#but singing it in church takes me back to the Nightmare Class

[isfjmel-phleg]

. . .

[falling-angelss]

Trip up

E1 ,, Chapter 1

  Summary: Wesley tries to go about his new day to day life, getting interrupted by who, in his eyes, is a rather strange individual.

    "The mass has concluded. You may go in peace."

  Once the final hymn comes to a close, I find myself in a rush to make it out of the cathedral before the crowd does. It's a nightmare trying to make it out of here in one piece, everyone always seems to gather directly in front of the exits at the end of the mass. As much as I love to see the friendly atmosphere, it isn’t as enjoyable when you seem to be the only one without an acquaintance in sight.

  It’s alright of course. I don’t have much time to chat with anyone today anyway. I have job training in almost an hour. I was lucky enough to get a job as a librarian's assistant at the library a few blocks from my apartment.

  They didn’t seem to have too many hire options… not a lot of people are too interested in library work nowadays. Besides me, it seems.

  Secondary school was a nightmare for me. I was… well, rather rebellious for a good few of my years, mostly as a desperate attempt to actually fit in for once. But once I finally straightened up, I was left with just about no clear path to take career wise. When I was a kid, I hoped I could one day be a priest. I was an alter boy for a few years, but that’s about as far as I got. Priesthood just didn’t feel right for me.

I suppose God has had other plans for me.

  Now that I’m settled in America, I’m taking virtual classes to finally get my degree in Library Science to eventually become a full time librarian. I’ve always loved reading in my free time, plus, I feel as though the serene atmosphere of a library could be just what I need. I'm honestly quite excited!

    As I finally make my way out of the church, I decide to walk through the towns park to get to the library. It’s a lovely spot for walks, and today is too nice of a day to not enjoy with a nice stroll.

  I look around the park, taking a deep breath every few moments, observing every little detail in the atmosphere. The well kept scenery, kids chasing each other around in a game of tag, people walking their dogs, the sound of robins and chickadees loudly singing from the trees, the cool breeze just lightly grazing me… everything about the atmosphere here is quite enjoyable. Usually I would be quite nervous to be heading to a new job, but it’s hard to be in a foul mood when you’re in such a peaceful little place.

  Or at least, that’s what I had thought up until now. Ahead of me I see what can only be described as a group of punks causing a ruckus. About 20 or more people all skating and playing basketball, shouting and listening to… well, not the most tasteful music, if you ask me.

  I feel a pit in my stomach as I hastily trot closer and closer to the group. In the past, being anywhere near groups like this usually ends with me getting shouted at or hit by something.

  Which, to nobody's surprise, I'm almost instantly proven correct.

  Of course, in the blink of an eye I find myself tripped over on the ground, hit by a speeding skateboard that bolted right under me.

  Some of my things have spilled from my bag, my papers trying to escape with the wind.

I groan, sit up and attempt to regain some composure, along with what little dignity I once had, and i begin gathering my things back up in a rush.

  I look around to make sure nobody else is coming to harass me, but I see one of the men quickly running over to me.

  Great. This is going to end well, I’m sure.

  I can feel the blood rushing to my face. Of course, I've made a fool of myself once again, and, oh, Of course, some vandal is coming over to make this even better.

  “Shit, are you alright dude?”

He rushes and grabs the papers that were starting to fly away from me.

  He’s, oddly enough, trying to help me I think? Hm.

  “I’m quite alright.” I say, just trying to get out of this mess as quickly as I can.

Though hard to see due to the sun shining right in my eyes, the man puts his hand out for me to help me stand up. trying to be polite, I awkwardly put my hand atop his and stand up, stumbling a little, as im still quite disoriented.

  “Sorry dude, dumbass over here isn’t very good on his board yet. You sure you’re alright?”

  He hands me my papers back and I look down at him, my brain finally starting to catch up with me.

  “Yes, I’m alright. Just tripped.”

  Glancing at this individuals features. He looks familiar. His bright blonde hair and… interesting fashion choices make him quite easy to identify. Have I perhaps seen him in church before?

  I suppose you really can't judge a book by it's cover, huh?

Lord... I, of all people, should know that by now.

  “I’m in quite a rush. My apologies… I have to get going.” I say, awkward and uncomfortable to no extent.

  The man nods his head. He picks up the skateboard that I had tripped on and walks past me once again. He pats me on the back before walking away for some reason. Friendly gesture, I guess.

  I realize im studying his movements. I guess my guard is still a bit high.

  “Alright, sorry about that, dude. Be careful!”

  “Things happen. Don’t worry about it.” I respond, now just trying to make it to my training on time. He waves, and I continue on my way.

  That interaction could've gone... a lot worse, actually. The Lord must be watching over me today.

  I continue to make my way to the library. The whole way there, I think back on what just happened. I’m sure I’ve seen that man at mass before. It seems a little that someone like him would be a church goer, but it almost gives me a little hope.

  After that, I don’t really think too much of it. I have to stay focused today, I don't have room to worry about desultory events like this.

      This week has already gone by terribly fast. I suppose that tends happens when your day-to-day consists of the same “wake up, work, head home, study, sleep” routine. Not that I mind of course, I find comfort in a predictable schedule. I always have.

    It’s Sunday once again, and I sit in my usual spot in the large cathedral, a bit towards the back so I can easily leave once mass is over.

  I fidget with my rosary as I listen to the priests homily, trying my best to focus.

  My mind is beginning to drift, listening to the priests words. I find myself in an almost meditative state…

  My eyes begin to close, focusing solely on the sermon.

  I hear a quiet shuffling next to me, snapping me out of my daze, and then I feel something poke me.

  I flinch from the hard jab into my arm. I can already feel my heart practically beating out of my chest. Way to give a man a heart attack, yeah?

  “Hey man, I thought I had seen you before!”

  Oh.

  It’s that bright blonde, oddly dressed man I had seen in the park last week, now quite loudly whispering a greeting to me in the middle of mass. He’s dressed a bit… cleaner. That's nice to see.

  I realize I’ve been staring at him for a few moments, confused and quite honestly flustered from being spoken to right now. I must look like an absolute fool.

  “You can call me Ari.” He reaches a hand out for me to shake.

  I hesitate, but I awkwardly accept his handshake. His hands are quite rough and calloused, They're almost painful to hold.

  “Uhm-“

  “Shhh,” we get hushed by the person in front of us before I can even get a word out.

  I whisper a faint apology, but I don’t think they heard me.

  Ari, as he introduced himself, leans in closer to me. I can smell the faint scent of cigarettes on his breath.

  Ugh. I hate that smell.

  “I’ll talk to you after mass. Sorry,” he speaks in an almost bashful voice. He scoots a few feet away from me, waiting for a good moment to make his way back to his pew.

    I don’t realize until the interaction has long passed, but there’s an uncomfortable pit in my stomach once again, and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. I’ve never been good at talking to people, let alone after being startled like that.

  Why would this guy be trying to talk to me? Especially now, of all possible moments. In the middle of mass? And I thought maybe he had manners.

  Maybe he’s trying to formally apologize for what happened last week? Though, that wasn’t exactly the biggest deal in the world, I don’t see why he would feel the need to apologize again.

    I guess I'll just have to talk to him and see.

Extra notes :)

sorry im writing this in like fanfiction format idk how else to write this stuff . Also sorry this is like kinda short and like really boring idk how to start this off in a like normal way LMAO… further chapters will be a lot better prolly okay…

[dadsbongos]

late night for a sinner

Movie/Game/Show: The Devil All The Time Dynamic: Arvin Russell/Reader Warnings: religious overtones cuz it’s this movie, described and enacted violence (against teagardin), preston teagardin (and all his sexual assault-y/manipulative bs) Notes: uhm people got married at like 20 in the 50s and i assume arvin is about 20 so no i will not apologize for making you his wife, my country-accent writing is bad(?) idk Summary: Arvin’s a protective man, especially when it comes to those he loves. ~~~

“Somethin’ ‘bout that preacher don’t feel right,” (Y/n) murmured to her husband as they stood outside the doors of the church, “Gives me a shiver right up my spine.”

Arvin nodded along to her words, watching as his grandmother and sister shook hands with Preston Teagardin - fancy name for a guy like him. A guy who gave women chills. He reached into his dress pants pocket and plucked out a cigarette before placing it between his lips, “Watch yourself around him, darlin’.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for Lenora, too,” (Y/n) crossed over the creaky boards of the church's stoop as people began exiting, her hands coming out for the man’s tie, “Did you loosen this durin' the sermon?”

“Too tight,” he let the woman adjust his tie, “You know how I feel ‘bout comin’ to these things.”

“I know, I know - hey, I don’t like comin’ either, but it means a lot to Ms. Emma and Lenora,” pulling back from the tie, (Y/n) placed her hands on Arvin’s shoulders, “‘Sides, someone’s gotta watch for that blasted preacher, and I think we’re the only ones who will.”

Removing the cigarette from between his lips, Arvin leaned over to kiss his wife’s forehead, pulling away to ask, “You take my light outta my pocket when you pressed my pants this morning?”

“Maybe I did,” she shrugged, grinning, “Maybe even I think you shouldn’t be smokin’ outside a church.”

“Maybe,” Arvin nodded, “Maybe.”

Emma and Lenora finally came out of the church and started towards the family’s truck, the two women got into the back with Arvin and (Y/n) getting into the front to finally head home. Lenora leaned forward as her brother started the truck, “You shoulda been in there for the goodbyes.”

“Oh?” turning her head and leaving her cheek pressed to the headrest, (Y/n) quirked a brow at the teenager, “What happened?”

“Reverend Teagardin said he’s interested in meeting you,” Lenora beamed at her sister-in-law.

“Just her?” Arvin pulled out of the church parking lot, “Seatbelt, Lenora.”

“I got it, I got it,” the girl waved off before returning to her previous conversation, “But yeah, just (Y/n). He was talkin’ about putting together a church choir. Thinks (Y/n) would have a pretty voice.”

“She’s got a pretty voice but she ain’t singin’ for no church choir,” Arvin’s brows furrowed, white-knuckling the steering wheel at the mere idea of that damned preacher trying to get close to his wife, “Not in that man’s church choir.”

“Let the girl speak for herself,” Emma cut in, “Thought I raised you better than that.”

Pursing his lips, Arvin turned to (Y/n) for a split second before returning his stare to the road, “Sorry, love.”

“It’s okay, baby,” she looked back to her sister-in-law, “You singin’ in the choir, Lenora?”

“I’d love to try.”

Clenching her jaw, (Y/n) thought over her choices. Leave Lenora to sing in that choir - leave her sweet, naive little sister-in-law in that preacher’s hands for far longer than was typical or wanted… Or, suck it up and sing for the bastard.

“I’ll sing with ya, sweetheart.”

Arvin sighed quietly, glad none of the women in the car heard him over the rumbling of the truck’s old engine. To distract himself, and by proxy the women in the car, he suddenly changed the topic, “This damn old truck. Gonna hafta fix it up or take it in.”

“You’re gonna take it in?” (Y/n) tilted her head.

“Thing’s old; I’ll do as much as I can, darlin', but sometimes there’s only so much I can do. You know that.”

“I’ll need to go with you,” the truck jumbled with the rocky bumps of their home’s pull-in, “Pick up a few things for dinner.”

Lenora felt her heart warm and lips quirk into a smile at her brother and sister-in-law. They weren’t so into the church as her and Grandma, in fact - Lenora’s certain they only played along to please her and Grandma, but watching them was nice. Nothing to play along to, just a simple, pure expression of adoration between the couple. Arvin was never a man known for something as soft and tender as love but (Y/n), since the two were in grade school, was easily able to pull it out of him.

From high school sweethearts into married lovers. It was overjoying to know someone else was looking after Arvin.

“I’ll check up on Mr. Earskell and be right out.”

“No, no, (Y/n),” Emma shook her head, taking the woman’s hand as she was assisted out of the truck, “I’ll handle things. You and Arvin go on and stay out here.”

She didn’t bother fighting against the older woman, she was the matriarch of the family - she was just the rule maker. It was only fair.

“You don’t hafta keep callin’ em Miss and Mister,” Arvin came out and around to the hood of the truck, “They’re part a’ your family now.”

“Feels improper,” (Y/n) rebuffed, standing beside her husband, “I’m just thankful they’re lettin’ me stay here.”

“And why wouldn’t they?” he knew why she felt that way - her own family was insufferable and he could barely stand being around them for a dinner - he couldn’t imagine having to live with them.

“Let’s not open that can of worms today, huh, love?” (Y/n) placed her hands on her hips as she watched her husband look over the truck’s interior and drag over his tools and oil.

“Don’t joke ‘bout that, love,” despite his words, Arvin was smiling slightly, “Poor fishermen work hard to get those worm cans.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” she sarcastically relented, peeking over the man’s shoulder, “Wish I knew anything to help you.”

“I could teach you a thing or two.”

“Maybe not now, baby.”

Which, of course, was code for ‘I’d rather not. Ever.’ but politely.

There was silence between the married couple as Arvin worked until he sighed and planted his hands on each side of the open hood, head hanging low as he murmured, “You’re really goin’ to that choir?”

“We both know I gotta be there for Lenora.”

“I appreciate that, but I’ll still be worried to hell ‘bout you,” he turned to face his wife, restraining himself cupping her cheeks and smearing grime over her, “Both a' you,” then he finally admitted as to why he was so apprehensive, “I’ve been watchin’ him.”

“You what…?!” she whisper-screamed, coming in closer to her husband, “Arvin Eugene Russell, you been what?”

“Watchin’ him,” Arvin almost regrets the admission at the sight of his wife’s shock, “He’s a no-good-sonofabitch, (Y/n). Messin’ around with a young girl behind his wife’s back. She’s good to him, (Y/n), she cooks him dinner and she does her best to keep him happy. He’s no good to her. He’s no good, at all.”

(Y/n)’s brows furrow, “Cheatin’ on his wife?”

“A girl from Lenora’s class. He’s worse than a cheater,” he turned back to the hood of the truck and quickly said, “We’re takin’ it in.”

“Why haven’t you said anything yet?”

“Nobody will ever believe me, (Y/n), you know that. Everybody here loves that damn radio bullshitter.”

Nodding quietly, (Y/n) fisted a hand in her skirt before turning towards the home’s door, “I’ll tell Lenora we’re goin’.”

The topic is ultimately dropped as they leave into town. As they take the truck in for the shop and as they pick out items for dinner that night and even on the walk home. Reverend Preston Teagardin didn’t come up again, neither did his affairs or his disgustingly, sickeningly low age preference for said affairs.

They weren’t the only people in town on watch of their new preacher in town, they were just another young couple walking home.

Even as dinner passed and time for rest came - as they pressed into bed and huddled together in the cold night. Teagardin was temporarily forgotten, pushed to the backs of their minds as they slipped into slumber.

And when Arvin darts up from bed after another nightmare over finding his father’s body that fateful night, (Y/n)’s thoughts are solely on her husband. Bringing him back into the present, where he’s not in the woods finding his father knelt down in front of their makeshift church but instead in bed with his loving wife. With his sister down the hall. His grandmother at the end of the corridor and his great-uncle's own room across from theirs. He’s in a home that isn’t going anywhere - he’s with people who won’t leave him, not any time soon anyway.

It’s not until the next day, after Lenora’s first day back at school for the week had finished and her daily visit to Hellen Hatton-Laferty was over, that Teagardin even peeked back into the couple’s brains.

“If that sonofabitch touches you or Lenora, tell me,” Arvin whispered to his wife, hands holding hers tightly before she went into the church for choir practice, “I’ll make sure ain't got no hands to touch you, or Lenora, or any other unlucky woman.”

“I’ll come right to you, honey,” (Y/n) was quick to confirm for her husband, “Promise.”

“Good,” he cups his wife’s cheeks and pulls her into a tender forehead kiss before going to his sister and giving her a tight hug, “Be the loudest one there, got it?”

Lenora chuckled quietly, patting her brother’s shoulder, “You know I can’t do that.”

“You can.”

Shaking her head, (Y/n) goes up the stairs and pulls one of the double doors open, “You just shouldn’t, ain’t that right, Arvin?”

A teasing shrug and he’s walking off towards the car while Lenora follows her sister-in-law up and into the church.

Teagardin is sitting in one of the pews with his back turned towards the two women.

There’s nobody else in the church despite having been told this was the meeting time. It’s silent. Preston still hasn’t turned to the two.

Lenora is fidgeting beside (Y/n) the longer the man stays quiet. The younger girl nervously bunching the skirt of her dress in her fists. Her brows drawn tight in confusion and lips pressed into a thin line.

(Y/n) steps forward, ignoring the nerves urging her to run and encouraging her knees to buckle underneath the weight of her body, “We’re here, preacher.”

His head lifted, a smile coming over his lips, an unnatural smile - one she’d imagined on the devil when he tricked another soul into his claws. Preston comes to a full stand and approaches the women, “I didn’t expect both of you to come.”

“I wanted to support Lenora.”

“How wonderful.”

~~

“Preacher’s dirty.”

“What?”

(Y/n) sighed, sitting up in bed and looking down at her husband and whispering into the night air, “Teagardin. He’s just as dirty as you said.”

Immediately, Arvin was also sat up, no longer tired and now entirely focused on his wife, “What happened?”

“Tried touchin’ Lenora ‘til I stopped him. Grabbed me. I got us out of there and now Lenora’s tryin' to figure out how to tell Ms. Emma.”

Arvin stood out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants over his boxers, slipping on a shirt and his hat before heading to the bedroom door and slipping out of the room. (Y/n) followed after, eyes wide and brain springing into panic as she watched him tug on his shoes. Hurriedly, the woman put her shoes on as well while Arvin snuck out of the home, her continuing to follow after him.

Once they were in the car, (Y/n) turned to Arvin as he pulled out of the driveway, “What the hell are you doin’? It’s late, you can settle this tomorrow, can't ya?”

“No. It don’t matter if he’s with his wife or at the church, I’m puttin’ that bastard in his place. I hope that woman leaves his ass,” he shook his head, “Rotten fuckin’ bastard.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

The man was silent as he drove towards where he knew the Teagardin residence was. Every few minutes he would take off his cap and run a hand through his matted hair - if he could force himself to do so, he could almost pretend this was a nice drive with his wife. A simple late-night cruise through town with the love of his life, but then he would remember exactly why they were on a late-night cruise. A peek at (Y/n) would remind him, she must be frightened to all hell - it must’ve been awful to be in that church. Be near that rotten man.

And Arvin’s rage was freshly re-lit.

“Is this the right time?” she remembered each time her husband had repeated the phrase from his father, it was usually enough to sway him from acting out at that moment.

“Best time there is. He’s asleep - won’t be expectin’ us.”

(Y/n) settled into her passenger side seat, turning her head to stare out the window, “How’re you gonna get him out?”

Arvin was silent once again, fingers tight against the steering wheel as they pulled up to the bend at the end of the preacher’s street. He got out of the car and stormed towards the Teagardin home with (Y/n) trailing after.

It wasn’t long until Preston came stumbling out of his home with Arvin banging on the front door. Cynthia was out soon after her husband, clinging to the door frame.

“Late night for a sinner, kids,” Preston rubbed at his eyes, “Can this wait ‘til the mornin’?”

“You try touchin’ Lenora?” Arvin was blunt, he didn’t like sugar coating and he didn’t like the people who did it. Turning, he gestured to (Y/n), “Tried touchin’ my (Y/n)?”

Immediately, Preston’s eyes widened, “Now, now, I- I didn’t do nothin’ to those two.”

“Callin’ my wife a liar?”

Cynthia looked between her husband and the younger couple on her lawn, “What’s this about, Preston?”

“You just go inside now, Cynthia!” the preacher called back to his wife, “These two are full of delusions!”

“Arvin, let’s just head home now - you can take care of this tomorrow…”

Shaking his head, Arvin only approached the older man further, “My wife ain’t no liar. And those hands ain’t free of sin.”

“Go inside, Cynthia!” Preston shouted at his wife once again before turning back to the other man, “You won’t say nothing. I will have your lives ruined. Who will the town trust? Me, or two scruffy children who married straight outta high school?” he gives a forced chuckle, shaking his head and pointing at (Y/n) with a shaky hand, “Your wife… she- she… your wife is delusional. She’s crazy.”

Arvin Russell had been fighting nearly his entire life - he learned from his father and he continued on far after his father passed. Preston Teagardin had never been an athletic boy nor had he been confrontational by any means, preferring to hide in the shadows and smile his way out of trouble.

It wasn’t a mystery as to how Arvin managed to land Preston on the hard ground, chest pressing into the dirt and hands tightly wound behind his back in Arvin’s hold.

He didn’t know what he was looking for in the man. He didn’t know what he wanted from the preacher. He couldn’t kill the bastard - he still had a sister and wife to look after when his grandmother and uncle could no longer. Was it admission? Was it a promise to not even look at the women of Knockemstiff? It wasn’t an apology, he knew that - because there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be giving out forgiveness.

