#also alice is supposed to break some guy out of prison. that's a thing that's going to happen

[you-are-my-neverland]

ok. nano in one week and i have two (2) options:

drafting the post-chosen one wip. obviously this is the choice is should do with it as it is already started, i just kind of dropped off the last couple weeks. unfortunately, i have one glaring problem, which is that the most recent chapter went off the rails and i also reached the stopping point in my plot and now idk how to move forward. i know what's theoretically going to happen later on, but i need to seriously sit down and outline to smoothly draft. will i actually do that in a week? who knows.

start my pirate wip. the option i want because it's my current obsession, but i'm also very much in the creation stages and fleshing out worldbuilding details. so it's all bare bones, and i know starting it might be fun, but i don't have a firm enough grasp on the story itself yet unless i plan like crazy over this week. again, do i have time to do that? who knows.

[the-modernmary]

my best habit || aaron hotchner x reader (ch. 7)

Chapter summary: Your best friend confronts you about your revived relationship with Aaron and how much things have changed from two years ago when you run into the BAU at a bar. 

A/N: This chapter is definitely not my finest work, but we get some background on Hotch and reader. The part that is italicized is a flashback.

masterlist || read on ao3

Don't you want to take time and get to love me? We could build a perfect world I got tricks I really want to show you I could be your perfect girl - Wolf Alice, “Your Love's Whore"

~~~~~~~

“Okay, I can’t deal with this anymore. I have to say something.”

You looked up from your textbook to see the disappointed stare of your best friend, Aly, from the other side of the bar. She worked as a bartender, so sometimes you would hang out with her while she was working, maybe do some homework, and she would give you drinks with the employee discount price.

The two of you had been best friends since you were in middle school. When your mom died and your dad went back to prison, you were originally supposed to be shipped off to live with an aunt in another state that you had never met before, but Aly’s parents decided to claim legal guardianship over you, allowing you to live with them. From then on, you and Aly had become inseparable, even following each other to college. 

You snorted softly and took a sip from your drink. “Oh boy, this should be interesting,” you said sarcastically, and Aly rolled her eyes as she tossed the bar towel over her shoulder.

“You are acting way too casual about the whole Aaron thing.” You groaned, but she didn’t give you a chance to speak up. “He just shows up out of the blue after two years, and you dive right back in, head first, and act like nothing changed? You’re not even going to ask him what happened?”

You sighed. You knew that this was going to be a conversation that Aly was going to have with you at some point, and you were actually a little surprised that it took her a full month before saying anything, but that didn’t mean you liked it. “Yeah, because the murder of his ex-wife and the attempted murder of his son makes great pillow talk. No, I haven’t talked to him about that.” You rolled your eyes as you finished the rest of your drink. “And I don’t need to. The only reason you’re making this a big deal is because you don’t like Aaron.”

She stared at you in disbelief. “Don’t like him? Babe, how can I have any opinion on him if I don’t know him? I didn’t even know that you were sleeping with him until you called me crying because you thought-”

“I really don’t want to have this conversation,” you cut her off, and you pushed your empty glass towards her, wordlessly asking for a refill. You didn’t want to go through those memories right now. Or ever, if you could help it. “I don’t need to know everything about his life. It’s not like we’re getting married.”

Aly raised an eyebrow at you as she started to make you another drink. “Maybe not, but do you want to? Do you want an actual relationship?”

“No!” you said, too quickly and too defensively, but it was true. You liked what you had with Aaron, all of the benefits and fun parts of dating somebody without any of the responsibilities. But you understood where Aly was coming from.

If there were such a thing as “Build-A-Boyfriend”, and if you were being completely honest with yourself, your ideal partner would probably be a lot like Aaron. More age appropriate perhaps, less baggage for sure, and most likely with a different job, one that didn’t slowly chip away at his soul until he became a shell of a man.

But somebody determined and focused like him. With a soft side like his, and the same dry sense of humor as him. A person you could talk to for hours, who sees you and pushes you towards greatness. Maybe even somebody who makes you feel special because they can only ever relax and be carefree around you. Somebody who just wants to do good in the world and who cares.

Somebody like that.

Aly opened her mouth to say something, but it quickly closed it as she looked at the entrance. “Damn, there’s a group coming in. Okay, I actually have to do my job now. But we will talk about this later.”

You started to tease her until you caught sight of the said group walking in. “Shit,” you hissed under your breath, turning your back towards the door and praying they didn’t see you. “We summoned them.”

Aly looked at you in confusion. “Y/N, what-”

“That’s Aaron and his team,” you whispered, although it didn’t matter much, “and will you please stop staring?”

A gasp left Aly’s mouth and, in true best friend fashion, she didn’t stop staring. Despite Penelope’s invitation a week earlier, you had been able to avoid going out with the BAU team. It wasn’t that you didn’t like them - you actually really liked being around them - but it would have made things way too complicated with Aaron. He compartmentalized even more than you. “Which one is he?” she asked excitedly, and you had to reach over the bar to get her to turn around.

“You’re going to draw so much attention to yourself,” you hissed, and the two of you started to frantically talk over each other.

“Because I want to know which one-”

“- Tell you later -”

“- have to at least take their order -”

“- Really don’t want to see them -”

“- Coming over here now -”

“Hey Y/N!”

You grimaced to yourself before turning around on the barstool, forcing a smile. Penelope was the one who greeted you, but the rest of the BAU had made their way to where you were sitting. The looks they were giving you unsettled you, like they all knew something you didn’t, but you decided to chalk it up to nervousness. Aaron, however, was standing in the back and looking about as mortified as you felt.

“Hey guys,” you said, stretching out each word. You weren’t drunk enough for this. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…”

“Casablanca,” Spencer noted out loud. 

Aly smirked and leaned against the bar. “Y/N, are you going to introduce me to all of your FBI friends?”

You had to fight the urge to glare at her, because you knew what she was doing. She wanted you to introduce her to Aaron, but she was just going to have to wait. “Aly, this is the BAU team. BAU team, this is Aly.”

Aly pouted at you but surprisingly said nothing else. You weren’t sure if you were grateful for that or if it just made you more nervous.

Emily looked at the open textbook that was long forgotten next to you. “Are you studying at a bar?” she asked, amusement evident in her voice. “I thought only Reid did that.”

You shrugged and closed the textbook. “I was studying, but I gave up on that about an hour ago,” you admitted. 

“Good!” Penelope said excitedly. “Because if you’re not studying, then you can join us!”

Your eyes flicked nervously to Aaron, whose face was completely unreadable. You wanted him to give you some sign of what he thought would be the best, but he just stared at you, stoic as ever. The conversation that you had with Aly was playing on repeat in your mind, making you feel sick. You didn’t care about Aaron’s past. You couldn’t care.

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude,” you settled on.

“It’s no intrusion at all,” Rossi piped up, and you and Aaron both stiffened. Rossi knew about you and Aaron, so the fact that he was encouraging you to mingle with the rest of the group was a bad sign. “And besides, drinks are on me tonight.”

Aly laughed from behind the bar. “If that’s the case, then she is definitely joining you guys so that she can stop mooching off my employee discount without even tipping me.”

So just like that, it was settled. You grumbled something about always tipping as you grabbed your drink and your textbook before following the group to a large corner booth. You didn’t miss the smirks each of the team members was throwing your way, and you definitely noticed that they left the only open seat next to Aaron. The two of your exchanged tight-lipped smiles as you slid into the empty space, careful not to touch Aaron. This was partly because you wanted to keep a calm and collected exterior, even if the team did know about you and Aaron - which you had started to suspect.

It was also partly because the idea of being Aaron’s dirty little secret right in front of his coworkers was too tempting, and you already had 2 long island iced teas, so you did not trust your self-control.

“So Y/N,” JJ started, breaking you out of your thoughts. You had hoped, maybe naively, that they would just ignore you and let you observe for the night. “Does Aly go to law school with you?”

You laughed despite yourself and you shook your head. “God, no. Although, she did take the LSAT with me so that even if I totally bombed it, I wouldn’t have the worst score.”

“What did you get on it?” Spencer asked, and you saw Aaron perk up slightly at the question.

“A 174,” you beamed.

“Look at you go! You’re like our own personal Elle Woods!” Penelope praised, and your heart swelled at the use of the word “our”, like you were already a part of the group.

“I wish,” you chuckled. “But that brilliant bitch got a 179.”

A simultaneous “Who?” came from both Spencer and Aaron.

“From Legally Blonde?” you prompted, but were met with more confused stares. “The greatest lawyer movie of all time?” They shook their heads again. “Okay, you both need to watch it, it’s a classic. Miss Woods was quite literally the only reason I was able to get through my first year.”

Well, that and fucking Aaron every chance you got, but they didn’t need to know that. 

You heard a gasp come from Penelope. “We should do another movie night! We haven’t had one of those in a while.”

Emily laughed and nudged Penelope softly. “Do you not remember the fiasco we had last time we did a movie night? We almost burnt down Rossi’s house.”

Laughter erupted from the table as multiple parties started to talk over each other, and you were happy to slide into the background, making little quips when the conversation called for it. The most surprising part of the whole night was how easily you got along with the BAU group, and how much they seemed to like you. Less surprising, however, was how acutely aware you were of Aaron’s thigh, which was now pressed against your own.

Aaron had stayed completely silent since the time the team walked up to you, and you could only imagine what was going on in his head. This whole situation was probably a living nightmare for him, and you couldn’t say you blamed him. Your choice to keep Aaron a secret from your friends was just that - a personal choice. You didn’t want them to fuss over you or put delusions in your head of a future with Aaron. You wanted to be able to enjoy your privacy.

But the implications for Aaron were much more severe, especially now that you were actually working at the FBI. People would start to question his judgment, whether or not he was fit for his job. They would question if he had taken advantage of you or manipulated you, and that would all be before they even found out that the two of you were sleeping together years ago. He could very possibly be seen as just a high ranking government official who was sneaking around with a girl almost 20 years his junior.

In other words, it would look really, really bad for him. You downed the rest of your drink in one go.

Aaron raised his eyebrows as he watched your actions, his gaze heavy. His eyes ran up and down your body, and you could feel yourself start to overheat. He felt much closer than he was. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you noticed that the rest of the team had scattered among the bar - some playing pool, some ordering more drinks, and some in the bathroom - which left you and Aaron alone in the booth. There was enough room that he didn’t need to have his leg pressed up against you, and he definitely didn’t need to bring his hand down to your knee, but he did. 

“So, a 174? Impressive.”

“Mhm,” you mused, keeping your voice casual. “Does that surprise you?”

“Not at all,” he responded, no hesitation in his voice. 

His response didn’t surprise you much, but you preened at the compliment all the same. You wanted people, especially Aaron, to think of you as effortlessly successful and to be impressed by you. So you didn’t show them the countless hours spent in the library, and the many all nighters you pulled. You were careful to only show people the parts of you that you could brag about, like your class rankings or debates on subjects you were an expert in, so that it looked like it came naturally to you. So you didn’t look like you were struggling.

Part of that came after your mom died. You didn’t want everybody fussing over you and treating you like you were breakable, so you quickly decided to show that you were independent. If you didn’t give people a reason to worry about you, they’d leave you alone. 

The other part of that came during law school. You knew yourself enough to realize that it was probably because of Aaron, and how much he rubbed off on you. You wanted to be engaging like him, to be able to completely command a room without even saying a word like him. You wanted success like him. Aaron noticed that early on and challenged you. He let you debate with him just so that you could practice going against somebody smarter and more experienced than you. And it paid off. 

~~~~~~~

You stared at the email on your phone, your cheeks sore from how much you were smiling. You had already told all of your friends, but their reaction wasn’t as satisfying as you wanted. They were ecstatic for you, but realistically, you only wanted the approval of one person. 

Your thumb hovered over Aaron’s contact in your phone, debating on whether or not to call him. This could probably be a text, but Aaron was so formal when texting, even when dirty texts were involved. Besides, you wanted to hear Aaron’s approval, and even more than that, you wanted his attention. Even if it was just for a minute or two, you wanted his attention in the middle of a weekday, something you never got. 

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you hit the call button and brought the phone up to your ear. 

“Aaron Hotchner,” came the greeting, formal as ever. 

“Aaron, hi,” you started, and you were happy that Aaron couldn’t see the way you were nervously tugging the hem of your shirt. 

There was a beat of silence. “Y/N,” he said, surprise evident in his voice. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything is great! I, uh…” You realized that you didn’t have a good explanation to give to Aaron as to why you were calling him while he was at work. “Is this a good time?”

You could hear light footsteps on the other side of the phone, followed by the soft click of a door closing. “That depends on the subject matter,” he mused, his voice lowering.

All the nervousness you felt melted away. “I made law review!” you blurted excitedly. “I just got the email and I didn’t have anybody else to tell. And God knows you’ve helped edit my papers enough, so I figured I’d share this with you.”

You wished that you could have seen Aaron’s face. You wanted to know if he was smiling, or if he looked proud. In hindsight, telling him in person probably would have been more rewarding. 

“I knew you’d get it,” he told you sincerely. “Automatic or write on?”

“Automatic,” you told him proudly.

“Congratulations, Y/N. That’s a big deal. I’m sure you’re going to celebrate tonight. It’s Bar Review night, right?”

You hummed to yourself, attempting to calm your nerves. You dropped your voice, adding a more seductive tone. “Actually… I was hoping that maybe I could be rewarded for all my hard work? Please?”

He hadn’t said no to you yet, and you doubted today would be any different. 

Aaron chuckled, low and dark. “Mhm, since you asked so nicely…” His voice trailed off, and you could practically hear him stiffen up. “But I can’t tonight.”

”Oh.” He didn't elaborate, and doesn’t have to. If it were for a case, he would have told you. When he didn’t say anything, that meant it was a Haley and Jack thing. Still, you couldn’t help but note the disappointment that bled into his words. 

“Are you busy this weekend?” he asked, his voice soft. “We could meet in Baltimore. Same hotel. I can make reservations now.”

