#So like actually in retrospect getting blamed for my parents’ house needing a little work done from EVERYONE in the house

[deathxproof-archive]

today was going exceptionally well until I was once more solely blamed for the state of the second floor of my parents’ house when I was one of six (6) people who have occupied that floor. it’s fine. I’ll get over it. I’m already pretty over it tbqh but still fucking sucks yknow

[aminiatureworld]

Steadfast

Characters: Childe, gn!reader

Word Count: 3,241

Warnings: Swearing, Angst

Premise: He’d always assured you that he wouldn’t change, that he was still the man he was before. And yet how different things were, and how much it hurt to see what had come to pass.

In which the reader sees the changes in Childe

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for this request anon! Really from the bottom of my heart thank you. I really liked the concept of this prompt, I feel like it really gave me an opportunity to focus on how relationships change and grow, rather than always writing about new couples, or people just beginning to fall in love, although there is of course that involved. It’s interesting to see how people grow and change, even if it can be a little sad sometimes. Writing this was kind of depressing, I hope that this wasn’t too sad, considering you requested hurt comfort. I might’ve gotten a bit carried away…

Funny story, I actually hate one of the people Childe shares a name with. Look what you did to Cassandra Ajax the Lesser, look what you did… So to make up for this unfortunate coincidence I pronounce the names differently in my mind. Ajax the Lesser is pronounce “A-jack-s” and Childe’s name is pronounced “Ai-axe”.

I decided not to bullet point this, as I feel like it works better in a more “traditional format”, that being said if bullet points are easier to read I can go back and fix that.

When you’d first fallen in love with Ajax it had been before the change.

Back then everything with him had seemed so exciting, like stepping into the sea for the first time. You were a bit afraid, worried that you might be swept away all at once, but another part of you wanted to run straight ahead, to immerse yourself in this new and exciting experience. Wanted to keep going and never look back.

 You’d known Ajax since before you could remember. The two of you had grown up in the same small village, where one could hardly take five steps without bumping into someone, and being close in age had made you automatic playmates. Ajax was a brash child, not always easy to get along with, but impossible to pull away from. Even when he knocked you to the ground, or sat on you so you couldn’t move, declaring himself the winner of whatever you’d been playing, you’d still run to meet him the next day, the tears you’d shed utterly forgotten. Childhood friends might’ve been a cliché, but it was truly then that Ajax as a person had begun to stick in your mind.

This only continued throughout the course of your adolescence. Attending the same schools you two were nearly inseparable, causing you merciless teasing from the rest of your classmates. Ajax apparently got the same treatment, resulting in him decking a kid who declared you two were going to get married when you grew up. He’d been suspended for a few days, but never seemed to regret it, and when you’d gone over to his house to ask about it he’d grinned as usual, proclaiming he’d gladly do it again.

Growing up was a difficult process, so many snags and pitfalls, new anxieties, and old ones that you’d never truly worried about before. But it was all perfectly fine with Ajax there. He was always ready to pick you up, and flash you a smile to go along with his help. No wonder you found yourself hopelessly infatuated him, years of trust and affection building up to the newfound feeling of love.

 And then Ajax went missing.

You still remembered the terror that shocked your system when his mother visited, tone unnervingly light, asking if you and Ajax weren’t playing some type of game. You’d bolted outside when she’d revealed Ajax had gone missing, running towards the woods that was the only exit to the village where you lived. The adults had quickly caught up to you, but your fears had already grabbed hold, and you found yourself confronted with all you felt for him. You loved Ajax. How did this happen? Love was still so foreign, a word you could throw around but never truly catch. And yet you loved him, you loved him very much. And now he was gone.

They didn’t let you see him initially, saying he was tired, he needed rest, he’d be alright in a few days. Your imagination had run wild, your mind spinning a terrible story. Perhaps he’d been mortally wounded, perhaps he could no longer see, made blind from the snow and the cold. Perhaps he wasn’t really back, and they were simply lying to make you happy. These thoughts chased you, and it was only when you saw him again that your heart settled, even if a part of you whispered that Ajax was altogether changed.

He’d begun to leave the village. Though no one quite knew where he was you certainly knew a lot of brawling was involved. He’d sometimes sneak into your house, in a last ditch effort to keep his parents and the rest of his family from finding out how much he’d truly changed. You’d cried sometimes, seeing him with black eyes and bruising, slashes of red marring his hands, his arms, his face. He didn’t like to see you cry, would start scolding you, as if it was some fault of yours to feel worried, to care for someone who already was growing into a stranger. He always realized his fault though, and after a little while he’d pat the spot next to him. You’d sit down, head sometimes on his shoulder, listening as he spun his tales of greatness into the night, as if he were a knight fighting a great dragon and its army, rather than a troubled new adult with nowhere to turn to in terms of understanding.

 When he’d ask you to be his partner you thought you’d never feel unhappy again. You felt like you were on air, kept grounded only by his arms around you, his heart beating steadily against your ear as you nestled against his chest. You could tell he was happy too, and though it amazed you slightly that he should be as in love with you as you were with him, you could only thank the Tsaritsa and every other archon under the stars, thank them for being so generous as to give you all you ever wanted.

It seemed such a funny thought in retrospect, when it was the Tsaritsa herself who was now tearing him away from you.

 “Ajax, how could you?!” Your voice felt odd to your ears, somehow too thin, distant, as if someone else was saying it. “You knew, you knew that you’d have to join the Fatui. So why, why in the name of the Seven did you start that fight!”

“They were asking for it!” Ajax’s voice was just as raw, frustration mixed with something unknown. Entitlement perhaps, fear otherwise. “You should’ve heard the things they said about me, about my family. How they’d raised a good for nothing thief, a shithead who knew nothing more than how to swing a sword, and who would one day meet someone bigger than him, and die in the street, given to the rats, utterly forgotten. I had to prove them wrong! It was a matter of honor!”

“It was a matter of ego!” You cried, feeling the ground spin slightly underneath you. “How could you let them goad you like that Ajax, goad you when you knew exactly what was going to happen.” Sitting down you put your head in your hands. The world was shattering around you, and there was no one to blame for it except the one you loved the most.

“My darling, please, I don’t want to fight.” Ajax knelt down in front of you, taking your hands in his as you raised your head to face him.

“You always want to fight…” you replied, voice hoarse, pitched barely above a whisper. “And now you’re leaving, leaving to be part of an organization of cowardliness and deceit. What happened to the adventures you were going to have? What happened to the dragons you were going to slay?”

“I’ll get them yet.” There was amusement in Ajax’s voice, but it was clearly forced, and soon forgotten about. “I promise it’ll be alright, my darling I would never do anything to knowingly hurt you.”

And yet you have, you thought. You’ve run a dagger through my heart, and now your talking to me as if I’m not being destroyed by it. It hurts, it hurts so damn much.

“You’re going away.” You finally replied. “You’re going away to a place that will only destroy you more. And now things will never be the same again. Haven’t you wondered about what will happen to you there? If you’ll ever be allowed to return home? Haven’t you wondered whether or not you’ll ever see your family again? Things will never be the same again Ajax, never. You’ve crossed the chasm, and now you cannot return.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Ajax placed a hand on your cheek. “I promise nothing will change. I will always be myself my darling. This is only a stepping stone, a piece of my journey. I promise, I promise I will always remain as I am. And I’ll never forget about you, nor my family, nor this village. Nothing is going to change. I’ll make sure it won’t. So stop crying my darling; tears never looked good on you anyways.”

And yet, how things have already changed. Still, you said nothing, instead wiping your eyes and pressing your forehead against Ajax’s. His familiar presence was reassuring, and you thought of the years ahead of you, perhaps the eternity ahead of you, when you could no longer rely on him being there. Your eyes welled with tears again, and this time you made no move to stop them. You let yourself cry. If there was anything in the world worth crying about, surely this was one of those things.

 There was a new name signed in Ajax’s letters. “Childe” was the first name, “Tartaglia” was the second. They seemed to mar the page somewhat, written in Ajax’s – no, Childe’s – bold, slashing script. You hated the names, hated the memories they stirred up, reminders of all you’d lost in such a small amount of time.

The day you’d found out Childe was to become a Harbinger you’d raged as you’d never raged before. Locking yourself in the small apartment you’d managed to find – having moved out of Morepesok once the memories had become too oppressive – you’d spent most of your time reading the letter over and over and over.

He’d wanted you to attended, writing you were basically his family at this point, and besides, he wanted to show you to the Tsaritsa. Though the line about family filled your heart with no little affection, you’d refused flat out. It would’ve been too painful, seeing the crux of his transformation; the death of Ajax, the birth of Tartaglia. Childe had said nothing to your refusal, but he was clearly worried, and for a while afterwards the letters were more frequent. But even that stopped after a while, and now you savored what little information you could get, the torn pages of last month’s note a testimony to how much you reread them.

You wished that you could somehow end this purgatory you’d found yourself in. Though you’d begun your own career by now, pushing yourself to your limits as you were sure Childe was doing in his, nothing seemed so important as the drama that had comprised your entire life. How long had you known Childe? You could no longer remember. Long ago, so very long ago. Back when the world was simpler, comprised only of candy from one of the big cities, and fighting over the best fishing rod. Tears were shed over particularly brutal games of tag, then forgotten the next day. How odd that world seemed now, something you could never go back to.

 Every once in a while you’d be met not by a letter, but by a visit. Those were the best days. The days where you could set all your worries and your unease away. When you could once more press your ear against Childe’s chest and feel the steady beating of his heart. As long as you could do that, maybe it’d be alright.

“How’s my darling?” Childe’s voice carried down the hall of your apartment. You’d dropped the letter you’d been reading, his letter, and ran towards the entrance. Throwing yourself in his arms you wept tears of joy. Childe returned the embrace just as enthusiastically, though his eyes were dry. They’d changed, his eyes, or perhaps you’d just learned to notice the hardness that resided in them. “I’m home.” Childe murmured, eyes closed, expression one of perfect bliss. “Don’t worry beloved, I’m home.”

His presence never left yours the days he came to visit. Always there was an arm slung around your waist, or a chin resting on your shoulder or your head. His presence was as comforting as ever, and you soaked it in gladly. He’d changed. Not that you were surprised by that, of course he’d changed. His confidence was much more calculated, his words now slicked with flattery and deceit. He easily persuaded the fishmonger to give you a discount, and some sweet talk with the waiter at a café you frequented earned you a free lemon loaf. You took it, knowing that he just wanted to treat you, but the sugary confection stuck to the roof of your mouth, which had somehow developed a bitter taste.

You said nothing about it. There was no longer any point in arguing. You two were tied together by all sorts of strings. History, location, youth, love. And yet you’d gone your own separate ways. No more were the dreams of adventuring together. The real world had come along and stolen it away. The Tsaritsa had ripped that future from your grasp, and with it went your happiness.

“Are you happy, my love?” Childe asked late one evening. You were cuddled on the small couch in what comprised your living room. You nestled against Childe, breathing him in. Were you happy? No. But in that moment you weren’t unhappy either. In that moment you could forget it all.

“Do you think that sailors feel lonely?” You asked instead, drawing circles absentmindedly on the palms of Childe’s hands. He wore gloves now, expensive ones, not like the mittens that were popular in Snezhnaya. It was so odd to watch him put them on each morning. How things had changed. “They must be lonely,” you continued now, “for there’s nothing but the ship, the water, and the stars above.”

Childe paused, staring off into the distance. He did that a lot recently. You didn’t begrudge him it. Sometimes, when he was in a frank sort of mood, he admitted that he didn’t like the Fatui’s underhanded nature. Better to fight something head on than attack from the shadows. He’d quickly added on that it was the Tsaritsa’s wish, and surely she must know better than him. But it must’ve been difficult, following a path so different than the one you were born to. Betraying your nature, every day of your life.

“It must be lonely sometimes.” He finally replied, glancing back at you. “But I don’t think they’re lonely, no. The stars may be far away, but they’re steadfast, unchanging. And sailors will always be able to rely on them.” You were silent, considering his views.

“Still... stars are so very cold.”

“Perhaps, but they’re also beautiful, are they not? And like I said, who ever heard of a star changing?” A pause, as it seemed Childe was steadying himself, dipping into unpleasant territory. “I hope I will always be your star, my love. I hope you will always be able to rely on me.”

“I will.” You promised, giving Childe a quick kiss. You meant it, even if you weren’t sure that the metaphor was apt. Childe was forever changing; his mannerisms, his name, his location, his words. Sometimes it seemed as if there was nothing left of Ajax, nothing but a small sliver of light, shivering in the darkness that was fate.

“And I will always remained steadfast in my love for you.” Childe promised in return. “For there is nothing more important to me than family, and you are my family. You are that which I hold closest to my heart, and I’ll never stop loving you. I promise.”

His words were smoother than they had been before, polished by the need to be appealing to those who heard it. But you knew they were true. All throughout your life, throughout the pain, the hardship, the feeling of slowly falling off a cliff, all throughout that the one thing that remained was the love between you and Childe. Even if you had nothing, at least you had that.

“Childe?” He grimaced at the word and you paused. “Ajax,” you began again, “are you happy?”

Childe didn’t reply, instead leaning over to kiss you. You reciprocated it gladly, not truly wanting an answer to your question, although a part of you desperately needed it. Was Childe happy? You couldn’t tell. But despite your newfound hatred for the Tsaritsa, your disdain for the gods which had grown in the years of your hardship, your long abandoned faith, you still prayed to the Seven that Childe was happy. Because he deserved it. Because you loved him.

 You tried not to cry when he left, wanting to see him off with a smile and a wave, the way noble men and women would wave to the knights who were on their way to save the kingdom. But always your voice betrayed you, cracking and shaking, trembling violently against the knowledge that you wouldn’t see your loved one again, not for a very long time.

“Be careful.” You whispered, giving Childe one last hug.

“I will.” He assured you, kissing your forehead. “You be careful as well my love, I couldn’t stand it something were to happen to you. If anything happens, think of me, I’ll rush to your side immediately.”

“Don’t forget to write,” you replied, switching the subject so you didn’t have to think about the implications of Childe abandoning the Fatui, what might happen to him if he tried, “your letters are all I have.”

“I hope that’s not true!” Childe said, tone full of false mirth. “I hope you’re happy beloved, I hope you find happiness when I’m gone. Your life ought not to be spent waiting for me.”

“But you’re all I have.” You replied, staring down at the ground. “Everything has changed. My home, my work, my future. Even you’ve changed, you just keep changing and changing, running farther and farther away. But you’re still all I have. And I have to hold on to you, no matter what.”

Childe brought his hand to your cheek, raising your gaze up.

“I’m not changing my darling. No matter what I do, no matter where I go, I’m still Ajax. I’m still the man who wants to spend his life with you, who wants to travel the world with you, fighting monsters, sleeping under the stars at night. I’m still the man who wants to wake up with you every night and go to bed with you every morning. I’ll never run ahead of you, I’ll never leave you behind. Because if I’m all you have then you are what keeps me myself. You are why I can still be Ajax. And that will never change. So don’t despair, and don’t let yourself be swallowed up while I’m gone. Live your life to the fullest, I promise I’ll always be there, waiting for when you need me.”

 Childe waved from the ship he’d boarded until it disappeared over the horizon. You waved back, even as your arm ached and your hand fell asleep. “Goodbye.” You whispered to the wind. There was no reply, but then again you weren’t looking for one.

Childe, Ajax, Tartaglia. These names all belonged to the one you loved. He was a whirlwind, a rogue current which had knocked you off your feet, carrying you into uncertainty. And yet you welcomed him, longed for him, loved him with all your soul.

Even if things kept changing, even if the Fatui’s hold on him only grew stronger, you’d still believe in him. He was your star, guiding you through a desolate ocean. Even if he sometimes disappeared behind the clouds, he’d always be there. You had to believe that, had to trust him.

He was your star after all.

Your Childe.

Your Ajax.

[popculturebuffet]

Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers Part 3: Storkules in Duckburg! aka THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES TERRIBLE BUT WELL MEANING ROOMATE OUT OF MYTH

Hello all you happy people! And welcome and welcome back to Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers, my look at the season 2 arcs of Ducktales! This arc was paid for by WeirdKev27 and I truly enjoy his support. if you want to know how to commission your own reviews or to get a guarnateed review of me of your choice from me a month, stick around to the end. I realized that shoving all my plugs in up top may be driving people away and while I DO make them because I want to make a living off this, i’ts not fair to those of you who simply can’t afford to buy a lot of extra shit like myself to keep shoving it in your face. 

Previously on the Louie Inc Arc, Louie, after believing he had no skills and it was a matter of when not if he ws going to die, found his talent: seeing all the angles and thus being Sharper than the Sharpies. With newfound confidence and a chip on his shoulder from Scrooge saying he could one day be a bigger success than Scrooge himself, founding Louie Inc as a result. But what is Louie Inc? Does he actually have a plan or a bunch of buzzwords. And what does STORKULES, MANLY GAY OUT OF MYTH have to do with any of this? Join me under the cut to find out. 

We open with Louie giving Scrooge his sales pitch that is essentially...

Naturally Scrooge buys none of it. I mean he’s somewhere in his hundreds, he’s probably seen about 80 thousand pitches that amount to “I have no plan but give me money anyway”. There’s a reason there’s a Butch Hartman shaped crater on the lawn from where he threw his ass out. 

Scrooge does mentor the lad, or at least attempt to pointing out he needs an actual product or service (Louie rejects the idea of a lemonade stand as too easy), or as he puts it “Find a problem and create a solution”. 

While the basic PRINCIPAL isn’t bad, find something people want or need and provide it, phrasing it that way sounds like “find a problem people are having and exploit the shit out of that problem for fun and profit.” Granted that IS a guiding principal of business, it’s just not something an uncle should be teaching his kids. They should be teaching them about the anime and cartoons they grew up with as I do with my niece and nibling. 

He does show him a valid example of this in action in the form of Donald. Turns out Donald has found a good way to make money while he looks for a job, can relate: since Duckburg is facing a housing shortage, likely because several square blocks probably get destroyed by Scrooge’s Adventures, Glomgold’s Schemes, Superhero Battles, whatever creation went horribly wrong for Gyro, etc at least once a week. So he’s taken it upon himself to offer up the spare room to whoever can rent it.. and to steal Scrooge’s chandelier which even when caught he still takes anyway. Scrooge.. you called the guy a god-damn moocher in the season premiere, despite the fact he lives there soley because YOU offered and because he’s you know, being responsible and staying by his boys so they have their father figure around. So yeah I feel he’s doing this partly out of spite as is the McDuck way. I mean if your going to call him a freeloader just for being a responsible parent, then he’s going to take it up a damn notch.

Scrooge proceeds to laugh off Louie wanting a million dollars and gives him a dime instead because of course he was. Seriously Louie there are two other billionaires in town who are FAR dumber and far more easily swindled. Just go get star up capital from them. Hell with Glomgold all you’d have to do is tell him it’d upset scrooge and he’d literally throw money at you. Or give you a shark full of money. He needs the shark back though. He’s family. 

Meanwhile Donald prepares for his new tenant and finds.. THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES! Who to his mounting horror as he realizes it, IS the new tenant. And who throws him into the sun. Cue credits. 

So after Donald somehow survives being thrown into the sun, Storkules explains why he’s here: Zeus responded to his son playing the lute a lot like any rational reasonable 

No of course he responded to the “crime” of “playing his instrument a lot” with sending a swarm of harpies on the town then blaming Storkules for it and casting him out. What’s most shocking is not the action, this is honestly him staying the course of being a fucking disgrace, but that Zeus somehow ISN’T the biggest asshole i’ve dealt with this week. No that honor is reserved as always for this bitch:

Keep in mind she manages to be this obnoxious in only TWO scenes. Also keep in mind I had to put up with Julie for a MUCH larger chunk of the previous two volumes I covered before volume 5 yesterday for my Scott Pilgrim Retrospective and she is ALWAYS like this and you now feel my pain. 

This does create a problem though: Zeus casts Storkules out until he’s a responsible adult.. and thus paints Storkules as the bad guy... in a situation where the only other person in the story sent a swarm of HARPIES down at him for simply playing his music too loud. It just dosen’t work as a catalyst: Storkules objectively did nothing wrong. The only person he annoyed was a person who clearly dosen’t love, respect or like his son in any way shape or form anyway and essentially assaulted him and a bunch of innocent people via harpie and then cast him out. Zeus is an abusive asshole and i’ts weird the narrative sides with HIM and not our well meaning doofus. Zeus being an asshole with harpies is not a bad catalyst for the episode, and the harpies being unleashed is used well.. it’s just not a good catalyst for THIS story to try and portray an abuser as in the right. And make no mistake Zeus is a domestic abuser: he had his son mind controlled to try and MURDER innocent people, something Storkules begged him not to do, sent a swarm of creatures after him for the crime of playing his music too loud and in his next episode manipulatives Storkules sad emotional state for personal gain. Why would you try and paint THIS jackass as in the right?

Speaking of painting this jackass in the right sadly.. this episode does not do my boy donald justice. In most episodes he’s pretty nuanced and i’ts fair enough he’d be frustrated by Storkules as a roomate. Storkules has little sense of personal space, breaks his stove thinking theirs hydra in it, makes a mess of the kitchen making them a meal, and in general clearly dosen’t know how to live with a roomate much less in modern society. He has valid concerns and the episode COULD have used it that way.. but he’s also horribly impatient with Storkules. He refuses to get the guy just hasn’t had to live in a modern society and dosen’t know HOW to function in it and instead of helping him just gets mad again and again and gets really pissed when it’s clear Storkules dosen’t have a job and didn’t consider paying rent. He’s not WRONG to want him to pay Rent, despite what ironically the musical Rent would try and have you believe, but he dosen’t have any patience with the guy. And stork isn’t nearly coming on as strong as he normally does. The worst he does is cook the guy lunch and bring his donald fan art with him. Which we don’t see but I am assuming is mostly naked. What i’m saying is for once that while still bombastic, Storkules isn’t trying to force a relationship/friendship on him and simply wants to learn t be an adult from his best friend.. and Donald isn’t bothering teaching him.

Asking for rent or for him not to destroy the stove is fine, but not explaining WHY he needs either of those things or why he needs boundaries, he makes a roomate list, isn’t helping the guy. And this would be fine... but the episode dosen’t call Donald out on it for no real reason. It feels like it’s setting up for a “you should learn to wokrk with someone instead of just screaming at them aseop” that never comes and like with Zeus takes his side because shutup. I’d also LIKE to say this is the only time the writers reduced one of the cast to a caracture of themselves.. but I can’t.  Several episodes in season 3 forgot Louie’s character development and another episode in season 2, The Duck Knight Returns!, somehow reduced both Scrooge and Dewey to parodies of themselves with Scrooge SOMEHOW, despite Della as stubborn as she is being in his care and by his side for decades and Movies bein ga huge business, not having seen a movie since the 1920′s and not knowing how they work and Dewey being reduced to just hyperactive moron. It isn’t as common as other shows like say Regular Show, The Loud House or, for the exact reason I lost intrest, Rick and Morty, but I still expect better, especially since they went into this season KNOWING Donald would be gone for half of it and this would likely be one of his only spotlight episodes. 

Back at the good part of the plot, Louie is having a company meeting aka already treating Huey and Webby like his employees. Webby of course is glad to sign on, if little help in actually coming up with a product while Huey just wants to nope out. And if your wondering why Dewey isn’t involved Louie outright says he’d make a bad employee and while Dewey rises from his bed to object.. he stops halfway to opening his mouth and concludes he has a point. Best gag of the episode. Louie being louie easily cons Huey into staying by making Webby his charts officer. 

So the three have a corporate retreat at Funso’s... granted they don’t have a product but Louie figures this might help. Huey.. still wants out of this and suggest since they already spent what they had on ski ball “Company over?”. It’s clear that Huey just sees this as another one of Louie’s short sighted schemes... and while he’s not ENITRELY wrong, Louie has genuine ambition.. he just has no earthly idea what he’s doing and is shooting way too high.. but for understandable reasons. 1) He’s 11 at this point. 11 year olds aren’t great at business strategy or reinging it in. 2) he wants to live up to what Scrooge said to prove he can be successful and really be worth something like his mom was. 

But sometimes fate throws you one and the harpies bust in. And while Louie wants to do nothing and hope they go away Huey and Webby spring into action.. as does Storkules, who had to leave but warns donald there’s Orzo in the slowcooker and to not open it “LEST THE PASTA FAIL TO ABSORB THE BROTH!” Which is just.... Chris’ best line dleivery the episode. He says it like he’s saying the title of an old Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comic, i’ts wonderful.

So our heroes defeat them and Louie steps in to charge for the service and quickly comes up with a company idea and name “Harp-B-Gone” (A Subsidary of Louie Inc). Louie hires Storkules on the spot. Storkules proudly tells Donald he has a job the next day and goes off to it. What follows is our heroes hilarously shooting a commerical with Storkules playing a baby to promote themselves so they can help who needs it. They just need to find out what they want.. and thanks to the JWG and the harpies stealing it find out they go after people’s most treasured posessions   Cue Ghostbusters-Style Montage

And this isn’t just me saying thing. The Rewriting History Entry (Which as a series weirdly stops around mid-season 2 and I don’t get why frank hasn’t gone back and finished it since) states they specifically based this whole operation on ghostbusters and the entire sequence of our heroes cleanin up the town reminds me of it. The highlight of it is a glomgold cameo where he’s kidnapped.. and refuses to pay so Louie just lets him go. And were this an innocent person who couldn’t afford it, i’d call him a monster.. but it’s glomgold. he brought this on himself.. and also sues himself for it. Wonder if he won. 

So with their stars rising, our heroes get booked on the hottest show in town: Dewey Dew-Night! I had honestly forgotten there was a Dewey Dew-Night segment in there, and delighted I get to talk about this recurring bit.  It’s one of the shows funniest runners and just perfectly FITS Dewey: of course the most egotistical and energetic of the kids would not only want to be a late hnight host but make up his own show. I also love the slow evolution of it: it started as something everyone clearly knew about but he stlill tried to keep hidden, slowly escalated to him allowing the rest of his siblings (Webby very much included) and the giant man who stalks his uncle in, and by later this season he’s putting the show online in the web shorts and gladly shooting it into space, with Season 3 having him spend the first half of let’s get dangerous making a documentary that includes an episode of the show featuring Darkwing. It’s a small thing sure, but it’s the little things like this that make the show special. 

The show does reveal a problem though as it turns out they’ve GOT all the harpies and while Storkules merely wanted to help, Louie points out they need more to keep a buisness going and naturally never bothered to ask Storkules just how many there were. They need SOME plan to get going. Webby submits a legitamte and great idea, training the harpies as she’s been trying to do in the background of the episode and aside from a hole in the floor they are starting to listen. But Huey is an ass about it and not only shoots it down saying let’s keep the dangerous creatures contained, even though A) he has no idea WHERE they’ve been kept so he can’t verify it’s safe, and since i’ts Donald’s Closet no no it’s not. and B)There’s no where he knows of to keep them. He isn’t aware of the other bin till next season. and C) it’s not ehtical to keep creatures locked up forever epsecially since while the harpies are dangerous they arent’ MALEVOLENT and are clearly acting on instinct. oh and for D) at least she has a plan to keep the company going instead of just wanting to end this and cash out. 