“You take back what you said,” Arvin grunted out, pushing his body harshly into Preston’s back and hoping it’d hurt as much as when boys did it to him on the playground, “You take back what you said about my wife, you hear me?”

“She’s crazy!”

Arvin took a hand into the preacher's hair and smushed his face deep into the dirt, “If I- “ when Teagardin’s whining got too loud, Arvin let his head up before roughly smashing it back into the ground, “Fuckin’ listen when I talk. You listenin’?” he waited for a nod of confirmation before continuing, “If I even hear your name in the same sentence as my wife’s or my sister’s, I’ll bash your fuckin’ brains in, hear me?”

“Arvin!” (Y/n) finally screamed out to her husband, hands landing on one of his arms and pulling, “Arvin, you let him go!”

“He deserves this, (Y/n)!”

“I know, but dammit Arvin, you’re gonna get the sheriff on you, let’s go home!”

Giving one last thunk of Preston’s skull into the ground, Arvin stood and kicked the man’s ribs before nodding at Cynthia with a brief ‘goodnight ma’am’ and returning to the car.

“That was a dumb thing you just did, Arvin Russell,” (Y/n) scolded, rather lightly, as her husband drove.

“I don’t regret a damn thing about it, (Y/n) Russell.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” she reached over and snatched his cap before fixing it over her own head, “I’m proud my husband cares so much.”

“Least I could do for the woman of my dreams.”

[nevermindirah]

Ok it's Jewish Booker o'clock, I can no longer stop myself, let's do this!

Why Jewish Booker? Dude was born in Marseilles in 1770, which happens to be a FASCINATING time and place in Jewish history, and it adds ridiculous layers to his character (without excusing a damn thing). Alternately just because I think he’s neat :)

Jewish Booker headcanons that make me happy:

not to be all "real Jews do X" but Jews fuck with candles hard. Book of Nile thrives on old/modern analog/digital giggles. Booker lighting Shabbat candles, lighting yarzeit (memorial) candles for his wife and sons (sob), lighting a menorah, lighting candles just because he's feeling emotional even though it's not chag (a holiday) or a yarzeit and Nile thinks he's trying to be sexy but he's really just in his feelings. just like. so many candles.

maybe Booker was the person who punched Richard Spencer at Trump's inauguration, just bringing back that time somebody punched a famous neonazi in the street and said neonazi has all but stopped appearing in public after a few rounds of public punching

were the Old Guard in Charlottesville in 2017? how many times has Booker the Blond Jew infiltrated North American white nationalist / Klan type activities and then stolen their weapons and/or killed them? likewise there's plenty of horrifying white nationalist shit happening across Europe this century, how many Pim Fortuyn types has he been involved in taking down? (I Am Of Course Not Endorsing Violence TM ;) ;) )

SINGING. Mattias Schoenaerts sings in Away From the Madding Crowd but it's church shit, sigh, anyway he has a nice voice. a lot of Jewish prayer is sung/chanted (depending on when/where you are and the gender rules of the community you're in) and there’s been a lot of innovation to Jewish singing in Booker’s lifetime, and I just want Nile to overhear him singing to himself on Friday afternoons

Nile Freeman was four years old when The Prince of Egypt came out, she grew up on that shit, she would want to introduce her new family to that shit. Please join me in picturing Booker, Nicky, Joe, and Andy all shouting "that's not how it happened!!" throughout this beautiful nightmare of a movie with lovely animation and songs but where white people voice most of the Egyptian and Jewish characters, because Booker Nicky and Joe's religious texts all frame the Exodus story a little differently and Andy was probably there when it happened (except for how it didn't actually happen it's an important story but it's just a story pls just let me giggle about Andy being super old)

Read below the cut for sad Jewish Booker headcanons, French Jewish history (mostly sad), context on antisemitism (enraging/sad), and all the way to the very end for a himbo joke.

Jewish Booker headcanons, I made myself sad edition:

he is a forger. who was alive. in 1939. visas. VISAS. V I S A S. how many of us did he save? how many more could he have saved if he didn't sleep that night? how heavily does that weigh?

how do we think he BECAME a forger? most likely he was doing what he needed to do to support his family, which gets extra poignant if he was also trying to help his people, forging documents as well as money even during his mortal life

Booker raised Catholic by crypto-Jews adds ANOTHER layer to the forgery thing, no shit he'd get good at falsifying paperwork and coming up with plausible cover stories

do we know how Booker made it back home after his first death in 1812? his route between the Russian Empire and Provence in 1812 would've been a patchwork of laws about Jews, in case starvation and frostbite weren't enough for him to have to deal with, he's blond and could maybe get away with pretending not to be Jewish if he had to, alternately maybe synagogues and yeshivot took him in on his way home

the structural and sometimes-interpersonal dynamics of antisemitism cause many individual Jews to experience feelings of teetering on the fence between a valued member of a not-exclusively-Jewish community and a scapegoat/outcast/problem. HOLY SHIT BOOKER. "what do you know of all these years alone" is the most Jewish loneliness-in-a-crowd shit I've ever heard. fear that we're not wanted, or only wanted so long as we're useful — that's something that basically all people struggle with under capitalism, but it's especially poignant for many Jews because of the particular way antisemitism operates. (NOTE this can tip from a legit Jewish Booker reading to woobification of the sad white man who couldn't possibly be held responsible for his own actions because he's so sad, which, NOPE. it's very understandable for him to feel left out and misunderstood and not as wanted, as the youngest and not part of an immortal couple and maybe Jewish, but NONE OF THIS excuses his betrayal.)

Crusaders murdered a lot of Jews on their way to the ~holy land~. how many of Booker's people did Nicky kill on his way to kill Joe's people? has Booker ever actually talked to either of them about it?

I read this really beautiful fic about Joe needing to circumcise himself after getting run over by a cart (ouch) — this is a hell of a thing for Joe and Booker to have in common

just generally Jewish Booker adds more layers to him and Joe so clearly being such close friends, ugh that look Joe gives him when they're leaving the bar at the end of the movie, and I very much do not mean this in a gross Arab-Israeli-conflict way because Joe is Amazigh not Arab and Booker is Jewish not Israeli (and also a lot of Jews are Arabs) (but most importantly there's no ~eternal conflict~ between Muslims and Jews) (more about OP Is Not A Zionist below)

like, the UK and France (and to a certain extent Italy) carved up the former Ottoman Empire after WWI; among other things, the UK took Palestine, and they could've worked on eradicating European antisemitism so Jews wouldn't have to leave but instead they used their control of Palestine to encourage Zionist emigration of Jews out of Europe, and France took what is now Iraq, which has some pretty direct implications for US military involvement in that country in Nile's lifetime; France colonized Tunisia in the late 19th century and still held it during the Vichy era which means Tunisian Jews were subject to Nazi anti-Jewish laws which is just layers upon layers of colonial racist Islamophobic and antisemitic nightmares for Joe and Booker to live through

to be crystal clear before anybody gets ooh Muslim-Jewish conflict up in here, antisemitism is an invention of European Christians that they imported to the places they colonized, the European colonial powers encouraged Zionism because it was easier for them to encourage Jews to leave Europe and set us up as middle agents between the colonial powers and the ~scary brown people~, the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim governments historically have had a second-class citizenship category for non-Muslims that rankles my American first amendment freedom of religion sensibility but was very much not targeting Jews specifically, and these two men who've lived for a long-ass time through many varieties of geopolitical awfulness (and alongside a certain unwashed Crusader who has since learned his lesson) would have Things To Say about how our current mainstream discourses frame these things

getting off my soapbox and back to this action movie I'm trying to talk about, the ANGST of Booker's exile, which is simultaneously a very valid decision for Andy Joe and Nicky to make, an extremely long time for Nile who is only 26 years old to be separated from the one person on the planet in a position to really understand the crisis she's going through, and holy shit expelling a Jew from your group when he's already been expelled from mortality and his family and being expelled from places and continually having to start over somewhere new is THE curse of surviving through antisemitism, OUCH MY FEELINGS

Some French Jewish history:

France, like basically all of Europe, periodically expelled its Jews, but Provence (where Marseilles is) wasn't legally part of France during the expulsions up through 1398 so Provence had a continuous active Jewish community; about 3,000 Iberian Jewish refugees ended up in Provence after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s

the 1498 expulsion of French Jews DID apply to Provence but many "converted" to Christianity and reestablished a Jewish community when enforcement of the expulsion chilled out (which was in the government's interest because they were really into taxing Jews at higher rates, so much so that they taxed "new Christians" at higher rates once they realized expelling Jews meant they wouldn't be around to overtax, ffs) — by the mid-18th century Provence had notable communities of Jews and crypto-Jews (forced converts and their descendants who still kept some Jewish practices in secret)

Booker would've been 21 when revolutionary France granted equal legal rights to Jews in 1791 — his mortal life and first century of immortality happens to line up almost perfectly with the timeline of legal emancipation of Jews across Europe

the American and French Revolutions happened pretty much concurrently and took different approaches to religious freedom that make Book of Nile with Jewish Booker and canon Christian Nile extra interesting — French emancipation, at least from my American sensibility, is about secularism and religion not "interfering" (hence French Islamophobic shittiness about banning hijabs), whereas American religious freedom is more of "the government can't stop me from trying to evangelize / religiously harass people at my school/workplace/etc" — to be clear I think both countries' approaches to religious "freedom" are hegemonic as shit and have devastating flaws, but they're different models that emerged at the same time in Booker's youth and Christianity is clearly a source of emotional support for Nile and there's so much to explore here

Napoleon tried to ~liberate~ the Jews of places he conquered for his dumbass French Empire, but liberation from ghettos came with strings attached (like banning us from some of the only jobs we'd been legally allowed to have for centuries, and liberating us for the stated purpose of getting us to assimilate and stop being Jews) and many places that were briefly part of the French Empire reinstated their antisemitic laws after Napoleon was gone, can you imagine being a French Jew forced to fight and die in Russian winter for that jackass and then have to trudge back through a dozen countries whose antisemitism was all riled up by French interference?

Some facts about antisemitism:

antisemitism operates differently than many other oppressions, it doesn't economically oppress the target group in the same way as antiblackness or misogyny or ableism etc — the purpose of antisemitism is to create a scapegoat to blame when European peasants are mad at the king / the church / the people actually in charge, and structural antisemitism encourages a system where some Jews become visibly successful so that those individuals and our whole community are easier to make into scapegoats

one of the historical roots of antisemitism is stuff in the Christian Bible about moneylending as sinful — Jews in medieval Europe were often barred from owning land and Christians barred from moneylending, so some Jews found work in finance and some of us became very visibly successful for working with money — a few individual Jews running a particular bank or finding success as jewelry dealers turns into "Jews control global financial systems" scapegoating — a more recent example of this is the participation of nonblack Jews in white flight and the role of Jewish landlords doing the visible dirty work of non-Jewish institutions in American antiblack housing discrimination, Nile grew up on the South Side of Chicago and would have seen some shit along these lines and might repeat hurtful ideas out of a lack of knowledge, here's Ta Nahesi Coates on some of these dynamics

Booker canonically being a forger (specifically of coins in the comics?) needs a little extra care to avoid antisemitic tropes about Jews and money, I will happily answer good-faith asks about this if you want to check on something for a fic/etc

antisemitism in the United States where I live in October 2020 isn't institutional in the sense of targeting Jews for police violence or anything like that. it IS systemic, however, for example in all the antisemitic conspiracy theories the Trump administration and several other Republicans peddle (ie QAnon), and in how the Trump administration points to support for Israel as if that means support for Jews (it doesn't, it's evangelical Christians who push the US government to support the Israeli government because they think Jews need to be in the ~holy land~ for Jesus to come back that's literally why the United States funds Israel at the level it does). antisemitism also gets weaponized to encourage white Jews (those of us of European descent, who in the United States are definitely white because the foundation of US racism is slavery and antiblackness as well as anti-indigenous genocide, maybe European Jews aren't included in whiteness everywhere but we definitely are where I live) to side with white supremacy instead of building solidarity with other marginalized people (ie a lot of mainstream Jewish groups shit on the Movement for Black Lives because of its solidarity with Palestinians)

the Nation of Islam has a major presence in Chicago and its leader Louis Farrakhan who lives in Chicago has long spread a variety of antisemitic as well as homophobic bullshit but there are genuine good reasons many Black people find meaning/support in the Nation of Islam and Nile would've grown up with that mess in the air around her, this is a good take from a Black Jew about the nuance of all that

the way the Old Guard comics draw Yusuf al Kaysani is HOLY SHIT ANTISEMITISM BATMAN I hate it please summarize the comics for me because I DO NOT WANT to look at that unnecessarily caricatured nose why the fuck did they do that human noses are beautiful there is absolutely no need to draw Joe like a Nazi would

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice is a local NYC group that recently developed a fantastic resource for understanding and fighting antisemitism (pdf) 11/10 strongly recommend

Zionism disclaimer: A lot of Jews feel strongly that we need a Jewish-majority country in order to be safe from antisemitism. I strongly disagree with this idea on its merits (Jews disagree about who is a Jew and making Jewish status a government/immigration matter means some of us are going to get left out; also non-Jews aren't fundamentally dangerous and separatism isn't going to end antisemitism) but I have a lot of empathy for the very valid fear that leads a lot of my people to Zionism. Whether I want a Jewish-majority country or not, what Israel has done and continues to do to Palestinians is a deal breaker. Emotions run very high on this subject — I spend a lot of my not-Tumblr life talking to other Jews about Zionism and I'd rather not have this Jewish Booker headcanons post become yet another place where fellow Jews yell at me in bad faith. Block me if you need to, you're not going to change my mind. Call me self-hating if you want, I know I love us.

Racism in fandom disclaimer: I feel weird about increasing the volume of meta about Booker in this fandom. Nile Freeman is the main character and deserves lots of attention and adoration from the fandom — and she deserves emotional support from as many friends and orgasms from as many partners as she wants. I think Jewish Booker makes her friendship and potential romantic relationship with him even more interesting, hence this post. Ship what you ship, but be aware of the racist impact of focusing your fandom activity on, for example, shipping two white men while ignoring awesome characters of color especially the canon man of color one of those white dudes has already been with for a millennium. Please and thanks don't use my post for shenanigans like sidelining Joe so you can ship Booker with Nicky.

Oh and a non-disclaimer fun fact, Matthias Schoenaerts was born in Antwerp which apparently has one of the largest Jewish communities still remaining in Europe?? ~Jewish Booker headcanons intensify~

In conclusion: Jewish Booker! Just because it's fun! It exponentially increases the angst of his mortal lifetime and it puts his first century of immortality smack in the middle of the most intense changes to Jewish life since the fall of the Second Temple (aforementioned emancipation, also founding of Reform Judaism, the Haskalah, Zionism, and then of course the Holocaust). It makes his relationships with Nile, Joe, and Nicky more interesting and potentially angstier and with more intense commonalities and tenderness about their differences. It's very common for Jews to not believe in God (this confuses the shit out of a lot of Christians) and this would probably have further endeared him to Andy.

One more thing: Booker as golem. (A golem is basically an earthenware robot of Jewish folklore.) He's tall and blond and the most Steve Rogers-looking of all of them and from the Himbeaux region of France. THE trope of Book of Nile is he will do WHATEVER Nile wants or needs him to do. I was today years old when I learned that Modern Hebrew speakers use golem figuratively to mean "mindless lunk" and I'm choosing to squint and read that as "hot kind and dumb as rocks" because it amuses me.

[5lazarus]

third impressions on a third reading of the collected short stories of flannery o'connor

a rant: -I don't know a single Catholic, former or practicing, who doesn't have an intense relationship with her work. I associate her work with coming-of-age--I think I was 15 or 16 when my dad, a Catholic from the outskirts of Asheville, NC, presented me with his copy and told me to read "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" -you can see her building up to the brilliance of "The Displaced Person," "Revelation," "Parker's Back," and "The Artificial --". The white middle class of the South, discombobulated, whipped with the occasional brutal revelation from the sun. sometimes the characters keep it. sometimes they weep and lose it all. the one constant through the revelation of the Divine? racism, upheld by the church. O'Connor was a smug, slightly defensive segregationist, and she never hides that. (reminds me of the class and race politics of Fleabag season 2, but that's another thread) -sometimes I think she deals in caricatures and then I remember that a friend of mine nearly killed himself and our friends while driving our friends to a Sacred Harp singing in Georgia. He pulled out his Bible and was loudly declaiming passages on fornication as a way to distract from the fact his ex was in the back seat and forgot to keep his hands on the wheel. -the problem with reading all her work over the course of the week is that the way she uses the volta loses its impact and the skeleton structure of her plots shows through. that being said, I've had weird nightmares every night since I read her, and we bought an Oxford Annotated King James Bible after the urge to reread the psalms hit me. -it's possible to be haunted by a writer//she is someone almost everyone I know has an ongoing relationship with, and she would've hated every single one of us -there is a point where in the constant discourse of Southern identity, one grows tired of the rural maladaptive. most people have a good time in New York City. that's a running theme in Shirley Jackson's stories as well--the visitor in the city, swept away by their own neurosis. personally I find the city very soothing, and the sheer screaming of the woods in summer in rural Tennessee freaked the fuck out of me. -she puts the fear of God in you. "Parker's Back" made me curl up under a tree just like him. vanity of vanities--reminds me of a friend, just before he dropped out of seminary, telling me about his roommates' prayer competitions. -reading her made me sit down and scrawl out a list of "church stories"--different angles I want to take on the same volta of faith she shocks her readers with

[revengeoftheantichrist]

Seven Devils

Warnings: Fire, Alter sex, Priests gone wild, gore, stabbing 

AO3  <<<Previous

Day 6

You had been in the room when Sister Ruth had to give Claire’s family the news. Her mother’s scream of anguish briefly broke you out of your daze, the pain in her voice made you start crying again. You felt responsible somehow. You still couldn’t understand what tempted your friend to the fruit. You would be leaving on Monday, along with your friend’s corpse. Finally rid of this horrible place, but you could never forget it now, no matter how much you tried. You had tired yourself out from all the crying, choosing to take a nap and hoping that your sleep would be dreamless.

////

You hoped for too much. You woke from another nightmare; this one was the most troubling one you had. Maybe finally talking to someone about it would help. This led you to look for Sister Ruth, hoping she would be willing to lend an ear. You found her with the Mother Superior, who refused to leave the room when you asked to talk to Ruth in private. “You are my responsibility also, anything that can be shared with Sister Ruth must also be shared with me,” she said. You had never felt more violent in your life, but decided to hold it in. Sister Ruth gently took your hand, “Please Y/N, what is it I can help you with? Is there anything you’d like to share?” she asked kindly.

You swallowed before answering. “I’ve been having strange dreams, and they’re troubling me. I’m scared Sister,” you managed to whimper out. The mother superior rolled her eyes. Old Hag.

Sister Ruth brought your attention back to herself, “it’s okay, you can continue.” “I keep on dreaming about the convent being on fire. It is as if the structure was purposely built to be unstable and crumble in on all of us. I can smell the flesh burning. None of us get out of it alive. I feel like somethings going to happen during the feast day tomorrow and I think we all need to get out of here,” you explained. Sister Ruth didn’t say a word, just giving you a blank stare. The Mother superior on the other hand, began to laugh as you ended your story. “Child do not come here with dreams of false prophecies and mock our patron Saint. Clearly the stories you are hearing are giving you the wrong sort of divine inspiration.” You wanted to reply, to tell her she was wrong and that she would regret ignoring you, but Sister Ruth spoke before you could. “Y/N, you’ve been through a lot this week. I know it must be difficult to lose a friend so unexpectedly too. I think your brain is trying to cope with this all by spinning dreams with threads of stories you’ve heard during the week.” You looked at her with more tears in your eyes. You didn’t expect this from her at least. No one believed you and now you would be called crazy by everyone. You didn’t want to die by fire. You, nor your classmates deserved it. You had to warn them yourself. Without a word you ran out of the room, looking for your other friends and trying to find a way out.

////

You burst through the dorm room; all eyes were on you. “Guys I’m not trying to scare you, but we all have to leave right now. There’s going to be a fire here tomorrow and the Sisters are just going to let us all burn!” you shouted, hoping that they would listen and believe you. “What the fuck are you on about,” one of the girls spoke up, “I actually think you’ve gone insane.” “NO no no no I promise I’m telling the truth, I had, I had a dream and were all going to be burned to death and then the priest is going to take over the world” you explained. “What priest? Is this a joke?” “The priest Michael. The one that tried to get me last time!” You weren’t listening to what you were saying. You couldn’t see the crazed look in your eyes, you were heaving from running here, the way you were just so dishevelled. Before you could speak again, some of the staff came through behind you, wrapping their arms around you and dragging you out of the room. You kicked, screamed and even bit but they did not let you go. Eventually you reached a room far from the dorms and were unceremoniously thrown in. The door being locked just as you tried to get up. “LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET NOT LISTENING! LET ME OUT!” You continued to hit and kick the door, hoping that they would show some mercy. You realised your efforts were fruitless when your knuckles had almost been pulverised from hitting the heavy wooden door.