For the second time that day, you smiled so wide that your cheeks hurt. Attention was what you wanted, and attention was what you got. “Baltimore sounds good. Send me the details.”

~~~~~~~

You mindlessly stirred the ice in your empty glass with the straw, listening to the soft clinking. “What about you? What did you get on your LSAT?”

Aaron thought about it for a second. “A 176. I think.”

A bitter chuckle left your lips and you turned in your seat just enough so that you could face Aaron. You were so close to him that, even in the dark lighting of the bar, you could make out every feature on his face. “Christ, and here I was thinking I could out-lawyer you,” you teased.

Aaron took a sip of his drink — double scotch neat. “I’ve seen the way you like to argue with me. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want to go up against you in court,” he scoffed. 

“Hm, yeah but you like it when I argue with you,” you pointed out, leaning in closer to him. “Because then you get to shut me up.”

Aaron set his drink down on the table, his face never betraying any sort of emotion. “Come over tonight,” he told you, his voice lowering. The hand that was on your knee slowly trailed up your thigh, his fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake.

You smirked, deciding to mess with him a little. “Presumptuous of you to assume I don’t already have plans after this.” You didn’t, and Aaron knew that. He somehow always knew. 

In spite of that, he decided to indulge your teasing. “Cancel them.” It wasn’t a suggestion, and he punctuated his demand by squeezing your thigh. “I can help you study later.”

That was all the convincing you needed. You slipped out of the booth, ready to pull him straight out of the bar, but his face gave you pause. “Meet me at my car in two minutes,” he told you firmly, and you nodded obediently and sat back down.

You watched him start to walk out of the bar, only to be stopped by Emily and Derek. You watched as the three of them talked, Aaron's whole body tensing. There was a lull in the conversation before the three of them looked over at you, Emily and Derek trying to hide their drunken smiles.

They knew. They had to know. It’s not like you and Aaron were being subtle. In some part of your subconscious, you were sure that they knew long before tonight, and that this was just a confirmation. Still, you didn’t know how Aaron was going to react. You thought that Aaron was going to deny it, or even end things with you right there. Besides that one office-sex slip up, Aaron had been so careful about keeping you a secret from his professional life, even going as far as asking you to not call his office phone. In a shocking turn of events, he just smiled and gave you a small nod before making his way towards the door.

Figuring that you didn’t need to wait the two minutes anymore, you started to head towards the exit, blushing as you went. You could feel everybody’s eyes on you the whole time, but when you looked around, none of them seemed to be judging you. If anything, they seemed… happy? You were just about to reach the doors when Penelope cut you off.

“Does this mean you’ll start having lunch with me in the Batcave?” she said excitedly, not even needing to preface her question. They all knew.

“Whenever I get a chance,” you promised.

Penelope reached down to grab your hands, covering them both with hers. “Good! It can get lonely when they’re all off saving the world.”

“Hey Penelope,” you started, pursing your lips nervously. “Is this thing with Aaron and I… is it okay? I don’t want to make things weird for your team.”

Penelope gave you a sympathetic look and shook her head quickly, like even the very act of bringing it up made her sad. “Of course it’s okay! Hotch is happier than we’ve seen him in a long time, and that’s all we want for him. He’s a good guy who has just been through too much. But if he gives you any problems, you come straight to us. You’re one of us now.”

Then, without any warning, Penelope pulled you into the tightest hug you’ve ever gotten. You could smell her perfume, something floral and sweet. “Thank you,” you said as she let you go.

“Oh no, thank you,” she retorted, grinning. “Now you go have fun.”

You laughed and walked out of the bar, making your way to the parking lot. Part of you was still worried about Aaron’s reaction to knowing the secret was out.

But when you saw Aaron leaning against his car, and you saw his smile when he looked up to see you, all your fears were assuaged. “Who ambushed you?” he called from across the parking lot, his voice light.

“Penelope,” you admitted, and he nodded unsurprised as he opened the passenger side door for you.

You buckled your seatbelt and watched as Aaron made his way into the driver's seat and loosened his tie. “Are you okay with them knowing?” you asked nervously.

Aaron was quiet as he started the car, so quiet that you thought that maybe he didn’t even hear you. It wasn’t until the car pulled out of the parking lot that he spoke. “Yes,” he told you, and it truly seemed like he meant it. Then, as a joke, he added, “Although, I reserve the right to change my mind after seeing them at work tomorrow.” 

“What?” you teased. “You’re not going to spill all of the dirty details to your coworkers?”

Aaron laughed and fuck if that wasn’t the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. “I thought you needed to study.”

You shrugged and leaned over the center console just far enough to press a kiss to his jaw. “I do. So you better make it worth my time,” you purred into his ear, smirking as you watched his knuckles turn white from clenching the steering wheel. “Or you can get me off while I study?”

You thought back to what Aly had said about whether things changed between you and Aaron. On paper, everything had changed. There was no need for secrecy or sneaking around anymore. You wouldn’t need to travel an hour outside of the city just to be seen with each other in public. The unspoken rules were going to change, considering the two of you had broken pretty much all of them already. Aaron had changed, and so had you. It was impossible for it to be the same as it was two years ago.

But as you sat in the passenger’s seat of his car, Aaron grinning devilishly at you, you couldn’t help but think that at its core, nothing really changed. 

[adenei]

Ch. 1 - How to Win a Witch in 10 Days

AO3 | FFN

Summary: “She’s going to find some unsuspecting wizard, get him to fall for her, and then do all the things that turn men away to get him to break things off! Won’t it be the best way to see what witches do that drives men crazy?” But what happens when the man in question is a blast from Lily Evans's past? A Jily Magical AU based on the romantic comedy "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."

Thursday, Pt. 1

Lily Evans sits down at her desk. It’s a typical Thursday morning at the office of Witch Weekly for the ‘How To’ columnist. Parchment is strewn about everywhere due to a hasty departure the night before, but with a flick of her wand, the papers arrange themselves into neat piles. Satisfied with the restored order, she turns to her magical typewriter and the most recent article that lies next to it: How To Make the Transition from Hogwarts Graduate to Adult.

She smiles at her hard work and hopes that this time Amelia will go for her pitch. A new batch of Hogwarts students graduated last week, and this was the type of information she would have loved to have when she finished her education three years ago. Being a Muggleborn made the transition into life as an independent witch more difficult. There aren’t many resources to help young adults find their way in magical society, and even though she met with Professor McGonagall numerous times about her future, the meetings weren’t as helpful as Lily preferred.

Perhaps this is why Lily lives in a small flat in muggle London and commutes to the office via taxi or apparition to Diagon Alley every day, depending on her mood. She tucks the article safely into a desk drawer before setting about her first task of the day: coming up with new ideas for future articles. Grabbing a blank piece of parchment, Lily begins brainstorming as more how to article ideas begin flitting through her mind.

Lily always knew she wanted to be a writer. The excitement she felt after securing a job at the highly respected go-to magazine for witches was only to be rivaled with receiving her Hogwarts letter at the age of eleven. At least, that’s how she used to feel. Now, she’s stuck in a perpetual wheel of pushing out article after article on how to incorporate the newest beauty, fashion, and health trends that flow into the magical world faster than a Cornish Pixie prison break.

Lily shakes her head as she writes down another idea: How To Secure an Interview for the Job of Your Dreams. She’s sick of all the superficial fluff she’s been writing for the past two years. It’s time for something more.

“Morning!” Alice chirps as she passes Lily’s cubicle.

“Good morning!” Lily gives Alice a warm smile in return.

Alice Fortescue is one of her closest colleagues and friends at the publishing company. That’s the one perk of this job, working with some amazing people.

“Amelia called a staff meeting in thirty minutes. Have you seen Marlene?”

Lily feels as if a bludger has knocked the wind out of her. She was so preoccupied this morning that she didn’t realize her best friend of ten years wasn’t at her desk.

“No, she hasn’t shown up yet,” Lily worries.

Marlene has recently been dumped—again—and she is never one to take a break-up lightly, even if said relationship only lasted a few weeks.

Alice sighs. “I’ll get the coffee, you floo to her place?”

Lily nods and grabs her bag, following Alice toward the exit. She digs a knut out of her purse and places it into the slot before grabbing a handful of floo powder. It’s common courtesy to donate money to replace the office’s stock if you use it for anything other than transportation to or from your residence.

She tosses the powder into the fireplace and steps into the green flames, announcing Marlene’s address in a clear, firm voice. Lily prepares herself for the sensation of the ground dropping out from below her as she free falls into the imaginary slide that transports her where she needs to go. The trip is short, and within seconds she is stepping out of the fireplace into Marlene’s flat.

“Marly? You here?” Lily calls.

Her best friend tiptoes out of the kitchen, still in her dressing gown. She’s carrying a cup of tea close to her face to hide her puffy eyes.

“Oh, Marly, I’m so sorry,” Lily reaches out to comfort her friend with a hug.

Lily takes the cup of tea from her hands and steers Marlene to her bedroom. “I know how hard break-ups can be, but we’ve got a staff meeting in twenty minutes, and I’m not going to let you lose your job over another lousy guy.”

Lily doesn’t notice Marlene crawling back into bed as she busies herself with sifting through outfits in her friend’s closet.

“But what we had was special, Lil! I really thought he was different! He could have been the one!”

“How long were you seeing him?” Lily asks, trying to recall any details of Marlene’s latest fling.

“Only a week,” she pouts.

Lily freezes midway through pulling a dress from the closet. She knows this is Marlene’s M.O. but Lily still can’t help but feel frustrated.

“Marly, really—”

“Don’t! I know what you’re thinking, but he was special, I’m telling you! We even had sex and everything. It was magical. I cried…”

“You what? Marly, tell me it was just a glisten of tears,” Lily wills her friend to say it isn’t as bad as she thinks.

“Oh no, I full-on bawled,” Marlene responds, not even attempting to lie, “told him I loved him, too.”

Lily wishes her best friend is kidding but they have been friends long enough for Lily to know that she’s not. With a silent sigh, Lily switches gears. She realizes she can’t take the sympathetic route anymore. No, Marlene needs tough love. She strolls over to the bed with the outfit in hand and plops down.

“Marlene, I know you’re a hopeless romantic looking for your Prince Charming, but in order to find him, you’re going to have to put yourself together and get back out there. You’re not going to find him wallowing in bed all day. Now come on, you’ve got fifteen minutes to get dressed so we can get to work and not piss off Amelia. Alice is out getting coffee right now.”

Lily yanks back the bedspread, forcing Marlene to get up, albeit begrudgingly.

There, one potential crisis averted for the day.

Ten minutes later, Lily floos back to the office after ensuring Marlene goes first. They run into Alice on their way back to their desks, and there’s just enough time for Alice to dole out the coffees before grabbing their notes and heading down the hall to their boss’s extravagant office.

Amelia Bones is the no-nonsense editor-in-chief of Witch Weekly, who is well respected by her staff. Her office is spacious yet welcoming and not at all like what one might expect. Where a conference table and chairs should be, Amelia has sofas and squashy chairs, similar to the Gryffindor common room. When the writers meet to go over stories for upcoming publications, they gather there. The three girls barely make it in time, taking their seats on the sofa nearest Ms. Bones. It’s the only empty spot left.

Amelia clears her throat. It’s all she needs to do to command the attention of her staff. “Alright, let’s get started everyone. We need to go over assignments for the July issue. Dorcas, what are you thinking this month?”

Dorcas, the office suck-up, bounces up and down in her seat as she lays out her laundry list of articles. “I’ve got an exposé on gilly water with an exclusive interview from a mermaid who says it will help keep you thin, but I haven’t come up with a title yet. And Traveling by Portkey: What to Pack and Not to Pack. Then, I’ve also got an interview set up with Madam Malkin, who details the latest robe trends. Oh! And I almost forgot about my outline of A Look Into a Day in the Life of The Hobgoblins!”

Lily needs to remember to keep her face passive as Dorcas prattles on. Does she do anything besides work? Who has time for four articles? She has to suppress the eye roll that’s threatening when she catches Alice’s glance. It’s evident her friend is sharing the same thoughts.

“Wonderful, wonderful. Lily, what’s our resident How To girl have in store for us this month?”

Here goes nothing…

“Well, actually, I’ve been working on this piece that I think will be a great spin on the How To article. It’s about helping recent Hogwarts graduates find their footing after they finish their seventh year.”

She gauges the room for reception and notices blank stares coming from the entire writing team. Fighting to keep her facial expression passive, Lily chances a glance at her boss, whose opinion is the one that matters most. There’s an uncomfortable churn in her stomach as a result.

Amelia clicks her tongue in a disapproving tone. “Lily, Lily, Lily. How many times do I have to tell you that most of our clientele are in their twenties and thirties? No one is going to want to read something like that! That’s what they have parents and families for! Besides, aren’t the Hogwarts professors supposed to help the young ones with their career choices? That’s not our wheelhouse.”

“But—”

Lily wants to bring up the Muggleborn perspective, but Amelia doesn’t give her the chance.

“Lily, your job is to write the How To column for Witch Weekly, not to help recent grads find their place in this world. I hired you to write fun, upbeat stories that will help witches in all aspects of their lives, and that is what I expect.” Lily’s shoulders droop in disappointment as Amelia wastes no time moving on to her next victim. “Marlene?”

“Oh, um, I—I’m still thinking—” Marlene stutters.

Lily notices Amelia’s hard stare and speaks up on her friend’s behalf.

“Amelia, Marlene’s going through a rough time right now. She got dumped.”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Marlene,” Amelia sympathizes as the rest of the group murmurs their respects to her unfortunate news.

Marlene grimaces as she explains, “Yes, I’m sorry, Amelia. I’ve been taking things a bit hard and haven’t really been eating. It’s just hard to move on when I thought he was—” she hiccups and Lily can tell she’s stifling a sob, “the one.”

“Hmm, yes, that is a predicament, isn’t it?” Amelia agrees before perking up. “Write about it.”

“What?”

“You can make an article out of that, can’t you?” Amelia asks the question as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“N-no! I can’t write about my personal life!” Marlene argues.

“If she won’t, I will,” Dorcas chimes in. She sounds too eager at the prospect of taking on a fifth article.

Amelia’s eyebrows crease as she ponders Dorcas’s proposition. Lily is horrified that Amelia is even considering this and decides to step in.

“Or I can!”

“What?” Marlene looks at her with wide eyes as Amelia trains her narrow gaze on Lily.

“How?” her boss wants to know.

“Well, I—I wouldn’t write about the break-up, per se, since that wouldn’t be a good How To article, but what if I turned it into something different?”

Lily is grasping at straws, trying to come up with something that would prevent her friend’s dirty laundry from being hung out to dry. She finds herself stuttering and stalling until suddenly, an idea pops in her head.

“What if I wrote the opposite of getting dumped? Well, it wouldn’t exactly be the opposite, but I’d find a guy and do all the classic things that women do that drive men away. Instead of trying to win the guy over, I’ll get him to dump me instead. Then readers will know what to do and what not to do.”

Lily watches her boss for any indication that she approves. Amelia’s pensive look quickly turns to a conspiring smile as she points her quill at Lily with a gleam in her eyes.

“That’s brilliant, Lily, absolutely brilliant! You think you can find a man, win him over and get him to dump you?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Lily doesn’t appreciate her boss’s insinuation that she’d be easy to break up with, but if it gets Amelia off Marlene’s back, she’ll take it.

“I can see it now. We’ll call it How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days.”

Lily is relieved, having succeeded in giving Marlene extra time to come up with a story, but the timeframe concerns her.

“Um, Amelia...why ten days?”

“Because we have to publish in eleven.”

She says this as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And it’s only after Lily processes Amelia’s words that she realizes how impossible it all seems. She hasn’t dated anyone in a while. No one is even on her radar to date.

Looks like my Thursday is now going to be spent looking for an unsuspecting suitor.

Lily stifles a sigh as she attempts to focus on the rest of the meeting, but her mind has other plans. She fixates on whether or not she’ll be able to pull this off. It seems impossible, but she has no choice. She has to at least try.

As they exit the meeting, Lily, Alice, and Marlene are trailing behind Amelia, who is on her way to fetch her next appointment.

“If I’m going to pull this off, I need to find a guy tonight,” Lily expresses to her friends.

“Don’t worry, we’ll help!” Alice reassures her. “Let’s go to that swanky bar after work. The prospect of this article calls for a finer crowd.”

“Abbott's?” Lily shoots an incredulous look at her friend.

At first, she wants to protest, but Alice has a point. Lily needs to dupe a guy who’s not just out for a one-night stand, and there are no promises that she’ll be able to find that at the Leaky. No, she needs to glam up and go all-out to find a guy. One that shows promise, but not too much promise because she can’t let herself fall for him anyway.

Her thoughts are cut off as Alice and Marlene both stop, causing her to stumble into them. She looks up to see the source of their delay. Amelia has reached her destination, which happens to be directly in front of them as she greets two women. Lily isn’t quite sure why they didn’t swerve and continue around them.

“...Ah, Narcissa, Andromeda, it’s so nice to meet you! Come with me to my office so we can discuss the ads for this issue. I’m hoping you can help us spice up our pages through your clientele.” Amelia turns and sees Lily and her colleagues standing there. A friendly smile crosses her face as the three realize they’ve been caught eavesdropping and scurry to get back to their cubicles.

Lily returns the smile and looks to the two women to see the blonde eyeing her, a sense of intrigue dancing in her eyes. She wonders what that’s about.

“Aren’t you the How To girl?” the blonde asks.

Lily’s not sure what she’s expecting the woman to say, but it’s not that. It takes her a moment to respond.

“Um, yes. It’s Lily, Lily Evans. Nice to meet you.”

Lily doesn’t bother to extend a polite hand because of the blonde’s now scrutinizing gaze. She’s ready to turn and walk away before the awkward conversation can continue, but Amelia stops in her tracks.

“Yes! Lily is wonderful, isn’t she? She’s just about to start on her newest article: How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Doesn’t it sound exciting?”

The darker haired woman raises an eyebrow. “It does. What does that entail?”

Lily opens her mouth to speak, but Amelia cuts her off again. “She’s going to find some unsuspecting wizard, get him to fall for her, and then do all the things that turn men away to get him to break things off! Won’t it be the best way to see what witches do that drives men crazy?”

“That does sound interesting,” the blonde responds.

“Yes, fascinating,” agrees the brunette in a bored tone.

Lily doesn’t appreciate their judgemental stares and chooses to dismiss herself. “Thanks. It was nice meeting you,” she lies as she continues on toward her office.

The day is young, but she no longer has time to waste. She needs to develop her plan before setting out to find a wizard later in the evening. This is turning out to be the most peculiar assignment yet, but if Lily can pull it off, then maybe Amelia will give her a chance on the other articles she has in her queue.

You’ve got this, Evans. Now get to work.

[queenjunoking]

The Stalker pt 3

CW: Noncon - Kidnapping - Stalking, Voyeurism

“What’s it say?” Alice asked Caldwell as she sat at the table and ate dinner. She was enjoying the hot chocolate recipe that Scout had sent earlier. A recipe made by Melody herself. It made her feel giddy.

Caldwell read over the note a second time. He wanted to sigh, but it wouldn’t be proper to do so in front of Alice. Today had been quite nice, Alice had been in a good mood the entire day. She was up and about by herself. They had been rare the last few weeks.

This would certainly tank that mood.

“Miss Scout has recorded a confrontation between Melody and a man named Brad. He was being… well a douchebag.” Caldwell didn’t see a reason to mince words. He knew what would be happening and it was best to just be honest about things like this.

“Howso?” She asked. Caldwell could feel her mood suddenly swing from happy to cold.

“Scout said he was badgering her about not contacting him after a date. Apparently her friends set her up with him and by the sounds of it Melody was less than impressed. He refused to leave when asked and Scout ended up stepping in between them to de-escalate things.” He could feel the room dropping in temperature the more he talked. “Scout said she had a file made up in case you were interested.”

Caldwell didn’t even get to finish his sentence before Alice was typing away on her phone, probably authorizing whatever payments Scout wanted for the information. After a few minutes she placed her phone down and took another sip of her hot chocolate. She no longer looked like she was enjoying it. Caldwell knew better than to speak unasked when she was in this kind of mood, so he just stood in silence as she waited for a reply.

Eventually her phone made a noise and she rushed to check her phone. She was reading something intently, it was probably the file Scout had referenced.

“Brad Gatlin. Nephew of Damon Gatlin.” It took a moment before she could remember who that was. Brad sounded a lot like him. Damon was some rich hedge fund manager turned Society member. He like to act like he was a big shot, but he wasn’t that far up the ladder. “What matters is Damon is a first generation Society member and Brad’s branch of the family is not part of the Society. Damon has also not paid to place Brad on the list of people we cannot take.”

“Would you like me to contact the usual team?” Caldwell knew what Alice would want. This wasn’t the first time it had happened.

“We still have an open chamber, correct?” The look Alice gave him unsettled him. She could be a very pleasant person. But even she had her moods.

“Yes, Miss Alice. There is one chamber open right now.”

“Then yes.” Alice finished her cup of lukewarm hot chocolate before getting up. “Let them know they’ll get paid double if he’s here tonight.”

{&}

“Where is he? I demand you hand him over!”

Scout rolled her eyes as Damon continued to yell at her. She wasn’t sure who blabbed and told Damon that she was meeting this team at this warehouse, but she’d make them pay.