Which Huey tries to.. but naturally Louie spent all their money on...

So their broke.. and Storkules has no rent money and feels like a failure despite having done NOTHING wrong. We do get a clever little nod to Disney’s hercules though “I”m not a hero, i’m a zero”. Webby rightfully glares at Louie who decides to fix it... by sneaking into Donald’s house that night to free the harpies. 

Though to the shows credit it’s a VERY bad idea, and Storkules coming in mid attempt and congradulating Louie when he lies about checking the door gets the kid to come clean. And it’s a nice character moment: He could still go through with it.. but it’s clear he realizes just HOW low he was about to sink to save his own skin and that as much as Storkules WANTS a paycheck and deserves one, it’s not worth hurting people to get it. Louie tries to justify after this.. but can’t. 

Unforutnately Donald took a lot of stupid pills this episode, yells about his no pets rule and frees them instead of you know, THINKING for five minutes.

So yeah NATURALLY Donald is an angry shit about it , refusing to actually TALK to Storkules about this or maybe admit this is partly HIS OWN FAULT. Yes their both at fault, Storkules shoudln’t of shoved a bunch of harpies in a closet. That’s a classic blunder. But Donald still opened it and isn’t called out on taking zero responsibility. Huey sees the fracas and just takes down their days without an accident placard, good stuff and he and webby arrive to help. Donald fights with Storkules and Storkules worries about loosing his friend.. lead to them going after the thing he values most aka donlad and hyjacking the house boat, though the kids manage to get aboard. 

As Storkules saves Donald, Louie realizes the most precious thing he has is  his merch and willingly gives it, and his buisness up to save everyone. It’s good character stuff and shows that despite his problems with greed, Louie IS a good kid and will do the right thing. It’s what seperates him from the Rouges Gallery the family faces: He has FLEXIBLE morals but he has morals when it comes down to it. So everyone tosses the stoff to help direct the hapries and make it home tying them up. Donald has a heart to heart with Storkules and agrees to help him find another place, but still considers him a friend and they hug. Awww.  One intresting thing I DID find out from rewriting history is they originally fully intended to have Storkules STAY on the houseboat. He was going to be a permenant member of the household, at least as far as Season 2 was concenred and plans were made for several episodes down the road: the whole bit with him in “The Golden Spear” was simply because he lived there, he was going to be the one Della met in the houseboat, obliviously guilting her about what she’d missed, and he was going to set off the kids subplot in “Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?”

This ended up not happneing for logistical reasons: Frank, and I swear this was the term he used, felt they already had the perfect Himbo in Launchpad and it was just too much HImbo energy for the two to coexist without one taking the others screen time or neither getting a lot. 

The next reason was having a god around simply broke the story: He cited the gilded man from “Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!” as a specific example. There were just too many hoops to jump to have him not break any story he should be around for.  Finally with Della being added to the cast soon there simply wasn’t room in the main cast. Della brought it up to 9, Storkules would make it 10, and as i’ve gone on about the show already had trouble ballancing it’s cast, something Frank admitted to. Adding him would both be too big a stiatus quo change and be one on top of the massive one of Della joining the cast. So he was dropped back to recurring and only showed up one more time. And while it was the right call I am dismayed he didn’t show up for the whatever happened to donald duck subplot and it does feel very weird he never adresses Donald being gone despite, at least for season 2, apparently living in Duckburg. Otherwise though as funny as this wouldv’e been.. yeah it was the right call. 

Scrooge returns... having been absent all episode because otherwise it wouldn’t work and easily saw Louie loosing it all coming.. but gives him a can of lemonade for his troubles and comforts the boy. The heart of htis arc and what makes it work at it’s best.. is these two. Scrooge GENUINELY wants to help Louie see his potetial successor in buisness: oh sure adventure wise he’s throughly covered.. but Webby, Dewey and Della all are more focused on the addventure part and that’s where their passion and talent lies, Huey’s better at science and given his close frinedship with fenton and how much that part of things seems to truly inspire him, i’ts what he was born for, and Donald just wants a regualar life and can’t manage his own life much less a company. 

Louie is the only one in his family whose the right fit to inhereit that part of his legacy and I feel that’s why he takes a special intrest in him and webby over the other two: While he loves all of them and will clearly again leave a piece of his fortune and empire to all of them, Webby is the most like him, as we later find out not coincidentally in the slightest, when it comes to adventuring and curosity and a love of exploration. But Louie is the most like him in other ways; He’s cynical, money driven and passionate. Scrooge simply wants him to be as good a person and buisnessperson as he can be and is trying to push him in the right direction. And does so here by pointing out that failure isn’t a huge problem..it happens, comes with the terriotiry and as we’ve seen with life and times, even with portions of it clearly not happening in this universe, he failed a LOT to get here. What matters is that he tries and tries to do it the right way. 

Scrooge also sympathizes as he was buying a lemonade company in cape suzette, giving Louie the can as a present... but laments there’s no cheap effective way to deliver the lemons. Louie notices the harpies going after the can after he throws it and Webby controlling them with it and muses that theyd idn’t think about what THEY wanted.. nad rightfully gets punched across the lawn by Webby, whose had to spend an entire episode having her surrogate brothers talk down to her and ignore her valid ideas. She dosen’t even open her eyes she just bops him one.

So we end with Scrooge having enlisted the hapries, Louie trying to take credit again and both realizing they might just steal the lemons instead of work for them. Ha ha ha their going to get so sued. 

Final Thoughts: This one was mediocre. It has some good points, Louies arc continues to fascenate me, Huey’s done with this shit attitude is hilarous, and Storkules is at his best in this episode: his crush on Donald is toned down from this..

To this

To the point I could see shipping them off this one if Storkules episode didn’t have him do eveyrthing short of .. well see above.  So it’s not WITHOUT merit: I love me a ghost busters style plot, there are great jokes and Chris Dimatopolis is a gem as always. Glad he’s getting work after this show on Invincible and hope he gets to play Darkwing again some day. But the Donald stuff and the fairly predictable plot drag this one down. I’ts fairly obvious they’ll run out of harpies, Louie will have spent the money and they’ll somehow get free. It’s not a terrible episode but it’s it’s sandwiched story wise between two straight up classics on both sides: the previous two episodes were even better than I remembered and the next two are incredibly good: Whateve Happened to Della Duck?! is one of their finest hours and The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck, while not making my best of list for the series as a whole is still one of my favorites for the season.  It’s just disapointing this one wasn’t nearly as good as I remmebered and it’s understandable why I forgot almost all of it, unlike the previous two episodes. Thankfully as I said better’s over the horizon.

NEXT TIME ON OF MOONS, MILLIONARES AND MOTHERS: I’m taking a break for a week. One of two weeklong breaks for the arc, the other being the first week of July where i’m on vacation anyway (Though i’ll be doing the episode I would’ve done for that week the week before to keep the pace up, so no worries),

 As for why, it’s my utmost honor to announce GOOF WEEK! Goof Week is a weeklong celebration of Goofy’s birthday. The idea came about because as I do for the big three, I intended to just do a shorts special. But Kev , the guy who made this very review possible, suggested doing the two part Goof Troop pilot. And since kev pays for a house of mouth episode a month anyway and thaks to you lovely people I hit my patreon stretch goal to review the goofy movie, I figured “why not make a week out of it. Hence Goof week. So next week we’ll have a review of the two part pilot for Goof Troop, the special Sports Goof, the House of Mouse episode Super Goof, your regularly schedule shorts spectacular, with The Goofy Movie for the grand finale! yaaahoooooieeee! 

When we come back i’ll be shuffling episodes around slightly so I can do the Della comics from the Ducktales Tie-In Comic before her debut and in time for Donald’s own theme week in June, i’ll be saving “Whatever Happened to Della Duck?” for the week after Donald Week. Instead next we get a fun wild west adventure as Scrooge tells a story of his outlaw days, his tension with goldie and his encounter with a certain robber baron as John D Rockerduck FINALLY makes his screen debut. Yee-Haw!

If you liked this review, subscribe and follow for more and consider joining my patroen, patreon.com/popculturebuffet. I have exclusive reviews, my most recent duck based one being an obscure carl barks story about wigs and the boys attempting to murder a guy with a blow gun, and your contribution helps me reach my goals and thus gets everyone, patreon or not, a bunch of neat new reviews. If you get me to 20 dollars a month, i’m currently at 15, EVERYONE will get a monthly darkwing duck reviews, reviews of the two remaning ducktales 87 mini series including the origin of GIZMOOOODDUUUUUCCCKKKK, and a review of the Danny Phantom movie The Ultimate Enemy. And with the month running out NOW’S the time to join. YOu’ll also get to pick one of the shorts for my Donald Duck birthday specail next month, so if you want to join in NOWS the time. But wether you can or you can’t, thank you for reading, i’ts been a pleasure. 

[phaltu]

just some thoughts about life and turning 27

I’m coming up on 27 and I think I’m in a way better place than I was when I was on this blog in my most depressive phase and turning 24. Retrospectively, it’s crazy that I was only truly unemployed for a few months and low on money for a year, but it felt like forever at the time. I’m making a really good amount of money right now and even though my job is frustrating, it doesn’t expect me to think about it outside of office hours and it’s been a godsend during the pandemic.

I think I was way too hard on myself after graduating university in ways that I shouldn’t have been, and whimsical about things I should have taken seriously. I’ve stopped blaming myself and calling myself an utter failure, mostly because doing so took up so much of my time and I need to just keep moving forward.

Do I still think I’m a failure? Yes, to an absolutely massive degree, but I have no idea how I could even begin to explain it to people. I work a well-paid job where I’ve done well enough to make bonuses that would be more than what I made in 3-4 months when I was 24. I’m currently studying for something that’ll give me higher standing in the industry I now work in as a whole and even better pay and I’ll be working towards becoming a fellow at an educational institution. This job’s left me free time to be a lot more creative than I was when I was actually working in my field and I think for all intents and purposes, I should be proud of myself. 

But I spent so much of my life beating myself down for never being good enough that now when I see my friends who’re grinding themselves down to a nub in the field I had originally wanted to work in yet still find time to make their own projects, I feel like a failure and a cop out. I don’t know how to feel better about this, I really don’t and I wish I did. I’ve been a lot easier on myself lately though, and I’ve learned to be more malleable when it comes to measuring my failures against my successes.

I still don’t know what to do with my life though but I think right now, for 27, this is good enough.

I guess then that brings me to the second part, which is about moving out.

Anyone who’s also been clicking my read-mores since 2018 knows I have a younger sibling who is a little high strung to say the least, but I would still give the world to three times over.

My parents didn’t want to pay for me to move out and I wasn’t able to save during high-school or gain any work experience till I was 18 because we couldn’t really afford babysitting for a while so I had to spend time taking care of my sister.

Said sibling is apartment hunting in the same city as her university which is the same city where I commuted to university in. She’s frustrated from studying online and living at home and thinks she doesn’t get space to breathe. Her and I had really different upbringings so she’s not used to having to juggle things beyond herself and that’s what my parents think too. She wants to live downtown so she can have a social life and be near class but she’ll also have to work and juggle a lot of day to day stuff, and right now she cries when she’s told to do too many chores lol

I’m trying to be sympathetic towards her but it’s been years of her non stop talking about the same thing (that she’s going to have no career despite having a high GPA and a lot of volunteer experience and now, getting offers for paid study-related jobs by the handful) over and over again while I’ve been trying to fight with my own sense of being an immense failure. Ironic, given what I said a couple of paragraphs above lol. But I think it may have also been the fact that she used to cry to me over university applications while I used to secretly cry about only making $100 that month lol. I forgot where I’m going with this

OH yeah so moving out... I’ve been thinking about it but it’s so complex for me and rent is so fucking expensive in my city and this city is so boring that it’s not even worth it IMO so I’ve been thinking a lot about like... what next. I only talk about it with like 1-2 friends because I find it turns into an uncomfortable conversation with literally anyone else. I could definitely live on my own but I break out into hives whenever I think about paying $1.5k for a tiny fishbowl apartment in this city and also, I don’t think my parents would take care of our dog as well as I do. And he’d also hate moving away from my parents. I feel like my dog’s like 50% of the reason I haven’t moved and the other 50% is just trying to figure out what the hell I want to do  🤣 🤣 I could save for a house but the housing market literally anywhere in Canada is the PITS 

The one thing I don’t regret though is how much money I’ve spent travelling like DAMN... a bitch has been everywhere but anyways

So far, my MO has been to just save and save till I figure out though I’m heavily leaning towards taking a sabbatical and going somewhere else for a year. Maybe go pursue my original field away but in a sharper, more intelligent way. I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW. So much of my life right now just feels like an expanse of not knowing and I’ve tried to explain this to people and they say it’s a pandemic thing but I’ve been feeling it from before the pandemic  🤣

What was the other thing I wanted to talk about... I guess the last thing is that despite all of this, I am at least having a signficant amount of creative fun. Moreso than I ever have. With fics, with writing original things, with trying out new things with visual art and music and cooking. I’ve tried to be a lot more present despite all my inner hang-ups and have been conscious of reminding myself that I have done a lot and to remember what to expect from whom and also to not overburden people in my life just because I feel insecure about how I am as a person.

So overall, I think I’ve grown as a person in a positive way even if this post was just me venting about the bad parts. I think there’s a lot of good parts to me too, and I’m a lot smarter in many ways than I was before, and have let go of ego and bravado where it was hurting me more than helping. I’ve also stopped pouring all these things out to my friends because at the end of the day, they’re just trying to figure out life too and I also didn’t like the sound of myself complain.

 I wish there was someone I could talk to without feeling guilty about overburdening them but I think ultimately, that person would just have to be myself. My friends are loving and sweet and caring and I think I’ve won the lottery with all the amazing people I’ve gotten to meet, but it’s not their job to bring me implementable solutions and they’re already angels for how much they’ve listened to me bitch and moan. There’s some stuff I need to come to terms with with myself, and the only way I can do that is by being honest with myself about certain stuff.

I guess the only other thing I have to do is just learn to be easier on myself and tell myself I’m not a failure of a sister/daughter/friend/person after all. Also if you made it all this way... *gucci mane voice* wow 

[yourfinalbow]

hi lol this is totally random but based on a harry potter post you just reblogged and you can completely ignore me if you want, but do you think snape deserved better, or are you a quote unquote "snape apologist"? I'm genuinely curious cuz I've come across a lot of different opinions on severus. Again, feel free to ignore :)

This ended up way longer than it needed to be, and I apologize for that lmao.

Hi! Hmmm I have many mixed opinions on this. First we have to talk about which Snape. Book!Snape is actually kind of an asshole, and not in the fun way. (Way more than I remembered.) But but but Alan Rickman!Snape I like a lot.

And no I'm not mentioning Snape from TCC. That was not Snape and that world was not Harry Potter.

Snape is an interesting character because of how flawed and layered he is.

(Putting a cut because it's so long, and tw for non-detailed mentions/reference to abuse, as well as both trauma and death.)

He wasn't born in a very good household, which I can definitely see as being a reason for why he is who he is. (A reason, not an excuse. Those are two extremely different things.) You look at Sirius, who also came from a horrible household, yet he managed to dig himself out of the mud and make his own path for himself. (Though I have many angsty headcanons for the thoughts he has and being afraid of what he will do and in turn his own mind. WolfStar solidarity. Neither one of them know what they are truly capable of, and both are completely afraid to find out.

Ahem sorry I got a little distracted there.

During the Marauder's era, Snape wasn't a good person in general, but he tried to be nice to Lily. (One of the only exceptions he made.) That being said, (sorry, going on a tangent again), it does not excuse what the Marauders did. As much as they are, in my humble opinion, JK's greatest creation, they should be held accountable for both the prank, and dangling Snape upside down. (Though Remus does make a few good points in their defense later, it's still not an excuse.) Two wrongs never make a right.

Snape doesn't deny Lily's claims at him wanting to join a supremacy group, nor does he say he isn't friends with Death Eaters.

It's clear through the flashbacks we're given that Snape is apathetic in the face of innocent people dying, but once again Lily is the exception.

Dumbledore defends Snape by saying it wasn't his fault that Harry's parents are dead. I actually semi-agree with this. On one hand, he was directly at fault, but on the other hand he had no way of knowing. As a severe Loki apologist, I do not blame Loki for Frigga's death. He may have led the dark elves to her, but he didn't know it was her she was sending them to. That's the comparison I make in my mind, and so I don't completely blame him like other people do. (One could also make the argument that Sirius is to blame. Sirius, who is 100% my favorite character in the entire franchise, gave the secret keeper job to Peter, thinking it would be safer with him. However, he had no ill will or malicious intentions towards Lily, James, and Harry, so I don't blame him.)

All that being said, Snape not only would have been fine with random people dying, he also didn't care whether or not James and Harry lived.

For context:

(Dumbledore is speaking, right after Snape comes to him for help.)

"You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child?" They can die, as long as you have what you want?"

Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.

He has a strange relationship with Lily. He obviously loves her, but not enough to want to stop Voldemort from killing the two things that bring her the most amount of happiness. It's clear he doesn't care about anyone except for Lily. Which on some level, I can understand why. When people have traumatic childhoods, they tend to hold on to a person that was there for them. Sometimes it can be the hands of the person who caused them pain in the first place, but other times it is another person who was there for him. He holds Lily's opinions of himself higher than anybody else, and he holds Lily above anybody else, and I think this can be attributed to some sort of trauma response, which is why his love for her is so unusual. That doesn't mean I think he should be fine with killing innocent people.

On the topic of trauma, I think joining the Death Eaters was another response to this, as well as a result of what kind of family he had.

Similar to both Harry and Voldemort, Snape much preferred Hogwarts to where he lived, and such the castle became his home more than his house ever was.

The Death Eaters could offer him something he had never been offered before. He belonged to something. In his own, twisted, traumatic mindset, he might have even almost seen the Death Eaters as a family. Not consciously of course, but there was definitely a feeling of belonging they gave him.

And there's something to be said about the fact that many serial killers in real life come from an abusive family. I don't pretend to understand the minds of someone who can do something so vile, but I have watched enough Criminal Minds episodes to know what they long for is control.

So being apart of this supremacy group, even though he was a half-blood himself and undoubtedly didn't entirely share Voldermort's racist beliefs, gave him both control and something he belonged to.

It's not an excuse, but it's a reason.

Alternatively, you can look at it through a quote from the most recent episode of Loki.

"It's part of the illusion. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear."

So it's also possible that when he was a kid, he thought being a villain was the only way to prevent others from being one to him.

Ok sorry, back on the chronological track.

So he agrees to change sides and work with Dumbledore. (Who must see just how distraught Snape was over Lily's death, to trust him immediately.)

Snape spends most of Harry's time at Hogwarts humiliating his own students. He particularly calls out Harry and his friends a lot, but I can definitely see this being a defence mechanism. He assumes Harry is James and reverts back to what we talked about earlier. (Becoming the villain so nobody else has a chance.)

But but but, he does a lot of good throughout the books. Snape mutters the countercurse, saving Harry from Quirrell during the Quidditch match. He then actually referees at the next match, preventing anything from happening altogether.

In retrospective, we see that he spends most of the first book helping Dumbledore by protecting the stone, and helping Lily by protecting Harry.

Now I could go through and list the goods and the bads of Snape throughout the entire series, but I have neither the time nor the patience, and I think you get the point.

(Except I would like the mention that Snape becomes a double agent for Dumbledore in book four, and risks his life every single day by constantly betraying Voldermort, and never once does he use this as a way to double cross Dumbledore. This was actually probably really hard on him. You can assume that having to pretend to be a Death Eater means he had to do some despicable things just so he didn't blow his cover. If he really has changed by this time, which I would like to think he has, is a lot of added guilt to live with.)

(I would also mention that he tried to save Sirius in book five, but... *falls on floor dramatically* I don't want to think about it.)

Severus Snape's time comes to the end in book seven. At the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, his death is a valiant act of sacrifice. Protecting the living and defending the honour of the fallen.

So, he has done a lot of bad in his lifetime, but by the time we as readers get to know him, his fundamental set of beliefs have begun to change. Through the eyes of what started as an eleven year old boy, you can definitely see that even after this he wasn't necessarily a good person.

And that's because his good is behind the scenes. He's good on a larger scale. He's chosen the light over darkness, but in his everyday life he's still the scared, traumatized little kid he's always been.

And him being this way has reasons, but these reasons are not excuses.

Sorry anon, this kind of turned into a long winded review of the entire character. I know that's not really what you asked, so I'll sum it up in a final few sentences sentence.

Yes. I wish Snape had gotten to live. Not because I'm necessarily a "Snape apologist", but because I find his character interesting, and seeing his reaction to his sacrifice could have been a really good read. Also Harry coming up and thanking him would have been really touching, and as a cherry on top maybe we could have gotten to read Harry apologizing for his father. Maybe even Snape sharing memories of Lily?! (Sorry that might have gotten a little to fanfic-y.)

That being said, his death being a final sacrifice towards the good of everyone, and a final testimony to his change of heart, was -- and I'll give JK credit just this once -- good storytelling, and a good way to end it.

Also I like movie!Snape because fuck yeah he's just so awesome.

If anyone has anything to add/take away, or they just want to discuss the wonder that was Alan Rickman, let me know! (Ask/Comment/Reblog/Etc.)

[bywordofaphrodite]

Book Reviews 1 & 2: The Enchanted Wood and Adventures of the Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton

This review’s theme is magical children’s fiction ! Audience age range: early childhood !

Fun fact about me: I have fairy tales running through my head most hours of the day.

Magical lands and whimsical characters run freely through my mind any minute I have to spare, or even the ones I don’t. It has always been this way for me, whether in school, university or at work- when I am meant to be working on assignments or attending to patients in the hospital I work at- and Enid Blyton’s stories played a part in this, so it seems fitting I discuss her writing for my first post.

When faced with choosing a project for myself this semester, it was actually the memory of Enid Blyton’s novels that prompted me to decide to write book reviews of childhood favourites. I’d forgotten her name at first, and all that remained was an illustration of blue jelly and a boy with silver hair… and the name of the artist who illustrated my copies of the series: Georgina Hargreaves. One google search was all it took to remember it all! Then I ordered all three Magic Faraway Tree books and the Wishing Chair ones in the exact editions I had as a child, because I have no impulse control whatsoever.

Nostalgic review

Rating: ★★★★★

For my nostalgic review- otherwise known as my thoughts on these novels purely as I remember them from childhood- I’m giving five stars. They meant everything to me as a kid, and I reread them more than any other books I owned. I would choose a chapter before bed and travel into the magic lands at the top of the tree along with the main characters, exploring whatever good, evil or downright silliness happened to be up there at the time (and then stay there for a good few hours past my bedtime using the light under my door to squint at the pages and destroy my already dreadful vision just a little more for good measure. Sleep schedule who?)

I easily favoured the Magic Faraway Tree books over the Wishing Chair ones, though I loved them both dearly. I’m going to assume the reason behind this was because I preferred the tree to the chair, as- aside from Jo- I don’t recall ever having an affinity for any particular child amongst the main characters. I do also remember a great deal more of the goings on in the lands above the tree than I can the adventures in the chair, so it seems fair to say I read one a lot more than the other.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, these books cemented who I wanted to be when I grew up: a writer- a published author, to be specific- and an artist. Not just these two series, but anything Blyton wrote- her teen detective and boarding school series being notable favourites of mine. As detrimental as this dream has been to my family’s wish for me to become a lawyer, I must insist that everyone blame Enid Blyton for this and not me!

The Enchanted Wood Review

Post-read: ★★★

Synopsis: three children move from the city to a small country house with a forest out the back which they later come to know as the Enchanted Wood. There they come across a giant magical tree known as the Faraway Tree, where they befriend the many magical creatures living inside the tree, and explore the lands that settle above the tree every day.

Okay so! First up, I finished it so quickly. I’ve always been a very fast reader but even so I expected it would take several hours to read… it took roughly an hour despite minor interruptions by my siblings, so it’s very simplistic and easy to read. However… this level of simplistic is not, in this case, a good thing, at least in my opinion. I’ll elaborate on this further toward the end of this post, but the best word I can think of to describe the writing is ‘stunted’.

I read a few articles to see others’ thoughts on the novels, and one review stood out as being critical in multiple ways, some of which I agree and some I don’t really care about. I’ll link it here.

This review reflected a lot of the same points I considered upon rereading the books. Charming points: google buns and the Land of Birthdays; weak points: repetitive and a bit too holier than thou in the attempt to teach ‘lessons’. In terms of Flood’s (the review author) criticism, the renaming of the children from Jo, Bessie and Fanny to Joe, Beth and Frannie in new copies does not really bother me, although my own editions have the original names (the change of the children’s cousin from Dick to Rick was a wise choice, though Rick is an ugly name as well, but I digress). As with many modern changes to old novels, older generations criticise ‘politically correct’ motives, and Flood does exactly so here- miffed at the decision to rename one of the recurring Faraway Tree villains from ‘Dame Slap’ to ‘Dame Snap’. Flood likens the character’s previous habit of slapping naughty children to the witch in Hansel and Gretel locking children in cages, (I would think the cannibal element of this tale would reinforce the comparison more but maybe that’s just me???) asking why, if that fairy-tale hasn’t been changed, should Dame Slap have to adhere to modern discipline? Personally I’m mostly unconcerned with this either way, though Flood makes an interesting point. The woman is a villain either way, so a little clip over the ears is likely to properly drive the point home in my opinion, anyway.

And before I move on from this review, Flood’s hot take on the Saucepan Man is 100% on the ball- why was a grown, non-magical man walking around strung up with pots and pans all over himself and hanging out with a group of children? To be sure, he was not in his right mind, so I’ll shift the question to the parents here, who were fully aware that their children were spending time in the woods with this man. Very odd business indeed.

Characters who aged well: Most of the main characters remained likable to me. Jo was always my favourite as a kid, and he remains so- his impatience provides some comedic quotes and he never leaves his younger sisters behind on adventures, unlike many male characters in Blyton’s novels (I am looking DIRECTLY at you, Famous Five boys). He also doesn’t belittle his sisters at any point, even when they’re frightened, which is another thing that irked me about many of Blyton’s male characters. Using only the first book of the series for this review means that it’s possible that Bessie and Fanny are more prominent characters in the other books, but in this one it felt very much centred around Jo than I remembered- they are likable but don’t really do too much aside from Fanny’s banger of a birthday party which I’m rather jealous of. Upon rereading I like Moonface a lot more, but that’s probably because I resented my grandmother calling me ‘Moonface’ (I’m aware I have a round face, I do not need to be reminded of my eternal struggles on the daily). Silky is still a queen in my eyes- pretty, feminine, funny, kind and best of all a fairy. No flaws at all, I love her. In retrospect, Silky is equally my favourite alongside Jo.