You decided to look around the room, reluctantly accepting the fact you wouldn’t be let out anytime soon. It seemed so familiar, you knew you had been here before. There wasn’t much in here, just a bed and a dusty set of drawers that hadn’t been opened in centuries. There didn’t even seem to be any electricity running to this room. You found some old candles and set them aside, preparing them for when you would need them. You wondered why there was only one set of belongings. The room was clearly big enough for two. Your eyes drifted to the drawers again. If they didn’t want you prying, they shouldn’t have put you in here.

The drawers were caked in dust, you cringed as you hand touched it. It took you a few pulls to get the drawer open, it had gone stiff from the years of neglect. You were pleasantly surprised to find something in there. A rosary made of precious gems. A decaying bible. Some other old books. And something wrapped tightly in some cloth. The rosary was heavy, and you could tell it was barely used. A strand of hair seemed to be caught on it, just like yours, same colour, same texture. The bible was almost illegible, the ink had smeared and bled. Some of it was singed away. The only section that you could make out was revelations. Only the worlds of destruction and death had survived the years it seemed. The other books were interesting. They had not decayed in the same way the bible had. The parchment was old, and it was all handwritten, but it had stood the test of time. It all seemed to be text on herbal medicine, smiling a little at the notes your mother had written you. The final item was the one that stood out to you the most. Mainly because you had no idea what it was. The item was heavy, the fabric seemed to be some sort of leather. You slowly unwrapped it, letting the fabric fall away from the item. It was an ornate dagger. Beautifully carved out of material you couldn’t quite put you finger on, but you knew whatever it was, it was precious and expensive. The blade was sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone you were sure of it. You decided to spend the night figuring out these books. You had nothing else to do anyway.

////

Sister Y/N had spent days going though her books. Her conclusion? Drastic times call for drastic measures. For some reason, regularly attending prayer and meals helped ease her mind temporarily. It also kept Langdon off her trail. He was busy with one of his ‘personally’ led study classes, the ones she was still barred from. For her this was the perfect time to speak to the Mother Superior. Floor plans in hand, she marched down to her office. //// She sat in silence for a while, waiting for her to finish her tobacco, she didn’t like to be disturbed in that time. She made the gesture for Y/N to speak. “Mother, you may think that I have gone insane, but I’ve been having strange dreams and I feel compelled to tell you and warn you.” She raised her brow, sitting up straight, “Continue.” “I’m sure one of the sisters must have informed you of the dreams that I had about the new structure of the convent, I’ve spent hours meticulously drawing up the plans revealed to me,” she began, pushing the said plans towards her mentor. Mother superior picked them up and began inspecting the details. Sister Y/N began to speak again, “For a long time, I did not know why an entirely new convent was shown to me. Most of our buildings are sound and functional….  But I have had another dream recently.” “And what did that dream tell you Y/N?” “A terrible fire will sweep the convent. It will destroy everything and everyone. I fear the dream may come true,” she explained. Mother Superior seemed to be lost in thought, mulling over the information. “Was there a date? And indication of when?” “The feast of our lady’s ascension.” The woman looked well and truly worried now, an expression that seemed so alien on this relaxed woman. The feast was two days away. Y/Ns voice began to crack, “I came to you to beg you to do something and to hand you these plans… I fear that I will not leave the inferno alive.” Mother superior finally spoke, “I believe you were given these visions for a reason child. God would not just choose anyone, out of this entire convent I would believe you the most.” Despite the differences the women had over the years, Mother Superior was the closest thing Y/N had to mother. If Y/N could save one person in here, it would be her. “That man must not get wind of this, understand? The men in the church seem to be praying for our downfall. Letting him know would foil any plans to get the sisters out, understood?” Mother superior asked. Y/n nodded, choosing her words carefully to not expose her other plan, “I think I could distract him on the evening you all need to leave. God has already decided I will not leave here alive so I will make sure you all get out safe.” Mother Superior did not question it, nodding in response. Both women stood to go to the door, a sombre blanket enveloping the room. The women hesitated a little, before hugging each other tightly. Y/N trying to remember the smell of the tobacco and roses. Both knew that this would be the last time they would see each other, the last time they could embrace one another. Tears stained both of their uniforms, but still not a word was said. A verbal admission of the finality of their meeting would break the women. They eventually broke away from the hug, Mother superior giving Y/Ns cheek one final kiss before letting her out. They both wished they had embraced for just a while longer.

////

The night had come where everything would be set into motion. The first of the sisters began to shuffle out of the convent, but sister Y/N was heading in the opposite direction. She made her way to the small chapel in her night gown, she shivered at the unusually cold summer air. She took something of her mother’s for luck, she was going to need it. She drifted down the increasingly empty hallways like a ghost. Silent but a vision nonetheless, hair and night gown blowing in the breeze. //// She said a final prayer as she opened the door. The incense was strong, and the candles were burning. All preparation for the morning mass that was meant to take place in a few hours. Father Langdon stood at the alter in all his glory. The candlelight gave him a halo-like glow. A light in the darkness. Sister Y/N slowly walked towards him, he watched with curious eyes, truly not expecting this tonight. Y/N looked into his eyes, before kneeling before him. She looked at him like he was her only god. The crazed devotion he longed to see. She reached forward and took his hand, kissing his palm and then his ring, the way one would for a king, holding his hand against her forehead before letting go. He just smiled at her, not saying a word, waiting to see what she would do next. She leaned forward and kissed his shoes, a reminder of the night she washed his feet. Michael groaned at the thought of it. He wished he had made her stay that night, that he had made her kiss his feet, that he had made her watch him stroke himself at the sight of her. Michael liked to play the long game and was willing to wait for her to come to him. Now he could reap his rewards. “Have you come to seek salvation?” he taunted. She only nodded, not finding the words she needed. His ringed fingers stroked her cheeks, wondering what to do with her next. “Do you have a God?” She shook her head ‘no’. He slapped her in response, the sound echoing off the stone. He lightly stroked her tender cheek again, repeating the question, “Do you have a God?” She looked up at him with her teary eyes, nodding ‘yes’ this time, “You. You are my God.” Father Langdon smiled at her answer, it was just the one he was looking for. His thumb moved towards her lips, feeling the softness before forcing entry into her mouth. His unoccupied hand drifted toward his trousers, palming himself before beginning to undo the garment. “Well then, you must learn how to worship your new God then. You don’t want to disappoint me now do you?” She sook her head.

Michael stroked himself in front of her. Y/N trembled at the sinful sight. Michael tapped the tip on her lips, “go on then, show me your devotion.” Y/N hesitated before opening her mouth. She slowly licked him, from the base to the tip. His groan seemed to shake the room, the candles getting just a little bit brighter. She took him into her mouth, going slowly and trying not to choke. The pace was far too slow for Michael, he took a hold of her hair and took over, setting a faster pace, not caring about the choking. The wet sound and the spit spurred him on even further. Y/N eyes were watering her throat already beginning to ache from the assault. She felt him twitch, but he pulled out with a ‘pop’. “Keep your tongue out,” he said between pumps. With one final stroke, he spilled all over her face, relishing in the sight of her covered in his seed. His fingers made a symbol on her forehead, much like one would on Ash Wednesday, but she couldn’t figure out what it was, lost in the daze of what had just happened.

He pulled her up by her shoulders, walking towards the alter, “Come, let me show you the true light,” he whispered. He pushed away the crucifix and the chalice, both cracking upon impact with the stone floor. He sat tall and proud on the alter, Y/N standing in front of him. He undid the front of her dress, holding her wrists in one hand to prevent her from covering herself up. Her nipples pebbled from the exposure to the cold air. Michael hummed in satisfaction. How he had longed to see her bare in front of him. His free hand groped and grabbed all around, not being gentle in the slightest. He was not a gentle man, and he would not be a kind God. His fingers reached between her thighs, she whimpered at the unfamiliar contact. She had only felt her own hands before. Michael grinned at the wetness. “Hmm? Well, would you look at that. A witch parading as a woman of god dripping for me,” he taunted. She tried to look away in embarrassment, but his gaze was far too powerful. She gasped as his fingers finally entered her, far bigger than her own. He stroked himself back up as he continued to thrust inside her. She began to twitch around him, just as her toes began to curl, he pulled out. “Not yet, come here.” He pulled her onto his lap, licking the fingers that were wet with her slick. He gripped Sister Y/Ns hips tightly, slowly impaling her onto his cock. Letting her feel all of him. Her hands gripped his shoulders as she got used to the unfamiliar stretch. Michael had waited too long to be inside her, burying his face in her bosom, drinking in her scent.  “Go on then, show me your devotion, worship me.”

Y/N hesitated a little, and Michael’s patience was wearing thin. He thrust up into her to encourage her to ride him. She took the hint and picked up the pace. Closing her eyes to chase her own pleasure. The room echoed with the sound of skin on skin. Sister Y/N had never been so intimate with anyone before, the connection felt almost holy. She wondered if the incense in the room was clouding her head or if the devil had cast a spell on her. She opened her eyes and looked into his, the room around them seemed to be set ablaze. The candle flames reaching a height she never thought possible. She felt his hand around her neck, squeezing slightly, bringing her pleasure to new heights. He was close, he wouldn’t be able to hold it in. His breathing became laboured, sweat dripping down his forehead. He threw his head back in pleasure, eyes closed and giving in. This is what Sister Y/N had been waiting for. She held her hand out and a blade sprang into her hand. The ornate dagger was heavy. She didn’t hesitate, slicing the man’s throat before he could cum. He let out a gargled gasp, but she paid no mind as she chased her own high, covered in his warm blood that was spraying from the wound. This was the closest she would be to God and she knew it. She removed herself from his corpse, trying not to dwell too much on what she had done. She put her night gown back on and made her way back to the limp corpse on the alter. She took the knife again, bringing it to his chest. It sliced though fabric and flash so easily, making her job so much simpler. When the incision was big enough, she reached into the cavity and pulled out his heart. She heard the cracking of beams and finally realised where she was. The building was burning and about to cave around her. She ran to the door, not looking back as the body behind her was crushed by the burning ceiling. //// She had run to the courtyard; the adrenaline was beginning to wear away now. She was in so much pain from the burns she had from the inferno. She had to push through the weakness, just for a little longer. She had buried her mother’s box underneath the apple tree. She knew no one but her would be able to open it. Letting the heart burn allowed the possibility of reincarnation and rebirth. Keeping it sealed prevented him from ever taking a physical form again. Forced into an eternal limbo. She gently placed the heart into the box. Her fingers were charred and painful. She made sure the box was sealed shut for one final time, muttering a prayer for forgiveness if the God above was still listening. She placed the box back into the hole, quickly burying it and hoping that no one would ever find it. She leaned back against the tree, looking up to the smoke-filled sky. She was not given the privilege of seeing the stars she loved so much. She could feel the heart beating behind her, trying to make its way out of its new prison. The pain had gotten worse now and the fatigue was catching up to her. She closed her eyes for the last time, accepting her fate finally. She no longer needed to run.

Neither God nor the Devil seemed to be done with her yet, hungry crows had begun to eat away at her flesh, going for her eyes first. Some of the sisters returned in the morning, only to find their friends charred corpse beneath the apple tree, where strange blossoms had begun to bloom.

Next>>>

[captain-sodapop]

so here’s a list of music moments I would have liked to have seen in supernatural:

Elmer Bernstein’s theme to The Hallelujah Trail should have been played during Dean’s just...absolute finest moment, whatever that may have been.  Maybe it was something we never saw, but it definitely would have happened close to the end of the show’s run.  Not only is it the theme to an old cowboy movie (and we all know Dean loves cowboys and westerns) scored by one of Hollywood’s best composers, it’s got such a fun grandeur to it that I think Dean embodies in his best moments.  Just imagine him contemplating whatever impulsive, batshit thing he’s about to do for all of half a second, he stands, puts on his cowboy hat, gets in his trusty steed, and goes off to kill the bad guys like the Last Great American Cowboy he is.

“Milky White Way” is a song off of one of Elvis’s gospel albums, and it’s just so Sam.  It is simple, clean, beautiful faith that dreams of one day going back to Heaven, back to you maker, back to your mother.  Imagine Sam sneaking out on a Sunday morning and walking into a church service while this plays and he seeks out comfort in his faith, in prayer, in such a rockabilly, Nashville way.  (Alternate take would have worked beautifully, as well.)

Mary should have killed some monsters and been seen driving cross-country to The Lemonheads’ cover of “Mrs. Robinson.”  That would have been so badass.  Here’s to you, Mrs. Winchester.

“Tomorrow” from Annie is a Jack song.  It might seem like a weird choice, especially since I’m not a huge fan of the play in general, but hear me out: Jack, awake in the middle of the night, scared of what’s to come, unsure of what’s next, a mess after another nightmare, and he bumps into Cas as he takes his nightly walkabout around the bunker.  Cas does what he can to assure him even though he himself is scared, and they go outside to watch the sunrise, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.  They’re both uncertain, but they have each other, and as the sun rises and the darkness of the screen silhouettes as if they have a bright spotlight on them, the song reaches its swelling climax before the spotlight goes out and they cut to the credits.

Rowena’s theme song is Bowie’s “Queen Bitch.”  Period, full stop.

Every snippet we get of Cas driving around, there’s something different playing on the radio, not just sermons.  He listens to a lot of hymns and pop music.

In an early seasons episode, season 1 or 2, Sam and Dean are undercover at a college toga party (complete with togas and olive wreaths) and get roped into “Shout” a la Animal House.  One of them is dancing, the other one is getting the kill during the song sequence. 

Macca’s “Dear Boy” plays the first time Sam loses Eileen.  But in a version of the ending where we get to see the two of them reunite after Dean’s death and they decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together, it’s George Harrison’s “What is Life” that plays in a montage of them coming together.  It’s funny, because Sam doesn’t know now what his life would be life without Eileen, just like he never used to know what it would be like without Dean and Cas and Jack.

“Everybody’s Gotta Live” is a very first apocalypse-era song.  Just the two of them, Sam and Dean, absolutely miserable after another thwarted attempt to stop fate in its tracks intercut with Castiel’s search for God.  All of it fruitless.

Why do I want to see Cas and Meg searching for each other in a busy club while “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” plays?  I just do.  Who even knows why they’re there, but they are.  Quick cuts between the two of them, a confident Meg and slightly nervous Cas, surrounded by smoke and bathed in dark, colorful light until they bump into each other and wordlessly, breathlessly kiss, Meg tearing off his trench coat and suit jacket just to get that much closer to him.

When Cas gets swallowed by the Empty, “Video Killed the Radio Star” plays.  (Video = the Empty, Cas = the Radio Star.  Get it?)  But like, the part starting at about the 2-minute mark where the guitars are just...woah.

Sam and Dean are riding along in Garth’s car on a hunt, late season 7 or sometime in season 8, and Dean reaches for the radio.  Garth, though, smiles and holds up a hand.  “Allow me,” he says, and MF Doom’s “Vinca Rosea” begins to play.  They emerge from the car in slow motion under a bright moon, and the footage speeds up as they hunt down the baddie.  It is the most badass Garth has ever looked and will ever look.

Montage of Standford!Sam set to “Campus” because DUH.

John is flashing back to his Vietnam days in, well, a flashback.  He’s completely sober as he tells Sam and Dean about ‘Nam, about the horrors inflicted by humans and ends the story by telling them “And that’s why I know how to make a bed with sheets so tight I can bounce a quarter off it.”   “Fortunate Son”, of course, plays.  Young Sam and Dean just kinda shrug at each other and say “got it, Dad.  Jungle scary.”  John rolls his eyes.

“Heaven On Their Minds” and season 6 Cas.  Tell me it doesn’t work.

They want Jensen to sing so much?  Dean apparently likes Fiddler On the Roof?  Alright, then he can sing “If I Were A Rich Man” in a weird, daydream-esque sequence in an episode where the case is one that forces a serious exploration of class and the brothers’ status on the fringes of society.  A window into Dean’s own desire to be secure.

Jack finally gets to pick the music on the drive home, and guess what?  He’s picked “The Rainbow Connection.”  It just makes him so happy, and he smiles the whole time.  Four bloodied and beaten men driving along in the Impala, and Cas watches on with fond bewilderment as the other three sing along.  (Sam and Dean really resist at first, but when Sam cracks, Dean is quick to follow.)

Sam and Dean do something spectacularly stupid (think Malcolm in the Middle levels of stupid) to “I Should Be Allowed to Think” because the brilliantly stupid idea is Sam’s, and he likes TMBG.  But also, he’s thinking about the life he gave up - all that potential, wasted.  The worst hope of his generation for sure.  But Dean looks like he’s having a good time and it miraculously all works out, so it’s okay for now.

“Things Have Changed” needs to be in there somewhere, definitely in the later seasons, but I’m not quite sure where.  It just needs to be there.  And “Duquesne Whistle” in some little diner and “Like a Rolling Stone” (like, that whole ALBUM) and UGH DYLAN IS PERFECT FOR THIS SHOW.  All the Bob Dylan!

Come to think of it, all of All Things Must Pass, too.  Just scattered throughout the show.  So much about love and faith and even brotherhood in there.

Two brothers, driving home to Kansas, standing amongst the summer crop after the rain as the sun slowly sets with a couple of beers and “Over the Rainbow.”  Just glad to be home.

[bogariel-frogariel]

A Wish For A Better World Part 2: A New Day, A New Life

Another part of my time travel fic.

Here is the ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25747657/chapters/62572741#workskin

Please give me food name puns. I need help.

------

Ruby's head spun as her back hit the soft mattress. She had to blink tears out of her eyes when she felt her sister's now-unfamiliar weight on her. How did she have forgotten this feeling so quickly?

This couldn't be possible. This wasn't real.

She was hallucinating. This was one last fantasy dreamed up by her mind before she died. Or before she experienced whatever the consequences of her actions were.

"Hey, Ruby, what's wrong?" Jet asked her, her voice holding the tenderness that she reserved only for when she was worried about Ruby.

Ruby swallowed back a sob. She'd gotten really good at doing that over the years.

She hesitated, but then decided to indulge herself, to immerse herself in this illusion. One last perfect, innocent, carefree day. Or however long the universe would allow her.

Ruby sniffed and smiled. "Nothing. It's just… we're fourteen now."

Jet grinned brightly. "I know. We're so old!"

Ruby swallowed again but Jet didn't notice her affected mood, bouncing off the bed and running over to her room.

"Come on, if we don't look proper, Mum will be mad at us, and I want to stay on her good side today. Dad said he was going to give us a surprise."

Ruby remembered.

They had managed to stay good that day, making it to midday without getting in trouble. Theo and some of the other Knights of North-Gumbia had followed them and their father as they went out and had lunch in Dulcington. When they got back, Calroy and their father had treated them both to a combat lesson. Of course, their mother had found out, and Ruby distinctly recalled hearing the echoes of her parents' fight about it, though her mother had not addressed it to them. It was one of the few things in her life she hadn't told Jet about.

Ruby frowned. She wondered why her subconscious chose this day. Why not the day after, when they'd slipped out of Lapin's class and gone to the secret fights held by the kids and street urchins in the Dulcington? Jet had wrestled her way to the top of the charts and Ruby had talked her way out of getting stabbed. On top of that, shad also successfully stolen from the four older kids who had pickpocketed her on her excursion the week prior. It had earnt them the respect that had them commanding the streets for the next four years. There had been challengers, of course, but none had been able to best them when they worked as a team. And they always worked as a team.

That had been a good day made even better by the fact that they had managed to return before Lapin had noticed their absence, though Ruby now wondered if the old rabbit had ever really been as blind as he pretended to be.

This had not been.

This year had marked the first year that their mother insisted that they have lessons on their Saint's Day. She remembers sitting in the room, eyes glazed as Lapin droned on before being dragged to the church to say their prayers before they had been allowed to properly celebrate.

She'd hated every second of that morning, anxious to get it done and hadn't been able to sleep that night, her parents' fight still ringing in her ears.

As Ruby made her way to her closet, she almost tripped over her art supplies, which she'd left strewn across the floor. This had been when she was between phases. Her carelessness with the equipment showing that she was about to switch interests. If she remembered correctly, she would take up singing and the lute next (she had been quite good at singing, but not as adept at the lute, and the dissonance between her talent in the two had caused her to lose passion for it fast) and then she would change to dancing for two months which would evolve to acrobatics by the time their next Saint's Day came around.

That was the one that had stuck. And the one that had been the most useful in the end. Though, she wished she'd somehow decided to pursue magic, that some twist of fate would have allowed her to begin learning it earlier. She could have been good at. Maybe even one day as good as Saccharina. But she'd never know. War wasn't exactly the best time to learn the complex foundations needed to be able to perform proper spells that actually caused damage.

Ruby couldn't imagine why a hallucination would have such mundane detail as the mess in her room.

This was an ordinary day. It didn't make sense for her to be experiencing this.

She was quiet on the way down, stewing as Jet practically skipped alongside her, chattering happily.

She'd had hallucinations before, she'd even had one or two visions; they had never felt like this.

