#and it had both the murder AND breakup plot

[alexiethymia]

The poetic cinema that it was Mr. Ji’s inkblot he made in anger which caused Chi yeol to discover that he was the one who kidnapped Haeyi and the fact that the first episode dealt with a mostly harmless stalker while the dangerous stalker was by his side all along.

Love or hate the murder plot, I do love the twists, not necessarily with regard to the suspect or motivation, but how it’s a scathing social commentary. Because wow, it really is the adults who are the most reprehensible, huh? Because kids absorb everything around them like a sponge, but adults should know better.

And Mr. Ji, as much as I would love to hate him, I really can’t because he is far too tragic. He’s no mastermind. All of his crimes have been sloppy. Even his choice of weapon - a slingshot and not a gun - show that a part of him is still that abused kid, like his anger and his impulses and the way he can change his devotion to hatred at the betrayal he feels toward Chiyeol. The adults around him really screwed him and his sister over. Even when his sister wanted to do the right thing, all she got from it was abuse. And it’s really dangerous that this kind of abuse is being normalized when justified that it’s for grades or the future of the kid. The adults screwed him up so badly that he could only trust a single adult, and fixated on him in a way to have a connection with his sister. I’m sure he became obsessively protective because of the residual guilt he felt at not being able to save his sister on time. If he had gotten therapy or the support he needed back then, even after he had killed his parent, would he have had a chance to heal alongside Chiyeol now?

The parallels are heavy with Mr. Ji, Seung-jae, and Su-a, and again it is a tragedy that the adults around them pushed them to the brink. Although there was still an element of choice because Mr. Ji still chose to kill his mother and others, I guess Seung-jae had what Mr. Ji and even his sister didn’t have at the time. Seung-jae would have gone the same route if he wasn’t pulled back.

And it’s really refreshing to me this emphasis on found family. It’s not necessarily that blood family is automatically bad, but you shouldn’t let preconceived notions and moral superiority cloud your judgment to the point that you’re already seriously damaging your child because you think you’re doing what’s ‘best’ for them. It’s refreshing to me that Haeng-seon wasn’t submissive towards her sister and was rightly mad because Haeyi is her daughter not anyone else’s. Same with Jaewoo. I’m glad they’re not going to push the redemption arc for their eldest sister just because she’s ‘blood’.

Another refreshing thing about this episode which I didn’t expect but really loved is the communication between Haeng-seon and Chiyeol. Chiyeol takes her concerns seriously because of course she would know Haeyi best. And I really didn’t expect it because most kdramas would have the lead keep it as a secret (another source of danger and misunderstanding), but I love, love, that Chiyeol was genuinely honest about the proof he found about Mr. Ji. I’m sure that even if Haeng-seon thought that Mr. Ji hated her, she didn’t expect him to go that far.

Another reason why I like the murder plot is because I prefer this as a source of tension rather than the usual break-up, miscommunication, long-distance, timeskip plots that usually happen during these final episodes. I would prefer my ship to be communicating as they hurdle outside obstacles together.

[blindmagdalena]

You Let Me Complicate You

18+ 4k homelander x f!reader. bickering, post-breakup sex, dubcon/coercion, angst, jealousy, emotional manipulation, implied murder, stalking, boundary smashing, breaking and entering, cunnilingus, penetrative sex. read on AO3. written as a follow-up to the breakup, but can be read as a standalone. gif credit.

Breaking up with Homelander is... complicated. After all, it is a god that loves you.

"What do I taste like?" You asked him once, drunk on pleasure and those early honeymoon days of loving him. He’d been slow to answer, thinking it over. "Love," he said at last. "Like you love me." You wonder if that holds true. If he can still taste love in you. If that’s why he’s so eager to devour you, or if the absence of it has made him even hungrier.

Homelander is an aberration.

Stronger than a hundred men, faster than a bullet and sharp as a tack all paired with a teaspoon’s depth of emotional maturity. He’s volatile, twisted, broken in ways no amount of therapy could ever hope to duct tape back together. He’s no better off than a dog that bites to kill. No matter how he got to this point, the best thing for him–for the world–would be to put him down by any means necessary.

Too bad you can’t seem to stop fucking him.

It’s late when you hear the front door open with a distinct crack. You’re sprawled out on the couch in the living room, one leg draped lazily over the armrest. What comes next is no surprise to you–a shock of primary colors filling the narrow doorway, a handsome face made ghoulish by the haunting light of the television in an otherwise dark room.

“You nailed the door shut,” Homelander says, the inflection of his voice somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Because you broke it,” you throw back, a stale Twizzler balanced between your lips. It had tasted good enough when you started eating it, but now–in his presence–the sweetness of it has turned sour.

“You changed the locks,” he says with a light shrug, cape swaying as he meanders towards you. “My key didn’t work.”

“Your key? Stealing a key to my house does not make it your key,” you say tersely, lifting your foot to press it firmly to his thigh, stopping him in his tracks. 

He glances down, a mirthless smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he catches your ankle in his gloved hand, yanking you down the couch so suddenly you lose your Twizzler to the floor with a gasp. It’s one thing to know that Homelander has strength enough to throw cars like frisbees. It’s another to feel it. It sends a rush of adrenaline through you like a jolt, followed swiftly by something hotter low in your naval.

“Y’know, I’ve been thinking,” he begins, dropping your ankle. He lifts his knee and slots it between your legs, his opposite boot on the floor, his hand braced on the back of the couch, pinning you in place.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” you cut in dryly, moving to shift up the couch, away from him. He snatches your shoulder, halting you with ease. His thumb strokes your skin idly, goosebumps erupting beneath his touch.

“And I’ve realized that this whole… thing between you and I, this ‘will they, won’t they,’ ” he says, bobbing his head side to side. “It’s getting stale. Don’t you think it’s about time we progressed the plot?” He asks, leaning in close.

You brace your hand against his chest, holding him in place as ineffectually as you did earlier. You both know it’s all a game. It’s all pretense. There had been fondness between you once–love, even–but you’re done with that now. You have to be done with it, or Homelander will swallow you whole. He’s a black pit, a murderer, and his need knows no end. He’ll destroy you and everything you know and love if he thinks it’ll satiate that need.

You’ve lost enough. You can’t afford to lose any more of yourself to him.

“Jesus Christ, you even think in TV script,” you say, pushing on his chest. He leans back, but not by much. It sends a terrible little chill down your spine. “I’m starting to think the only thing that might actually kill you is an original thought.”

His eyes narrow and his bright white teeth flash predatorily in the darkness. “You’re lucky I haven’t broken your neck,” he says, hand slipping from your shoulder to your throat. The sharp press of his thumb into your windpipe steals your breath, makes your thighs tighten on either side of his leg snug between yours. His lips split into an unkind grin. “Or maybe not. You’d probably like that.”

“You’re disgusting,” you spit, gripping his wrist with your other hand. Your pulse is starting to throb against the leather of his glove. He moves his thumb from your windpipe to your jaw and turns your head away, leaning in with a deep, pointed inhale along your neck.

“Is that why your hormones are going haywire? Because I disgust you?” He asks, grinding his thigh between your legs in a way that makes you gasp. “Y’know, given how full of it you are, I was sure I’d smell the bullshit on you. But all I smell… is how fucking wet you are.”

He grabs your hip and the memories come to you like muscle memory. How good it feels to be gripped and fucked and loved by someone beyond your comprehension. To feel as if you’ve stopped the world turning and called the sun itself to shine on you alone.

You twist your chin out of his grip and level him with a heated stare. “I hate you,” you hiss, grasping for the knife you know will twist the deepest. 

It works for a second, his smug expression faltering, but only for an instant. His jaw sets, and his lips curl into that same unkind smile. “C’mon, babe,” he coos, the intimate familiarity woven into that pet name making your skin crawl. “We both know that I can always tell when you’re lying.”

He kisses you like he always has. Like you belong to him. In a way, you suppose you always will. There’s nothing you can do to pry your throat from Homelander’s jaws. Nowhere you can run that he won’t eventually find you. Like quicksand, the more you fight, the tighter he clamps down. Truth be told, though, that isn’t the worst of it. The worst of it is that the tighter he grips you, the less you want to fight him.

His tongue slithers into your mouth like a serpent into the garden and you bite down hard. While pliant between your teeth, the flesh doesn’t yield. It never will. He never will. Instead he moans a little chuckle that fades into a rumble against your lips.

“That how it’s gonna be?” He asks, the words rasped into your mouth. “Y’wanna bite and claw? Play hard to get?” He laughs, the sound of it reedy and light, like it’s all a silly little game of make-believe. “I can do that.”

He reeks of his own desperation for what he says to be true. More than anything, he wants to dress up his desires as yours. He wants to believe he’s giving you what you want. That way, he can trick himself into believing you need him.

He bites the middle tip of his glove and tugs it off with his teeth, tossing it aside. His bare thumb brushes your lip, smearing his spit and yours. “I saw you with that fucking loser,” he says, the airiness suddenly gone from his voice.

Your stomach drops. Two days ago you’d been with a man. You’d been so desperate to forget him that night that anyone would have done the job. You stumbled out with some nobody from the bar who’d been good enough for a sloppy makeout session in the back of his truck, but not good enough to bring home. It hadn’t ended well.

How close of an eye is Homelander keeping on you?

“I’d be angry if it hadn’t been so fuckin’ pathetic,” he says through his teeth.

“Liar,” you say tightly. You feel his fury in the tension of his body. He’s pissed that you’d seek this out anywhere else. As if he still has a claim over your body. Your pleasure.

His eyes flash up to yours. He sneers, pushing his thumb between your lips. “I watched you bite his lip until he bled. I watched him slap you,” he says, dragging the pad of his thumb along the ridges of your bottom teeth. The memories come to you as he speaks them, every moment of it made bleary by alcohol. “You wanted it rough, but he couldn’t handle you, could he? Because you’re used to something better. You’re used to a god.”

You sneer right back at him, yanking your head to the side, his thumb slipping from between your lips. “Could you be any more in love with yourself? Go fuck yours-”

“I still had to kill him, of course,” he continues nonchalantly, grinding your thoughts to a screeching halt. He laughs humorlessly. “For kissing you. And, well–for everything else, obviously. Slapping you,” he says, brushing his knuckles down your cheek. The same one the man had struck. “Humping your leg like a fucking dog.”

“Why are you doing this?” You ask, throat tight. Bile burns at the back of it. All you wanted was to get away from this. The blood, the horror of it. Yet no matter what you do to dissuade him, he brings death to your doorstep. “You have everything. You could have anyone. Why are you–”

“Because I want you,” he hisses, words so sharp his sharp teeth snap together. “Because I love you, and that’s what you do when you love someone,” he says. You can feel the accusation building in his words. “You don’t give up on them. And if that means cleaning up every dirty little mistake you make,” he says softly, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “So be it.” 

A cold shiver rolls down your spine. You stare woundedly at him, lips parted, brows pinched together, the misery of it all etched into every line of your face. He stares at you in turn, and after a beat, his own hard expression softens.

“Hey, hey,” he says, the heat of his breath a ghostly kiss on your lips. “It’s okay,” he says, brushing the tip of your nose with his. “I forgive you.”

He kisses you again, more tender now. Your eyes prickle with tears. His gentleness hurts so much more than his violence. It disarms you, carries you to a time when things were simpler between you. Sweeter and warmer. 

