#also someone said ‘why do they never cast pretty actresses anymore’ what the fuck are you on about

[chunkecheeks]

Literally just saw a bunch of people on tiktok complaining about the girl they cast as Ellie in the last of us show bc “shes ugly :(“ I want all of you to die right now I want a plague dropped upon you

[crazyunsexycool]

Hi Val 🥰!

Alright I have several questions about several of your your WIPS so I will keep it short..

Lights,Camera, Action.. are we talking regular asshole ransom or is he whipped/a major fan of Actress! Reader?

What happens in Vegas.. literally tell me anything I am already obsessed with the idea of straight laced Steve going to Vegas..

Sweet Lo!!!

Ok so Lights, Camera, Action is going to be a series. It’s starts with asshole Ransom and he has a reputation to be an asshole and a playboy on set. He sleeps with all of the leading ladies he stars with and most of the time they expect more from him. But we know he doesn’t do relationships. Enter reader. She’s plus sized and she’s determined to show the industry that the size of your waist doesn’t determine your acting abilities. She’s sick of being type cast as the designated ugly fat friend or the comedic relief. She gets casted in the roll of a lifetime. Ransom is brought in last minute when the original actor had to drop out! He isn’t ready for her though and she’s prepared to shut him down when needed!

Snippet:

“Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

You turn around to find the one and only Ransom Drysdale glaring at you. “Not at all, I just thought Johnny Storm was the lead is all.”

“Not anymore.” he says as he sits and you take a moment to really admire him. Ransom Drysdale is ridiculously handsome and you would be lying if you said that you never had a crush on him, everyone did. But as you started working in show business you heard that he was incredibly rude and could be difficult to work with and that was a bit of a turn off for you.

“If you don’t like it I’m pretty sure they could recast your part, sweetheart.” he smirks.

“No way in hell are they recasting me, although if you are as difficult to work with as I’ve heard maybe they’ll recast your part. They’ve already done it once, I'm sure they can do it again, sunshine.” You smile the moment he turns to glare at you. In that moment you decided that if he was going to be an ass you would push back.

2 What happens in Vegas:

It was supposed to be an over night stop after a mission. It was Ton’s idea of course, he paid for the hotel rooms. Bucky and Thor were also there and Steve got drunk off of some Asgardian mead Thor brought with him. Reader was there to celebrate her childhood best friend’s bachelorette party. When she wakes up she’s in someone else’s room. Not just anyone’s Captain fucking America’s room. If that wasn’t enough their wake up call is Tony, Bucky and Thor all witnessing Steve the morning after a one night stand… except it’s more than a one night stand. They have matching rings on their left ring fingers. Steve and reader think it will be as easy as getting an annulment but the Avenger’s PR team have a different idea.

Snippet:

You feel the bed shift with weight placed at the end and then shaking, pulling a groan from the man behind you. He grabs the pillow he was using and throws it, you hear an ‘uff’ as it hits whoever was shaking the bed. He slowly removes his arm from around your waist and sits up allowing you to shift and finally look at who you had spent the night with. Your eyes go wide at the realization of who was in bed with you causing you to sit up way too fast. Your eyes meet for the first time, embarrassment etched on your faces. The door slams open making you finally look at the others in the room. Not only had you slept with the one and only Captain America but before you stood Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark and the newest guest Thor. You keep the sheets up under your chin. Before you were able to say anything Thor spoke up, his voice booming.

“What is the hold up? Isn’t he ready to leave yet?” he asked before taking in the scene.

“Get out!” Steve snaps before turning to you. “I am so sorry about this.”

“Steve, it's never good to apologize to a woman while you’re still in bed naked with her.” Tony advises before smirking at both of you.

“Why are you still here? Get out!”

[mntalbrakdown]

Dreadful Energy

Sebastian Stan x actress! Reader

Requests open!

Mentions: of angst, and implied smut

masterlist!

“Hello mama!” you say with a big grin Sebastian couldn’t help but laugh.

“That is y/n y/l/n, and I am Sebastian Stan”

“And we are doing the Wired Autocomplete Interview” you go on saying what you and your costar are about to do. You get a board from the workers behind the camera and say thank you.

“Ok, so the first question, is y/n dating Sebastian Stan," you said giving off a half-hearted chuckle.

"Straight to the point, I love it." you ignored the question and continued going on, "Also do you guys have a trash can, I don't want to throw it on the floor," they handed you a small trash can and you said thank you.

"Someone is a bit OCD" Sebastian joked

"It's not being OCD, it is being polite, continuing on, when is y/n’s birthday" you threw the paper into the trash can. "I am wondering you searched this up to find my zodiac sign, which means you want to know if we are compatible, which also means you like me, or you just wanted to know my birthday, well my birthday is on-"

"y/b/d" Sebastian cut you off, you looked at him and bit your lip, you nodded gesturing he was correct.

"what are some movies y/n will star in," you read aloud "Umm, there are a bit of projects coming up, not only films but some other things in the works, but for movies specifically, that the public shall now know, I'll be in the Black Widow movie and I'm actually starring alongside Anya Taylor-Joy which will be exciting" you can feel Sebastian's eyes burning into you.

"Ok, last one for me, what is y/n y/l/n favorite scent or smell? Great question, I hope Sebastian can answer this" you look over to him meeting his blue eyes.

"Easy, strawberry, she literally has her whole house smelling like strawberries, plus her perfume is strawberry, wait isn't strawberries your favorite fruit?" Sebastian asked

"Yes," you said through a laugh "May I break this?" you asked referring to the board, they said yes and you broke through it

“You did that so respectfully" you laughed at what Sebastian had said

"My turn! Thank you, hand me that trash can will ya'?" You put the trash can in between the two of you.

"Someone is a bit OCD" you mocked his previous words

"It's not being OCD, it is being polite, continuing on, is Sebastian Stan dating y/n y/l/n" he mocked you and then his face fell. "As much as she's a marvelous person, no," he said through gritted teeth, something in his demeanor changed, you weren't oblivious, but whenever someone says they like you, more than a friend, you always took it as a joke. He cleared his throat.

"How is Sebastian Stan so attractive" he read aloud and laughed, his laugh was contagious and made you laugh.

"Stop guys he's a Leo, you are feeding to his already enormous ego," You said while rolling your eyes. Sebastian laughed at you.

"Not everything is about zodiac signs y/n," Sebastian said with a hint of annoyance

"Of course, that's what a Leo would say," you said with a laugh, confused why Sebastian didn't take your sarcastic tone.

"What is Sebastian Stan's favorite song, umm that's a good question, I usually just listen to y/n's Spotify playlists, as much as she may be annoying, she does make a mean playlist," he said, not looking at you what so ever, he was ignoring you. He finished tearing up the questions and then later broke the board.

"Tom was right, those boards are annoying" the boards were made out of what seemed like styrofoam and you just couldn't handle the styrofoam sound. When you said that Sebastian let out a loud groan.

"Are you ok?" you asked, Sebastian of course ignoring you, you gave up on trying to talk to him, two can play at that game.

As the interview was going to a close, the air progressively got intoxicated with hatred and annoyance. You hated when people were mad when you didn't know why, especially when they don't want to talk about it.

"That was y/n y/l/n and Sebastian Stan doing the Wired Autocomplete Interview!" you ended the video off because you knew Sebastian wouldn't. You thanked everyone who was there and left, leaving behind Sebastian, after everything that happened between you and Sebastian the other day, you thought this interview would go great. Much to your surprise, all you did the night prior was talk and have fun. You got into your car, you gave Sebastian a ride to the interview, so he will need to find a ride now.

"Hey! Wait up" Sebastian said. "I thought you were going to leave me behind" you rolled down your window

"I was," you stated coldly

"Ouch," he said

"I'm not trying to waste my time on someone who is clearly mad at me" you looked at his eyes

"I'm not mad at you-"

"Oh but you are, I can read a room Stan" if words can cut deeper than a knife.

"Fine, I'll find my own way home," He said annoyed, he knew that you were right, he was mad at you. You rolled your window back up. Connected your phone to your car and started driving, you tried to distract yourself from crying.

buzz buzz buzz

"hello?" you answered your phone

"Hey, so I heard you and Sebastian are having some couple issues" Anthony joked and you rolled your eyes. "Did you find a brain in there?" Anthony joked yet again which made you let out a laugh. "Anyways going back to me, you were going to have an interview with him, but if you'd like, I can take it"

"Thanks, Mackie" you sighed hanging up

My loneliness is killing me (and I) I must confess I still believe (still believe) when I'm not with you, I lose my mind give me a sign hit me, baby, one more time. You sang along to the ...baby one more time cover by The Marias that was playing in your car. You didn't want to go home just yet, because if you did then you would overthink, and driving around is much more interesting than crying your eyes out. You stopped at a red light and waited for it to turn green. You looked at the sides of your car, your eyes met with a young man who had this look on his eyes that looked like he recognized you, but doesn't know quite where. You laughed and that's when the light turned green and you sped off.

After a while of doing this, you decided it would be a great idea to just go home. Still listening to your music and driving. When you arrive home you are greeted with rain. A bit confused as to why now it started to rain, but you took it You got your phone, got out of your car, locked it, and started to walk to your front door. To your surprise it was already open, when you walked in you saw the whole cast seated around your living room.

"Hey, how y'all doing?" you asked confused and in the middle of the circle, there was Sebastian sat. You scoffed grabbing his attention and shook your head. Running up your stairs.

"Wait y/n" Sebastian grabbed your arm making you stop, making you look at him in the eyes. Oh, those blue eyes staring deep inside you, knowing your deepest darkest secrets. They have seen it all, your cries, your laughs, the way your eyebrows knit together whenever you are confused, they have seen it all. Oh and don't get me started on those lips, they look so soft, but you will never know because you just can't bring yourself to believe he may actually like you. But that was all cut short with one simple word that leads anyone to a dead end.

"No," you said completely discarding what you have just felt by looking at the man's eyes.

"No?" he was confused the only time you said no to him was when he wanted to go on a ride on Disneyland.

"yeah, no" you confirmed your prior statement.

"y/n wait" but now it was Elizabeth

"I am not going to wait, I don't even know how you got it into my fucking house" you stated confused, everybody looked at Sebastian.

"Well, that's definitely not going to help my case anymore guys" Sebastian looked at them and then at you with pleading eyes.

"No those puppy dog eyes are not going to help you anymore, I am done."

"Why are you even mad at him?" Tom asked

"He never shows his feelings to me, he doesn't want to explain why he was mad at me when we were doing an interview, and acts like everything between us is ok. I am tired of it, and he of all people knows how frustrated I get when he doesn't talk to me. I am not a real-life Marvel character, I can't read minds, nor do I want to" You stated now looking at him. his face looked down.

"Well, fine my bad, I'm sorry that I don't know how to tell you how much I have feelings for you, how frustrated I get when any other person gets a bit too close to you that isn't me. The way I have kissed you more than once and yet you still can’t catch my drift. I thought yesterday I was finally getting somewhere and then all we did was talk and dance, don't get me wrong I love it, but I just wished you can actually read my body language to you and not just the room." He looked at you almost as if there was still much more to say but wanted to see what you had to say.

"Oh," was the only audible sound to come out your mouth and you looked around to see an empty living room once again, and a Tom at the door waving to say goodbye.

"So?" Sebastian looked at you.

"I caught your drift, or maybe I missed it, I don't know just yet, can you show me it please," you said leaning in for a kiss.

"Sure will, princess," he said and just like that, now you were his pretty princess.

[hopetofantasy]

Actress Nora Dari (wtFOCK): “I hope I don't go crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens”

Two years ago she was allowed to bump into Matteo Simoni in ‘Patser’, now your fifteen-year-old knows her as Yasmina from ‘wtFOCK’ and she ended up in Cannes because of the new film by Bas Devos. Where it ends for Nora Dari remains to be seen, but you don't want to get in her way. “You’ve been looking so long for a Moroccan girl who wants to act and then you get me.”

“So I always try to be a bit low key...” She hesitates. "Eumh, do you know what 'low key' means?" "How much of antique do you think I am exactly?" “Gosh. You have a flip cover for your smartphone, I saw.” “Point for Dari. But what are you trying to be a bit low key...” “Huh? Sorry, I have no idea anymore. I was completely distracted by that pigeon over there.” It’s easy to forget - especially when she starts talking in her Genk dialect about her sky-high ambitions or her tough childhood in Winterslag - that Nora Dari is barely seventeen. After all, she’s already accumulated a nice record of achievements in two years. From the Belgian-Finnish crime series ‘Bullets’ (shown on Telenet) and a leading role in ‘wtFOCK’, the online series of SBS and Telenet, to her supporting role in ‘Ghost Tropic’, the most recent full-length movie by Bas Devos, who made the selection of Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes in May. The day after our conversation at an Antwerp terrace, she  leaves for London, for a fourth and final audition for a lead role in an international film project. “It looks good, but I can't tell you anything about it yet. That’s a tough assignment for me: my whole body really wants to scream. Seriously, I'm pretty much the Moroccan Tom Holland (Spider-Man, and the spoiler king of Marvel's Cinematic Universe). But I'll remain silent!”

How does a large, international production house ends up at your door? Nora Dari: “I started knocking on their door. I'm really not going to sit around and wait for someone to discover me miraculously, so if someone gives me a tip about an interesting movie, I'll go after it myself. I always want more and everything I set my mind to, seems to be working. An international series, ‘wtFOCK’, Cannes with my first film role and now this latest project is also within reach. Can you blame me for believing? In my head, I'm already in Hollywood. First become a Shooting Star at the Berlinale.” Just in between everything? Dari: “You can dream, right? Acknowledgement is not for me - I don't even know who decide such things - but rather, it’s a means to an end. If you end up in the same list of acting prodigies (those Shooting Stars) as Marwan Kenzari, Matteo Simoni and Matthias Schoenaerts, every director knows who you are.” You can also quietly build an acting career in Belgium. Or is that really not an option? Dari: “Why should I linger on a few square meters? My world was so small in Winterslag and now that it’s gradually getting bigger, I really don't know why I should stop at Flanders. Even if ambition is a very dirty word where I come from.”

How? Dari: “Winterslag is a neighborhood where many young people are going into the wrong direction. Big dreams are taboo, apparently. I was bullied, mainly because I wanted to start something with my life. Even if I said that I would one day want to go to New York, I would be laughed at: “Just sit down, Nora! Who do you think you are?”

Keep your head down, keep your nose clean and make sure that you can start working at the age of eighteen: something like that? Dari: *nods* “Graduating and going to work at the age of eighteen seems like quite an achievement in Winterslag. If you hadn't gotten into the wrong shit by then, you would’ve done well. At my school, we had two pupils without an immigration background and otherwise exclusively Turks, Moroccans and Italians from families who were really poor. Our parents worked very hard, you spend a lot of time on the street and bad things sometimes happened. *thinks* There’s a reason why I almost exclusively watch gangstershit movies. I come from a neighborhood where a lot of gangstershit happens. I’ve seen and experienced so many bad things, but at the same time Winterslag is such a big part of who I am and I get very angry when someone else talks about it like I do now. *small laugh* 

I’ll buy a house there one day. It’s still my home, all the beautiful things and all the rotten things in one pile. To be clear: I don't want to romanticize my childhood. Winterslag is hard, but nothing to be sad about. There are so many people who have gone through the same thing. Only, it sucks to be called a whore, because you want to do something that is apparently 'not normal'.”

It dawns on me why you once said that Algerian-Canadian Zaho's song Kif'n'dir summed you up quite nicely. Especially the text 'Je fais la morte pour ne pas mourir'. Dari: “That's what I've been doing for a long time. Keeping myself deathly still and don’t stand out too much. In the long run, you also start to believe what others are telling you, that acting is not for you.”

When did you finally stopping ‘being death’? Dari: “When I was fifteen, when I heard that Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were looking for extras for ‘Patser’. That didn't mean much more than just bumping into Matteo Simoni, but I was sold immediately. In between shots, I approached Adil: “Mr. El Arbi, thank you for opening my eyes. From now on, I’ll go all out for this.” *laughs* We clicked and in the meantime we’ve become friends. I hope he thinks of me when they start recording ‘Patsers’, so that I can show how much I've grown in those two years.”

Not much later, through their casting agency Hakuna, you ended up as a suicide bomber in the Finnish-Belgian Crime series ‘Bullets’. What have I missed? How did you go from a sixteen-year-old extra to such an intense role in a few months? Dari: “I think - if I may say that - they were shocked after my casting. I’ve never thrown myself into a project as hard in my life. Whining. Shouting. Tantrums. All fucking emotions, one after the other. You’ve been looking so long for a Moroccan girl who wants to act and then you get me. *laughs* I've never loved anything as much as acting, so I’m giving everything during a casting. I know that I’m not the best and still have to learn, but I suspect my energy is making up for it. That, and I consider myself a very pleasant colleague. *laughs* I greet everyone in a Genk dialect, always walk around smiling and even bring cookies.

I've always had the feeling that I have to work harder than the rest, because people expect less of me. That's what my father taught my brothers and me. At the Liège boarding school where he studied, he was the only Moroccan in Latin studies: his classmates thought he was weird, because of his origins and the other Moroccans looked at him weirdly, because he aimed higher. "Ah, Mr. pope is back there." In the end it became so unbearable that he enrolled in the TSO (technical school), which was socially accepted.”

How does a 16-year-old feel like a suicide bomber? Dari: “They gave me a background, but I added a few things myself to make it easier. And music helps me really hard too: ‘Qui suis-je’ from Scylla on repeat and then a little method acting in that character. My mother was there on set and apparently got terrified. *laughs* I asked them not to accompany me anymore. When I see them, I come back to myself, while I try very hard to forget myself in front of the camera. I need to be able to get into a role on set. Although it remains very strange to hype yourself up for hours with the mantra 'I'm dying and I'm taking all these people with me'. Fortunately, I can also easily let go. I had to, I had exams the next day. *laughs* Suicide bomber by day, studying economy by night.”

In May you hopped around on the Croisette for the world premiere of ‘Ghost Tropic’. You play the daughter of Khadija, a woman who walks home through Brussels after falling asleep on the metro. Devos makes quiet, poetic arthouse films: it’s a huge leap from teenage series and thrillers. Dari: “It was an adjustment, yes. Before I played in ‘Bullets’, I had never even seen a Flemish film. Not a single one. Or wait: one at school. What was it called? I have to give a speech soon, with its protagonist.”

‘Daens’? With Jan Decleir? Dari: “That one! Everything I had already learned about acting was from Hollywood movies. That enlarged playing style also worked in ‘Bullets’, but when I tried that in ‘Ghost Tropic’, Bas blocked it very quickly. *laughs* "The less you do the better, Nora!" I thought about it all too hard. "Nora, just go." “Yes, but Bas, who am I? What have I been through up to this point?” I have a hard time playing without a backstory in my head.”

Did you learn something from Devos? Dari: “Bas and Maaike Neuville told me in Cannes that I shouldn’t forget to live. I was only busy with what should be my next big step, but I also have to learn to enjoy. Surrendering is nothing dirty, but if I put everything aside for this job, I’ll never be able to put content in my characters. Then they’ll give me a heavy role and I’ll get stuck.”

Sensible advice. Alarm bells already went off when I read in ‘Het Belang van Limburg’ that you certainly wanted to remain celibate until you were 27 and wouldn’t continue your studies, just focussing on your career. Dari: “In the end, I’ll study cross-media management and I’ve come back to that other one as well. *laughs* What?! I’m seventeen, I change my mind completely every month. When I am 40, I don't just want to have a nice IMDb profile to look back on.”

'9000 followers? That is more people than have seen my last film', Devos thought humbly in your Instagram Stories. Dari: “I hope ‘Ghost Tropic’ gets more visitors than I have followers, but I'm not going to bitch if only fifty people come to watch the film in the end. I just like to act and have hardly seen anything from ‘Bullets’ or ‘wtFOCK’ myself. When I'm not on set, I just feel bad. As if I'm not getting the most out of my life. 

At the very least, ‘Ghost Tropic’ gave me another experience and I was able to take my father with me, when we went to the Dominican Republic. My grandfather had passed away just before the shoot and we kind of processed that together there, while we were watching the sunrise at five in the morning. A very tender moment. Very cinematic, too. *thinks* I’m a very passionate person. Everything I experience is immediately very big. It’s all hard, good or bad. So hard that I can't always process all the feelings. *dryly* I hope I don't go crazy. I really wouldn't be surprised if that happens.”

You seem to be especially prone to obsessions. Whether it’s making music, painting or acting: if you decide to do something, everything has to make way for it. Dari: “When I got a keyboard, I was immediately very invested in my music. Making beats to accompany my slam poetry, tinkering at night, searching and keeping my parents awake until they went crazy. And then I suddenly got tired of it and started painting. Swimming. Dancing. I also played soccer for a while, mainly to get my dad's attention. During the 'consultation hour' around the tajine I could never have a chat with my brothers and father, because it was only about football and anime.”

Anime? Dari: “The men in my family are all next-level anime fans. They even speak Japanese to each other. *thinks* And I also plunged into my religion for a while, in between football and slam poetry.”

How? Dari: “When the community center closed its doors around the age of 13 and I saw a whole circle of friends go away in one go, I started clinging to something else. So, faith. At that time I also wore a hijab, because I was convinced that you could only be such a good Muslim. I was really pretty strict and took everything way too literally. Today I understand that you mainly have to look for your own interpretation.”

In the meantime, the average 15-year-old is also going through a storm for the second season of wtFOCK, which can be followed daily on Instagram and wtfock.be, good for about 400,000 visitors a week and more than 8 million watched - or at least started - episodes. Significantly more than the first season, although that also had good numbers. Especially for a series that was deliberately launched in silence. “You’re already bombarded with advertising on Instagram, subtle and less subtle,” says Dari, while she tries so intensely to make eye contact with a waiter that he almost bumps into a glass door. “I don't have any big theories about the future of television, but ‘wtFOCK’ really was a relief. It’s on the internet and you mainly do what you want with it. "Ah, I don't have to look?" That unforced approach works. The worst thing that could have happened to us, was that the press started writing about it en masse: it had to remain a bit mysterious and above all belong to the young people themselves. Normally we don't give interviews either: ‘wtFOCK’ is one big bubble that you shouldn't talk too much about.”

Without any illusions about the appeal of Knack Focus to fifteen-year-olds: is this conversation a good idea? Dari: “Sounds okay to me. I’m more now than just Yasmina? And I think fifteen-year-olds do know Knack.” 

For real? Dari: “That's the book we get in History as source material in class. *laughs* I think I'll stop giving interviews again after this. A little mystery can't hurt.”

SKAM, the Norwegian series of which ‘wtFOCK’ is a remake, became a hit in its own country. That’s not always the case with foreign remakes, except for the Flemish one. It continues to gain popularity. Do you have an explanation for that? Dari: “No idea why things were less successful in other countries, but ‘wtFOCK’ is so good because it is real. We don't disguise anything, don't pour Hollywood sauce on it and talk like I talk to my friends. Apparently, a lot of teachers also follow the series to get a better understanding of their students. Smart, because we tackle all issues a teenager has in a very realistic way.”

The makers of SKAM were prepared with a tour through its country and a survey of Norwegian teenagers. Their biggest conclusion was: no generation suffers as much from performance pressure and comparison anxiety as yours. Dari: “Social media. Instagram is a very beautiful, but at the same time very scary place. A lot of girls now ask me, for example, how they can also enter this profession. But if you ask them why, it turns out that there’s no passion, they just see it as a fast road to fame. Then join ‘Temptation Island’? They see  people like Millie Bobby Brown (from Stranger Things), who is barely fifteen and has a crazy career and they let themselves be hyped about it. I should actually say 'we'. I said it already: I ​​hope I don't go crazy.” *giggles hysterically* 

About 1200 teenagers showed up for the casting of wtFOCK, but the makers did not find their Yasmina there. Dari: *nods* “In the end they also had to call Adil, who gave me the tip.”

Why do you think that is? Dari: “I get angry when someone says they want more diversity, but can't find anyone. *throws arms up dramatically* "They aren't there!" They are there. In my neighborhood alone, so much talent is packed together. You may have to do your best to find them, because if you come from a neighborhood where ambition is laughed at, you’ll not find your way to a casting. Because the TV and film world seem so closed off from the outside - and it is. I also didn't know how to do that, I was just lucky that Adil, Nora Gharib and Ikram Aoulad wanted to help me. They helped me avoid a lot of rookie mistakes. And that I won't sign myself up for Temptation Island or something tomorrow.” *laughs*

Gharib also predicted that as a Moroccan woman she would have problems with ‘Patser’. From the moment you do not portray a classic religious Muslim woman, it seems to already lead to commentary. Dari: “I've had my part too. Women who send to me that I brought shame on the entire Moroccan community, for example, because Yasmina doesn't always wear her hijab. Usually these are women who’ve seen two minutes of the series and then get angry without seeing the context. *blows* You know, I don’t care. If my parents and I are okay with it, then no one has anything to say to me. Criticism slips away from me. It really takes more than an angry DM to get me off my path, I come from Winterslag breeding.”