This almost felt… real.

It struck as she was eating breakfast. She had followed Jet, just like she'd always done, and hugged her parents, a tight crushing one from her father and a warm but sharp one from her mother, and then took her place across from her sister at the table.

Theo was standing at the door, Toby on the other, less used exit, as they watched over them silently.

Lapin would already be getting ready for their lesson.

Liam was still in the Great Stone Candy Mountains, three months away from arriving in her life.

She dropped her fork when she realised it, the clattering sound cutting off Jet and her father's loud chattering.

"Ruby!" There was her mother's instinctive reprimand.

"Ruby, are you alright?" That was her father, his tone gentle and concerned.

Jet did not say anything, just stared at her. She knew that she was acting strange. She had not done this the first time around. This was not how hallucinations went. This was not plucked from her memory, the edges were to sharp, the details to minute.

This was real.

A thousand thoughts crashed through Ruby's head all at once. All she could do was stare as she realised the implications of her situation.

When she didn't react to their voices, her father rose and walked to her side, Jet also stood up whilst their mother leant forward in her seat.

"Ruby," her father's voice rumbled. That deep cadence had been one of her last comforts after Jet…

But Jet was alive. She wasn't dead anymore. She'd never died.

And she wouldn't. Ruby would make sure of it.

In that second, Ruby made a decision, constructed her plan and decided on to carry it out.

Her mother had once said that she'd grown into a woman who was not afraid to make her bloody way through the world. She had become good enough at politics and reading between the lines by that point to get the hidden meaning; that Ruby was ruthless and cunning and was capable of using both those attributes to get what she wanted.

It was time to test that assessment.

She blinked and looked to her dad, plastering a smile on her face. "I'm fine."

Her dad's hand tightened on her shoulder. (When had that gotten there? Ruby hadn't noticed. That was something she'd need to do better. She couldn't miss things like that. She'd missed too many things last time.)

She met the suspicious and worried gazes of her family, her eyes settling on her twin. "Really. I just had a nightmare last night. It's okay now."

Her mother frowned. "Are you alright?"

Ruby turned her smile to her mother. "Of course. Dreams can't hurt me."

She made it through breakfast and then they were herded to the tower where Lapin conducted their lessons under their mother's disapproving eye.

'We might have been able to use your nightmare to get out of this,' Jet whispered to her in twinspeak as she squirmed in her seat, barely one minute into their class and already wanting to leave.

Ruby nodded absentmindedly, but did not reply like she used to, when they would keep up their murmured conversations throughout the entirety of their classes instead of actually listening to Lapin.

She would not make the same mistake again.

Lapin was droning on about the history of Ceresia and its relationship to the Church, information that would have been quite helpful in her understanding in the future. Ruby listened with rapt attention.

She actually asked a question. A question that was on topic and not designed to distract Lapin.

Jet was gaping at her. Lapin blinked, shocked, but answered after only a few seconds' hesitation. Ruby ignored their reactions. There was little she would be able to do to explain her seemingly sudden change in personality, but she did not have time to slowly ease into it. She only had four years. Four years to fix things and make sure that the Church could not attack them from the same angle that they had the last time. They would not dethrone her father under false pretences. They would not turn Calorum against them. Candia would not burn.

If the bitchifex wanted to come for her kingdom, she would need to do it from another angle.

Ruby did not whine as they were dragged down to the chapel nor did she roll her eyes through her prayers. If she were to pull off her plan, she would need to cultivate the appearance of someone so devout that her faith could not be questioned, following in the steps of her lost aunt, the Saint Citrina.

Lapin noticeably hesitated when she willingly dropped to her knees at the alter and placidly listened to him, none of the nervous energy that she used to be filled with which would have her fidgeting through the entirety of his sermon.

When they were done, Ruby briefly contemplated pausing in front of one of the stained glass windows and bowing her head, but thought that that might be too much too soon. So, she dutifully followed her mother out of the small cathedral, ignoring the surprised looks that Jet kept sending her.

She tried to be cheerful on their lunch with their father at Dulcington, but she kept getting distracted, preoccupied by seeing old shops that had been burned down, by having Jet back at her side, by seeing the many fallen Knights still alive. Both Jet and her father kept sending her furtive glances, but Ruby didn't acknowledge them, shaking her gaze away from Sir Toby or Lamington, who had become her second in command on the streets, or Frostel, the travelling pickpocket, to refocus on the conversation that she was only minimally contributing to. People she'd never thought she would ever see again.

People that she couldn't let die.

When they arrived back at Castle Candy, their dad lead them to the training courtyard where Calroy was waiting beside a rack of training swords.

Ruby froze.

He'd been dead for so long, but the time had done nothing to appease her rage. She had never been as good as Liam, had never been able to rise above it.

"Now, don't tell your mother, but I'm about to give you both your first sword fighting lesson," her dad said with a wide grin.

Jet clapped her hands together and let out a manic laugh, but Ruby clenched her hands behind her back, breathing deeply.

She turned to her dad, and smiled as sweetly as she could. "Can I actually go down to the archery range, dad? I think I'd be a better archer than a swordswoman."

Her father frowned briefly before he smiled widely. "Of course, Ruby. We can go there after."

Ruby shook her head. She knew that as soon as she got a weapon in her hand, she drive it through Calroy's stupid face, regardless if it was blunted. She needed time to get her emotions under control.  She couldn't exactly murder her father's closest advisor.

Yet.

She just needed to find some proof.

Easier said than done, but she thought she knew where to begin looking.

"Why don't I go with Sir Toby now? I'm sure one of the archers will be there," she suggested lightly.

Jet frowned and turned to her.

"Are you sure?" she asked in Twinspeak.

Ruby smiled at her. "Yes. The new Head of the Army should have some private lessons.  I wouldn't want to cut that short. And I'm thinking of maybe being Head Archer."

Jet paused for a second before she returned her smile. "Thanks, Rubes. You're the best!"

Ruby nodded, feeling the thrum of the locket on her chest. She suddenly had to swallow back tears. She'd forgotten that it used to do that; thrum when either of them felt a particularly strong emotion.

Her dad was stammering. "Ah, yeah. That sounds great. If you wanna."

Ruby visibly grinned, bouncing on her toes as she threw her arms around him. "Thanks, pops."

Her father ruffled her hair like he hadn't done in over half a decade.

She flounced off, hearing Sir Toby scrabble a bit and Theo whispering a frantic order, before he fell in behind her.

"Archery is a very noble pursuit," Sir Toby commented as they approached the range. "I'm sure you will be very accomplished at it, Princess."

Ruby inclined her head at him respectfully, ignoring the stutter in his step at her sudden proper behaviour.

"If the Bulb above wills it, then I will succeed," she replied.

Her manners may have given Sir Toby pause, but her reply had him gaping. He blinked at her for a few seconds whilst Ruby continued.

"Of course, Princess," he eventually said and they fell into silence as they walked along.

The green sour strap archer attending to the range roused at their approach, straightening up and immediately assuming parade rest.

"Princess Ruby!" he greeted with a deep bow. "Sir Toby."

"I would like to learn archery, please," Ruby announced.

The man blinked at her. "Of - of course, Princess. I will get you a beginner bow."

Ruby frowned. "I want one that will work as a proper weapon, not a glorified toy."

The man nodded frantically. "Yes, Princess."

He whisked into the large gingerbread shed that housed all of the ranged training weapons, abandoning the arrows that he had been tending to.

Ruby rolled her shoulders, starting to do warm up stretches. She frowned as she assumed familiar positions that she'd used a thousand times before, feeling a stiff strain in her muscles that she'd hadn't felt in years.

Shit.

This body didn't have the muscle memory of her old one, which had been honed by years of acrobatics, archery and fighting, that she'd never stopped training, even years into peacetime. After it all, she had finally understood why her father and Theo had always trained so hard.

Ruby listened as the archer explained the basics to her, internally grumbling at how much she struggled to draw back the bow.

She nocked an arrow, aimed and loosed as the archer instructed her, grimacing when the arrow thunked into the very outer ring of the lollipop target.

"That is very good, Princess," the archer complimented. "Not many hit the target on their first try."

What about on the millionth one?

Ruby managed to cast him a grateful smile before she was loosing another arrow, her movements just a little awkward as she adjusted to her weaker muscles.

She would need to start training immediately.

By the end of her session, he was able to get her shooting to an acceptable accuracy, though the imprecision still irked her. She lowered her bow after about an hour, her arm aching. She wouldn't get much more progress that day, and she had things to do before Jet's training session ended. It had about an hour and a half left, if Ruby's memory served her right.

"Thank you," Ruby said, turning to the archer who had overseen her for the hour as she took off the guard on her arm. "I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name Mr -?"

"Sarone, Aeple Sarone, Princess."

Ruby inclined her head in the respectful nod that she was meant to give to her subjects. "Thank you, Mr Sarone. Your help has been much appreciated."

The man grinned and bowed. "Any time, Princess. You have a real talent for archery."

"You flatter me," she replied with a laugh. "I wish you a good day."

They entered the castle again and Ruby curtseyed at Sir Toby, a rather strange experience when she wasn't in a dress. She had worn them much more often in her last few years in the future, when she had been required to be seen as a formal figure.

"Thank you for guarding me, Sir Toby," she said. "I will not require an escort for the remainder of the day."

Sir Toby bowed at her. "It was my honour, your grace. I will be happy to accompany you on any other archery ventures in the future. It seems the Bulb above has blessed you with great skill with the bow."

Ruby smiled. "Thank you for the compliment. May the Bulb shine upon you."

Sir Toby beamed at her. "And you, princess."

Ruby nodded deeply at him and walked off, stopping by her room to pick up one of her many lined notebooks and shoving it in a large satchel with a bunch of her study materials, pausing just long enough to clean her room up. She hadn't been in the room since she'd left Castle Candy for Calorum all those years ago. She hadn't been able to re-enter it when all that would be left there was the ghost of her sister. Back then, or she guesses, yesterday, she didn't have the appreciation for organisation and order that she did now.

With a sugar quill and her white chocolate notebook in her satchel, Ruby made her way through the castle and sat down, cross legged in front of the four, humongous statues of her aunts.

Ruby started to make a list. Of things she needed to do, things that needed to change and things that she would not be able to change but would need to be ready for.

She wrote and she wrote, sifting through her memories and attempting to ensure that she didn't forget anything.

Eventually, she got herself down to a checklist for the next three days. It was short and sweet, but more complicated than it seemed at first glance.

Ruby sighed as she looked up from the book, staring at the statues around her.

She felt something in the back of her mind and Ruby almost screamed when she heard the whispers of the shadows echo around her.

She slammed her book closed and throw it, jumping to her feet as she ran her hand through her hair, tugging it hard. However, she paused before she could cast the shadows away. They no longer felt like the cold, destructive things that had urged her towards vengeance and rage.

These were… warmer. Their whispers did not tell tales of hatred, they just called welcomes in her ears.

Mistress… you are - you are here… you are home… let us help you…

They were a thousand voices speaking at once, all ready to embrace her.

Ruby closed her eyes and tentatively delved into her magic, feeling that the connection inside her was more indistinct, less rigid than before, but somehow more lively, thrumming with a sought of life that it had never had in the past (or, well, future). She felt sparks of energy shoot through her body as she channelled her magic and her eyes snapped open.

She gasped at what she saw.

In one hand, a ball of light glowed in her palm, whilst shadows pooled in the other.

In between them, streams of purple light danced around her, singing songs of growth and change and prosperity. Her vision turned misty as she finally felt it. Neither the cold destructiveness of the Hungry One, nor the blinding light of the Bulb scorched her soul. Whatever she'd done back there, that strange balance she'd found, had carried over into this world.

She could tap into both the Bulb and the Hungry One, the light and the shadows, and she could use them both to feel the ever changing world around her. Finally, she understood what Liam had been trying to teach her. The Bulb birthed them and the Hungry One took them at death, but the time in between was for them, was for the change and the growth that came with truly living.

She dismissed the Sweetening magic first, releasing it with a smile. She allowed herself to bask in the golden glow for a few more seconds before she allowed that to disperse too. They would be useful in the future, but they were not calling for her now.

Now, the shadows had news for her.

And, for the first time in her life, Ruby let them in with warmth and security in her heart, finding comfort in their protectiveness as she raised her right hand to her hear, allowing the black mass that was wrapped around her hand, to speak directly to her.

We can help you, Mistress… we have felt what you will need… follow us.

So, Ruby allowed them to lead her. At their bidding, she walked over to Sapphria's statue, and climbed it with more difficulty than she would like - she really needed to start her acrobatics training. However, she made it to the circlet, pushing the purple jewel that was inlaid at its crux, one that mirrored the jewel in Ruby's own circlet.

A compartment opened up in front of Ruby's eyes, books and scrolls and maps. But, most interesting of all, a clear, pale blue sphere made of pure sugar, and a set of four black daggers, each long but, as Ruby discovered when she picked one up, well balanced enough to use as throwing knives. Ruby took the sphere, the daggers and two of the books; one that was a pure black journal and another that was deep purple and pulsed with magic, and scampered down the statue, depositing her findings in her satchel just in time to see her mother storm into the room.

The queen paused when she saw Ruby.

"Ruby," she said, her furious scowl quickly being replaced by raised eyebrows. "What are you doing here?"

Ruby raised one of the history books in her satchel.

"I just wanted to do some studying in the quiet," she explained. "It's… peaceful here… calm."

Her mother took a deep breath in, glancing down. Her voice was quiet when she answered, "Yes, it is."

Ruby clenched her hand around the satchel strap, reaching back and stealthily summoning her white journal and quill into her hand before shoving them in the bag.

"You can stay here. I was just leaving," she told her mum. "I know people usually like to be alone in here."

Her mother looked up at her, eyes widening before she nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

Ruby hesitated for a second before she stepped forward and enveloped her Mum in a firm hug.

"I love you."

Her mother took a second to return the embrace. "I love you too, Ruby."

Before Ruby let go, her mother kissed her on the head. Ruby pretended she didn't see the defeated slump of her shoulders when the queen faced the statue of her aunt.

----

That night, after dinner, Jet's raised her eyebrows at Ruby's spotless room.

"Are you done with art?" she asked.

Ruby grinned. "Yep. I think I want to do something more active. Sitting still all day is boring. I think I want to try acrobatics!"

Jet matched her expression. "Like with the ropes and the flips? Cool."

"Yeah I want to fly through the air!" Ruby said as they both started to get ready for bed.

"And I want to be the most fearsome fighter in Calorum!"

Ruby giggled. "So you liked your lesson?"

"Yeah! I'm totally going to take over Theo's job! I'd be great at it."

"You should teach me what you learnt," Ruby suggested lightly, riding high on the exhilarating feeling of talking to her twin again after all these years.

Jet flung herself onto her bed. "I totally will."

"Then I can watch your back both up close and from afar."

Jet laughed as she got under the covers. "I'm going to be a great general, Ruby. I'll protect you. I'll protect everyone."

Ruby was quiet as she crawled into her own bed, staring at her ceiling, the orange light slowly receding towards the window as the sun fell below the horizon.

"Do you really not want to be queen?" she asked.

Jet sighed deeply. "You know I don't. But I also know you don't either, so I wouldn't abdicate and make you be queen. Even though you'd be much better at it than me."

Ruby snorted. "No I wouldn't."

"Yes you would! You're good at everything."

Ruby frowned. That was just it, wasn’t? Ruby had been good at almost everything she'd tried, but she had been only good. Never a great mage or a great leader or a great beauty; she had never been great at anything until she had started listening to the whispers of the courts and mastering its language. She had learnt to play the games more expertly than any other in Candia, and had used her skill to protect her sister, to protect her queen, to protect her realm.

"I've seen what the crown did to Dad and Mum," Jet murmured. "I don't want that to happen to me. I don't think I'm good enough to do it. I'd be a better general. I can do more good without being chained down by a crown."

"What if you didn't have to take the throne?" she questioned, voice barely above a whisper. "What if there was someone else."

She heard Jet shift up onto her elbows. "Are you saying that you want to take the throne? Is that what today has been about."

Ruby sat up and shook her head. "No. But I… I think I might know a way to help you."

Jet huffed. "You've been acting weird all day. And don't tell me it was just a bad dream! You've never lied to me before Ruby."

Ruby frowned. It may as well have been a dream, for it would never come to pass. Not on her watch. Now, it was just a nightmare.

"I'll tell you what I mean tomorrow night, I promise. Please, just give me time to make sense of it all," Ruby implored desperately. "I'm sorry. I just… I need just some time to get everything together."

Jet stared at her for a few seconds before she nodded. "Alright Ruby. I trust you."

She lay down and Ruby gave a sigh of relief as she did the same.

"Thank you," she said.

"Hey, it's you and me, right?" Jet reminded her with a yawn. "Jet and Ruby forever?"

"Forever," Ruby confirmed, lying down.

When Jet's breathing evened out, Ruby ducked under the covers, pulling the satchel towards her from where it was lying beside her on the bed.

She closed her eyes and reached out with her magic. She felt her heart lurch excitedly as a small ball of golden light appeared in her hand as Ruby opened the black book.

The first page read:

The Life of Sapphria Rocks, the youngest (and the best) Rocks sister.

Ruby grinned as she turned the page.

I don't know if I'll survive this war. And I don't know if anyone will find this, (I'm sure Gummy will hid it and all my other secrets well) but the world deserves to know of my brilliance.

For the person who found this, congratulations, I'm going to teach you all my secrets.

Ruby read until she felt her eyes droop and the words stopped making sense in her head.

But she learnt a lot, about poisons, about whispers, about the secrets of Castle Candy, and, most importantly, about how to establish her web throughout Calorum.

Ruby felt a resolve harden inside her. Suddenly, her list got longer.

She knew what she would need to do.

Her mind spun plans as she finally fell asleep.

She was not prepared for what awaited her when she finally let her eyes fall closed.

------

How did you like it? As I mentioned before, please give me food pun names.

[lovemesomesurveys]

Is your nose stuffed up at the moment? Nope.

Do you like apples? Not especially. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had one.

Do you ever read the newspaper? No. I read my news online for the most part and catch some on TV.

Is anyone in your house sick? No.

Someday do you ever want to go and see the Egyptian pyramids? Damn, it’s almost a 16 hour flight to Egypt from California.

Have you ever seen the Statue of Liberty? No. I’ve never even been to New York.

When’s the last time you got your hair cut? Back in February.

When’s the last time you rode a bike? Never.

Spring or summer? Spring out of the two, but meh. It means summer is next and that I don’t like.

Do you like to go sledding in the winter? I’ve never done it.

Do any of your friends’ boyfriend/girlfriends annoy you? I don’t have friends.

What time is it? 5:24AM.

Will you be calling someone tomorrow? No.

Have you smiled today? Yeah.

Do you wish you could start over with anyone? Sometimes.

Do you like Kid Cudi? I liked Day ‘n’ Nite. Whatever happened to him?

Or, who is your favorite rapper? Some that I listen to are Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj,  Drake, Post Malone, Travis Scott, DaBaby, Roddy Ricch, Bryson Tiller, Tory Lanez...

Have you ever created a survey? Once, a longggg time ago. Like, during the Xanga days sometime. 

Where were you today? I’m at home and that’s where I’ll stay. 

When was the last time you had to give bad news? I’m usually the one receiving the bad news.

Were you sad today? Sad is one of my personality traits.

Do you take any foreign language classes? I’m not in school anymore, but I did in high school and one semester in college.

When’s the last time you received bad news? My doctor wanting me to do ridiculous xrays that aren’t necessary and then throwing in the possibility of doing a spinal cord stimulator and I’m like yeah, absolutely not.

Are your parents together or divorced? They’re still together.

Is there one person you look at and automatically smile? My doggo.

Who are you texting? No one.

What are you doing later on? My Bible study.

Do you wish anyone in particular was still in your life? Yeah, a few people.

Who was the last person you were on the phone with? My mom.

What makes you happy? My doggo, trips to the beach, Disneyland, binging a show with my mom, that first sip of coffee, when it rains, fall, the holidays.

Ever liked someone older than you? Only by a couple years.

Which did you discover first, myspace or Facebook? Myspace. I’m old.

Have you kissed a: A, B, C, D, E, G, K, U, Q, V, T ? D and G. 

What was the last thing you ate and why? Ramen. I like having my nightly bowl of ramen, it’s my thing.

What was the last thing you drank and why? Starbucks Doubleshot energy drink cause I like ‘em.

How many tabs do you have open and what are they? 10: 2 are Tumblr related (1 is my dash and the other is my likes), YouTube, Pinterest, 2 LiveJournal survey blogs, Facebook, a Christian radio website page relating to something my church is doing, a website with different prayers and scriptures related to them, and Spotify. 

What browser do you prefer to use? I only use Chrome.

What’re five random things on your desk besides any computer-related items? I don’t have a desk.

What room are you in right now? Mine.

What color are the walls and floor in that room? White walls, tan carpet.

