#gretchen just didn’t want to be left out and she likes her song

[maybeimamuppet]

Hey uh I need you to go more in depth about the "the characters know they're in a musical" thing because that is an insane take I've never heard about any musical in my entire life

hello i will do so and relish in it

okay to begin with this only applies to the stage production. both movies we are just watching what’s happening in real time imo. they have no idea wtf is going on look at them.

when the stage production opens damian has a whole little spiel like “good morning freshmen! welcome to high school!” and then cautionary tale happens and blah blah blah etc.

it’s also worth noting that. mean girls is objectively not a good musical. is it my favorite yes will i shank anyone outside the fandom who says this 100% BUT if you compare it to something like the prom with a similar setting/similar vague concept it’s really not. not great.

BUT i think this was kind of weirdly intentionally done.

again in the beginning during it roars and whatnot the animals that walk by are clearly just people in costumes and i think that’s also on purpose. the zebras have paintbrushes for manes for pete’s sake (like janis hello???)

SO i personally think that what we’re seeing is a musical that damian and janis co-wrote. i think damian did most of it and janis helped. she wrote i’d rather be me and things like that

i think it’s bad because it was written and produced by actual teenagers themselves. i am 100% convinced that they are seniors acting out the previous year as a sort of welcome to high school assembly for the incoming freshmen. mr. duvall said they could either do something creative to tell their story as an example of why Bullying Is Bad ™ or have detention for the entirety of the next year and they did this. the others have to act in it for the same reason and janis and damian just wanted to.

they’re acting as themselves and fully self aware the entire time. it feels like it’s happening in real time because it’s only been a few months since it did and the memories are fresh for all of them.

karen is the only one who breaks the fourth wall (except janis and damian at the top of the show and top of the second act) for GOOD REASON!! SHES DONE IT ALL BEFORE!!!!!

the reason janis and damian are the sort of narrators and the audience’s window into the show is because they’re the ones who are putting it on and producing it.

anyway in conclusion i fully believe they’re aware they’re in a musical and this is all happening like in their school gym or auditorium lmao

[bumblingbabooshka]

Moms of Voyager (1/2)

T’Meni: Tuvok’s mother. Appraises jewelry and was often absent for business reasons during Tuvok’s childhood. Highly appreciates aesthetic beauty and was the one to pick out all the furniture in Tuvok’s childhood home. A bit spacey, marches to her own beat. Intrigued by humans and was very pleased when Tuvok befriended one. Comes from a very well respected family - not many survived the destruction of Vulcan. Can be unintentionally rude. She thinks her husband Sunak is very handsome and is grateful he didn’t die during the planet’s destruction. They have a good marriage but aren’t in love. (common for Vulcans) Mary Kim: Harry’s mother. 8th grade teacher - specifically teaches art. Has an interest in music and sometimes gives lessons at her home. Was the one who encouraged Harry’s interest in the clarinet and they often played together. Known as ‘the fun teacher’ and is very enthusiastically encouraging. Excitable and passionate. She and her husband are kind of goofballs, very in love, and definitely embarrassed Harry quite a bit over the years with how apparent those two things were. A warm, loving family! Erin Hansen: Seven of Nine’s mother. Woman who got killed by the thing she spent her life devoted to studying. Those who knew her would quietly admit that if she had to go - that’s probably the most fitting way. No one thought she’d die of old age, let’s just say that. She and her husband found an obsession and stuck with it. Very devoted to science and her desire to do anything but research lessened as the years wore on. Known to be very convincing - could talk her way out of anything. Almost anything.  Martis: Kes’ mother. Punk chick. Wanted to make it out of the underground and then passed that desire onto her daughter. Always stressed the importance of asking questions and dreaming big. Hell of a singer and was always making up new songs - writing them but also just performing them on the spot. Died after her husband whose death sent her into a bit of a depression. ???: Chakotay’s mother. Scientist who’s well respected in her field. Very interested in the science behind the spiritual (think DS9 wormhole) though she didn’t want to debunk or lessen the spiritual in any way by doing this (as she’s spiritual herself). Her papers are almost ethereal. She’s blind in one eye because of a childhood accident. She and Chakotay’s father divorced but were very good friends up until his death. Julia Paris: A very meek woman who met Owen Paris because her father was in Starfleet and threw a party. Immediately liked his gruff no-nonsense attitude over the other men’s louder ones. They got married quickly. She’d been a melancholy person her entire life (anxious and prone to depression - did not like moving a lot due to Starfleet or the long journeys on starships without sun). Disagreed with Owen’s wish for Tom to go into Starfleet and privately grew to loathe the institution but couldn’t change his mind so stopped bringing it up. Became ill one day and died when Tom was still very young. Left a journal for her son which Owen found and kept. Gretchen Janeway: Sunburnt queen. Had a double mastectomy when her daughters were teenagers. Was a bit wild as a child...and still is!! Can make friends with anyone as long as they’re not rude and will talk for hours. Going to the store with her is hell - she knows everyone there and has to talk to all of ‘em or it’s rude! Hates reminders that she’s getting old unless it’s herself complaining about just that. Sends all of Tuvok’s kids presents on their birthdays. Sends cards out every Christmas and forces her family to dress up and be in them. Was devastated when her husband died but dealt with this by keeping constantly busy. A bit pushy but ultimately has a good heart. 

[bbygirlky18]

Mami's Breakthrough!

Chapter 1

Part 4

Word Count: 804 out of 2663 (The final Part of Chapter 1. The whole word count for the chapter was 2663 so that's why if you see out of 2663 it's how many words that part itself was).

She was singing along when I looked at the lyrics the one part she started to sing was “What a pretty distraction. They told her to cover up her shoulders, cause the boys couldn’t focus. Maybe they should teach him, to control his own actions but that’s not what happens. They’re always trying to take what’s not theirs. Drives me insane that’s not fair. What a terrible life for a woman, who just wants to be left alone. What a horrible world for all of the girls, getting catcalled as they’re walking home. With keys in her hand, you don’t understand what she’s had to get here. What a beautiful life for a woman who knows what she’s worth, and knows why she’s here.” After I was done changing I texted Liv and Naomi and told them that I was heading to bed and they said goodnight. Gretchen came out of the bathroom in this silk tank top and shorts set and she lays next to me and I said “Gretchen you have an amazing voice. What was the name of the song you were singing?” She said “It’s called ‘Pretty Distractions’ by Skydxddy.  We listened to the song and then Gretchen started singing it again. Her voice was mesmerizing and I knew that I had to remember it. I closed my eyes and listened to her sing, feeling completely entranced. Once she was done I asked her why she liked that song and Gretchen explained that she could relate to the lyrics as she had been sexually assaulted in the past, and as she spoke, tears started to form in her eyes. Demi pulled Gretchen close and held her as they both fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Dominik’s POV: I was so angry when I came back to the hotel with Finn and Damian. I couldn't believe that Rhea had left us. I was even more infuriated when I saw her note explaining her decision to leave. She said that she couldn't keep doing this with Finn and Damian fighting all the time and that she was leaving Judgement Day. I was so mad at Finn and Damian for still not getting along and putting Rhea in this situation. I showed them the note and said "Look what you two have done! Rhea left because of you!" I couldn't believe that they still couldn't get along and that it had caused Rhea to leave. I was frustrated and sad that she had made this decision, but I understood why she did it.  I was livid. I couldn't believe that Finn and Damian were willing to just replace Rhea like she was nothing. I was so angry that I wanted to just scream at them, but I knew that wouldn't do any good. Instead, I just stood there in silence, allowing my anger to simmer. They talked about who they could replace Rhea with, and the names Chyna, Paige, Lana, and Beth Phoenix came up. I couldn't believe that they were actually considering replacing Rhea with any of them. I wanted to yell at them, but instead, I just shook my head and walked away, trying to process what had just happened. I couldn't believe that they could be so thoughtless and that they would just replace Rhea without any concern for her feelings at all. I know that Rhea told us to find a replacement for her but I didn’t think that Damian and Finn would actually do it. They started talking about who we should have in Judgment. Damian says “I’m thinking we add our girlfriends to Judgment Day and then we can have the other strongest female in WWE replace Rhea. If we’re going to be honest Rhea tries to be her anyway.” I asked, “Who’s the other strongest female in WWE?” Finn replied “Chyna. Damian, that's a great idea. When we get up tomorrow we have to tell Stephanie and Hunter that we would love for my girlfriend Iyo Sky to join the Judgment Day. After that, we could say that we would also love for Dominik’s girlfriend Liv Morgan to join the Judgment Day. Then we could say that we would love to have your girlfriend Beth Phoenix join the Judgment Day. What do you think Damian?” Damian said “I love that idea. It’s pretty late so let’s sleep on it. We’ll tell Rhea about it tomorrow.” I pointed to her bed and said “If she even flies with us tomorrow. Her stuff’s not here. On the note, she said she was staying with a friend so I don’t know if she’ll show.” They shrugged and said, “Oh well her loss, not ours now let’s head to bed.” This was the first time that they weren’t arguing. Wow. I got in my bed and started drifting to sleep.

[meltotheany]

Goodreads | Amazon US | B&N | Blackwell’s | Bookshop ♡ Vampires Never Get Old ★★ this anthology was such a wonderful surprise! i do have a little bit of a soft spot for all siren-like characters, some of these short stories are truly masterpieces, and i am so thankful i had the joy to read them all. i think the deepwater van-dal by darcie little badger was my favorite, so let me go read elatsoe right away, because wow! but down below are my individual thoughts and feelings about all the stories in this anthology collection, with the trigger and content warnings i wrote down while reading! ━━♡ Storm Song by Rebecca Coffindaffer ★★ this is about a siren who needs to sing for a ritual to call down the storms, but this is ultimately a story about finding your own voice and your own power. and how some songs can be filled with anger, and that’s okay! i really liked what this was saying, and i loved the sapphic vibes too, but i just didn’t love this story overall. cw: violence, gun violence, blood, murder ━━♡ We’ll Always Have June by Julian Winters ★★★ a ten year old is saved from drowning by a merperson, and he has thought about him ever since. and then they meet again, this time on the beach, and make a deal that the merperson will teach him how to swim, and he will help teach him how to sing. and i really did like this present story, but i kept feeling a little weird that they first met when our mc was only ten cw: drowning ━━♡ The Story of a Knife by Gretchen Schreiber ★★★★★ this was so hauntingly, and so beautifully, written. the crafting of this story, and the atmosphere, actually took my breath away a little. but this is about a girl, wanting to break the legacy of all the women in her generation being stranded in a house, on a cliff, on an island, trying to cover the scars on their legs. the only time she was able to leave the island is when she had to go to the hospital for major surgeries on her legs. and then she talks to the boy from the sea, who leaves her wondering what her family really are and what the truth of each generation before her. cw: brief mention of parental abandonment, talk of child illness (involving many scars after), withholding medical information ━━♡ The Dark Calls by Preeti Chhibber ★★ this is a story about a merfamily, living a normal day to day life, that is… until our mc starts to hear a strange voice, calling her name. and then she meets a strange boy, with an eel tail, at a canyon she is not supposed to go to. i loved seeing the family and their cave in this, but the actual story just didn’t capture my attention for some reason, sadly. cw: anxiety, talk of panic attacks, blood ━━♡ Return to the Sea by Kalyn Bayron ★★★★ i really enjoyed this one. a mermaid and a new girl at school form a friendship, and maybe something more, while trying to help a turtle. i loved the way this author did mermaids, i also really loved picturing our mc swimming to catalina island for work. but i just really loved what this story had to say, and the start of this sapphic relationship really made my heart so very happy to read. i really do need to read more from kalyn bayron. cw: themes / discussion of racism + cultural appropriation, sick animal (turtle) ━━♡ The Deepwater Van-Dal by Darcie Little Badger ★★★★★ this was so so so good. this is a story about a girl who lost her father fifteen years ago while he was searching for the biggest of lost treasures. everyone thinks it was an accident on the water, but she finally learned the truth of what happened. and with the help of a vandal mermaid and the boat that was left behind, she figures out the truth – no matter how painful that truth is. this was a haunting, beautiful, masterpiece of a short story, discussing themes of what can make monsters and what can make people choose to use the word monster – both for themselves and others. cw: anxiety, insinuation of mass children death, sick child in past (that does make a fu...

[outerbankies]

high school rafe and y/n sitting by themselves at a party and rafe almost admits his feelings but then gets distracted

new light: never really mine — rafe cameron

series masterlist

summary: rafe’s drunk, you’re drunk, everyone is drunk—except topper.

warnings: drinking, smoking

a/n: back to high school, again. i know i've promised approximately eight million other things but i liked this hc (s/o to whoever sent it in - love ya!) and kinda wanted to run with it. hope you like :)

Rafe might be a bit more intoxicated than he has been in a while, but he knows when something is off.

Even if he can’t place any of his ten fingers on it—he looks down at them, wiggling them in the glow of the crackling fire as he counts, yes, all ten—he can still feel it. And it isn’t just the Tito’s, the strawberry White Claws, or the lemon White Claws, or—not the point.

Looking at his hands, he realizes they are empty then, wonders where exactly he put his drink, and—oh, it’s on the ground in front of him, tipped over, the last of his vodka Sprite dribbling onto Emily’s back patio between his old blue Vans. When had he kicked it over, he wonders, narrowing his eyes at the offending spill.

He looks around the circle of his friends underneath the moonlight, maybe they know when he kicked his drink over without realizing. They’d migrated out to the back at one point, he can’t remember why. Kelce had said ‘Rafe, we’re going outside’ and Rafe thought that seemed like something he was capable of. Here he is, outside, sitting by the fire pit with his friends, so it turns out he was capable. Score.

Kelce is stuck in a cycle of inspecting every single pocket on his body over and over, looking for what, Rafe isn’t sure. Margot’s straight vibing, eyes closed, swaying to whatever song they can still slightly hear from inside the raucous house. She has a firm hold on her drink in her hand, and Rafe wishes that were him. He looks back down at the spill, realizes it takes him a second to combine the image from both of his eyes into one and decides that was probably for the best. He needs to find water, like, five minutes ago.

Rafe flicks his head over to the other two he’s with, who seem to be engaged in some sort of argument, he thinks. Topper and Gretchen could be discussing the orchestra performance that the school made the entire twelfth grade sit through today, but then he thinks he hears Topper say ‘what happened to you DD-ing the girls?’ And Gretchen slur something along the lines of ‘Yeah but like, m’ drunk now, so—’

“Well, the Jeep only seats five,” Topper scoffs, rolling his eyes. He flips the water bottle in his hand upside down and it lands perfectly on the ground. Rafe longs for it.

“We can lap sit,” Gretchen says, rolling her eyes just as firmly. “Chill out.”

Rafe looks around the circle, confused. He counts his friends like he counted his fingers: one, two, three, four—Kelce interrupts him to ask for a lighter. So that’s what he’d been looking for. He tries again. One, two, three, four, five. There’s only five of them, and Gretchen can just leave her car here if she wants to, why—Kelce passes him a cigarette and Rafe smokes through his confusion. Until he realizes.

“Yo—where the fuck is Y/n/n?”

“Inside,” Kelce and Margot chorus. Margot tips the rest of her drink back, the cup falling to the floor just as his did.

“Why?”

“Dude, I don’t know,” Kelce says, practically dropping the cigarette when he snatches it from Rafe’s hand. Rafe didn’t really want it, he’s just drunk, so he lets it go. He really needs water.

“Think she had to pee,” Gretchen supplies. “I told her we’re out here.”

“You guys left me!”

Roses by The Chainsmokers spills out of the house as the sliding glass door is thrown open. Thrown might be a little kind, you looked like you struggled a bit. And with the way you tap on the shoulder of the guy standing by the door so he can close it for you is any indication, it looks like everyone is on one tonight. Except Topper, ‘cause Uber hasn’t made it to the Outer Banks yet so, like, safety.

You have a cup in your hand but your shoes are nowhere to be found, Rafe fields a nagging concern about whether or not there’s any broken glass on this patio. Your hair is up like it tends to be about ten minutes into any party, nothing obstructing Rafe’s view of the skin of your shoulders glowing—glowing in the fire, or under the moonlight, fuck if Rafe knows how but you are definitely luminescent.

“You bolted,” Margot accuses.

“Had to pee and get water,” you pout.

“That seems counterproductive,” Kelce murmurs, but it comes out mangled around the cigarette. Rafe catches the exact moment your eyes narrow.

“Kelce, ew!” You stumble right over, crossing the circle behind Rafe so quickly he feels the air around him move. Kelce sighs, already drops it out of his mouth.

“Don’t step on it. Where did your shoes go?”

“I don’t know,” you realize, looking down at your painted toes. You look up, catching Rafe’s eye. “Rafe, step on it.”

Rafe does as he’s told immediately. It was probably a fire hazard anyway, but he doesn’t not hear Topper’s chuckle across from him. He doesn’t care to find out if it’s because he’s drunk and lacking any cognitive skills extending beyond being caught up in your orbit, and then a warm solid weight presses into his back, your arms wrapping around his shoulders. “Thanks, bud.”

Rafe turns, and his face is extremely, extremely close to yours. You blink slowly, allowing Rafe to become acutely aware of the way your eyeshadow matches your top and not the fact that your charm bracelet feels cold against the skin of his collar bones, or that one of your fingers slipped under the collar of his t-shirt, or the fact that your chin digs into his shoulder and your perfume is so strong that he’s probably going to smell like you for the rest of the night and he simply does not care. “You’re shitfaced.”

“So are you.”

“I think we ALL—” Margot starts, cutting herself off when she and Kelce both start cackling. Gretchen joins in, and Topper looks like he’s contemplating murder. You laugh along, the sound vibrating from your chest and through two layers of clothing until Rafe can feel it in his own chest, too. And then he feels something else in his chest, or on his chest, looks down and notices the front of his shirt is now wet.

“Oh, fuck, Rafe! M’sorry,” you gasp. Half of whatever was in your cup is now soaking through Rafe’s shirt. You pull the offending cup away but your other arm stays around his shoulders as you climb over the back of the bench he’d been sitting on. And it’s just physics, logistics, mechanics, really, how Rafe brings his own arm around your waist as you do so, the two of you fitting together like puzzle pieces as you nestle between him and Kelce.

“S’okay.”

“It’s just water, promise.”

“Water?” Rafe’s ears perk up, and he’s looking at the cup in your hand. You offer it to him before he can even ask. “You mind if I kill this?”

“No, go ahead. I already had a few,” you say, smiling. Your arm drops from his neck so Rafe throws his over your shoulder, taking careful, measured sips from the cup because you’re somehow right under his chin now, and Rafe doesn’t want to spill on your hair. He needs to get up and get you another cup after this, he knows, but he really doesn’t want to move anymore.

“You smell icky. Did you smoke, too?”

“I plead… what is it?” Rafe trails off. “What do I plead?”

“Rafe, what?” you laugh.

“The fifth. That’s what I plead,” he says. “Yeah, the fifth, or whatever.”

You lean up a bit further, Rafe’s arm automatically constricting or relaxing with every move of your body, doesn’t care where you go or what you do as long as he can keep holding you because it feels—fuck, Rafe is drunk. You press your face into his neck, his literal neck. “Ew, you did, didn’t you?”

“Sorry,” Rafe says.

“Gross,” you decide.

“You’re right,” he agrees, because even though he doesn’t regret it all that much (it’s not a habit, just something he does at parties), he’s hopeless not to agree with the crinkle in your eyebrows, the pout on your lips, the way you nod your head like you won an argument Rafe would never even have with you because you are always right and good and smart and Rafe was decidedly none of those things, and definitely never all of them at once. He was jagged edges and an air of arrogance he carried everywhere with him, thorns to your rose.

He finishes the rest of the water and tosses the cup on the ground beside his other, the plastic making a noise on impact.

You don’t even say anything, wordlessly leaning down to collect the two cups between his feet. Your hand bumps into his knee and you murmur an apology, patting it with your free hand before looking to where Margot’s cup was also discarded on the floor. Rafe’s arm falls from your shoulders but his hand feels comfortable resting right beneath your shoulder blades as you motion for Kelce to pass the cup to you.

You fall back into his side with your stack of three cups resting in your lap, looking satisfied. “Will you come with me to toss these in the recycling?”

Rafe’s mouth has been hanging open for a full minute, he knows, because the wind shifted and some of the smoke from the fire almost chokes him out before he closes it again. “Yeah, uh, now? Or do you wanna do it before we leave?”

You furrow your eyebrows, and it’s a simple question but you might be drunker than Rafe because you really, really think about it for a second. And it’s even more pointless because Rafe would do whatever you asked of him right now, and maybe always, if he thinks about it.

“Did someone say leave?”

“Yes, please,” Topper begs. “I wanna leave.”

“No,” Gretchen rouses from where she’d been laying with her head in Margot’s lap. Rafe forgot literally anyone but you was here for a second. “Party’s still going.”

“Bitch, you were asleep five seconds ago.”

“Wwuuungh,” she whines, and Rafe feels that, because you stand up, and he can’t justify touching you any longer.

“C’mon Gretch,” Kelce goads, standing with a stumble. “Let’s get some food in ya.”

“Dude, no,” Topper groans. “Home.”

Kelce waves him off. “Everyone raise your hand if you want food.”

Everyone’s hand shoots into the air, even Gretchen’s, which is impressive to Rafe, seeing as she’s still horizontal. Rafe doesn’t realize he hasn’t raised his hand until your free one closes around his wrist, and you’re raising it for him.

“Everyone up,” Margot declares. “Gretchen, you too.”

“Someone carry me.”

“C’mon,” you say, and Rafe realizes you’re talking to him, and still holding onto his wrist, giving it a slight tug. “Recycling.”