Characters who aged badly (to me): as aforementioned… the Saucepan Man. To be fair, I never cared for him in the first place, and the same goes for his best friend Mr. Watzisname because he was downright maddening. Also, Dame Washalot can drown in her own washing. She managed to annoy me more than Dame Slap… at least Dame Slap was entertaining.

Favourite scene/quote: “‘Fishing!’ said Jo, in disgust. ‘Who wants to go fishing in the middle of a birthday party? Let’s get back at once.’”

This quote sounds so mundane but in context I just find his tone very amusing- Jo is always exasperated and impatient so his perpetual annoyance with everyone’s nonsense is relatable and funny. Furthermore, he says this during my favourite scene in the final chapter where they all travel to the Land of Birthdays for Bessie’s birthday. Bessie invites everyone living in the Faraway Tree to her party, which is essentially formed up in the land above the tree. Upon arrival, everyone can go into a small house with fancy dress costumes and choose anything they like, and then choose a table in the middle of a field. The table is set with cutlery and plates, and from there you must ‘wish your own tea’, as Silky says, which fills the table with jellies, lemonade, chocolate blancmange and other party food. Best of all is the birthday cake- also known as wishing cake- which grants a wish to anyone who eats it. Unfortunately, the Saucepan Man’s poor hearing ends up turning ‘wish’ to ‘fish’, and Fanny has to waste her own wish to get them back to the party, hence Jo’s vexation. The ending is very sweet though, with Moonface gifting his wish to Fanny and all of them happily going home. It was a lovely way to end the first book in the series.

Adventures of the Wishing Chair Review

Post-read: ★★

Synopsis: two children discover a magical chair with wings in an antique shop that leads to a host of new adventures and a new pixie friend they rescue along the way.

Like I said earlier, I preferred the Faraway Tree series to the Wishing Chair and that remains the same. The concept of lands coming to the top of a tree- and choosing whether to go up there or not- is more my style, and if the weather is bad you can just stay home, while the chair you just have to go with it. The Faraway Tree itself is also really wonderful, with all the interesting houses and shops inside it, and especially Moonface’s slippery-slip. On the contrary, the main location for the Wishing Chair series is the children’s playing room, and the chair itself is an utter menace. The villains are more irritating in this series- which is their job, I get it- but the children themselves aren’t quite as likable as Jo, Bessie and Fanny either. Mollie and Peter argue plenty and can be very selfish and silly at times, which is realistic, sure, but that doesn’t make them any less meh. The other main character is a pixie called Chinky (yes, I’ll get to this soon) who they rescue from slavery in a giant’s castle, and my opinion on him varies between chapters. There are some really cool places they go to and the illustrations make reading this more enjoyable despite the hasty writing and relatively flat characters.

Characters who aged well: ???? I mean… Mollie and Peter aren’t exactly my favourite children ever but they’re not too bad. My main criticism would have to be that there isn’t really anything defining about their personalities; to a degree I would say they are just a whinier version of Jo, Bessie and Fanny. I don’t think Enid bothered too much about changing base character traits in her stories, to be honest. There are a few characters like Witch Snippit and the Windy Wizard who help Mollie and Peter when troubles arise, but as the adventures always begin with the chair in the children’s playroom there aren’t really many magical recurring characters to properly consider.

Characters who aged badly: the children’s MOTHER. She is beyond irritating in certain chapters- like when she decides to take the wishing chair to her own lounge room simply because she likes it, even though the children themselves bought it and expressed how much they love it. Plenty of parents do this in real life and it is just as annoying in fiction. Secondly, the wishing-chair. Magical chair that grows wings and can fly to magical lands is cool, yes? Sure, except when it has mood swings and randomly decides to fly through storms or simply land in the sea for no reason I can think of. This is a very petty chair… yet I know I would keep it anyway so I can’t complain too much. I’m going to add Chinky here too, and not because he got saddled with a slur for a name- he gets fired up about minor things way too quickly and causes drama for no good reason, though perhaps I should cut him some slack after his time spent in forced servitude. Also, he makes a few sexist comments to Mollie so maybe the giant had a point after all.

Favourite scene/quote: ‘One rabbit turned upside down and danced on its ears, and that made Peter laugh so much that he had to get out his handkerchief to wipe his tears of laughter away.’

Peter being this happy just made me happy. This quote is from my favourite scene, when the children fly with some elves to attend a magician’s party. There is no villain to be seen, and the room is filled with classic Blyton details of top tier food like cream buns and blancmange, and beautiful birds that sing sweetly before flying freely. The magician has dancing cats appear, and ‘six plump rabbits’ that dance while the cats play violin. Finally, the magician gifts everybody a tiny egg he tells them will hatch later. When they arrive home, Peter’s hatches to reveal a tiny silver watch and Mollie gets a necklace of beads that look ‘exactly like bubbles’. This always sounded so pretty to me, and I had a necklace from my mum that looked exactly as Mollie’s was described, so I’ve always remembered this scene very well.

Overall verdict:

I’m torn. I love parts of these books so much, I love the nostalgia surrounding them, and yet I must admit that without a childhood connection it would difficult for a new reader to enjoy, and probably not the first choice in a bed time story to read to children nowadays. I think for me, I like having these books back on my shelf again, and I like knowing I can go back to read my favourite chapters whenever I want, despite the criticisms I have. In a way, I like knowing I am capable of recognising the books’ faults while still appreciating the good parts of them. I do not regret buying these books again- in fact looking at the artwork and reading the words has inspired me to get to work on my own plan to write a book of fairy tales (with the representation I would’ve loved to see alongside the magic as a child, and minus the problematic details).

With this in mind:

- Blyton’s writing skills… are sorely lacking. Her sentences are stunted and sometimes she changes locations so hastily within one small paragraph that if you so much as skim over one sentence you’ll find yourself in another land entirely (haha). I am wholly aware these books are intended for children but I have read other novels for that age group that have been well-written, so my criticism stands.

- I should just rewrite the books myself. I don’t care if this sounds arrogant, I know I could make the stories more compelling with a few tweaks to, say, writing skills, story structure, making better use of the amazing concepts, fleshing out the characters more, etc. (again I’m aware they’re children’s books)

- Enid Blyton herself was not a very nice person, and her own daughter criticised her writing for being emotionally immature and seeing things as ‘black and white’. Anyone who has read her other novels knows that she was very racist- ‘gypsies’ managing to be the villain in most of her teen detective stories, amongst other issues, so Chinky the pixie is not exactly a surprise appearance. It was Chinky, in fact, who first alerted me to racial slurs. As someone with partially Asian heritage at an almost completely white school, it took me asking my (rightfully) concerned father what ‘chink’ meant when some kids started calling me by the word in school… I then connected this to Blyton’s pixie and to this day am morbidly entertained by this unfortunate memory. I’ll link the article here, in case of any further curiosity about Blyton.

In the Faraway Tree series review I linked earlier, the writer said of the books, ‘it’s an odd feeling, finding the classics of your childhood don’t really stack up’. In many ways, I feel the same. Is it all nostalgia, after all? Yes and no. Having such a balanced opinion on an old favourite is likely healthier than clinging to past memories, anyway. With all of these thoughts jumbling through my mind, it’s possible that my rating of these novels changes depending on my mood- and more importantly, which chapters I read. Perhaps the fact that my favourite chapters are all devoid of confrontation is something a therapist would suggest looking into, but you know what? It’s fiction. If I have to get my happy endings in books alone then so be it!

[scullysexual]

Gone

Chapter One: Goodbye.

Chapter Two: Twenty-Four Hours Missing.

Chapter Three: Death.

Chapter Four: Decay.

Mulder and Scully are ready to take matters into their own hands now and Scully reveals some family secrets. 

A/N:Remember that potentially controversial/ooc thing I mentioned for all those in the chat last night? Yeah, it happens in this chapter. There’s a lot I might change about this chapter in the future and a lot I will change in past chapters because of what is mentioned in this. I don’t ask this a lot but since this is still in the early days, I want to make this as good as I can get it, please tell me what you like, what you think works, and what you think doesn’t work, that kinda stuff. I already know partly myself what I need to do and change but any input from you guys would go a long way, as well. 

-_-

SUNDAY

Really? Has somebody let the Mulders know?

Dana freezes behind the closed door of the kitchen. Her hand on the door handle, ready to push it open, she stops when she hears her father’s voice on the other side, on the phone. She presses her ear against it, listening carefully.

I’m sorry. That’s really tragic, actually. … Has there been any new information on Charlie? … Of course. I’ll see what I can get Dana to tell me. Thank you, Detective Skinner.

Dana waits she hears the phone be placed back down on the holder before she’s pushing the door open, her stomach her knots about the conversation awaiting her behind this door.

Her father looks up from the stack of papers in front of him as she enters. Dana says nothing, feeling animosity in the air as she heads over to the toaster.

She focuses on her task rather than the emotions running through the air; get the bread, place it in the toaster, pull down the handle.

“Samantha Mulder is dead.”

Her breath catches in her throat. That’s why Skinner was outside Mulder’s house last night.

“Her body was found in the forest Charlie went missing in.”

Dana looks up towards the clock on the wall above her. It’s been a day and a half since Charlie went missing. A day and a half.

The toast pops.

“She was missing for a year,” Dana says, grabbing the toast and dropping it on a plate.

“She’s the same age as Charlie, the same age as this Duane Barry.”

Dana mulls that information over, not realising it before this moment.

“Dana, look at me,” her father tells her.

She turns.

“What were you doing in the forest?”

Dana shrugs. “It’s just a place we like to meet up.”

“And you took Charlie with you?”

She nods.

“Your sixteen year old brother?”

Dana looks away, resisting the urge to roll her eyes and lets out a slow, controlled breath so it doesn’t sound like she’s sighing.

“He plays baseball with Mulder and Ethan sometimes,” she offers as an explanation.

Bill sighs. He looks as though he’s about to say something else before deciding against it. Dana hopes this is an end to the interrogation.

Silence passes and when it feels like this conversation has been put to rest (for now) and her father goes back to his papers, Dana speaks again.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Asleep,” Bill answers. “I checked on her this morning.”

Dana nods, watching as her father rips off pieces of tape and places it on the papers in front of him. From where she stands, she can see the papers read:

MISSING

CHARLIE SCULLY

LAST SEEN FRIDAY BY THE WISHING WELL, 9:55PM.

“How long are you gonna stay?” Dana’s asking, looking up from the posters.

“I’ve been allowed two months,” her father answers, solely focused upon his task.

Dana nods, satisfied with the answer, and grabs her toast, intending on going back to her room with it.

“Dana.”

Dana stops at the doorway and faces her father.

Now looking at her, he says, “I don’t blame you for Charlie’s disappearance. It wasn’t your fault.”

Dana smiles sadly, wishing we could believe it was true.

 .:.:.:.:.:.:.

 She waves to him from her bedroom window when he looks up. She watches him head down the street until he disappears out of sight.

She moves away, closing the curtain again and sits back down on her bed.

Mulder’s information about the mine had creeped her out a bit. She didn’t know this town, she hadn’t lived here her entire life like Mulder and Ethan and everyone else, she didn’t know its secrets or barely it’s history.

They agreed to go to the well Tuesday as soon as school finished but Dana was curious now.

She looks to her alarm clock, the red letters screaming 9:47 at her.

A deep melancholy mood sets within her. In seven minutes Charlie would have been missing for 48 hours.

She swallows at that but it hardens her decision to go to the well. She wants answers now. She doesn’t want her brother to end up receiving the same fate as Mulder’s sister.

She heads off down the stairs, grabbing his sneakers and slipping them on.

The door to the living room still remains closed. Dana opens the door slowly. Inside her parents sit in on opposite ends of the couch- her father stares at her mother, her mother stares at a photo. They don’t notice her.

“I’m going out,” she says.

They both turn to look at her. Her mother is stricken.

“No, you’re not,” she tells her. She looks wildly around for a clock before finding the small one on the mantelpiece. “It’s…it’s almost 10:00.”

Dana watches as her mother’s face falls at the realisation. Two day’s Charlie has been missing for.

“No,” her mother says, controlling herself. “I want you to stay in. And…and you’re not going to school tomorrow.”

Dana stands shocked. It’s her final year. She has tests, work that needs to be completed, projects to finish. She only has three months left.

Dana shakes her head. “So what, you’re gonna keep me locked inside for the rest of the year?”

She’s angry now. Angry at her mother’s ineptness, her father’s seemingly lack of care, that three kids have been allowed to go missing and no one’s done a fucking thing about it. She’s angry that she’s being punished for it all.

“Is that what you think this is?” her mother stalks towards her, her own rage palpable. “Your little brother is missing,” she says as if Dana wasn’t aware of that fact.

She nods. “Yeah, and he’s probably dead. Just like Samantha is, just like Duane Barry probably is.”

Dana feels the pain in her cheek before her brain processes her. She stares in brief fear at her mother as Maggie stares back at her, her own fear evident in her eyes as she brings the same hand that she just slammed Dana with to her mouth, lost in the shock of what she had just done. Even her father is surprised.

“Dana, I’m…” her mother begins, trailing off.

With tears burning in her eyes, Dana bolts, ignoring her father’s calls after her. She grabs her keys and is out the door before anyone can stop her.

 .:.:.:.:.:.:.

 She doesn’t go to the well. She lets her tears fall and her feet and mind guide her. Her mother has never hit her before. Her mother has never hit anyone before, not even Missy though she’s no doubt been close.

It was the grief, Dana tells herself. The grief and the words said by Dana. She doesn’t know why she said it. Maybe the assumption had been buried deep down inside of her and she just didn’t want to acknowledge it, maybe Sam’s death activated her own fears about Charlie and highlighted that they’re running out of time.

She should go back. Should apologise and say she didn’t mean it. But she can’t. Some unresolved issue with having to be right, to stand her ground even when things go wrong. She can’t go back, not yet.

Her feet have led her to Ethan’s house. She stands outside his gate, her hand on the lock, and stares towards his door. She hasn’t spoken to him since Friday, he stopped calling her telephone. She stares, unable to move. This isn’t the house she wants to be at. So she turns and walks towards the house she does.

 Mulder is there, standing in his doorway, confused.

“Can I come in?” she asks, her voice breaking but she doesn’t try to hide it.

“Of course.” Mulder moves out of the way. Immediately her senses are assaulted by Mulder’s house smell and instantly she feels comforted by it.

Mulder shuts the front door behind him. “Is everything okay?” he’s asking. He reaches a hand up to her face when he sees remnants of the now faded red mark. Dana tenses, backing away slightly. Mulder, understanding, drops his arms back down.

“Scully, what happened?”

Dana bites her lip, her hands tangling together. “Can we go to your room?”

Mulder nods, leading her towards a door not far from where they are.

His bedroom is in the basement. The size of a living room, it reminds Dana of a studio minus the kitchen set-up. It’s remained virtually the same since the summer; his I Want To Believe poster is still up on the wall, various photos of assumed UFOs on the pinboard, newspaper clippings, and the like. A new photo has joined, she notices, a picture of him and Samantha when they were much younger. Dana smiles.

“Did something happen at home?” Dana turns away from the photos and the pinboard to see him sat leaning against the arm of the small couch. She walks over to it and sits herself down.

“I was gonna go to the well, but…” She looks down at the floor, the argument seems so stupid now in retrospect. She should’ve just stayed in and went to bed.

“But…?” Mulder is prodding.

“I had an argument with my mom. She slapped me. She’s never done that before.”

Mulder exhales.

“I don’t want to go back home, Mulder.” She tries to keep the begging out of her voice.

Mulder nods. “Do they know where you are at least?”

Dana thinks for a moment. She guesses they could assume she was at Ethan’s but…

“You should call them, Scully,” he says, taking her silence as a no. “They’re already worried about Charlie, they don’t need to be worrying about you, too.”

He hands the phone. Dana looks at it, before looking back at him. She takes the phone and dials her home number.

Her father answers.

His greeting is a, “Where are you?”

“I’m at Mulder’s,” she answers. Mulder walks off towards his wardrobe, allowing Dana some privacy. “How’s Mom?”

Her father sighs. “She wants to apologise. I want you to apologise. You were completely out of a line tonight, Dana.”

Dana looks towards the floor again, nervously playing with the cord. “I know,” she says, grumpily.

“Your mother was wrong to hit you, she knows that, but you were wrong to say what you said.” Dana says nothing. Her father sighs again. “How long are you staying at Mulder’s for?”

Dana looks up as Mulder moves towards her carrying some clothes she thinks are going to be hers for the tonight.

“I’m staying the night,” she says and Mulder nods towards the couch. “On the couch,” she adds. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

Bill says nothing against it. He knows his daughter enough to know when she needs her own space to cool down.

“Fine,” he says. “But make sure you’re back tomorrow morning to apologise.” Dana hums in agreement. “I love you, Starbuck.”

A smile tugs at Dana’s lips.

“I love you too, Ahab.” The phone call ends and Dana passes the phone back to Mulder and trading it for the clothes.

“You take the bed, I can sleep on the couch.”

Dana smiles. “I don’t want to rob you of your bed, Mulder.”

But he’s shaking his head. “It’s fine, I find it comfier anyway.”

She continues to smile and heads towards the bathroom. Before going in, she turns. “Thank you, Mulder.”

He smiles back. “It’s okay, Scully.”

She disappears off into the bathroom. During her time in there, Mulder passes in a toothbrush for which she thanks him for.

She turns to the mirror, ready to brush her teeth, in joggers and an oversized T-shirt were she smiles to herself at one thought.

Scully.

She likes it.

 .:.:.:.:.:.:.

 MONDAY

There’s a moment of disorientation. The scent of somebody else wafts into her nose. Her eyes dart open and even with her poor vision, she can see she’s not in her bedroom.

Her hand blindly searches for her glasses on the nightstand, knocking everything else over until she finds them and slides them onto her face. She sits up, a stray curl falling in front of her face, getting tangled in the bridge of her glasses, and Mulder who stares at her from the couch.

“Morning,” he says, cheerfully. Scully glances at the clock on the table and cringes at the time. 06:17. How anyone can be cheerful at this time is beyond her.

“Sleep well?” he’s asking.

Scully yawns, nodding. She did, actually. It was the best night’s sleep she’d had in a while.

“I have to go home,” she says, climbing out of the bed.

“I can walk you back if you want. We can grab bagels.”

She nods, her stomach agreeing with that very much and grabs her clothes from yesterday folded neatly off the chair. She disappears off into the bathroom to get dressed and try to do something with her hair without the use of all her hair products. She gives up, deciding it’s a beanie day today anyway.

When she exists, she finds Mulder ready to go, his backpack beside his feet. He smiles when he sees her.

“You ready to face school?”

Scully hadn’t even thought of that. Everyone was aware that it was her brother that was missing by now. She wonders if it’ll be like what Mulder experienced the school day after Sam disappeared.

She shrugs. “Are you ready?”

His sister was dead after all. What a pair they made.

 Scully shivers as she walks, her jacket doing nothing against March’s still cold mornings.

“Cold?” Mulder asks, he was smart enough to wear a coat.

“I’m fine,” Scully says.

They pass Ethan’s house and there’s a moment of guilt when she looks towards it; when she decided she needed Mulder more than Ethan, when she slept in Mulder’s bed before Ethan’s.

“Shit!” Mulder suddenly shouts. Scully’s attention is pulled away from Ethan’s house to Mulder at the exclaim.

“What?” asks Scully, concerned.

“I was supposed to meet with Ethan last night.”

Scully frowns. “Why?”

“He found this number in Duane’s dope bag. Said he was meeting some man and he wanted me to go with him.”

Scully is dumbfounded for a second at Ethan’s stupidity. After everything that has happened- three missing kids, one of them turning up dead and fucking-stupid-Ethan Minette decides to meet with some stranger in the middle of the fucking night. And Mulder agreed to go with him.

“You should have told him no,” she’s saying, doing nothing to let her annoyance at both of them not show. “You should have told him not to go.”

“Well, I did…sort of…”

Scully shakes her head, rolling her eyes, and huffing. She saunters off ahead of Mulder.

“You still want me to wait for you?” Mulder calls as Scully quickens her pace.

“Don’t bother,” Scully calls back, thoroughly annoyed with him now.

She reaches her house and tries to cool off, resisting the urge to look behind her and see if Mulder waited for her regardless of the fact she told him not to.

She doesn’t, however, instead taking in a deep breath and letting it out, letting all her anger and annoyance at Mulder and Ethan out with it. She puts her key into the door and twists.

 .:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

 It’s a series of whispers. Stares that, once she looks their way, they’re adverting their eyes like they never looked in the first place. Scully had no patience for it. They like to gossip, to huddle around tables and talk about people. It was no different than before, really. Only they were talking about her and her family.

The morning had gone fairly well. She had opened the door and her mother was right there, embracing her, telling her she was sorry over and over again. Scully apologised, too, took back the words she said. Her father had stood near the living room doorway, proud.

Scully had hated it.

She slams her locker shut and spies Phoebe a few lockers down, surrounded by Ellen and Diana.

Scully’s lonely walk to school had given her a chance to think, for her brain to spiral into questions she hadn’t thought of before.

One of those questions involved Phoebe.

Scully walks over to her, intent on getting her answers.

“What do you want, Small?” Phoebe asks once she realises Scully’s standing behind her.

“What we’re you doing in the forest the night Charlie went missing?”

Diana and Ellen look at each other warily.

“I didn’t kidnap your little brother if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Scully crosses her arms, holding up her guard. “I wasn’t. It’s just strange that you were already there.”

Phoebe sighs like she doesn’t like time for this.

“I overheard Ethan and Mulder talking about Duane’s dope. Thought I’d get there first.” She turns on Scully, moving a step closer towards her causing Scully to take a step back.

A smile passes across Phoebe’s face at the action. Scully tries to not let her uncertainty show.

“If you want someone to blame, Dana, why don’t you just blame yourself? After all, I don’t remember you doing much that night other than running away.”

Another question lights up in Scully’s brain.

“What do you remember?” Because she remembered nothing, Mulder remembered nothing.

“I’m done talking to you now.” Phoebe moves off but not before Scully feels a pat on her head. She cringes, ducking away and moving so Phoebe can’t touch her again.

She’s not out of earshot before Scully hears her say, “Weirdo.”

Scully stands there, staring after them, wondering what the point was.

She moves off, intending to walk to her class and not talk to anyone for the rest of the day before-

“Hi, Dana.”

Scully turns to see Monica catching up to her. Scully sighs, not in the mood for a lesson about how being a Pisces is going to affect her future.

“Hi, Monica,” she says anyway, trying to sound a lot more cheerful than she really is right now.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about Charlie. It must be really horrible what you’re families going through right now.”

Scully hums in agreement.

“If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

Scully stops in her tracks at the sight of Ethan walking through the main doors. He looks rough, tired.

“You know, I noticed you don’t have a lot of friends that are girls, and if you ever wanted to come over…” But Scully’s bolting off before Monica gets to finish her sentence.

She leans against the locker next to Ethan’s as he placing his books inside it, fuming.

“What do you want?” he asks, sounding pissed off himself.

“How about to tell you that you’re a fucking idiot?” She crosses her arms and does nothing to conceal her anger.

“Mulder tell you about the guy?” he asks, his own defences coming up.

“Two kids are missing and you’re just willingly going off and meeting strangers alone?”

Ethan slams his locker shut, the action sending vibrations running through the various lockers causing Scully to move away from the one she was leaning on. Those closest to them jump and stare.

“Mulder was supposed to come with but the bastard didn’t show up and I’d hazard a guess to say that he was with you.”

He stares menacingly at her. In his eyes she sees jealously, paranoia, anger and somewhere deep down, hurt.

“You know how many times I’ve tried ringing you this weekend? Mulder said that you needed time but you were happy to spend that time with him, weren’t you?”

Scully swallows, unsure what to say. She still partially blamed Ethan but maybe she should’ve spoken to him after all.

“Mulder understands what I’m going through.”

He stares at her and Scully waits.

Without saying anything else, Ethan walks off, leaving Scully alone.

 .:.:.:.:.:.:.

 She picks at her lunch. Sat alone at the furthest end of the table, her fork plays the fries on her plate. She’s not hungry, just fed up, and wants nothing more than to just go home.

She had a meeting with the school counsellor that she didn’t bother turning up for. What was the point anyway? Talking wasn’t going to make Charlie reappear after all.

Laughter drifts its way towards her and Scully looks up to see Phoebe, Diana, and Ellen in fits of giggles, looking at her before looking away.

Scully pulls a face and stabs angrily at her fries. You wouldn’t think they were seniors.

They’re surrounding her all of a sudden. Phoebe directly opposite her, Diana and Ellen to the right side of her. Nope, Scully really can’t be dealing with this.

“I noticed something about you before, Dana,” Phoebe begins. “You have problems with being touched by other people.” Her hand slowly creeps towards Scully’s. Scully is quick to notice and pulls her away. Phoebe smiles, the results of her experiment complete.

Scully never really saw it as a ‘problem’. She just like her own personal space, what was wrong with that?

“One can’t help but wonder you and Ethan have sex.”

The girls beside her laugh and Scully shifts uncomfortably.

This conversation.

“That is, that you’re having sex after all.”

The truth was, no she hadn’t. She never felt any rush to and besides, she and Ethan hadn’t been together for long. It seemed too soon.

She looks down at her plate and Phoebe gets her answer.

“Oh, sweetie…” Phoebe comforts, though Scully can see right through it. “Let me share some womanly advice with you: we got to college next year, nobody’s going to want you if they find out you’re still a virgin after so many years.”

She can see what Phoebe is doing but it doesn’t work. Scully was never affected by peer-pressure. She’d survived the Elementary school bullying when the teacher left the classroom one time and Betty Harris snatched her glasses off her face and threw them around the room, told her to go find them when one of the boys hid them. After enduring the humiliation of walking into everything and a migraine from straining her eyes to see, she found them in the top cupboard broken.

Scully had gone home crying to Melissa that day, saying she wanted new eyes because hers were broken. She never ever forgot the image of Missy pushing Betty against the wall behind the gym saying she would kill her if she ever so much as looked at Dana again. Betty had left her alone after that.

Scully stares at Phoebe, thinking that Phoebe at age seventeen wasn’t that much far off Betty at age seven.

“Hi.”

All four of them turn to see Mulder standing sheepishly at the edge of the table holding his tray up to his chest.

Phoebe turns back to Scully and stands. “I hope you take my advice, Dana.” She leaves, knocking into Mulder on her way past him. Scully thinks she hears Mulder mumble a thanks to her.

“Hi, Fox,” Scully hears Diana say. She watches as Mulder smiles and she smiles shyly back.