What’re the items closest to you that’re red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, gray, brown, black, silver and gold? Red: Red and black plaid throw pillow. Orange: Orange highlighter.  Yellow: Yellow highlighter. Green: Baby Yoda plushie. Blue: Mist fan. Purple: There’s some purple on one of my pillows. Pink: Bottle of Pepto Bismol. White: There’s white on my Starbucks Doubleshot energy drink can. Grey: My remote.  Brown: My Baby Yoda plushie is wearing brown. Black: Laptop keyboard. Silver: My laptop. Gold: A gold garland strand across my dresser from last Christmas. :X

Out of all the things you listed above, which is your favorite? Baby Yoda plushie! 

What kind of chair are you sitting in? I’m sitting on my bed.

Where would you prefer to be right now? I want to be right here.

Do you have any plans this weekend? No.

Are you excited for anything this month? This month is just about over, so I’m hoping it starts to cool down soon.

What’s the date today? It’s September 28th.

Is there anything special about today? No.

How’re you physically feeling right now? Tired and my stomach is messing with me.

How’re you emotionally feeling right now? Blah.

Have you ever traveled outside of your home country? I’ve been to Mexico once.

Can you speak, read and/or write in another language besides English? Some Spanish.

What language course did you take in school, if any? Four years of Spanish in high school and one semester in college.

What language would you most like to learn? I’d like to be fluent in Spanish.

What grade are you in right now? I’m done with school.

What would you like to get a degree in? I have my BA in psych.

What was you dream job when you were a little kid? I wanted to be a teacher.

What happened to that dream? I decided it wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore when I got older. I didn’t feel cut out to teach.

Speaking of dreams, when was the last time you had a sleeping dream and what was it about? I always have the most random, weirdest dreams.

Do you have more nightmares or good dreams? Mostly just random and weird.

Do you wake up a lot in the middle of the night? I’m always up all night, so no.

Can you sleep comfortably in another bed besides your own? I can sleep fine in hotel beds. Those are the only other beds I sleep in.

What book are you reading, what genre is it and do you like it so far? “Say You Love Me” by Willow Rose. It’s a murder-mystery and thriller. It’s the 4th book in a series and I’ve really enjoyed them all so far. They’ve all had a really crazy twist I didn’t see coming.

Are you a shorts wearing kind of person? Nope. I never wear shorts.

Is your grandparents’ house obsessively tidy? Yeah.

About how much can you bench press? I can’t at all.

Do you get embarrassed easily? Yes.

Is dinner done yet? It’s 7 in the morning.

Have you ever had your phone die on you in the middle of a conversation? I’m sure it’s happened before.

Is anybody in your family a carpenter? No.

Are you avoiding someone? You could say that.

How social are you? I don’t have a social life at all anymore. 

What’s your favorite primary color? Yellow. 

What were you for Halloween? I stopped dressing up a few years ago.

Do you like hot chocolate? Yeah.

What do you have pierced? Just my earlobes.

What’s your favorite type of tea? Mint or chamomile. 

Do you have any clothes from Walmart? I have a couple shirts.

Are you hungry? Kind of, but my stomach is feeling a little meh.

When did you get a Facebook? Back in 2008.

What color are your eyes? Brown.

How’re you feeling? Tired and blah.

What motivates you? I haven’t felt motivated in a long time...

Can you walk in heels? No.

When was the last time someone asked you your age? I get asked often in surveys.

Why are you taking this survey? I want to.

Do you ever sing in the shower? Yeah.

Do you keep a journal? This is my journal. I share a lot in these surveys.

When is your favorite time of day? When I have my first cup of coffee and the late and early hours when I do my usual routine of surveys and ASMR videos.

How often do you get headaches? Often. 

Have you ever tried a weird flavor of vodka? I had caramel vodka before. I don’t think that’s weird, though.

Do you wear a ring on your finger? Nope.

What are you doing? Besides the obvious, I’m listening to an ASMR video.

What’s the last kind of soup you ate? Ramen.

Do you currently have a sunburn? No. I wasn’t able to have my beach trips this year, which is the only time I spend a significant amount of time outdoors. I’ve hardly been out of the house at all since March.

Could you eat nothing but grilled cheese for a week straight? No.

Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced? Nah.

Who did you last text? My mom.

Who’d you last call? About what? My mom to ask her something.

Are you currently frustrated with someone? No one but myself.

Have you graduated from high school? Yeah, back in 2008...

Did you receive a good morning text today? I don’t receive those.

Will you be having sex tonight? No.

Do you drink hard liquor? No, I don’t drink anymore.

Have you met anyone new yet today? No. I highly doubt I will.

Do you drink water or soda more often? Water.

Do you straighten your hair? No.

When did you last talk to your brother or sister? Last night.

If you have younger siblings, how old were you when your siblings were born? I was 9 when my brother was born.

Do you watch the Big Bang Theory? No, I never could get into it.

Would you ever pick up gum from the ground and eat it? What in the actual.... NO. Ew, who the hell would do that???

Have you ever gotten stitches? Yeah, several times.

Do you pluck your eyebrows? Yeah.

Think back to the last thing you drank. Did you drink it using a straw? Yeah, I always use a straw.

Do you ever listen to country music? Sometimes.

This time last year were you happier then or now? Neither then or now.

Does your bathroom have a theme to it? No.

From inside of your house, how many doors lead outside? Two.

Do you sometimes use your music player to help you fall asleep? No.

What’s your favorite music video at the moment? I don’t watch music videos anymore. I miss the TRL days, I always looked forward to the top countdown and new video releases.

Can you play the violin? No. I took violin in 4th grade, but I just didn’t enjoy it. Me and the violin didn’t vibe like the piano and I did. I stuck it out for the year and then I was done.

Is the sun shining? Yeah.

Where did you go today? Nowhere.

Have you ever taken a survey while under the influence of drugs or alcohol? Yeah.

Where will you be in an hour? Right here in bed.

Is anyone irritating you? No.

Did you wake up in the middle of the night last night? I haven’t gone to bed, yet. 

The last time you burned your tongue or mouth, what were you eating? Probably ramen.

Have your parents ever threatened to throw your things away because your room was messy? No.

Is there any one food you constantly find yourself craving? Boneless wings from Wingstop.

What’s the longest time you’ve ever spent in front of the computer doing surveys? Well, my nightly routine consists of doing surveys. It’s usually between the hours of like 3AM to 7AM. Some of that time is also spent scrolling through my dash, but for the most part it’s doing surveys.

Name someone with big eyes. *shrug*

Do you like the humidity? Nooo.

Who will you hang out with next? My family.

Is your shirt pink? No.

What’s something fuzzy near you? Giraffe stuffed animal.

Are you going to do more surveys? Maybe. I should be going to bed, though...

Who is the most complicated person in your life right now? Me.

Are there a lot of trees in your yard? No, just one.

Did the last type of shoes you wore have laces? Yeah. 

How much money do you have on you right now? Some.

Are you CPR certified? No.

What genre is your favorite movie? I have several favorite movies that fall under the horror, psychological thriller, drama, romantic comedy, comedy, fantasy, and sci-fi genres. 

Are you texting anybody right now? No.

Who was the last person you were in a car with? My mom.

Do you like the picture on your license/I.D. card? No.

What’s your favorite thing to snack on while watching a movie? If I go to the theater then I gotta have popcorn.

When was the last time somebody hit on you? It’s been years.

Was the last person you met a male or female? Female.

Which one of your friends do you feel most comfortable around?

Do you own a map of the world? No.

What brand is your underwear? They’re from JCP.

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? Mashed potatoes and gravy and the stuffing.

Is the light on in the room you’re in? Nope.

Who did you last spoon with? I haven’t spooned with anyone.

Are you currently watching TV? It’s on, but I’m not watching it at the moment cause I’m watching/listening to an ASMR video.

Have you ever had surgery ? I’ve had several.

Do you own any clothing that has animal print? No.

Does your family eat dinner together? Sometimes.

Where do you work? I don’t.

Are you in high school? No. I’ve been out of high school for well over a decade now.

Do you have a TV in your room? Yep.

Are any of your electronics charging right now? My phone, laptop, and Nintendo Switch.

What was the last video game you played? Animal Crossings: New Horizons.

[nicostolemybones]

Transitioning to Manhood

Will felt a strange nostalgia looking at the box his mother had sent him, although it wasn’t a bittersweet feeling. It was a twisting feeling in his gut, a horrible reminder that his mom was clearing the house of all reminders of her child, trying to get the child she thought she remembered to snap out of a phase and return home. He picked up a knitted hat, barely the size of his fist- he’d been born premature, and his grandmother had knitted the tiny pink hat as soon as she received news of his birth. It was a pale pastel pink, almost white, a pearly quality to the colour, but years of collecting damp in a cardboard box had tinged it a dusty, damp grey. There were photographs, and Will was bombarded with pigtails and frilly dresses and patent shoes buckled with bows. “I think I would have cried if I’d been put in that monstrosity,” Lou-Ellen said softly, pointing at the photograph Will was currently holding, featuring him in a pink frilly dress for a Church wedding, holding a basket of bright pink and red rose petals, bawling his eyes out and lifting up the hem of the skirt to wipe his face. He looked about five.

The next picture showed the same dress covered in mud, Will grinning like a maniac chasing the vicar’s daughter with a worm in his hands and one shoe missing, hair a tangled mess. Cecil snorted and laughed. “Please tell me you put that worm down the back of her dress!”

“Nah, she picked up a bigger worm and chased me with it instead. We were friends in kindergarten,” Will replied, pointing out a photograph of him in pink flowery dungarees sitting opposite the girl, who was wearing the same dungarees in blue. “We made mud pies and put them in her father’s shoes in that picture,” Will said sadly, “we got into trouble for boyish behaviour and making a mess.” Will unceremoniously shoved the photographs into the bottom of the box, taking a few deep breaths.

“Are you okay, Will,” Lou-Ellen asked gently, placing her hand on his back and rubbing small circles.

“Yeah,” Will sighed, staring emptily into the box before picking out his birth certificate and staring at it. “I don’t know,” Will amended, and Cecil took the certificate out of his hands.

“We should burn this,” Cecil announced, “it’s useless. If you end up needing it for anything, you can just get it re-printed at the register office. Although you might wanna make some changes to it first. Until you can do that legally, Connor and Travis owe me a massive favour, if you’d like.” Will let out a small laugh, burying his face in his hands.

“My whole childhood is in this box,” Will said quietly, “and my mom’s throwing away all of her favourite memories of me, and I can’t bring myself to look at them.”

“Hey,” Lou-Elllen began gently, “we’ll make new memories, new photographs.These aren’t your memories, they’re your mom’s ideal childhood for you, it’s all the parts she didn’t like taken out and the select few moments she did pruned carefully and displayed to be her image of perfection. You don’t have to keep any of this, because that’s not how your childhood felt to you. They aren’t pictures of you, they’re pictures of the child your mom wanted everybody to see, they aren’t pictures that truly represent your childhood. You aren’t obliged to hold onto somebody else's image of you.”

“We can burn all of it later, mate,” Cecil offered, “just us if you want. And Nico too, of course. Kayla and Austin too maybe, if they aren’t busy.”

“Yeah,” Will sighed, “shoot it with a burning arrow or something.”

“That’s the spirit,” Cecil grinned mischievously, taking the box from Will, “I’ll go take this to my cabin and get my siblings to thoroughly vandalise everything so before you burn it you can have a laugh.”

“Thanks,” Will laughed, and Lou-Ellen pulled him into her shoulder.

“I’ll see you later, dude,” Cecil smiled, “and you, my bi-hexual girlfriend!” He kissed Lou-Ellen’s cheek and jogged off.

“Do you wanna go find Nico?”

“He’s got training now,” Will replied, “but I wanna go talk to Clarisse, do you know where I could find her?”

“I saw her heading to her cabin before I came here,” Lou-Ellen replied, “I’m gonna go work on creating some more sigils, okay?” She kissed Will’s cheek before heading towards her cabin, and Will set out to find Clarisse. She wasn’t in her cabin, or in the armory- Will found her sitting outside the currently empty Aphrodite cabin, holding a pale green and cream chiffon scarf in her hands. Will sat beside her, bumping her shoulder.

“It was Silena’s,” Clarisse said gently, “her favourite hijab. She used to cover it with pins and I’d put flowers through the pins. After we burned her shroud, we uh… her parents invited me to her funeral, at the Masjid. The mosque, that is.”

“It’s beautiful,” Will said, “you should keep it. She’d want you to have it.”

“Yeah,” Clarisse sighed, “don’t tell anyone I went soft, you hear me, Solace?”

“Message received and understood,” Will smiled, and Clarisse punched him lightly in the arm.

“She taught me how to put on makeup,” Clarisse admitted, “she used to do it real subtle, so nobody would know. She’d contour my whole face and she’d put on neutral eye shadows and clear mascara, cherry chapstick muted with matte powder.”

“I never noticed you wearing makeup,” Will replied.

“That’s because that was the point. She made it look completely natural. I’m not exactly… feminine.”

“But she taught you how you could be butch and still be pretty, right?”

“Exactly,” Clarisse replied, “she helped me to pass.”

“A true ally,” Will smiled, resting his head on her shoulder, “how have you been recovering from surgery?”

“I’ve had worse pain,” Clarisse smiled, “I’m still getting used to the extra weight on my chest, but Chris likes them just as much as I do, I think.” Will chuckled lightly, and Clarisse put her arm around him. “Anyway, you look like shit, Solace, what happened?”

“My mom,” Will replied dejectedly, “she sent a box of stuff from my childhood. I’m gonna burn it all later. Cecil’s idea.”

“I’ll be right there with you,” Clarisse said, squeezing his shoulder roughly, “providing I can take a baseball bat to everything first.”

“You can rip the birth certificate before I shoot everything with a burning arrow” Will offered, and Clarisse chuckled lightly.

“That’s my boy,” Clarisse grinned, punching his arm lightly.

“The thing is… I don’t hate my childhood,” Will began honestly. “I didn’t always know I was trans, I didn’t always hate myself, I just couldn’t understand that weird out of place feeling, you know? I didn’t know why things made me uncomfortable. I only started figuring it out when I came to camp… and now, it hurts to look at all the pictures, because they… they don’t feel like I’m looking at photographs of me, and the more I tell myself that’s me, the more I can’t stand to look at them, because I look so female. But my childhood wasn’t a sad one, I… I was loved once, I used to pretend I had nightmares so my mom would give me these butter cookies with warm milk. She knew I was usually faking it, but she didn’t care as long as I smiled.”

“Tell me more,” Clarisse probed gently, before wrapping Silena’s scarf around his shoulders when she noticed a breeze, keeping her arm around his shoulder.

“She didn’t always have a lot of time for me, with the singing and all,” Will began, “but when she did have time for me, we always did something. She used to take me to my grandma’s farm a lot. The chickens didn’t like me much, but there was this baby calf my grandma let me name. Which was a terrible decision, I called it Dustbin Grass,” Will announced with a small laugh. Clarisse snorted, and Will continued. “Anyway, the calf used to come in through the back door and lay down in the middle of the sitting room, and I’d curl up next to the calf. We had a height chart on the wall, and I’d always compare my height with the calf every week. And other days, my mom would take me on day trips. Sometimes it was just to the local park or play area, we’d feed the ducks and sit in the sun with a picnic. I’d always go on the slide, although some days it was so hot the metal burned and I’d start crying. My mom always used to wrap me up in a warm hug and she’d tell me that it was all okay.”

“That sounds nice,” Clarisse said sincerely, and Will continued to share his memories.

“I wasn’t so good with all the school stuff. When I was a kid, I hadn’t been diagnosed with ADHD yet, or dyslexia, but I still struggled. I was behind everybody in the class on my reading and writing and my handwriting was always terrible. I used to get frustrated and walk out a lot. And after break time, I always had a hard time calming down, so I used to be super bouncy and I’d need something to fidget with. And of course, I was a kid, so the louder the better. I’d get into trouble a lot and get sent out of class. I used to cry because I thought I was dumb, but my mom always told me I was the smartest. She’d take me on nature walks, and she’d point out different trees and birds and insects and I’d tell her what they were. And at one point, I could identify native birds by their calls. My mom made me feel smart, and I didn’t feel smart again until I came to camp.”

“How the fuck did they think you were dumb?”

“Classism, sexism, and ableism. Anyway, my mom and I used to have pamper weekends, where we’d just sit out in the garden with bowls of cold water for our feet and face masks, and we’d watch the clouds if there were any. Mom never used to put enough sunscreen on herself and she used to end up looking like a lobster. We’d talk about how our weeks had been, and about my mom’s record deals and tours. She mainly toured the South, she didn’t usually go far out from Texas, but I’ve always been travel sick and I can’t really handle anything over half an hour, so it was always better to leave me at home with my grandma sometimes. My mom and I lived in the city in Austin, but my grandma lived on a ranch. She used to make me cookies all the time and she’d tell me stories of mom’s childhood and her childhood. She’d tell me how lucky I was. My grandma was a lesbian, but things when she were young were… well, worse than they are today, so… she married a man and had kids and buried who she was. She always told me that I couldn’t help who I was, and that if ever I figured myself out and I wasn’t straight, then it was okay and she’d love me just the same. The vicar used to sit and have tea with my grandma every day, because he had a gay son and he wanted her advise on how to support him.”

“Your gran is a legend,” Clarisse smiled, “is she still with us or…”

“I wish I knew,” Will sighed sadly, “grandpa died when I was six and the year after, my nan met a woman, and she moved away and my mom refused to let me have her address or contact her. Everyone always assumes my mom is kind and loving because I have such happy childhood memories. But when you have a child, if you can’t love your child unconditionally, then you never loved them at all. I grew up, knowing, just knowing… that one day, I’d do or say something and my mom would know I was bisexual and my mom wouldn’t love me anymore. Knowing that your own mother will stop loving you, for the very thing that gets you beat up in the playground, for the very thing that gets you harassed, knowing that your own mother believes with all of her heart that her child deserves to burn in hellfire and brimstone for eternity just for being attracted to somebody… from a young age I knew that my mother’s love was conditional. For years, I knew that I didn’t meet the conditions for my mother’s love. And then I stopped going home because I was scared and I wasn’t ready to be abandoned by the same woman who promised unconditional love. And then I came out as trans to her and… she sends me the box. And it’s not just a box to remind me of my childhood, it’s all her favourite memories. It’s the drawings she stuck to the fridge, the photos she showed guests, the things she was most proud of me for. It’s her way of telling me that she hates me so much that those memories are worthless to her. Happy childhoods are empty gestures when a parent’s love is conditional. And I have to face biphobia and transphobia every day of my life, but it’s worse knowing I don’t have a home. My home is a summer camp. I’m alone. If the woman who swore to love me unconditionally, swore by her bible to love me and protect me and fulfil her god given role as a parent, can cast me aside like I’m disgusting, then how am I ever meant to feel anything but wrong? How am I meant to convince myself I’m worthy of love? I can’t even use public restrooms without fearing for my safety, how am I meant to feel safe enough to trust anybody?”

“Hey,” Clarisse began, squeezing Will’s shoulder, “you’re never alone. No matter what, I’ve got your back. I’ll kick a transphobes teeth, you know I will. We have to stick together, we can’t let the community be divided, okay? We’ll look out for each other. You’re not unloved. I love you. My mom is your mom now, okay? Actually no, I’m your mom now, kiddo. And you have the best friends you could ask for, okay? Lou-Ellen can and will hex anybody who tries to put you down. Cecil’s always got your back, he pranked that Athena kid real good, remember? And you have Nico. You’re dating the Son of Hades. He can and will turn anyone into a ghost if they hurt you. That boy loves you, okay? Your self-worth is not defined by your mother’s prejudice. Nico’s friends- Jason, Percy, Frank, Hazel, Annabeth, Piper, Reyna, Leo- they’re all allies we can trust. You’re not a boy anymore, Solace, you’re a man now. You’re making your own way in a world where the odds are stacked against you. You just gotta keep going. People will hate you no matter what you do. So surround yourself with allies, keep going no matter how bleak, stay strong, and when you can’t stay strong, use your support network. We’ll both survive if we stick together. If you feel scared to go outside, come and find me. We’ll keep each other safe. And remember. You’re perfect, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Aphrodite would want you to respect yourself and love yourself. Your dad would want you to shine and spread light amongst the hate, to rise no matter how many times you’re pushed down. My dad would want you to fight back and never stop fighting for your rights, our rights, for what you believe in. And I’m sure most of the other gods support you too.”

“Damn girl, now I know why you’re in charge of motivational battle speeches,” Will smiled, and Clarisse ruffled his hair.

“Good boy. Now, you’re gonna get back to that infirmary, and carry on as normal, okay? And then we’re gonna burn your birth certificate and all the other stuff.”

“I had my T shot this morning,” Will stated with a small smile, “after a few months, people no longer misgender me when they hear my voice and for once in my life, I like how I sound. I feel like me. My dysphoria is… it’s so much less intense than it used to be. I feel safer in public, I feel confident enough to speak as loud as I want without fearing judgment or misgendering or violence.”