*** Bas Devos, director ‘Ghost Tropic’:

“I had never seen Nora at work, but her audition video immediately made me curious. At the final casting, where she had to improvise a bit, it was already clear to me after a few minutes. She did a beautiful job. Nora is not trained as an actress, but I often work with a combination of non-professional and professional actors. That really doesn't matter to me. It's all about how naturally someone relates to the camera and how relaxed you are while being filmed. Then very beautiful things can happen. And I think she also liked not having to make her character bigger in an understated film like ‘Ghost Tropic’, as that’s sometimes the case for TV. To hear that you are still playing without doing anything. 

It's cool how she dares to go for something so outspokenly at such a young age, but I did point out to her that working alone isn’t the perfect solution. She’s very fond of that international career, but it is also easy to walk into a wall there. Seventeen-year-olds have to live, right? Well, she's sensible enough, I'm not worried. She'll eventually find the right balance. At the end of the shooting period, she said she hoped we could work together again. I told her that I hope she still likes it by then. *laughs*  Who knows which films will she be in then.”

[jesslockwood]

olive | chapter one

pairing: actor!Tom Holland x actor!reader

words: 3.5k ish

warnings: swearing, mentions of sex and smut (in between the ***)

a/n: special thanks for @stuckonspidey for helping me not only start a kinda guideline for this story, but go over the beginning of this chapter, go check out Lilly’s works!

I also am taking name suggestions for one of the characters (little miss diva celebrity personal) as im horrid at coming up with names and also want to involve you! (That’s why she don’t have a name in this yet lol) so send me an ask with your suggestions!

series masterlist

You couldn’t believe it. How could it even be comprehended of what was going on when it felt like a dream? 

bro, you’re living every Instagram jealous fangirl’s dream right now…

Man, you couldn’t even imagine the backlash you’d be getting after this once everyone knew. 

Let’s hope they never find out.

Maybe this whole ordeal should be explained...

You had been at an after-party for the first big movie you did, well it was a featuring role, that the character literally had a sex scene with Sebastian Stan- yeah you know what you’re thinking, he’s a literal Greek god heaven-sent being- we all know.

Anyways me being me found him way too unattainable- God all those marvel actors and actresses were-, especially after the mishap of seeing his butt naked self before the scene, and him telling you it was fine because you were like his “little sister”. Either way, he was a no go, and you kinda wanted to find someone to take home. you hadn’t been laid in a while, and after seeing Sebastian naked you kinda needed relief. 

you were looking for someone more in your league scanning the room, until Seb decided to bombard you at the bar, with probably another one of his actor friends he wanted to introduce you to. 

Yeah, heh… I know how this sounds, but you two actually became pretty close on set, as the lead to his opposite, was a total snob, and Seb couldn’t stand her so you’d do a spot-on impression of her while roasting her, and Seb and you got along pretty well because of that. You’re probably questioning: why Seb? Of all people why would a famous person like him get along with a weirdo like me? 

Boy, do I look like I know?

in all your years it would still probably be a mystery till you died. 

Throughout the night Seb had been introducing you to all his friends and helping you “network” even though they all knew you sucked. That still didn’t stop you from having a small heart attack every time it was an actor you admire.

This time maybe was a little different because you had downed some drinks, and was a little more… bodacious? That’s probably the worst description you could come up with but it is what it is... anyways it was the only way you could get through the night without completely dying of being in front of literal heaven-sent beings.

“Hey Y/n! you’d like you to meet one of my pals!” Sebastian yelled over the music, cutting through people to get to me.

you were sitting at the bar just getting another martini with olives. Before taking a sip you saw him. Holy guacamole! He was definitely out of your league, but alas, he was trailing Sebastian, coming over to you, with you almost doing a spit take. you knew who he was, but man, was he ever hotter in person! pictures did not do his beauty justice.

“Hey, Sebby, who’s the next victim you’re introducing to moi?” you ask, stirring your drink with the olives. 

Seb shook his head at you, with a smirk on his face

“This is Tom, and Tom this is the infamous Y/n.” you definitely rolled your eyes at that one.

“It’s a Pleasure.” He says all gentleman-like.

Just as Sebastian is about to speak, none other than the stuck up lead of the movie calls over to him.

“Sebastian, they're taking group photos of the main character’s with Drake Doremus, our director.” 

You could tell Sebastian refrained from rolling his eyes at the way she was smirking at you.

 “Sorry Tom! Y/n and I have to go-”

“Uh, Sebastian, they want the main cast. No extras.” she snarkily snaps.

“She’s not an extra she’s a featuring role and y/n-”

“I’m fine here entertaining Tom. Besides I’m all photoed out.” you cut him off quickly trying to deescalate the situation before Seb snapped on her causing a scene for all the hungry photographers to eat up.

“See? She doesn’t want to get in the way of our spotlight. I’ll meet you over there.” she blows a kiss at Sebastian and walks over to our director.

“Are you sure about this y/n? Because you know Drake would be fine with it, and she has no say over it anyways and-”

“I’m fine, and anyways, it would be rude to leave your friend here when you just introduced us.” you comforted giving the most genuine smile you can.

He dramatically sighs, raising his arms in surrender,  “Well if she ends up in the pool, it’s not my fault.” 

You laugh and wave him off before turning your attention to the arachnid superhero sitting beside you now at the bar. You sit in silence for a bit, admiring his freckles and eyes before speaking up.

“I’m sorry about all of that she can sometimes be such a-”

“-Bitch?”

“I was going to say Diva but that works too” you giggle as he starts to laugh with you.

“So Mister Spider-man, what made you come over here to be introduced to me?”

“I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t know anything about you till today, and seeing you act in this movie, I really am a fan of yours. Your acting ability in just this one movie blew me away!” He says intently, gazing into my eyes.

“You’re just saying that because I have a sex scene in the movie. It’s also probably just because of Sebastian’s acting. Or maybe you were turned on. ” you joke winking at him as you turn towards the bar, almost finishing your drink for the second time

He laughs, with a sly smirk on his face, “maybe.”

Before you can respond Sebastian interrupts.

“Hey, sorry I took so long, Miss Diva needed her ‘best angles’”

You internally groan. You just got cock blocked by the one you wanted before this whole ordeal.

“Well, I think I’m going to head out. We’re still on for breakfast tomorrow right?” Tom says, getting up abruptly.

“Yeah, Unless Y/n wants to bail on breakfast then we're still on, Then golf which Y/n will definitely bail on.” Sebastian jokes.

You were almost speechless, Seb said you’d meet some of his closest friends at the big brunch tomorrow. At least you’d be seeing him tomorrow. Maybe Sebastian set this all up? Either way, you weren’t turning down the opportunity.

“Well, uh I better get back to my hotel as well. We need to get up bright and early, and you know I need my sleep.” you mention, before downing the rest of your drink- very unladylike- and popping the olives into your mouth cringing a bit while eating them.

You hated olives, but it felt like such a waste to not eat them. You may have been in ‘high society’ but you still knew how rude it would have been, at least in your head it was.

“Party poopers. I’m gonna go say my goodbyes. Don’t wait for me.” Sebastian turns away going towards a group of his friends.

“I have a car coming, I can drop you off?”

“Oh, uh- are you sure? I don’t want to be a burde-”

“You’re not at all! Great company so far if you ask me,” he comments so… gentleman like.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes, and Once you got up and going, with Tom trailing behind you, you had to dodge a couple of waiters, apologizing every time, before really bumping into a waiter, who accidentally pushes Miss Diva, who wobbles before falling into the pool.

You stand there in shock almost watching as she, in slow motion falls into the pool, screaming on the way down. 

As soon as she emerges, she looks dead eyes at you, with looks that could literally, and probably would kill you.

Everyone falls silent before Sebastian, from across the pool breaks out into a fit of laughter and yells for you to “run”. Everyone who worked in the film and even the waiter starts to laugh along. Drake, your director takes out his phone before snapping a few photos. 

“AH! I‘m gonna kill you Y/n!” she screams at you before trying to swim to the ladder of the pool.

“Here,” Tom says before handing a hefty tip to the waiter before grabbing your hand and pulling you to the exit, “C’mon Y/n!”

The only thing that ran through your mind was “Holy shit. I’m dead now.”

Tom kept dragging you, to the entrance, through the paparazzi, and into the car, which mind you, the car was really nice, almost tumbling onto him.

“I’m a dead man now” you chanted a couple of times, before Tom started laughing really obnoxiously.

“Dude! You think me being six feet under is funny?!” ,You try not to giggle along to the now almost intoxicating sound, before hearing a pinging of his phone.

“Y/n, you’ll be trending for being Hollywood's hero!” He says before checking his device, “Trust me when I say she has no fanbase, at least won’t after this video Sebastian just sent me.”

“What?” you say stunned, before Tom shows you the video.

“That Fucking Bitch Y/n! You All saw that?! Y/n pushed me in purposely! She’s only out to get me, the talent of the movie! Talentless little bit-”

Sebastain cuts in the video “Yeah we’ve all heard it, you think you’re so much better than Y/n, Blah, Blah, Blah! You’ve treated her like shit from day one, and all she’s ever been was kind to you! I think karma is finally getting to you!”

Then your director steps in, “Well, I have news, we’re doing another movie, but in this time, Y/n has been bumped to lead role! I’m not so sure where your contract lies anymore though... Maybe it's just floating around in the water like your louboutins!”

Everyone cheers in applause in the video, chanting your name before it ends.

“What?! No, no, no! I don't deserve this because of a faulty point! She doesn't deserve this either! I know she's mean but to steal away from her talent and for someone to post that video?! She doesn't deserve that!” 

You started to freak out. Not only would she murder you if she had the chance, but no one deserved, not even she deserved the worst of what was going to come from the backlash from that video.

“Please tell me no one posted it!” you ask frantically.

“No, not yet, I’ll tell Seb not to, but I don’t think he can stop all the people who videotaped it.” He almost cringes, looking guilty.

“It’s fine I’ll just tweet something in the morning.” you sigh covering your face before telling tom where your hotel was.

It was almost upsetting, you felt like a second choice because of a bad apple in the batch, and you were the next.

“Hey Y/n? I know we don’t know each other well, but even though she might be booted down, or even off the next movie, your talent is real, and it doesn't take away from what you can do. From what I got from you already is that you're beautiful inside and out, as cheesy as it sounds.”

What the fuck. He was a fucking sweetheart. Let’s hope the fucking part litterally.

“Thanks Tom.”

You sit in an almost comfortable silence, all the way till you get to your hotel.

Once stepping out, Tom speaks up “Goodnight Y/n.”

“Dream of me Tom.” you wink before heading up to think of the game plan for tomorrow.

Once you got into bed, you couldn’t help but think of him. 

Why did he have to be so nice? Like god, did sweet guys ever make you horny.

Oh shit. Tom Freaking Holland made you this way.

Lets just say, you really did dream of him, probably because you thought of him while- well you know before falling asleep.

***

“Tommy!” you moaned loudly, as he went down on you, licking stripes from the base of your pussy to your clit.

He moaned onto your sensitive clit, sending vibrations all the way up your body, and especially to your core.

You could feel yourself getting close. His iron (man™️) grip on your thighs had you wishing it would never end and then-

***

Your obnoxious ringtone you had for Sebastian went off abruptly waking you up. You had set it to a fucked up sounding avengers theme song. 

“What the Fu-”

“Y/n uh, apparently there's a shit ton of paparazzi at your hotel right now… do you still want to go to the brunch?

You pause, “What? The Fuck?” you continue to look outside your window and sure enough, there's a hoard of them outside.

Greaaaaaat…

You really weren't sure about going, until you got a call from an unknown number. 

“Uh I’m getting another call gimme a sec-” you end the call with seb before answering the mystery person.

“Hey Y/n it’s me, Tom, Im uh almost in the back alley of your hotel waiting for you, I mean, only if you want to come, you were on my way anyways so i thought-”

“Hey Tom,uh yeah- okay, I’ll be down in twenty?” You say rushing around trying to find your suitcase.

“Okay, I’ll uh, tell Seb we’re coming soon” 

Tom hangs up after you say goodbye, and couldn't help the grin that reached his face being almost smacked back into reality by his brother, Harry and best friend, Harrison, goofing off.

“You div! You almost ruined my hair!” Harrison whines, as Harry rolls his eyes.

You, on the other hand, were rushing around taking a Guinness world record shower, before drying your hair, putting on minimal face shit, because thanks to Tom you didn't have time, and putting on an outfit that made you feel super cute and ready for golfing, well, watching it.

You weren’t much of a sport player, minus the competitive side that came out as soon as anyone challenged you. Then suddenly, you were an allstar (by smash mouth p.s fuck smash mouth) at whatever came your way.

Lets just hope you had this in the bag if someone challenged you. 

Your phone buzzed and you jumped, before quickly answering the texts you had gotten.

‘Are you coming?’

‘Yes seb im coming soon ;)’

‘Hey y/n it’s tom were here when your ready :)’

‘Wrong “you’re” but im coming lol ;)’

As you made your way down, Tom kept fiddling in his seat, trying to relax yet impress you. He just had to get over her, and you were the perfect solution for that. He didn't want to use you or anything, just have some casual fun that will help him move on.

As soon as you come into sight, of course looking both ways of the alley because who knows who's lurking, or going to hit you like Regina George, Tom couldn't help but almost drool in admiring you. You had your gorgeous legs on display, almost gleaming in the sunlight starting to peek through the alley, and your hair, looking almost effortless in your hairstyle, that took you like, five minutes to do. 

 As soon as you got into the car, Tom was snapped out of his daze, quickly trying to catch himself before being caught.

“Hey Y/n! You remember Harry? And this is Harrison. Harrison, Y/n-”

“Y/n I’m a really big fan! Maybe not as big as Tom’s di-” 

“Mate! Shut up!” Harry jabs Harrison in the side. You couldn't help but laugh at the interaction.

“Y/n i’m sorry about these divs.” he glares at them red in the face which makes you laugh even harder.

“It’s fine, I’m used to it from my catty family.”

“Oi! We’re not catty!” Harry says before Harrison gives him a wet willy in the ear.

“Haz!-”

And that's when you started to block out their fighting to focus on Tom.

“So uh, how many people will be at this? Sebastian totally didn't tell me for legal purposes of marvel-people-are-coming-so-don’t-tell-y/n-or-else-she’ll-freak-out.” You joke before earning a snort from Tom.

“Uh well, if you really want to know, the people I know are coming are Anthony Mackie, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson- you should close your mouth love, don't want any flies in there.”

You couldn't help but have your jaw slacked, and mouth hanging open. These were people you only had ever dreamed of meeting. You had to focus on what you wanted though. Tom was the priority, but damn were you going to freak out on the inside.

“That’s not the only thing you’re worried about going into my mouth? Right?” You joke, definitely meaning a sexual innuendo, but with a cover-up.

Now Tom’s the one with the open mouth.

“Damn bro!” 

“Oh my God!”

A chorus of reactions come through from Harrison and Harry, only leading you to say,

“Well? Don’t you have a frog in yours?” 

He tries to brush it off with laughter, though you could see his red face. He only hoped he didn’t have an even more noticeable way of telling he was turned on by that.

As the driver stopped, you realized you were at the restaurant, and man, was it ever a fancy and probably extorting you of all your life savings one too.

Tom almost rushed out of that vehicle, getting hotter than he should have been with the air conditioner blasting, if you were to ask, he’d blame it on the weather (we all know it’s not the weather).

You got out next, covering your face with your hand to block out some of the sun, and crossed your arm over to hold it steady, which may or may not have slightly squished your boobs together, making Tom’s mouth salivate. Man, was he ever screwed today, maybe literally as well.

As soon as he hurried into the restaurant, with you following closely behind, dogging more paparazzi, Tom goes to the front and asks where “Mr. Stan's table” is directed at the hostess. As soon as she saw Tom she looked behind to see you, which she definitely recognized the both of you, and that was pretty surprising, as you've never been recognized, other than hanging out with Sebastian, due to the movie.

“Right this way sir.” the hostess says professionally, leading you to your demise.

You were holding your breath. There were so many of them, all at once that you admired, it was going to be a difficult task. You could barely handle meeting sebastian stan, but all of your favorite celebs at once? 

oof

Once you got to the table hidden away in the corner, everyone said a chorus of greetings to Tom and friends and you.

You swallowed hard, only mustering out a small wave, before Tom pulled out a chair for you, (his momma taught him to be a gentleman) and you slid in whispering a small thank you.

Tom sat beside you to your left, with Harrison and Harry on your right. Sebastian was sitting right across from you, alongside Anthony Mackie, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, and Elizabeth Olsen surrounding the rest of the table.

“Hey everyone, so this is infamous Y/n, as you've probably seen the film or, the viral video, either way, this is her.”

“Hey! Y/n Seb here has told us so many stories about you, it’s like we already know you! You're a fan right? So who’s your favorite?”

You try to get words out but they don't seem to come. Tom notices and barges into the conversation,  “It’s obviously spider-man, ‘cause i'm so her type.” Tom mentions, in a cocky yet sarcastic tone, which started a spark for you to say something.

“And apparently I'm sitting beside a div? If that's the right word you use for a blubbering idiot.” you retort, re-using the words of his own. That got you a bunch of responses of “burns” “ohs!” and laughter.

It was almost as if the tips of Tom's ears were red in embarrassment with him still laughing along. You couldn't help but laugh as well at the sight.

During the rest of the course of breakfast, you had actually been vocal and had become quite fond of the people you now could say you knew, in one brunch. You especially loved the banter between Anthony, Seb and Tom, whereas you talked mostly to Scarlett and Lizzie, as she told you to call her, and Jeremy about projects they had done, and were looking for in their next ones.

Soon you had all had finished breakfast and had gotten the checks, with your eyes almost bulging out of your head at the price. 

Tom whispered into your ear, “I’ll pay, don't want your kidneys sold for this meal. Besides, I have to beat Seb in some way today.” he winks at you.

Your face feels slightly warm. 

Why did he have to be so nice?

“Well we should go to the course now everyone, I know Y/n’s out of playing so she can go to the pool, cause she apparently sucks at golf even though she's never tried it.” Sebastian taunts you. 

“Oh screw you Seb, I can totally do it, maybe, probably not but i'll try-”

“It’s nice to see some A list actors eat here too.” 

oh shit. It was her. 

[zumpietoo]

Here’s the thing that Milly/Zelda/Kombucha/Dazey/Lisa/etc and all the socks in their drawers combined don’t understand. It is 20fucking21. If Cole Sprouse was some horrible abuser of women, rather than just the victim of his unfortunate taste in headcases (aka Lili and Bree) – he would be CANCELLED. No army of teenage fans, no amount of popularity in Hollywood, nothing could protect him in this day and age. If Bree had the receipts she and her fans claim she does… where are they? Why hasn’t she come forward properly instead of vague posting about Cole on Tumblr/Twitter/Insta/Twitch/wtfever? Why did all of their mutual friends side with Cole during their breakup? Clearly these people don’t remember when the Bree shit hit the fan. People were ready with RECEIPTS of her fuckery… the head games SHE played, all of her jealous stalking (which she also stalked Lili for a while!!), how she shit all over things that made him happy because they didn’t include her, how she told everyone he emotionally abused her when the reality was she thought they were going to get married and be 2GETHER4EVER (at 19 lmao ok), and then when it turned out he just kind of wanted a girlfriend to have sex with and play video games with (lmao like MOST 19 year old guys), she flipped the fuck out and called it emotional abuse. People had all her crazy documented back then, went after her across multiple platforms, and she ended up deleting everything and claiming it was “his stans” that made it impossible for her to come forward which… no… she just didn’t actually HAVE anything, no proof, nothing. Meanwhile, all of their mutual friends unfollowed her, if not immediately then definitely in the years following. The only reason Bree drops his name anymore is because it’s the only way she stays even close to relevant. It’s not because he actually abused her, mentally, emotionally or otherwise… it’s because she’s a tinkerbell who can’t deal with it when she’s not the most important thing in someone’s universe and when that turned out to be the case with Cole, she threw a bunch of accusations at him, stalked his new girlfriend (Lili at the time) etc. But never EVER in all that did she produce an ounce of proof. No friends that sided with her. No texts. No nothing. Because none of what she claimed ever actually happened.

Fast forward to Lili and we have the same issue. If Lili was the victim of Cole’s horrible emotional abuse… she’d put his ass on blast so fast. Lili has ZERO problem speaking her mind. She shit talks like it’s going out of style, and if she was the golden child of Riverdale, and was loved and adored by the producers and writers and RAS and the rest of the cast, and was the welcome wagon and all of the other stuff that her stans claim, if she went to ANY leadership and said “This is what happened, it was horrible, and I cannot be around my abuser like this” the CW would fire him. Or at least work to accomodate Lili if she was that beloved. Look at how fast they got rid of Ruby Rose on Batwoman when it turned out she was a nightmare behind the scenes? And she was the literal STAR of the show. And isn’t their narrative that the show leadership can’t stand Cole anyway (some of that is true, looking at you RAS and Ted especially, but that’s not because Cole is a nightmare to work with and more because KJ isn’t the fan favorite which, whatever)? Also if Lili DID get the network/show to give him the boot, which if he was abusive to her, she absolutely could, what would Cole do? Sue for breach of contract? When she should have mountains of proof after 3 years? When no doubt the show would’ve seen this behavior happening too? Like, what is their REASONING that Lili suffered and continues to suffer all of this grief that he’s supposedly causing her by flaunting Ari, etc? If she had proof, if anyone had seen all of this happening, they could’ve gotten him bounced in a heartbeat. Look at how fast ALL of Hollywood turned on Armie Hammer? Kevin Spacey’s accuser came forward 30 years after the fact, with almost zero proof and Hollywood cancelled him so fast. This isn’t the early 2000’s or even the early 2010’s anymore. It is 2021 and if Cole was really that horrible, people in the industry would know, and no one would work with him. But instead he’s still booking photography work, he’s still booking movies (two of them, Moonshot and Undercover), he’s inking deals with production companies. His past coworkers are excited to see him when they run into him on the street. Practically everyone who works with him says what a hard working professional he is (or they don’t say anything at all). His podcast that he helped produce and starred in won one of THE awards for podcasts, and is most likely getting a second season. And what has Lili done? Her poetry book was on the NYT Best sellers list for a week and then fell off. Chemical Hearts flopped HARD (to the point where she was recently pimping it MONTHS after it released). Covergirl filmed one commercial with her and did one print photoshoot with her, and then basically cut ties, having Lili put together her own photoshoots. Even if she didn’t buy her way onto PlusMinus or whatever it’s called, she still has 1 movie coming up and nothing else. Nothing even in the works that we know about. She’s the only one promoting Riverdale at all anymore because she has nothing else to fall back on. Honestly, the only reason she has pretty much any engagement anymore is because of her dog, who I actually think might be more popular than she is now. AND on top of all that, her recent whatever with Wallis apparently already has drama while Cole and Ari remain unbothered despite Ken and that other pap being dicks and all of the hate they Cari lobbed at them on a daily basis. Like, sorry Lili stans that she’s on the brink of irrelevancy, but if she had been abused and had her head fucked with like you all claim she has, she’d be lighting Cole up on social media because people would believe her, proof or no proof. Instead, she’s hanging with people who “only validate” her, including a toxic drunk bitch who basically trashed not only Cole but also Dylan at like, 3 in the morning all because Lili had to do a scene with her ex, and her mom who is KNOWN for feeding the fandom BS lies that she later gets caught out in. She’s trickling out a self-staged photoshoot because she hasn’t booked a real one in what? A year? She has 1 movie, and relies on her dog or breadcrumbing with another B-list actress to get her likes. I know its a tough pill to swallow for them and that’s why they’ve doubled down on the crazy so hard lately, but honestly it’s just sad now. There’s zero proof that Cole is anything they say, and if there was proof, Bree and especially Lili would be shouting it from the rooftops, but it doesn’t exist. There IS plenty of proof that Lili has zero work lined up, and a new drama filled relationship, and toxic friends (and that she cheated on Sam to be with Cole… something else they have absolutely NO PROOF of Cole doing). Sucks to be them I guess.

Even their concept of “abuse” consists of “Cole moving on and living his best life/OMG Cheater!!!”

And the latter applies to Lili, not Cole....

[heyyyharry]

Chapter 8: The Little Prince and His Flower

(from the My Girl Trilogy: Stay Mine)

…in which Harry must return to Holmes Chapel, Y/N is upset he went without her, and family drama is not family-only.

Word count: 10k

AU: actor!Harry, older!Harry, younger!Y/N, (4-year age gap).