“Hi, uh…Diana.”

Scully rolls her eyes and looks away. Mulder notices it.

“What?” he asks, sitting down where Phoebe was just sitting.

She eyes with him subtle rage, still annoyed at him for letting Ethan go meet a stranger on his own.

“What did they want?” he’s asking.

Scully shrugs. “Just to annoy me. What do you want?”

“I came to ask you a favour.”

Scully considers.

“I’m going to see Sam at the morgue after school, Skinner’s taking me. I was hoping that you would come with me.”

She thinks about it. It was no small ask, he knew that. She looks at him, her anger dissipating at the pleading, puppy-eyed look he gives her, one that says that he’ll accept her saying no but he’s going to be sad about it all the same.

It wins her over. She nods. He smiles.

 .:.:.:.:.:.:.

 Skinner is waiting for them. She waits for Mulder, wondering if this is really such a good idea after all.

He runs down the steps towards and Scully smiles, exhaling deeply.

“You sure about this, Mulder?” she’s asking.

He looks towards Skinner’s car then back at her, nodding, smiling as if he’s trying to convince himself.

They climb into the car, ignoring the looks they get from students standing nearby.

“Dana,” Skinner says in greeting.

“She’s coming with me,” Mulder says.

They walk down the corridor following a doctor, Skinner just up ahead. Scully looks towards Mulder when they reach the door. Skinner’s offered to wait outside and Scully wonders if she should do that too but Mulder shakes his head, wanting her in there with him.

If she had the option she’d choose to stand outside but this is for Mulder, Mulder is her friend, if he wants her in there with him she’ll be in there with him.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” the doctor asks.

A body- Samantha’s body- lies beneath a white cloth on a metal table, covered in head to toe with the sheet. Scully’s heart beats faster against her chest as she stares at it. God, this is hard for her, how must it be for Mulder?

Mulder nods his head, signally that the sheet is ready to be lifted. Scully holds her breath as the sheet is pulled back by the doctor.

Samantha’s face is revealed. Her skin a blue tinge to it, her eyes closed. She’s been washed, preserved in a freezer for two days now. Scully’s eyes widen. She’s never seen a dead body before.

Below the table, Mulder’s hand is clutching at hers, squeezing tight. She looks down at their entwined hands, then back at Mulder.

His face is emotionless. He just stares at his sister on a table in a morgue.

His sister is dead.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” the doctor says and she wanders off towards the desk.

Tears are now in Mulder’s eyes. With his free hand, he gently strokes the top of her head, the tears now falling silently.

“What happened to her ears?”

Scully had seen that before. It looks as though a mini bomb has gone off in the girl’s ears.

“Her auditory canal looks to have exploded. We don’t have any answers yet.”

Scully looks to Mulder with questions she knows she shares with Mulder but Mulder says nothing, he just continues to cry.

“She’s dead, Scully,” he’s saying through sobs. “She’s really dead.”

The realisation, the truth in front of him, seems to break him and he shatters into a series of painful cries, falling against the table. Scully says nothing, just continues to stare at him with tears in her own eyes, threatening to fall.

 .:.:.:.:.:.:.

 Feet dangle next to each other as they sit on the dock. In silence. The events of this evening swirling around in their head.

Scully’s is filled with other thoughts, too, thoughts that she is begging to share with someone.

She glances a sideways look towards Mulder. He’s emotionless again, staring out beyond the water. She wonders if he could deal with her problems tonight.

Her legs bounce. Her hands tangle. The wind blows a cold chill towards them. The world carries on regardless of dead children, missing children, broken families…

“Mulder, can I tell you something?”

Scully stares straight ahead.

“Of course,” he says.

“It’s nothing to do with Sam or Charlie or anything like that.” She chances a quick look at him. “Are you okay with that?” Before turning back out to the lake again.

“Sure.”

Scully sighs, ready to disclose information she’s never had the chance to tell anyone before.

“My parents haven’t slept in the same bed for four years.”

It’s out. The weight that has been lifted from her is enormous. She feels as though she could float away right now.

“I- I didn’t know,” Mulder stumbles out after a bit.

“That was the point. Nobody was supposed to know.” Her legs swing harder. Anger fills her. It’s all she is now; a bottle of angry and tears ready to spill at any moment. “You ever feel like we exist in one big lie? We’re supposed to act as though we’re happy and everything is fine when we’re really we’re just houses decaying on the inside, dressed up prettily so the first gullible buyer will fall for us?” She breaths out deeply. “I want answers, Mulder. Real answers. About Charlie, about Sam…I’m sick of doing nothing.”

Her eyes are firmly fixed on the lake ahead, the line where the sky meets water.

“Scully…”

She breaks her gaze, turning to Mulder.

“Let’s go to the well.”

He’s staring directly into her eyes, serious. Scully smiles, standing up, ready to do something.

[cetaceans-pls]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Bane (DCU) Additional Tags: Reconciliation, Developing Relationship, Dom/Sub Undertones, Bruce Wayne Is Trying His Best, The rest of the family play a very small role, Slow Burn Summary:

Change is a hard thing for people to grasp, even when they’re billionaire vigilantes and reanimated pseudo-criminals.

Going from parent and child to zombie-son-left-unavenged and shitty-father-figure was rough, and trying to find even ground after Bruce and Jason had been so fundamentally changed by Jason’s death had been almost impossible.

But after a year of improved communication, rooftop tacos, and the foiling of a terrorist attack, they find a new normal for taking care of each other.

I have written over 30k words for this gd fandom since the day @setsailslash got me hooked and every day the mania just grows deeper.

Or,

That time I scrapped smut 300 words in because I thought if I did that how would you know they love the hell out of each other and haha here’s 10k of the concept of Third Thursdays instead: An Odyssey

Read on Tumblr:

Change is a hard thing for people to grasp, even when they’re billionaire vigilantes and reanimated pseudo-criminals.

Going from parent and child to zombie-son-left-unavenged and shitty-father-figure was rough, and trying to find even ground after they had both been so fundamentally changed by Jason’s death had been almost unovercomeable.

Acknowledging the differences is key, though. Where it had been obvious to Jason that Bruce’s problem was that he couldn’t accept that Jason’s different from before, it had taken him a lot longer to figure out that he was still holding Bruce to the standards he’d held when Batman was more like a god than a distressed man desperately doing his best.

In retrospect, he reckons that death’s actually an infectious disease. Jason got the blunt end of a crowbar and his rose-tinted glasses ripped right off his face, and Bruce came away only slightly more lightly with yet another heaping of trauma, and a chronic condition wherein every day he wishes he could kill the Joker while absolutely knowing that he won’t. It’s self-enforced suffering; the Bat is ruled not by absolutes but by ‘should’s and ‘shouldn’t’s, because ‘can’ and ‘can’t’s are too thin a line for him.

It’s been a fistful of years since Jason’s gone full-time on this Red Hood the crime lord thing, and Gotham’s calmer than she’s ever been; if he wants to have the streets crime-freeish, he just tells his underlings to work less.

Heading a criminal empire provides a much better work-life balance than being Robin, and don’t that hit like a bullet to the head?

(Hahaha.)

It’s been a fistful of years since he woke up, and Jason thinks it’s about time that he have a sit-down with Bruce, because they really fuckin’ need to talk about change and loss.

So he orchestrates a casual heist on a quiet night, and sits at the rooftop of the Natural History Museum with a hunk of meteorite that’s ever-so-lightly laced with Kryptonite, and waits.

It’s frigid as fuck for late April, but to be a Gothamite you sure do have to earn it, and ‘it’ sometimes means sleet down the back of your neck in the middle of the night while you’re trying to meet a man. The helmet’s keeping his head dry and muggy as always, but Lord god he might need to come up with an on-brand scarf design to protect the gap between nape and jacket if the weather keeps being Like This.

Jason’s halfway through troubleshooting the concept of a leather scarf when heavy boots land dramatically on the top of the building, the quiet hiss of a grapple line disengaging in the background.

That’s a thing, too. Bruce generally errs on the side of being Creepy and Looming and a shadow creature of eldritch horror to get people to fear the Batman, but he’s all big loud moves when he’s with Jason, all shout-y and hand gesture-y and frowny. The mystique of him in full-on Bat mode disappears when Bruce strides towards him briskly like an agitated goose coming in for an attack, while his cape just drags on the floor instead of obscuring his fundamental humanity.

Bruce had made more of an effort to keep up the persona back before, tried harder to seem significantly less mortal with the cowl on. Now he’s just all human all the time around him, and Jason sees that Bruce is always bleeding out, only sometimes literally.

“Hey, B,” he calls out, though his helmet probably glows like a beacon to where he’s sat on the water tank.

“Red Hood,” Bruce growls out, too professional to use real names, but too worked-up to not be angry. “Why are you stealing Kryptonite? If this is a plot against Superman, I have no choice but to-”

Ain’t that a joke and a half. “No choice but to do what, B? For the guy calling all the shots all the time, you’re talking some pretty amazing shit.”

At that Bruce doesn’t snap back, turning this way and that instead to do a sweep of the roof before he seems satisfied. “Hood, if this is a plea for attention-”

“Ding ding ding,” Jason says as he unlocks his helmet and takes it off, groaning a little when the light drizzle hits his overheated scalp. “Got half of it in one. I’m not pleading for your attention, B, but I am going to get it. We’re going to talk.”

It’s a new technique, just for today. Usually, any interaction between them turns into a clash; somebody lashes out and the other hits back, and fifteen minutes later either somebody’s bloody or they’ve stormed dramatically off the side of a building.

Today, Jason’s going to pull a Batman ( Thou shalt not steal (the tyres off the Batmobile), Thou shalt not kill (the Joker) ) and put down lines in the sand, make this a lawful argument instead of a raging one.

Getting pissed on by freezing April showers, Jason’s feeling unusually benevolent. It makes him want to laugh, a little, that Bruce has the time and the luxury to be angry with him on a rooftop right now because that’s what Jason wanted to do tonight.

It seems to work, though. Bruce is quiet for the longest time, before he comes closer, clearly wary. “So talk.”

“Much as though I love looking down on you, old man, calm yourself down and just come sit with me. You know as well as me that this place’s in a blindspot, so get up here already.”

Another line, another non-request. Jason expects that he’s going to have to wear Bruce down with this, but instead there’s the quiet boom! of the grapple going off, and in six and a half seconds flat, he’s got a seatmate.

Facing the same way, they have as good of a view as you can get of Gotham; the museum’s on a hill close to the bay, and from here you can make out the city lights and the barest outlines of buildings through the mist and rain. Even the looming hills that cocoon the city and contribute hugely to the awful weather and spectacular air pollution are visible, if you squint.

Absently, Jason notes that this is the longest they’ve gone in a while without either of them shouting, even if Bruce is radiating enough tension to heat up a house.

“So,” Jason starts them off, because he should expect no help from the dumbass next to him, “you know that I, like, died, right, B?”

The sharp intake of breath is like a reflex at this point; if Jason ever wants to get a punch in all he needs to do is look Bruce in the eye and remind him of Jason’s death and bam ! An opening right there.

That’s not the point tonight, though. Not quite.

He keeps going before Bruce can interrupt. “I know you know I did, B. I know you blame yourself for it, and you blame me for being angry you didn’t kill Joker, and then you go back to blaming yourself for not actually killing the fucker anyways. You’re all twisted up inside, and you probably always have been, and I guess the thing is I kinda only noticed that recently.”

So recently, he realised it mid-conversation. Wow.

“If you only wanted me to come so that you can berate me, Hood, I have better things to do,” Bruce says, terse and hideously impersonal.

Jesus, he’s bleeding out right now.

Jason nudges him in the side, but mostly just bruises his elbow on kevlar and leather. “It’s not about that. If I was berating you, I would be real fucking clear about it. I just need you to get through your thick skull, that the boy you took in and did your best to kinda take care of, he died and you mourned him and you’re still mourning him, and that’s fine .” It isn’t, not really, because Jason wants Bruce to mourn him , but that’s just a whole ‘nother kettle of fucking fish, really. “He died, and I came ‘round in his place, and we’re not the same people. Death really changes a man, you know, and I’m not your son anymore. I made my peace with that.” Sort of. -ish. Enough to function, enough to know they need this conversation.

He turns to look at Bruce, right at the eery white lenses. “The question is,” he says with a heaviness he doesn’t usually like to show, “have you?”

Lenses can’t blink, obviously, but Jason’s looked at and thought about this man long enough and often enough that he knows what’s going on even when Bruce’s face is obscured.

It’s a stare-off that Bruce somehow loses. He looks away, jaw still clenched tight. Jason can see the muscles twitching there, can almost hear the grinding. If he closes his eyes he can even imagine the little purple case and the clear night guard that Bruce has on the counter in his bathroom.

He wonders if the case is still covered in the stickers that first Dick, and then he himself had covered it in. He wonders if the tradition continued with the newer Robins, and if the guard and the case is still there, or if Bruce in his unwinding madness had just, god, laser-cut his teeth so that they wouldn’t touch or something.

Bruce’s answer is a long time coming, but it does come, eventually. “No,” Bruce tells him like it’s truth taken through torture. “No, I haven’t.”

(It is, truth taken through torture).

Any admission of weakness was well beyond anything Jason expected, and while his first inclination is to take that given inch and make it a vicious mile, to mock the absolute hell out of Bruce, he doesn’t.

Instead, he finds himself scooting over closer, close enough that their shoulders are touching. Bruce flinches, and Jason ignores the tell of discomfort.

“That’s all right,” Jason tells him, mostly meaning it. “He died for me too, you know. So at least this time, B, you got a mourning buddy.”

They sit in silence for a long, long time, until Batman’s communicator goes off and the spell’s broken. Bruce doesn’t say anything after the transmission’s fed right into his ear, just leaps off the water tank and lands on cat-quiet feet on the roof.

It’s as clear a sign as anything that their potential bonding’s come to an end, and Jason’s resigned to going back to his ratty apartment and rage-eating some cold pizza.

Instead of leaping right into action, though, Bruce turns and looks up at him. He holds up his hand, and it’s the stupid chunk of greenish rock. Jason rolls his eyes, but can’t help breaking into a grin. How a man so big and imposing got around to having such sticky fingers is pretty impressive.

“Thank you, Jason.”

It’s the first time tonight Bruce has actually called him by his name, and it’s such a wholesale fucking miracle that Jason is actually left speechless as Batman smirks, turns on his heel so that his cape snaps out dramatically, and disappears.

-

They meet up semi-often, after that. Jason sent out a company-wide memo; every third Thursday, everybody just stay the fuck at home. Anybody found breaking the order gets to have some personal one-on-one time with Jason and his favourite toy for the week, and about two months after that first meeting, Gotham’s taken to scheduling their outdoor celebrations and festivities to take advantage of the periodic significant decrease in shit like gun violence and kidnappings.

Jason’s got no complaints; it means that whatever rooftop they end up on, they get a view of lanterns and glossy food-trucks, loud music booming up to the rafters even though it’s the middle of the workweek. There’s a taquería-on-wheels that usually sets up shop on the corner of King and 18th, and Jason’s made it his mission in life to make a pilgrimage to it every haloed Thursday to get half a dozen pulled pork tacos. He does it partly because they literally are the best tacos he’s ever had in his life, and also partly because if it’s the matriarch María José at the cashier she will inevitably pinch his cheeks, call him handsome, and give him a glass of rice milk on the house so’s that he can grow some more.

Three months into this, whatever the hell this is, and a whole two tacos regularly go to Bruce, despite the fact that Bruce always comes by with food from whichever truck he buys out that night, a takeaway bag for them and the rest sent to the charitable organisation du jour .

Jason feels a weird sense of satisfaction in providing , though, so he always says he’ll bring home whatever Bruce’s brought to eat later, and instead has them share his tacos and drink and whatever corner store trash takes his fancy on the day. Trying to get Bruce to just go with the damned flow is a lot like trying to socialise the world’s most paranoid cat, and the first time that comparison occurred to him Jason had laughed to himself because he thought it was hilarious.

It came in a little later that cats that are paranoid and wary of people usually have a damn good reason for being so, and if that ain’t just the world’s most relatable shit….

The meeting after that realisation Jason had splurged on two horchatas as well as some churros, and when María José had asked if it was for a date, he had said of course not, ma’am, I’ve still got my eye on you , but in his head he thought Jesus, maybe .

By the fifth time they meet for what amounts to late-night snacks and aching chats, Jason notices and works very hard not to mention that Bruce has foregone the heavily-armoured suit that he usually wears on patrol, and is instead in the Batsuit Lite™, the version he would keep in his office for quick costume changes but couldn’t take a bullet half so well.

The actual Gotham Bat is literally lowering his guard around him, and Jason feels so goddamned all-powerful that he almost wants to send out another memo to say that all crime is all cancelled now, thanks, just so that dinner and drinks with a Bruce who is slowly but surely coming to terms with Jason being his own man can happen more often.

It never sat quite right with him to be provided for, he learns over the course of these dinners. Call it the result of a rough upbringing, call it a trick of the mind, but Jason’s never felt so settled in his skin as when Bruce is sat with him on a night that Jason finagled to be calm enough for the Bat to get time off, eating food that Jason bought for him, dressed as casually as the Bat can because Jason was there to guarantee his safety.

He never really knew what to do with the lavish life Bruce gave to him, before.

He’s beginning to think he has an idea about what he wants to give to Bruce, now.

-

There’s nothing unusually worldly about Jason’s porn preferences. It’s a secret he’ll take to his second grave, but he has a paid subscription to one of those tasteful for-women pornsites because some nights he and his right hand just want to watch people be kinda sweet to one another, you know? He’s surveyed the length and breadth of what the Internet can offer, doesn’t have any use for the ones where people aren’t having a good time, likes actual orgasms both behind and in front of the screen, and has a good grasp of the kinks that make him tick.

It’s not even sexual, this thing with Bruce. Sortof. It’s literally not sexual to sometimes go as backup with Bruce on cases so wretched they would make even Dick blanch and get queasy, or to share intel he got through nefarious means, or to avoid a kill shot when he can go around after and put the fear of the Red Hood into a perp and a bullet into their kneecap instead. It’s intimacy, yeah, to pick up a phone that rings at 4 o’clock in the morning whenever the usual cocktail of screaming horrors in Bruce’s head becomes literally unbearable and he just needs to hear that Jason’s alive still, tonight.

It’s a sign that he can be there to support Bruce, when he went with the man to his grave next to the Waynes, to just say hello and thank you and goodbye.

It’s not sexual, but close to a year into this, they’re both better off and better people. It started small and it grew big, and Jason just wants to give Bruce even more, make him take it, and more importantly, make him enjoy it.

They’re perched on some gargoyles for old times’ sake tonight, and far, far beneath their feet thousands of Gothamites are out on the streets. Jason’s lost track of the number of new celebrations that have cropped up, timed to meet the regular lull in crime, but tonight’s thing has lots of live bands, and lots of people dancing in the streets, swigging beer from plastic cups as they loosen their ties and kick off their heels and gently groove their way to train stations.

Loud block parties in the city centre on a Thursday are so on-brand for Gotham; it inconveniences absolutely everyone, but also if anyone tried to make them stop they would be mobbed. On any given day there’s no telling if Jason loves the people here or wants to beat them into the ground.

The same can be said about Bruce, as though there’s anything more through-and-through Gotham than the Bat and the man. The night’s been pretty chill, a little on the quiet side, but Jason thinks he’s about to change that. He’s going to draw another line between them tonight, but this one he wants Bruce to actually cross.

Plus, who would’ve known? Unwind the Bat enough and Bruce ends up being pretty decent company. He had a deep well of deeply entertaining bitchiness that was usually smothered under the facade of superheroism, he listened to hostage demands and a casual recap of the latest episode of Love Is Blind with the same amount of near-angry focus, and had a powerful implicit bias for anyone he cared about. Jason’s still in that category, somehow, and that was another group lesson; Jason’s a different man but actually, at the same time, maybe not.

God, identity politics are a riot when you throw adoption and death into the mix.

Nevertheless, Jason’s at the end of his tether. Getting laid’s not got the same kick to it, and sometimes mid-fuck he’s thinking about checking to see if tangerines are in season because if he scores a tempting enough bag of fruit the gauntlets come the fuck off to facilitate the peeling of the skin.

It’s the surest sign possible that this madness has sunk right down into his literal bones; Jason’s speaking from experience, and Bruce drives people all sorts of crazy even at the best of times, so he’s probably been screwed since that day on the water tank when Bruce said “Thank you, Jason”.

And now he’s really just going to say to his former-father-figure some version of not only do I seriously want to fuck you, I want to hold you by the neck to make you be good for me, and then I’ll praise you for just how damn good you can be . Lately it’s starting to feel like the highest calling he’s ever gotten, to make Bruce submit and then aggressively reward him for it.

He waits until they’ve worked their way to the bottom of the tray of nachos, after he’s handed a pack of wet wipes over so Bruce can fastidiously clean his gloves off of neon-orange cheese sauce. Not only is he now the kind of man to go around with wet wipes in his pocket, they’re even the fancy biodegradable ones because B had tutted at him the last time he suggested just tossing a regular one on some shitty roof somewhere.

They’ve probably got a maximum of ten minutes or so before Bruce will get up and go perch on a stoop somewhere he can keep an eye on crime and Gothamites having a genuinely good night out, and Jason knows that that isn’t time he can or wants to intrude on, so if he wants to confess, he’s going to need to do it soon.

“B, you know how we’ve been getting along well, lately?” Innocuous, a softball, good start, Jay.

Bruce tenses a little, but he’s not ramrod straight and his lenses are still down as he turns to look at Jason with a piercing look. “What’s this about?”

“You know how months and months ago, I said we needed to talk ‘bout me, and I was right? Well. I’m bringing it up because I think we need to talk about me again.”

Instantly Bruce is on red alert, feet curled under him till he’s wound up like a fight on spring-loaded legs, and he’s looking around with the night-vision lenses up. “What’s wrong, Red Hood?” he asks, ready to leap into the middle of whatever it is that’s got Jason all agitated.

That’s not what he was aiming for, having Bruce get his back up, even if it’s in a show of needless sweet overprotectiveness. Actively winging it at this point, Jason reaches over and holds the approximate nape of Bruce’s neck, even if all his hand meets is vacu-formed reinforced kevlar. It’s what Bruce used to do when he was trying to calm one of them down, and the theory is that the thought of it transmits even if it’s not skin to skin. “Calm down, B, it’s alright. I’m alright. I just want to lay out some things on the table, okay, and I need to know what you think about them.”

Bruce doesn’t smack his hand off, even though he’s clearly disgruntled as he settles down a little, loosening his fists. “When have you ever wanted my opinion on anything?” It comes off harsh, but there’s no point getting angry over a statement of fact, is there?

It’s a fair question, after all. “All the time, B,” Jason says, honest as he can manage. “Sometimes, sure, it’s so that I know exactly what not to do. But c’mon, give me some credit. This whole reconciliation thing is working because I needed you to know what goes on under the Red Hood, and along the way I figured, hey, why not try and understand you under all those layers of trauma and self-loathing and machismo too, you know?”

The sound Bruce makes sounds like a growl, but everything does with a modulator. Jason knows enough to know a snort of amusement when he hears one. “Yes, that is me, an extremely manly man. Spit it out already, Hood. What do you need me to hear?”

“Hey, c’mon, you’re telling me you didn’t used to make us run around in sequined shorts and pixie boots ‘cos you wanted to look scary and macho by comparison?”

The lenses disappear, because Bruce is so dramatic sometimes, and he wanted to properly convey his aghast. “Robin chose the entire outfit by himself. My initial designs were based on my suit, and he refused all of them. He didn’t even want full-length sequined pants. When you came along, I just went with his choices. It’s beyond the scope of my abilities to understand the fashion preferences of youths.” Bruce glares at him. “And you didn’t complain about it once.”

Jason rolls his eyes, and tries not to feel giddy about Bruce relaxing into his touch, how close together they’ve gotten as they talk absolute shit. “One, you should have known by then that his fashion choices literally only make sense to him. Two, I wasn’t gonna turn down free clothes. Three, on God, please tell me that you still have sparkly leggings kicking around in the Cave, because Nightwing’s really due a makeover.”

If they had glossy green beads that clattered loudly with movement, Jason could die happy for the first time.

“Stop getting distracted,” Bruce says mildly. “Nightwing is always welcome to my facilities if he wants to update his costume, and PennyOne dreams of one day being asked for input. Jaybird,” Bruce grabs hold of Jason’s arm, squeezes gently. “Do you need help?”

God, he can’t stop the slightly manic laughter from bursting right through him. “It’s more of a B thing than a Bat thing, okay? And you can tell me yes, and you can tell me no, and they’re both okay. Third Thursday Tacos are gonna keep happening, bimonthly visits home are gonna keep happening, but there’s this thing that, uh.” Fuck, words are hard. He should have just texted instead, but Jason can already see his unbearable desire to drop an eggplant into a DM to make light of a weird, heavy situation, so.

Just shut up and say it already. “There’s something that I want from and for you. You’re probably going to take it badly, which is fine, but I need you to take it seriously. Okay?”

Bruce doesn’t say anything, just nods, rubbing his thumb against Jason’s arm.

“I love you,” Jason just goes for it, starts with the most fundamental of truths. “I want to smash you to pieces sometimes but I also literally, actually love you, in a whole bunch of really, really confusing ways. The thing is that one of those ways has me wanting to take you to bed, B, make you submit so you can be good for me and I can be good to you. So what I’m asking is, do I have your permission to try and get you to where I want you to be, B?”

The initial reaction will probably go one of two ways; complete stillness as Bruce digests the information and tries to parse his way through it, or a burst of action, probably a dramatic escape into the dark like Dracula’s the maiden who’s feeling a bit shy.

What Jason gets is neither; what he gets is Bruce’s mouth moving before his brain has come fully online, defensive and reactionary. “Jason! You can’t be serious-”

He’s not having any of that. With the hand on the back of Bruce’s neck he shakes the man a little, breaking him off. “I am, B.” He takes a breath, takes a chance, presses their foreheads together, human(?) skin to lead-lined cowl. “You can say yes and you can say no, hell, you can even say fuck off, but you cannot tell me what I do and don’t want. Christ, if you learned anything about me this past year, please let it be that I’m not a child, and you don’t get to dictate shit to me.”

They stay locked in a staring contest for what felt like ages, even as the boisterous sounds of a brass section going absolutely ham for 9 PM on a Thursday floats up on drafts to them. When the break happens, it’s not with Bruce forcibly jerking away and screaming at him, as Jason mostly expected.

Bruce pulls away lightly, like he’s testing the hold Jason has on him, like he’s testing Jason.

Jason lets him go immediately, of fucking course. He doesn’t even register that Bruce might be looking for a reaction; barring crime or injury, he’s not going to keep anyone where they don't want to be. Hell, part of being an Outlaw was the absolute unwillingness to be held down.