“You’re getting a bit of a fluffy mustache too there, Solace,” Clarisse teased light-heartedly, and Will laughed happily. “I’ve gotta go teach the Aphrodite girls some self-defence classes, you have to prepare for the influx of inevitable injuries because the Ares cabin and the Athena cabin are sparring in the arena.”

Will went about the rest of his day with his head held high. For once, he felt proud of who he was, of the man he’d become, of the way he hadn’t let the hate he’d heard turn him hateful, how he helped people, how he tried his best to make every camper feel like they had a safe space, a home. He never wanted anybody to feel the way he had for such a long time. He prided himself on his kindness, and he vowed never to lose it.

So later that day, the camp stood around a pit of flames at the beach, all turned out to show their solidarity bar a few. Will wore his flag as a cape, and everybody cheered when Clarisse marched in still in her armour from the day, with a ‘fuck the cis-tem’ jacket, and ripped up Will’s birth certificate. Will smiled as he threw the photographs into the flames, one by one, his friends all cheering and clapping. He watched every painful reminder, every perfect image of his mother’s ideal child- graffitied on with funny mustaches and devil horns on his mom, courtesy of the Hermes cabin- of conditional love and rejection, go up in flames. For once, Will wasn’t defined by his past, but rather by his future, one surrounded by allies and friends from all walks of life. People of many religions and races, sexualities, and genders. And even better, he received a loving kiss from his boyfriend in front of the crowd. For once, he didn’t look back.

@solangeloweek day 2, childhood/back story building

[aerinmelina]

Growing up, I used to spend summers with my mom’s parents. They lived in a lakeside community which was also near an ocean, and I enjoyed fishing and swimming and boating and crabbing and such as a teenager.

Anyway. During the summer between my 6th and 7th grade years, my parents bought a house and decided to surprise me by having it all ready by the time I came home from my grandparents’ house at the end of the season. I remember walking into the house - I’d been there before, because it had previously been owned by friends of ours - and my mom said we were house-sitting when I asked her why we were here when our friends weren’t. She then led me from room to room and kept asking questions like, “Why do you think they put this in here?” and “Why do you think they painted this room pink?”

I wasn’t stupid. I know that Something Was Up. I just never imagined that my parents would have bought a house at all, let alone this one.

“Maybe they’re expecting a daughter?” I said. It wasn’t a baseless assumption; the couple who had owned the house previously were young and the wife had been pregnant.

“No, it’s because this is your room now!”

My thoughts at the time?

Pink. Oh my gosh. It’s pink. Whyyyyyyy.

Hang on. Is my mom letting me move in with this family? I mean. I’ll miss my dad and brother. But like. Why this family? I like them fine, but I don’t want to live with them.

(^^That is literally how far fetched I believed the idea of my parents owning a house was. They were terrible with money. The worst. And houses cost money. Lots of it.)

Anyway. My mom was offended that I was offended because my room was bright pink when, at the time, I was going through this tomboy phase and liked all things blue and black and she knew that and she painted my room anyway in her attempt to “girlify” me, which was not lost on me at all, and which I was equally annoyed with.

I digress. I had a new, pink bedroom in a new-to-us house. With a back yard. Which wasn’t next to a metal factory, so that meant my brother and I could actually play outside without like. Worrying about getting metal shavings imbedded in our feet. (Story for another day.)

Along with this move came a switch in middle schools. My parents fought hard to keep my brother in his elementary school, but they didn’t even ask to try and keep me in my middle school. I was 12. I would have to make brand new friends. I was pretty shy. I was not happy about this. At all.

I remember going to my new school to fill out enrollment forms and such. The school was literally 3 minutes away from our new house, just up the street; I would be walking to and from school every day, something which I was actually kind of looking forward to. If I could look forward to anything. I hated this. I didn’t ask to move. Our apartment had been just fine.

Anyway. Sitting in the main office at the new school, I was given a list of elective classes and was told to number them in order of my all-star favorite to please-don’t-put-me-in-this-class least favorite. The office staff told me that because I was enrolling so late, a lot of the classes had already filled up, but they would do their best to put me in the classes I wanted to take along with the standard courses that every student would be taking. I looked at the list. Choir :), Accelerated P.E. (wow that sounded like a nightmare), Art :), Metal Shop!!, Wood Shop!!, Drama (nah), Speech (Super Nope!!!), and a few others which I’ve forgotten by now.

My list went something like this:

Choir

Wood Shop

Art

Metal Shop

Accelerated P.E.

Drama

Speech

Speech was at the absolute bottom of my list. The office staff told me that the teacher for Drama and Speech was amazing, talked him up, and asked me why I didn’t want to take that class. I said I was shy and had a fear of public speaking. Duh. They kind of grimaced and looked at each other, then said, “We’ll do our best,” and sent my mom and I on our way back home.

I wasn’t surprised when I saw Speech on my class list a week or so later. I wouldn’t have it until second semester, thankfully, but I was already dreading it.

Seventh grade at this new school wound up being a lot of fun, if I’m being perfectly honest. I hated being the new kid at first, but made friends with another new kid who was way more outgoing than I was, and together we eventually made friends with more people. I have lots of stories to share there, but today I wanted to talk about Speech Class.

My speech teacher was, well… let’s call him Mr. Jones. He was outgoing, had clear expectations, was pretty mellow, and honestly? He was charismatic and the entire student body loved him.

I was a nervous wreck when I stepped into his classroom for the first time (and for most of the following times thereafter as well). For whatever reason, I had no problems singing solos in front of the whole school (and I did so twice that year), but the idea of public speaking was petrifying. And I even had lots of opportunities to practice that through both my church and school.

(I know I’m not alone in this sentiment.)

One of the first things Mr. Jones told us was that by the end of the semester, we would be able to deliver speeches and oral reports without using “filler words” such as “like”, “um”, and “er.” He also told us that our vocabulary would expand considerably, thanks to weekly tests he would be giving us (noooo). And we would be delivering speeches to one another on a weekly basis as well, on a variety of different subjects, and those speeches would increase in length as the semester drew on. All students were to compliment each presenting student on something they did well with each speech they gave, and critique would be solely left to Mr. Jones to provide. (Which was good, because let’s face it, 7th grade kids can be positively evil to each other.) Mr. Jones made it clear that we were not to judge or criticize anyone else’s speeches, and told us that he trusted us to keep each other’s speeches confidential. He explained that he wanted his classroom to be a safe place for us to talk about whatever we wanted; things we enjoyed, books we loved, problems we had, negative life experiences, positive life experiences, etc.

These were all very important factors which, honestly, influenced and changed my life for the better. I’ll get into that in a bit.

Mr. Jones’ class was tough. And I was terrified. I tried to drop his class, but was assured by the office that all of the other half-year elective classes were full; I didn’t have any other options. So I bit the bullet and decided to try my best. I would call no more attention to myself than I absolutely had to, I would try to not fail the vocabulary tests, and I would listen to others and provide sincere compliments. I would also - gulp - do my best at giving public speaking a shot.

I don’t exactly remember the method which Mr. Jones used in order to get us to stop using “filler words” in our speeches, but it worked. I don’t remember specific vocabulary words I was forced to memorize, but he was right; my understanding of the English language, and the number of words in my arsenal, greatly expanded. And I learned several important lessons:

Courage doesn’t mean that there’s an absence of fear. It means that you follow through with what you know is right, regardless of however much fear you are feeling.

Sometimes we are given tasks which we feel are way above our ability to manage. These are times when we must challenge ourselves to rise to the occasion.

(Going along with #2) You never know what you are capable of until you are put to the test. You’d be surprised at what you can personally accomplish.

Other people have different experiences than you; you can choose to listen and learn from their experiences, and you can 100000% do so without being a jerkface to them, too.

Teenagers are capable of respecting the people around them, are capable of empathy, and are capable of keeping confidentiality/maintaining bonds of trust. These are powers which teenagers do possess, and powers which they absolutely can control, utilize, and choose to exercise. (I was deeply impressed by my fellow classmates.)

One semester of a speech class didn’t cure my fear of public speaking. Not at all. But it did give me valid tools which I still use to this day. It gave me a lot of confidence in my capabilities to gather my thoughts on a piece of paper, organize them into a cohesive flow, and then be able to read those thoughts aloud without stumbling all over them. Mr. Jones laid the foundation for me to begin to think critically. To really consider my words before I write or say them. He drilled into my brain that I had a voice, and that it was a voice worth sharing and being listened to. Those are lessons I will never forget. And, because of Mr. Jones and everything I learned from him, I entered a career field which ultimately led to me speaking in public on a regular basis. I am a leader in my office. I provide training for our new and existing employees. I am aiming to become a manager within the next couple of years.

I’m still nervous when it comes to public speaking (especially during those times when I am speaking in a courtroom). I will probably always be nervous about it. I have been extremely close to vomiting from nerves in the past. But you know what? I’ve spoken before, I’ve survived, I’ve been successful at it, and I’ll do it again in the future. My confidence really started to blossom with my 7th grade speech class, where I received tons of practice, and that practice was further compounded by other speaking opportunities at school and church as well.

Mr. Jones was an excellent human being. He was well-loved for a million reasons. He believed in us, and we didn’t want to prove him wrong.

I believe in you, too. I say this, because I know that a lot of you need to hear it. I’m being sincere. I believe in you. You can do hard things. You can make it through.

[fysebastian]

❛ chicago’s very own sebastian ramone has been spotted in new york city in an aston martin db5, welcome ! your resemblance to timothée chalamet is unreal. according to tmz, you just had your twenty fourth birthday bash. your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re diffident , but being altruistic might help you. i guess being a pisces explains that. three things that would paint a better picture of you would be an overflowing ashtray, sleepless nights, and a thrifted jean jacket. & ( cis male & he/him )

hi everyone, my name is bee (it’s not rly but that’s the first letter of my name so close enough) & i’m excited to be here! this is sebastian & he’s kind of a hot mess and i can’t wait for you all to meet him. i’m going to try to sum him for you below, there’s quite a few triggering topics involved and those are abuse & suicide so please be advised! that being said -- send me an im if you’d like to plot or you can add me on discord @ mercury#7589. thanks for reading!!

basics

full name: sébastien émile ramon nicknames: seb, bash birth date: february 28, 1995 occupation: actor sexuality: homosexual birth place: chicago, illinois nationality: french american height: 5′9″ weight: 151 lbs afflictions: depression, ptsd smokes/drinks/drugs: yes/yes/yes

full story

sebastian was born to a newly wed couple as their first and only son, completing their happy little family as a healthy and lively baby who always seemed to have a smile on his face. his sister followed a couple of years later, and the two were always close growing up.

his childhood was modest, but they lived comfortably. his father was a french immigrant and the breadwinner of the family whereas his mother was of american descent and a stay at home mom. he was raised catholic and attended church every sunday and said his prayers before their evening meal.

from a young age he remembers being glued to the television, to the point where his family would have to turn it off just to make him go outside. he’d memorize the lines from all his favourite movies and recite them to whomever would listen. it became very clear that he had an attraction to theatrics, and had no intention of ever taking over his father’s mechanic shop.

his dad never really humoured the thought of acting but his mom was a little more supportive of the idea and took him to his first audition when he was six years old. from then on he just kept auditioning and he had a handful of various roles from the ages of six to thirteen under his anglicised name (which is what he goes by). it was decided that his mom would home school him until the age of fourteen when sebastian decided he wanted to attend the local public high school.

sebastian was a good kid, but like most children he did rebel. he was twelve when he discovered alcohol and thirteen when he discovered boys, and both became a secret he’d try to keep from his family. the transition to public school only gave him more opportunities to get in trouble, and most weekends he’d sneak out to some party or to hang out with his friends. on week days after class he helped out at his father’s shop.

so long as he kept up with his studies and continued to attend church every sunday, his parents were fairly willing to turn a blind eye to his misdemeanors. his relationship became more and more strained the older he got, however. it became more obvious that he was resisting their upbringing and he seemed to stray further from god’s teachings every day. his family was not as happy as it appeared to be, and his father was often drunk and verbally abusive to his mother. as he became older he’d throw snide comments his way as well. he almost never attended his school plays even when he’d get the lead role in every one

sebastian dropped out of high school early when he landed the lead role in high school musical at seventeen. by eighteen he’d filmed a sequel and a third was in the works when things came to a very sudden and devastating halt upon several explicit videos and photos being released days after breaking up with a guy he’d been seeing on and off for a few months behind closed doors.

this not only brought the very public pr relationship he’d been in with his on screen love interest from the high school musical movies to an end, it also terminated his contact with disney, who claimed he was no longer a good face to represent their company. he was outed and his parents wouldn’t talk to him. he felt like he’d lost everything, so it was a really dark time for him. it was too easy for him to fall into a downward spiral when he lost most of his friends that didn’t want the bad publicity and befriended all the wrong people, who introduced him to all the wrong things.

he went on a binge, he was out every night and woke up in places he didn’t recognize with people he didn’t know. he slept with whoever would pay him attention and swallowed whatever pill was put into his mouth. it was on one of these benders that he met his ex-boyfriend. this boyfriend resembled his father in so many ways but most of all the way he’d speak to him, like he was never good enough. then he put his hands on him for the first time, and it just got worse from there.

he was a shell of who he used to be, he fell off the grid and was easily manipulated by this guy who made him think he couldn’t do any better because he wasn’t worth anything. he was isolated from everyone he knew because he was so possessive and had a terrible temper so he didn’t want anyone else to get involved. he tried to get out a few times but it never went well, and so he let it go on for two years

the first time sebastian hit headlines again was when he attempted suicide and was rushed to hospital. from there he was sent to a rehabilitation facility to receive therapy and detox. by the time he surfaced again his boyfriend had proceeded to disappear from his life, taking all of seb’s things with him and leaving him with a barren apartment to come home to. 

it was from here that he started over in new york city, getting back into acting and reconnecting with his little sister who’d recently been kicked out of home after getting pregnant out of wedlock & needed a place to stay. there are times where the flashbacks and the nightmares and the negative thoughts feel like they’re suffocating him, but he’s doing a thousand times better than he was. he’s working on more healthy relationships and surrounding himself with positive people, but it’s hard because that’s not what he’s used to. 

his parents have since divorced and he talks to his mom occasionally but hasn’t heard from his dad in years. he’s been making a new name for himself as of late in roles that involve drugs, mental health and most recently homosexuality (cmbyn okay)-- basically everything he was too afraid to even try before. he still parties but not nearly as much and usually not as hard. he tries to lay low on the radar, but there are times when he still gets up to no good

personality/facts

sebastian is the kind of person who needs to be with people at all times. if he’s alone that’s when he really starts getting in his head. he’ll probably show up at your place unannounced if he feels comfortable with you and if he does it probably means that he needs to get away from himself for a bit. 

he’s a very touchy person so he’s always cuddling up to his friends and likes to hug and express his affection in a very physical way. 

he’s generally pretty nice to everyone and gets along with most people. it’s not hard for him to make friends but he’s somehow always questioning if people really like him or if they just put up with him. he’s very insecure about this deep down. 

he wears his heart on his sleeve and is a very emotional person. he cries when he’s happy and he cries when he’s sad. he’s sensitive and just wants to be loved :( 

very trusting of people and will likely forgive you again and again even if you don’t deserve to be forgiven

doesn’t seem to know he’s famous and is extremely humble.

he loves to dance even though he’s not the best at it and he loves to sing as well. he also plays the piano!

he lives in oversized hoodies and jeans and sometimes baseball caps. he’s also a big fan of knitted sweaters with quirky designs on them. definitely rocks the same pair of adidas sneakers until they’re no longer wearable. also band tees

he has a thing for old cars and vintage clothes. definitely has a giant record collection and is a big fan of rock music

has a few tattoos but they’re all hidden

he’s bilingual and has been in a couple of french movies, which never really made it big in america

he’s a chain smoker; he smokes when he’s stressed, when he’s drunk, when he’s bored, etc. so he’s kind of always smoking

rarely logs into social media because he doesn’t do well with negative attention

[trickkombowerskru]

Masterlist

A/N:Tumblr said this masterlist was too long, and for right now while a majority of my work can be found here, my newer posts,as the things at the bottom of each category say can be found on my new 2nd masterlist which can be found here :)

* = Smut or NSFW

It 2017:

Henry Bowers:

*NSFW ABC’S

Relationship ABC’S

*Scars

*Henry Dates An Assault Victim

Super Drunk Henry

Being Henry’s Step Sister

Henry Dates A Rich Girl

Henry Gets A Safe Home

Henry Helps You With Cramps

Henry Dates A Pianist

Henry Dates A Model

Being Henry’s Little Brother

Henry Dates A Biker Girl

Henry Getting Caught With His S/O By Butch

Being Henry’s Girlfriend

Henry Dates A Boxer

Henry’s Pet Names For His Girlfriend

Henry And His Girlfriend Accidentally Start A Fire

Henry When His S/O Is Mad At Him

Gift

Lies

Henry’s Girlfriend Comforting Him

Henry Hearing Rumors About His S/O

*Henry’s Girlfriend Taking His Virginity

Too Far

*Lazy Morning Sex With Henry

Henry’s Girlfriend Makes Him A Fall Sweater

Henry Comforts His Girlfriend After A Nightmare

Henry’s Girlfriend Tells Him She’s Getting Him Out Of Derry

*Henry’s Girlfriend Gives Him A Taste Of His Own Medicine

Woah! Who Is That?

*Being In A Poly Relationship With Henry And Belch

Halloween

Henry’s Pyro Girlfriend Gets Hurt

Henry’s Girlfriend Saves Him From Butch

Henry’s Girlfriend Finding Him After The Neibolt House

*Being In A Poly Relationship With Henry And Vic

*Henry “Congratulating” His Girlfriend On Getting Into College

Prom?

Henry Comforting His Girlfriend

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Patrick Hockstetter

How Patrick Acts When You’re Jealous

*NSFW ABC’S

Patrick Owns A Venus Fly Trap

*When You Play Patrick’s Game

Blur

*New Girl

Relationship ABC’S

Being Patrick’s Twin Sister

Patrick Dates A Youtube SInger

*Patrick Dates An “Innocent” Girl

Being Patrick’s Girlfriend

Patrick Wanting You Back When He Realizes You’re Real

Patrick Knows You’re Real

Patrick After He Kills You

Eyes

Gone

Patrick’s S/O Tries To Leave Him

Rings

Patrick When A Girl Ignores Him

Bugs

Graveyard

Bite Me *Part 2

Vampire!Patrick And His Ghost Girlfriend Have A Scaring Contest

Patrick When His Solipsistic Girlfriend Doesn’t Think He’s Real

Patrick Dates A Mute Girl

On Again Off Again….Currently Off Again

I’m Back

The Locker Next To Mine

Patrick Dates A Cheerleader

Goddess

*Hey Fuckface

*Preacher’s Daughter

Patrick With An Innocent Girlfriend

Patrick Corrupting A Church Boy

*Patrick Dates A Sub Punk Boy

Patrick Dates A Class Clown

Girl Next Door

Patrick With An Astrology Obsessed S/O

*Dead Girl Walking

Patrick And Jack Fight Over A Girl

*Patrick When His Goddess Cheats On Him

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Victor Criss:

*NSFW ABC’S

California Kisses

Relationship ABC’S

Vic Comforting His Girlfriend

Protection

Being Vic’s Girlfriend

*Being In A Poly Relationship With Henry And Vic

I Spy My Crush-Victor Criss Imagine

Being In A Poly Relationship With Vic And A Girl As A Trans Boy

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Belch Huggins:

*NSFW ABC’S

Sick

Relationship ABC’S

Dancer

Belch When His Girlfriend Tells Him She Wants A Baby

Being Belch’s Girlfriend

Coming Out To Belch As Trans

Belch Dates A Car Racer

Belch’s First Date With His Girlfriend

*Belch Being A Sub

Belch Calms Down His Angry Girlfriend

*Being In A Poly Relationship With Henry And Belch

Belch When He’s Feeling Insecure

Need A Ride?