Wattpad link (Thea as Y/N)

What to expect in this chapter: Gemma/Isaac, Niall/?, Ruby(???), and a graveyard ‘date’

.

.

.

Isaac closed his umbrella, almost too caught up in what had happened to realise it'd stopped raining since Gemma had left. His mouth opened to answer Emilia’s question, but his brain was stuttering, unable to keep up.

He'd kissed Gemma.

No, she had kissed him. He didn’t know why she’d done it, but did it matter? He'd kissed her back and he'd liked it. He'd kissed his best friend’s sister, who had a boyfriend, a shitty one, still, it didn’t justify what he’d done.

If Harry knew about this—

His stomach twisted into knots as his palms started to sweat. Harry couldn’t know about this. They were finally on good terms again. Isaac couldn’t fuck this up. Had Emilia seen the kiss? Would she tell Harry if she had?

Isaac took a deep breath to ease his mind. To Emilia, he said, “I came to see you. You didn’t show up for the shoot, Emi.”

“I lost my phone and I thought the shoot was next week.” She gave an apologetic grin. “I’m very sorry.”

Her apology didn’t sound sincere, but now he had bigger problems to worry about. With an impersonal tone, he said, “If you’re not interested anymore, you should’ve let me know so I could find someone else.”

“No, no, I still want to model for you!” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist before he even thought about ending the conversation. His alarmed expression got her blushing as she hid her hands behind her back, staring at her feet. “I’d been...um...I’d been busy preparing for my audition this morning. That was why I took two days off in a row, and then my boss called me here today because the shop got overcrowded.”

“An audition? For a movie?”

He hoped his startlement didn’t offend her. There was nothing wrong with her auditioning for a movie; she used to go to film school after all. But not so long ago she’d told him she’d already given up on her dream of becoming an actress, so he was curious to know how that passion had sparked again.

“Yes, a real movie!” she exclaimed, her green eyes twinkling like Harry’s whenever he talked about his job, or Y/N.

As if Emilia could read Isaac’s mind, she added, “Harry encouraged me to attend casting calls. I’ve done some commercials and modelling before, so a movie would be a nice challenge. He also gave me the contacts of some directors—” His dubious look stopped her midsentence, and her voice went flat, “I didn’t get them from his assistant. He actually gave them to me.”

“No, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. Please don’t explain.” With a frustrated exhalation, she peered around him. “Was that Gemma who just left?”

The hair stood up at the nape of his nape when he met her questioning gaze. Convinced that she’d seen the kiss, he had to admit, “Yeah, it was Gemma.”

Her eyes went round as she considered him in a sceptical manner. “Are you two dating?”

“No. She has a boyfriend.”

Gemma was so private that not many people knew she had a boyfriend. For all he knew, he could’ve lied to Emilia and gotten away with it even if she’d witnessed the kiss. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, though. He had a strict rule against lying. No matter how trivial you thought your lie was, you’d have to cover it up with more lies, and before you knew it, the lie had become too big, like a snowball rolling down a hill. The damage it would cause was inevitable.

Nodding slowly, Emilia ahhhhed in silence and concluded with, “Too bad. I’d love to talk to her.”

He waited for her to continue, but then she told him she had to get back to work and would text him with her new number. Just like that, she disappeared into the shop, leaving him in bafflement.

Emilia was the most curious person he’d ever met, so if knowing Gemma’s relationship status was a good enough answer for her, then she must’ve seen the kiss. What he couldn’t explain was how cool she’d been about it, as if him — her half-brother’s best friend — kissing her half-sister, who had a boyfriend, was the most normal thing in the world.

Either she hadn’t seen anything, or she was a much better actress than he thought.

.

.

.

Y/N had been a fool to think she would worry less about writing now that she’d found the perfect literary agent. For the last few months, she’d been stressed out about pitching her manuscript, but ever since she’d had Laura, her biggest concern had circled back to the manuscript itself.

Laura was a perfectionist, which was good, because she never made mistakes. But she expected the same thing from all of her clients, and Y/N would do anything to please that woman. Even if it meant pulling an all-nighter and living off on tea and protein bars just to finish another scene to move on to the next.

After their first meeting, Laura had emailed Y/N a very long list of what she ‘didn’t like’ about the story. Some scenes were redundant; the drama should be more intense; the plot twists weren’t shocking enough; more sex, more sex, more sex.

Y/N had vowed to herself that she would never, ever, write a generic story just to match a publisher’s bulleted list. Yet here she was, shamefully ticking boxes and changing the entire story as she went. If her characters could step out of the page, they would strangle her in her sleep for how she’d fucked up their lives. But if she was going to have an agent, she had to believe in her agent.

Laura knew what kind of book sold and what didn’t, and at this point, Y/N just wanted her novel to be published. She didn’t care if it wasn’t the best story in her opinion. As long as Laura guaranteed that Y/N’s babies would end up on the shelves in the biggest bookstores in London, Y/N would do anything – and she meant anything – Laura told her to.

“Y/N!”

The voice interrupted her train of thoughts, and she glanced up from her laptop screen to meet Alice’s amused gaze. “You haven’t touched your tea,” Alice said, her grin widened. Only then did Y/N realise her tea had been served a long while ago and already gotten cold. “And maybe stand up and walk around for a bit. How could you sit in one place for three fucking hours? Can you still feel your ass?”

Y/N snorted at the remark and wiggled against her chair. “This ass still feels pretty fine to me.”

“Weirdo,” Alice said, shaking her head.

But Alice did have a point. Y/N had been staring at the screen for so long that the words had begun to look all the same; a short break would do her some good.

Her shoulders sagged as she took off her AirPods, rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms and glanced around the shop. It’d been so crowded when they had arrived this morning. Now, most of the customers had left, and there were only them, a couple at the table by the street-facing window, and three girls in the corner booth, who were laughing and taking selfies.

Alice shot them a disapproving glare before switching her attention back to the novella in her hands — The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Y/N’s mother had read it to her when she was little, and she still remembered the story as if she’d learned it by heart. You knew when a book was good when even Alice, who absolutely hated reading, could not put it down.

Not wanting to disrupt her friend, Y/N quietly pushed away from the table when Alice snapped her head up, her eyebrows scrunched. “Where are you going?”

“Gotta pee.”

Alice gave a dismissive wave, and her eyes were fixed on the book again.

In the bathroom, Y/N took the far back stall, telling herself to finish quickly so she could get back to work. But while cleaning herself, she heard echoes of high heels accompanied by the laughter of the previous group of girls. The door next to hers opened and shut, and the water ran as one girl washed her hands.

“Did she leave already?” asked the one in the stall.

“I think so,” said her friend outside.

“Shame. I thought Harry was gonna show up,” the third girl sighed in disappointment as the water stopped. The toilet flushed, heels clacked against the marble, and the water ran again.

“I saw him in the car park once,” continued the third voice. “He came to pick her up. You should’ve seen her bitchy face. No wonder she’s got no friend but the psycho Alice Young.”

Y/N scowled when the first girl chimed in, “Remember Mandy Torres from English Lit?”

The Mandy who’d pretended to be friends with Y/N and then shit-talked about her behind her back? Yes, she remembered.

“So Mandy invited them to her party because she’s a sweetheart. Then that bitch got insecure, thinking Mandy might steal her man, so she blew up at Many in the library, calling her names and stuff. Two people saw it!”

Y/N could bet these girls knew it was a lie, and still, they chose to believe it so they could have a reason to hate her.

Three of them laughed at the same time, and then the second one said, “Can’t believe she still showed her face after that clip.”

“What clip?” her friend asked, sounding just as confused as Y/N.

Her heart was pounding, and her fingers were clawing at her knees. She didn’t know what clip they were referring to. And why shouldn’t she show her face?

Yes, she and Harry had filmed a sex tape before, but they’d been careful and deleted it right after they’d watched it together. It was impossible that the clip still existed and had gotten leaked.

“Oh, you haven’t seen it? This morning, someone uploaded a clip of Harry Styles and Ruby Ellis dancing together at a party in LA. They were all over each other.”

“Oh my God, they’re definitely fucking again!”

“Can you blame him? Would you pick that whore over Ruby Ellis?”

Their laughter faded into white noise, and soon their footsteps had become mute.

Y/N sat there for a long moment, fists balling against her skirt until she was sure she was alone again. That was when she got on her feet, flushed the toilet and clawed the door open.

Her reflection in the mirror caught her by surprise. She almost didn’t recognise herself from how angry she looked. Taking a deep breath, she stomped to the sink to wash her hands and then dried them with a paper towel before going back to her table like nothing was wrong.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see those girls watching her. They whispered something to each other, probably shocked and embarrassed that she’d heard them say all those terrible things behind her back.

The old Y/N would have stepped out of the stall and put them in their place. But the new Y/N — Harry’s Y/N — wouldn’t put on a show in public and take down her boyfriend’s career and her dignity.

“You okay?” Alice asked when Y/N plopped down in the chair across from her.

Y/N flatly said, “yes,” and put on her AirPods to get back to work. No more distraction. Fuck those girls. Fuck the internet. She didn’t need to see that clip to–

Her phone buzzed once, and she flinched. Cece had sent her a post on Instagram.

Now what? Was she going to check it? Her mind went numb for a second as her fingers froze on the keyboards. She kept staring at the blinking cursor until her anxiety became too much, and she surrendered. She grabbed her phone, swiped right on the notification and placed her thumb on the home button to unlock the screen.

Have you seen this?

No, she hadn’t. And she hadn’t intended to until now.

The thumbnail of the video was too dark for her to make out what it was, but the caption said: WHAT HAPPENED TO Y/N??? With shocked emojis. Three shocked emojis. His fans were freaking out for her, so this might not be good.

Biting a nail, she muted the volume and tapped on the clip to be directed to the post. It was dark at first, but when the pink light started flashing, she could make out Harry’s figure. She knew his drunk dance moves; he was definitely three sheets to the wind here. Then, she caught a glimpse of the dress Niall had criticised the other night. Ruby looked just as drunk as she danced next to Harry, shouting the lyrics of whatever song the DJ was playing.

It was hard to know for sure what was happening here as it was too dark, but a part of Y/N felt relieved because she had expected worse. They were just dancing together, their bodies barely touching, and there were so many people around.

“Shit.”

She jerked her head to the side, and Alice’s face almost gave her a heart attack. Alice was standing beside her, one hand on the back of Y/N’s chair, the other lay flat on the table.

“I don’t care what everyone’s saying. It doesn’t look like he’s cheating on you.”

Y/N’s heart beat faster even though she knew Harry would never cheat. Not on her, nor anyone else. She’d seen how he’d beat himself up for sleeping with Ruby despite her having a boyfriend. He’d made mistakes in the past, but he would never hurt a woman by cheating on her.

Maybe the issue didn’t lie in the fact that everyone was saying he had or was going to cheat on Y/N. Maybe seeing him dance with Ruby – at the big fancy party Y/N had refused to attend – made her feel like he would be happier at places like that, with people like that, people like Ruby and his famous friends.

Her chest sank as she finished the thought, but she still managed to set it aside as she closed her laptop and rose from her seat. “Ready to go, Al?”

“Sure, but can I pee first? I need to pee.”

Alice’s grimace made her giggle as she watched her friend rush to the bathroom.

She began to gather her notebooks and chargers when her phone buzzed repeatedly, and when she saw it was Harry, she picked it up. Something told her he’d just woken up, seen the clip and freaked out. He should freak out. Because she’d almost had a heart attack.

She shoved the rest of her things into her bag and hit the talk button.

“I’ve seen the video, so we don’t have to talk about it.”

“Shit,” he grunted. “Are you mad at me? I swear I was drunk and didn’t know who I was dancing with, but Jeff called me a taxi afterwards and–”

“Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you.”

When he let out a sigh, she could almost see him close his eyes and put a hand against his chest. “Where are you?”

“At a coffee shop on campus.” She leaned her hip against the table as she turned and made eye contact with one of the girls in the corner booth. The girl turned back to her friends like nothing was wrong, but Y/N knew the bitch was scared to death. To Harry, she said, “I’m heading home though. I’ll see you at the airport tonight, kay?”

“That...won’t be necessary.”

“What do you mean?” She straightened when realisation hit her. “Harry, where are you?”

“Holmes Chapel.”

She knew it.

“I knew it! I knew you’d go without me.”

“I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t want to involve you in my family drama. I’m going to talk to my mum alone, and then–”

She didn’t want to let him finish. “I’m already involved, though. I could help. You might get anxious and say the wrong things. Look how it went with Gemma.”

When he paused, she knew he knew she was right. Still, his stubborn ass would never admit it. “I’m sorry, babe. At least you can focus on your book while I’m not there. Miss you. See you soon.”

The line disconnected. She stared at the screen in disbelief, and text messages from him popped up.

Forgot to say I love you.

I love you.

With a sigh, she stuffed her phone into the front pocket of her backpack and pinched her temples. She hated that she couldn’t stay mad at him, but she wished he hadn’t blindsided her like that.

Whatever. She’d deal with him when he got back tomorrow.

She shrugged on the backpack just in time Alice returned from the bathroom. Alice clumsily threw her things into her nude tote bag and hurried to the door as Y/N preceded. The moment they stepped out into the street, Alice asked, “Did those Kardashian wannabes bother you when I was in the bathroom?”

She was referring to the girls in the corner booth.

“Why’d you think so?” Y/N responded as she kept on walking.

“I saw them glaring at you when we left, and I almost stopped to throw a fist.” Alice swung her fist and frantically apologized to an annoyed pedestrian for almost hitting him.

“Well, they talked shit about me in the bathroom and didn’t know I was there.” Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve poured drinks on them like I did with Mandy.”

Y/N froze in her tracks, her eyes widened. “You did what with Mandy?”

“I heard her talk shit about you at her party so I poured vodka on her head.” Alice clasped both hands together in front of her chest. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Y/N stared at her friend unblinkingly for a moment, and then crushed her in a fierce embrace. “You’re a good friend, Al. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Laughing, Alice clasped Y/N’s shoulders and pushed away from her. “You’re not going to cry, aren’t you?”

“No, you dick.” She brushed Alice’s hands off. “Lunch?”

“Sure. I’m starving.” With an arm around each other’s waist, they strolled down the busy pavement together.

After lunch in the Vietnamese restaurant right across from Y/N’s block, they ran into Blake outside. He was about to get into his car when he spotted Y/N and waved at her.

This was actually the first time she’d seen him in casual clothes. He always wore suits when he went to work, and workout clothes when he was at home. Today, he wore a black t-shirt with dark blue jeans, his hair uncombed, his smile wide. He looked almost five years younger. Almost like the ‘high school bad boy’ Blake that she remembered.

“Jesus, is that your ex-boyfriend slash neighbour?” Alice dropped her jaw as she fanned herself, and Y/N quickly swatted her on the arm.

Blake rested an arm on the roof of his car as a dimple appeared in his cheek. “Working on a Saturday, Miss Writer?”

“Working everyday, Mr Lawyer.”

Alice elbowed her gently while looking Blake up and down, so she had to add, “This is my friend Alice.”

“Nice to meet you, Alice. I’m Blake.”

Alice caught his hand with both of hers and shook it firmly. “Y/N has said a lot about you.”

“Has she?” Blake arched an eyebrow at Y/N, who scoffed and waved Alice’s comment away.

“Don’t believe her. She’s nuts.”

“Hey!”

Y/N ignored her friend and switched her attention to Blake’s car. He hated driving as much as she did, only because he preferred his motorcycle – which she assumed he’d left in the US – otherwise he would rather walk. And since he didn’t have to work on Saturdays, she took a guess that he was going out of town.

“Where are you going?”

“Holmes Chapel.”

His answer made her flinch. From what she’d heard, his parents didn’t live there anymore. So why would he go there?

“I’m visiting my grandma,” he said before she could ask. “You’ve met her a few times, remember?”

She nodded. His grandma used to love her. After they’d broken up, Y/N had even considered going to his grandma’s house every day so that Grandma Roman would grow attached to her and convince Blake to get back with her. Now she was glad teenage Y/N hadn’t had the nerves to do something so humiliating.

“Y/N, you’re going to Holmes Chapel tomorrow, right?”

Y/N shot Alice a disapproving glare before telling Blake, “Harry and I were gonna go together, but something came up and he had to go without me.”

Had to. Inner Y/N rolled her eyes at the words.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Blake said, but she waved it off.

“Don’t be. Tell your grandma I said hi, okay?”

“Okay. Good luck with your writing.”

Her response was simply a dissatisfied hum. Just thinking about spending another night alone in her flat with her laptop could almost make her go insane. She could go out tonight, but she’d feel guilty because she didn’t have a reason to not write another chapter. If she was surrounded by family and friends, however...

“Blake,” she said before he could get into his car. “Can I go with you?”

When Alice dropped her jaw and Blake’s eyes went wide, she continued, “I can sit in the back. I won’t bother you.”

She'd already braced herself for rejection, knowing how much Blake hated being in a car with other people during long drives, even when he was the passenger. He relished the feeling of an adrenaline rush while riding his motorcycle, and had often joked that he’d felt most alive when he might die. Being in a car confined him. So did the company of someone else. It’d been different when they’d been a couple but they weren’t anymore. Now she was just ‘someone else’ to him.

“Sure, I don’t mind.” He flashed a grin that deepened his dimple and caught her by surprise.

“You don’t have to. I don’t want to make you feel uncomf–”

“I don’t mind driving you, Y/N. Get in.” He patted the roof of his car, and Alice aimed a pointed glare at him as if she hadn’t sighed like a schoolgirl when they shook hands.

Although Y/N understood Alice’s concern and was well aware that she would be spending three hours in the car with her ex, going with him sounded like a better idea than taking a taxi.

She hadn’t sat behind the wheel since the accident and had only let Harry drive her around. But somehow she trusted Blake. She’d trusted him with most of her first times, and being in a relationship with him for two years had convinced her that he was a careful driver.

“Y/N!”

The solitary voice caught her by surprise. She whipped around to see Niall crossing the street and stalking toward her with a bubbly grin on his face.

“Is that Niall Horan?” Alice unconsciously dug her nail into Y/N's arm, and Y/N winced as she pulled away.

“What are you doing here, Niall?”

“I had a photoshoot in this area and I thought we should hang out. You know, since we’re officially friends now.” He raked his fingers through his hair and arched his mouth when he noticed Blake. “Hey, man.”

Blake only raised his palm, saying nothing.

“This is Alice,” Y/N said as she gripped Alice’s hard shoulders. “She’s a big fan of yours, so please be nice to her.”

"Nice to meet you," Niall said. "Alice is a pretty name."

When he took Alice's hand and pressed a kiss to it, Y/N thought her friend would just pass out right in front of them. Alice might be bold with Blake, Isaac, and even Harry, but facing Niall, she suddenly forgot how to speak. Which might be a good thing because she said crazy things when she was nervous, and Y/N couldn’t handle more crazy right now.

“I’m sorry, Niall. I’m actually leaving.”

“Oh, where are you going?”

“We’re going to Holmes Chapel,” Blake answered on her behalf, still leaning against his car. He didn’t seem frustrated that she and her friends were wasting his time, and she truly wondered why.

Niall turned back to her with an eyebrow raised. “Weren’t you going with Harry tomorrow?”

“Apparently not,” she huffed. “But don’t worry. I’ll text him to let him know.”

“I can give you a ride.”

Niall pointed to the black Audi parked on the other side of the street. A man in a black suit, buzzed head, twice her size, gave them a cold stare as Niall waved and smiled at him.

“That’s Barry. He’s cool.”

She took a surprised breath, considering Barry for a quick second. “I think I’ll be fine with Blake.”

She would have agreed to go with Niall in a heartbeat, if there was just Niall, and he was driving a less luxurious vehicle. She could already imagine how badly her body would ache when they arrived, as she wouldn’t dare to move a single muscle in his new car, especially when Barry was the one who drove it.

“Okay.” Niall gave a nonchalant shrug as he fished out his phone and made a quick call. “Hey, man.” He gave the scary man across the street a peace sign. “I’ll stay with my friend. You may leave now. Thanks, Barry.”

Y/N watched Niall’s bodyguard/chauffeur get into the shiny Audi, not knowing what to expect when Niall put his phone away and switched his attention back to her.

“Let’s go.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going with you,” he said with a smirk, “and Blake.”

“Can I come, too, please?” Alice interjected as she tugged Y/N’s arm. “I’ll be quiet as a mouse, you won’t even know I’m there.”

“I’m not the one who gets to decide here, Al,” Y/N grumbled.

“Alice and Niall can join us,” Blake interfered, at last. “The more the merrier.”

When Alice started bouncing like a kid in a sweet shop, he mouthed it’s okay to Y/N, and she responded with an apologetic twitch of her lips that was meant to be a smile. If he was only acting to be polite to her friends, she’d feel so shitty.

Blake opened the door on the passenger side for her, but Niall quickly got in and buckled his seatbelt. With a sigh, she joined Alice in the backseat. Something told her that this was going to be the longest three hours she had ever experienced.

.

.

.

Gemma tightened her fingers around her phone. With one hand in her hair, she kept pacing back and forth in her hotel room, the beating of her heart accelerating with each ring. She hated phone calls. There was something so nerve-wracking about talking to someone and not knowing what their true reaction was. However, she knew Asher wouldn’t hold anything back.

When you’d been with someone for two years, you’d figure out their patterns. You could predict what they were going to say or do in a certain situation. And she wished it hadn’t been the case this time as what she was expecting was pretty awful.

She’d always considered Asher’s bad temper a minor flaw, but it hadn’t been easy lately. His business was going down. His dad had decided to stop pouring money into his failed ventures, which was why he’d been spending so much time with his family. He wanted to be on his father’s good side while sweet-talking his mother into helping him.

He was a mama’s boy, like Harry. The only difference was that Harry genuinely loved his family and would never blame Gemma for his own mistakes. Asher, on the other hand, took his exasperation out on her, making her feel like she’d been the cause of all of the bad things that’d happened to him in the last couple of months. She’d been walking on eggshells around him, well aware of how toxic that was, but the idea of ending a two-year relationship was too intimidating.

The ringing abruptly stopped. And so did she.

“Yes?” Asher spoke. He hadn’t heard from her in two days, and that was all she got from him. Yes?

“I have to tell you something,” she said anyway, trying to sound more composed than she looked. Perhaps a phone call was a good idea after all.

“I also have something to tell you. Can I go first?”

“Sure.” As much as she wanted to get this off her chest, the more she delayed, the more time there was to prepare herself for his reaction. She’d never seen anyone confess to their partner that they’d cheated and receive instant forgiveness, not even in movies. It definitely wouldn’t be the case for her and Asher.

“I think we should take a break.”

Her brain slowed down, unable to process that information. Her mouth opened and shut a few times like a goldfish until she could speak. “What do you mean?”

She knew exactly what a break meant. She just couldn’t bring herself to believe he’d actually proposed it, at least not before she told him about the kiss.

“I want us to stop seeing each other for a while.”

“We haven’t seen each other in weeks, Ash.”

“Come on, Gem, you know this is inevitable. We’ve been fighting constantly.” Yes. Because of him. “And I can’t remember the last time we had sex.”

“So you’re suggesting that we take a break so you could fuck other people?”

A long stretch of silence followed her question. Waves of anger splashed over her as she gripped the phone so tightly her knuckles turned white. She couldn’t believe she’d been so scared to tell him the truth, and then he’d proposed something like this without any sign of guilt.

“We both need this, Gem.”

“You’re right. We do,” she said despite the lump in her throat. “Goodbye, Ash.”

She ended the call before he could say another word and rushed to open the window. She needed some fresh air, otherwise, she might throw up.

Gripping the sides of the window frame, she took in a sharp breath. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a familiar Prius parked in front of the building. It looked like the one in Harry’s car collection, but wasn’t he in Holmes Chapel right now?

She’d gotten her answer as soon as the door was opened, and Isaac stepped out, phone in his hand. When he brought it up to his ear, her phone started buzzing, and she instantly grabbed it and tapped answer.

“Hello?”

“I’m here. Let’s go,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m driving you, remember?”

“Driving me where?”

“To Holmes Chapel.” His soft laugh melted the coldness remaining in her heart from the phone call with Asher. After an awkward pause, he said, “Oh shit, didn’t Harry tell you? He asked me to pick you up.”

She shook her head even though he couldn’t see. “I said I’d take the train.”

“You don’t have to. Your mum asked me to come for dinner and I just needed a reason to get out of town.”

Something told her Harry hadn’t asked him to pick her up, and she hated how good that made her feel.

When the thought of Asher crossed her mind, she snapped out of her fantasy. This wasn’t right. She was a hypocrite for being angry at Asher and then having butterflies thinking about her brother’s best friend. Clearly she wasn’t going to sit in a car with Isaac for three hours after what she’d done.

“Come on, Gem. We don’t have to talk about it.”

It.