“Make sure she gets her shoes,” Topper says, sounding like an exasperated father wrangling his kids. He’s somehow managed to get Gretchen to stand, and Kelce and Margot are apparently racing to the car. “We’ll meet you out front.”

You tug on his wrist one more time, and Rafe’s body is heavy and his movements feel syrupy slow as he looks back at you. Topper and Gretchen walk off and then it’s just you and him—you’re backlit by the fire, sparks and embers flying up, way over the top of your head and far enough behind you it’s no concern but Rafe feels protective anyway, pulling you closer to him so that your knees knock together. His hand slides up your forearm slowly, and he looks down from where your bare feet are bracketed by his Vans, mouth opening. It’d be the easiest thing in the world to just tug you down, wrap his arms around you, hold your hand, fuck, something—Rafe’s wasted and so are you so he knows he could write it off even if he’d only be hurting himself more.

He couldn’t ever pretend that what he felt for you was as minuscule as a tipsy thought, a drunken ‘what-if.’ Would never want you to think that either.

Rafe’s frozen but you’re still radiating something like you always are, a beam of light or a ray of sunshine or something that just warms Rafe’s body from head-to-toe whenever you come around.

“How drunk are you?”

The laugh at his expense isn’t directed toward the moment Rafe is having with himself, he knows that. He must be acting weird, but it’s like a staunch reminder that he’ll never be yours—he’s in a reverie and you’re just laughing, trying to keep the night going, unaffected by anything and everything. He goes to retract his touch, realizes it’s been probably over a minute at this point. But you just grab on tighter, pulling on him one more time.

“C’mon, they’re waiting for us.”

Rafe goes willingly.

[rwby-sk]

I'm a little relieved that the next book coming out is focusing on Neo. Puts my heart at ease that dedicating an entire book to her and Roman's backstory only to kill her off next Volume seems like a very poor and highly unlikely decision. Plus we deserve another Neo costume change in Volume 10.

If we're going to get meta, then we're going to deep dive At the end of the day, I don't think anyone is dying on the island, and regardless of any Silent Knight interactions (though I'm almost certain we'll get /something/) Neo is going to defect

-

RWBY has a pretty clear system regarding character deaths once you break it down Backstory characters and side characters introduced within 4-5 episodes are never safe. Their deaths are used to show how dangerous a Grimm is (like the Nuckelavee) or how heartless a villain is (like Tyrian killing Forest)

Protagonists (anyone fighting Salem) are only vulnerable at the end of a Volume. Pyrrha, Penny, and Clover. Their deaths show the antagonists winning, and the stakes raising, within the maybe 3 last episodes of a volume

Antagonists are safe at all times, until their story / motivation comes to a natural end This is the key - Hazel died after he saved Emerald (saving his surrogate sister when he couldn't save Gretchen, his motivation to that point) - Watts died after infecting Penny, and gaining control of Atlas, just like he always wanted. He didn't have any more reason to work for Salem (besides self preservation perhaps) so his story ended - Adam lost the white fang at Haven. All he had left was his drive to get Blake back / punish her. But she refused to let him control her anymore, and his story ended. - Ironwood sacrificed everyone and everything to try to keep Atlas, the floating city, safe. But when RWBY rescued the people at the cost of the city, his story arc was done. He died because he had nothing left to do anymore - Roman was a great thief. The master criminal of Vale. But Beacon was gone. There was nothing left to steal. And the story was about to leave Vale behind. There was nothing left for Roman's story. He was about to be outpaced by Gods and Relics and Magic. He didn't even have an aura. His arc, as the introductionary villain was done - Jacque Schnee played his role. RWBY returned to Atlas, saw through his deception and greed. And locked him away, giving Weiss the closure she needed from her abusive father. He was never going to become important to the story again. He was never leaving that cell. And he didn't

-

So Let's recap Neo is still, currently in this moment, a villain Her story arc and motivation is to avenge Roman She will get that closure on the island. She has to face Ruby at some point, and they have to work out what happened, however they do

So, then, is she in danger of being killed off as an antagonist with a finished story?

No, because she's about to become a protagonist

-

Neo's defection has been suggested since her return in Volume 6

Her only song in the series is about how she wanted revenge on Cinder for Roman's death (Notice how it never plays when Neo fights Ruby? Or even as a leitmotif?)

She's introduced hunting down Cinder Every chance she has, Neo glares at Cinder as soon as the Maiden looks away Neo is terrified of Salem and the Grimm creations Neo happily betrays and blackmails Cinder with the Relic to get her revenge on Ruby And now, Cinder has tried to kill Neo, knocking her off the platform and letting her fall to her assumed death

Not to mention the reframing of this scene from volume 3 The scene where Roman tells Ruby, that he never wanted to destroy Beacon, he just wanted to be on the winning side. Because if you can't beat someone, you join them

-

And all of that doesn't even touch on Neo's similarities and foils to Jaune Another character who lost someone they cared about a Beacon, who carries around a piece of their clothing, who still can't get over their loss And who is the only other person on the Island not on team RWBY (or those random civilians Cinder attacked)

-

All of this, as well as getting a new book focused entirely on Neo and Roman, as a means to better understand Neo and where she's coming from, to want to see her succeed and get what she wants?

Neo will be safe. No one is dying on the island. And she will defect to join RWBY, if only to get back at Cinder

[achliegh]

Golden

Yeehaw Leo… it's all because this song came on one day (I don’t even really listen to country anymore so it really is fate). Leo is based off that song, each chapter is going to be based off a yeehaw song too.

Characters belong to @lumosinlove

Beta: @the-most-slyterin-hufflepuff & @punkkkboi

TW/CW: Smut, terrible yeehaw sayings and jokes, injuries, mentions of past death, minor character death, underage drinking, mentions of past arrests, cringe

Chapter Songs (listening in order is recommended):

Chapter 5:

Redneck Woman

Red Solo Cup

Eloise smiles as Leo continues to ramble on about these boys who have clearly stolen his heart. She sips her black coffee and sets it down on the counter she is leaning against. Walking over to her offspring, that is a total of two inches taller than her, she kisses his cheek causing him to stop mid sentence.

“Was I rambling too much?” The red appearing on his cheeks made her smile, ruffling his hair that is in need of his yearly head shave. He swats her hand away. “I know it's long but because someone told me how to keep my hair healthy.” Looks pointedly at her as she snorts. “I only cut my hair once a year and it's a full shave.” He sticks out his tongue.

“Who even raised you to be so disrespectful?” She dramatically puts her hand on her chest, then tightens the ties on her robe. Giving him a motherly smile she thanks him as he puts some toad in a hole on a plate for her. “I don’t have my hearing friend in to help me listen to you,” She makes a gesture like she is swooning with her hand on her forehead and her hand fanning herself. “ GuSh, about your hockey boys. But, it is very sweet.”

“I really like them Mama… I think you and Daddy would too.” He focuses on his toast as he takes a bite and brushes the crumbs onto the floor, much to Eloise’s annoyance. She knows this is a sign of him wanting to trust his emotions but doesn’t want to jinx himself.

“Come here, let's get all the motherly squishing done before Clay and… what was his name? Rex?” She pulls him into a tight hug and crushes him in her arms with her old lady strength. He relaxes completely into her and hugs back just as tight but making sure not to hurt her. He makes sure to have his head on her right shoulder so she can hear him.

“Reg, his name is Regulus but we call him Reg. I think you should try and adopt him like you did with Clay. Pseudo Mother is just your personality now that you are so old.” He squeaks and gets out of her death grip hug as she pokes his ribs. “RUDE!”

She is still cackling as Clayton bursts through the door announcing his entrance, running into the kitchen.

“I smell food!” He hops on the counter and begins earring Leo’s breakfast. She pats his knee with a happy yet defeated look on her face. She has told him so many times not to climb on the counters that cost more than some people's entire house. “Mm! Ma, meet Reg.” He gestures to a boy who looks like he feels entirely out of place, she was going to tell Clay off for talking with his mouth full but she has a new mission now.

Protect this kid.

After making a mess and eating, Clay and Leo go out to load the trailer and Horses up for the drive to Texas where the rest of their team already is. Eloise has started on the dishes and looks over to Reg and nods him over.

“You know how to rinse dishes?”

“No Ma’am.” She smiles at him and pushes the faucet to face the sink in front of him.

“No need to call me Ma’am, call me Eloise. Now, you just run the dish under the hot warmer and get all the suds off. Make sure I don't miss any food or spots because I am just a helpless old lady at the end of the day.” She gets a small smile to form at his lips as she shows him exactly how to rinse. An easy task, but one that he was never taught. That triggers something in her head that makes her think he was told he only has one purpose in life. No one only has a single purpose in life. “Who are your parents Reg?” She notices him tense at the question and immediately regrets asking.

“Orion and Walburga Black.” Simple and straightforward answer. He doesn’t want to talk about them. She nods and hums in acknowledgement. Passing the last few dishes in silence, she drains the sink and turns to look at him.

“So, what did Marigold and Bluebell tell you to convince you to come with them this summer?” She smiles at him as his whole demeanor changes. He smiles that same small smile but he visibly relaxes.

“First off, Marigold… Bluebell? What the fuck kinda names are those.” Eloise laughs in surprise. “Second, we watched tiktoks half drunk together for two hours while the rest of the team socialized.” She nods her head, that does sound like what those two would do. “And Third, I have been needing to get away from my brother and his boyfriend so they can boink in peace and not have to worry about me hearing.” He looks at her and his smile drops off his face. “Sorry, Leo told me you were laid back and I thought it would be alright to share this type of stuff with-”

“Reg I think you are a wonderful man who is going to keep those two pea-brains in line while on the road. Maybe loosen up a little yourself.” She smiles. “Is it alright if I give you physical affection? I tend to be a touchy person and not realize it.” He pauses for a moment and then nods, she pats his cheek and smiles as the other two walk back into the kitchen.

Reg is still a little stunned when Clay throws his arm around his shoulder and jostles him around.

After kisses and hugs goodbye Leo hops into the driver's seat, Clay in the passenger and Reg in the middle seat of the back. Reg has barely seen a truck in his life but this vehicle was fucking huge. Giant. Thicc some might say. The first few hours of driving was a podcast that Clay was in the middle of listening to when he picked up Reg. Once that ended Reg descended into music hell.

He has come to the conclusion that most country songs are about the three G’s.

Guns, God, Goodies (meaning like titties)

He was absolutely taken aback by how Leo was screaming, we can’t call it singing its terrible, these songs that are the complete opposite of him. Clayton at least liked goodies. There was one song that will probably stick with Reg his entire life. Redneck Woman by Gretchen Wilson.

Holy shit. When that song came on it was like Leo and Clay were having a contest of who could sing it the loudest. So, Reg decided that for his first check in with the team. Which Sirius was making him do because he is paranoid. Reg decided he would turn around in his seat and film a video of him painfully smiling and giving a thumbs up to the camera as Leo and Clay scream at each other.

“I’M A REDNECK WOMAN AIN’T NO HIGH PRICE GAL!”

Clay sees Reg recording and flips off the camera still singing. An hour later they pull up to this massive ranch style AirBnB with stables and all. It must have cost a fortune. Reg hops out of the truck and feels out of place, Yeehaws everywhere. Okay, there were like three of them and this giant man with long hair and a braided beard, covered in tattoos just reading a book on the front porch.

“That's our tattoo artist, he travels with us because he is the only person Leo and I trust to tattoo us. You’d like him, his name is Hagrid. But, no time to chit chat! We need to teach you some of the basics, we’ve got a rodeo in two nights. I am competing on Leroy and Peanut is just here for fun. How about we teach you how to care for them a bit?” Clay smiles at him and Reg remembers he is with people who want to be friends with him… for him. Not because of hockey or his family, not because his brother made them. Just for him. Reg went willingly with Clay to watch Leo as he led the horses one by one out into a pen for them to roam around in for a bit.

Clay went into more detail about how they care for them and what he thinks Reg can do. It was night already so they decided to go inside, Leo asked around to see what people were hungry for and made almost anything after someone had got groceries.

“I didn’t know you could cook.” Reg was sitting across the island from Leo as he finished up the food, having watched him make the entire meal.

“Mama taught me how to cook when I was younger, it was the one thing I did that wouldn’t get me in trouble with the law.” He rolls his eyes at the thought of the sheriff and Reg decides not to press. “What do you want to do tomorrow while Clay practices?”

They got wasted. Mostly on jello shots, Leo taught Reg the trick: rim job, blow job, swallow. Leo had promised the boys he would call them, he didn’t want to do it drunk but he misses them like crazy. Drunk or not he was going to call them. So, there he is sitting on the balcony out of his bedroom waiting for them to answer. Finn picks up first, shirtless and sweating.

“Okay Finn, I love this” Gesturing in a circle at Finn who just smiles out of breath and wipes his face with a towel. “But I need you to calm down, because I’m a little tipsy and that means I’m very horny.” He smiles when Finn laughs.

“Well I’m glad to know that even on truth serum you find me attractive.” Finn sets his phone down but props it up on some books as he finishes his warm down stretches from his run he just came back from.

Then Logan picks up, in Leo’s T shirt he left for him last time. It was baggy on him and his hair was messed up from sleeping. The side of his face is a little red and there are lines from his pillow squished into his face. He sleepily smiles at the camera.

“Hi Leo.” Leo groans in response and leans his head back.

“You two are gonna be the death of me. Fucking Christ.” He signs and looks at Logan who is suddenly bright red but smiling back. “You’re beautiful Sweet Pea.”

“Really?” Logan looks at him with such big unbelieving eyes that it breaks Leo’s heart.

“Mhm you and Finn make my little heart do a pitter-patter every time I think of y’all.” Being drunk Leo’s accent is incredibly thick.

“You sound like a true southern man there, Le. How is Texas?” Finn is sitting on the ground criss cross with his hands resting on his knees. Logan has laid back down and snuggled up with his blanket on his side. “You’ve been there a day right?”

“Yes sir! I have been here for a full 27 hours now and I can say, it ain’t no Louisiana but it’ll do.” He shows off his chipped tooth and hears a trilling sound on his railing and looks over to see a mama opossum with her babies hanging on her back. He smiles and flips the camera. “Look at This Little Mama!” He reaches his hand out and she looks at it suspicious. Logan told Leo to stop and Finn said no, but he knows what he’s doing.

To their surprise, the mama just lets Leo pet her under her chin and Finn takes so many pictures. The opossum lets Leo pet her babies with his finger and he pats her head on last time before he goes inside to flop on his bed.

“So, We’ve been thinking” Leo lifts his phone to be above his face as he slowly starts dozing off. “We want to come out.” Leo’s eyes snap open and he drops the phone on his face, rolling over to his stomach he wiggles his nose as he processes what Finn just said.

“Wait, like all three of us or just your two?”

“Well, we thought we would leave that up to you…”

“I think to start, it would be safest for all of us, if you two came out together first. We can talk about me coming out when I’m done traveling this summer, okay?” They all smile at each other nervously and Finn notices a couple of watery sniffles from Logan, they were going to talk to Dumo and Sirius tomorrow. Maybe then they can talk more.

“Leo, do you want to move in… in the fall? Winter? I mean you don’t have too but I would like it and I bet Logan would too. We miss you.” Finn has his fingers crossed where the others can’t see.

Silence.

“I would love to, let me give you my Mama’s number. She will be so glad to get me out of the house the rest of the year.” He laughs a little, they fall into a comfortable silence and Leo drifts off, fully dressed in his boots and everything. Clutching his phone like he never has.

Finn knocks on the Dumias door the next day. Nervous about this talk they are going to have with the other French speaking people. Finn can’t speak French so he hopes they don’t start speaking it because he will just up and leave. Logan opens the door and Finn can’t help the soppy smile that crosses his face when he sees Logan in his sweatshirt. He wondered where it went. Logan and Him walk into the dinning room where Sirius and Dumo are talking about new plays they want to practice. They look up when they enter the room and stand across from them.

“Dumo, Sirius I need you to mind your fucking business.”

“What he means to say is why did you tell Leo that he hurt Logan?” Finn translated.

“I was the one that hurt Leo! Leo did nothing and you guys fucking made him doubt us even more!” Logan crossed his arms and Finn rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“What? That's why you were so sad? Because of something you did… Logan, I know we sound like broken records at this point but please start talking to us.” Dumo looks at him with a slightly frustrated look in his eyes but also worry. It makes Logan’s skin crawl.

“I think you meant well with the shovel talk, but Logan was the one who broke things off with Leo before it even started. He told Leo we didn’t want him and all this other shit that was Logan being… scared.” Finn feels Logan take his hand and interlock their fingers. He looks at the smaller man and squeezes his hand as a way to say, I’m here.

Dumo and Sirius didn’t get another word in before Logan was dragging Finn out the door. Staying at his apartment for a few days. Lo already has some clothes there and… they had to film something special.

Rodeo the next day went well. The after party was even better.

They were in a large steel building with everyone, concrete floors covered in dirt with people swinging dancing their hearts out. Leo was drinking and Clay was drinking, they somehow managed to lose clay about twenty minutes ago. Reg was getting a facetime from Sirius and answered it so Sirius doesn’t worry, the music is so loud that he can barely hear him until a less background heavy song comes on and Leo is humming it while drinking out of his red solo cup.

“Reg where are you!?” Sirius was yelling because it was so loud and Remus was in the background trying not to laugh.

“I’m at an after party! Are you with the team?” Sirius nods and flips the camera to show everyone and Leo’s eye catches his boys.

“FINN! LOGAN!” He yells super loud so everyone turns to face sirius’ phone. “IF YOU WERE HERE RIGHT NOW I WOULD TOTALLY SUCK YOUR DICKS IN THE BATHROOM! AT THE SAM- CLAY!” Leo sees Clay in the ocean of people and scurries off before finishing his sentence. Reg looks back at his phone and shrugs. Finn and Logan are bright red and getting chirped to hell for sure but the music is so loud that he can’t hear them.

“I’ll call you when I get back to the BnB!” Sirius nods and hangs up. Wrestling two drunk idiots into an uber is fine but getting them out was like untangling headphones that you left in your pocket for three years.

Just legs everywhere.

Hands? Don’t know how to use them.

Braincell? Reg has it.

At some point Clayton started crying because a guy he thinks he has a crush on has a girlfriend and he isn’t Leo so he can’t convince two people to love him. Very dramatic. Leo thinks he lost his phone, even though he gave it to Reg at the beginning of the night, and he is worried someone will find it and steal his nudes for their own. Reg doesn’t even know how to respond to that.

Waking up the next morning. Leo has a mild headache, but nothing that will stop him from driving. It was going to be a good day. Especially when Leo got his phone back and saw a tiktok notification from Finn and Logan.

They came out last night.

Time to wreak havoc.

[masterofmunson]

bleeding love

Frat boy!Harry x Sorority!Reader

Summary: There’s no way in hell you would give Harry Styles the time of day. At least you don’t until he accidentally gives you a bloody nose.

Warnings: blood, language, drinking, puking, mentions of sex

Word Count: 7.7k+

Author’s Note: Frat boy fic is here! I had a blast writing this! Some bits are a little self indulgent based on my experiences at frat parties and being in a sorority myself haha. If you don’t know what cuff night is, it’s basically where you’re hand cuffed to a frat boy for the night because he asked you to be his date and you have to drink a bottle of champagne or wine together until it’s empty to get uncuffed (at least in my experience). Enjoy and tell me what you think!  

here’s the playlist accompanied with the fic

“I’m surprised you’re coming,” your friend Gretchen comments as you and your small group of friends walk to the Pi Alpha Kappa house from your sorority house. 

“Why’s that?” you ask her, carefully stepping over a pile of trash left on the street. 

She laughs, nudging you gently as you walk. She shakes her head at you, her teased curls hitting you in the face. “Don’t play dumb, Y/n. We all know the reason you don’t go to Pike parties is because Harry’s there.”

You scoff at the mention of his name. You roll your eyes. Just hearing Harry’s name makes you want to gauge your eyes out. You wonder how many times he’ll bug the living shit out of you tonight. “Well, if he wasn’t so insufferable maybe I would come more.”

Your friend Lucy laughs loudly. “You guys should just have sex and move on,” she tells you. “It would solve the disgusting sexual tension you two have going on right now.”

Heat spreads up your neck and across your face. You scoff in disgust and shove Lucy on to the sidewalk. She stumbles and all your friends laugh. “We do not have sexual tension, Lucy. You’re crazy. The only reason I’m coming is because of the theme. I helped Peter curate the playlist tonight.”

“Ah, right, because who doesn’t love a decades themed frat party?” Lucy teases while your friends giggle at your embarrassment. 

You nod, “Exactly.”

Walking up the long driveway your friends Logan and Frankie stand up from their lawn chairs in front of the house. Logan hugs you before complimenting you on your outfit, a pair of bell bottom jeans and a yellow tube top. A pair of circular blue sunglasses rest on the top of your head. You walk past him to the back patio towards the garage. 

The music rings through your ears as you open the door attached to the garage. You make a beeline to the bar and one of the pledges pours you a drink before you disappear into the growing crowd. You hurry over to where Peter’s standing and he pulls you in for a hug. 

“Who knew letting you curate a playlist would get you to come!” Peter laughs, taking a sip of his beer. 

You roll your eyes at him, shoving him gently. “That’s what I’ve been told. Thanks for letting me help.”

The song changes and you let out an excited scream. Peter laughs again and the two of you chug the rest of your drinks before you’re dragging Peter towards the front of the garage. There’s plenty of space as the sound of Footloose rings through the speakers. You went to high school with Peter and have been friends for as long as you can remember. You helped each other learn the line dance from the movie when you were 11. It also doesn’t hurt that Peter danced for nearly 10 years either. 