It had been an uninteresting capture. Just a drunk guy getting pulled into a van and knocked out. She was here to make sure the transfer to Alice went smoothly. Luckily Brad was already hidden away in here before Damon showed up. She had sent a text to Alice, letting her know he had shown up. She hated having to do things like that, bringing up problems or needing assistance meant she might lose some of her pay.

“Mister Gatlin, your nephew is a legitimate capture. You were made aware that, if you want a family member protected, you need to pay to have them put on the list of people the Society won’t capture.” Her patience for idiots like this was always thin and conversations like this just made it thinner.

“Then let me buy him back.”

“Our rules don’t allow you to own a family member. Even if I was the one who now owned him, you couldn’t buy him for me. Get over it.” She turned to walk away, but stopped when she heard a click.

She turned around and saw a gun pointed at her. “Then how about you just let him go?”

Scout sighed. “Mister Gatlin, we can’t let him go. He’s already been captured.”

“The way I see it, if you’re all dead then he’s no longer captured.” Scout could see his hand shaking. He was hesitating.

Scout just sighed again. “I figured you’d be aware an intent to capture was stated to the appropriate people. They know who the team is and who they’re taking. If you kill us you’ll be the first suspect.”

“Shut up!” He yelled at her, waving the gun around.

“Didn’t you buy the woman who was originally supposed to get your job? I would have thought you’d know how this works.” Scout decided to just keep poking at him.

“What would some low rank like you even know? I bet you can’t even afford a slave!”

She was about to make a retort, but she heard a gunshot ring out. But it wasn’t from Damon’s gun. She watched his gun fall to the floor as he yelled and cradled his arm.

A woman walked out of the shadows. She had black hair, blue eyes and was dressed in leather. Scout recognized her instantly and regretted asking for help.

Freya Eberhard. The next in line to be the head of one of the twelve most powerful families in the Society.

And one of Alice’s suitors.

“Damon Gatlin, trying to threaten a fellow member with a weapon is a crime. Your nephew is the property of Alice Barlow now. Because of your decision to break Society rules by trying to stop a legitimate sale and threatening a member, you’ll be taken to one of our prisons to await judgement.” Two men appeared from behind Freya and walked towards Damon. Scout sighed and sat down on a crate. She hated when the enforcers got involved with anything.

Damon didn’t say anything as he was dragged out, but Scout could see the hate he had in his eyes. His judgement would be swift. People like Damon, people who had jobs and lives largely in the normal world, couldn’t vanish for long. Either he’d be let go with a warming and heavily watched or he’d have a drastic punishment. More than likely he wouldn’t get much of a punishment. Scout wasn’t anyone of importance and making Damon disappear was more trouble than it was worth.

Once he was gone, Freya approached Scout. Though, Scout really wasn’t in the mood to deal with her. “Still doing things for Alice, Scout?”

Scout stood up straight and crossed her arms. “As are you.”

“I’m getting paid for it. You are not.” Freya towered over Scout, but if she was easily intimidated she would never have succeeded in this line of work.

“And I don’t like you working for her. You’re just encouraging her. Why not just do what you normally do and stop stalking people for Alice?” She knew Freya was upset with her, she just didn't care.

“The enforcers declared hunting suspended in my favorite cities so I now have to wait for you to lift it.”

Freya exhaled hard through her nose. “Can’t just take a break until they reopen?” A few cracks started to appear in Freya’s cool exterior as she was getting annoyed. “What’s it going to cost me to get you to stop taking work from Alice.”

“Honestly?” Scout hopped off the crate and started to walk away. “I’m not going to accept your money. I’m having fun, plus knowing that you’re upset I’m working for her is a reward in and of itself.”

Scout stopped walking away when two more men walked in, different ones from before. They stood by Freya, awaiting orders.

“About time you showed up. Find Bradly and transport him to Alice Barlow’s estate. I’ll be meeting you there.” Freya turned to leave, but Scout cut her off.

“Excuse me? That’s my job.”

“No. It was the requisition team’s job. And they were compromised and giving away information. Therefore the enforcers will be talking over and transporting the slave to their owner. The appropriate payments will still go to you, I just want to make sure there aren’t anymore incidents. We’ll be looking into the team you hired to figure out how Damon knew the team was waiting here.”

Scout stood to the side, annoyed. This wasn’t a fight she could win, but she didn’t have to help them. It took them fifteen minutes to find where the team had stashed Brad. He had already been nailed into a crate hiding behind some others. She watched them reseal it and carry it out of the warehouse.

“Stop making things worse for Alice, Scout. Maybe her obsession with that chaff will go away eventually if people like you stop feeding it.” She walked out of the warehouse, leaving Scout to pout.

Freya waited for the signal and began to drive. Each car took a different path to Alice’s mansion. Standard procedure to make sure no one was following them. She spent the trip bracing herself for what would probably be another awkward conversation with Alice.

“I need to stop answering her calls.” She said to herself. A reminder that she never followed. Another Friday night was gone doing her job instead of having a life.

[twilightknight17]

So I fell asleep last night before I could make the post, but I got P5 Scramble yesterday and I’m having a blast so far. ^_^

I’m probably going to go through it the same way I did my Royal playthrough, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t click through on these posts!

Before we start, I just want to mention that I don’t really know anything about the story. Somehow I’ve managed to avoid spoilers for an entire year except for a few small things.

I do know the identity of (who I assume is) Kyoto’s Jail Monarch. (Monarch is kind of a weird, formal word. I think I liked Jail King better. Or... Warden? Warden might have been the best choice.) ANYWAY, I think I know their identity, and by extension, I have a vague idea of why Shadow Joker exists. Other than that... You’re getting speculation and bullshit untainted by later plot revelations. XDDD

I did find it funny that when I booted the game up, I got a “No save data found, unable to start game” message. Like... no shit, PS4, it’s a brand new game. But the little starting tutorial fight was cool, and I liked the opening movie!

The police briefing was...interesting. It’s good to see them actually being somewhat logical? Like... considering everything that happened the year before, it makes sense that they’d assume this is the Thieves again. They have no way of knowing that there’s no way to access Palaces anymore. This isn’t really the Thieves MO, though. Except for the guy who confessed to document tampering. The author shredding his work for no reason and the guy streaking through the criminal justice headquarters don’t seem like they did anything wrong. Those seem more like psychotic breakdowns.

But... I guess we don’t know if the police ever knew anything about Black Mask, or if Shido was convicted on only real-world crimes and not the metaverse hits he ordered. I wonder if that’ll get elaborated on.

Zenkichi’s introduction was him laughing at the streaking guy in the middle of this Serious Police Meeting, so I think I’m gonna like him a lot. ^_^

Anyway, the “higher-ups” really want this case closed, according to “Commissioner Kaburagi”, who I already don’t like. If you’re the police commissioner, Makoto really would be a better choice, holy shit. She’s already prepared to go after Akira, who is the only Thief they know the identity of, so I guess that’s fair. But still. Has he not been falsely accused of enough for a lifetime?

Although... if you’re gonna look up all his life details, can you maybe... share some? Just a few things? Hometown? How are his parents? Anything?

*

Coming back to Leblanc was cute. Got some Trickster’s Maze vibes from the initial text conversation where they were talking about how people kept not responding to texts, but I think it’s all good. Love that the Sayuri is still on the wall, and that Morgana’s been home with Akira.

Naming the app “Emma” is never going to stop being hilarious to me, because reasons.

Y’know, Atlus, this would work a lot better if he could like...respond to their curiosity. At least these dialogue options seem to suggest that talking things out with his parents went well. Even “I missed you” isn’t inherently negative. He’d miss them either way.

.......so when my boyfriend gets back from his soul-searching vacation, he’ll be welcomed back with open arms, right, Ryuji? Right?

Meanwhile, for summer break plans, Yusuke wants to go to Kyoto for a month-long art tour. Unless...

Never change, dear. Never change.

Nice of Sojiro to water my plant and keep my room from drowning in dust, but he really couldn’t have replaced the bedframe with literally anything other than the plastic storage crates? XD The attic looks so empty and lonely without the shelves of trinkets and plushies, and the TV.

So my reaction to this next part was literally, “LAVENZA, IT’S BEEN LESS THAN 24 HOURS”. X’‘‘D Akira really can’t catch a break. But Lavenza’s dialogue sounded actually sad that he was being dragged into this again. And she’s promised repeatedly that she’s going to be there for him. It’s sweet, even though my room is still a prison and she’s still using torture equipment. Iron maidens, Lavenza, really??

I’m a little concerned that Igor’s not around, though. Lavenza did the dream/reality/mind/matter speech instead. Where is he? I know he’s never around for spinoffs but considering my headcanons I’m very curious now. And why didn’t he like... tell Morgana that Lavenza said ruin is coming again? Even if we don’t count thirdsem events, Morgana still knows that he’s Hope, and he still has a bond with the Velvet Room. Talk to your cat damn it.

Oh no, she’s cute and Alice-in-Wonderland themed. I’m doomed.

She called it her “EMMA keyword” and I immediately blurted “what? keyword??” and then everything went directly to Hell immediately. Keyword was the key word, I guess. X’‘‘‘DDD

And you can tell it’s been six months, considering that these nerds got caught almost immediately. And got their hands bound. And got dragged to the throne room and forced to kneel!

...I’m doomed.

Someone at Atlus looked directly at this fandom and all the fanart of the interrogation and said, “Yeah, they’d be into that.” XD Steppy steppy. At least she’s not a rapist like Kamoshida, but jeeze, we keep getting beaten up and thrown in the dungeon by royalty. All we need is a princess and we’ve got a whole royal family!

Although, I suppose the prince didn’t bother with a dungeon. XD

I think it’s interesting that apparently the guards tried to take our Desires and failed. I guess being a persona-user means your mental state is stable enough that something like that can’t manifest.

Oh no, she’s cute. I love her. Another for the collection of Joker’s baby siblings. This is number... 5? She kind of reminds me of Jose, a little. I’ll be interested to see what she is, since she’s got amnesia right now. She can’t be just a straight AI.

But if she’s Yald’s mom, I’m also going to be majorly weirded out.

I really like the gameplay? It’s so interesting to see how the characters move and fight when they’re not limited to turn-based attacks. And I like being able to jump to different points and use them to ambush enemies. I don’t fully understand all of it yet, and it’s hard for me to keep an eye on things like status ailments and my teammates because everything is so chaotic, but I’m sure I’ll get it.

I did die to a miniboss, and when I hit “return to checkpoint”, it gave me the prompt to select a language for the voice acting again. I dunno what was up with that. X’D And I’m baffled by the concept that you can just leave the metaverse and come back and it restores all your health and stuff. No penalty. Time doesn’t pass. You didn’t waste a day. Have the kids finally learned that we are capable of entering and exiting more than once on the same day? Hallelujah.

...this boy is angry that we have to deal with the Jails instead of having a BBQ feast. Never change, Yusuke.

If you go by the crepe shop in Shibuya, Morgana still doesn’t think you’re a crepe person. I’m so tired, Morgana. It’s also a bit weird and forced that Iwai and Takemi are both out of town. We couldn’t have seen at least one of them? I know we’re not gonna be able to use those shops when we’re on the road, but we could worry about that then.

(Disturbingly easy to return a gold bar that you apparently bought off the dark web. Omg. That was hilarious.)

AND THEN YOU GET UP THE NEXT DAY AND ZENKICHI IS JUST IN YOUR HOUSE? SITTING IN THAT CHAIR? That is not the “detective chair”, sir, that is my boyfriend’s chair, and you need to move. At least he likes the curry, but jesus fuck. Sir, I have unresolved trauma of adults coming into my house to snoop into my business. Get out of my house. X’D

You give me a detective sitting in my boyfriend’s chair and then immediately send me to a taping of the same show in the same studio where I first met him. God, P5S, you’re trying to kill me.

Alice clearly knows that giving out the keyword is doing something. She’s being very deliberate about this. But I don’t think she’s actually aware of the Jail. Love that she’s so arrogant that she can’t imagine that Akira just... didn’t use the keyword, and that’s why she can’t control him.

So I guess the Jail Monarchs are called such because they’re imprisoning other people’s shadows in their distortions. So these are people that want control over something to the point that it distorted their worldview. Part of me wants to go off on a ramble about how this relates to Mementos or Apathy Syndrome, but I’ll wait and do that when I have more information. I’ve got some more of the dungeon to do, and I cannot wait to see Alice’s boss fight.

I’m having so much fun. I really missed these kids; they’re grea--

.......I hate these children. X’‘‘‘‘DDDD

[ebachan]

Sonic movie 2 - A few ideas

Hi, after watching the movie two times, I’ve come up with some ideas for Sequel! This time using the info from the actual movie and following from the end.

I’m going to be spoilerific here, so I'll include my ideas after the “Read more” tag and tag this post as spoilers ;-) If you are interested, you can read my previous version too :-)

Sorry, for the tag, but I really like you guys & girls & LBGT+ <3

@movie-robotnik-positivity @movie-sonic-positivity @dxrkblaze @aawesomepenguin @welcome-to-green-hills @sonicpositive

I’m aware, this isn’t good movie-script XD I think it may be too long, but I had to get this idea out <3 And it was fun to do <3

We see Sonic interact with GH’s residents like Carl or Wade. Perhaps stopping by Olive Garden to get a free bowl of spaghetti since everybody loves him. We get to see Tom on duty, and Sonic helps him (by making sure the Duck-Mom and her kids cross the street).

After the day job, they go home to eat dinner. Maddie greats them with Chilli Dogs Sonic loves so much. They are about to go eat when Ozzy bolts outside, barking. Before they can react, Tails runs into the house with Ozzy behind him.

Tail: “No, I taste bad! I swear!” (Tails ends up on the floor with Ozzy licking him)

Tom and Maddie watch in confused amusement, but Sonic trembles and yells, “No! I’m not going back!” and dashes into his room.

Tom gets Ozzy off Tails and asks for answers. Maddie watches a few steps away and gets to hold Ozzy.

Tails introduce himself as Miles Prower and asks them about Sonic, and that Longclaw had sent him to find Blue Blur. Tom is suspicious given how Sonic reacted, but he and Maddie heard about Longclaw. Tom goes to Sonic’s room to talk with him and finds him curled up among balls.

Sonic ends up embarrassed and unwilling to talk, but starts talking more about his childhood trauma, and how Tails is from his home planet. He is scared Tails will take him home. Tom mentions Longclaw, and Sonic darts down.

Sonic: “Where is Longclaw? Where is she?!” he shouts while shaking with Tails. Soon, Sonic remembers his position and retreats behind Maddie like a kid. Tom joins them, and Tails, after being less dizzy, explains to them about Longclaw.

She ...

a) had raised Tails

b) was found by Tails

c) found Tails

(In either way, they turn into friends.)

Tails: “The Echidna Clan is plotting something. We’ve seen so many of them scouting the area.”

Sonic is frowning.

Tails: “You have to return with me.” Tails comes closer, and Sonic hides behind Maddie more.

Maddie: “Okay, how about this. It’s quite late, and this is all so sudden. We need time to think about this, right?”

While Tails is a bit disappointed, he agrees. Sonic is glad he doesn’t need to do the decision.

a) They go to eat and are attacked by Echidnas, much like Sonic was attacked as a child. This paralyzes Sonic, who curls up and hides while the rest is powerless against the warriors. Tom gets a big punch, knocking him on the floor. Tails is also overpowered. Maddie hits one with a plate, breaking it. This Echidna punches her in the belly, knocking her unconscious. In the fray, enters Carl with his chainsaw. Echidnas’ Leader, Knuckles, calls for retreat and grabs Maddie, taking her with his fellow warriors through the portal.

b) They sit down while Maddie goes to the kitchen to get the Chilli Dogs. While there, she sees from the window a new portal and walking Echdidna, Knuckles. Thinking he is Tails’ friend (and not recognizing Echidna due to Sonic never describing them too well), she goes out inviting him inside. He knocks her down, and Ozzy starts barking. Tom follows his dog and sees how Knuckles is abducting her in panic (Knuckles was supposed to get Sonic undetected). Sonic could save her, but he is too scared to move.

Either way, Sonic, this time, tells more about his past and the attack. Tails explains those are the Echidnas, he was talking about. Tom can’t let his wife be in danger, so he wants to go to the other side of the ring (Insert Alice in Wonderland and/or Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass pun/Easter Egg).

Sonic is happy he won’t be alone and is ready to go (but he is still scared). Tom reminds him how he had beaten Dr. Robotnik, and that some mole can’t be a problem (Buckles the Mole from Ponic the Hedgehog fan comic). However, Tails first takes them to his island where Longclaw is.

(In the case of a)) Tom tells Carl to take care of their house and thank him. Also, in both cases, he calls Wade to tell him to take care of this town, and that he counts on him to keep it safe. Wade is almost tearing.

-------

Sonic’s world

Tail’s workshop is located on Mystic Ruins (from SA1), which is on a different island. Sonic is nervous to see his first mom. However, Longclaw is happy to see him, and she never blamed him for the first attack. After a bit of introduction, and Tom checking the place, they hear the story.

Echidnas are restless, and Longclaw is worried. They had attacked other islands, claiming them for themselves. They are using weird machines. 

Tom: “Machines? ... Like Eggs?”

Longclaw: “Yes.”

Tom/Sonic: “No good.”

(We may get some old-time Badniks :-D)

(Also, Longclaw may be dead for some time, and Tails searched for Sonic to also fulfill her last wish to see if he was okay. So, I'm not including her in the rest of the story ;-))

------

With Maddie

We go to the Echidnas’ main island - the one where Sonic was raised by Longclaw. Knuckles is in front of their Tribe Leader (From SA1, but his name is too long XD, let’s call him TR). TR is disappointed in Knuckles, who failed to bring in Sonic, and thus he won’t get a tribal mask (it means he is a full-blood warrior). He is reminded of how great his father was, and he is sent to guard Maddie in the prison set in a cave/stone-wall.

Dr. Robonik appears and has some of his usual crazy talks, not minding Maddie. Since he knows, they will come for her.

Maddie wakes up, getting up, but the cell is not enough tall, so she sits.

Maddie: “Where am I? Who are you?”

Knuckles ignores her.

Maddie keeps talking, annoying the Echidna.

Knuckles: “Keep it quiet, female!” he shouts.

Maddie is annoyed but keeps her cool. “Or what, Mole?”

Knuckles get really annoyed. “I’m not a mole!”

Maddie: “Then who are you?” -she lists some animals, getting wrong ones-

Knuckles: “I’m an Echidna!”

Maddie: “Oh.”

Maddie keeps talking, trying to understand her situation, and Knuckles ends up telling a bit more (he can slip a few things, as he is a bit naive and inexperienced). He mentions the Doctor.

Maddie: “Dr. Robotnik?”

Knuckles: “Ro-but-nik?”

Maddie describes him, and Knuckles nods. The warrior quickly gets angry once more, as he isn’t supposed to talk with her. She proceeds to convince him, how cruel and selfish this person is, and that he is only using them.

Knuckles can’t help but agrees with her, as he finds the doctor weird, but he can’t go against his tribe. Maddie then asks him for at least something to eat, and the kind Echidna listens.

She uses her pin to lockpick her prison, which works to her surprise.

Maddie: And they say action movies aren't educational.

She quickly runs away with Knuckles returning a few seconds later.

Knuckles: “I don’t know what you...” He looks around with big eyes unable to grasp the situation before yelling, “Oh crab!” He lets go of the plate, finding her footprints easily and following her.

He catches up to her quickly and jumps at her. However, he has no idea, she is Pretzel Lady, In the air, she grabs his wrist and throws him away. But that proves to be a bad idea, as Knuckles ends up over the edge, grabbing the edge and hanging down above deep pit.

Maddie is terrified and rushes to pull the Echidna up. No matter what, she can’t let somebody die because of her, and it wasn’t her intention. She tries to pull him up, but the ground under her stops being solid.

-----

Back to Tails.

Now everybody (I won’t count Longclaw here in case she really died) is on board of Tornado, heading for the Sonic’s Island. Tom is a bit squeezed inside, but doing fine, making a few planes jokes/puns to break the tension.

As they near the island, they are attacked by robots, recognizing Dr. Robotnik’s design (or not XD). In any case, they go for a crash landing and soon are found by Echidnas. 

Sonic manages to beat them, overcoming his trauma bit by bit. Then he follows the last robot who leads him into a jungle. Tom and Tails have no chance to follow him but still do so.

Tom asks about the ground being blocky, and Tails doesn’t get why it is weird.

-----

To Sonic

He finds Dr. Robotnik and has a quick talk with him, repeating Tom’s Fun-gi joke, mentioning also his new haircut. Dr. Robotnik is furious. Echidnas attack from the bushes but can’t capture him. Dr. Robotnik then makes a holograph, showing Maddie inside the cell on the floor.

That stops Sonic, and he lets them tie him. He is then taken to the tribe.

----

To Maddie

They are falling, and Maddie, out of instinct, holds Knuckles, protecting him with her own body, but they soon stop descending way too fast. She realizes they are floating, and Knuckles gets her to land safely. He is huffing on the ground, mentioning he hates heights. Before they can talk more, the ground under then vanishes, sending them into the underground complex.

There, Knuckles tries to climb back, but that proves to be risky, causing a small cave in. Maddie suggests they should find another way out and pulls out her phone (let’s say she put it in her pocket before getting kidnapped ;-)), using a flashlight.

Knuckles is spooked a bit first since they don’t have the technology, and so they are in awe in front of Dr. Robotnik, who presents himself as a superior being.

They talk a bit, and Knuckles asks why she tried to save him.

Maddie: “I just... can’t let somebody die in front of me. and I reacted without thinking.”

Knuckles is impressed since he never thought an enemy would help him. As they walk through the maze, they find old pictures left by even older Echidnas (or Bird/Owl’s people), and Knuckles figures out the story about Chaos Emeralds, who are a big legend passed down in his tribe. (At this time they can learn each other’s names)

---

Back to Sonic and Dr. Robotnik

Dr. Robotnik talks about his plans, mocking Sonic, getting a lot of quills from him to power his better machines. Sonic is afraid Maddie would be in danger as Dr. Robotnik said she has a collar that would explode, and that she is hidden in a place he can’t find (but they know she is gone).

So, Sonic plays it safe as he has metallic rings around his wrists and ankles. The robots fly away, following instructions. The TL speaks too, ordering Sonic to listen to his every command. Sonic is cracking jokes as always, but he is getting nervous.

Soon, Tails and Tom make an entrance being captured. Dr. Robotnik is overjoyed, and Tom praises Dr. Robotnik’s new hair cut.

Tom: “Getting ready for a date?”

Dr. Robotnik has some snarky remarks when outside turns into hell, the robots attacking Echidnas.

