#he's estranged from the family at the beginning of the movie

[fist-of-vengeance]

hey. can people please stop parroting "stan only regained his memory because it's a disney show" like it's an objective fact and somehow a storytelling flaw? because that's reductionist and straight up untrue. stan regaining his memory is not a random deus ex machina, it's clearly established earlier in the season that the memory gun isn't permanent via mcgucket's storyline. as soon as mcgucket watches the tapes in society of the blind eye, he begins to gradually heal and regain his memories. it makes perfect sense that mabel's scrapbook (and in journal three, stan and ford's old home movies) would function the same way for stan.

realistically, stan probably wouldn't have remembered his entire life in the span of a week, but his recovery is obviously being condensed for the sake of pacing. there's a ton of awesome fanworks based on the idea that he's still recovering new memories long after the end of the show, particularly from the darkest period of his life when he was homeless and estranged from his family. but that's not relevant to the finale. what matters for the show's purposes is that stan remembers the events of the past summer, so that his goodbye with dipper and mabel at the end of the episode holds dramatic weight. because THAT'S HOW YOU WRITE A STORY.

[lucy-moderatz]

[onmyyan]

Ain't no sunshine chapter 3

A/n: canon typical violence someone gets stabbed (not you) feedback is always welcome

The clock ticks in an uncomfortable rhythm, almost pounding in your ears, you swallow around nothing and try to take a deep breath, only a few more minutes now.

Sitting cross cross felt childish but you needed the comfort of being low to the ground, before you stood a proud grandfather clock, the thing always intimidated you for some reason, maybe it's because you could smell how expensive it was, how priceless, but it was the only room in the house you could guarantee would be free of any nuisances, aka your estranged family.

A lone little Debbie cupcake in hand, a candle in another, you stick the candle inside the soft flesh of the treat, lighting it with the silver zippo, the seconds begin to count down as the wax melts, today was your eighteenth birthday, and the day you'd find true freedom. A day you'd been waiting for since you'd decided to wash your hands of the Wayne's and all who associated with them.

Bruce had begun to add to his collection of broken people one by one a new face was added to the house, and one by one you were met with the same cold indifference.

Barbara Gordon came into your life warmly, on the arm of Dick, she was kind to you in the beginning, making a point to ask you questions and listening intently when you answered, immediately you admired the older woman, her charming grin and bright demeanor was like a light inside the house, until she became who you eventually discovered was Oracle, tied up in the world of heroes and monsters, she too joined the club of exclusion, unintentionally forgetting plans the two of you had made more often than not, sharing inside jokes with Dick about last night's patrol or even taking on a mentor role for Damian, each action like a stab to the heart.

The last straw felt like the smallest one. And it came in the form of Cassandra Cain.

The girl came to the family under reasons you couldn't know, but she was troubled, you could see the same look in her eyes you had when you looked in the mirror as a child, she didn't outright reject your friendship like Damian, but she was seemingly as disinterested in you as the rest of your family, the real kick to your heart came when you walked past a moment shared between her and Bruce, he was comforting her, you couldn't hear the words spoken but you could feel the love pouring from Bruce, how he had a gentle hand on her shoulder, showing her a kind of love he'd never once shown you.

It wasn't her fault and you held no grudge against her, but it still felt like a slap to the face, and every time you saw her, every time she followed them down to their little hiding spot, the acid-like sting deep in your chest got worse. It was then you made a promise to yourself, you'd stop trying, no more reaching out to Dick or praying Jason would message you back, no more begging for Tim's attention or Damian's respect, and you were sure as shit done asking Bruce to love you.

You're brought back to the present moment by the loud ring of the clock before you, the echoing sound brought a ear splitting grin to your face, finally, you were done.

Blowing out the candle, you toss it on the floor, standing with a pep in your step. You'd had your bags moved out days ago so the only thing left was to leave. A chatter could be heard the closer you got to the front door, male and female voices happily spoke with one another, but you were so unfazed, too excited about your current plans to care they'd gathered without you on your birthday.

"Oh hey (Y/n)" Dick says after spotting your form in the doorway, see the only reason you were here is because the dining room lead to the front door, and your new found freedom.

You nod at him, taking in the sight of popcorn and half empty pizza boxes, a movie projected on the wall, ah so they decided to have a little get together?

None of your concern.

"Sorry we didn't call you down, didn't realize you were home" Dick says a look of pity in his eyes, "do you want some?" It's almost said with a wince.

"Nah." Was your simple response, and with that you walked out of their door and lives.

You'd bought an apartment with your own money, you'd been working since you were fourteen, saving every penny for this moment exactly. It was in a shit part of town with an even shitter interior but it was yours and you loved it. Water dripped into a mostly full bucket in the corner, the lights took a full forty seconds to turn on and it reeked of old cigarettes.

Yet you couldn't wipe the smile off your face.

Feeling that euphoric rush had you buzzing all night, besides the bed in your room was, questionable to say the least, so you decided to stay up. Cleaning what you could with what you had made you feel even better, this terrible little space was all yours, no condescending people or assholes in sight.

Feeling hungry, you throw on a black puffer coat and a matching beanie and start to brave the Gotham cold. Each step is taken with a new gratitude, the farther you get from that family the better you feel.

Your happiness is pulled to a grinding halt by the sound of rapid footsteps behind you, without thinking you turn, fist balled tightly in perfect form, Patty would be proud if she saw the way you decked the bastard running up on you.

You nailed him right in the throat sending him to his knees, his knife cluttering to the ground before your feet, grabbing the weapon you point it down at his choking body, your hands still despite your rapid heartbeat. The wheezing man made a swipe at your ankles causing you to bring the knife down right into his shoulder, a scream rips though his throat, the adrenaline in your body has you running on autopilot.

Kicking him in the side of the head to quickly sprint to the corner store where you'd planned on going in the first place, your hands shake as you grab your food, but again, that smile stays on your face.

Not only had you moved out today, you'd proved to yourself you didn't need them for anything, not protection, not validation, nothing, it was like you could breathe again.

The next few weeks are business as usual at the manor, until Barbara looks at the calendar and realizes she'd, along with everyone, had forgotten your birthday. The guilt ate at her until she made her way to your room knocking softly, a cupcake in hand she called out, "(Y/n)? Listen I'm so sorry about your birthday, I got my dates mixed up." The lie came easy, but no response was heard, "I get if you're completely pissed at me, at us but-"

"Miss (L/n) has moved out."

"what? How is that possible we would have noticed her moving out." As if to prove Alfred wrong Barbara opens your door, only to find a barren room, empty of any signs of life. She turns to the older man, a thousand questions burning on her tongue, but he seemed to read her, "you'd be surprised what goes unnoticed in this house miss Gordon, have a good afternoon." He leaves her with this and it only makes the guilt and confusion worse.

She pulls out her phone scrolling to a number she hadn't used in a while, biting her thumb as it rings she's hoping you clear all her confusion when you answered, but you don't, instead an automated message tells her your phone has been disconnected. Now she begins to worry, you were so young, just barely an adult, the idea of you out on your own in Gotham had her heart sinking, clicking the family group chat she sends a message that will change everything.

"We need to talk about (Y/n)."

[vanteguccir]

── ୨୧ !　𝗔 𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗗𝗔𝗬𝗦

　　　　　　　　𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒍𝒐 x reader

SUMMARY: Where Y/N, estranged from her parents, hasn’t celebrated holidays with family in years. Until her boyfriend, Matt, invites her to spend Christmas with him and his family in Boston for the first time.

WARNING: Bad childhood, christmas trauma, anxiety. Angst to comfort/fluff!

REQUESTED?: Yes, by anon

AUTHOR'S NOTE: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism, copy, or "inspiration"! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

A/N²: I was inspired by Moly from the books when writing Mary Lou so fucking much (hp fans will understand) 🥹

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The snow fell softly outside of Y/N's window, coating the streets of Los Angeles in a pristine white blanket that shimmered under the glow of the streetlights. The flickering lights of the Christmas tree cast a warm, golden glow around the room, but the festive decorations only served to accentuate the emptiness Y/N felt inside.

The memories of her childhood were bittersweet. Christmas had once been her favorite time of year, filled with laughter, warmth, and love. The smell of pine from the freshly cut tree, the twinkling lights, and the sound of carols playing softly in the background had created a magical atmosphere. Her parents had always made sure that the holiday was special, filling the house with decorations and baking delicious cookies and treats.

But those days were long gone. When Y/N was just sixteen, a series of painful events led to her moving out. Her parents' constant arguments, their acts of blaming her, the financial struggles, and the emotional strain had become too much to bear. She had left to find peace, but in doing so, she had also left behind the traditions and celebrations she had once cherished.

Now, Christmas was just another day. Y/N spent the holiday alone, watching Christmas movies and gazing out of her window at the festive that always seemed to happen on her street - a consequence of living in the middle of the city. She saw families walking together, their faces lit up with joy, and couples holding hands, whispering sweet nothings to each other. It was a beautiful sight, but it also served as a stark contrast to her solitude.

But not this year.

As Christmas approached, Matt, her boyfriend of less than a year, had invited her to join him and his brothers in Boston for the holidays. They were planning to spend Christmas with their family, a tradition they cherished. Matt had insisted that she come along, his eyes shining with excitement at the prospect of sharing the holiday with her. But Y/N had hesitated, the familiar doubts creeping in.

"I don't want to be a burden." She had confessed, her voice tinged with uncertainty. "Your family has their own traditions, and I don't want to intrude."

Matt had taken her hands in his, his gaze unwavering. "Y/N, you're not a burden. You're a part of my life, and my parents would love to meet you. Besides, you shouldn't have to spend Christmas alone. You've been through that enough, and I am not gonna let you stay in that place again."

His words had touched her deeply, but the fear of being an outsider lingered. She had spent so many holidays alone, and the thought of integrating into someone else's family felt daunting. But Matt was persistent, his love and reassurance slowly melting away her reservations. He had promised her that she would be welcomed with open arms, that his family would treat her like one of their own.

After much contemplation, Y/N had finally agreed. She couldn't deny the excitement that fluttered in her chest at the thought of spending Christmas with Matt and his family. It was a chance to create new memories to experience the joy and warmth of the holiday season in a way she had never known.

The days leading up to their departure were a whirlwind of preparations. Matt had helped her pack, his enthusiasm infectious as he chattered about all the things they would do in Boston. He told her stories of past Christmases, painting vivid pictures of snowy landscapes, festive decorations, the good food, and the moment of opening presents, which always used to lead to childish discussions between him, Chris and Nick. Y/N found herself getting caught up in his excitement, her initial apprehension giving way to anticipation.

On the day of their flight, Matt, Nick, and Chris picked her up early in the morning. The triplets were a lively bunch, their energy filling the car with a sense of camaraderie and fun.

Chris, always the most childish and carefree, kept the air calm with his witty remarks and playful banter, receiving disbelieving looks from Nick, along with insults, which led to small stupid fights - as usual. Matt, the one with the most "mature" posture, made sure everything was in order while yelling to them to calm down from time to time.

As they boarded the plane, Y/N's nerves resurfaced. She clutched Matt's hand tightly, seeking comfort in his touch while leaning against his left shoulder, her eyes fixed on the walkway the plane would soon pass.

Matt, who was asking Chris to send a text to Mary Lou to let her know that they were about to take off, soon noticed the drop in her mood, turning his eyes towards her and watching her momentarily with eyebrows furrowed in concern before bringing his face closer to the top of her head, sealing his lips over her hair for long seconds.

"It's going to be great, petal. Trust me." He whispered against her strands, dragging the tip of his nose in a light caress, exhaling the fresh scent of her shampoo.

Y/N nodded, taking a deep breath and letting the excitement override her fears. She lifted her face, her eyes meeting the blue ones that so calmed her, the beginning of a smile appearing on the corner of her lips almost automatically.

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The plane touched down in Boston almost six hours later, the city blanketed in a fresh layer of snow. As Y/N disembarked with Matt, Nick, and Chris, her heart raced with anticipation. The terminal buzzed with holiday travelers, their excited chatter blending with the festive decorations that adorned the airport.

Y/N felt a mixture of excitement and anxiety as they made their way to the baggage claim area, where they spotted Justin waiting for them next to his car.

Justin stood out with his tall, broad-shouldered frame and a warm smile that reached his eyes. He waved enthusiastically as they approached.

"Hey, guys! Over here!" He called, his voice cutting through the crowd.

Matt squeezed Y/N's hand, increasing his steps significantly, pulling his girlfriend behind him, ignoring the small stumbles she gave due to his sudden movements, leading her toward his older brother.

"Justin!" Chrid greeted excitedly from their side, the tone of his voice gradually rising. His body was pulled by his brother into a tight hug, his figure momentarily disappearing into Justin's arms.

Justin grinned, stepping away from Chris before turning to Y/N.

"Y/N, it's great to see you again!" He said, pulling her into a friendly embrace. She smiled, feeling a bit of her nervousness melt away in his welcoming presence, her fingers squeezing Matt's tightly, not letting go of his hand.

After retrieving their luggage, they made their way to the brother's parents' van, the cold Boston air biting at their faces. Justin quickly loaded their bags into the trunk, and they all piled into the vehicle, Matt and Y/N, taking the backseat.

As they settled in, all buckled up, Justin started the car, and the warm air from the heater filled the cabin almost instantly, gradually warming the bodies covered in cold hoodies and transforming the environment into something more cozy.

"Are yall ready?" Justin asked, glancing at Chris beside him momentarily before lifting his eyes to the rearview mirror, traveling his orbs over Nick to the love birds with a grin. His right hand flew to the radio, turning it on in a low volume, and soft Christmas music filled the car.

Y/N nestled into her seat, the soothing melodies of holiday classics surrounding her like magic, but despite the warmth, good vibe and the familiar presence of Matt beside her, she couldn't shake her nerves. Her hands trembled slightly as she fidgeted with the zipper on her pink coat, the tips of her fingers twisting the small metal object as her teeth worked to trap her lower lip, nibbling at the sensitive skin in an act of anxiety.

Matt noticed immediately, his eyes softening with concern. He moved slowly so as not to startle her, bringing his body closer to hers - if that was even possible, and raised his left hand to her face, using the tip of his thumb to gently pull her lip from its prison, stroking the red and slightly irritated skin.

"Hey." He whispered, his voice a soothing balm. "You're gonna hurt your pretty lips if you keep doing that, 'hon." He tapped his thumb lightly against her lip before lowering his hand, his eyes searching hers. "You're going to love it. I promise."

She nodded, trying to steady her breathing, her hot tongue escaping between her lips, wetting them.

"I know. It's just... a lot."

Matt leaned in closer, his breath warm against her ear.

"Just focus on me, okay?" He reached for her, gluing her hands in a sign of prayer and closing them with his own, creating a small cocoon, caressing the soft skin with his fingers, his touch light and comforting. "Remember Vegas? You were nervous to meet Justin, too, but everything turned out great."

Y/N smiled at the memory of their trip to Las Vegas in July. It had been a whirlwind of fun and excitement, and it was the first time she had met Justin. The trip had strengthened her bond with Matt and his brothers, making her feel like part of their tight-knit group.

"So, Y/N, how have you been since Vegas? Anything new and exciting?" Justin glanced in the rearview mirror momentarily, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"I've been great, thanks. Just busy with work and getting ready for Christmas." She appreciated his attempt to include her in the conversation, opening a gentle smile when her eyes met his.

Nick, sitting in the seat in front of hers, turned side ways to join in the conversation, resting his left arm above the back of the seat.

"You should see her house. She's got the cutest decorations, almost everything is pink!" He smiled in excitement, his eyes darting from Y/N to Justin, who was listening to him with his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

"Thank you, Nick, you're too sweet. I love decorating for the holidays." Y/N blushed, lowering her eyes, feeling the warmth of his gentleness.

