#after my unknown number rewatch

[an-internet-introvert]

Random dnp gifs because I want to

Dan and Phil are Getting Divorced- It Takes Two #1

[frog-chemicals]

Shoutout to Quinton Reviews for once again rearranging my brain chemistry

[of-a-chaotic-mind]

I Can't Say Part 2

Summary: An Earthquake turns everyone's world upside down and nearly takes part of Eddie's away from him.

TW/CW: Eddie Diaz x Reader, Hurt, Earthquake, Injured Reader, Blood/Blood-loss

Requested?: No   

Word Count: 4,136

A/N: Our grand total of words for this trilogy is 11,325... I'm ngl was kinda stuck on how I'd get from break up to make up but then I was rewatching season 2 the other night and well... Earthquake it is. Anyways, hope you enjoy the read! Love to all! Requests are Open!

[ A/N: him so purtty... ]

Part 1

--- Your POV --- 

Groaning, I silence my alarm and drag myself to my bedroom to change clothes. I really wish I had changed out of my work clothes last night because it is so uncomfortable to sleep in jeans. I opt for a more comfortable outfit for today since I'm just taking Talia to therapy. My jeans are replaced by sweats, my LAFD t-shirt by an oversized hoodie, and I yank on my high tops to finish it off. 

As I make my way to the kitchen for coffee, with a pit stop in the bathroom to brush my teeth, I throw my hair up into a messy bun and check my phone that had miraculously stayed in my back pocket all night. The smell of coffee fills the air as I swipe through notifications which include a few random info dump texts from Buck that I hadn't checked yesterday, a missed call from an unknown number here and there, and a few texts from Tommy checking in on me.  

After closing out all the notifications and apps, I find myself staring at my home screen and fidgeting with my bracelet. Glaring back at me is a photo that Buck took in which Chris is sandwiched between me and Eddie as we both hug him. All of us are smiling brightly and my heart hurts at the reminder of my boys. My thoughts are racing when my alarm rings again. I quickly silence it and tuck my phone away before pouring a cup of coffee. As I head out the door, I grab my keys and wallet off the counter. 

A good bit later, I'm arriving at Talia's house. I had finally convinced her to let me pick her up if she wants me to drive her to therapy. I shoot her a text to let her know I'm here, forcing myself to ignore my home screen. It only takes a few minutes before she's rushing out of her house and getting in the passenger seat, "Sorry, I woke up a bit late." 

I smile, "All good, you should probably brush your hair though," I respond, motioning to the bird's nest atop her head. 

As I pull away from the curb, she flips down the visor and giggles at herself in the mirror, "I slept hard last night." 

"I can see that," I state, unable to withhold a laugh. Talia has made so much progress in the past week. This is only her second appointment but I can tell a huge difference; she's actually smiling again. She had taken some time off work because she was scared it would either push her over the edge or she wouldn’t be as focused as she needed to be on the job but yesterday, she said she thinks she’ll be ready to get back out there soon. 

She grabs my phone from the cupholder, "What kind of music are we feeling today?" 

I shrug, "Whatever boats your float." 

She erupts into a fit of laughter, "God, I will never stop thanking Tommy for blessing us with that phrase."  

I grin as I remember the time a very exhausted, end of shift Tommy responded to the question, "Where do you guys wanna eat?" with, "Whatever boats your float." I'll never forget the look of pure astonishment on his face when he immediately realized what he said and mumbled to himself, "Boats your float? What the fuck?" Talia and I teased him about it for weeks after but it got stuck in my vocabulary and became a regular response for me, causing Talia to giggle and Tommy to roll his eyes every time I say it. 

Talia cranks the volume up as she decides on a hip-hop playlist and starts singing along horribly on purpose. This goes on for a little bit, with me giggling at her the whole time, before she finally turns it down, "Alright, what's up with you?" 

I tilt my head at her, "What do you mean?" 

"I mean not too long ago it was always Eddie this or Christopher that," she pauses, "You haven't mentioned them in like forever and I kind of miss seeing the smile on your face when you'd talk about them." I shrug and train my eyes on the road ahead. She doesn't give up, "Come on, (Y/N). You've let me trauma dump on you for weeks now. If you need to talk, I'll listen." 

I take a deep breath, "We broke up." 

"What?!" her volume and pitch nearly bursts my eardrums. 

I dramatically cover and rub my right ear, "We just decided that it wasn't gonna work out." I hate lying to her but if she knew the real reason she'd blame herself and I don't want to upset her. 

"So, it was mutual?" her tone says she doesn't think so. I can't even bring myself to nod. She reaches over and tugs lightly on my bracelet, "I could see keeping the bracelet if it was a mutual break up. That kid means the world to you but-" She picks up my phone and shows me the home screen, "Mutual break ups don't keep photos of their ex as their home screen. People who get dumped do." It's quiet for a couple seconds, "Besides, last time I heard about Eddie, you were asking me if I'd be your Maid of Honor when you guys got married one day. Not if! When." 

I internally cringe as the words spill out of my mouth, "Okay, he decided it wasn't gonna work out." 

I see the look on her face out of the corner of my eye and she still doesn't buy it, "You mean the man who would fight the entire world for you? The man who would kiss the ground you walk on and bow at your feet? The man who absolutely adores the shit out of you and can never stop staring at you like he can't believe you're real?" I clench my jaw but her phone rings, saving me from having to come up with a response. 

A short time later, I am parking on the curb outside her therapist office. She hangs up the phone and grabs my shoulder, "First of all, we're not done talking about it. Second, you should come sit in the waiting room instead of wasting your gas." Praying she won't try to continue the conversation right now, I turn the car off and get out, following her inside. 

We ride up to the second floor in the elevator, check her in at the front desk, and take seats in the waiting room before she speaks again, "So, how's Tommy doing? I heard he's got himself a new boyfriend."  

I smile and nod, laying my head on the back of my chair, "Yeah, Buck. I work with him at the 118. They're very happy together." 

"Oh, that's great! What's Buck like?" she asks. I'm certain she's trying to fill the silence without talking about Eddie. 

"If I had to sum him up in one sentence I'd say, there's a reason the team and I call him a golden retriever," I answer and look over at her with a grin. 

She laughs, "Oh my god, tell me more." 

"Well, he's got a heart of gold and loves his job. He's got tons of energy. He's always got something interesting to talk about because he's constantly researching random shit. One time, he gave me an in-depth explanation of how microwaves work," I pause, "Tommy is absolutely wrapped around his finger. I don't think I've ever seen him smile more than when Buck is info dumping on him." 

I sit up, holding my hand up to quiet Talia as she's in the middle of gushing about how adorable that is and how she must meet Buck asap. I stare at the floor beneath us as its small vibrations turn into violent shaking, "Quake!" Everyone in the waiting room ducks for cover. Talia and I slide under a coffee table just as rubble starts falling around us. Quickly covering our heads with our arms, we brace for impact. 

When the quake subsides and the dust settles, Talia and I make eye contact as we hear other people panicking. We shove the slab of concrete off the edge of the table and make to get up but instead have to army crawl under another slab of concrete. Keeping my head low, "I sure as hell don't miss this," I grumble, thinking back to my days of army crawling through muddy obstacle courses and sandy war zones. 

Behind me, Talia chuckles, "What? Earthquakes or army crawling?" 

I pause and look back at her, realizing it has been a while since our last quake, "both," before proceeding cautiously. Our short tunnel opens up into a pocket that is a good bit taller and has more space to maneuver. "Everybody just stay calm. If you're panicking, we can't properly assist you," I announce to those who were blessed by the pocket. 

"Please! Please, you have to help her," a young woman cries by the furthest edge from us. She is hunched over another woman whose legs are pinned by a chunk of debris. 

"Talia, check everyone else over and get a head count while I try to figure out the safest way to get her out," I instruct. 

Behind me, Talia shuffles toward the others, "On it," as I head for the debris. 

"Stay with me, Penny," the younger woman begs as Penny groans in pain.  

I finally reach them, "Penny, my name is (Y/N). I need you to tell me where it hurts." 

"Everywhere," Penny mumbles and I mentally slap myself. 

"Okay, yeah. Stupid question, I'm sorry. Can you wiggle your toes?" I respond. 

I notice the younger woman's name tag that reads Chelsea as Penny answers, "Yeah I think so." 

"Alright, that's a good sign. Chelsea, I need you to see if you can find a piece of wood or something that is big enough for her to lay on," Chelsea nods and begrudgingly leaves to scavenge. 

I drop to my stomach and scoot closer to Penny, "We're gonna get you outta here, I'm just a little more limited on resources than usual." I take her hand in mine and drop my forehead to the floor with a thump. My head is pounding; I think I hit it on the underside of the coffee table earlier. I'm having a hard time thinking straight.  

I remember Bobby's advice for times like this, "Don't worry about the things that you can't do anything about. Focus on one task at a time." Alright, first task, get Penny free and on a makeshift back board. 

I check her pulse, it's weak but steady, "Penny, I need you to focus on your breathing, okay?" She nods, taking deep breaths, as I look up at the debris that is pinning her. It looks like a thick and heavy wall but doesn't appear to be supporting anything. I crawl to where her legs disappear out of sight and stick my hand under as far as I can reach, feeling for any bleeding and thankfully finding none. I crane my neck to look at the others, a few are assisting where they can as Talia checks everyone over. "I need as many hands as I can get over here!" I yell across what remains of the waiting room. 

Talia stops what she's doing and points to few men who look to be in pretty good shape considering the circumstances. She directs them to me before squeezing a little girl's hand tightly and joining me herself. As they approach, Chelsea comes hobbling around a corner with a piece of wood.  

When everyone is there and ready for instructions, I start dishing them out, "You guys," I point to the men, "spread out around this wall and get ready to lift." I roll over on my back and scoot until my shoulders are even with the edge of the collapsed wall, "Talia, Chelsea, as soon as this wall is up enough, pull her out as gently as you can and get her on the wood." Once everyone is in position, "On the count of three. 1... 2... 3..." I push as hard as I can against the underside of the wall. The men help lift from their positions and soon they've pulled Penny out. 

"You get out from under there, we got this," one of the men insists.  

I nod and roll back over on my stomach to shove myself up to my feet and away from the wall, "Let it down easy." They do and now I'm left trying to figure out my next task. I scan the pocket looking for any possible exits. A pile of rubble blocks the door to what I hope is still a somewhat functioning stairwell. It will take some time to clear the way enough to get the door open but it's our only shot. I notice the massive receptionist desk is still somehow standing making a decent place for everyone to take cover for the inevitable aftershocks.  

"Talia, help everyone get under the reception desk," I look at the men who are patiently waiting for further instruction, "You guys are gonna help me get that door open," I punctuate my sentence with a point at the door. They nod and immediately head that way, as do I. Behind me I hear Talia start instructing the others. Once everyone is under the desk, Talia joins us in the small bit of headway we're making. 

--- Third Person POV --- 

The 118 is heading toward a downtown building collapse. Despite knowing it's futile, they've all tried contacting various loved ones. Buck sighs in relief as he hears Tommy's voice on the radio, "This is 127 Pilot Kinard. 118 please check in." 

Immediately, Buck grabs his radio, "Buckley checking in. Nash, Diaz, Wilson, Han, and Panikkar all accounted for." 

It's quiet for a split second before Tommy asks, "(Y/L/N)?" Buck hesitates, looking over at Eddie who has been staring out the window ever since he gave up on trying to reach Chris and (Y/N).  

Voice shaky, Buck answers, "No contact. She's off duty." 

Tommy's voice sounds strained, "Copy. Y'all stay safe." 

Buck responds, trying to sound reassuring, "We will." 

As they near the building, Eddie nearly slams his head against the window as he looks back behind them. "Woah, what?" Hen asks across from him, startled by his sudden movement. 

Eddie whips his head around to look at his team just as the engine parks next to another one from the 133, "That was (Y/N)'s car!" He flings his headset off and scrambles out of the vehicle as everyone else piles out behind him. 

Buck catches up to him and grabs his shoulder when he stops in front of a crushed car, "A-are you sure? She's doesn't exactly have a unique car..." Eddie only points at the shattered windshield. As he spins and takes off toward Bobby, Buck looks to where he pointed to find the rubber duck wearing firefighter gear that he and Tommy had helped Chris buy for (Y/N) on her last birthday. Chris had insisted the duck needed a cowboy hat so they also bought a small Toy Story Woody action figure. Woody himself was sitting at home on one of Buck's bookshelves but his hat now laid beside the little duck in the pancake that was formerly a car. 

--- Your POV ---

I wipe the sweat and dust off my face as I hoist another chunk of debris to the new pile we've made. We've made a decent size dent in the blockage but it's still not enough to get through. As the ground begins to tremble again, Talia yells, "Aftershock!" 

I turn and attempt to make it to the desk with everyone else but a bout of dizziness takes me down. I feel a blinding pain as something punctures my lower back close to my left hip. I look back to see a piece of rebar sticking out. When everything stops shaking, Talia rushes over to me. I try to get up but the rebar has me staked to the floor. She presses her hands against my blood-soaked hoodie, "(Y/N) you better stay with me!" I try hard to focus on my breathing as she yells at the men to keep working on the blockage and calls Chelsea over to her, "I need you to keep pressure around this, okay?"  

Talia drops to her stomach, face to face with me, "How bad is it? Be honest." 

I wiggle my toes and reach around to feel exactly where the puncture is, "Shouldn't be too bad. Main concern is the bleeding. Thank god for love handles because I think that's all it hit." 

She nods, "Alright, hang in there."  

Talia returns back to Chelsea who whispers, "She's losing a lot of blood." I hear fabric tear and feel my hoodie lift up. I'm sure Talia is trying to stem the blood flow as much as possible by sandwiching fabric between my hoodie and skin. I lay my clammy cheek against the cool floor and look out at the wreckage. It's starting to get hard to breathe and my vision is already blurry. 