Robotnik explains he has no use for them and goes away with his robots protecting him. Sonic tries to go after him, but once he moves too fast, the rings turn him into a ball, and he is unable to move.

Echidnas are trying to fight or help the injured. Tom assists them, yelling “Let’s save our problem for later!” Tails tries to do something with those rings, but Robotnik is long gone. Once the fight is over, they take time to talk.

Tails managed to take those rings off, and they are told Maddie is gone, running away from them. Sonic is scared, as this place isn't that safe for non-super-speed-hedgehogs. TL promises help in searching for Maddie. And Tails takes down the cuffs on Sonic’s limbs.

----

Back to Maddie

Inside of the maze, they discover altar with a dusty gem floating above it. Knuckles is amazed, lost with words. They take a bit of the dust away, but Robotnik’s robots find them. Knuckles tries to protect Maddie but is hit. She pulls him to safety, and the robots take Master Emerald away.

Maddie gives a piggy-pack ride to (very embarrassed) Knuckles, following the robots to her best ability, finding the way out. Outside they witness Dr. Robotnik taking the gem further, but they have no chance to stop him.

She continues until they meet with the rest. After a quick briefing, they are all up-to-date, and Echidnas are willing to help them as that Gem is their lost treasure. Tails is analyzing the power-waves from the ME when the land shakes, revealing a huge water monster.

(Dr. Robotnik is in some hoover machine with the ME under it.)

Dr. Robotnik is controlling Perfect Chaos as this monster was trapped and is bound to the ME. From its body emerges a “bubble”, covering the island. Everything inside of it “freezes”. Tails opens a portal, and they head that way.

Maddie throws Knuckles to Tom, getting trapped in the bubble as her leg got stuck. They get away, but they are crushed by her loss. Tails tells them his machine had told him those trapped are still alive. So, they have a chance.

Sonic: “But how do we beat that monster?”

Knuckles proceeds to tell them about the other legend of smaller emeralds, that were scattered across 7 planets to keep them away from evil hands, and the ME was hidden on this very island.

The race to find those ChE starts, as only they can measure to ME. They visit the Mushroom Planet first, as Tails finds the signal.

This way the visit other planets from Sonic’s old map.

(I think this part can be speed-up a bit as we may not have enough time to fully visit all the worlds, but some hints of what has to come a.k.a Shadow or Silver are to be placed here.)

Once they have them, they return (using a plane) to find many islands were frozen. Sonic sees the monster and rushes to fight it. Knuckles is tasked to work with ChE to make a miracle or use their power. He tries, chanting the good old verses from SA1, but nothing is happening.

Sonic meanwhile can’t keep up with Chaos, getting hit a lot, but P Chaos still can’t “freeze him”.

Sonic: “I’m a hot stuff/shot, Bubble Head!”

Sonic gets stuck inside of Chaos' body, and only his electricity is slowing down the freezing process. Dr. Robotnik gloats, dancing. Knuckles joins the fight, punching a chunk of the water out of Chaos’ body. Dr. Robotnik is surprised and yells/recreates the Skyscraper scene (I wasn't expecting that...).

Knuckles gets Sonic out of the water and gets himself stuck. Sonic is sad and angry, racing to get to Dr. Robotnik. Chaos prevents him from doing so. Tails gets closer and loses the ChE as he has to make quick dodging. The ChE falls toward Sonic, who wishes to be stronger to protect his friends, and the ChE reacts, turning him gold.

With this power, he makes a quick job of P Chaos, who is reduced to Chaos 0. Dr. Robotnik loses ME, which shatters. Dr. Robotnik then makes his escape as Sonic loses his Super Form.

They together get Knuckles, who is floating in the water and heads to the island. There they found everybody still frozen. They are losing hope when Chaos 0 appears and sucks the bubble back, returning everybody back. He is no longer aggressive as he was fried from Dr. Robotnik’s control.

Chaos 0 also gatherers the shards and makes ME whole again. The ChE are scattered once more, but only around this world. Everybody is happy and Tikal (yes, he is alive here) recognizes Chaos as an old Chao her grandma told her about (it was a story passed from many generations ago). This Chaos is old guardian who got locked inside of the ME to protect it.

Echidnas promises to keep peace and protect this place instead of ruling it since Sonic was the one who saved them. After a bit, they are ready to return home, but Knuckles bows in front of Maddie, and says, “I can’t return to my tribe until I fulfill my duty. Lady Maddie, you had saved my life more than once. Allow me to be your Guardian to repay my debt.”

She is reluctant, but she agrees, amused. So, they return and Wachowski’s house gains new inhabitants - Tails and Knuckles.

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

Oooof, this was so long XD But I hope this was better than my last draft. I think this one is less polished, as I had mostly idea for Maddie+Knuckles scenes and made Chaos’ one at the spot. I was also reluctant to have somebody die on the screen, so no death :-)

Hope you enjoyed :-)

PS. Sorry for the mistakes ^_^;

[julietandcinderellavocaloid]

Determined Alice Chapter 6

Big Al woke Meiko just as the train came to a halt in the Capital. Together they snuck out of the cart and blended into the background before anyone else could notice that they were there.

The Capital was, without a doubt, the nicest place Meiko had ever been. With the buildings themselves emitting light, technology that had existed for years now but Lady Zora never bothered to have it installed outside of her precious Capital, it was as bright as day in the never-ending night of winter. Most buildings were cream-colored, and the mirrors on the corners not only reflected the light but also the warmth. Even though she was outside, Meiko and Big Al began to warm up enough to remove their coats.

Machines designed to shovel the snow off the streets passed through hourly, leaving both the red brick roads and charcoal sidewalks clear. Smaller shops that sold things such as clothing and food had shorter buildings but larger display windows. Meiko's eyes lingered on a pair of gloves for a moment or two before she jogged back towards Big Al as to not lose him.

As they advanced the busy streets, Big Al and Meiko searched for a place they could talk and plot in private.

"A motel?" Meiko suggested.

Big Al shook his head. "No point since we will only need it for an hour."

"We don't even have a plan yet, not to mention any idea when we'll need to act it out."

"Just because we have money to spend doesn't mean we need to spend it."

"Spoken like a true dad. I still can't believe you had all of it on you when we fell from the craft."

"As if you didn't keep your wallet on you too."

"Yeah, but I only have my money, not the whole team's."

Big Al didn't respond. Meiko shrugged and began thinking of other places the two could talk without fear of being overheard. When an idea finally came to her, Meiko shoved aside her smug satisfaction so Big Al would listen to her before deciding whether or not she had a good suggestion.

"Do you think there are any karaoke places nearby?" she asked as she pretended to pull lint from her sleeve.

"Now is not the time for fun and games, Sakine," Big Al answered, no longer using Meiko's first name as he did the night before.

"I was only wondering if those walls are really as soundproof as I hear they are," Meiko casually commented. She shifted her gaze towards Big Al to see him studying her. "After all, there are a lot of people who love to sing but can't sing to save their lives. This way, those singers can have their fun, and nobody has to suffer."

"Now that you mention it," Big Al muttered in response, "that is something I would like to know whether it's fact or fiction."

It took all Meiko's willpower to hide her pride of Big Al considering her idea. Getting too excited would give the impression she wasn't as mature about the matter as she ought. However, that didn't stop Meiko from internally placing the accomplishment on a shelf and having a mini victory dance inside her head.

They had to ask around, but eventually Meiko and Big Al found a karaoke studio. Either the rumors of soundproof walls were true, or the place was dead. Regardless, it took only a few minutes to rent a room for an hour, settle inside, and begin plotting.

"There aren't a lot of guards," Meiko repeated the lad from the night before, "but they make up for the low numbers by being some of the best."

Big Al scratched his chin. "How do you know what that kid told you was true?"

Biting her lip, Meiko admitted, "I don't, but we can still work with it. For all we could know, we'll be going up against the best of the best. They are expecting us, after all. Better to prepare for such a challenge and hope these men aren't as much an obstacle as we anticipate them to be. As for quantity . . . You wouldn't happen to have any smoke bombs on you in case of an emergency, would you?"

"This isn't a spy story."

"So that's a no then?"

"No, it's a yes, but I would much rather you not depend on smokescreens as if they're really that effective."

"Fine. How about we just locate every exit and mark every escape route possible?"

"Now you're getting it." Big Al pulled a tablet from his shirt pocket – Meiko didn't even know he was carrying it – and lied it on the table between them, the hologram karaoke song selection scrolling just above. Activating the tablet, logging onto a program, and searching through a list of files, Big Al opened a 3D blueprint and circled the portion on which he wanted Meiko to focus.

"This is the underground prison," he pointed out, and Meiko leaned in to get a closer look. "Our man should be kept somewhere in the middle."

"To make a breakout all the more difficult."

"Exactly." Big Al zoomed in to the middle of the court. "This right here is where the executions take place. So from here to here, guards are going to be leading our man away from the belly of the prison to right outside the doors. We're going to let them do the hard part for us."

"Or we were before I got us knocked out of our hovercraft," Meiko muttered. She expected Big Al to agree with her and remind her how much this was all her fault. Only he did no such thing.

"How do you think you and I are going to get out of there while the rest of our guys are swooping in, grabbing what they want, and flying away before anyone can think to give chase?"

Meiko was surprised Big Al asked her a question, a question in which she was given the opportunity to find a solution to the problem. For a moment, Meiko couldn't think. Then she overcame her initial shock and began to ponder possible ways out.

"We need to get close to our guy," she stated softly then repeated with confidence. "If we're close to him, our squad can grab us while they're snatching him up."

Raising a brow, Big Al replied, "Not a bad idea, except how are we going to get close to him in the first place? It's not as if anyone is simply going to let us go up to him and walk him towards his own execution."

"I have some suggestions, but that's going to have to require researching a bit further and calculating the possibilities and odds of us so much as coming close to pulling this off without our heads scheduled to land on the chopping block next."

Big Al spun the blueprints around and stared at certain parts of it. Turning his tablet off, the blueprints vanishing as a result, he turned to Meiko and said, "I'm going to need you to be ready to run towards the exits at all times. If something were to go wrong, you need to get as far away and as fast away as possible. Don't try to be a hero."

It felt as if a balloon popped inside of Meiko's chest. What? I thought I was proving myself. I thought he was finally beginning to trust me. Why is he pushing me aside now?

This time, Meiko didn't lash out or argue. Past experiences proved how futile this was. Yet that didn't stop her from asking, "Why?"

"If we get captured, we will be tortured," Big Al bluntly answered. Before Meiko could respond, he added, "You might not know a lot, but you know how to find us. You know where one of our locations is hidden. We can't let anyone else know. That's not a risk worth taking."

Trying with little success to hide the bitterness from her voice, Meiko snarled, "So you can withstand being tortured, but not me?"

Without hesitating, Big Al replied, "They won't be able to torture me. Not with the fake tooth filled with poison that will kill me instantly if I break it and swallow its contents. You, however, haven't had our Last Resort placed in the back of your mouth. With this mission, nobody would have thought you would need it."

Meiko began balling her fingers into fists, but for a different reason now. If things went wrong, Big Al would commit suicide. She, in turn, would have to run away and hope the enemy doesn't find and capture her. This wasn't the rescue mission it was supposed to be when she had been assigned. Thanks to her foolishness, this was now a mission of life or death.

In order to avoid suspicion, Meiko and Big Al waited out the hour until they left the karaoke room. They spent the last five minutes hyping themselves up, pretending that they just spent the past sixty minutes singing at the top of their lungs and not planning to crash an execution. If anyone suspected anything off about this duo of customers, nobody showed it.

"Looks like we should have gotten a motel after all," Meiko muttered as she and Big Al left the karaoke in search of someplace to spend the night. They had their idea, but they still needed to work out the kinks. The execution was early the next morning, and they needed their plan ready with enough time to prepare.

Big Al swore, prompting Meiko to add, "Hey, the karaoke room wasn't that expensive. Adding a motel room to the expenses won't hurt our pockets too badly."

"No," Big Al corrected, and Meiko stopped at his voice. He stood in front of the tablet store, eyes locked on the window.

Frowning, Meiko drew closer to see at what Big Al was staring. It was a news report, and Meiko froze when she read the headline. It was her turn to swear.

REBEL GROUP CAPTURED. POSSIBLE EXECUTION WITHOUT TRIAL.

With the headline under the reporter, an image of the rebels appeared beside her head. Meiko didn't hear the words. All she did was stare at the image.

It was her and Big Al's legion.

[staliasjeronica]

Riverdale 3.11 Thoughts *Spoilers*

- MY BOYS SWEET PEA AND FANGS ❤️😍

- Does Jughead think his own father is as fucking stupid as he is? Like, not only are you incapable of being discreet and therefore able to force Tall Boy to just get a bus ticket using a gun… but people would have noticed that? But I’m glad that there’s a sheriff who’ll help out the one group of people that has always been fucked over by the government… even though I still don’t get why Sheriff Keller couldn’t just get his job back lol (but I am here for the FP and Hermione team up because it mirrors Jeronica)

- wAIT FP WAS SITTING ABOVE TALL BOY? THAT’S DISGUSTING. And I don’t know how long its been but couldn’t he have smelled him? Also I love that instead of burying him and then throwing a random ass party, he just… didn’t do that.

- I don’t know why Jughead emphasizing that Betty is his girlfriend is funny to me. It’s almost like he’s like “my girlfriend… yeah… I’m dating her. Right. Not the girl I want to be dating, Veronica. Betty. I’m Betty’s boyfriend.”

- Betty talking to her dad… about Penelope Blossom… about getting away with murder… BITCH YOUR DAD IS IN JAIL FOR MURDERING PEOPLE YOU FUCKING BAFFOON

- I know that my boy Archie is dealing with a lot of shit but like they’re totally going to make him almost as insufferable as Betty aren’t they? They better fucking not

- “A hell of a good looking one just walked through my door” Okay they’re clearly getting bored with Bughead and are slowly integrating Jeronica and I am so fucking here for it!!!! I can’t wait for Jeronica to work together!!!

- We all know that with how Veronica really is, she would eavesdrop on her parents but instead the writers make her interrupt at the worst moments like really???

-  The two people Veronica and Jughead mentioned… they were a married couple sooooo EXCELLANCE

-  See… THIS is why Jughead is NOT an investigator (same with Betty and Bughead) YOU DON’T JUST FUCKING ASK THE QUESTION YOU TRY TO GET IT OUT OF THEM WITHOUT ASKING DIRECTLY YOU STUPID FUCK

-  Hermione, a grown ass adult, actually giving Jughead information is not realistic, especially handing him files that Sheriff Minetta gave her. Like… if I were her I’d play his journaling off as a joke and just say “yeah he was cheating so get out of my office bc I don’t want to think about this shit right now”

-  HERMIONE SHADING BETTY I’M SO HERE FOR IT

- Fred I love you and I’m glad you’re caring about your son but that was… not the way to handle it.

- NANA ROSE FUCKING LOOKING AT BETTY LIKE “bitch why the fuck are you here?” IS SO GREAT

- TONI COMING TO CHERYL’S RESCUE. TONI ASKING IF EVERYTHING WAS OKAY, AND CHERYL FINALLY BEING DONE WITH BETTY’S SHIT AND CALLING HER A GNAT I’M HOLLERING

- Also Betty is low key afraid of Toni!!! The look she had when Toni came in? She knows that Toni would never allow her to fuck with Cheryl

- MY BOYS AGAIN. But all of this could have been avoided if you had just buried him like you were supposed to. Also, it bothers me how he only treats Sweet Pea and Fangs as his lap dogs. He’s having Sweet Pea tail someone (yet from what I’ve seen Jughead goes with him so there’s no reason to force Sweet Pea to but whatever it’s more screen time for my baby

- BROOOOOOOOO SMITHERS AND REGGIE TEAM UP LET’S FUCKING GO

- See, again, why Betty isn’t an investigator… she knocks and nobody answers so she’s just like “let’s go”

- THAT GIF I SAID WAS ACTUALLY CUTE OF BUGHEAD WAS THEM REALIZING THAT PENELOPE WAS IN THE SEX CLUB LMFAOOOOOO

- Betty thinking that Penelope is exploiting these girls who are willingly doing this as if she never had that disgusting dominant dark Betty phase fuck outta here with your hypocrisy Betty (and Jughead, I’m still bitter about Choni being kicked out)

- Don’t most guys smile lovingly after they kiss their girlfriend and watch them walk away? mmhm much to think about. ALSO THANK GOD FOR DR. CURDLE I DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH DETECTIVE (more like defective) BUGHEAD

- JOSIE SINGING YAS BITCH! Now just stop bringing her in just to sing and give her a fucking storyline!

- Wait so Veronica is actually selling alcohol now? How? And when? I know that thing from the casino happened but I just figured they switched back to mocktails… damn…

- Wow I actually almost forgot that Reggie and Archie used to be friends… like… sure I get throwing him out for his own good but not having any emotion when the guard slams him down on the counter? Reggie would have been like “now wait a sec…” but they want to make it seem like Josie is the only one who cares huh. STILL THO ARCHOSIE RISE

- JUGHEAD CALLED VERONICA A PRETTY GIRL. JERONICA RISE

- REGGIE HELPING OUT VERONICA YES PLEASE. Ugh I love Veggie… And yes I use that in a non-anti way unlike people who called Swosie SweetPussy

- AND YET AGAIN WHY BETTY ISN’T A DETECTIVE. STOP TELLING PEOPLE WHAT YOU HAVE ON THEM.

- Betty really is acting like her dad isn’t the black hood huh…

- PENELOPE BROUGHT UP HER DELIVERING CHIC TO HIS DEATH HELL YEAH. I mean that’s good but she’s still shit

- SWEET PEA!!!!!!!!

- God can’t people stay dead? Like the only person we want to see back are Midge, Ben and Dilton, and Joaquin! Joaquin you could have brought back by having Swangs fake his death to get away from the Gargoyle Gang but nooooo you really kill off your POC LGBT character…

- FP shooting Hiram because Hermione asked JERONCIA PARALLELS (asking them to do something for the other)

- Hermione crossing FP? Why would you do this? But also for some reason I don’t fully believe it…

- FALICE FALICE FALICE FALICE FALICE!!!

- But why does Alice only seem herself in front of FP? Like in front of her daughter she’s crazy and brainwashed but not in front of FP… why?

- Also why does Hermione even want to frame FP? Like what’s the reason?

- Veronica Lodge confused at Reggie’s Bad Boys 2 reference? OOC BUT IDC IT WAS KINDA CUTE SOMEHOW

- I love Veggie but I don’t like how Veronica is mostly treating him as a side piece, as her bodyguard than a potential boyfriend.

- YOU CAN’T JUST ASK REGGIE TO BREAK INTO A FUCKING PRISON BY HIMSELF

- After all that’s happened… why would you let Archie go see Hiram? Alone? Or even at all? And also she did have every right to think that he would shoot her father bc… I mean… he has said that he’d kill her father like multiple times but whatever

- Oh so now that he’s not dating your daughter you don’t want to kill him? Fuck you, Hiram.

- DO! NOT! TRUST! HIRAM! FUCKING! LODGE!

- The couple that burns drugs and will probably get high from the fumes is a couple that stays together!

- “There’s only one person who Betty can talk to about the revelation Penelope Blossom revealed to her” *is imagining Archie, the only person Betty opens up to and shit* *sees her and her fucking serial killer father* STOP MAKING HIM LOOK LIKE A GOOD GUY. HE IS NOT A GOOD GUY. I love how Betty said she doesn’t want to be bad like him, or be associated with him… but is now visiting him. Also, what kind of prison would allow a serial killer visitation rights?

- This is Betty, again, going down a dark side and it’s probably going to make her even more insufferable and Bughead even more toxic as Jughead fucks away her thoughts of being dark and shit. sigh iT’S GETTING OLD RIVERDALE STOP NO ONE LIKES THIS

- “Maybe not every murderer is guilty” BITCH YOU LITERALLY— this better be when Jughead has enough and fucking breaks up with her Jesus Christ I hate Betty so fucking much

- Well of course it’s not black and white but NOBODY deserves to die (However certain crimes that I shall not name because it may trigger somebody are totally okay)

- “Oh, how ya feeling, Red?” BTICH ARCHOSIE RISE I LOVE THEM UWU

- Although I don’t like how Josie told Sweet Pea that she couldn’t date during school because she wanted to focus on her career and now the writers are heavily pointing towards an Archosie romance…

- Well Hermione that’s your client’s problem. That’s why you don’t pay for things in advance.

- Watch Jughead not use that money for the Serpents.

- MORE JERONICA MOMENTS UWUUUUUU 

[liv-delano97]

Queen in the Making FP x Reader

This is my first FP x Reader. This is also my first one shot back on Tumblr since like 2016. I am back and writing again. I would love to try and do some requests. I am currently battling Cancer so I am off of work and school for the time being. So please feel free to request away. I can do all characters from Riverdale. I can even do irl Actors/Actress x reader too. :)

 Word Count: 1938 

 No warnings. It’s really just straight fluff. (I’m not too good with Smut)

 Enjoy!

 **********

 When you walked into the Whyte Wyrm for the first time you knew this is what you wanted however convincing the King to let you join was going to be an issue. My name is (Y/n) Cooper… You heard me right Cooper as in Betty and Polly Cooper. They are your sisters much to your utter demise. When you turned 18 you had decided you had, had enough of your parents fighting and your sister and parents fighting. A month after Jason Blossom drowned you moved out and that’s when all hell broke loose. You now live in a quaint apartment right near Pop’s which is where you work. 

 That’s how you know Jughead, but that’s also how you know him. 

 *TIME JUMP*

 “I don’t care I am going with you” you stated stomping my foot. You didn’t care if you looked like a child you would be damned if you didn’t go with Jug to see his dad get released from Jail.

 “No.” He said for the fifth time since you brought it up. You have been going through the initiation for the serpents and you had been blessed with FP’s jacket. Yet Jughead still wouldn’t let you go see him. You needed him to help me finish the final leg of your initiation. A female serpent has to go through three levels #1 know all of the rules. Check. #2 Retrieve the knife. Check. #3 the serpent dance to your escort. Unable to finish because you are supposed to have a single, established serpent, if you are unable to find one you must be escorted by the King. That happens to be FP and Jug won’t let you see him because he doesn't want to have to hide from his girl that her sister is a serpent. 

 “Juggie please. I need to finish this and he is the only person I can do this with.” you started thinking about what would happen if Jug said no again. Would you be able to make this work at all.

 “Fine” Jug said pulling you out of your daze.

 “What?” you stuttered.

 “I said Fine. But you have to tell Betty.” you blinked under his intense gaze. You really were not ready for that hell storm but if that’s what it would take to see FP you would do it. You would do anything for him. 

 “Fine, when do we leave?” He smiled 