She leaned into Matt after noticing Chris start another topic, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat below her ear. His right hand moved from hers to her back, tracing gentle circles above her clothed skin that eased her tension.

"You're amazing, babe. My family is going to adore you." He whispered sweet nothings, his lips brushing against her ear.

The drive through Boston was enchanting, the city aglow with holiday lights. They passed through charming neighborhoods, each house adorned with festive decorations. Y/N's anxiety began to ebb, replaced by a sense of wonder at the beauty of the season.

As they turned onto the street leading to Matt's childhood home, Y/N's heart began to race again. She peered out the window, taking in the picturesque scene, recognizing the house from their pictures from when they were children. The house was a two-story colonial, its exterior beautifully decorated with twinkling lights, wreaths, and garlands. A large Christmas tree stood proudly in the front window, its branches heavy with ornaments.

Justin parked the car, and the boys quickly got out to unload the luggage. Y/N took her time to get out of her seat, her heart pounding as she shuffled her feet over the snow-covered gravel, pressing her lips into a thin line.

She watched as Matt, Nick, and Chris laughed and joked, their breath visible in the cold air. A pang of longing and fear filling her heart - longing to belong and fear of not fitting in.

The soft sound of the front door opening echoed through the open air, and Mary Lou, Matt's mother, stepped out, her face lighting up with joy at the sight of her sons.

"Matt! Nick! Chris!" She called, rushing down the steps carefully to envelop each of them in a warm hug, receiving hugs back just as strong. Her laughter was infectious, filling the air with a sense of home and love.

Y/N hesitated, her nerves threatening to overwhelm her. She watched as Mary Lou's eyes scanned the group, finally landing on her. Mary Lou's expression softened, and she walked around her son's, starting her steps toward Y/N with open arms.

"And you must be Y/N." She said warmly, her voice filled with genuine affection, a big smile resting on her face.

Y/N's heart fluttered as Mary Lou enveloped her in a hug, her smaller body surprisingly covering hers completely like a big blanket, the warmth of her embrace chasing away the cold.

"It's so wonderful to finally meet you." Mary Lou whispered against her ears, her hands gently rubbing Y/N's back. "Matt has told us so much about you."

Y/N felt tears prick at her eyes, the kindness in Mary Lou's voice touching her deeply, her heart squeezing slightly.

"It's so nice to meet you too." She managed to say, her voice trembling slightly, tightening her arms lightly around the older woman.

Mary Lou pulled back seconds after, holding Y/N at arm's length and studying her with a motherly and very attentive gaze.

"Oh my, you're freezing, dear. Let's get you inside and warm you up." She ran the palms of her hands from Y/N's shoulders to her wrists and back up again in an attempt to warm her before taking her hands, her touch gentle and reassuring. "Come on, boys, bring the luggage in. Let's get everyone settled."

As they stepped into the house, Y/N was enveloped by the warmth and coziness of the interior. The smell of freshly baked cookies wafted through the air, mingling with the scent of pine from the Christmas tree and cinnamon from the candles. The living room was a festive wonderland, with stockings hung by the fireplace and twinkling lights casting a soft glow.

Mary Lou led Y/N to the living room, where a fire crackled in the hearth.

"Sit here, dear." She said, guiding Y/N to a plush armchair, smiling warmly. "I'll get you something warm to drink."

Matt joined Y/N seconds after, appearing from behind her and sitting on the armrest of the chair, raising his right arm and wrapping it around her shoulders.

"See? It's not so bad." He murmured close to her ears, his eyes filled with love and pride staring at hers as if she was his world - and in every way, she was.

Y/N leaned into him, her heart swelling with gratitude.

"It's perfect." She whispered, feeling the warmth of the fire and Matt's body enveloping her, a permanent smile spreading across her lips.

Mary Lou returned with a christmas mug - in the shape of Santa Claus, full of fresh hot cocoa, the steam rising in delicate tendrils.

"Here you go, sweetie. This will warm you right up." She handed the pottery into Y/N's hands gently so as not to burn her fingers.

Y/N took the mug, the heat seeping into her cold hands.

"Thank you, Mrs. Sturniolo." She said softly, her voice filled with gratitude.

"Oh no, dear, just call me Mary Lou!"

Nick and Chris brought in the luggage, their cheerful banter filling the room. Justin joined them, his laughter a deep, resonant sound that added to the festive atmosphere.

Mary Lou looked around at her family, her eyes shining with happiness.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're all here." She said cheerfully, her voice choked with emotion, clasping her hands over her own heart. "This is what Christmas is all about, right? I was so excited for this year! Your father will be here soon, I asked him to buy some ingredients that I needed for our pumpkin pie."

Y/N felt a lump in her throat as she looked around the room. The decorations, the warmth of the fire, the laughter of the people she had come to care for - it was everything she had ever dreamed of. For the first time in years, she felt truly at home.

Matt leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple for long seconds, opening a smile.

"Welcome to the family, sweetheart." He whispered against her skin, his voice filled with promise.

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Y/N was starting to feel at ease, wrapped in the embrace of Matt’s family. She sat comfortably on the plush couch, sipping her hot cocoa and watching the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. The room was filled with laughter and conversation as Mary Lou moved about the kitchen, preparing dinner.

The front door creaked open, and a gust of cold air swept through the hallway.

"I'm back!" Came a cheerful voice from the entrance, echoing between the warm walls.

"Jimmy! The boys are here, and Y/N too!" Mary Lou’s face lit up as she called out, her voice louder with excitement.

Matt’s father, Jimmy, stepped into the living room carrying several grocery bags. He was a tall man with a kind face, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled.

"Well, look at this gathering!" He exclaimed, setting the bags down on the floor and brushing the snow from his coat. "It’s good to see you boys."

Matt, Nick, and Chris hurried to greet their father, exchanging hugs and hearty handshakes, talking excitedly over each other.

"And you must be Y/N." Jimmy's eyes twinkled with joy as he turned his attention to Y/N, his voice warm and inviting.

Y/N stood, feeling a mix of nervousness and excitement, her hands smoothing down her hoodie anxiously.

"Yes, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Sturniolo." She said softly, smiling nervously, offering her hand.

Jimmy chuckled after noticing her tension, enveloping her hand in both of his, the cold of his skin bringing goosebumps to Y/N's warm ones.

"Call me Jimmy. We’re all family here." He said genuinely, his grip firm but gentle. "I’ve heard so much about you."

"All good things, I hope." Y/N felt her cheeks flush as she smiled, her eyes meeting Matt's over Jimmy's shoulder momentarily, watching as her boyfriend smiled shyly, lowering his gaze.

Jimmy’s laugh was deep and resonant, filling the room with a sense of ease, taking her attention back to him.

"All very good things." He assured her. "Matt hasn’t stopped talking about you for even a minute during our meetings or our calls."

Matt grinned, shaking his head while approaching the two with light steps and positioning himself next to his girl, wrapping an arm around Y/N's shoulders.

"I can’t help it, dad. She’s pretty amazing."

Jimmy’s eyes softened as he looked at them together, seeing a glimpse of him and their mother.

"I can see that." He said warmly. "Welcome to our home, Y/N. We’re so glad you could join us for Christmas."

Mary Lou bustled in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel before throwing it over her shoulder.

"Jimmy, why don’t you take a break and get to know Y/N a bit better while I finish up dinner?" She suggested.

"Oh, I can help in the kitchen, Mrs- I mean, Mary Lou." Y/N quickly proposed, not wanting to just sit and "be served".

"Oh no, darling. Please enjoy your evening with everyone. During Christmas, the kitchen is mine alone." Mary Lou raised her right hand in the air in a "stop" gesture, throwing a wink in her direction before turning around and heading back.

"That's right. Every time I tried to help, she almost killed me." Jimmy joked, taking a seat across from Y/N. "So, Y/N, tell me about yourself. How did you and Matt meet?"

Y/N relaxed into the conversation, her nervousness fading under Jimmy’s kind gaze. She shared the story of how she and Matt had met at a random corner coffee shop in Los Angeles, their friendship blossoming over shared interests and late-night talking sessions. Jimmy listened intently, nodding and smiling as she spoke.

"It sounds like you two have a special bond." He said thoughtfully, leaning against the back of the chair he sat in, crossing his arms. "Friendship is a strong foundation for a relationship."

"It really is. Matt’s been my everything." Y/N nodded, glancing at Matt with a smile, watching him show Justin a video from his phone, his eyes sparkling with the way his smile grew.

"I’m glad he has someone like you in his life." Jimmy’s expression grew tender, bringing her attention back to him. "Family is everything, and I can see that you’re already part of ours."

Y/N felt a lump form in her throat at Jimmy’s words. She had always longed for a sense of belonging, and in this moment, she felt truly accepted.

The evening continued with laughter and storytelling, the warmth of the Sturniolo home wrapping around Y/N like a comforting blanket. Jimmy’s kindness and fatherly presence made her feel at ease, and by the time dinner was served, she felt like she had known the family for years.

As they gathered around the dining table, Y/N couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude. She had found not only a loving partner in Matt but also a family that welcomed her with open arms.

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After dinner, as they sat around the fireplace once more, Jimmy leaned back in his chair, a contented smile on his face.

"This is what Christmas is all about." He started with a small sight, his voice filled with warmth. "Family, love, and making new memories. Merry Christmas, everyone."

Y/N, from her place standing against the door frame that separated the kitchen from the living room, looked around the room at the faces of the people who had become so dear to her. She felt a swell of emotion, knowing that this was just the beginning of many happy holidays to come.

The sound of soft footsteps behind her sounded mute to her ears, her body jumping slightly in fright as she felt Matt's presence so close, wrapping his arms around her, his touch warm and reassuring.

"How are you feeling?" He asked in a whisper, as if he didn't want to break the little and imaginary bubble that surrounded them, his voice a gentle murmur in the quiet room.

Y/N leaned into him, her hands finding his above her stomach, her fingers wandering over his milky skin until they met his, intertwining perfectly, her heart full.

"I feel... happy. Really happy."

Matt smiled openly, lowering his head, resting his chin on her shoulder, sealing his lips on the soft, warm skin of her cheek.

"I’m glad." He whispered. "You deserve all the happiness in the world."

"Thank you, Matt." She mumbled after some seconds of silence, her voice filled with gratitude while her eyes glowed brightly at the image in front of Chris, Nick and Justin playing video games on the big television while Mary Lou and Jimmy watched them with smiles on their faces, whispering sweet nothings to each other every now and then.

"For what?" Matt asked against her skin, feeling like he could stay in that position for all eternity.

"For bringing me here. For giving me this."

"You're my everything, Y/N. I want you to have the world."

He followed her line of sight momentarily, observing his family until his eyes met Nick's, who looked at them with a comical smile on his lips, pointing above their heads.

"What-?" He lifts his head, looking up, feeling Y/N's body move between his arms as she tries to see what he sees, a confused expression on her face turning into one of surprise.

Mistletoe hangs above their head, the prettiest they've ever seen.

Matt slowly lowers his head, meeting Y/N's eyes, who were still looking up - now into his. A shy smile stretches across his lips, his arms tightening around his girlfriend's body, bringing her closer.

Their gaze keeps connect when Matt gently places his right hand on her cheek, his thumb caressing the soft and warm skin.

"Merry Christmas, beautiful." He whispers softly before leaning closer, kissing Y/N.

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@lustfulslxt @ladybunny44 @earth2starkey @freshloveforthefit @sturniolowhore @luvr4miya @alorsxsturn @urfavgirllyyyyy @hearts4chriss @cupidzsq @junnniiieee07 @lightsgore @gidgett11037 @soimightlikeoldmen69 @ldr-sl0t @its-jennarose @sainzzsturns @ecliphttlunar @soso-scarlettolivia @bitchydragonparadise @freshsturns @h3arts4harry @patscorner @strnilolo @bernardsbendystraws @poetatorturadaa @meg-sturniolo @orangeypepsi @jnkvivi @chrisactualwife @fratbrochrisgf @elordilover @somegirlfromasgard @hpyjw @colorthecosmos444 @dej4vhs @thewhispersofthewaves @mattslolita @imwetforyourmom @mrl217 @delilahsversion @sturnsmia @mattsfavbitchhh @sturnioloshacker @soursturniolo @blahbel668 @sarosfilms @moncherriis @tobesolonelyjess

(If you want to be added to the taglist, go to this post)

[callsigns-haze]

The Twisters Masterlist

- WARNING - please understand that some of my stories contain, gore, smut and other adult topic.

Tyler Owens

Lean On

Summary: Tyler Owens, an avid storm chaser, takes his friends Javi and Kate to meet his estranged wife YN and their son Noah, rekindling old tensions. During a fierce tornado, they seek refuge in a cinema, where Tyler and YN rediscover their love amidst the chaos. YN begs Tyler to never leave again, and he promises to stay, solidifying their connection he broke all those years back.

Lean off

Summary: Tyler returns to visit YN and their son, Noah, after a year. Upon arriving at YN's small apartment, Tyler immediately senses tension between them. YN is cold and distant, and Tyler soon discovers the reason—she had seen him on a recent livestream, where he had flirted with his crew member, Kate, and kissed her forehead. Although Tyler insists that it was harmless, YN's hurt is evident, as it reminds her of all the times he put his storm-chasing career above their family.

Aim to please

Summary: Tyler Owens discovers Y/N, a girl who dances for him, and they engage in a passionate, intimate private dance. Despite lacking protection, Y/N reassures Tyler, leading to a deep bond. Tyler uses a roll of dollars to tease and reward her, solidifying their bond and hinting at future shared moments.

A Love in the Eye of the Storm

Summary: Y/N tends to Tyler's injuries after he returns from a dangerous tornado chase, and their emotional reunion culminates in a passionate embrace, reaffirming their deep love and commitment to each other.

The Chase

Summary: Y/N and Tyler's storm-chasing adventure takes an intimate turn as Y/N teases and overstimulates him during a high-stakes tornado chase, creating an intense moment of passion and connection amidst the chaos.

Little chaser

Summary: Tyler and Y/n Owens enjoy a cozy movie night, only to be interrupted by their storm-chasing squad, who are shocked to discover Y/n's pregnancy

Little baby entrance chase

Summary: Tyler and Y/n welcome their newborn daughter, Hazel Grace, into the world, embracing the overwhelming love and joy of becoming parents as they begin their new journey as a family.

Promises in the Quiet

Summary: Tyler Owens bonds with his newborn daughter, Hazel, promising to protect and love her unconditionally while overwhelmed with emotion during their first moments together.

Not so past

Summary: Tyler and Y/N reunite in a heated, emotional encounter, reigniting their past passion and unresolved feelings during a late-night moment by his truck.

The Weight of a Word

He always introduces her to people as “my wife”? Like they’re newlyweds and he just loves slipping in “wife” whenever he can

Before the Storm

Chapter Summary: Tyler Owens faces a life-altering decision when a tornado strikes his hometown, forcing him to choose between his passion for storm chasing and his newfound responsibilities as a husband and soon-to-be father.

Here Comes Kaboom

Summary: Tyler shares his love for storms with his three-year-old daughter Hazel, who joyfully believes she can summon thunder from the safety of his lap.

Winds of Forever

Chapter Summary: Tyler and Y/N embrace the unpredictability of their love by exchanging vows in the heart of a storm, beginning their married life with nature's raw power as their witness.

Not so cruising

Summary: During a storm chase, Y/N and Lilly are caught in a tornado after a last-minute seat swap, leading to a harrowing rescue by Tyler and the team, with Y/N injured but eventually safe.