--- Third Person POV --- 

Just as Talia finishes packing fabric around the rebar in her friend's abdomen, another aftershock hits. The others rush to the desk and Talia tries to move to cover (Y/N)'s body as much as possible but one of the men pulls her away, "You can't save her if you take a chunk of concrete to the dome." 

Talia screams, "(Y/N) don't you dare leave me! Stay awake, okay?!" 

As soon as the shaking dies down enough, Talia rushes back to (Y/N), who is now losing even more blood, and adjusts the fabric to accommodate what is now a bigger hole. "(Y/N), you still with me?!" she screams, panic is evident in her tone. She looks over to see that her friend is unconscious, blood trickling down her forehead.  

Chelsea joins her, tearing off a piece of her shirt and pressing it to the gash near (Y/N)'s hairline, "She's still breathing but barely." 

Talia nods, finishing with the pile of fabric, "Swap with me." The two swap places before Talia shakes (Y/N) gently. She softly smacks her cheeks, "(Y/N) you gotta wake up! Please..." Tears flow freely down her own cheeks now as she looks up at the ceiling, "God you wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me..." 

As she continues her attempts to wake (Y/N), one of the men shushes everyone, "I think I hear something," he announces, pressing his ear to the little bit of the door they had uncovered. "It's voices!" he cheers, "Help is here!" The room erupts into excitement as the man bangs on the door, "In here! Hey! We're in here!" 

On the other side of the door, the 118 team hears the banging and rushes up the stairs as carefully as they can. Bobby yells, "We hear you! This is Captain Nash with LAFD. How many of you are there?" 

From (Y/N)'s side, Talia whips her head up and yells back, "10! Firefighter down! One of yours!" 

Panic blankets the team and Bobby has to grab a hold of Eddie to keep him from busting the door down, "We don't know what's on the other side of that door," Buck places a hand on Eddie's shoulder so Bobby can turn back to the door and find out what they're dealing with. 

The man answers Bobby, "A pile of rubble! We've been trying to clear it because (Y/N) said this stairwell is our best bet on getting out." 

Eddie's heart leaps into his throat at the confirmation that it's her. Buck's grip tightens, warning him to calm down. Bobby instructs, "Okay, I need everyone to get away from the door. We're gonna have to saw our way in." 

The man looks down at (Y/N) and Talia, "We can't move (Y/N), she's staked to the floor by rebar. I think if I try to pull Talia away from her again, she might murder me." Buck's ears perk up at the mention of Talia. Maybe Tommy was onto something there. He shoves those thoughts aside as Bobby asks for the saw in his hands.  

"Alright, the rest of you back away. Talia, do your best to shield her," Bobby responds, "Let us know when we're clear." 

In the room, everyone puts plenty of distance between them and the door as Talia covers (Y/N)'s body the best she can, "Clear!" 

Buck drags Eddie away as he and the team back up to give space. Bobby cuts a large enough hole in the door before handing the saw to Chimney, "Buck, help me with this." Together Bobby and Buck remove the metal chunk and as soon as he has a clear shot, Eddie rushes through the hole. Hen is right on his heels, med bag in hand, as Talia moves away from (Y/N) to let them work. 

Bobby, Buck, Chimney, and Ravi set to work helping the others out of the building as Hen grabs Eddie's frantic hands, "You need to calm down, Eddie." 

He takes a deep breath before placing two fingers on (Y/N)'s wrist, "Pulse is steady but dangerously weak." The two medics set to work doing their best to stabilize her. When Buck and Bobby join them, she has an oxygen mask on, IV line in, a pulse/ox monitor on her finger, and Hen is keeping pressure around the wound. 

"What do we got?" Bobby asks firmly as he crouches beside Eddie, placing his hand on the distraught man's shoulder. Eddie can only stare down at her, repeatedly brushing her hair out of her face as he silently begs her to wake up. 

Hen answers, "Vitals are steady but in the danger zone. She's lost a lot of blood. Rebar isn't too close to any vital organs but it went all the way through and into the floor." 

Bobby nods, "We transport her with the rebar. Eddie, lift her up as gently as you can. Buck, hand me the bolt cutters and lift on the other side. Hen, keep pressure on that wound and an eye on her vitals." Everyone nods as Chimney and Ravi return from helping the last of the others out with a back board. On the count of three Eddie and Buck lift (Y/N) up enough that Bobby can cut the rebar underneath her. Once they've rolled her onto back, Hen quickly sets to work dressing the untouched side. In minutes, they're lifting her onto the back board and headed out of the building. 

As they approach the scene commander, Bobby states, "We need an ambulance now." 

The commander nods recognizing (Y/N), "We've got more on the way take the 133's." Bobby leads the way toward the 133 ambulance. Behind them, the commander yells, “I still need hands on deck, Nash.”  

As Hen and Chimney load (Y/N) into the back, Bobby looks at them all, “I know we’re all worried about her. One driver and Eddie can go. Everyone else needs to stay here.” Talia takes a few steps back from the group as Eddie climbs into the back and Hen heads to the front. She looks up at the collapsing building and around at the firefighters and paramedics rushing around near them.  

She looks back toward the ambulance as Bobby calls her name and holds his hand out to help her into the back. She’s still nervous about getting back out there right now but she knows she can be of more help here than at the hospital blaming herself for (Y/N)’s injury. She steps up beside him, ignoring his hand, “Got an extra turn out?” 

Before Bobby can ask if she’s sure, Tommy runs up to them already wearing turn out gear and carrying an extra, “Heard you guys are down by two.” He sees (Y/N) in the back of the ambulance and he feels a touch of anger in the worry that settles in his chest as Eddie frets over her vitals. Bobby shuts the doors of the ambulance and gives it a few knocks before it pulls away. 

He turns to Tommy, “Shouldn’t you be in a helicopter?” 

“Commander radioed for extra hands and I’ve been grounded. Our station got hit pretty hard and took my ride down with it,” Tommy answers. He turns to Talia, offering her the extra gear that she can see her last name written on, “I had a hunch you’d be here so I grabbed your old gear before I left.” She takes it and quickly puts it on, looking to Bobby for orders. 

Part 3

More 911

Main Masterlist

[upon-a-starry-night]

Number Neighbors Pt.2

Natasha x Fem!Reader

Natasha Masterlist     Series Masterlist

Pt.1

Word Count: 1.1k

Summary:  When you catch sight of the newest trend going around you know you’re all but bound to at least try it, it was harmless anyway. What could possibly stem from something so little?

To give you some credit, you’d lasted virtually all week long and had managed to only reread the messages sent between you two thirteen times, but your curiosity once again got the better of you, so here you were sitting on your couch rewatching Criminal Minds for the 5th time when you picked up your phone and typed out a quick message

         Unknown Contact

Y/n: 

Are you a man or a woman?

Or is that classified?

You snickered to yourself at the tv show reference. Much to your surprise the response was immediate, although on a Friday evening, you supposed they probably had nothing better to do. Actually, scratch that- a lot of people had plenty to do on Friday nights you were just a loner, but maybe they were too? Your stomach fluttered a bit, it would be nice to have someone to relate to. 

Maybe that’s why you couldn’t delete the number- it’s been a long time since you’ve had a real conversation with someone other than coworkers and family. And that wasn’t to say they weren’t nice but… you did get pretty lonely by yourself, this random stranger on the internet at least brought something interesting to your life.

       Unknown Contact

Unknown: 

A woman.

Y/n: 

Nice! Me too!

I’m glad you’re a woman cause if you were a man I might have to stop talking to you

Unknown: 

Why?

Y/n: 

Because you could be a pedo 

And I trust women more than men B)

Unknown: 

I can understand that.

But women can also be dangerous

Y/n: 

True.

So how was your week?

Unknown: 

I thought I told you

To lose this number?

Y/n: 

Awe come one :( 

I thought we had something

Unknown: 

What?

Y/n: 

This could be the start of something new

Unknown: 

Did you just quote High School Musical?

Y/n: Maybe 😐

 You anxiously watched the three dots appear and then disappear multiple times, after they’d disappeared for a full minute you decided maybe she was finally done talking to you and you put your phone down, at least you’d gotten a little bit of information about her. 

You got up from the couch and grabbed some ice cream from the freezer, not even bothering with putting it in a bowl since you lived alone and had no one to share it with. Tragic.

You were two scoops in when your phone chimed again and you nearly threw your ice cream to pick it up, you really shouldn’t be this desperate to text a stranger on the internet but your life was boring and this was the only thing you really had to look forward to.

      Unknown contact

Unknown: 

my week was long and very boring

How was yours?

Y/n: 

Pretty much the same

I’m glad it’s Friday though

I’m spending the whole weekend on the couch In my pajamas

To further emphasize your point you took a quick photo of your fluffy duck sock-clad feet resting on the coffee table, you could faintly make out the show playing in the background and the tub of ice cream was also sitting on the table.

So much for not sending feet pics- at least they were covered!

 It wasn't too personal, it didn’t give away anything about what you looked like or where you lived, it was simply an insight into how you were going to spend your time off. With a little hesitation, you finally sent the picture, hoping she couldn’t track you with her FBI skills

           Unknown Contact

Unknown:

Wow, it looks like you’ve got a busy weekend ahead of you.

Is that a whole tub of ice cream on the table? 

Y/n: 

Hey! There will be no shaming here

This is a safe space ;(

Unknown: 

Sorry 

I didn’t mean for that to sound judgmental

Y/n: 

Nah you’re good, I’m just messing around

Hey, is it too much for me to ask for your name?

I’m just tired of seeing “unknown”

Unknown:

I’m not sure If that’s a good idea.

Y/n: I’ll give you mine if you give me yours?

Deal? 

Unknown: 

Deal.

But you have to say yours first

Y/n: 

what?! but I asked first!

Unknown: 

what are you five?

Y/n: 

No

I’m 22

Unknown: 

Congrats?

Y/n: 

fuck off!😃

Unknown: 

Lmao

Y/n:

Fine I guess I’ll go first because I’m the bigger person😤

Unknown: 

uh huh

Y/n:

I can feel the sarcasm from here

Unknown: 

Good

Now hurry up before your ice cream melts

Y/n: 

Alright! alright!

-For your information I'm eating and texting.

My name is Y/n

Unknown: 

you can call me Nat

Y/n: 

Cool! It’s nice to meet you, Nat!

I assume Nat is short for something?

Unknown:

Yep.

Y/n:

Aaand you’re not going to tell me are you?

Unknown:

Nope!

Y/n:

Alright fair

Y/n changed your contact name to “ Nat💼”

Nat💼: 

why a briefcase?

Y/n: 

because you’re an FBI agent

Duh

Nat💼: 

I’m way cooler than an FBI agent

Y/n: 

fine, you’re so picky

Y/n changed your contact name to “Nat🔪”

Y/n: 

how’s that?

Nat🔪 changed your contact name to “Y/n🍦”

Nat🔪:

 it’s perfect.

Y/n🍦: 

Good

You check the time on your phone, the small numbers reading 11:30 PM as your eyes droop, usually you stayed up late on weekends but it really had been a long week and you were worn out. Although you were sad you couldn’t text Nat longer, whoever she was she seemed like someone you’d get along with in person. Sarcastic and witty were your type of person. And also just your type.

Y/n🍦:

Well it’s getting to be my bedtime

Nat🔪:

Five-year-old.

Y/n🍦: 

Shut up at least I’m not 40 years old like you

Nat🔪: 

True.

Y/n:

WAit- are you actually?

Nat:

I’m in my 20’s

Y/n🍦:

Oh

Well thank you for sharing but I’m still going to bed

Nat🔪:

How do you even sleep after watching stuff like that?

Y/n🍦:

Stuff like what?

Nat🔪:

Criminal minds

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise, your fingers scrolling up and clicking on the picture you’d sent. There was a small corner of the tv in the photo, and the show could certainly be recognized by someone who’d seen it before but Nat claimed she’d never watched it. You shivered, maybe she really was an FBI agent.

Y/n🍦:

That’s really creepy

How’d you know?

Nat🔪:

I’m just good at stuff like that.

Y/n🍦:

FBI agent.

Nat🔪:

Five-Year-Old.

Y/n🍦:

Whatever!

Goodnight Nat!

Nat🔪: 

Goodnight Y/n

Sleep well

Pt.3

A/n: Do we like this format or the other one better? pls lmk ASAP so I can change one & continue uploading chapters!! thnx ~Starry

[cloveroctobers]

HAMMER TO THE HEART — THE FINAL CHAPTER: DANTE TORRES [Summer Writings]

A/N: We made it to the final part of this mini series that had no plans of being a series, which is still mind-blowing for me since I’ve nicknamed myself as “NeverWriteAPart2ESS.” 🤭 This is for the readers who asked if i had any more Dante on my list and here it is but I’m sure it won’t be the last! Thanks for all of your support. Also hope you have either a fun, safe, or chill holiday 💥 I originally had this planned to drop Saturday or Sunday but I’ve been in my writing bag lately so enjoy this (mostly) angst gift ✨

🏷️: @darqchilddaydreamz as always thanks for tuning in, I love reading your responses ❤️

S/N: Seraphina now has a face readers but ofc you’re always welcome to imagine whomever! + rewatched the last two episodes to refresh my noggin—I’m still new to PD and debating if I want to get into it from the beginning due to past ICKS so if some things are/have been inaccurate that’s why lol.

WARNINGS: language, tweaked the original plot just a little, light? discussion of deceased bodies, bodily injury, triggering flashbacks, & a LENGTHY read!

<- read part two here.