Homelander makes the world feel wonderful and dangerous, like standing in the middle of an electric storm. Being loved by him is the feeling of having your ribs cracked open, your heart cradled in his bare hands, possessive and bloody. What had been thrilling grew stifling, a feeling you realize now never truly went away.

He’s inescapable, literally and figuratively. Even when he isn’t inviting himself into your home or lurking in the periphery of your vision, Vought’s hero is plastered on every billboard and screen in the city. You haven't been able to breathe without inhaling the thick miasma of him.

Tears roll down to your temples as you kiss him back, both hands fisted in his soft hair, tugging. He makes a pleased little sound against your lips, teeth grazing your bottom lip. He’s always kissed like a man possessed–like every brush of your lips is a drop of salvation–but the hunger he’s developed since you tried to leave him is unparalleled. He kisses you like he means to devour you whole.

You bite back a sob, but the hiccuped noise of it catches his attention nonetheless. He breaks from you, looking down at you with a feverish mix of yearning, impatience and something that almost resembles pity, which might be the closest thing he knows to sympathy.

“Hey,” he coos, dusting your jaw with feather light kisses. “Don’t cry.”

“It’s awful,” you choke out.

“What is?”

“Your love.”

“I know,” he says after a prolonged pause. “It’s all I know.”

You look at him, the image of him bleary through your tears. There’s a morose resignation in his ocean-storm eyes, a distance that makes him seem far, far away from you, even as you taste the heat of his breath on your lips.

Focus returns to his gaze, and suddenly he’s present again. “It’s all I know,” he says again, his tone made of wood, stiff and splintering.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you lift your palm to his cheek, hovering just shy of touching. He’s pulled to it like a magnet, nuzzling into your palm, eyes closing. His hand slides down the familiar slopes of your body, settling at your hip, where his fingertips sink in like claws, the pressure of them shy. For as vicious as things have gotten between you, he’s never hurt you. A fact he lords over you as if he should be applauded for it.

I love you more than anything. You know that, right? That I would never do anything to hurt you? He’d asked you during that first fight. When everything went wrong. 

You’d only been able to nod then, trapped with a man you didn’t recognize wearing the face of the man you loved.

That’s right. Of course you do. Because if I wanted to hurt you, I would have. It would have been easy, huh?

Despite how desperately you’ve tried to fortify yourself against him, it’s still so easy.

Homelander is an aberration, but so too is he a man, and there was a time when the man was all that you saw. When the monster at the core of him reared its head, bloody and unrepentant, that became all you could see in him. Now, the two are so irrevocably tangled in the sinew of the other, you’re never sure which you’re looking at.

“I miss you,” you confess to the man in him, voice so soft only his ears possibly could have discerned the words. As if you can hide the words from the monster lurking behind if you speak them quietly enough. 

He looks as confused as your own aching heart. “I’m here,” he says, everything in his tone willing you to believe it. He doesn’t understand that you miss who he was before you knew what he was.

A mournful noise swells in your chest, but he kisses you before it can escape. “I’m here,” he says again, the hand at your hip turning into a fist in the fabric of your clothes, tearing them at the seams. “I’ll make you feel better,” he says between presses of his lips, hungry and rushing, like he can outspeed your miserable grief. “Let me make you feel good.”

Sex has always been an avenue of redemption for Homelander. Whether he’s frustrated, anxious, wounded or a combination of them all, he’s sought to remedy it through a good orgasm. He treats you as though the notion should hold true for you: the fight doesn’t count so long as he makes you come.

Yet again, you’re left stricken by him. As you have a dozen times before, all you can do is nod. Deep in your core, you know he’s right. He can make you forget this horrible ache in yourself, the grief and the fear. He can take you away to the dream you’d lived before you met the beast in his shadow. 

Coherent thought turns to water slipping between the cracks of your mind as Homelander’s bare fingers brush your inner thigh. You suck in a sharp breath that leaves you as a shudder and you clutch at his collar, twisting the fabric, unsure if you mean to push him away or pull him closer.

Homelander makes the choice for you, closing the distance and kissing you too gently, too sweetly. You spur him with your teeth, needing it faster, harder. Needing it to hurt just enough to not feel entirely right. He ignores your prompt, focused wholly on tasting you, on sliding his fingers up into the waiting warmth between your thighs. He presses the pad of his middle finger to your clit, deft and familiar.

You sigh, closing your eyes, ready to lose yourself to the feel of something good. He slides serpentine down your body, kissing you through your shirt, nipping at your skin through the fabric for the way it makes you jump. His lips trail down until they pass the hem of your shirt, finding where he’s stripped you. His mouth is unbearably warm, breath hot huffs on your bare skin, goosebumps erupting everywhere.

He mouths at your hip, sucks the skin dark before trailing further down, leaving a constellation with his lips. The scorching wet heat of his tongue feels like a brand on your clit, replacing his hand with his mouth. 

You thread your fingers into his hair, widening the spread of your legs to allow for the way he shoulders under and between them, lifting your lower half. He nuzzles into the nectary sweetness of you, moaning unabashedly for your familiar taste.

What do I taste like? You asked him once, drunk on pleasure and those early honeymoon days of loving him. Everything about him fascinated you; did his super smell lend itself to super taste? Could he pick out each note of you, dissect your profile into sections?

He’d been slow to answer, thinking it over.

Love, he said at last. Like you love me.

You wonder if that holds true. If he can still taste love in you, if that’s why he’s so eager to devour you, or if the absence of it has made him even hungrier. If he plunges his tongue to the core of you in the hopes he might discover lingering shreds of what the two of you once had.

A moan escapes you. His fingers bite into your thighs, tongue coaxing more. Restraint dissipating, you tighten your grip on his hair and tug, grinding hard against his mouth. He knows the stepping stones of your pleasure as well as you know yourself, knowing just when to suck, when to lick. He’s more relentless than any other man could hope to be, never needing to stop for breath, never succumbing to aching muscles. He maintains a pace that sends you careening so viciously towards release, you give a choking gasp when it hits you, your head thrown back against the couch as euphoric relief rolls through you in waves.

Homelander shrugs out from under your trembling thighs, his mouth slick and shining, eyes predator wide. You’re both panting, silently gauging the other. You’re first to break the standoff, his hunger infectious. You climb onto your knees and grab his shoulders, pushing his back to the couch, straddling him. He keens when you kiss him, an addictive sound that gives you a deceptive sense of power.

He murmurs your name in fervent repetition, dragging his mouth along your skin, inhaling you like a drug. You unbuckle his belt with the ease of experience, unzip his pants and slip your hand inside. Curling your fingers around his cock, you find it already hard and dripping in anticipation.

“Anything you want,” he breathes, the words coming between the prayer-like recitation of your name. “Money, diamonds, anything, I’ll make you a queen,” he says, eyelids fluttering at your touch. He pledges these things like an act of devotion, but you recognize this Faustian bargain for what it is. It will cost you your heart and soul.

“I’ll make you a god,” he moans at a particularly deft twist of your wrist.

Making you come will have to be enough for now.

“Fuck me,” you tell him breathlessly. “The way I like it.”

Like flipping a switch, the dazed pleasure in his eyes sharpens. The corners of his mouth tug, his upper lip twitches, eager tension slipping into his touch as his hands slide up your thighs, grasping your hips. His fingers sink in tight enough to bruise, despite the gentleness of his touch. The immeasurable power lurking within his unassuming frame is a novelty that never wears off, a thrill that shocks you to your core no matter how many times you experience it.

Like a vicious storm, he’s beautiful and terrible in equal measure. Caught in the eye of his maelstrom, the only thing left for you to do is weather him.

He guides you down onto his cock in one slow, agonizing pull. Even with his spit and your orgasm easing the way, it’s too much all at once. Relishing the aching burn of being split apart by him, you make a noise that gives him pause. You don’t let him stop. You brace your hands on his shoulders and lift off of him almost entirely before sinking back down deeper than you had before, wringing a moan from him in turn.

Homelander’s fingers dig securely into your back as your bodies slot together and find an old, familiar rhythm. By now he knows exactly the angle to take to best pleasure you. You let out a shaky sigh at the warmth that spreads through you, the pressure of your climax building, his heat sinking into you like the light of the sun itself.

You’re used to a god.

You cup his face and kiss him. You bite his lip until you should taste blood. You dig your nails into his skin so hard your knuckles ache. If he notices it, he’s only pleased by it.

“I’d move heaven and hell for you,” he swears between kisses, ripping the shirt from your body. The cool air hits your damp, hot skin like a shock. 

“I don’t want them,” you say, voice catching on one of his sharp and sudden thrusts. He’s close. You can feel it in the tightness of his muscles, in the erratic, merciless way he drives into you.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, voice reedy, tight. He kisses down your chest, scrapes his teeth over the swell of your breasts. “They’re yours. It’s all yours. I’m yours.”

Those words should hit you like a prison sentence, but they don’t.

They make you come.

Homelander holds you tightly as he, too, breaks into pieces, filling you with light and heat. He chokes more promises against your skin, kisses the salt from your skin and licks it greedily from his lips. You spin in place in his arms, dizzy on your own orgasm, riding out the aftershocks with his cock throbbing against the quiver of your cunt.

For a long while there’s nothing but the sound of your breaths and the distant din of the television. The tremors wracking your body gradually fade, and the chill of the open air begins to set in.

Homelander holds you tight as the sweat on your skin cools. He kisses a trail from your neck to your shoulder, nuzzling there before he rests his head down, face tucked into the crook of your neck. You feel wrung dry, eyelids heavy. You card your fingers absently through his hair, body boneless against his. Your eyes ache from crying, but you don’t mind it. Strung out like this, the aches left in the wake of pain and pleasure both feel equally good.

“It’s late,” he says warmly, a smile in his tone. He sounds lovesick, the way you both did once upon a time. Back then, you thought you knew every dark corner of his insatiable heart. “We should sleep.”

“Okay,” you agree, voice frayed. He lifts you gingerly from his lap, adjusting to cradle your naked body to his chest. Despite how Homelander unspools himself before you, you’re always the one left reduced. Bare and vulnerable both physically and emotionally. You slip your arms around his neck as he stands, resting your head on his shoulder.

“I could take you to the tower,” he whispers, sending a chill down your spine. “My bed’s bigger.”

“No,” you say, remembering a door you cannot reach, no matter how many times you grasp for it, and the god’s hands that sent you spinning. He’s already so capable of turning your home into a prison. You’re not sure you’d ever escape his penthouse. “I want mine.”

Perhaps the most terrible fact of all is that Homelander is neither a god nor a monster. 

He is simply a man without limitation.

“Sure,” he says, kissing your cheek. The touch lingers, dripping with his adoration. “Anything you want.”

So long as it includes him.

[theealbatross]

fight the alchemy (s.s)

Plot | After a tumultuous year, Sebastian’s life was finally okay – passable, up-to-scratch, satisfactory. And he had just almost reached peace – when his brilliant, painfully observant, carelessly crude genius of a friend, Garreth Weasley, started pointing out unnecessary facts that could rip all that harmony to shreds.

or, Garreth asks why Sebastian isn’t dating you. Sebastian spirals.

Tags | fluff, sebastian is a thought daughter, low self esteem, seb is a playboy BUT NOT REALLY, horny thots but we keep it pg, insecurity so deep you try to fight cupid, cupid fights back

An Ashwinder’s wand to his neck and Sebastian could honestly and truly say that he was … alright.

Life wasn’t perfect, by any means. His uncle was murdered dead, an estranged twin sister in Paris who refuses to answer his letters, a mistrustful Ominis that breathes on his neck, and a tattered companionship that was barely hanging on by a thread.