Unanswered

Summary: Y/N anxiously monitors a severe tornado chase from the sidelines due to illness, fearing the worst when the live stream abruptly cuts off, only to be relieved when Tyler, her partner, returns safely.

part 2

Not leaving

Summary: Y/N races to save Tyler, trapped under debris after a tornado, refusing to leave his side until he's safely rescued.

Not so past

Summary: Tyler and Y/N reunite in a heated, emotional encounter, reigniting their past passion and unresolved feelings during a late-night moment by his truck.

Study Stress

Where he's helping the reader calm down from an intense school moment. Like in college for a tough major (architecture would be cool lol, not biased at all; maybe focusing on better built homes for tornados) and it's like the first day of classes and it's chaos already.

Another 2

Summary: Tyler and Y/N take their daughter Hazel baby shopping as they prepare for the arrival of their twin boys, savoring a day filled with love, laughter, and the anticipation of expanding their family.

Requests for Tyler are open be free to send in as much as you wish!

tagging some:

@senawashere

@saviorcomplexrry

@cevansbaby-dove

@saynotononsense

@missdottie

@willowisp7

@taorislover94

@eloquenceinpurple

@86laura11

@rosiahills22

@jessicab1991

@kmc1989

@shanimallina87

@eternalsams

[goodlucktai]

a bigger heart grew back

rise of the tmnt post-movie characters: leo & splinter, raph & splinter word count: 5k title borrowed from no hell by cloud cult

read on ao3

x

Splinter thought he had lived through all of life’s worsts already.

Losing his mother, estranging himself from what was left of his family, moving to the States as an orphan of his own making, falling in what he thought was love and losing his freedom as a direct result—

Years spent underground where he was forced to fight like a dog, an unwanted mutation that guaranteed his exile from society, that first bleak night in the sewers with nothing but the clothes on his back and four infants who depended upon him entirely and the utter conviction that he was going to fail them—

The resurrection of the Shredder, the collapse of Splinter’s home and the exodus of his children, the fear he had become unfortunately intimate with in those fraught hours—that his boys would become orphans, too—

Raphael’s escape pod opening and Leonardo tumbling out, eyes glassy and chest heaving with panic—sweet, sensitive Red covered in a fleshy pink parasite and forced to attack the siblings he loved more than life itself, those little turtles he had fussed over and carried and kept safe since he was just a little turtle himself—

But nothing compared to hearing the voice of his second youngest child as he prepared to end his own life.  

His precious Blue, who could sell water to a fish, bravely trying to convince his siblings that it was right for him to go. Already pulling away, beginning the vanishing act, even as Raphael begged him not to do it. 

All for that tiresome, nebulous greater good. As if any happy ending could possibly exist with Leonardo removed from the narrative. 

Splinter had thought he knew what pain was, but his heart, patchwork, secondhand thing that it was, had never broken like this before. He crumpled to the ground, and listened to Blue’s line on the comms explode into a strange whine and then static and then nothing, and it was over. 

His Blue would never crawl into his armchair for late night Spanish telenovelas again, Splinter realized. Would never wheedle and bribe and coerce him into chess matches, because he didn’t seem to know he could just ask and Splinter would play as many matches with him as there was time in a day for. Would never run from a successfully antagonized sibling and fill the lair with his ringing, infectious laughter. Would never fall asleep at the kitchen table over a medical textbook he pretended to be too cool for in the daylight hours. Would never effortlessly argue his twin out of the lab for dinner, would never lift Orange up on his shoulders to get a hard-to-reach mixing bowl because teamwork makes the dream work, would never painstakingly stitch together a ripped teddy bear for the brother whose fingers were too big to handle needle and thread ever, ever again. 

There is not a word for a parent who has lost a child. There is not a word for that particular flavor of grief that carves you empty at the same time that it fills you to the last hopeless, drowning inch. 

April sobbed openly beside him, her small, strong shoulders shaking. She had always been exactly what Splinter would have wished for in a daughter, and so the Hamato curse didn’t spare her, either. It takes and it takes and it takes. 

And then Michelangelo turned his back on despair and handed his family a miracle. 

Splinter could feel his remaining sons’ ninpo stir and then surge together, and the sheer forceful brilliance of it staggered him from all the way over on the other side of the city. He knew better than to hope—but he also knew that nothing existed in this world or the next that could possibly outstubborn his children, or strong-arm them into abandoning each other, or quite frankly make them do any single thing they adamantly as a group did not want to do. 

“Guys,” April choked out. “Talk to me, what’s going on? Hello?”

Thudding footfalls announced Casey approaching at a run. He jumped over one of the pinned Krang’s flailing tentacles as if he dodged ballistic alien parts every day of his life and skidded to the ground beside them on armored knees.

“I felt it,” Blue’s child from another life gasped, face tacky with half-dried tears. “That’s Uncle Angie opening a door. No one else could do it but him.”

Casey had a familiar katana at his side, blue and gleaming. His fingers seemed like they wanted to linger on the hilt but he handed it over to Splinter agreeably enough. The lingering ninpo in the blade usually welcomed Splinter warmly, eager to be of use, a telling mirror of the way Leonardo himself was so anxious to please and be praised. But this time the tool that Splinter picked up was an innate, lifeless thing. 

He prodded tentatively with his own qi. The runes flickered once, half-hearted, in the manner of a dog waking at the sound of a key in the door, ascertaining the person there was not the one it belonged to, and laying its head back down to sleep. 

Splinter would not be able to follow the whims of his son’s ninpo to create a portal while it lay dormant. His own uselessness crushed him. 

“Raph mentioned Staten Island earlier,” April said, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm and pushing herself to her feet, business-like and brisk because she couldn’t afford to be anything else. “I doubt the ferry’s running, and the bridge is going to be a gridlock nightmare, so it looks like we’re stealing a boat.”

“If your mother asks, I did not condone this,” Splinter said hoarsely. “That said, the marina is too far to run to, so first we are stealing a car.”

They were halfway across the river in a cruiser that probably wasn’t meant to sustain the sixty miles an hour April was pushing when that startling shout of their family’s ninpo finally started to fade into a soft-spoken susurrus. 

Before it was too quiet to make out clearly, he felt it: that achingly familiar mischievous blue energy, like a playful breeze flying above everything. Much smaller than usual, less spirited—giving more of the impression of a tiny tide pool creature hiding inside its shell than a smartmouthed sixteen year old boy with the whole world in his corner—but present. 

Alive. 

“Sensei,” Casey whispered. 

“They got him,” April said, a ferocious, not-to-be-trifled-with look in her eye, all but daring the universe to try to make her a liar. “They saved him somehow, I know it.”

They were both Hamato enough to feel it as certainly as Splinter did.

But the boys hadn’t thought to include anyone else in their immediate, hard-won victory—and in fact, the call Splinter, April and Casey finally received some ten minutes later was one of outright panic. 

“Dad, dad, are you there?” Orange’s voice warbled. He sounded all of fifteen years old and frightened in a way that set Splinter’s fur on edge instantly. “Dad, Leo’s hurt bad. He was awake a second ago, and talking even, but then he stopped making sense and just—just fell—”

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Purple added, high-strung and liable to start biting if one more thing went catastrophically wrong within a mile of his person. “I’m scanning him but I don’t—I’m not a doctor I don’t know—”

“Send the readouts to me,” Casey said quickly, pulling his mask down, its lenses glowing green as the interface came to life. “Sensei trained me in field medicine, I can help with anything short of an open-heart surgery.”

“You take after your father,” Donatello replied. “Irredeemable overachievers.”

That faint thread of gratitude in his voice would go unheard by anyone who didn’t know him, but Casey huffed a near-silent exhale, having heard it loud and clear.

What Future Boy had to share with them wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst it could have been, either. Leonardo had sustained a number of broken bones and soft tissue damage, the cartilage in his right knee was torn as if the joint had been viciously twisted, one of his cheekbones was fractured, and even his shell had suffered a few hairline cracks. Altogether, he was looking at a long recovery, not unlike what the survivor of a traumatic car accident might have had to look forward to—but he would recover. 

It wasn’t enough to prepare Splinter for actually seeing him. His Baby Blue, a tiny little thing in Raphael’s arms, with a face so beaten it was hard to make out the bright red stripe on one side. 

“Okay,” April said, voice thick with anger and hurt and love. “Okay. Everyone on the boat.”

And finally they were home, after the longest day in history. Casey confirmed his initial diagnosis, with the caveat that they would know more when Leonardo woke up. He insisted to an audience of grim faces that it was a very good sign Leonardo had been awake and coherent in the first place, however briefly. 

So Blue was disinfected and splinted and bandaged and medicated and then tucked safely away in the infirmary bed. Everyone else was seen to in short order. It was an easier task than it usually was, since none of them were remotely willing to leave just yet. 

Splinter made a mental note to call Draxum to double-check that Michelangelo hadn’t pushed himself too far in creating a gateway—the glowing lines on his hands had faded, and beyond an occasional tremor, he promised his family up and down that he was actually fine. Donatello’s shell was a quiet source of concern, but the only person alive who could harass him into a checkup without getting maimed for his trouble was currently very much out of action. Raphael’s eye was definitely infected, and blood vessels had burst when he’d ripped the parasite away, coloring the sclera an alarming red. 

The rest of the clan watched in some unspoken, exhausted wonder as Casey unthinkingly maneuvered around Leonardo’s infirmary as if he’d spent part of every day of his life there, knowing which drawer to find compression gloves for Orange in, locating topical pain reliever for Purple that he could apply himself and medicated eyedrops for Red in quick succession, before ultimately offering a bottle of extra strength Tylenol to April, who accepted it gravely. 

“You’re a weird kid,” she said. From her, it was a declaration of approval. “You better plan on sticking around.”

“Oh,” Casey said at length, surprised. Clearly, he hadn’t thought ahead to what the after of his mission would be shaped like. His gaze lingered on Leo’s little bundled-up figure in the bed, so full of love and grief for a man who didn’t yet exist, and Splinter thought to hell with it. The kid was as good as his grandson if you squinted. 

“We’ll find a bed for you,” Splinter said, some tiny corner of his mind free from screaming worry and bone-deep exhaustion already plotting where to make room for another subway car. “In the meantime, the sofa is yours.”

With that, five out of six children had been packed off to sleep. It took April and Michelangelo combined to pry Donatello’s hand from Leonardo’s, and subsequently his entire person from the infirmary. Raphael pulled a chair up to Leonardo’s bed and Splinter didn’t try to argue him out, knowing when to pick his battles. 

Red had a familiar look on his face, an elephant in the room that often went unacknowledged for both their sakes. That look that said you’re his father but he’s my kid, too.

He had earned the right. No one could argue that. Late night vigils were his wheelhouse and had been ever since he was about nine years old. When Splinter didn’t have to be quite so present—when he started to let the tired gray encroach more and more, when he stopped getting out of bed right away at the sound of a child crying—Red quietly learned how to tend fevers and stomach bugs and bad dreams. 

Soon enough, the boys stopped calling for daddy when they were hurting and started calling for Raphie instead. And their Raphie always came when they called.   

Which was why it must have hurt like a blade piercing clean through his ribs when Leonardo finally stirred at something approaching two o’clock in the morning, blinked muddy gold eyes open slowly, looked up at the familiar shape of his biggest brother beside the bed, and flinched. 

The world hadn’t ended yesterday. It was happening now instead.

Splinter had thought he knew what pain was. But life did not seem to ever run out of brand new lessons to teach. 

“Leo,” Red whispered, heartbreak obvious in every inch of him. His hand was frozen in the air between them, arrested right in the middle of reaching out. 

“No,” Blue managed, twisting around like he would attempt an escape the second he figured out where his limbs were in relation to the bed, IV be damned. The lines on the heart rate monitor started to crest dramatically. 

“Leo it’s okay it’s—it’s me, I’m not—I’m not going to—I would never hurt—” 

His voice strangled itself into silence. After all, at least some of those grisly black and blue marks around Leonardo’s neck were from him. 

“Papa,” Leonardo cried out, the call reaching directly into Splinter’s heart with hooks and yanking him out of his chair. “I want papa, please, please—”

Clambering onto the bed, minding all the hardware, Splinter placed a careful hand on his second-youngest’s feverish head to soothe him. 

He felt like an imposter, especially with Red still frozen like a statue behind him, but that part of his heart that had been smothered once, allowing his children’s cries for him to go unanswered and someone else to pick up the slack, was the loudest part of him now. 

There was physically nothing else he could do but stroke that bruised forehead with the pad of his thumb and tell him, “Hush, Baby Blue, your papa is here. You are safe. You are home.” 

Leonardo turned his face into Splinter’s hand, hiding as much as he was capable of. Raphael took one staggering step back, then another, then turned on his heel and fled the way Splinter had no memory of him ever doing before, infirmary door crashing behind him. 

Torn completely in two, Splinter summoned conviction from those ancient spirits housed in his soul and forced himself at knife point to be strong for his family for once in his goddamn life. 

“What are these tears for, silly turtle?” he murmured, the same way he had when Leonardo still mostly fit in the palm of one hand. Back then, all Leonardo wanted was to be held. He wondered if that was still true. “You are the safest little turtle who ever lived. There is no one left in this world who is stronger than the people who love you, don’t you know that? Your baby brother pulled down the stars for you. Your twin did not let go of your hand even once. And your big brother carried you home. You are safe. You are so loved.”

It was a nonsense litany for the most part, all true things said to someone who clearly was only absorbing every third word or so. But Blue stopped hiding his face at some point, eyes wet with tears he is even now too stubborn to let fall. 

Splinter felt as though he was looking at a childhood memory of himself, trying to be strong when it would have been better—kinder—to allow himself a much-needed moment of weakness. 

“You think you’re too grown-up to cry in front of this old man?” he said, gently pinching Blue’s cheek on the side of his face that hadn’t been crushed beneath a monster’s fist. “Try again in about a hundred years.”

Blue blew a tired raspberry at him. Splinter laughed, surprised at the show of spirit, his heart doing cartwheels at this proof of his irrepressible little boy unchanged by the close brush with tragedy. Winning a laugh from his father was enough to coax the ghost of a smile across Blue’s face. 

“How are you feeling? We have some water for you here. No, don’t sit up. Let me help.”

He really ought to let everyone know Blue was awake, but they had just gone to sleep. His other kids needed their rest, too. It had been a truly terrible day. 

And now that Red was out of the room—that thought dripped with oily, unpleasant guilt—Blue seemed to be in a more solid state of mind. He had winced as he tried to sit up for water, but if he didn’t have whiplash after a psychotic alien flung him around like a terrier would its chew toy, Splinter would eat his tail. There were none of the red flags Casey had warned him to be on the lookout for. The only thing Draxum had done right in his life was develop a mutagen that made these boys all but indestructible. Splinter would have to find the mental fortitude to choke out a thank you to him for that. 

“It has been a long time since a sick little turtle has called for me,” Splinter murmured, stroking Blue’s forehead around the bandages. “Normally you are all ready to fight each other to the death to monopolize Red’s attention.” 

It was only partly a joke. Leonardo gazed up at him, eyes glassy. It was hard to gauge how much of their conversation was sticking the landing and how much was somersaulting straight over his sluggish head. 

Then Leonardo said, “He hates me.”

“Pardon?” Splinter said stupidly. 

His son blinked, and finally fat tears rolled down his cheeks, soaking into bandages on one side, unchecked on the other. 

“He hates me,” Blue insisted. “He’s right. It was my fault.”

“No one hates you,” Splinter said, reeling. He’d been right here the whole time and yet somehow he was suddenly flailing about two miles behind. 

