12

A/n: I'm really sorry for the long hiatus of this au 😭. Finally got some spark about this update and I hope you guys enjoy it. Btw, guess who finally meet Raven? 😆😆

Raven finally reached her home after outing and small reunion with Karen. She remove her heels awkwardly as she yawned. It was a long night.

She tell Karen everything about what happen between her and Damian and of course minus the intimacy in his office.

-flash back-

Karen land her chin on her palm propped on the table as she listen to Raven's story. "You know, this is an interesting story though but did he knew about Melchior?"

Raven narrowed her eyes. " Why would I mention that jerk? Besides me and Damian still haven't declare about our relationship, I mean, he does flirt me back. Not to mention we did kiss..." Raven stop at the kissing part.

"Men can be complicated sometimes." She sighed as she take a bite from the cake she ordered.

"Couldn't agree more since I'm about to marry one." Karen wiggle her fingers that had betrothed ring on it.

Both designer and ex model giggled.

"I...I just hope Damian is serious about it. I'm quite invested my feeling for him." Raven chewed her lips.

"I hope so, Rachel. I hope he does." Karen smiled.

- end flashback-

Raven sighed on her bed after she change her clothes into night gown. "Gotta get some sleep because I'm going to meet him tomorrow. Should I ask again about us?"

Raven's mind wander about the golden question, her eyes start to droop as the cold night beckons her to the land of morpheus.

--------

Damian watched the E! Entertainment as he tidy up his studio to catch up any news on fashion industry then the anchorman, Josh Dirkmann said about a known designer from Europe came to town known as Melchior Draco.

"Melchior?" Damian arched his brows. Another designer in town? Maybe there's an event? And as soon as the reporter had some short interview with the silver hair gentlemen with black suit.

"So what makes you come to Gotham?" The reporter pointed the mic towards the designer.

"Well, a big company invited me to launched both of our collaboration and they said Gotham fit the aesthetic." He answered as he tug his silver hair behind his ears which earn a sneer from Damian as he watch the interview.

"Do you know Raven the designer?"

" Oh, yes. We did compete each other in Paris Fashion Show. She won first while I won second. It was a tough decision for the judges. Just so you know, between you and me, we kinda close during that time." Melchior slip out some interesting info towards the reporter.

The reporter almost gasped and demand for more answer but Melchior quickly waved away and walked towards the hotel lobby.

Damian quickly grab the remote control and closed the show.

" What do you mean close each other?" Both of his eyebrows knitted together. He closed his eyes and throw the remote at the couch. "It doesn't matter."

-------

Raven now in mess. The phone call came in nonstop just because of a statement when Melchior mention that both of them were close and the paparazzi possible sniffing out a scandal.

She sighed and landed her head on her desk. A hard knocking landed on her door makes her jolted. " Come in." As she turn her head towards the door.

Mona came in a hurry with an apologetic face. " Miss Rachel, I forgot to inform you that there will be a journalist came for your gala interview today. I'm really really sorry." Mona bow her head.

Raven stare blankly at Mona while her internal having conflict. 'First it's was Melchior statement and now interview? What...what should I do?'

Her palm start to sweat but quickly she fist up her hand. " When will be the journalist comes?"

The assistant girl check through her tablet. " In two hours."

"Who from where?"

"Jonathan Kent from Daily Planet, ma'am."

"Oh?" The same journalist who interview her winning success in fashion show. " Well, make sure escort him to my office and prepare our boarding room. Easier to execute it in there." Raven gives a stern order.

Mona nodded her head vigorously then quickly exit her room.

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

She straighten her back as she heard a knock. She breath in. "Come in."

"Ms. Rachel!"

"Mona."

"A journalist came to meet you for Wayne's Gala interview." She gesture her hands towards a young man with curly hair and those prominent square glasses. "Mr. Jonathan Kent."

"Ah, Jonathan. Hi! It's been a while." Raven stretch her hand towards him.

Jon adjust his specs then handshake with her. "Thank you for letting me interview again , Ms. Roth." His face display his friendliness towards her.

Mona bowed her heads and quickly went out of her office. "How about we bring this interview to boarding room? More comfy?" Raven suggest about changing place.

"Yeah, you're right." Jon nodded.

Raven stood up and escort Jon to the meeting room for more proper place to interview.

She open the light switch and pull out a chair. " You can sit here."

"Ah, right, thank you." Jon smiled sheepishly as he pull the leather chair and sit, opposite with the owner of AMZ company.

" So, how long does this interview lasting?" Raven asked him as soon as she's in her seat and lean on the table with both of her hands propped on her chin.

"Well, not long, more or less 10 minutes." The journalist smile sheepishly. "Anyway..." He pull out his notebook, voice recording and a pen."Let us start with, how long you know Damian Wayne?"

"Well...since I was freshly involved in this industry, Mr Wayne offered me to promote myself at Gala." Raven calmly answer as she tried to cover Damian from being involve with fashion drawing class back in those days.

Jon then stopped the voice recording which made her jolted then adjust his specs. "You are the one who have the same class with him right?"

Raven almost gasped but she quickly act nonchalant as she tried to deny it . "Are you try to dig something from me, Mr Kent?"

"Ah, yes. Such as wanted to know more about Dami's secret girl." He smiled.

Dami? Her eyebrow arched as she heard the name. Why in the world he would address Damian that way? "You must be mistaking. We were only in term of business."

"Seriously? I thought you guys were serious." He's moping. "He did ask me about how to flirt a girl too. Man, he's really an emotional constipated." He laughed. "Besides, Dami said he haven't meet her in 3 years after he's graduated."

Raven with her eyes wide as she heard it from him. "HOW DID YOU KNOW ALL THAT?!" She quickly rised from the desk.

Jon jolted as he seen her reaction. " Ah, I guess that's why he keep a secret about his girl." Sweat drop start to rolled down on his forehead. "I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable. Let me introduce myself again."

Jon straighten his back and stretch his hand. "Hi, I'm Jonathan Kent. Dami' s childhood friend and school mate, same goes with roommate at uni and currently, a journalist." He smiled.

Raven tried to process all the information at once and it takes a few moment. "So, you are Damian's close friend?" She point out with as she narrowed her eyes.

"That's right!" Jon's smile getting wider.

"Ah, hello." She slowly put her hands on him which Jon grab it and makes a several shake as he excited to met her.

"It's really pleasure to meet you by the way! For sure if Maya and Colin knew about you they will be screaming or teasing him saying Dami has finally grown up!" He laughed.

Raven sit on her chair with unsure feeling. First the confession, then his childhood friend meet her, and then what? A wedding? She press her lips into a thin line.

"You know, Dami is not that kind of guy when it comes to women. He always thought they were hyenas." Jon chuckled.

"Hyenas?" Raven puzzled. "What's with hyenas?"

"Ever since he lives in Gotham, he always seen his father been in and out with other women who prey for money. Still, poor him having lack of parent's love." Jon sighed.

That explain why he's being hard on anyone. Raven attentively listen to Jon's story. "You know, he has pets like a zoo at his house. From cow to snakes. I remember when I came, This Alfred the cat always sulking and threaten to scratch me."

"An animal lover? That much?" Both of Raven's eyebrow jumpy as she heard it. She could imagine if Damian standing on the field, as birds will land on him, it either makes him look like Disney princess or a scarecrow.

"Most of them are animal rescue." Jon nodded.

"I see..." Then Raven suddenly remember something. "How did Damian took fashion drawing class by the way?"

"Actually we suggested to him. I mean seriously, you haven't seen his potrait and figure drawing, Those are amazing! He most likely to observe the surrounding and draw on his sketch book while on his free time."

Wait. Does that means Damian has a secret sketch book like her? Raven unconsciously put her hands on her lips.

"Still, what makes you suspect it was me? I mean we haven't contact it for a while."

"Other than he told me that he haven't met her in three years, I've seen a drawing that looks just like you at his studio." Jon smiled.

There it is.

Raven sighed and there's a slightly red tint on her ears.

"Why you haven't contact him when he's in middle east?" Jon asked curious question.

"It was because when I know that he's Damian Wayne, I..I was screwed. I mean, Wayne as in Wayne Enterprise. The biggest contributor on east side. Me? I'm just, just an orphan girl who try to rise my own feet."

"Oh?"

"My mother died when I was 14. I still don't know who were my father is and all I got is this necklace from my mother." She showed the necklace to Jon.

The young journalist seems to be fasinating with it's design. "I wonder where did your mother got this?"

Raven sighed as she try to remember. " I'm not sure. All I remember that it's been in heritage for years."

"I see." Jon rubbed his chin. "Well, Maybe you should hang up with us sometimes. I'm sure Colin and Maya would love to see you." He smiled.

"The thing is, Jon. I'm still unclear about between us." Raven chewed her lips.

"Ah nonsense, he really likes you. I can see from the way he look at you."

"Is it? Wait, where did you saw him see me?"

"I think it was two day before?"

Raven slap both of her cheeks. OH MY GOD, HE SAW BOTH OF US KISSING.

"And don't worry. I won't tell a soul, though, I've been warn by him and probably will be dig out by Colin and Maya." Jon widen his smile as sweat start to rolled down on his cheek."Dami has been my friend of more than a decade. I understand the way he express himself."

Raven nodded slowly. " Jon, a question."

"Yeah?"

"Since you are a journalist, do you know anything about Melchior?" Raven voice change to serious tone.

"That Silver Blond guy?"

"Yeah."

" I heard he's having collaboration with a big company. However, another speculation I heard that he choose Gotham because of its mysterious aesthetic."

"Well, uh, there's something I heard during interview. He claimed that we were close during the fashion show competition."

Raven as stared at the desk.

"Been wondering myself too. Are you close to him?" Jon's curious eyes start to lit.

"We do only for a while but the thing is he stole my design during that time which I never forgive myself for letting me get fooled by him." Raven sighed then she looked at Jon. "Wait. Don't tell me you're going to put this on paper?"

"Wait, I get it." Jon again propped his hand on his chin. "No wonder I've seen familiarity design between both of you. Plus you're having a hard time too."

"Uh, Jon?"

"I think I found something to investigate." Jon's mischievous smiles start to paint on his face.

"Now you act like Damian."

"Damian is more hardcore. I'm still on the average level." Jon beamed his happy face on her.

"Well, I think our interview stopped here. Besides, I need to cover some story from Me Wayne itself about the gala."

"Dami?"

"Yep."

"So, nice to meet you, Ms. Rachel Roth. It's been a pleasure talking to you."

"It's been a pleasure to spill tea with you." Raven smug.

Jon blinked then put on his mischievous smile.

-------

Somewhere in his office, Damian sneezed for no reason. " Is it me or is this office are getting colder?" He looked at the air ventilation.

[thegothicviking]

As re-entering a link from herzeleid.com never seem to work (??) I usually copy and paste the actual text. Remember a transcription of Flake chatting with fans that I posted from early 00'? Before this Paul had a similar if not the same chat. I have already too long post in tumblr now so it will be broken down in 2 parts!

PAUL CHAT WITH FANS part I

Transcribed by Jeremy Williams

Taken from Rammstein.com chat

October 26 , 2005

_____________________________

Mod: Hello to you all. Thanks for coming out. Paul will be here in just a few minutes. And then we're going to get started.

Paul: Let's go!

niti: +++

Mod: Sorry, there was a technical problem. But the chat will start soon.

niti: +++

**atomrt: how do you chose the sounds for each song because all of them fit perfectly?**

Paul: Thanks a lot! Sometimes that works out well, sometimes not so well.+++

**maria: Your album covers have always sparked a lot of controversy. Which cover is your favourite and why?**

Paul: The cover for Sehnsucht was the most dramatic in my opinion.+++

**Benzramm: What was coming out of the fake penis during the live act "Bück Dich"? **

Paul: That was water with Ouzo to make it milky.+++

**Beurgueur: Good evening, Have you ever thought to write a metal-opera based on rammstein’ story?**

Paul: Hopefully not. We have enough theater elements already.+++

**MafiUndomiel: I was at River Plate Stadium in Argentina, 1999, when you toured with KISS. You did almost surpassed KISS music and show with your impact, and many people was really impressed. I still remember the silence during Du Hast, as Till was singing the refrain. What do you remember of Argentina, of this show? **

Paul: Yeah, that was unbelievable. It's a shame that we can't play in South America this time. Flake was seriously ill.+++

**MafiUndomiel: Did Till write Te Quiero Puta on his own, or had some kind of external help? I know it's not very complicated, nor elaborated in the lyrics, but it's not easy to put two or three sentences together if you don't know the language... believe me! I'm still trying with German!**

Paul: He had some help from his girlfriend and from Flake's friend from Chile.

Paul: But Till can already speak Spanish so well that he only had a few questions about grammar.+++

**monkeyman: What type of gear do you use when recording in the studio?**

Paul: This would take two hours to list. Too much for now. Sorry.+++

**Hugo: Why did you choose almost the same cover for the japanese version of Reise, Reise and Rosenrot? **

Paul: Because we thought it would be a shame to use the cover only for the Japanese edition.+++

**MafiUndomiel: There are many bands that edited DVD and VHS with the footage they got when they recorded their albums, the creative process and all that stuff. Since many R+ fans are really interested in knowing "Rammstein's kitchen", have you considered releasing something of that kind?