He couldn’t even say the word. Her kiss must have disgusted him. She’d forced herself on him, and he was still nice enough to offer to drive her. He was only doing this because he was nice, because he was Isaac, not because he had feelings for her. Why would she want him to have feelings for her, anyway? She was still with Asher. Kind of. And she would eventually have to tell him that she’d cheated on him and then beg for his forgiveness.

Now that she thought about it, she believed she deserved this. She needed to start acting like a grown woman and dared to face what she’d done.

“Okay, give me a minute,” she told Isaac.

“All right.” A grin could be heard in his voice before the call disconnected. She sighed roughly, tucked her phone into the pocket of her jeans as she gathered essential things and quickly headed out.

When Isaac saw her walk toward him from the building, his first instinct was to shove his hands in the pockets of his trench coat, giving her a smile so courteous that it made her skin crawl. He loved giving and receiving hugs, but he didn’t do it with her anymore because she’d crossed the line.

He opened the door on the passenger side for her, and she got into his car, buckled her seatbelt as he got behind the wheel. The door was closed, muffling the traffic noise, and she could hear the pulse in her throat loud and clear.

She had to say something.

“What happened to the Range Rover?”

“Oh, this one’s Harry’s,” he said, his voice casual as he started the engine and drove back onto the street. “He lent it to Emilia so she could go to a movie audition. She asked me to return it.”

The nervousness was washed away by irritation as her face screwed up. “He lends her his cars now? Harry is anal about letting people drive his babies.”

“He did lend it to her. I asked him,” Isaac said with a shrug. “He said she’s basically family now.”

“I need to slap him when I see his stupid face.”

“And I need to watch that. Maybe film it, too,” he chuckled, eyes on the road.

She allowed a goofy smile to play on her lips, which vanished as she started to analyse what he’d said. “Did you meet Emilia today?”

“We did a photoshoot. She’s my new model.”

“Oh,” she said, unsure how she wanted that one word to sound.

Before she could dwell on the idea of him and Emilia, he broke the silence. “Harry said you’d asked him to go alone, but then you changed your mind. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” She tucked a strand behind her ear, fighting the urge to look at the side of his face as they talked. “I wanted him to fix the mess that he’d started, but then I realised he was an idiot and would most likely mess things up even more.”

That wasn’t the reason. Harry was no longer the careless kid who randomly brought up Winton and made their mum cry without knowing it. He was an adult and would figure out a sensible way to talk to their mum about Winton and Emilia. So why did Gemma insist on going home?

It took a moment’s thought for her to realise she’d done this out of guilt, and maybe desperation, too. She felt bad about forcing her brother to do the hard work, and at the same time, needed the safety of her family to escape from the stress her relationship had put upon her. She wished she could tell Isaac everything, but she didn’t want to make this trip about her.

“Are you mad at me?” His question brought her back to reality. Only then did she realise they had left the city and were heading onto a country road between large green fields. “Gem, are you mad at me?”

Her heart skipped a beat as she began to fidget with her handbag on her lap. He’d promised that they wouldn’t talk about the kiss. Did he lie to get her into this car?

“No, I’m not.” She winced at how forceful that sounded.

“Are you sure?”

“You said we didn’t have to talk about it,” she snapped and stiffened in her seat when he darted a quick glance her way before focusing on the road again.

He swallowed once. “I just don’t want us to be awkward with each other, Gem.”

“You’re right.” She lowered her face and scratched the tip of her nose. “I’m sorry for what I did. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know why you did it.”

He did?

“You had a fight with your boyfriend and you were confused, right?”

“No, I–” She paused, feeling overwrought. “Why aren’t you upset? You should be angry at me.”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

“Yes, you should!” She almost turned and sat upright if it wasn’t for the seatbelt holding her back. “I kissed you when you didn’t want to be kissed. You should be angry.”

“Gemma,” the sound of her name vibrated with his warm laughter, and she felt her body melting into the leather seat. “I kissed you back, so I’m equally guilty here.”

Had he kissed her back? She couldn’t recall. The comforting scent of his cologne accompanied by the shock and guilt must have dulled her senses. But if he had kissed her back, did it mean he’d wanted her, too?

“Don’t worry,” he said after stealing another glance at her. “I know you’re in a long-term relationship. And I don’t want to mess it up, so let’s pretend it never happened. I think you weren’t aware that you were kissing me. I mean, someone like you would never kiss me.”

“Someone like me?” Her gaze jumped to the side of his face. “What does that mean?”

Thinking she was offended, he awkwardly explained, “That...that was meant to be a compliment. You’re a strong and independent woman. You’re smart, beautiful, funny–”

“Pull over,” she said, her heart pounding in her ears.

A glimpse of horror crossed his face as he faltered, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“Pull over, Isaac.” Her voice was strained, her eyes intense. The car reached a standstill on the side of the road, and her mind was spiralling out of control as she unbuckled her seatbelt and launched herself across the gearshift. She was on his lap, arms wrapped around his neck.

His body was stiff as a board when he dropped his gaze to her mouth, making her wonder if he’d been thinking about her since they’d kissed. She knew she had. The memory made her lips tingle as if he’d kissed them again. She wanted him to kiss them again.

They brought their mouths together at the same time. His hands claimed her face to deepen the kiss, and euphoria shocked through her system as she kissed him harder. She fisted the fabric at his chest, pulling him closer while his hands swept down her back, squeezing her hips. In that moment, when they were alone on the empty road surrounded by windy green fields, something that was meant to be wrong, felt like the rightest thing she had ever done.

.

.

.

Harry had been waiting on the porch since he’d gotten the text message from Y/N. His mum had told him to wait inside, but watching the street somehow made time fly faster. Or so he hoped.

He rested his elbows on his knees, face between his palms, unconsciously tapping his right foot. He did deserve this. He’d blindsided her and now she was making him pay by going home with her ex. Fuck that lawyer kid. Who did he think he was? If there hadn’t been Niall and Alice, Harry would have driven all the way back to London to pick her up.

Twenty minutes felt like two hours as he waited, and when he spotted a car from a distance, he immediately bounced onto his feet. But it was Isaac and Gemma in his black Prius, not his Bambi.

“Wow, aren’t you excited to see me?” Gemma sneered as she stepped out of the vehicle and walked towards him.

Isaac greeted Harry with a hug, and Harry pulled away and nodded his head toward Gemma. “You didn’t have to drive her, you know. I could’ve picked her up at the station.”

Silent, Gemma thinned her lips as Isaac rubbed the back of his head. Why were they acting so awkward? Had Harry said something wrong?

“I know what’s going on here.” Harry put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at both of them. “You’re mad at me for lending Emi my car.”

Gemma’s shoulders dipped as she let out a sigh. “Even that name irritates me.”

“Oh, come on, Gem.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest, but she pushed him away. “That one is my least favourite,” he said, pointing to the Prius.

A corner of her lips quirked up as she brushed past him. “And you’re my least favourite person.”

Isaac tossed him the key and followed her, but before they made it to the porch, another car entered their street. Harry’s Bambi was here.

“My Bambi’s here!” he squealed like a little kid, making Gemma snort.

“Wait, Smiley’s here?”

“It’s weird that you still call her that, but yeah, Niall’s here, too,” he told Isaac and stalked toward the car which had pulled over in front of his house.

Niall got out first, stretching his limbs before pulling Harry in for an embrace. “You owed me, Harold.”

“I know. Thanks, mate.” Harry let go of Niall to hug Alice. “Didn’t know you were coming.”

“I didn’t either, but here I am. Lovely neighbourhood!” Alice lifted her shoulders as she adjusted the strap of her bag and then lowered her voice to almost a whisper, “Niall’s single, right?”

“Al! What are you whispering about?”

Harry’s gaze jumped to Y/N, who had finished saying goodbye to Blake. When Blake saw him, the kid raised a palm and a smile which looked fake as hell, but Harry managed to keep his calm and returned one just as plastic.

Y/N walked around the car and threw herself into Harry’s arms, holding his face and kissing his lips. He held her flat against him as he kissed her harder. He could hear Niall making a gagging noise, but he didn’t care as long as he got to rub this in Blake’s face. Because he was as mature as a nine-year-old, and he was fine with it.

“Stop eating her face, pervert.”

Gemma’s comment broke him and Y/N apart. He flipped his sister off and, with a smug look on his face, watched Blake’s car drive ahead and disappear at the end of the road. A swat on the chest made his eyes jump back to Y/N.

“You’re in so much trouble, Harry.” Her nose wrinkled, and he wondered if she knew how cute she looked when she made that face. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her forehead when Gemma took their friends into the house.

“I’m sorry, babe. Why didn’t you text me sooner?” he said with a pout. “You waited until you were almost here to tell me you were coming.” With fucking Blake.

“Well, I knew you were going to wait on the porch. Couldn’t make you wait for three hours.”

His heart fluttered as he pressed a kiss to her temple. “You know me so well, kid.”

“I’m still pretty mad at you,” she said. “But I do have a lot to tell you about.”

“About your book?”

She smiled and nodded. He released a relieved sigh as he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “I was afraid that you’d be mad at me. The clip and everything.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Would you prefer that I’m mad at you?”

“No.” He shook his head and pecked her lips then either corner of it. “I’m a bad boyfriend. I should’ve driven you, not your stupid ex. Thank God for Niall and Alice.”

“Niall was even worse than you,” she giggled.

He nuzzled her neck, tilting her head up to press a series of kisses to her jaw. When his hands swept from her back to her spine, she snatched his wrists and pinned them to his chest. The way she arched an eyebrow and clicked her tongue made his cock swell against the fly of his pants. When her pupils dilated, he knew she felt it, but she didn’t acknowledge it and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips before pulling away.

“I have to say hi to Marcy and Dad. I’ll come over later, kay?”

“Tell them to join us for dinner.” He tugged her arm, not letting her go just yet. “Bradford and I can bond over our hatred for Blake. It’ll be fun.”

“I’m sure he’d love to come, consider how much he loves Isaac.”

“Damn it,” he cursed when she burst out laughing and cupped his face to kiss him twice on the cheeks. With a lovesick smile, he watched her pad across her front yard and waited until she’d gone into her house to finally return to his.

His mother was so happy to have so many guests that night. She’d cooked a big meal for everyone. Even Bradford and Marcy came to join them. Just like Harry’s promise, he and Bradford had bonded over their same intense dislike for Blake Roman. Y/N had to stuff their mouths with spaghetti so they would stop talking. Alice had won Niall over with her review about the first book she’d read in her life, and now Niall was reading the first book in his life. Weird, but cute.

What was even weirder, however, was to see his sister being so close with Isaac. They’d been whispering back and forth the whole night, and not once did Gemma mention Asher. Harry didn’t like Asher that much so he didn’t mind, and it was good to see Gemma happy again. He hadn’t seen her smile that big before. His mum, too.

His heart sank to the bottom of his chest as he remembered the reason they were all here. He had to tell his mum about Winton.

She would be so disappointed. She might even cry. And this dinner, all of these jokes, all this laughter would mean nothing when she heard about Winton and Emilia. Harry hated to be the reason the women he loved cry. But if he didn’t tell his mum, and she found out herself, he’d be the shittiest son in the world. This would hurt either way, one less than the other.

Dinner was over soon. While everyone gathered in the living room for a game, Harry and Gemma volunteered to clean up. Just like when they were kids, they did something wrong and volunteered to do the housework so the chance of them being forgiven would be higher. Harry knew what he’d done wrong. He didn’t know why Gemma was here.

“They’re playing Scrabble.”

The voice made him flinch before two arms wrapped around his waist, pulling her body toward his. Y/N tiptoed to kiss his neck, and he giggled like a little boy. Gemma gave them a funny look but didn’t say a word because she, and everyone else, was already used to their public affection.

“Let’s wait until tomorrow morning,” she told Harry, and his face screwed up.

“And ruin Mum’s entire Sunday?”

“Well, would you prefer that she stay up all night?”

“I agree with Gemma, baby.” Y/N tightened her grip around his waist, resting her cheek against his back. She felt so small pressed against him like this, and since he’d gone two days without fucking, the thought of holding her up against the wall and spreading her open with his arms beneath her knees was enough to turn his balls blue. He would make that fantasy a reality if Gemma weren’t here, and they weren’t one door away from the only group of people whose opinions about them mattered.

“Okay, tomorrow then,” he said and turned on the tap to wash his hands.

“Alice will sleep with me tonight,” Y/N said. “Niall or Isaac can use our guest room.”

“I’ll sacrifice Niall. Your guest room is shit, and I love Isaac a bit more than Niall.”

She pinched his side and he jumped, but her arms forced his body still.

“I’ll let Gemma pick then,” he said.

“What?” Gemma asked, distracted.

“Isaac and Niall,” he raised a smirk. “One will have to sleep in Y/N’s shitty guest room. One stays here with us.”

“It’s not shitty,” Y/N said in a protesting tone.

“Babe, I saw a rat the last time we had se—”

She smacked a hand over his mouth before he could finish the sentence. As Gemma rolled her eyes at them, he plucked Y/N’s fingers off his face and told his sister, “Go ahead. You pick.”

She opened her mouth. For a second, he thought she was going to answer, but then she released a huff and said, “I’m not doing this with you children.”

“Children?!” He dropped his jaw as she stalked out of the kitchen. Y/N dissolved into laughter as he spun around, took each of her arms and draped it over his shoulder.

A smile played on her lips, and she asked, “Do you wanna join them or go on a date with me?”

“Oooh, where is this date?”

“The cemetery.”

His face went blank for a second as she stifled a laugh. “Just kidding.” She pinched his cheeks. “I’m going to see my mum. You coming?”

“Why does it have to be now?”

“Are you coming or not?”

He was so whipped he would have gone without knowing it was the cemetery. “Fine. But if we see a ghost, I’m leaving you behind.”

She laughed and shoved him away, and they raced each other to the living room. They told everyone that they’d go out for a walk. And as he escorted her to the door, Niall and Alice started clapping and cheering, and Gemma tossed a pillow at Niall to get him to shut up.

There wasn’t a particular reason that Y/N had chosen to plan a cemetery visit at this hour. She simply enjoyed strolling around town in the night as much as Harry did. When he was a teenager, he used to bring one of his dates to the field behind his house, and they had taken long walks under the night sky and made out in his car afterward.

He’d thought it’d been the most romantic experience in his life, until two years ago, when they’d visited her mother’s grave together. That was when he’d realised the cemetery could be romantic. Everything turned romantic when he was with her.

So if she wanted to walk around a graveyard at one in the morning, he would blindly follow, no questions asked.

After finding a safe parking spot, they walked to the tall iron gate that looked like the set of a Hitchcock movie. No one had bothered to polish it since the last time they’d been here, and he guessed no one intended to anyway.

Just like the last time, she snuck through an opening in the fence to get into the cemetery, and he tagged after, his heart thumping loudly. They’d better get to share a cell if they got arrested for trespassing.

It was a little foggy at 1 AM. The air was cold and the grass was damp. They padded across a desolate lot and were careful not to get their shoes dipped into the mud. As they followed the brick pathway, he negotiated his way around the gravestones, trying to keep up because she was walking too fast, like a ghost. The thought made him shiver. Probably not the best comparison to make when they were literally in a cemetery.

After a five minute walk, they finally arrived. Her mother’s headstone stood erect, bathed in light spilt from the ashen moon. Seeing the fresh flowers on the grave, Harry assumed Bradford had just visited his wife today. Y/N had told Harry that her dad came here every week to trim the grass and clean the stone. It was nice how much things had changed since their last visit.

As she squatted down to rearrange the flowers, Harry spotted a newly dug grave nearby and pointed to it, grinning. “Your mum’s getting a new neighbour.”

Y/N put a finger to her lips and shushed him. “Don’t disrespect the dead! They’ll come for you tonight!”

He scoffed at the threat, but as a cold breeze whisked right through his clothes, he immediately cowered to her side, and she doubled over, almost choking on her own laughter.

After giving her mother updates on her book and his Oscar nomination, Y/N kissed her fingers, pressed them against the moonwashed stone and bid her mother goodbye. They followed the same path weaved around tombstones to go back to the opening between the fence. With a feeling of being watched, Harry kept looking behind him as he clung onto Y/N like she was his weapon.

“Don’t look back,” she said. “My mum is following us.”

The shadow of a smile on her lips almost got him running for his life. He swore he’d never do this with her again, knowing for a fact that he would, if she only asked.

Once they returned to their parking spot, they retrieved two cans of Coca-Cola from Y/N’s bag and lay on their backs on the bonnet of his car to watch the stars. His adrenaline from their stroll across the cemetery was finally washed away as he listened to her ranting about her new book.

He wasn’t a writer so he wasn’t qualified to give her any advice. He mostly just listened, and because he knew Y/N didn’t want people’s advice. She vent her frustrations to feel better for a while, and most likely would end up doing whatever felt right to her.

Soon the topic of work bored her out. She extended a hand toward the sky and closed her fingers around nothing as if she was grasping the stars.

“Have you read The Little Prince?”

The random question put a smile to his lips. “The book Alice and Niall couldn’t shut up about during dinner?”

“Yeah.”

He took her hand that was in the air and brought it to his mouth so he could kiss her knuckles. “I have. Why?”

“My mum read it to me when I was little,” she said. “I used to wish I’d lived on the little prince’s tiny planet. All you needed to do was move your chair a few steps and you could see the night sky whenever you liked. We could live in this same moment, over and over again.”

“And never grow older,” his voice softened, and she replied with a quiet hum.

“Wouldn’t that be great?”

He cocked his head to the side and met her softened gaze. But then a hint of worry washed out that dreamy haze, and a line appeared between her brows.

“Do you sometimes wish I was cooler?”

That was a big shift from the story of the little prince. Surprised, he squeezed her fingers gently. “What do you mean? You’re always cool.”

“I mean, cool like...like your friends cool.” She huffed in frustration as she didn’t know how to properly get her point across, but he’d already figured it out.

“You should’ve told me the clip still bothers you,” he said with a frown, and the way she pursed her lips confirmed his speculations. “Bambi…”

“We used to have a lot in common when we were kids.” Her bottom lips trembled as her breaths quickened. “Now our lives are so different. And I’m fine with it, and I know you are too because we love each other. But sometimes it feels like…” She stalled, and with no intention of finishing that sentence, dropped her gaze to her hand in his. “I wish I fit better in your life, so when people see us together they’d just accept it without questioning why.”

“Why do you care what they think, Bambi?”

She bit her bottom lip, thinking for a second. “I’m trying not to. It’s hard.”

A smile stretched his lips as he leaned in, stroked his thumb across her cheek and kissed her mouth lightly. Her lashes fluttered when he pulled away.

“The little prince has a flower, right?” he asked.

“Yes, he has a rose,” she said with a pensive expression. “The only one on his planet.”

He nodded once. “If I remember correctly, she’s a very beautiful flower. She shows off her thorns and puts on a superior attitude, but is actually a sensitive little thing and doesn’t like to expose her vulnerability.”

“Oh no, I’m the flower,” she gasped, making him chuckle.

He brushed her hair out of her face and went on, “When the prince comes to the earth, he finds himself in a garden with hundreds of roses, all as gorgeous as the one he loves.”

She continued for him, “But he still thinks his rose is unique and more important than all of the other roses together.”

“Yes.” He propped himself up on an elbow to lie on his side. “And why is that?”

“Because he loves her, and he knows she loves him, too,” she said while caressing his face with the back of her hand.

“That’s right.” He nodded again. “Most people think the prince is stupid for travelling from planet to planet for a rose, but he doesn’t care what they think. No matter where he is, he always thinks about his little flower. He fell in love with her when he was little and has spent his whole life watering and caring for her. Love comes from investing in other people, isn’t it?”

Her smile widened as she combed her fingers through his hair, and her cheeks bloomed with colours when she drew him in and kissed him deeply. He melted from the intensity of her lips as his hands smoothed down her arm, squeezed her behind, and pulled her as close as he could. The hardness of his body against her softness. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. The butterflies in his stomach. He was spiralling out of control.

“I’m crazy about you,” he muttered against her lips and threaded his fingers in her locks. “I don’t care how different we are. When I first said I love you, I promised I’d stay. So I’m yours as long as you still want me, Bambi.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled his cheek. “I want you forever. Can you handle that?”

He drew her closer, and their bodies came flush together. “Forever and ever, baby,” he said before kissing her again.

[ins0mnia-an0nym0us-au]

re: getting told i have borderline nazi-ideology

I very recently had an interesting experience that I wanted to share.

I use Discord, a communication program that’s main purpose is an instant messaging feature, you can create a server, which can have multiple “rooms” in it for different topics of conversation. It also has various other features, like voice chatting, video-calling, screen-sharing, etc. 

There are lots of uses for it but mainly I use it just to hang out with people. Recently, I started branching out and joining different ‘fandom’ discord servers. I first joined an Arrowverse server, then just a server for people who ship a certain couple on one of the tv shows. 

But then I binged all of Agents of Shield and I wanted to find somewhere to talk about it, make some friends. So I joined a server and it started off pretty great. Everyone was very kind. We all love Marvel and Agents of Shield. 

Here’s where it turns into an experience (SPOILERS FOR AGENTS OF SHIELD) -

In Agents of Shield and the Marvel Universe in general, there is an organization called Hydra, which was founded by Nazis. Agents of Shield deals with Hydra a lot and one of the main cast members turns out to be a member of Hydra hidden within Shield. The actor Brett Dalton seems like an absolute sweetheart, I’ve actually seen him in person at Dragon-Con a few times and he’s one of those actors that refuses to sit behind his table, he stands in front of it to talk to his fans, give hugs, handshakes, etc.

People were talking about how apparently because of him being a Hydra member in the show and saying things like ‘Hail Hydra’ with fans or maybe even randomly (I’m not sure the context of that - if someone asked him to say it with them or whatever), that people cancelled him and that’s why he only does Hallmark movies now. Which is something I find ridiculous for a few reasons. 

Brett Dalton is an actor. He is given a role and he plays it. If that is a good guy or bad guy, it doesn’t matter, he reads the lines and acts the part. The fact that people ask him to repeat lines or certain lines get more famous than others is not his fault. 

This brought into question why certain people would even have ‘Hail Hydra’ as a favorite line. Which was incredibly stupid of a question in my opinion. 

Hydra is an iconic enemy organization within the Marvel Universe

‘Hail Hydra’ is a quick and easy line to say vs longer quotes

It comes from many iconic scenes in the franchise itself - both within comics & the cinematic universe

Then they questioned why anyone would be a fan of Hydra at all when it’s a Nazi run organization - a fictional, Nazi run organization. I pointed that out and they scoffed at that and said it doesn’t matter. So instead I tried the following reasons -

Some people just love to root for the bad guy - no matter how bad

Favorite actors/actresses play the villains

It’s ‘edgey’ to root for the bad guys

In the end they didn’t buy any of that as good enough reasoning and said that deep down every person who was a fan of Hydra must secretly be a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer and that even if Brett Dalton was a nice guy, he shouldn’t go around saying ‘Hail Hydra’ because some Jewish people have stated it makes them uncomfortable. 

Listen, if something makes you uncomfortable, you have the right to say that it does and if it is a good enough reason then maybe that person will change what they are doing, hell, maybe everyone else will agree with you. But I find this entire thing incredibly stupid. If you watch anything from Marvel and expect not to run into something referencing Hydra then you are either naive or incredibly foolish. If Hydra triggers you, if Nazism triggers you, just stay away from Marvel.

“But we should make Marvel available for everyone!”

No, we can’t make everything available for everyone. That is literally impossible. Should some Marvel content have less Nazi references in it for those triggered by it? Sure, I’m sure there is something out there for them. 

But this isn’t even the end of this experience I had on this server. I thought we ended this conversation on good terms. But I’ll never know if they were secretly reporting me to the server owner or not. The next bit is when I was given a ‘warning’ not to open my mouth again on my beliefs or I would be kicked from the server. 

It started when I saw people just saying things like “America is such shit” and “Yeah, America is such garbage” - even the Americans were saying this. Now I’m a proud American but I understand that the media is very influential, so I tried to be diplomatic in my approach. I entered by saying something like - “America definitely has its problems, that’s for sure, but so does every country - still, look how far we’ve come!”

Responses were not kind to that. They were insistent on just pointing out all the flaws in America. From apparently rampant racism, a fascist regime, terrible public education.

I once again tried to approach diplomatically. I simply said that there is racism everywhere, I don’t think I touched the fascist regime comment, and I agreed on the terrible public education comment. Which spiraled into a talk about our public education system. We all pretty much agreed that our public education system is shit… which I still don’t understand how someone can want more government when the government fucks everything they already run up. 

I’m not sure how it went from that to talking about being able to choose who to serve at your business. It’s hard to remember exactly. I just remember the whole Christian Baker thing being brought up but it turns out we were talking about two separate cases. 

They were talking about a case where a baker was contacted by a lesbian couple and that baker released their information to a hate website, later they sued the baker and won. Which - yeah, that baker deserved to be milked for every last dime. 