Plus, Bruce’s consent was the most important thing here. Jason figures that between the trauma and the jumble of unhealthy coping mechanisms that make up the man who’s thrown himself at the cancer of Gotham for decades, Bruce probably doesn’t get to make decisions just out of easy, selfish desires very often.

That’s why lunches and dinners would continue no matter Bruce’s answer, that’s why Third Thursdays were going to keep being a thing. Jason doesn’t want this to be a noose around Bruce’s neck, an obligation, a duty he needs to step up to for Jason.

He lets go, because he wants Bruce to want him more than he wants Bruce to listen to him.

They’re at a standoff, but not really. Jason keeps his hands up and visible, leans out of Bruce’s space, doesn’t talk or plead or cajole, just sits on his spiky gargoyle and stares at Bruce.

(God, even the concept of giving Bruce the option to say no satisfies that odd little kink inside of him.)

“I’m going to go,” Bruce says at long last, getting to his feet with a bit of a wobble, like he’s drunk, or like he recently got propositioned by a former-son at the end of an ambiguous dinner date. “On patrol. I’m sure you have things to do, Red Hood.”

Ah, back to full-on codenames it is, huh. This has still gone about a thousand times better than Jason’s most feverish and optimistic projections, though, so he doesn’t take it to heart. He doesn’t get up, gives Bruce the high ground as he smiles lazily up at him. “Oh, you know me. Ain’t no party like a Red Hood party. You gonna be okay on patrol?”

Bruce nods, head jerking like a marionette handled by a very bad intern. “Take care of yourself,” he says, then pauses. Grits his teeth, takes a breath. And then, with barely-there hesitation, “I’ll see you next Third Thursday.”

It’s not phrased like a question, but it definitely is. Jason just salutes sloppily instead of needling Bruce further on the meaning behind the hesitation. “‘Course, old man. Whatever you want.” And just to hammer his point further, “Whatever you choose.”

He sees it land like a body blow, and sees Bruce recover from it twice as quick. A brusque nod, and Bruce disappears into the streets below, a slab of black blocking the citizens from view.

Now left without an audience, Jason topples onto his back, and lets out an explosive sigh.

So.

That wasn’t a no, was it?

He screams at the sky, and a flock of roosting pigeons take off in a startled hurry.

God fucking bless Third Thursdays, holy shit.

-

Their next couple of Third Thursdays are stilted, but Jason’s willing to put in the effort because while it absolutely sucks to keep going like his confession never happened, he knows how Bruce’s jumbled-up brain works. If they haven’t sat down to have a wholly shitty conversation on how they’re father-and-son, Jason’s just confused, it’s some sort of transference of affection, and he should be finding a nice young someone his own age, then it means that Bruce is still processing. Bruce, after all, prefers to have clear lines drawn between himself and others, for maximum ease in warding off distraction and danger.

If Bruce was completely disinterested, the talk would have come in hard and swift, and there probably would’ve been a lot of screaming. Instead Bruce keeps showing up to TT., if in slightly heavier armour than usual, and Jason can see that he’s more aware of Jason, in full-on observation mode even as he talks about his latest case or any breakthroughs in figuring out who in the hell keeps stealing the good coffee beans from the Watchtower.

It’s progress that’s likely only possible because of how hard they’ve both tried to be better to each other over the past year, and Jason’s pretty sure at this point that when the rejection comes, as long as B’s happy to keep accepting stuff from Jason, they’re going to be alright.

It’s a pretty nice dream.

Things feel rough and uncertain but good on the whole, until it all goes to shit when it’s another Third Thursday and Bruce doesn’t show up on the rooftop of the Opera House. Crime never sleeps, even if it tends to take a nap at Jason’s demand, but B’s conscientious enough to usually text if something came up and he couldn’t come. Once while abducted by Harley and Pam for their weird bi-annual bitchfest, hopped up on Ivy pollen that she swore was a fantastic muscle relaxant and giving Harley his fifteenth bi-annual lecture on how she was far, far too good for Joker, he had even sent a selfie of them all sprawled on a banquette in an abandoned building somewhere with a sad emoji in explanation.

Today, there’s nothing to mark his absence except for his actual absence. Jason sits on edge of the roof and ignores the prickle of unease on the back of his neck. B is a whole adult who’s been roaming these streets doing what he can for literal decades; yes, it’s entirely unlike him to leave someone hanging, yes, it’s the first time he’s gone missing without sending word, yes, something about this stinks, but he could just be running a little late.

God, it’s amazing how optimism can get you at the most inopportune times.

Jason finally cracks, gets his helmet back on to ring the Manor to check in just in case , when the emergency alert trill nearly bursts his eardrum. It’s ingrained into every single person who’s ever worked with the Bat; Jason remembers as a kid seeing Commissioner Gordon startle so hard he dropped coffee on himself when somebody’s phone had gone off with a vaguely similar pitch.

It incites a Pavlovian response; Jason’s already up and running to gain altitude for a better sightline before the alert winds down, and he’s pulling himself up by an angel’s wings by the time Alfred’s voice comes on.

“Good evening, all,” Alfred says, polite even as he sounds incredibly strained. “We have a mass casualty situation. Bane appears to have taken advantage of Third Thursdays, and is in the process of blocking off Cathedral Square; we have reason to believe he intends to set all the revelers there on fire, so I would appreciate any support in evacuating people. Batman has gone after Bane himself, and I have lost contact.” He then rattles off the roads that have been blocked and how best to maneuver around them to get people out, but Jason’s already off and running.

Red alerts aren’t a fun time to be a crimefighter, but there’s a sense of solidarity in knowing that he’s not the only one leaping across rooftops to get to it. For all that Bruce tends to irritatingly emphasise how much he prefers working alone, the network he’s inadvertently set up of people who both love him and would go too far for him is a solid one. He can almost imagine the convergence; Dick coming up from the south, Damian probably rushing in from the Manor to the north, Tim legging it from the east because it stylistically fits with Jason bolting towards the square from the west.

That’s not even counting the girls. Christ, nights like these you couldn’t look up without seeing a terrifying phantasm flying across the sky.

Jason comes up to the main thoroughfare leading to the square first; it’s barely a ten-minute parkour sprint from the Opera House, after all, and he’s still falling when he shoots down a handful of Bane’s goons who have set up a barricade blocking people from leaving.

His timing’s gorgeous; they haven’t lit anyone on fire yet, and while a lot of the civilians are screaming at him and the downed men, that core of Gotham steel shines on through as women in neat dresses and men in business slacks slosh through a bit of blood to help him tear down concrete blocks to make enough space for them to wriggle through. Some sort of concert had been planned for Cathedral Square, and there’s enough panicked people that a few dozen climbing out quietly wouldn’t rouse much attention.

Urgh, a massive shiny red full-face helmet is pretty eye-catching for this, but with this many people around Jason can’t exactly take it off and hope to blend into the crowd as he goes hunting. He snags an absolutely loathsome fedora off the top of a loathsome-looking man, and rams it onto his helmet. Jason hopes no one will be around to take a picture of this indignity, but as long as he slouches, he’s not an obvious target from afar, and this is as good as it’s going to get for now.

A wave of whispers emanate from his makeshift exit, everyone letting the person next to them know before they disappear away, and it’s deeply inefficient as a manner of escape but Jason’s got to hold back from large-scale destruction until he can figure out how Bane planned to set all these people on fire. No point saving everyone close to this exit and having everyone else die because he tripped a trigger.

Look at him, he’s so goddamn tactical.

As he stoops and slouches and slinks in the shadows to get to the next inlet that he can crack open enough to let people escape, people seem to understand what he’s there for, and some even seem eager to contribute to his disguise.

He drew the line at a young woman whispering to him that she had some foundation in her bag and it could stick to anything, honest to God, do you want me to make your disguise more flesh-toned, Mister Red Hood?

He did accept her very pretty scarf that is much nicer than a douchey fedora. Some incomprehensible out-of-towner handed him earmuffs, even though the last time it snowed in Gotham was last week and the locals were already starting to move into summerwear, but it’s the thought that counts. He takes out three more goons close to a tiny side-alley that would lead out to a main street, has someone donate a wig right off of their heads, and when he takes out the mini-squadron protecting the back of the Gotham Central Library and its massive double-doors, he gets an oversized wooly cardigan and what looks like a faux-fur stole draped over him without his permission.

Jason can’t look at himself, of course, but he suspects at this point he probably wouldn’t be mistaken for the Red Hood until somebody was literally maybe four inches away from him. Through it all, though, he still doesn’t see where Bane’s secreted the equipment for mass murder. Hell, even the barricades weren’t difficult to disassemble enough to let people sneak out. He can imagine batty figures high up on the roofs of all the august buildings that butt up to the square running life-saving errands, but Alfred’s regular updates make it clear that everyone’s drawing a blank as to where the weapons actually are. Priority is on getting everyone out without causing enough of a stir that the bulk of Bane’s men up by the stage notice something and start opening fire, but everything feels a couple of inches off centre, and Jason can’t help the feeling of wrongness.

“Hey, PennyOne. What’s the update on B?”

Here Alfred’s smooth delivery of information stutters a little. “Still no contact from him, I’m afraid. Does anyone have eyes on Batman?”

Nobody does, and nobody can see Bane either. Given that Bane on his best day is a spine-snapping motherfucker, Jason’s not exactly happy with current events. Holding the wig tightly to his head, Jason abandons the plan of liberating the next passageway along, and heads straight towards the stage. Staging a large-scale attack is the best way to get Batman to come after you quickly, and if you’re dramatic enough, he’ll get there before he waits for back-up, because not even years of suffering have taught Bruce that he’s not solely responsible for every miserable thing that happens in Gotham.

Do it on a Third Thursday, and if you’ve been watching closely you might know that the Bat’ll come for you with less kit than usual. You might not catch him unawares because a soft British voice is always in his head, but you might find him significantly more vulnerable than literally any other night.

Jason tries not to scream, because he’s already dressed like a walking sartorial nightmare who’s a solid 5’11 even hunched over, and he doesn’t need to contribute further to anybody’s trauma. That’s one of the things that B always used to harp on; don’t get into a routine, don’t become predictable, never allow yourself to get comfortable while on duty.

All Jason had wanted was to make things a little easier, a little more pleasant for Bruce, and this is how karma decides to show him up. After all these years, how is he still surprised that fate is a whole-ass bitch? God literal damn.

All wrapped up in 8 different people’s outfits and a strong sense of self-loathing, Jason draws to a halt close to the stagefront, and surveys the henchmen there. A litle over a dozen or so, armed to the teeth because Bane has an aesthetic that he keeps close to, and all wearing that bored-and-disengaged haze in their eyes. It’s not a definite thing, but it sure would imply that Bane’s not asked them to do anything more intense than appear menacing and keep people in the square. That’s another strike against the big-time arson theory, but Jason takes note of how more than half of them are clustered around the backstage tent. Something important is clearly being kept there, and Bane’s got a less clear cut MO than most of the rogues’ gallery. Jason’s first thought is that it must be munitions, because Bane sure does love him some straight-up physical violence, but when Alfred’s voice starts to stutter and fade in and out, things connect together like the final jigsaw piece finally saw the light.

There’s a signal jammer, it’s got to be some sort of powerful signal jammer, and if Alfred can’t trace Bruce’s location or get in touch with him, then Bruce must be close by. Jason surreptitiously looks around for a Bat or a Bird that could double up with him to storm the tents, but maybe they’re too civic-minded to abandon the cause of evacuating civilians, because Jason’s reading the pattern and whirls of people movement and can’t spot anyone sneaking towards the front.

It makes sense to get people out of the way first before lunging into the heart of a battle: less collateral, it’ll just be bad men versus bat men (and women). Jason’s really only here because he believes in the average Gothamite’s ability to worm their way out of trouble given a little helping hand, and something about Bruce’s absence sits so badly with him that it’s unbearable.

The thought, when it finally hits, smashes into him like a bat to the back of the head. No clear signs of weapons to be used on a huge number of people, elite guards that don’t look too interested in guarding, no alarm being raised that dozens of henchmen have been felled at various checkpoints, comms jammer.

Jesus. Bane wants them to wear themselves out spiriting away innocents, be unable to communicate and coordinate, and have all of them herd themselves closer to whatever the hell else he’s got stored in the white tent. Minimum civilian casualty, but it’s a surefire way to take a sizable chunk of the vigilante community out in one night.

In a high panic, it’s not a terrible plan; all of their training always, always puts priority on saving the vulnerable, and with all hands on deck a full-frontal assault would favour the team that has more experience working together in creative and terrifying ways. It’s also enormously flawed, because while Dick might be the type to vault off a cornice and tuck-and-roll into a perfect landing on stage to demand a fair fight, there are also enough sufficiently suspicious bastards in their little pack that someone will inexplicably go off on their own and inadvertently execute a pincer attack.

No, if you want everyone to come together quickly and mindlessly, you’d need more motivation than a dozen gunmen. Hostages are a good idea, but even Red Robin can disarm someone with breathtaking accuracy given one batarang and about a hundred paces, so that’s also not guaranteed.

No, no, if you really want all of them to converge at the speed of instinct, you take a hostage, and the hostage just has to be B-

Oh, man. Oh man, oh man, he’s going to need to put down Bane, he swears he will, after this.

Jason’s first thought is to do away with the subterfuge and just go in all guns a-blazing, tear the tent to pieces to find Bruce and whatever Bane’s plan is all in one go. Jason’s read on the situation isn’t 100% guaranteed to be right, but the pieces all fit, and among the things you pick up during an apprenticeship with the world’s greatest detective is the skill to believe your hindbrain when it makes connections too smart for the rest of you.

He could take out 4 men easily from where he is; he probably wouldn’t be found out until he breaks cover to take out the other two patrolling on stage, and then it’ll be open-season with the rest of the men hovering by the white tent. He could take them, Jason’s pretty sure. He wants to take them, is the thing.

A thought is the only thing that stays his hand; it’s the memory of Bruce’s gentle grip on his arm, the night of his confession. It’s the serious face and the serious voice asking him, “Do you need help?”

Right now, Jason wants to say no, he doesn’t, he’s more than able to tackle this alone. It’s even the Batman-y thing to do, to take everything on by himself, but….

Ah, fuck. It’s the Batman thing to do, but Jason’s going to end up being a hypocritical son of a bitch if he’s angling to get Bruce to open up and accept that he should listen to other people sometimes when he refuses to do it himself. Jason feels a headache coming on; Bruce had taken on a heavy, weird confession about feelings and desires that even Jason hasn’t figured out the extent of.

Jason can at least take his head out of his ass, back down from a one-man Rambo show, and do this right.

It takes an effort of will to pivot on his heel and sneak back further afield until he’s free of the jammer and can communicate what he’s found out and what he’s inferred; Jason spends the entirety of their planning phase feeling a little irritated that Bruce has somehow made Jason actually cooperative and team-spirited without ever saying a word about it.

The bastard better appreciate the lengths Jason is willing to go to just to keep him safe, fuck.

-

It comes to a head with a flaccid little whump . Under the combined forces of the assembled and very angry Bat family, Bane’s operation is taken out at the knees. Tim and Babs jam the jammer, Cass and Damian handle the armed guards near the front, Steph and Dick demolish the biggest barricades to let the remaining crowd of thousands leg it to safety, and Jason bumrushes the tent because they’d all come to a quick consensus that if Bane’s pulled any sort of back-breaking bullshit, the definition of ‘unnecessary force’ is going to get a bit hazy for everyone involved so long as 1. Bruce never finds out, and 2. Jason tries to stop before actual death. The rest of the group will be along as soon as they’ve done their part, but Jason gets to lead the charge.

He rolls in with most of his costume still intact, because Tim and Dick have already taken a combined 300 pictures of him in his full Gotham Look and he has become unable to feel shame. Instead of a bitter fight to the almost-death, though, he finds Bruce lying on an operating table, and Bane crumpled in a heap on the floor, desiccated and unconscious.

“Uhm.” This isn’t exactly what he’d signed up for.

The sound of his confusion rouses a response from Bruce, a slight clench and unclenching of his fists. Jason’s by his side in seconds, feet slipping and sliding a little in the leaking Venom. He nudges Bane a little further away from the metal table with his foot, and feels proud of himself for not breaking a nose under his heel instead.

Priorities, priorities. He looks down at Bruce’s prone form, and breathes a little easier to see the cowl still intact. Bruce’s eyes are open, but they’re hazy and unfocused. Jason checks his pulse, and ignores the little signs of numerous brutalities that Bruce has endured just from tonight in the Batsuit Lite ™, fuck, it isn’t even the Batsuit Mild ™ that has been the go-to armour the past few Third Thursdays.

“You with us, big guy? The rest of the gang’s going to roll in in a sec,” Jason tells B with forced levity, even as his hands start assessing the damage and addressing the myriad tiny cuts and bruises before he moves on to the more serious hurts.

Bruce blinks like it takes all his energy, and then smiles. “Glad. Came with….. gang,” he forces out through a bruised throat.

“All your harping about togetherness finally got through to me, I guess.” Jason pulls off his scarf and breaks a donated pair of sunglasses to fashion mini-splints for two fingers on Bruce’s left hand. He can’t do anything about the wrist right now except for basic compression, and he is not going to think about how the actual patrol suit could have prevented a lot of this damage. “Mind telling me how you took down Mister Big Bad over here? To be honest, I was looking forward to mounting a hell of a cool rescue.”

“Cool enough.” The noise Bruce makes is half a laugh and half a wheeze from injured ribs. “Bane wanted to lure…. All of you. Kill in front of me.” A deep, shaky breath. “Nicked pipe with batarang….. Mid-gloat.” A derisive snort. “Not even…..titanium-plated.”

It’s beneath Bruce to say dumbass, but the implication is pretty damn clear. Jason just laughs. “Don’t give him any ideas, B.” He’s stabilised Bruce to the best of his abilities, and decides that he’d rather Bruce get some medical attention as quickly as he can manage it. He pulls Bruce to sit up, and gives him time for the motion blur to settle. “I know you’re drugged up, but is it anything to be worried about?”

He’s greeted with the littlest shake of the head. “Just standard HS-342. Excuse me.” With surprising speed for a man so thoroughly out of it, Bruce leans over the other side of the table and throws up. When he sits back up, he seems more present. “It isn’t Bane’s usual style to try poisons, and this suit’s filter isn’t the best, so he took me by surprise when I cornered him here.” Bruce rubs at his mouth with a bloodied hand, and he makes everything look about 200 times worse.

Jason’s offering a wet wipe before his brain even digests the sight; Bruce just accepts it without comment, now looking down at the unconscious Bane. “Lucky he was in the mood for a long and slow torture session; think he was too excited at the prospect of catching all of you and gloating about it to kill me when he had he chance. Had more aerosolised paralytics prepped for all of you, too.” Bruce nods his head at massive gas canisters tucked into the corner of the tent, all with skulls and crossbones on them. They’re pretty hard to see, on account of being hidden behind crates that held enough firepower to down the average sovereign nation, wow.

“Taking you hostage was pretty bright, but it’s kinda amazing how no one’s figured out that it’s always a crapshoot for me, the demon spawn, and Black Bat with all this drug stuff.” Even if they had just barged in, even if Bruce hadn’t worked his way out of this mostly himself, it might not have gone totally tits-up then, which is good to know.

They don’t talk about the concept of how torture counts as good luck, because Bruce isn’t exactly wrong, is he? “C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”

More from force of will than any actual motor control, Bruce heaves himself onto his feet and stays standing. “The weapons and gas-”

“Clean-up team’s on the way in. PennyOne was very explicit about getting you back to base ASAP, B, and it’s way more than I’m paid to question our highest power.” Jason tucks an arm around Bruce’s waist, and pulls Bruce’s arm over his shoulder. “C’mon. I’ve got you.”

“Yes,” Bruce says, sounding a little awed. “Yes, I think you do.”

-

Jason sees neither hide nor hair of Bruce until the next Third Thursday, but word on the street is that Alfred’s wrath and Dick pulling double-shifts meant that Bruce got some enforced time-off; a whole two weeks of downtime, wonder of wonders. He had texted to say that he had some business going on and would need to take a rain check on dinner, but it’s mostly to stop Bruce from showing up all battered and bruised.

Jason has actually been busy, though. Having an assault mounted on a Third Thursday’s a pretty grievous insult, and goes against the entire point of having it, so Jason’s been doing some housekeeping. A better shift rotation of patrolling criminals that keep a cap on how much evil can manifest on this off day, a shakedown of a couple of crime families that had helped Bane smuggle his weapons and his mercs in, a bit of a rampage in Crime Alley that reminded the people that the Red Hood’s not the sort to be ignored. He intensely injures a large number of people who really deserve it, but he keeps everyone alive because it’s supposed to be recovery time for Batman.

He does still come by the Opera House with his usual order from the taquería, because his circadian cycle is three weeks long and he had subconsciously worked to have the night free the way he’s done consciously for well over a year now. Besides, missing this would have María José worry, and she’s had plenty to worry about after the brush with Bane’s terrorism the last TT. Jason’s sat on the lip of the massive, ostentatious golden dome, enjoying the breeze in his hair when a shadow alights in his periphery.

It’s a strange thing, but all of them have a different texture to the darkness they shroud themselves in. It’s all to do with costume material and gait and build and posture, some indeterminable mixture of all these things, but with enough time of figuring out who’s who just from a patch of not-quite-pitch-black, it becomes as bright and loud a signature as them just shouting their names.

Bruce’s shadows fall around him like a hedge growing over a statue; a mix of organic and not, and the quick terror that manifests when they fall away and all of a sudden it’s just a not-quite-man that’s all sharp edges and shades of darkness.

Jeeze. B gets roughed around a little bit, and Jason’s gone all dramatic in his head. He doesn’t betray his thoughts, just leans back to scowl as dramatically as he can muster. “Could’ve sworn I said not to come, B. Bane’s magic gas did a number on your reading comprehension too?”

Bruce doesn’t say anything in response, just plods over with a paper bag in hand. “Here,” he says, dropping it on Jason’s lap before taking a seat next to him, posture still tense. “I was on my way to pick up Korean fried chicken from a truck close by the library when we caught wind of Bane’s plans, and I ended up missing our prior engagement.”

The bag smells like it’s filled with something divine, and Jason’s diving in and already breaking into a sweat from the expectation of tongue-turning spiciness. He loves fried chicken in all their incarnations, but KFC hits something different, oh. Jason’s downed two wings and half a drumstick before situational awareness comes back in. “On the list of things you’ve done wrong by me, B, not getting me food because you were too busy thwarting a terrorist attack’s pretty low down.”

Bruce just shrugs. “It’s a pretty long list.”

“It’s gotten shorter.”

That gains him a look of curiosity, tinged with doubt. Jason licks his fingers, and realises this is the first time he’s actually eaten something Bruce’s brought for him. There’s probably something there to unpack, but that can wait until after he’s had his fill. He doesn’t say anything else, just waits for the inevitable question.

“How?”

Jason just shrugs, and pushes his tacos over. “I got to know you as an actual person, I guess. You make enough mistakes all by yourself, and I figured that I didn’t need to be angry with you about things that I know you didn’t mean.” Like missing a dinner date to save a city, like coming when he’s supposed to stay away, like looking ready for a fight with Jason over an absence of snacks.

Like Bruce letting the Joker live didn’t mean that he didn’t love Jason in his wholehearted, visceral way. The justice system isn’t built to handle people like Joker; Jason’s come to accept that neither is Bruce, and that’s a fact that he can either take in and accept, or not.

When push comes to shove, it’s no harder than accepting a bag of chicken.

They subside into silence; Bruce is the only human being Jason has ever met who could eat a hard-shell taco while making almost zero sound, and it’s easily the most unacceptable thing about him.

The music coming from down below is a little muted; it’ll probably take another couple of weeks before the stress of Bane’s hot nonsense cools down enough for Gothamites to go back to their wild ways, so tonight all they get is the tinny screech of some fiddles that are occasionally drowned out by one determined elderly woman on an accordion.

“Jason,” Bruce says, and that means it’s time to be serious because they’re still in their suits. Jason has a premonition of what this talk’s going to be about, and settles himself into a state of casual resignation.

“Jason,” Bruce says again, emphasising God knows what. “The…. thing, you previously brought up. Regarding your feelings.”

“Yep, I remember, thanks for bringing it up in the most awkward way possible.”

There’s a squeak of leather as Bruce clenches his fist, but the effect is somewhat ruined by the squidge of a sauce-laden bit of lettuce squishing out. “I’m doing my best.” He sounds calm, even if he doesn’t look it. “Taking you to bed is out of the question, right now. But if there’s a, a better dynamic we could have because parent and child isn’t quite right, well.”

Bruce is clearly biting the inside of his cheek, and it’s a new tic, holy shit.

Determination sets in, and he turns to look Jason full in the face because neither the Bat nor the man have ever been cowards. “You have been so good to me, Jason,” he says with aching softness. “I think I want to try to be good for you.”

Jesus Lord Christ. Jason drops a chicken bone onto his lap in his haste to grapple for Bruce, to get a sticky handhold on the back of the cowl, to press their foreheads together. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, he must’ve died again without noticing and this time instead of seeing an al-Ghul on the other side, it’s just hopeless, unbearable Bruce.

He doesn’t let his thought process come out his mouth, doesn’t press in for a kiss that’s unasked for, but he does close his eyes and take in a deep, shuddering breath.

“We’ll figure it out, B.”

Bruce’s lips tip into a lopsided smile. “Thank you, Jason,” he murmurs right back, and.

Jason’s a goddamned goner.

-

A/N: Tumblr always swallows up italics which I viciously over use but I do NOT have the emotional capacity to trawl through this fic once again bc I’m more dead than I am alive atm. GOD I think I’ve found my one true calling: domsub stuff but with 4x more faffing about and 0% sex is my writing sweetspot quarantine rlly be out here making you Real Eyes

[the-overgrowth]

Retrospective: “Faybane” #1

This is where it all started, on July 8th, 2016. Although probably a bit earlier than that, but this is the earliest thing I can find that’s actually written down, so that’s what counts. And back in the day I didn’t let ideas marinate the way I do now, I just started writing pretty much as soon as I got the idea.

Anyway, the document was created at this point in time according to Google Docs, and was last modified in October 3rd, 2016. It’s only 3 chapters long, plus one incomplete fourth chapter, and the whole thing is about 17k words.

Which is a lot for 3 chapters. I would say something about how I’m less wordy now, but the latest draft is like 107k words long, so, like, I will always struggle with shutting the fuck up, methinks.

Also, the reason this is called “Faybane” is because that was the working title I used, and the name of this document. I thought it’d be the proper title but like. It’s bad lmao.

Anywhomst, let’s get into it!

Some background info for those who are new or need a refresher: this WIP became a thing after I read and was disappointed by A Court of Thorns and Roses by SJM, as well as The Iron King by Julie Kagawa and some book by Holly Black, was it Tithe?