** Paul: I filmed some of the footage during Reise, Reise and it will come out sometime on a DVD as bonus material.+++

**blastedop: What happened to Live DVD? It was delayed? **

Paul: Yeah a little bit, but we're going to try to do it this year.+++

**MafiUndomiel: I wanted to know how did you put your setlists together when you go to a country you've never been... you mix old and new material, or you prefer to show your new material above all, and play only the "classics"? **

Paul: We play a mix of both old and new.+++

**Jenna: As you are possibly the most successful band from Germany (singing in German) that you are expected to represent German music and culture to the rest of the world? **

Paul: It was never our plan to play all over the world.

Paul: Sometimes we wonder ourselves how this all happened.+++

**beurgueur: what american film director would you enjoy to make a ckip with **

Paul: Tarantino.+++

**Benzramm: Did you ever get hurt when you were working with fire on the live acts ? **

Paul: Sometimes.+++

**aeon: One Rammstein member said you had a movie project with Werner Herzog. Do you think this project will be carried out and would you like to act in something different from Rammstein videos ? **

Paul: It's been awhile with WErner herzog. Maybe it will work out, there's still a plan to do it.

Paul: +++

**Rammsteinizied: Dear Paul: What is your favorite live performance effect? (like the flamethrowes in Feuer frei or the bow in DRSG) **

Paul: The nose flame throwers that we use in Feuer frei!+++

**MafiUndomiel: Which was your first guitar? Do you still own it? **

Paul: It was a Telecaster copy. A cheap one. I gave away my first guitars at an auction for a good cause. No idea whether it worked out.+++

**Straya: This has been in my mind for a while now, and I must ask. From the sample songs on the official site, it seems Rosenrot might be your 'hardest/loudest' albums, the songs seem 'hard', in a way, like Ich Will, Feuer Frei, and Mein Teil; what do you think of this? **

Paul: I don't think so. There are fewer sequences so the guitars come out better.+++

**Synthema: Do you still feel that being in Rammstein is almost like being in a six-way marriage? Does the band still function as a tight a unit or have things drifted apart? **

Paul: Yeah.

Paul: We're still together. Knock on wood. We've been together for 10 years and now that we've gone through our crisis, we feel better than ever.

Paul: We've got money, success, beautiful women and all the rest.

Paul: Things can only get worse.+++

**Jenna: Do you think your videos help to stop you taking yourselves too seriously? **

Paul: We've always taken ourselves less seriously than many people think. our best friends know this.

Paul: At the moment, we don't feel like making any humouress videos.+++

**whiskeypapa: When writing a song, how many/what kinds of revisions does the song go through before finally making it onto an album? **

Paul: Some songs make it out directly as we conceived them. With other songs, we make 20 versions and they still don't make it.

Paul: +++

**Noora: HI! I'm a fashion and design student from Finland and I was wondering about your stage costumes...How much do you participate in the designing and making of the outfits that you use on your tours? I understand that every album has its own look. Do you first design the outline of the look as a band and hen consult a designer and maker? Thanx and welcome back to Finland! :)**

Paul: Most ideas come directly from the band. For the last outfit, we had the idea to combine Bavarian folkloric outfits with industrial.

Paul: Because Bavarian folklore is not very cool and we like to mix things that you're not supposed to.+++

**Beurgueur: Have you ever thought in what your life would be now if rammstein never was created?**

Paul: No. We don't think that way.+++

**minx: It’s been stated in several interviews that the band has two pyromaniacs in the group, but is there anyone who is not so fond of fire?**

Paul: Everybody in the band has a different specialty.

Paul: Each of us is really equally important.

Paul: It doesn'T matter what each does, it could be better when two are on vacation during preparation and actually help us to make a good video this way.+++

**Badeend: Who thinks of the titles of the cd's? Is it some kind of democraty or is it 1 man that decides?**

Paul: We make the decision as a group but it's not really a democracy. More like a board of directors.+++

**Biz: How have older industrial bands (such as Laibach or KMFDM) influenced you?**

Paul: A lot.

Paul: Also Ministry.+++

**minx: What is the oily black/brown liquid that you are all covered with on stage? Is it a fire retardant liquid?**

Paul: No.

Paul: That's a secret.+++

**minx: Why did you wear a paper bag over your head at the concert in Tallin, last November?**

Paul: I wanted to display an Iraqi prisoner.

Paul: There's a photo of a guy behind barbed wire and he's holding his son but he has a bag on his head.

Paul: That photo really had an impact on me.+++

**aeon: Why do you only do signing sessions in London and Paris? Why not in other big cities f Europe or even Germany? Or is anything planned? **

Paul: Actually we've only planned for Paris. London snuck in at the last minute.

Paul: I don't know any more signing sessions details right now.+++

**Badeend: Did you take gitar lessons or did you teach it on your self?**

Paul: Self-taught.

Paul: +++

**minx: I am going to be at the signing in London on Sunday. Do you enjoy doing those types of promotional events or are they just ‘hard work’?**

Paul: Sometimes it's a lot of fun but other times it can be exhausting.+++

**Synthema: It could be said that the "Rosenrot" photos are quite a departure image-wise from what one would expect from the band. Was this something that was decided by the band for a particular reason, or is this the sort of decision that is out of your hands? Does your management or record label have much control over how you present yourselves, or is that left to you?**

Paul: We don't like to repeat ourselves.

Paul: Usually the band always has the last word on these amtters. But weR'e not always interested in all of the details.+++

**Badeend: What is the new instrument you used in the song Te Quiero Puta?**

Paul: Trumpet.+++

**beurgueur: do you think you'll be on stage again when you'll be 60? (like rolling stones for example...)**

Paul: Hopefully somebody will die first. Then we won'T have to worry about that.+++

**minx: Do you do you all do own make-up for the shows?**

Paul: Yes.+++

**OK-River: Will Rammstein play again "Bück Dich" in a concert, or it is something of the past?**

Paul: I wouldn't say no.+++

**blastedop: Rosenrot is so diferent from Reise Reise. How is this possible if these songs are from Reise Reise recording season?**

Paul: I don'T think so. Listen to the whole album.+++

**Benzramm: Are you a sort of scared when flake is going with his boat in the public ? **

Paul: No.

Paul: But it was always Oli last year.+++

**whiskeypapa: Which of your songs invokes the most emotion from you?**

Paul: Seemann.+++

**MsBehaviour: Greetings from Finland and good evening! My question is, you have been playing together as a band for quite a many years now, and there is a big difference in the sound of Herzeleid and the sound of Reise Reise. Does this "evolution" come naturally to you, or do you make conscious decisions as to where to direct your sound? How do you feel about the change?**

Paul: There are some of us who want to stay the same.

Paul: There's some of us who want to always change.

Paul: These parties fight each other and the result is a new album or a black eye.+++

**MafiUndomiel: Have you heard a cover version of Keine Lust made by a Russian guy called Miguel? What did you think about it?**

Paul: Not yet, unfortunately.+++

**Badeend: Do you have a private jet or do you have to rent a plane?**

Paul: When the record company pays, we fly Business. When we have to pay, it'S Tourist class. Sometimes, when the connections are difficult, we rent a litlle jet.+++

**luna: First "Snow White" now "Rose Red". Do the members of Rammstein have a fondness for fairytales?**

Paul: Who doesn't?+++

**Synthema: Do you still enjoy performing live after all these years, or is it more of a chore now?**

Paul: If we didn't like it, we wouldn't have been around so long.+++

**Benzramm: Is there a double meaning in the songtexts of your songs ? **

Paul: Yeah. But the subtleties and double-meanings get lsot in translation.+++

**Badeend: What is your favorite song or cd?**

Paul: Kill Bill 1.+++

**DRS2G: Is "Hilf Mir" inspired by a Heinrich Hoffmann's tale?!**

Paul: Yes.+++

**Synthema: Have you ever felt that the success of Rammstein has been a negative thing for you in your personal life? That it makes it difficult to decide who to trust and who not to?**

Paul: It is difficult to stay normal despite money and success.

Paul: We fight this on a daily battle but we usually win.+++

**Beurgueur: from a viewer: what guitar do you use for your c tuning, and what guitar does richard use for this?**

Paul: I play a Gibson Les Paul and Richard plays ESP guitars.+++

**Benzramm: Did you really go to the mountains for the videoclip "Ohne Dich"?**

Paul: Yes. The was the funnest video of them all.

Paul: The thin air up there was difficult.

Paul: I'm impressed by mountain climbers who go even higher.

Paul: It was difficult for our crew and us.+++

**MafiUndomiel: how did you and richard decided who was going to be lead and who rythm guitars?**

Paul: Good question.

Paul: We're both stubborn.

Paul: It's a fight every time but we're still doing alright up to now.

Paul: Actually, the winner is supposed to be the one who plays the best solo.+++

**Badeend: Do you still have to take guitar lessons to play better?**

Paul: No.+++

**blastedop: Do you visit fansites? How about a Top 10 Fansites in the official page?**

Paul: From time to time.+++

**Badeend: Why did you pick just that girl for the Texas vocal in Stirb nich vor Mir?**

Paul: It was our producer's idea.+++

**MafiUndomiel: Paul, is there any country that you´d like to visit or going on tour, and you haven´t yet? Why?**

Paul: Yes, we would love to go to Turkey, Mongolia, Iraq. We know we've got lots of fans there.+++

**Jenna: Which current musicians (Not youselves, I'm sorry) do you think are creating the best work at the moment?**

Paul: System of a Down, Muse, Snoop Doggy Dog, Eminem, Slip Knot, etc.+++

**Rammsteinizied: Dear Paul, How do you feel about us fans?**

Paul: It's an honour.+++

**Minx: Do you have a favourite guitar part in a particular song you really enjoy?**

Paul: +++

**DRS2G: Will "Rosenrot" be the 2nd single from your new album?!**

Paul: Yes.+++

**Straya: I'm wondering how this question has not come up yet... but, plenty of people are asking if you guys will tour in America and Canada. I don't mean for this to be one of those annoying questions. But, has anything be talked about?**

Paul: I'm certain that we'll tour North and South America with our next album.+++

**rammsteinuk: I read in a recent interview that there were some arguments within the band during the production of 'Mutter'. Have there been any more strong disagreements like this since?

**Paul: Thankfully not. There's always stress when six stubborn people meet, but nothing serious.+++

**minx: Most influential musician on yourself?**

Paul: Laibach, Ministry, Metallica, Nirvana.+++

**blastedop: Did you like Benzin video? Schneider didnt.**

Paul: I don't think it's that bad.

Paul: We've had three really good videos in a row, so it'S hard to keep the standards so high.

Paul: I'm glad that there's some variation, next time we'll improve.+++

**whiskeypapa: First, Reise Reise saw a "country moment" with Los, and now Rosenrot has Te Quiero Puta. If you could make a fusion of Rammstein and any other world music (for fun), what would it be?**

Paul: Yes, I interested in all combinations of things that don'T fit together.+++

**Biz: Are there any downsides to being famous?**

Paul: We're famous but we can still buy groceries in Berlin without bodyguards.

Paul: We've got nothing to complain about.

Paul: Our band is famous around the world but we still have normal lives, thank God.+++

**minty: Paul are you looking forward to the world cup next year? who will win?**

Paul: Yes. It doesn'T look good for Germany right now.

Paul: I hope that a miracle happens.+++

**aeon: Do you hope your music will still be appreciated in many years from now or it doesn't matter to you ?**

Paul: I think that we're relatively timeless.

Paul: But that'S probably what every band thinks and two years later nobody cares ...+++

**DRS2G: Was it good to be directed by Jonas Akerlund?!**

Paul: Yes, he's just a cool guy.+++

[and-justice-for-zoisite]

𝔻𝕣𝕦𝕟𝕜 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 (𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚍 𝟾 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛)

Summary: After the discovery of the connection between humans and engineers through their DNA, the crew decides that it’d be best celebrated with a party. However, the reader has a low tolerance for alcohol, and ends up saying a little more than she intended to about the android on board.