 “In about 20 minutes, you might want to change” He said motioning to the Pop’s uniform you were wearing. You let a breath of relief out and quickly ran out of Pop’s to your apartment to change. You smiled to myself. Finally you were going to get to see him again. If only Juggie knew.

 ** You got home and quickly changed into a pair of high waisted shorts. Throwing on one of FP’s shirts that he let you borrow last time you spent the night at Jug’s and the one and only Serpent jacket. Quickly you walked out to the honking from your mother’s car. Leaving the house you had a huge smile on your face until you realized who was driving. You walked over and bent down to be face to face with your mother. 

 “Y/n what in god’s name is that.” She said motioning to FP’s jacket. With a big smile you got into the front seat. 

 “It’s a jacket mother. I am just returning it to whom it belongs.” you batted your lashes and quickly threw a glare back at Jug, who just shrugged. Of course the whole ride to the prison it was aggressively awkward. We got there right as FP was walking out. He had the biggest smile on his face when he saw Jug. Then his eyes locked with your mom’s, who was leaning against the driver side door. His smile waived only slightly before he saw you. In his jacket sitting on the hood of the car. Winking you walked over welcoming the hug he was offering. 

“Hey baby” He whispered in your ear, sending shivers down your spine. 

 “Hiya” you smiled leaning back but not allowing him to break the hug. You quick pecked him on the cheek and turned to the audience you now where highly aware you had. Smiling you slowly start taking the jacket off and returning it to FP. Who was also staring at you in shock.

 “What are you all staring at?” you said smiling. “C’mon I’m sure FP is hungry for some real food.” you smiled getting back into the car. This was going to be a very long lunch.

 “I’m retiring from the Serpent’s Alice” FP stated. “I’m going clean.”

 “WHAT?!” you said a little louder than intended, causing FP to place his hand on your knee. He looked at you saying something, you couldn’t quite pick up on. Since the group had arrived at Pop’s you were able to get exactly two minutes alone with him, just enough time to give him the cell phone you bought for him because you knew he didn’t have one. He motioned down to your lap where you held your phone always and he knew that. 

 “I will be right back I have to go and talk to Pop about a job.” He smiled standing up. You quickly picked up your cell and read the text you had felt come in.

 Baby: Sweetie I need people to trust me. I can’t go back there it’s apart of my agreement.

 You: Babe I need you to be my escort, I have one more leg. 

 Baby: You are that far into the the process… 

 Baby: Is that what your band aid is for..

 Baby: I told you to wait. 

 You: Babe I need to be a serpent, these people have been my family.. They took care of me while you were away. I owe these people. 

 Baby: Fine, my retirement party? 

 You smiled to yourself as you put your phone away hearing FP walking closer. 

“What is that?” Your mother said pointing to your arm where your concealer was starting to fade. Quickly you covered yourself as discreetly as possible. 

“It’s nothing mom, I got a burn from my straightener and I put some concealer on to cover up the mark. I mean I am a waitress after all.” You said curling up a little. The one thing you hated the most about Pop’s was that it was always cold. You could never get warm here and you were also dumb enough to wear shorts. FP was walking back gesturing to his coat when he saw you. You took the hint and slid it on. It always fit really big but it felt like home. Nothing could compare to this coat. This caused you to get another ugly look from my mother.  

“Mom it’s a coat.” you scowled. “It’s not as easy as putting on the coat. Becoming a serpent is hard work mom, you don’t have to worry about the jacket.” you said this time earning you a weird look from Betty. You felt my phone buzz again and saw that you had a text from FP and Betty. 

 Betty: You’re a serpent… How did you do it?

 Baby: So do you know the dance or do I have to teach you? ;) 

 Quickly you hid your blushing cheeks and responded to Betty. You would have to respond to FP later. You smiled picking up a french fry knowing all too well that he was watching. 

 “So,” Betty smiled. “ Jug and I have some plans with Archie and Ronnie so we are going to jet.” She said standing up to leave. Your mom got up behind her and started to head out. She turned and looked at you one last time but then left. As soon as you heard that bell you moved a little closer to FP. 

 “Hey baby” He said smiling at you. 

 “Hi” you smiled back. You had waited so long for this moment. It may have only been months but it felt like years. You needed your babe back. It took a lot of effort not to reach up and kiss him. He had in a roundabout way ended things between you guys prior to Jason being shot and you were a reck. It took you seeing everything unfold for you to understand what was going on. You visited once in Jail and he explained everything to you that Clifford Blossom knew about you and him and he threatened Jug. You were completely blown away on how he was able to find out about you both. But you forgave him, you forgave him a thousand times over, because that little time that you were apart hurt like a pain you had never felt before. But FP still refused to get back together. He couldn’t risk people judging you apparently. You personally thought he couldn’t stand Jug, judging him. 

 “Uhm Mr. Jones could you give me a ride..” He side eyed you from his phone. “Back home, I’m just up the street.” you smiled blushing. 

 “Sure Y/n,” he said standing up and pushing his jacket back towards you, you hadn’t noticed you had slipped it off after your argument with your Mom. You hated when he called you y/n, and he hated when you called him Mr. Jones but that’s the facade you needed to uphold. You decided you would get back at him for his message earlier. 

 “Uhm Mr. Jones, if your not busy maybe you could teach me that thing you were talking about earlier?” That caught his attention. He whipped his head towards you to catch your gaze with a big smile on his face.

 “Let’s go” he growled. You made it into the apartment when he broke and became the same FP that you knew. 

 “You need to stop teasing!” He said grabbing me and pulling me closer to him. You smiled you knew exactly what you had done. You watched his eyes go soft and him smile as he loosened his grip. 

 “I really did miss you though Baby.” you smiled and just willed for everything to go back to normal.

 “It was hard not seeing you everyday, but at least I was able to focus on doing what I wanted without you trying to stop me” you smiled at him causing him to do that smirk that you loved. 

 “Can I kiss you?” He asked. Smiling, he already knew the answer but this is how he wanted to play. 

 “No!” you smiled running away! “Do not do the kissing?” you laughed running around your apartment, with him chasing you. He tackled you onto the couch. He leaned down and quick pecked your lips causing you to smile so big that you could feel your face cramping up. You don’t think you have been as happy as you were when he did that. It meant he wanted to get back together. That maybe you could live happily with this man. 

 “Baby.” you said testing the waters while he was in the kitchen cooking. 

 “Yes my angel.” you smiled, he was in a good mood. 

 “Are we together?” you stated kind of shrinking so you could prepare yourself for the denial. He looked at you a little and smiled. 

 “I love you, you know.” He said gauging your response as he walked towards you. You smiled yet again. You could feel your eyes watering up as you spoke. 

“I love you too.” you smiled as he wrapped his arms around you. This was wrong in so many ways but you have never once felt so right.

[cianmars]

Pieces of a Puzzle:

Rogers, David, and Mary have been together for ten years and have already have a ten year old daughter, Alice, together.

They all have their own issues and problems, but they’re happy. That being said they feel like something’s missing.

They’re waiting to adopt a baby, the last piece of their family, and only have four months to wait. In the mean time they decide to foster six year old Emma, what they assume is going to be a short stay, before she finds her forever family.

Chapter 4- Meeting Emma  David meets Emma at the hospital.

AO3

It took David almost two hours to get to the hospital, through the morning traffic, but as soon as he got there he headed for the canteen where Matilda has asked him to meet her.

“Tilly.” He smiled and the two friends hugged in greeting, he was careful of his shoulder as he did so, but it was aching much less than it had been the day before.

“You know only you guys are allowed to call me that, right?”

“Us, and Emily.” David pointed out with a smirk, they had been friends with Matilda in college over a decade before, he was made up that his friend had found someone to love just like he had found his two true loves. He gently took hold of her hand. “Wow, look at that rock.”

“She’s a banker.” She pointed out in a joke they had often made. “Here I got you a coffee and some toast.”

“Thanks.” He dumped some sugar and milk into the coffee and took a log sip. “I’m guessing Mary told you that I hadn’t eaten?”

“Kian.” She smiled. All three of her friends had always fussed over each other when they were worried, but Kian and Mary had been extra worried since David had been hurt. “How’s the shoulder?”

He stretched it instinctively. “It’s much better than it was.” But not what it had once been. He took a bite of his toast. “So I have a few questions.”

“Shoot.”

“What size clothes is she in? I’m gonna take her to grab some bits on the way home, and we’re gonna get some more tomorrow with Kee and Mare.” He explained.

“The checks for her won’t be coming in until the end of the week.” She warned, as she did with all the foster parents who worked for her.

“You know we don’t care about that.” He told her truthfully. “We’ll just stick the money into a bank account for the kid until she’s older, for college or a car, whatever she needs. That’s allowed, right?”

She smiled, they had done the same thing before, they always pointed out that they didn’t need the money and that it wasn’t the reason why they fostered. Between two trust funds and three good jobs she understood, she didn’t know how much David and Mary had inherited but she had a feeling they could live the rest of their lives on the interests alone. “I don’t see why not.” She frowned. “Emma’s tiny, she’s only the size of a four year old, but she’s super intelligent but only on things which can be read – she’s had barely any life experiences, the only ones I can tell she’s even had are negative.”

“Al was in like size seven or eight when she was Emma’s age.” David frowned despite the pleasant memory of his daughter when she was just six. “And we’re going to make sure she gets that, I promise.”

She gently squeezed his hand. “I know you will. You got any more questions for me?”

“Mostly medical – allergies, conditions, and treatments for everything.”

After they went over the things they signed the paperwork, Matilda liked to do it away from the child so they wouldn’t make the child feel like an object or something, then they went to the children’s ward.

“Emma, this is David Charming, he’s one of your new foster fathers.” Matilda introduced with a smile. “Dave, this is Emma Swan.”

David walked over to where Emma was sat, in the chair beside the bed, he crouched in front of her so he could look her in the eyes. “Hey Emma, it’s really nice to finally meet you, Matilda told me lots about you. My name’s David, you can call me Dave, David, Davey, I pretty much answer to anything.” He joked.

A small smile tugged at Emma’s mouth. She held her Matilda book closer to her, against her chest, as though it were a shield. “Hi.” She mumbled shyly. “David.” She added quickly, sticking to the name Matilda had introduced him as, just to be safe. She didn’t want to overstep her boundaries, she knew she was just another foster kid.

David smiled gently. He took in the kid in front of him; Matilda was right, she looked like she was four, and acted shy but she was trying to put on a brave face. A blue beat up backpack was next to her, her arm looped through the strap as though it were a lifeline, it was almost empty. “Matilda, huh?” He said smiling at the book she was holding, he smirked back at the social worker, then smiled gently at his new foster daughter. “I’ve never read that but I had watched the movie, have you seen it?”

Emma bit her lip. She slowly shook her head then pushed herself to speak more. “I’ve not seen it… Matilda gave me the book… Have you seen Harry Potter?”

David’s smile widened and he nodded his head. “I have, I love those movies, and I’ve read all of the books. My husband, Kian, and my wife, Mary, also love Harry Potter, we dressed up as Harry, Ron, and Hermione last Halloween, and my daughter Alice dressed up as Luna. They all wish that they could have come with me to come and take you back to our home, but Mary had to go to work, she’s a fourth grade teacher, and Kian had to go to work too, he is a type of policeman, I am too but I’m off work for a little while.”

“Why?” She froze, she hadn’t meant her curiosity to get the better of her.

David gave her a smile letting her know that it was okay. “I was trying to stop some bad guys with Kian and some other police detectives, we put them into prison for a very long time, but they hurt me.” He pulled down the neck of his tee to show her the two marks from the gun shots between his heart and his shoulder. He had nearly died, and it had messed up how well he could use his arm, too messed up to be working other than a desk job at the moment. “So I’m off work for a while.”

Emma slowly relaxed, he genuinely seemed not to care that she had asked him a question, in fact he seemed to like that she was connecting with him.  She was glad that he caught the bad guys, she didn’t like that he had been hurt, he seemed like he might be nice and kind… but she was still reserving judgement. “Okay.”

David smiled. “Y’know, my brother owns a bookstore with his wife, we could go there one day, if you like?”

Emma’s eyes widened at the idea. She nodded her head though she tried not to  get her hopes up.

Matilda smiled at the pair of them, she could tell that Emma was holding back, it was heart breaking to see that on a child so young, but she knew that if anyone could help her the Charmings could. In the meantime she would be looking for an adoptive family for the little girl, she would make sure it was perfect for her. “Emma, sweetheart, I’ll give you a card with my number on it, if you need me at any time you can call me. Let’s put it in the front pocket of your backpack.”

“Okay.” Emma took the card and slipped it in, not wanting her social worker and foster father to see all of the little bits of food she had hidden away.

The doctor entered and handed David what seemed like a million leaflets about different things, along with a copy of the medical file which he might need, he expertly hid the feeling of worry and the face he felt way out of his depth. Then came all of the medicines –antibiotics and steroids, plus prescriptions for a couple more things which he could pick up on the way home like inhalers and their accessories, and PediaSure to try and get her weight and growth up, plus pain relief medicine for her arm and other injuries. He put the file, leaflets, and medicines into the backpack he had purposely brought. When he was passed a card with the next appointment for Emma’s arm he slipped it into his wallet, they had said that he could switch it to a nearer hospital and he thought that he would talk to his spouses about that – they’d probably go with whichever Emma preferred.

The child sat still through all of this, a sign that she had gotten used to this, it hurt David, but he was certain that Matilda would find Emma a family where she would never be moved again. Once he had everything he crouched down in front of Emma, Matilda had helped her into her oversized and well-worn jacked, and she was holding her backpack super tightly. He smiled gently, and slowly and carefully placed his hand on her uninjured one. It was colder than he expected. “One of the hospital rules is you have to leave being pushed in a wheelchair,” he nodded towards the one the doctor had brought in with him, “I’ll push it for you, I can do it nice and slow, or we can race over the bumps and hills, it’s your choice.”

Emma thought for a minute. “Racing.”

David only just heard her quiet voice, but he beamed as he helped her into the wheelchair, and made sure that Emma hadn’t forgotten anything. “I can carry your backpack for you, if you like?” He offered.

“No!” Emma’s panicked voice was about sixty times louder than her previous answer. She immediately regretted it. She sank back in terror.

David slowly and calmly held up his hands in a surrendering gesture. “Okay Emma, that’s okay, you can keep a hold of your bag, that’s not a problem at all. Emma, I promise you that I’m never going to hurt you, neither are Mary or Kian. You’re safe with us. I know that’s hard to believe right now, because a lot of adults who were supposed to look after you didn’t, but we’re going to prove it to you.”

Emma had never heard words akin to that come out of an adult’s mouth. He genuinely seemed to believe his words, but no adults had ever said anything like that to her, especially with such conviction. She found herself starting to believe him. She supposed she might as well give him a chance, she had given worse people more chances in her six years of life, she nodded her head. “’Kay.” She mumbled.

Matilda had never seen a foster parent so expertly calm and reassure a child they had met thirty minutes before, especially Emma, who had so many reasons for being guarded and scared.

“Thank you, Emma.” David gave her an honest but charming smile. “Now, let’s break you out of here, yeah?”

A small smile appeared on Emma’s face, she had been in the hospital for ages, and Matilda had told her that David and his family lived a little outside of the city, in an actual house, she had only ever lived in apartments, so she was a little excited to see it. “Yeah. Let’s go.” She let David help her into the wheelchair and he made sure she wasn’t going to fall out, he did so without any hesitation, she wasn’t used to that either.

As promised David raced down the hill like corridor, he made sound effects as though they were a race car, and for the first time in what felt like forever Emma found herself giggling. David’s antics even made people they passed in the hospital laughed or smile.

David felt his heart lighten as he heard her little giggles, he could tell that she was restraining herself from all out laughing, but hearing her laugh had the same effect on him as Alice’s laughter did, he was sure that her adoptive father would love her as much as he loves Alice. And as much as he would love the new baby.

“Thanks for the loaner.” David said to Matilda as he finished fastening the carseat into the back of his car. “We’re going to get one tomorrow so we can get this back to you as soon as possible.” He looked down at Emma in Matilda’s arms. “Hey, kiddo, let’s get you in here, and you can have your backpack in with you.” He lifted her up and placed her into the carseat.

“It’s no problem, thank you for making coming today.” She knew several foster carers who despite being nice wouldn’t have accepted a child two days early. She passed Emma her bag. “I’ll be by in two days, okay? On Friday, but if you need me before then you have my number.”

“Home check?” David smiled.

“Yeah, you know I gotta… Plus I haven’t seen your new digs yet.” She nudged him playfully.

“We’ll see you on Friday then, I’m sure Alice will be made up to see you.” He smiled at Matilda then down at Emma. “My little girl, Alice, loves books just like you – all my family do, you’ll fit right in.”

Emma just smiled and held onto her bag before saying goodbye to Matilda.

After David said his goodbyes to his friend he climbed into the front and did up his own belt. “We’re going to stop off on the way back home, we’ll pick up your medicines and some more bits for you, we want you to feel at home in our home. And tomorrow me, you, and Mary, and Kian, are going to go back into the city and pick up more things for you and for your room.” He told her in a happy tone.

Emma frowned, she knew that foster parents got money to look after her and to buy her things, but it was normally a few days before they got that. David didn’t seem to care about it being his own money, even her birth parents had hated to even spend a dime on her, so why didn’t this stranger?

[panticwritten]

Breaking Furnace Book 1: Lockdown

Chapter 3: Down The Rabbit Hole, Alice

Here is chapter 3!

I’ve had to change quite a bit of formatting to post on tumblr because I am a fiend when it comes to using different fonts and tools and junk in my writing. If you want to read this chapter with its original formatting, you can do so here.

Table of contents!

All of my writing!

Remember that this is a daydream taking place in the Escape From Furnace universe, so keep that in mind if you haven’t read EFF.

Word count: 4485

Triggers for this chapter:

Being misgendered

Sexual harassment

As always, let me know if you need anything tagged.

Chapter four will be up on Friday, January 12th, at 7pm.

If you like what I do here, maybe consider buying me a Ko-fi or checking out my Patreon! I love being able to put so much out for free, but this would be a great way to show support and also see cool new content!

~-S-~

The process is a blur. Decontamination, new clothes, and waiting for the elevator. The suits stay in good spirits, though I try to be stern when they talk to me like a friend. I’m here as a prisoner, and they know it.

This isn’t going to help me stay safe in the prison. Already, each time one of the guards addresses me like an equal, Monty fixes me with an openly hostile glare. I doubt he’ll keep quiet about how close I am to the guards once we’re inside.

The awkward, one-sided conversation the blacksuits have been putting me through ceases when the elevator arrives. I rush in and ignore the whirring of the machine gun that comes to life on the roof of the car. The suits bid us—me, specifically—farewell, but I ignore them and glare at the floor.

The suits just laugh and begin to walk away as the doors shudder. The moment they close, I steel myself. We’re going down.

Underground.

I take a deep breath and try to put it from my mind. I’ve been here before, I can handle it now. Setting my shoulders, I wave a hand to freeze the camera pointed at us.

I gaze at the two new boys, polar opposites from each other, and try to figure them out. I don’t know how much sentience they have, or whether they’ll help or hinder the escape. I guess there’s only one way to find out.

“Camera’s off, we have the whole ride to talk.”

Jimmy, the tall, skinny one, immediately starts listing off questions. Some of them are things I want to explain to Alex and Zee, anyway, so it really doesn’t help me assess him. Are these his questions? Or mine?

“What did you mean when you said we’ll all get out of here? Didn’t you work for Furnace? How did you stop the camera? Stop time?” I raise a hand to stop him before he wastes the whole ride. I need to know.

“I meant that I’m blowing the lid off of this place. Again. There’s a reason I worked here, and it’s not because I’m a sadist. I—”

“You’re crazy,” Monty mutters. “No one’s getting out, you’re just a lunatic. Why do you think they sent you here instead of Max? Don’t listen to her, Jimmy.” He turns to Alex and Zee. “You two shouldn’t be buying into this, either.”

I look at him. I’m not sure how much of that was him and how much of it was me, but it hit home. Just a little bit, that hurt.

But that’s nothing new.

“This won’t be the first time I've had this place torn apart.” He scoffs, and I narrow my eyes. “We’ve beaten Furnace before. I mean, Zee even assaulted his warden a couple times.”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Zee mutters.

“Are you saying you aren’t scared of him?” Monty challenges. I start to laugh, maybe a little nervously. Christ, that’s not what I’m getting at at all.“And if you beat Furnace, what's the prison still doing here?”

“I-”

“And how are you freezing things?” Jimmy asks. I look back at him, surprised. That’s easy, something everyone in the Cube knows by now, so I think he’s mostly cognizant. I should probably be real with him, then.

“None of this is real, kiddo. It’s an elaborate daydream of mine, and you got caught in it.”

“What?”

“It’s a game, Jimmy,” I say with a dramatic sigh. “A fabricated world. You guys were supposed to be part of the scenery. I made a mistake, as cold as that sounds.” I shrug, itching at the skin on my arm concealing the key. It feels weird. “Anyone who dies wakes up somewhere safe. That includes you now, I think.”

The look on Monty’s face tells me he has something else to say, but the elevator begins to grind to a halt. I still don’t know about Monty, but that'll have to wait.

“Wait! I have to put the cameras back, we can talk about this later.” I wave the camera back on just as the doors begin to open.