𓂃 ࿐ 𓂃࿐ 𓂃 ࿐ 𓂃࿐ 𓂃 ࿐ 𓂃࿐

There’s an unknown number that stands out on Dante’s phone screen. He came to the bar with Atwater and Ruzek, Ruzek briefly disappeared to the bathroom after telling Dante he was ready to kick his ass in some pool and Atwater struck up a conversation with a very flirtatious woman that Dante had to point out to him. It was funny how the taller man tried to get updates on what was going on with him and Seraphina but was being oblivious to the attractive woman that wanted his attention.

Dante’s sipping at his beer when he feels his phone vibrating. Shifting a bit he manages to pull the phone from his pocket, peering at it he swallows the alcholic beverage before swiping across the screen. “Hello?”

“Hey, man thanks for picking up! Uh, sorry to bother you.”

Dante turns his eyes into slits, picking up on the familiar voice, “…Manny? How’d you get my number?”

“Remember my dad who I mentioned weeks ago?”

How could Dante forget? That day on his thirty-first birthday has been on his mind since and after everything that went down, added more disdain for his “special,” day.

Dante felt his eye twitch, “The old cop?”

“Uh huh…I guess you guys still have some type of pull even if you’re retired.”

Dante rubs at his face, slightly irked. Resting his elbows onto the counter he exhales as he thinks about what he should do about this situation. Somehow he chose to brush that off for now and get back to the point of this call.

Dante presses, “…is there something you need?”

It’s not as loud on Manny’s side of the line besides the barking that he scolds before it’s quiet again compared to Dante’s but the buzzed haired cop is focused on nothing but the intent of this call right now. “it might not be anything but my last call with Phina-Mena ended kinda abruptly. And I’ve been trying to reach out to her since and it seems like the call keeps dropping? I was just wondering if you heard from her?”

Dante feels his jaw tighten at this, it hasn’t been easy for him to process that Seraphina’s been keeping this from him at all. Which of course added to the mountains of tension between the two and it’s actually been two weeks since his birthday. Once Voight realized that Dante had a deeper connection to Seraphina than what this case is and felt a way about him getting her involved, Voight made sure to carry out visits to the lab without him.

Which further pissed Dante off.

“You gave me shit about not only becoming a cop but kept giving me shit about the situation with Gloria…and you think it’s okay getting yourself involved in this kind of danger when you already stepped away from it?” Dante felt like his brows were touching, the aggravation burned through his veins as he tossed Seraphina’s front door shut behind him.

The short haired woman continues her walk to the back of her home, to the kitchen, “Nothing about this case is okay and I have valid reasons just like you do with your career and Gloria. I may not fully ever get that second half but it happened and it is what it is.”

Which was ironic to hear since Seraphina was the one who said that she was done taking things for what they were with Dante. Was this all to get back underneath his skin because honestly it felt like she was kinda trying him?

“Yeah somehow I don’t think you’re gonna be saying that if you get yourself killed.” Dante’s usual gentle tone feels like frostbite, making Seraphina freeze in her tracks right in the center of her kitchen.

Relaxing her shoulders she turns to face Dante. His doe eyes are wide and he looks as if he wants to start pacing the floor but Seraphina isn’t in the mood to soothe him, not when his attitude’s been ugly since she made herself comfortable down at the district.

“You’re worried, that’s fine.” Seraphina shrugs, “I can understand that but you’re acting as if Voight handed me a gun—

Dante scoffs, “He might as well have!”

Seraphina argues as if it was so simple, “Tay, I’m working on the chemical end, not the physical. That’s your guy’s area. What you all signed up for.”

It wasn’t only PD’s job. She allowed herself to get thrown back into the true forensics of things. The amount of bodies that ranged from young kids to teens months ago to current time—still children was insane. At first the cases Seraphina’s dealt with, didn’t seem connected to her until she found something in common with each of the youngest children, that high traces of Librium contributed to their death along with specific wounds that ultimately caused them to bleed out.

The darkness was falling and Seraphina did not seem like she was ready to dodge it.

“What we’re dealing with is a serial killer.” Dante states while the woman nods her head being full aware from what she’s seen and before what made headlines, “They’re smart and have been steps ahead of us lately. If they find out that someone else is onto them…then there’s no telling what they have up their sleeve next.”

Seraphina inhaled and exhaled, “Which is why we’re doing everything to catch them and why Voight brought me on. He knows I can help so why can’t you?”

Dante shakes his head, “I never said that. You’re outstanding at anything you do…I just can’t go through having you in harm’s way again.”

She gets close to him now, hand going to grab the side of his neck and he thinks she’s going to embrace him but she just brings her chin above his shoulder, making sure her lips are near his ear, “Well, that’s not up for you to decide.”

And she goes to exit the kitchen, forgetting her appetite but Dante’s not finished as he also whips around, stalking after her, ready to follow her all around the house to get his feelings out about the path Seraphina was throwing herself back into.

The battle was just beginning.

Dante ignores Manny’s question and decides to ask his own, “when was this?”

“Last night.” Manny answers, “l called to see what she thought about the lastest MasterChef episode and we were just about to get off the phone after she took the trash out but there was some…shuffling? I guess and then the call dropped.”

At that moment, Dante felt as if all the air was just punched out of lungs. His head drops and he’s rubbing at his face now, eyes clenched while trying to find some air to bring back into his body. “time.”

“Pardon?”

“What,” Dante tries to keep his tone leveled but his gut was telling him that something was wrong and his stomach’s been funny since he last left his person’s house two weeks ago, “What time did this happen last night?”

Manny blew out a breath, “It was late…some time after 10pm my time and 9 for you guys.”

“You said you heard scuffling—

“Shuffling,” Manny corrected, “but now that you mention it, maybe it was more of a scuffle.”

“Did you try to call back?”

“Course. What kind of guy would I be if I didn’t check on a lady to make sure she made it safely into her home?” Manny says if it Dante offended him but it’s not like he cared, “There was a text sent ten minutes later saying that she dropped her phone, cracked her screen and would probably have to take it to a repair shop or get a new one but I haven’t heard from her all day today and we usually send morning affirmation texts or checking in texts during the day…it’s after 9pm now and there’s still nada. White noise.”

Dante can see that Ruzek’s made his way back out of his peripheral view, “Alright, I’ll get back to you.”

“Great, keep me posted. You now have my number—

Dante ends the call.

When his eyes meet Ruzek’s, his smirk vanishes as Ruzek gets rid of the teasing that’s sitting on his tongue, watching Atwater trying to spit game once he takes in Dante’s facial expression.

“Dante, what’s up?”

Dante’s rapid blinking makes Ruzek further concerned as he lets the words slip from his lips, explaining, “We have to do a wellness check on Nina.”

And Adam doesn’t need to hear anymore, with Dante making his exit before getting on the phone again, leaving Ruzek to toss some money on the counter in thanks to the bartender and calls out to interrupt whatever Kevin and his potential love interest of the night had going on.

When the trio make it to Seraphina’s brick home, Dante only pauses for a short time, his eyes scanning all over the exterior that was basically his first safe space once she brought it and second home. Kevin and Adam both share a look on either side of Dante, tempted to ease his worries but they were loud enough as they stood beside him.

It was a silent conversation between Kevin and Adam, both eyes widening to push the other to say something first but soon they realized Dante whisking by them as he jogged up the steep steps. He stops at the front door and gives a quiet signal for one of the men to check around the back while Atwater chose to follow after Dante.

The door was closed shut but not locked and that was something she did not do. With a twist of the door followed by his foot, he pushes the door open and calls out, “Nina…are you home?”

The home doesn’t feel warmed by her spirit so his mind already told him what he needed to know. Atwater does the honors of going up the first set of stairs to the right while Dante is checking closets, scanning the living room and there’s a closed laptop sitting on the coffee table, before heading down the hall. He passes the second set of stairs, checks the half bathroom, and continues to the kitchen. The house looks as it should and there’s a carton of raspberry chocolate chip Talenti ice cream soaking in the sink, perhaps it’s something she forgot to toss into the trash being too wrapped up in a conversation with Manny…but it reminds Dante of a dark time back in July when they were kids.

That July where their scars got fresh ones.

There’s a snapping that irks Seraphina’s ears, a light so bright that shines against the skin of her closed eyelids. She can feel her neck beginning to ache right at the spinal cord, the weight being too much to bare as she struggles to get the pressure off. It takes time but the light that keeps flickering is supposed to be encouraging and it does get her to focus.

Leaning back against the hard chair, her eyes peel open but the one on the left feels tight and more than sore. Swollen. She tries to blink it away but that feeling is prominent and it makes the space above her brow experience a sensation that radiates to the center of her forehead, leaving her skull to throb. She had been hit with something when she turned away from her trash out back and now she was sitting face to face with the man the entire city was searching for.

“You don’t realize how fascinating you are.” He starts, “At first I thought my one more would only be Hank but then…I started watching you too.”

That unsettling feeling that sunk in was not pleasant. The woman winces as she feels the ties chaffing into her wrists and her ankles, “…this isn’t going to end well for you.”

“I could say the exact same to you.” The bearded man says, emotionless, “But I’ll do you a favor and let you get one last call.”

Seraphina huffs, knowing what that means but slowly let’s the determination kick in trying to buy herself some more time, “Did you really catch me off guard and hit me in the face?”

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” He answers honestly, “Like I said, you originally weren’t my target but I figured a two for one special wouldn’t hurt, much.”

Seraphina licks her dry lips, “tell me…are you married? Children? You should know, hitting women is a punk move but you got bigger problems than that. Kids? I hear the slammer doesn’t play with those that are kid killers.”

He scoffs out some laughter, “I won’t be there. I’ll be reborn, new by then and as for you…that’s to be determined. Are you a Phoenix or a scared duck hiding from the rainstorm like you’ve been doing over Dante?”

Seraphina clears her throat, “does that make you feel better? Speaking on things you think you know?”

He stands in front of the dark haired woman, hands clasped behind his back as he trailed his eyes all over her features, that alone made her skin crawl. It was as if he imagining all the ways to disfigure her face. There was a strong detachment in his eyes that would leave anyone shook.

“I think I know enough. I’ve watched all of you but the most intriguing happened to be: Hank, Hailey, Dante, and you.” He informs, “I needed Hank and I wanted you.”

“For what?” Seraphina quizzes.

He doesn’t miss a beat, “for new beginnings. We can’t take the easy way out but at least the comfort of a loved one in your final moments will make it seem that way. Which is why, you’re going to give me what I want and call.”

Seraphina shakes her head but stops as the pain follows her movements, “sounds like it’s more to give you a piece of mind. You think you provided all these people with peace as you tortured them for nothing?”

He has a cool blade underneath her chin so that their eyes are locked, “is anything really for nothing? Nothing is ever truly senseless. Look at yourself for an example. You’ve been here all your life, wishing on a star for Dante to love you back but maybe it’s a fever dream. Everything that you’ve been through, where you could have been, if only he took the romantic love you have for him serious—is all in your head.”

He’s squatting now, dry hands on Seraphina’s bare thighs. Her breathing hitches as the deranged man pulls the waistband of her Terry cloth shorts forward, “there it is.”

He’s in amazement and she wants nothing more than to spit in his face at him showing her vulnerability in this dark room.

Seraphina doesn’t look at him as he runs the point of the blade along her lengthy scar, “Stop touching me!”

She grits out but the killer can see that she was swallowing the rising tears down.

“Dante does love you beneath his own problems but he won’t allow it because he feels like he doesn’t deserve you. You know that. He chose someone else because that’s a life he’s known. You could have been a new life. Always have been which is why he keeps you close. He’s scared to have a life with you past friendship because of all of the things that happened when you were kids but most importantly he took a piece of life from you.”

The exposed air is cold against Seraphina’s old scar and she can feel her eyes burn; she just wanted this man to shut up and rot.

[July, 2009]

The horn from the opposite car is deafening.

A sixteen year old Dante is stunned on what he’s seeing. The classic mustang rammed into the back of Dante’s new low-rider, which was given to him by the exact man who decided to ram his car into the back of his. Dante’s leaning on his elbows on the hot gravel, trying to find his voice since his car was just totaled but that didn’t matter. What mattered was Seraphina happened to be in the passenger side eating her signature raspberry chocolate chip ice cream while he was outside of it, vibing to, “Forever,” by BBL Drizzy, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Eminem.

Although this was his first car through being involved with the gang, he took pride in it because he knew what he had to do to get it. He had to hide it up the street from his mother but she was no dummy, she sensed the change her in son the moment he returned the favor to his step-father, nearly beating the man to death. He looked up to, “Sad Eyes,” as almost an older brother with methods that gave him the potential to be a powerful man. However he wasn’t sure what this method was? And he scrambled to his feet as he heard the creaking of Sad Eyes’ car, he fell onto his shoulder out of the car, his eyes settling on Dante as he lay on his side.

“Why?! What was this for?!” Dante called out to him.

Sad Eyes just blinked as he spluttered around the blood that escaped his mouth, “Good Luck.” Were his final words.

Dante didn’t have time to process that right now as he circled around the car. His hands go right through the rolled down window to press a shaky hand into Seraphina’s pulse point. It’s moving but it’s too slow. She’s not conscious but the horrors were already settling in as Dante’s green hues followed the path of the crushed car and the iron fence that pierced through her abdomen.

There was blood everywhere. Dripping from the iron fence while pooling into the lap of her white jeans. His heart was hammering against his chest at the sight, she looked dead and that alone felt unbearable. He snapped out of it, hands moving to the handle of the door trying to pull it open but it was obviously jammed shut.

The sirens were squealing through the summer air in the distance and Dante just knew there had to be some sort of motive. There always was with this gang. Carefully he leaned into the window, pressing a kiss to her temple, breathing her in as he whispers, “I’m sorry, Nina.”

That wouldn’t be the last of his apologies. He went into hiding around the empty parking lot, just to make sure that the firefighters got her out and the paramedics got her into the ambulance. Dante was aware that the police would start searching the area but he couldn’t just fully leave his best friend behind. Not when their relationship shifted weeks prior.