“You didn’t see his face. You didn’t see—and his eye—all because I—I couldn’t—” He sobbed, an awful sound, and turned to press his face into his pillow. Once he started crying he couldn’t seem to stop. The rest of his words stumbled out thick and choked and terribly sincere. “I couldn’t just—be what I was supposed to be. And he—and it was all my fault.”

There were few things Splinter regretted more than his fumbling of the leadership role. He had always known that Blue was too clever for his own good, that he had a head for strategy—as evidenced by his early mastering of chess, entirely outpacing Splinter’s own skill level by the age of eleven. 

Acknowledging that in theory and learning to trust it in practice were two separate beasts, but watching from the front row as his baby outsmarted Big Mama of all people left little room for doubt. 

On the other hand, Red was as solid and dependable as they came, the foundation his siblings built their whole lives on. As far as they were concerned, the sun only rose in the morning because Raphael hung it up there. 

But Splinter’s eldest son was prone to anxiety that tended to fall on him like a guillotine, a kill switch to his rational thought. The twins floated terms like ‘panic disorder’ and the entire family was well-versed in helping him through his episodes, but if even an ounce of the burden on his shoulders could be reduced, that could only help. 

Red would be happier and function better in a support role, where his top priorities would be to protect his little brothers the way he always had protected them, and to smash whatever Leonardo pointed him at. 

Splinter should have sat them both down and explained it. He shouldn’t have left Red to feel as though he had done something wrong, that he had failed somehow. And he shouldn’t have let Blue believe he would be shoved into the deep end and left to sink or swim.

His boys were little gremlins who thrived in chaos and learned best on the fly. Splinter had thought the surprise announcement would have been an utter shock at first and the new normal by dinnertime. They were always so much on the same page, so in tune with one another, that he couldn’t have guessed it would turn into the tangled mess of hurt and frustration and miscommunication and blame that it did. 

He should have stepped in the first time Red punched through a wall in a fit of anger and Blue laughed as though his biggest brother’s good opinion of him didn’t matter in the slightest. Instead he was a coward, unable to face them and admit his wrongs. He left his children to resolve it themselves and suffer in the meantime. 

He should have done better. Maybe one day he would learn. 

For now Splinter held Blue’s face in one hand and wiped it clean with a cloth in the other, patient with every new flood of tears. The last time he had seen Blue cry was the night the Shredder destroyed their home and killed Karai. There had been no time to comfort him then. 

He takes after his Gram-gram, Splinter thought, and tried not to resent her for it. 

“No one hates my sweet Baby Blue,” he said, willing the stubborn child to hear him. “Especially not my other sweet baby Red. You are a very confused turtle, that’s all. You will see. No one hates you.”

“You don’t,” Leonardo mumbled. “You’re not allowed to. You’re my dad. You don’t have to like me, but you’re not allowed to hate me. S’in the—the contract. You signed it. Legally binding. No arbi-arbi—”

“Arbitration. I would like to study your mind under a microscope. Maybe then I will have a hope of understanding these twists and turns it takes.” 

Splinter’s voice sounded nothing but fond even to his own ears. 

His children were all incredible people worth knowing, worth living for, and it was a very special joy to still be surprised after all these years by how much more he loved them today than he did the day before. To think about how much more he would love them tomorrow, even though it felt impossible to love anyone more than he loved them right now. 

“You are so important, Leonardo,” Splinter said gently. “To me, and to your siblings, and to your friends. We would miss you so much if you weren’t here. We all want to see you get well.”

“It’s not about me,” Blue said, wobbly and miserable and matter-of-fact. “I know it’s not. I have to make up for it. I’ll prove—prove—”

“You have nothing to prove. It was not your fault.” Splinter pressed Leonardo’s chin gently to close his mouth when he inevitably opened it to argue. “Hush. You did not steal the key. You did not open the door. It was not even your responsibility to stop either of those things from happening. You are a child. It cannot be any one person’s duty to save this planet on their own. That doesn’t even make sense.” 

Blue’s expression was becoming thunderous, which was silly and endearing, because his cheeks were still tacky with the remnants of his tears and half of his face was a swathe of bandages and without his mask he looked years younger than he already was. Splinter felt affection unfold in his heart like one of those absurdly big tropical flowers with petals the size of dinner plates, taking up more room than it was allowed and spilling out the sides and going on forever. 

“Can I tell you something else? Your brothers aren’t allowed to hate you either. It’s in the contract as well.”

“They do,” Blue said tearfully, face still screwed up beneath Splinter’s hand. But his eyes drifted in the direction of the door, and the wanting in them was plain to see. Splinter took matters into his own hands. 

“If I’m right, you must finish watching The Strange Return of Diana Salazar with me.”

His son took a moment to digest that, slower on the uptake than usual. Finally, he asked, “Don’t we have like a hundred episodes left?”

“I said what I said,” Splinter said sagely, then patted his cheek and hopped down from the bed. 

He found Raphael exactly where he expected to find him, sitting just outside the cracked infirmary door, a hunched over shape that seemed unwilling to take up a single unnecessary inch of space. 

Red stared up at him, unbandaged eye wide. 

“I don’t hate him,” he blurted. “I could never—I wouldn’t even know how.”

“I know, my dear.”

“Even if he’d done it on purpose,” Red went on. “Even if he stole the key and took it to the Foot and opened the door with his own two hands, I wouldn’t have done a single thing differently.”

Splinter had worried when the turtles were very young that Raphael would frighten one of his siblings accidentally. He was so much bigger than them and toddlers were not well known for their self control or emotional regulation. It was a lingering fear that Red would say or do something he did not mean in the heat of the moment, and alienate himself. That something would happen in a split second that would cause his brothers to grow up wary of him. 

It was an unfounded worry. Raphael was a quiet little boy, the last of the four to start talking, and as sweet as an American dessert. Splinter’s little apple pie. Even as he got older and started playing rougher, testing his strength and raising his voice, he never forgot when he needed to be gentle. 

His brothers never ran from him unless they were avoiding bedtime or a well-deserved grounding or really did not want to go watch wrestling, Raph, it was boring. Otherwise he was their North star. 

Even now, Leonardo would rather hide himself away than face a world in which he no longer had a Raphael to run to. 

“How could he think that?” Red asked desperately. “He was going to die back there and he thought that’s what I wanted.”

Splinter cupped Red’s face in his hands and told him, “Blue was trying to do what his hero would have done. All of my children are so quick to sacrifice for each other. It is a wonderful thing to love someone so much, but consider the example you are setting.” Red’s good eye filled with tears, and Splinter was powerless to do anything but kiss him firmly on the forehead. “As empty as our lives would have been without him, they would have been just as empty without you. You are fundamental to us. Please remember that.”

“I know, pops,” Raphael whispered. “I’ll remember.”

“It is not always possible to win without losing but we must fight tooth and nail anyway. Abandon honor and heroism. Do what it takes to bring yourself and your brothers home. I would much sooner tell the great Hamato clan where they can stick it then let you join them before your time.”

It coaxed a shy smile from his eldest son, the barest exhale of a laugh. Still his sweet apple pie, no matter how big he got. 

“I’m gonna go see him,” Red said bravely. “I’m missing out on premium Leo time while the gremlins are asleep.”

“Very wise,” Splinter said, patting his cheeks in approval.

Leonardo had managed to drag the blanket up over his head while no one was around to stop him, and only one golden eye peered out at them from his makeshift shell. 

Raphael snorted and leaned over to peel it back down, heedless of his smaller brother’s protests. He let one hand linger on Leonardo’s scuffed plastron, and the other cupped the back of his bruised head. 

“You’re so dumb,” Red said. “I love you more than anything. If you ever try to go anywhere without me ever again, I’ll make your life a living hell. Capiche?”

Blue stared up at him. It’s very possible he didn’t understand every word of that. But the tone seemed to get through. 

His hand drifted up slowly, as if it weighed a thousand pounds, to cover the one planted on his chest. When the world didn’t end and his big brother continued to smile down at him like nothing between the two of them was any different than it used to be, Blue risked a smile back. 

“I capiche.”

“You’re not alone, okay?” Red went on, playfulness gentling into sincerity. “We’ll figure it out. I’m in your corner, right where I’ve always been. But for now let’s get some sleep, big man.”

He didn’t move his hands even after Leonardo had dozed off. He just hooked his foot around the leg of his chair and scooted it closer to the bed before sinking into it. 

Splinter joined him, and felt both aged by the last hour and rejuvenated. He needed a good pair of running shoes to keep up with these kids.     

“He never asks to play chess with anyone else you know,” Red said suddenly. 

Thrown by the non sequitur, Splinter could only offer an intelligent, “Huh?”

“Leo only learned how to play because of a comment you made once about—I don’t even remember what you said. But it stuck with him. He wanted to impress you. And he started learning Spanish because of those weird soaps you guys watch. He drove us crazy practicing every day but he never let up.

“I know that it seems like he does whatever he wants without rhyme or reason, but I think he just tries really hard to make it seem that way. Otherwise we’d all clue in to the fact that every single thing he does is just—him trying to get closer to us somehow. And then his cool guy cover would be blown. And god forbid that.” 

Raphael brushed his thumb over the crown of Leonardo’s head, much like the way Splinter had earlier. 

“He doesn’t love you for no reason, pops,” Red went on, not looking at him. “None of us do. Even when getting out of bed was the hardest thing in the world, you came running when I needed you. Every time I needed you. I learned all my moves from the best.”

Splinter had seen the worst of the world. He was no stranger to pain. 

It was only occurring to him now that the opposite was also true. 

His life was so full of impossibly good, underserved things; every day a little brighter, every night a little richer. 

Four little creatures tumbled into his world by chance and then filled it to the brim with mayhem and color and laughter and pride, and he would not take a second of it back. He would not change a single painful part. 

If only he had known as a young man where he would end up someday. It would have made those earlier years so much easier to survive. 

Pretending his own eyes weren’t wet, Splinter said, “It will be hell on earth in the morning when Orange discovers we let him sleep through Blue waking up. You had better rest while you can.”

Smiling to himself, Red folded his arms on the side of the bed and rested his head in them, tilted so that his brother was within line of sight of his good eye. He had capitulated to the changing of the guard without complaint, but he was still tense. Primed for danger. Anxiety no doubt at play. 

But Splinter was not without his tricks. He stroked Red’s carapace between the spikes, humming an old TV theme song under his breath. He did this for upwards of an hour once, back when Red was still small enough to be held in his lap, fussy and clingy after a bad dream. 

Sure enough, with a great, shuddering sigh, Raphael’s shoulders went slack, and his breathing evened out—asleep within moments after the day he’d had.  

“I’ve still got it,” Splinter murmured, and let himself have the win, as small as it was. If nothing else, he could give his children a safe place to rest. 

And that really was no small thing at all. 

[carrythispictureforluck]

So we know Timmy is in the upcoming Wonka movie right. What if..

Regulus, healing from his childhood on his own terms, opens a chocolate factory with his found family (the skittles). Little does Reg know, the town he chose for his factory is the same town his estranged brother and friends live.

Chocolate and candy are one of the only fond memories Regulus has of his childhood. On one of the worst nights of his father's drinking and his mother's screeching, Regulus remembers Sirius stealing a handful of his mother's posh candy from the guest bedroom and breaking into Regulus' locked room to share it in the middle of the night.

The skittles work with Reg at the factory. Barty is a taste tester and manages the machines, Evan does logistics, finances and admin, Dorcas handles marketing and PR, and Pandora designs the packaging and often helps Reg with experimenting different ideas and flavours.

They decide as a marketing stunt (Reg hates the idea because ew people) to open the new factory to a handful of locals for a tour and taste test.

James, seeing the flyer on the street, immediately signs them up to go. Because duh of course he wants to taste candy. Next thing you know, James, Harry, Sirius, Remus (begrudgingly for the free chocolate) and Teddy are all eagerly waiting outside the factory to catch a glimpse of the mysterious "Willy Wonka".

That's when Regulus locks eyes with his estranged brother Sirius, and the real story begins.

I don't have time or spare energy to write this at the moment.. but what if..

[shinycollarboneapologist]

illicit affairs

(pt 2 of my self proclaimed taylor swift verse)

content: 18+ MINORS DNI, p in v,  unprotected sex! (be smart babies) more semi-public sex because you and matty are insatiable, alcohol consumption, more miscommunication and an obviously jealous matty and reader. 

matty is sick to his stomach.

well not literally. he’s a bit dramatic in that sense; as he’s been told multiple times by his mates, family members (both close and estranged), the internet, his fans, that random cashier at tesco, and you. god, how all of his thoughts turn back to you. he’s intoxicated by you, and can feel your presence everywhere he goes. and now, he’s forced to watch you curl up with some poser on this god-forsaken red carpet.

he knows it's all a stunt for the movie you’re in. you had mentioned it the last time you were in town, almost as if you were warning him in a sense seeing as he and george were helping with the soundtracking and all. you were adamant that he not be blindsided. you didn’t have to do that. you weren’t his. he wasn’t yours. it was as simple as that.

knowing that it's all a false narrative doesn’t dull the ache in his chest as he watches you wrap yourself around your co-star. you’re kissing his cheek and beaming up at him. it feels like a knife directly to his gut, but also sends fire running through his veins. it's relentless. over and over. his stomach is twisting and he very well could be sick.

that’s not the way to make an entrance to a movie premiere, though. and he’s sure that the interviewer would rather him not empty the contents of his stomach on her designer heels. so he’s chalking it all up to him being dramatic, and he tries his best not to think about the way your co-star (what was his name? will? sam? not that he even cares, he just wants to be cordial when you inevitably introduce him.), is dipping his head down into your neck and whispering something in your ear. whatever he’s said sends you into a fit of laughter, giggles ringing through the air. matty’s gut binds in jealousy. and it is sick the way his subconscious reminds him that you’re not his. you never were.

those late nights in parking lots were a thing of the past, small little luminescent moments showcasing what could have been. what should have been? he feels the bile rise to his throat as you and what’s-his-name begin walking towards where the group is situated on the carpet. he tenses.

it isn’t until he hears the interviewer welcoming the both of you over that he turns his head up to meet your eyes. you’re a vision in anything you wear, he’s certain of it, but this dress looks as if it was made for you. it hugs your body in ways that he can only dream of doing himself.

“hi everyone,” you breathe out shakily, a small giddy laugh falling from your lips. the guys boast their own “hellos”. all except matty who stands there, eyes having a hard time moving from yours. he’s going to chalk it all up to nerves and red-carpet fright when the guys give him grief over it later. but in reality, he can’t even think straight. not when you’re standing here, looking like that and wrapped around your co-star's arm like a pair of old-hollywood lovers. he’s nauseated.