But he was okay.

Thankfully, Solomon was still dead, Anne was still alive, and still cranky Ominis is now open to reconciliation. Plus, if all else had fallen, he at least managed to save your cherished friendship thanks to your forgiving nature.

Thus, as thanks to the people who had not yet given up on him, he had sworn to live the rest of his academic life as a meek, unassuming, law-abiding student of Hogwarts.

And he did such a good job at it.

The professors are now impressed at his steadily increasing grades (so much so that the Ravenclaws are now finally seeing him as a threat again) and he even managed to make Imelda’s team as her beater to keep him occupied.

The latter, however, had a grating consequence – he had become popular.

It was thrilling, at first, he went on dates to make up for the years he had lost, kissed the pretty girls because it felt like he should (as one of the few bastards lucky enough to live every raging teenager’s dream), and accepted the slaps on the face politely when they inevitably broke up.

But now he’s just gotten tired and bored of it all.

Ominis says it’s a genius’ folly, to always find a fault in something and then drop it when it doesn’t quite meet his standard of perfect. Leander says he’s just a bastard.

He cups his face with his hand, wincing. Her fucking ring caught on his skin and he can’t be arsed to suffer through the bitterness of a Wiggenweld Potion for a mere scratch.

Garreth doesn’t bother to swallow his bread before saying, “Really, mate? I thought you liked this one?”

“Liked her rack, more likely,” Andrew quipped from his seat on the stone steps of the boathouse.

Sebastian threw his scarf on his face, satisfied at his squawk.

“No talking about my ex-girlfriends,” he warned. It was one of his few rules when it came to his male friends. He may be a bastard but as someone with a sister and a couple of good female friendships, he makes it a point to never become one of those losers who talk badly about women they have a history with. Just so he can have a moral high ground when he beats up anyone who might do it to his friends.

“All right, all right,” Andrew raised his hands in playful surrender, throwing Sebastian’s scarf back to him. “But as your friend, I think it’s about time you stop swapping out girls every time you get bored of them.”

“I don’t swap them out,” he rolls his eyes. “Breakups are normal.”

“Breakups are normal,” Garreth points out. “Six breakups in 2 years is an issue.”

“Maybe I’m just meant for the bachelor life,” he mumbles, ignoring the pointed accusation from Garreth. Fucking perceptive prick. “Not everyone gets to meet their soulmate in Hogwarts, asshole.”

Garreth grins, “Natty’s great, isn’t she?”

Sebastian and Andrew both throw their scarves at him, the three of them bursting out in laughter and boos.

“To the Three Broomsticks, then?” Andrew stood up, patting his pants.

As 7th years it was nearly impossible to take a breather with the looming threat of exams that will dictate the rest of your life and the inescapable trap of adulthood that awaits them in a couple of months. So, his friends had made it a point to at least go out once every week whenever they could, really take advantage of their last year as students where they had no other responsibility but to survive the week.

In a year’s time, seeing each other as often as they do will be nothing short of a miracle.

“Leander and Everett are already there, saved up a table since it’s a Friday, it’s gonna be packed full,” Andrew explains.

Sebastian looks around, eyes scanning the castle in the setting sun. “You go on ahead I’m waiting for –”

“Sebastian!”

A flash of movement appeared rushing down the stairs towards the boathouse, your face beaming as you waved to the three of them. When you were a foot away from him you jumped into his arms, shrieking energetically when he grabbed your waist and lifted you above his head.

“Sorry, I’m late,” you pant, smiling at your friends once you’re back on the ground. “Professor Hecate asked me to stay back for a minute, something about revisions on my research.”

“I can’t believe you got permission to research in The Restricted Section after the crazy nonsense you pulled in 5th year,” Garreth shook his head. Sebastian wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to his side, beaming in pride. Nobody knows but the two of you that the very thing you were researching were the technicalities of how you broke Anne’s curse so it could be taught to the nurses in St. Mungos and hopefully spread to the rest of wizardkind.

“It’s exactly because I had the nerve to break the rules that I was given the honorable opportunity,” you dramatically curtsied. “And they said Gryffindors were the brave ones.”

That made Sebastian laugh. Garreth blinks, eyes squinting at him for a second but he doesn’t look offended, more … focused on Sebastian.

“Alright, no more of that House Rivalry. Quidditch Season is over,” Andrew quips.

“Wiped your asses there too, Larson,” he quipped, Andrew’s jaw drops, looking at Garreth for help and receiving none. He was still staring at Sebastian, eyes shifting between him and you.

Andrew groans. “Slytherins are assholes.”

Slytherins are, apparently, also light-weights.

Well, at least one of them is.

He adjusts his hold on your body as the other hand wraps his coat around your body properly. After your last ‘improved’ butterbeer you had slumped into his lap, rudely snoozing off on the crook of his neck and refusing to wake up even when it was time for your group to leave – not that he would’ve allowed that to happen, with your demanding research it was a miracle to get you to sleep let alone let loose.

The rest of the group had gone in first to scope the scenery and bribe the patrolling Head students with leftover chips while he and Garreth were stuck carrying you and an unconscious Amit that they had managed to catch last-minute in Hogsmeade. Poor bastard.

“I was thinking –”

“Please don’t,” he groans.

“Why have you two never dated?”

Sebastian stops his fussing, barely able to use his head to ensure he keeps walking, and continue to Act Normal, now using both of his hands to hold you tighter.

“You’re drunk,” he deflects. The puffs of your breath warm his entire body.

“Because! When I think about it …”

Please, for the love of the great Merlin stop thinking.

“You’ve been inseparable from the start! I can’t believe it’s escaped my notice you’ve never dated. You say your past relationships got boring and got annoying but you’ve never been bored and annoyed with her and you’ve been friends for years!”

Bored with you? He’s had more near-fatal heart attacks because of you than breakups. Sebastian barely had the time to be bored. And sometimes you do get at each other’s throats but it was always fixed after a proper conversation. If his killing his uncle couldn’t turn you away then he doubts anything you do could ever turn him away.

“Plus, with all the respect and love to my beautiful darling Natty, she’s a fucking catch, mate!”

If Garreth wasn’t carrying a sinless half-dead Amit, Sebastian would’ve punched him in his mouth just to stop him from talking.

“I’m just saying,” Garreth walks ahead of him, clearly aware of the fuse he had just lit. Sebastian was tempted to kick the back of his knees just for the satisfaction of seeing him fall.  “Maybe you can join the club and find your soulmate in Hogwarts.”

Garreth winks.

“We’re still accepting members.”

He’s decided.

He needs to kill Garreth.

He has not been able to sleep properly for the past week and it’s all because of that ginger prick and his needless remarks.

“Why have you two never dated?”

Sebastian’s pencil cracks in his hand.

“Is he alright?” he hears an underclassman whisper on the other table. He glances at them and they flinch. Quickly, he softens his expression ("You really need to stop scowling at people, Sebastian."), unaware he had glared at them and sent a wary smile in apology. It would just be unfair to aim his ire at innocent people when he could just use it to rip out every strand of Weasley’s hair.

“He’s been staring at that page for an hour. Maybe we should call –”

He stands up, escaping.

Sebastian never realized just how much he spent his time with you until people were looking at him funny when he was walking or sitting alone in public places. At first, he thought there had been crumbs on his face or one of his asshole friends stuck a note on his back like a kid. Plus, he hadn’t been feeling his best since that night but he thought it had been the lack of sleep.

It wasn’t until he had met Imelda on the grounds that he found his answer:

“Where’s the rest of you?”

He blinked at his captain, “I’m sorry?”

She shook her head. “Man, it feels weird seeing you alone. Did you guys have a fight? You’re usually shadowing her like a puppy after class.”

Then everything clicks, the strange looks, the feeling of missing something (like a forgotten important homework after he had reached the top of the Astronomy Tower) – it’s been a side effect of avoiding you.

Okay, it’s not that he’s avoiding you per se. He just needs space. He needs to think and he finds that can’t do that once he feels your eyes on him. With his luck, you’re going to see right through him and that would just be unideal if not a fucking catastrophe.

That’s why he’s taken it upon himself to stay off your way until he puts his thoughts in a row and finally screws his head on straight again. Or he could just kill Garreth, get sent straight to Azakaban, and avoid confronting these complicated thoughts altogether.

“I can’t believe it’s escaped my notice you’ve never dated!”

He sits on a bench, hands on his head as he let out a prolonged groan, “The fucking bastard.”

Why did he have to point it out? Why did Garreth have to bring what he, upon reflection, had buried on the back of his head, just waiting for that one little flick of acknowledgment before it blew his brains out.

Because Sebastian is a lot of things but he’s not a fucking moron.

It’s not that the thought of being together is unpleasant. If he lets himself consider it his chest feels like it would escape his ribcage both in excitement and utter terror.

But Garreth was right: he’d never thought about it before – hadn’t thought the idea was conceivable in this reality.

He has a feeling it was his way of preserving whatever pure relationship he had left. He’s not exactly rich with true companionship and he’s not idiotic enough to risk it all over a bloody crush. 

And not just any crush – his best friend, the person who saved his life and then helped him rebuild it when he was finished smashing it to pieces. The one who never turned her back even when his blood had given up. The girl who has a line of eligible bachelors following her on their knees for a single chance, ones who could offer her more than he ever could – ones who could offer her the world.

So, yeah – forgive him, but he’s never really allowed himself to entertain the idea of them dating. Sebastian has tested his luck enough.

Unless the roles switch and he gets to save the wizarding world this time then maybe … yeah, maybe -- maybe in another fucking life.

The thought makes him stand up, walking straight out of the campus to hopefully drown the sorrows of the depressing state of his love life with the best fire whiskey Hogshead could offer. How does he even move on from this? How does he make peace with the fact that he has sealed his fate of living the rest of his life alone? 

It’s impossible, he’s decided. Even if he graduates at the top of the classes he is taking and gets accepted into the Auror Programme that Sharp had recommended him for, their social standing is still heavens apart. He’s an orphan, with a husk of an extended family and no money to his name.

It wouldn’t matter to you, never really cared for pure bloodlines or lineages and he knows anyone who brings that up when they’re courting you will receive the most disgusted look on your face. 

But he cares – you are the most special person in his life. He wants the best for you. And the best is not something he can provide.

His depressing thoughts halt as his steps falter, a familiar scent tickling his nose. A familiar scent that leads straight into the Forbidden Forest. When he looks up to the sky, he realizes the sun has almost finished setting.

She can’t be that reckless, right?

He was barely surprised when he chanted the incantation that triggered the charm they had both put in their necklaces, the sparkling thread leads straight into the forest. And if he knows you half as well as he thinks he does then he knows exactly where it’s gonna lead to.

There goes his late-night plan.

It isn’t exactly his first jaunt in the forbidden space but it still gives him the creeps especially so close to the night. Why you’re so fond of the place is something he’ll never understand.

But that’s just the way you were, just another part of your quirks that makes you so endearing.

How you throw your head back when you laugh, that you get so cranky when you’re studying that no one dares to approach you but him, even the way you messily eat your favorite chocolate pastry of the week yet never fail to share a piece with him.

With this new revelation, he bitterly accepts the reason for his philandering ways. That he simply is another prick who is coping with not being able to attain the love of his life at the expense of those poor girls.

His self-condemnation however was cut short when he heard the waterfall, not being able to help the smirk on his face when he turned the corner and found you just as he had expected: in the middle of the clear, dark, water, floating carelessly on your back.