But I was talking about a baker that was contacted by a gay couple to make a ‘gay cake’ - this baker said no because it was against his religion, and even told them that he doesn’t make Halloween or Anti-American cakes but he’d happily make them other desserts. But they still sued him and originally the gay couple won but it was taken to the Supreme Court and the baker won the suit. I think it’s a good thing the baker won that case. 

No one should be able to tell you who you should or should not serve. If a gay baker is contacted by a homophobic person and is asked to make an anti-LGBTQ+ cake, they should have every right to say “no, I will not.” in the same way a Christian baker should have every right not to make a ‘gay cake’ or a cake covered in penises or an anti-Christ cake. 

Do I think it’s dumb not to make a cake for someone just because it’s gay? Yes. Take the business. In the same way I think if a gay person turns down someone just for being straight it’s dumb. But that is their right. 

But apparently because this is how I believe, I have borderline Nazi ideology and was told that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut when they spout off about politics, I would be kicked from the server. The message I received was laughable at best. All about making a ‘safe-space’ for members of the fandom from all ages, genders and orientations. 

How impressionable young people are around (a few sentences ago it was children - which, there are no children in this server, teenagers, they are teenagers) and that it may influence their minds and opinions in the future - as if their spouting off about how much they hate America and all of their political opinions won’t? The hypocrites. 

Then came the point in the message where I was basically called a Nazi. Which… really? I’m autistic, non-binary, lesbian, with several disabilities. The Nazis would have put me in the front of the line to be executed. The gall these people have to think that I could ever agree with Nazis or Nazism. I’ve been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. I’ve watched unfiltered footage from WWII of the Concentration Camps and what they did to people like me. It’s disturbing to me how ignorant these people are of what Nazism actually is but mostly it’s sad because of how intolerant they are of anything but their own point of view.

The final bit of the message was about how I had treated people flippantly despite how they expressed their discomfort. Again - the gall of these fucking people. Not one person ever fucking said they were uncomfortable when we were talking. I would have stopped talking about politics immediately if one person spoke up. They just kept talking, kept responding to my messages, but instead they went and tattled on me to the server owner. 

So, instead of staying in a server where I was told to just sit down and shut up, I messaged the owner back and told them exactly what I just told all of you. I also told them that they are exactly what is wrong with everyone today, why everyone is so divided and why no one talks to each other anymore. That going through life being unable to hear opposing opinions when they don’t do you any harm is a sad way to live. That it did make me sad that they had just assumed the worst in me because I did enjoy my time there, I even spent a solid month editing a photo as a Christmas gift to the server.

I apologized for making anyone uncomfortable but also told them that no one ever said anything. Then told them I won’t apologize for anything else and that I wouldn’t bother sticking around. Why would I? Everyone had been secretly talking about me it seems. No one had the same opinions as me and no one wanted to hear them. What was the point? So I just left the server. 

Being autistic makes it so hard to understand social queues in real life, doing so online is pretty much impossible unless you use emojis that have certain connotations linked to them. I generally have to take people at face value of what they are saying. If no one says that they are uncomfortable - I assume they aren’t. If no one tells me that I’m breaking a rule or doing something wrong, why would I assume differently? Mostly though it hurt me that they all just sat there and decided that I was pretty much a Nazi when I’d been nothing but nice to them. I thought we were becoming friends, some of us anyway. 

It just proves that once more, the crowd of ‘tolerance’ is the least tolerable. Now I have no Agents of Shield server and I miss my almost friends. 

[forgotten-daydreamer]

"The Last Airbender" honest commentary by me

-> I remember I watched this once, when I was something like 12, and I think my mind FORCED me to forget about it, and now that I'm 20 I feel the urge to watch it again. I saw clips on YouTube so it's not like I know nothing at all, but very very little. I'm honestly scared. I'll point out the things that I like too, if I find something like it. So... bring it on.

---

What is that gibberish in the background even supposed to mean? As someone who studies Japanese I am deeply disappointed. "But A:TLA's words are in Chinese!!" yes. But, for those who don't know, Japanese imported them as kanji so I can recognize them even if I don't speak Chinese, for these characters are written in the same way, even if pronounced differently. Or, well, I could recognize them if this gibberish meant anything. But it doesn't.

Not a fan of the prologue written onscreen as Katara reads it aloud (I suppose it's her?) to be honest. Especially when it's in... English. At this point why not changing that ugly gibberish into the English translation of the words? It would've made more sense, even if it doesn't.

Katara and Sokka sure are very... huh... White. Watching the racism and whitewashing jump out is too painful. Damn, I'm already upset with this movie and I'm only 2:35 minutes in.

A:TLA Sokka would never raise a finger on his sister- never in a million years. This dude straight up grabbed her arm! Not. Cool. Dude.

"I thought about Mom, isn't that strange..?" no Katara, it really isn't. She's your dead mother, it's not strange to think about her. That sentence just seems forced, it's got nothing to do with what's happening.

Okay, Sokka following his father's teachings is actually accurate, nice one.

I take it back. Sokka, what the actual fuck- why would you break the ice right under your feet?? A:TLA Hakoda would be very disappointed.

Oh, look, Aang's white too. How surprising.

Katara, the kid just woke up from a coma, stop asking him a thousand questions, cut Aang some slack!

Acting skills sooo not on point. Maybe the actors are actually good, and maybe it's just the dialogues that are... off. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes.

I apprecciate the effort of trying to make Aang's tattoos look "cool" but next time, please don't.

This camera work is giving me a headache. The angles keep changing rapidly with no reason, and sometimes the camera's too close to the actors... Who did this?

Are Katara and Sokka the only white people in their village? I'm... confused.

"I am Prince Zuko." uh???? Where's your scar? Come on, that is literally one of the main points around which his story revolves, you can't just not put it there. I'm so upset.

Oh... that's the scar? Dude, I have a worse scar on my knee, I'm not even joking.

Of course Katara and Sokka's grandma is white, makes sense. So there's three white people in this village while everyone else is Asian, from what I saw. So it's okay to cast Asians as extras but not as the main characters? Holy shit, this movie is so problematic already.

Zuko, for fuck's sake, stop yelling. Aang's right in front of you, you two are, like, three inches apart. Stop screaming!

Firebenders need firepits to draw fire from..? Just bring a flamethrower with you next time, it'd be more efficient than your attacks anyway...

I'm not even 11min in and I want to stop already. I can't endure another 1:30h of this. I'm not strong enough.

"[Our mom] would have fought!" she didn't, that's the whole point. She surrendered to protect you, Katara, and the others. I get that the producers changed the story a little, it's normal, but- you can't change these things.

These dialogues... I want to rip my ears off. So little logic, so little pathos, such a poor timing- I want to cry.

Okay, this Iroh seems pretty similar to A:TLA's, thank goodness they didn't mess him up too much.

That is NOT how you pronounce Iroh!! I was a fool to think that there was one character that hadn't been completely ruined in this movie.

Nice nod to Hama, not bad.

Grandma casually has a map next to her when she needs it... Okay, I guess.

The scene on the ship- I'm speechless. Negatively speechless. I want to wash my eyes with bleach.

I love how Zuko just watches Aang fly away, like- "oh, there he goes". A:TLA Zuko would've jumped into the freezing ocean and swam toward him if he had to.

I can't get over their pronunciation of Aang. Ahng? Ohng? What is the reason behind this- why did they change it? He's literally the main character, you just don't do that.

With all due respect, the CGI is bad. I get that this movie is kinda old, but... No. There are older movies with better special effects. Low budget, maybe? I don't know.

"Souuka and I-" it's Sokka. Not Souuka. Sokka.

Zhao is hateful and annoying, which is accurate. I miss the ugly sideburns though.

Iroh calmly sipping tea while Zuko kicks ass- spot on, I can't deny that.

I hate Sokka so much. He's completely out of character, too annoying, uncharacteristically angsty and so boring. How can someone completely mess up a cool character like him?

"There is earth right beneath your feet"... oh my God, for real? Wow, how did they not notice that sooner...

"It's time for you to stop doing this!" reminds me of that one vine with the kid that yells "whEn wiLL yOu LeArN tHAt yoUR aCTioNs hAve ConSeqUEnceS!?", I don't know why.

Katara pushes a Firebender. She pushes him. He could burn her to a crisp and she- okay, you know what, I'm just going to ignore it.

Again with the firepits, I can't even-

It takes six Earthbenders to lift the rock the size of a chair..? And they also have to make a little dance to do that..?

The extras in the background don't even move- guys, at least pretend to dodge or be afraid, or cower backwards, don't just observe while you stand still looking as if you were glancing at the horizon.

Literally everyone in this movie is portrayed by Asian and Middle Eastern actors except for the main characters... Who allowed this, who said that this was okay? Seriously, who. Please, fire this person.

If Aang can't bend the other elements, what was that on Zuko's ship? Were the fire, the rock and the water acting up because Aang was there? It makes no sense.

"Avatars can't have a family." are you sure? 'Cause Roku did, even Wan (and Korra, after Aang) in a way, and many other Avatars too, I'm sure. That's not why he ran away, not at all.

Again with the fake Chinese characters... I mean, I think they were trying to imitate Chinese cursive writing, but... The lines are so straight, so stiff, so clean- there is no way that authentic cursive looks like that. Have you ever seen Japanese cursive? The characters are unrecognizable, but the lines are fluid and curved, not like that.

The scene with Katara and Aang practicing by the river confuses me because- I don't see any water being bent. Is it just me? I'm serious, maybe I just didn't see it..?

Ozai asking about Zuko and acting mildly concerned and almost caring is off-character. It makes it look like he feels guilty, when A:TLA Ozai does not. Also, let's say that this Ozai feels guilty, why doesn't he just welcome his son back, then? But he doesn't, 'cause he indirectly says so, so it makes no sense.

More gibberish. Please, stop. Don't do that again. I beg you.

"-sentenced to Agni KEE." goddamn it. Agni KAI. Not KEE. KAI! Why is that so hard for these people to say things right?

I still don't see any Waterbending. Are they just moving randomly? Are the practicing without actually bending the water..?

Oh, alright, now there's water moving, that's better. Still, so many movements for a little stream of water being lifted in the air- almost like that dance the Earthbenders did earlier. Seems excessive.

Is that monstrosity supposed to be Appa? Why is his face so- human? Oh Spirits, forgive them!

Again with this "I can have no family." thing- did the producers even watch the whole show or just read the summary of Wikipedia?

You know what, the Blue Spirit mask is accurate, in a way. Old masks used to have wigs attached sometimes, so it's not as bad as it seems. His stance though- that's a big no.

Zuko's swords don't actually hit anything most of the times he swings them around- just saying.

"What is this?". Ugh, Zhao, Aang's an AIRbender. Get it? AIR. So he is moving the AIR. I mean, you know he's an airbender, why are you acting surprised that he can redirect the wind?

Yue's white too... I checked online, and I discovered that the actress has Mexican origins: this has nothing to do with Asia and the Middle East so I personally consider this as a desperate attempt to include diversity- as if there were no actual Asian and Middle Eastern actors out there, but fine, I guess. What was I expecting at this point? Oh, I also know that this actress is Asami's V.A. which doesn't change much but since I like Asami I'll pretend to like this Yue too, a bit.

Extra™ moves to create a 10ft tall tornado... Okay, Aang, you're the boss.

Pakku is white too, hm? I don't know what to say anymore. Should I just stop pointing out this cast is so, so wrong? Probably. Will I? No.

Sokka's face when Yue tells him her hair's white because she was stillborn- that is the only realistic face he's done so far. Also, Yue's acting is not that off, and I actually like it! She's better than others.

More waterbending without water. Budget cuts.

I take that back, Yue is basically smiling when Sokka tells her that the Fire Nation is there, like, come on! Yue, I believed in you...

The dialogues are so fake, nobody talks like that! I'm sure that this is among the reasons why the actors seem incapable of doing their job- I'm sorry for these people, maybe the poor performance is not entirely their fault.

I'm trying to figure out what's up with Zuko's hair, and I'm not talking about the fact that it doesn't grow where the scar is, that's normal. What bothers me are those spikes he has on the front and on the back- or whatever they are. I am confused. Better than ponytail!Zuko, worse than all the other haircuts he had in A:TLA.

Zuko's actor is the best one in this movie so far, in my opinion. He's believable. He yelled a lot in the beginning, but now (1:12h in) he's not that odd.

How to understand when a scene has been not thought through: when characters don't do something that normal people would do. Zuko throws fire at Aang when he tries to escape, and then he just stands less than ten feet apart as Aang hides- he watches him, he stands there like "okay, I can't attack you now because the script says I'm not supposed to". Then do not include him in the shot! Or, at least make him say something- no, he just stands there and watches as his enemy is literally three seconds away from him. He could reach him with a little leap, without even running!

They showed Azula for a split second in the Agni Kai scene and then Zuko mentioned her once. Is that all? I hope to see her more, even a little something. Not including her would be a huge waste.

I don't ever want to see Appa again. So ugly he's scary. Who is the person that created the CGI for our amazing flying bison that we fell in love with? This isn't Appa, it's... Something else, something terrible.

The scene where Yue passes out when Zhao kills the Spirit- the secondhand embarrassment is real there. I had to look away, it's so bad.

This Zhao is maybe the most out of character person in this movie, and it's hard to beat Aang and Sokka so that sure is something...

If they say "Souuka" one more time I'll cry. I'm serious. I'll do it.

Alright, alright, the scene where Aang saves the day is pretty cool, I liked it, despite the questionable CGI.

Why do Katara and Sokka keep Aang upright by gripping his upper arms so tightly? That hurts! There are different ways to do that, less painful and more efficient.

Ozai looks like he has no idea of what he's talking about, he looks like me when I read maths.

There she is, Azula!! Wait- are we seeing her again?

...okay, we're not.

---

What can I say... Disastrous. No cabbage man, literally only five seconds of Azula, everyone is out of character, bad casting, bad pronunciation, gibberish wannabe Chinese characters, odd CGI... Everything is wrong.

[missnxthingg]

screen partner | tom holland

AN: I really was pretty bored before doing this, but I’m trying to increase my imagine portfolio since I’m on my vacations, what means, I have no fucking thing to do but writing and reading. I hope you like it. Also, sorry if the “keep reading” doesn’t appear. Somehow this thing really doesn’t like me and doesn’t want to pop out when I add it to the text.

Warnings: SMUT and unprotected sex (just don’t do it kids), swearing, angst, alcohol.

Words: 3.7K

………………………….

Work was tiring, at least like this after a few weeks of non-stoping filming and lots of flights to promote your new movie. It was a sci-fi movie, where you were one of the main characters, and had way too much screen time on the movie. You’ve been everywhere, Spain, The States, Japan, Brazil, Portugal, Italy, and now you’re back at your own country, England. It wasn’t exactly your hometown though, you were from Sheffield, and now you were in London, hometown for many of your coworkers, like Tom Holland.

He was having an amazing time now, and that bothered you most of the times. He usually hosts many “after parties” for when the press day is done, just to chill out with the cast, the crew and now that he’s home, with his friends and family. As much as you love to party, you were tired and also, you kind of hate him. Not like hate him, you somehow just don’t like him that much. He irritates you and is always flirty and needy, a thing you personally don’t like that much. But anyway, you didn’t think he was that bad, but the rest of the cast was pure shit. You didn’t make any friends, and he was the closest to a friend you had made over the whole year working with them, but really, the parties were stupid.

That night you were wondering throught the hotel halls, carrying your heels, and slowly walking to your bedroom, located at the end of the corridor. You moaned at the distance, but kept going. The entire floor was reserved for the cast and crew that were working along with them. Your assistent was out with her boyfriend, so you had the bedroom all for yourself tonight, which you enjoyed very much. As you got closer to the middle of the hallway, music started to play, a really loud and annoying one. It had a really bad lyric and bass line. You moaned in disgust and kept going, hoping to find your hot water shower and your comfortable bed. As you passed through the opened door, you could hear your name being called in the middle of that awfull song.

“Y/N, already going to bed?” You would recognize that voice anywhere, since you’ve been working together a lot now, once he is your romantic pair in the movie.

“Long press day Holland. All I need right now is my bed.” You said, shortly and trying to completely show your lack of interest.

“Come have a drink, darling.” He said, running his fingers through his hair, giving you a shy smile and looking directly into you.

“No, thank you.” You said and started to walk as quick as possible, but once you heard your name again, you came back in a heartbeat.

“Forget about Y/N, she’s boring as hell. She can’t have a good time like us. I’m not even sure of she has ever been to a party.” That voice cut through the air like glass, and you immediately got that throw up feeling you always feel when you hear it. Sierra was supposed to be your best friend in the movie, but in real life all you wanted to do is choke her so she could stop talking. She was the only american in the cast, but her forced british accent was getting on your nerves, but you had to admit, you two were perfectly great actresses, since it seemed like it was a solid friendship in the movie. You turned back and with one hand on the door you said.

“Excuse me. I know how to have a good time and sure I have been to plenty of parties. I’m from Sheffield, we get fucked up and listen to Spice Girls.” At this point you were already into the room. Tom was looking at you with a small smile on his lips. “I just don’t enjoy the people around here, specially you. But i could perfectly stay and be as cool as you all think you are.”

You turned your back for a dramatic outing, but once you heard her voice again, your blood started to boil.

“Prove it.” She said and you turned your back. Sierra turned her eyes to the girl doing body shots with one of the actors in the movie and you laughed.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” You cursed, rolling you eyes.

“You said you could be as cool as we are.”

“As you think you are.” You approached the table and got the vodka bottle on your hands.“Pick someone.”

She looked around the room. Anyone she would pick around there would be the worst to you. Everyone there only thought about the money and fame and you hated it. Her eyes scrowled through everyone, but finally landed in the guy standing right next to her.

“Tommy, my love, do you mind?”

“Fuck.” You whispered, praying that she didn’t hear you.

Tom sat at the couch and reclined on the seat. You rolled your eyes and gave her the bottle. The room went loud, and everyone was just waiting for something great to happen. You got down and helped him remove his black top, revealing his body. “God, he’s fit”, you thought, but kept going with it all. You were glad she picked him, because you knew she was in some kind of insane love about him and you wanted to provoke her. So you ran your hands down his body and looked at him, paralized and looking at you.

“Are you sure?” He asked and you agreed with you head.

“Do it.” You looked at her and she approached him and poured some of the liquor in the area close to his neck. Before it reached his trouser, you started to lick it all, slowly going up through his body. But when you were done, you just kept going. You sat on his lap, one leg on each side of him, and started to leave kisses over his collarbone, neck and jaw, where you stopped and left a hickey behind. You got away from him and cleaned you mouth.

“Wow.” He said, still paralized on his spot.

“Good night.” You said before getting your shoes back on your hands and walking off there, leaving a really jealous Sierra behind and everyone screaming in excitement. You kept walking, you were so close to your room, but you heard your name again, but this time you decided to ignore it.

“Y/N, wait.” He said reaching you and holding your wrist. You looked at him. Tom was now wearing his shirt back on.

“What is it?” You asked, kind of bored.

“What just happened?” He asked and you rolled your eyes and crossed your arms on your chest. “Why did you do that?”

“To fucking shut Sierra’s mouth for once. She’s such an idiot that it makes me want to tie her mouth up.”

“Really? Cause I kind of think you wanted to do it.”

“It wasn’t me who got a hard while I was sitting at your lap.” You said, getting away from there, and you could feel him blushing even though you couldn’t see his face.

“Look, i know she’s annoying, trust me, even I can’t bear it anymore. But was that actually just to bother her, because this right here…” He said pointing to his jaw and you opened your room’s door.

“Was just a reminder to everyone that I can do anything, including what I just did.” You entered your room, and he followed you inside. “What in the name of sanity are you doing?”

“Trying to talk to my friend.” He said and you laughed.

“You’re not my friend, Holland.” You said and you started to take off your jewerly and placing it on their original cases.

“That hurt.” He said and sat down at your bed. “Where’s that ginger one that’s always following you around?”

“She’s out on a date, won’t be returning any time soon.” You said getting into the toilet, slightly closing the door and changing your dress to your silk nightgown. He nodded in response when you got out of the toilet. “Aren’t you coming back to the party with that blonde one and your brothers?”

“Oh, they left a few minutes ago. Also, it’s really nice in here.” He said, lying down in you bed.

“Fuck off!” You said, pointing to the door.

“Noooo, Y/N, we never really got the chance to bond. Look, I know you think I’m annoying…”

“Yeah, you’re right.” You interrupted.

“But I’m trying to be nice to you. I know I messed up when we met, but I’m trying to make up for the shitty comment I made about your hometown and your accent.”

“It’s not nice to treat a woman like that.” You said looking down to the floor.

The first day you two met, Tom made fun of your strong South Yorkshire accent, and so he asked where you were from, and so when you said Sheffield, he started to laugh and told some joke about the Arctic Monkeys. You were pissed, and to you, he instantly became a bore. You never really talked after that one time, or at least you always tried to ignore him.

You left to get rid off your makeup, washing your face with some products made specially for this kind of thing. He stood at the toilet door, watching you clean your face.

“I’m sorry. Sheffield’s nice, and about your accent, it’s the cutest I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

You could feel your face blush even underneath the cold water. So you dried your face and glanced a look at him. He had a crooked smile on his face.

“It’s okay Holland.”

“You can call me Tom.”

“Right, Tom.” You said emphasizing the Tom. “Could you please leave, I really fancy a sleep.”

“No, I want to stay here.” He said, coming back to your bed and taking his shoes off.

“God, I really can’t stand you.” You said massaging your temples and he left a place by his side.

“Come to bed, darling. I promise not to do anything.”

“You could do nothing in YOUR fucking bed.”

“Come on, babe. There’s a shitload of people partying at my room, and I’m trying to hide from Sierra.” Oh, that girl always had to pop up eventually in everyone’s conversation.

“Fuck, okay. You can stay back, but no funny things and no TV, I really need to rest.” You said lying down at your side, turning around and giving him your back. You both stayed silent for a while, but once he said.

“Nice tattoo.” He referenced to the small flower at the back of your ear.

“Shut up.”

“Why are you always so mean to people? God, you’re so pretty, but so rude.” He said and you turned back to him.

“You think I’m pretty?” You asked, feeling something at the bottom of your stomach. It wasn’t the first time you got that feeling. The first time was when he shared a doughnut with you and cleaned some sugar out of your bottom lip. It came around a lot, and just came to say hi to you.

“You’re gorgeous.” He said and you smiled, making him do his surprise face, but smiling afterwards. “See, much better than screaming and eye rolling.”

“Sorry, is just that everyone on this movie never was nice to me once. You’re the first one.”

“I’ve been trying to be nice to you for so long, but you never let me.”

“I guess I was just hurt.” You said and turned your back to him. “You’re alright, Holland.”

“Hey, I know you’re tired, so I think I’m gonna leave. Sorry for bothering.” He got up, but you turned back to him.

“Stay. I could really talk to someone right now.”

He got back to bed and you sat right next to him, playing with the cheets around your legs. You kept looking down, thinking how to start a conversation.

“I though that maybe talking would make us connect a bit more.”

“So what do you want to talk about?”

From that point on, you talked about everything, about your early lives, your friends, your work, what did you like to eat, do, watch, listen. You kept talking until you heard that the music stopped and Tom went to check if everyone was gone, but he came back holding the keys to his room.

“All gone.” He said and you were now scrowling through Netflix, looking for a movie to watch. You just went with Mean Girls, a movie you always watch when you have nothing more to watch and you’re really bored. It always made you laugh a lot, so it was nice. He lied right next to you and you started to watch it. You turned your back to him, covering everything but your shoulders. You really got distracted with the movie, and didn’t realize how close he was to you right now. He stroked you hair and got it out of you way, exposing your shoulders to him. Your body trembled, and you were enjoying his touch. So he started to leave kisses on your back, collarbone, neck and finally, he got to your ear.

“What are you doing?” You asked. By now, he had his hands all over your tights.

“Getting revenge from the hickey in my jaw.” He left a small one being you ear and you moaned in response.

“So it was all to get into my panties, really nice Holland.” You said getting away from him, and turning to face him.

“No, fuck… I really wanted to be your friend. But God, you drove me insane back at the party. I can still feel your tongue burning through my body. Didn’t you feel something there too?”

You thought about the moment, and hell, of course you did feel something. You wanted more of that, his body was flawless and you were kind of needing a bit of sex. It’s been a while now. So you lied back down and pulled him closer. He got over you and his hands went for your waist and yours went for the hair. He came closer and brushed your lips together.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.” He said.

“You already kissed me on the set.” You said between your heavy breath.

“It isn’t the same.” He said and finally connected your lips.

It was different from when you kissed on camera. You felt something, a thing you’ve never felt before. You’ve kissed plenty of people, but he was different. Your started rubbing your waist on his, and his hand went down to your booty.