At the front of the crowd in genpop, four familiar faces approach. The rest of the Skulls follow close behind them. I note that Donovan, Dominic, and Connor wear the black Skull bandannas along with the usual crowd. Kevin must have let them join the gang this time. Protection in exchange for another chance at getting out.

The idea of Donovan in the Skulls is so absurd that it takes me a second to remind myself of the eyes on me.

“Look what we have here. What’re you in for, girlie?” Kevin croons, stopping right at my feet.

I respond with what I hope is an easy smile.

“How nosy. Am I supposed to be scared, Chicken Pox?” I breathe. I lean forward and whisper in his ear. “Make it believable.”

I don’t get a chance to pull away before his fist sinks into my gut.

I double over, and he laughs, pushing me back. I sink to the floor, winded, and glare up at him. I guess I asked for that.

“Yeah, little girl, you should be scared,” he says with a smirk. The siren sounds before he can take it any further. He leaves without another word and joins the throng of inmates gathering in a yellow circle painted on the floor of the yard.

Alex and Zee help me up, and I take a moment to catch my breath. Jimmy hangs back, and Monty glances at me.

“You know him?” the short boy asks.

I wave him away, though I do bob my head in a nod. “ Kevin. He’s gonna keep us alive 'til the game really starts.”

The doors at the far side of the yard open with another siren blast. My stomach squirms at the reminder of where we are. I tell the others to stay sharp in a low voice, though Alex and Zee certainly don’t need telling.

Three blacksuits, the guards of Furnace Penitentiary, step out first with shotguns slung over their shoulders. Their grins, half-moons wider than should be possible, almost identify them more than the crisp black suits they wear.

Then come the wheezers. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I clench my fists. Withered soldiers, their gas masks hide the truth. Ancient tinkerers working on flesh and bone to create beings that are more than human. The cost, however…

Catastrophe.

Finally, the real monster emerges. Two of his giant, skinless dogs pant at his heels. His skin looks off, but it’s hard to tell exactly what it is at a glance. Leathery, dry, a mummy disguised as a businessman. The pits of his eyes are nearly impossible to look into.

I don’t need to see them, though, to know the truth. I see past his welcoming grin at the villain beneath. For an instant, I manage to catch his eye and it’s nearly too much. I feel the world peel away, my thoughts twisting. All of the nectar in the room, the prison, in this world almost brings me back. It almost turns me right here.

Instead, the prison snaps back into place and I glare defiantly at the warden of Furnace Penitentiary.

My adoptive brother, if I were to listen to Connor.

He begins his obviously rehearsed speech, promising us an easy stay if we follow the rules. I ignore him, having heard this many times before. It doesn’t take long for him to get down to business.

“Jessica Furnace. Prisoner number 201239. Cell A10, ground floor.” I breathe a sigh of relief. At least he gave me my own cell. I stride into the ring among shocked mutters that quickly morph into catcalls and jeers. I ignore them as the others are divvied out.

Alex goes with Donovan, Zee finds a boy named Carlton Jones, Monty grudgingly joins Kevin, who shoves him to the side. Pointedly ignoring Cross’s words, I don’t think to listen for Jimmy’s cellmate’s name, and I don’t recognize the boy he finds in the crowd.

We stand separated by the crowd and wait through the rest of Cross’s address. I don’t pay attention, scuffing my toe against the dusty ground. Paper shoes, a must have fashion item in this prison, already make me want to to cut my feet off. A siren sounds, and my brother smiles.

“Beneath Heaven is Hell. Beneath Hell is Furnace. Enjoy your stay.”

He moves to turn away, and I bring my hands together in a ringing clap. The clamour of the other inmates freezes. The warden’s dogs stop growling. The man himself is frozen in time. I watch him steadily for any sign that he isn’t affected.

After Monty and Jimmy, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.

When he doesn’t move, I jog out of the crowd.

“Jess, hey—hey, Jess!” Dominic calls from the circle. I haven’t talked to him in a couple months, and I’m not quite ready to break that streak. Instead, I survey the blacksuit numbers.

It takes a while to walk through the prison and check all of the rooms, and in the end I only find fifteen of them. Fifteen guards watching over hundreds of inmates.

This isn’t up to regulation. I mean, I’m happy that they’re dropping shift numbers. I’m overjoyed about it. It just makes me feel like he isn’t taking me seriously.

How rude.

Now, the cameras. I skirt the edges of the yard, work areas, and above to find the small lenses. There are only two new ones. Neither of them close the blind-spots protecting our escape route. He’s still not taking me seriously.

Maybe he agrees that what happens here is secondary to the events after we leave genpop. Maybe he wants the excuse to tear us apart. Maybe he has plans for us when we reach the underbelly of the prison.

It doesn’t matter. I smile anyway, more to boost my confidence than anything, and stride to Cross himself. The boys’ quiet discussion makes me long to join them. I have one more thing to do, though.

“Hang on. What the hell are you doing?” Donovan shouts from behind me as I search through the warden’s pockets.

I keep my eyes resolutely away from his face, though I know he’s frozen where he stands. While my history with him means I can meet his eyes easier than most, I would really rather not.

Eventually, I find what I’m looking for in his jacket’s inside pocket. I press my free hand against the skin of my upper arm and the key rests in my hand when I pull it away. With a click, I convert it into a pen. When I touch it to my brother’s notepad, the words flow smoothly.

Still playing nice? Unexpected, coming from you. Maybe we’ll be able to speak face to face soon. Not too soon, though, I hope.

Perry.

I then replace the notepad and hide my key again. Alright, time to join the others.

It looks like Zee is explaining everything to the new kids. Just as well, now I won’t have to do it.

“Listen up!” I call. The words I mean to say dry up in my throat when my eyes land on Monty. I address him. “Now that you’re here, we need to step up our schedule.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demands. The original crew shifts uncomfortably, but I merely blink at his immediate anger.

“Since you’re one of us, we need to get out of general population before they take you away. I wanted to save you this time, anyway, so I set up a warning ahead of time.”

“‘This time?’ ‘Take me away?’ What does that even mean?”

I glance at Zee, and he shrugs. He obviously didn’t mention our previous runs. I’m on my own here.

“Down below, Cross is experimenting on prisoners. Without intervention, he’ll take you and turn you into one of his soldiers.” I nod at a frozen blacksuit in Cross’s procession, if only to avoid Monty’s darkening glare. “Just like the rest.”

“So I was right,” he accuses, and I look back at him to find the same accusation I point at myself. I force myself not to look away. “You don’t actually care about us, do you?”

I stare blankly at him, trying to find the energy to respond to that. He doesn’t back down, but then, I didn’t exactly expect him to. I still don’t know if he’s one of us, or if his words come from myself. After a minute or so of silence, I avert my eyes and let out a breath.

“Listen, Monty. I’ve watched you get turned into a blacksuit more times than I can count. I decided that I can’t stand to see it again. You may be right, maybe I am a monster, but I would rather die than see another one of my friends be torn apart and sewn back together in this place.”

He doesn’t respond, so I turn to the others. Only Connor will meet my eyes. The others’ faces are twisted in semblances of grief. I set myself and begin again. I don’t want to think about this.

“I’ve shifted a few things in the prison’s schedule in the short time I had on the surface. When Gary gets here, we’ll have a week to prepare. We need him to get out of here.” I pause and consider what else I need to tell them upfront. “After we blow out, we probably won’t be able to talk in secret like this.”

“How'd it go last time? You know, if it’s so different now?”

I consider Jimmy and his question, trying to decide how much to tell him. The silence doesn’t last long enough to become awkward before I break it.

“I couldn’t save Monty. He was turned into a monster down below. I’d wormed myself into the Skulls in time to keep the gang from getting taken over by Gary.” My fingers remember the tacky blood, and I clench my fist to chase the feeling away as I speak. “We lost Kevin and I took control of the gang to keep things on track.”

“Hey.” Connor’s voice brings me back and I shake my head slightly. I turn to see him eying me with concern. I flash him a grimace before looking back at the now queasy-looking Jimmy.

“Gary picked a fight with me soon after and he was sent down to the infirmary early,” I continue briskly. “We almost didn’t get out of the prison because of that. It’s too dangerous to risk it again.”

“And that’s the only reason you wanted to save me?”

I turn my eyes back on Monty, not wanting to answer. He seems to take my silence to mean the worst, but I’m honestly just too exhausted to get into this with him.

“We already have some gas stored away,” Dominic blurts.

I give him a nod, grateful for the subject change, and return his smile. He doesn’t expand on his outburst, so I look to the others for confirmation.

Connor rolls his eyes and steps forward. “Not that much. It’ll probably shave off a couple days of gathering, though.”

I grin and finally relax. I can’t help myself, rounding the group to catch the old crowd in hugs. Kevin grumbles, Donovan laughs, Dominic smiles sheepishly, and Alex and Zee both hug me just as tightly. I save Connor for last, holding him longer and tighter than the others. When I pull back, I breathe a sigh of relief at how good he looks.

Healthy. Unhurt. Alive.

I wonder, again, how long he’s been here.

“God, I missed all of you so much,” I say, my hand still lingering on Connor’s arm. “Have you counted how many you have? Carried them to the crack?” I list out more questions that I don’t really expect answers to as Donovan leads the way to the chipping rooms.

Connor leans closer to whisper to me as we enter the wide room. I stop, and he pauses beside me, almost looking like he might turn into one of the two open rooms. “A lot longer than you, if you really want to know.”

“How long?” I press, my lips barely moving.

He doesn’t answer, striding ahead of me with an infuriating smile. He takes an offered helmet from Zee, turns its light on, and ducks into Room Two, the only entryway boarded up out of the three. I huff and cross the room to take a helmet of my own from the floor and join the others in the darkness of the blocked room.

Peering into the pitch black, it hits me again that we’re underground. There’s a mile or more of rock above my head, and I screw my eyes shut to try and push the thought away again. I’m fine.

I’m fine.

I’m always fine.

A hand closes around mine, and I open my eyes. Connor, his eyes shining in the light filtering in from the main chipping room, watches me steadily. I grip his hand tight, and he squeezes mine in return.

“Hey. You’ll start time again if you aren’t careful,” he says. The words sound like an admonishment, but his voice is gentle. I ground myself on those words and nod. He pats the top of my helmet, grinning.

He doesn’t let go of my hand, and I’m grateful.

I inspect the floor beneath the slats of the boards designating Room Two as off-limits. There aren’t any gloves here, so I shake off the last of my worry and continue into the room.

Lights dance further ahead, the others rushing on. We walk in relative silence, trying to ignore the eery echoing of voices up ahead. We pick our way over and around fallen rocks, evidence of the cave-in. I stop, once or twice, to take a breath and remind myself that this is fine.

Even if it would be all kinds of embarrassing to die in a cave-in when I’m planning on picking a fight with the closest thing to the devil I can imagine.

The gentle sound of the distant river quickly picks up, and I remember how Alex thought it was one of Cross’s dogs when he first discovered this place. It’s certainly loud enough, and the river is so much more dangerous than the dogs.

At least with the dogs, running sometimes works.

“You’re fifteen here, yeah?”

I look up to Connor. The beam of my light misses him, and his face stays in eerie darkness under his helmet. His eyes glint in the ambient light, bringing the silver eyes of Cross’s suits and rats to mind.

At the thought, his light jerks away and points straight ahead once more. I follow suit, keeping my eyes on the path ahead of us.

“Yeah. Sixteen next month,” I answer solemnly.

“Right, right,” he mutters, distracted. “Then it would be three years. A little more than that, maybe.”

I stop. Looking back up at Connor, my light hits his chest and lights up his face. He doesn’t seem bothered, but that’s so long.

Three years?

In the low light, I can’t tell if his expression is a smile or a grimace. He tugs on my hand and I trail behind him, shaking my head. If he really doesn’t mind, I shouldn’t worry about it.

We don’t talk for the rest of the journey, though it isn’t very far. We come to the gathering of our small group, the roar of the river beyond the rock wall overpowering almost everything else. The chill in the air soothes my frayed nerves, and I let go of Connor’s hand to join the others.

Donovan makes a wisecrack about the two of us taking so long, and I knock into his shoulder as I pass. Most of us laugh, but I catch Monty and Jimmy conversing near the edge of the group. I’ll leave them alone for now.

Instead, I focus on the long crack in the floor, maybe six inches wide, cutting through a few yards of the red rock. I trail my gaze along the break in the otherwise solid rock until my light falls on the collection of gloves poking out of the crack near the wall.

I immediately turn around and focus a feigned glare on Connor.  .

“What?” He shrugs, not even trying to hide his snicker, and the sound broadens my grin.

“Only a few? Ass.” I can’t hold back my own gale of laughter when I run forward to count the yellow gloves.

We have a headstart of 30 gloves. We need about 150 if we want to break through the rock without death chasing us. Timing won’t be a problem at all now.

As we all leave the closed chipping room, I warn Kevin about my plans for the day.

He seems dubious, at best, but I’m not sure if that’s because of the plan or him thinking I’m wrong on principle. He doesn’t argue much though, which I take as an agreement.

I duck out of Room Two, last again, and make my way back to the yellow ring. I check to make sure that everyone’s back where they belong. Still, to be sure, I call out a warning before lifting my hands.

With a sharp clap, I return the flow of time to normal. I watch the warden, my gaze steady. He’s been dealing with the Cube long enough that he should be able to—

He pauses before leaving, straightening his jacket and scowling. I flash him a grin before turning away.

He knows, for better or for worse.

I meet with Alex, Jimmy, Monty, and Zee in front of my cell.

“So, normal life. We can hide the gloves in my empty bunk. Make sure you keep your heads down, the last thing we need is for the the other inmates to get wind of what’s going on.”

“Rubber gloves full of gas; do you really think I’m stupid enough to think that’ll work?” Monty scoffs.

This is getting more than a little exhausting. I’m almost 90% sure he’s not sentient, that he’s just me hitting myself over the head with a branch. I deserve it, probably.

“Think what you want. We all have more important shit to do than convince you that we’re right.”

~-S-~

I lounge in my cell, waiting for lunch. Sometimes, someone will notice me watching and make towards my cell. They always find themselves distracted by something or other, though. It takes several rounds of this for me to make the connection.

Skulls. Every time, a Skull distracts, deflects, or picks fights with anyone getting too close. Kevin must be behind that, the piece of garbage.

When the first few inmates begin drifting toward the mess hall, I stand and head that way as well. I might as well try to get some food for myself before I start a fight. Somehow, I make it there without any distractions.

How convenient.

Maybe I should check my settings, kick the difficulty up a notch. I allow myself a laugh at that, attracting a couple glances. I don’t know how I would even go about a change like that, but I can still hope.

The trough room itself is about the size of a high school gymnasium, rows of rusting tables fit with matching benches. I skirt around the edges, eyes on the counter surrounded by inmates clamouring for food, trying to ignore the open glares from those already seated.

They have every right to hate me, of course. I worked for Furnace, and most of these kids already know that. The ones that don’t will be filled in by the end of the day, I’m sure.

Approaching the counter, I lift a metal tray and follow the example of those ahead of me, holding it out in expectation of slop. It doesn’t look good, not in any sense, but it’s still food.

None comes, and I narrow my eyes at the boy behind the counter.

“We’re out,” he says in a deadpan as the kid next to him drops a spoonful of the gunk on another’s tray.

I tighten my grip on the tray, struggling to push the irritation down. I can’t start a fight, not yet. I force a smile and pull the tray back out of his reach.

“Of course,” I murmur. His answering grin is gloating. I drop the tray, watching his smile slip with the clatter of the metal on the counter. I turn and push back through the crowd to lean against the wall near the door.

I guess I’ll just wait.

Moments later, Kevin and a few Skulls, including Connor, filter into the trough room. Connor pauses when he sees me, but only barely. He recovers quickly and stays with the group.

They obviously have no trouble getting their food, as big, bad gang members. I scowl, watching them take a seat not far away.

I stare at them, frowning. Connor meets my gaze and leans over to whisper to Kevin. He doesn’t show any sign that he sees me and leisurely finishes his slop. I bite my tongue to quell my impatience.

Kevin drops his spoon.

I step forward. I watch with mild interest as a few of the gang members tense up, as if to stop me. None of them do it, though. In fact, they move aside as I approach. I stop across the table from Kevin.

“What d‘you want, Furnace?” he drawls.

“I have a proposal for you,” I say, all trace of my anxiety from the real world gone. “A game.”

“This ain’t the place for games, sweetheart,” Kevin answers.

Prick.

“A wager, then?” I concede. “Would you be interested in that? You certainly look the type.”

“Maybe we could work something out. Whatchu got in mind?”

“Well...” I tilt my head with a sly smile. “How about a fight?”

The Skulls laugh, but Kevin’s icy glare shuts them up fast. His apparent boredom only shifts marginally when he looks back to me.

“Who’s gonna fight?”

“Me,” I reach forward to tap his nose. “and you.”

He catches my hand when I’m pulling it back and refuses to let go. He gives me an intimidating glare, and I return his gaze with feigned innocence. He lets go and leans back.

“Whatchu want if you win?”

I drop the smile. “I want you to let my friends and I into your little gang here.”

His eyebrows shoot up, and he chuckles. “And if I win?”

I slide onto the table’s bench, finally letting go of the innocent air I’d been trying to maintain.

“I can do anything that you want, sweetheart, anything at all.” He sucks in a breath. I laugh and hold a hand out. “Deal?”

He eyes me for only a moment longer, then catches my hand in his.

“Deal.”

[suitablysublime]

okay the whole concept of the looking glass is just... a mess... in general and characterization isn't exactly the tour's strong suit, but... i have some additional thoughts w/r/t alice, ellie, jack, (my version of) fratter, & the LG prompted by @jollyteatime​'s post on the subject a couple days ago. VERY rambly and disconnected thoughts. 

let’s kick this off with the explanation of what the looking glass does:

RABBIT: Well no one ever goes through.

ALICE: Why?

RABBIT: Because they don't want to.

ALICE: Why? What's on the other side? Where do you go?

RABBIT: Well, you come back here. Now, if you go through, which is one of the things that makes this a very unusual looking glass, when you come back, it's the opposite of you.

JACK: I don't understand.

ALICE: I do. It's like a portal. A portal to the... other side of things.

RABBIT: Exactly! A portal to the parts of you that you usually keep hidden!

JACK: And people don't want that?

RABBIT: Of course not! That's why they hide them in the first place!

ELLIE: But what if you wanted to go back to being that person?

RABBIT: That is a very difficult question.

ALICE: And what's the answer?

RABBIT: Alice... That is up to you.

obviously, as isabelle noted, this doesn’t really make sense  ( the “opposite” of you and the parts of yourself you hide are... not the same thing. )  HOWEVER, i think it’s important to also take into account certain things the looking glass says about itself, in particular this exchange:

ALICE: Don't, Jack! I think the rabbit was right. I think I hid the other side of me for a reason.

LOOKING GLASS: Then you shouldn't go through.

ALICE: It can talk?

LOOKING GLASS: That is another thing that makes me an unusual looking glass.

ELLIE: We do need things to change.

LOOKING GLASS: Then you should go through.

JACK: I'm not sure...

LOOKING GLASS: Then I'm not sure either.

ALICE: You're not very helpful.

LOOKING GLASS: I’m not very helpful, no. It’s not up to me to decide who you want to be.

laying aside the question of opposite vs. hidden, the important takeaway here seems to me to be the role of personal choice in the changes the looking glass enacts in people. this is reiterated several times throughout the rest of the musical: you should ONLY go through if you really, truly want to change.

now –––––– i have a lot of problems with the concept of the looking glass, with insta-character development, and in particular with how the hatter’s character is reduced in the tour to a plot device with no agency or personality to speak of.

that being said.

i think if we focus on the looking glass’s own words, it’s possible to make sense of the transformations it enables over the course of the show.

“It’s not up to me to decide who you want to be.”

it isn’t the looking glass’s job to better people. it’s not the looking glass’s job to recover from trauma, or work through pain, or break bad habits, or stop relying on maladaptive coping mechanisms. it’s not the looking glass’s job to figure out the kind of person somebody wants to be and then forge them into that person.

it’s there to facilitate change, but it can’t be the one driving that change.

let’s look at these one by one.

1.   ellie.

ellie’s transformation is pretty straightforward.

as things stand at the beginning of the show, ellie is experiencing a type of emotional abuse called parentification. her mother has burrowed into this comfortingly a rose-tinted, idealized memory of her former marriage and the fantasy that her (abusive) ex-husband will come back for them. this puts ellie in the position of needing to “parent” her mother — buying food, cooking meals, telling her it’ll be alright when things go wrong, trying to prod her into letting go of the fantasy and living in the real world.

ELLIE: Okay, don't worry about the job. You hated it anyway. You could think about going back into teaching...

ALICE: Ugh, what's the point?

ELLIE: Well, they were gonna make you Deputy Head before Dad—

ALICE: No, Ellie.

ELLIE: You could even try writing again.

ALICE: Your father said it stopped me concentrating on our marriage.

ELLIE: Stopped you picking up after him like some kind of slave...

ALICE: He was protecting me!

ELLIE: He was a nightmare. One day he was screaming at us, the next he was all, "I love you, and I—"

ALICE: He saved me, Ellie. He was patient, and charming, and he helped me understand that he should be my focus and my friends were a really bad influence, actually. They all hated him.

ELLIE: It was a prison, mum.

ALICE: It was a cocoon!

ellie is twelve. this is what her life has been for five years. and before that, it was living with an abusive father who treated her mum like utter shit and turned her into a shell of the person ellie remembers knowing in her earliest years.

at first glance, she seems to be handling all this very well — she’s optimistic, responsible, well-behaved — but there’s signs of anxiety and unhappiness from the very beginning, and all she really wants is for alice to “finally realize that dad is gone” and that “it’s time for her to stop acting other wise.”  she’s so, so desperate for alice to be her mum instead of her responsibility. ellie doesn’t want to be her mother’s caretaker, doesn’t want to be the responsible, sensible, competent one in their relationship — but she doesn’t really have a choice, because alice refuses point blank to even try getting better.