Gods, you are a beauty. He’s always thought so, the entire male population in Hogwarts thought so too. If they somehow get to break through your walls and manage to get to know you, he might just have to beat them away with an actual stick.

“Sebastian,” you smile, his heart stops. “I knew you’d find me.”

You swim to him gracefully, barely disturbing the water with only your eyes above the water but there was no hiding the grin in your face. Like a pitiful sailor seduced by a siren, his feet dragged him to the edge, a short ledge above from where you were looking up at him.

“You left your scent on purpose,” he states, kneeling to get a closer look at you. What a beauty – mischievous, cunning, irresistible. He’s never loved anyone more. “Naughty, naughty, darling.”

She pulls herself up the ledge, their faces inches away from each other. He nails his eyes to yours so they wouldn’t be tempted to look down at your soaking figure cloaked only by a thin chemise “I had to get you somehow, knew you couldn’t resist a damsel in distress.”

“Funny,” he softly glares, chuckling when she preens, clearly satisfied that her plan worked perfectly. “With all the water in the Black Lake, you had to pick the Forbidden Forest to swim in.”

You dip yourself back down in the water, swimming away but still facing him. “Come, Sebastian. I’ve been bored all week since you’ve been avoiding me.”

Guilt runs through his spine at the sudden coldness in your offhanded comment. Clearly, his absence hasn’t escaped your notice as he had hoped.

Like a scolded pup, he follows your command to a T. Eyes never leaving your floating figure as he removed his coat, folding it neatly along with the rest of his clothes until he was left in his underclothes.

He winces at the touch of the freezing water. A heating charm would do wonders but the way your unsympathetic eyes never left his figure gave him a feeling that this was a punishment he was meant to endure.

He steels himself, diving into the water and only resurfacing when he is right in front of you. “You called?”

“You’re so fucking full of yourself,” you splash the cold water at him, shrieking when he reaches out for your arms and barely managing to slip away.

He dives again, grinning at your confused flounder, until you realize your mistake, looking down just as he catches your waist, your surprised shriek, and his unrestrained laughter breaks through the quiet of the forest.

“You done running now, pet?” he locks his hands on your back, pushing you close until he is carrying both your weight in the water, chin resting on your chest as your hands run through his soaking hair.

Your darkened hair frames your face, like a sheer curtain it drops, teasing his cheeks, and hiding your conversation from the rest of the forest – in the dimness, your eyes have never been more radiant, even if it was clearly pissed at him.

Skinship wasn’t foreign between the two of you. When you’ve saved each other’s lives from certain death more times than you care to count, cuddling is the least of your worries.

But there is something about the forest's silence, the sparse moonlight that peaks through the dense trees, the sound of the droplets falling from your hair to the water, and the distant echoes of the animals that make everything intimate. -- more intimate than usual.

“Are you?” you throw his question back at him mercilessly, your hands on the back of his neck, locking his face to look up at you – finally at you. The weeklong separation had been torture and now that the distance had cut his regular contact with his favorite witch, he finally realized how fast his heart was beating when he was around her.

He smiles.

He was satisfied, he swore he was.

Sebastian’s life was finally okay – passable, up-to-scratch, satisfactory. He shouldn’t strive for more, couldn’t allow himself that luxury – the luxury of love, the luxury of you.

But as he stares at your eyes, as he feels the ice in your skin, as he imagines a future where it wasn't him that gets to bite the plump of your lips – that dirty, greedy part of him crawls out of the hole he had shoved it in.

He feels it win.

“Are you done running now?” you whisper, a droplet falls from the tip of your nose to the space just below his eyes, his breath hitches, like your magnetic presence had sucked out all the air of the forest.

“I wasn’t running,” she raises a brow, and Sebastian presses his lips to your ears. “I was thinking.”

“And?”

Leander was right: he really is a bastard.

But he’s a bastard who will no longer wait for another life to love you. He's a bastard who will get what he wants.

“I think,” he whispers, at peace. “I think I’m gonna marry you someday.”

[dramioneasks]

Top 10 Most “Kudos-ed” (Completed) Fics on AO3 of 2023:

Damaged Goods by slytherin_after_dark - E, 50 chapters, Words: 150,499 - Hermione, now in her mid-20s, is back at Hogwarts to pursue higher education. Trying to forget the trauma carved into her by the war, she spends one lust-filled night with a certain pureblood. But that night will have consequences. While her personal life unravels, a string of mysterious murders forces her to work together with Draco Malfoy, who himself seems to carry many secrets. "He scared her. Not because he wielded killing curses like they were nothing, but because he seemed to understand her in a way that even she didn’t. The more she let him in, the more power he had to destroy her." Come for the smut, stay for the plot. Read if you like: - Murder mystery - Dark Arts - Hurt/ Comfort - Hermione and Draco both deal with PTSD - Angst, so much angst

In These Silent Days by HeyJude19 - E, 14 chapters, Words: 67,209 -Hermione is familiar with fighting: for respect, for attention, for justice. She’s even made a career of it; working on behalf of creatures and beings. But her battle against the Ministry’s marriage law is one she loses. Badly. And now, she has to contend with not only public derision and patriarchal politics, but her growing feelings for her government-mandated spouse.

The Silver Envelope by sinflower81 - E, 70 chapters, Words: 192,647 - “Tell me again to release you, Granger. Tell me again that you just want to be friends.” It’s been five years since Draco last spoke to Granger. Things are different now, and though earning her trust will be a challenge, he can’t seem to keep himself away. Hermione has been busy advocating for elves around the world, but when her breakup with Ron turns her life upside-down, she knows there’s only one person who can help her. Alternating POVs between Hermione and Draco. Slow burn, eventual smut, light dom/sub. Diverges from canon after Voldemort's defeat.

In Silence & Submission by gillianeliza - E, 29 chapters, Words: 69,694 - 10 years after the war everything has changed. Enemies turned into friends and lovers. Fear turned into hope. Pain into joy. Everyone has moved on except for Hermione Granger. Nestled within her friend group, now made up of not just Harry and Ginny, but also Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini and of course Draco Malfoy, she was content to allow the trauma of her past to haunt her. More than just content - it was what she felt she deserved - until one evening Draco Malfoy decided enough was enough. This is a low stakes, split POV fic that deals heavily with life AFTER the Battle of Hogwarts. You will find the POV of either Hermione or Draco stated in bold italics, in the middle whenever it shifts. Please read all tags as this work deals with BDSM, kink, trauma recovery, & suicidal ideation.

A Game of High Stakes by In_Dreams - E, 51 chapters, Words: 263,110 - In theory, the task is simple: kill Draco Malfoy. In practice, putting a curse through the Dark Lord's favoured lieutenant will take everything Hermione has―especially since he's trying to kill her, too. Even more so when the lines between them start to blur. Sometimes, the only way out is through.

Hogwarts: A History (Hermione's Version) by Lizzie_carlile - M, 38 chapters, Words: 141,828 - Lord Voldemort has been defeated, and the children of the Wizarding War are thriving. When the heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black is adopted and takes her place in the family with her loving fathers, a new trio is formed. With her best friend and her brother by her side, Hermione Black is thrust into a world that she never knew existed. Will whispers from the past threaten to destroy the world she knows? Or will love once again conquer all? Another take of the Nice Things AU. What would happen if Draco asked Hermione to the Yule Ball before Ron Weasley had a chance to?

Teach Me How to Forget by scullymurphy - E, 20 chapters, Words: 109,646 - Hermione Granger is 27 years old when her life falls apart. Cheated-on, flatless, fed up with her job, she decides to change one thing she can--take a class and try for some career advancement. But change is never easy, especially when an old enemy is the catalyst. And the class instructor. "Just as the minute hand clicked over to the hour, the doorknob twisted and a figure slipped into the room. He was tall, a bit windblown. Hermione had a general impression of crisp cuffs and polished leather, and then a more specific one of the most beautiful grey coat—highlighting his shoulders and eyes, skimming to just the right place on his knife creased trousers. His movements were precise and confident. He was wearing the softest-looking gloves. He was not Professor Belinda Rowle. He was Draco bloody Malfoy."

The Order of Serpents by bl_crtz - E, 44 chapters, Words: 193,506 - During the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter walked into the forbidden forest, died, and walked out with crimson eyes as the new vessel of the Dark Lord. Since then, Hermione Granger served as an elite member of the True Order, isolating herself from other Order members and going on missions alone, not only haunted by the loss of her best friend, Harry, but Ron who had run away after the battle. Three and a half years later, Draco Malfoy shows up with his two year old son on the Order’s doorstep seeking to switch sides. Together, Draco and Hermione are forced to deal with not only each other, but their own past and confront who they’ve become because of the war.

The Contender by rubykrishna - E, 9 chapters, Words: 58,875 - Hermione stopped walking. Her eyes scanned back up the roster until they found the name that she initially mistook for a typo. Draco Malfoy….Beater. She could comprehend the words, the name and the meaning. She understood that his name being on the roster meant he was the starting Beater for England’s national team, but for whatever reason, when her eyes ran over the black ink, her brain could not articulate any emotions or reaction. 

Sincerely Yours by LovesBitca8 - E, 10 chapters, Words: 40,759 - A smile tickled the corners of Hermione’s mouth as she clicked Send. She listened to the whoosh of the message and then turned off her computer. When the ping! had come in, she’d had one foot half-out the door of her flat. She’d dropped her coat and darted for her computer desk, a wide grin blossoming at her inbox. You’ve Got Mail.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, semifinals of the losers bracket

Propaganda:

For Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

you've got the founder of the fantasy ancient Chinese CIA and the leader of what is essentially the mafia and then they're soulmates and in love. they're both willing to kill anyone who dares hurt the other while also just wanting a soft domestic life together

Zhou Zishu is an assassin and spymaster who put the current Emperor on the throne, and then quit his job by faking his death (kinda, hes still dying but not as fast as he was supposed to). Had done A Lot on his old job, including murdering children (more than one, and at least one of them in a way I can't even describe without several trigger warnings), exterminating whole families, war crimes (and i dont mean this in a buzzword way, i mean "organized a public execution of foreign diplomats during war time")… btw he doesn't feel particularly bad about any of this, because he believes it was necessary. Like he wouldn't do it for fun, but he thinks the ends (putting a good Emperor on the throne) justified the means (all of the atrocities). As a retiree, he definitely cut down on the amount of morally reprehensible murder, but not murder in general. He still routinely kills ppl, he just doesn't go out of his way to kill more. Wen Kexing, meanwhile, is the Ghost Valley Master - Ghost Valley being a place where the worst of criminals are exiled. Even in such a place, he has reputation as a complete lunatic, owed partially to the fact that he either skinned a man or fed him his own flesh or both at one point, and partially to him having a rule where he would kill anyone who came closer than 3 meters to him. But in truth, everything he'd done was to survive the Ghost Valley and eventually take revenge for his parents, who were brutally murdered when he was only nine. By the start of the novel's timeline, he put his plan in motion - the plan that would drown jianghu in blood, but also deliver poetic justice to all responsible for his parents' deaths, as well as all who'd commit the same crime given the chance. And these two men, these two murderers and schemers, meet - and unexpectedly, find in each other the person who /understands/. The person who is just as ruthless and whose hands are just as bloody, but also the person who knows standing at the top of the world is not worth it, who seeks the same freedom of leaving it all behind, and who is still, underneath it all, a human, with human heart seeking connection. So you have this couple who understand each other with barely a word, and who want the same things - who are so hungry for domesticity and for people they can just goof around with when all their lives they had to measure every step and word - but ALSO where one half a couple is like "i gotta go murder hundreds in revenge" and the other half is like "ok pick you up at 6". (This btw is why I'm submitting novel's iteration of the couple in particular. Show wenzhou with their ridiculous breakups over morality could Never.) Also they were both hiding who they are when they first met, and later flirted about having figured each other out. Finally, I'll leave you my favorite quote that just. perfectly sums up their relationship: "And just like that, they fell asleep in each other's arms, steeped in the smell of blood."