Sure he’s thought about it, asking Seraphina to be his girl but he let the members of the gang get into his head. He only told the other youngest member of the gang, who went and ran his mouth to the main two in command: Sad Eyes and Joker about it. Rico aways had diarrhea of the mouth and sometimes Dante felt bad at how hard everyone was on him, until Rico told his business with Seraphina.

A meaningful intimate night that they all clowned him for. That she wasn’t anything different or even special because she didn’t choose to get passed around by them. Seraphina didn’t even want to be around the gang after they disrespected her, especially with most of the members being much older than the both of them. She would never be just some, “bitch,” and they told Dante that he would find plenty more along the way in this life. That did not sit right with Dante so he cut his time short with them that day (plus some days after that but they always came to him when he didn’t want to bothered) and gave Rico a nice busted lip on his way home. He felt bad about it later since the fourteen year old struggled to find his place in the gang and just wanted to be part of something but in that moment? A sixteen year old Dante stood on business, which the gang got another laugh at.

When Dante and his mother, Catalina made it to the hospital Seraphina’s father was just finishing talking to the doctor. It had been hours since Dante watched them take Seraphina away. He waited for his mother to get home from work, keeping his gun nearby just in case any other members dared came to his door, telling her what happened and she didn’t bother putting her things down. She waved him along, mind racing with a million and one thoughts as they left their home to catch the bus to the hospital.

Catalina prayed the entire way, rosary held in both her and Dante’s hands but the younger boy kept his eyes on the city lights that blurred by.

He couldn’t lose Seraphina.

“You piece of shit!” The boulder of a man hissed while yanking Dante up by the collar, “I told her to stay about from you countless of times but she continues to be hardheaded—must of been something you taught her. You bring nothing but poison, you started this. I know you convinced her to hide those pills that got my wife caught out. I know my daughter.”

Dante was breathing hard but out of anger, “you think you do, sir. You think you have the answers to everything but you don’t. You’re the definition of neglect. You neglected your wife when anybody can take one look at her and see that she was about to lose her shit. And Seraphina? The only time you paid attention to her is when you’re looking to point the finger for your miserable life. Tell me, do you really think I’m the only piece of shit here when you tried to drown your so called daughter the night they took Mrs. Coty away?”

“Dante!” His mother’s voice cuts through, knowing her son crossed a line but she never appreciated the way Mr. Coty spoke of her son, and she also wasn’t aware of what he did to Seraphina.

Her hand was resting right on Mr. Coty’s bicep tightly and she noticed the nurses looking, hands probably waiting on the phone to call security to throw them out. Seraphina didn’t need to be alone like this, this much Catalina knew and just needed these two to put their egos aside for the sake of Seraphina.

Mr. Coty huffed as he shoved Dante against the wall one last time, his head hitting the wall as he tells him, “You think you’re so much better? You’ve done nothing but break her and that’s all you’ll ever be, a scared little boy that brings nothing but damage. You think you saved your mother by beating that coward of a man down? You only ended up hurting her just as much and as for my daughter? Two broken ribs, neck sprain, and that fence went right through her pelvis. Do you know what that means? There’s a high chance that she’ll never be able to create life in the future and sure she won’t have to worry about that now but you’ll always be the reminder of what you took from her. That’s all you are, a good for nothing taker. So you remember that when you want to shit on my parenting skills.”

And Mr. Coty fixes Dante’s shirt, condescendingly patting his cheek as he stalked off in the opposite direction of where Seraphina lay. A sixteen year old Dante thought about many things in that moment, one of those being the act of swinging on the older man, there was a familiar look in his eyes that his mother saw so she sat beside him on the floor and brought him into her chest while he clenched his fists, holding back tears. 

There was a time back when Dante was in the academy, where he and Seraphina slipped up back in their early twenties. The age of sixteen was the first time but as they grew, it happened again. She slipped into a bookstore while Dante was eyeing a new boba shop that was across the street. He had a tough day the day before and agreed to hang out that Saturday to get his mind off it. Dante knew that he had what it takes but the instructor was a Grade-A asshole and that only pushed him even harder. He easily pinned out what type of cop he would be dealing with and heard the gossip, so he showed his ass just exactly what he was capable of.

It did get tiring and he was exhausted but wanted to be around Seraphina to ease his mind. Seraphina stood across the street, a bright smile on her lips as she had a tote bag full of new purchases that her bank account would give her shit for later when she went over her finances like she commonly did every reset Sunday. She didn’t like what she saw, another woman, with bright copper hair, clearly flirting and being too close to Dante for her liking.

Did she not see that he had two drinks in his hand? It wasn’t Dante’s fault, he was a single good looking man and could do whatever he wanted. Seraphina just messed up her previous date that Seán set her up with because she was too hung up on Dante. It was ridiculous considering that they weren’t children anymore but constantly bringing him up to other contenders was a red flag. She saw that, had to understand how that was off putting because she wouldn’t put up with it herself honestly.

So she took the risk, not wanting anyone else to have Dante as they got into an argument over her shift in moods after their outing uptown. She walked right up to him, grasping his face and planted one right on him. He wasn’t expecting that as he pulled back, silently questioning what that was with curiosity in his light eyes but that curiosity is exactly what led to him connecting their lips again, picking her up and leading her through her apartment at the time to her bedroom.

She’d like to call it a true false positive, taking two tests after the third time. Her OBGYN confirmed it with a blood test and she was happy but scared. Seraphina and Dante were friends, the best anyone could have but they discussed that it couldn’t be more until she ended up wanting it to be more. No one else matched up to him. They were careful—not enough—and she imagined what children would look in their friendship and automatically knew Dante would be a great dad. Just when she worked up the nerve to tell him, waiting days after the news…she suffered a miscarriage alone because of that terrifying injury when she was fifteen going on sixteen.

Asherman's syndrome is what they call it.

“Somewhere around all of it, you still love him and he cares for you immensely. It’s twisted because anyone would have called it quits but there’s something…enchanting about you two.” The killer is back to standing up straight, “I want to hear how much up close so…call.”

Seraphina slowly blinks while she stares at the device the killer is holding out to her, “No.”

The bearded man deeply inhales, putting the burner phone back into his pocket, “tell me something…when you went through your miscarriage…when that abdominal pain almost ripped you apart from the inside out, did you dig your nails into the palms of your hands hoping that would help?”

She exhales, closing her eyes and knows what’s about to happen next. She doesn’t grant the monster with a response as she feels the blade pressing underneath her nail. Her screams did not go unheard in the room close by which contained a non-coherent Hank Voight and once satisfied, the killer whispers as he enjoys the drips of blood that hits the floor, “Take all the time you need but I’ll be back. It’s time to see Hank.”

The state of Dante Torres’ heart felt as if someone took a meat tenderizer right to it. He was right on Hailey’s tail despite Petrovic telling her to stand down. This case quickly became personal for the both of them and it didn’t take long to realize that Voight got snatched as well. The team all knew it was a matter of time and that was not something they wanted to continue to give to Matson.

He wished Upton stood on her stance of shooting Matson in the kneecaps and had his own finger on the trigger to fire. The next moments he blacked out on after seeing Hailey climb in the trunk of Matson’s stolen car.

Eventually he’s heading down the steps, eyes immediately picking up on Matson’s mutaliated body, eyes gaugeed out, brain matter surrounding him, and a knife sticking right out of his abdomen that Seraphina was still holding onto. Dante lowered his gun after putting in the call for the paramedics to make their way down.

“Nina,” Dante gently speaks as he gets down on his knees beside a sitting Seraphina.

He carefully reaches out to touch her bleeding hands but she pulls them back from holding the blade, curling her hands into herself numb to her missing fingernails. “Hey, hey, it’s me, Tay. I’m here, Nina.”

It’s like she’s not here, eyes glossed over but she hears him. “Dante?”

He nods and there’s a sob that rattles from her chest as a bloody hand tries to silence it. Dante springs into action, bringing her right into his arms. His face tightens as he glances at Matson’s body and back to Ruzek who’s tending to Hailey and Voight, he dips his head for him to get Seraphina out of here.

“I’ve got you,” he says to her after repeating a nod to Ruzek, “let me get you out of here, alright?”

Scooping her into his arms, he spins around taking her away from the violence that was inflicted. Hating that he didn’t try harder enough to keep her out of this. Kim nods her head at them on their way by, empathy was heavy in her large eyes as she watched her team member take the love of his life as far as he could.

“I wouldn’t call.” She whispers to Dante in the ambulance, one hand holding his while the paramedic is bandaging her right hand.

Dante hums as he brings her in tact hand to his lips, “I know Mi Corazón…you’re the toughest person I know, next to mi ma.”

Seraphina snorts before her eyes widen, “…you didn’t tell her anything did you?”

“She’s knows we’re going through our bullshit again,” he mocks his mother, knowing that Seraphina’s reaction was valid because as soon as Momma Catalina found out that her babies were up to some bullshit, she was ready to bring out the chancla after embracing them and making sure they were okay first, “but not the specifics.”

“Good.”

Dante scoffs, “good? Not good. I know what happened and you should be more concerned with that than anything else.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Seraphina closes her eyes but Dante nudges her with their clasped hands, “…can we do this later? I’m tired.”

Dante peeks at the paramedic who shakes their head, which lets Dante know that there could be signs of a concussion. “How about this? Let’s talk about the rest of our summer plans?”

“Are you sure you even want to spend the summer with me?” Seraphina wiggles around trying to get comfortable on the stretcher, “I know you’re going to beat yourself up over this and it’s not necessary. I’m a big girl and made myself part of this, not you.”

He exhales through his nostrils, laughing internally that she knew him so well. How could he not beat himself up over this? It was his job to look after her, something they both vowed once they became friends at thirteen. Once he got into the gang in juvi, he made sure he had people on the outside looking out; not only for Seraphina but also his mother until he got out.

“Yeah it is necessary,” he starts but Seraphina doesn’t want to hear it.

“I’m tired of Chicago, Tay.” She shifts the conversation, although the green-eyed man knows he can bring it right back there if he wanted to but he decides to listen on their ride to the hospital, “My parents went to Kansas City as soon as I moved out full time to get rid of all the bad memories so why can’t I do the same…even if it’s for a little bit? My cousin Behati’s been begging me to visit the New England area with her husband and two year old daughter.”

Dante is quiet at this but he shows he’s listening as he lightly squeezes her hand.

“B and Makari always extended the invitation to you too, you know?” She’s hinting as Dante leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead.

He’s met Seraphina’s cousin Behati and cousin-in-law Makari many of times over video calls and the pair seems so full of joy. So positive and compassionate with the intentions of showing that they were good people. Seraphina’s always talked about Behati and hated that she always lived far and cant remember the last time she’s seen her in person.

“You should go.” Is all Dante says, sending a small smile to Seraphina who goes silent at that.

Dante lets out a long exhale after cutting the engine. He knows they’re pressed for time as he’s in the line up, and glances over at Seraphina who peers out the window in excitement. Dante dips his head as they both move to exit the car, she’s fixing the carry-on that’s on her shoulder while Dante pulls out the hard-cover suitcase from the trunk. Reaching out for the handle, they both meet each other’s eyes.

Seraphina offers Dante a smile and he takes it, a soft grin splitting over his lips that she gets a view of the tiny gap in between his front two teeth before he’s pulling her into his arms. He always loved holding her. The feathered haired woman rubs at his back in his embrace as he holds onto her like he’s going to lose her forever.

“I don’t know where I’d be without you and I’m gonna miss you, Nina.” He says as their heads rest side by side.

She laughs, “I know.”

Dante snorts as he pulls back to look at the amusement in her eyes. It’s been a tough time after the events with the serial killer but Seraphina always knew how to keep going and this trip was part of that. She didn’t need anyone’s permission to relocate but she kept talking it over with her therapist—something new she was trying—and with Dante. What kind of friend would he be if he told her to stay after everything?

“How sweet of you.” Dante is sarcastic as he gently rubs the sides of her arms while Seraphina winks.

“I’ll be back after Labor Day.”

Dante nods.

Seraphina uses her pointer fingers to lift the corner of Dante’s mouth who rolls his eyes in return, a smile breaking through on its own, “And if you change your mind or want a little break from this…from Chicago, you know where to find me.”

He places a lingering kiss on both cheeks before hugging her again, lifting her off her feet, “yeah, I do. I love you, have a great flight. Now get out of here.”

She kisses one of his cheek’s back, “I love you more and I’ll text you when I land!”

“You better.” He puts her down on her feet, letting her take her things and watching as she makes her way into the airport.

Once she sends another wave and he can’t see her anymore, Dante circles back around his car to get into the drivers seat. The hammering starts in his chest as he starts the engine, pulling away from the curb and he’s struggling to swallow the lump in his throat.

See Dante wouldn’t blame Seraphina if she decided that she didn’t want to come back. They always talked about seeing what the world had to offer but Chicago was all that they knew. He was glad that she was getting out, although she claimed it was only for a little while, the back of his mind was saying something different.

His eyes flicked to the new ornament that he hung from his mirror. It was a old Polaroid photo, on Seraphina’s fifteenth birthday during a late December, she held up a deck of cards which shielded the lower half of her face, arm tossed over Dante’s shoulder as he appeared unimpressed wearing a red headdress that was Vegas themed and forced on his head for the photo.

Written on the white space in Seraphina’s chicken scratch of handwriting she always had it says: I’ll always celebrate my bday and ur bday enough for the both of us! —Forever your road dog, Nina :)

Dante sucks in some air after glancing at it, blocking his mouth with a shaky hand in attempt to quit the cry that wants to burst out as he puts on a smile.

He really was happy that Seraphina got out, for real this time.