ACOTAR was the biggest culprit. I feel that this is important to keep in mind as we go through this mess.

We open on Sidra in the forest with a bunch of men she calls a hunting party. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be there, but since she’s the only decent hunter among them and it’s her sister’s wedding today, she has to make the kill to feed the people attending said wedding.

This is, as the kids say, big stupid, and seems like a very ill-prepared celebration? I guess it makes some sense for them to want fresh meat, but this fresh? What if they didn’t find anything? What if they didn’t manage to kill anything? Is the whole thing cancelled? Stupid.

We find out they’ve been hunting a boar and that this dude named Liam, our Gaston replacement, previously wounded the animal but didn’t kill it, causing it to flee and force the hunting party to follow. It’s up to Sidra to make the killing blow, which she does with an arrow straight into its head. This was back when Sidra was still YA Heroine Extraordinaire and the time period was Vaguely Medieval, I guess.

They begin taking their quarry back home and Sidra thinks about how she normally doesn’t hunt this close to the “Faewilds” because animals closer to the border are said to be bigger and more violent. There isn’t an actual border, people just had to rely on intuition and not wander too far into the forest.

She also mentions a girl named Wilda, who disappeared fairly recently and everyone suspects it was the fae. This isn’t relevant now, but Wilda will return in later drafts, I think.

Everybody, especially my family, knew that I was one of the best archers in town, whether I used a bow or a crossbow.

Shut up, Not!Feyre. Nobody likes you.

I should mention that at this point I didn’t bother googling how big wild boars get and just assumed they were the size of like, a thick medium dog. Which is, if you know how big boars are, very incorrect. Four men pulling the animal seems realistic enough, but then Liam just lifts it up on his own? Not buying it.

Sidra laments how much she hates Liam and we find out that he apparently tried to assault her and she stabbed him? And apparently she’s not happy about his marriage to Sinéad but can’t do anything about it because “Father’s word is law” and Sinéad herself laughed it off when Sidra tried to warn her?

Yeah, gonna call bullshit on that one. No idea why this was here or what purpose it serves, the reason Liam doesn’t exist in the latest draft is because I never figured out what his purpose was so I axed him entirely. 

Current!Sidra would just kill him the moment he showed an interest in Sinéad, and Current!Sinéad would 100% believe her sister about something like that.

Some bloke named Connor strikes up a conversation with Sidra, seemingly worried about being this far away from human civilization. Liam teases him about it and calls the fae “knife-ears”, because I still had brainrot back then and liked Dragon Age and had zero original ideas in my head.

The men make jokes about having sex with fae women and Sidra seems so disturbed by this that she nocks an arrow. This isn’t the first time she makes references to feeling unsafe around these men, I have no idea why I wrote it this way aside from being edgy, I guess.

My village was mostly populated by men, and even though I wasn’t one of the pretty girls there, I knew these men weren’t picky, even with all their talk about beautiful fae women. I’d heard that fae women would kill their men after sleeping with them. I had no way of know it was true, but a part of me hoped it was and that Liam would some day soon get “lucky” and encounter a female fae, so she could end his misery.

Edgy, dude.

They eventually arrive and Sidra goes inside her house, which is a simple cottage with three rooms. I think her family are all farmers? It’s kind of confusing. She goes into her and Sinéad’s bedroom, where Sinéad is preparing for her wedding. Also, she’s blonde.

“Sid! There you are!” she said cheerily. “Killed a boar, huh? Good on Liam for taking all the credit.”

If you know your man is trash, why are you marrying him?

Apparently Liam seduced Sinéad with sweets and baked goods. I mean ... fair enough. Considering how Sidra complains about being hungry and skinny and going without food if she doesn’t kill the boar because this year’s harvest was minimal, I’m assuming y’all are starving.

We find out Sinéad’s mother doesn’t let her do anything around the house or farm, to preserve her “soft and white” hands and pale complexion so she could be married off easily. This makes zero sense, you’d think these medieval men wouldn’t have the same beauty standards as Victorian England, plus having a mouth to feed that doesn’t even help feeding itself is just nuts. 

But remember, this isn’t Sidra, this is Not!Feyre. She needs to be sad and put-upon and a victim. She explains how she was never pretty to begin with and thus nobody considered her to be worthy of marrying off, which then meant she was put to work and became even less attractive because now she was so cool and badass that all the men were intimidated by her.

Yeah, in a village that already doesn’t have a lot of young women? I’m not buying this, lmao. But go off, Not!Feyre.

I’d been the one helping around, instead. Hunting, mostly. Sometimes I’d chop wood or work the farm. Marrying out of the house seemed impossible. Marrying up was practically a dream you forgot upon waking. Had I been pretty from the start there would’ve been a foundation to work from, but I was a lost cause even before my skin became tan and my hands grew veined and calloused. I had freckles which people mistook for mud and dull brown eyes, a long nose that had been broken one time too many and a mouth that made it look like I constantly felt a bad smell no matter what facial expression I made. I’d always been of rather short stature and had brown hair and thick eyebrows, which in combination with everything else made my parents call me their “little goblin”. The scar on my face didn’t help me either: men didn’t like it when their women were more battle-hardened than they were.

Oh god please, don’t go off! We don’t care! Stop going off!

Also what fucking parents call their poor kid a goblin? Yikes.

Sinéad convinces Sidra to get prettied up and Sidra is all “oh I bet all the men will just fall over themselves for my favor now huh” which is just the most annoying fucking thing, prompting Sinéad to respond:

“Well, winter is coming and game is scarce. If they want to survive, marrying the best hunter in the village might be a good bet.”

Yeah! This is correct! I refuse to believe people wouldn’t be into Sidra! Not only does everyone apparently know she’s the best hunter in town, but Sidra herself confirmed the men here outnumber the women and aren’t very picky.

This is fucking stupid. I’m glad I axed it. In my defense, I was very much trying to emulate the YA shit I’d read so far.

Sidra’s grandmother enters the stage. She’s very old in this draft, but otherwise unchanged.

She was a short and wrinkled old lady with extremely bad vision and an even worse grasp on reality. Or maybe an extremely acute grasp on reality, depending on whether you believed her stories or not.

Sidra changes out of the dress again to go out and help her father prepare the boar, all while sulking.

I didn’t envy Sinead, nor any other bride. Despite what most people thought of me, I wasn’t some poor ugly girl longing for the love of a man and the security of marriage. Did I enjoy the idea of having somebody care for me? Sure. But it wasn’t on my list of priorities. I was still trying to figure out what actually was on that list. Not that it mattered. The prospects for a poor village girl were very finite.

Womp womp.

We get some confusing and barely related stuff about Sidra possibly becoming a royal hunter for the king and also about where the village is located in relation to the Faewilds. She speculates that maybe the fae aren’t real, but the way she and everyone else talks about them makes it pretty obvious that they are? This was supposed to build mystery, I guess.

We skip forward to the wedding and Sidra is moping again.

“How are you feeling?” Father asked and squeezed my shoulder. 

I wasn’t sure why he was doing that. I assumed it had something to do with the wedding and the fact that despite there being fewer women than men here, I was still not asked to dance. Though this didn’t really bother me, so I just shrugged.

“It doesn’t bother me. Anyway I will continue to mope and feel bitter about this thing that doesn’t bother me.” Hunny ...

At least Current!Sidra has the self-awareness to admit she’s sad and lonely.

 [Father’s] marriage to Sinead’s mother was never out of love, more out of necessity. It was easier when you had a big family.

Except for when this “big family” is 3 people who work and 2 people who are just being fed, right? See, I knew back then that having a big family helps when you have a farm, but I also needed to make Sidra Special so Sinéad had to sit on her ass to highlight how pretty and feminine she was or whatnot.

Bleh.

They talk a bit about Sidra’s mother, who passed away five years ago, and Sidra reminisces about how she used to tell amazing stories. It’s all very ... whatever, and serves only to make this point for the hundredth time:

I wasn’t like Mother. I wasn’t full of life and spirit like her. I wasn’t loved and respected by the entire village like her. I was just her disappointing child whose existence they’d rather forget except when they wanted something killed.

Right after this there’s a really abrupt scene transition. Nothing about the wedding coming to an end, nothing about her going to bed, it’s just ... some while later?

Sidra’s father comes back home from ??? and tells Sidra he saw a stag somewhere, but it was hours ago so she better get a move on.

I’m not sure what either of them thinks this will accomplish? Like ... what is she gonna do with it when she kills it ... Carry it home? On her little boney ass? Hmm? I guess I didn’t think of that because I had meta knowledge that she wouldn’t get it home either way, so who cares about logic, right?

Sidra kills two rabbits while stalking the deer, and despite telling us earlier that she doesn’t venture far away from human civilization and the boar hunting being the farthest she’d been and that she wouldn’t go this far alone, she has no issue dwelling very deep into the forest this time.

Like. Henlo? Can we have one logic please and thanks you? Granted, she keeps stopping every now and then to Feel Things Out, but this really goes against how careful she was before and at no point do we get an explanation to her sudden boldness. Plot reasons, I guess.

She nearly stumbles into fae territories and finally decides to head back, except when she starts returning, she sees the stag she’s been tracking. It’s abnormally huge and has a “dark brown” coat that she finds odd, but of course she’s too stupid to connect the dots.

She sneaks up on it and honestly? This chapter ending still slaps.

A scream of pain left the creature and I saw it topple. But though my arrow hit a deer, a man fell to the ground.

DUN DUN DUN.

And yeah, the ACOTAR roots rear their ugly heads again. I liked the idea of the protagonist shooting a fae disguised as an animal, but I decided to cut out the middleman and just have her obliterate Val right in chapter one. Don’t worry, he doesn’t die.

[clarice-dagny-archived]

WEEKLY WRAP-UP [June 6th - June 12th]

“Everything is a mess.  I just want it to be fixed, please.”

“Not really sure what I can say.  The demons went after Kai and Clary.  I don’t know a lot of the details but we almost lost both them.  Especially Clary.  I know Auri was pretty shaken up about it but they’ll be fine.  Bree is doing an emergency council meeting, probably to talk about the demons and our plan of action.  I’m not sure anymore.”  

“I’m so mad about what happened.  I don’t blame Kai for going to the demon’s house in the first place.  He was only trying to protect his friends and from what he’s said, he just talked to them.  He might have made a few threats but was it really bad enough to do what they did?  I thought I was going to die.  For a while there was nothing but darkness and I didn’t know if I’d wake up from it.  I don’t even care what happened to me.  It’s Kai I’m worried about.  They took his hand and I guess it could be worse but now he has to relearn everything and I hate it.  I know he’s going to blame himself forever and he’s probably going to be a mess for a long time.  I just...  I hate it.  Things were finally good for once and now they’re not.  It’s just not fair.”

“I turned thirty-one a couple days ago.  It’s so weird.  I don’t feel that old.  I guess for us wolves it’s not the same really since we age a lot slower.  I’m probably more like in my early twenties still if you go off that but it’s still weird.  I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when I’m two hundred and something, you know?  Anyway.  Things have been going well.  Effie’s been acting a little weird but I don’t know why.  I’ll try to talk to her about it later.  It’s probably just new mom stuff.”

“For once.  I’d rather not talk about it.”

“It’s so fucking annoying.  We can never catch a fucking break.  Things were going so damn well and then bam!  Like, okay, I figured Riker would go back home eventually because he’s a pussy and I knew he’d leave again.  But then Boyd was banished and now Aslyn is who-knows-where.  Boyd’s back now but he’s pissed about the wolves and shit and I’m like come on!  When is it whenever we’re on top, we get knocked back down?  Can’t we get some happiness for once?  Fuck!  At least Kenna, Ezra and I are having a good time.  Australia’s fun.  Just wish Boyd and Azy were able to enjoy it too.  Fuck!”

“Things feel better between Bex and I.  I think there’s still a lot to work on but we’re getting there.  I guess we need to talk more which isn’t easy for either of us.  The baby’s coming soon too.  I didn’t really think about it but should be sometime next month and we’re really not prepared.  At least we have Sydney’s old things like the bassinet and crib but I feel bad for the kid getting stuck with their sister’s leftovers because their parents sucked so bad.  Maybe I’ll do a shopping trip this weekend.”

“Wendy made up with her brother.  I guess that’s a good thing in retrospect.  I want her to be happy but the guy is a piece of shit.  I’m not even sorry for saying that.  Remy and the other me at least accepted us and helped.  It’s weird but I can get use to them.  Drake though?  Seems like he’s not worth it in either timeline if you ask me.  But as long as Wendy is happy, I’ll shut up and deal with it.”

“Moving to Paris was a great idea.  Aerin’s a lot happier being here and we’re away from her ‘rents.  We can actually do whatever we want.  Haven’t found a good vampire bar or anything yet but there has to be one somewhere.  Aerin’s been teaching me more French.  I can say Je suis prêt à baiser.  Probably doesn’t help when we’re walking around looking for a cafe but it’s come in handy plenty.”

[you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus]

saw a shooting star (and i thought of you)

Summary: Cyrus tries to invite Andi over to watch the meteor shower, but when she can’t make it, he finds he has someone else to keep him company.

Ship: Tyrus

Word Count: 3406

[Cyrus: hey are you free tonight?]

[Cyrus: there’s a meteor shower!!]

[Cyrus: i’m thinking sophisticated backyard camp out?]

[Cyrus: i’ve been waiting for a good excuse to use my safari tent]

Cyrus rifled around in his closet, tossing aside worn shirts to try and find a box that he’d put in there a while ago. His fingers stopped moving for a little when they grazed over a certain light blue hoodie. His mind screamed at him to toss it to the side, to treat it like it was nothing, but it was like his hand was glued to the fabric. Cyrus tugged it into his lap, finding the box underneath the sweatshirt. He stared at it for a little while longer before his phone buzzed.

[Andi: i forgot you bought that safari tent]

[Cyrus: it’ll be a good hobby someday, after i work through my fears of...everything safari related]

[Andi: well it sounds like a perfect evening but i can’t come]

His heart sank a little at that, hunching over slightly. He really wanted Andi to be here for him, no matter how selfish that sounded out loud and in his head. He wanted someone to talk to and to distract him from everything going on in his life. Holding the sweatshirt in his lap didn’t help, of course, but he didn’t push it away.

[Andi: we have a reservation at cece’s favorite restaurant]

[Andi: believe me, i’d skip if i could]

If I could. There was always a way out, if you tried hard enough. But that was the point; you had to try. You had to put in the effort and make a sacrifice or two for the people that you love and care about. And Cyrus didn’t jump to the conclusion that Andi didn’t care about him, he just felt like he was less and less important to her. To everyone, probably. He typed out a halfhearted response, trying to make her feel better, when it was he who was hurting.

[Cyrus: no worries! i promise i’ll make you s’mores another day.]

[Andi: aw i’m missing s’mores?!? :(]

[Andi: this week keeps getting worse.]

He must have stared at her last text for minutes on end before even thinking of replying. This week really did get worse and worse, but he felt like Andi didn’t know the half of it. When she asked why he was jumping back in on the costume, he fumbled with a response along the lines of ‘I didn’t want to let you down’. Which, in retrospect, he didn’t, but it was more than that. She didn’t know why he was truly hurting, and he really wished that it could stay that way.

[Cyrus: :(]

He couldn’t be bothered to type out a response that wasn’t an emoji. He already sensed the conversation coming to a close, and he really didn’t want to try and drag it out more. He looked to see that the message had been read, and then shut his phone off. Cyrus tugged the hoodie towards his chest and took in a deep breath; it still faintly smelled like TJ. Rolling onto his stomach, he sighed. It hurt for him to acknowledge, but he missed TJ. Even after everything had gone down, he knew that he’d rather talk to him than not talk to him.

He flicked through his newsfeed for a little while, a few articles about the meteor shower popping up. As much as it interested him, and even though he would get to break out his safari tent, he didn’t really feel like going to see the shower. He’d known about it for a while, and his initial plan was to ask TJ if he wanted to go up on his roof and watch the shower (who knew the Goodmans were in a peak position for this event?). But after what had happened, he was too afraid to send a text. What if TJ didn’t want to hang out with him anymore? It was a recurring through he had, and he didn’t want to know the answer either way. The thought of not being able to hang out with one of his best friends anymore made him feel almost sick.

[TJ: i know you probably hate me right now, and i don’t blame you, i do too, but there’s a meteor shower tonight and i just thought i’d let you know]

He didn’t know what to feel. On the one hand, he was relieved that TJ had texted him because at the very least, TJ probably didn’t hate him. On the other hand, he was still upset with the boy because of the events of Costume Day. Regardless of all the conflicting emotions he was feeling, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of happiness at the message. Except at the part ‘i do too’; he didn’t hate TJ, heck, he didn’t think that was possible. Sure, he wasn’t his biggest fan at the moment, but TJ was still really important to him. Whether the reverse was true, he had no idea, but he didn’t want TJ to hate himself.

[Cyrus: i don’t hate you, and you shouldn’t hate yourself. it’s not good for the mind. thanks for the reminder, i’m actually headed up to my roof to see it]

He didn’t think twice before pressing send. Wow, he really sounded like his parents with the whole ‘not good for the mind’ mantra. Still, he wanted to remind TJ that even in the worst of times, it was important to know that things could and will get better.

[TJ: at least that. do you think we could talk? like in person?]

He hesitated at that; thank goodness this was over text or right now he wouldn’t be sure how he would have reacted. He typed out several responses, but ended up deleting them all. Cyrus wasn’t sure how to type something that portrayed ‘I don’t hate you and I kind of want to hear you out but I don’t want to get too emotional’.

[Cyrus: yeah, i mean i’ll be on the roof tonight but i have free time tomorrow after school]

He glanced at the clock; the shower would be starting soon, and he didn’t want to fall off the roof while he was scrambling to get up there quickly. He slung the hoodie over his shoulder, put his phone in his pocket, and pushed the window up. The cool air bit at his skin, goosebumps quickly rushing up his arms. He sat there for a while, just staring out the window at the night sky, a few stars here and there.

It’s cold. You don’t want to freeze out there. That’s what he told himself when he slipped TJ’s hoodie over his head. The arms were too long, as usual, and he wrapped his arms around himself for a brief hug before stepping outside and shutting the window behind him.

[TJ: i’m on my way]

Wait, now? TJ was going to come over now, at night, and talk to him? On the roof? While they were staring at the meteor shower? If Cyrus didn’t know any better and if the situation was different, he’d think this was a date. But it wasn’t; that was ridiculous. TJ was going to come over and they were going to have a talk. That was all. They were going to talk and Cyrus’ hands were not going to get all clammy and sweaty. He was not going to bruise his ribcage because his heart was beating so fast. And he certainly was not going to blush when TJ’s hands brushed his.

Shit.

He should have brought a blanket or a sweatshirt because it was cold as heck, TJ thought. As he made his way towards Cyrus’ house, he tried to rehearse what he was going to say. I’m sorry I was a coward. She threatened to say things that I wasn’t ready to admit to myself. You’re really important to me. Also I have a big gay crush on you. Okay, maybe not that last part.

He knew how he wanted to approach the situation, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to react when he saw Cyrus. Was he going to cry? Stumble over all his words? Fall silent? He didn’t know, and by the time he had over thought it a few times, he was standing on Cyrus’ porch. If he took a few steps back, he could just make out the boy on the roof. He felt his heart hammering in his chest, and he suddenly wanted to back out of the plan.

“TJ.”

A voice broke through his thoughts. Cyrus’ voice, to be more exact. He glanced up and sure enough, the boy was propped up on his elbows and was glancing down at him. Well, no backing out now, he thought. He shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to keep his hands a little warmer, until he made his way towards the ladder that leaned against the house. Cyrus had left it there the last time they’d wanted to watch the stars. He clambered up the ladder, and was almost too afraid to lie by Cyrus. Instead, he took a seat by him, making sure to keep a little bit of space.

“Hi,” Cyrus said after a beat, his gaze not once leaving the sky. He knew the shower would start soon, and he tried to keep his mind occupied with thoughts of space and bits of rock hurtling towards Earth. Unfortunately, the boy next to him was making that harder than it needed to be.

TJ swallowed; Cyrus was being so casual about this, and it made him worry that he’d moved on from it and that an apology wouldn’t matter anymore. He ran his fingers along one of the shingles, falling into a rhythm that succeeded a little in lowering his heart rate.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, a rush of goosebumps covering his arms. He wished he had his sweatshirt right about now.

Cyrus shrugged beside him, sitting up and resting his hands on his knees. “It’s okay,” he said, and he was almost smiling, albeit sadly, when he turned to face TJ, “I mean, I didn’t think this would last this long anyways,”

That caught him completely off guard. How was he even supposed to reply to that? What did Cyrus even mean? “Wait, what?”

Cyrus shrugged again, rubbing the back of his neck with one of his hands. “I mean, I should be lucky that you ever even talked to me, let alone treated me like a friend,” he explained, breathing out slowly to try and ease the tension that hung thickly in the air, “I guess I kind of figured that one day I’d. . .stop being important to you. If I ever was important to you, that it,”

He felt like sirens were going off in his head; this was worse than he thought. The fact that Cyrus thought that he wasn’t important to him nearly made him lose his grip on where he sat. With a solemn face, he turned to Cyrus.

“That’s. . .that’s not it at all, Cyrus,” he shook his head so violently that he could barely get the air into his lungs, “you are important to me, dammit. You’re the best thing in my life,”

Cyrus blinked, unphased. He really wanted to believe TJ, but he just didn’t feel like he could. He couldn’t even open his mouth to say anything because TJ was talking again.

“I’ve been a coward,” he admitted, toying with his shoe laces, “things got out and I didn’t know how to handle them and face them head on. So I took the coward’s way out,” he huffed a breath, “classic TJ.”

Cyrus frowned a little at that, crossing his legs. “What do you mean?”

TJ leaned back against the roof, some of the shingles digging into his back through his shirt. He closed his eyes, not willing to look at Cyrus when he spoke. “When Kira came up and asked to do a costume with me, I told her that I already had a plan. Twice. But. . .then I told her about it and she,” he sucked in a breath, “. . .she made it sound weird that I wanted to do a costume with a boy rather than a girl.” He was full on shivering right now, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the anxiety or from the cold weather.

Of course Cyrus noticed this, and shedded his hoodie (well, TJ’s hoodie), handing it to TJ. “You’re freezing,” he noted, pushing it over his head. TJ wanted to resist, wanted to say that Cyrus was going to freeze, but the words were strangled in his throat, so he simply put his arms through the sleeves. It was incredibly warm, and he instantly felt better, although he didn’t know whether that was because of the hoodie or the proximity with Cyrus. He didn’t question it either way.

“You know you could have just told her you’re not. . .like that,” Cyrus stammered, leaning on an elbow.

This was exactly where TJ didn’t want to conversation to head towards. He was already treading into dangerous territory; the water was becoming choppier and darker, and with one wrong stroke, he could drown.

“This. . .isn’t how I imagined this conversation,” he chuckles nervously, toying with the strings of his hoodie, “but. . .she was right. I-I am like that. I don’t like girls. I like boys.” I like one boy in particular, but that’s for another day.

TJ opened his eyes, and was met with a comforting smile from Cyrus. He let out a soft breath; at least things were still probably okay. Cyrus laid down next to him, bumping his shoulder gently. “I’m glad you told me,” he whispered, almost too afraid to break the bubble of ease that they were in, “but. . .I’m still not totally sure what that has to do with Kira,”

TJ grazed his top teeth over his bottom lip, squeezing his hands together.  “Well. . .she made it seem weird that I wanted to do a costume with you, rather than her. I guess. . .I guess she thought that. . .” he trailed off, glancing up, and was relieved to see a few beams of light falling from the sky, “Cy, look!”

Both boys turned their attention towards the sky, where the balls of light were now hurtling faster towards the ground, painting the sky brilliantly. TJ thought it was pretty nice, but it was nothing compared to the look of absolute awe on Cyrus’ face. He was nothing short of breathtaking, especially up close like this.

“Make a wish,” TJ whispered to him, knocking their hands together. For a second, he thought he’d made the wrong move, but when Cyrus slipped his hand into his own, he was able to relax a little more.

“I don’t really have much to wish for,” he replied softly, glancing over him, “I mean. . .more moments like these wouldn’t be that bad,”

TJ’s face split into a grin, his chapped lips straining at the intensity of his happiness. “Me too,”

“So,” Cyrus continued, “you were saying that Kira guessed you were. . .something.”

TJ felt his heart sink; he secretly hoped that Cyrus wouldn’t remember that, but he did. Unfortunately. “Oh, uh, she just. . .I think she thought I had a crush on. . .you.” he stammered out, feeling his whole chest seize up.

Cyrus didn’t take his hand away; he didn’t show any sign that he was uncomfortable in any way. He just looked. . .calm. “Oh. Do you?”

Well, shit. He really didn’t want things to come to this. He didn’t plan to come out and reveal his crush and apologize all in one short night. Coming out was exhausting, and he wanted nothing more than for Cyrus to forget he said anything about a crush and for them to just continue to stare at the meteor shower.

“I’m. . .let’s try a different question first. If, hypothetically, I did have a crush on you. . .would you be weirded out?”

Cyrus turned his head towards him, giving his hand a squeeze. “No,” he said softly, but with confidence, “I wouldn’t be weirded out,”

TJ didn’t take his eyes off of the meteors, because if he looked at Cyrus, he would most definitely do something stupid. “Okay. Cool.”

Cyrus almost wanted him to say something else, maybe confirm things, but he didn’t push it. TJ would talk when he wanted to. He mumbled something under his breath, and crawled over to his window, cracking it open enough for him to slide in. For a moment, he thought that Cyrus wasn’t going to come back, but when he heard the window closing, he thought he was melting. Cyrus tugged along a fluffy blanket, dark and covered with stars. Taking his place again by TJ, he threw it on top of the both of them, pushing himself up against his side.

“Hey TJ?”

“Yeah?”

Cyrus shuffled around a little before he grabbed TJ’s hand and pulled it close to his chest. TJ could probably feel his heart humming, but he didn’t really care. He felt pretty content right now.

“Thanks for coming by tonight,” he whispered, running his thumb along TJ’s knuckles, “I really appreciate it. I. . .I don’t know, I haven’t really felt like myself lately. Or, maybe I’ve been a more extreme version of myself? I haven’t wanted to do anything. I’ve barely slept, because all I could think of was. . .I guess, not being enough for you? That sounds so selfish saying it out loud, oh my god,”

“Hey,” TJ replied, tearing his gaze away from the meteor shower, which was starting to slow down a little, “no matter what happens, you will always be enough, okay? You’re more than enough, Cyrus. People care about you, so much, and you tend to underestimate that. I care about you a lot,”

Cyrus smiled softly, resting his head on TJ’s shoulder and shutting his eyes. His lack of sleep was really starting to catch up to him, and he tried to keep his eyes open to see the shower, but it felt like it was taking all of his energy to do so.