You’ve probably already had submissions for them but I’ll add on. One of them founded an assassin’s guild and killed a staggering number of people. His malewife is the leader of a sect of insane murderous outcasts, and he attained his position by proving to be the most crazy and murder happy of them all. Most of the plot involves him wandering around watching his schemes get more people killed. Together they adopt a kid that was only orphaned due to said scheming (oops). They’re terrible and I love them.

For Legolas and Gimli:

They literally have a running competition between the two over who has more kills. And non-canon my ass, Legolas took Gimli to valinor

They kill alot of orcs together. They make it into a competition. Better minds than i have spoken about the couple ness

[romantichopelessly]

invitation to speak more about the secret good td3 in your head, if you so desire!

Ok so I sat on this ask for DAYS because I wanted to have some cohesive, great answer, but the thing about The Dreamer Trilogy that haunts me is that I can never come up with good concrete thoughts about how to fix the issues I have with it, which is why I reference the “secret good td3 in my head” because it can never fully leave my head in any real way. That being said here’s a list of some elements I would change to make my secret good td3, in no particular order.

The visionaries don’t exist. Liliana, Persifal, etc. are just psychics that keep getting visions of the end, and die for reasons other than their power. Explaining what Visionaries are and subsequently over explaining the magic system of td3 is part of what made the trilogy so confusing and ruined a lot of the magic that the TRC universe already had for me. We don’t need concrete explanations, and psychics can still fill this role. The changing age and exploding added nothing?? to the narrative?? that I can think of?? We can even keep the age gap for Carliana if we want to, just make Liliana an older psychic like Maura/Persephone/Calla. It will even add to the excellent Carmen-Mr. Gray parallels.

Lean more into the themes of the age group. TRC is a coming of age story. It’s about being 17/18. It’s about learning your inner self and getting others to see the true you. TD3 should be more about being 19/20/21. To me, TD3 at its peak is like Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6. Which is uniquely about the horror of being in your early 20s, losing support systems, having to learn to be a full self-reliant person, grappling with what your parents did to you, and the crushing loneliness of not being around Your People anymore. TD3 has all of these themes, but I really think they need to be fleshed out more, and given proper conclusion that isn’t just “yippee everything is fine now!”

Greywaren is longer. I think almost everyone agrees that Greywaren, as a book was just too short to wrap up all the plot lines set up, and does almost none of them justice. That book needed a whole rewrite. In theory, I’m completely fine with how it opens—Ronan being in a dream coma was foreshadowed from CDTH, and is an idea that I’d actually thought of as interesting before even reading the book. Other elements of this book like Declan’s rampage, Matthew going rogue, etc are great directions for the characters, I’d just want to rework them. I could make solo posts about any of these.

The Pynch breakup either doesn’t happen, or is set up further in advance and lasts longer. Personally, I lean towards the latter. Adam and Ronan’s conflict is set up from the very beginning of CDTH, or even from Opal (Adam warring between wanting to stay with Ronan and needing to follow through with his lifelong plans, and being frustrated that Ronan never asks for anything from Adam (specifically, to stay) ((side note: perhaps Adam’s insecurity here about Ronan respecting his boundaries so thoroughly stems from both having a family that never would respect his wishes, and Gansey (Adam’s model of love, Adam’s model of everything) having to learn not to ask things like that of Adam. What does it mean that Ronan never even tries?)) AND Ronan dealing with the crushing loneliness of being left and dealing with the consequences of having a long distance bf who is more successful than him). So they needed to have an argument about this. It’s also just in character that these two would not be perfect communicators. So. My idea: In CDTH we get no Adam POVs, just Ronan’s side of the story. We see, rather than Ronan just getting upset over one missed text, that Adam begins to pull away after the murder crab incident. We the audience don’t know why, other than Ronan’s unreliable narration and insecurity. So when Adam doesn’t respond to that one text at a vital fraught time, Ronan does what he does best, shuts down, pulls away and self destructs. Then MI rolls around and we start getting Adam POVs. We learn that after the murder crabs, Adam was throwing himself into trying to fix the nightwash situation for Ronan (Adam is not in contact with Declan here, unfortunately). After visiting for Ronan’s birthday and seeing the Lace, Adam starts to have dreams/premonitions about the end of the world (no visionaries in this universe, just psychics who are/were close to dreamers getting the visions!!). So he obviously sets out to fix this alone too. He calls his best approximations to contacts in this underground world that aren’t Declan. Henry and Mr. Gray. (+ maybe also Maura & Calla) ((Also don’t worry Henry doesn’t leave the Sarchengsey trip, just advises Adam on where to start)). Now that Adam has lost contact with Ronan (he was busy and missed the message and Ronan went off the grid like in canon), he goes full throttle into trying to solve everything while managing being his perfect Harvard persona (this gets him close to a breakdown, very reminiscent to Dream Thieves). Perhaps we get to see Adam and Declan working together to acquire sweet metals and understand the underworld of magic together. He and Ronan fight the one time they get to talk over the phone, Adam because he is truly scared Ronan will be the one to end the world, Ronan because he feels like this is another person perceiving him as a failure and wanting to control/baby him (+ he hates Adam hanging with Mr Gray and Declan of all people). By the time Greywaren starts, Adam is wrung out and hurting and Ronan is dead to the world, so yeah. He doesn’t think he can spend emotional energy playing safeguard to his boyfriend’s coma corpse. And then by the end of the book they have an actual argument/discussion no “they didn’t need words” cop out.

The number of Dreamers/Dreams has to be reduced. It’s cool to say that dreams were always integrated into this world, but it creates so many plot holes it isn’t even funny. There is no way Niall could have passed off the Greywaren being a box that brings dreams to life if Dreamers were such a common occurrence. No secret can be kept that well, someone in the black market would have known, and thus Greenmantle/Mr. Gray/Laumonier/ect WOULD HAVE KNOWN !!!

Declan does not have all his character erased by suddenly loving his mommy and daddy. Seriously what the fuck was that. Declan suddenly deciding to forgive his father because actually Declan was secretly the favorite child first is INSANE. Especially after seeing that that changed because Niall and Mor WANTED TO KILL HIS BROTHER!!! The two tenants of Declan Lynch in TRC were protecting his remaining family and fucking hating that Ronan idolized Niall just because Niall loved him best. So why make Declan turn around and do the same??? Suddenly Niall wasn’t so bad because actually he let Declan be shoved into a car trunk during a shootout out of love. I hate this plot line. Family doesn’t have to be forgiven. Understood, that’s one thing. Forgiven?? Not always. Sick of it. The real takeaway from seeing those memories should have been closure to Declan’s arc of learning that dreams should be viewed as people completely.

I definitely have other points but I cannot think of them right now. And I want to post this so I will. But TD3, as you can see, makes me an insane person.

[arthur-lesters-balls]

ok im about to start rambling like crazy because since yesterday i cant stop thinking about this fucking scene and how it just makes stsg's future fight worse better. this is a wonderful point to stop, and think about their breakup and how it was clearly motivated by a lot more than just a clash of ideals

to get started its really interesting to think about how gojo was the one who gave the idea of going against any rules and fighting the person at the foundation of the jujutsu society for riko. he was ready to risk everything for a single kid, to grant her the life she wanted. both he and geto knew, that if they chose this path, the consequences would be irreparable. even if they won against tengen, it meant the barriers would be totally fucked up and they would likely become fugitives, but that was alright! as long as they gave riko the opportunity to be a child! to be happy! even tho they were also just teenagers themselves and its clear that this being a kickoff to turn their lives upside down sounds so similar to what happened to geto, and its why his deflection and all the lack of communication around it are even more depressing. the thing is: i cant imagine a world where gojo, knowing about mimiko and nanako, would disagree with getos attitude. even if you dont take into consideration how gojo was ready to kill the whole star cult after riko died, it just doesnt goes with what we saw of him until that point (and from that point onward too) some people disagree with this, because it goes in favor of the whole "gojo didnt had a moral compass of his own when he was a teenager" thing (which is totally wrong). to me, it doesnt. gojo had his own opinions, but he also seemed very aware of how this didnt mean he was ready for the nuances of every situation he could get caught on, and that was where talking to geto helped him. they had similar opinions, gojo felt safe being honest with him, and they were equals! who could be better to question his decisions, right? well, thats exactly why theres a whole plot line about geto looking gojo and feeling that they were no longer neck to neck when gojo goes after geto in shinjuku, its really unambiguous the fact that his goal was not to kill him, but to talk to him. gojo wanted to understand what was the meaning behind geto's actions. geto, who always made sure everything he did had a clear and well-thought motivation, would surely have an explanation for his choice. and in a certain way, he did, yes. i think its quite easy to see that gojo, who even ten years later was out there saying he would side with yuta in a fight, if the higher ups decided to kill him, would see at least a little bit of sense in the core of geto's choice if he just knew about it. but he didnt when geto decided that gojo would never understand him, he wasnt thinking about gojo disagreeing with the effectiveness of it, because geto himself knew it was a dumb idea. the heart of what he was doing, wasnt really to succeed, even tho he gives his best to make himself believe that he will. its all about choosing the murder spree he did in that village, and then doing a backward justification; its about hopelessly doing something, for the sake of doing something. if he were gojo, his plan wouldnt be stupid. if he were gojo, there wasnt any plan that would sound stupid. because gojo had the power to change the world if he set his heart on doing so, but geto didnt. what he could do was choose his path and give his best at staying at it, no matter how painful it was

[mdhwrites]

Why Is Liar Reveal So Big?

It's hated after all. Maybe behind fridging and some other miscommunication plots, it seems to be one of the all time hated tropes ever. So why would a writer be dumb enough to use it? Let alone so many writers, even ones considered to be great, use it?

Because on paper it's a perfect plot structure.

I'm not exaggerating and I'm not setting something up. I'll of course talk about why so many of these plots face plant but from a writer's perspective, the use of lies like this is tantalizing. It comes with a three act structure baked in after all:

The cause for the lie and using it.

Growing closer to those you have lied to and realizing that other people and the truth are better than whatever you're getting out of the lie, creating a character arc for the main character and an underlying tension to everything.

Big climax when the lie comes out, people get upset and something has to be done to showcase that growth before a denouement that highlights how the liar is a better person now.

And even better is that you don't have to justify the conflict essentially at all beyond why the person is lying. After all, lying is one of the very few universal taboos that someone can do while still be redeemable to a general audience. You can't really walk back murder without it being almost entirely altruistic after all. You can have someone lie for selfish reasons though, or even good reasons, and have everyone understand that you just need to learn a lesson but that people will be justifiably pissed at you, even if you claim to have a good reason.

This is actually a really big deal with how The Liar Reveal trope is seen nowadays because, frankly, I think some people have been desensitized to the fact that lying is a big fucking deal actually. Everyone focuses on what the lie was about. Why the person lied. If they lied for a good reason or the thing they were lying about is nothing major, doesn't affect anyone in the grand scheme of things, what did it matter?