“Fuck, I hate you.” You said between kisses.

“That’s not what your body is telling me.” He said and his hands got into your panties, and his fingers touched your lady bit and he moaned. “Fuck, Y/N, you’re so wet.”

“Look what you made me do baby.” He got your night gown off, and was really glad that you weren’t wearing a bra. He was hypnotized by your tits, and he sucked it like it was going to be the last thing he was about to do on his life. You moaned in response, leaving scratches on the back of his head.

“You’re the worst.” He said and came back to your mouth. You helped him take his shirt off, and ran your fingers through his body once again.

“Your body is so amazing.” You said, analizing every bit of it.

“It’s yours tonight, love.” And so he began to thrill his way to your down, leaving kisses all over your belly and tights. He got rid off your panties very quickly. His fingers met your heat very soon, and he moaned once again on how wet you was. He stimulated your clitoris, and swiped one finger in, slowly, making you go insane. You moaned and he smiled, looking at you. “Look at me when I do this to you.”

“Shit!” You screamed and he swiped another finger in, pumping harder than before. You let your head go back and your eyes rolled. Your fingers were holding the sheets so hard you thought you were going to rip it. “Oh fuck! Tom, please, fuck me.”

“Not yet, darling.” So his lips met your parts and you could feel his tongue slowly traveling to every bit around your lady part. Your couldn’t stand it anymore and you let a loud moan come out of your mouth.

“FUCK!” You screamed and he stopped. “Why did you stop?”

“Be quiet or daddy will punish you.”

“This won’t work with me.” You said and he laughed.

“Oh, it will.” So he started from where he stopped, going faster than before. Your fingers met his hair, rolling the small curls around them and pulling them, but something making him go deeper.

“T-Tommy.” You said and bit your bottom lip. “I-I’m gonna cum, fuck!” You said once again.

“Cum for me baby, cum for Tommy.” He said using his fingers again, and you felt it. You couldn’t hold it anymore and you exploded on his fingers, letting a lot moan echo through the room. “Do you still hate me?”

“Sooooo much.” You said almost breathless. He sucked the cum out your bottom and went to kiss you again, so you tasted yourself on his mouth. “But now it’s your turn to hate me.”

Now you were on top. You sat on his lap and moved your hips for a while. You could feel his hardness on yourself and you loved how your body had this kind of effect on him. You got down and got rid off his pants. You used your hands to provoke him a bit more, running them on his member from above the underwear.

“Fuck babe, you’re driving me insane.” He whispered and you kissed him, shortly. But got down to him again.

This time you took his underwear off and started running your hands through his length. He pushed his head back, closing his eyes and moaning. You could feel his dick pumping on your hands. So you took it to your mouth, going up and down, making him moan even more, and say dirty things to you. It was getting thicker and thicker, and you saw he wasn’t going to take it any longer.

“Not yet.” You said and stopped playing with him and just lied on his arms, where he kissed you gently, but the desire was always present.

He got on top, and used his hands to explore your body, and you were loving it. No one did such a thing to you in a long time. He positioned and slowly got his length inside you. You both moaned together.

“Oh baby, you’re so tiny.” He said very close to her ears. “Shit, I never would have imagined you and I would have ended up like this.”

“Neither would I.” You said and he started to go faster, making you moan even more.

“Shit! I forgot the condom!” He said, but didn’t stop.

“I’m on the pill.” You said and pulled him closer, using your nails to scretch his back. “You’re clean, right?”

“Yes, very clean, and you?”

“C-clean as a-always. Fuck.” She moaned. “Oh darling, you’re so good.”

“You’re the best, love.” He moaned.

Never in a lifetime you would have imagined to be like this with Tom Holland. You used to unbare him, but you had to admit, you were just being the boring twat you always are. Now he has proven to you more than ever that he’s a nice guy. He pumped into you a few times more, but he knew he wasn’t going to last longer.

“Fuck! I’m gonna cum.” He pratically screamed, going as fast as he could.

“Cum outside me.”

He got out of her and started to pump himself, until he came all over your belly, moaning more than before. When he stopped, he used a towel to clean him and you up. And so he got down to you again.

“What are you doing Tommy?” You asked.

“You didn’t cum yet.” He said, letting two fingers come into you. He was as fast as he was before, and it was driving you insane. He started to kiss you again, and you couldn’t help but stop the kiss sometimes to moan. You were close, but you were trying to hold it so it wouldn’t be over. He kept saying dirty things to you like “Cum to me princess”. Once you couldn’t stop it and exploded a second time that night on his hands. He cleaned it up with his mouth and towel.

“Come here, love.” You said and he lied on you chest, and you let your fingers stroke his hair.

“We came from dickwad to love. I loved how this night turned our lives sideways.”

“Yeah, me too.” You said smiling. He started to draw little hearts with his on your belly. “Tom.”

“Yes, love.” He said looking at you.

“I really want to keep up being your friend.”

“I would prefer to have something better. Fancy a dinner sometime?”

“Sure, why not?” You said and he cuddled you for a bit more, but so he got up. “Are you leaving?”

“We need a bath, we’re disgusting.” He said and you laughed following him to the toilet. He was now looking at the mirror and you hugged him from behind.

“You’re really fit, Holland.”

“Thank you.” He said looking at you through the mirror. “And I just realized something.”

“What is it?” You asked.

“I prefer when you moan Tommy instead of calling me Holland.”

“Dickhead.” You cursed and laughed.

“Come on, let’s do it together.”

He pulled you into the bath and you both had a lot of fun playing with each other and with the soap and shampoo. Nothing sexual, just bonding. That was the moment you knew it wasn’t just about sex, it wasn’t just to provoke Sierra. It was something more and you loved the idea of that new friendship, or just like he said, something else.

…………………….

I don’t have a taglist yet, but if you would like to see some more of me, send me an ask.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

IT Chapter 2 - Thoughts (SPOILERS)

When the first IT movie came out two years ago, I went in knowing absolutely NOTHING about the book or story. I still have not read the book (I have maybe twenty pages of Jay Baruchel’s book left, and then I’ll be starting IT!), but both then and now, I’ve found that the first IT movie is one of my favourite horror films. Whilst the first one didn’t really scare me so much as just freak me the fuck out, I still thought it was well-made and enjoyable.

I hadn’t watched the original film for a long time - probably over a whole year since. When I saw that there was going to be a double bill of the first AND second film, I immediately jumped to get a ticket - I needed a refresher of the first film, and I was extremely PUMPED for the second film. 

As I’m writing this, I’ve just gotten back from the double bill and I wanted to get some thoughts down whilst they’re still fresh in my mind. This is NOT my proper, written-out review, more just me making notes that’ll help me write that review. I also wanted to write them down just in case someone wants to go in prepared, or if they’re on the fence about seeing the film and don’t mind spoilers. 

I am also NOT talking about the first film - I made a post on my old blog when I first watched “IT” in 2017, which I have dug up and can be found HERE. 

In case it’s not already obvious, THERE ARE SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. MASSIVE SPOILERS. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ THE SPOILERS.

Anyway, let’s get on with it!

This is more of a cinema-complaint but my cinema still had the music that plays in the venue playing over the first thirty seconds so I missed ALL the audio in the first thirty seconds of the film. I DID see Beverly floating and the Losers Club talking, so I’m assuming it’s nothing I didn’t already know from the first film.

I like that it opens with cutbacks to the first film, it ties it nicely together and adds an extra reminder/refresher of what happened in the first film.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT FUCKING OPENING ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME RIGHT NOW

So after the Losers Club, there’s a scene with this gay couple at a carnival, one of whom is called Adrian, and they firstly get verbal harassment from a gang of people, and then said gang starts following them.

OKAY LOOK THIS IS A WARNING, THERE IS A GAY BASHING IN THIS FILM. It really FUCKED me up, I’m going to be honest. I’m pretty sure it’s something that happens in the book, so maybe I don’t need to warn anyone, but I was unprepared to see it. 

So after they beat Adrian up, they toss him over a bridge while he’s unconscious and into the river below; his boyfriend goes running down to find him, and that’s when you see Pennywise.

At first I thought Pennywise was just super against gay bashing and was actually helping Adrian but NOPE, HE TAKES A GIANT FUCKING BITE OUT OF HIM, I NEARLY SCREAMED IN THE CINEMA

Also I definitely noticed how Adrian was asthmatic and needed an inhaler, as is Eddie. I’m not sure if that’s a sign but let’s assume so...

This is how it all starts again and Mike - who’s the only one still in Derry btw - has to call the rest of the club up because “oh shit he’s back again”. 

Can I just say that the casting for the adult Losers Club is FUCKING PHENOMENAL. ALL OF THEM.

James McAvoy as Bill? Jessica Chastain as Beverly? Bill Hader as Richie? Blessed casting, absolutely blessed.

As a writer, I laughed so hard at everyone hating Bill’s book endings. Literally EVERYONE shat on how he ended his books, even his own wife (who’s an actress, I think?) and it was so funny.

Poor Eddie went from a domineering mother to a domineering wife who I’m 99% sure is played by the same actress by the way. 

Probably should mention now that Eddie is one of my favourite members of the club in the first film, so that was kinda sad for me to see.

Oh God, Richie in this film is perfect. I love him. First time we see him, he’s vomiting after getting a phone call from Mike and then he has to go onstage to do stand-up. Throughout the whole film he is literal GOLD.

Ben really had a huge glow-up between movies, I mean DAMN BEN. Does that happen in the book? Ben going from the “fat kid” to “handsome and fit” or...?

Oh poor Bev...poor Bev indeed. She went from being abused by her creepy ass father to being in an abusive relationship with her husband. I sadly get the feeling that that kind of thing happens in real life - history repeats itself and all of that.

I’m 90% sure that Bev’s husband was going to r*pe her because he threw her down and started to take off his shirt, but she kicked him off her and fought back before too much happened.

Of course, Stan. I had a horrible feeling when I saw the trailers and saw that he was noticeably absent compared to the others. Also, when I started reading IT two years ago (I only got a few chapters in, I didn’t have much time so I kind of fell away before I got too into the book), THAT scene with Stan was one of the only chapters I got round to reading because it was right at the start. So I knew and I was dreading it.

Potentially triggering for people like myself who have been suicidal/are suicidal/self-harm; he runs himself a bath and then slits his wrists to kill himself (and succeeds). I mean, it’s not 13 Reasons Why level of explicit, you don’t SEE him do it properly, but it’s intercut with the moment Bill sliced his palm in the first film when they were all making the pact. So it’s PRETTY DAMN OBVIOUS what’s going on.

Throughout this whole film, I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t anymore. Some of the shit that happened was bizarre and I was like “...how is NO ONE NOTICING THAT”. 

As soon as I saw the words “cut” and “IT” come out of fortune cookies, I knew something was about to go down. Even more so when “Stanley” came out of one.

The humour in this film is a whole new level. Most of it is Bill Hader as Richie, but some of it is just in general (like one of them screaming “IT’S NOT REAL” whilst smashing a chair on a table in the Chinese restaurant, only for an employee to turn up and be like “da fuq”...long story).

I assumed that Henry Bowers had fallen straight to hell or died frankly. Oh boy was I wrong. Not surprised they put him in an asylum given that he murdered his own father tbh. 

PATRICK THE ZOMBIE

So is the Patrick zombie ACTUALLY driving Henry around, I’m curious because how the fuck would no one else notice a zombie driving around?!

“how do you not know material from you own show?!” - oh God, I am so weak

Pennywise kills this little girl called Vicky and I just KNEW. I just knew what that little bitch (Pennywise) was up to as soon as he started fake crying because “no one will be my friend because I look strange” or whatever. He saw that mark on the girl’s face and I fucking knew. 

“One...Two...” “...” “...” “...you’re supposed to say-” AND THEN HE TOOK A MASSIVE FUCKING BITE OUT OF HER FACE, I LITERALLY CRIED OUT I WAS SO FUCKING TERRIFIED

The scene where Mike drugs Bill to get him to “see” is...weird. Extremely weird. It was like being on hallucinogen drugs. Everything about it and IT is weird.

I’m confused as to when the timeline of them building the clubhouse and their individual experiences with IT take place in this film. Are the individual encounters (which I’ll talk about in a moment) supposed to have taken place in the time they were all apart? And the clubhouse, was that AFTER they fought IT? I’m so confused about when all of this was happening

So they all have to find these objects as offerings for this ritual to defeat IT and...that was a ride of several varieties.

We’ve all seen the Mrs Kersh teaser, right? The old lady? And how she suddenly wiggles around naked in the background for no apparent reason? That made a LOT of people laugh but, I mean, hats off to the actress for doing that, I’m 21 and I couldn’t even imagine having to do that.

Umm so yikes, Bev’s relationship with her father remains so creepy and abusive, like he blames her for her mother killing herself?? And then sprays her in her mom’s perfume and starts smelling her?? I needed to lie down on the sofa I was on, it had me so uncomfortable.

Um so Mrs Kersh turns into this GIANT FUCKING OLD LADY DEMON THING THAT’S NAKED AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO UNCOMFORTABLE IN MY LIFE

Pennywise painting his face and making those noises...yikes. fuckin yikes. I still love Bill Skarsgard.

OKAY LOOK RICHIE WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT RICHIE’S WHOLE STORYLINE SO IMMA DO THAT NOW

ABOUT RICHIE

So if I’m correct, and I think I am, Richie is gay? There’s a flashback when he heads to the arcade of Richie when he’s young and his hand lingers just a second too long on another boy’s at one point, and then he gets accused of being “weird”. Then it turns out the boy is Bowers’ cousin and Bowers shows up, starts accusing Richie of being a certain-gay-slur, and Richie runs outside.

Umm that bUILDER LUMBERJACK STATUE COMING TO LIFE WAS UNNECESSARY THANK YOU I’M GOING TO HAVE FUCKING NIGHTMARES ABOUT THAT FUCKING THING

So back to older Richie because this is all happening one-after-the-other here. Older Richie goes outside and he looks up at the Lumberjack statue, and there’s Pennywise with loads of balloons.

Pennywise starts accusing him of being too afraid to play games, but especially truth-or-dare, because then “everyone will know your secret”. 

My legit favourite thing is now Pennywise the clown floating down from on top of a statue singing “I KNOW YOUR SECRET, YOUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRET” and I refuse to feel guilty for it

It is so heavily implied that Richie’s secret is that he’s attracted to guys and I am here for the representation. I don’t know whether Richie is gay or bi or whatever, but shit I love it

I literally just wanted Richie to admit it so he could be proud and not afraid, like own it Richie. Own who you are, and then Pennywise can’t use it against you.

I’m literally going to rewatch this film JUST FOR RICHIE AND EDDIE’S ROMANCE

Anyway, end of me discussing Richie (for now)

I saw you Stephen King, in that shop with Bill’s bike :))

I wonder how other adults in Derry feel about seeing fully grown Bill screaming down a drain. It’s kind of sadly funny now that I consider it...

To be honest, I don’t remember what that little boy was called but Bill must have looked like a fucking weirdo just screaming and following that little boy around... (okay, I THINK the kid is called Dean so I’m going to just call him that)

To be fair to Bill, I also lie awake at night wondering “why Georgie??” That kid was far too adorable.

I always thought Ben was smart for some reason and so I was kinda surprised to see him in summer school (I’m English so we don’t have that here, but am I right in thinking that it’s where you go if you fail school or something? To get your grades up/retake tests?)

I was not convinced for a second that that shadow belonged to Beverly, and turns out I’m right. 

See, after seeing Bev’s head suddenly catch on fire, I’m glad I never started smoking (yes, I’m aware that’s Pennywise)

Poor Ben, having fake-Bev tell him that he’s fat/will die alone etc. It’s so sweet that he kept the page in his yearbook that she signed though, to remind himself that the REAL Beverly wouldn’t do that.

“Kiss me, fat boy” - AM I WRONG OR WAS THAT A LINE IN THE TIM CURRY VERSION BECAUSE I’M SURE IT’S NOT THE FIRST TIME A PENNYWISE HAS SAID THAT

That creepy ass pharmacist is still there?? AND his daughter?!

See, I’m confused...did Eddie’s mom REALLY get killed by the Leper or was that just a Pennywise trick to lure him in?

That Leper, guys...fuck me, it’s disgusting like it licks and vomits on Eddie?!

You know shit’s about to get real when characters go into fun-houses, especially the ones with a clown theme.

Okay, you know what, I was wrong when I thought that that little girl called Vicky had the most violent death - HOW ABOUT DEAN?? PENNYWISE RAMMING HIS HEAD AGAINST THE GLASS AND THEN FUCKING EATING HIM IN FRONT OF BILL WHILST BLOOD SPRAYS FUCKING EVERYWHERE

Ben: I’ve spoken to Richie, he’s going to stay -> Cut to: Richie, escaping and driving away very quickly

Hang on, how in the fuck did Eddie survive Bowers stabbing him in the cheek?! (Having said that, the Narrator in Fight Club survived blowing the whole of his cheek off so I can’t complain). 

For a moment I genuinely forgot about what happened to Henry Bowers after this but I’ve just remembered - he attacks the Losers Club again at the library and gets stabbed (I think?). All I know is that he definitely dies in that library.

I knew Mike’s parents had burnt to death and he’d been in the next room, but I didn’t realize that he’d been a toddler at the time?? Jesus, how is he not completely fucked up after that?!

No amount of money or anything could ever convince me to go into that fucking house on Neibolt Street frankly. 

I can’t remember why Richie decided to stay right now but he decides to stay and help out. My memory is BAD.

So they go into the house and so much horrific shit goes down that I literally was hiding behind the blanket I was using.

Less scary thing first: Ben having words carved into his stomach until Bev kicks some ass and destroys a mirror. Still freaked me out but not as much as the NEXT THING HOLY SHIT

So in the next room, the fridge opens and inside is young!Stan’s body - his head then falls off and rolls across the floor, starts speaking. When the Losers Club starts not believing it/being less afraid, Stan’s head...fuck fuck fuck

Stan’s head GROWS FUCKING LEGS AND IT BECOMES A SPIDER BUT WITH A HUMAN HEAD?! SO STAN’S HEAD IS THE BODY/FACE BUT IT HAS SPIDER LEGS AND I NEARLY BURST INTO TEARS BECAUSE I CAN HANDLE A LOT BUT FUCKIN SPIDERS IS NOT FUCKIN ONE OF THEM

I’M NOT KIDDING, THAT IS THE MOST TERRIFYING, HORRIFYING THING I HAVE EVER SEEN, AND I HAVE SEEN A LOT OF HORROR MOVIES

So they all end up going into the sewers, and going deeper after that, to do their ritual; freaky-boob-demon showed up and pulled Bev underwater, but beyond it being a quick jumpscare (that was admittedly scary), nothing happens since it goes down underwater and just see Eddie panicking but too afraid to go in after them himself.

Richie giving Eddie the pep talk was both sweet and hilarious. I admittedly laughed more than I should have done at the “you married a woman who weighs 400 pounds comment”. 

So, surprise surprise, the fucking dumbass ritual doesn’t work. For some reason Mike decides “hmm I won’t mention that this ritual failed before when it was last done, ho hum” and so everyone’s in the shit after that.

Pennywise turns into this gigantic crab-spider-thing and I don’t know how to feel about it. It’s honestly terrifying and unsettling, but I was half-expecting IT to turn into something like a massive spider or something horrific. I’m glad in a way he didn’t but still.

I should have mentioned this earlier but remember how in the first film, they decided that they’re safe so long as they stay together? YEAH, WELL, SECOND FILM SAYS LOL NOPE TO THAT AND THE CLUB KEEP SEPARATING, WHY DO YOU STRESS ME OUT LIKE THIS

The thing with Richie and Eddie and that Pomeranian was so cute? You know, until the dog fuCKING TURNED INTO A MONSTER THAT IS, “Not Scary At All” MY ASS PENNYWISE

Is IT able to be in seven different places at once? Because I wasn’t sure, but Pennywise seems to torment the kids/adults separately at the same time in BOTH films

So apparently Bill feels guilty because he “wasn’t sick” that day that Georgie went out into the rain and like...okay? That feels a bit shoehorned in but cool, alright then.

Bev ends up in that toilet cubicle with people trying to break in and like...gross? Her dad? And the pharmacist? Can go fuck themselves :))

So that toilet filled with blood pretty fast huh

Also Beverley really took her sweet ass time realizing that it was BEN who wrote that poem despite the fact she seemed to realize he was the one who did it AFTER he kissed her awake in the first film. However, I’ll maybe let it slide since apparently they forget things when they leave Derry, so...

Ben nearly drowns in dirt and Pennywise taunts him about dying alone, honestly same, I just know I’m going to die alone and unloved :))

Richie deciding “fuck it” and throwing rocks/screaming at Pennywise was so amazing...until the deadlights got him.

Eddie really sacrificed himself like that, huh :(

Poor Eddie was so happy because “oh my god I did it, I killed him, Richie wake up, look-!” - and then he got fucking stabbed. Gosh, I just LOVE it when my favourites DIE LIKE THAT STEPHEN KING -_-

So the deadlights are kind of just...balls of light? Or...?

So apparently calling Pennywise names like “clown” and putting him down is all it took to make him small enough to defeat, huh? They really shouted “clown” at him until he shrunk into a new-born-baby-sized-Pennywise

Also they crushed his heart and that was it. Cool, I guess. I don’t know what I was expecting but I don’t think what I got was it

So, um, while I’m here, let’s just take a moment to...

FUCKING NO WHY DID NO ONE FUCKING TELL ME THAT FUCKING EDDIE WAS GOING TO DIE

I WAS ROOTING FOR EDDIE EVERY SINCE HE SAID ABOUT GAZEBOS OKAY YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW ANGRY AND SAD I AM

I mean, he died like a hero, granted, but how fucking dare you-

You know what’s even MORE heartbreaking than Eddie dying? RICHIE’S REACTION.

Oh sure, the others are sad, but RICHIE IS FULL ON SOBBING AND NOT WANTING TO LET HIM GO, LIKE HE’S LITERALLY IN DENIAL AND HAS TO BE DRAGGED AWAY

RICHIE TAKES IT THE HARDEST AND MY HEART, IT FUCKING HURTS GUYS, IT REALLY DOES

Anyway, thank you Bill Hader for inventing acting for this film

Okay I’m sort of done

So no one is going to notice that dusty crackhouse building just crumbling completely then?

That moment where the remaining adult losers look at their reflection in a window, and they see themselves young - but it’s ALL of them young, even Stan and Eddie, and now I really am sad

Richie breaking down when they’re in the quarry to clean up...again, my heart hurts and it’s Richie’s fault

Towards the beginning of this film/most of the first film, I genuinely cared a bit about who Bev ended up with (well, more I was hoping it was Ben because he’s sweet and a good person) but by the time we got to Ben and Bev kissing after all the Bill-Bev-Ben triangle bullshit...meh. Cool, I guess. 

I am genuinely glad that the surviving losers seem to be living at least slightly better lives by the end of the film; Bill actually as an idea about what he’s writing for once; Bev is away from abusive fathers/husbands and with Ben on what looked like a VERY nice private yacht; I think Mike was going to see the world(?) after being cooped up in the library for so  long.

Richie...I don’t know if his ending was better than how he started to be honest. I think he said something about being proud at the end, so maybe that means he’s going to accept who he is? 

HE CARVED “R+E” into the bridge as a teen, and he re-cARVES IT AT THE END ARE YOU SERIOUS

Did Stan really think that by killing himself, it would prevent everyone from going back or...? Because he says in his letter that if it’s not ALL of them going back, then he’s assuming they’ll all die? Or something?

^If I’ve got that wrong (which I’m sure I have) please excuse me, it was 1am by the time the film finished and I was recovering from being terrified and I was tired

Obviously Bill Skarsgard was amazing as Pennywise, I just wanted to save that until last because wOW. He really put his all into the character, and I personally think he did a fantastic job with it.

So overall, I enjoyed IT Chapter 2. Was it as good as the first? Ehh...kind of hard to say. I was more scared shitless this time around but it was mostly jump-scares. It was definitely creepier/darker/bloodier. Having said that, there were moments where I was like “what the actual fck” or a bit lost, like Mike drugging Bill? I also noticed that a LOT of people in the cinema were laughing towards the end when it was the comedic parts but rather the scary ones - whether that’s just “some people laugh when nervous/anxious” or they genuinely thought it was hilarious, I’m not sure. This film is also nearly 3 hours long, which...is a while. For me, it wasn’t too bad because I’ve done LOTR marathons at home using the extended editions, so under 3 hours is kind of something I’m used to, but it does kind of drag a bit. At the beginning there was a lot of time building up characters, which I get, but also was slightly unnecessary at times. The CGI was sort of a mixed bag for me. I feel like the CGI on Pennywise throughout was overall improved, but there were moments like an eyeball rolling across the table or something where I thought it looked fake as hell.