Warning/s: Drunk reader, cursing

Original Request: I would like to have a request of David 8 x Reader! The crew members on Prometheus had decided to have a small party together, and everyone on the ship was having fun. Unfortunately, our reader is not really good at drinking. Being a bit tipsy, she starts to confess her feelings toward David as well as other lovely nonsense. Later on David send her to bed, and the day after, the reader suffers from a severe hangover. (p.s. Hope this can save you from self isolation, I love you!💕) You are one of the most lovely readers I have ever met, thank you so much for making this request it’s so adorable! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! @jenna-art​ 

(Side Note: Millburn and Fifield are alive and with the crew for this)

~~~~

“We have come so far as simple people, and for that, I’d like to make a toast,” Elizabeth Shaw held up her glass of wine, while the crew that surrounded her held up a variety of different drinks, which had been served to them by the android on board, David, “To Prometheus.”

“To Prometheus!”

Everyone drank to the toast, at least half of their drinks before they all cheered and split off into different groups to enjoy the party. Why was there a party on a ship designed specifically for a scientific expedition? Because the occasion was of paramount importance. The crew of Prometheus had just come back from their first exploration with DNA from an engineer, that, when ran through texting, came back as a match to human DNA. This was a very big and significant step in history over all, even though they hadn’t found exactly what they were looking for yet. It was a proud moment for Dr Shaw and her partner, Charlie Holloway, and they saw that the occasion deserved a party. And with a lot of trying to convince Meredith Vickers, and back up from the rest of the eager crew, the Weyland Corporation representative finally agreed to allow them this bit of fun. 

The crew was separated into a few different groups on their own free wills. The captain, Janek, created a group with himself, the other pilots and Vickers, A biologist on board, Dr Millburn, was trying desperately to make conversation with the uninterested Geologist Fifield and some of his associates, Dr Ford seemed to float around the groups politely, and The two Head scientists, Shaw and Holloway sat with the robotic engineer of the ship, (Y/n) (L/n).

(Y/n) was a sweet little lady. She was stationed on Prometheus for the primary purpose of maintaining the android, David. He was the first of his model, and needed to have maintenance done every now and then along with the monthly check up. She wasn’t put into Cryosleep for this fact alone, and had grown rather fond of the synthetic. Perhaps...too fond. Although she wouldn’t admit it herself, there was something in that lovely heart of hers for the artificial man.

In her hand was a crystal cup filled with a bourbon-cola mix, a drink that didn’t do her too well in terms of intoxication, but it was supposed to be a good night, so she’d allow herself to become tipsy if that was the way to have a good time. Shaw and Holloway had different drinks to her. They had both settled for a fruity red wine, probably because they wanted to drink with class, but the fact that they had chosen differently to (Y/n) didn’t bother her, and would never have bothered her even if the entire ship chose to ‘drink with class’, she simply did what made her happy. 

While engaged in conversation about home with the two doctors, (Y/n) had managed to finish her drink, and from across the room did David spot her empty crystal cup as if he could sense when she required his presence. Ever since he had met the lady, he’d felt the urge, the need to follow her around like an obedient Labrador, coming to her every beck and call and over all ensuring she was always in a good mood. Her happiness had somehow become the synthetics priority, he wasn’t aware of how, but he knew that if she wasn’t happy then he wasn’t happy. Some sort of bond maybe, he wasn’t sure. But for now, his single motive was to give the lady a refill.

With a tray of various bottles of drink, David prodded on over like an obedient mutt, and found himself beside her, leaning in slightly so he could speak to her clearly.

“Another drink, Miss?” He asked politely, (Y/n) turning slightly with a small smile to face him.  “Just another bourbon, love,” She replied, holding her cup out slightly so he’d have a better access to it. Carefully, the man placed the tray down onto the table that the three humans were sat at before screwing the top of the bourbon-cola bottle off and pouring the lady a drink. “Thank you, David,” she thanked in her sweet voice, that very same voice that made David’s insides twist and turn.  “How are you enjoying tonight?” He asked as he screwed the lid back onto the bottle, then placing the bottle back onto the tray. “I’m enjoying tonight thoroughly. What about you, love?” (Y/n) asked, the man’s smile only growing as he got all giddy on the inside for the fact that his favorite person asked but a simple question. “I’m enjoying it as long as you are, Miss (Y/n),” He responded with a grin that made the lady’s tummy turn in a flustered way, “I shall return when you require another refill.”

With that, David walked off to serve the other members of the ship, (Y/n) watching him as he did so with a slight mist over her eyes. Holloway leaned over the table slightly, with a small arch in one of his brows, “Call me crazy, but...I think Pinocchio has a crush on you (L/n),” He pointed out with the smallest hint of confusion in his voice, (Y/n) shaking herself out of her small daze to face the man. “Don’t be silly Holloway, he’s a machine,” She had started the sentence with the intention to poke fun at what Holloway had said, laughing a little, but it quickly plunged to a sort of depressed tone as she began speaking again, “he can’t feel anything, he never will.” (Y/n) rested her cheek in one hand as she slumped over the table and sighed, seemingly staring at the wall behind Holloway and Shaw as the couple looked at each other confused and then looked at her.  “You don’t...” Shaw began, hoping that the question wasn’t at all weird, “You don’t happen to have feelings for him, do you (Y/n)?” When Elizabeth asked the question, (Y/n)’s eyes shot open from half lid and met Shaw’s. “What?” She asked, as if she hadn’t heard the question. But she heard it alright, she heard it loud and clear.  “I mean, I don’t mean to be intrusive, not at all! It’s just...” Shaw was at a loss of words to describe what her thoughts were, but (Y/n) knew what she was talking about. “Yeah, I know what you mean...” She sighed, looking over at the android as she took another sip of her drink, “I don’t know, he’s just...he’s so human that it’s hard not to feel anything towards him. Two years we spent alone together...he’s such a lovely man. A witty gentleman. It makes me wish they never put any skin on him so I wouldn’t have fallen victim to his looks either,” She leaned back in her chair with a loud sigh and covered her face with one hand, “I’m an absolute bloody mess.” Once again, Shaw and Holloway looked at each other and then looked back at (Y/n). While Charlie was at a complete loss for words, Elizabeth knew that she simply needed to comfort her female friend and take her mind off of her complicated love life.  “Naw, cheer up, would ya? We’re gonna have a good night (Y/n), and we’re gonna do that by drinking it right away, alright?”  When Shaw said that, (Y/n) uncovered her face and looked at the red-haired woman. Within a few seconds, her small frown turned up into a smile and she leaned forward once more. “Alright then.”

~

“A-and then what did ya do?” 

“I punched that wanker square in the fuckin’ nose!”

The now piss-drunk Elizabeth and (Y/n) were curled up close next to each other on one of the sofa chairs, telling home stories and laughing like their was no tomorrow with one of their arms around the other lady and the other holding their drinks. They were causing the most noise in that moment, with their loud cheery laughter, not that anyone but David seemed to care. Everyone else was either half as drunk as them or equally as drunk but much calmer. Charlie and Millburn were passed out at separate tables, Vickers and Janek were getting a little bit close, and everyone else was simply relaxing. The reason that David was worried was that he knew that (Y/n) didn’t have a very high tolerance to alcohol from a story she’d told him about a party she’d gone to as a teenager where she threw up everywhere after having one too many drinks. While it was told about her as a teenager, she’d also said that her tolerance seemed to remain the same all the way through to adulthood. He didn’t want her to have to experience that sensation again, but he also didn’t want to force her out of the good time she was having. So, he’d try to convince her.

With calm intentions, David approached the two ladies, and when (Y/n) saw him, her eyes seemed to light up. “David! I missed you!” She chirped on slurred words before taking another long sip of her drink.  This time she was holding a fireball cinnamon whiskey-apple cider mix, and if bourbon didn’t do her well then whiskey wasn’t going to be any better.  “Miss (Y/n), I hope that’s your last drink,” David said, looking at the crystal cup she’d been holding for the whole night. “Hey, don’t police me on my drinks,” She began, hiccuping mid sentence, “I’m here to have a good time.” “Of course, Miss, but do you not remember that your alcohol tolerance isn’t as high as most?” He said, taking the drink gently out of her hand before replacing it with his hand as he knelt down in front of her, “I only wish for you to get to bed safely.” (Y/n)’s face contorted into that of anger, and David was sure that she was going to demand for her drink back. But boy was he wrong.

“Why are you so goddamn beautiful?!” She nearly yelled, pinching both his cheeks with her hands. The android was very much taken a back, and had no idea what to say. Elizabeth simply giggled like a mad-man while David searched (Y/n)’s eyes. “I beg your pardon?” He asked, not being sure if he understood what was being asked of him.  “Why? Why are you so freaking beautiful?” She cupped both his cheeks and squished them together as she brought his face closer to hers, “Do you have any idea what you do to me just by existing David?? You drive me right up the wall! Crazy, Damn it! Crazy!”

David swore he felt his entire body shut down and restart. He didn’t know what to do or how to feel about the situation. Hearing Elizabeth begin to cackled louder would’ve made him blush if he were capable of, but instead, he simply took (Y/n)’s hands off of his face and held them in his own. She was very much drunk, and he knew he shouldn’t take advantage of the situation. 

“I think it’s best you go to bed now, Miss.” 

“No, c’mon just one more drink,” (Y/n) whined, pulling out of David’s grip and standing up, stumbling on over to the table that the tray of drinks was placed on. “Yeah, c’mon David, let the belle have one more,” Elizabeth agreed, her face flushed as red as (Y/n)’s as an indication that she was just as drunk. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Miss,” David said in a worried voice as he followed behind her. “Sure it is, I won’t even go too hard, just some tequila and I’ll go to bed,” she sighed, reaching the table and placing her cup onto it as she grabbed the bottle and began carelessly unscrewing the cap. “You’ll have exceeded your limit by doing that,” David tried convincing, standing behind her, “Please, Miss, I’d prefer that you went to bed now.” Once (Y/n) had poured her glass, she grabbed it and turned around, only to crash into David and spill the drink on both of their chests. David steadied her so she didn’t fall, and she seemed to have a look of sadness on her face. “Naw, see, look what you made me do,” She wined, attempting to turn around only to have the android grip her arms tightly to stop her, “You’re lucky I love you, or I would’ve taken you right the fuck out.” “I have a feeling that we could’ve avoided that mistake if you weren’t so intoxicated,” David sighed, the woman shaking one of her arms free as it wrapped around her body and grabbed the bottle behind her.  “I’m only human, David. And a lot of the time, I wish you were too,” she said before escaping his grip and stumbling back on over to the couch before plopping back on and curling up close next to Elizabeth.

David only stood their for a moment, thinking about what she’d said. There was so many meanings that that sentence could’ve had, but he seemed to stick to only one of the meanings. She had feelings for him. He wasn’t entirely sure how to process that, heck, he wasn’t even sure if he’d interpreted it correctly. But then he began to think of his own behavior. Maybe...maybe there was an excuse for his sudden need to come to her every beck and call. Maybe he...

There was a sudden smashing sound from behind him, David spinning around quickly to see that (Y/n) had dropped the bottle on the ground. There was no liquid however, indicating that she’d finished the bottle before she dropped it. That was something to worry over, considering it was half-full when she took it. 

“Oh dear...” David mumbled as he walked on over, just in time for (Y/n) to stand up and begin trying to pick up the many shards.  She crouched down and placed her hands onto the ground to steady herself, which resulted in a large glass shard jabbing into her palm. (Y/n) lifted her hand to look at it, but took no note as she began picking the pieces up. David crouched down beside her and tried to make her drop the pieces by grabbing her wrists.  “You’ve had enough for tonight, Miss, we’d best get you to bed,” He said, the girl dropping the glass shards and making an annoyed face. “No...n-no, I’m fine...” (Y/n) slurred with half lidded eyes as she tried picking up the glass shards once again. “Please, I’m only suggesting this for your safety,” He pressed on, only to have the woman shoulder shove him away weakly, dropping the glass she’d collected again. “I said I’m fi-”

Before she could finish her sentence, the many drinks that she had consumed that night came rushing up her throat and gushing out onto the floor in front of her. David had seen this coming, and only placed his hand on her back and patted it gently to encourage her to be sick until she felt better. The people who were a lot less intoxicated stared at her like she was a freak, which would’ve been more embarrassing to her if she had a clear mind. Her throw-up had lasted about 20 seconds before she stopped. As soon as she did, David knelt down on one knee and scooped her up into his arms bridal style, standing up once again. (Y/n) didn’t fight it, she only breathed heavily, allowing her head to rest on the android’s alcohol covered chest. David didn’t say anything as he stepped over the glass-vomit mix and began walking toward the lady’s sleeping quarters. 

It wasn’t that big of a walk, so within maybe a minute or two, the android arrived at (Y/n)’s room. He managed to open the door, awkwardly but successfully, before walking in and gently placing the woman onto her bed. He wasn’t sure if he was to change her clothing or not. Her pants would be fine to sleep in, but her uniform jacket and under-shirt were covered in tequila and spotted with a bit of her throw-up. David didn’t want to violate her while she slept, but also didn’t want to let her sleep in an uncomfortably wet shirt. (Y/n) was still awake, but barely, so he’d ask her.

“Miss, do you mind if I change your shirt?” He asked in a soft voice, the lady’s eyes opening a little more at the sound of another’s voice. “Huh?” She replied in a barely audible voice. “Your shirt, Miss, it’s covered in alcohol. Would you like me to change it for you?” He asked once more. “...yes please,” she exhaled, the android nodding as he walked over to her closet and opened it. After a bit of rummaging, he managed to find a large white shirt, one that looked very much comfortable to sleep in. So, he took it and walked back over to the bed, placing it to the side before he leaned over and tended to (Y/n). First, he unbuttoned her work jacket, moving her arms through the arm holes and taking it off of her before chucking it in the laundry basket near the door. He then instructed her to sit up, to which she did with a decent amount of struggle. Grabbing the bottom of her white under shirt, David lifted the clothing item up and over her head, doing what he did with the jacket and chucking it into the laundry basket. Now, he was left with her torso undergarment, a basic white bra. It, too was soaked in tequila, but he wasn’t sure if she was alright with him removing it. That was when he got a decent idea. 