Well... Why did the person lie then? Lying is a universal taboo because it is a breach of trust and a show that someone around you doesn't deserve honesty. For one reason or another, lying to them was preferable to even a short conversation explaining what the fuck happened. This is weirdly actually why cheating, or more so getting caught cheating, is such a big deal. It's not that you cheated, it's what cheating represents: A break in how you let your partner see reality, a breach of trust and a dismissal of their worth because they didn't deserve to be talked to about these issues but instead, you decided it was better to run around behind their back. In both cases, worse yet, you only do it like this because you KNOW you wouldn't get away with it otherwise, or you believe that, so rather than own up to the consequences or put in the work to earn what you want to do or make up for the mistake you made, you lie.

That's genuinely reprehensible and will hurt people when they find out regardless of the reasons you had. You still broke their trust and they now have to deal with that. It's frankly why when I talk about Luz lying in The Owl House, i emphasize both how she's willing to tell the truth to some people but then explicitly, after being called out multiple times and making a promise to be more open/honest to her girlfriend, she lies to her partner more than ANYONE ELSE in the entire show. That is just strictly unhealthy and Amity should be fucking losing it by the end, either with self loathing by the diminishment of her person hood that having her partner so flippantly dismiss any reason to communicate with her would cause, or with fury at Luz for the fact that despite so many times seeing how lies hurt her, Luz just keeps fucking doing it!

But that would lead to the classic third act breakup in a romance story and EVERYONE hates that... Right?

Yeah no. The Third Act Breakup from lazy writers is admittedly where a LOT of the hate for this trope comes from but that's usually because the lie itself is dumb. You've already been chafing at the lie the entire time because frankly no one in their right mind wouldn't have just told the other person. That or it wasn't actually a lie and instead just the other person finding out something that their partner had literally no reason to ever bring up and then wildly overreact to. The lie only exists for this moment of cheap drama rather than having actually been a conflict in the story.

BUT. A good romance that has lying as a part of its premise will recognize that that's not okay. That it's just a dog shit foundation for a relationship. So... Then we get the climax I talked about. We get this big moment where the liar has to prove that they've changed, that they've learned and are willing to put the work into fixing the trust they broke and abused and come out the other side stronger for it. You know, actually give a satisfying conclusion to the fact that we've had to put up with this character lying about this from anywhere from ten minutes to fucking HOURS. Without that payoff, especially if the character doesn't appear to learn anything or grow without it... Why the fuck did we put up with the lie?

It's why SpyxFamily's conclusion can ONLY be when the three lies are likely revealed at the same time to Loid and Yor. Or, potentially better, Anya's lie is revealed first and as they deal with that, they realize each other's lie. Now SpyxFamily is actually one of the best examples of a liar reveal plot because you understand the stakes of these lies and why they must be kept, even by the child, VERY WELL. After all, in that story, if the lies come out, everyone? dies. Maybe Anya just gets sent back to an orphanage but that already is pretty bad but there's no doubt that Loid dies and Yor's job going public would still mean the Secret Police likely having to kill her. There's no doubt in any viewers' mind that these secrets HAVE to be kept.

But that tension has to pay off eventually. If the whole series goes by without our principal cast learning these secrets... Well, it's a Chekov's gun that never fires. You're waiting for it, it clearly needs to happen to resolve this plot point... And then it never does. If it does happen and Yor goes "Oh, you may be an enemy of my country but you're a good guy so I'm going to skip along," that's equally dissatisfying. It was such a big deal that an anti-climax like that would just kind of rob every bit of weight to it and probably cause rewatches to be a lot less satisfying than a big, knockout brawl over it or a big, heartfelt speech about how it doesn't matter what country they're from, what matters is that they're good people.

TOH spends like an hour and a half having the main character freaking out about how everyone will hate her for her what she thinks she needs to lie about... And then it never leads anywhere. It even gets resolved and then continues, making the very small, minuscule bit of payoff feel like nothing for a plot point that has been making the tone of the show MISERABLE. It's not even like we get a big group hug with Luz being overjoyed about being wrong to payoff all that angst. We get essentially nothing and the arc is left pretty much unresolved for no reason despite them having such a clear opportunity to wrap it up when her friends do get told the truth.

But people praised it because it didn't follow the formula. But... Did that actually make it better? Tropes exist for a reason. The Liar Reveal trope especially exists for a reason. They're very good at giving audiences the satisfaction they may want or to create good drama. If you do all the initial steps, include all of the deeply frustrating elements to a trope like this, all of those that have good drama and tension, and then only subvert the payoff?

I'm sorry but that's not clever storytelling. That's just bad. It's like when a tutorial makes fun of hand holding tutorials as it's painstakingly holding your hand through every step of the process. All you're doing is making the pain of the tropes worse while patting yourself on the back. While lying to me about not doing the thing you're doing.

And sorry but... Apparently you need to go through your own arc of this trope then since even only okay/mediocre versions of this trope like Over the Hedge recognize that by the end, it's better to be honest than being self congratulating and lying. Almost like themes like that are baked into the trope.

So maybe stop jumping on the band wagon and actually ask what the other problems are with how this trope is used rather than claiming this trope as a whole should never be done. It's a tool in a writer's toolbox like any trope and (besides fridging) it shouldn't be thrown out just because it has a bad rep. Not when it so clearly exists for a reason.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[cannibalisticdespair]

🔥 Despaircest (can't be unpopular as in "fandom hates it even though it's gr8"; we need to go weirder and deeper)

If those two fucking idiots ever had an actually honest and heartfelt conversation, things would have gone extremely differently because they actually did feel the same about each other.

The Despaircest plot is told out of order. 1-6's trial has Makoto's hope include the caveat of "we don't even know if Junko is lying!" Yes, he also goes "and if she isn't, we've got this", but that's just half of it and the other half is "nuh uh!" And here's the thing: SDR2 came out years later after DR1 was successful. DR1 never tells us if Junko was lying or not. So, view it with that in mind. DR1 leaves the question to us: was she full of shit?

Two years later, we get the answer. In 2-6. A whole game later, we find out the answer was "no, Junko was not lying". And that modifies the viewing of 1-6. Because now, you have to view 1-6 as "Junko is telling the truth here, she isn't lying to manipulate anyone, she's just being honest". When Junko says she loves her classmates? That's true. When Junko says the world ended? That's true. When Junko says Mukuro is just like her and loves despair the same way as her... wait, what?

Oh, but you're given a decoder ring. Beating SDR2 unlocks Danganronpa IF, where we find out that that is not at all true. But... if Junko isn't lying, but that isn't true, there's only one possible explanation. Junko's wrong. Now, how does that line up with IF? Perfectly.

In IF, Mukuro survives the murder because Makoto's memories start to come back and he warns her to dodge using her real name, so she does it on instinct, so she doesn't die, but he does get hurt trying to save her. Which leads to Mukuro turning on Junko. But importantly, there's the breakup.

"Say, sis?" "Oh! Junko, it's you!" Ikusaba's eyes brightened at the first sight of her sister in days, but they would soon go dim. "You know, I was always thankful to you, sis. I mean it." It was because Junko's voice, coming from the speakers, was terribly soft and gentle. "...Junko?" "I'm really sorry. I was being too harsh with you. I even tried to kill you just now, and I was about to make you do something horrible. Even though I know how you feel about Naegi." "I-I don't..." "Don't force yourself. You might not realize it, but it was really obvious. You never cared about those class pictures, but you looked at the camera properly that one time Naegi took the photo." From just the image on the monitor, the Super High School Level Despair looked like a girl with a sweet, innocent smile teasing her older sister. But that was exactly why Ikusaba was slowly falling towards despairing fear. "I always thought you should've put your all into it when you were in a picture with Naegi, but I guess that's all part of your disappointing self, sis." "But you know, you might be lackluster and disappointing, but I love that about you too." Ikusaba trembled. "I love you. How long had she wanted to hear these words from Junko? Ikusaba believed that, no matter what Junko said, she actually loved her very much. Ikusaba believed that she alone could understand the despair known as Junko Enoshima. It was a ludicrous notion. The moment Junko said, 'I love you', Ikusaba realized--to her agony--that she never truly understood her sister. Only now had she come to realize Junko's feelings. Junko was being kind. There was no lie in her gentle words. Perhaps she was being entirely truthful about loving her sister as well. This was precisely why this signalled the destruction of their relationship. Ikusaba realized that Junko was cutting ties with her. And before Ikusaba could say a word in reply, the girl on the monitor left her with a word of cruelty. "I know you'll make your dreams come true someday."

Do you get it? Junko really, truly loves Mukuro just as much as Mukuro loves her. And they never understood each other, but they both completely believed they did. Combine this with Junko in 1-6 talking about Mukuro and you have Junko's belief before the truth is revealed to her and Junko after the truth is revealed to her.

So, what was killing Mukuro? Trying to say "I love you" and make Mukuro's dreams come true without understanding Mukuro's love language or Mukuro's dreams. Consider how Junko describes how Mukuro "must have" felt. Why would she deny herself that despair? Simple: so Mukuro could have it, believing Mukuro wanted it just as much as she did. Her act of love in DR1 was self-sacrifice to give the greatest gift she could imagine to someone who she never realized didn't want it.

And what does Junko do when she does realize it? She breaks her entire sense of self and personality just to express her love to Mukuro. She realizes Mukuro has hope and everything, and she encourages it and fosters it out of love for her. She loves Mukuro enough that, even knowing they will now be enemies, she will speak Mukuro's love language rather than her own to make Mukuro truly know how much she loves her. This scene and killing Mukuro have the same meaning, and you can only come to understand this by combining 1-6 and IF to get two contradictory perspectives in order to recognize the before-belief and the after-belief.

Junko fucking loves her so goddamn much, but Junko expresses her love in a very particular way. Despair. Remember what she said to Class 78? She loves them all. She wasn't lying about that either. It's so personalized, so direct, so cruel, because she loves them. She loves Mukuro most of all, so she granted Mukuro the most intense despair imaginable, even though it meant losing it for herself, even though that is literally her entire modus operandi. It's fucking self-sacrifice when she kills Mukuro.

The twist is that she never understood that Mukuro didn't want it. Junko can understand and learn anything, except the one thing staring her in the face. But because of her talent, she can't imagine that there's something so blatant right in front of her she's failing to understand. Mukuro meanwhile? Danganronpa Zero gives us this:

Then, looking at the face Ikusaba-san showed me, I was suddenly taken aback. The ever so emotionless face was, ecstatic and smiling. "I don‘t know if...she is attracting despair or despair is attracting her but...she has lived her whole life with despair by her side. She lived while immersed in despair. That‘s why she began looking for despair in others. She learned to enjoy pushing people into despair. But you know, that‘s normal. It‘s the same as someone being cursed by misfortune fall into hatred for those who aren‘t. But what‘s special about her was that, she learned to enjoy inflicting despair onto herself. That‘s how the link to despair began. As she chased down despair, she pushed it onto others on the way. Doing so, it caused her to desire falling into despair even more...and because of that chain to despair, the Super High School Level Despair was born." While she spoke, it was like she fell into a fever, the expressions on her face turned into ecstasy. It was so completely absurd that it would have been hard for anybody to think of it as anything but a joke, but I understood that this was real. It might‘ve been because the memories of Junko Enoshima inside me led to that conclusion. "Hey, you don‘t get it right? I don‘t think anybody could. But you know, only I can understand it..." Consumed by ecstasy, even Ikusaba-san‘s breaths began to become ragged. "Only I am able of understanding her. That‘s why she needs me. She still hasn‘t realized that but, maybe she is only pretending not to realize. Ufu, that‘s because she‘s so shy. Ufufufu." Seeing this intoxicated Ikusaba-san continue to talk like that, repelled me. I knew that she definitely didn‘t have normal feelings for Junko Enoshima, but that sort of thing shouldn‘t have anything to do with me.