But all of that aside, I really enjoyed the film. I think I’d go back again just to see Bill Hader as Richie, to be honest, and for Richie’s whole storyline. For me personally, that was the best non-horror element of the film.As I said, I have not read the book YET, but it’s the very next one on my list - chances are I’ll be starting it tonight or tomorrow!

[la-luna-es-hermosa]

EXO dating a foreign celebrity

Note: When I say foreign celebrity, I mean a whole entire celebrity outside of K-Pop (not Lisa or Yixing). For example, members of the Japanese Girl group AKB48. (Which I will use as an example for some members.) If you liked this, please consider a request.

-Luna

Xiumin Minseok strikes me as that person that will stick to their own race when it comes to dating. Though I can see Minseok having strings attached to a Japanese girl. - Still close to his race. Minseok would probably date a Japanese variety show star. Since he likes someone who is caring. The language barrier would be the first problem, but he already went through it on EXO-M, so it’s not much of a problem anymore to him. He loves to be someday be working with you in a variety show and entertain millions of people watching.

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - You guys were caught because of Dispatch (back at it again) found you guys were having a date in a Seoul restaurant and seem to hug each other. The Netizens were not mad about her since she is not an idol and Xiumin is definitely old enough to date. It was more like a “finally” to his fans.

Suho I see Junmyeon dating an actress. A Chinese actress just like Kyungsoo met at the set. Suho did not even hesitate to ask her out. I think they will be cute together and the girl will be spoiled rotten by Junmyeon. - Physically, emotionally and monetarily as well. They will be that couple that will post lovestagram of things they gave to each other and will shower each other with love and affection, even if they are in a long-distance relationship. I think Junmyeon would even make a Weibo account for her because he is sweet like that.

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - It was more like CEXO-Ls did dispatch’s job. They were chill with it though. They revealed that Junmyeon was one time with you in a Livestream and you said accidentally said Junmyeon’s name in one show. Your agencies did not care either way.

Lay For Yixing, I can see him date an American dancer based in China. It isn’t a problem since he is Chinese. He’d probably have the least number of tests (minus the cultural difference) among the members. Because his girlfriend is in China with him. Lay would have more occasional dates than the others. Lay would still be the sheep he is.

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - You guys were caught by netizens on Weibo. A sasaeng saw you and him right after his performance where you were the backup dancer. Chinese netizens at first was kinda displeased since the woman is an American but came to just accept it.

Baekhyun It benefits him that he isn’t dating a Korean Celebrity. The thing with Taeyeon probably gotten to him as a learning curve. In the future I can see Baek if he dates someone that isn’t Korean, he might even settle in her country just for her. I can see him, like Minseok, dating a Japanese celebrity. I think a former J-Pop idol group member turned soloist. Since you are a foreigner, there is a bit of a language barrier, but Baekhyun is trying to learn Japanese and you trying to learn Korean so you guys can communicate more thoroughly. He’d still be the same boyfriend Baekhyun but would change just a bit because of the distance you guys have.

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - They were caught by Dispatch. At first Dispatch can’t identify you, but they did later on. Your label didn’t care since you are not an idol anymore. At first, K-Netz were mad with it but came to accept you guys anyway. EXO-Ls have grown and become mature so it did not matter anymore.

Chen He is probably dating a noona. That’s why I chose SKE48 since they don’t have an age limit. I think their relationship, just like others is difficult due to the distance and their busy schedules. They have to have a lot of compensation. I think they are there for each other, while trying to keep their relationship as a secret. I think he will wish that they can have a duet/single where they’re together. He’ll make the mood for you guys.

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - Dispatch revealed that you guys were dating when you were seen in the music show cheering for him. Then, in the backstage, you guys kissed. No one was mad except J-Netz since you were still in SKE48 as well as AKS threatening to kick you out from the group. But they decided not to and you guys were happy. AKS even allowed Chen to give your group a song.

Chanyeol As much as I am a proud ChanRose shipper, I do see Chanyeol dating a foreign idol, particularly an NMB48 member. I think their relationship is easier to hide than let’s say JenKai. He’d still be that sweet and dorky Chanyeol when you’re tired from your theater performances, you can open your Kakaotalk and Chanyeol will surely brighten your day. He is also dreaming to make a song for NMB48 (if he can beg AKS to do it).

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - In this case, it’s not dispatch but a Japanese gossip outlet. - They saw the two of you while he accompanied you to a hotel in Namba after the handshake event in the theater. It was a national scandal as another AKB48 member gets in a dating scandal. Nobody would get kicked out since you were already graduating (if she’s Chanyeol’s age or up to 2 years younger)

D.O Unlike Chanyeol, Kai and Sehun, I can see him date an actress. They met when Kyungsoo was assigned in Vietnam, working with a famous Vietnamese actress, they fell in love in the set but tried to be “Just friends” for one year before Kyungsoo confessed. I also see them (D.O and the actress) date more often than SKY. Since she’s an actress, though it will be a long-distance relationship most of the time. When their film was a success, the Vietnamese company wants them again.

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - You guys were caught in Seoul, holding hands while at the mall. Nobody was shocked since you guys were actors anyway. Kyungsoo will not even try to keep it private since they are always cast together, but he will keep the private part of the relationship extremely private. (E.g. physical contact)

Kai I think (just let me fucking dream) that Kai would date a member of MNL48. He would meet you when he had a trip to the Philippines. He was introduced by his friends to MNL48. He found you charming and asked for your phone number. Things started to take off, his Philippines trips get more frequent, just like everyone, vid calls would be frequent. It was weird since he is typically into regal and more girl crush kind of girls, it’s shocking that he liked a cute girl this time. But regardless of that, because of you guys’ shared interests and you guys being both idols, there is not that much of a hard time. (minus long-distance and language barrier)

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - I think they would get caught by a Filipino sasaeng, at first you weren’t identified (since MNL48 is pretty unknown to the common Filipinos) but was identified due to MNL48 wotas looking at the post. You guys were caught at Luneta park while you hold his hand and he was carrying a shopping bag. I think that you’d be kicked out of the group because of this. But definitely, you’ll find another idol group to get into

Sehun “Sehun, I’m from BNK48.” She told him as he asked her where is she from.

“Wait? What? Really?” He was amazed by hearing that. I think he’d think that you being a T-Pop idol is really cool and that your concept opposed his. He’d think that since you belonged to an entirely new system, he’d be curious about it. The relationship is obviously distant and would even try to learn Thai just for you. Although it is mostly in text/video call, he’d still be that sassy, chic and cool boyfriend Sehun. When he has time, he might even go to Thailand to see you perform. He wishes that you guys can perform together again like how you guys met.

HOW DID YOU GUYS GOT CAUGHT? - In the first year anniversary, you guys were in Sehun’s favorite milk tea shop in Seoul (since BNK48 had no schedule) and dispatch saw you and him holding hands while you storm out of the cafe. The fans went crazy as they can never figure out, that all this time, you guys were dating.

[sabraeal]

So a prompt for the Wide Florida Bay, Haki meets Haruto meeting.

Wide Florida Bay | With Hands Molded, as Galatea

Issue: Jan 1994

Vogue sat down with the illustrious Ms Bergstrom, known for not only her modeling career in her youth, but also her current occupation of philanthropic works. 

Bergstrom: I was an actress as well, briefly.Vogue: Yes, who could forget?Bergstrom: (teasing) You, apparently!

“God, this whole island is so fucking boring.” Andalusia slaps her copy of Vogue onto the table, glaring down the line of chaises. “Whose idea was it to come to Santorini anyway?”

“Haki’s!” Cristal pipes nervously before tilting her hat’s brim down over her face. It’s such a pitiful act, Haki can’t even manage to summon up a glare.

“Ugh, Haki, what the fuck.” Andaulsia rolls over, foxing her with a scowl that would make Cristal burst into tears. “There’s nothing here but honeymooners and old people.”

This was my mom’s favorite place. It sits right on the tip of her tongue, a sure way to win the argument, to get everyone on her side and leave Andalusia slinking around the suite like a scolded terrier. But it’s also ammunition, a piece of her that can be flung back when tempers get high or when someone needs to prove that she’s too emotional to weigh in.

And that’s not what she wants her mother to be: yet another little pin to prick her with, another weight to hold her down when someone wants to climb higher. So Haki grits her teeth, making a show of applying more sun screen.

“And sunsets,” Tomomi offers with a studied offhandedness. “Those have been pretty killer.”

Her mother had thought that too. At least, that’s what her father said, when she’d asked, a wistful expression on his face. Never the same one twice.

“God, fuck sunsets. We should have gone to Ibiza.” Andalusia flops restlessly on her chaise, like a fish on the dock. “That’s where everyone who’s everyone is. Not this shitshow.”

She knows she’s supposed to apologize now, that she’s supposed to offer a half dozen explanations for why she thought Santorini would personally float Andalusia’s boat, but–

There’s none. It’s their first trip since they started college, the first time they’ve been together so long since they flung themselves across the country to colleges so far apart it seems almost purposeful, and Haki’s just felt…adrift. She’s made friends, yes, with all the right people who go all the right places, but it all fits her like a dress two sizes too small, like she’s still trying to stuff herself into the Zac Posen she wore to her Sweet Sixteen.

She’s had a single year of freedom, a single year to think for herself, and all that’s been buzzing through her head for months is that she doesn’t want this.

“Ibiza is so last decade.” Mariazell sits up in her chaise, tossing her sheet of blonde hair over her shoulder. “God, my parents went to Ibiza.”

Mariazell had been a last minute addition, a friend of a friend of Andalusia’s who she’d met at a party and thought was as cool as a Hilton. Haki had been prepared to hate her guts, but, well–

It seems as though things are looking up.

“Saint Tropez, then,” Andalusia decides, “I heard–”

“Old news.” Mariazell inspects her nails with an air of disinterest Haki can only aspire to. No one goes there anymore.”

Outdone and annoyed, Andalusia does the one thing she knows best: pouting. “Fine, then where is everyone?”

“Mykanos.” She says simply, as if anyone with a brain would know. It’s the sort of trick that rolls off Haki’s back, but Andalusia looks like she’s about to have an aneurysm.

“Where the fuck is that supposed to be?” she snaps, red-faced even under her tan. “Turkey or something?”

Mariazell lets out a laugh. “Oh my god, seriously? It’s right here. Like three hours by boat.”

“How come I’ve never heard of it?”

Mariazell levels her with the driest expression anyone has ever dared. “It’s exclusive.”

Haki coughs, tucking her mouth into her shoulder. Andalusia was the biggest hanger-on she knew,  at the forefront of what everyone else thought was cool, and now here she was: hopelessly behind the times.

God, she’s almost starting to like this girl.

Mariazell tosses her head. “Or at least it was, but now anybody who’s anybody parties there.”

“Then that’s where we should be.” Andalusia’s mouth bends into a sly curve. “Do you think we could get– what’s his name? That guy with the yacht?”

“Touka?” Tomomi supplies, casting Haki a worried glance. “Touka Bergatt?”

“Yeah, him.” Andalusia lounges, crossing her legs the way models did in magazines, as if it might make her taller. “He was all over us yesterday. Do you think he could get us there?”

Haki can’t bite back her grimace. His arm still feels heavy around her shoulders, leaning in far too close as he asked if she would like a private tour of the captain’s cabin. Alone. “Isn’t he old?”

“He’s twenty-five.” Her eyes flash, like a cougar watching a hare, and Haki braces herself for the pounce. “I mean, he’s just as old as Izana Wisteria.”

Mariazell raises an eyebrow. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Oh it doesn’t.” Andalusia’s sprawls on the chaise like a panther, playing with its pray. “Haki’s just obsessed with him.”

The I’m not is at the tip of her tongue, but Mariazell beast her to it.

“You are?” Her second brow joins the first. “Aren’t your families friends or something? Don’t you know him?”

“Their mothers modeled together back in the 80s, along with Cecile Seiran,” Andalusia supplies helpfully, her face the very picture of poorly-feigned innocence. “She met him once, refused to talk to him, and then hyperventilated in a hallway when he said hi.”

That’s not precisely wrong, but it’s definitely not the way she would prefer to tell that story. Which is never.

“I don’t see why hitching a ride with Touka Bergatt’s such a problem,” Andalusia continues, “not when she’d happily jump on Izana Wisteria’s dick if he let her.”

“That’s gross,” she snaps, body flushed and fists clenched. “I wouldn’t jump on anyone, not matter who they are. Just because he’s–” a genius, an innovator, and sexy as hell– “attractive doesn’t mean I want to fuck him.”

She’s known plenty of people who look good on paper but don’t complete the fantasy in real life. Izana Wisteria would probably be one of them. She’s not an idiot.

“Don’t be fooled. Haki’s saving herself for him,” Andalusia coos, drawing giggles from the other girls. Well, everyone but Tomomi, whose mouth has thinned to nonexistence.

“I’m not saving myself for anyone,” she grits out. It’s impossible, since there’s nothing about her to be ruined or rescued just from having sex no matter what Andalusia thinks, or her father, or the tabloid that ran a countdown to when she was “legal.” It’s the fucking 2000s, not medieval Europe. No one’s going to be airing her sheets on her wedding night, showing the peasants how she bled on the sheet like a good, God-fearing girl.

Not that she wouldn’t be burned at the stake by popular opinion if she did sleep around. Haki Bergstrom has a reputation to keep, but that could be solved by circumspect partners and careful planning, if she wanted to. Which she hasn’t.

Of course, this all jumbles in her throat, anger boiling it down to, “High school boys are gross.”

Andalusia grins. “We’re in college now. College boys exist.”

“You know what I mean,” she snips waspishly. “Boys our age are obsessed with getting their dick wet and anal.”

“And putting their penis between your boobs,” Cristal adds, shrinking as they all turn to her. “I-I mean, so I’ve heard.”

Andalusia scoffs, mouth curling like the has a secret. “Then don’t date boys. Date men.”

Ugh, she would say that; she’d been the first one to get a boyfriend at sixteen, a twenty-two year old DJ that had gotten her grounded for a month when her parents found him sneaking out of her window. They’d never gotten much further than French kissing and hand jobs, but Andalusia might as well have gone all the way since she likes to lord it over everyone.

Mariazell snorts, tossing her hair. “Adult men who date girls are the grossest of all.”

Andalusia recoils like she’s been slapped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on.” Mariazell smiles, giving the distinct impression that she’s outside the joke when anyone with a brain is inside. “Guys in their mid-twenties trying to shack up with girls who are ‘freshly eighteen?’ They want a blow-up doll, not a relationship. And with girls like us? They just want Daddy’s money.” She raises a brow. “Surely you’ve figured that out.”

“Of course I have,” Andalusia lies, flush spreading down to her chest. “But Bergatt’s our best bet to get off this island and into where all the right people are partying. I’ll do what I have to do to for that.”

“But will Haki?” Mariazell’s smile spreads into a Cheshire grin. “That’s who he was all over yesterday.”

“Count me out,” she says, settling against her lounge. “We could party back in Miami. I like the silence here.”

Cristal yelps, “But if you don’t go, he might not take us.”

She’s tempted to tell her, my worst nightmare isn’t Andalusia not getting her way, but it’s too cruel. As much as Cristal’s brown-nosing annoys her, she’s a skittish little thing, always scared of being left behind, and Haki knows better than anyone– they are only what their fathers have made of them.

“That’s not Haki’s problem,” Tomomi snaps. “What do we need her for anyway? Isn’t Andalusia always saying how she can get any man she wants?”

“I can!” She’s too eager, too defensive, and it’s clear the only person on the deck that even half believes it is her. “You think I can’t?”

Mariazell’s mouth curves. “I think you aren’t a tall, leggy blonde. and Touka Bergatt is used to having his pick of the litter.”

“Fine!” Andalusia bolts up from her lounge, looking like thunder herself. “You have an hour. We’re getting off this island.”

Haki snorts. “I’m not going–”

“You’re not invited,” she shrills. “We don’t need you. I’ll wrap Touka Bergatt so tight around my finger he’d take us back to Miami, and I don’t need you messing it up.”

She stomps off the deck, Cristal hurrying behind her, and Mariazell gives Haki a knowing smile.

“Enjoy your solitude,” she murmurs, unfurling from her seat. “I know I would.”

Vogue: We’ve heard that you disdain the party scene. Bergstrom: I spend much of my life with my husband in Miami or in LA doing business. They call New York the City that Never Sleeps, but in those cities no one ever breathes. Why do I need to go to a club when every business appointment is a three-ring circus?Vogue: So where do you go to unwind?Bergstrom: While I was modeling, many years ago now, I used to take trips with my friends to a small island in Greece– Santorini, you may have heard of it? The sunsets are not to be believedVogue: Once or twice. By friends, you mean fellow models-turned-business moguls, Haurto Wisteria and Cecile Seiran?Bergstrom: Yes, I believe my publicist has sent you the photo?Vogue: Yes, it’s gorgeous. Thank you for letting us print it.Bergstrom: (laughs) Oh, what woman wouldn’t like you to print a photo of her when she’s twenty?Vogue: Twenty year olds!Bergstrom: Too true, too true. We’re so harsh on ourselves, and then we look back years later and think, ‘now what did I think was wrong?!’

Haki could always ask for a car; Axel Bergstrom’s daughter would have a fleet of Santorini’s finest, discreet limos should she but ask the concierge, but it seems important to do this the right way.

She’s never ridden a bus before, but she’s seen movies. She drops her coins into the till, takes her seat, and politely ignores every person around her as she scrolls through her phone. The ride to Oia feels like a lifetime, but– but–

Her mother wasn’t riding in limos when she came here. She’d barely been older than Haki is now, a young model with hardly anything to her name.

So that’s how she takes in Santorini: on foot, relying on her smile and the few Greek words she learned from the hotel staff when she called for room service. It gets her just as far as her mother always said it would; right up to the twisty alleyways of Oia, mounting step over step to find the right vantage point.

Her calves are burning when she finds it, protesting another step: a terrace, overgrown with vines and abandoned, three ancient lounge chairs laid out across the white stone.

She vaults up the last few stairs, mouth stretching wide as she takes in the view of the caldera. It’s perfect; an unobstructed view straight out to the horizon, and it’s the closest she’s ever felt to her mother’s presence beside her. She doesn’t believe in all the stuff normally, but a find like this is beyond coincidence. Maybe there’s nothing of her mother back in Miami, but here on this rooftop, every breath she takes is thick with her, heavy with a scent she hardly remembers–

“Ah,” huffs a voice from behind her. “Company.”

Haki spins on her heel, hands clutching at the lip of the wall, as if that might somehow stop the terrace’s owner from asking her to leave. “Oh, I– I’m sorry, I thought no one would be up here. I–”

It’s a woman who emerges onto the roof, windswept blonde hair haloing around her face as she sweeps across. “Oh, no, don’t worry. I don’t own this house. I’ve just borrowed its terrace for the evening.” She sweeps out a hand, the one not holding an electric blue cocktail, and gestures toward the lounges. “There’s no reason we can’t share.”

She’s older, Haki realizes, but her age is impossible to place. There’s crows feet starting to stretch their talons at the corners of her eyes, but she wears them so casually they’re almost an accessory than a mark of time.

“Please,” she insists, perching on her own chair, “sit. Are you traveling alone?”

“Oh.” Haki sidles over to a lounge, taking an awkward seat. “Ah, today I am.”

Her eyebrows raise, perfectly shaped. “Just today?”

“My other friends took off for Mykanos,” she explains, swallowing down the good riddance.

“Ah, I see.” The woman smiles of the rim of her cocktail glass. “Santorini’s too slow for them, hm? I’ve heard that’s where the real parties are at nowadays.”

“Yeah.” That’s all she needs to say, but there’s something about this woman’s steady gaze, inquiring and yet not expectant, that makes her add, “I’m from Miami, thought. I can party any time–” not that she wants to all that much anymore– “but I can’t get these sunsets.”

The woman’s brows hike up even farther, but it’s…approving. Impressed. “I wouldn’t expect to hear that from someone your age. You must be in college now, aren’t you?”

“Ah, yes.” This is the last thing she wants to talk about. “I’m a sophomore.”

“Oh, how nice!” She sounds…actually pleased, as if it were some pleasant surprise. “My youngest is a sophomore too! But in high school.”

This woman does not look old enough to have a high school sophomore for a child.

“And my eldest just graduated a year ago. He’s getting his MBA now,” she confides with a flushed-cheek sort of pride.

Haki can only stare; this woman is either extremely well-preserved, or she was pushing out kids when she was sixteen.

“What are you doing?” she continues, interested. “You seem like the sort of girl who has a plan.”

Haki can’t imagine what about her says that; she’s a lone woman on a stolen terrace in the middle of a country she doesn’t even speak the language of, with little more than a phone and a transit card in her pocket. “Ah, not really. I’m actually Undecided. For now.” She gives her a helpless shrug. “I’m still learning what I like, I guess.”

The woman stills, eyes narrowing. “Do you mean you’ll learn what you like, or you’ll learn to live with what you’re supposed to like?”

Haki knows she looks like an idiot, sitting there slack-jawed like she belongs on the Miami version of Jersey Shore, getting drunk and having drama for the amusement of the masses, but–

But no one’s ever asked her that before.

The woman curls towards her, chin propped up on a hand. “That’s what I thought. What do you want, really?”

“I want to mean something.” She claps a hand over her mouth, mortified. “No, wait! I mean–”

Cool fingers wrap around hers, she’s filled with a sudden, complete sense of comfort. Her words evaporate on her tongue, lost. “I know what you mean. Go on.”

Haki blinks, staring at the long, strong hands that cover her own. This must be what it’s like for people who have moms. “I want to make a difference. I don’t want to do what my dad does and just…make money.”

There’s more to it than that, so much more. She’d never thought about money before, only known that she had it, had a lot of it, and then she’d went to college and–

And she’d found out the price of it. Filled in swamp lands and critically endangered animals. Weather growing worse each year as the earth changes, forced to be flat so hotels and condos and timeshares can be built on it. Laborers who work grueling hours and still can’t pay rent, who have to choose between dinner and a doctor’s visit. All to line the pockets of her father and his friends.

She can’t do it anymore. She can’t be happy knowing what she knows. She doesn’t want to be forty, seated on the couch with all the other wives waiting to be swapped out for someone younger, someone stupider as her husband brags about destroying the Everglades for a parking lot.

No, she wants to be the one that stops it. “I want to be a lawyer. A, um, environmental one.”

The woman squeezes her hand, reassuring. “That won’t be easy.”

“I know,” she sighs. “My dad will never let me.”

“Of course not.” The woman smiles. “You’ll get really good at lying.”

She stares. Adults aren’t supposed to give you this sort of advice, she’s pretty sure. Especially not moms.

“There’s a half dozen majors you can do and get into law school.” She shrugs. “Pick something that your father expects from you. Business. Literature. Political Science. And then take whatever classes you need to learn what you have to.”

It sounds so easy when she says it. “But what if–”

She holds up a finger. “Ah, remember: Axel Bergstrom never checks up on an investment when he feels like a return is assured.”

“Right. But…” Her teeth snap down with a click. “How do you know who my father is?“

One of the woman’s hand’s lift, tilting up her chin. “Oh, Haki. You do look so much like your mother. And seeing you here, sitting right where she did…”

She blinks. The picture. Her mother, Cecile Seiran, and–

“Haruto Wisteria,” she breathes. “You’re Haruto Wisteria.”

Her mother’s closest friend. And Izana Wisteria’s mother.

Oh, god.

“You…you’re…” she feels faint.

“She’d be so proud of you, you know,” Haruto says, her thumb rubbing coolly across her cheek. “She always worried the money might ruin you and Makiri.”

She can hardly breathe. “My mother?”

“Oh, of course.” Haruto smiles, distant. “She chained herself to a bulldozer once, protesting the destruction of some natural landmark in Sweden. That’s where she met your father actually.”

She doesn’t need to be told which side of the bulldozer he was on. “And then they…?”

“He was charmed by her tenacity. And Ingrid thought she could change the world, let alone a single man.” Haruto lets go of her chin, mouth giving a rueful twist. “We were young then.”

Haki can hardly picture it; even if her mother wasn’t just a blur in her memory, the though of her father young and in love…

Well, it seemed far-fetched.

“I meant to keep in touch, after…” Haruto’s voice quivers, and she takes a sip of her cocktail. “Well, sometimes we know what we should do, but the pain stops us from doing it. You understand?”

Haki stupidly, blurts out, “No.”

She expects offense, but Haruto only smiles fondly. “No, of course not. Ingrid was always the strong one.” Her hand squeezes tight around Haki’s. “I’m so glad to find you’ve followed in your mother’s footsteps.”

There’s so much to say, but she can only manage, “My mother tied herself to a bulldozer?”

Haruto laughs. “Chained, dear. Chained.”