that’s why she charges through the looking glass, and that’s why she comes out of it spitting mad. all this stuff she’s been suppressing because she has to be the parent gets dredged up to the surface — the anxiety, the unhappiness, the deep betrayal of her mum not taking care of her the way mothers should, the exhaustion, the sadness, the loneliness, the resentment — and it all explodes out at once.

she got exactly the change she wanted: she gets to think, feel, and act like the traumatized twelve-year-old child she actually is, instead of like a grown up.

2.   jack.

jack’s transformation works a little differently.

he starts off as a loser. he’s trapped in the miserable and unappreciated job of coordinating garbage services for his apartment building, and for three years he’s been secretly pining for a woman he can’t even pluck up the courage to say hello to and who doesn’t even know his name even though they’re neighbors. he’s passive and indecisive, stumbling through his life without ever daring to actually pursue any of the things he wants.

but he has these fantasies. dreams of being cool, and confident, and charming, and the kind of person who looks good and feels good and can just sweep alice off her feet and be the man of her dreams. of being a hero.

that’s what he wants when he goes through, and that’s what he gets.

sort of.

jack gets a change of clothes and a glaze of confidence and charm, and absolutely nothing else. it’s enough, at first, to convince both him and alice that he’s been transformed into a hero... but he hasn’t. he doesn’t fucking DO anything after his transformation that he wasn’t already doing before.

he credits the looking glass with giving him the courage to talk to alice — but that’s not actually the case. jack first plucked up the courage to speak to alice before he even knew the looking glass existed, before he and alice ever ended up in wonderland.

ALICE: Then rescue her. You're supposed to be a hero!

JACK: I can't.

ALICE: The Looking Glass is obviously pointless, then. All you've changed is your clothes.

JACK: I spent three years trying to pluck up the courage to speak to you! This conversation is a heroic act for me, I promise.

so, yeah. alice is right, and the looking glass didn’t make jack a hero. 

i think this is because the fantasies that jack had in his head about who and what he wanted to be were never realistic. he isn’t like ellie. he doesn’t have a ton of emotional junk that he’s been repressing and hiding inside of himself that just needed to be released — he was just an average, normal, sort of wimpy person who wished he could be something he’s not. 

going through the looking glass, i think, ultimately gives jack the perspective he needs to understand that he’s never going to be, to use jack’s own words, “this special guy with big muscles and ray guns who turns up and magics everything better.” he can strut around and pretend to be that guy for a little while, but sooner or later the illusion’s going to crumble and he’s just going to be the same person he’s always been. 

but... accepting that he’s never going to be that person isn’t the same as giving up and wallowing in how pathetic he is. in the beginning, jack has a very fatalistic view of himself; though he dreams of being #cool he also believes very strongly that there’s no way he could ever be anything but a loser. letting go of the fantasy also means letting go of the belief that self improvement is impossible. he can work on being less shy, less passive, more confident. he does have the potential to be better than he is right now, if only he tries. 

that’s really the change that the looking glass facilitates: for jack to try to do what he can to better himself instead of wallowing in his own unhappiness and dreaming of better things. the trappings of heroism, the swagger that he wears when he first emerges from the looking glass, are just a roundabout way of getting him to that point.

3.   alice.

alice is terrified of change.

for her this is self-defense gone horribly wrong; the only way she could cope with how her husband treated her and the awful way her marriage ended was by retreating into fantasy and convincing herself that everything was fine, that that was love, that she enjoyed the abuse and felt safe being controlled. 

letting go of that would mean facing her trauma, facing the guilt she feels vis a vis ellie, and taking responsibility for her own life. and that terrifies her —

because she’s worn out and tired and she wasted half her fucking life letting this pathetic evil man take everything she had to give and then throw her out like trash when he finished with her, and how do you come back from that? because for him she walked away from all her friends, from a career she excelled at, from a hobby she loved, from her daughter, and she’s forty years old and she has nothing except this fantasy she’s built for herself.

but she needs to change, and she knows that. she knows this isn’t sustainable, that sooner or later something’s going to give, and that terrifies her too because she has no idea what’s going to happen when it does.

so when she finds the looking glass and digs in her heels and refuses and refuses and refuses to step through, it’s because she senses on some level that she’s reached the point where she can’t keep running away and she’s going to have to turn around and reengage with reality. 

and... part of her wants to. she expresses a desire to change in the very first song  ( “I’ve gotta change, but I’m too afraid to! / What would I find even if I dared to? / So I’m stuck right here, as if anybody cares...”  )   that thus far has been overridden by her fear. which is something that i think scares her too? the very fact that on some level she does want to change is frightening.

the thing that finally convinces her to go through is not everybody in wonderland piling on her and telling her she needs to do it for all their sakes. it isn’t for ellie. it isn’t for jack. all those things play a role, but ultimately i think it’s this conversation, which is ostensibly about ellie but really about alice herself: 

ALICE: I just want someone to rescue me.

JACK: No, you don't.

ALICE: Oh, what do you know?

JACK: I know that you're lying to yourself! Your ex-husband made you think all these things about yourself which just aren't true.

ALICE: How do you know?

JACK: Because! It's incredibly obvious! Because it's not a unique story! And actually, because it's not a unique story, you know it too.

ALICE: ...Everything I ever do is wrong, Jack.

JACK: No—no. Right here, now? You're the person who can do the thing. You. Not me.

ALICE: What is that, then?

JACK: It's getting through to Ellie. It's stopping the Hatter and finding a way of getting us home.

ALICE: I can't do it!

JACK: Then Ellie's doomed. So's Wonderland.

ALICE: I don't know what to do, Jack.

JACK: You have to try.

ALICE: But I might fail!

JACK: Well I think that maybe that's what makes trying heroic.

this is the first time in the show anybody actually calls alice on her bullshit. up to this point she’s gotten plenty of pleas from ellie to get over sebastian, but the problem has never been that alice is genuinely still in love with sebastian. she’s not. the problem is that she’s lying to herself that she’s still in love, and everything was fine, and he just needs to come back and her life will be fine — her still being in love with sebastian is as much a part of the fantasy as everything else. it’s not real. 

jack recognizes that, and him saying it out loud forces alice to admit it too.

and then when she tries to evade, he cuts right to the heart of why she’s so resistant to admitting all this, which is her fear of not being able to do it. that the person she used to be — the person who wouldn’t have thought twice about charging in to rescue her daughter — is gone forever and she’s going to be stuck as this pathetic, useless, empty person for the rest of her life. she’s scared to try because trying and failing would be worse than never trying at all.

and jack, essentially, reminds her that no — trying is success in and of itself. that it’s okay if she doesn’t know how. it’s okay if she’s scared. 

so.

she still doesn’t want to go through the looking glass, because she doesn’t know exactly what will happen when she comes out but she knows it’ll be hard and unpleasant and scary and painful; but on a deeper and more important level, she wants to go through, she wants to be her old self again. she wants to be more than the hollow shell sebastian made of her. 

this conflict is why it takes her hours to emerge after first going into the looking glass; i think she has to work out which side she wants most before the looking glass can do anything for her. 

when she does finally emerge, her transformation looks a lot like ellie’s: everything she suppressed for the sake of clinging to her fantasies has been brought to the surface. she’s not all better or fixed because not even a magical portal of character development can just snap its fingers and poof decades of trauma gone — but she’s been kicked out of denial and straight into anger: 

ALICE: Sebastian? Oh, my god. Don't get me started on Sebastian — he's the literal standard-bearer for the monstrous legion of gutless half-men who make themselves feel big by brainwashing otherwise sane women into feeling worthless — in fact, forget that! He's not the standard-bearer! Don’t give him that much credit! He's just some rancid little foot soldier! And I'm going to make it my life's work — you mark my words — to make every woman value themselves properly and laugh in the face of these pathetic little bullies as they realize no one's ever going to fall for them again until they finally march off into the sea!

( i’m going to be pissed about this speech getting cut until the day i fucking die. )

now that she’s being 100% honest with herself about everything, she’s in a position to finally start getting better. 

4.   hatter.

( note: unlike isabelle, my interpretation of uk!hatter is based solely on fran’s version of her — i don’t take natalie’s or michelle’s portrayals into account. that’s the context in which i’ll be discussing her character here. )

hatter’s transformation is unique in that hatter did not want to go through the looking glass. at all. ellie, jack, and alice all genuinely DID want their lives to change in some way when they went through the looking glass.

the hatter does not want to change. period. her life isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for her to feel content with her lot:

HATTER: Oh, this is home.

ELLIE: What?!

HATTER: Well, it's cozy...

ELLIE: The queen keeps cutting off your heads!!

HATTER: That... is stressful.

[...]

ELLIE: I already told you you have to stop the queen!

HATTER: I can't. I'm just a jolly teatime person. Although what you're saying does make me feel dangerously energized and proactive—no, no, on thinking about it, I choose tea time.

[...]

HATTER: But I'd need to be a totally different person.

ELLIE: Yeah, you need to go through the Looking Glass. It's like so obvious!

HATTER: But you shouldn't go through the Looking Glass if you don't really want things to change, and I don't.

ELLIE: You should! You can stop this stupid tyranny!

now... there’s subtext in the way this scene plays out that suggests the hatter isn’t truly content with the way things are, and that she does see the appeal in overthrowing the queen and taking over wonderland herself — but the important thing, for our purposes, is that neither of those things is enough to make her actually, actively want to change.

she goes through the looking glass not because she wants to but because ellie tells her to do it, and the results are... not good.

the looking glass isn’t supposed to decide how people should be — it isn’t supposed to be the one driving the change. and when hatter goes through she doesn’t have a clear idea of what she’s supposed to become, other than that she needs to be a totally different person capable of taking charge and overthrowing the queen.  ( exacerbating this, i think, is the fact that the hatter really... doesn’t have any models of what having power looks like other than the queen; positions of authority are, to her, synonymous with tyranny. )

so. she becomes a tyrant. sort of.

as with jack, this “change” is very superficial and thus cannot last; unlike jack, however, hatter never wanted to change in the first place and so, when the illusion of transformation fails, instead of reconciling herself to it as jack does, hatter just clings harder and harder to ellie, who convinced her to go through the looking glass in the first place and who must therefore, the hatter thinks, know what the hell she’s doing.

for hatter, instead of being a liberating experience as it was for ellie or one that prompts self-assessment and self-acceptance as it did for jack, going through the looking glass is a painful, upsetting, confusing experience specifically because she never was content with herself and didn’t want to change, but felt obligated to do so for ellie’s sake. and it isn’t until she goes back through the looking glass that these issues are resolved.

5.   in summary...

the looking glass seems to have two modes. 

for people like ellie and alice — who really, truly, desperately needed to change — it appears to tear away any self-deception or masks or fantasies that are getting in the way of that change happening. it stripped ellie’s façade of responsible adulthood to let her actually be a child, and it ripped away the remnants of alice’s extremely maladaptive fantasies.

for... other people, it appears to create illusions, and whether these illusions result in positive or negative experience seems to depend on whether the person actually. wants to change or not. 

for jack, who’s miserable and wishes he could be different, slaps a stupid rockstar hero persona on jack, which lasts just long enough to give him a boost in self-confidence before falling to pieces because he doesn’t fucking do anything. for jack, this was still a positive experience — he got to live out his wildest dreams just long enough to realize that it wasn’t sustainable and he’d be better off just being a less self-pitying version of himself — because it was a way of leading him to the changes he actually could make to improve his life.

for the hatter, this is bad. very very bad, because the looking glass shows her a nightmare version of herself — an off-brand queen of hearts, an industrial tyrant, a cruel, angry, selfish person willing to let her friends sicken and die because that’s how power works. she never wanted to change in the first place, and only went through the looking glass because of ellie, and she had only the vaguest ideas of what the sort of hatter who could overthrow the queen would be like... and the result was horrible. 

[thepelagoislands]

Fable Festival (Arcadia) || January 20th - 28th

In the center of Arcadia, right in front of City Hall, join the island for a festival entirely dedicated to books and fables, The Fable Festival! Along the main celebration area, feel free to partake in a free, open library with plenty of books to choose from. There are plenty of benches and, thankfully, several mages have made it so the area within the festival is warm enough to comfortably be outside in the middle of the winter. Isn’t magic grand?

As always, while the festival lasts about a week IRL, the actual festival is only one entire day in RP. So keep that in mind when you’re going about your festival shenanigans.

However, the main attraction to the Fable Festival is not the open library. Also happening in the middle of the festival is something called the Role Card Game.

Role Card Game

The Role Card Game is a game where the players are supposed to act as closely to a role they are assigned as they can. Players sign up in advance, and the day before the festival, they are mailed the role that they are to play while they are on the festival grounds. Players are asked to come dressed up in clothes befitting their role and to do their best to stay in character the entire game. There is also a small corner of the area that is designated as The Jail. Also along a small table in the center of the area are several safe props that participants can use; just about anything you imagine you’ll need will be there.

At the tail end of the festival, a poll will be opened for everyone to vote on who acted out their role the best throughout the game. The winner of this poll will receive 10,000G, a special item, and a book. Both the item and the book will be revealed at the conclusion of the festival.

The Role Card Game will be hosted in the PI Discord server. If your character doesn’t sign up for a role, they can still participate in the chat. The participants must interact with non-role characters as if they are regular townsfolk, so non-participants can feel free to walk in at any time!

Everyone who signs up will receive a role! While there are thirty roles initially, if we have more people signed up, we will begin adding more roles to match the amount of players. Roles are randomly assigned a day before the festival, on January 19th, so players can find outfits and post reactions to their character’s assignement!

Roles:

The King: A very laid-back man who loves food and is head over heels for The Queen. Will usually follow The Cook around asking for more food.

The Queen: The person actually running the kingdom, and is the definition of an Ice Queen. Tends to call the guards on anyone who even looks at her the wrong way. Is having an affair with The Red Knight.

The Princess: Dresses like a prince and enjoys seducing all of the women who come around. She does not like to be tied down and is afraid of commitment.

The Prince: A very rude and spoiled prince who treats everyone around him like peons. Does what he wants and will call the guards if anyone disrespects him.

The Aristocrat?: A member of a noble family from a faraway kingdom. Is actually a peasant girl trying to marry rich and doesn’t know what all of these royal traditions or mannerisms are. She tries so hard.

The Red Knight: A loyal servant to The Queen and tends to obey her every command. Having an affair with The Queen. Can arrest people. Is also secretly planning on killing The King.

The Blue Knight: The King’s personal body guard. Is smitten by The Princess and is constantly asking The King and anyone who will listen for romantic advice. Can arrest people.

The Cook: Is always hiding from The King, looking for a break. Is married to The Royal Cow Herder.

The Royal Cow Herder: Is very proud of their cows and always enjoys showing off their cows to anyone who will listen. Very dedicated to protecting and caring for their cows. Married to The Cook.

The Cow: An actual cow. Enjoys grazing on grass.

The Cow?: Actually a thief in a cow costume. They want to steal as much as they can from the castle...but can’t blow their cover as a cow.

The Maid: Very dedicated to serving anyone who comes by. Almost too dedicated at times.

The Butler: Actually plotting to eventually overthrow The King. Is in love with The Prince.

The Royal Jester: Tasked with entertaining the royal family. Loves making just about anyone smile. Is especially in love with the Maid.

The Fairy: A fairy who can only be seen by The Royal Magician. Constantly playing pranks on people around them.

The Royal Magician: Enjoys experimenting with various potions and loves finding new test subjects for their spells. Unfortunately, everything always backfires on her. Is always trying to impress The Hunter.

The Stable Boy: Started working at the castle with the one goal of freeing the animals. Will constantly try freeing any animal in the vicinity. Including cows.

The Hunter: A hunter who is in town to sell furs. Is exceptionally handsome and constantly has people fawning over him. However, he is married to the forest. He is not interested in anything else.

The Town Crier: Usually calls out the usual news. However, he’s lost his scroll. So now he has to make up the news on the spot.

The Pickle Man: A man with a pickle stand. He is constantly trying to sell his pickles to anyone who even gets close to him. His pickles are actually disgusting.

The Fallen Aristocrat: A member of a noble family who has been disgraced and has to live a peasant’s life. Still can’t tolerate peasant life. Is looking to marry The Aristocrat? to regain social status.

The Town Doctor: Actually evil. Eventually plans to poison the royal family, though still needs to assemble the right amount of minions to fully execute his plan. Otherwise a swell guy.

The Peasant?: Actually the Harvest Goddess disguised as a peasant to test people for their charity. Has become smitten by The Fallen Aristocrat on her travels.

The Blacksmith: A very lazy individual who is always slacking on the job. Tends to sleep anywhere and everywhere. Tends to make everyone else wonder...where’s the blacksmith?

The Drunk Bard: A travelling bard who has gotten completely intoxicated at the bar and is on the hunt for more drinks. Will sing songs about anything, anyone, and at any time.

The Fairy Godmother: Helped The Aristocrat? get all dressed up like royalty. Is trying her best to make sure The Aristocrat? has a great time.

The Priest: He’s here to listen to everyone confess their sins and take donations for a shiny new church. Maybe he’s trying a bit too hard to get donations...

The Robin Hood: He steals from the rich and gives to the poor. And also flirts with beautiful young women along the way.

The Baker: A dutiful baker who just wants to sell bread and love his wife. Give this man A Break.

The Baker’s Wife: Helps The Baker with selling bread, but is also lowkey sizing up The Prince. 

The Squire: A very diligent apprentice to The Red Knight. Tends to stick very closely to The Red Knight and pays very close attention to the rules of knighthood.

The Royal Seamstress: Creates masterful clothes for the royal family. Is very judgmental of your clothes. Obviously, everyone else is wearing it wrong.

The Scribe: Writes down and records all major events that go on. His hearing is unfortunately going very bad, so he mishears everything he writes down.

The World Traveler: A traveler from a faraway land who only wants to see the world and what it has to offer. Surprisingly very naiive and will trust everyone at face value. 

The Lover: Seems to fall in love with someone new every hour or so, maybe even less. Has a lot of love to give, and can’t just contain it to one person. 

The Dancer: A street performer who specializes in dancing. Unfortunately, has two left feet when it comes to dancing.

The Mystic?: A local loon who fully believes that they are in possession of a magical force that nobody can comprehend. Enjoys boasting about their powers and threatening people with it.

The Mystic: Actually is in possession of a magical force that nobody can comprehend. However, doesn’t want to do anything good or evil with it. Is childhood friends with The Mystic? and will use their powers to make it look like The Mystic?’s power.

The Animal Whisperer: Can talk to animals, and has countless animals following them around. Has given all of their animal friends a name and will give new names to every animal in their path.

The Pirate: An actual pirate who has come to take money, seduce women, and do all of those pirate-y things. You might have heard of him before...

The Baguette Boy: Has a baguette that he prances around with. Nobody is quite sure why.

The Royal Steed: An actual horse. The Blue Knight and The Red Knight may gallantly ride The Royal Steed around.

The Prisoner: Is in jail for stealing from the royal family. A very sneaky fellow who is constantly trying to get people to help him break out of jail.

Roles will be added if sign-ups exceed 30 players, and certain roles will be cut if less than 30 players sign-up.

Here are the current participants:

Lily

Aurelia

Klaus

Vivi

Ella

Alice

Gerard

Minori

Wizard

Hart

Kathy

Elli

Candace

Elise

Elliott

Karen

Evelyn

Violet

Matai

Chase 

Marian

Georgia

Raguna

Mist

Mary

Abigail

Lumina

Soseki

Russell

Popuri

Laney

Denny

Alisa

Aden

Angela

Andrea

Pandora

Kasumi

Agate

Clorica

Pia

Leon

Witch Princess (Nessa)

Blue Feather Challenge

As this is an Arcadian festival, it is usual for some citizens to wander over to take the BLUE FEATHER CHALLENGE! On Arcadia, it is tradition to propose with a Blue Feather, which can be typically found on a Harvest Goddess statue on the top of Mt. Reinier. Since the statue is on a place inaccessible on foot, it is tradition for someone to climb up the mountain to retrieve it, dodging the falling rocks that frequently tumble down the mountainside.

In order to climb Mt. Reinier, you’ll have to GO INTO THE MINIGAME CHATZY AND INPUT THIS LINE THREE TIMES:

/choose climb, rock, climb, climb, climb, rock, climb

YOU MUST GET CLIMB ALL THREE TIMES TO MAKE IT TO THE TOP. If you get a rock, you are hit by one of Mt. Reinier’s famous falling rocks and plummet to the ground. You are free to attempt this challenge TWICE during the festival!

[tumblunni]

Bunni plays Richard and Alice, and gets an ending, and DIES INSIDE, WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK

* okay seriously i was COMPLETELY WRONG about every expectation i had, holy fucking shit