“it's so wonderful to see you both! how are you guys feeling making your red carpet debut as a couple?” the interviewer is beaming. but all you can focus on is matty. he’s so close to you. you can smell the remnants of a cigarette and his aftershave in the air. the suit he’s wearing looks perfectly tailored and he’s got his typical sunglasses situated on his nose. he looks amazing. but all the radio silence is confusing following you telling him about the stunt relationship you were entering into.

you let your costar, josh, take the lead on answering the questions. the small shooters of alcohol you both downed on the ride over to the theatre had made it easier to pretend to be a couple, and they sure as hell make it easier to be this close to matty and not be able to do anything about it. josh’s arm is still wrapped tightly around your waist, and matty’s eyes are still burning a hole into your face. you would feel his stare anywhere and it takes everything in you to not do something about the way your stomach is burning with pent-up desire for him. you’re supposed to be mad at him and loved up on your costar, but you know deep down that the way you and matty are looking at each other is going to raise the eyebrows of those with trained eyes. it’ll be plastered on some gossip twitter account by tomorrow morning.

that’s why you two usually left your illicit affairs behind closed doors and under the covers or in desolate parking lots at odd hours of the night. places where you would lie to your friends about your locations, where no cameras could pierce through and disrupt the haven you two had made for each other. you know you’re making out your four am “you up?” texts between you and matty out to be a lot more romantic than they are. but there’s something about the way he’s looking at you that makes you want to act out the unspeakable things you’ve been thinking.

when the hustle and bustle of the red carpet is over and the movie’s end credits have finally echoed out throughout the theatre, you find yourself tucked into the corner of the after-party. you’ve been fielding questions about your newfound “relationship” with josh all night, slightly irritated that no one’s cared to ask much about the movie or your part in it. its tiring and leaves you feeling unsettled. all of the happiness you’ve felt since walking in here has almost left your body, especially as your trained eyes are keyed in on a certain lead singer chatting up a cocktail waitress.

your heeled foot is tapping on the floor almost impatiently. you watch indignantly as the two of them laugh and smile at each other. it sends a chill down your spine as your eyes bore into the side of matty’s head. there’s venom in your stare, and you’re out for some form of vengeance. his eyes drift over towards you, a firm smirk on his plush lips, before he’s diving back into the conversation with the woman in front of him. you don’t even realize the way your manicured nails are digging into the sensitive skin at your palms until a sharp sting shoots from those nerves up to your brain. you look down and stare at the indents on your skin, huffing to yourself.

two can play that game, but you’re not even sure you want to play anymore.

you’re off to find solace in someplace else, any place else. figure crossing in his line of sight. you feel his eyes follow you. the air shifts and there’s an unspoken yet undeniable understanding between the two of you. you watch from your peripheral as he excuses himself from the conversation. your pace quickens as you make sharp turns and brash decisions that lead you to the long, empty hallway near the lavatories.

matty is hot on your heels and you’re both giggling to each other like two people who had gotten away with murder. you can’t even bring yourself to care that someone might have seen you both leave together. it takes only a second before he’s got you pressed up against the wall directly next to the bathroom. his lips crash into yours and you let out a low moan of contentment, arms looping loosely around his neck as his own feverish hands begin exploring your body over your dress. he’s got you right where he wants you; pressed up against him and feeling you up through that dress that he’s been fantasizing taking you out of all goddamned night.

“fucking need you so bad. can you feel it?” he groans against your lips, hips pressing into yours.

you’re nodding, grinding your hips back into his. his hips stutter a bit against yours, teeth catching your bottom lip and tugging at it. the whine you let out is sinful music to his ears and he’s willing to risk it all and just take you in the middle of the hallway.

“just fuck me already,” you purr against his lips. he’s reluctantly pulling away from your lips, pressing a soft kiss to your nose as he drags you into the empty bathroom.

the door is locked behind him.

and that’s when you pounce. your lips are melded with his again, fingers combing through his hair. you tug gently at it, wanting nothing more than to `illicit some kind of reaction from him. you get what you were after, his lips vibrating against your own. his nails dig into your hips through the thin material of your dress.

he’s growing impatient though, and the time is ticking. people are going to notice your absence. his lithe fingers trail up your thighs and then your torso. you’re shuddering against him. finally, he unties the straps of your dress and pulls down the top. matty pulls away again. your lips are chasing after his, a soft laugh coming from deep in his chest.

he sighs at the sight of you bare breasts, head dipping down to press his lips to the soft skin languorously. matty’s lips wrap around one of your nipples, his free hand coming up to cup and pinch at your other breast. he sucks gently on the erect bud, teeth grazing ever so slightly. you’re dizzy and it feels like someone’s raised the temperature of the room about ten degrees since you both entered. you moan out, albeit a bit loud for your location, soaking in the pleasure that’s finally radiating through your veins.

your own hands get busy reaching down and undoing his belt. you make quick of the button of his trousers, reaching up to lick at your hand before you’re dipping it below the waistband of his boxers. your fingers curl around the base of his cock. he all but shudders at the feeling, a low throaty moan reverberating over your skin with each stroke. matty’s eyes shift up hazily to meet yours. you’re sure you could come on the spot from that look alone. his eyes are half-lidded, pupils are blown out with lust. he pulls back from your chest after one last nip to your tender nipple.

“need to be inside of you,” his words stumble out of his lips, hips bucking into your hand that’s still working over his cock. your thumb swipes over the sensitive tip and he all but loses it. he growls, hoisting you over his shoulder and shuffling the two of you toward the marble countertop. it’s a beautiful piece, and he’s about to desecrate you on it.

your hands grab at his boxers, shoving the material down. matty’s pushing the material of your dress up past the curvature of your ass, fingers dragging the crotch of your panties to the side. he firmly grasps the base of his cock in his hands, letting the tip drag up and down your slick folds. he plunges himself into you with little to no warning. a loud moan falls from your lips, you’re grabbing onto his shoulders.

“gotta be quiet, baby. don’t want anyone to come find us, do we?”

his lips attach themselves to your neck almost immediately. your head is rolling back, thumping against the mirror as he sucks and nips and soothes the sensitive area at the base of your throat. he’s everywhere; groaning against your skin with his arms holding you close to him. he’s inside of you. he’s intoxicating, more so than any cocktail you could have binged on that night.

“you... fuck.. you didn’t answer my calls,” you murmur out, biting back moan after moan as his hips slam into yours harder. you know its not the place or the time for this. but this is the one instance where you’ve got him right where you want him. he isn’t about to just leave you there. at least you hope he won’t. it's the first thing you’ve uttered to him other than the occasional whimper of his name since entering the bathroom. your hands find purchase on the edge of the counter, white knuckles as you grip hard onto it in an attempt to not fly into the wall behind you.

“didn’t have anything to say,” he scoffs.

“you always have something to say,” you retort.

“are we going to converse about our lack of communication or am i allowed to continue fucking you within an inch of your life?”

“is that what you’re doing?”

“brat.” he all but growls out. his hands grip your hips, small crescent indents left in the wake of his nails. matty’s thrusts increase in intensity and speed and your rebuttal is caught in your throat in an almost too-loud whine. your legs instinctively wrap around his waist, ankles locking behind his back. he’s shifting his hips up a bit and that’s when he finds it. you know for a fact that he knows your body better than yourself, and light years better than anyone else you’ve ever been with. your eyes are rolling back into your head, its hard to ignore the smirk that seems permanently etched onto his lips; swollen and rouged from your own doing.

“thats the spot, isn’t it? hm? tell me how it feels, baby,” he’s grunting and groaning in your ear. matty’s tempting you, testing you. a lewd moan falls from your lips as he nips at your earlobe, “hm? didn’t quite hear you, baby. c’mon, let me hear it.” matty slams his hips into yours, his thrusts punctuating his words.

“feels so good. you’re so good,” you all but wail at him. the loud shriek that leaves your lips is enough to fuel him on. the tip of his cock is piercing that spot over and over again, leaving matty as the only thing on your mind. he’s all consuming with his eyes locked on yours and his hand coming up to caress your cheek, a soft comparison to the onslaught of his hips rutting against you.  

matty brings a hand between you both, his thumb seeking solace on your clit as he grins down at you, “that wasn’t so hard, huh?”

you’re trying your best to glower at him, but the way he’s filling you, the way he’s touching you, you can hardly even catch your breath. if it wasn’t for his other hand gripping onto your hip, you’re sure you would be thrashing around underneath him. the coil in the pit of your stomach is getting tighter and tighter and you feel as if you’re about to burst. he’s all-encompassing, everywhere all at once. without so much as a warning to matty, or yourself for that matter, the coil breaks and you’re coming around him. hands reaching up to grip onto his shoulders as you lose yourself in the pleasure, loud moans falling from your lips.

a shocked sob falls from matty’s lips as his eyes rake over your body, watching as you arch and moan and whine. he’s not sure he’s seen anything as beautiful as the sight laid out in from of him. his hips stutter as he continues drilling into you. his thumb doesn’t halt on your clit and you’re pretty sure you’re seeing stars as you convulse around him. the pleasure is white hot, searing through your veins. you feel the coil wind up tight in the pit of your stomach again, unbashful whines of pleasure falling from your lips once more.

“think you got one more in there for me, pretty baby?” his unoccupied hand comes up to cup at your cheek, the complete antithesis of what he’s perpetrating between your legs. you can tell he’s close by the way his voice tolls throughout the room; sounding completely strained as he just barely can hold back his own inevitable albeit pleasurable end. matty’s working you harder and faster than before, chasing after your second climax before he’s even had a chance at his own. the epitome of a modern-day gentleman.

“fuck, please,” you whimper out, feeling yourself teeter over the edge again. he’s watching you, mouth agape, and allowing his sinister cries of pleasure to escape now. you’ve both got no care in the world, the only thing stuck in your mind is the animalistic drive to fall into your pleasure once more.

“give it to me, baby. wanna feel you again. c’mon,” he’s practically whining as he drills into you. you’re gripping hard onto his shoulders, head rolling back, and barring your neck to him. the desire for him to lean forward and liter your neck with the remnants of him is strong, but he knows the repercussions of his actions for the both of you.

the fucked out moans coming from your throat send him into an indulgent fury. he wants nothing more than to feel you convulse and writhe around him. if he had it his way, he would never leave this spot; cock piercing through your cunt with such fervor. he loves watching you come, loves making you come.

“i’m right there,” you plead, nails digging into his skin. he feels the bite from your nails through the material of his dress shirt and it only pushes him to practically drag you down onto his cock, over and over and over and over and-

the pleasure rips through your veins, it's stronger than the last time. you pleasure-filled sobs of his name are the only thing that can be heard, aside from the slapping of skin as he works you through this blissful climax. he’s not far behind you, hips coming to a faltering stop as he spills inside of you with a loud cry.

you’re both breathing heavily, chests rising and falling and sticky with sweat and god only knows what else. your body is shuddering with the aftershocks. his forehead presses down onto yours and you can’t help but smile up at him through baited breaths. matty returns the gesture, leaning down to smash his lips into yours. the kiss is more controlled then the last one, there’s something more behind it. something you can’t quite put your finger on.

after you both wordlessly fix your clothes and clean up the mess you’ve made, it feels a bit tense between you. like all of that pining and desperation, all of the pleasure and satiation has led to its climax coming straight for the both of you. there’s so much you want to say to him, so much lingering in the sticky air. but you bite your tongue.

little do you know that he’s teetering right on the edge of falling from this mercurial high you’ve entranced him in. matty wants nothing more than to expose his true feelings to you, but much like yourself, he stops before he can. leaving you with one last, lingering and addictive kiss before he’s opening the door for you and letting you out into the much cooler hallway.

not much is spoken as you return to the main affair.

the party has begun to wind down quite a bit and you’re about to ask matty what his plans are later when you realize his looming presence is absent from next to you. you blink back the tears that begin to sting at the sides of your eyes. you’re fighting back the impending thoughts in your brain as you walk yourself over to josh who’s just as much ready to head out as you. part of you wants to find matty, tell him how much it hurt to be abandoned like that. but you know this wasn’t his thing, or at least you assumed. from the first longing stare across the room, to the most recent illicit meeting behind the bathroom door, you’re inevitably his. you can’t tell him though, because there’s no way he feels the same. you’re left a godforsaken mess with erratic thoughts and quiet sobs falling from your mouth, arm curled around josh’s as he leads you outside.

matty’s watching from the corner of the room, nursing a drink that he has no interest in consuming. he’s going to see the pictures of you leaving with josh tomorrow, knowing fully well that only minutes prior he had you contorted on top of a bathroom counter and writhing for him. he’s pretty sure his cum is still dripping down your thigh. the smug thoughts don’t dull the ache he has in his chest though. no matter how many times he reminds himself that the relationship between you and your co-star is contractual, it doesn’t help. because he’s then reminded of your radiant, effervescent being and knows just how easy it is to actually fall in love with you. 

he’s nothing more than an idiotic mess when it comes to you.

you see, that’s the problem with illicit affairs. they always leave someone, in this case, two people, wanting more and ruining themselves a million little times.

[respectthepetty]

*I'm going to be completely normal about Moonlight Chicken. I'm just going to watch and enjoy it. I'm not going to look deeper. I'm not going to think about..*

Moonlight Chicken's Symbolism and Background Noise

The series has several Chinese influences and begins on September 10, 2022, which an actual full moon fell on that day. It is the Moon Festival also known as Harvest Moon, Mid-Autumn Moon, or Mooncake. It is meant to be spent with others. In the lunar calendar, it's the mid-point of the year. We know this date from Jim's beer.

The brand of the beer is Full Moon, and he and Wen drink it throughout the first episode.

Jim and Wen discuss what is normally seen in the moon. Jim sees a woman (which there is legend about a woman and the moon, but it's too much for this space), but Wen states it's a rabbit. A rabbit normally represents the full moon because both symbolize longevity, peace, and prosperity.

That's why mooncakes are given during this time. They represent well wishes to the receiver and those shared with a long peaceful and prosperous life.

Ginger, which Wen shared with Jim, also symbolizes longevity as well as passion and strength.

Jim's green truck's license plate states frog in Thai. Frogs are a symbol of prosperity and good luck.

Li Ming, whose name means (bright) dawn, wears an Ohio State Buckeyes Football Shirt. Buckeyes are a type of nut and symbolize good luck (thanks college football for that nugget of info!).

However, this show is doing well with subtle foreshadowing, so Li Ming might run into some bad luck with driving (Heart around) without a license.

We get some foreshadowing with the DVD Wen picks up at Jim's. This movie is about two lovers who meet in Hong Kong after relocating there from other parts of China. Their lives take them on separate paths, only for them to reunite ten years later in America. The ending shows that they actually sat back-to-back on the train ride into Hong Kong over a decade ago. Aka, they were fated lovers.

Jim has an Idiot's Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business and Reader's Digest collection of books - Dick Francis' Comeback (about a man who gets entangled with a stranger on his route to his new job), Frederick Forsyth's The Deceiver (about a British agent who is set to retire, but one of the main plots is an affair), and Alexandria Ripley's Scarlett (which continues the story of Scarlett and Rhett from Gone with the Wind, who are estranged, but at the end, reunite). *Also, the condom package is amazing. The C of "condom" is actually the condom. I just think it's neat!

Wen has Eric Hall's Monster (which is about famous sport agent Eric Hall who was known for being a money monster). This is likely to be Alan's book because the apartment is filled with art, which is due to Wen being an art director. He was also drinking because of his job but didn't state anything specific about the reason.

Wen and Alan's apartment is more modern, while Jim's is more traditional.

When Jim and Wen met at the restaurant, it is Saturday going into Sunday. In Thailand, Sunday's color is red, and its unlucky color is blue. However, In China, red represents good luck, and blue represents longevity. We see these colors often around Jim and Wen (scroll back up).

Jim was shown mostly in or highlighted by red the first episode with Wen in or highlighted by blue.

Even Jim's aprons are red. They say Hungry? with a little chicken peaking out of the pockets.

We also see the blues and reds around Heart and Li Ming. *peep the elephant tusks which are encasing the family and symbolize power*

The bottle Heart drops is Snake Bite Whiskey, and a snakebite shot simply consists of whiskey and lime juice aka it hurts like an actual snakebite.

Modern Thai Sign Language was influenced by American Sign Language (which was greatly influenced by French Sign Language). It seems as if Heart is telling Li Ming his face scared him, but I'm unsure of the last sign since that is not the ASL sign for surprise, scared, or angry. The second portion seems to consist of Heart saying YOUR MISTAKE, but once again, the second sign is different than ASL's mistake because of the breadth of the movement. *I love that this wasn't captioned because it allows the audience to feel Li Ming's confusion and Heart's frustration.