They both have failed to understand each other. Danganronpa Zero came out before Danganronpa IF. So,

Ikusaba believed that she alone could understand the despair known as Junko Enoshima. It was a ludicrous notion.

Is a callback to

"Hey, you don‘t get it right? I don‘t think anybody could. But you know, only I can understand it..."

Both of them are having their preconceived notions about each other shattered at the same time in that scene in IF. Because both of them just assumed they understood each other. Because of course they did. They've been linked at the hip so long, they're symbiotic. Except, no, they didn't. Because they both assumed, rather than ever actually talking and getting on the same page. And note,

Seeing this intoxicated Ikusaba-san continue to talk like that, repelled me. I knew that she definitely didn‘t have normal feelings for Junko Enoshima, but that sort of thing shouldn‘t have anything to do with me.

It was incest in 2011. Before SDR2 and IF released. It was always incest. DR3 just was going "now shut the fuck up, we've visually confirmed it for you".

So yeah, Despaircest was mutual love of equal intensity ruined by them both being arrogant dipshits who failed to get on the same page because they wouldn't just have a goddamn conversation about it because they both assumed that they would gain nothing from it because they totally already understood each other so goddamn well. It was mutual, and Junko actually really did love Mukuro just as much as Mukuro loved Junko. It turned tragic from a lack of communication.

[andreal831]

Why does Celeste get so much hate?

My latest Celeste tiktok edit got me thinking about the different treatments of Elijah's love interests and Klaus' love interests. Specifically, Aurora and Celeste.

Because when you think about it, they are basically the same character. And yet, Aurora is treated with a lot more sympathy than Celeste.

Celeste was first introduced as a past love of Elijah. Elijah states that she was one of two great loves that he has ever had. We see that he was so consumed by this love that he, for the first time in 800 years, waivered from his family. This made Klaus angry and he had her brutally murdered.

Similarly, Aurora was Klaus' first love (yes, I know there is a debate on first or second love. I think she was his first). Klaus was so in love with her, that he wanted to bring her on the run with him and his family. However, when Aurora reveals that Klaus was responsible for his mother's death to Elijah, Elijah accidentally compels her to breakup with Klaus. He then proceeds to compel her to pretend to be Rebekah for 100 years.

To me, there are very similar stories. Except, at least Aurora isn't murdered. Because of this, they both turn to revenge against the Mikaelson family for the harm the Mikaelsons have committed against them. They even have similar runtimes on the show -- Celeste is on TO for 13 episodes and Aurora is on for 17 episodes.

Yet I've seen a lot more people support Aurora's hatred of Elijah and get angry at Celeste's revenge against Klaus. The most logical, and probably accurate, reason is that Klaus is the fan favorite and the show centers every storyline around him, reducing Elijah to a background character. Which reduces his love interests down to background characters. This is a big reason why people will "never forgive Elijah" but don't care that Klaus killed Celeste.

But the arguments against Celeste are often that "she was doing too much." While the same people will support Aurora because she is the female Klaus. Celeste essentially toyed with the Mikaelsons for the better part of half a year, but Aurora buried Rebekah at sea, murdered Camille, and tried to murder Elijah and Freya. If Aurora wasn't doing too much, I don't think it's fair to be angry at Celeste for trying to get her revenge.

I also see so many people saying 'if Elijah hadn't compelled Aurora, they would still be together,' but where is that logic with Celeste? I don't even think Celeste and Elijah get their own ship name when she was just as important to Elijah as Aurora was to Klaus.

Aurora typically makes lists of people's top favorite characters. She was so popular that they brought her back in Legacies. Celeste hardly got a mention once her character was killed, even though she was an ancestor on the Other Side and still could have played a role in the witches.

The TVDU has a habit of sidelining POC characters and it seems Celeste is just another woman of color who does not get enough credit. After all, her plotting is what set all of The Originals into motion.

(Celeste doesn't even come up when I search the tags)

[jarlskona-evilyoyo]

Can I get some new fics for Bubbline now that there was a spike in popularity. Here, have some of my ideas:

Modern AU fic where Simon and Betty adopt Marceline as a older teenager. The plot of the fic is that Marceline has been hiding her demon half since her mother died. And oops looks like Simon and Betty are actually really into demon stuff (which they are also hiding so the adoption goes through) Meanwhile Bonnibel is trying to uncover what’s up with her too while also dealing with suddenly being incredibly attracted to her

Bonnibel and Simon talk about the Ice King and how awkward that is to both of them now with a flashback to Marceline telling Bonnie about Simon/Ice King.

Them talking about the kiss and finally talking trying to date again. Bonus: they talk about the whole Door Lord thing and how Marceline had been about to admit that she wanted to make up with her and how Bonnibel felt about the whole experiencing their humiliating breakup all over again.

Due to shenanigans post canon bubbline time travel to the point in to that Marceline was dating Ash- most of the fic is just Bonnibel trying to keep from murdering Ash because killing people in the past would be dangerous.

No plot: I just want some good in character smut. Stop trying to convince me that Marceline is a top- can we be honest with ourselves here.

[queenvreads]

REVIEW: One of Us Is Lying by Karen M McManus

*Contains Spoilers*

5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is one of those rare cases that I actually watched the tv show, before I read the book. The show was really good, and I figured since I loved it so much the book must be even better.

If you're wondering this book is like a mix of Breakfast club - gossip girl - Pretty little liars - and even revenge.

Its the epitome of YA murder mystery that I ADORE!

There were actually some really big differences between the first season of the show and the book. It didn't alter my rating, I am actually glad we get 2 alternate endings in both. One a little lighter, and one a little darker.

The #1 major difference between the series and the book is the identity of Simon's killer. In the show, Jake and Simon planned a prank where Simon would fake an allergic reaction to peanut oil, but Jake got scared when Simon revealed he had recorded their conversations. Jake stole the epi pens, leading to Simon's death. In the book, Simon died by suicide and involved Jake in his plan to frame others for his murder. The series added the detail of Simon being the mayor's son, which wasn't significant in the book. Simon brought Jake in to take over About That after his death. Jake was pure evil, as he also manipulated a conversation with Janae to blackmail her into compliance after Simon’s death.

I liked Simon’s story better in the series as it was less “13 reasons why” and more a murder situation. Jake & Simon were also more “friendly” in the series than the books and there was no mention of Simon’s funeral & the xbox in the book.

#2 Nate and Bronwyn's relationship had more development in the book. In the series, Bronwyn initially dated Evan but became interested in Nate after Simon's death.

I really enjoyed their romance more in the books. I understand that for tv they may have wanted to drag out them coming together a bit more for ratings, but the book did it well. Bronwyn does sort of ‘date’ Evan at the end of the book, but of course ends up back with Nate. I also liked both characters better in the book.

#3 Maeve in the book was the gang's tech expert but was not romantically involved with Simon or Janae. However, in the series, she had romantic ties to both of them. Bronwyn still had a reason to confront Simon in the book due to an About That post about her sister, and Maeve appeared on the app after getting drunk at a party, not for sexting as shown in the show.

I enjoyed Maeve way better in the book than in the series. In the series she was conniving and at odds with her sister at times. Bronwyn kept so many secrets from her and in the book they were very close, and Bronwyn told her everything.

#4 The detention teacher, Mrs. Avery, played a role in Simon's death in the series by being blackmailed to get the Bayview Four into detention. In the book, Mr. Avery was the detention teacher and had no involvement in Simon's death. Simon paid students from another school to create a fender bender to remove Mrs. Avery from the room.

I was expecting this to be the same in the book as they kept hinting that the police should look into the teacher but in the end they had nothing to do with it.

# 5 Cooper's outing as gay had more significant consequences in the book. In the series, his brother and girlfriend already knew about his sexual orientation, but in the book, Cooper was completely closeted. Cooper's father's reaction was also more homophobic in the book.

I preferred Cooper’s story more in the books than in the series.

#6 Kris, Cooper's boyfriend, had a minor role in the book since Cooper was not out. In the series, Kris knew Nate and attended Cooper's baseball showcase. In the book, Kris knew Cooper was in high school and not out, leading to a temporary breakup in the series. Despite his limited role, Kris was the one who connected the dots about Simon's depression and dark suicide plot in the book.

I loved Kris in the book, but not so much on the show. I felt like their relationship overall was much healthier in the book. Once Cooper was outed he and Kris were basically hanging out with the murder club openly and I liked Kris’ involvement.

#7 Janae knew about Simon's whole plan in the book.

I liked Janae so much more in the show. In the book she knew everything and let it happen. I found it very disturbing she knew Simon was planning on this suicide mission and she try to didnt prevent it.

#8 Jake was arrested, and not killed in the book. Whereas in the show, Addy kills him when he attacked them in the forest after a party.

This is a major twist and is different from the show. Which will make watching season 2 and reading book 2 completely different experiences.

There were other small differences in the series vs the books, I couldn't keep track of all of them but one that stood out was Ashton’s presence in Addy’s life. She was around for everything. She wasn't in the series.

✍️Befriend me on Goodreads: ⭐HERE⭐

[keepingupwiththecullensblog]

🌟🚗 Welcome back to “Keeping Up with the Cullens”! Today, I’m hitting rewind on the story to focus on one of the most intense parts of the saga: when Bella and Edward have to lead James away from Charlie. But I’m not just talking about the plot—I’m here to praise the *Midnight Sun* audiobook and compare it to both *Twilight* and the *Twilight* audiobook, especially when it comes to those gut-wrenching “Goodbyes” chapters. Trust me, if you haven’t listened to these audiobooks yet, you’re missing out on some serious emotional roller coasters! 🎧🧛‍♂️

As you know, I loved *Twilight* years ago. 🥰 Honestly, now I’m into books like *Outlander* (Jamie Fraser, anyone? 😏), but I thought revisiting the *Twilight Saga* as an adult would be fun—making fun of my old crush, Edward, from my early 20s. 😂 But here I am, deep-diving into *Midnight Sun* and the audiobooks, and I can’t believe how much I’m analyzing (and still making fun of) this series! Who knew sparkly vampires could still capture my attention? 🧛‍♂️✨

Let’s talk about that “Goodbyes” chapter in *Twilight*. You’d think a scene where Bella is forced to lie to Charlie, leave him behind, and run for her life would be dripping with emotion, right? Well, not so much in the audiobook. 😬 Don’t get me wrong—no offense to the narrator, Ilyana Kadushin, but her reading of that chapter left me feeling a little... underwhelmed. 😐 It was like listening to someone reading a grocery list rather than a life-or-death situation. Maybe it was the director's choice, but either way, the emotion just wasn’t there. I mean, Bella is supposed to be terrified, desperate, and heartbroken, but the delivery was flat. You need to feel the tension, the fear, the urgency—and, unfortunately, it didn’t quite hit the mark for me. 😕📖 It’s like Bella was reading her breakup lines off a cue card. You’d expect more drama from someone who’s about to fake-break her dad’s heart and then flee from a murderous vampire! 🥀