* In the end the final flashback was EVEN WORSE than I ever expected, oh god i wanna throw up! I don’t know if things could have gone differently due to my choices, but the way it went down this time was just... oh god... “I am gonna bawl my eyes out if Barney dies” HEY YOU KNOW WHAT’S EVEN WORSE THAN THAT?? He was dying and his mother had to mercy kill him so he wouldnt suffer What the fuck, what the holy everyloving fuck jesus christ god no The only choice i had in the matter was that i gave him back his toy car to hold while he fell asleep, and then it appeared on his grave at the ending and i got a few extra lines of continuity hoping that Barney is going on an adventure with Daddy in his big ol car... Fuck fucking christ god no oh godddd

* and like HEY LETS JUST RUB SOME SALT IN THE WOUND apparantly the grave we were visiting all this time was empty cos nobody could even find her husband’s body so like.. she doesnt even have the consolation of knowing they’ll be together in death

* oh and DEAR GOD there was a REALLY ATMOSPHERIC scene before it really fucking surreal and confusing oh god you’re just left with the dying barney sitting there on the floor and no choice and no items except your gun and i knew right them what i was supposed to do but i tried to leave and backtrack and find anything that could help and then all you can do is return to that empty church and find that it isnt empty anymore there’s some weird nameless faceless grandpa hiding in the confessional booth, and you can talk to him about this horrible horrible story and your horrible horrible choice and you never get to actually see who he is or anything but i choose to believe he actually did want to help, and all.. the conversation with him helped it be a little less painful at least

* and then you just go back to the empty grave marking your dead husband, and you have a horrible scene of her breaking down and yelling at him cos she knows he’d believe she’s stronger than this, and he’d tell her not to kill herself, but she really wants to die if she has to take her son’s life and god, she talks about how she attempted suicide once before from depression back when they first married, and he saved her from doing it, and now she wishes she could have died back then and never brought her son into the world if he’s just gonna suffer like this oh godddddd

* and then we get back to the present day and its all ‘aww richard really cares about you’ and ‘oh that silly richard being a comic relief’ and ‘hooray we managed to escape’ and then THE BIGGEST FUCKING EVIL PLOT TWIST HOLY JESUS FUCK

* richard i have never wanted to reach thru a screen and strangle a man more than this moment jesus fuck

* mr purposely vague ‘oh im just a generic good guy’ protagonist was lying THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME and god its even worse cos like all of his personality was still real he’s a sick fuck who THINKS he’s a good guy, and tries to be all friendly like, and just like.. compartmentalizes it away in the back of his head and pretends he hasn’t committed this damn sin, that he still counts as good if he’s just ~polite~

* FUCK SERIOUSLY MAN I have never been so terrified to hear the word brussel sprouts! I didnt even think to mention the brussel sprouts line back when I heard it! you just hear one of the gang members mention some stupid folksy idiom about brussel sprouts during the flashbacks I should have fucking known it was richard, it fits with his goddamn fake good guy persona! he slips up and mentions it after you leave the prison, he doenst know you heard him say it before GOD FUCKING DAMN YOU YOU SICK FUCK

* and like.. well.. at least it seems I was wrong about the cannibalism. Or at least, as far as richard knows they werent doing that to the victims. But it feels like he didnt know or care what happened to the people he kidnapped, all part of his strategy to put it out of mind and pretend he’s still the good guy... But GOD thats kinda EVEN WORSE that we dont even know what they were doing to the victims! Richard says they were ‘kept in relative comfort’ and compares it to being in this prison. ‘At least they had food and clothes, they wouldnt have that outside’. YEAH BUT YOURE FUCKING KEEPING THEM AS SLAVES AND POSSIBLY *SEX SLAVES* AND GOD JESUS FUCKING CHRIST And we get a partial answer to what happened to the kids from that diary. Apparantly Lucy was (for some reason) valued very highly as a slave, so much so that they’d actually pay the expense of finding insulin to keep her alive. Thats what makes me think it might have been sex slavery, i mean.. they’re valuing this one child slave higher than the rest. The other theory is that maybe Lucy was actually Richard’s daughter that he mentioned as his excuse for working for this gang, he says he was ensured that his family would be kept safe as long as he sacrificed other people... God its so fucked up. And then he tries to justify it to Alice by saying blablabla we do what we have to do to survive and morality is relative and ohhhh we’re not the bad guys i mean they’d suffer more if they died in the cold compared to living longer in pain and slavery AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE WORST PART IS???

* i got THE FUCKIN WORST ENDING, JESUS CHRIST somehow my choices during my first run led to an ending where alice agrees to join richard’s shit gang i cant even blame her for it, she was fuckin mentally shattered by having to euthanise her son and then she had a scrap of hope with an apparant friendship with an apparantly moral man and then he fucking turns out to be this sort of shit and she has no reason to keep going and i suppose this is technically ‘good’ cos she decided to live, but she also decided to be led away by a manipulative fuckass and join an evil slavery cult and god she probably feels like she’s already a ‘sinner’ cos of what she did to her kid so she belongs with them GAHHHH this is a story of a villain who’s convinced he’s good, and a good person who’s convinced she’s a villain! T_T

* I hope I can find a better ending to this...

* I hope there’s an ending where richard gets bitchslapped in the face with a two-by-four

* Seriously did i just get this ending because I tried to act like a decent friend to Richard and then just SUDDEN TWIST he was evil the whole time and GAHHHH

* fuck you richard fucking fuck you dont deserve top billing in the title

[brimbrimbrimbrim]

Since I'm supposed to be such a gamer, I'm really intrigued by this extensive list of video games you like. Like... after Lucas Baker, I really wanna know what else (and who else?!) is out there that I'm missing out on. Feel free to give as much detail as you like, also take your time because it's not like I'm gonna be finished with RE7 and Outlast anytime soon. Thanks! <3

 Thank you for asking, Waffle. I’m going to list some unconventional interests, as far as male villains and such go, and then I’ll add some of my favorites horror games for you at the end since some of them are just too damn good even without something dubious to obsesses over. Possible spoilers, but I’ll try to limit them to minor things.

Outlast’s Eddie Gluskin: Probably, my favorite villain from Outlast, after The Twins. His obsessive desire to make himself a wife is as sympathetic as it is batshit insane. He’s a real family man, has a great haircut and bow tie. If it weren’t for the blood and gender mutilation he’d be a real catch. You’ll meet him soon…

Outlast’s Twins: I’m not sure if they have another name or not, but these two really want to eat you and hang major dong throughout the whole game. The swinging dick is enough to either put the player off… or pique their interest. My interest was piqued. There’s no fandom for these guys, which sucks. Maybe I’ll write something awful for them one day.

RE7′s Lucas Baker: This fucker needs no introduction. Genius mastermind, sociopathic tendencies, probably a virgin and has an accent close enough to my boyfriend’s that I get weird feelings daily. Plus, he loves birthdays! I bet he’d be great at parties.

Silent Hill 2′s Pyramid Head: I wondered if I should include him or not because it goes without saying most of the people that will see this are already familiar with the manifestation of sexual deviancies and repression. He rapes Mannequins, has a long tentacle tongue that smacks the shit out of you and wears an apron of human flesh. Gotta love the dedication.

Fallout 3′s Charon: Not for the faint of heart, ‘cause of the whole zombie-face thing (he might not even have a dick if you think about the fact that he doesn’t have ears or a nose anymore) but he’s six and a half feet tall of ghoulish bodyguard. He’s available to both good and bad karma players because he’s loyal to anyone who holds his contract. The dude pretty much communicates in grunts and questionable insults thrown at enemies. He’s awesome.

Fallout 4′s Hancock: He’s a drug addict, a ghoul without all the insecurities and the Mayor of an anarchist town. The dude stabs a guy just for trying to extort caps off you the first time you walk into his town. First impressions am I right? His romance veers into sticky romance a bit too heavy for in at times, but he’s still a fucking badass and that radiation-torn voice is fucking hot.

Fallout 2′s Myron: It’s not creepy since I was a teenager when I played this game. This little shithead genius created the ultra addictive wasteland drug Jet, pretty much solely so he could barter for prostitutes. He’s a horny, greasy asshole and my favorite companion in Fallout 2. I sorta wanted to strap him to the Highwayman and put him in his place.

Gears of War’s Locust: They come in many forms/races but the grunts were always my favorite. When a town would get decimated it was usually these beasts that got sent in first, kidnapping people in spades. I always wanted to read something devious about these guys but never could find anything. 

F.E.A.R.’s Paxton Fettel: I fucking loved this guy to the point of trying to write my own messy fic about it, but I couldn’t figure out how to make the sex work with him. Maybe I’ll pick it back up someday. He’s a mama’s boy, bloodthirsty and look at that face! He’s a monstrous and methodical human in the first game and, even after surpassing that in the second game, manages to still be just as menacing. Any more and I’d spoil the game, but it’s a great FPS with solid horror elements.

Dragonage 2′s Arishok: Yeah, his design in the game is a bit different than the CGI trailer, but he’s no less menacing. The Qunari in DA is an interesting race. Though they are very hard to write for considering they don’t have sex outside of procreation unless they’re Tal-Vashoth, which are essentially deserters of the Qunari way of life. This bad boy is the head of their military and his horns… dear god. 

Skyrim’s Borkul the Beast: I’ve had a thing for Orc’s and Orc-like races since Lord of the Rings… and Borkul is probably my favorite. He’s a self-appointed guard in the Cidhna Mines with skull face paint and he’s fucking massive. Your character is stuck in a prison mine, weaponless and part of the quest to escape is get this fucker to let you in to talk to the head prisoner. How, oh how can you convince him to let you through? Better break out the knee pads…

The Darkness’ Jackie Estacado: The nephew of a crime boss and ex-assassin. He gets possessed by The Darkness on his 21st birthday and everything after that is just one big cluster fuck of blood and angst for poor Jackie. He’s a tragic character, good with a gun and has monsters that come out of his back to devour gang members, so… he’d be an interesting lay, to say the least. It’s also a great game, same with the sequel.

The Evil Within’s Ruvik/Rubin: He’s a bit edgelordy at times but he’s got the hood, scars, and disposition of a madman. Also a genius in his own way, if not very sociopathic to the point of keeping a brain alive to submit it to needle pokes of torture, stimulating the different lobes to give the disembodied brain the purest kind of dread. But he’s also obsessed with his sister (not sure if it’s incestuous or what) so he’s got some emotions left at least. It wasn’t the game it was cracked up to be in my opinion, but it was still a fun playthrough.

The Evil Within’s Safe Head: A diet Pyramid Head, but he’d no less brutal. No rape from what I could see, but he’d got a meat hammer and he has the added advantage of being able to snap his own neck in order to manifest himself in any place where there’s another safe just laying around. He’s tenacious and at certain points, there’s more than one of him. He made me feel things other than fear a few times.

Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke: First of all, I wish they’d never unmasked him. Secondly, his whole course of action is to find out what happened to his wife on one of the mining ships. He’s not a fighter, although you wouldn’t know from looking at him, he’s an engineer and his gun is a laser cutter. If you like survival horror and sci-fi, this is the game to play. Say what you will about the third game, but I enjoyed all of them.

Aaaand, that’s about it. I’ve got a soft spot for Bioshock’s Splicers, Alice: Madness Returns’ Carpenter, Metro: Last Light’s Pavel Morozov, and Silent Hill 3′s Valtiel.

If you run out of stuff to play, let me know. I have other horror (and horror-like) games to recommend that don’t necessarily contain drool-worthy villains. Thanks again for the ask, this was a challenge and a blast to put together. Hopefully, this post doesn’t crash people's browsers/apps. It wasn’t short. <3 

[staliasjeronica]

Riverdale 3.05 Thoughts *Spoilers*

- I’m still so pissed that Jughead brought my core 4 into this. Like, we know they’re not stupid so THANKS FOR MAKING THEM JOIN A GAME THAT HAS BEEN FUCKING KILLING PEOPLE JUGLYFUCK.

- Rob Raco is so fucking gorgeous. But I couldn’t help myself and saw spoilers so i’m mad. But i’ll rant when it comes up.

- Of course Joaquin fell... but ARCHIE THE TRUE FUCKING KING OF RIVERDALE BLOCKS HIM FROM BEING SHOT. Ya’ll really queerbaited the fuck out of us huh. Bitches.

- I can’t believe they’re actually making me agree with Betty. What the fuck lmao JUGHEAD YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SANE ONE WHO TRIES (and usually fails) TO KEEP BETTY FROM DOING STUPID SHIT.

- Oh my GOD Jughead... you guys didn’t even know the game yet. Real life “quests” aren’t a part of the game you jackass. Jesus.

- Even though Jug is going fucking crazy... why does he actually look all cute and innocent? What is this episode doing to me? Also how is his creepy, mind-controlled-like demeanor much more tolerable than how he usually acts?

- Lmao Betty is so pissed that her boyfriend isn’t doing what she wants. It’s a nice rarity to see, even though Jug is trippin. If only they would allow him to be his own person in general.

- YES VERONICA GIVE HIRAM’S BITCH ASS THE SILENT TREATMENT.

- Wow, Hiram really is a dickhead for telling this all to Veronica simply to fuck with her. Also is it just me who somehow didn’t realize he had a tattoo?

- Why do they make Veronica stupid enough to tell people what she’ll do, and allow them to thwart her plans and incriminate her? OUR QUEEN ISN’T STUPID.

- YOU’RE GOING TO FUCKING BRAND HIM? They do realize that (if he does) when he gets out of prison, people will see he was fucking branded? Like??? Are you fucking stupid? Poor Archie... good thing he’s breaking out of jail!

- I don’t know why... but i’m saying everything is Marty Mantle’s fault. Don’t ask because I DON’T KNOW IT’S JUST A FEELING.

- Josie is so fucking done with Betty. Me too! Instead of, you know, letting them know and ask their parents nicely or something Betty’s like “yeah so go investigate your parents for murder”

- “Thank you for mansplaining my business to me” WE LOVE AND STAN VERONICA.

- CHONI. WOW THEY’RE STANDING FIVE FEET AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. Oh they were so totally fucking in that tent cOME ON.

- I know I wanted screentime for my babies but this ain’t it. GIVE ME THEIR FUCKING BACKSTORIES. Jughead if they die I will literally hate you. Like, no hard passes I will legit fucking hope you die with them because that’s the only way it’ll be made up. Although Sweet Pea with a bow and arrow? Hot af bye

- BUT SWEET PEA, MY MAN, IS STILL SPITTING TRUTH. “We’re your foot-soldiers in life, we gotta be the same in the game, down in the mud taking all the risks?” Because he KNOWS that Jughead only goes to them when he needs them for that kind of shit. In the beginning before Jughead joined, it was like that, too. Jughead had to show that he was all in for the Serpents. It sucks now that Sweet Pea can’t somehow overthrow him. Sweet Pea and Toni need to rule the fucking Serpents, if it has to be a teenager.

- And I thought that this scene with Cheryl, Sweet Pea, and Fangs where when they saw the fucking Gargoyle King... are you fucking kidding me Jughead you’re so stupid. I know you’re fucked up from the game but SO ARE SWEET PEA AND FANGS BECAUSE YOU’RE THE STUPID FUCK WHO BROUGHT THEM INTO IT. Also how funny would it be if she like hit his shoulder or something. I know she’s perfect but STILL. Might bring Jughead back to reality both from the game and the show in general.

- Why do Fangs and Sweet Pea act like they’ve never seen Cheryl use her bow and arrow with deadly accuracy?

- LEAVE SWEET PEA ALONE. YOU’VE “RULED” OVER HIM AND YOU ALWAYS MAKE STUPID DECISIONS. HE HAS A RIGHT TO BE ANGRY WITH YOU. IT’S CALLED BEING HUMAN YOU FUCKING HEARTLESS, TOXIC FORSYTHE PENDLETON JONES THE THIRD.

- “Don’t defy me again” um bitch how the fuck did they defy you? They were (horribly and dangerously) practicing with the bow and arrow. Sure, they wanted to take g&g to real life but that doesn’t mean they could without their whole g&g group. Fuck off Jughead. When they’re out of this spell we need Sweet Pea to shove reality into Jughead’s face about his bitch ass ruling

- FP please see how crazy your son is. Also I thought you gave Jughead rein over the Serpents because of your sudden drinking problem. Where’s the beer bottles bitch? If you’re okay please PLEASE take the Serpents back.

- MCKELLER BITCHES. KEVIN AND JOSIE. MY BABIES.

- OH NO SHE’S GOING TO SEE ARCHIE FIGHTING. NO. NO. NO. MY POOR BABY. Lmao the part where we thought we heard Joaquin sucking Archie off was fucking ice i’m quaking. See, many are angry that Archie and Veronica are having sex in the prison but guys it makes so much sense? Like? At least when they have sex it’s not gross or toxic. They haven’t seen each other in forever, and she just found out that he’s being used as some jockey to make the prison some extra money or whatever. LEAVE VARCHIE ALONE. But what I still don’t understand is that if they’re supposed to be broken up, what could that possibly be from? They’re completely, totally in love. Bughead, I could see, but Varchie?

- Betty... did you just accuse Sierra and Tom’s marriage as a smokescreen? INSTEAD OF BEING A BITCH AND COMPLAINING THAT THEY DIDN’T GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANTED, TRY BEING ACTUALLY HAPPY FOR THEM (even though for some reason Josie is disgusted but whatever)

- REGGIE’S DAD FUCKING HIT HIM? MY POOR BABY.

- YES VERONICA BRING IN THE CALVARY.

- Ugh Jughead’s going to ruin the whole thing about the rescue mission by tying it to the game. Fuck off. But Betty is going to steal his bike... you’re going to leave him with no transportation, which is more dangerous with the gargoyle king? Betty since when did you learn how to ride a fucking motorcycle. They’re gonna force Serpent!Betty onto us aren’t they.

- NEW OT3 BITCH JOSIE/REGGIE/KEVIN

- Oh great this is the kiss scene that I get to watch and can’t enjoy because I know what happens... but imma like the kiss anyways because I’m not gonna let queerbait turn me into an even more bitter asshole than I already am.

- WAIT BITCH JOAQUIN WAS ABOUT TO CRY WHEN ARCHIE SAID HE WOULD COME BACK IF ANYTHING WENT WRONG. JOAQUIN HATES HIMSELF FOR HAVING TO DO THIS. FUCK THE WARDEN. AFTER IT HAPPENS HE LOOKS SO FUCKING SAD MY POOR BOY JOAQUIN!!!

- VEGGIE’S SO ATTRACTIVE!! But is no one really going to react to Reggie’s dad hitting him?

- This weird g&g and reality go-between is weird. But did anyone notice Sweet Pea tap Fangs’ knee in support? We love supportive boyfriends. Also the fact that his Pantera identity is being matched to Kevin’s role in the breakout is amazing. Too bad Kevin was a dick to Fangs when he was literally just trying to talk to him during the musical :)

- Wow, Mad Dog is alive. It was obvious he wasn’t killed off lmao. But also this isn’t fair? Archie was stabbed. I know this is illegal and shit but if you have a star player don’t you, you know, treat them well? I know the warden is in Hiram’s pocket (and apparently playing g&g thanks to spoilers bc i’m weak and don’t follow anything other than Riverdale atm), but come on at least make it FAIR

- It’s so weird how ALICE slays the Serpent look but Betty... not so much. Lili wore Alice’s clothes for an episode and decided “NO MORE PASTEL FOR BETTY” huh... still won’t make Betty the Serpent queen

- It’s amazing how, since VERONICA is the one who planned all of this, it’s going smoothly and actually makes sense. Thank God Jughead isn’t in his right mind or else him and Betty would be fucking this up. RAS TAKE NOTES. WE WANT MORE VERONICA PLANS, NOT STUPID, HALF-ASSED, WANNABE BUGHEAD PLANS THAT NEVER MAKE SENSE AND TAKE THE WORST POSSIBLE ROUTE

- You can tell Joaquin is fucked up because of the game. Here he is, with his Preppy (future husband, sorry Moose), and he’s not even acting like he normally would. Sure, he’s running for his life, but STILL.

- YES BRING MAD DOG WITH YOU

- KEVIN GOING AFTER JOAQUIN THAT’S LOVE BITCH

- VERONICA REALLY JUST FUCKING STOMPED ON HER FATHER FUCK YEAH BITCH

- OMG MAD DOG TRIED TO GET THROUGH THE GRATE BEFORE. THAT’S PROBABLY WHY IT’S LOCKED. Oh stfu Hiram

- BARCHIE REUNION. OMG WE’VE NEVER SEEN BETTY SMILE LIKE THIS. THAT’S LOVE BITCH. BARCHIE IS ENDGAME WE BEEN KNEW

- KEVIN IN A SERPENT JACKET. HELL YEAH. BAD FUCKING ASS.

- SWANGS AND CHONI’S SCREAMS IN VICTORY GIVE ME LIFE.

- APPARENTLY VANESSA IMPROVISED THAT KISS. I do hate how RAS hyped it up as a cute makeout or whatever but it’s literally a second long... bull SHIT.

-  YASSSSSSSS ARCHIE’S BACK BITCHES

- Betty... mace? Really? THEY HAVE GUNS. Betty this is why you’re not the Serpent Queen, you don’t have the guts, or the drive. But i’ll give you props for protecting Kevin

- HI, WE WANT AN ARCHIE/TONI FRIENDSHIP

- First of all, I wanna say that the pact throwback from the parents to their children is awesome. I love it.

- Also, THIS IS WHY VERONICA SHOULD HAVE MORE SCENES. She’s doing everything that Betty tries and fails to do. Her plan wasn’t stupid, it was dangerous, yes, but they could have gone gung-ho and fucked it all up. Betty (and Jughead) are extremely impulsive, while Veronica is quick and complex, making sure it is all perfect and done. Betty would have just winged it. TELL ME AGAIN WHY BUGHEAD IS THE MAIN FOCUS OF THE SHOW WHEN VERONICA, THE TRUE QUEEN, ISN’T? LITERALLY THIS EPISODE WAS THE BEST (second place goes to the parent’s ep) BECAUSE IT HAD VERONICA STEPPING INTO HER OWN ROLL AND PLOT, AND ALSO SECONDARY CHARACTERS WERE IN IT.

Extra: wtf were Sweet Pea and Fangs going to do witht hat Pillow? Mmhmmmmmmm

Extra Extra: Reggie is next to Sweet Pea, and bc of that headcannon of them being brothers, i’m screaming bye (since we now know Marty Mantle is a little abusive bitch ass, imagine Reggie finally, completely letting go of his dislike for the Serpents and living with Sweet Pea, which would be a great introductory for Sweet Pea’s life and shit, and them bonding. IMAGINE.

LMAO I THOUGHT THAT WAS THE END OF THE EP OOPS. Well... anyways.

- HERMIONE YES BITCH. TELL THEM.

- As much as I love Varchie, she’s right. Veronica is pretty obsessed with him but I know there’s a great explanation. I don’t know if I reblogged it or liked it or just saw it, but someone talked about it in a post and it was fantastic and well-put. Hiram, however... we all know he’s obsessed with Archie for some reason. Like, yeah he wants to torture his daughter for not siding with him (because he’s an insecure bitch), but with how he was when Archie was escaping... it was more like he was obsessed with him, and it wasn’t about hurting Veronica anymore, it was all about Archie. That brings up the point that it’s probably Hiram who was the Gargoyle King because young!Hiram brought drugs to the ascension and would make sure everyone was tripping to not see him/believe sober Alice. I believe that would be too easy but how else would Hiram go down?

- Why did Hermione say “the mess you and your daughter have made” your daughter? I know that’s kind of a parent thing but like... you could have just said Veronica.

- NO DON’T FUCKING PLAY G&G... SEE BETTY THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T HIDE SHIT, AND WHY YOU’RE NOT A GOOD “LEADER” now my other babies are playing the game and can get hurt because of you!

- Wow? Betty actually caring about Jughead’s well being? Mhmm... interesting. But honestly the first thing that popped into my mind is that she wanted to be alone with Archie (even though he’s finally asleep my poor innocent precious baby)

- WARDEN NORTON YOU’RE A FUCKING PUSSY ASS BITCH. Although i’m glad you’re dead... but you still fucking suck ass

- ofc Jughead randomly happens to come upon the fucking gargoyle king.