Your friends squeeze through the growing crowd to join you and you grin excitedly as you start to dance together. People join in, watching you and Peter lead the dance with your friends beside you. You’re too into the dance to notice Harry watching you with a smug smirk on his face. 

When the song ends, your friends all laugh breathlessly and you grin. You make a beeline towards the bar counter again, asking for a beer when Harry approaches you. He smirks and leans against the counter. You know without looking that he’s standing beside you. You know he’ll tease you about what he just saw, but you don’t care. You were having fun. You won’t let Harry ruin your night. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile like that,” Harry tells you, sipping his beer. “Especially over a song like Footloose.”

There it is. The small jab Harry always has to sneak in to get under your skin. You won’t let him. Not tonight. 

You turn your head to look at him. You fake a smile. You notice that he’s dressed just like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. At least he dressed up for the theme. Of all the times you’ve been to the house for parties, you’ve never seen him dress up for the themes. You wonder briefly if he knows you helped plan the party and the theme. 

“I know you mean that as an insult, but I don’t care. I won’t let you ruin my night because you enjoy bugging the ever loving shit out of me, Harry. Go find Chelsea or Caroline. I’m sure they’d be happy to keep you company. See you later,” you tell him with a curt nod before disappearing with your drink in your hand to find your friends. 

You find them only moments later dancing and grinding on each other to Smack That. They cheer when you join them and you smile. You and your friends dance together and scream the lyrics to the song. Sweat slides down your face and you take a deep breath before joining Lucy in screaming the song. Her jean jacket is wrapped around her waist as you pull up your tube top. Gretchen laughs, forgoing the curls on her shoulders and throwing her hair up into a bun. 

“Harry’s been eyeing you the whole time we’ve been here!” she shouts over the loud music, winking at you. 

You shrug. “Don’t care, Gretch!” you shout back, finishing your beer. “I’ll be right back. I’m getting another drink!”

You weave through your friends and walk around the beer pong table to get to the counter. 

You never make it. 

Instead a hard wack on your nose makes you stumble back and fall backwards on the floor. You scream loudly and the music stops. Your head starts to spin and you immediately clutch your nose. Tears blur your vision. Warm liquid coats your fingers. 

“Shit!”

You groan. Of course Harry is the one to accidentally give you a bloody nose. The night has officially gone to shit, and you were having a great time!

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you,” he apologizes, leaning over you and helping you to sit up. Harry helps you to your feet and you grunt. You don’t say anything in fear of getting blood in your mouth. 

He holds you by the waist, and normally you would argue if he was touching you, but you couldn’t see and you needed help. You walk past the girls in line for the bathroom and Harry opens the back door of the house. You step inside and he guides you down the hall into the bathroom attached to what you assume is his bedroom. Harry sits you down on the toilet seat and frantically opens the bathroom cabinets for the first aid kit. 

At this point, blood starts leaking down your mouth, chin, and through your fingers. You still can’t see and tears still sting at your eyes. You hear Harry sigh in relief when he finds the first aid kit and nearly rips it open. He gently takes your hands away from your face and immediately presses gauze to your noise. You groan and hiss in pain. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, “I need t’ put pressure to stop the bleeding.”

“I know,” you grumble, “still hurts though.”

Your head still spins and you feel like you’re about to puke. You can still hear the music from the garage and tears still coat your cheeks. 

“I know we’re not friends, but I genuinely didn’t mean to hit you in the nose,” Harry breaks the silence, laughing awkwardly. You can’t even see him. 

“I know, Harry,” you sigh as he adds more gauze to your bleeding nose. You wince again and he apologizes quietly. Your vision clears and your eyes meet his. “It was an accident.”

Harry throws the gauze into the small trash bin beside the toilet before grabbing a clean cloth. The bleeding has finally stopped, but the burning sensation you feel in your nose doesn’t go away. Harry gently holds your face in his hands and stares at your nose. You don’t know why your heart starts to race. His fingers gently press into the sides of your nose and you groan. 

“Does it hurt when I press on your nose?”

You roll your eyes at him. What a stupid question. It makes you want to smack him. You wish your hands weren’t covered in blood so you could back hand him. “Isn’t it obvious? I just groaned in pain,” you snap at him.

Harry glares at you. “I’m just making sure. I think you may have a broken nose. I’m going t’ grab a bag of ice to put on your nose ‘nd some Advil.”

“What?!” you shout at him. “How do you know that just by touching my nose?”

“I’m a nursing major. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

You stare at him in complete shock as he hurries out of the bathroom, shutting the door slightly. You had no idea that he was a nursing major. 

You let out another groan. The pain from your nose spreads across your face through the back of your head. You feel like you’re about to puke. 

“Oh, no,” you whimper to yourself, sliding off the toilet seat as fast as you can. You spin around and pull the seat up, ignoring the red stain you leave behind. You puke immediately. It burns your throat and you can’t see again. You’re a flaming hot mess with a broken nose. 

You start to gasp for breath when you feel a gentle hand on your back. Your hair is pulled out of the way as another way of nausea makes its way through you. Tears burn your eyes and you let out a soft cry. You’re completely embarrassed. 

“It’s okay, Y/n,” Harry says softly. It’s the first time you’ve heard something kind come out of his mouth towards you and your head is in his toilet. “Just breathe f’ me. I can’t have ya passing out on me. You’re dehydrated.”

Your breathing starts to slow and you pull your head out from the toilet. You flush quickly with the back of your hand and tear a few pieces of toilet paper off the roll to wipe your mouth. You groan when you notice a red stain as you toss it in the garbage bin. 

“Ah, shit,” Harry curses, grabbing the first aid kit from the counter and grabbing a clean thing of gauze. He reaches for your chin and quickly wipes the blood trailing down your nose before holding it against your face. “You puking most likely aggravated your nose. That’s why it's bleeding again.”  

You grunt in response as Harry goes through the motions to stop your nosebleed again. He pulls away a few minutes later and tosses the piece into the trash. He stands up, quickly and thoroughly washing his hands before grabbing the cup of water he got you from the kitchen. You take it with a soft thank you. He grabs the bottle of Advil and shakes out two pills. He hands them to you carefully and you pop them into your mouth. You take a careful sip and swallow. 

You lean your head back on the bathroom wall and sigh. You set the cup down and Harry gently sets the ice bag on your nose. You wince and he apologizes under his breath. Your fingers brush his as you hold the bag in place. 

You’re silent for another moment before you build up the courage to speak. You’re incredibly embarrassed and you know he won’t let you live this down. Harry has never seen you so weak and small. Harry has never seen you cry. 

“Thanks for doing all of this for me, Harry,” you mumble quietly as you stare at the bathroom wall. You can’t look at him. You’re too ashamed. “I’m not normally this much of a mess. I’m sorry about all the blood everywhere.”

Out of the corner of your eye you see Harry turn to look at you. He’s smiling at you. You turn your head to meet his eyes. “I know. It’s okay, I’ll clean everything up later,” he laughs, “and you’re welcome. I feel really bad. If you just keep taking Advil ‘nd ice it, you should be fine. It doesn’t look like a severe break so there’s nothing else you can really do for it.”

You hum, fighting back a smile. “For the three years we’ve known each other, I had no idea you were a nurse major.”

“We’re normally too busy bitching at each other to have a civil conversation.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and switch hands on the ice pack. “Right.”

Silence falls between the two of you when there’s a harsh knock on the bathroom door. It’s opened immediately and Peter pokes his head inside. He looks down at the two of you. 

“Is everything okay? I heard something about a nosebleed,” Peter asks. His eyes never leave yours and you know without looking that you’re a disaster. 

There’s most likely alcohol and puke in your hair. Your jeans are wet and you’re missing an earring. Your makeup is smeared all over your face and blood stains your precious tube top and your hands. 

“It’s all taken care of, Pete,” you tell him with a soft smile. You’re grateful to have a friend like him. “Harry’s my personal nurse.”

“Okay, good. I was worried. Let me know if you need a ride back to the house.”

You nod and Peter shuts the door, leaving you and Harry alone again. Harry sighs softly, glancing over at you. “How are you feeling?”

You laugh. “Better, thanks. My nose is numb, but I’m good. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow since I threw up.”

“Good. I think it’s about time we get ya home now.”

“Yeah,” you murmur, embarrassment washing over you again. Of course Harry wants to dump you off to someone else. You’re not surprised in the slightest. You most definitely ruined his night as well as yours. “If you grab Peter, he can take me back to the house. I should get out of your hair.”

Harry’s brows pinch together in confusion as he stares at you. “I’m taking you home. I would feel better if I did. I still feel shitty about it.”

Oh! 

You certainly didn’t expect that kind of a response. You expected him to be thrilled. You would no longer be his problem and he could go find someone to fuck for the night. 

“Okay, thanks.”

Harry’s up on his feet faster than you and he watches you carefully as he washes his hands again. You stand up slowly and take a quick peek at yourself in the mirror. You’re absolutely mortified as you take your turn to wash your hands thoroughly. You look like you got hit by a train and a bus and a car all within one fell swoop. 

“Oh my god,” you groan in embarrassment. 

There would be no way to save your precious and favorite tube top. Yes, there’s blood, plenty of it stained on the shirt, but that’s not the worst part. It’s the puke stain mixed with it. It makes you want to puke again. 

Your hair is a mess and there’s a wet spot on your jeans. Makeup runs down your face, nearly all of it wiped off in the process of stopping your bloody nose. 

“There’s no way I can go out of your room looking like this,” you tell him. “I look terrible!”

Harry laughs and you frown at him. “You can borrow some of my clothes. I can wash your clothes and give them back tomorrow,” he tells you with a warm smile. 

“Thank you. I owe you,” you tell him as you quickly wash your hands. Harry shuts off the bathroom light and you step into his bedroom. The main light is on and you quickly glance around the room. You try not to look surprised. His room is so…. clean. You wouldn’t have pegged him as someone to have a neat room. 

You watch Harry dig through his dresser until he pulls out an old pair of shorts and a sleep shirt. He hands them to you and smiles gently. 

“I’ll stay in here. You can use the bathroom to change,” he tells you. “Just try not to make more of a mess.”

You nod in return, thanking him for the clothes before disappearing to the bathroom again. You change quickly, getting rid of your stained and wet clothes. You carefully wrap your tube top in your jeans before washing your hands again and open the bathroom door and shut the light off. 

“Thanks again, Harry,” you smile softly. 

“You’re welcome. You can just toss your clothes into the bin right there. I can clean them for you.”

Your brows pinch together. He doesn’t have to wash your disgusting clothes. You can handle it. He’s already done way too much for you. There’s no way you’ll ever be able to live this down. 

“Harry, my clothes are disgusting and stained. I can bring them home. It’s not a big deal,” you tell him. 

“I have to do laundry anyway. Just throw them in the bin. I insist. I’m the reason they’re so gross in the first place.”

You sigh. You’re not in the mood to argue. Now all you want to do is go home and sleep off the pain and embarrassment you feel. 

Throwing your clothes into the laundry bin, you follow Harry out the bedroom door and close it behind you. You wave a quick goodbye to Peter and ask him to tell your friends that Harry’s driving you back to the sorority house. 

Harry opens the front door to the house and you step outside. You walk quietly to his car and open the door without a word. You shut the door and buckle your seat belt as Harry climbs in. He starts the car and carefully pulls out of the driveway. 

The five minutes it takes to get to the house are silent. You don’t know what to say and you’re guessing Harry doesn’t either. He pulls to the back of the house and you sit for a moment before glancing over at him. 

“Thanks for everything, Harry. I know this isn’t how you pictured your night to go, but I really appreciate it. You weren’t horrible tonight,” you laugh softly, biting the inside of your cheek bashfully. 

Harry smiles, laughing with you. “Even though I accidentally broke your nose? You’re an angel.”

You roll your eyes and open the car door. “See you later, Harry.”

You shut the door and climb up the stairs to the back door. You look back briefly and Harry sticks his tongue out at you, waiting for you to get into the house safely. You shake your head before punching the code into the keypad attached to the door before stepping inside. You peek out the window and watch Harry pull out the back. 

Walking through the dining area and the living room, you climb up the stairs to your bedroom. You turn on the light, suddenly grateful your friends were still at the frat house. You have the room to yourself for now. 

Heading into the bathroom, you brush your teeth and wash your face as gently as possible. You look and feel better now that your face is clean. 

Walking back into your bedroom, you turn off the lights and climb into bed. You fall asleep with Harry’s clothes still on your body. 

He smells like aftershave and vanilla. 

….

You wake up with a raging headache the next morning. You groan loudly and fist at your sheets. Your nose still burns. 

You roll out of bed and grab a clean towel from your closet and slip your shower shoes on. You step into the bathroom and lock the door behind you. You stare at yourself in the mirror. 

Holy shit! 

Your nose is completely swollen. Black and blue spread across the bridge of your nose and towards the corners of your eyes. Now it definitely looks like someone punched you in the face and gave you a black eye. 

You sigh, shaking your head. You turn on the shower and take off the clothes Harry let you borrow last night. Stepping into the shower, you let out a blissful sigh. The warm water washes away the remnants of last night’s party. 

You thoroughly shampoo and condition your hair before gently washing your face and body. Once you’re finished, you turn off the water and dry off. 

Stepping out of the shower, you scoop up the clothes you borrowed and head back into your room. You change into a pair of comfy gray joggers and a shirt that says Florida State Dad that your brother got you as a gag gift for one Christmas. 

Reaching for your phone, you check the time. You groan. It’s just past 2:30. No wonder no one’s in the room. You’ve slept the day away. Now you have to stay up late to do your assignments. 

Your phone buzzes with a text message and it makes you jump. 

Unknown Number: Hey, it’s Harry. I’m outside, can you let me in? 

Unknown Number: I have your clothes and a few other things. 

Unknown Number: Also I got your number from Peter. 

You laugh softly, shaking your head. 

Y/n: I’ll be down in a sec, weirdo. 

You slip your phone into your pants pocket before heading downstairs. You open the door and your eyes meet Harry’s. You smile and let him inside. You look down at his hands. He’s holding a small white basket. 

Peeking inside, you see your clothes. They’re clean and the bloodstain on your yellow tube top is gone. You wonder how long it took to get rid of the stains. Surrounding your clothes are some of your favorite snacks and candies. It makes your heart flutter inside your chest. 

“You didn’t have to do this Harry. You’re too sweet,” you tell him with a gentle smile. “Thank you.”

Harry grins, laughing at you. “Do my ears deceive me or did you just call me sweet?”

You roll your eyes and shove him playfully. “Shut up. Don’t ruin the moment.”

You turn and walk into the dining area and Harry follows close behind. He sets the basket on one of the empty tables as you fish around the cabinets for a plastic bag to fill with ice. 

“Did I come at a bad time?” Harry asks you. 

You shake your head and zip the bag up once it’s filled. You laugh softly. “I slept through most of the day. I woke up about a half hour ago and took a shower. You just caught me in the middle of my hair routine.”

He hums as you gently place the bag of ice on the bridge of your nose. Harry frowns and walks towards you. 

“Now it looks like I gave ya a bloody black eye too,” he grumbles. 

You laugh at his pout. “It’s okay, Harry. I’m past that now. It’ll heal. I’m fine.”

He sighs. “I still feel bad. Have you eaten anything yet? I was planning on going to Munchies for lunch. Would you like to come?”

Your heart stops and you swallow hard. You did not expect that. Is Harry asking you on a date? 

“It would be my treat, because y’ know…” 

“I-I, um,” you stutter bashfully, “sure! Just let me go put the basket in my room and get my shoes and we can go.”

He nods and you scurry off, grabbing the basket and holding the bag of ice to your nose. You’re practically running up the stairs. You hurry into your bedroom and set the basket on your bed. You quickly pull on a pair of gently worn gym shoes before making your way downstairs again. You stuff the bag of ice into the freezer so you can use it later. 

“Ready?” you ask him. 

He smiles and nods as the two of you make it to the front door. He opens it for you and you step outside. You walk side by side towards Munchies Cafe. The two of you make small talk as he holds the door open for you. You thank him quietly. 

You’re seated almost immediately and Harry smiles bashfully at you. It makes your stomach flip. It’s so weird and strange and foreign to you. You would’ve never guessed that the accidental broken nose would lead to this. 

He’s kind and cordial. You don’t bitch or groan at anything he says. Instead you laugh loud and joyously at nearly everything he says. It makes your cheeks hurt from smiling so much. You had no idea you had so much in common with Harry before last night. It makes you wonder why you never got along before today. You don’t even remember the real reason behind the hate and disgust you had towards each other. Every time Peter, Lucy, or Gretchen asked why you didn’t like him, you never gave a definitive answer. 

Your only response was a childish, “I just don’t, okay!” 

Now you feel stupid because Harry’s great. He’s amazing. Now you understand why everyone likes him. 

You wonder briefly while the two of you are eating your lunch together if he feels the same way about you. 

Does he think you’re kind and funny? Does he think it’s cool that the two of you have so much in common? Does he wonder why you hated each other for so long when you couldn’t think of a good answer?

It shocks you that you momentarily care what he thinks of you because you don’t. He’s Harry for crying out loud! He lives and breathes female attention and you’re giving him exactly what he wants. You shake away the feeling. He just feels bad about your nose. That’s all it is. There’s nothing more to it. He’s not getting anything out of this right now, you are. He’s the one getting you lunch because his guilt about your nose won’t go away. 

You groan when Harry gently smacks away your hand as you try to put down money for the tip once you’re done eating. “Harry, at least let me cover the tip!” you exclaim, glaring at him. 

He laughs and shakes his head at you. “I told you before, this is my treat. Put your money away, woman!” 

You roll your eyes. “You already bought my favorite snacks and candies for me. How is that any different from this?”

“Because, my dearest Y/n, I’m trying to clear my debts with you. I know you and I don’t want you to hold this over my head until the day I die.”

You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest stubbornly. You know he’s right. You will hold it over his head. 

“Fine, but I’m paying next time.” 

Harry raises a brow at you and smiles. “Next time?”

Heat spreads across your face and you bite the inside of your cheek. “Um, only if you want to.”

Harry laughs softly. “I do. You can breathe now, Y/n. I was just teasing.”

You nod, laughing awkwardly at him as your waiter comes to collect the check. You let out a soft breath of air before leaning back into your chair. The waiter returns a few minutes later as the two of you talk and finish your drinks. You watch Harry sign the receipt before his eyes meet yours. 

“Ready?” he asks you. You nod and push your seat out. You walk out of the cafe with Harry beside you. 

“Thanks for lunch, Harry. I had a good time,” you tell him as you stand in front of your house. “I’ll see you later.”

He smiles warmly at you. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you later.”

You punch in the code to get into the house and turn to wave goodbye to Harry before stepping inside. You shut the door and let out a blissful sigh. You try your best to fight off the butterflies in your stomach, but it doesn’t work. 

You let out a girlish squeal before running up the stairs to your bedroom. 

…. 

Your relationship with Harry shifted after you had lunch together. 

You don’t bitch and moan at each other. You’re not looking for ways to plot his utter demise. He doesn’t get on your every last nerve like he used to. He doesn’t purposely say or do things to antagonize you. 

It’s a weird change, but it’s a good change. You’re glad that you and Harry have moved past the petty bullshit and bickering. You like having him as a friend. He’s funny and kind and he helps you with biochemistry. 

With the shift in your relationship, you’ve also come to realize that your friends won’t let go of the idea that you have feelings for Harry. It’s all they talk about and you hate it. It’s crazy talk. You don’t have feelings for Harry. That’s a recipe for disaster. 

“Would you drop it?” you snap angrily, glaring at Lucy and Gretchen. You’ve been trying to work on your biochemistry homework for the last 20 minutes in the study room, but you can’t focus with your friends grilling you about your new found friendship with Harry. “We are just friends, that’s it! I thought you would be thrilled to see that we’re getting along now.”

“We are!” Lucy replies defensively. “It just seems as if the two of you are made for each other! You would be so cute together.”

You groan in frustration. “Luc, I don’t have to date every single guy I’m friends with. I’m friends with a lot of guys that I’ve never dated or consider dating.”

“We’re just saying you should keep that option open if something does happen between the two of you,” Gretchen says with a soft smile. “We like seeing you happy, okay?”

“I know. Don’t worry about it, okay?” you tell her, packing up your things. You’re no longer motivated to study, especially with your pesky best friends. 

You walk back to your bedroom and throw your bag down before collapsing on your bed. You let out a comfortable sigh and reach for your phone. You grin. 

Harry: are u doing anything rn? 

Y/n: I was trying to study, but Gretchen and Lucy are bugging me. Why? 

Harry: fantastic. come with me to the library instead. 

Y/n: okay! should i meet you there?

Harry: I’m already across the street. Come downstairs. 

You laugh loudly. Of course Harry was already on his way over. You roll your eyes and respond quickly. 

Y/n: ur a stalker, i hope u know that. 

Harry: u can’t resist me ;) 

His response makes your stomach flip and you quickly grab your backpack and swing it over your shoulder. You slip on your slippers and put your phone inside your hoodie. You make your way downstairs and open the front door, nearly running into Harry in the process. 

“Hi, Harry,” you grin at him as you step outside. 

“Hey, Angel,” he responds. 

It makes you roll your eyes and Harry laughs as the two of you make your way to the library. 

When you arrive at the library, you find an empty table easily. You and Harry sit across from each other and pull out your laptops, notebooks, and the textbooks you needed. 

You work quietly for a while, occasionally asking Harry questions about a specific problem you were working on for biochemistry. He’s patient with you and works through the problem so you understand it. You’re incredibly thankful for his help. 

Once you’re finished with your work, you start drafting an essay for your writing course. Harry gently calls your name. You hum and look at him, looking away from your computer. 