But OMG, let me tell you—*Midnight Sun*’s audiobook is a game-changer. 🙌 Jake Abel, who narrates *Midnight Sun*, absolutely nails it. He reads Bella’s part with so much emotion that it’s like you’re hearing her cry and yell in real-time. And honestly, that chapter needed it! 😭 The way he brings Bella’s terror and heartbreak to life is so intense that it’s impossible not to feel it. The difference is night and day. While *Twilight*’s audiobook felt like a distant memory, *Midnight Sun* pulled me right back into the chaos and desperation of that moment. It’s the perfect example of how a great narrator can completely change the experience of a book. 🎧💥 Jake Abel made me feel like I was in the room with Bella, crying and panicking, and it was everything I didn’t know I needed! 😅

But it doesn’t stop there. Throughout the entire *Midnight Sun* audiobook, Jake Abel is fantastic at switching tones and voices for the different characters. His Edward is spot-on—full of angst, confusion, and that deep, obsessive love that we all secretly swooned over back in the day. 💔 He really brought Book Edward to life in a way that makes you understand his internal struggles on a whole new level. It’s like hearing Edward’s voice in your head, and suddenly, all those dramatic monologues make perfect sense. Jake’s performance is so good that it might just make you fall for Edward all over again. 😅❤️ It’s like he’s channeling Edward’s inner drama queen with every word—seriously, I had flashbacks to all the times I swooned over this sparkly vampire back in the day! 😂✨

I mean, let’s be real—Rob Pattinson is the perfect Movie Edward, no doubt. 🖤 But when it comes to the book version of Edward, Jake Abel takes the crown. 👑 His narration is everything I didn’t know I needed from *Midnight Sun*. He captures Edward’s torment, his love for Bella, and his struggle with his vampire nature in such a compelling way that it’s hard not to get swept up in it all over again. Rob and Jake together would be like the ultimate Edward dream team! 😍 Imagine Rob’s smoldering looks paired with Jake’s emotional voice acting—my heart wouldn’t survive! 😵💖

So, if you’re looking for a way to experience *Midnight Sun* on a whole new level, I highly recommend the audiobook. 🎧 And if you’ve already read *Twilight* and felt like something was missing, give *Midnight Sun* a listen—you might just find that the story hits a little harder when you can hear Edward’s pain, fear, and love in every word. 🔥 Trust me, it’s worth the emotional rollercoaster—stock up on tissues and get ready to feel all the feels! 😭🎢

I might write one more post about *Midnight Sun*—specifically that insane car chase—before I move on to *New Moon*. 🚗💨 Seriously, the way Edward steals a car like he’s auditioning for *Fast & Furious*—it’s almost too much! It’s just so over-the-top dramatic that I can’t not talk about it. There’s just so much more to discuss! 📚 Until then, keep your eyes peeled for more deep dives into the world of sparkly vampires, teenage drama, and all the things that made us fall in love with this saga in the first place. 💫✨

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, third place poll of the losers bracket

Propaganda:

For Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

you've got the founder of the fantasy ancient Chinese CIA and the leader of what is essentially the mafia and then they're soulmates and in love. they're both willing to kill anyone who dares hurt the other while also just wanting a soft domestic life together

Zhou Zishu is an assassin and spymaster who put the current Emperor on the throne, and then quit his job by faking his death (kinda, hes still dying but not as fast as he was supposed to). Had done A Lot on his old job, including murdering children (more than one, and at least one of them in a way I can't even describe without several trigger warnings), exterminating whole families, war crimes (and i dont mean this in a buzzword way, i mean "organized a public execution of foreign diplomats during war time")… btw he doesn't feel particularly bad about any of this, because he believes it was necessary. Like he wouldn't do it for fun, but he thinks the ends (putting a good Emperor on the throne) justified the means (all of the atrocities). As a retiree, he definitely cut down on the amount of morally reprehensible murder, but not murder in general. He still routinely kills ppl, he just doesn't go out of his way to kill more. Wen Kexing, meanwhile, is the Ghost Valley Master - Ghost Valley being a place where the worst of criminals are exiled. Even in such a place, he has reputation as a complete lunatic, owed partially to the fact that he either skinned a man or fed him his own flesh or both at one point, and partially to him having a rule where he would kill anyone who came closer than 3 meters to him. But in truth, everything he'd done was to survive the Ghost Valley and eventually take revenge for his parents, who were brutally murdered when he was only nine. By the start of the novel's timeline, he put his plan in motion - the plan that would drown jianghu in blood, but also deliver poetic justice to all responsible for his parents' deaths, as well as all who'd commit the same crime given the chance. And these two men, these two murderers and schemers, meet - and unexpectedly, find in each other the person who /understands/. The person who is just as ruthless and whose hands are just as bloody, but also the person who knows standing at the top of the world is not worth it, who seeks the same freedom of leaving it all behind, and who is still, underneath it all, a human, with human heart seeking connection. So you have this couple who understand each other with barely a word, and who want the same things - who are so hungry for domesticity and for people they can just goof around with when all their lives they had to measure every step and word - but ALSO where one half a couple is like "i gotta go murder hundreds in revenge" and the other half is like "ok pick you up at 6". (This btw is why I'm submitting novel's iteration of the couple in particular. Show wenzhou with their ridiculous breakups over morality could Never.) Also they were both hiding who they are when they first met, and later flirted about having figured each other out. Finally, I'll leave you my favorite quote that just. perfectly sums up their relationship: "And just like that, they fell asleep in each other's arms, steeped in the smell of blood."

You’ve probably already had submissions for them but I’ll add on. One of them founded an assassin’s guild and killed a staggering number of people. His malewife is the leader of a sect of insane murderous outcasts, and he attained his position by proving to be the most crazy and murder happy of them all. Most of the plot involves him wandering around watching his schemes get more people killed. Together they adopt a kid that was only orphaned due to said scheming (oops). They’re terrible and I love them.

For the Doctor and the Master:

Immortal genderfluid war criminals <333

So we all know the Master has killed plenty of people, but, despite their reputation, the Doctor has killed a more than average number too. Sure they undid the whole destroying their own planet thing, but that's still something the Doctor did. Also there's apparently a novelization out there where, when they were children, the Doctor killed one of their childhood bullies but then made a deal with Death so that the Master had the memory of it and became Death's champion, which is pretty messed up and murder husbandish. There are plenty more war crimes on the Doctor's hands, and the Master has killed countless people in a variety of creative ways. Also, I'm having trouble finding the quote, but I swear the Master once said something to the lines of "trying to kill the Doctor is just my flirting" or something similar. But I do know Missy (also the Master but female at the time) described their relationship as "older than your civilization and infinitely more complex". They love each other, they're constantly trying to destroy each other, they are the only friends they each have who can even begin to understand everything they've been through; they've known each other since childhood and they've watched (and helped) civilizations rise and fall together. They may not be who you first think of for murder spouses but they really are a beautiful example.

[planeoftheeclectic]

I'd love to know more about "palutena trap (kid icarus meets the parent trap)"

Ok so I just answered an ask about this with a bit about the inspiration and approach I'm taking to this fic so this one I'm going to list some of my favorite plot points in no particular order:

This is a "modern au" so everyone has normal jobs, such as:

Investigative journalist who lives on a houseboat

Mob boss

Lead singer for a punk band which is actually a front for an eco-terrorist group

Karate sensei

Drag racer

Ex-MI6 butler

California surfer bro

Dark Pit, given the option refers to himself exclusively as "The Dark Falcon of Vengeance" or similar because I couldn't stretch my suspension of disbelief enough to call him Dark or to give him a different name entirely (much as I love @stonemaskedtaliesin's Pip, it just doesn't fit in the context I'm going with)

Dark Pit's actual name in this is Pit Pairisetti, and Pit's name is Pit Pasupati. Dark Pit's name is a more alliterative romanization of Bairisetty, a Telugu surname which means something like "falcon," which I thought was appropriate. Pasupati is a Hindi surname which was mostly picked because I liked the way it sounded and wanted both of their surnames to start with the same letter, giving the camp counselors an excuse to call them Dark Pit and Light Pit instead of just using their last initials.

Pit is going to mostly accidentally steal a team of horses from Hades as part of an escape when he's doing something with the Forces of Nature as the analog to the canonical Lightning Chariot. It will be glorious.

There is a Sonic expy who will never appear on-screen who is Phosphora's greatest nemesis (and possibly ending scene implied love interest, depends on if I think of anything funnier)

The background ship is past Palutena/Medusa and I haven't yet decided how much reconciliation they will do. Less than in The Parent Trap, for sure, but maybe more than I originally planned.

Medusa and Dark Pit know all the sorry details about their breakup, but Palutena never explained it to Pit

Despite their incredible athletic skills, both Pits sink like a rock in water.

As you might have gathered from their names, I am making Palutena and Medusa Indian, specifically from Northern India and Southern India, respectively. This is mostly because I can and encouraged by the fact that there's a species of parakeets from India that have naturalized to Greece. I'm pretty sure they're the ones from the tumblr poem about unmannerly peas, which is one of my all time favorites, so even better.

They met in Hyderabad and decided to marry each other instead of waiting around for whatever arranged marriage their families had planned for them. This is also why neither of them can go home because they would literally rather die than hear their aunt sigh and go "this is why blah blah blah."

They won the houseboat from Poseidon in a poker game. Palutena played the cards, Medusa helped her cheat.

The divorce was really ugly. Like, dragged through all the tabloids levels of ugly. Pit doesn't know about it because all of his electronics have parental controls about that specifically. It ruined Medusa's PI firm, which is why she now works for the mob boss.

This is why Pit just knows about the bad things Medusa has done (there was a REASON the divorce was ugly and it was not all Palutena's fault) but Dark Pit knows about things that Palutena said about him, specifically.

The Pits spend some time at camp bonding in the counselors-only Jacuzzi, and possibly over a camp play. Can't decide how much Addams Family Values I want to throw in.

Hades has eaten human hearts before, but prefers Amazon River Dolphin. He says the stench of evil ruins the taste.

Despite all the plot I have planned out (this is going to be so much longer than TFP) I feel like I have so much less of it planned out than TFP (which, to be fair, is a murder mystery). It's always a big shift to jump from one to the other, and it's going to be even more of a shift once I finish TFP and start editing and posting in earnest, but I'm looking forward to trying a different style of editing when I get there!

[wearethekat]

May Book Reviews: Saffron Alley by AJ Demas

The sequel to Sword Dance, which is one of my particular favorites in the gay historical murder genre. Retired ex-soldier Damiskos and spy Varazda had a passionate affair in a high-tension situation. Now the crisis is (probably) over, and Damiskos is visiting Varazda, Varazda's home, and Varazda's family. Can they work out a long-term relationship-- or will hostile family members, bad communication, and a rumored assassination plot split them apart?

Writing a multi-series romance plot is a very delicate operation. There's a reason a classic genre technique is to switch to a new character for every book in the series-- it's really hard to maintain the narrative tension in a romance without jamming in really stupid second book breakups that don't make sense for the characters (or worse, a love triangle).

Which is to say, I'm impressed that this book managed to pull it off effectively. Damiskos and Varazda do have a lot to talk about. A fling does not easily and automatically transition into "living in someone's house as their partner." Further kudos to Demas that she managed to intertwine this plotline with a genuinely interesting Rumored Assassination Plotline, which involves both Varazda's family and the running weird cultist philosophers plotline

Beautifully done. Recommended, but start at book one.