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

All the boys:

Grown Up Bowers Gang

The Bowers Gang And Their Kids

The Bowers Gang As Fake Boyfriends

The Bowers Gang As Shitty JellyBelly Flavors

How The Bowers Gang Proposes And The Weddings

*How The Bowers Gang Reacts To Being Called Daddy

Saved

The Bowers Gang Soulmates

*The Bowers Gang With Innocent Girlfriends

A Losers Older Sister Dates A Bowers Gang Member

The Bowers Gang With Sassy Yet Sweet Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang’s Music Tastes

Modern!Bowers Gang

The Bowers Gang As Gaming Youtubers

The Bowers Gang With Girlfriends Of Color

The Bowers Gang Jumpscaring Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Holding Their Girlfriends Back

The Bowers Gang With Curvy Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Accidentally Hurt Their Girlfriends During Sex

The Bowers Gang Hurt Their Girlfriends During A Fight

The Bowers Gang Gets The Silent Treatment

The Bowers Gang At Their Weddings

The Bowers Gang’s Secret Handshakes With Their Girlfriends

The Bowers’s Gang With Tall Girlfriends

How The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriends Dress

The Bowers Gang Comforting Their Girlfriends During a Thunderstorm

The Bowers Gang With Bully Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang With Demisexual Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Coming Home To Their Families

*The Bowers Gang Having A Wet Dream

*The Bowers Gang Takes Their Girlfriends’ Virginity

The Bowers Gang With Insecure Chubby Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Comes Across A Wiccan

*The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Have A Wet Dream

How The Bowers Gang Wake Up Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang After A Breakup With Their S/O

The Bowers Gang Find Their Girlfriends Skinny Dipping

The Bowers Gang As Kitties

The Bowers Gang Waking Their Boyfriends Up From Nightmares

The Bowers Gang As Monsters

The Bowers Gang With Loud Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang And Trick Accidentally Hurt Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Trying To Get Your Attention

The Bowers Gang Seeing Their S/O Emotionally Vulnerable For The First Time

The Bowers Gang Being Clingy To Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang As Wolves

The Bowers Gang Finding Out Their Girlfriends Got Into A Car Accident

The Bowers Gang Drunkenly Reacting To Their Girlfriends’ Color Changing Nails

The Bowers Gang As Nice Guys

The Bowers Gang With Shy Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Find Out Their Girlfriends Have A Kid From An Old Relationship

*The Bowers Gang Find Their Girlfriends Watching Porn

*The Bowers Gang Catch Their Girlfriends Masturbating

The Bowers Gang Seeing Their Girlfriends Getting Kicked Out

The Bower Gang With Artist Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang When Someone Tries To Sexually Assault Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Moving In With Their S/Os

The Bowers Gang When Their Wives Get Pregnant

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Move Away

The Bowers Gang Cuddling Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Die During Childbirth

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Wear Their Clothes

The Bowers Gang With Girl Best Friends

The Bowers Gang When Their Wives Have A Miscarriage

The Bowers Gang’s Hidden Talents

The Bowers Gang When They Have Crushes

The Bowers Gang Comfort Their Pregnant Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang When Their S/Os Have Panic Attacks

The Bowers Gang Find Out Their Girlfriends Have Suicidal Thoughts

The Bowers Gang Reactions To Their Girlfriend’s First Snow Day

The Bowers Gang When Their S/Os Slap Their Asses

*The Bowers Gang’s First Times

The Bowers Gang With Dancer Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Give Them A Message

*The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Tease Them

The Bowers Gang’s Coffee Orders

The Bowers Gang When They Fight With Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang With A Crazy S/O

The Bowers Gang Saving Their S/O From Pennywise

The Bowers Gang Hearing Their Girlfriends Sing for The First Time

The Bowers Gang Getting Tattoos And What Kinds They Have

Modern! Bowers Gang Celebrating Halloween

*The Bowers Gang And Their Girlfriends Having Sex In Their Halloween Costumes

The Bowers Gang At An Amusement Park

The Bowers Gang See Their Girlfriends Getting Abused

The Bowers Gangs Sassy Girlfriends Shut Them Down

How The Bowers Gang Cuddle

The Bowers Gang Running After Their Girlfriends During A Fight

*The Bowers Gang Wake Up To Morning Wood

The Bowers Gang Date Rich Girls

The Bowers Gang Date Short Girls

*The Bowers Gang Get Pegged By Their Girlfriends

*The Bowers Gang’s Thoughts On Period Sex With Their Girlfriends

*The Bowers Gang Having Sex With Their Pregnant Wives

The Bowers Gang Going To IKEA With Their Girlfriends

Female!Bowers Gang

The Bowers Gang At Concerts With Their Girlfriends

*The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Tease Them In Public

*The Bowers Gang When Their S/O Squirts

*The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriends Sneaking Into Detention

*The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Get Their Nipples Pierced

Being The Female Leader Of The Bowers Gang

The Bowers Gang When They Get Cheated On

The Bowers Gang Dating Each Others Sisters

The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriends Catching Them Cheating 

The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriends Overprotective Brothers Catch Them Together

The Bowers Gang’s S/Os Give Them Lingerie Wearing Birthday Lap Dances

The Bowers Gang Get Their Innocent Girlfriends Drunk For The First Time

The Bowers Gang Find Out They’re Side Pieces

The Bowers Gang With Girlfriends Who Have More Noticeable Body Hair

The Bowers Gang Listening To Sad Music With Their S/O

The Bowers Gang With Vampire Girlfriends

*Vampire!Bowers Gang With Humans S/Os

The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriends Train Them To Be Hunters

*The Bowers Gang Getting Caught Having Sex With Their Girlfriends In An Empty Classroom

An “Innocent” Girl Joins The Bowers Gang

The Bowers Gang Befriend A Girl Mechanic

The Bowers Gang With Stoner S/Os

The Bowers Gang Get Stunned

The Bowers Gang Befriend A Rich Girl

*The Bowers Gang In A Hate Sex Relationship

The Bowers Gang When A Cute Girls Big Dogs Pins Them Down

The Bowers Gang Finally Get The Girl

The Bowers Gang Reuniting With Their Girlfriends During The Zombie Apocalypse

The Bowers Gang When Their S/O Is In Their Favorite Rock Band

The Bowers Gang When Their Crush Flirts Back

Adult Bowers Gang Christmas Traditions

The Bowers Gang With Impulsive Boyfriends

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Get Stalked

The Bowers Gang Having A Beach Day With Their S/O

The Bowers Gang With Curly Haired S/Os

The Bowers Gang When Their S/Os Are Stressing Over Finals

The Bowers Gang With Superpowers

Being The Bowers Gang’s Little Brothers

The Bowers Gang When Their Cuddle Up To Them For Warmth

The Bowers Gang Find Out Their Crushes Killed Someone

The Bowers Gang With A Drama Geek S/O

*The Bowers Gang Getting Caught Red Handed By Their Crushes

The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriend Sees Them Fight For Her

The Bowers Gang Find  Their Crushes High

*The Bowers Gang’s Crushes  Hang Out  With Them After A Bad Lay

The Bowers Gang Finding Their Girlfriends When  They Want Cuddles

The Bowers Gang Steal A Girl From Her Boyfriend

The Bowers Gang When They Fall  In Love With Their  Best Friends

*The Bowers Gang When Their Cam Girl Girlfriends Want Them To Be In One Of Their Shows

*The Bowers Gang And Their Girlfriends Having A Threeway With Another Girl

The Bowers Gang Find Out Their Girlfriends Have An Eating Disorder

The Bowers Gang With Soft Sweet Boyfriends

The Bowers Gang Falling Asleep On Their Girlfriends

The Bowers Gang Experiencing Love At First Sight With Their Soulmates

The Bowers Gang When They Find Out  Their Girlfriend Is Depressed

The Bowers Gang Doing Christmas Traditions With Their Boyfriends

The Bowers Gang Find Out Another Member Took Their Girlfriend’s Virginity

The Bowers Gang When Their S/Os Wake Them Up From A Nightmare

The Bowers Gang With A Psychology Interested S/O

How The Bowers Gang Sleep

The Bower’s Gang Gets Jealous Of Their S/O’s Best Guy Friend

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriends Pet Their Hair

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Poly!Bowers Gang:

Slang

*You Pick

Comfort

Healing

Rock Rescue

The Bowers Gang Pick Out And Carve A Pumpkin With Their Girlfriend

*Birthday Present

The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriend And Belch As The Parents Of The Relationship

Feisty

Belch Hurts Patrick For Hurting You

Caught In The Rain

The Bowers Gang With A Complacent Girlfriend

The Bowers Gang Seeing Their Girlfriend Kick Ass

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriend Is Dared To Date Them

The Bowers Gang Catches Their Girlfriend Dancing In Her Underwear

The Bowers Gang Find Out Their Girlfriend Is A Princess

The Bowers Gang Seeing All Their Girlfriends Tattoos

The Gang’s Girlfriend Giving Henry A Nice Christmas

Lost Without You

The Bowers Gang With A Drama Geek S/O

The Bowers Gang With A Half Angel S/O

The Bowers Gang With A Broadway Performer S/O

I Dare You

The Bowers Gang Messing With Their Girlfriend’s Towel

The Bowers Gang During A Zombie Apocalypse

The Bower’s Gang When Their Girlfriend Fights Greta

Score

*Being In A Poly Relationship With The Bowers Gang

The Bowers Gang When Their Girlfriend Is In The Hospital

Sorry

The Bowers Gang’s Girlfriend Pranking Them With Spicy Chocolate

The Bowers Gang And Their Girlfriend Have A Drinking Contest

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

PatHen:

PatHen Adopts A Child Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

The PatHen Wedding

Henry Sees Patrick In The Sewers

*PatHen’s First Time

Werewolf!Patrick and Neko!Henry

Patrick Being Jealous And Possessive Over Henry

*PatHen In A Movie Theater Blackout

Patrick Attempts To Comfort Henry From Nightmares

Drunk PatHen

Patrick Catches Henry Singing In The Shower

*PatHen’s Kinks

*Patrick Gives Henry A Lap Dance

Not Afraid

*PatHen At Each Other When They Need Attention

*Henry And Patrick Get Hit On By Their Crush

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

It Chapter 2:

Ben Hanscom: -On Masterlist 2-

Richie Tozier: -On Masterlist 2-

Beverly Marsh:  -On Masterlist 2-

Eddie Kaspbrak:  -On Masterlist 2-

Stanley Uris:  -On Masterlist 2-

Mike Hanlon:  -On Masterlist 2-

Bill Denbrough: -On Masterlist 2-

All The Losers: -On Masterlist 2-

Poly Losers Club: -On Masterlist 2-

Benverly: -On Masterlist 2-

The 100:

Jasper Jordan:

*NSFW ABC’S

General Headcanons

*Jasper Getting Head

Relationship ABC’S

*Sexual Healing

Chemistry

Jasper As A Father

Jasper And His Girlfriend Find Out They Have A Ghost

*Jasper Having Sex With His Pregnant Girlfriend

Baby

*It’s Your Birthday

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Bellamy Blake:

*NSFW ABC’S

*Rover

*Crush

Thief

Love

Loyalties

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

John Murphy:

*NSFW ABC’S

Birthday Surprise

*Wild Ride

I Love You

*First Time

Exploring

Sleeping Affections

Locked Up

Marry Me

Relationship ABC’S

Morning

Tutor

*Tease

Coughs

Cuddling With Murphy

*Murphy When His Girlfriend Teases Him

Trouble

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Monty Green:

Protect Your Heart

*NSFW ABC’S

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Raven Reyes: -On Masterlist 2-

Octavia Blake: -On Masterlist 2-

Harper McIntyre: -On Masterlist 2-

Emori:  -Continued On Masterlist 2-

Bellarke:

Everyday

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

The Flash:

Barry Allen: -On Masterlist 2-

Cisco Ramon: -On Masterlist 2-

Caitlin Snow: -On Masterlist 2-

Killer Frost: -On Masterlist 2-

Ralph Dibny: -On Masterlist 2-

Snowbarry:

Christmas Miracle

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Bloodline:

Nolan Rayburn:

*NSFW ABC’S

Nolan In Love

Relationship ABC’S

Nolan Dates A Demisexual Girl

Nolan Skipping School With His Girlfriend

Nolan As A Monster

Nolan Dates A Rich Girl

*Nolan’s First Time

Nolan When His S/O Wants To Break Up

Nolan When His Girlfriend Gets Into A Car Accident

Nolan When His Girlfriend Gets Pregnant

Nolan Dates A Singer

Nolan As A Father

Nolan Drunkenly Cheats On His Girlfriend

Nolan Dates An Insecure Girl

Nolan Meets His Girlfriend’s Family At Thanksgiving

Nolan As A Single Dad

Nolan When He Has A Crush

Nolan Comforting His Pregnant Girlfriend

Nolan And His Girlfriend Taking Care Of Each Other When They’re Sick

Nolan Dates A Girl With An Eating Disorder

Nolan Waking Up To Cuddles

*Nolan Has A Wet Dream

Nolan Dates A Girl With A Cute Laugh

*Nolan Gets His Girlfriend’s “Attention”

Nolan Finds Out His Girlfriend Has Suicidal Thoughts

Nolan When He Needs Comforted

Nolan When His S/O Slaps His Ass

Nolan When His Girlfriend Is Mad At Him

Nolan Accidentally Hurts His Girlfriend

Nolan Dates A Dancer

Nolan’s Pet Names For His Girlfriend

*Nolan When His Girlfriend Teases Him

How Nolan Sleeps

Nolan’s Coffee Order

Nolan When His Girlfriend Is On Her Period

Nolan Dates A Girl With Solipsism

Being Nolan’s Girlfriend

Nolan When His Girlfriend Gives Him The Silent Treatment

How Nolan Met His S/O

*Nolan Catches His Girlfriend Maturbaiting

*Nolan Gets Caught Masturbaiting

*Nolan’s Girlfriend Taking His Virginity

Nolan Dates A Soft Girl

Puppy

*Nolan And His Girlfriend Having Sex In Their Halloween Costumes

Nolan Sees His Girlfriend Getting Abused

Nolan Dates A Girl From Another Country

Nolan Dates An Actress

Nolan Dates A Witch

*Nolan When His S/O Squirts

Nolan Cooking With His Girlfriend

Nolan Helping His Girlfriend Fall Asleep

*Jealousy

Nolan When He Gets Nervous

Broken Family Dinner

Nolan With A Chubby Punk Girlfriend

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Black Mirror:

Ryan “Trick” Trebecki:

Trick Dates A Rich Girl

Trick and Henry Meet

Trick Dates An Artist

Trick And Patrick As Half Twins

Trick As A Father

*Trick With An Assault Victim S/O

Trick Dates a Fashion Designer

Relationship ABC’S

*NSFW ABC’S

Trick Dates A Bi Girl

Trick Dates A Singer

Trick And Patrick Fight Over You

Trick Dates A Swimmer

*Trick Dates An “Innocent” Girl

Trick Comforting His Girlfriend During a Thunderstorm

*Trick Has A Wet Dream

*Trick Takes His Girlfriend’s Virginity

Trick Dates A Demisexual Girl

Trick As A Monster

The Bowers Gang And Trick Accidentally Hurt Their Girlfriends

Trick Being Clingy With His Girlfriend

Late Night Affection

*Trick When His Girlfriend Is Having A Wet Dream

Trick When His Girlfriend Tells Him She Wants A Baby

Trick Find Out His Girlfriend Has A Kid From An Old Relationship

Trick Comforts His Insecure Girlfriend During Their First Time

If Trick Had The ArkAngel System

Trick Seeing His Girlfriend Get Hit By A Car

Roommates

Trick When His Girlfriend Is On Her Period

Trick When His S/O Tries To Remove Their ArkAngel Chip

Trick When His Girlfriend Is Distant

Trick Drunkenly Cheats On His Girlfriend

Best Friend

Trick Dates A Plus Size Girl

Trick Dates A Stripper

Trick When He Has A Crush

Trick Comforting His Pregnant Girlfriend

Trick Finds Out His Girlfriend Has Suicidal Thoughts

Trick With A Girlfriend with Social Anxiety

*Trick When His Girlfriend Teases Him

Trick’s Coffee Order

Being Trick’s Girlfriend

How Trick Met His S/O

*Trick And His Girlfriend Having Sex In Their Halloween Costumes

Trick Sees His Girlfriend Getting Abused

Trick Dates A Girl From Another Country

Trick Dates A Girl With Antisocial Personality Disorder

Trick Dates An Actress

*Trick When His S/O Squirts

Trick’s Girlfriend Meeting His Dad

Trick Comforting His Girlfriend When She Finds Out Her Parents Are Getting A Divorce

Trick Takes A Bath With His Girlfriend

Trick Dates A Shy And Soft Girl

Trick When His S/O Slaps His Ass

*Trick’s Girlfriend Taking His Virginity

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Mrs.Fletcher:

Julian Spitzer: -On Masterlist 2-

13 Reasons Why:

Zach Dempsey:

*My Brother’s Best Friend

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Supernatural:

Dean Winchester:

*NSFW ABC’S

Dean Dates A Witch

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Sam Winchester:

Sam With A Plus Sized S/O

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Castiel:

-On Masterlist 2-

Jack Kline:

Relationship ABC’S

*NSFW ABC’S

Being Jack’s Twin Sister

Patrick And Jack Fight Over A Girl

-Continued on Masterlist 2-

Charlie Bradbury: -On Masterlist 2-

Claire Novack: -On Masterlist 2-

Team Free Will:

Eightball

Team Free Will When The Boy’s Little Sister Is In The Hospital

-Continued on Masterlist 2-

The Umbrella Academy:

Diego Hargreeves:

Stitches

Precise

-Continued on Masterlist 2-

Allison Hargreeves: -On Masterlist 2-

Klaus Hargreeves: -On Masterlist 2-

Ben Hargreeves: -On Masterlist 2-

Vanya Hargreeves:

Healer 

-Continued on Masterlist 2-

Stranger Things:

Steve Harrington: -On Masterlist 2-

Jonathan Byers: -On Masterlist 2-

Robin Buckley: -On Masterlist 2-

Uncharted

Nathan Drake: -On Masterlist 2-

Sam Drake (including 19 y/o Sam): -On Masterlist 2-

Rafe Adler: -On Masterlist 2-

Harry Flynn: -On Masterlist 2-

Elena Fisher: -On Masterlist 2-

Chloe Frazer: -On Masterlist 2-

Nadine Ross: -On Masterlist 2-

Misc:

Rodrick Heffley:

*Bad Day

*Beg

Rodrick And His Girlfriend Find Out They Have A Ghost

Rodrick’s Tiny And Shy S/O Meets His Family

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Adam:

*Developing A Relationship With Adam

Adam And His Girlfriend Find Out They Have A Ghost

Adam When His S/O Has A Nightmare Of Him Dying

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Casper Galloway: -On Masterlist 2-

Leo Strange: -On Masterlist 2-

Dean Taylor: -On Masterlist 2-

Freddy Klein:

Freddy And His Girlfriend Find Out They Have A Ghost

*5F’s

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Alexander:  -On Masterlist 2-

Alec:-On Masterlist 2-

Boots Conley:-On Masterlist 2-

Snowbird:

General HCs

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

AU:

The 100 Arrowverse:

The 100 Characters Meet Their Arrowverse Ancestors

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

Supernatural IT:

Team Free Will When They Travel Into IT

-Continued On Masterlist 2-

[camimoo]

So, I watched the Heathers episode of Riverdale

K, so I’ve never watched Riverdale before (well like half an episode on tv once) but I heard there was a musical episode themed on Heathers.  

So I watched it…and accidentally started writing a really long play-by-play analysis:

Oh we’re really just gonna turn on a boombox and go. Ok.

Is KJ’s voice that high all the time? is that just the line they gave him? It’s so babie

Tiny girl  :((( so much autotune.

Oh gosh, that “whyyyyyyyyyyy” is too low for him. Otherwise the Kevin guy is probably their best guy singer.

Weird disorganized sometimes-choreography for background peeps. Like this row of desks will move, but the one next to it will be completely still

“Are all of you this miserable”  lol

The hair wooshy noises…this is only for this episode right? That can’t be in the regular run of the show right? It’s so loud

Oh heck, no harmony on Candy Store :( also weird bad cuts

Is veronica’s house always lit with crappy eerie blue lights?

Is every character selling drugs?  Like every single one?

Also is the plot that these kids have to stop their drug dealing moms?

“What are you gonna do?” “ I’m gonna take a bath.” *starts crying* lmao

Co director girl is so over acting.  Is she a regular character on this show?

Aw man lowering the big fun notes :(

Also can the Ram Sweeney guy actually act? Cuz based on what I’m seeing, imma go with No.

So, frequently, a disembodied voice is just singing and matches nobody on screen, like they don’t seem to concerned with getting the right person on screen lip-syncing at the right moment.

Also one of the jock dudes is suuuuper tone deaf

Again terrible edit cuts in the song.

I do appreciate that they are all indeed doing jello shots.

So we have the 3 heathers, and then we have … 3 more dark evil heathers?

Also this sometimes using riverdale-veronica as heathers-veronica but also not is confusing

Doing some Grease hand jive dancing?

There are some ridiculously loud sound effects in this. Archie’s jacket for one

I thought the neon lighting was just for promotional photos of Riverdale. But no. literally every scene is lit in neon red and blue (and maybe some yellow)

Ooh I like the “anything to share veronica”, that matches the musical where she has to blurt something out at the assembly

“my family’s always been unconventional.” Lol yeah your family is unconventional, (from the 5 seconds I’ve seen of them) your mother whose face never changes and she just wafts around, and your gravel-voice dad

Off-brand hostess cupcakes!

“He’s a real class act, that Sweet Pea”  how do y’all deliver any of this dialogue with a straight face when your characters have COMIC BOOK names??

“cuz your parents are splitsville” lol, way to be gentle

“I AM RED” and snaps and two replacement heathers come to back her up.  How many heathers are there in this show? We’re up to like 8

“Faux pink lady”.  So we are intentionally making these Grease references. Got it.