“Can you be my date to cuffs?” 

Your eyes widen. You always went to cuffs with Peter. Now, looking back, you wonder briefly if Harry’s the reason Peter hasn’t asked you yet. Harry wants you to be his date. 

You know the rumors with Harry and his reputation surrounding cuffs night. He always brings a girl that he fucks later that night, at least that’s what Peter told you. 

He wouldn’t do that to you. You’re just friends. Friends don’t have sex and tell everyone about it. You don’t see him in that way. Nope, absolutely not. 

The thought lingers. The idea sounds fun. You always have fun at cuffs night. You get trashed and Peter is a gentleman and takes care of you. Harry wouldn’t be any different from Peter. Harry’s already taken care of you. You trust him. It would be fun to go with someone other than Peter. 

“Sure, Harry,” you respond eagerly, nodding in confirmation. 

Harry grins exsatically. He’s definitely thrilled you said yes. 

“Great. The theme is famous duos. I was thinking we could do Wesley and Buttercup from The Princess Bride.”

You laugh. “Sounds good. You’re lucky I have a red dress in my closet. Now I know why Peter was taking so long to ask me. You want to take me instead!”

Harry laughs and you feel butterflies inside your stomach. You try your best to ignore it. 

You don’t have a crush. Absolutely not. 

…. 

“Harry is so into you!” Gretchen screams, watching you get ready for the party from her bed. You roll your eyes and poke your head out the bathroom door. 

“Would you be saying that if Peter asked instead?” you retort, fixing the belt around your middle before returning to your makeup. 

“No, because Peter is your friend and you’ve known him since you were a kid. It’s so painstakingly obvious that Harry is into you! You’re going as Wesley and Buttercup for Christ sake! If you went with Peter you’d probably go as mustard and ketchup. If Harry wasn’t into you, you probably would be going as sexy Batman and Robin.”

Heat spreads through your neck and up to your ears. You ignore the warm feeling inside your chest as you apply mascara. You don’t know what to say, so you keep your mouth shut. You don’t want to accidentally admit to your best friend that you may have feelings for Harry. She will never let it go and shit spreads fast inside the house. Everyone would know. 

You turn off the bathroom light and pull on your gross frat shoes. You slip your phone into the pocket of your dress and spin around for Gretchen to see the full outfit. 

“How do I look?” you ask. 

“Smoking hot,” Gretchen compliments, making you laugh. “Knock ‘em dead. Have a blast and I expect a full report tomorrow.”

“You got it.”

You make your way down the hall into Layla’s room. You knock gently before opening the door. You peek your head inside and find Layla fixing her black leather top. Her and Frankie are going as Sandy and Danny from Grease. 

“Almost ready?”

“Just about, I just need to grab my phone,” Layla answers, reaching for her phone on her night stand before walking out the door with you. 

The walk over to the frat house is fast. You’re both eager to get to the party and have fun. You’re excited to see Harry. 

Walking up the driveway to the house, you find Harry waiting for you. You walk faster and grin at him. Harry looks great. 

He’s wearing a loose black shirt with strings attached and black jeans. The collar of the shirt is popped. He’s wearing a matching black belt and a fake sword is hanging from his hip. A black mask covers the top half of his face. 

“You look fantastic, Harry!” you compliment, taking in his costume. His smile is breathtaking. 

“You look absolutely gorgeous, Y/n,” Harry returns the compliment and you grin. It makes your heart race. You hug briefly before Harry holds up the handcuffs. “Gimme your right hand.”

You hold it out for him and he gently cuffs your hand. Harry does the same to his right hand and you follow him to the back of the house. You make a stop inside and he grabs one of the bottles of wine on the counter and he looks over at you. 

“Once we finish this bottle, we get uncuffed.”

You laugh, nodding at him. “I know, Harry. I’ve done cuffs before.”

He smiles again. “I know, just making sure.”

You step inside the garage and Harry’s immediately surrounded by his friends and the girls they brought. You take the bottle of wine from Harry and take a generous sip as you stand awkwardly beside him. Peter and Logan are the only ones that acknowledge you and you appreciate it. 

“You look hot, Buttercup,” Peter teases, winking at you. 

At least he knew who you were dressed as. You laugh loudly. You curtsy in response and thank him. You take another long sip of the wine, ignoring the weird feeling inside your chest as you watch Chelsea flirt helplessly with Harry. You want to dance. You don’t want to be a third wheel, so you poke your head into their conversation. 

“Hate to break up whatever conversation you’re having, but I want to go dance. I’m taking my date with me,” you grin at Chelsea before pulling Harry away. Harry laughs and takes the bottle from you and takes a generous sip. Some of it slides down his chin, soaking his shirt.  

“Thanks for saving me!” Harry thanks you. 

Your eyebrows crease together as you look at him. You don’t believe him. You totally just cockblocked him and he’s thanking you. That’s unheard of, especially for Harry. 

“What? I thought you would be mad!” you shout as you move to the music. 

“No!” Harry laughs again. “I’m not interested, plus I came with you. I’m not going to ditch you.”

“Awe,” you coo, pinching his cheek, “how sweet of you.”

Harry rolls his eyes at you playfully and you grin. You take the bottle from him again and take another drink. Another song starts to play and the two of you start to dance and sing together. It makes you giggle uncontrollably and Harry throws an arm around your shoulder. You dance obnoxiously, but you don’t care. You’ve never felt this carefree. You would’ve never imagined it was because you were with Harry. 

You dance together for what feels like hours. You’re a little buzzed from how fast you drank the wine. You don’t want this night to end, not when Harry’s hand is holding yours. You don’t care if it’s because you’re dancing together. 

His hand is soft and warm in yours. It makes your insides twist as he tries to spin you around even though the two of you are still handcuffed together. His arms hold you against his chest as you dance together. Your heart races and you feel like you can hardly breathe. It makes your head spin. 

Shit. 

You most certainly have feelings for Harry. There’s no point in denying it now with your back against his chest and him breathing down your neck. You’re too stupid to do anything about the sudden realization of your feelings for Harry so you do what you do best, you ignore it altogether. 

“Wesley and Buttercup,” Peter greets the two of you as the song ends. He holds up the key to the handcuffs and your mood immediately sours. “I know you finished the wine ages ago. Time to uncuff!” 

You resist the urge to strangle Peter. You were having such a good time. Now it’s all ruined. 

Peter quickly unlocks the handcuffs and your hand is free. You rub your wrist gently and Harry does the same before his eyes meet yours. His smile is soft and warm and it makes your heart flutter inside your chest. All you want to do is kiss him senseless. 

“Harry?” you say his name gently. 

He hums in response. 

You’re going to do it. You’re going to tell him. You’re going to tell him that you have feelings for him. You’re going to tell him that you want to be more than friends. You’re—

“Yay!” Chelsea screams, running between you and shoving you away, ruining your plans. “You’re free! Do you want to do body shots?”

You’re so frustrated and upset you could scream, cry, or do both. Why does everyone interrupt you? You just want to talk to Harry! 

You noticeably frown, resisting the urge to cry. Shit. You’re one of those bitches now, upset over a stupid boy. Upset over Harry, no less! There’s no way he could reciprocate the feelings you have. He’s Harry! He doesn’t have girlfriends. You should’ve never been friends in the first place. 

Disappointed and trying not to cry, you turn your back towards Harry and make a beeline for the door. You ignore Harry shouting your name as you step outside. Your resolve is holding on by a thread when you hear Harry yell after you. You ignore him until Harry gently grabs your arm and pulls you back. 

A few tears fall down your face. You feel utterly pathetic. You’ve never been this upset over a stupid boy. 

But none of the stupid boys before were Harry. 

They didn’t help you with your bleeding nose or puke when they accidentally broke your nose. They didn’t buy you lunch in order to get back on your good side after accidentally breaking your nose. They didn’t help you with your biochemistry homework when you struggled. They didn’t make you laugh so hard that you cried. They didn’t make you ever feel so carefree. 

Harry is the only one to have made you feel that way. 

You want Harry more than you can imagine, but there’s no way he feels the same. He’s only close with you because he sees you how Peter sees you, a friend. 

“Angel,” he murmurs gently, reaching to caress your face. The mask he had on is long gone. You look away, too upset and ashamed to look Harry in the eyes. His thumbs brush away your falling tears. “Why are you crying? What’s gotten you so upset suddenly?”

You shake your head. You can’t tell him. Absolutely not. It’ll just make it worse. There’s no way. You don’t want to lose him. You can’t. 

“It’s nothing, Harry,” you answer pathetically. “Just go back to the party. Chelsea’s probably waiting.”

“It’s obviously not nothing if it’s making you this upset. I don’t give two shits about Chelsea. She can fuck off for all I care. I’m focused on you, nothing ‘nd nobody else.”

Silence falls between the two of you and you can’t even look at him. 

Then Harry speaks again, as if a realization dawns on him. He gently pulls on your chin so you’re forced to look at him. He smiles and brushes the last of your tears away before pulling you closer.

“Oh, darling,” he murmurs softly, “I’m crazy about you, in case you haven’t realized it yet. You don’t have to be sad, my eyes are only on you.”

Your heart stops. 

Did you hear him right? Are you hallucinating? Did he just confess his feelings for you?

Harry’s eyes are soft and gentle as you stare at him. His fingers are still brushing softly against your cheeks. He laughs. Your shock must be noticeable. 

“You’re so cute. It kills me. I thought I made it pretty obvious.”

You finally find the courage to speak. “Really?”

He nods, pulling you into his chest for a warm and inviting hug. You relax immediately and hug him tightly. He kisses the side of your head. 

You pull away briefly and your eyes flicker to his mouth. You bite the inside of your cheek and let out a careful breath. Harry grins, leaning until his mouth is nearly on yours. His nose brushes against yours. 

“Can I kiss you?” you whisper softly. 

“I thought you would never ask,” he teases, his mouth meets yours in a soft, gentle kiss. It sets fire to your insides, warming you all the way from your toes to the top of your head. 

You never imagined kissing Harry like this. It’s sweet and romantic and it makes you want more. His mouth is smooth against yours and the smile you feel against your mouth makes your stomach flip. 

His hands hold your face and you cling to his shirt before pulling away. You bite your lip and meet his soft gaze. He presses a gentle kiss to the tip of your nose. You lean into his touch. 

“And that’s for breaking your nose,” he laughs, pulling you in for another kiss. “Now it’s healed completely.”

You hum, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Seems fair,” you whisper. “Now I get all the kisses I want from you.”

He smiles pressing kisses along your face and down your neck. “That seems like a win for me too, darling,” he murmurs against your skin. It makes you giggle and you pull him in for another kiss on the lips. 

When you arrive back at the sorority house the following morning in another one of Harry’s shirts and a pair of his shorts, Gretchen and Lucy are thrilled to say the least. They never let you forget that your relationship with Harry started because he accidentally broke your nose. 

At least you know he’ll always be there to fix it if it were to happen again. 

[takerfoxx]

Here's the next part of the Walpurgis Nights girls watch The Rebellion Story, this time stretching from that upside-down reflection conversation to Homura and Kyoko's wacky bus trip.

Reminder:

G=Gretchen

H=Homulilly

Op=Ophelia

Ok=Oktavia

Ca=Candeloro/Mami

Ch=Charlotte

...

Ca: Okay, so, is everyone ready?

Ch: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about losing my shit. I’ll try to keep it together.

Op: No, by all means. I’d say you’re entitled.

G: I mean, if I found out that I was a tiny, living doll that turned into a giant worm, I’d be upset too!

=Charlotte sighs deeply=

G: Oh. Sorry.

H: It’s a fake.

G: Eh?

H: All of it. The whole scenario. We’re caught in a super-witch’s labyrinth, or some kind of virtual reality simulation, or a shared dream.

Ok: Like the Matrix?

H: The what?

Ok: Oh, I’ve got to show that one to you. It’s this old movie from the world of the living about how all of humanity are trapped in this virtual world because machines have taken over the planet, and they use people’s bodies as living batteries or something. And-

Op: Tavi, starting to ramble.

Ok: Sorry. Anyway, there’s like three different recreations out there. Personally I like the one from Madd Dogg Studios the best.

Op: Because of all the sex.

Ok: Yeah, the other two don’t have those. Shame, really.

Ch: Okay, hold on though! If all that is some kind of weird simulation, then why am I there? By rights if you guys never turned into witches, I should be dead! You should’ve killed me, and then I would be comfortably here in Freehaven while you guys sit around singing songs to severed heads inside of demented teddy-bears!

G: Well, if there’s no witches in this world, then maybe we never fought you in the first place.

Ch: But I’m clearly a witch!

G: Yeah, that is weird.

Ca: Let’s find out.

…

Ok: You think that all of this being in an upside-down reflection means anything?

H: Yes. That it’s a fake.

Op: You are not going to let that go, are you?

H: Just watch.

Op: Have you seen this before?

H: Obviously not.

Ok: Well, this version of Candeloro is just as on it with her tea game, I see.

Ca: Some things never change.

Ok: Like Ophelia’s dislike for sour stuff, apparently.

Ca: It’s her tradeoff for her ungodly tolerance for spicy.

Ch: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s not as high as she makes it out to be.

Op: Hey, who exactly ate those dockengaut viper peppers without flinching? Me, that’s who!

Ch: You literally had to the hospital and grow your tongue back.

Op: But I didn’t flinch.

…

Ok: They really like showing us around the town.

G: Do any of these locations mean anything?

Ca: Well, that’s the school, so I suppose-Huh?

G: UM!

Ok: Why is everyone’s faces suddenly horribly disfigured?

Ch: Are they melting? It looks like they’re melting.

Op: Yeah. And…ours are fine?

G: See! You two are sleeping in class! I told you that having a party right after fighting that Nightmare was a bad idea! Growing girls need sleep!

Op: Honestly, I’m more concerned about the horrific burns on everyone’s face than I am about our counterparts’ unhealthy sleeping habits.

H: HA! Called it! It’s a simulation! None of those people are real! We’re the only actual people here!

Op: Hey, credit where it’s due, you did call it.

G: Looks like Hitomi’s real too.

H: Oh, goody.

G: So’s that guy with the silver hair? Who is he?

Ok: Oh, so that must be Kyousuke!

Op: That was who I was up against? Huh. Well, he’s…pretty.

Ok: I always wondered what he looked like.

Op: …so?

Ok: I’m sure past me thought he was good-looking, but I still think I traded up.

Op: Darn right, you did.

…

Ch: So who took the time to make food in the shape of your heads?

Ok: You know, between this and Hitomi, there’s a lot of severed heads going around.

=Candeloro frowns and feels her neck=

Ch: You okay?

Ca: I’m fine. I just got the weirdest feeling of déjà vu all of a sudden.

Ok: Who wants to bet that the one with all the bags of junk food for lunch is Ophelia?

Op: What? Why me in specific?

Ca: That one must be mine.

Ch: Well, at least I get my own severed-head snack now.

G: Right next to Kyubey.

H: If there was any justice in the world that would be his actual head.

G: Still. Those soul-gem treats are pretty creative.

Ca: Oh, wait! Never mind! That’s Homura’s lunch.

Ch: Homulilly? Why are you eating my face?

H: Don’t ask.

Op: And of course I snatch Blue Raspberry’s soul-gem!

Ok: Even then, you couldn’t keep me out of your mouth.

Op: AAANNNDDD the rat just ate it. Huh.

Ok: Oh, that makes me so uncomfortable.

Ch: And we get a close-up of me looking like a lunatic. Thanks, movie.

Op: I mean, that is a pretty accurate depiction of your face whenever you get anywhere near a piece of mozzarella.

H: All of this making me incredibly uneasy.

G: What is?

H: The slow pace. The lack of audible dialogue. The somber music. Something is up.

Ch: That’s all kinds of deliberate.

H: Well, at least this other me can tell that something’s wrong.

Op: I for one am incredibly disappointed in the rest of us. Everyone in the city has their faces burned off. That ought to at least raise a few red flags.

…

Ok: AAANNNDDD it’s gone all weird again!

Ca: Okay, this is obviously a witch’s labyrinth. They’re not even hiding it anymore.

Ok: Except from us. Like, are we blind?

Op: Oh, hey. It’s me. A lunch date?

H: I doubt it.

G: Is any of this normal? I mean, I know Freehaven is strange to newcomers but normal to us, so in this world, is it normal to just hang out on a floating island filled with chairs and tables with really long legs while blimps fly by in formation?

Ok: To say nothing of that freakshow going on down there. What are those? Those creepy little girls and the guy with the wind-up box?

Ca: Witch’s familiars.

=everyone looks to Charlotte, who is nonplussed=

Ch: You know, I’m actually okay with being the villain. At least that would make sense!

Op: You better get some kind of redemption arc and a weirdly sexually charged gunfight with Candeloro.

Ch: That would honestly make up for everything else that’s happened so far.

Ca: I don’t know. All of this looks very witchy, but it wasn’t what I remember from your labyrinth.

…

Op: Hey. Teenaged me. Wake up and smell the bad drug trip.

Ch: Why do you guys have so many cups on that table? Do you have a drinking problem or something?

Op: Look, shit is weird. Don’t judge our coping mechanisms.

G: Is it just me, or is there a bunch of random objects just falling out of the sky all around you?

Ok: Is it just me, or did that blimp have to come literally out of the river to fly at that angle?

H: This is getting progressively more dream-like.

Op: Nice crotch-shot, movie. How come I don’t get the boob or butt camera like Candy and Tavi?

Ch: Do you really want us to answer that question?

Op: I’d prefer if you didn’t.

H: Anyone else notice that the number of cups keep changing?

Op: Like I said. We all have our own ways of coping. Don’t judge.

…

H: Well, at least I’m noticing that something’s off. Even if I’m completely blind to the obviously bizarre stuff going on all around me?

G: Oh, so it’s going to be like a mystery story! And you’re the detective!

Op: And I get to be the sidekick. There are worst roles, I guess.

Ch: I guess that means you’re the main character after all, Lilly.

H: Thank you, but I’d really rather be the lead of a completely different movie.

…

Op: And off we go, on our wild adventure!

H: Beneath endless stone bridges. I mean, seriously. If either of us wanted proof that something was wrong, all we have to do is look up.

G: If this is a fake world you’re trapped in, you’re probably programmed to not notice that anything’s wrong. You know, like how we never really how strange dreams are until we wake up.

Op: Oh, what the hell. The bus is dropping us off in this fever dream? WAKE UP, IDIOTS! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FREAKY!

Ch: They’re not even hiding it anymore.

G: You know, I can’t help but wonder if this world was always this strange, but that since the first few minutes were from our point of view all the weird stuff not having to do with the Nightmare wasn’t shown. But now that Lilly’s noticed, the weirdness just keeps coming out more and more.

Ch: I would not be surprised.

Ca: I think we can all collectively agree that despite whatever the witch turns out to be, this is all Kyubey’s fault, right?

Op: Fine by mean.

Ok: Agreed.

H: I wonder where all those fake people are going.

Op: I’m just going to assume that there’s a big meat grinder at the bottom of those stairs.

G: Ew.

…

Op: Oh, that’s not right? THAT’S NOT RIGHT? YAH THINK?

Ok: Of course you would be tipped off by the wrong destination but not by the field of hazy red filled with windmills.

Op: Turn left? We were supposed to turn left? HOW CAN YOU TELL? THERE’S NOTHING THERE!

Ch: That does bring up an interesting point. I’m assuming that you’re just blind to the weirdness because it’s got you trapped. So, what is it that you’re seeing?

G: Probably just a normal road, I guess.

Ok: Well, what did you expect taking the loop line?

…

Ch: Okay, so there’s a clear divide between the big, empty, red field with the windmills and the mostly normal looking city.

H: A very loose definition of the word “normal.”

Ch: Well, yeah, but you know what I mean.

H: Like I said. It’s not real.

Ch: We know, I’m just trying to pick out details.

Ok: Hey, girls. Don’t get on the creepy bus.

…

G: If at first you don’t succeed…

Op: Come on, other me! Get a clue!

H: I notice the field is blue now.

Ch: Probably to signify the change from day to night.

Ok: That bus driver is weirdly okay with a couple teenaged girls jumping onto the front of his bus and yelling at him.

H: He’s a fakedy-fake-fake.

Ok: We know! It’s called commentary!

H: Sorry.

Op: “Crossroads”? “Left fork”? How can you tell the difference! It’s a bunch of shiny tiles and windmills!

G: Plus that giant tower made of pipes!

Op: That was probably where we were heading. Giant tower made of pipes.

Ok: Wonder where the ramen shop was.

Op: Third pipe cluster from the bottom.

Ch: Hey, girls. Word of advice. Don’t walk into the scary, blank void.

Op: I know they can’t see the weirdness, but I still feeling like yelling at them.

G: Oh, hey! It’s normal again!

H: They were brought back to the city.

G: Well, relatively normal, at least. With a really tall bridge and giant moon.

…

Op: So…are we about to kiss or something?

H: Obviously not.

Op: I don’t know. You’re holding me awfully close.

H: I’m just trying to keep you from doing something stupid.

Op: If you say so.

…

Op: Oh, hey. If we didn’t have enough problems, it’s a zombie apocalypse.

H: All with our faces, I see.

Op: Somehow, that’s freakier than if they were just the classic rotting kind.

Ca: Obviously a defense system put in place by the witch. Once one of its prisoners start to notice that something’s wrong, the familiars come in to stop them.

Ch: You know, as much as the early parts weirded me out, I am really starting to dig this! I mean, sure, the cake song was…a thing that happened, but now there’s a reason for the weirdness! There’s a mystery! There’s set-up and atmosphere! It’s not just weird for the sake of being weird!