We end the episode back at night with another shot of the moon. As others have pointed out, the colors at night are more crisp and vibrant compared to the day.

But based on Li Ming's name, and the symbols, I think Moonlight Chicken is attempting a similar theme as Big Dragon - The Moon and the Sun have to meet at Dawn. These lovers won't work in their current situations. They have to compromise and find balance, which is why they met in the middle of the year. They have to meet in the in-between.

[meilas]

Socks’ Star Trek must-watch list

Socks’ list of must-watch Trek episodes

OG Trek

Welcome to the NCC-1701 starship, known as the Enterprise. The captain and crew follow rules when the plot says so, the captain is often on away missions with his top-ranked crew members leaving some unqualified guy in charge, and the captain gets to snog a lot of ladies. Like, a lot. Seriously. This series features lots of questionable fashion choices, including men’s heeled boots and miniskirts. 

Space Seed - our introduction to Khan Noonien Singh, played by Ricardo Montalban. Khan is the villain of the second Trek movie Wrath of Khan which is why this episode is on the list.

Taste of Armageddon - Do you remember the game Battleship? Two planets wage a war against each other. There is staggering loss of life, but no destruction. The Lottery in Space.

Mirror, Mirror - obligatory parallel universe episode! This parallel universe shows up later in Deep Space Nine which is why it is on this list.

Trouble With Tribbles - Clue in Space. Just a fun episode. Also shows up in Deep Space Nine!

A Piece of the Action - another fun episode. And the reason I don’t know if the proper expression is concrete galoshes or cement overshoes.

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield - two individuals who are the very last members of their races who were at war are still trying to kill each other. This episode was about racism and it is not subtle about it at all.

Next Generation

Welcome to the NCC-1701D, also known as the Enterprise! Not the Enterprise from the original series, but a younger, more advanced starship that is the successor to the Enterprise name. And since the Enterprise and trouble go so well together, the crew of this Enterprise find lots of adventures to keep them busy as they explore strange new worlds and seek out new civilisations.

Encounter at Farpoint - The very first episode. Not great, but it also serves as an introduction to Q, who will show up several times throughout the series. So that I don’t fill up this whole post, just go ahead and watch every Q episode (which will 99% of the time have Q in the title.)

Measure of a Man - Data is put on trial to determine if he is property or his own person, and Riker is forced to testify against him for plot reasons. This episode explores individuality and friendship.

Q Who - I said I wouldn’t fill this up and I won’t, but this episode is special because it introduces the Borg. There’s also a great moment between Picard and Q toward the end.

The Survivors - An elderly couple are the last survivors on a planet. Hard to explain why I like this episode without giving away the whole plot.

Sarek - This episode can be pretty sad as it deals with dementia and what it can do to people.

Menage a Troi - Any episode with Deanna’s mother, Lwaxana, is always a funny one. (Except the one that is sad, more on that later.) This episode is excellent because we get to hear Sir Patrick Stewart recite Shakespeare in the most over-the-top delivery possible.

Best of Both Worlds, parts one and two - THE CLIFFHANGER TO END ALL CLIFFHANGERS HOLY SHIT THIS EPISODE HAS ALL THE DRAMA

Family - A follow-up to Best of Both Worlds. Deals with family that is gone, family that can be A Bit Much, and family that is estranged.

Suddenly Human - This episode is similar to the Deep Space Nine episode Cardassians: a boy who has been adopted by others is discovered and found to have living family who want him back. Which family is the child supposed to stay with?

Darmok - An episode all about language and how ideas are communicated. Yes it has some flaws, but overall it is interesting from a linguistic point of view. By the end of the episode, you will understand how darmok=memes and inside jokes.

The First Duty - A good Wesley episode. This explores truth, loyalty, and doing what is right.

I, Borg - The Enterprise rescues a Borg teenager, who begins to develop individuality. He is named Hugh. Hugh is adorable.

The Inner Light - THIS IS THE BEST EPISODE EVER. IF THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING ON THIS LIST THAT SOUNDS INTERESTING PLEASE AT LEAST WATCH THIS.

Rascals - Picard and a few other randos (no seriously why is this bunch of people even on a shuttle together?) experience a transporter malfunction and are beamed aboard the Enterprise, except they materialise as pre-teen children! This episode is just pure fun. Contains: bby!Picard throwing a tantrum, and bby!Guinan jumping on the bed.

*Frame of Mind - This is a pretty heavy episode that deals with hallucinations. Riker is supposed to be performing in a play, but suddenly he’s in an alien mental institution and accused of murder. Riker repeatedly flashes between being on the Enterprise and being in the institution and he increasingly cannot tell which is real.

*Technically, this episode does not contain gaslighting even though it will seem like it. Please make sure you are in a good place if you decide to watch this episode.

**Dark Page - Lwaxana Troi is back! But something is up with her.

**I can’t explain why this is a serious episode without giving it away, so here it is: this episode deals with child death.

Deep Space Nine

By far my absolute favourite series, and the only one I have seen every episode of. Deep Space Nine is about a Cardassian space station that is now occupied by joint Federation and Bajoran forces. Deep Space Nine just so happens to be situated right by a stable wormhole that goes to another quadrant of space that would take years and years and years to travel to by starship alone. Naturally, everyone wants to be in control of the wormhole. The closest planet, Bajor, was until recently occupied by Cardassians. (Think of Cardassians as Space Russians.) The Bajorans are deeply spiritual people (literally every fucking Bajoran subscribes to the same religion) and they believe that their gods reside in the wormhole. (THEY ARE WORMHOLE ALIENS FFS AND THEY DON’T CARE ONE BIT ABOUT BAJOR OR CARDASSIA OR THE FEDERATION.) Because this series is set on a space station that does not go anywhere, we get to see that actions have consequences. If Next Generation was the fuck around series, this one is the find out series.

Emissary - A two-parter and our introduction to Deep Space Nine and the majority of the major characters in this show. 

Past Prologue - This episode is important because we meet Garak, a tailor and the only Cardassian still living on the station. What could he possibly be doing here?

Duet - A Cardassian arrives at the station, as they often do, but this one seems to be hiding something. This explores topics of colonialism, genocide, terrorism, and how complicated people really are. This was one of the episodes that made me watch the entirety of DS9. (The other was Take Me Out to the Holosuite.)

Cardassians - Another Garak episode. This one has a similar plot to the Next Generation episode Suddenly Human. Garak and Bashir discover a Cardassian boy is the adopted son of a Bajoran man. But since Bajorans and Cardassians kind of hate each other because Cardassions tried to colonize Bajor, there is a concern that the Cardassian boy is being abused by his adopted father. To make matters worse, Gul Dukat gets involved. (Gul Dukat is played by a native Wisconsinite!)

Shadowplay - Kind of similar to the Next Generation episode Survivors.

The Wire - Garak episode! This episode deals with the topic of addiction and friendship.

Second Skin - Kira might actually be an undercover Cardassian agent?!?

Crossover - Welcome back to the mirror universe, which we haven't seen since the OG series. Here we find out what happened after Kirk left that universe. Told you this was the 'find out' series.

Fascination - A fun Lwaxana episode

Past Tense, parts one and two - Time travel episode! This episode takes place August 30-September 1, 2024. The Bell Riots occurred in San Francisco, and were a turning point in earth history. These are pretty heavy episodes, and they deal with things that still resonate today: poverty, racism, classism, homelessness.

The Visitor - Similar vibes to The Inner Light. Sisko jumps through time at increasing intervals. Meanwhile, Jake lives his life with his father literally popping into existance for a short time only. Jake is older every time. Sisko is not.

Trials and Tribble-ations - The 'find out' episode to OG Trek's Trouble With Tribbles. This is just a really cool episode that blends footage from OG Trek with DS9.

Things Past - An interesting episode where some of the crew wake up in the bodies of people living on the station during the Cardassian occupation.

Ties of Blood and Water - Kira's Cardassian "father" (the guy from Second Skin) arrives on the station.

In the Cards - Jake and Nog do increasingly weird tasks in their quest to obtain a baseball card for Jake's father. Oh and that bitch Kai Winn is there too.

Statistical Probabilities - This episode introduces the Jack Pack! They're a bunch of genetically altered humans, just like Bashir! Oh, and they are extremely neurodivergent and would probably be tons of fun to hang out with.

Far Beyond the Stars - The crew, but what if they were science fiction writers in the 50s? Deals with the topic of racism.

In the Pale Moonlight - How far is Sisko willing to go to get the Romulans to join the war against the Dominion?

Take Me Out to the Holosuite - One of DS9's obligatory holosuite episodes. A Vulcan that Sisko knows shows up and in a very un-Vulcan-like manner boasts to Sisko that he and his crew are superior beings who have been trying Sisko's favorite sport and just absolutely crushing it. Sisko challenges him to a baseball game. The only problem is that most of his crew are not human and have never played baseball before.

Chrysalis - Have you ever read Flowers for Algernon? The Jack Pack returns.

[pythoneon]

Someone might’ve posted about this before, but while i have the persistent brainrot, I wanna ramble about hatchetfield and the perpetual cycle of missed opportunities.

The first couple is pretty obvious: Paul and Emma. They’re two people who don’t get the chance to move past the early stages of a relationship. In TGWDLM, they’ve just gotten on a first name basis, even though he’s a regular and there’s a connection between them. It’s a slow burn that fizzles out because of the circumstances. Black Friday is a bit different because, while they’re not an official couple, Emma cares enough about Paul to bring her to what she thinks is a belated Thanksgiving dinner with estranged family. But that musical ends with everyone being blown to kingdom come, so again, it doesn’t evolve further than being “intimate” with each other. Then, of course, there’s their brief interaction in NPMD which parallels TGWDLM, with an interruption by Officer Bailey. In Nightmare Time, only Paul 23 and Android! Emma have a happy ending, but not without hiccups of course. They seem like an inevitability-pun fully intended-in every universe. Oftentimes, their potential is never fully realized.

Becky and Tom is an interesting couple because they’re the only main pairing that dated and broke up, only to get back together later on. They dated in high school and were pulled apart by circumstance. Tom goes to war, and in the interim, Becky becomes entangled with her abusive husband that keeps them apart even after he comes back. In Black Friday, they reunite, bone in the movie theater, but again, they get fucking bombed at the end. In Jane’s A Car, they actually get to rekindle their relationship, getting to the point that Tom brings Becky home to meet his son. Tim even likes Becky, acknowledging that she can’t replace his mom but she’s a good presence for them both. Unfortunately, Tom’s grief and guilt drives them apart again-pun not intended this time. There could be other worlds where they get back together as well, but that comes after years of heartbreak, trauma, and separation.

Lex and Ethan are interesting because in every world we’ve seen thus far, they start each story in a very committed relationship. We don’t see their beginning stages like the others, so we already know how they are together. This makes Black Friday even more devastating when we watch Ethan die protecting Hannah, and Lex never finds this out. She dies unaware of his fate. Then in Witch in a Web, they’re both in jail after trying to make money to get Hannah out of their neglectful mother’s home. Yellow Jacket is the worst, I think. Because Ethan wants the best for Lex and Hannah, he allows Hannah to take part in the super kid fight club, which accidentally dooms his relationship after they kill Otho and have to go on the run from Charlie. We see him getting her a ring, preparing to propose to her, but he never gets the chance. Lex leaves him behind in Hatchetfield to relieve him of the burden of having to protect her and Hannah. Ethan loves Lex so much that while trying to save her, he loses her.

Finally, our newest and most hopeful addition: Steph and Pete. The babies. We see them first in Abstinence Camp, finding kindred spirits in each other because they see themselves outcasts in their environment. I’d argue this is also true in NPMD. They’re both outliers in their social groups, and connect because of this. In TGWDLM, we can assume they both are infected before ever meeting-the same thing goes for Black Friday. The nice thing about their relationship is, in both Abstinence Camp and NPMD, they end the story in the early stages of their romance, and we can assume it’ll develop further because they both trust each other and have ‘defeated’ the monster. However, they don’t get through it unscathed. Nobody does. But I’ll be optimistic and say they’re the only ones who actually get the happy ending they deserve.

Some honorable mentions:

- Ted and Charlotte, and Ted and Jenny. Ted seems to truly care for Charlotte, and in TGWDLM, he watches her die for her scummy husband. In Black Friday, they’re briefly seen together at the end, but again, BOMB. Then there’s Forever & Always, where it’s revealed Ted is responsible for the death of his one true love, and also his own.

- Linda and Gerald is less subtle, considering they’re both batshit, but their insanity makes them a match made in hell. So, it’s pretty sad when, in Nightmare Time 2, Gerald dies helping Linda become the titular Honey Queen. And, of course, Linda dies in Black Friday while on the phone with him.

- DUKE AND MISS HOLLOWAY. OH BOY DO I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THEM. THE TRAGEDY OF FALLING FOR SOMEONE WHO YOU CAN NEVER SHARE YOUR LIFE WITH BECAUSE BUT YEARNING TO BE IN THEIR LIFE IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE. THE PAINS OF BEING IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE THAT YOU NEVER REALLY KNEW, NOR COULD YOU EVER TRULY KNOW HER, BUT YOU LOVE HER REGARDLESS, AND YOULL ALWAYS LOVE HER. PROTECTING THE PERSON YOU LOVE EVEN IF IT MEANS ACCIDENTALLY DAMNING YOURSELF INTO STARTING OVER WITHOUT THAT PERSON. GOD THEY MAKE ME SO SAD

[denimbex1986]

Andrew: "It's where Jessica and I first met each other 10 short years ago - and a love story was born. Did we have a read through? I don't think so; I don't think we did. Do you remember meeting me for the first time? And if not, why not?"

Jessica: "I feel like it might have been that scene where we were all in Wales together - one of many - it was - "

Andrew: "The Welsh scene."

Jessica: "The Welsh scene; that one, yeah. Oh no, I should've thought more. When did we first meet?"

Andrew: "I don't - I don't actually remember meeting you for the first time. I remember hearing that you were - had an amazing audition."

Jessica: "...I only first got two scenes, I think."

Andrew: "Oh, really?"

Jessica: "...in the audition, Stephen, who wrote it, Stephen Beresford - amazing - and Matthew Warchus, they said: "You know, the thing about Sian is that, you know, she's a real woman." They were like: "She's real; like, she exists.""

Andrew: "...isn't she just?"

Jessica: "Isn't she just real?...when I read, and then I got sent the whole thing, and just - obviously just fell in love with it."

Andrew: "We had an amazing time."

Jessica: "Oh, we really did."

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "I can't believe it's been 10 years; it was so nice - lovely."

Andrew: "And really unusual for - for, for a um, a film to have so many characters in the same scene; we were just so chatty the whole time - that's what I really remember. Just loads of actors there the whole time. There wasn't a lot of money because I suppose there was so many actors to, to be paid, you know? There was no - there was no sense of, you know, people going back to their trailers or anything like that - it was very, um; that's what my long-lasting memory of it is; it's just that everybody was talking all the time and the AD's had to go: "Shut the fuck up.""

Jessica: "And also if you think about the cast, it was quite starry in terms of like, you know - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "Dominic West and Paddy Co - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "But it never felt like any kind of stars were in it - "

Andrew: "No."

Jessica: "Nobody was like: "I'm going back..."... "

Andrew: "No."

Jessica: "Nobody felt like they were separate..."

Andrew: "It would have been a bit weird, and particularly because of the subject matter, if everybody was like - "

Jessica: "Yeah - "Leave me alone.""

Andrew: ""Where's my astrologist?""

Jessica: "Loads of people still come up to talk to me about Pride and how much - "

Andrew: "Me too."

Jessica: " - they loved it..."