It’s almost too much to handle. “I…I came here because I read an article about my mom. An old one. And I’d been feeling so lost lately, I just though maybe…maybe if I came here, I’d find myself too, like she did.” Haki hesitates, looking out toward where the sky has begun to pink. “But I think what I was really looking for was my mom.”

“That’s why I come here too,” Haruto murmurs, her voice suddenly thin. “I never feel her so much as I do here. If we get to choose where we are when…when it’s all over, Ingrid would be here.”

Haki turns to her, seeing the shine in her eyes, the fondness in her expression, and even though she’s only ever been a story in a magazine to her, it feels– like more than just one meeting. Like a history stretched out behind them and before them.

“I don’t remember much about my mom,” she admits, “but I feel like she’s here. With us.”

Haruto smiles down at her. “I’m glad you stumbled up onto my terrace, Haki.”

She squeezes her hand, the sky blurring. “Me too.”

Vogue: Where is this, if you don’t mind me asking?Bergstrom: A rooftop in Oia. We thought it was abandoned, only to be joined by the owners a few moments later!Vogue: Oh no!Bergstrom: No, no, they were too gracious! They let us stay, gave us cocktails. Told us to come back any time. And we have! I think they didn’t expect that (laughs).Vogue: Is this your favorite place to watch the sunset?Bergstrom: Yes, yes! I think if I die this will be my heaven. No matter how much I love my husband, my children, part of my heart will always be in Oia.

“You know,” Haruto says as the sun sets over the horizon, leaving only the palest sky behind, “you should meet my son.”

Haki nearly rolls out of her lounge. “What? R-really?”

“Oh yes.” Haruto’s lips twitch as she looks down at her. “I think you’d give him a real run for his money.”

[youllallriseintheink]

Infinity: chapter 3- A way out.

Time to start the “where did this character end up?” game.

---

To Allison Pendle, immortality has been a blessing, but also a curse. In the past century since her transformation, she’d seen the downfall of Joey Drew Studios, joined a gang in which she worked under Lacie Benton and Shawn Flynn, gone through rehab, seen a multitude a countries, been a singer, an actress, a missionary, a mother, and a drug dealer, rubbed shoulders with Wally as a performing circus freak, gone to rehab, been rich, been homeless, tried almost every hobby imaginable, read more books, met more people, done more drugs, and had generally lived life to the fullest. The past little bit, though, she was bored with it. She’d begun to envy older people, who were able to slow down with age, and eventually die. And so, she eventually returned to Brightdale.

Brightdale as Allison remembered it, was a small and mostly unnotable little town, but it was a very significant place to Allison. It was where, in her time randomly traveling the country in her early twenties, she’d first discovered that witchcraft was real.

In present, the place had been deserted entirely. As Allison walked the empty streets lined with overgrowth, a delightfully haunted feeling came over her. She’d have to explore these dusty houses when she was finished with her mission. It was on the edge of town that she found the house of the witch she had stayed with and stolen from. Its windows and doors were thoroughly grown over with vines roots at this point. Thankfully, Allison had half-way expected the place would be patroled by some sort of guardian creature and had thus come prepared with a shotgun and a machete. There was nothing special about the foliage and it gave way fairly easily, allowing Allison in.

Within it, Allison found the place nearly untouched- nicely lit, no dust, nothing. Was the witch still here? Allison raised her gun and listened as creaking wooden steps gave away the old woman's presence. "I have a reversal shield on me. Don't try anything," Allison asserted. It was a lie, but not one to be taken lightly- casting a spell, especially an offensive one, on a reversal shield could very easily prove deadly.

"Allison?" the witch growled. "Very well, you fucking thief. What do want from me?"

"Ingredient number 30."

The old woman went to her spice cabinet, took out the ingredient, and threw it at Allison. "Anything else?"

"Well, there is something I'd like to ask you. You don't actually look like that, do you?"

The witch smiled wryly. "No... I actually look quite a bit like you. But you see, if I looked like you, then boys would be following me home all the time, getting to learn my secrets because they're after the one between my legs. It's protective to look like this."

Allison nodded. "That's what I thought. So," she pulled a recipe of sorts out of her pocket, "do you think this could kill you?"

The witch stared on in fear.

"Not that I want to kill you. I just think we should have the option."

---

It was the middle of the day when Henry received that very important letter (not the first Very Important Letter he'd received from someone in that bygone studio!). He had been in his office at the official headquarters of Disney, and the letter had been brought to him by his wife, Elaine. It read:

Dear Henry Stein,

This is  one of the immortals. I have found a potion that can cure our immortality. If you'd like it, or just like to see the rest of us again, me in Brightdale, Ohio at seven at night exactly one week from today.

See you soon (oops, that sounds ominous),

-Allison Pendle

"What is it, honey?" Elaine asked. Elaine knew that Henry was immortal, along with with pretty much everything else about him. They'd been married for fifteen years now, from her late twenties to her early forties, and had fostered many children together. Henry loved her, and certainly didn't think of her as some mayfly pet. But he wouldn't have wanted to talk about this with anyone.

"Nothing," Henry responded, perfectly calm.

"Okay," Elaine said, leaving with a look on her face that suggested that she suspected things maybe weren't.

Henry immediately tossed the letter in the trash and attempted to focus on the paperwork on his desk- fourums on the theme park he was planning on building with the help of Bertrum Piedmont. Finding he couldn't, Henry turned over the sheet and turned to his oldest coping mechanism- drawing. He was good now- all that time loop stuff was forgotten. But he was never in a million, billion, trillion years going to risk seeing Joey Drew's face again. Infinity didn't scare him much nowadays, and it scared him infinitely less than that.

---

The next house that the letter found its way to was a big, but run-down. Not many knew it, but it was where a pair of extremely well-established drug lords operated. As of right now, there were several people passed out on the crack-dusted leather couches, one of them being Lacie Benton, who was hungover from having used more substances than she could name the night before. "Hey Lacie. Letter from your old lover is here," Shawn called.

"Which one?" Lacie returned.

"The Raven."

Lacie rolled her eyes. "It was one kiss. She wanted to try it. Are you going to tease me about that until the very ends of time?"

"Probably," Shawn replied, gathering up some crack from the end table and snorting it. He couldn't wait until their next shipment would arrive, later in the afternoon.

Groggy, she got up and took the letter from Shawn's hands.

"Oh my God."

"What? Is she coming back to us?"

"No, it's better than that. She wants to give us a suicide drug!"

Shawn shared her excitement. At this point, they were both due for life-sentences, and for them, that would mean jail for centuries or millennia. Not anymore. Not with these. They were going to that meeting.

---

"So, Samuel Lawrence, explain to us why we should allow you, a man currently on parole and with many, many felonies in your past however distant, become a priest."

Sammy took a deep breath. In a similar courtroom to the one he now stood in, he'd answered the same question five years ago when he'd argued why he should be allowed in a seminary. now he had to argue it again in order to be licensed. At very least, the church where he'd done his practicum had agreed to hire him if he got through this, so he wouldn't have to make this same speech a third time.

"Your honour. I do not deny my crimes. However, as you said, they took place now nearly a century ago. I led unofficial church groups in prison which turned many people to better behaviour. I has released from my sentence- 7 charges of attempted murder at eight years each and seven charges of first degree murder at twenty years each- literal centuries early for my good behaviour, an absolutely unprecedented decision. And as one of my letters of recommendation will tell you, I stayed in prison an extra year to support the people I'd met there. What's more, and I know this is old news to you, I am immortal. The amount of life experience I could gain is immense, and I want to climb my way up through the catholic church system so that I can pass it on. Even now, I am 133 years old. Through prison and in my music career before it, I heard the stories of more people than I can count. I have experience in dealing with the worst sinners, and as we all know, a church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. There are few people with as much life experience as me and fewer whose minds are still sharp. In short, I have made a positive impact on people's lives, and I want to get myself in a position where I'll be able to do that for as many people as possible. Thank you."

Sammy was breathing heavily from emotion as he finished his speech and sat back down. The judge said some words that Sammy barely registered about letting the jury decide. Sammy's stomach knotted up and he felt like either screaming or disappearing.

Half an hour later, he emerged from the courthouse elated, as a licensed priest. The letter was in his mailbox once he got home. Sammy laughed, then ripped it up. Today was the first step on the path to his destiny. Why would he in a million years want to die?

---

A copy of the letter came to Bickmore Insane asylum. The receptionist opened it and saw that it was addressed to one of the patients, Joseph "Joey" Drew. The receptionist did not feel badly for reading the patient's mail. For one thing, Joseph couldn't have read it anyhow. For another, Joseph honestly deserved it.

Rumour had it that decades ago- and it was decades, since Joseph was one of the immortals- Joseph had been given l a sentence spanning centuries for seven charges of attempted murder, twenty-something charges of murder, and innumerable charges of unlawful imprisonment. One of his victims had been the murder of a seventeen-year-old boy, and as a result, prison was not at all kind to Joseph. The other prisoners would beat the life out of him regularly, doing things to him that would kill most people, including giving him severe brain damage and forcing him to stumble around for hours on end as his brain repaired itself. As a result, Joseph was quickly moved to protective custody, and then to solitary confinement.

After the trauma of his treatment by the other prisoners and the solitary confinement had left him far too anxious and aggressive to be kept with the others, he was sent to Bickmore, where he at first seemed to make a quick recovery. There was, after all, a physical component to trauma, and Joseph's brain was just as resilient as the rest of him. But every time he seemed nearly ready to be transferred back to prison, he would cause a scene with panic visible in his eyes. He would begin to scream nonsense about beetles in his veins, throw objects, and attack faculty members and fellow patients. It didn't matter how many times it was explained to Joseph that he would be transferred right back to protective custody this time and the other prisoners would not be able to hurt him. Joseph did not want to go back to prison, and would do anything to buy himself more time.

As time went on, Joseph's apparent breaks from reality became more and more realistic. He would question faculty members about whether he was going back to prison, and attack them out of suspicion. The final straw, however, was when, on the first day he'd been allowed near other patients unsupervised since his last outburst, stabbed a 60-year-old schizophrenia patient with a butter knife and then a fork because he was convinced she was a spy for "the prison system." Joseph was pulled off of her, put into permanent solitary confinement, and sedated. Even now, he was in solitary, treated with the extreme care one would use for a dangerous beast, and kept heavily sedated.

Of course, the secretary didn't know any of that. Unless one had access to his files, that was all rumour- myth. She passed the letter onto her superior, who called Allison to ask that she send the drug. It was about time that someone put Joseph Drew out of his misery.

---

Thomas Connor had been making pancakes for his family when Boris brought him the mail in his mouth. Thomas smiled and took it with no word but a pat on Boris' head. The mail that day consisted of two letters and a newspaper. The first letter was just a bill, but the second one was from Allison Pendle.

What could that crazy bitch want from him? Thomas didn't know. A while ago he would have been mad, but now it had been so long that he honestly didn't feel anything. At least he had Alice to talk to if it was romantic. "Boris, could you take over for me?" he asked, moving over to the kitchen table to open the letter. Once he'd read it over, he crumpled it up, then uncrumpled it and found a fresh sheet of paper on which to write a reply.

Dear Allison

Thomas paused. He supposed he ought to keep this formal, at least at first, and wrote down her last name before continuing.

What are you up to? I don’t think I’ve seen you in person since that one time with the New York City Police.

Me, I’m still an engineer. Not for GENT- they went out of business a while after I left them. I’d worked for a few different places, but most recently (ha- “recently.” It was decades ago!) I’ve been  hired by an elite team of researchers who were looking into the ink machine. We eventually figured out how to save the people within these ink shells. You see, some of them have a human soul and a toon presence, and some get a third, demonic presence mixed in. We just had to separate them and give them separate bodies. Or cubes, in the case of the demons and toons. Don’t want them running away on us, do we? Anyhow, the humans took first priority. I saved that Buddy kid that we met and kept him at my house for a few years so that he could finish his schooling. After we were done with the people though, some bleeding heart thought we should give proper bodies to the cartoons because they “had over two decades of life experience, could feel pain and emotion,” you see where this is going. I thought it was stupid, but I was being paid to be an engineer, and if this was to be my project, so be it.

Thomas stopped and looked up. An Edgar (yes, an. Thomas had two) was playing Snakes and Ladders with Bendy and Alice on the floor. Dog, who was one one of his three Borises and the only one who walked on four legs like, well, a dog, was currently getting confronted by two sets of Charleys and Barleys for making his other Edgar cry. The Boris lowered himself to the ground in a doglike show of submission and apology, which the butcher gang members seemed to accept.

I guess they were right. Bringing them all back was a gradual process, and we could adopt some of them out. You’d be surprised how few people want to adopt a bunch of living cartoons with a truckload of trauma and no knowledge of the real world, though. I ended up with eleven of them. And it was supposed to be temporary, but now there’s a whole bunch of em’ I don’t want to separate (butcher gang trios especially) and, well, I guess I’m stuck with them. Not that I don’t like them, but I kind of wish I weren’t so tied down. I feel like I could do great things as an engineer, and while I love my kids, I kind of don’t want them to be my eternity, you know?

So that’s all to say, no. I can’t die. Can’t abandon my kids. But I’d love to see you again. Maybe I could come into town and meet up?

-Your fellow immortal, Thomas Connor

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

Ok, you know what, I wasn’t planning on making a post about this but I will anyway. 

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SUPERIOR REMAKE. THE FACT THAT ONE REMAKE AS SOMETHING YOU LIKE MORE DOESN’T MAKE IT SUPERIOR. 

You know why there isn’t a superior remake. Pretty much every single criteria for declaring a remake better then another one are all things that someone could disagree with it. You might think the casting and the acting of a remake is better, but someone could have a different opinion than you. 

Different opinions are ok. And so is criticizing the show/movie you like. Not everything is going to be perfect/unproblematic. Stop trying to act like it is.

Also very tired of reading post that complains about the superior remake debate only for them to turn around and write in the tags or in another post that which remakes they think it’s superior. 

This is not meant to be an attack on any specific person. I am just speaking of a recent trend I have noticed. 

Seriously all the remakes have thinks that could turn someone off. All the remakes have done stuff that we all wish didn’t happen. 

If you like a remake more, that’s great, if you can see yourself represented in one remake more then another. THAT’S AMAZING. 

Enjoy what you enjoy. Have fun. If you want to write a constructive semi-objective post about something you didn’t like in a specific remake go ahead. DO NOT SHIT ON OTHER REMAKES TO PROP THE ONE YOU LIKE MORE. OR SHIT ON THE OG. 

I have been guilty of some superior remake tags myself. I meant them as a joke, but I will try not to do that anymore. For example, while I love skam nl more than all the other remake. I will never say it did nothing wrong ever. For bts reasons they had very little Imane in s1 and she had to leave the show. They made the Lisa character a muslim girl (Esra) but had a scene in which she eats while she should be fasting and didn’t explain why she wasn’t in a clip (so far) ---- EDIT: I do not think the Imane criticism is valid because it’s not the actress fault that she had family issues that kept her from filming but I saw people that still think this is a criticism so I am putting on the list anyway. The Esra thing was sort of explained in the text to the girls where she said that she was on her period. So that’s probably why she wasn’t fasting. But people don’t always follow social media and the text and it should be explained in the show because so far skam nl is the only remake that hasn’t acknowledge ramadan. They kept the ambiguous sexuality of the eva character like in the og, only has one canon bisexual girl but is a character that we don’t if it will ever have a season. I Still love this remake a lot. But it’s not perfect. No remake will ever be perfect. 

Can we please stop with all this superior remake nonsense and just enjoy what we enjoy and stop spreading hate. 

Because it’s exhausting. On more than one occasion I have considered stopping to blog and reblog at all about skam and just quietly enjoy it manually checking translation blogs because some parts of the fandom are so exhausting and so fucking draining. 

Again this is not meant to a specific callout to a specific someone. I am just saying my personal opinion. 

Alt er love. 

[tippitv]

Recap: “Ouroboros” 14-14

Hey everyone! In an effort to get the recap out in a timely fashion, I'm trying something new. I'm doing it live-blog style and adding gifs already available on Tumblr as I format it for posting. Making pics with captions and photoshopping is super slow and laborious on my ancient computer. Just that part of the recaps usually takes 8-10 hours to do. In a recap that has a LOT of graphics, it might take 12.

THEN!

Ooh I've apparently missed more episodes than I realized. Veronica Cartwright, who's one of my favorite character actresses ever, brought Jack back to life. 

But with like... dire consequences, as per yoozh.

NOW!

Raton, New Mexico. Hey I've been there! I was driving to Colorado when I was 19 and we hit Raton riiiiight before we had to start driving up a narrow mountain road... when an ice storm hit... and I, a Texan who'd never driven over so much as an ice cube, thought I was going to kill us all.

Anyway it's nice to see an episode start somewhere in the Southwest for a change of pace.

This music is super cute. Someone let me know what it is? Also, I don't know who this guy is but he knows how to chop vegetables. I like him already! Oh... oh wait. There's a dead man on his kitchen island and the knife guy is harvesting his organs for dinner. Sorry, my dude, but I only have room in my heart for one cannibal

Oh he's got some lizard eyes on him, too. That's also a deal breaker. Somehow his repto-vision allows him to sense that the Winchesters are coming for him, so he grabs his pet snake Felix and sneaks away.

The episode is titled "Ouroboros," and I can't see that word without thinking of the episode of Red Dwarf where the people found the cardboard box with Lister in it. They misread the word as "Our Rob, or Ross." Shout out to the handful people following me who know what I'm talking about.

The Winchesters show up. Oh hey Castiel and Jack are with them, too! Snake Boy didn't see that. "Oh no," Cas says, despairing at the scene in the kitchen. I know. A wasted pasta dinner! Also a dead body.

Sam and Dean are frustrated that they've failed to catch this guy yet again. How is anyone not barfing at the smell of fried human liver? Have they become inured to it because of all the flaming hunter funerals? That's probably it.

"My money's on witchcraft," Dean grumbles. Rowena walks up behind him like

Oh ho ho why's she so flirtatious with Castiel? What did I miss there? Well he seems as confused as I am, and less titillated. Maybe nothing happened and she's just someone with eyes who happens to see how cute he is.

Everyone wonders why the victim, like all the other victims, appears not to have fought back. I mean, there's a lot of nihilism these days. Maybe it's a case of "fuck it, if this guy doesn't kill me the climate change will." Jack finds a freshly shed snake skin on the floor.

They wonder if the victim had pet snakes but think he doesn't seem the type. Like, I know a stay-at-home suburban mom with multiple snakes so I don't think there's just one type of herp enthusiast. Jack starts coughing and everyone's like

Jack assures them he's not dying again but he probably is.

Rowena notices there's a blackish powder around the victim's lips. The others tell her the other victims had something similar but they ignored it so that Dean and Rowena could look back and forth at each other with their best So Done faces.

As funny as the exchange is, I do so hate plot-necessitated dumbness. There's no way they wouldn't have looked into the black powder on all the victims' faces.

Sam and Rowena do some research in the motel de la nuit, which has a fabulous Missoni-inspired wallpaper. Man I wouldn't mind having some of that! Anyway, she's curious about Jack being not-dead and Dean keeping an archangel locked up in his head somehow. Sam doesn't want to talk about it.

Meanwhile, Jack's in the bathroom having one of those Moulin Rouge coughing fits. Has anyone thought of like... getting the kid some Robitussin? He uses a small amount of power to heal his cough. I think Veronica Cartwright warned against this in the previouslies.  

Dean's growing a mite weary and still thinks their inevitable option is going to be the magic coffin. Cas's face goes

Castiel tiredly explains what the word "liturgical" means when Jack and Dean give him confused looks. I mean I guess Jack might not know, but Dean should sure as heck know.

When they get back to the motel, Rowena says they're dealing with a Gorgon. "Like Medusa!" Dean pipes up. Oh I bet this leads to a Clash of the Titans jok---and there it is. They blah blah blah about how eating human eyes allows a Gorgon to see the future and evade capture. "So even if we use your tracking spell, he'll know," Cas says. Why do they assume it's a man when the Gorgons have always been depicted as shes?

So Snake Boy approaches a guy outside a truck stop and asks for help. "I'd find a way to pay you back." He turns the flirting up about ten notches and the trucker shiftily tells him to get inside. They kiss and the trucker is slowly paralyzed. Oh noooo I have a dozen things to say about queer villainy and victimization but I'm live blogging so remind me to come back to it.

Cas's hair is high as hell today. Remember there was this whole plot a while back about how Heaven is running out of power because there are so few angels? Maybe he's powering Heaven with his hair.

Noah, that's apparently the Gorgon's name, has left a note on the body for Dean. "I see you standing alone reading this note," NUH UH he's standing with Cas. He warns Dean to stop chasing him. "Why doesn't he mention me?" Cas asks. Right?? "Maybe you're not his type," Dean says. Cas rolls his eyes upward but the low-hanging fruit is practically on the ground.

After a confab with Sam and Rowena, they work out a plan for Cas and Jack to go after Noah since they seem to be invisible to him. They just need some anti-venom in case the Gorgon tries to poison them. Or just tell them not to kiss the guy? Maybe they don't know kissing is how he

OH MY FUCKING GOD ROWENA TURNS JACK INTO A VERY TINY DOG AND RUSHES HIM TO THE VET WITH SAM AND HE LOOKS LIKE A MUPPET

Jack the dog gets a thermometer up the butt... Then the vet or tech or whoever she is just... leaves him on the exam table unattended. That's not remotely what happens at clinics but whatever. As soon as Jack is alone, he turns back into a person with all his clothes on. I don't know why that seems more unrealistic to me than him turning into a dog, period.

He finds the anti-venom, makes a joke about his poor butt, and then Sam and Rowena have a conversation in the parking lot about how he was brought back to life. Then the vet runs out and confronts them!

Just kidding, they talk as long as they want without ever being discovered.

Noah's got his latest victim tied up somewhere. He says he finds more men to eat because women are more cautious. True dat. He kept the guy alive long enough to blah blah for a while but now he gives him a smooch on the cheek to paralyze him.

Rowena casts a locator spell... Why wouldn't Noah be able to see her and know something is up? Only the angelic ones are invisible to him. Oh my word Castiel kicks open the door VERY forcefully and I'm like

But wait... first he knocked. Why did he knock first? You know what let's just move on. Castiel goes and de-venomizes the latest victim. For some reason nobody's cutting off Noah's head yet so he just goes on talking. Something about a snake and some chicken eggs. Even Castiel is like, "Why are you telling this story??" And Noah, looking at Jack, goes, "Because I can't tell if he's the chicken or the snake."

Fisticuffs attempt to ensue! Lolol it's briefly a slap fight. Noah kisses Cas on the cheek. This is the most unrealistic part of this episode. Why would you kiss some rando trucker on the mouth and not this guy.

Hm there's still 15 minutes left. For some reason, the anti-venom doesn't work on Cas, so Jack has to use some of his powers. Maybe you should have tried giving him more of it first but whatever.

LOL they drive all the way from New Mexico to Kansas with unconscious Dean and rush him into the med bay. It's at least an eight hour drive! Maggie's like, "I'll get some ice!" It's been at least eight hours! Why didn't they just bring him to a regular hospital?? Nothing supernatural happened to him! He got his head wanged!

Jack is pretty upset about the prospect of Dean dying but Cas seems... philosophical about it. Maybe he knows they got renewed for season 15 and isn't too worried.

Oh Dean's awake and everything's fine! Just kidding he's on a rampage knocking everything over. Someone tell Maggie to forget the ice. He's in a rage because he "let his guard down" and now Michael has left. I mean... you were knocked out by a plot contrivance, my dude. Don't be too hard on yourself.

Oh shiiiit Michael's gone and killed everyone in the bunker. Not any of the main characters, obviously, but everyone else. Oh double shiiiiiit he's got Rowena as a vessel now. Wait. Why would she have said yes to him?

Ah...Michael paid her a little visit in her mind and said he'd kill everyone she cares about. She's loath to admit it but she does care for these people. Well, the main characters, at least.

Oh my gosh I love Ruth Connell. This is my fave version of Michael yet. Too bad it won't last!

Jack decides to use his powers to save everyone even if it means dying! Except he doesn't die because it's only March. He forces Michael out of Rowena, then sucks down the evacuated grace like

Everything goes quiet. Everyone's like... wtf? what?? the fuck??? They wait on pins and needles to see what happened to Jack. Jack's like, "I'm me again!" with the glowing flame eyes and the shadow wings. The music makes this seem very ominous. Maybe it means he doesn't have a soul anymore. Either way he seems very powerful again so good luck getting a rectal thermometer into him now.

Wait... why was this episode called Ouroboros when it was an entirely different snake thing? Ohhh maybe it was Jack eating/using his own powers to help himself? Let's say it's that.

If you enjoyed this recap, and are able, please drop something into my virtual tip jar here: https://www.paypal.me/tippiblevins  Henry the Hound and I could use grocery/vet money so anything is appreciated, including reblogs!

Thank you for reading!