Ok: I’m pretty sure there’s some of that.

Ch: Well, sure.

H: You do remember that with the way things are going, you’re probably going to be revealed as the villain, right?

Ch: I am okay with this.

…

Op: And the zombies leave after I change my stance?

Ok: Those hips don’t lie.

H: More of they sensed that you weren’t resisting anymore.

Op: Might want to rephrase that.

H: You made it dirty. Not me.

Op: At least this me is starting to wake up. So you have at least one bad bitch supporting you.

H: I feel so much better.

G: Oh, hey! Even then you did that thing where you give people candy as a sign of affection!

Op: I’m honestly surprised that more people don’t do that. Honestly, most problems would be solved if people just gave each other candy all the time.

[violetwolfraven]

Crossover Headcanons

((I know I have requests in my inbox but I just had to get this out of my head. Also I probably won’t be posting those requests for a while because my writer’s block is only barely starting to lift, so...))

Anyway this is gonna start off from one perspective and go to more later. Enjoy. 💜

Tw: past death, nightmares

...

So this is a... spin-off? Of the reincarnation au? An alternate timeline? A variant? Whatever it is the newsies are reincarnated and remember their past.

Also somehow most of them are going to the same college here, (I’m not going to say which one because I don’t want to research colleges right now) even if they’ve got a wide range of majors.

There’s only one dorm building even if people are only allowed to share a room with someone of the same gender.

This works out well for Elmer, because he’s pretty happy to be rooming with his boyfriend, Buttons.

But then he gets up to the floor their dorm is on and almost drops the box he’s holding.

Because it’s fuckin her. His national-level math nemesis since 11th grade. They’ve only faced off twice, the first time with her team winning and the second with his winning, but they’re each the only one who can beat the other in a math competition.

Elmer can see the shock in her eyes as she recognizes him and shouts YOU and then she’s stomping over to him aggressively enough that he’s pretty sure she wants to throw down physically.

Jack (who’s also on that floor with Davey) figures that too, and steps in front of him before she gets too close, but that girl acts like she doesn’t even notice him and shouts I WAS HALF A SECOND BEHIND YOU SOLVING THAT PROBLEM!

Elmer is kinda terrified but he defensively shoots back well I still solved it first and moves around Jack because this is his math nemesis and his fight.

The girl scowls at him for a couple more seconds then just sticks out her hand to shake, and Elmer realizes that he doesn’t actually know her name beyond the surname he’s seen on the back of her mathletes jacket. She introduces herself as Cady Heron.

Elmer Kazprzak, he responds, and Cady looks like she’s trying not to laugh, but he figures that’s probably fair, with how ‘Elmer’ was a common name in 1885 but not so much in 2003.

Jack clears his throat so Elmer introduces him but forgets that this isn’t their high school so things like oh this is Jack. He’s basically my dad. are weird.

Cady definitely thinks it’s weird but she doesn’t question it. Instead she just asks where Elmer is living, and it turns out, of course, he and Buttons are right next door to her and her roommate, Karen.

(I say Cady is living with Karen because Gretchen wanted to live with Regina and rules be damned Janis is with Damien.)

Elmer isn’t completely sure he’s not going to get murdered in his sleep but he guesses if he could handle the 1899 Newsboy Strike and World War I he can handle Cady Heron.

Meanwhile Katherine is going to Harvard so Sarah is rooming with someone she’s never met and she’s a little nervous.

And in stomps a girl who declares I’m a lesbian and if you have a problem with that tell me now so I can switch dorms.

And Sarah responds with my girlfriend out at Harvard would be pretty pissed at me if I did have a problem with that.

The girl lets her guard down, explains that she comes from a small town, and says her name is Alyssa Greene.

After that little bump, they get along good. Alyssa explains that her girlfriend, Emma, registered late and couldn’t get a dorm with who she wanted.

And Sarah’s just kinda like wait Emma as in Unruly Hearts Emma? Alyssa’s just like yeah!! I’m so proud of her!!

Sarah brags a bit about how Katherine is studying to be a journalist with a specialty in queer stories and long story short they become besties and eventually Alyssa introduces Emma for real and Sarah introduces Smalls and Sniper.

Emma and Alyssa are a bit thrown by the whole nickname thing but hey whatever now they have a Lesbian Club!

They do meet up with the boys occasionally but the Lesbian Club meets on a video call with Katherine every Saturday.

Anyway Jack meets Janis in art class and initially they kinda think each other is weird because their styles are very different but then they get in an actual conversation and get along amazingly.

Jack is definitely a fan of Janis’s philosophy of when someone hurts your friends you attack and grind your foe into the ground.

Janis tells her new bestie about Cady and Damien (and Regina, Gretchen, and Karen, though she still keeps Cady and Damien closer than the former Plastics) and she’s honestly shocked by the amount of friends Jack tells her about.

She does recognize some names, though. Romeo and Damien are both theatre majors and they’ve become friends.

But anyway Jack and Janis are like. Super good friends. Art buddies. Mlm/wlw solidarity. Protective friend pals.

Janis is pretty surprised when she introduces him to Cady and they’ve already met, and apparently oh fuck your math nemesis is Jack’s Elmer???

Jack’s just going oh fuck Elmer’s math nemesis Cady is Janis’s Cady???

Also Regina met Spot and Sarah at the gym and now they meet up with a few other people every other week to throw down like their own personal fight club.

At first Regina was just angrily trying to fight with no technique, but don’t worry, Spot and Sarah teach her.

There weren’t a ton of out gays at Northshore High, so yeah the Mean Girls crew definitely gets along with the Newsies crew out of solidarity.

Janis and at least one of the Plastics but I can’t choose which one(s) join the Lesbian Club.

Meanwhile Race is super hyped to meet Emma cause like I choreographed a dance to your song wanna see???

Emma is flattered but kinda weirded out and she mentions her friend Angie who’s a dancer too and Race is just *error 404*

Cause of course he saw the news story and knows Emma knows these 4 big Broadway stars but it just. Hasn’t connected until this moment that she like has their numbers.

He tries not to freak out too much cause he knows that’s weird but Emma eventually goes do you wanna meet her? And Race goes do I wanna meet her? She’s only my IDOL!! she’s been dancing like 20 years and she’s still got it!!

Emma calls Angie partially because she likes her new dancer friend and wants to make him happy and partially because she wants to prove to Angie that people do appreciate her zazz and despite how she was just a chorus girl until a few months ago this random boy from New York has been a fan since he was 12.

Angie can’t exactly fly over at the drop of a hat but she watches some videos on YouTube of Race dancing and like holy hell this kid is good. And his friends are too but this kid right here has zazz off the charts.

When she finds out he’s an orphan she’s lowkey can I adopt him??? but then she finds out he already has an adoptive mother and it’s Medda Larkin.

Medda Larkin who did more than a few shows with Angie when they were young but left Broadway to open her own theatre.

They fell out of touch years ago but still follow each other on Instagram and stuff.

But Angie shows Barry and Dee Dee and she’s super excited like remember Medda Larkin??? THIS IS HER ADOPTIVE KID AND HE’S AMAZING

And they watch YouTube clips of Emma’s new friends in high school shows and like wtf these kids are fuckin talented why aren’t they on Broadway???

They almost tell Emma to tell her friends to drop out of college and come straight (haha not that straight) to Broadway but Trent is like wtf no education is important.

Whatever the actors aren’t that relevant.

Sarah has a nightmare about her death one night. And with the others it’s not as big of a deal because they’re all rooming with each other, but Sarah’s roommate isn’t one of them.

She thinks Alyssa is asleep so she calls Katherine crying about how scared she was, how guilty she felt to be leaving her brothers and friends and Kath without a goodbye.

And Alyssa isn’t quite awake, but she’s awake enough that she hears Sarah whisper about how everything is just so stupid complicated. I shouldn’t be afraid of dying when I’ve done it before—when we’ve all died horribly—but I still am, Kitty. I can’t stop being afraid.

Alyssa is out of it enough that she falls back asleep, but when she wakes up she knows what she heard. That her roommate thinks she had a past life and died and implied that all her friends did.

Emma notices she’s acting weird and when she asks what’s wrong she tells her.

They both know it sounds crazy, but...

Emma tentatively points out some weird things about their friends from New York.

She’s study buddies with Race and occasionally he points something out she got wrong on her history homework. Something so small and inconsequential that it would’ve been almost impossible for him to know unless he was there and remembered from experience.

Smalls and Sniper have a habit of jumping apart if they were so much as holding hands and someone walks in on them, even though they come from a mostly accepting city with an accepting friend group.

That whole group straight up skipped history class the whole week they were learning about World War I and refused to make up the work.

They bring the half-baked theory to Janis who immediately remembers all the times she’s seen Jack draw small war-torn towns in France and dirty city streets and an outdated skyline as if seen from a rooftop, all of them too detailed to be anything but directly copied from something Jack has seen before.

But the question is if they’re drawn from a reference photo or a memory.

Cady realizes, upon hearing the theory, that Elmer and Buttons never take her up on offers to come to football games because they don’t like the noise.

More specifically, she remembers the look on her nemesis/frenemy’s face when he said he didn’t like fireworks.

Aaron notices that Davey always solves math problems by hand. He never uses a calculator unless someone reminds him it’s an option. And half the time, he defaults to using his right hand with terrible handwriting even though he’s left handed. Almost like he was raised with the whole ‘left hand devil’ thing, which doesn’t make sense because he went to a public school; not a religious one.

Damien realizes that Romeo has a habit of correcting the costume department, like he knows the period clothing for Hello, Dolly! better than they do. It annoys the hell out of them because upon some research, he is always right.

Regina notes how Spot and Sarah fight like they’re fighting for their lives in a street brawl. She knows that because she started taking karate in an attempt to win fights. She noticed months ago that her friends use technique that’s barely sustainable, like they’re just trying to stay alive until they can run or backup comes.

However all this is just fun and games, a crack theory they’re all mildly creeped out by but don’t really believe, until Gretchen finds it.

An article on the Newsboy Strike of 1899.

There’s a copy of the Newsies Banner, written by Katherine Plumber, which references strike leaders Jack Kelly and David Jacobs.

But they could write that off as just a creepy coincidence if not for the photo.

It’s the one Katherine and Darcy took that first day, which is in black and white and not the greatest quality, but clearly shows a lot of familiar faces.

A later story by this Katherine Plumber documents lives of street kids with interviews from kids with the same odd nicknames as the group they know.

Regina was the most cynical about this theory and even she can’t deny it now. There’s just too much evidence.

Especially when Karen finds Crutchie’s obituary, but Regina stops her from showing it to anyone else because that’s just too creepy.

The Mean Girls crew and Alyssa and Emma are... unsure if they should confront their friends about this, because a) this is freaky and b) the newsie gang is clearly still harboring trauma due to their deaths.

Plus, as Damien points out, being gay was illegal in 1899. Do you think they want a reminder of how they had to hide their feelings for each other back then?

Emma and Alyssa share a knowing look because they know what that’s like.

In the end Karen lets it slip when she asks Davey a question about her history homework involving World War II, mistakenly believing he was there.

Davey naturally questions her about it and she spills the entire story about how Alyssa heard Sarah’s phone call and they figured everything else out from there. She even shows him the article with the 1899 photo and the Newsies Banner.

And... shit, there’s a lot of memories behind that picture. And that’s them, over a hundred years ago, when they were kids and they weren’t all the same age like this time around.

The old Davey looks so big compared to Romeo and Elmer and god was Specs tall for a 15-year-old.

Davey didn’t even meet Smalls and Sniper in this lifetime until they were 16, but in that picture they’re only 13 and they’re so small.

A sidenote on Katherine has a picture of her in a hairstyle he hasn’t seen her in since 1917.

It’s a mixture between ptsd and nostalgia and Davey can’t decide whether to freak out or be happy.

He takes the article to Jack and tells him about how Gretchen found it and their non-reincarnated friends know.

Jack’s silently cursing the fact that he really should have been more careful with what he drew around Janis, but it’s kinda a relief that they know, honestly.

He shoots a quick text to the group chat and then turns his phone on do not disturb mode while he sits Janis down for a little chat.

He doesn’t go into graphic detail, but he does tell her an abridged version of everything. How they were basically a family and all lgbt+ in the early 20th century and how they died before their time and got a second chance.

It’s more than a little freaky for Janis, but it does explain a lot.

Such as how Jack demonstrates on a dare that he can still do some parkour because once upon a time, he used it to run from the cops.

Elmer tells Cady he’s so quick at math because he used to have to calculate change quickly and later had to help Jack and Davey come up with battle plans based on numbers vs tactics and terrain.

Regina definitely trusts Spot’s combat advice a lot more now because he was essentially a gang leader as a teenager and it has literally saved his life.

Race admits to Emma that her song made him cry because... in this lifetime he might not have had to be closeted, but in his last he was constantly worried about getting arrested or worse if people found out not just about him and his boyfriend, but his friends. His family.

Emma may or may not collaborate with him after that to write a song about how much it hurts to be closeted for your own safety and how much better it feels to be free to be who you are. Race dances in the music video and many of the other newsies make appearances but it’s mainly him and Emma. Spot and Alyssa cry when they see it. Damien does, too.

Who am I kidding everyone cries.

They get like 4 million hits on YouTube and it’s amazing.

The title is probably In the Light or something.

Also Cady, Aaron, Kevin, and Elmer form their own college level mathletes team and no one can beat them.

(Kevin’s not as close with the main group literally only because I don’t know that much about him as a character.)

(Also Stacy, Kailey, and whatever their boyfriends’ names are might be there somewhere but I don’t know them either.)

Katherine does get to meet the new kids in person eventually. And also I didn’t mention this earlier but Specs goes to Harvard too and he comes to visit too.

The power when the Lesbian Club finally gets to meet all in person? Unparalleled.

:)

[cricketnationrise]

Reading Roundup: June 2021

previous reading roundups

like 80% of these are from my local library | averaged 1 book per day

The Ladies Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite: book 1 in a series. romance. sex on the page. wlw lady scientists! historical! astronomers pretending to be men in order to be published!

Prime Deceptions by Valerie Valdes: book 2 in the Chilling Effect series. should definitely read them in order. rag tag cargo ship crew gets more and more embroiled in an intergalactic conspiracy

Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas by Mark Kurlansky: non-fiction, the history of milk and its by-products. examines how cultural norms around drinking milk has shifted as well as how gender roles in a dairy have shifted. contains delightful sketches of milk-producing animals and funny chapter titles.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston: wow wow wow wow wow wow i love this book so much. i didn’t know i wanted stuck-in-a-time-loop-wlw-riding-the-subway romance but that is for sure what i got. features a scene that directly makes fun of Bella Swan googling information about vampires. so that’s fun.

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite: book 2 in a series. romance. sex on the page. older women protagonists, a beekeeper and a woman who runs a printing press. interesting historical backdrop. don’t need to have read them in order.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman: alternating pov YA novel. what happens when you get contacted to do art by your favorite niche podcast and it turns out to be made by the person who lives across the street from you? chaos. chaos happens.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles: towles’ debut novel. set in NYC from Dec 31, 1937 - Jan 1, 1939. rich people problems as experienced by a person who is not rich. 4 parts, each labeled with a season.

Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All by Jonas Jonasson: a hitman, a motel receptionist, and a priest come up with increasingly convoluted ways to make money. they accidentally start a religion. humor.

People I Want to Punch in the Throat: True(ish) Tales of an Overachieving Underachiever by Jen Mann: non-fiction/memoir, taken from and expanded blog posts, follows Jen Mann through meeting her husband and having kids and having to deal with living in the suburbs and all that that entails

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld: reread. book 1 in the Leviathan trilogy. alternate universe WW1. the son of archduke ferdinand of austria is spirited away the night his parents are assassinated in order to protect him. deryn is a girl disguising herself as a boy in order to join the british air force. their paths cross. alternating pov. very cool worldbuilding that is vaguely steampunk-ish.

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch: non-fiction. a look at how the internet has changed language/writing. fascinating read.

Song for a Viking by KJ Charles: short story set in the Think of England series. follow up to Think of England. sex on the page.

Think of England by KJ Charles: historical m/m mystery romance. sex on the page. stuck in a manor house mystery. warnings for blackmail, kidnapping, murder, being left in a cave, violence, period typical anti-semitism/racism/homophobia

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld: reread. book 2 in the Leviathan trilogy. must read in order.

It’s In His Kiss by Julia Quinn: book 7 in the bridgerton series. historical romance. sex on the page. don’t need to read in order, but it helps.

On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn: book 8 in the bridgerton series. historical romance. sex on the page. don’t need to read in order, but it helps.

Proper English by KJ Charles: historical f/f mystery romance. prequel to Think of England. sex on the page. stuck in a manor house mystery. warnings for murder, violence, period-typical racism/homophobia

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas: literally read it one sitting. YA m/m romance. trans male protagonist. accidental ghost summoning, dia de los muertos. warnings for youths with shitty home lives, homophobia, transphobia, kidnapping, violence against children/teens, blood

Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn: book 1 in the Rokesby series, a prequel series to the Bridgertons. historical romance (revolutionary war era england). sex on the page. frenemies to lovers.

Sabriel by Garth Nix: book 1 in the Old Kingdom series. fantasy. when her father, the Abhorsen, who’s job it is to make sure the dead stay dead, goes missing in the land of the dead, its up to Sabriel to figure out what happened and how to save the Old Kingdom where magic is alive and kicking.

The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After by Julia Quinn: collected short stories. a second epilogue for each main book in the bridgerton series. also contains violet (the mom’s) story

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin: book 1 in the Inheritance trilogy, fantasy, with her grandfather stepping down as emperor, he names 3 heirs who must duke it out to the death. the gods are watching and in some cases, meddling.

How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole: book 2 in the Runaway Royals series. do not need to read in order. f/f romance. sex on the page. sort of an Anastasia retelling.

To Seek and to Find by Tamryn Eradani: ...look its just straight up erotica okay? BDSM. safe/sane/consensual. m/m. book 1 in a trilogy.

Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love by Myron Uhlberg: non-fiction. growing up in the depression in NYC as a hearing boy with 2 Deaf parents and an epileptic younger brother. includes how his parents met and fell in love.

Nevertheless, She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project: tor.com published short stories by a variety of authors including Seanan McGuire and Charlie Jane Anders. All start with/feature the phrase: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

To Have and to Hold by Tamryn Eradani: ...look its just straight up erotica okay? BDSM. safe/sane/consensual. m/m. book 2.

To Love and to Cherish by Tamryn Eradani: ...look its just straight up erotica okay? BDSM. safe/sane/consensual. m/m. book 3.

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan: YA f/f romance. private school. warnings for racism, homophobia, toxic relationship, alcohol use, teen on teen violence (one girl gives another a severe allergic reaction).

Highfire by Eoin Colfer: the last dragon in the world just wants to be left alone in the swamp where he is hiding to watch TV. Squib just wants the police officer to stop hitting on his mom and make some money. the crooked police officer wants to take over the local mob boss’ operations. their lives intersect. warnings for: kidnapping, violence against women/children, murder, blood, removal of toes, dismemberment

[gin-and-luce]

You killed our dog! Adriana of The Sopranos gave me strength to navigate life after a breakup during a global pandemic lockdown

I’m going through a breakup. It’s come at the worst time but also the best time. He ended things with me (more on that later) after three years in the most Beta-Male way...but this is what happens when your type can be boiled down to softboi. I can’t see my friends in the conventional way, so I made some new ones on screen to help me navigate the end during quarantine.

Over ten weeks ago I started watching The Sopranos. It doesn’t need justifying, everyone knows it’s the best television series of all time, but I’d never seen it, and I knew a global pandemic induced lockdown would provide optimum viewing circumstances. My favourite thing to do is completely throw myself into the female narrative and experience I’m watching on screen. I prefer a long deep drama over a film. I like being able to see my girls every night. 

People have said to me before “you should start a blog”, but I could never escape the feeling that doing so is massively narcissistic because it *is*, unless you have something actually relevant to write about. Alternatively, the image of Gretchen Weiners leaning in and going “you let it out honey, put it in the book” floats across my conscience, and everything embarrassing that I’ve ever done, plays in a montage in my mind. 

Who gives a fuck what I have to say about anything…….. especially about a cultural phenomena that is quite literally regarded as the best TV show of all time?

I’d been wanting to write this after I watched Long Term Parking. I lay in the dark for 45 minutes after the episode ended. I’d never felt like that watching a television show or film before. My throat had seized up but I didn’t cry, even though I felt like it. I knew it was coming from the moment Adriana met the agent. I wasn’t surprised, but I was heartbroken and absolutely fuming. I still am. 

I’m not angry with Christopher, Tony, or Silvio, but just the general unbalance I’ve felt when I’m in a relationship. The loss of self, relationships being a series of compromises. From what I have found from my own experiences and my girlfriends’, women are just much more willing to compromise, but don’t consider it to be a compromise. Men can only take into consideration their own reality, an evolutionary selfishness that just doesn’t translate. 

Just as lockdown began I texted my boyfriend to say I loved him and I missed him. He responded with “Can’t say I feel the same”. Nearly 3 years were over just like that. We had the obligatory phone call, where I was hysterical and he was smarmy and smug. Yet when it was over, I felt nothing. It’s allllll a big nothing.

My personal Gospel is Sex and The City (shout out to HBO!). This was my Berger moment. He essentially scribbled “I’m sorry, I can’t. Don’t hate me” on a post-it. The irony of the whole thing is that when we watched it together, he himself said he was most like Berger. Thinking about it makes me wince.

My life opened up in front of me, I was exposed to his weakness regarding the situation in full when his sister-in-law messaged me on Instagram a few days ago. He hadn’t told his family, nor had he told his flatmates (another shout out to my sleuths at the back, you know who you are!). 