Andrew: "But I think for a film like that - you know the way we watch movies; you don't have to watch a movie in a movie theatre, and I think for a film where people feel like they're in danger still - in countries where it's still um, uh, illegal to be gay, um, it - it's like a little gift, you know? And I think what's so wonderful about it is that it's a film that isn't about - it's about gay people, but it's not about their sexuality; it's about their humanity, and it's about what they did, and I think so many films can be kind of reductive or just talk incessantly about, uh, gay people's sexuality. And of course there's a place for that, but it was lovely because it's about these people who - it's about solidarity, and it's so incredibly moving. I don't know anybody who doesn't, uh, have a little cry at the end.

And I loved the character that, uh, of Gethin because um, I'd just finished, I - at that stage I was doing Sh - a lot that was very Sherlock heavy at the time, and I was really interested in playing a kind of character that was a bit more humane, and Gethin's a very shy character; he doesn't speak a lot but has a huge amount of pain and he - he's somebody who's estranged from his family, and I just was very, very, very hungry to play that kind of part. So, I was enormously, um, invested in it right, right from, from the beginning.

And I kind of knew that it was gonna be special, but I don't think anything prepares you for the - the music in it is so, um, important. And of course you don't have that when you're, when you're reading a script but that - I just think all those - I, I just think magic happened. I think, I think um, magic absolutely - absolutely happened, yeah."

Jessica: I think it's maybe Andy in the American Office says something...he says: "I wish that they told you when you were in the good old days.""

Andrew: "Oh yeah."

Jessica: "...that's so nice, and I think that's one of those jobs when you go - I think we knew though, a bit."

Andrew: "Yeah, I think - I think we sort of did. Yeah, and then we had all that sort of - we went to the Toronto Film Festival, had a couple of drinks there Jess."

Jessica: "It was great fun."

Andrew: "We did."

Jessica: "But Stephen's an amazing storyteller...the research that went into the film...he met Sian, the character I play - "

Andrew: "Yes."

Jessica: "...when I got the job, he'd said: "I'll put you in touch with Sian"...and when you book these conference calls, you have to put a limit on the time thing, so they put three hours...we got up to - and they cut us off because we got to a three hour thing - "

Andrew: "Oh, wow."

Jessica: " - because she just had so many fascinating stories; she's such an interesting person."

Andrew: "Yeah - amazing person..."

Jessica: "She came out to Toronto with us - "

Andrew: "She did, yeah. Yeah."

Jessica: "...and loads of them that are in - I don't know if people know but in that scene where we're marching - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: " - there's loads of original LGSM members playing supporting artists behind us in that, and they're all there as well."

Andrew: "Yeah, yeah. They're all in the background; they're all, they - they flag, the banners."

Jessica: "Actually I think the real Jonathan is next to Dominic, I think - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "...so nice."

Andrew: "You know we live in a kind of identity culture where everybody's like: "I'm this and I'm that, and you're that and we're this", and everybody's, you know, talking about how, you know, we all sort of separate each other in a, in, in a way - I think there's something a bit insidious about that in our culture at the moment. And, of course it starts out with these two communities that absolutely culturally are so dissimilar from each other, and then you realise that, that, that they - that they have an awful lot in common, and that they kind of need each other, and um, and that beautiful thing that Stephen always said is that prejudice doesn't survive proximity.

Meaning that you can have a prejudice about somebody, but if you're approximate to somebody - if you're near somebody - that you, you go: "Well that person is just annoying. It's not because of their sexuality." You know what I mean? It's, it's - you go - you can see...And he makes jokes that are so - I think it's the gags - "

Jessica: "Yeah."

Andrew: " - I think that's the reason - "

Jessica: "But I also think it's the lack of sentimentality - "

Andrew: "Yes."

Jessica: " - I think in the wrong hands, that story could've been told in a way - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: " - that you just: 'Oh.' You know, they bring out the -

Andrew: "Yeah. Yeah."

Jessica: "...and he was so great, and Matthew as well, the director - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: " - was so cutting in those moments. The perfect example is when they sing "Bread and Roses" - it's cut by the husbands storming in - "

Andrew: "Yeah, the violence."

Jessica: "...it's like it's not allowed to be too much, so when - those moments are earned, like when the coaches arrive that is an earned moment - "

Andrew: "Yeah. Yeah, yeah."

Jessica: " - that you allow the sentimentality of it. I think Stephen would be a great director, actually...there's a bit where I walk past my two kids...and they're plaiting Freddie Fox's hair. And I go: "Leave him alone, he's not a girl's world", and I've got these two pints and I'm brining them to the group. I think one of the first takes I did I was like: "Leave him alone...", you know, really scruffing their - and he's like: "You're a mum, you see them all the time; like you just - "

Andrew: "Yeah, yeah. Don't be nice to them."

Jessica: "Yeah, don't be nice to them."

Andrew: "Yeah. But I think that's Stephen's great, great, um, uh, gift as a writer is that he's so full of heart, but he portrays heart in a way that, um, that, that; that's so realistic in the sense that it's not all necessarily all huggy huggy - people can be *rolls eyes*, you know, eye-rolling about the people that they love."

Jessica: "So many young people come up and say it helped them come out to their parents...they would watch it with them and then feel able to say "I'm that as well", you know - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "...there are so many countries in the world that aren't able to have pride events because obviously it's still illegal there. So there's like one step forward, ten steps back, but also the fight of LGSM, and the miners, that they had in the 80's - it was a different kind of Pride then. And because of them, it's now allowed to be much more of a celebration and less about the activism, although I'm sure it's hugely - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: " - political even now."

Andrew: "As they say, the war's never over, but yeah, I think that's so true. And like, what was so disgusting, looking at the, the media at the time - the way, um, gay people were spoken about in the media was shocking. I mean, that's what I always say, that, you know, of course parents would be suspicious or upset if their parents - if their children - came out to them because what they were being fed by the media was that, that people were; they were going to be diseased, and they were going to be the way AIDS was spoken about - "

Jessica: "Those adverts were allowed on television."

Andrew: "Right, yeah."

Jessica: "It's just absolutely baffling."

Andrew: "Absolutely disgusting - and the, the horrible way that gay people were spoken about. But of course it breeds suspicion and it just shows; I don't know, it just, it shows if, if our media is, is allowed to, um, do that, then, um, you know, it has terrible consequences."

Jessica: "...I think I remember the DVD of Pride in certain countries didn't mention LGSM, so it said it's a group of miners...they were like: 'We don't talk about the gay bits.'..."

Andrew: "Do you know, it's so strange - you know, actually with All of Us Strangers, it was really str - wonderful this, this, this year because they used to do that kind of thing in - with things that had sort of gay content, and they would sort of pretend that they were two roommates; like they try to get away with it or they wouldn't mention it. I think like they sort of trick someone to go buy a ticket at the cinema, and it's like: 'Oh Jesus - well, you bought the ticket now, you can't leave.' But what was so wonderful, you know, seeing, doing All of Us Strangers this year was that they absolutely sold the romance, and that was, that was a wonderful, you know, ten years on from have, having done another kind of - kind of landmark gay film, it was really nice to see how that changed; that pe - that people go: "Well, this is what we're gonna do." There's an audience there, people aren't as scared to maybe go to the cinema, which; a lot of the reasons, you know, uh, people, don't watch - "

Jessica: "...it'd be interesting to see how long it took them to kind of sell it...I'm sure they had a few struggles distributing it and maybe like with the DVD cover having to be amended, maybe that's why - such a shame."

Andrew: "I think that's true; I think, I, I think it's kind of developed this huge, um, affection for it and this huge kind of cult status for want of a better word. Um, but I think initially, you know, box office wise it wasn't - it didn't match the affection and the - that, that people had for it. It won like some awards but I, you know, some people still don't know about the movie. And um, you know, I just think to watch the movie is to love the movie and um, and, uh yeah, yeah - I really think that. And not just because Jessica's so brilliant in it; there are other people in it. And what was your favourite - um, and what, um, uh, scene to film?"

Jessica: "...I actually really loved our scene in the hospital, and then going outside with Dom. I think that was just -"

Andrew: "Oh yeah, gorgeous."

Jessica: " - when he says: "You - don't go waste it", you know - "

Andrew: ""Don't waste it", yeah."

Jessica: "And I used to love that because people would always ask Sian: "Did that conversation really happen? Did they say: "You could be more than this?"...and she'd go: "It didn't happen - it happened more than once."..."

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: " She's so dramatic..."

Andrew: "Yeah - dramatico."

Jessica: "They were always like: "Find your potential", you know - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "What about yours? Do you remember..."

Andrew: "Well, there was a scene that I - when I have to go back to see my parents, so my character is estranged from his parents - I had to go back and I had; I knew I had this big pressure because I had to say the words "Hello, mum" and um, uh, he hasn't seen his mum in fifteen years, and I knew that I, I; it was a - quite a private, uh, ambition, to be able to, to go: 'I know that I can't just be 'Hello, mum',' and I had to, to just get that right. And again we, it was quite unusual to shoot that scene because it was just me on my own and usually there was millions of us around. I was like: 'Oh God, this is my bit. I have to - I have to make this right.'

And um, and I knew - Matthew's such a good director, and I think I did maybe one, only did one or two, again, one or two takes and he was like: "Don't worry, it's okay - we have that. We have that." With Matthew, you just know - he's not like a big gusher, but he; you can tell when you've affected him a little bit and, and I was really glad to be able to honour that feeling that you - that a lot of gay people have which is to - front it, but actually have a little wobble in your voice as well. Yeah, people - people feel that I think.

So yeah, everybody knows the absolute genius of Jess Gunning now; everybody knows it. It's so exciting because - I mean a lot of people know already because she's been a sort of a stalwart of our stage and screen for so many years, but like now everybody knows how amazing and brilliant and beautiful she is. So it's so exciting, and the fact that we get to, um, experience that together is just so magical, isn't it?"

Jessica: "...I love playing like a game of 'Little did we know' - "

Andrew: "Yeah, yeah..."

Jessica: "...even on the set of Pride, say - little did we know that it would; that we'd still be talking about it ten years on - "

Andrew: "Yeah, I know."

Jessica: " - we would be friends, I would know both your sisters as well as I do - "

Andrew: "I know, I know."

Jessica: " - like - it's actually just so lovely. I just love it."

Andrew: "...there's a big group - a big group of friends; Stephen and everyone."

Jessica: "Yeah, everyone is just so - and it's bonded us all together. Little did we know."

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "...With Baby Reindeer, we were lucky to get all seven scripts given to us for the audition process, which is quite rare in television, because so often you get sent like one or two - "

Andrew: "Absolutely, yeah..."

Jessica: "...it was like: 'Oh, this is just amazing.'"

Andrew: "I remember you, I remember you, uh, during the audition process, it was - you did a few auditions, am I right?"

Jessica: "Like about five, yeah."

Andrew: "I remember; I was trying to be diplomatic there, yeah. And you just had a real feeling - I remember you had a real feeling that you were like: 'I - I understand this.'"

Jessica: "...I remember talking to you and our friend Ben, and I was literally like: "I know how to do this." And funnily enough, thinking of 'Pride', Nadia Stacey, who was hair and make-up designer on Pride - one of the notes we got from the audition process was that I wasn't looking like I was 42 enough - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "So I rang Nadia, and I was like: "If you were designing this, how would you do it?" And she was like: "Why don't I just do it? Why don't I put a wig on you -

Andrew: "Yeah, yeah..."

Jessica: " - and you tape yourself and send that through?" It's funny because when Richard tells the story, he says: "Do you remember when you got that wig from that joke shop?" and I'm like: - "No, it was like a - ""

Andrew: "From an Oscar winning make-up artist!"

Jessica: "...I've never done that before really. I know obviously for you with Ripley, you probably didn't - did you audition for Ripley? You probably didn't need to."

Andrew: "No, it came - it came out of, out of the blue and I was like: "What the -?" And like you, I got the whole, I got the whole eight episodes in one, and I read them on a transatlantic flight. I was like: 'This is really, really extraordinary - extraordinary writing.'"

Jessica: "And in paper copy as well?"

Andrew: "Uh, I got, got, got paper copies of - I have to - "

Jessica: "Did you not have them on an iPad?..."

Andrew: "I think it was - maybe I was slightly re - reimagining that. Like that's, that's kind of - just eight scripts; "Hello, I'm checking in please." Yeah, I probably read it on an iPad; but I made my notes. But I love - I have to say I like a hard copy of a script; I don't know why."

Jessica: "...I really do."

Andrew: "Do you?"

Jessica: "I think it's being in the the theatre - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: " - we like to have it there, because it feels real then."

Andrew: "Do you know the radio - you know radio, you know when you do a radio play - do you know a little trip, a little, a little, uh, uh, tip for when you - they're obsessed when you do radio, for people who don't know; you, you read it, but if you don't want to hear any paper noise, you scrunch up the page and then you open it up again and it does - it's kind of rigid so the, so it's only the voice that one se - that one hears. Never the paper."

Jessica: "...Actually, not to be too cheesy but Andrew played a massive part in terms of how I approached going into the part, because I remember we had a chat and you - I'd got the part; I'd got the job, and you were like: "Go for it now." It's making me emotional...I'd fought for it; sometimes when you fight for it and you get it, you think: 'Oh no, now I've gotta do it' and it makes you scared - "

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: " - enough to properly delve in."

Andrew: "Yeah."

Jessica: "But actually, after you gave me that chat, I really did properly kind of go: 'I've gotta..." - you know, that final voicemail she leaves, I always just connected with her straight away after reading that..."

Andrew: "My God, I've said that to you - I just find that just extraordinary; how moving that was just from your voice, just like - and actually, I think I found it kind of so moving because it was obviously the character, but I could feel your own input into that, you know - your own passion and that. Can I ask you like - I suppose because you're so different to the character, and I suppose I have it a little bit with Ripley, I have like; you know, I think they're both characters that are very far away from who we are as people - do you find that people are going: "Oh gosh, you're really different" when they meet you? Because you are."

Jessica: "...they all go: "I'm terrified of you", and I always find - "

Andrew: "Yeah, yeah."

Jessica: " - that fascinating, because I never saw her as terrifying but then - of course she is...my laugh is still quite similar...I went to a comedy show the other week and my friend was like: "Don't find it too funny because people might - the comedian might be scared away."..."

Andrew: *laughs* "Oh yeah that - "

Jessica: "What about you with Ripley? Did you know the character or did you kind of find him?"

Andrew: "Well actually, what was weird about the character was that; the thing that I had to discover was that there's a - the discovery is that there's some part of him that is actually kind of unknowable, and once I kind of knew that, and to go: 'Well, there's kind of a blankness to that character that you can't ex, exca - excavate.' And I think there are people in the world who are like that, who are just very far removed from; that just don't know themselves, and go - and we do it ourselves, you go: "I have no idea why I behaved like that." I mean, we are a little bit of a mystery to ourselves, but I think he's an unreliable hero, and some part of it was just to sort of embrace the fact that there, there is some part of him that actually, um, is just - there's a chasm sort of there a little bit, and that then became sort of enjoyable to, to play.

But I found it difficult because, um, and in, in a strange way I know exactly when you say, when, when someone says: "I find - I find you really scary", like the murder parts of Tom were only like a little bit out of a year; it took a year to film that and a lot of the, the, the, the, the scenes in it are kind of quite domestic; where it's a person who's travelling around, or someone who's got like, um, awkward in a social situation, or is in a restaurant like - it's not murder, murder, murder, murder, murder the whole time. And so I didn't fi - I, I didn't find him really that scary or like, feel like I had to do when I was playing Moriarty; I felt like I had to do a lot of kind of stuff where I was like: 'I need to be really dark.' But actually I think the darkness of him is, is that he behaves in quite a impassive way at times, when actually you should be completely active in some ways. Do you know what I'm saying? Like that he's - "

Jessica: "I was gonna ask you obviously because you're such a funny person IRL, you know the bit where he doesn't - the pen thing; like when he's complimented on the pen and the one, the time the guy doesn't compliment his pen - "

Andrew: "Mmm. Yeah."