In his same, soft voice, David instructed her to turn around, so she did, but with much struggle. Now, with her back facing him, he un-clipped her bra and threw it into the laundry basket. Then, he grabbed the large t-shirt, and asked for her to raise her arms. When she did, he slipped it over her head and adjusted it so that it was on properly. Now that she was dressed, he knelt with one knee on the bed while still standing up off of it and made her lay down properly on her bed. He then went to her feet and removed her boots and socks, placing them to the side of her bed. Once that was done, he approached her side once more, this time to help her to get under her covers. That took a few moments, but they managed. Soon enough she was comfortable, and when she was, David sat beside her on her bed and simply stared at her. Her eyes were shut now, which came to no surprise since she had certainly had a big night. But what she had said earlier came back to David’s mind, and he was once again puzzled. 

“I’m only human, David. And a lot of the time, I wish you were too.”

Part of those words kind of hurt him, made him feel like he wasn’t enough for her. But maybe she was hurting too, maybe she thought that their connection was nothing more than a waste. In his opinion, it certainly wasn’t. He enjoyed every second that they got to spend together, and was always thinking of her when she wasn’t around. He just wished that she’d see that he’s much more than a machine, that he was capable of wanting something, of caring for someone. Of loving. After all, the thing he was designed to be closest to is human. 

But David couldn’t let it get to him that night, he needed to let (Y/n) sleep. So, with a gentle kiss to the forehead, he got up and he left to go clean up her mess.

~

(Y/n) woke up with a loud groan and a splitting headache the next morning. The lady couldn’t help the ‘oh god’s she mumbled as she sat up under her sheets, taking in her surroundings. She was in her room, not that she remembered how she got their, but she assumed that she’d gotten a little too drunk and one of the crew members had to take her to her room. Her headache, however, was telling her that she’d gotten a lot more than a little too drunk though, but all she craved in that moment was water.

At the sound of her door opening, (Y/n) jumped, startled at the sudden movement. She was relieved when David was revealed from behind it, a cup of water and some panadol capsules in his hands. The synthetic walked up to the side of her bed and placed the cup of water on her bed-side table.

“How do you feel this morning, Miss?” He asked, (Y/n) rubbing her eyes as David handed her two panadol capsules. “Like shit. How drunk did I get? I don’t remember,” She sighed, taking the medicine before placing it in her mouth. “Very. You dropped an empty bottle of tequila and then threw up all over the broken glass,” He explained, handing her the water.  She took a sip and swallowed the pills before placing it back down on the bed-side table. “God, I’m so sorry David,” She apologised, flopping back onto her back, “I’m such a fucking loser.” “I beg to differ. You said some sweet things while you were under influence,” David contradicted, (Y/n) turning her head slightly to look at him. “Yeah? Like what?” She asked, very doubtful of what he was trying to say. “Well, you asked me why I was so beautiful, in a very angered tone,” he recounted, the lady’s face flushing red as her eyes widened, “interesting terminology, but I was still certainly flattered. And then you bumped into me with a full drink and it splashed on both of use. You said I was lucky that you loved me, or you would’ve started a fight with me. Other than that, you were your usual sweet self.” (Y/n)’s face was a dark beet red, and she didn’t know what to say. David saw this and couldn’t help but smirk. “Why so quiet, Miss? You were much more talkative last night,” He teased, the woman huffing as she turned to face away from him. “Shut it, you,” she grumbled, “who programmed you to be such a smart-ass anyways?” “You’re the one who said you loved me,” he continued, sitting on the bed next to her. “I was drunk David,” she pointed out, the man fake pouting as he laid down next to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning his face into her neck to which she felt her heart skip about a million beats as she stiffened up. “So you don’t love me?” He asked, (Y/n)’s breath hitching in her throat at the feeling of his breath against her neck. “...I never said that,” she countered, David chuckling quietly as he nestled in closer to her.  “You’re such a child,” He whispered, the lady huffing once more as she spun around in his arms and cuddled in closer to him. “Just shut up and cuddle me.” David chuckled once more before he closed his eyes and relaxed with her in his arms. “Yes ma’am.”

~

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! I wish I could’ve gotten this out sooner, but my shoulder was unfortunately dislocated last week, which has made it harder for me to write properly. But I’m now out of my sling, so all should be well! Don’t forget to check out my Character list and go make more requests! Feed my boredom damn it.

[ljones41]

"THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" (2012) Review

"THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" (2012) Review Seven years after it had begun, Christopher Nolan's three-movie saga about the D.C. Comics character, Batman, finally came to an end. The saga that began with 2005's "BATMAN BEGINS", ended with 2012's "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES".

The trilogy’s third film, set seven years after 2008's "THE DARK KNIGHT", began with the aerial kidnapping of a nuclear scientist by an escaped terrorist named Bane. The scene shifted to Gotham City, where a fund-raiser was being held at Wayne Manor. The only person missing was millionaire Bruce Wayne, who had given up his vigilante activities as Batman after claiming he had murdered former District Attorney Harvey Dent. During the fundraiser, Bruce caught a maid breaking into his private safe. She turned out to be a resourceful cat burglar named Selina Kyle. Aside from a necklace that once belonged to Bruce's late mother, Selina did not steal any other object from the safe. Curious over Selina's actions, Bruce resumed his Batman alter ego and tracked down Selina. He discovered that she had been hired by a rival corporate CEO named John Daggett to lift and steal his fingerprints. Bruce also learned that Daggett had hired the terrorist Bane to attack Gotham's stock exchange and bankrupt Wayne Enterprises. And along with Police Commissioner James Gordon and Wayne Enterprises executive Lucius Fox, Bruce also discovered that Bane was a former member of the League of Shadows and planned to continue Henri Ducard's (aka Ra's al Ghul) goal of Gotham City's destruction. Bruce asked fellow millionaire Miranda Tate to take control of Wayne Enterprises to ensure that Daggett and Bane will not gain control of their clean energy project, a device designed to harness fusion power. Re-reading the above made me realize that Christopher and Jonathan Nolan had created a very complicated plot. For me, the plot became even more complicated two-thirds into the movie. "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" obviously exists under the shadow of its two predecessors - "BATMAN BEGINS" and "THE DARK KNIGHT". I would say that this especially seemed to be the case for the 2005 movie. Batman and James Gordon's decision to lie about the circumstances behind Harvey Dent's death in the second movie had a minor impact upon this third movie. But Bruce's relationship and later conflict with Ra's al Ghul seemed to be the driving force behind his conflict with Bane in this third film. I had heard rumors that Christopher Nolan was initially reluctant to make a third BATMAN movie. Personally, I found that rumor a bit hard to believe, considering how "THE DARK KNIGHT" ended with Batman accepting the blame for Harvey Dent's crimes and death. But there were certain aspects of the script he wrote with his brother Jonathan that made me wonder if he had truly been reluctant. There were certain aspects of "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" that I found troubling. It seemed a pity that the second movie ended with Batman and Jim Gordon's decision to lie about the circumstances behind Dent's death. I found their decision annoying back in 2008 and I still do. The impact behind their lie proved to be hollow. It merely kept Batman off Gotham City's streets and led Mayor Anthony Garcia and the city to pass a strong anti-criminal law that proved to be hollow following Bane's arrival in Gotham City. I also found Bane's mid-air kidnapping of a nuclear scientist and escape from a U.S. marshal (portrayed by Aidan Gillen) rather somewhat idiotic. I understood that Bane needed that scientist to weaponize the Wayne Enterprise device.  But I never understood why that U.S. marshal failed to take the trouble to identify the hooded prisoner (Bane) before boarding the plane.  In the end, the movie's opening sequence struck struck me as unnecessarily showy. Was this the Nolan brothers' way of conveying Bane's role as a badass to the audience? If so, I was too busy trying to comprehend the villain's dialogue to care. I understood why Batman had not been seen in Gotham for so long. But what was the reason behind Bruce Wayne's disappearance from the public eye?  His physical state was not really that severe.  Rachel Dawes' death? Rachel's death did not stop him from going after the Joker and Harvey Dent in the last movie's half hour. Was it an injured leg? How did he injured it? And why did Gotham's citizens failed to put two-and-two together, when both Bruce and Batman finally appeared in the public eye a day or two apart after many years? The only person who managed to discover Bruce's alter ego - namely Officer John Blake - did so through a contrived reason. For me, the movie's real misstep proved to be Bane's three-month control over Gotham City. As a former member of Henri Ducard's League of Shadows, he planned to achieve his former leader's goal of destroying Gotham City. And he planned to use Wayne Enterprise's energy device to achieve this. One - why not simply build or snatch his own nuclear device? Why go through so much trouble to get his hands on the energy device? Why did Wayne Enterprises create a device that not only saved energy, but could be used as a bomb, as well? And why did it take three months before the device could become an effective bomb? The Nolans' script could have frustrated Bane's attempts to acquire the bomb during that three-month period . . . or anything to spare the audiences of that second-rate version of the French Resistance. The latter scenario seemed so riddled with bad writing that it would take another article to discuss it. And what was the point of the presence of Juno Temple's character Jen? What was she there for, other than being Selina's useless and cloying girlfriend? And Wayne Enterprises executive Lucius Fox was last seen declaring his intentions to leave the corporation for good, following Batman's misuse of cell phones in "THE DARK KNIGHT". In this movie, he is back, working for Wayne Enterprises. What made him change his mind? But not all was lost. I found Bruce's introduction to Selina Kyle very entertaining and sexy. Even better, the incident served as Batman's re-introduction to Gotham City and allowed him to discover Bane's plans regarding Wayne Enterprises and the energy device. One of the more interesting consequences of "THE DARK KNIGHT" proved to be Rachel Dawes' last letter to Bruce. Its revelation by Alfred Pennyworth after seven years led to an emotional quarrel between the millionaire and the manservant and their estrangement. At first, I had balked at the idea of Bane carrying out Ra's al Ghul's original goal to destroy Gotham. After all, why would he continue the plans of the very person who had him kicked out of the League of Shadows? But a surprising plot twist made Bane's plan plausible . . . even when I continue to have problems with his three-month occupation of Gotham. Many critics had lamented the lack of Heath Ledger's Joker in the movie. As much as I had appreciated and enjoyed Ledger's performance in the 2008 movie, I did not need or wanted him in "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES". Tom Hardy's performance as the terrorist Bane was good enough for me. Mind you, I found it difficult to understand some of his dialogue. And when I did, he sounded like the late Sean Connery. But I cannot deny that Bane made one scary villain, thanks to Hardy's performance and intimidating presence. Before I saw the movie, I never understood the need for Marion Cotillard's presence in the film. I thought her character, Miranda Tate, would merely be a bland love interest for Bruce. Not only did Cotillard ended up providing a subtle and intelligent performance from the actress, her Miranda Tate proved to be important to the story as the co-investor in the energy device and for the plot twist in the end. "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" provided some solid performances from other members of the cast. Matthew Modine shined as the ambitious and arrogant Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Foley, who proved to be capable of character development. Another solid performance came from Brett Cullen, who portrayed a lustful congressman that had the bad luck to cross paths with Selina Kyle. Both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman continued their excellent performances as Bruce Wayne's "heart" and "mind", manservant Alfred Pennyworth and Wayne Enterprises executive Lucius Fox. In the end, the movie was fortunate to benefit from four outstanding performances. One came from Gary Oldman's excellent portrayal of the now weary, yet determined police commissioner, James Gordon. His guilt over the Harvey Dent lie and discovery of Batman's true identity provided Oldman with some of his best moments in the trilogy. Another came from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was superb as Gotham City beat cop John Blake. The actor did a wonderful job of balancing Officer Blake's intelligence, passion for justice and disgust toward the bureaucracy. When I learned that Anne Hathaway would end up being the fifth actress to portray Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, I must admit that I had my doubts. Then I remembered that Hathaway was an Oscar nominee, who has also done action before. Watching her sexy, yet complicated performance as the complex cat burglar removed all of my doubts. She was superb and her sizzling screen chemistry with star Christian Bale made me wish Selina had been Bruce's love interest throughout the movie. Speaking of Bruce Wayne, Bale returned to portray the Caped Crusader for the third and final time. I must admit that I found his performance more subtle and complex than his performances in the previous two movies. Bale did an excellent job in re-creating a slightly aging Bruce Wayne/Batman, who found himself faced with a more formidable opponent. I was a little disappointed to see that "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" lacked the Chicago exteriors of the 2008 movie. In the end, Gotham City resembled a collection of American and British cities. But I cannot deny that I found Wally Pfister's photography very eye catching. And Hans Zimmer's entertaining score brought back memories of his earlier work in both the 2005 and 2008 movies. I have a good deal of complaints about "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES". It is probably my least favorite entry in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. For me, the movie's main problem centered around the script written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan. But despite its flaws, the movie still managed to be both entertaining and intriguing. It also has an excellent cast led by the always superb Christian Bale. It was not perfect, but "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" did entertain me.

[polar534]

Slumber Party... OF DOOM!

So. Here is my submission for @johnnysfire ‘s TOH Prompt challenge. For anyone who doesn’t know the prompt chosen was “Evil.”