Lol she said Westerberg.

What’s the point of saying the one tiny girl is Veronica if Topaz(?) is gonna sing her songs

All hope is gone. Apparently these are the Highschool lyric changes.  Hmmm

I feel like they are mix and matching characters together willy-nilly.  I pick…you and …you! Yep threesome now.

Nuh uh.  Her name is PEACHES?!

The loud sound effects are killing me.  When you pat your thighs that doesn’t usually echo through a whole auditorium peeps.

Also why are we in the auditorium, you all clearly have neon lit mansions to go home to, why not use a more believable setting for seducing your friends?

So Tony/EvilHeather/Veronica is seeing visions of Cheryl/ActualHeather telling her she’s beautiful???

Oof that was a terrible record scratch noise.  Also whiplash! “Let’s make this beautifuuuul-STOP.”

Lol Fang.

What is ThE GaRgOyLe ChaMbEr?

Finally some harmony, it’s altered but still decent. :) Our love is god.

Are they having a secret gay cult wedding in a dungeon church?

The weird kinda half choreo the background cast does every once in a while.  Also specifically its only like the first row of extras in every case.  The back or outer rows never move..?

Do boxers really punch the air for practice by themselves in empty boxing rings?

k. I kinda hate the tiny girl’s voice,

so everybody is Veronica. Huh. Just takin turns.

I guess that’s just what KJ’s singing voice is. Ok.

Also when making cuts, why still have her say “well whoa you can punch real good.”  Just cut the “well whoa” and it will fit your scenario better.

Ok I actually super like the new harmony at the end of fight for me.

Principals are susceptible to cults. Got it.

Meet me at JUNKYARD STEVE’S??

Red scrunchie!

WAIT- did evil-heather and heather-heather used to be in love?

Wait they found the drug lab that quick?  Is this like a once-an-episode kinda thing? just gotta shut down the daily drug lab and move on

“and serial killer fathers” said in a comforting tone.

What even were those terrible piano chords as an intro to Seventeen?

But actually this song seems like a good fit for these traumatized children.  Help these babies :(

The voices of Cole and lilli (and most of them) sound like they were recorded so separately and in completely different ways, ones more breathy, others are echoey, some have autotune…hmm

Also someone pointed out that when you get to the “your eyes can’t we be seeeventeeeeeeen” line, Cole’s voice changes so drastically it has got to be somebody else.  I totally agree.

Sometimes the background music (not heathers) sounds like a western movie.  Like somebody just got challenged to a show down at high noon.

I want to crack an egg with a tiny egg hammer! And he didn’t even get to eat it.

Her dad sounds like a gravellier version of Misha Collins

She does really good at Lifeboat.

“I thought I was captain” diff lyrics.  Ok.

“drugs…terrible…what a nightmare”  delivered practically deadpan devoid of emotion. wow what quality dialogue.

“what is all over your faces?”  oh that’s just the drugs soot. No worries. Trashing meth labs always leaves me covered in soot.

Oof. “Martha are you free tonight?”  nobody answers. They all kinda glance around awkwardly.  Really? Why leave the name in at all if you aren’t including Martha, just change it.

When you burn down a building, shouldn’t you flee the scene of the crime? No? does being in the snake gang make him immune?

Also the pan out to make sure we saw the gas can in the back seat, cuz yanno I couldn’t’ve pieced that bit together on my own.

Also I’m assuming they’re drinking big gulps right?

Weird music edits

HOLD UP, is Tony dressed as Martha??? Wut.

Also none of their vocal styles go together, the transition from the others to tony is jarring. Tony is all sexy breathy poppy.

Hmm, interesting minimal interpretive dancing choreo

Ack, please blend in the tiny girl’s vocals.  Pls I beg you. At least I think its her.

Everyone else: *taking off clothes and jackets*

Jughead: *putting on his hat*

Hold up, I feel like from seeing the rest of the ep I can guess who most of the audience members are that are getting close ups/reaction shots, but I swear they added a new lady, heavily made up, and not Cole or Veronica’s mom...who…?

Oh and now we get creepy cult flash mob with hypnotizing claps. Ok.

 Overall:  pretty messy. No one really plays a specific character so it’s hard to gain any of the character growth that they get in the actual musical.  No one’s vocal style matches like at all.  The new lyrics and tons of edits were odd. The sound mixing was bad I think, like everything stuck out and didn’t match. This show is hilariously broody and they all have such funny names. Camilla whatshername is a good singer, actually the main 3 girls are p good, and the Kevin guy.  

Huh.

[bestfluteninja]

actual things my teachers have said, pt. 2

part 1 here

so, in honor of school about to start again, here’s my teacher quotes from second semester last year, my freshman year of high school. enjoy.

“Day one and you’re already undressing”

“I went to college for this”

“I’ve taught one person something today”

“He looks so loose and relaxed because he’s dead”

“There was this one pope who was a total prude”

“It’s called the Great Deflowering, and they just took all the penises off the statues”

“One student said, ‘do you think there’s this basket of stone penises in the Vatican?’”

“Oh, it’s like ‘pièce’ means ‘piece’ or something”

“Do you sleep in the salle à manger (dining room)? Only if you have a very sad life”

“I don’t know why I suddenly know your restroom schedule”

“I want to get up on a ladder and touch your hair. Still sounds weird”

“And then you have Columbus or Vasco de Gama’s little ship, which looks like it’s going to be eaten by the big ship”

“Let’s go metric, which we’re crazy for not using”

“When I pass on to whatever”

“You tempt my middle finger”

“Stop talking about my coworkers in a negative way. Or positive. Just stop.”

“I almost said a word I shouldn’t”

“Nachos aren’t happening without cheese”

“We are about to learn a new tense, which will shake the foundations of everything you know and love”

“Let’s make this nice and incriminating”

“Next year I’ll have to require students to get a tattoo of their password”

“Anybody else wanna criticize my decisions?”

“Hey. Hey! HEY!...have a good day”

“After announcements, I’m going to melt your faces off, so be ready”

“It’s magic time, kids”

“I have mad babysitting skills”

“You don’t go to all this effort if you have wheat just growing in your backyard”

“The Catholic Church was into destruction”

“You really don’t wanna write it down because then you’ll cry”

“Anyone wanna help me summon the dead?”

“My mother still tells me I should’ve been a lawyer”

“Rooms and stuff, oh yeah”

“That way, when he’s an old man, people can go ‘you’re old’ and he’ll be like ‘whaaa’“

“If you’re sitting there just tapping really hard, I don’t know what your aggression is”

“I wish I had autopilot”

“I won’t make you cry”

“There were some that considered that blasphemous. Heracy. Scientific heracy.”

“The access code is cookies18 because I’m surrounded by cookies and it’s 2018″

“Thumbs down is like ‘bro why’“

“Are you having fun in art class? Stop that”

“You all think you’re gang members now”

“Something French, woman! Get it together”

“We can be like Congress and have to have a talking stick”

“Here’s a dog with three stereotypes all at once”

“I am as serious as a heart attack”

“You don’t see many of those furry little creatures around here anymore. Except raccoons. They’re everywhere”

“It’s not politics if everyone agrees”

student: “I like your shoes” teacher: “thanks, they’re killing my feet”

“Focus less on witty comments”

“If we could just hang out, I’d, like, braid your hair”

“This guy with a stick, that can’t be good”

“Spent a little too much time in the harem, if you get my meaning”

“I really do try to find anything with singing and dancing camels”

“Another creepy clown, fantastic”

“Are those flower garlands, or are they chains?”

“Oh, how progressive, that you add Hindu women to your harem”

“Probably for the release death would bring”

“Easy with the f-bomb”

“I’m gonna go ahead and mark everyone absent just because I like to mess with the front office”

“That was a pretty good airplane”

“I got too deep in a book and forgot to make your test”

“This is for your cultural education” *shows Shia LaBoef*

“You don’t know why, but you know you hate them”

“This is a holdup, pow pow pow, give me all your money”

“Screaming is the same in every language”

“Satan scares me”

“I have nothing against turtlenecks, usually”

“420, blaze it. I shouldn’t have said that, it was inappropriate”

“If you don’t know basic computer skills, you’re just doomed”

“Attacked by many animals...I can just see him walking down the street going ‘oh god not again’“

“She’s preening you”

“We don’t do midterms in here cause they’re awful”

“I love praise”

“Everything is petit pois”

“Nobody can get through the French Revolution in a day and a half except me”

“Back when the History Channel had history”

“Everyone is like ‘oh I’m so nostalgic for the nineties’ and I’m like ‘burn it with fire’“

“Feel free to email me, I won’t respond”

“Don’t hurt each other”

“She looks like a jellyfish. No! That’s so cool! I love jellyfish!”

“I felt like lying on the floor and curling up in a ball”

“Laugh. Move on.”

“Your fort should be strong, to keep the Huns from invading”

“Why are you so smart right now?”

“I have all of her anxiety and none of her skill”

“Whatever will make my parents angriest”

“What’s happening, you animals?”

“Just fractions, nothing magical”

student: *drops ruler* teacher, deadpan: “why”

“Sooner or later that bell will ring and you’ll be like ‘yo what the heck’”

“Anytime there’s chanting, just be careful”

“There’s no mentions of prostitutes in the Jamaica letter”

“I like fire, so I might burn it”

“These are in your way just to distract you”

“Don’t build your expectations up too high”

“Oh, I had alcohol”

“I want to leave with both my kidneys, thanks”

“If you would take a town out of Alabama and put it here, that’s Fortville” (we live in Indiana)

“I’m gonna start dressing like a clown to get your guys’ attention”

“Everybody needs extra money in life”

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but an essential part of living is being able to breathe”

“I’m a popcorn-aholic”

“We’re gonna do an exercise in loving yourself real quick”

“I barely even go outside”

“It’ll be terrible. You’re gonna have nightmares”

“It is a vest with fake pockets and a cape attached”

“There are very few people who are not gifted in anything”

“Please let me retire”

“If the lottery plays out on Wednesday, I might be gone by Thursday”

“Then we burnish it with a wooden spoon because I’m too cheap to buy burnishers and a wooden spoon works”

“Be mindful of when you’re leaning up against cabinets. Or get shoved into them”

“I like to touch art. Not supposed to, but I like to”

“If you go to Canada, I need you to steal a stop sign”

“I always get excited but it’s always just you, being fantastic”

(a blade from our art project went missing) “I think there are three scenarios. One, someone dropped it and just refuses to acknowledge that they dropped something. Two, someone put it in their pocket to take it home and have..fun with it later. Three, someone.....ingested it”

“You don’t steal the blades during the demonstration. You steal them during class time, when nobody’s looking”

“God, it’s snowing again”

“Can you grow poppies? Yes. If you grow 10-20 acres, the authorities are probably gonna come talk to you”

“If you had the letters for that in scrabble, that’s the whole game right there”

“Oh, Gandhi, you’re name-dropping”

“Isn’t that dog staring into your soul?”

“I’m just impressed with anyone that can wear horizontal stripes”

“It won’t be fatal drowning”

“You can have the rest of the time to annoy each other”

“We’ll cover up the ‘attack teacher’ sign so you’re not scared of me anymore”

*chalk squeaks* “sorry, forgot to oil the chalk”

“I don’t wake up in the mornings and go ‘oh, themes’“

“I am not Harry Potter’s uncle”

“If I cared, I would’ve asked”

“That’s where the Bordeaux wine comes from. Not that you’d know that, right, kids?”

“They don’t care about your happiness”

“Kay cool do stuff”

“No, I will not allow that. You cannot just eat butter”

“If I were to buy a Japanese car and drive it into my mother’s driveway, that would probably be it. She’d go toward the light”

“Since that’s all so depressing, we’ll end with a taco dog”

“I am intellectually aware that there were days when the sun came out”

“I have to get paid for this”

“I just have under a thousand dollars in my bank account at all times”

“We are French two, we are a little better than second-grade writing level”

“If you have to ask me if it’s appropriate, it’s not”

“It’s plagiarism, 100%. Don’t even care”

“For God’s sake, people, indent your paragraphs”

“It’s Morgan Freeman and Matt Damion, what else do you need”

student: “banana” teacher: “good, jenna”

*sharp intake of breath*

“Join us on the dark side of Honors English”

*shows us stick figure* “look at this detail”

“Well, that’s just magical.” minute later: “never mind”

“I’ll try to come up with a Plan D”

“In India, they love cricket, whatever the heck cricket is”

“Before I buy Shrek 2 online”

“Next thing you throw, you’re gonna eat”

“Have I mentioned your guys’ grand prize? It’s absolutely nothing”

“Nowadays you just take a selfie. This is for you. Wink wink.”

“Hey guys, say bonjour to my mom”

“She says sit down and shut up”

“He’s my scapegoat, his mom said I could”

if you read all of these, i hope you were amused. i certainly was. all of these are completely real. if you feel like it, send me an ask with your favorites

[thatbluegibson]

CH 32

Liz turned the last latch on the brew tank and stood up. From her spot at the top of the tank, she could look out the attic window and see over the trees to the Pacific Ocean. She had arrived in town late the night before, well after the sleepy community had gone to bed, and spent the entire night sitting on her bed looking out at the moonlit waves. Her brewery staff was surprised to see her that morning as she wasn’t due in town for another few months or so, preferring the beach town’s off season when it was inhabited by the six hundred or so locals as opposed to the warmer months when the narrow streets swelled with thousands of beach trippers.

“Dan?” Liz called out, looking around for her oldest friend.

“Yeah,” he yelled back, distractedly untangling a pile of clear tubing.

“We should go out later if the surf holds,” she climbed down the wooden ladder that leaned against the massive tank full of her brewery’s pale ale.

“Yeah,” he repeated, not looking up from his task.

Liz watched him for a moment, thinking about how much better she felt when he was around. They had been paired up to break down and reassemble a lawn mower engine in their middle school shop class and had been friends ever since. Through high school, college, his two failed marriages and her one, they always knew they had each other to fall back on. 

He looked up at the feeling of being watched and smiled at her, “You okay?”

Liz shook her head a little to clear her thoughts, “Yeah, just happy to be out of California finally.”

Dan’s smile faded a bit, “You ready to talk about that yet?”

Liz snorted, “No,” she leaned against the pale ale tank and patted it with her hand, “Give me an IV of this and I might be.”

Dan finished winding the tangled tubing and hung it on the side of the tank. “Let’s go unlock the doors.”

*

“Hey, Krist is here,” Dan called from the end of the bar as Liz set a money tray in the cash register. “He says it’s too nice to come inside.”

Liz chuckled and shook her head. It might only be 45 degrees out, but it was sunny so the Pacific Northwest natives would be emerging from their homes in shorts and flip flops to welcome spring. She finished with the register, grabbed her sunglasses and turned to pour Krist a pilsner from the tap tower behind her. Nodding to a few locals filtering in for lunch, she pushed the bar’s patio doors open with her back and stepped into the bright sunshine.

“Hey, Mama!” Krist called from a table in the far corner and stood to greet her.

“Hey, Krist,” she set his beer down in front of his chair and hugged him tightly. “How’s the farm?”

“Waking up, finally,” he said as they sat together at the table, “The winters seem to be getting longer and longer.”

Liz slid on her aviators and waited for the inevitable question about Dave.

“So…,” Krist took a drink of his beer and held it to the light, watching the bubbles stream to the top. “How are… things?”

“Better now that I’m up here,” she muttered and leaned back in her chair, feeling the warm sun against her face. “We don’t have to talk about this, you know,” she added bluntly.

Krist let out a whoosh of air, “Oh thank god.”

Liz laughed at his obvious relief. She had dreaded this conversation as things had only escalated in the hours since Dave left her in the hotel room. Her interview had blown up online with everyone speculating what had happened between the rock star and the actress. Travis had shown her a TMZ video of photographers peppering Dave with questions about her as he took his daughters to school and she had run to the airport bathroom to throw up. She felt violated and angry, mostly for his girls who were caught in the middle of that nightmare.

“I don’t think Dave even knows that we know each other so I’m okay with pretending like this never happened. I’m sure he’d prefer that as well,” Liz said.

Krist was silent for a moment, “I don’t think he feels that way, but I get what you’re saying.”

Liz was suddenly very interested in the dead hop vine next to her on the patio, “Well, it was fun while it lasted, I’ll say that. You’re lucky to have him as a friend,” she shook her head, shoving thoughts of Dave away, “Hungry?”

Krist only nodded and picked his beer up again. She patted him on the shoulder as a way of saying thank you for not pressing the issue and headed back to the bar. She poked at the touch screen on the register, entering Krist’s usual lunch into the computer as Dan knelt beside her plugging his phone into the bar’s audio system.

“Did he bring up Dave?” he asked, scrolling through his playlists.

“Yes and no, thankfully,” Liz leaned against the bar and hung her head. She had decided to come to the beach to get away from the conversation, but it had easily followed. She was terrified that her boys would be caught in the mess if she went home and she wasn’t due there for another week anyways, so the beach and her brewery were the next best options. Grabbing a rag, she set to work cleaning the wooden bar and work station, emptying and refilling the glass washer and greeting the few customers that shuffled in. She had Dan take Krist his food to let the man eat in peace without the collision of his current life and youth staring him in the face. Finally relaxing a little, she fell into an easy rhythm next to Dan and as the lunch rush hit, they darted between the bar and the booths, taking orders, pouring beer, bussing tables and playfully singing along to the music. When the dinner shift arrived to take over and the customers had finally dwindled down to two older men at the bar, Liz was feeling like the past week had never happened.

“Krist asked if you were going to play tomorrow tonight,” Dan said, leaning against the back bar and taking a drink of coffee.

“Oh, I hadn’t really thought about it,” Liz muttered as she sorted receipts.

“You should. We’ve missed you,” Dan set down his coffee and hurried to greet a pair of new customers.

She watched him leave then looked over her shoulder to the wooden booth in the far corner where the musicians played on Tuesday nights. The beach town was small and folksy with most of the locals being full time artists of some sort. Glass blowers, painters, musicians, authors, poets, photographers and even a few dancers made up the close knit community, some were well known but most were not. Liz’s little bar was a gathering place and had been before she bought it from the retiring owners, a bit of a church for those creative types to gather on cold, windy winter nights to sing, dance and drink with people that shared their cerebral lifestyle. Tourists would stumble upon their little community jam sessions in delight, filling the sad little tip jar to the brim during the summer months. Thinking that some time in her musical sanctuary was exactly what she needed, Liz clocked out of the register headed to the back.

*

“It’s not as junky today!” Dan called over the waves as they straddled their boards just beyond the break line.

Liz nodded, keeping her eyes out towards the dark horizon in the west. They had headed out just as dawn was breaking over the mountains to the east and dipped into the ocean as the sky turned a deep pink hue. They were alone on the beach that morning, the usual dawn patrol choosing their warm beds over dry suits and cold sand. They had been out for a few hours now, and Liz was vaguely aware of Dan readying for a wave next to her. She rode the swell he was after without moving and watched him ride the wave to the beach, smiling when his dog Radar sprinted down the sand to greet him. She noticed the tide was ebbing, signaling their session was over. She drifted for a bit, forcing herself to meditate on the horizon and nothing else, craving the tranquil place her mind usually went when she was in the sea. It seemed just out of reach, like a word on the tip of her tongue, but she wasn’t able to fully grasp it. Sighing in frustration, Liz spotted a decent swell and rode the wave into the beach.

“Hey buddy!” Liz bent down to greet Radar when he skidded to a stop in the sand next to her. He wove around her legs and happily pranced up the beach behind her as she headed back to their bags.

“That was necessary,” Liz said to Dan, resting her board against a large basalt rock, “Thank you.”

“It’s been quiet without you around,” Dan replied, running his hands between Radar’s ears as they sat in the sand.

“You know,” Liz sat next to him, digging the feet of her dry suit into the sand, “I’m quitting the industry.”

Dan looked up at her in surprise, “But you have so much stuff coming up!”

Liz shrugged, “Fuck it. That entire scene is a nightmare. I can vividly see myself being eaten alive by that machine and I want out.”

“Is this because of Dave?” Dan looked back at Radar to avoid the look on her face.

“Maybe?” Liz answered truthfully, she wasn’t sure exactly why she wanted out yet, but she just knew that she did. “He’s an amazing guy, really. He’s funny and sweet and the music…” she trailed off, remembering watching him play from her spot by the sound board, “but it’s just not meant to be. He’s in LA and I’m up here.” She shrugged as if it didn’t bother her, as if she didn’t spend most of last night dreaming about him.

“You two just seemed really happy in all the photos,” Dan paused for a moment, realizing what he had said, “Sarah and I might have stalked you a little.”

Liz laughed, “You and the rest of the country apparently. I was happy! He made me feel okay again, but… there’s no way it would work. Plus I was a complete bitch to him the last time I saw him, so it’s a done deal.”

“Sarah is coming in from Portland tonight,” Dan said quietly.

Liz turned to him with a huge smile on her face, “And?”

“And…,” Dan shrugged. “She lives in Portland and I live out here.”

“Goddamnit, Dan,” Liz laughed.