The Sopranos is a show about life. The Mafia structure provides a vehicle for us to question morality and mortality. You take what you get from it. When I watch it again at a different stage of my life, I will get something else out of it. 

For me now, while I stew in my own emotion during quarantine, Adriana represents emotional labour and the expectation for women to behave in a certain way in relationships. 

At first when my ex’s family members were messaging me, I was confused. It is frankly humiliating to smile as if everything is normal, so as to protect someone that in the end would not do the same for me. I know he wouldn’t do the same because there was just no courtesy in what happened weeks ago. I am trying to move on but things like this stunt your personal growth.

The struggle with emotional labour hones a guilt that someday I’ll regret giving my early 20s to something that didn’t work out. I felt like I was on borrowed time.

These are obviously my own insecurities spurred on by the fact that I’ve read enough “10 things I wish I knew in my 20s” blogs to know that these are my selfish years. Still, it is ultimately devastating to see the last 3 years of your life conclude via a text that displays a failure to realise that there is no real clean cut for a long-term relationship. 

I respect him for the blunt statement because it means I get to reference the Berger SATC breakup and say “casually cruel in the name of being honest” (Taylor Swift, 2012) a LOT, which softens the pity in the social scenarios that I invent in my head in the shower.

When Tony calls Adriana to tell her Christopher has tried to kill himself, that was like my final phone call too. This is the end. Her youthfulness was why I related to her most in the show, but at the same time having nothing to lose made her easily expendable. Youth makes you put 100% into something knowing it is a gamble. 

I’m not comparing my ‘borrowed time’ to Adriana because she ends up dead, but there was a disregard for her life that was so harrowing because she did nothing but try and do the right thing. I watched Adriana put Christopher first willingly for 5 series. He supported her music management dreams but ultimately ended up making it all about him. He gave her the Crazy Horse but this ultimately was just another mob hangout. He sat on her dog, he continued to use heroin, shag other people, and so on.

“You could start writing again,” she tells him in her last episode, to which he responds  “I could do my memoirs, finally,”. Here is Adriana still!! STILL!! catering to Christopher’s ego to give herself some confidence. Very me.

All the way through she was just too good for him. Her ties to the Famiglia aren’t as tight as Carmela and Co. No children, still young, there’s chance for Adriana to get out if she wanted to. Of course this makes her prime FBl bait, but shows she sticks by Christopher through everything purely out of love. In the end she dies on her knees, subservient, with Heart’s Barracuda the last song she hears. I know Adriana had to go. That’s the way it is in the Famiglia because Christopher took an oath. But in a way she also had the carpet ripped from underneath her, just like me. 

There are lots of men writing on the internet about how Adriana is greedy and hypocritical. I just don’t understand where this reading is coming from other than obvious misogyny. I’ve read others that say if she was really that strong she would have simply left the relationship years ago. I believe that she believed things would improve for both of them, and that most people are just slut shaming her for her past. 

Still, Drea DeMatteo won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for the episode. Fuckin’ A. 

I rooted for the woman. Before I was made redundant while working from home, I would spend half my life at my desk willing it to be 5:30pm, so I could slither back to the settee and spend the other half of my life in New Jersey. I’d phone my mum to discuss the episodes. She loves the show too, it’s always been a favourite in my household. We’d talk about the women like they were our friends and how we relate to them. The Sopranos is like a big mirror urging you to question everything. The answer to life is simply what are ya gonna do? 

Men love making things black and white so it is easier for them, when really women are in the background sorting out the shades of grey. 

Don’t get me wrong, Adriana’s significance is massive, albeit more so because of her death. You watch Christopher and Tony’s relationship start to crumble afterwards. It's shattering to see the disregard for Christopher’s sobriety and how despite his loyalty, he still sees him as a liability and weak. 

On the other hand, for Adriana’s sake, I am still enraged that he couldn’t see the bigger picture at the time. She is collateral damage in his path to finding his precious arc - “Wives, girlfriends, they can complicate life in a major way” Tony expresses to Jennifer as he runs from his own guilt. 

Christopher is desperate for Tony’s approval but is more than happy to use his blood connection as a protective leeway whenever he steps out of line. Again the irony is that he comes to tell Tony about Adriana first, just as the old Famiglia values say he should, but there is no real personal reward for doing so despite the personal sacrifice. 

I think Christopher regretted it in the end, and rightly so. When he is faced with his potential alternate life at the gas station, we assume that this was what made him go to Tony. It’s a family with loads of kids. Adriana probably can’t even have kids??? What kind of male logic?!  #justiceforadriana

I can’t help but feel for him when JT screams “Chris, you’re in the MAFIA!”. It’s the same kind of reality check that Chief Cubitoso gives Adriana, it’s an ultimatum and it’s the realisation that they are trapped in this life. Just ask Gene.

Carmela knew. I read her dreams as a testament to a woman’s intuition. She knows her friend isn’t what everyone is describing, she knows Adriana wouldn’t just disappear. She is all too aware of the emotional labour Mob women carry. When she sees Adriana with Cosette on the banks of the Seine, it is as sad as it is when we dream about people who have died. 

There is a scene in an early episode where Carmela says “Don’t we all?” in response to Meadow squealing “She’s MARRYING a BABY?” at a painting of The Marriage of Saint Catherine. I thought about this again when Christopher dies. Carmela passes her instinct off as hysteria, she isn’t to know. “So quick to blame, what is the attraction in that?” she cries during the aftermath of the car crash. There is a critique in her own femininity here that just makes you want to shout “NO CARM!!!!!!!”. As she believes she mothers Tony, there is the double-edged sword whereby he protects her through keeping her in the dark. “Heaven only ever sees my love making a fool of me” sings Emmylou Harris at the start of season 5. Carm’s power is taken away but she doesn’t even know. 

Carmela dedicates her life to being a mother but it’s not enough to save Meadow from her surname. We get some sense that AJ ‘Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit’ Soprano might be on a new path when he feels like the burning of his car among the autumn leaves of death was cathartic. As a man, he just has more freedom anyway. 

Miss Meadow gained her independence by getting her driving license, but in the end we see that she is still held back in the final scene by her inability to parallel park. She slots right in, eventually. As she does, she slots into the Soprano cycle after years of doing the most to get out and pave her own way. After every breakup with someone without links to the Famiglia, no scrubs, she returns and dates someone closer to home. Her career path is left tenuous to us, it would be all too easy for her to become a kept woman, which feels like it is the only real option should she settle down into the lifestyle with Patrick Parisi. It isn’t what she envisioned for herself, so part of me wants to hope that her story ends up a little bit more like Elle Woods. Legally Italian. 

I probably wouldn’t even have remembered her saying anything about parallel parking if I wasn’t terrible at parallel parking myself. It’s the pepperings of these subtle callbacks that make the show so beautiful. As the guitar solo plays on during the frustration, you’re invited to reminisce over Meadow’s journey. I fully wept watching her struggle to get the damn car parked because I’m trying to get my car parked too. Don’t stop believing, Meadow. 

I admire all the women in The Sopranos. The show is feminist, and that is a hill I am prepared to die on. It’s definitely up for debate as it is obviously littered with gratuitous nudity and women are commoditised. We have to allow this for cultural context for the show, but real life is basically exactly the same too? 

I read a post on Reddit where a dude is asking whether he should watch the show with his girlfriend. He types ‘“It’s a masterpiece of film but she probably wouldn’t get into it as I am”, and you don’t have to look much further to find more comments about how women and their puny minds just won’t get it. It’s an odd perspective to take given that Tony’s psychiatrist is a woman, but of course women could never grasp something so complex. It’s bullshit if you ask me, the female narrative prevails throughout all scenarios. 

The Pine Barrens seems to be everyone’s favourite episode. It’s not my favourite but there are two major elements that resonated with me. The first is Meadow looking down at the three letter words Jackie Aprile Jr had placed on the Scrabble board, and the second is when Gloria says to Tony:

“What you said was that you didn’t wanna piss me off..which implies that you’d have to deal with me, which is more about sparing YOU than my fucking feelings”. Don’t need to elaborate on that. Rest in power, Gloria. Legend.

Of course I could write pages and pages of hot feminist takes on all of the women - Jennifer, Janice, Livia, Angie, Svetlana, Charmaine. Lord knows I could probably write a book on Tracee.“ 20 years old, this girl”, I bashed Living on a Thin Line by The Kinks for about a week after that episode. It is the male gaze of the show made me love the women more. Carmela is my mother and I’ll probably name my first born Meadow. 

Carmela is the powerhouse and backbone of The Soprano household even though Tony provides. She represents stability, emotional labour, and putting on a brave face regardless. In some ways, it is as if Carmela represents the human emotion side and the fragility of organised crime. She is secure, but not enough, and her lack of ability to stand on her own two feet plagues her conscience through time. She is totally complicit, but must be to ensure her future with Tony as he pays anything to roll the dice just one more time. At the end of Long Term Parking, she and Tony stand looking at where she will build her spec-house. The forest looks the same as where we lost Ade, it’s a grim reflection that Carmela wouldn’t have this life if it wasn’t for the quick disposal of those like Adriana.   

Yeah okay, what the hell is a show with a feminist underpinning trying to say about wider society about a woman who exercises her beauty, loyalty and ambition?? Is it that she is not to be trusted?? Adriana’s a rat, but before this she is already deemed “damaged goods” anyway. She dresses provocatively, but that’s because she just looks MINT always. You would dress like THAT if you looked like THAT. When you Google her, ‘Adriana Sopranos Tennis’ comes up. I roll my eyes. Fucking men, eh? To take it down to a basic Sixth-Form-Poet reading, Adriana is Curley’s Wife and Daisy Buchanan all in one. She loves a red manicure too, and it might have worked out better for her if she had played the complicit beautiful little fool. 

This isn’t ‘Why The Sopranos is good!’, but a love letter to Adriana and her strength, because there is basically little or no content written on the women of the show when I have Googled.  I needed there to be more things written about her that isn’t just “bitch had it coming” when in fact she is a martyr. 

When Adriana was on screen, there was my mate. I knew her, she wanted what I wanted, but she sacrificed so much of herself for others and it was heartbreaking to watch. She barely gets a look-in in early episodes, but when she does she is usually wearing something animal print, which automatically made her the number one character on my radar. I am choosing to believe the theory that she is the cat in the final episode too. 

Still, I have been struggling and questioning why an episode that aired 16 years ago, with no plot that links to my own circumstances, has had such a monumental impact on me. 

I saw a tweet that said “have we ever sat down and thought about why relationships only work if the guy is more invested than the girl or is that just something we accept” (@anugov1). Adriana invested more in Christopher, even in the end, than she ever did herself. 

As I navigate this transitional period in my life, I am Adriana driving in the vision we see when we think she is going to start her new chapter. We can’t leave the flat, I have no job. The Sopranos has provided the most cathartic escapism for me. As I enter into whatever new world follows this nightmare, I wanted my mate Adriana to find her new world too, turning the classic rock up to 11.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Gretchen Lieberum Interview: Eerie Nostalgia

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Singer-songwriter Gretchen Lieberum wanted to make an album of standards while totally subverting your preconception of what that sounded like. With This May Only Be A Dream, which came out Friday, she succeeds, in both capturing the magic of old recordings and performance styles while talking full advantage of the time-bending quality of modern production. In BAFTA-winning composer Keefus Ciancia, Lieberum picked the perfect partner. After singing over piano, she sent what were basically demos to Ciancia, who removed the piano, deconstructing and reconstructing the songs to then be rerecorded with session musicians. The result shares the ambition of something like Julia Holter’s version of “Hello Stranger” but over a whole album. Album opener “Come Rain or Come Shine”, which has been recorded by Ray Charles, Billie Holliday, and Chet Baker, combines lurking, fluttering woodwinds with reverb-laden vocals and chaotic orchestration. On “Blue Skies”, a song that you expect to build up with drums, strings, and chorus, like in a climax scene in a Hollywood epic, the strings cut in and out, toying with your perception. While there are some songs that sound familiar, like the Fiona Apple-esque percussive clatter of “Angel Eyes” or the solemn, quiet closer “While We’re Young”, the back-and-forth between subtlety and Technicolor orchestration keeps you on your toes.

A couple months ago, I spoke with Lieberum from her home in L.A. and Ciancia from his in France about how the album was constructed, their approach to recording, and how they would describe the music. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: So this seriously just started with you singing over piano, Gretchen?

Gretchen Lieberum: I have a friend who has a studio in his house. I wanted to do an album of standards for years and years. It’s just an idea I’ve had I couldn’t let go of. I wanted to do an album of these songs but interpreted in an unusual way, not acoustic bass, drums, piano, and that’s it. I’ve known Keefus for years, and he was the only guy I wanted for the job. So I waited years and years, and finally, the timing was right to start working on it. I’d just record vocals with my friend Peter at his studio playing piano, which is great because I do much better in low pressure situations. If I’m in a big fancy studio, I’m like, “Oh god, how much is this costing?” It’s hard for me to be emotional and in the moment. I was just able to go to my friend’s house and record any song that popped into my head or I was feeling. I would send them to Keefus, and he would pick his faves. I think I recorded maybe 25 songs in all, and we ended up with 10.

Keefus Ciancia: The most important part is what Gretchen said--the comfort zone that Gretchen was in where she could get to the feel and heart of the song, comfortably with Peter. He’s an amazing piano player, and they had such a good rhythm that everything I was getting made it so that it was just real. It felt right. That was always fun to be able to open these and also have total separation, pick out Peter’s stuff and start reimagining things, erasing the chords. Gretchen was on fire! She was knocking them out. A lot of great pieces I’ve never heard, too, which I really enjoyed. Maybe that was good for me, too, to not know those standards as well so I wasn’t trapped in the chords. Maybe my lameness of being a hack--I wanted to be a jazz player but I couldn’t do it! [laughs]

GL: That’s what’s so great. I didn’t want a jazz guy to produce it. That’s what ended up happening--he would choose his own chords underneath the melodies that were really interesting and cool.

SILY: Did you know he was gonna remove the piano?

GL: Oh yeah. I know Keefus’s aesthetic and how he works, so I was like, “I’m gonna send you this, have fun, go to town.” I sent him literally zero notes and never knew what I was gonna get back. There’d be a song that’s a stark ballad that would come back with a full orchestra, some of the tempo sped up, some of it slowed down. Different lines chopped up into different places. Quite a few times, I’d take the song and rerecord the vocal to go with what Keefus did, to emotionally match what he created. Sometimes not--the song “Come Rain or Come Shine” was one take I did at Peter’s house and didn’t change at all.

SILY: How did you whittle down from the initial list of 25 songs for this record?

GL: This project was so much about emotion and love and love of these songs. What songs I loved singing and what was inspiring me. I grew up in a house where jazz was constantly playing. My father wasn’t a musician but a huge fan. It was a big part of my life growing up. I was in the jazz band as a singer in high school. These are songs I’ve known my whole life. There were some that I tried that I didn’t feel that I didn’t send to Keefus.

There are a few that aren’t jazz standards, too. We do a Beach Boys song, which is also a song that I love.

SILY: They’re standards nonetheless, independent of genre.

GL: Yes.

SILY: What made you want to release “Come Rain or Come Shine” as the first single and open with it?

GL: It’s just one of my favorites. One of the ones I’m most proud of. It’s indicative of the project as a whole. It’s a standard I approach traditionally from how I’m singing it, but there are these surreal flourishes around it. Also, I mean, what an intro, that [screams] “Ahhh!”

KC: I agree.

SILY: What was the process of getting the session musicians in after Keefus worked on the songs?

KC: Basically, it was kind of known all the way through that once we got these bodies we’d get some more breath and air on it to get more of the quality Gretchen and I love from old 50′s recordings but also taking it somewhere new. That studio is now closed--Vox Studios--such an amazing place that was perfect for that record. It was the first commercial studio in Hollywood through Paramount.

GL: It was the longest continuously running studio in the world, I read.

KC: Someone will move in, I’m sure. Woody [Jackson], who owns it, there was no rebuilding the rooms because they sounded so good from how they were built in the 40′s. The room is amazing, and his engineer Michael Harris is incredible. He was the first one to get his ears on this stuff besides Gretchen and I. To be able to put it in a room, listen through a different system, warm things up for his outboard gear. We had some of our favorite musicians. It wasn’t a ton of folks, but the dream scenario where we had 5 days and a rolling, “Get moving”. The next day, Gretchen sings, then some more people come in.

GL: Jay Bellerose is so damn good. So tasty. He just goes in and does his thing.

KC: His heart breathes all the old jazz but he’s also someone who likes to keep pushing things. I think that was the trick with us--we always want to hear something new. Of course, there are some things that sound great that you should do again, but we all listen to music so much you just want something new. Sometimes, you have to make it yourself.

SILY: The album does sound new even though it has older reference points, both the songs themselves and aesthetically. A lot of older jazz tunes with woodwinds and fluttery strings have something eerie and disorienting about them. Thinking about a track like “Blue Skies”, when the sound cuts in and out. That’s not something you hear on traditional “standards” records. To what extent were you trying to achieve that eerie nostalgia?

GL: I think “eerie nostalgia”’s just our M.O., you know? [laughs]

KC: I like that, eerie nostalgia.

GL: I don’t even think we try. 

SILY: “For All We Know” starts out with quiet plucks of string but ends up a swinging jazz tune, the moment on here that’s the most “traditional.”

GL: Even on that one, it’s funny because our friend David Ralicke, who plays the horns on everything--he’s incredible and has such great taste. But this one, I was like “Keefus, I don’t know.” Keefus was like, “It’s gotta get big. It’s gotta be a party at the end, an explosion!” Ralicke, he sent a bunch of horns. When he sent them in, they were very bright and intense, and I was like, “Oh god, this is a little weird!” Keefus was like, “Don’t worry, I’m gonna make it weird and demented.” It is traditional, but something about the way it’s mixed or the added affects give it that eeriness, which I love.

One thing Keefus often did that was really surprising to me was there were songs I sent as straight ballads, like this one. If you listen to the lyrics, the first half is like, “Who knows what’s gonna happen? Life is so uncertain.” But then it’s like, “Who cares? Tomorrow may never come.” And it’s a celebration. It’s one of my favorite songs now after being most uncertain about it at first. Keefus, you sent me Frank Sinatra, Jr. singing “Black Knight” [as a reference]. It starts as a ballad and explodes, an emotional outburst.

SILY: Is there any other specific track on here you think is a standout?

KC: Each one is such a little episode, that even that was tricky to put in order for the record. It almost would have been interesting to go old school and release 45s, make each one of them a single and B-side. When you hear “Wild Is The Wind”, on my radio, I would make that a single. It’s totally different than the others. It’s not this powerhouse. But if I bought it as a single, I would think it’s a really beautiful single. Same with “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”. That’s on Keefus & Gretchen radio. [laughs]

GL: “Who Knows Where The Time Goes” was the very first song Keefus did. It was the only vocal recorded at my house, with a different friend in my dining room, with a little laptop mic set up. We used that vocal. It’s a pretty special one, and genre-defying. “Wild Is The Wind” fits comfortably in the jazz section. Or not--I don’t know. It’s a weird question. One of the things I hate more than anything is when I’m uploading my music and it asks you to pick a category. I don’t know. I hate picking a category. Nothing feels quite right, and it feels like a mixture of all of these things.

KC: Gretchen is a huge jazz fan listening for a long time, but jazz records strayed from her and my tastes as it went along. Jazz records went on a different road and started getting not such a punk rock vibe. It was a classy thing, not so underground. That was one thing we were talking about when finishing the record. We think it should be heard by all age groups and invite them to learn these pieces because they might not have the chance to learn them as often. To pick a genre can really be dangerous for all artists because there are a ton of artists that like a ton of different music and can make a ton of different music and change their records as they go. That was big, too: approaching this apart from being a jazz record and bringing in new listeners. Gretchen and I don’t know exaxctly how this works with the tagging on Spotify, but if you put “jazz” on it, does that mean other people will never listen to it?

GL: I don’t think it is a jazz album. It’s an album of standards, but I wouldn’t call it a jazz album.

KC: I like to call it torched songs instead of torch songs.

SILY: What was the overall approach to the sequencing?

GL: I really pulled my hair out. I was crying myself to sleep at night. It was hard. One thing we ended up doing, which was Keefus’s idea, was he felt like the A-side of the record leaned themselves more to samples and surreal electronic elements. Keefus was like, “Once you get sucked into the album, the vibe is very complementary, and you can take people anywhere.” So after the first 4-5 songs, “Wild is the Wind” comes, which is a stripped down ballad. From then, you’re just on the ride.

SILY: What was the inspiration behind the album title?

GL: I had this idea of taking a line from one of the songs as the album title. I went through all the songs and went through some of my favorite lines. At one point, I thought I was gonna call it “How Blue The Sky” which is from the last song, “While We’re Young.” But then I thought “This May Only Be A Dream” felt really good with the dreaminess of this music and the somewhat surreal journey it takes you on. One thing I’m really proud of about the record is it takes you on an emotional journey from start to finish. I know the kids don’t listen to albums anymore. Peter was one of the people I sent it to, and he said, “I feel like I watched a film listening to this album.” That felt right.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art?

GL: Keefus’s daughter Raven [Violet Ciancia-Vincent] is a really talented visual video artist. She’s the one that directed the video for “Come Rain or Come Shine.” We made a video for the song “Don’t Explain”, and that’s just a still from the video. She layers things like a collage, so there’s a video of me with fireworks on top of it. When I was trying to come up with something to make the cover, I took a bunch of stills from the video, and that one jumped out at me, especially with the title, This May Only Be A Dream. I just thought it really worked beautifully together. The font, to me, is a throwback to the Blue Note covers. I know a lot of people do Blue Note covers, so I wanted to do a little nod to it without fully going there.