I asked my lovely friends from discord whether I should go emotional or lighthearted with this and they said lighthearted, so here we are. It was actually really really fun to take a topic like evil and twist it to something fun and hopefully fluffy. I had to keep a lot of things shorter then what I would’ve liked to meet the word count (spoiler alert, I still went a little over), so one day I do plan on fixing this up and making it an actual one shot, detailing the game and everything. Until then, enjoy the read! My idea going in? 

Haunted Boardgame:

(EDIT: Um so Tumblr ate and spat out some paragraphs at random the first time I posted... so hopefully everything is in its correct order. Yikes.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Pillows?" 

"Check."

"Blankets."

"Check!"

"Hot chocolate?"

3 sets of eyes turned to the green-haired witch sitting in the corner. Amity Blight was currently too busy staring at the glow that inexplicably seemed to surround Luz as she sounded off the ingredients for her perfect 'Slumber Party' to notice her companions all staring at her.

"..."

Amity's eyes shifted only slightly to the left as her ear twitched, finally noticing the silence and the fact that everyone was staring at her.

Wait.

Everyone was staring at her.

"Oh um..." Amity looked around panicked, flushing red as she realized she had completely zoned out. She quickly analyzed the scene. Willow had wrapped a fluffy blanket around herself as Gus clutched a pillow excitedly to his chest.

Right. The checklist. Refusing to look at Luz (to avoid any further embarrassment or lapses in attention), Amity quickly reached out and snatched her sound-off item. Only barely remembering what it was at the last moment, Amity somehow saved herself from the splash of scalding liquid that flew out of her mug.

"Hot chocolate, acquired!" She grinned forcibly and altogether too nervously.

Finally risking a glance up to her crush she realized that Luz was giggling, the human's eyes closed as she snicked softly against her hands.

Amity's ears pressed flat against her head as Willow chuckled to her left.

"Well that would be Amity for 'check.'" The plant witch giggled, shifting her body to face Luz excitedly. "So. What happens now?"

"Yes, what new human traditions are you going to show us? I'm so excited!!" Gus squeaked happily, crushing the pillow in arms.

Luz grinned. "Just a little more patience my friend. We've got to start this off correctly. So… if everyone would grab their cocoa, probably a little more gentler then Amity over there, then I'll begin the toast to make this the best slumber party ev-"

THUMP THUMP

Luz stopped short as all those in attendance whipped around to face the door. Amity was finally able to unhunch her shoulders and stare with the rest of her friends at the mysterious knock at the door. The human was inquisitive herself.

"Luz, I thought you said there was supposed to be no one home tonight?" Amity questioned her curiously, cocking her head slightly to the side.

Luz's brow furrowed as she got up.

"There isn't anyone home tonight."

The entire room seemed to hold it's breath as Luz approached the door and pausing for what had to be dramatic effect, opened it sharply.

"HAH! GOT YOU… absolutely nothing…"

Amity peered around Luz's body to see exactly what was going on only to be met with the same sight and disappointment. An empty hallway.

Glancing both ways in the doorframe, the human shrugged nonchalantly as she went to close the door.

"Wait!" Gus cried from behind all of them. Flinging the pillow away from him and into Willow's stomach, he jumped up and dived underneath Luz to swipe something up from the ground.

Holding it proudly over his head both him and Luz marched back into the room, the bedroom door closing softly behind them. Willow and Amity leaned in close as Gus dropped the mysterious object to the ground with a soft and dramatic thump.

"What… is it?" Willow asked curiously, inspecting what looked to be a black rectangular box that lay before them.

"Is this part of the slumber party?" Gus asked curiously as Luz picked up the box and gave it a small shake.

"Not that I'm aware of. Let's open it!" The human said excitably, turning the box over to rip it open.

"Wait!" Amity yelped, grabbing Luz by the arm to stop her. Realizing what she was doing, Amity immediately dropped the contact, blushing profusely as she pointed to a small piece of paper that had fluttered to the ground.

"A note!!" Luz's eyes twinkled, causing the blushing witch to somehow go even redder. "Amity, you should read it for us!"

"What?!" Amity choked in surprise. "Why me?!"

"You found it! Besides you have a nice voice!" Luz explained casually, shaking the box slightly and holding it up to her ear.

Amity found it difficult to breathe as she shakily grabbed the note and held it in front of her, Willow and Gus scooting forward in excitement. Trying to ignore the thundering of her heartbeat in her chest and the full attention of the room, Amity glanced down at the note.

"Dear Sleeping Party attendants! You have been called upon to vanquish the evil from within this board! Inside you'll find what seems to be a normal board game, but is actually a prison for a very powerful and evil spirit! The only way to keep it's villainy contained is to play and win the game. The world is counting on you. Good luck! Mwehehehehehe."

Amity frowned and reread the note to herself. The world? That seemed farfetched to say the least. Where did this box even come from? Who sent it to them? Looking up Amity saw the stars dancing in Luz's eyes. Her crush was sold. Gus was practically buzzing beside her.

"I've heard of objects that could be bound with spirits before, but never like this!" He babbled excitedly.

"I have! You know how many human stories are filled with things like this? How long I've been wanting to do this?!" Luz grinned, finally figuring out how to open the box.

As the top lid slid off, a cheap and busted old board fell to the ground with a cloud of dust. Flipping the box over, a pile of cards, dice and one rather large hour glass spilled out as Luz gave it one final shake. Willow automatically went to organize everything and flipping the board over Amity saw a long and complicated maze pattern. The entire board seemed to be black, with the path cutting along through it a dull, brownish red. It seemed like each square had one of 3 icons sprinkled randomly throughout. In the very, very center of the board there was some sort of design. Amity reached forward and brushed the dust and dirt away from it as Luz and Gus talked excitedly above her.

The chatter quickly faded as everyone's eyes slid to the symbol that Amity had just uncovered. It was carved into the board itself, the deep grooves of the design painted in a faded and chipped white. Luz stared curiously while Gus, Willow and Amity all exchanged a concerned look. The design was simple, a small circle, with 4 tight loops surrounding it in all 4 cardinal directions, connecting in a diamond pattern in the very center of the circle.

The Witch's Knot.

Luz looked up at the plant witch curiously, one eyebrow raised as Amity swallowed the lump that was quickly growing in her throat.

"Oooh. That's elegant." Luz cooed.

"It's not elegant Luz…" Willow breathed quietly.

"That's," Amity pointed at the symbol, "a witch's knot. It's a symbol used to ward off evil."

Luz turned her head down to the board game and nodded. "Oh I get it, because of the evviiiilll theme this game has going on right?" She chuckled lightheartedly. When no one responded in kind, the human became quiet, her grin slowly slipping off her face.

"No. You don't understand. The Witch's Knot isn't just some superstition or tradition. In the Boiling Isles it had been used as a spell, carved to literally seal away evil. It hasn't been used in centuries though." Amity explained further, staring at the ancient white symbol. A cold feeling crept up her back.

Maybe there really was something to this game.

"Well, that makes what I'm about to say next, something that I have wanted to say forever by the way, a little more somber…" Luz gulped as she grabbed the dice Willow had set aside. The human tossed them into the air, and as they all watched the cubes crash down, she spoke again.

"Let the game… begin."

***

Despite the incredibly dramatic and powerful gesture, Luz had no idea how to play the game, none of them did. Luckily for the companions, Willow eventually found the directions taped to the inside lid of the box Luz had tossed aside. They were scribbled out in child-like handwriting but they were detailed enough to understand:

- Rolling the dice will move your character that many steps forward. On the board there are 3 different symbols. These represent your obstacles, fail to complete them and you lose your life. The only way to reverse this death is for a living player to revive you by taking a detour off the fastest route. Be warned, choosing this path will waste precious time and you will be risking your own life. You may only revive one player per game.

- Each player must choose a small token to represent themselves on the board. You will work together with those around you to overcome each obstacle in your path to the sigil. The goal is to reach the end with at least one player still standing to revive the The Witch's Knot protecting us from the evil.

- You may not begin the game until you have flipped the hour glass. If the last grain drains from the timer and you have not reached the end, evil will be unleashed.

-The Board itself is enchanted to tell if the players are worthy. It will be the judge and jury for the challenges you complete.

[ ~ ] Draw a blue card and cast the correct type of magic listed on it at the board. If you fail to cast the correct spell you lose your life.

Below are the symbols you will encounter on your quest:

[ + ] Draw a pink card and complete the challenge listed upon it. If you fail to meet this challenge you lose your life.

[ * ] Draw a green card. Answer the question on it correctly to move forward. If you get it wrong you lose your life.

Now having read through the rules, everyone seemed a lot more hesitant to start.

- When your token reaches the end, the correct lines to reseal the evil will appear. Read them aloud in a strong and clear voice.

"This seems like a bad idea." Amity echoed the thoughts of everyone in the room. Her amber eyes flicked up and caught Luz's warm brown ones. The human gave her a shaky smile.

"Come on Ami," Amity had to remind herself to keep breathing at the idea of her nickname. "It will be fun. Besides… I'm not exactly itching to find out what happens if we don't play." The human admitted quietly. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the dice.

They had all chose board pieces to represent themselves from Luz's large collection of knickknacks. Luz was a small figure of Azura while Amity was Hecate. Gus found himself a tiny rubber chameleon toy while Willow fittingly found a small plastic flower. Each kid seemed to fidget with their tokens as Luz looked at them each in turn. Nodding, the human set her figure down on the start square. Immediately a buzzing sound filled the room and the dull red path illuminated itself. The symbols now glowed their respective card color.

"Well. That seems ominous." Luz laughed nervously, her eyes growing wide as the light from the path traveled towards the Witch's Knot, as it reached the chipped white paint, the symbol flashed, changing it's paint to a bright angry red. "Scratch that. That is just ominous. Is my soul about to be consumed? Did I just sell my soul to a board game?"

Willow set her piece down next, a small ring of light forming around it as the board recognized yet another player.

"Well, I wasn't really using my soul for anything important at the moment. Let's do this." The plant witch grinned and Amity watched as Luz's confidence swiftly returned.

Gus whooped and set his own piece on the board earning him a wide smile from both of his friends. Soon all sets of eyes drifted to Amity who was staring down at the note that had been originally taped to the box. She couldn't shake the horrible suspicion that someone was setting them up. Looking down at the now glowing and obviously magic board, it was clear they were already too far into the trap to back out now. Taking a deep breath she placed Hecate down right next to Azura.

"Alright. Let's do this." Amity nodded, swiftly grabbing the hour glass sitting next to her. "Is uh, everyone ready?"

"Oooh! Can I say it? Amity pleaaaseeee?" Luz jumped in suddenly, startling the green-haired witch into nearly dropping the time piece. Resetting her heartbeat, Amity handed the hourglass to Luz who grinned widely.

"Alright. This time for real. Let the game begin." The human announced as she flipped it and begun their countdown.

The dice magically floated over to Luz as soon as the first grain of sand hit the bottom of the glass. It was clear who was going first. Tossing them out in front of her Luz rolled a 3 and 5. As she reached to move her figure, it zoomed away from her hand, darting forward 8 spaces by itself. The symbol beneath it glowed a bright pink. A challenge space.

Luz grabbed a card, and the race against time began.

Gus was the first to die, his token being swallowed by the board itself after he lost his balance 2 seconds into a 5 second handstand.

Amity was the next to lose to the game. Her concentration on a fireball spell having been completely shattered by Luz's supportive hand laying on her shoulder. Amity knew it wasn't her simply being startled like Luz apologized profusely for, but there was NO way she would be explaining that today. Not over a stupid board game at least. Fate of the world or not.  

Luz and Willow were about 3/4th through the path leading to the sigil when just a few spaces ahead the path split in two. Written in very faint lettering was the words: "Forest of Revival" by the detour path. Looking down it, the companions saw every single square through the 'forest' was lined with knowledge cards. The path itself eventually weaved back to the sigil, but was easily twice as long and packed with symbols.

If they wanted to revive someone it would be a struggle. Deciding to move forward Willow rolled her dice and landed on a spell square.

"Summon a small abomination to pick up your token off the board."

The group fell silent. Willow had never been good at abominations. She slumped in defeat.

Amity had to speak up, the painful memory of her teasing hanging over the entire room.

"You've got this." She said quietly, looking anywhere but Willow.

Luz's eyes flicked worriedly towards Amity, before they turned back to Willow.

"Amity's right. I've seen you do much cooler then a little abomination." Luz cheered helpfully.

"Thanks you two, but I think we both know what happens now." Willow admitted holding a hand up and drawing a pristine circle.

The resulting pile of barely sentient goop unsurprisingly earned a negative reaction from the board and Willow's token disappeared.

Luz wasted no time grabbing the dice for the next turn. They only had about 20 minutes left.

"I'm going to revive someone." She announced, rolling the dice and moving her token into the empty space before the forest.

"Wait, Luz! The forest is full of knowledge checks. Chances are you're going to get something you haven't learned yet. And we won't be able to help you." Amity spoke up quickly.

"Yeah, well you can't really help me if you all are dead right? Look. I'll be fine. There's 12 spaces to the revive square. If I roll double sixes, I'm there."

"That's a pretty big IF Luz..." Willow said worriedly, glancing over at the hourglass.

Turns out they didn't have to be worried at all. As double sixes appeared on the dice, Azura shot forward safely through the forest and landed directly on the revive square.

"I'm reviving Amity." Luz announced decisively as the square began to glow a bright yellow and Hecate appeared beside Azura.

"Me? Why?"

"Because statistically you are the most obvious choice. Top Student and well versed in multiple different magic tracks." Gus nodded, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Good choice Luz!"

Willow merely looked away in shame and Amity felt guilt twist at her heart.

"Well that's not exactly true, but I figure since all of us are always getting up to magic mischief that Amity should get to be a bigger part of this adventure. Plus, historically we have made a pretty good team." Luz beamed, somehow melting the tension of the entire room with her words.