This didn’t have to be goodbye but it was certainly feeling like it and Dante would be lying if he said it wasn’t breaking him.

Guess he’s a sucker for pain and evolving it into something better, which he’s competent of.

When Dante truly sinks into this new found emptiness, a separate shade of darkness, he comes to terms with: not having the reassurance of Seraphina by his side or a simple drive across town where she resides, he’s not entirely sure how this will all play out and that petrified him.

“Torres,” he answers his phone, after realizing that it’s been ringing for a while.

The familiar gruff voice replies, “I need you down at the district.”

Crime was never ending as Dante put his foot to the pedal, flying down the highway to dive into the life he’s built for himself.

And continues to buries the rest.

For now.

𓂃 ࿐ 𓂃࿐ 𓂃 ࿐ 𓂃࿐ 𓂃 ࿐ 𓂃࿐

FIN.

Continue with my summer anthology writings & prompts here.

[proseka-headcanons]

proseka casts fav anime/anime genres:

ichika: has only seen black rock shooter and mekakucity actors

saki: huge precure fan, her fav seasons are heartcatch, smile, dokidoki, and tropical rouge

honami: watches a ton of iyashikei while doing housework and cooking, loves polar bear cafe and natsumes book for friends the most

shiho: number 1 mecha fan, adores both real and super robot shows, has seen every gundam

minori: love live, need i say more?

haruka: huge detective conan fan, has every season and movie on bluray, every volume of the manga, and infodumps about the newest case every week at mmj practices

airi: has only really see the occasional ghibli movie and kids anime when her younger sister watches, likes ponyo and kikis delivery service the most

shizuku: giant rumiko takahashi fan, has seen and read all of urusei yatsura, ranma 1/2, inuyasha, and maison ikkoku

kohane: watches a lot of young shounen, but loves pokemon the most, has seen every season and has every game, avid fan of the adventures manga

an: biggest sports anime fan in the world, loves haikyu, free, kuroko no basket, and basically anything else, cries at every season finale

akito: ena made him watch the first episode of riddle story of devil when it first aired and he has not watched a single episode of anime since

toya: ena introduced him to kyoani pretty soon after they met and he's been hooked ever since, hibike euphonium was difficult for him to watch at first, but now he loves it

tsukasa: watches precure weekly with saki, doesnt particularly love the series but wants saki to be happy, doesnt really watch any anime other than that

emu: keeps up with seasonals just to find the most absurd and unknown anime, number 1 estab life defender

nene: has somehow seen and read every samey isekai light novel thing in existance, she's seen it all, from in another world with my smartphone to re:zero, she watches regardless of quality

rui: number 1 science saru geek, but will watch really anything if it looks experimental enough, has also seen a good number of samey light novel shows because of nene

kanade: watches the occasional original anime from kyoani or mappa if mizuki or ena reccomends it, but she usually only watches and episode or two

mafuyu: stumbled across space patrol luluco in middle school and would rewatch it anytime she felt like life was getting to be too much, forgot about it when she reached high school until talking about anime with mizuki and it was brought up, now watches basically anything mizuki reccomends

ena: kyoani simp, watches anything with good animation, also watches a lot of garbage death game anime and is always on the edge of her seat but wont admit it

mizuki: seasonal junkie, watches the first ep of every new show and always keeps up with at least 10, never slacking on magical girl anime, the first week of january, april, july, and october, the nightcord chat gets absolutely flooded w their reccs

I SEE THIS I think mizuki would love madoka magica

[wen-kexing-apologist]

what are some shows you’re really enjoying right now? i feel like everything i was watching has finished up and i’m in a rut trying to decide what to start next.

Oo great question, right now I am only watching three shows, and I am enjoying all of them, they are:

23.5 Degrees (YouTube or Netflix with VPN)- We're three episodes in and it has been so cute and funny, it's high school but it also gave me weird girls of a number of varieties so I am having the time of my motherfucking life with this show so far!

Love is Better the Second Time Around (GagaOoLala)- Two-thirds of the way through this series and it is vying for a 10/10 rating for me at the moment. It's a second chance romance that has actually allowed it's adult characters to have an adult relationship with one another before they've even decided to date.

Unknown (YouTube, Viki, Yoku) We're halfway through the show and it has been blowing me away. This is a difficult piece in terms of subject matter both from a trauma perspective and from a relationship perspective since it is about two brothers falling in love, but it has been handling the material extremely seriously and it's got lots of good layers going on.

While I was on the small live watch list, I decided to play catch up with some shows that are already completed and just recently binge watched three shows and enjoyed them all:

Sleep With Me (YouTube and GagaOoLala) A very short watch, only like 2.5 hours total, this is a GL out of the Phillipines about two disabled women who enter a relationship. It is everything Last Twilight wishes that it could be and I very much enjoyed all the points it made around visible and invisible disabilities. Also, the women in this show are all stunning and I am in love with all of them. A mutual of mine just finished watching it and that inspired me to watch it and now I am trying to force it upon @solitaryandwandering

Ghost Host, Ghost House (YouTube) This show had one of my favorite sex scenes of all time, I guess it was less the sex scene itself and honestly much more of the foreplay leading up to them actually fucking, when they are putting feelers out. Kevin's legs are a trap and Pluem really was fighting for his life not to stare too hard. I agree with @bengiyo I really love how gay these two characters are. Great piece about grief, but it does have ghosts in it, so if you watch it keep in mind that there is some sad content towards the end of the show.

DNA Says Love You (Viki, IQIYI) Okay so I had some difficulty with how this show decided to use a lot of its time but Amber is one of my favorite character now, and I had to stop myself from rewatching this show the day after finishing it just so I could get more time with him. Would recommend for a queer character we rarely see in media.

Also, on a completely different note, I just finished watching Black Sails for the first time and it was fucking incredible and I would highly recommend this political Treasure Island prologue pirate show.

[krii-bolts]

✨KHAN AND THE NORI CLOSET✨

IM BACK TO MURDER DRONES THEORY RANT!!! AND THIS TIME WITH ALL THE STUFF IN THE BEGINNING AROUND KHAN AND NORI!!!

And some-what the 1st of 2 parts, as I got things to connect revolving N's Flashbacks.. and trust me, Spirals are now my most feared enemy by the end of this

Ofc, This is Heavy Ep 4 Spoilers.. So I recommend watching that before continuing down...

Ya ready? Cause I feel like a Drone with a Malware sickness right now over this.. Lets go

^ I'll admit, I had to go back and rewatch this specific shot for What Khan said and it was " After the core collapsed, I didn't notice the collars.."

This photo, by my Speculation and by the Dialogue, Seems to Be a Expedition Team to search and find other drones (Especially with that downed Drone hanging from the trees)

Also, NORI!!! Trust me, We got a entire fucking Bread Slice with this episode when it comes to Nori Lore and not some crumbs

^ 1. We see both Nori and Yeva (From eye colors and hair to the Badges hanging from their necks) in this photo, along with other drones

I also see some backpacks on most of the drones here, including Khan (I think those are backpacks) so further evidence on a Expedition team

^ (Insert Comment on Khan having Dad energy from what he said on this photo)

^ AND HERES THE START OF MY SPIRAL MADNESS!! I know we get closer looks of these drawings but still, we do see drawings that don't pop up on the other shots...

And by that I mean that Very Bottom Drawing with the Spiral and Red Text. All I can read from that Red Text is "They ___ Everything" and could either be "See" or "Hear" in that blank spot, or even "Are"

But it sure does look like a Gravitational Field, doesnt it?

^ OH BOY. 1 . Theres Nori's ID Badge, making more and more clear of that "Employees" theory that I saw before, like with yeva's badge

2 . " Build Doors against the coming sky Demons!" so it was NORI who was all for the doors. That Makes Khan's obsession more.. traumatic (Poor dude)

3 . OK. MORE SPIRALS. And also Drawings of the Corpse Spire.

Along with the Spirals and Spires are many Drawings of Disassembly drones so Nori mustve knew before hand that they were coming (I KNOW SOMEBODY ELSE ON TUMBLR HAS SAID SOMETHING FAMILIAR, I DONT REMEMBER WHO)

There also seems to be Red Text on the Spiral drawings, almost Like a Equation... and Finally

^ This. This shot. This shot is the reason why Im terrified of N's flashbacks now. This shot is why Spirals are my Enemy now.

Khan DOES say something here, and while It was at first hard to notice the first couple of times, I now know what he says:

"The Singularity Awakens."

Trust me, this quote holds wayyyy more significance when I go over N's Flashbacks.

ANYWAYS, More Drawings of the Spirals and this time I can see those Equations some more on the Bigger Spiral on top! Starting with a "F=" with the other half being a Fraction of Two unknown Numbers /symbols

The Bottom spiral... the one thats covered in many small equations, that one intrigues me. I MAY BE DUMB, but that looks like a blackhole with Time Dilation and Rotational Spin (From the graphs above said spiral), with the spiral going inwards and not outwards...

I'm not gonna include the Funny S shot, as I got nothing on it BUT KNOW THIS: N's Flashbacks are next for my rants..

[whatudottu]

You know, sitting here thinking about TFP humanformers I have rather found it difficult to come up with an idea for a human Predaking, seeing as how his entire schtick as a predacon lead him to being depersonified and marked as a beast before folks realised he could transform.

I mean, these are just humanformer ideas based on Predaking KEEPING his canonical treatment rather than making Predaking and changing the dynamics that way. It does involve some uh... dehumanisation under the cut to keep with the theme, so keep in mind if you DO read, but those parts are mainly in the 'struggling to come up with a concept that isn't racist' section.

The first ideas that I had for him would probably to make him into a super soldier, and sure it works but- if you attempt to 'discipline' a super soldier the way Starscream tried to do so with a predacon's beast mode, I think you'll be walking away with broken shins (aka not walking at all). Another idea was to bring a fucked up 'shockwave inspired' element that would lead to the amp 'beast' comparisons to be made, but the more 'beastman' version of this idea is VERY DELICATE to work with (read: comparing a human to an animal is VERY HISTORICALLY and still PRESENTLY a not great thing to do) but also doesn't quite FEEL that predacon to me; predacons are emphasised to be ANCIENT not that they are extant animals, so if Shockwave has done anything to beastify a human I think insecticons may be that unit of humans.

No, I think that for a human to be considered a beast without being racist about it would be to turn predacons from 'animals' to 'monsters', to Frankenstein's monsters. Though I thought of I think a vague Frankenstein comparison before, I will bring up that many others have also seen some modern Prometheus allegories between Shockwave and Predaking. I was mainly inspired by my [insert number here] rewatch of OSP's Frankenstein episode and especially the particular eye colour Adam was depicted with, but the basic idea of being a dead person brought back to life with the best pieces carefully selected by someone wholly dedicated to the craft of science (irrespective of Frankenstein's dropout status) plus how the monster is almost universally feared? Come on, this is the 'in' I needed if I wanted to keep the general fear of the unknown with Predaking and the Decepticon High Command.

And what better show to introduce a character that is this compilation of ancient human DNA and real corpse than a show that has previously introduced ZOMBIES and will later introduce VAMPIRES!?

If Shockwave shows up, after 3 seasons worth of knowing what a zombie is and that it's a real possible thing to happen - in addition to the fact your own fucking leader stuck a shard of 'zombie making' juice into his chest/bloodstream/whatever the humanformers version of Megan would do - with a creature visibly made up of the dead with eyes of something very non-human, would you welcome them with open arms? Adam Frankenstein certainly wasn't, not even from his own dad which Predaking can at least attest to actually having SOME sort of decent relationship with Shockwave.

In a way, it modifies the predacon fossil scavenger hunt to be 'global graverobbers' which in a humanformers setting might actually be 'go to this great battle and recover the bones of not only our but our enemies bones to provide a human base' which could EMPHASISE the monstrosity of Predaking's nature as a melting pot of old friends and foe mashed together into one fucked up super soldier. In a canon parallel this mixture of gene sequences and cadavers would still influence Knock Out and Starscream to think turning the corpse of C.Y.L.A.S. into their own super soldier would still be a good idea, having something else besides the dark 'energon' (if it is not still energon) fuck up the experiment and make a tech-modified human into some kinda fucked up vampire. Heck, with this old post of mine comparing the looks of the new predacons to the two big blue (dead) bots, this humanformers concept for Predaking can persist and continue to be used by Shockwave to create Skylynx and Darksteel, not made of battles long passed but of the freshest bodies the scientist would have access to.

But I guess canonically there has only ever been 2 zombie hordes throughout the entirety of TFP, if you consider the horde in Thirst to be very hungry vampire thralls instead (considering they were killed rather than revived, I'd place them under 'vampire'), so perhaps not a lot of bots can go 'this is terrifying' and not a lot of evidence that Shockwave can gather about why they are at this level of hesitancy; it's not a simple fear of the unknown, it's the type of fear from experience. But I have a trick up my sleeve!

BOOM, Altered Loyalties baby; human edition, of course.

This might deserve it's own post but essentially, a humanformers 'Shockwave's Monster' Predaking would have a lot more precedence for being a Unicron made monstrosity if the threat of Unicron damned creatures exist as a background constant. A threat to base verse to their position on Earth, a threat in humanformers because the dead outnumber them. All the while, Shockwave stands beside a being created from those very same dead that may or may not have risen from the corruption of WHATEVER it is within the Earth's core, only to announce this is a very new SUPER SOLDIER!? Zombies are one thing with their durability and their hordes, but this creature - this DEMON - stands there with advance agility, enhanced endurance, and superior strength!?

To later find that it - that HE - is not merely a walking corpse, but an intellectual, sends shivers even down Megatron's spine. Megatron, the head of one of the last remaining shreds of humanity, staring at the undead being not only made to be harder, better, faster, stronger than him, but capable of intelligence in much the same way as the poetic ex-gladiator.