SILY: Are you planning on doing any shows?

GL: When we do end up playing live again--Keefus, I should probably talk to you about what the hell you think I should do--but some of it would be laptop-tracked songs with live bass or drums on top of it. That’s possible, right, Keefus?

KC: I would dream of a full-on 10-to-12 piece orchestra. For a special show in Los Angeles, and when everything explodes, a special show in New York and Paris. I think you could get the right band, and it’s all completely playable.

GL: Maybe a keyboard player adding samples.

KC: Do you play, Jordan? Gretchen’s looking for band members.

SILY: I don’t.

GL: Show me ya stuff, kid! [laughs]

SILY: What else is next for you?

GL: My husband [filmmaker Jacob Aaron Estes] ended up doing an alternate video for “Don’t Explain” that we’re gonna release that I’m pretty excited about. The other thing that I do--which is a totally other universe--is my Prince cover band with Maya Rudolph. I hope we start playing again. That would be great. I am glad, though, that I had so much time to focus on my own music. As much as I love doing Princess, it’s not totally me. I want to really focus on this for a while.

KC: I’m doing Pringles commericals. [laughs] I’ve been working on a bunch of shows and some records and a new soundtrack for a show [Made For Love]. I’ve made a lot of music during the last year and a half. There’s some fun stuff coming up. I’ll start a new Unloved record when our band is allowed to fly over here.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading that’s caught your attention?

GL: My mind just went utterly blank. [laughs] Utterly. I’ve been reading a lot of weird dystopian future stuff to distract my anxiety about the dystopian future stuff we’re dealing with in real life. Reading it calms my nerves.

KC: I watched the Bee Gees documentary [How Can You Mend a Broken Heart] the other night on HBO. I thought it was beautiful. They just touch those places, when you hear those voices.

[bechloeislegit]

With Friends Like These

Prompt from Tumblr User Anonymous: Bechloe High School AU. (See full prompt at the end; I don't want to give the whole story away.)

Beca Mitchell sat quietly, watching Chloe Beale from across the cafeteria. Beca sighed as she looked away. She had a huge crush on Chloe, and Chloe barely knew she existed.

Beca left the cafeteria and made her way to the music room. She had to finish the mashup she had been working on for the cheerleaders. Mrs. Matthews, the Cheer Coach, had asked Beca if she would put something together for the cheerleaders to use in their upcoming competition. And, since Mrs. Matthews also taught music, she knew what Beca could do.

Beca had promised to have the set completed by today, so the cheer squad could start choreographing their routine for the Regional Cheer Competition. Beca needed to do one more run-through and make a few tweaks before giving the jump drive to Mrs. Matthews.

Beca had finished and was pulling the jump drive out of her laptop when she was startled.

"Hey, Beca," a voice Beca recognized as none other than Chloe Beale, spoke to her. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's, um, that's okay," Beca mumbled. "What are you doing here?"

"Mrs. Matthews sent me to see if you were done with the setlist," Chloe said.

"Oh, I, uh, yeah," Beca stuttered. "I'm, uh, I just finished."

"Oh, God," Beca thought. "Why am I so lame?"

"It sounded good," Chloe said with a smile.

"You heard it?" Beca asked with a look of surprise.

"Just part of it," Chloe said. "I liked it. I can already imagine some moves that will fit it."

"Oh, that's, uh, um, that's good," Beca said.

"Are you ready to go?" Chloe asked.

"What?" Beca asked.

"If you're finished, we can walk to music class together," Chloe said.

"Oh, uh, yeah, that would be nice," Beca said.

Beca stayed where she was and Chloe stood at the door, looking around. Chloe cleared her throat, and Beca jumped slightly.

"Oh, right," Beca said. "Sorry."

Beca put everything in her laptop bag and made her way to the door. Chloe smiled at her, and Beca blushed.

"Let's go," Chloe said.

~ With Friends Like These ~

"Oh, Beca," Mrs. Matthews said as Beca and Chloe walked into the music room. "I'm glad you're here. Do you have the setlist finished?"

Chloe broke off from Beca and walked over to sit with the cheerleaders.

"Um, yeah," Beca said as she reached into the pocket of her laptop bag. "Here."

Beca handed the jump drive to Mrs. Matthews.

"Thank you, Beca," Mrs. Matthews. "Chloe? Aubrey? May I see you both for a moment?"

Beca walked over to take her seat as Chloe and Aubrey walked over to Mrs. Matthews.

Mrs. Matthews held up the USB and said, "Girls, this has the setlist that Beca has put together for the Regional Competition. I want you two to stay after class so you can listen to it and we can discuss it. We need to start working on our routine as soon as possible."

"Of course, Mrs. Matthews," Aubrey said.

"It's good," Chloe said with a smile as she quickly glanced over at Beca. "I heard some of it before Beca downloaded it."

"I'm sure it will be great," Mrs. Matthews said. "You may take your seats so we can start class."

While Chloe was talking to Aubrey and Mrs. Matthews, Beca caught herself staring at Chloe. She quickly looked away. She then looked around to see if anyone noticed when she saw Regina and Gretchen, two of the cheerleaders, smirking at her while whispering to each other.

"Shit," Beca thought as she felt her cheeks grow warm.

After that, Beca stared down at her hands so she wouldn't get caught staring at Chloe again.

Chloe and Aubrey rejoined their friends, and Mrs. Matthews began class.

~ With Friends Like These ~

Later that evening, Beca was sitting in her room, working on her homework when she heard the text notification on her phone. She looked at her phone to see a text from an unknown number; she opened it.

Unknown Number: Hi. Is this Beca Mitchell?

"What the Hell?" Beca mumbled.

Beca: Yes, this is Beca Mitchell. Who is this?

Unknown Number: Thank goodness. I thought Fat Amy gave me the wrong number.

Beca: Fat Amy gave you my number? Who is this?

Unknown Number: Sorry. It's Chloe Beale.

Beca's eyes widened, and she tossed her phone from her. Why is Chloe Beale texting her? Beca retrieved her phone and texted back.

Beca: Not to sound mean, but why are you texting me? You don't even know me.

Unknown Number: I may not know you now, but I want to. Plus, I wanted to tell you how much I loved the setlist you put together for us. I just know with your music and our moves, we will def win the Championship.

Beca: Oh. Thanks.

Unknown Number: You're welcome. I have to go, but I'll see you at school tomorrow.

Beca: Okay. See you tomorrow.

Beca sat there with a furrowed brow. "Chloe Beale wants to get to know me? That was surreal," she mumbled.

Beca shook her head and opened one of her playlists and continued working on her homework.

~ With Friends Like These ~

Two weeks later, Beca and Chloe have been texting almost every night. Beca sat at home one night, wondering why Chloe never paid much attention to her in school. She had said that they were becoming friends, but Chloe doesn't say or do anything while they are at school.

Beca looks at her phone and decides to text Chloe.

Beca: Hey, why don't you ever talk to me in school? You said we were friends.

It took a few minutes before Chloe's reply came through.

Chloe: Sorry. I just want to keep you to myself for a while. I really like you, and I think we can be more than friends. If that's something you want.

Beca read the text several times to make sure she understood what Chloe was trying to say.

Beca: What do you mean by "be more than friends?"

Chloe: Exactly what I said. I really like you, and I want to see you outside school. Would you want that?

Beca's eyes widened. "Is Chloe asking me out on a date?"

Beca: Are you asking me out on a date?

Chloe: Yeah. Is that okay?

Beca's heart started pounding, and her face lit up with a big smile.

Beca: It's more than okay. I really like you, too. What did you want to do?

Chloe: I don't know. I'll think of something and get back to you. For now, can we keep this to ourselves? You know how my friends are.

Beca: Sure. I get it. I'll talk to you later.

Chloe: Thanks. Talk to you later.

Beca set her phone down with a bigger smile on her face. Chloe Beale, the girl she's been crushing on forever, likes her and wants to take her out.

In school the next day, Beca was walking to her locker when she saw Chloe with some of the cheerleaders. A couple of them looked at her as she walked by. Chloe had her back to her and turned to see what the other girls were looking at.

"Oh, hi, Beca," Chloe said and smiled.

"Um, hey, Chloe," Beca replied.

Chloe turned back to continue talking, and Beca continued on her way. Beca did hear some giggling come from a couple of the girls but thought nothing of it. All she could think about was that Chloe smiled at her and said hi in front of her friends.

Later, Beca was in music class, trying not to stare at Chloe or smile like an idiot. At one point, Gretchen and Regina were looking at her but quickly looked away when Beca saw them.

Regina got Chloe's attention and began talking to her. Gretchen stood and made her way over to Beca.

"Hey," Gretchen said.

"Um, hey," Beca said hesitantly.

"Look, Beca, Chloe's birthday is coming up soon, and we're having a party for her," Gretchen said. "It's a surprise party. And we think you should come."

"Um," Beca said, looking around.

"She really likes your music," Gretchen said. "A couple of the girls and I thought you could maybe make a birthday playlist for her. And play it at the party."

"Oh, um," Beca stammered a bit. "Wh-when is it?"

"It's two weeks from Saturday," Gretchen said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "Here's a list of some of Chloe's favorite songs."

Beca took the paper and looked at Gretchen.

"If you could use these in the playlist, that would be awesome," Gretchen said.

"Um, okay, I can do that," Beca said, glancing over at Chloe. "Are you sure Chloe will want me there?"

"Absolutely," Gretchen said. "She keeps going on and on about your music. She'll be so surprised to have you there. She'll love it."

"Okay," Beca said, smiling. "I'll be there."

"Great," Gretchen said and left Beca alone.

"Wow," Beca thought, looking at the list of songs Gretchen gave her. "I'm going to Chloe Beale's birthday party."

Later that night, Beca got a text from Chloe. She didn't text for long because she was afraid she would tell Chloe about the surprise party.

They stopped texting, and Beca let out a heavy sigh. Beca didn't know if she was going to be able to keep this secret from Chloe for two weeks.

~ With Friends Like These ~

The next day, Beca walked into the cafeteria and smiled when she saw Chloe sitting with her friends. She walked over to her usual table, where her best friends, Fat Amy and Benji, were seated. As she sat down, they both were staring at her.

"What?" Beca asked.

"What's got you all smiley?" Benji asked.

"Oh, nothing," Beca said coyly, glancing over at Chloe.

"You look like you're in love," Fat Amy said. "Has someone finally caught your eye?"

"Possibly," Beca said.

"Do tell," Benji said.

"Okay, it's Chloe Beale," Beca said. "And I guess I should be thanking Amy for getting things started between us."

"Me?" Fat Amy asked. "What did I do?"

"You gave Chloe my number," Beca said. "I was a bit upset about it at first, but I got over it quickly. Chloe and I have been texting for the past month, and she said she likes me and asked me out on a date."

Fat Amy frowned. "Um, Beca, I'm happy for you, but I didn't give Chloe your number. I would never do that without asking first."

"What?" Beca asked. "But, she said you gave it to her. Why would she lie about that?"

"I honestly don't know what to say about that," Fat Amy said. "I'm sorry, but whoever gave her your number, it wasn't me."

"I don't understand," Beca said.

"Maybe Chloe was mistaken," Benji said. "And it was somebody else who gave her your number."

"But, who would do that?" Beca asked, her brows furrowed. "There are only four people in the whole school that I've given my number to. There's you two, Jesse, and-"

Beca stopped and looked over at the cheerleaders' table. "Emily."

Beca was angry. How dare Emily give Chloe her number without asking her. The only reason Emily still had it was because they had worked on a class project together last semester.

"I don't think Emily would do that," Benji said. "Maybe it was Jesse. He is dating Aubrey, who is a cheerleader."

"But he knows I don't like having my number given out to just anybody," Beca said. "He may be a bit of douche, but he is still my cousin and knows better. It has to be Emily."

Beca glared over at Emily, laughing and chatting with the cheerleaders. She moved her gaze over to Chloe, only to find Chloe watching her with a soft smile on her face.

Beca couldn't help herself and smiled back at Chloe. She then shook her head as if to clear it and looked down at her sandwich.

"Calm down, Beca," Benji said. "Don't go flying off the handle until you're sure it was Emily. Besides, you were just thanking Fat Amy for giving Chloe your number since it turned out okay."

"I get that," Beca spat out. "But what I don't get is what Emily gains by giving my number to Chloe. Something doesn't feel right about this."

"So, ask Chloe about it," Fat Amy said. "See what she says."

"You're right," Beca said.

Beca pulled out her phone and wrote a text to Chloe.

Beca: Why did you lie to me about Fat Amy giving you my number?

Beca looked over at Chloe once she sent the text. Her brows furrowed in confusion when Chloe never flinched or looked at her phone. She looked over to Emily and noticed Gretchen and Regina looking at a phone and laughing.

"What the Hell?" Beca mumbled as she pulled up her phone and sent another text.

Beca: What the fuck did you do, Gretchen and Regina?

She hit send and glared over at the table to see if they reacted. Gretchen and Regina looked down at the message and looked up with wide eyes to find Beca glaring at them.

"Shit," Gretchen muttered.

"Something wrong, Gretch?" Chloe asked.

"Um, what? No," Gretchen said. "Everything's fine."

"What's going on with you two?" Aubrey asked, looking at Gretchen and Regina. "You've both been acting weird for a couple of weeks now."

"I think it has something to do with the phone they're looking at," Emily said

Gretchen quickly moved her hand to hide the phone. Her eyes widened when she saw Beca striding over to their table.

"Chloe, may I speak to you for a moment?" Beca asked, causing the other girls to jerk their heads toward her.

"Is everything okay, Beca?" Chloe asked, confused at what was happening around her.

"Why don't you ask your besties, Gretchen and Regina," Beca said, gritting her teeth.

Chloe and the others switched their looks to Gretchen and Regina.

"What is Beca talking about, Gretchen?" Stacie asked.

"I have no idea," Gretchen said.

"Regina? Do you have anything to say?" Jessica asked.

"I don't know anything," Regina said.

Suddenly, the phone Gretchen was holding was snatched up by Beca.

"Give that back!" Gretchen squealed as she grabbed for the phone.

Chloe jumped up to stand by Beca. "What's going on, Beca?"

"Look at this," Beca said, handing Chloe the phone.

"That's not yours," Regina said. "You can't look at it. That's an invasion of privacy."

"And pretending to be someone else is against the law," Beca said.

"Who was she pretending to be?" Jessica asked.

"Me," Chloe said, looking through the phone Beca had grabbed from Gretchen. "Oh, my God!"

Chloe had tears in her eyes when she looked up from the phone.

"I can't believe you told Beca about that," Chloe said, looking at Regina and Gretchen. "That was told to you in the strictest of confidence."

"Wait," Beca said, looking at Chloe. "Is what they told me true?"

"What did they tell her?" Stacie asked.

Chloe looked at Beca and then looked away.

"Is it true?" Beca asked softly, staring at Chloe's profile.

Chloe wiped her eyes and nodded slightly.

"Can we talk?" Beca asked Chloe. Turning to find all the girls staring at them, Beca whispered, "Alone?"

Chloe nodded again.

"Excuse us," Beca said, taking Chloe's wrist and leading her away from the table.

Regina and Gretchen started whispering as soon as Beca and Chloe walked away.

Beca led Chloe to an empty corner of the cafeteria and stood facing her. She pointed to the phone still in Chloe's hand.

"Read the rest of the stuff they wrote," Beca said. "Please."

Chloe swallowed and nodded her head. She looked at the phone, and a smile came to her face.

"So, you like me?" Chloe said, looking up at Beca.

"I do," Beca said.

"I like you, too," Chloe said. "I also read something about asking for a date."

"You weren't the one who asked me," Beca said.

"What if I said I wanted to?" Chloe said.

"Seriously?" Beca asked. "You want to go out on a date with me?"

"I'd love to," Chloe said with a cheeky grin. "I thought you'd never ask."

~ With Friends Like These ~

Back at the table, the girls were still watching Beca and Chloe. Regina and Gretchen quietly stood as if to leave when Stacie said, "Where do you think you two are going?"

"Um, nowhere," Gretchen said as she quickly sat back down.

"Tell us what you two did," Aubrey said.

Regina and Gretchen then told the girls at the table about texting Beca and pretending to be Chloe.

"We saw Beca staring at Chloe with heart eyes and thought we'd mess with her a bit," Regina said.

"Beca doesn't give her number out to just anybody," Emily said. "How did you get it?"

"From your phone," Gretchen said. "You really should pay closer attention to where you leave it."

"What exactly did you hope to gain from your little joke?" Aubrey asked.

"I don't know," Regina said. "Just embarrass her. She's just a music nerd; what difference does it make?"

"The difference is," Jessica said, leaning in to get closer to Regina. "Chloe told us she had a crush on Beca in confidence. And you two used it to try and embarrass Beca, which in turn embarrassed Chloe."

"Don't get too used to those uniforms," Aubrey said. "I'll be informing Mrs. Matthews of this little prank of yours. I'm sure she'll agree that you two should be dismissed from Cheer Squad."

"God, it was just a joke," Gretchen said. "Besides, Beca likes Chloe, too. So we actually did Chloe a favor by telling Beca."

"It doesn't matter if Chloe and Beca like each other," Aubrey said. "It was Chloe's secret and not something for you to tell Beca."

"Whatever," Regina said, standing and looking at Gretchen. "Let's go."

The two got up and stormed off. The girls watched them go, shaking their heads.

"Unbelievable," Jessica muttered

"I need to apologize to Beca," Emily said, standing up.

"Um, maybe you should wait a few minutes," Stacie said with a smile, looking over at Beca and Chloe.

Emily followed Stacie's gaze and saw the two standing and smiling at each other. She couldn't help but smile when they were suddenly kissing.

Emily sat back down at the table.

"I hope they'll be done soon," Emily said. "Lunch is almost over."

The kiss was over in less than a minute. Both girls pulled back with smiles on their faces.

"So, Friday night?" Beca asked Chloe. "I'll pick you up around six, and we can get dinner, maybe see a movie?"

"Friday night it is," Chloe said, leaning in to kiss Beca again.

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

Full prompt: Bechloe AU. Chloe is the popular girl, and Beca is the music geek with a huge crush on Chloe. Beca gets a text from an unknown number saying it's Chloe, so they start texting for a couple of weeks. What Beca doesn't know is that it's actually Chloe's mean girl best friends messaging Beca to make fun of her.

[marvinswriting]

tiny swap part three: gretchen and janis part one , part two

Monday, 7:10 am

Janis crossed her arms, blowing a raspberry to Damian.

Her friend, obviously, did not seem to take this as a serious insult as he chuckled, turning is attention elsewhere. "Okay, Jan."

They all shared a first period, one that Janis normally slept through with Damian. 

But she was not with Damian and there would definitely be no sleeping since Gretchen sat in the very front row.

Fucking hell.

Damian said goodbye to the group as he made his way to the back and Janis frowned, wanting nothing more than to go with him.

Nothing against Gretchen.

Just-

She trusted Damian more.

A lot more.

Gretchen sat down and Janis allowed herself to be placed on the table, mindful of Damian's warnings earlier. 

Just one week. 

Tuesday, 7 am

Walking into school on Gretchen's shoulder felt new. Even in middle school, she would be with Karen.

Gretchen's right shoulder was reserved for Regina George and Regina George only.

Yet here she sat.

Janis threw Regina and peace sign for good measures and laughed as the girl returned a middle finger.

No real feelings hurt, Janis knew that.

Even Shane Omen didn't seem to know what to think of it as they passed him in the hall.

That was real power.

Janis didn't care for ruling the school.

But if sitting on Gretchen's shoulder as she and Karen walked the halls was all it took to stop getting harassed, she would have done this long ago.

Gretchen actually wasn't bad at the whole walking with a tiny on her shoulder. She had definitely improved since middle school at least. 

The giant stopped at her locker, slipping books in while talking with Karen- something about boys.

Gross.

Janis gave no useful commentary to the conversation. The plastics didn't expect her too.

Maybe this week wouldn't be the most god awful thing.

Wednesday, 8:56 am

Janis frowned at her phone.

Regina was asking if she and Aaron wanted to stay after school just to talk. Call it English help.

Well, the nickname didn't make sense anymore since their giants knew what it entailed but, sure, Janis will humor her.

"Hey, Gretchen?"

The giant looked up from her school work.

"I got after school help today. Can you give me a ride?"

Gretchen sighed knowingly. "I haven't dropped you yet, dude. What could you have to whine about."

"Hey!"

Gretchen laughed, nudging Janis with her pencil. "Yeah, I can drive you."

Wednesday, 4 pm

"Thanks for giving me a ride, Gretchen," Janis said as the plastic stepped into her car. 

"Of course, I wasn't just gonna let you stay at school overnight."

Janis smiled. It was only Wednesday but, she had grown to trust Gretchen a lot more this week. Gretchen hadn't dropped her- yet- and she was open and easy to talk too. It was something Janis never really noticed when she was always with Damian.

Huh.

Gretchen turned on the car, a pop song playing softly. She scooped up Janis, pacing her in over in the cup holder and buckled up.

"If something happened to you because you were on my shoulder Damian would never forgive me." She explained when Janis gave her a questioning look.

"I won't fall! I can take care of myself."

"Uh-huh." Gretchen pulled out of the school parking lot. "So, what did you talk about?"

"Oh you know- bitchin'." Janis grinned.

Gretchen knew full well that Janis couldn't tell her. 

The specifics at least.

Hey, bitchin' wasn't a total lie.

But that was par for every meeting.

Maybe this week wasn't so different after all.

Thursday, 11:30 pm

"So," Gretchen's voice was a bit robotic as it came through the phone.