“You asleep?” TJ nudged him, earning a quiet groan from the other boy.

“Almost,” he mumbled sleepily, opening his eyes weakly.

“Well, we can’t have you falling off the roof if you fall asleep here,” TJ chuckled, pulling him up so that he was sitting up, “c’mon.”

With TJ’s help, Cyrus managed to climb back through the window and into his bedroom once again. TJ shut and locked the window, before turning back to Cyrus, who looked like he was going to pass out of exhaustion at any minute. He was still wrapped in a blanket, and he looked absolutely adorable.

“It’s late, Cy. Go to sleep,” TJ insisted, pushing him towards his bed. Cyrus groaned, tugging on TJ’s hand and bringing him to the edge. So there TJ sat, on the edge of Cyrus’ bed, his comforting smile never leaving his face.

“. . .stay a little while longer,” he mumbled, his eyes closed, but he was trying to remain awake.

“. . .just a few minutes, okay? But I will see you tomorrow,” he promised, and he was so happy Cyrus couldn’t see the way that he was blushing when the other boy grinned so hard his nose crinkled.

TJ sat with him for a few more moments, watching him lie peacefully and watching his chest rise and fall. It eventually fell into a steady rhythm, and he was fairly certain the other boy was asleep.

“Good night, Cyrus,” TJ whispered, leaning forward and pressing a feather-light kiss to the other boy’s temple, before heading towards the window. He turned to look back at the boy, and took of his sweatshirt, tossing it onto Cyrus’ bed. With one last smile, he slipped out the window, and down the ladder.

On his walk home, he saw a final meteor shoot across the sky, and silently made another wish, smiling to himself.

After he heard the window close, Cyrus faintly opened his eyes, a blush spreading from his cheeks all the way down to his neck. Maybe he didn’t break out his safari tent. And maybe he didn’t get to make s’mores with his friends. But tonight had been pretty sweet nonetheless.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I said I’d post these rambling text posts I’d left in my drafts, and so here you go. I’ve resisted the urge to reread it, so here’s hoping I don’t regret this! LOL ....

Wow, it’s amazing the emotional impact of finding a notebook from when you were 12!

I’d actually forgotten I had a “security notebook” (one I carried to make school endurable) that early, but it geez it brought back memories. 

That isn’t always good.

Now, it’s not full of deep thoughts. It’s also not a “Dear diary” sort of confessional. It’s all random.

 Doodles. Tree filled landscapes, the TARDIS, a creepy clown,  space ships....and lots and LOTS of Pac Man! LOL

Notes exchanged with friends. I was apparently appalled that my teacher told the class ghosts were real.

A list of ALL the comic books I owned at the time, still years before filling that Uncanny X-Men gap of #62 I’d fix when I was 14 and went into my first comic shop.

Several pages of a story was calling  Gama II that I have no memory of at all. I wonder where I was heading with the discovery of a space ship captain (female, of course) in suspended animation. I probably didn’t know myself yet.

 The back cover is filled with a “where I am” that starts with the Milky Way Galaxy (or “galaxiy” as I spelled it), getting closer and closer in finer detail until  it ends with me sitting on my bed.

Let me point out my spelling was horrendous! As someone that read non-stop, you’d think spelling would rub off, but nope. So source is “sorse”, neighboring is “naboring”, captain in “captin”, hidden is “headen”, weird is “weard”...actually I misspelled more words than I got right! You can totally see why my 6th grade teacher openly laughed in class about her best student being the worst speller she had ever seen. But let me also say, I NEVER actively worked on improving my spelling, yet when I graduated I was valedictorian. Of course, if it weren’t for modern spell check I STILL couldn’t spell “valedictorian”! LOL 

Just remember, so  called “smart” people can be ridiculously bad at some things!

But what really knocked me for a loop were seeing notes from and referencing a certain boy. We had become friends, which in retrospect seems rather odd. We only seemed to have fondness for writing messages in code and for those early video games in common. It seemed like a lot at the time. I do wonder if writing notes to each other that no one else could read didn’t create a false sense of closeness to me. That was my undoing.

Well, maybe my undoing was actually trusting my two best friends. 

If I had little in common with the boy, I had far, far less with the girls. They weren’t very bright and I can’t honestly think of a single thing we shared an interest in. Still, I almost never had a friend that liked or thought the same as me. Surprisingly, that isn’t a deal breaker with friendship. Friendship is more about the good will involved, the willingness to care, and I had long before learned to take it where ever I could find it. The trouble was, I still hadn’t yet learned that even real friends can’t be trusted.

See, I had the girls over two my house, which I rarely did. We went for a walk on the railroad track, which was pretty much where we could go since they weren’t woodsy types. And like is common with many girls, the subject turned to boys.

 They were all swoony over this boy or that boy, and me being me I was a bit quieter. I was shy about sharing something so private, and to be honest, most of the boys at our tiny school were unappealing. Not that they were all horrible, even many that would be classified as “rednecks”, had nice sides. The boys in my grade often had a sweet side. Now the girls, they were brutal with fights  (which was the talk of the teachers after the blood splattered wall from the “earring incident”). The boys were nice, friendly....but generally not talking to me more than very casually. And for me, attraction to a body comes after attraction to a mind. I need to be talking to the guy, sharing interests, laughing at jokes together, connecting....

You see where I’m going with this. I had a big crush on the boy. 

TBH, I blame my parents! They had met in high school and become friends before they fell in love. I thought that’s how it works: you can be friends without falling in love, but you can’t fall in love without being friends first. Considering it worked so well for me parents (they were happily married, inseparable even,  for over 50years when Pop died) they set a HORRIBLE example for me.

Anyway, the girls coaxed me into saying what boy I secretly liked. They had told me their crushes, and they were my best friends. I could certainly tell them.

Oops!

Come Monday morning it was known. I dunno whether one or both told. I dunno who they told. I dunno why they told. I just know they told. I expect it just slipped out and wasn’t done maliciously. They probably would have been oblivious to the consequences. 

The boy knew. He knew, but didn’t mention it to me. He didn’t mention anything to me. He never spoke to me again. Actually, I’m not sure he EVER said anything to me again, and considering it was a small K-12 school where we graduated together that was kinda tricky.

See, the boy was teased because “Stephanie likes you!” It became the big insult at boys at school. “Stephanie likes you!” How shameful! How humiliating! to have weird, fat, ugly, not girly enough Stephanie likes you! It was social death. There had been another girl they used as the big insult, but she’d been in high school and might have even already graduated. I never even  knew what that mythic girl looked like, only that in elementary school boys used her as an insult. Now I had taken her place.

And so it began, the horrible romantic process of my life. Guys likes me...as friends. Try as I might to resist it, sometimes I’d fall for those guy friends anyway. But I knew full well what would happen if anyone, anyone at all, discovered how I felt.  That would be it. If the guy found out there would be a 99% chance he’d be disgusted. That 1% chance wasn’t worth risking a valued friendship. I trained myself to deny, even to myself, my own feelings.

Looking at that notebook, seeing the boy’s handwriting, his name... This was the moment. The moment I realized I was inherently unlovable. Romantically speaking anyway. Other forms of love were always possible, but my god no one would ever find me attractive. 

Flipping through the notebook felt like a gut punch. Decades have passed, I’m technically middle aged, and I’m STILL just that 12 year old girl.

[adeeeblogs]

I can’t only write when I feel sad.  But I need to write somewhere.

I started my tumblr senior year of college... or right after graduation.  I forget exactly.  However, I always feel like nothing has changed since but realize that it has changed and it should change.

The past few months have been so strange.  At the start of October life felt like an out of body experience.  There I was, packing up my life in San Francisco.  The packing that seemed all too familiar and I had expected to happen much sooner than it actually did. San Francisco was my dream for so long. When I got there, I was promoted very quickly and suddenly earning more than double of what I made in Chicago.  I had all these grandiose plans of saving to move out of the apartment I had moved into, living this amazing San Francisco life.  But time kept going and nothing was changing.

I started my job knowing of all the places it could lead me.  I envisioned all the different connections I could build and all the different places where life could take me.  Not only did the love of my life live in New York but eh aspirations I had always had work wise resided there.  And every month I felt drained.  Every month petty challenge after petty challenge came.... and nothing changed.

Fast forward 3 years into this job and nothing was changing and nothing felt like growth.  I dove myself into book after book about leadership and management.  I read every article I stumbled upon.  I followed new twitter accounts.  I became invested in becoming this better version of myself as a boss and leader.  But I would walk into work and get pushed into a closet (literally, my office was in a closet sort of space).  The ideas were shut down.  And as I saw this organization quickly fail, I would offer an idea and get shut down.  Intimidating, aggressive were amongst the common words my boss used to describe me.  Yet, when I sat at tables, I felt the fire I had just die more and more every single month.  Every single week even..... 

Crying in the bathroom became frequent. I blamed it on this stupid relationship.... in retrospect.... the place where I was going into every day... the job where I spent over 120hrs bi weekly on a regular basis was the place that made me feel inferior.  The place that left me yearning for validation... and maybe the relationship insecurity also stemmed from that.  

And then I just couldn’t.  I no longer cared much about the mission.  I cared about coming home to my bed.  My panic attacks kept me on a high alert and 75% of the time I thought about my breathing and how to control that.  I spent my days telling myself that I was stressed and I didn’t need to go to the emergency room (I still went a few times).  Things at home also kept getting worse with the roommate from hell situation.... I was paying so much money in medical bills after a year of figuring out what was wrong with all the stomach aches I kept getting... surgery... etc.  

Then I quit.

I packed up my life in San Francisco feeling destroyed but so relieved that when I finally couldn’t do it anymore, my parents welcomed me with open arms and helped me in every way possible.  They sat there watching me cry it out and let me know life would go on and life would be okay.  I went to New York, then LA spent time with friends and then 2-3 weeks crying in my bed at any given notice.  

Then I got up one day.  I applied for a job to get me out of the house and out of my bed.  I went for a hike.  I did a phone application work out.  And a few days ago, I realized that I hadn’t cried in two weeks.  I have felt frustrated but let it stand for a minute and let it go.  I have felt sad but able to refocus on whatever I am doing.  Today I started saving and starting job applications for things I would want to do.  And I am here writing about it.  About how this life.... it doesn’t feel like it is mine.  But I am starting to make it mine.  

The people (specifically one person) I met at the end of my life in San Francisco.... shortly before my first ER visit.... (our first date was the day of the visit actually)…. I feel that he has not gotten to know ME and yet knows the hidden things that I wouldn’t regularly tell anyone.  He knows the spontaneity I can have when things don’t feel right and the fear and anxiety that can overwhelm me.  He knows me at the moment when I feel a little homeless and a little displaced.  He knows this side of me that takes breaks a time to myself and isn’t checking an inbox every few minutes.... He knows this person I hardly recognize myself.

And there are the friends that left during this time.  The one that told me she didn’t know how to handle my stress when it hadn’t even begun …. the one that left because she said I couldn’t fully support her as a friend.  And there are the ones that stayed and I am afraid will leave one day.  There is my family that I feel so grateful for.  The family that has kept me grounded and feeling safe. 

And there is writing.  Incoherent thoughts.  Ones that I don’t care if they have grammar errors.  The ones that just flow from my head.  unedited.  Not revised.  The ones that I just don’t think anyone reads and I really don’t care.  

Maybe I’ll start using this again.... but life is good.  I am not sure what will work out but I know something will....

[popculturebuffet]

The Loud House Valentine’s Day Double Feature (Back in Black and Stage Plight) or My My My Once Bitten Twice Shy

What is up my Loudites? And while I am returning to the Loud House I do have some sad news to get out of the way first.. i’m ending regular coverage of the Loud House. I don’t like doing this.. but when I picked up the show, I didn’t really have a set schedule.. and that was a bad thing as I didn’t get nearly everything I wanted done. Now I have one and honestly it’s been great: it allows me to stay focused and if I end up not feeling what I was going to do that day, provided it’s not a comission or specfically needed that day, I can swap things around a bit easier. 

The reason I bring this up is Nick’s way of scheduling means I CAN’T reasonably put the show on the schedule. They often don’t announce airdates until the wee before, which isn’t a bad thing WATCHING, and isn’t unresonable for a children’s network. But for someone who likes to have a concrete schedule at the top of the month, still flexable and able to make changes if they come up but at least some idea of what i’ll be doing and when, that’s a non-starter, as not knowing when a show’s going to be there or not really messes with things. In contrast Disney puts up their entire programming schedule for next month towards the end, so I know if a show’s coming back, and thus that it’ll probably be around for next month’s too. And if it goes away a week earlier than expected then super I have that space for other sttuff. But I just have too much other stuff, paid and on my own time, to keep friday’s open in perpetuity.

I will however still reviewing the show infrequently as I still love it, Season 5 will probably have plenty of episodes I want to talk about, already it has Leni running for mayor which sounds like one of my wonky spinoff ideas and I love it all the more for that, and ther’es tons of episodes I have and haven’t seen to dig into. So like Lori I won’t be in the house on a daily basis but i’m still going to show up a lot. I already have an April Fools special planned, as well as a retrospective ready for some time in the future. And of course if more Sam and Luna episodes show up, you know i’ll be on those as fast as humanly possible so yeah not leaving the show.. just not coveirng it because I like having some control of my schedule, it’s a thing with me. 

Good then we can get to why your ACTUALLY reading this unless you’ve already scrolled past or scrolled up to this. Next Sunday is Valentine’s Day, and so to continue Valnetine’s Shenanigans on this fine blog, i’m doing some romantic style episodes of the loud hosue for you. I did intend for this to be bigger, but frankly i’ve been running behind on reviews and running out of steam lately, so I paired it down to the two I wanted to do most. So for today we’ll be covering two of the show’s couples: One they badly need to bring back and I question why they haven’t, and one that I feel has gotten a lot of flack for things that aren’t it’s fault. Both are really adorable so expect some awkward blushing, bats, blood, and other stuff rhyming with B under the cut!

Back in Black: So we begin our double feature with Lucy

Yeah I have not covered this adorable harbinger of death enough on this blog, and intended to do this one, among other lucycentric episodes back in october.. and the fact I didn’t is a good argument for why I have a schedule now ain’t it? But sometimes your plans not panning out right at the exact time you planned them works out for you. Not getting to do Plan 9 From Mission Hill during Pride Month meant I got to do it on comission later. And not getting to do this one at Halloween means it still works fine just fine for valentine’s day.  

So we begin the episode with Lincoln working on his science project, with Rusty coming over to help. 

Shockingly though not only is he not just taking a nap or hitting on Lincon’s sisters while Lincoln works but actually helping, he’s actually good at it. I’m as suprsied as you. Though this is early in his characterization, so he hasn’t’nt been established as horribly sucking at everything or his friends being done with his bullshit QUITE yet. Give him time.  This is an interesting moment in the character’s history though, as it’s the episode that firmly establishes him as a close friend of Lincolns. While he was already turned from a member of a random violence gang to LIncoln’s buddy in the span of season 1, this episode cements him as one of his closer pals simply by him coming over and the two being fairly familiar with one another. Granted by that same token Girl Jordan should be in the group.. and I have nothing to add to that. Add Girl Jordan to the Lincrew. Just do it. 

Anyways Rusty brought his brother along. And you’d expect me to be terrified as there’s now three of them. But.. nope I like Rocky. He’s a chill kid and his personality goes together well with Lucy’s as while he’s a more typical kid, he’s still very subdued in his emotions like she is. Also he mentions both parents so my divorce theory.. is honestly still valid as this was three seasons ago and I could buy their mother left during that time. 

And yes Lucy’s in love.. and stalking him a bit as she follows him around the house sighing while he wonders who did that.. though it is a nice clue their compatible. When you can sense the presence of someone whose big running gag is showing up out of nowhere to scare the crap out of people that means something. And it’s either that you’d really get that person or your Wolverine. Or one of his kids. Or his clones. Or clones of his clones. What i’m saying is Rusty’s mom banged the wolverine and his family tree is really weird even by marvel standards. 

But I do give her a pass as she’s not trying to be creepy or obsessive, she just doesn’t know how to talk to him as he’s your average kid and she’s a creature of the night. It’s just a kid being shy which is very refreshing both because pre-savnio being fired the show had some very messed up ideas about relationships and gender politics at times, the latter of which actually crops up here, and because having grown up with the cartoons of the 90′s and 2000′s.. I had to put up with things like this. 

Full Disclosure: I DO ship sonamy.. but only after around Sonic Chronicles, where Bioware and then Sega decided to not make “Constantly harasses sonic despite him clearly not being interested and saying so vocally” and “Obessess over him to a point I worry she’s going to break his legs so he’ll never run away from her again”, as well as aging her up from 12. Still find her ungodly annoying at best and terrible at worst before that point, Sonic CD and Sonic Advance excluded. And yes I am that huge of a nerd, damn proud of it too. 

What i’m getting at is that a little girl unable to talk to a guy and only being kinda creepy because that’s what she does is LEAGUES better than “IT’S NOT CREEPY WHEN A WOMAN DOES IT”. Given this episode was written by a woman that probably helped a lot if not entirely but I don’t blame her for that.. more on that later. 

Point is she’s smitten but her first attempt to talk goes back as he rushes to leave after she tries talking to him.. and also appears out of nowhere to spook him. Come on man, your better than that. YOu sensed her before why not now? Up your game. But yeah Lucy’s depressed while Lincoln talks to her about it, about them leaving and once Lucy confesses she’s into rocky asks what he’s into. Lincoln.. has no idea as he’s barely been around Rocky. He’s just an average kid he dosen’t quite understand. Normal is the word he uses and Lucy ponders that.  We next see the three most traditionally feminine sisters, Lori, Leni and Lola, all pissed someone stole their stuff, though Lori does suspect Lola at first because let’s face it, this fits her MO of being an entitled brat and not being above petty theft. But no the culprit is Lucy who genuinely apologizes and understands that their mad but the other girls are fine with it given the context, which Lucy explained, and are happy to make her over.  This is where the problem I was hinting at comes in: ALL the girls are on board with this makeover plan. the problem is.. only the three who came in in the first place make actually sense making Lucy more tradiotnally feminine. Lori loves fashion and is a control freak who has troubles with empathy at times especially at this point in the series, Leni while not INTETIONALLY hurtful is kind of ditzy and thus can miss some cues, and Lola has a yawning starless void where her soul should be. For these three? Yeah this plot actually makes sense they wouldn’t think of Lucy’s feelings and actually help her use who she is to get rocky or tell her it doesn’t matter she’s beautiful as she is.. then presumably bring the wrath of god down on that poor child before things were cleared up.  The issue is more dragging the other sisters into it. It only fits the three above to really give a shit about making Lucy more “normal” and “Girly” and “Other stereotypical bullshit”. Luna is very chill and empathetic and would be the first to say “Wait maybe making her the opposite of herself isn’t a good idea”, Luan is likewise empathetic though I could possibly see it she really doesn’t need to be in this plot, Lynn ENTIRELY doesn’t fit as she prefers sports and getting dirty and what not and is the closest to Lucy out of the sisters and thus would probably be the most defensive about her not changing and that could’ve actually been interesting, Lana would be the same minus the being closest and Lisa is coldly detached a lot of the time and wouldn’t care about any of this on a good day. It feels HORRIBLY offensive and out of character to have them all suddenly be “nah your not girly enough”. These girls don’t give a shit about whose more feminine than who and it’s really bad to pidgeonhole them as that.  However.. I dont’ blame episode writer Gloria Shen entirely for this. She wrote it, she gets some of the discredit.. but she didn’t DIRECT the episode and a LOT can change from page to screen. No  THAT was series creator and known sexual preadator Chris Savino. And i’m not just blaming him because he’s a creepy asshole, but because the seasons he directed, seasons 1, 2 and most of 3, had a bad habit of having episodes where all the girls acted as a group and often to weak ends, like the green house, the one where they all fought, the gender swap episode or  heavy meddle.. which is a headache for another day. Point is it doesn’t surprise me he didn’t fix this or even genuinely cared to differentiate  them and it’d be until next season where the show fully became an ensemble piece. SO yeah I blame him on this not for his horrible history, but simply because it sounds like his writing style and as director, and a producer on the show, he had the power and responsibility to fix things and did nothing. So if it wasn’t directly his fault in the first place , he certainly didn’t fix it, call it out in storyboarding or well anything. So yeah shared blame all around.

So after a makeover montage, Lucy is uh... well I can’t describe the abomination they’ve created. 

I mean.. none of it works, and I think that’s very much the intent, dosen’t make it any less horrifying. Nothing about this is right: makeup REALLY shouldn’t go on a child in any circumstace so the blush on her cheeks is creepy and makes her look like one of those creepy porcelian dolls that i’m 100% sure either are planning to kill us all one day or were made to keep the souls of the damned trapped inside forever. The ear rings just look creepy and again are a bit much for an 8 year old, and the blonde hair just brings it all together. The pink outfit is fine.. I guess but the face is just so unsettling I can’t process the rest of her outfit and i’m not even going to try. 

Point is she looks terrifying, and not in the fun way she usually does, and Rocky dosen’t know what to make of this. Oh and if your wondering why he’s here Lynn just.. took a hockey stick to Lincoln’s project to get the Spokes Boys back over here, and Lisa mocked him for pointing out the obvious holes in their plan despite being 4 and LIncoln having a girlfriend at this point. Granted his relationship with Ronnie Anne at this point is also kinda effed up, but given you all pushed him in this direction, Lisa still has no room to talk and they amicably broke up at some point once the writers decided “Let’s pretend like this never happened and they were just friends, despite her being introduced with a crush on him and us still replaying episodes with said relationship in play, instead of actually dealing with this directly”. You may be easily able to guess what hte retrospective’s about at this point.  So Lori comes in for phase two .. WITH BOBBY!

Just.. I cannot tell you how much I needed my boy to calm me down after the last two scenes of horribly off character writing and ... that thing up there. He dosen’t do much this episode but every episode is better with Bobby and that’s a scientefic fact. So Lori claims they had a double date fall through which Bobby barely follows along with.. and it does kinda feel pressurey to kinda force Rocky’s hand here but her intentions ARE good, and a group date is a good way to relive presssure. It just ends up falling through becaue Lori wants her to act intentionally helpless, which makes no sense both for Lori’s personality given how driven and controlling she is and how Bobby clearly knows both things and likes the first and she worked on the second for him. So yeah the golf date falls through and Lori apologizes for being a bitch about all of this, as they all do, which again. .has me questioning WHY we needed the whole sister group instead of just Lori and co. Or even just Lori. The show REALLY needed to learn character ballance and while it is struggling on occasion, as seen with how lincolncentric this season has been so far, this episode reminds me it used to be MUCH worse. 

But Lucy thanks them because their intetnions were good, i’m going to need a citation on that given it came off as them wanting her to change because they found her weird nad not because they genuinely wanted to help her, and goes off to sulk about being alone. Lincoln dosen’t know what to do till the next day where, again suprisingly, Rusty had the right idea and had them come over to his place. We also find out he’s scared of blood.. which.. I can relate to. Seriously i’ve only insulted the guy once the whole episode

But we find that out because Rocky made his own because he actually found Lucy’s really cool, what a kid. So Lincoln gets the brothers over to his house by damaging the project himself then claming they need to go back and once he sees Lucy’s around has Rocky go into the kitchen to get them some sodas which he agrees to because why not. 

So in a nice little change-up on the running gag Rocky shows up startling Lucy and we get a really fucking cute scene as they hash things out. They have a normal conversation, finally getting past their shared awkwardness, in part because he admits he prefers her as herself.  As it turns out Rocky wasn’t scared.. he just thought she was too cool for him and felt intimidated and like Lucy had no idea what to say. The two then blush and after my heart melts and I freeze it back into shape in a few hours, the two decide to go look at her coffin collection and the next day proudly show off their perfected fake blood.. which destroys the project one more time. WAH WAH WAH. Oh rusty... I knew I could count on you to fuck up at least once. 

Back in Black Final Thoughts: First off Black in Black: Weird Name. I mean it kinda gives the game away, not that fans would thikn horrifying mistake lucy would stick but still, and dosen’t really fit. Call it “Why Do Ghoul’s Fall in Love” or something like that or something related to makeovers. Makeover Mistep. Don’t Make Me Over. Makeover Your Case... okay that last one sounds more like the Legally Blond equilvent of Cobra Kai but the point is it’s just weird.  Outside of the parts I already went in detail about why their dreadful.. this ep is pretty good. That one bit isn’t enough to derail the episode, merley take it’s goodness down a notch, and Lucy is genuinely fun to watch and her heartbreak is hard to watch, and Rocky was an engaging new character with lots of potetial. A large part of why I did this episode. is to ask WHY he hasn’t come back. Rusty’s now a major character, to the point he’s co-headlining an episode next week with Zach... why Zach’s getting an episode, a SECOND one at that I have no earthly idea but the point is the show’s getitng comfortable enought heir giving lincoln’s friends starring episodes without him too, as Liam got one , if alongside Lynn the power couple of 2021 I tells ya. My point is, besides when is Stella getting an episode dammit, that Rocky really should make a come back as he both provides another character for Rusty and the rest of the lincrew to bounce off of, and he and Lucy had genuine chemstiry and now she has her OWN cast there’s an easy story there about her friends reaction to her dating a non goth. There’s a lot of story potetial with this precious boy bring him back.  But overall Pretty in Black is a decent episode, worth checking out if you haven’t seen it and rewatching even if you have.

Stage Plight: So we open with Luann, whose one of my personal faviorites along with Leni, Luna, and Lucy. Granted I haven’t checked out her yearly bouts of going ax crazy on her family yet, but we’ll see in april. But outside of that, which is easy enough to isee iven it’s three episodes out of 214 where she’s like this and she gets her compuance, I find her precious, awkward, and entertaining, from her habit of saying “Get it “ to her love of puns, to the fact she’s essentially a wholesome version of the batman villian the ventriloquist..

Yeah in case you forgot about this gag, she often talks through her dummy Mr. Coconuts.. who functions as her sounding board and helps her figure things out, talks like he’s from the 40′s or 50′s, and in general is a delight. He also once or twice, including this episode acts of his own free will so I don’t know if this is a Child’s Play situation and a dying comedian put his body in her dummy and she’s just rolling with it, if she somehow put a piece of her soul in a dummy or what the hell’s going on here. Compared to the series recently what with it’s mayoral campagins, children murdering guys, and actualy factual spies, this is mildly sane. MIldly. This may also be a serious and untreated case of Disociative Identnity Disorder, but given it’s not framed that way, and Coconuts just seems to be Luann’s way of talking with herself, for now she has’nt gone full vintriloquist. Thoguh givne her april fools day behavior and her profession as a comedian, she probably WILL become the new joker at a some point. 