He WILL NOT go extinct.

[saints-who-never-existed]

(^ I’m actually @cockroachesunite, and didn’t tumblr use to let you Ask from your sideblogs? Anyway )

For the Ask game! 3, 17, 18, and 38?

Love your blog <3

Thank you so much, my friend! I love you right back! <3

3. Three films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

Withnail & I (1987) Honestly, I don't think my answer is ever going to change on this. It's been my number one since I was about sixteen and every time I rewatch it, I only love it more.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) This one came to me at just the right time, tickled my funny bone in a big, big way, and continues to do so even now. (Also, check out the spin-off series Wellington Paranormal if you haven't already - would highly recommend!)

The Great Mouse Detective (1986) Childhood comfort film of all time, this one. It's Sherlock Holmes with mice! (And bats! And frogs! And various other small creatures!) It has a deeply irritating Scottish child in it! It has Vincent Price chomping the scenery and singing a villain song about gleefully drowning widows and orphans! What's not to love?

17. Name three things that make you happy?

I'm not sure I could pick just three! Here are some things that are making me happy right this second:

Cooking! I'm trying to look after my health a bit more and cooking new, exciting things for myself is part of that. I've just this minute devoured a delicious veggie curry with chickpeas and paneer and could not be more sated and satisfied!

Stupid Mental Health Walks! Continuing on in the looking-after-my-health vein, I've been moving my body a bit more and feel great about it. There aren't as many mountains down here as there are back in bonnie Scotland but at least I can power-walk home along the river after work and look at herons!

Work! I go through good and bad phases with it but right now, I'm in a good one! I definitely have the love and trust of my team now and there's something so nice about that. Nary a day goes by where I don't hear some variation on "Oh, just ask Saints, she'll know exactly what to do! She knows everything!" and I really, really like being that person who can be relied upon to swoop in and support others.

18. Do you believe in ghosts and/or aliens?

Generally speaking, I stand with Shakespeare on this sort of thing:

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say I believe in ghosts and/or aliens etc.

What I do believe though is that there are a lot of aspects of the world around us that we still don't really understand yet, that haven't been dreamt of in our philosophy. And I believe that to close oneself off entirely from the idea of the unknown, to refuse to entertain the thought of things outwith our own knowledge/experience, is both unwise and, frankly, just really fucking boring!

38. Favourite song at the moment?

Still obsessed with The Scratch in general, honestly!

[never-ending-fanfic]

my friend, my dear,, pls,,, rebels ask game numbers 1-30 👁👁 (and course feel free to break into chunks or anything I just NEED TO KNOW- I'm genuinely so interested in your thoughts)

This is my absolute favourite way of receiving an ask ♥️♥️♥️ Thank you for that!!!

I already answered 1 and 28 right here, 16 and 27 right here and 29 right here

This is gonna be a lot so let's get started

2. Which episode did you not like at first but grew on you after one or more rewatches?

I don't think I disliked any episode

3. How do you feel about the Ahsoka show being live-action Rebels season 5?

I have a complicated relationship with live-actions and I'd personally prefer they just make animated Rebels season 5 xd and I'm kinda scared they're gonna destroy the Rebels characters in that or totally disregard the show because some fans didn't watch it so they feel they can (and that they totally ignore important characters like Zeb and Kallus), I'm also too much behind all newer Star Wars shows so I don't really feel much about Ahsoka show yet, at least not til I catch up on the rest

4. Who is your favourite one-off character on the show?

Hm Zare Leonis I think, I liked the kiddo and kinda expected more of him later but he never reappeared

5. If you could change one (non-death-related) plot point in the show, what would you change?

Off a hard one, non-death-related? I guess I'd want to see more of Kallus in season 4 and more of the clones in general

6. What are your two favourite ships from the show (canon or not)?

KALLUZEB AND KANERA

7. Who is one character you feel isn't appreciated enough by the fandom?

I stay in my safe corner of Kallus stans, but I'd say he is overlooked sometimes. He and Chopper, who is like, one of the most hilarious character in the entirety of Star Wars

8. If you couldn've added an episode/story arc to the show, what would it be?

Kallus' backstory for sure, bonus points if it's an angsty one

9. Obligatory "who's your favourite member of the crew?" question

Hard tie between all of them, thank you (read: all)

10. Aside from season 4 episode 10, which episode made you cry the most?

When in the end of Heroes of Mandalore: Part 1 Sabine's weapon gets used on her people and she thinks it killed her family, I WAS HEARTBROKEN

11. What is one joke/moment from the show that always makes you laugh?

"We stole a TIE fighter"

"You WHAT?!"

Never fails.

12. Which design of Sabine's hair and armour is your favourite?

Hair: white and violet, I adore it

Armour: season 3

13. Chopper vs Palpatine- who's making it out alive?

Ideally? Chopper. Realistically? Chopper.

14. What is your favourite moment of the crew being a family?

When Zeb admits to betting Chopper in Sabacc and Hera lectures him like a mom and then scolds Kanan like an angry wife (in Polish she literally says "what kind of example are you setting?")

15. What is your favourite Kanera moment?

Everytime Hera calls him "Love" ♥️ (in Polish- "Sun"☀️)

17. What is your opinion on the World Between Worlds?

I don't know honestly, but it's interesting

18. Where do you think Ezra has been all this time?

Out in the Unknown Regions with Thrawn, camping and bonding

19. What is one of your favourite Kanan moments?

When he acts like a drunk, embarrassing dad

20. What is one of your favourite Hera moments?

All, I love that woman (you should too)

21. What is one of your favourite Chopper moments?

Whenever he wrecks havoc, so like 98% of the time

22. What is one of your favourite Zeb moments?

That one part where after the battle over Atollon they get Kallus' coordinates and he looks so concerned abd scared for Kal ♥️

23. What is one of your favourite Sabine moments?

Her training with the darksaber

24. What is one of your favourite Ezra moments?

That part when he discovers he is Force Sensitive and saves Zeb's life

25. Which of Ezra's two lightsabers would you rather have?

First one, the original with a built in blaster

26. Would you rather be stuck in an elevator with AP-5 or Lieutenant Lyste?

Bold of you to assume I'd step into an elevator and besides the point I do like AP-5 unironically and would willingly spend time with him

30. Most under-rated episode?

The Future of the Force (S2E10)

[rigelmejo]

I'm going to make a comprehensible input resources guide, these are some long winded notes on the process.

For the purposes of this guide, by "comprehensible input" I mean language learning materials that are specifically made for you to be able to understand the meaning simply by engaging with the learning material. Learning materials designed to teach you the target language IN the target language. The hope is that after learning around 3000 words and main grammar concepts through comprehensible input, along with some basic listening and reading skills, you have learned enough to move on to watching/reading things in the language made for that language's speakers. At which point you should comprehend enough of what's going on (the overall main idea of most scenes/paragraphs) that you can continue learning from what you can comprehend alone. You can of course speed up how fast you learn new things at that point by looking up unknown things (the same way that in my native language I looked up "opaque, morose, grievious, mahogany" when reading to learn their meanings quicker growing up compared to the vague understanding I had of the words from what I comprehended and guessed from context alone). But at bare minimum, the goal is to get a foundation in the language through learning material you understand the main idea of, and get to a point where you can continue to learn using material for native speakers and just engaging with it.

An example of a (mostly) comprehensible input study plan:

1. Start with comprehensible input video series on youtube that is made for total beginners (examples: Dreaming Spanish, Learn Korean in Korean, Comprehensible Input French, Comprehensible Chinese, Comprehensible Chinese, Ayan Academy videos of Direct Method textbooks in various languages). You may watch these videos only once, once with target language subtitles (to practice reading) and once with no subtitles, or rewatch/relisten often if repetition is something you like to do when studying. An alternative to a comprehensible input youtube channel could include: audio flashcards (since they're "comprehensible" since you hear the target language, then english, then the target language again) examples of this include Glossika Audio Files and Spoonfed Chinese Anki deck Audio Files, and also any textbook/course audio or sentence flashcard audio files (like Clozemaster Radio Mode) you can find that repeat sentences in target language/english and go through a SIGNIFICANT amount of vocabulary and grammar. Tips: Explore the learning material options because some teachers, presentation styles, materials will click better with you than others (for example I hate anki and can't focus but sentence flashcards with audio would ultimately work fine for this if you can focus on flashcards 30 minutes - 1 hour a day, I love Comprehensible Chinese youtube channel but the ambiguity and struggling to understand may make some people dislike the lesson style). I strongly urge you to pick learning materials that teach a LOT OF VOCABULARY ASAP. I can't insist on this enough. Try to get exposed to 1000 common words ASAP (within a few months), and try to find various learning materials that will ultimately teach you 3000 common words or more (because you'll want to know at least 2000-3000 common words before engaging with material for native speakers comfortably). This is harder than you think, for example Duolingo only teaches 3000 words if you do the entire course, so unless you're cramming through Duolingo in 6 months (and I spend 4 years on it so I sure wasn't) then it's way slower paced than you need. Glossika is a good option, IF you intend to get through the whole 3000-6000 sentences in a year. If you use a youtube channel you'll want to look for courses that go into B1-B2 lessons and aim to get to the B level lessons by the end of a year or sooner. If a youtube channel only teaches colors, numbers, my name is? It has way too few words to teach you and while you can use it to start, you'll need another course with more material later. Good textbooks/audio courses will have 2000 words in them (at least) and if they have less I recommend either skipping them or cramming them quickly then moving on. If a lesson is 10 minutes long and you aren't exposed to at least 5 new words, the course might be going too slow. (I found an audiobook in my library for basic japanese that taught about 40 japanese words in 2.5 hours... that is WAY too slow of a rate to introduce new words). If the course is more than 50% english, it may be moving slower than you need (and in a comprehensible input material like 90% or more should be in the target language unless you're using sentence flashcard audio where 50% will be english). TLDR: find learning materials that teach in a way you can easily engage with regularly and focus on, and find various learning materials to work through that will eventually teach you 2000-3000 words. I will give examples below.

2. Once you have a few hundred hours studied (100-800, it really depends on how soon you want to jump into doing more) find Graded Reading materials in your target language. The goal here is to start graded readers once you know the amount of words the graded reader you pick recommends you know when starting. So for example, Mandarin Companion books have some graded readers for near-total beginners, and you could start the Mandarin Companion books quite early after starting to watch Comprehensible Chinese. French by the Nature Method textbook is made to be used by total beginners, and teaches roughly 3000 words, so you could start that graded reader immediately upon starting french and read it alongside listening to Comprehensible Input French youtube videos. Things to look for in graded readers: they will tell you how many words you should know when starting (say 500 words) and the book will be easier to read if you don't try to read it until you get close to the recommended words (like say knowing 350-400 words when you start reading). Check how many words the graded reader contains: if you know 200 words and the book teaches 200 words, you may only learn 20 new words that didn't happen to overlap words you already knew. It would be good practice for learning to read better, but that particular graded reader will NOT teach you many new words. So if your goal is to continue increasing vocabulary at a fast pace, you may pick a graded reader with 100-500 more words than you currently know. It may be a slog at first to look up the new words, to reread sections, and to try to follow whats going on, but by the end of the book your vocabulary will have grown a lot. How many new words per book you can tolerate will greatly depend on you. When I knew only 500 chinese words, I picked graded readers with 300-800 unique words. 300 unique word graded readers helped me improve reading skills, and 800 unique word graded readers gave me roughly 300 new words to learn which was the upper limit of what I could handle. Once I knew 1000 words, I'd pick 1500 word graded readers with 500 new words for me to learn. Now that I know 3000+ words, most novels have at least 500-2000 unknown words for me and I just pick based on how it feels to read and how much I want to look words up (I usually go by 20 or less new words per page, 30 or less new words per chapter, when I want to pick novels where I don't have to look any words up if I don't want to...5 words you don't know out of every 100 words you see is usually the limit to where people still feel comfortable reading without looking anything up. If there's more unknown words than that ratio, people usually start feeling frustrated unless they look words up). TLDR: basically look for "beginner graded readers" for your target language, and keep pushing yourself to pick graded readers with more words for the next one. You will eventually push your vocabulary up to 2000-3000 in this way after reading several graded readers, in combination with watching/listening to some Comprehensible Input learner material.