Janis sat at her easel, painting. "So."

"How was this week?" Gretchen asked. "I'm no Damian but I'd like to think I wasn't awful."

Janis smiled. "No, you weren't awful. At all. This week was great, actually. Regina is lucky to have you"

"-You think?"

"Yeah! Why wouldn't she?"

There was quiet on the other end. "I dunno. It's stupid but like-" Gretchen sighed.

Janis lowered her paintbrush, turning her full attention to her phone. "Gretchen, you talking to Janis Sarkisian about feelings. I guarantee it's not gonna be stupid. "

Gretchen laughed. "I know Regina hates all things that require feeling and having a heart. But I know she loves me and trusts me anyway I just- wish she'd show it more. I dunno. Is that selfish?"

"I don't think so?"

Gretchen continued. "Just, Cady and Aaron are so open with each other. You and Damian- well sometimes I'm convinced you share the same mind. Regina just won't let me in. Like- I can see something is bothering her, but she won't tell me what. I just wanna help."

Janis sighed sadly. "What you're saying now- it sounds a lot like a talk I had with Damian about a year into our friendship. After that, I worked to be more open. I tried to let him in more. And look at us now. You just gotta talk with Regina. I promise you it's not stupid."

"Thanks, Janis," Gretchen said. Janis could almost hear the smile. "Now I got to get to bed but- please don't stay up late painting."

"Oh, I will. I get Damian's pocket again tomorrow, I plan to pass out at lunch and sleep for a month."

Gretchen laughed. "Alright. Good night then."

"Bye, Gretchen."

Friday, 12 pm

Gretchen pushed her way past crowds in the cafeteria, steadily making her way to the gang's table.

Janis leaned closer to her neck as they passed. No matter who she was with, crowded hallways and cafes would forever be a no no. 

Gretchen sat at the table first, nobody else was here. 

"You excited to see Regina?" Janis asked as Gretchen lowered her to the table.

"Yeah. You ready to see Damian?"

"I'm ready for a nap."

Gretchen laughed. "I told you you should have gone to bed."

"Oooo! Look what we've got here!" A taunting voice cooed from behind Gretchen. 

Janis can't see over Gretchen's head, but its a voice she knows all too well.

"What can we do for you, Shane?" Gretchen sits up straighter. 

"I was just wondering how long you think little Space Dyke is gonna last?"

"I'm sorry?" Janis frowned as Gretchen stood up next to Shane.

"She's obviously replaced Regina. You really think she's gonna last long, Gretchen?"

Extreme distance filled Gretchen's features. "Janis didn't replace Regina."

"Then why have you been carrying around Space Dyke?"

"I'm allowed to carry around other friends." Gretchen crosses her arms, standing up straight. 

Gretchen was short. There was no denying that.

But when she drew herself to full hight? She was intimidating. You just never saw it because she let Regina do the talking.

Janis blinked in disbelief at the argument going on in front of her.

Gretchen looked-

unnerving. 

Shane didn't seem to feel the same uneasiness as he glared down at Gretchen. "What's it matter to you? This is is between Space Dyke and I."

"It's not space dyke. It's Janis. And Janis is my friend."

Shane rolled his eyes. "Why don't you leave caring for the worthless tiny to that gay kid?"

Woah woah woah. Janis frowned, standing up, but Gretchen beat her to the punch.

"Damian? Yeah, he's got a name too. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you didn't know! I mean, I know because I know everything about everybody. I know things about you that can get you expelled. I know things about all your friends that could diminish Northshore's giant football team. I know shit. Maybe you don't! So I'll let you know right now. It's Damian and Janis. And you better leave them the fuck alone."

Shane rolls his eyes. "You wouldn't do shit without Regina George's permission."

Janis was vaguely aware of a crowd starting to form around the table. She didn't like it one bit.

They had done so well this week! No one was dropped nothing went wrong. Of course, the period they are supposed to switch back everything goes to shit.

Janis tried to ignore the crows around them and the way she felt suffocated.

"I don't need Regina's permission to destroy your reputation," Gretchen said, her voice was dangerously low, almost a growl. 

Shane swallowed, and momentarily, his bad boy look faltered, revealing a truly threatened Shane Omen. Only momentarily.

"Stay in your own fights." He said, glaring down at Gretchen. 

A low 'ooo' admitted from some of Shane's friends in the crowd.

Janis stiffened.

Shane smirked, seeming filled with a newfound confidence now that he was backed up by the crowd. He turned to Janis, the familiar malice in his eyes turning her blood cold.

This was just supposed to be a fun week, a nice experiment if you will. 

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Shane reached forward and Janis instinctively stepped backward.

She couldn't back up fast enough, Shane was quicker.

Shit shit shit.

A hand slammed in front of Janis, blocking Shane and shaking the table. 

"Fuck off." Gretchen all but snarled. 

Janis stared wide-eyed at the hand in front of her.

Holy shit.

She felt nauseous from the spike of adrenaline and her body was shaking involuntarily. 

Shane chuckled. "Seriously, Gretchen. Learn your plac-"

Gretchen reached forward, slapping Shane across the face. 

There was a gasp as the crowd fell silent.

All Shane's friends who were there to back him up stepped backward into the crowd.

Janis hugged herself slightly, pulling her knees to her chest. There was still a crowd around her and it felt like too much.

Too many people.

Too much noise.

Her breaths felt shallow.

"Did you just- slap me?"

Gretchen nodded, stepping forward as Shane stepped backward. "You leave my friends alone."

"Psycho bitch." Shane spat, turning and disappearing into the crowd.

Gretchen didn't turn around immodestly, she just watched Shane walk away.

Janis wrapped her jacket tighter around her, like that could protect her or anything. The crowd had dispersed but it left the cafeteria buzzing again and everything felt too loud. 

She was vaguely aware of two more tinies on the table, people sitting all around, but her brain couldn't comprehend. 

All Janis could do was tug her jacket tighter and tighter until it wouldn't go anymore. She stared numbly at her hands, knuckles white from pulling her jacket.

Fingers wrapped around her torso and Janis gasped, her arms shotting out to push at the fingers.

No no no.

"Jan- Janis. It's me."

 Damian. Janis relaxed, the last of her adrenaline fueled fight leaving her body. She allowed herself to be gently scooped up as Damian raised her to eye level.

"You okay?"

"I- yeah. I think?"

"You think?" Damian frowned.

"No like- Shane didn't touch me. I'm physically fine. Just shaken up, I guess."

"We were so close to a problem-free week." Regina comments from the table. She walks back over to Gretchen who picks her immediately. 

"Yeah." Janis sunk into Damian's hands. "So close."

Damian drew his hands to his chest, wordlessly holding Janis close.

Janis squeezed her eyes shut as she leaned into Damian's shirt, trying to will herself to calm down.

"I hate Shane Omen." Gretchen mumbled.

Janis laughed dryly, turning to look at her friends across the table.

Regina and Aaron had obviously already found way to their giant's shoulders and Gretchen was holding her hand against her cool water bottle.

"You okay?" Janis asked.

Gretchen grinned. "I hit him a bit harder then I meant to."

"Fucking good!" Regina said. 

Janis grinned. "He deserved it."

"Agreed." Damian said, his voice rumbling through Janis. 

She grinned, leaning into Damian's warmth. 

The week itself wasn't bad. Yeah, it was a rough ending but it was in no way Gretchen's fault.

If anything, it would have been worse without her. 

Janis grabbed onto the edge of Damian's jacket, pulling herself out of his hands and using folds in the fabric for leverage as she hoisted herself into the familiar pocket.

"Jesus, Janis. Are we back at this again?" 

Janis popped her head out of the jacket. "I held back all week just for you. But I'm not with Gretchen anymore."

Damian looked down at her but a small smile played on his lips, betraying his disappointment. "Just be careful."

"Always am!" Janis gave a salute to the table before sinking into the pocket, getting comfy.

At the end of the week, while all the giants were her friends, Damian was her giant. And she never wanted to do this little experiment again.

fuck shane omen, man @realmisspolarbear @musicallygt @smallsoysauce @sourishlemons

[themurphyzone]

104 Words for 104 Days: Dynasty Part 1: Princess

AN: Takes place in Doof Dynasty time period. Artistic liberties have been taken, and by that I mean a LOT of artistic liberties have been taken. Also, I really wanted to write something with Isabella as the protagonist and this seemed like a good place to do it. Since this turned out much longer than I expected, I decided to just divide it into two parts.

Dynasty Part 2 Coming Soon!

“Sir! Our defenses have been compromised!” General Carl shouted, rushing into the royal palanquin and collapsing into a dead faint in front of Regent Monogram.

Princess Isabella moved her ink pot before Carl’s head could smash into it. Sensing that the calligraphy lesson was over, she carefully put the materials away while Monogram waved a jar of incense in Carl’s face.

“General, don’t faint until you’ve given us the necessary exposition first,” Monogram scolded. “And especially not in front of the Princess.”

Carl nodded weakly. “Of course, sir. My apologies, Princess.”

“Accepted,” Isabella said. “What’s this about our defenses being compromised? Surely Master Perry wouldn’t leave our country unprotected.”

“Princess, are you sure you want to hear about this?” Monogram coughed. “You’re not much more than a ceremonial figurehead until you’re of age. Until then, it’s perfectly acceptable if you want to lavish in luxury and leave the worrying to the professionals.”

Isabella fixed him with an icy glare. “Regent, I respect you and your administrative decisions. But I’ve fought Doofus Khan in a terracotta warrior before and if you’ll pardon my unprincess-like language, kicked his sorry butt back to the steppes of Mongolia. Those commoner boys fought for the Tri-Province Area and me when they were hardly trained, and I intend to do the same.”

“How old is she again?” Carl whispered to Monogram.

“Older than a child but younger than a teenager,” Monogram whispered back. “It’s the bow, I think. Throws everyone off.”

“Your report, General,” Isabella demanded.

Carl stood up and bowed his head. “The commoner boys who saved the Tri-Province Area were building the northern tower of the Great Wall near the Large Bamboo Forest of Largeness when Doofus Khan kidnapped them. Master Perry is currently training at the Loud Waterfall of Loudness, which is notoriously difficult for even the most fleetfooted messengers to access. Doofus Khan left this scroll, most likely to demoralize us before swooping in for his conquest.”

He handed the scroll to Monogram, who unfolded it and grimaced at the ink picture of Doofus Khan sticking his tongue out with a finger above his lip in an obvious mockery of his mustache.

“This means war,” Monogram huffed. “My mustache and beard combo is highly fashionable in this day and age.”

“There’s a message at the bottom,” Isabella said, placing her finger in the blank space to avoid smudging the ink.

Mwahahaha! If you want the boys back (lousy defense system by the way, do you guys really not have a militia?), send Princess Isabella to my Inescapable Fortress of Inescapableness! I wanted to call it the Inescapable Fortress of Doom, but my new scribe is defensive of his names. Just head due north. That’s all the directions I’m giving you. Don’t worry, you can’t miss it. Or do worry, cause I’ll be taking the Tri-Province Area soon enough! Have a bad day!

Wishing you all the misery in the world,

Doofus Khan

“Without Princess Isabella’s undeniable charm, our country will fall to ruin!” Monogram groaned. “We can’t abide by this fiend’s terms!”

“You aren’t stopping me,” Isabella declared. “I’m going to save my friends and the Tri-Province Area!”

“But-“

Isabella held up her hand to silence him. “I appreciate your concern. But I can take care of myself.”

“Very well,” Monogram sighed, the scroll dropping out of his hands with a dull thud.

Carl raised a hand sheepishly. “Sir, I believe I have the solution. Lady Firesong has trained a squad of preteen girls in the art of bodyguarding, self-defense, survival, pottery, gator wrestling, and decorative cupcake making. This would make for an excellent training exercise for the girls. I’ll send her a message after I’m finished fainting for the second time.”

Then he fainted again.

“I still think we’re doomed,” Monogram muttered.

o-o-o-o-o

The training complex wasn’t anything grand, especially compared to what Isabella was used to, but they had enough equipment that would make an entire Roman army jealous. Many silkworm cocoons lined each plant in the garden, and Isabella plucked one off the leaf out of curiosity, slipping it into her flowing sleeves while Monogram’s back was turned. He led them through a lantern-lit path until they reached an ancient portrait, which depicted an elderly woman in a flowing purple robe.

To Isabella’s surprise, the portrait bowed.

“I am Lady Firesong. Welcome, Princess Isabella. I’ve received word that you wish to perform a rescue mission. The girls who volunteered to accompany you are highly skilled in many areas. I hope you’ll find their company adequate,” the elderly woman rasped, then turned and clapped her hands. “Alright, girls! The Firesong anthem for the Princess, just like in rehearsal! One, two, three!”

Five girls in matching orange robes hurried into formation, singing the cutest song Isabella had ever heard in her life.

“-and it’s not too terribly long!” they chorused with a banner of the Tri-Province Area in the background.

Isabella applauded, much to the girls’ delight. Monogram didn’t look too impressed though. “Yes, yes, that was great. Princess, will you be okay?”

“Failure is not an option,” Isabella replied.

“Good,” Major Monogram said, reaching into his robe and pulling out a ribbon-tied scroll. “Deliver this scroll to Doofus Khan, will you? I, uh, have a very important message for him.”

“You can count on me!” Isabella exclaimed, taking the scroll.

Monogram nodded in approval and left, confused at the angry looks that were thrown his way when he still didn’t acknowledge their song.

“Well, it looks like my work here is done!” Lady Firesong exclaimed, settling back into her chair. “I am so glad I can rest here and let children handle matters of national security.”

o-o-o-o-o

Isabella’s clothing was custom-made by a tailor who exclusively served royalty, so creating her own Firesong robe was an entirely new experience for her. If Regent Monogram could see her filling baskets of cocoons, he would be horrified at the manual labor that a princess of her caliber certainly shouldn’t be doing.

But if a princess could operate a terracotta soldier, then she could easily create a robe out of raw silk. Besides, it was a great opportunity for learning about the other girls. She committed Gretchen, Holly, Katie, Ginger, Millie, and Adyson’s names to memory, only mixing them up twice when she was too busy taking the silk threads out of the boiling water.

“-and that’s why Lady Firesong trains us from birth. As a result, none of us really know who our parents are, but the rewards are worth it,” Gretchen explained as Isabella removed the finished robe from the loom. “I’ve always been told I’m more of a second in command type anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Isabella asked, stepping behind a bamboo screen to try on the robe. It was shorter than what she was used to, just barely reaching her knees, but much less restricting than her royal clothes. “I wouldn’t want to take your leader position just because I’m a princess.”

Gretchen smiled. “No, I can give orders, but I lack the charisma of a natural born leader. I should know. I’ve been trying for the Charisma Patch for years.”

“Well, I can always teach you,” Isabella offered. “It takes skill, confidence, and taking advantage of our naturally cute dispositions, but I’m sure you’d be able to learn!”

“Thanks! So, what do you think of the uniform?” Gretchen asked.

Isabella pushed the screen aside, twirling in her Firesong robe. “It may look delicate, but it’s durable,” Isabella said. “Also, I never knew I pulled orange off this well. I’ll have to ask my tailor for more clothing in this shade.”

Gretchen nodded, then poked her head in the doorway. “Katie! Are the accessories ready yet?”

“Right here!” Katie shouted, hurrying into the room and handing an orange sash and hairbow to Isabella.

“These sashes are the most important part of the Firesong uniform,” Gretchen said, pointing to her own sash. Unlike Isabella’s, hers was decorated with several colorful patches. “They’re proof of our accomplishments and fairly useful in a fight. Plus, we pooled our silver pieces for a hairbow. We just thought it’d look good on you.”

“Aw, you girls didn’t have to go that far!” Isabella exclaimed as she put on the sash. She let Ginger tie the hairbow, since the girl seemed enthusiastic about touching her hair.

Now that she couldn’t be recognized as a royal, they were ready for action.

“Storm the base!” Adyson shouted.

“Bring lots and lots of weaponry!” Holly suggested, pounding her fist into her hands.

It seemed they didn’t have much of a head for strategy. But Isabella supposed that was what a leader was for.

“Our main objective is infiltrating Doofus Khan’s fortress and rescuing the boys so they can complete the Great Wall,” Isabella said, and silence fell instantly. “But we need to pack only necessary items because a giant desert lies to the north, and we’ll need to cross it in order to get there. In other words, no more than what a two-humped camel can carry.”

“Katie, fill the water flasks!” Gretchen barked. “Ginger and Adyson, grab the food! Make sure you include lots of ox jerky!”

Adyson groaned. “I really hate ox jerky...”

“It’s a start, but there’s a necessary stop we should take before heading north,” Isabella continued. “Master Perry is currently training at the Loud Waterfall of Loudness, so we’ll need to go there first and get his help. What do you girls think?”

“Let’s go!” Millie exclaimed. The other girls echoed her battle cry.

Ginger held up a lute. “I’m in charge of the travel music!”

The other girls glanced at her.

“What? Travel music and a montage are necessary items too!”

o-o-o-o-o

Ginger’s idea of travel music was playing ‘You Snuck Your Way Right into My Rice Paddy’ over and over again. Sure, everyone liked the song, but after two hundred repeats without taking requests from anyone else?

Not so much.

Everyone was relieved when the roar of the waterfall drowned out her lute. Unfortunately, it drowned out everything else too.

Relying on finger signals and other forms of non-verbal communication, they made their way through the lush undergrowth. Millie and Holly used sharp rocks to mark every tree they passed to make the return journey faster, Katie scouted ahead, and Gretchen and Ginger dragged Adyson between them, who was still recovering from a nasty fall in a ditch.

When they finally arrived at the riverbank, they found Master Perry meditating underneath a pounding waterfall.

“Master Perry! The Tri-Province Area is in trouble again!” Isabella shouted, but couldn’t make herself heard above the waterfall.  

Everyone except Adyson added their voices, shouting as loud as they could, but neither the platypus or panda were paying attention.

Isabella silenced them with a wave of her hand. It just wasn’t enough of a hook to nab Master Perry’s full attention. They needed something more.

Isabella inhaled and screeched in the deepest voice she could manage.

“YOUR FORMER STUDENTS ARE IMPRISONED IN DOOFUS KHAN’S FORTRESS!”

Master Perry’s eyes snapped open. He dove into the water, resurfacing with a topknot and traditional warrior’s outfit.

The group went back to the main road so they could talk without screaming over the waterfall. Adyson muttered something about salamanders, her head lolling against Gretchen’s shoulder as her sandals dragged against the leafy soil.

“How did you do that?” Holly demanded, her hair still frizzed from the waterfall.

“I’m excellent at breath control. Plus it’s great for scaring Regent Monogram,” Isabella said. She turned to Master Perry and bowed respectfully. “The Firesong Girls and I wish to accompany you to the fortress. It is my duty as a princess to protect my subjects, and I cannot do that from a palanquin. You’ve trained the boys well back when they rescued me from Doofus Khan’s evil clutches. I will repay the favor.”

Master Perry stared off into space, several vibrations rippling through the air.

“Is that an attack?” Gretchen asked. She pulled off her sash, looping it around her hand and twirling the other end in the air.

“Stand down,” Isabella ordered. “He’s having a flashback. Just wait it out.”

Gretchen reluctantly obeyed.

A few seconds later, the rippling dissipated and Master Perry bowed.

“He’s done, hopefully,” Isabella said. “Phineas mentioned he has a habit of doing this. So, guess we’re heading due north now. Do any of you know where we can rent some camels?”  

Master Perry gestured for everyone to follow him.

“Who’s ready for more travel music?” Ginger asked. She tuned her lute, smiling brightly as she strummed a chord.  

“NO!” Millie and Holly screamed.

“Hehe, the salamanders are doing opera,” Adyson giggled.

o-o-o-o-o

Turns out Master Perry knew a faster way to transport them to the fortress. One that involved a massive red dragon that resembled the ones at Chinese New Year (but since it’s China, they just call it New Year), but much larger, more metallic, and without relying on people’s feet for an energy source.

“Master Perry! So good to see ya! Finally come out of retirement, I see! ‘Bout time! Never approved of you giving up on saving China after one little incident,” a jovial woman exclaimed. “And you brought an entourage this time! Name’s Glenda, so don’t forget it! What brings you girls to the Dragon Train?”

“We’re going to Doofus Khan’s fortress to rescue our friends. But isn’t this a little advanced for 1542?” Isabella asked, pointing to the giant dragon that Glenda called a ‘train’.  

“Yes, yes it is,” Glenda said, her eyes widening. “Did you say Doofus Khan’s fortress, girlie? Don’t you know that place is inescapable? I deliver supplies there myself. Don’t look at me like that, a woman’s gotta make her living somehow.”

“It’s only inescapable because nobody’s ever tried it before. It’ll be completely escapable by the time we’re finished,” Isabella said.

Glenda slapped her knee and laughed. “I like your gumption, girlie! Climb aboard! It’ll take twenty minutes to get there, so just kick back and let the Dragon Train do the work.”

“Twenty minutes? That’s so fast! And I was planning on a day and a half’s hike,” Gretchen said.

“It’s coal-powered,” Glenda shrugged. “Convenient for us, but makes a heck of a mess in the air. Ah, well. Problem for a future century.”

“I’m game!” Adyson shouted, snapping out of her salamander delirium. “Never been on a train before, but who cares? Better than relying on ox jerky!”

“Man, I would’ve packed my mahjong board if I’d known we’d be taking a train,” Holly grumbled.

Isabella turned to the north, signaling Gretchen and Ginger to wave their fans behind her and produce a dramatic wind. “My name is Princess Isabella, and we’re going to defeat you once and for all, Doofus Khan! You won’t pillaging anything by the time we’re through with you!”