She practically melted Amity face too as heat rushed to the witch’s cheeks at the compliment.

They resumed the game, getting further and further through the forest. As the sand ran down in the hour glass, Hecate and Azura inched closer towards the sigil and the evil within the board.

"1234...5...6... and 7. Nice! Just enough!!" Luz counted excitedly as the board moved her token into the final square before the Witch's Knot. She glanced worriedly at Amity who was still several spaces away and then at the hour glass with just a sliver of sand left.

They were running out of time.

Luckily the board seemed to recognize Luz's finish as a team victory and Hecate was pulled straight to the end, standing alongside her friend/rival Azura.

Two white cards appeared in front of Luz and Amity.

"Ok. So... now we just read whatever's on this card and the evil gets re-sealed?" Luz asked uncertainly, fidgeting with her card.

Amity simply stared at the white card still laying in front of her, dread building in her chest. If there was ever a time for the trap to spring... it would be now. Haunted objects like this often came with a curse, especially here in the Boiling Isles. The ancient symbol currently pulsating red in the center of the board reminded Amity that there was a chance that whatever 'evil' this board contained may be far too old and powerful to simply be sealed away by two witches in training...

"Yep. And hurry! There's not much time left!" Gus's panicked voice jolted Amity out of her thoughts. Taking a deep breath, Amity snatched the card up and flipped it over, almost completely in sync with Luz.

"To defeat the evil within in this board, I hereby announce that-" The two read off in unison.

"... King is the greatest of all time."

"... Luz is a buttface."

The entire room fell silent as the two finished the 'spell' causing the Witch's Knot in the middle to flash a bright, blinding blue before the entire board went dim.

From the doorway the companions could all hear a malicious cackling.

Amity turned around slowly, only to see the resident demon of the Owl House rolling around on his back, laughing.

"YOU SHOULD'VE SEEN YOUR FACES! Oooooh. Oh nooooo! The evil of the board is going to get usssss. Wheeeeheheehehe."

"King!!" Luz reprimanded angrily, but the smile on her face gave away her true feelings. "You know, if you wanted us to play a board game you made, you could've just asked!"

The little demon pushed himself off the floor and wiped his eyes. He walked to the center of the board and kicked over the hourglass, seconds away from running out of sand.

"Psssh. Like I'd want to be involved in your silly little 'Sleep Party' thing anyways. Not that I got an invite or anything..." King grumbled.

Amity felt bad for the little guy, even if the game had them all stressed over nothing, he just wanted to feel included. Reaching forward hesitantly, knowing she didn't have the best relationship with the demon, Amity gently scooped him into her arms and coddled him.

And to both of their surprise, The King of Demons let her.

"Besides, it's not my game anyways. I just wrote those last two cards." King continued, crossing his arms defiantly from his position in Amity's arms.

Luz frowned. "But if you didn't make it then... who did?"

"I don't know. Eda just had it laying around. I found it a couple of days ago and planned this spectacular and amazing prank to pull on you guys for not inviting me. And it workkkeedd! Hah!"

Amity tensed. Nobody knew who made it? A board this enchanted had to have been made by someone.

"No, that's not right. There has to be some sort of clue, right?" Luz frowned, looking around at her friends.

"I don't know, I didn't look." The demon king shrugged before stretching out and curling tightly into Amity's chest.

"Try flipping it over? Maybe there's a name or something. That's what my dad's always do to our stuff in case it gets lost." Willow suggested helpfully.

Everyone nodded as Luz tentatively reached over and flipped the board over. On the back, faintly scratched into the cheap cardboard, were two initials and a small inscription. They had found their answer.

L + E - Vanquishing evil together. Forever.

The End

[boomcomplains]

It's typical. A loud noise sends a character back into a hostage situation, a war, or a gunfight. When faced with the majority of reporting on PTSD centers around combat-related PTSD (source), it makes sense that it's the shellshocked veteran we often see in books, TV, film and comics.  However, the civilian population that experiences PTSD is 13 times larger than its military counterpart. Of course, there are more civilians than those in the military, so naturally, that population is bigger. This article is not meant to dismiss those in the military who deal with very real and terrible side-effects from their time serving.

However, it does beg the question, what does a character with PTSD look like when their trauma is outside combat?

I think a very good study of this sort of character is Dr. Nicholas Rush from Stargate: Universe. There are many other characters out there that I could use, but I'm in a SGU mood today, so I hope you'll forgive me.

At the beginning of the show, Dr. Nicholas Rush is a difficult man. Unable to deal with his wife's terminal cancer, he drowns himself in work so he can avoid the pain of losing her. When she dies while he is off-world, this complicated grief drives him to focus on the mission of the ninth chevron because he has to make his absence from her deathbed mean something. After all, if he didn't succeed, he would not have an excuse. Without the excuse, he would confront the nasty truth that he didn't support his wife in her dying days because he couldn't handle the grief.

The ninth chevron leads him to the Destiny, a ship far beyond the reaches humanity could ever dream to go, with a singular but ultimately mysterious mission. His doggedness to stay on the ship, and follow the mission is likely a reaction to his own inability to come to terms with the trauma of losing his wife.

Because of this, he approaches situations from an ultra-logical world that doesn't exactly coincide with the emotional gray side of the human experience. That's why when he felt that Colonel Young was repeatedly putting lives and the mysterious mission of Destiny in danger, he decided to... frame him for murder... and when that didn't work, stage a coup.

I promise, within the confines of the show, those were actually both very rational decisions.

The coup was the last straw for Colonel Young, so he abandons Rush to die on a desert planet that has no stargate and therefore no possibility for escape. So, metaphorically, Young essentially commits the murder that Rush tried to frame him for.

It is there, on a sandy planet without food or water, that the narrative of Nicholas Rush's PTSD starts.

While attempting to escape, Rush alerts an alien race called the Nakai to his presence as tries to fix a crashed alien spaceship. For the Nakai, it's a lucky find because they are hell-bent on boarding Destiny. Why do they want to get on Destiny? I don't know. They're aliens. Sometimes you don't get to know the why when it comes to aliens.

On their ship, Rush is tortured and imprisoned in a water tank (this is important later). So for the PTSD counter, we have both abandonment and abuse to contend with. His feelings about Young essentially murdering him for doing what he thought was right for the ship are compounded with being mentally torn apart by the Nakai.

Flash forward, Rush is accidentally rescued from the Nakai's clutches due to a lot of plot points I'm not going to go into. Frankly, it's very likely most of you haven't seen the series—or have forgotten more about it than you remember—and the last thing I want to do is turn this article into a Stargate: Universe season recap.

So, back on the ship, Rush isn't sleeping, which you find out after he commiserates with fellow torture victim Chloe. It's assumed that it is for the same reasons as Chloe, which are vivid nightmares. For those of you keeping track, that is a classic sign of PTSD. The subsequent not sleeping because you're afraid of having more nightmares is also a very strong indicator.

Unfortunately, insomnia leads to emotional decision-making, usually based on your experiences in that trauma. But let's put a pin in that for just a moment, and we'll fast forward to a later episode entitled "Pain."

In "Pain", the crew accidentally bring a tick onboard that causes vivid hallucinations, some of which are paranoid delusions. For everyone who experiences this, there is little rhyme or reason why the hallucination starts, and they go with it unquestioningly.

Rush, however, is different. His hallucinations are all triggered. When under the influence of the tick, Sergeant Greer (a proponent for Young's leadership) threatens Rush. Because of this, Rush experiences flashbacks to the Nakai ship and sees everyone as a potential Nakai threat. Paranoid ideation is a symptom of PTSD. When I say "paranoid" though, I fear that this may be read dismissively. PTSD, in many ways, is a survival mechanism. It's a set of prefab reactions because you have already experienced something similar. Essentially, it's not paranoid ideation to you, because it's happened before.

It is unclear if Rush himself was affected by the alien organism, but it seems very likely that his reaction was hinged on the perceived/very real threat to his survival. The fact that it has been established that he has not been sleeping for episodes now, and his hallucinations are of past experiences—such as the room flooding with water, or seeing other members of the crew as Nakai —it seems more than likely that Rush's experiences in this episode are PTSD-related and not due to the tick.

This, however, is not our only brush with PTSD. Let's move forward to the next season, where he finds the bridge of Destiny and hides that discovery from the rest of the crew.

One of the cool things about Stargate: Universe in the first season is that they never find the bridge of the ship. They don't even know there is one because Destiny is so massive and broken, they haven't found it yet... or perhaps the Ancients were so culturally different at the time they didn't design the ship with a bridge in mind. Even if they did, there would be a fair chance the crew would have no idea how to use it.

So, Rush—who is established to still not be sleeping after an incursion with the Lucian Alliance—finds the bridge of the Destiny. Until now, he and the Science Team had been interfacing with the ship in what I think is probably a janitor's closet, so this is an incredibly important find because it is vital for the survival of the ship and the crew. Naturally, that means Rush should want to share it, knowing what we know of him from before he was abandoned on the planet and then tortured by the Nakai. Before, it was the greater good. Now, it's survival is first and foremost.

But no. Rush, instead, reasons that Young cannot be trusted with this find, and starts to lead a double life of surreptitiously guiding the ship (to disastrous results) and pretending like he's still doing things from the Control Interface Room/Janitor's closet.

But what led him to do this? After all, keeping this find under wraps leads to dire situations that compromise the survival of the crew, and indeed causes the death of one member. It is not a rational decision.

Except that it is. If there is one thing I want to make very plainly clear in this article, PTSD-sufferers reactions are rational, even if they don't seem that way to an outsider. I think oftentimes we nitpick plots in fiction because characters make decisions that seem illogical to us. Sometimes this is deserved because an author did not sufficiently help us empathize with a character, other times I think it is because we don't understand what it means to have PTSD.

You don't have to be triggered to have PTSD affect your decision-making process. You see, unmanaged, PTSD gets you stuck in survival mode. It's an undertow that drags you down with things that were true but aren't necessarily true now.

So in Rush's sleep-deprived, and exhausted state-of-my-mind, he reverts back to Young being the threat despite all the work they had done to repair the relationship. While some may be frustrated with this backstep, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that about his character. It explains the rationale for doing something irrational, and makes his character so much deeper.

The beauty of Stargate Universe is that it shows PTSD as it is. Even better, no one is excusing Rush's actions because of it, and/or invalidating his experience. It simply is.

PTSD is so misunderstood, it deserves logical, rational representation, and it gets that with logical, rational Dr. Rush. I mean, let's face it, there is logic to what goes on in a PTSD-sufferers brain, but it's logic from a different time period. Dismissing it as irrational is insulting, and I love that Stargate: Universe never does that, and I think it is exactly why Rush is such a deep and meaningful character.

In the end, I think there is a lesson writers can draw from this: don't be afraid to explore this within some of your characters. Understand their viewpoint, and what drives them to make their choices. If you do that, you will never have a boring story.

[cherry-valentine]

Winter 2021 Anime Season:

What I’m watching:

Log Horizon season 3 is all about the politics. Of all the “trapped in a video game” anime I’ve seen, Log Horizon has always been unique in the way it focuses not on the drama and action (although there is some of that), but on the world building of the “game” the characters find themselves stuck in. It’s less a game and more an entirely new world, one that the players, called “Adventurers,” are keenly aware of their influence on. The show focuses much more on the politics, economics, history, etc. of this world than it does on battles or romance. This sets it apart from things like Sword Art Online and the .hack franchise. Season 3 so far seems to be focusing on how the hub town of Akiba will be governed, with an actual election taking place. The Adventurers have to form good business relationships with the “People of the Land” (NPC’s, who in this world have their own personalities and lives and are just as developed as the players). The series goes into things like power systems, food supply, the politics of arranged marriages, and so many other things that make this world so interesting. Because of this, I’ve seen people calling the show boring or slow. I can understand how it could be seen that way, but I honestly find it fascinating. When the show does focus on action, it really nails it. So far season 3 has had pretty much zero action, but I’m guessing we’ll get some in the later part of the season. The animation is nice, with tons of characters sporting various designs. The music is great too. While I do miss the “Database” opening theme from season 1 and 2, this new one is pretty good. Watch Log Horizon if you’re into fantasy world-building. Avoid if you think a few episodes without a fight makes a series boring.

Beastars season 2 is a delight. I didn’t watch the first season as it aired, so I quickly caught up on Netflix before season 2 started, and I’m so glad I did. The show is definitely something I didn’t think I would enjoy, but everyone seemed to agree it was fantastic, so I gave it a shot. I intended to watch the first episode one evening to see what it was like and ended up watching the first eight in practically one sitting. For those unaware, Beastars is about a society of vaguely human-like animals (almost all of them walk upright on two legs and wear clothes, for example) and the conflicts between the carnivores and the herbivores (many of whom live in constant fear of being eaten, even though eating meat is illegal). The core of the story is about a wolf, Legoshi, falling in love with a rabbit, Haru, and all the complications that arise from that. Apparently, inter-species relationships are allowed, but frowned upon (I guess? It’s never explicitly stated either way). What makes this relationship interesting is the fact that the wolf is shy and awkward (and just generally a sweet guy) while the rabbit is more experienced and worldly. Something that struck me as interesting is that the rabbit Haru is sexually active, and has been with several different male characters. While the other characters, naturally, have things to say about this (calling her a “slut” or a “bitch” - the main setting is a high school after all), the story itself doesn’t condemn her for it. In fact, the story presents her in a positive light, sexual history included. The fact that she sleeps around is never portrayed as a negative aspect of her character, and Legoshi is very much aware of her activities. It’s a surprisingly sex positive take. Of course, this positivity doesn’t extend to the audience. Avoid comments sections on episodes of this show unless you want to see some rampant slut shaming.