3. Immersion "the fun stuff." You've studied for 1-2 years now and learned 3000 words. Or, like me, you are impatient and comfortable with ambiguity and have studied 4-6 months and have at least vague familiarity with 1000 words. You have at least some familiarity with common grammar, and pronunciation (from those comprehensible input learning materials with audio, and graded readers). You can now learn by immersing with materials for native speakers! If you have a high tolerance for difficulty, you can start immersing as SOON as you can bear it. I've seen some people start immersing knowing 500 words, basic grammar, and 3 months of study. I personally can tolerate learning from immersion at around 6 months of study and 1000 words learned. For some people with lower tolerance for ambiguity, they are really going to want to know 3000 words before starting to immerse. However, IMMERSING IS ALWAYS HARD AT THE START. You are not bad at the language, you are not dumb, you CAN do this! Everyone eventually has to "immerse" because even if you study to B2 in classrooms, having a real conversation in the country or trying to read a new novel in the language will BE HARD if you never practiced that particular activity before. Half of immersing is continuing to learn new things, but the other half is LEARNING to understand what you already studied. That part is HARD when you start, because it's the first time you're trying. So if when immersion starts, it feels difficult, I urge you to continue trying to immerse for at least 3 months anyway

Try to immerse 10 minutes daily at first. Basically try to immerse "until it feels too draining." Build up to 20 minutes daily, 30 minutes, until you can actually tolerate 1 hour blocks at a time. I also recommend picking the EASIEST STUFF POSSIBLE when you start immersing, since you're learning to understand what you've studied... you may not want to also get a ton of brand new words shoved at you simultaneously. Good options for initial immersion may be: watching a show you've seen before in english, watching a slice of life/romance/action show where often what people are Doing Visually is related to what they're saying, playing a video game you're really familiar with (so you can guess the words easily), reading the kids form of a novel you're familiar with (so if say you know The Monkey King story then finding a chinese kids novel of The Monkey King may be approachable), finding books and shows with low unique word counts (Heavenly Path's site has a lot of good recommendations that list word count, you'll want to aim for 1000-3000 unique words when you start and the lower the better). My personal rule for immersion has always been: I must at LEAST understand the main idea of each scene (or be able to look up only 1 key word every 5 minutes to get enough information to grasp that main idea) in order to immerse with it. If I watch a show and I can't follow the main idea of the scene, even if I look up 1-2 keywords? Then that show is too difficult for me to learn from. And as I learned more words, much of my immersion material became "I can understand the main idea of scenes without any word lookups, and optional word lookups are only needed if I wish to understand some specific details I cannot figure out from the context I understand." Once you've learned 3000 words, you SHOULD know enough to grasp the main idea of your average slice of life romance show or a kids show you've seen before in english. If you're watching a slice of life romance and have no fucking idea what's going on, and you know 3000 words? I urge you to re-watch the episode 2-3 times. Because the problem is likely that you're struggling to understand words you DO already know. If you watch something with target language subtitles, you can pause and read subtitles at first until you get better at understanding what you know at speaking speed. You can also use the subtitles to see if the thing you didn't understand was Actually a new word, or if you just didn't catch/recognize a word you've studied before.

In my experience, immersion progress went through stages. I imagine that if you start immersion after already knowing 3000 words, the beginning stages will be shorter and less draining.

Stage 1: immersion feels exhausting, you only tolerate 10-20 minutes of immersion before feeling fried trying to pay attention, you are pausing constantly to read target language subtitles, you are replaying sentences frequently to hear things multiple times until you clearly hear it, you may do immersion on and off with several days break in between each attempt, and do easier less draining graded readers and comprehensible input learning materials between attempts. Over time the learning materials start feeling way easier than they used to be, and the immersion material feels like you can tolerate immersing a bit longer. Note: if you start immersion after already studying ~3000 words, then you should know enough words that any word lookup should be completely optional during immersion... as word lookup would mostly be review of stuff you studied, rather than learning new words, and new words should be surrounded by enough stuff you know to simply learn the new words from context alone. This applies to all stages: if you have enough vocabulary to understand without looking up any keywords, its excellent 'easier' immersion material for you and you can continue to immerse without looking up anything.

Stage 2: you can watch 20 minutes to 1 hour of immersion material at a time before feeling drained, you may be looking up key words once every 1-3 minutes (or else feeling confused a lot), you are starting to reliably follow the main idea of scenes as long as you look up a few key words, and you're getting a better idea of what words will help you understand what's going on. You are getting better at "understanding things you already know" and no longer need to pause as frequently when words you've studied before are said or when grammar you've seen before is used. You are getting somewhat better at comprehending speaking speed.

Stage 3: You have gotten much better at "understanding things you already know" and now only pause once in a while when words/grammar you've studied is used, most of your pausing and looking words/grammar up is happening when you see something new to learn. You may replay lines to catch more detail, but you do not need to replay lines constantly simply to understand them. You can look up 1 keyword every 5 minutes and follow the main idea, or even look up no keywords (if the immersion material is easier) and comprehend the main idea.

Stage 4: for easier immersion materials, you are now comprehending the main idea of scenes without much effort, watching 40 minute shows is no longer extremely draining on your focus, and you now notice DETAILS you are not understanding. A lot more of the new words you look up relate to DETAILS in scenes. While you may still want to replay lines to catch more details or double check that you understood a main idea correct, you could go through a whole episode without ever replaying and still follow the main story. You could go through a whole episode with no word lookups and still follow the main story.

Stage 5: for easier immersion materials, you no longer feel it takes intense focus to follow the main idea. Following the main idea may feel almost as easy as in your native language. Most of your focus/feeling drained is happening with details and the words that now stick out to you as words/phrases you don't know. If you decide to look up unknown words at this point, you can look up more than just keywords because there are few enough unknown words it is not extremely time draining to look up most unknown words. At this stage, depending on how easy the immersion material is, you can simply watch for pleasure and pick up words from context, without feeling drained.

Stage 6: You start picking harder immersion material, and repeating various stages 1-5 with it. The harder immersion material gives you more new words to learn per minute, since the easier immersion material was no longer providing you as much. Again, you do not strictly need to look up any keywords when watching. If you choose to look up keywords, you can pick "more difficult" immersion material since you'll have word lookups to help you comprehend it. But if you choose to look up keywords or not, as LONG AS you understand the main idea of scenes you WILL understand enough to learn some new words from context alone. If you would like to learn primarily from just DOING aka watching/reading in the language, not looking things up, aim to pick easier materials where you understand the main idea of scenes without any word lookups. If you enjoy looking words up, you can dive into immersing in fairly difficult materials quickly since the main barrier will just be "words you need to look up to comprehend what's going on." I would recommend though, even if you like looking words up, to do the first few immersion months with "easier material." Because the first hardest part of immersion is learning to understand things you've already studied. That will feel very difficult at first, so picking things that mainly comprise of what you already studied will give you time to practice That Skill without overwhelming you with other new things. Likewise, the first few times you do listening-only practice... it may be a good idea to practice listening to stuff you've watched before or read before, so you know the words and the difficulty is mainly in just understanding listening to things you already know. That way, when you improve, it is obvious to you.

(In reality, my actual study plans consist of: some comprehensible input, some watching shows/playing video games and looking up new "key" words for meaning with Google Translate, a lot of reading graded readers extensively, a lot of reading novels and looking up words either just key words or every single unknown word depending on how I feel, reading along to novels/transcript while listening to an audiobook/audio drama, chatting with people on Hellotalk* I need a better strategy for output practice though, reading grammar guide summaries and grammar book portions when I want, and in the first 6 months of new language study I usually do 2000 flashcards crammed in 2-4 weeks in anki/memrise and read through a grammar guide summary in 2 weeks and cram study radicals/letters/building blocks in a few weeks along with cramming through a pronunciation guide in a few weeks. Those first 6 months I learn very little *well* but I get a vague familiarity with a lot of Common Words and Common Grammar and pronunciation and features, so when I start studying more in depth by like reading novels and listening to audio and looking up lots of unknown things... I have this 6-month basic foundation to attach my newly learned memories to. All that said... after the initial 6 months, a majority of my study is either comprehensible input or doing things in the language while looking up unknown words/grammar.

[sylvies-kablooie]

I hope the anonymous ask doesn’t get ruined for you! There are so many rude people for no reason :(

What are your thoughts on the new episode? How do you think the next one will go?

thanks so much! this is gonna be lengthy so i'm gonna put an expand thingy if i can- never have done it before so bear w me lol. below the read more will be my hot takes regarding Dox, Victor, pie scene, etc

if i can get enough work done this weekend, i'm hoping to give some of the new episodes a rewatch. when i see them for the first time, my brain can get really caught up on what is happening what is happening that it prevents me from taking in the finer details that make the show so enjoyable. i think this has been compounded by s2 focusing a lot more heavily on racing the plot forward rather than allowing for characters to process things slowly, so i would like to give them another go knowing what will happen and having my fine-detail lenses on.

that being said, the new episode did catch me off guard! i knew a plot twist was coming because it had been teased, but the victor spagettification was NOT what i saw coming and it actually made my jaw drop. i had assumed the spaghetti line to be a throwaway one so having it actually pay off was wild. it was a noble end for victor, although i wish we had gotten a chance to spend more time with him because i thought he was very compelling.

something i was conflicted on was taking Dox and her group back into the TVA and then having b-15 ask them to come back because she knows deep down they are good after they had just killed an unknown number of people and we saw them witnessing that grief in real time (this was especially the case w B-15, who was heartbroken!). narratively speaking i didn't find that super compelling and others have addressed their problems with that better than i have. HOWEVER dox and the others being squished? was also not what i saw coming, especially after that wtf thing between Dox and Brad. i have no idea if we'll ever get answers on that! but i wish we got to see more of Dox- maybe she'll come back around.

sylvie yelled at mobius, people got mad at his, but it was clearly building up to something that is going to pay off in a later episode. and honestly- was she wrong? why is he being so chill about this all? this is going to be investigated later, and i would venture to guess it's because he's pretending everything is fine and cool when in reality all he knows and loves is collapsing around him. seeing that lead to discourse rather than people understanding it as foreshadowing made me lose a little faith in people's media literacy LMAO.

sylvie. my beloved. we saw her smile over killing HWR and I thought that was really interesting, something i will probably write a whole meta on later- hint: i think she is both genuinely proud of and sorrowful over her actions. her conversation with loki in the pie room was something i highly enjoyed. hope is hard. that being said, i was hoping for more dialogue between them. they're still circling everything. BE BRAVE AND SAY WHAT U WANT TO SAY LOKI. BUT them teaming up against Brad was LEGENDARY. screaming "turn it off"? are you kidding me!!!! LOVED IT. Loved the "Are you okay" and "tech savvy" callbacks. mwah it was so good.

i have no idea what the new episode will bring beyond hopefully that bar scene finally and also the scene where sylvie gets to listen to her records because those were featured in the trailer and we still haven't gotten them yet! obviously it isn't the end of the world, but what does it mean? a great question! was the TVA all for nothing? how would that impact our characters, realizing everything they knew was a lie? great motivation i hope we will have time to explore!

thanks so much for the ask and allowing me to ramble! i hope to have more time to go over things again with an even finer toothed comb, so if i can get all my homework done you can expect more analysis :)

[hetalia-club]

I've actually never seen or heard of Space Dandy, is it worth the watch? What is it even about?

Oh geeze... you just had to ask me that...

So Space Dandy is about a Dandy guy...in space. There is not a really over arching plot until teh very end and I cant tell you what it is because it will spoil it.

But basically it is about a bounty hunter in space. It was written by the same guy who made Cowboy Bebop and takes place within the same universe a few hundred years in the future. So if you're a big fan of space westerns & Romano's voice give it a watch. Or not You'll like it even if you dislike both of these things. It's the one anime I recommend to people IRL.

He is terrible at his job but also not really. He is on the run from the police for an unknown reason which always has a major tom and jerry like vibe.

It's a pretty light hearted show a lot of the time and doesn't take itself too seriously but it has some gut wrenching one off episodes that will make you bawl your eyes out. It will also have you laughing out loud alot. I don't know why more people don't talk abut it. I know when it was airing people picked apart every episode frame by frame looking for symbolism and hidden meanings.

Each episode is animated by a different team of animators so one episode will be stylized completely different than the one before it. It's truly a work of art. Don’t even get me started on the music! You might not belive me but just watch the first few episodes. Don't stop at the first one. You'll watch teh first one and be liek "tf am i watching?" You gotta stick with it.

Everything in it is 10/10. The music, the singing, the art, the colors, the animation, characters. You will not regret it! It was the first anime ever where it appeared on American TV first before it aired in Japan a few hours later. So technically the dub is the original format. I would strongly recommend the dub if you are English speaking. Because they have a lot of song and dance numbers and jokes that just translate better. Dandy is very blatantly supposed to be American so i think ghats why they did it.

...Great than you anon now I have to start the rewatch that I was trying to avoid because I don't want to fall in love with Dandy again my little heart cant take it! If you don't fall in love with him after episode 5 if not sooner I guarantee your money back!

[madraleen]

Death Note Anime: A Rewatch (*vague manga spoilers)

-a little older, a little wiser, a little more anime-savvy. i think this is death note rewatch number 3. (anime rewatch. when it comes to the musical... i would rather not count.)

-pfff i don't remember light looking so soft! 

-i actually understand words and phrases now, ehe

-dude i love light. he's a terrible person and a masterfully crafted character

-like, light and L haven't even met and they already have insane chemistry, it's impressive

-i find this as compelling as ever

-raye isn't a very good fiance, is he

-lessons in manipulation by light yagami

-naomi's death is so sad

-watari gives soichiro three balls of ice cream! the others get two!

-the iconic tennis match

-every time i look at L i feel like that university girl that stans him when everyone else stans light

-to be fair, amnesiac!light having L acting all glum for TWO FREAKING MONTHS after everything he's done to light and his family, he treats L waaay more amiably than one would expect.

-WHY DOES MOGI PUT L'S STRAWBERRY IN HIS POCKET

-the second op never fails to baffle me

-but you see, i love L

-ep 25.

-so what was the thought process that made them go, "you know what this story needs? a goth lolita misa song."

-we interrupt the murder mayhem for a soft yaoi moment

-damn you, ep 25. damn you, light! JUSTICE IS NEAR! (getit, getit)

-yes, so. we move on to my child near and his low-key butchered anime arc. i have no right to complain though, i actually did like him the first time i watched the anime- although it was only after reading the manga that i adopted him as my fictional son.

-so much of the second part experience is like "it makes sense in the manga, i promise." but again, i have no right to complain, i enjoyed it and made sense of it well enough before reading the manga. just, when you have the original material to compare it against, you start to notice.

-light looks so good with the turtleneck tho

-it's so satisfying seeing light panic over near's actions, because near is such an unknown entity to him. L was a famous detective, and light managed to be around him pretty fast and control things. near is a total question mark. yes, he's a genius... and? what more does light know? not much.

-near, my son <3

-matsuda the goat <3

-so someone read the manga and thought, "you know what would make this better? if mikami stabbed himself with a pen. and the blood shot out like a fountain."

-thank you, dn. it's been a good time, as always.

[the-rewatch-rewind]

Back after a week off!

Script below the break.