Jessica: "Was that in the script or was that you? Like the slight annoyance of you being like - "

Andrew: "Yeah, yeah."

Jessica: " - I love it when you're like *makes face*: 'Oh you didn't' - everyone else did and you're like: "Thank you."..."

Andrew: "...I actually can't quite remember what the answer to that is. I imagine it was me; - that's just my own genius...."

Jessica: "...there's a sweetness to that - "

Andrew: "Mmm."

Jessica: " - I found that actually the most human - "

Andrew: "He's quite a sweet character."

Jessica: " - because it was like he was going: 'Oh, he didn't say it was nice - and that's why I like to have it.'"

Andrew: "Yeah, yeah. Well that's the thing; he's a human being, you know, and with these, with these people, you know with certain characters, they call them monstrous; I always think that's quite tabloidy to call things, people - call people monsters, because human beings do monstrous things, but they are nevertheless human beings and that's our job is to kind of, in a way your first, um, priority is to not - is to kind of protect the character that people might go: "Oh that person is a psycho" or "That person is deran -" - whatever those things are, you - I just find them so incredibly helpful. And I think that's what was so beautiful about your, your portrayal of, in, in Baby Reindeer, was that, was, was just how um, oh well, just like the way - because that's the way you are in real life; it's because you're just so empathetic and kind, you know?" *they laugh*

[dkmh-news]

‘Went up the Hill’ Heads for Toronto Premiere With Vicky Krieps and Dacre Montgomery in Overlapping Roles as a Ghost: ‘Nursery Rhymes Are Dark’ | Variety

Writer-director Samuel Van Grinsven says that his new film “Went Up the Hill” was inspired by a single image of two people in a room, a coffin between them, both equally mourning the person inside, but knowing next to nothing about one another.

His film, which debuts this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, sees a young man, Jack (Dacre Montgomery), travel to a remote part of New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged mother. There he meets her grieving widow, Jill (Vicky Krieps). But his mother’s spirit returns, inhabiting both of their bodies to speak to the other one and instigating a threatening three-way nocturnal dance.

Van Grinsven, who previously directed the well-noted “Sequin in a Blue Room,” spoke to Variety ahead of the film’s Toronto premiere.

You have called “Went up the Hill” a ghost story, but not a horror film. Please explain?

It’s a tricky thing. There’s definitely horror elements throughout it. There’s some horror films that inspired it, in terms of our references, but I would hesitate to call it a fully a fully fledged horror. Structurally, it’s different to that, even in terms of pacing. Our inspirations are Bergman’s “Persona” or “Hour of the Wolf” or “Personal Shopper” by [Olivier] Assayas. Three characters played by two actors, including one played by both, creates a degree of confusion for the viewer. How intentional is that confusion?

Confusion is natural in a premise like this. I think often the characters themselves are quite confused. [Audiences are] very much where the characters are at. It’s pretty rare that the characters are ahead of the audience. Vicki Krieps’ character Jill is [ahead] to begin with, and that’s probably the moment in terms of the identities and possession and the shifting identities, that is the most confusing. It’s the first time you step solely into her point of view and you meet Jack in Jack’s body. [Later] you meet Elizabeth in Jack’s body, and that’s where we put the audience [narratively] behind.

But we were not so much seeking confusion as aiming to let the audiences experience what these two characters are going through.

You make it clear that both lead characters are gay, but it doesn’t appear to be a major theme of the movie. How come?

I think if both characters were to be straight, that there would be an ingrained audience expectation of the two of them falling in love. And I wasn’t interested in that. I liked the idea that their connection, if you removed that element from their relationship, they would be forced to trust each other in a way that is like brother and sister — and then almost like mother and son.

You are dealing with weighty subjects. Why risk trivializing them by referring to a kids’ nursery rhyme in the title and through the character names?

The “Jack and Jill went up the hill” nursery rhyme is fascinating in the sense that it’s quite confusing. It’s two characters searching for something in a place where it’s not commonly found — going to the top of a hill to find water doesn’t necessarily seem the most logical thing to do.

Also, there’s the maternal connection of a nursery rhyme, which is passed from mother to child and from family to family. That felt extremely powerful, when you’re talking about generational trauma, or the way in which cycles of abuse are passed on.

And the repetition that comes with a nursery rhyme is close to the cycles of the darker themes that we’re dealing with. Finally, I liked the sense that nursery rhymes are used to lull a person to sleep [where my characters experience so much].

How did Vicky Krieps come on board?

She was actually the first person we thought of for the role of Jill. And she really believed in the project from the moment she read it. But it is a big ask coming all the way to New Zealand, and she wasn’t available to do the role.

Then COVID happened and everyone’s schedules changed too. We ended up shooting the film later than we expected, which opened that door again to having a conversation with Vicky. We shot in 2023.

She’s a very instinctual artist who follows her gut. She felt ready to explore and wanted to bring to this to the screen. So, she came on board in an executive production sense, and supported the film to getting off the ground.

Where was it filmed?

We ended up shooting the film in the Canterbury Highlands of South Island, New Zealand, about two hours from where I was born where my family come from.

And the ice scenes?

The content in which the characters are stationed on the backs of the lake was shot at a real Lake Pearson location, the one that you can see from that house.

Then, for the scenes in which they’re physically on the ice, we built surface in a large open paddock, just in front of the lake. We were able to work with some incredible art team in New Zealand who had experience with building those surfaces for films like “Avatar” and “The Hobbit.”

[twilidragonrin]

What happened to the girls' biological parents and why weren't they part of a pack before Alcina found them? And were both parents werewolves or was one of them a human a bit like in the Wolf Children movie?

Trigger Warning for Family Abuse

I'm honestly going to explain everything with their biological parents because logically, I don't even know if anyone would ever know the full truth of the girls' past before Alcina found them.

The girls were unwanted.

Their biological mother was estranged to her family. Chose to live her life the way she thought fit with pushed her away from her family and into the arms of a man who never loved her.

At this time, both parents were werewolves. The father was the biological father of Bela and Cassandra. The father was not the best, often abusive towards the girls' mother. Bela witnessed most of the mental abuse that he put her mother through. He eventually left the picture after laying his claws on their mother.

Bela took care of Cassandra when they were younger, their biological mother often going out for whatever reason. Mostly, just to act like she never had children in the first place. Even though all three were unplanned, Daniela was the most unplanned given that their mother was out acting like a whore with no kids.

Daniela's biological father was human. He immediately left the picture the moment he found out the truth that the mother was a werewolf. People were indeed called, they were hunted. Daniela was premature due to the stress and was not expected to live.

They found a home, the mother worked and hid her werewolf abilities and just tried to not be found. A lot of stress and anger was let out towards Cassandra and especially Bela as she took the brunt of the most abuse from her to shield her sisters.

Eventually, a year since Daniela's birth, their mother just took them into the city and left them. She simply didn't want them anymore.

And she left a young Bela to watch over and care for her sisters in the streets for another year until Alcina found them. They went from being unwanted to being loved and cared for deeply.

Constantly being surrounded by yelling and hitting is the reason why Bela is so anxious. Why she always sought out approval from Alcina growing up.

So the girls didn't have a happy beginning, but they absolutely are in a better place.

[dororoxpenana]

My little baker, María Garcia 😭💚 ✨️ (Part 1/3) @encanto-extended-edition

Week 1: Introductions

Backstory:

25 years before the canon movie events, María García (23) lived in Encanto her whole life and worked at her family's recently formed bakery. While trying to gain attraction to the hidden business, María got the opportunity to meet the Madrigal triplets (25).

Intrigued the most by Bruno, she made it her mission to become his friend. Once their friendship is established, María accidentally develops deeper feelings for her best friend and desperately tries to hide her unwavering crush.

Their friendship almost dismantled when María witnesses Bruno performing his gift and becomes frightened by it. Upon encountering Bruno then apologizing profusely and begging for forgiveness, their friendship is rekindled (however she never lets herself forget her hurtful actions.) After some assurance, comfort, and a surprise kiss the two end up confessing and begin dating.

While their relationship is seen as not truthful at first, they prove the accusations wrong. Their new relationship is blissful, until Bruno has an involuntary vision of María's bakery burning down with her along with it. The two desperately try to figure ways to save her family's livelihood but in the end it is all for naught as the cause of the fire was by a cruel third party individual, completely out of their control. While María manages to live, she has recurring nightmares and flashbacks of the fire.

During the rebuilding of the bakery, the persecutors were held accountable and life slowly went back to normal. Once Bruno and María marry after 5 years of dating, María did her best to help support Bruno as he struggled in the family but her efforts weren't enough as all his disparity lead up to his disappearance.

For 3 years María wallowed over Bruno and became a much more reserved version of herself, until she ended up finding him one night sneaking around Casita. Despite being upset with him, she agrees begrudgingly to help keep his secret but in return she distances from the family and becomes estranged. He promised to write letters whenever he could via rat postage.

Due to the discovery and overwhelming guilt knowing where Bruno was hiding, María tried desperately to distance herself from the Madrigals.

They kept in contact through notes via rat postage and did a few visits in the beginning but they had to stop due to the immense pain that also came with them. One day, her young sobrina Mirabel visits her and asks about her Tío Bruno.

María guides her to look for the vision, despite going against her promise towards her husband, she had faith in Mirabel. When Casita falls, María helps the family but is horrified at the notion that Bruno may have been killed.

Returning to her home for supplies, Bruno is there and they are reunited for a bit.While María joins to family to search on foot, Bruno rides off to look for Mirabel Once everyone is back together, María finally reconnects with the entire family alongside her husband.

♡ Outfits ♡

~ ♡ ~ ♡ ~ ♡ ~

[richincolor]

New Releases

A nice mix of genres in this week's new releases which gives something for everyone. 

Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber Wednesday Books

After a mysterious attack claims the lives of her parents, all Estela has left is her determination to solve the case. Suffering from survivor’s guilt so intense that she might be losing her grip on reality, she accepts an invitation to live overseas with an estranged aunt at their ancestral Spanish castle, la Sombra.

Beneath its gothic façade, la Sombra harbors a trove of family secrets, and Estela begins to suspect her parents’ deaths may be linked to their past. Her investigation takes a supernatural turn when she crosses paths with a silver-eyed boy only she can see. Estela worries Sebastián is a hallucination, but he claims he’s been trapped in the castle. They grudgingly team up to find answers and as their investigation ignites, so does a romance, mistrust twined with every caress.

As the mysteries pile up, it feels to Estela like everyone in the tiny town of Oscuro is lying and that whoever was behind the attack has followed her to Spain. The deeper she ventures into la Sombra’s secrets, the more certain she becomes that the suspect she’s chasing has already found her . . . and they’re closer than she ever realized.

Finding Famous by Candice Jalili

Disney Hyperion

The Princess Diaries meets reality television in a story about fame (the kind you definitely didn’t ask for), first love (the kind you didn’t even know you wanted), and most importantly, family (the kind you can’t live without).

Ever since her mom died, Josie Lawrence has been content with her safe, predictable life. She hangs out with exactly two people: her best (and only) friend, Louise, and her stepdad, Matt. She has exactly one (unrequited) crush on resident high school himbo, Isaac. And she’s fully prepared to spend the end senior year preparing for Stanford and actively avoiding anything that reminds her of her mother.

But when Josie discovers that her biological father is the recently deceased Ali Mashad—patriarch of America’s original reality TV family, dripping with wealth, fame, and Vogue magazine covers—Josie’s “predictable” life is gone quicker than you can say “you’re doing amazing, sweetie.”

Being a Mashad means that the entire world is now at Josie’s feet—desperate to dress her, to photograph her, to know her—opening a door to a world that Josie never expected to find: one with a cute guy who just might be her soulmate, three ridiculous but wonderful sisters, and answers to all the questions she wishes she could ask her mom. But the biggest question of all is: If being a Mashad is the chance of a lifetime, will Josie be brave enough to take it?

The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

A group of friends fight to choose their own fates in this trope-savvy, self-referential young adult thriller from the acclaimed author of Their Vicious Games , about a demonic force that acts according to horror movie rules in the spirit of the Scream movies.

Devon is always being left behind by her genius twin sister, Drew. At this point, it’s a fact of life. But Devon has one last plan before Drew leaves for college a whole year early—The Best Summer Ever. After committing to the bit a little too much, the twins and their chaotic circle of friends learn why you don’t ever mess with a Ouija board if you want to actually survive the Best Summer Ever, and soon find themselves being hunted down by…a demon?

But while there’s no mistaking the creeping, venomous figure is not from around here, their method doesn’t feel very demonic at all. In fact, it’s downright human—going after them in typical slasher movie kill order. And that means Devon, the blonde, is up first and her decade-long crush, Yaya, is the Final Girl who must kill or be killed to end the cycle.

Devon has never liked playing by anyone else’s rules though, not even a demon’s, and the longer this goes on, the more she feels Drew and Yaya slipping away from her even as she tries to help them all survive. Can they use their horror movie knowledge to flip the script and become the hunters instead of the hunted? Or will their best summer ever be their last?

Eighteen Roses by Shannon C.F. Rogers

Feiwel & Friends

Lucia Cruz may be turning eighteen this year, but she is not the debutante type. Everything about a traditional Filipino debut feels all wrong for her. Besides, custom dictates that eighteen friends attend her for a special ceremony on her birthday, and Lucia only has one friend– Esmé Mares. They’ve stuck to each other’s side all throughout high school, content to be friends with only each other. At least, Lucia thought they were content.

As it turns out, Esmé wants something different out of her senior year. And, on top of that, Lucia’s mom has planned a debutante ball for her birthday behind her back. She’ll be forced to cobble together a court of eighteen “friends” before her beloved lola arrives from the Philippines for this blessed occasion.

How far will Lucia stray from her comfort zone in order to play the role of dutiful daughter and granddaughter? Will she do the unthinkable– participating in a school sponsored activity? Will she discover that her sense of humor can be a way to connect with people, not just push them away?

Firebird Caged by Maya Chhabra Jolly Fish Press

Ashley didn’t mean to get pregnant her senior year in high school. She didn’t mean to scare her hardworking and financially struggling mom, or to hide the truth from her awkward ex, Danny. She also didn’t mean to illegally take her well-off friend Madi’s prescription Xanax to cope with the stress—and she definitely didn’t mean to do it more than once.

When a doctor reports Ashley to the State of Wisconsin as a drug-addicted threat to her own unborn child, she is forcibly detained under the obscure and secretive Act 292 civil detention system for pregnant women, stranded in the county juvenile shelter home, and stigmatized by authorities who assign her fetus a lawyer but not her. It’s a struggle for Ashley just to get medical care for the pregnancy supposedly being protected—never mind fighting for her own freedom and making sure her baby isn’t taken away by social services after birth. Who’s going to protect Ashley herself?

But Ashley is stronger than anyone knows, and she has allies on the outside who believe in her. This is a fight Ashley can win—but only if she stops drifting passively, starts believing in herself, and chooses not to give in to despair.

Characterized by exciting, fast-paced plots and themes that are relevant for high school students, Horizon’s Hi-Lo books are both engaging and easy to read. Short chapters, simple sentence structures, and an accessible format make these books perfect for teen reluctant readers. Horizon books are written at a 2nd- to 3rd-grade reading level with an interest level of ages 14 and up.