I ended up talking mostly about season 1, but I didn’t get to do a write-up about it so there’s that. Season 2 is so far very good, dealing with a plot thread that had been left dangling in season one: an herbivore student was murdered and eaten in the first episode, and the mystery of who the killer is was pretty much dropped in favor of character development and world building. But season 2 is addressing that mystery in earnest, and it’s been exciting to watch Legoshi pursue the case. Overall, it’s an engaging show that I regret sleeping on until now. The opening and ending themes are real bangers and the animation looks great.

Dr. Stone Season 2 was easily my most anticipated series this season. It was my favorite show during it’s first season and is my favorite overall this season as well. The show is just so fun. The very quick and basic plot setup is that humanity was turned to stone in the modern age and, thousands of years later, the earth has been retaken by nature. A teenaged scientific genius named Senku breaks free of his stone shell and decides to save everyone and bring science and technology back to the world. In conflict with him is Tsukasa, a physical powerhouse who wants to destroy all the stone adults and create a utopia for the youth. Season 2 leaps right into the war with Tsukasa’s army, with Senku and his allies actually building a primitive cell phone to communicate over wide distances. The charm of this series has always been in its mixture of science facts and methods (all based on real-world science and theoretically possible) and dramatic action between well developed characters, both presented in equally exciting lights. It’s just as much fun watching Senku and his friends gather materials to make a vehicle as it is watching the various skillful warriors battling it out. The art style is something often commented on, as the character designs take a little getting used to, but the animation itself is very nice. As per usual, it has amazing opening and ending themes, with my favorite opening of the season.

The Promised Neverland Season 2 is a bit of a mess. I don’t follow the manga, but I enjoyed the first season of the anime very much and, just by virtue of being on Tumblr and being aware of the series, I ended up hearing about some major plot points from the manga that had me excited. So season two started and the first few episodes were great. But then things started seeming rushed, or just not quite right. A glance at the comments on the episodes revealed that entire story arcs had been skipped, and it really shows even to someone like me who hasn’t read the manga. And one major event I had seen so many images of from the manga is clearly being done in a completely different way in the anime (one that lessens the scene’s impact quite a lot). So... I’m not sure how to feel about this series. It was one of my most anticipated shows this season, but now it’s dropped down toward the bottom, and that’s disappointing. I guess I’ll finish this out and then consider picking up the manga, since apparently this is so different it won’t be spoiling much.

World Trigger Season 2 was a bit of a surprise. I only found out about it a few days before it began airing, and I honestly hesitated when deciding whether or not to watch it. When the first season aired, I loved it. I was sure it would be a new favorite. But then the filler arcs started, and they were almost unbearably boring. I dropped the series and always wondered if the show went back to its former greatness. So when season 2 started, I wondered if this was more filler, or if the filler arcs had ended in season 1 and I’d missed out on some content that I’d need to watch to understand season 2. Plus, my memory of season 1 wasn’t so great. With these thoughts in mind, I decided to watch the first few episodes of season 2 and see if I could make sense of it. Luckily, all of my concerns flew out the window pretty quickly. By the end of the first episode, I was enjoy it so much that I didn’t care about any of the things I’d been worried about. Sure, I might not have remembered all the names or all the details, but the important stuff was coming back to me.

The thing World Trigger does best is juggling tons and tons of characters. I know a lot of anime have large casts, but few of them have so many characters active in a single story arc, and even fewer of them handle those characters so well. Even though it’s been a few years since I watched season 1, and there were dozens of characters popping up in the first few episodes alone, I remembered most of them as I saw them. This is because all of them are memorable, well-designed, and interesting. I think it says a lot about the cast that, in the first several episodes, the three main protagonists are completely left out of the action, and we only get a brief glimpse of them. And this did absolutely nothing to hinder my enjoyment of the show. The supporting characters are so strong (both in-series and in terms of the writing) that the protagonists were not even missed. And I’m not dunking on the protagonists here. They’re great, fun characters. Aside from all this, the show has simple yet attractive art with a ton of variety in the design work. The music is nice, with one of the better opening themes of the season. The action is well choreographed and it’s just a fun series overall.

Sk8 is one of only two totally new series I’m following this season, and it’s a blast. Following a handful of eccentric skate boarders who engage in one-on-one races, the show is equal parts funny and exciting. The main focus is on two skaters, the energetic Reki and the Canadian snow boarder Langa, whom Reki is introducing to the world of skate boarding. The first thing you’re likely to notice about this series is just how colorful it is. It’s like the show itself is in love with color. It makes the art very striking and pleasing to look at. Honestly, it’s worth watching for the eye candy alone. Luckily, the series has other things going for it as well. The budding friendship between Reki and Langa is humorous and sweet, with very little of the usual “rivals who act like they hate each other but are actually friends” shenanigans we see so often in anime. They’re just two nice boys who are nice to each other, and that’s refreshing. Another high point is the gloriously flamboyant villain, Adam. He’s a real treat whenever he’s on screen. The show has an overall light-hearted feel, with enough emotional moments to keep it from becoming too silly. I don’t know much about skate boarding, but this anime makes it look awesome.

Kemono Jihen is the only other new series I’m watching this season. It primarily focuses on a small group of mythical creatures (or half-human/half-mythical) living in Tokyo, operating a detective agency for cases involving creatures like them. The protagonist is Kabane, a young boy who is half human, half ghoul. He’s apparently immortal, to the point that severing his head doesn’t even seem to cause pain. Due to being neglected and mistreated by his adoptive human family, he lacks social skills, but his earnest attempts to make friends and help his companions make him an endearing character. While this type of “urban fantasy” story isn’t new, it’s executed rather well. The characters and their abilities are varied and interesting, the art is competent, and the music fits. There’s a bit of a gross-out factor, with at least two cases involving insects, so be aware. It’s not my favorite show this season, mainly because it doesn’t seem to bring any new ideas to the table, but it’s entertaining enough to keep a spot on my watch list despite me being absolutely brutal when trimming that list down this season. Worth watching, for sure.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

Black Clover

Jujutsu Kaisen

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Sk8

Best Opening Theme: Dr. Stone Season 2

Best Ending Theme: Sk8

Best New Male Character: Langa (Sk8)

Best New Female Character: Kon (Kemono Jihen)

[justawordwright]

extract from Octokittens (And some theories on how they might have come about). or well, the best of the four short stories in completion really.  rating T, mild horror, a little animal death (brief, not a long-term pet death). mechs typical violence.

The ship was a wreck. It was clear on the maps that that was the case, and it was why Hans and Albrecht were visiting it, they were scrap dealers after all. They’d fallen on hard times, and they’d heard that there was a valuable cargo on board, valuable enough to set themselves up for several lifetimes of luxury.

Neither of them thought to wonder exactly what had destroyed the ship in the first place. Nor why no one had successfully claimed the wreck for themselves in the time since the ship had been destroyed. It had been a long time since then, long enough no one could really remember exactly how long.

Anyway, they had set out from New Venus in their little trawler and after a couple of weeks, their target had crested over the bottom of their screens, vast and red and crumbling.  A small cluster of other trawlers hovered at its side, each of them battered and solar-worn, but not quite as much as the ginormous ship they clung to like limpets. None of them looked particularly recent either, so Hans shrugged and steered their own ship in closer. They weren’t competition, and they’d serve a handy bonus if there was any hold space left on the way back. Hans thought he recognised a couple of builds that were currently in vogue due to having crossed into the vintage territory, and that always pushed the prices up for already expensive spare parts.

The boosters flipped to reverse, and the Jaunty Clipper came to a shuddering halt. Hans slowly shut the systems off and went to join his brother in the cargo hold. Albrecht was already suited up and checking his oxygen tank, so Hans chucked his own spacesuit on over his clothes before picking up one of the large maglev torches. Sealing his helmet, he flicked the switch to start the process of opening the cargo bay door. The fans whined, sucking the air out of the room until they just went silent, even as the blades still turned. Only when the blades stopped did the door judder upwards, metal folding in on itself, impossibly quiet, revealing the gaping hole in the wreck they had pulled up next to.

It alone dwarfed the Jaunty Clipper, yet it was tiny in comparison to the hull of the wreck it was set into. Flashing his light about, the beam disappearing into the dark, just barely catching a few beams and supports in the faint light, Hans wondered if this was what a flea felt like, trying to comprehend the extremity of its host.

“Ready?” Albrecht’s voice crackled over their intercom and Hans was about to reply in the affirmative when he noticed something floating in the space between them and the wreck. It was pink, and clearly not space debris or a broken bit of ship, though it was too far away to tell what it was exactly.

“Give me a second,” Hans answered, shooting a grappler chain out to retrieve the item. It came shooting back in with no inertia behind it, and Hans was surprised to have a small child’s doll drop into his hand. The fabric was a bit worn and faded and ratty, but he could still see a thin line of stitches picking out a smile, and two black buttons for eyes and some red wool for hair. He smiled and wondered who it had belonged to and if it’d make a nice present for his friend’s daughter. Carin always liked souvenirs of his trips.

Albrecht jumped past him, throwing himself out into the hole. “Come on, we don’t have time for kids toys. The oxygen tanks won't last all day, we need to get a move on.”

Hans rolled his eyes but never the less let go of the doll, watching it float away and followed his brother into the wreck.

He landed in a tall, narrow corridor with handholds spaced out evenly down the walls and ceiling. Albrecht was clung to one of them, fiddling with a gyroscope. “Let's try for the centre? Cargo bay should be somewhere near there,” said Albrecht.

Hans nodded and pushed off down the corridor. It was long and labyrinthine, with the occasional junction, and at each Albrecht checked the gyroscope before leading them down it or not. There weren’t any signs anywhere, at least not any that had survived the test of time. Hans noticed the occasional stripe of white paint against the major green in the few places where it hadn’t been consumed by bubbling rust, a single chipped or faded letter or stripe holding out by itself. He didn’t recognise the alphabet though, all harsh lines and corners. Here almost half a dozen letters survived, scattered across three lines, at least that was what Hans assumed, he wasn’t sure exactly what direction the text was supposed to be read in. Most of the letters were some form of an upright stick with a horizontal or diagonal branch off, but there was one that almost looked like an ‘R’ in Standard, with the stem removed. Another looked like a more jagged ‘s’ or ‘5’. He knew it had to mean something – and on a ship like this, it was probably some sort of area designation. If only he could read it. If only it wasn’t so damaged.

Slowly, he ran a gloved finger across the text, knocking chips of paint loose. They flocked around his hand, suspended in the ether and dancing slowly in the light of his torchlight.

Shaking his head, he pushed off after Albrecht again, who he’d let get ahead of him as he tried to puzzle out the script. His brother had already disappeared around a sequence of corners, and Han’s stomach rolled as he passed off shooting corridors, still with no sign of Albrecht. He was sure his brother wouldn’t leave the corridor they were on without warning him. He was sure.

Oh, how he wished there was a map of this place. That would make things so much easier.

There was a sharp popping noise from around the bend.

Hans floated onwards, his torch catching on a sheet of greying paper behind a panel of glass on the wall opposite him. There was a drawing on it. A drawing of the ship. Six silhouettes of the hull, with a layout of its snaking corridors set out inside each, and on one a small red circle with the words ‘you are here’ written in Standard above it. Apparently he was on Level Three, in Quadrant Two, Sector Six. It was a residential area, and directly above him, two floors up was the nav-deck, while the cargo bays were a floor down and maybe two corridors away.

That was useful to know. Hans batted away another one of those dolls and continued onwards.

Two more corners and he found his brother pounding on a closed door, fists silently clattering into the metal and nudging Albrecht away down into the corridor until he bounced back against the door to hit it again. Hans slid into place next to him as Albrecht stopped and rested against the metal.

“Bloody thing is sealed up tight,” Albrecht said over the comms, kicking at a pair of dolls floating around his feet. “Got the plasma cutter?”

Hans nodded and flicked the switch to begin charging it. “At least the cargo bay’s close. Should be a ladder down on the other side of this.”

Albrecht turned and squinted at him. “How’d you know that?”

“There was a map?”

“I didn’t see one.”

“It was just back there,” Hans said, gesturing vaguely back the way he’d come. “You must have just missed it.”

“I’m not sure I did, I was keeping an eye out for one. It-” Albrecht started to disagree, but the plasma cutter in Hans’ hands burst into life, bright, glowing purple energy spitting into a narrow cutting beam. Albrecht carefully pushed away from the door to let Hans centre himself.

“Whatever. Get this open, Hans.”

The plasma made short work of the metal, Hans quickly inscribing a deep rectangle into the door, shaping the edges of a panel he’d remove to create their entranceway. Clicking the cutter off, he braced himself against the roof of the corridor, and lashed out with his foot, expecting the metal to buckle and the panel to fall in.