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind, the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. My name is Jane, and today I will be discussing number 31 on my list: RKO’s 1937 dramatic comedy, or comedic drama, Stage Door, directed by Gregory La Cava, written by Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiller, from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, starring Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Adolphe Menjou.

When heiress Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn) decides to go into show business, she moves into a theatrical boarding house called the Footlights Club with other, significantly poorer, aspiring actresses. She keeps the details of her privileged background secret, but nevertheless struggles to fit in with the others, particularly her new roommate Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers), who see her as a snob. The conflict heats up even more when Terry is cast in a role that another Footlights Club resident, Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) had her heart set on.

I can’t remember exactly how I first discovered this movie, but I assume it was because I love both Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, and I was trying to watch as many of their films as I could get my hands on. They are two of the four actors to make it into at least 4 of the movies that will be on this podcast, so it makes sense that I would keep revisiting a movie that featured both of them, even though they apparently didn’t get along very well offscreen. I think I might have seen Stage Door for the first time in 2002, I’m not sure, but once I started keeping track, I watched it 17 times: twice in 2003, three times in 2005, once in 2006, twice in 2008, twice in 2009, twice in 2011, once in 2013, once in 2014, once in 2015, once in 2016, and once in 2022. Back in 2013, I blogged about the movies I had watched at least 10 times in 10 years, and at the time Stage Door was the only one of those I didn’t own a copy of, so I know that at least all the views prior to then were because I borrowed it from the library. When I finally got it on DVD, it was part of a Katharine Hepburn collection that included the 1933 version of Little Women, which won Best Adapted Screenplay. When I was going through adapted screenplay winners in 2017, after I watched that one, the collection somehow fell under my bed without me realizing it, so the next time I wanted to watch Stage Door, I couldn’t find it, and it wasn’t until 2022 that I finally cleaned out under my bed and uncovered it. So Stage Door would be even higher on this list if I cleaned my room more often.

In my last episode, I mentioned that what I really wanted out of Newsies was more of the ensemble just hanging out, and that is exactly what Stage Door provides. There are so many great scenes featuring Footlights Club residents exchanging witty banter, without in any way hindering the plot. While some of that comes from the stars, particularly Ginger Rogers, the supporting cast is absolute gold and features several relative unknowns at the time who became quite famous later, such as future television stars Eve Arden and Lucille Ball, in addition to then-14-year-old Ann Miller, who used a fake birth certificate to pretend to be 18, and somehow managed to hold her own dancing with Ginger Rogers. Gail Patrick was already somewhat established as a master of the cold, calculating secondary character, and she continues that here as Linda, Jean’s main rival before Terry shows up, but she later became even more noteworthy for executive producing the Perry Mason TV show in the 1950s and 1960s, when she was the only female executive producer of a prime-time show. It’s so fun to see these soon-to-be household names so early in their careers hanging out and swapping jokes. But I think I would still enjoy the ensemble scenes at least almost as much if I’d never heard of any of the performers. One of my favorite moments is when the oldest resident who is now an acting coach, played by Constance Collier, is going on yet again about “Back in my day” and somebody who’s holding a book interjects, “when knighthood was in flower” and Constance Collier is all offended until she says, “I’m sorry, I was just reading aloud” and her face and delivery are so perfect, and I have no idea who that character or actress is but I love her.

I’ve read several different stories of how this script came to be. While it’s ostensibly based on a play, apart from the title, the setting, and some of the characters’ names, it’s barely recognizable as the same story. Playwright George S. Kaufman reportedly quipped that the title should have been changed to Screen Door to further distance itself from his play. One story claims that director Gregory La Cava sent an assistant to pose as an aspiring actress in a boarding house and write down what the residents said to use as dialogue in the film. Another version says that La Cava had the actresses from the film hang out together on the set prior to shooting and incorporated their interactions into the script. And yet a third version is that much of the dialogue was improvised while filming. I’m not sure which is true, and I suppose it could be a combination of all three, or none of them, but regardless, the banter is excellent and feels entirely natural. While the slang is, of course, rather outdated, the way they insert snarky comments into their conversations feels exactly like how friend groups – particularly those who are discouraged and fed up but laughing to keep from screaming – interact in real life even now. It’s unusual to see a movie with a primarily female ensemble being so witty together, and I can’t even begin to explain how fun it is to watch. Granted, some of it does get a bit stereotypically catty, but even the least-developed unnamed extra in this movie feels like a real person. Beneath their jovial facades lurks a deep longing for success on the stage, as well as frustration at how difficult that is to achieve, and they all convey that so brilliantly. Mad props to the entire cast.

Like many of the movies I’ve talked about so far, Stage Door has a rather complicated relationship with sex and romance. Because production codes of the time prohibited most sexual content, they had to leave it kind of vague, but it’s implied that the character of theatrical producer Anthony Powell, played by Adolphe Menjou, is providing Gail Patrick’s character, Linda, with expensive clothes and jewelry in return for sexual favors – although why she’s still living at the Footlights Club is rather a mystery – until Ginger Rogers’s character Jean catches his eye and he gets her a job dancing at his nightclub. Jean initially despises him, and only starts dating him because of how much she hates Linda. It’s not entirely clear whether Jean actually sleeps with him – there’s a scene of her in his apartment getting very drunk, but then she starts talking about marriage and Powell has his butler send her home. But they apparently keep seeing each other after that, and Jean does seem to develop feelings for Powell, for completely unfathomable reasons, but Katharine Hepburn’s character Terry sees through him. There’s a great scene when Powell takes Terry to his apartment to discuss the role she’s just been given and she resists his advances, but then when Jean shows up Terry pretends they were in the middle of something so that Jean will see that Powell is no good. This doesn’t help Jean and Terry’s relationship, and most of the characters at the Footlights Club probably think that Terry got the role by sleeping with Powell – although the audience knows it’s because her father said he would help finance the new play if she was the star, hoping that she would fail and return home. Jean already thinks that Terry has previously had a similar arrangement to the one Linda had with Powell because Terry also has expensive clothes and a photograph of an old man she claims to be her grandfather – but again, the audience knows that Terry comes from a rich family and that the man probably is her actual grandfather. I guess showing characters inferring that other characters were having illicit sex was okay with the censors as long as it wasn’t confirmed? Also Powell tells Jean in the scene when she’s drunk that he has a wife and son, but later Terry exposes this as a lie, so even if he is sleeping with any or all of the people that characters think he might be, at least he’s not committing adultery because he’s not really married. Maybe this is just me, but I find it so fascinating what was and wasn’t allowed under these production codes. Anyway, in a similar but perhaps more innocent vein, Lucille Ball’s character is from Seattle, which apparently means she knows every lumberman who visits New York, so she’s often going out on dates with them. Jean clearly despises their uncouth ways, but the food at the Footlights Club is notoriously almost inedible, so she’s willing to let them dance on her feet and bore her in exchange for dinner. Incidentally, one of these double dates is what Eve Arden’s character is referring to in the line I quoted at the end of last episode about “a pleasant little foursome” and predicting a hatchet murder. It doesn’t seem like there’s sex involved in this arrangement, although Lucy’s character does end up marrying one of the lumbermen at the end, but it feels similar to the Powell situation in that it shows women willing to give men what they want in exchange for security, luxury, or both.

The idea that men always want sex and women either tolerate or use sex is certainly not unique to this film – it’s a prevalent stereotype even now that is harmful in so many ways, encouraging and normalizing incredibly toxic relationship dynamics between straight allosexuals. And a side effect is that it makes things very confusing for asexuals. Those who are socialized as girls may not recognize their own asexuality because women aren’t supposed to really want sex that much anyway. And those who are socialized as boys are pressured to ignore their asexuality because men are supposedly defined by their obsession with sex. It’s not great and we need to stop spreading this false narrative. But in terms of this movie, when you remember that it’s from 1937, the same year as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and “Someday My Prince Will Come,” it almost feels progressive to at least show women taking control of their own lives, even if they’re forced to do so within the confines of an oppressive, patriarchal society. There are a few times throughout the film when it’s suggested that these women would be better off getting married and raising children and giving up on their acting dreams, but this is presented as the view of society at large, particularly men like Powell, and not necessarily the truth. It’s rather empowering to see these women stubbornly taking the path that feels right to them even when they’re constantly being told to give up and conform. So from that perspective, the message feels less problematic and more encouraging, and that aspect speaks to me.

This movie also addresses mental health struggles in a very interesting way that I want to discuss a bit. Trigger Warning: I will be talking about depression and suicide in this section, so I’ll put time codes in the show notes if you need to skip through that [skip this and the next paragraph on the script]. For its time, I feel like this movie actually does a pretty good job of distinguishing between feeling a bit down and actually suffering from depression. Most of the residents of the Footlights Club are struggling to find work, but they’re managing. Kay Hamilton, however, is clearly not. She’s behind on her rent and skipping meals but refuses to ask for or accept help. It’s established that she gave a highly acclaimed performance in Anthony Powell’s previous play but hasn’t been able to find work since. Kay desperately wants the leading role in his new play, both because she needs the work and because she relates to the part. When Terry is cast instead, Kay is devastated, but insists that none of the others inform Terry how much she wanted it. To add insult to injury, Terry is awful in rehearsals, refusing to take direction and reading the lines as emotionlessly as possible, so we can all see that Kay would have been a much better choice. On opening night, Kay gives Terry her good luck charm, and then jumps out the window, killing herself. Jean confronts Terry and blames her for Kay’s death. Terry is beside herself – Kay was basically the only one who was nice to Terry – and at first doesn’t want to perform at all, but her grief puts her in the perfect mindset to play the character whose feelings she’s never understood before. She’s clearly performing to honor Kay’s memory, and all of the Footlights Club residents in attendance recognize that, and afterwards Jean and Terry finally become friends.

The main thing I remember from the first time I watched this was how shocked I was by Kay’s suicide. It felt like such an abrupt and upsetting change of tone from what had been mostly a lighthearted comedy. But upon rewatch there are so many signs. When all the other residents of the boarding house are laughing off their troubles, Kay never joins in, only occasionally managing a weak smile to try to reassure her concerned friends that she’s fine. Nobody knows how to help her, and she doesn’t know how to accept the help that’s offered. It’s an upsetting but realistic portrayal of depression, and Andrea Leeds plays it so perfectly that she was even nominated for an Oscar. Considering that, even with all the recent advances made in mental health research and treatment, many people still consider depression just a period of sadness when you’re not trying hard enough to cheer yourself up, it’s astounding that a movie made 86 years ago does such an excellent job of conveying what it actually feels like. It’s not really sadness; it’s more of a void. A hopeless void that you feel like you’ll be stuck in forever. And that’s what Kay shows us. I don’t think I consciously realized this when I was watching Stage Door as a teenager suffering from depression, but I do think in a weird way it helped, to see what I was feeling from the outside. To see that Kay was surrounded by people who cared about and wanted to help her, that the void was lying when it told her there was no other way out except through the window. I wish there had been a way to save her, and I don’t love the implication that her death was necessary to make Terry a good actress, although I don’t think that was the message they were going for. I think the film is trying to say that art and storytelling can be used to channel pain into something beautiful, and while there are certainly better ways to convey this that don’t involve suicide, I still feel like this movie is surprisingly respectful of mental health struggles, particularly for its time, and I appreciate that.

I know I’ve been emphasizing some of the darker aspects, but it’s mostly an uplifting movie. It’s just also trying to be realistic about the hardships faced by women pursuing artistic careers, particularly during the Great Depression – not that things are much better now. I kind of think having this movie in the back of my mind has contributed to at least some of my decisions to support female actors and producers on Patreon. If only the residents of the Footlights Club had had access to the internet. Anyway, there are lots of fascinating behind-the-scenes Stage Door stories, and I’m not sure if any or all of them are actually true, but I want to mention some of them nonetheless. There was apparently a random cat on the RKO lot that took a liking to Eve Arden, so Gregory La Cava decided to make it part of the movie that her character was almost always holding or playing with the cat. Perhaps the most famous line in Stage Door is Terry’s speech in the play, which starts with “The calla lilies are in bloom again…” This was taken from a play called “The Lake” in which Katharine Hepburn had appeared on Broadway, and, in the words of critic Dorothy Parker, “ran the gamut of emotions – from A to B.” So Hepburn used this performance to redeem herself a bit. She certainly shows more emotional range than A to B, although I feel like she still had more to learn before becoming the truly excellent performer she’s remembered as. According to several accounts, Katharine Hepburn was extremely envious of Ginger Rogers, whose career at the time was going much better than her own. Rogers had a much easier time taking direction and getting along with people, and just seemed to generally have more natural talent for performing. So Hepburn resented her, and insisted on sharing top billing instead of taking second billing under her. Rogers was disappointed when Margaret Sullavan, who had played Terry Randall on Broadway and was originally cast in the film version, became pregnant and had to drop out. So neither of them were thrilled to be working together. Since I love both Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, it makes me a little sad that they didn’t actually like each other, but that was kind of perfect for their characters’ dynamic in this movie. A nicer story is that Ginger Rogers helped launch Ann Miller’s career by insisting she get the role of her dance partner even though the director thought she was too tall, and apparently Rogers and Miller became life-long friends. And one last fun piece of trivia that I recently stumbled upon is that the woman in the photograph of Anthony Powell’s pretend wife was Verree Teasdale, who was married to Adolphe Menjou – so the character’s fake wife was the actor’s actual wife.

Thank you for listening to me talk through another of my most frequently re-watched movies. We’re a quarter of the way through the list already! Remember to subscribe or follow on your podcast platform of choice for more, and rate or leave a review to let me know how you’re enjoying it so far. This episode is coming out on International Asexuality Day, so I hope my fellow aces out there are feeling particularly supported and celebrated today. As always, I will leave you with a quote from the next movie: “You promised me a zillion dollars! And a nickel!”