So the two are talking about Luann’s crush on Benny. Benny was introduced back in L is for Love and is one of the only three love interests there to actually return, and along with Sam the only onen to get multiple episodes about their relationship with their respective loud and a full personality. He was also MASSIVELY hated. For those who joined the fandom more recently, Luann was massively shipped with Maggie, an emo girl who showed up in Luann’s second spotlight episode and one where she didn’t torment her entire family, one I still need to see but have read about. It was pretty cute and nothing was wrong with that or the opposites attract dynamic. But said fans got REALLY and understandibly upset about his introduction and were presumibly none too happy he got to return and got his roll expanded.  And I.. genuinely like the kid. I have nothing against Maggie and in fact poly ship her with both Luann and Benny, as both seem like they’d be open to that and her dour demanor creates a nice contrast between the chipper luann and the somewhat chipper but also chill benny in the middle. I just feel he’s a very likeable character, sweet and awkward and very much on Luann’s wavelength. Like Sam he’s SIMILAR to his love intrest, having Luann’s love of puns, mime and the theater, but is also not quite as giggly about it and as I said has a bit more of a chill to him, in contrast to how sam is slightly more energetic to Luna’s near constant calm off stage. 

I also like him because he’s voiced by Sean Giabrone, an up and coming voice actor who I first met watching the Goldbergs as Adam. His other biggest role so far has been playing Jeff on Clarence, though he’s currently picked up another lead voice roll as Yumulack on Solar Opposites, easily one of the best parts of that show, and has done othe rminor and recurring work, but I feel he’s got the potetial to have a long and fruitful career in voice acting if he wants it. I mean he’s far from the first former ABC star or former Ron Stoppable to make a long and successful voice career of himself. Be the next will fredle man you can do it. 

But yeah I like him and think their cute together and feel demonizing a ship for one that had a low chance of happening isn’t fair, especially when you know, we’re in a fandom where incest runs rampant and is STILL a recurring problem to this day. Pick your fucking battles for god’s sake. As I mentioned you can put maggie in with this relationship or Still ship luaggie regardless. 

So back in the episode Luann and Coconuts notice Benny signing up for the school play and decide to join him. 

Yeah i’ve noticed that a LOT of school set plots are about one of the mains joining a play to either be near or play romantic lead with their crush, or romantic hyjinks happening anyway.  Seriously i’ts a lot. I DID think most of them were around romeo and juliet, and Proud Family, Pepper Anne, and Ned’s Declassified all are probably why, it’s actually way more diverse and i’m happy to give credit to shows and movies for that:  Jimmy Neutron used Macbeth (IN SPACEEEEEE), American Dragon Jake Long used Antony and Cleopatra, as did the comic strip Foxtrot (That one I remembered), Daria used the canterbury tales, Arrested Development used Much Ado about Nothing, and one of my faviorite instances is the film Get Over it. It’s a cheesy as hell early 2000′s high school pg-13 comedy, that I loved as a teen and nos nostalgicaly love but am aware it has issues and some stitled acting as an adult where our hero joins the high school play in order to win his ex girlfriend back from the douchebag she’s seeing now and ends up falling for his best friend’s kid sister instead. They do a mid summer’ night’s dream, which is not only awesome SOMEONE thought to use that one , as the film has given me a special affection for the play.. but it’s a cheesy musical version written by the gloriously over acted director of the play played by martin short. 

My faviorite part of it is the boy band style number about Hermia. Yes really. And I didn’t even get into the fact Siquo is one of the main character’s best friends, Kristin Dunst had to reshoot a scene while making the first rami spider-man , our heroes weird parents who are sex therapists and have no real filter AND offer Coolio a threesome on their advice show, and yes the actual coolio and yes that was an actual person that existed, or best of all the douchey rival who stole our heroes girlfriend, whose not only a former boy band member whose band peformed the song love scud, but also threatens our hero with nunchucks at one point. 

Just see this movie.. i’ll hopefully talk about it some day. 

Point is this kind of plot is stock.. but it’s the good kind you can do a lot of twists and turns with as every example mentioned, even the ones using the crush thing, had some clever twist or turn. And this one is no exception as we’ll see. 

So we meet Ms. Berardo, the schools HAMMY as hell drama teacher who gives herself an entrance and is just wondrously entertaining throughout. She’s played by Grey Delise Griffin, which I could recognize immodestly and man does she bring it. Seriously bring her back. Wonderful character. So our heroine and her leading man audition and in a refreshing change of pace they do not get the lead rolls, instead a modern valley girl and a jock who writes his stuff on his arms do so instead.  But since Bernado’s a bit nuts, she decides to have the Montagues and Capulets practice separately despite tha not making a ton of sense, to drive up tension and what not. I mean isolating an actor to drive up tension is a vallid technique but even having not read Romeo and Juliet since high school, over a decade ago, I can tell you they have several scenes together and this is a logistical nightmare. However our heroine finagles her way over to swapping camps so she can talk to Benny since honestly given the whole thing was a way to get to spend more time with him, she might as well quit otherwise. It also.. isn’t a bad tactic. She wants to know him before asking him out properly, which is fair and a good way to go, and they already know each other and are friendly, and it’s something she likes doing anyway as they were both involved with a play in his first appearance and her liking theater makes sense as she’s a comedian, and while she clearly prefers standup, it’s often a natural evolution to go fromt hat to acting in comedy stuff or making your own show, so it’s not a bad idea to learn that side of the buisness too. 

So Luann FINALLY gets to talk to Benny.. after fast ball specialing mr coconuts in the way of someone trying to sit down

But we get a really cute moment as the two just.. talk like two dorky teenagers; They talk about the real mimes of la, which I want badly to be a show.. even if it’s just to find out what the Mime from Animaniacs is up to now. Where DID that guy go? Did the anvil finally kill him? These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night.. which is probably why I’m finishing this at 4 in the morning. But the two have genuine chemistry with Luann offering him her banana, phrasing, and making a pun he chuckles at. It’s adorable as all hell. 

And Bernardo notices, and since her leads have no sparks she regretfully demotes them.. though their reaction is hilariously realistic as both are just happy to have less lines and walk off. She decides to cast Luann and Benny despite being freshman which would never happen but eh this is a unvierse with a snakebird and spies trying to destroy cherries with a death laser why I do I care two seasons later if two freshman got the leads in the play. Still I love the twist: our hero wasn’t trying to get the lead to creeiply force intamacy or anything.. the two just had natural chemistry and the director noticed that and wants to use it. 

But while this should be great.. it isn’t as Luann keeps dodging actually kissing Benny when they rehearse the kiss. The reason.. is really frigging endearing. Luann simply hasn’t kissed anyone before, this will be her first.. and naturally she’s REALLY nervous about having it in front of a crowd or Benny thinking she’s a bad kisser. And I mean... while I had no personal experience at that age in kissing, most media and personal accounts detail it as awkward as fuck. But that’s the irony: she dosen’t KNOW it’s always awkward and thus is putting a ton of pressure on herself like anyone her age.

So she breaks under the pressure despite the reasurances of her Dummy/Possible Sign that she needs therapy and while she finds a way out the next Day Benny has aburbtly quit because of “chess club”.. which he’s not in. Luann finds him and talks to him about it, worried it’s her fault.. and she’s right, though Benny bowed out because she clearly wasn’t comfortable with him and didn’t want to make her kiss him when she clearly wasn’t comfortable with it. What a man what a man what a mighty good man. Luann TRIES to explain.. and then lets Mr Coconuts do it. Which usually in high school would lead to humilating rejection. instead Benny brings out his own puppet Mrs. Appleblossom. 

Just those eyes.. black and souless.. like a doll’s eyes.. because htey are a doll’s eyes. So yeah Benny also has a puppet he uses to say the things he’s too nervous to say. Which is endearing even if again , KILL IT. KILL IT. I mean i’ts like tha tone guy from victorious if the puppets were actually charming and one of them looked like it was about to play hide the soul. Mrs. Appleblossom explains that Benny is also nervous and with the air cleared and the two realizing theyw ere nervous about the same thing... the inevitible happens

So that fades into the kiss happening on stage, with Luann’s family cheering her, our heroes take a fookin bow and Coconuts and Appleblossom look on.. and talk somehow...and somehow got in the seats on their own. 

Stage Plight Final Thoughts: This episode.. is one of the series best, with great pacing, a low amount of repetition and a relatable conflict, while building up Luann’s love intrest to be a wonderful and engaging guy, and giving us a hell of a guest character and Mrs. Gerardo. This episod eis great, the chemistyr between Gambrone and Pucelli is fantastic. This one is just awesome and worth a look especially if the ship contrversy had hit you hard. It really is good. And there’s always room for benny. Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure. 

[k-pham]

hi y’all it’s a and I’m continuing my trend of never doing anything valid and playing the same character with different faceclaims. also this blog is so... empty rn pls skjdfshd

Meet Kiet Anh “Kit” Pham. 17. Slytherin. Seventh year. DE.

(+) sensitive, loyal, charming, organized

(-) glib, arrogant, spoiled, impulsive, reckless, insecure, misguided, offensive

Make no mistake. You were never good.

From the start, you were a menace. As your mother tells it, you started to wail the instant you took your first breath—and you haven’t stopped since.

As soon as you were able to walk, you tore through your mother’s rose garden, grabbed fistfuls of thorns to rip out the flowers. For your seventh birthday, when gave she gave you the wrong gift, you smashed your grandmother’s heirloom vase against the wall. You’ve always been more trouble than you were worth. You’ve always been a terror.

But, let’s be honest— that’s not what you wanted to be.

So what if cruelty has always been your first resort? If consequence is still far from your mind? You learned the taste of blood before honey, salt before sweet. Your first bite tasted bitter, and the sting took time to fade.

You were never good. But that only was because you didn’t know how to be—

-          

When the divorce happened, you watched your mother pack his things from the corner. When she leaned in to tell you goodbye, you flinched. You told her you hated her. But that was only because you were afraid.

You see, being a monster is easy. And admitting you care is hard.

You were never good. No, that’s for certain. You’ve said too many bad things. You’ve slammed too many doors. You’ve thrown too many fits.

But oh, how you’ve always wished you were.

kiet anh pham (nicknamed kit) was born to parents who, he was mostly certain, never loved him.

it’s not like they were incapable of it. they tried their hardest. even as their own marriage fell apart, there was still love there. at least for his younger sister, mailan, for for his other siblings.

but that was easy. everyone loved mailan. she was cute and soft and she did all the right things. kit- was-, well, kit. he had never really made it easy for them.

he was the only son of a high-society pureblooded family and he acted like it: rich and spoiled, he grew up a little monstrous and more than a little disrespectful. he would do things without really thinking of the consequences and make more trouble than he really meant to.

looking back, he was probably just acting out because he knew what was coming. he knew his parents were going to leave each other. and he, well, all he ever knew was the only time they ever did anything together was when they yelled at him.

in retrospect, all that did was probably make the divorce happen faster. 

but he didn’t know.

he just wanted them- to tell him no. 

he didn’t think they would really leave.

honestly, for kit, the only thing good that came out of his parent’s divorce is- z. 

while the two of them had known of each other before and might have even considered each other friends, when he gained a new brother, kit saw a light at the end of a tunnel. 

it was all fun and games at first. they shared a bunk bed and a room. z taught him about pokemon and beyblades and kit did his best to pretend not to be interested. they played aurors and robbers. they got up to tons of mischief, stayed up way too late, talked way too much. so, though kit didn’t stop being trouble, it was- the best thing in the world to have someone all too willing to share the blame and laugh. he had always liked being a brother, but, with z, he found that he loved– having one.

tw abuse mention and then, i guess, bc all good things come to an end.  he got old enough to understand what had happened to z and his mother. and, filled with deep-rooted hatred for the muggles that raised z, unable to reconcile that anger into anything else but broad generalizations, he ended up joining the death eaters. 

it was actually a targeted recruitment (wanted connection here, i suppose). the phams and diggorys were well-connected and well-off, but not de-aligned. someone offered kit guidance and purpose and preyed upon his already existent hatred for muggles and voila! he signed up— and (unbeknownst to him at the time) signed away z’s, mailan’s and his own futures.

i think right now– to put it in the most concise terms. kit is having– growing pains. z has withdrawn from the family, doing work for the de higher ups that he clearly doesn’t care to tell kit about. mailan is working as a double agent for the de, in direct contact with the student leaders, and there’s so much that she has to hide. safe to say, they’re both doing- better than he is. 

so what if he’s jealous? that he joined up first and everyone else in his family is doing bigger things than he is. so what if he’s sad? he no longer has the confidante and friend he used to have. he’s the oldest brother and none of his siblings even need him anymore. and so what if he’s scared? that all of them are in over their heads. that he got them into a bad decision. that—  mailan and z going to do what his mother did and leave him the second they find out what the world is like without him.

he’s never made it easy to be loved, he knows, but that’s never made it hurt any less.

this time, kit is thinking things through. he’s taking precautions. before his mother left, kit begged for him to stay. he lashed out. he threw a tantrum. he cried. he ended up saying some things that can never be taken back. that was pathetic. this time, he won’t do any of that.

so what if z wants to be distant? go. kit doesn’t care. 

so what if mailan is risking her life every single day? that’s all fine. kit won’t worry.

so what if the death eaters don’t want him in their uber-secret and top-level ranks? okay. kit has other things to do.

within the last year, kit has proclaimed his lifelong goal is to photosynthesize, a concept, he entirely doesn’t grasp but has heard of through his vague understanding of muggle science. “drink, soak in the sun and breathe good? sounds okay to me.” 

he’s very purposely going to not care about things. he’s going to do nothing that doesn’t benefit him directly. he’s not going to care at all. he was never good at being loved, never good at being good— so now he won’t even try. 

it’s a good plan. after all, in this world, you can really only be certain of one thing: people leave. you have to look out for yourself.

more rando points and introspection

to break things down in the most concise way, I think I need to talk about the connections and difference between Kit’s actions and his feelings. i think that kit has big feelings and just no way of communicating them. he’s afraid of looking weak, of being vulnerable. he’s afraid that he’ll give them something else not to love.

fuccboi hypebeast naruto runner mode x3000

kit absolutely dresses like a Naruto character 100% of the time

im mostly thinking abt this meme  but also he would dress like kakashi n sasuke in a heartbeat

um? how to say– a lil bitch. literally a gremlin.  a virgin, but like… in that lies about it bc he’s ashamed and insecure about it. if he got laid once… maybe it would solve all his and his family’s problems. probably not. but lbr… he wouldn’t mind it.

lies about a lot more than that too, just to be clear.

biggest lies are “i DON’t LOVE u.” and “I DON’t CARE.”  but nearly everything he says is a lie.

“mUGGLES n muggleborns ARE BACKWARDS and THEY HAVE NOTHING REDEEMABLE about THEM” a lie, first off just in the not true sense, but also kit doesn’t even really believe that. he likes the muggle things that z has shown him and also, likes z, even though he is not a pureblood.

that being said has literally no understanding of muggle concepts beyond what z has told him and even then grasps very little

kit vs catholicism is… v bad

i can really see kit, like when his parents were fighting, getting in between them with tears in his eyes. “i’m the prince of this house! and i’m telling you not to fight anymore and also you have to stay together for me!!!” this equal parts entitlement, ludicrousness and … just desperation is… altogether kit for me.

even tho mailan and z are the MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE In THE WORLD TO HIM, he has absolutely put them down publicly, sometimes (recently) even to their face. it’s his way of saying im insecure and i don’t care that u guys are leaving me and being much more accomplished than me

yeah he a soft DUMb. SO WHAT ABOUT IT.

·        

·        Bc I’m at character saturation, I literally have to use my other characters to describe him so here we go.

probably most like cress— in that they’re both opinionated, misguided and committed to the de. They’re just… misguided in different ways. Cress doesn’t really lie about the way he feels. Cress genuinely thinks what he is doing is right. He thinks the sacrifices he has made are worth it. Cress has some level of altruism (even tho…he is selfish too). Cress is smart and calculated and, well, frankly impressive. Kit is the opposite of all of that. He’s reactionary, impulsive, selfish and… inadequate in so many ways.

one thing of note is that he can’t talk himself out of situations like Cress can. Kit makes mistakes— and has to live with them. Cress doesn’t blame himself but will “accept responsibility”. Kit blames himself.

kit is also way less behaved that cress. cress will make a bad prank and laugh if he stands by it and then, say sorry after a little bit. kit will do something absolutely awful and feel awful and still laugh while hating himself wildly. kit will also never apologize.

like rose, he’s having a truly rough time with growing up. he wishes things could go back to the way they were. but unlike rose, he refuses to cling to his childhood innocence. he’s pushing himself to grow up way faster than he’s actually comfortable with and that’s really causing intense angst. kit is exactly the kind of person who has and will make fun of rose for things that even he himself are guilty of. 

apparently I also have a thing for older siblings bc … rose, jasper and kit are all really protective of their siblings. But while rose and jasper mainly manifest this in healthy ways (if anything, probably … a little too overprotective), kit is a tiny lil shitball full of irrationality. bursts of being way too controlling and, when that’s not received well, sulking in a corner.

lowkey… he’s awful, but, because he’s motivated purely out of irrationality and spite and not logic, he’s my de character with the most chance for redemption.he’s … awful. he acts awful. he thinks muggles n muggleborns r backwards n dont deserve rights. he’s half cocky quips and half … just like offensive comments. gross. when ur a pureblood rich boy, u can care about literally nothing and say whatever u want get away with it. the only problem is… he does care. he cares so much. he’s worried about his bb sister and his step bro, but doesn’t have the emotional strength to show it. he worries about the future n what he’s going to do. but most of all, he worries that if people know that he cares… that they’ll think he’s weak (which tbh he is).

wanted connections

tba

terrible de friends!!! photosynthesize with kit

good friends !!! pls tell kit he’s being awful. this one is limited bc... he truly is awful!!!

a de mentor!!!!! v important for kit’s sense of self!!! bc this mentor approached him asnd was like wassup!! wanna have a sense of community and got a lot of misplaced anger??? kit: hell yeah my dude also i got two juicy siblings that can convert with me

a tutor! this girl only plays dums!!! kit no es tan inteligente como cress o rose n el necesita ayuda!!!!

[lighthouseroleplay]

WILLIAM ‘WILL’ HARRIS BURKE

                          ( 22 ,  cis male, he/him )

♪♫ currently listening  ⧸⧸  drunk drivers / killer whales by carseat headrest

the graffiti-covered seat at the back of the class, sunglasses in every shade of the rainbow, band-aid covered knees. juggling baseballs with a careless ease, strawberries eaten by the handful, a laugh that ends in a snort. the teacher’s rolling eyes, joints tucked in a back pocket. phone calls that go late into the night, fresh flowers on a gravestone. always a scent of pine, a scrawled letter, stacks of books threatening to collapse at any moment.

    •  hadfield was the first neighbour you had in tenebrin who wasn’t a thousand year old angry man, and you appreciated that. you were determined to befriend them, and the fact that you were in the same grade made it even better. they were so new, so different from so many people who lived in tenebrin, people you’d grown up with, known since kindergarden. the familiarity was nice, sure, but this interesting new person got on very well with you, even if it was weird that your moms dated for a little bit. screw weirdness, you had a new friend, and you had a great time every day on the walk to/from school.

    •  lind-carter was someone you met for the first time in junior year, this tiny, insistent freshman, intent on going on the honors biology trip as if it would change her life. it made you laugh, originally, but on the trip, you became friends. you didn’t really know anyone in your bio class, and something about her intensity made you curious. it was a good choice, speaking retrospectively, because her whatever — you called it ‘bossiness’, she made rude gestures back at you — balanced out your indecision, your tendency towards laziness perfectly. she pushed you towards actually going to university, when your own mother couldn’t do that, and leaving her behind hurt you more than most things did.

taken by alexandra  ⧸⧸  joe keery .

i thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds.

William Burke was born on a rainy May morning, first baby-howls echoing through the hospital room, loud enough to rival the fat water droplets spattering against the window, and the dawn’s first light hidden between dark clouds. His father cried, as did his sister, though his mother was far too exhausted to join in, and all in all, it was a rather damp day.

He was a baby who had always been wanted, like his sister before him, with parents who had always wanted a pair to call their own. Jonathan Burke grew up in Tenebrin Port, but had little interest in staying there: which, as it turned out, was a rather good thing, as it was while working as a library assistant at UC Berkeley that he met Mary Slater, English literature PhD candidate with a love of King Arthur lore. They fell in love rapidly and deeply, buying an apartment together in San Francisco and planning a life together in that fog-filled, colourful city. Their first child was born there, named for the Guinevere of the stories her mother buried herself in while pregnant. She was delivered just after her mother finished her thesis, and they were, in the end, celebrated with equal enthusiasm and joy. They married soon after, and while many members of the Slater family were present, only a few of the Burkes did.

Mary was offered a position at Whitman College, assistant professor of English Literature, and she moved there, as did Jon and their child, where he embraced fatherhood with enthusiasm. He had no doubts in his mind at the concept of staying home and taking care of Gwen while Mary worked, and when she could support the family thus — why not?

Four years later, she became pregnant again, this time with a boy, and William Burke came angrily screaming into the world, completing their family of four perfectly.

    i slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees.

The family moved to Tenebrin when Will was only three, drawn more by responsibility than anything else, an illness in Jon’s family leaving his mother frail, and in need of her son nearby. Mary began research on a new book, surrounding the role of Uther in Arthur mythology. Will and Gwen were raised by their parents, yes, but also by their grandmother, a severe woman, strict about everything but more than a little willing to tell her grandchildren stories about Tenebrin — after all, she could do little else, stuck in bed as she was. More than one night, the pair would sleep with dream wreathed in swirling water, crashing waves upon a shoreline echoing in their mind. She wove a good story, and it was oh so easy for the children to find their way into the web, to the chagrin of parents who would so much rather their children didn’t have the screaming nightmares these stories inspired.

Though Will’s grandmother eventually died, four years later, her stories had an impact on him: while Gwen was made of stronger stuff, he grew terrified of water deeper than a bathtub, resisting the swimming lessons at the community centre to the point where even bribes of toys and post-swimming ice cream trips had little effect. He just wouldn’t do it, and so while his sister spent summers advancing up the rungs of the Red Cross Swimming levels, he was to spend his days at the outdoor camps, hiking and camping in the forest that surrounded the town, learning bear tracks and how to start fires and how to keep them from spreading. That he took to, spectacularly so, finding a love of the woods to match his fear of water. 

He threw himself into this love wholeheartedly, looking forward to summers spent in the Olympic National Forest, always begging his parents to let him climb trees. Will was up one such tree in the backyard of his house, all of nine without even the slightest fear of heights, on one of fall’s rare rainless days, when a police car pulled in, with two officers exiting the car to knock on the front door. Will was scared then, for a brief moment, freezing with the knowledge that this wasn’t normal, that maybe he was in trouble somehow, that something was wrong. He didn’t hear the discussion that took place inside the house, but when his mother emerged with the two officers, the group walking towards him, he knew he was right to worry. Her face streamed with tears, and Will scrambled down the tree, erring in a way he rarely did, and falling to the ground.

In the end: that was that. He broke his arm, and his father was dead, in terrible fluke of a car accident, on such a perfect day, no less. There was no one to blame but the cruelty of fate, and suddenly Will’s mother, an outsider to the strange, small town, was alone without her strongest link to it.

all night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

Will Burke was not one for grief. It passed like it came, and though he’d make his way to the Tenebrin graveyard twice a month, a plaid-clad pilgrim carefully balancing flowers in the basket of his bike, and although he would always hold the memories of his father close to his heart, the pain left him. The first year, his grin was a little too wide, his laugh a little too loud, and if he disrupted the class with comedic antics one too many times, well, who could blame him. No child should lose a parent that young.

But it did pass, with time, and Will found himself settling comfortably into the role of class clown that he’d first taken on to hide his grief. It was so easy to make people laugh, and the grins on his classmates’ faces made all the punishments worth it -- especially when he managed to avoid those too! Let it never be said that he wasn’t smart: he just didn’t apply himself, said year after year at parent-teacher conferences. When he did try, though, he succeeded, and like his mother, Will found he excelled at English, though struggling more than a little with the more complex problems in Math. Biology didn’t come easily either, but he knew that to work in the forests he loved in a meaningful way, he’d have to work hard, and he did, pushing himself to seek out teachers after class, doing extra research online… It was perhaps the thing he worked hardest on, even if he didn’t know what path his life would take.

That was the problem, though: it all felt so theoretical, the idea of graduating, university, of getting a job. Being young was so easy, so peaceful, and Will didn’t want to trade away the crystalline memories of juggling strawberries in the cafeteria to generous applause, or late nights spent watching movies with his friends, for hard work and stress that seemed to come so naturally. Perhaps his mother had read him a little too much Peter Pan as a child, perhaps he’d simply observed her too well, but the result was the same. The effort was there, to do well, to succeed in school, but beyond that: it was easy to slip under the radar, especially with Gwen at a nearby university, and his mother increasingly busy, and easy to avoid planning and applications in favour of things that brought him more joy. Lind-Carter talked him out of that, in the end, forcing him to make plans for a future that was rapidly growing nearer, and while he frowned profusely at her at the time, somewhere in the back of his mind he was grateful.

all night i rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom.

He was one month graduated, the coastal chill of spring starting to burn off into summer’s warmth, Independence Day festivities past, looking ahead to university, to something different than the mundane existence he’d always known to be true in Tenebrin.

Will was just waking up when he got a text from Lind-Carter, brain fuzzy from sleep that had gone on a little too longer than it should, but hey, it was the summer! It was that first text that would always stand in his mind more than anything else, that concern, so immediate, pulling him sharply into the world. He’d biked over quickly, and it was all a whirlwind of memories after that, so fragmented and confused that he was never sure which was the memory and which was the dream. The water, Andy’s face as she leapt into it, the determination, and a haunting song that seemed pulled from his grandmother’s stories.

He made his appearance at the funeral, dressed in black alongside Gwen and his mother, shoulders down, eyes bleak, distant. He barely acknowledged the coffin as it was lowered into the grave, placing the flowers he’d brought next to the stone with vacant eyes. The next day, he fled to the woods.

by morning i had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

He went north, in the end, fleeing Tenebrin and the loss that crushed him like so many falling rocks. It hurt too much to bear, and Will was grateful in a way he hadn’t ever been before that he’d decided to go to school so far away. It went smoothly, though he was reticent to make friends in a way he never had been before: it seemed easier to go without. He still laughed, partied, had fun, but it was all a little hollow inside. Some days he felt as though Andy’s death had affected him more than his own father’s: a fleeting, guilty idea, but one that was more than a little true. Maybe it was because he’d witnessed it, maybe it was because she was his age, but it had all felt so wrong in a way that stuck with him. Coming back to Tenebrin after graduating university felt like a homecoming, but it also felt like a resolution. He would use the summer to repair this odd, broken feeling inside of him, so he could leave again whole, and begin his new job in the fall with a clean heart. The trees had always felt like home to him, but perhaps the water would cleanse what they didn’t seem to be able to purify.