The metal shifted under his foot but didn’t budge. There was something behind it. Blocking it.

“A hand?” Hans asked. “The crowbar?”

Albrecht drifted forwards, planting himself in place and stabbing the sharp end of the crowbar through the weakened metal. Then, with Hans’s help, levered the metal up, opening their entranceway.

From out of the black a dozen of the dolls came spiralling. The brothers looked at each other, and Hans drove his hand through the hole. He felt the dense resistance of what must be hundreds of the things, piled up and packed into the corridor. No matter how far he reached, there seemed to be no end to the things.

He pulled his hand out, shaking his head. “No way through.”

Albrecht pointed silently to his hand, the one that Hans had just pulled out of the pile of dolls. Hans looked down.

There was a thin scrap of red fabric twined around his fingers. That wasn’t a surprise, he’d clutched at a lot of the things as he searched for an end to the dolls.

The scattering of white across his palms though. Those were teeth, and they looked humanoid. Half a dozen of them, child-sized and a handful of stumpy cream cylinders that were possibly finger bones.

Hans snatched his hand away, watching them float slowly down the corridor.

Silence for an eternal moment, as the brothers stared each other down.

Albrecht blinked first. “Did your map give an alternate route?”

Hans nodded. There were a couple of corridors they could take, but it would be a complicated route to traverse with many junctions to traverse. He didn’t fancy getting lost. On the other hand, they’d just passed a stairway that would lead them up to the nav-deck and captain’s area. He explained this to Albrecht who sighed and nodded.

“We were going to look for the logs anyway. Lead on then.”

Albrecht followed as Hans showed him back towards their entrance point. He frowned as Hans pointed out the map, but didn’t argue, and together they located the service ladder that would take them up to the control decks. It was simple to follow the ladders up, only pausing to open hatches between the levels. The first time, Hans found the metal hatch shut and unmovable, and he panicked and feared it had been bolted shut, or worse was being held down by more of the dolls. It was a false alarm though, as no more had Hans than wished that the hatch was clear and open, then there was a pop and the thing burst open. Some tenacious rust giving away he decided as he floated through. Must have been.

They made it onto the control deck though. It was a vast thing, more empty space than panels and terminals, all dark red and grey. Hans didn’t spend much time looking at the regular contents of the room though, there were far more interesting things to consider. Like the giant pile of gold and gems spilling over one of the desks and burying the skeleton slumped in the seat. Or the massive dinosaur skeleton that was scattered across the floor. And of course, more of those dolls, hovering aimlessly in the ether.

His brother tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around to look at the wall behind them. There was a cosmonaut’s suit resting at its base, the helmet glass cracked and distorting the image of the empty-eyed skull within. Above it…

Hans didn’t know many languages, but he could guess that each message read the same as the one he could. Two words, blood red and edged with scratches.

Don’t Wish.

“Wish I knew what that meant,” It took a moment to recognise his wording, his glove slapping over his visor above his mouth. “I didn’t mean it.”

Albrecht gave him a weary look as there was a pop and a red leather-bound book appeared between them. Hans jumped backwards, clattering against the wall as Albrecht went spinning into one the terminals clutching it viciously. Both of them stared down the book.

Hans broke the stalemate, activating his coms with a hiss of static. “I did the doll room. This is your turn.”

He could imagine Albrecht’s sigh as his brother hesitantly floated over to the book. When it did nothing after a gentle prodding, he cautiously picked it up and started thumbing through it with bulky gloved hands. Hans waited as Albrecht skimmed through it with a look of deep concentration.

Eventually he looked up again, understanding in his eyes. “It says the ship stumbled into an area of latent potential creation so that anything they wished for would manifest. Most of them couldn’t control their desires and were destroyed by their greed.

“We could use this. We could get rich on this. This is it, Hans! Anything we can think of, ours!”

“Anything?” Hans asked quietly.

Albrecht’s eyes flashed as his hands filled with nuggets of dark gold and the glistening white of flawlessly cut diamonds. They spilt out between his fingers, floating into the room. His brother grinned. “Anything. Just be certain about what you’re after. Don’t get distracted. That’s what happened to them.”

Hans nodded, absentmindedly catching one of the gems his brother had created in his hand. It really was perfect, no sign of any defects and, being as long his thumb and almost as wide, worth a small fortune on any planet. With a small bag of those, they’d be rolling in credits, even after paying off their debts.

Across the room, Albrecht was still creating whatever crossed his mind – rare books, wines, silks – and Hans watched as his brother's imagination crafted them a small fortune. He wasn’t looking forward to carting it all back to the ship, but he also supposed he should probably try out a couple of wishes himself. It was just a case of what to wish for. Albrecht seemed to have all the money-making things covered, and he didn’t want anything too bulky or hard to manoeuvre through the ship.

Would it be possible to create something alive Hans wondered? The Jaunty Clipper had had a vermin problem for a while, and it tended to get lonely out in space for months on end, with only his brother for company. He knew it didn’t need to be like that either, just the two of them – he remembered the days when they were kids, out on their mother’s tug as she rescued the scuppered ships. Those trips took weeks, and she was always busy, but there was always a warm bundle of fur to curl up with. They’d left the Sol system far behind them though, far enough that a proper Earth-cat had been out of the question for years. And none of the alien versions now available to them had ever really felt the same.

But now…

Hans fixed his mind on the idea of his new cat. Large and fluffy, like a Maine Coon. Dark grey fur, with golden eyes. A hunter, a cuddler.

And he wishes.

There was a pop, and the cat appeared.

And went limp.

He realised his mistake as Albrecht looked up, frustration flashing across his face. “You could wish for anything, and you wish for a cat. And you even forget there’s no atmosphere,” Albrecht sighed. “It’s a good thing I’ve got us both covered then. You can start getting this back to the ship for me then,” he gestured to the pile of goods he’d created. “It’s the least you could do.”

Hans stared his brother down as Albrecht ignored him and turned back to creating his gold. All he’d wanted was a companion. And he’d messed up and it’d died, and his brother hadn’t even cared. Screw his brother. Albrecht had never really cared for him, had always treated him like dead weight except for when he’s the packhorse. Screw him.

Hans decided that maybe he could still have his cat, only he was going to have one better adapted to space. He didn’t think too much about what that meant, but he knew that they’d be clever, and fast, and they’d survive. And he wishes they were real and he wishes his brother will regret spurning him.

A hundred eyes blink into existence.

His brother disappears under a pile of fur and tentacles.

The eyes look up at Hans, hunger unsatiated.

Hans starts running.

[benmcm18]

Film Narrative 2 (March)

This will talk about all the March work i have done for Film Narrative 2.

Finalized the script

After many redrafts of our script “119! we have finally got a version of our script that we are happy with. Bonnie is the Writer of the group and she did a fantastic job creating a piece of work we are all really passionate about. We already had roles thought of however we solidified them shortly after handing in the script. We figured out our roles going forward and when we need to have our work done for each of the departments within the production. As I’m the cinematographer, I’m working on the Storyboard and Shot list.

My Work for the Fiction Project

Storyboard

I really enjoyed getting to do the storyboard. With no limit due to us not actually making the film, I was able to create shots I physically couldn’t do at the level I’m at, so it was a breath of fresh air. I spent a few days creating the storyboard and came up with about 40 different shots. Not only did I improve on my illustrations however it made me understand why filmmakers shoot for coverage. Instead of thinking of each individual shot and cut, I assume they just get the main coverage shots (Wide, OTS, etc.) and then get some insert shots that are crucial. Overall, that made me be more considerate of my time and work process.

Shot list

I didn’t have a template for the shot list (or I couldn’t find one) so I came up with my own trying to get as much information as physically possible. I’m realizing now that I forgot to put in a legend. Something Jack (Director) suggested I will remember this for next time as it would be very helpful to those who aren’t sure what the abbreviations mean. A stupid mistake on my part.

Lighting plan

The lighting plan was interesting. We wanted to have a major contrast in lighting when the twist in our fiction project happened. So we were going for a very dark, gritty noir look when the audience believe it is a police station and then when the twist is revealed, the whole colour palette changes and so does the lighting becoming more high key than low. I looked at film inspirations for colour palettes (I’ll let you see which films you can spot in the images below :) )

Editing sequence breakdown

Introduction

We additionally, got to work on an edit for class. It was a short hospital scene in the film Lethe. Overall, I’m very happy with my edit I took advice from my group and went away to great an edit we were proud of. In the end, we created a total of three edits. I believe I create two different drafts of the edit.

Edit One

The response to my first edit was a lot better than I anticipated. In previous short films, I’ve done whilst there are numerous problems with everything I was always told that my editing isn’t the best. So I went off and did research and practiced on my editing skills taking up jobs on websites like Fiverr and editing people’s YouTube videos just to practice, However, what I realized when editing this short scene that it wasn’t necessarily wrong with my editing (There are things wrong though haha) it was how I prepared my footage for the edit. Rushing takes, making them shorter for actor and not looking at my script which in turn lead to many continuity mistakes. 

The Lethe footage was of the full scene from several different angles and it was a joy to edit. I’ve never had so much freedom. 

I’m going to go over some main parts of my edit.

(Opening vision) Inspired by one of my favourite shows “Attack on Titan” in the first opening of the show we see a dream sequence from the main protagonist who wakes up in a frantic panic. I didn’t initially think of using this idea. I knew I wanted to do something in that expressionist style however wasn’t sure how. So I researched and came across the shows opening. The reception to the opening sequence has gone well. The majority of people really like it and wanted to know how to do it. (I’ll describe in a moment xoxo) Some suggested it be toned down a tad. I can completely understand why they would want this and whilst I am already really happy with it I know it can be improved. 

(How to do the opening edit) I used Premiere Pro to edit the footage. However, I believe this could be done on much less complicated editing software as it was mainly practical effects that sold the scene. The blurriness is all done through the camera (I believe this is through actually removing the lens to give it that distorted feel or possibly rubbing the lens in vaseline to make the image as smooth as possible (I am not the filmmaker however and these are just theories) Additionally, the editing is simply cutting on the beat of the heart scanner (which I found on YouTube) I also began rotating the image and zooming into to give a much more distorted feel. Then I boosted the grain slightly and then lowered the saturation to give it a washed-out look. The final shot was already slowed down however I took the audio into Audacity and added a low pass filter to make it sound muffled instead of slowed which i think came out good. Overall I’m really pleased with this edit and I can’t wait to make changes for the next draft.

I wanted to stick to mainly long takes and focus on the main protagonist. I recently watched Thunder Road and I was really inspired by Jim Cumming’s use of long takes as it grounded the film in reality so that is why I chose to cut a lot less than others. One idea was to focus more on the protagonist when the man (possibly Abe) sits down at her side. I have already shown so much of her and believe his performance is good however, most importantly I feel her dialogue wasn’t as important as his reaction so that’s why I chose to focus on “Abe” instead. 

Towards the end of the scene, I foreshadowed many things from later in the script “The Watch” and “The Purse” reading the script I understood how important those items were in developing the story so I made sure to draw specific attention to them. I agree with the criticism that some of the insert shots last too long. So I’ve taken the initiative to shorten them.

Edit Two

Returning to the edit there were some things I wanted to change. Overall the reception of the original edit was good but there were crucial things that needed to be changed. There was an audio sync issue in one of the takes that when hearing about I had no clue what the teacher was talking about haha, but after checking it I think I fixed it. I hope I fixed it! Additionally, they asked me to tone down the opening shot which I did subtly. I’m very happy with it and the majority of people thought it was fine so when one person suggests I change it I’ll take it on board but I kept it closer to what I envisioned then dramatically reducing the effect. Furthermore, the shot of the wallet was too long so I shortened that and the shot of the watch was too short. I extended it but just to give some reasoning behind it, I have been watching a lot of Satoshi Kon, He is known for his unique style and editing. I wanted to see how short a shot I could cut for the audience to register. In hindsight I must have cut it too short haha!

My Teams work

Tom - He was the producer and the rock of the pre-production process. Whenever I was lost he was kind enough to give me a helping hand and his work on the Call sheets was fantastic. I believe we are working in the same group again for the independent project so I’m really excited about that (To be honest I could say that about everyone in this group haha)

Heather - Heather was the production designer, she was in charge of the mood boards and sketches. I’m really happy as well with her work the mood board is clear and concise I would have loved to see more of what she thought the scene looked like with sketches and her opinions on a colour palette but I think she thought we already had a clear enough idea.

Jack - The Director of the production. I’ve worked with him on loads of projects and he always seems to handle all the stuff given to him with ease. This production was no different I feel sorry for him not actually getting to direct the idea he came up with but I do think he enjoyed helming a great group.

Bonnie - I believe this is Bonnie’s first time writing. I don’t mean to say that as an insult because she did a fantastic job. She was passionate about her ideas, has a great grasp on entertaining dialogue and I just want to see more of what she writes. 

Final thoughts 

I think we created a solid piece of work. There are definitely flaws and obviously after seeing everyone else’s work you are going to think of things we could have done better. However, there is no point worrying about it now, I just have to make sure I implement it into the next project :) I had fun xoxo