#i like to rag on him and focus on all his flaws and enjoy when bad things happen to him BECAUSE i like him yk

[mudstoneabyss]

sometimes I'm worried I come off as disliking Carlos...

[fumifooms]

Chilchuck, family & alcoholism

Collection of thoughts and speculation on Chil’s upbringing, his dynamic with his family and how alcoholism ties into it all. If you want the groundwork info on Chil’s background I recommend my masterpost on his family, here beyond a summary of the facts it’s really just me speculating from the crumbs we get of his parents and siblings, how it’s all affected him and in turn affected his own wife and kids etc etc.

There’s nothing more I’d like on mother’s day than to speculate about Chilchuck’s maladaptive attachment style. I’m fascinated by how distant everyone is and how much he’s been devoted to them all despite having been so absent. Intergenerational trauma get over here

Actually it’ll be easier if I make a rundown here too, it’s just stuff I reiterate from my masterpost tho.

Tiny table of contents: 1- rundown: family facts 2- rundown: alcoholism 3- dad 4- parenting 5- daughters 6- wife

^ Every time his dad gets mentioned. His mom never gets mentioned. His siblings I think are only ever mentioned in this extra, and then there are more ambiguous relatives cameos.

We know is hometown isn’t Kahka Brud, but we’re not sure wether he moved there upon getting his own house (presumably around when he got married at 13), or if it’s only after his wife when he rented out his place to relatives then rented the place in Kahka Brud.

If he rented it out to relatives, maybe that meant it was in his hometown? Especially if he and his siblings are "almost strangers" so presumably he doesn’t really keep in touch with his family. And I mean, he hasn’t seen his wife or daughter in 4 years so you can imagine how he’s like with his more distant family…

Additionally half-foots and Chil are very coded to be from an impoverished opressed working class people. So that’s the context.

I’ll say that I mentioned intergenerational trauma at the beginning, and I def think the distrust of elves is part of that, but here I want to focus on the interpersonal effects rather.

Copy pasting my masterpost thoughts overall: Chilchuck is hinted to have had a rather dysfunctional family himself (alcoholic father, distant siblings, etc). So he doesn’t really have the best model on how to raise someone and such. I imagine it was a sort of neglectful home situation, where the kids are encouraged to be independent. If they didn’t have to work or help around much, then a free range parenting sort of thing.

We do see how the family has full and warm feasts, where someone cleans his mouth with a rag, so it’s not like he didn’t have caring people or had a tragic childhood though! I don’t remember if it’s explicitely stated but he’s heavily implied to having grown up poor, as most half-foots, and I just think it’s the hardened hardworking family type of childhood where just like he does with others, they instilled somewhat harsh life lessons in him, which in turn encourages him to indulge in the simple pleasures of life like alcohol and sex, or at least women’s beauty and crass jokes. We do see he seems more optimistic when he’s younger in flashbacks, so a bunch of his harsh view on the world is still likely learned and earned rather than taught.

I still think he inherited many flawed views from how his father acted, like his attitude about excessive drinking not being a big deal, it being worth it. That work hard play hard, enjoy life die young mentality he has, shown mostly in the “alcohol” section of his Adventurer’s Bible profile, could very well be partly a result of the general poverty half-foot communities are that he grew in as well, like how he doesn’t hope for things to be as best as they could be and contends with good enough.  As far as I remember, his mother is never mentioned, but I doubt it implies she was out of the picture. She was probably a regular sort of mother that took care of the home and was still around when his father died, not unlike how Chil’s wife was implied to be a housewife. It looks like there’s a good age gap between one sibling to the next, that could be interesting to speculate about too. Mostly though I think it’s big family because it’s just sorta what happens when you regularly have sex and you don’t have contraception, being poor often makes family planning harder for various reasons and leads to more children.

Alcoholism context rundown:

Good Chilchuck analysis baseline here. Alcohol seems to be his main stress reliever/coping mechanism, especially for how emotionally constipated he is, and his job is being stressed about his party’s safety. Then he also mentions as a changeling that having his senses dulled feels relaxing to him, further confirming alcohol, as a drug that dulls senses, is something that he likes for the intoxication aspect and feels it’s relaxing. Alcohol also acts as a hunger suppressant, so it for sure has played a role in his dieting and unhealthy eating/diet habits, especially since he shows the instinct to drink to soothe hunger, all of that about how going hungry for 3 days used to feel manageable. Chil dieting info compiled here.

Chilchuck is at his most effortlessly cheerful when drunk or drinking. Compilation of every time he was drunk here.

And to be clear, a cheerful drunk is still a drunk. He literally will drink anytime he gets the opportunity to even if he’s aware overdrinking leads to health problems and death. Like canonically. He does NOT see how drinking should be a problem and does not seek to show restraint with it.

Dad of the dad

Marcille and Chilchuck having a talk on how losing a dad be like "You lost your dad young too…? I know how it is, it must have hit you hard…" "No not really tbh. Do you want lasagna or chicken for dinner?" <- either genuinely doesn’t feel much about his dad’s death or has 10 layers of repression, idk which is worse

I think Chil not making a big deal out of his dad’s death, not having worries in following into his footsteps that way in the least, is super interesting.

As a buddy @saccharineomens puts it: " I kinda imagine chilchuck and his dad didn't have a bad relationship, but in general chilchuck is so blase about drinking (he sees it as a delightful time, a wonderful thing! he wouldn't mind dying doing something he loved!) that he's not very upset about his dad's passing? like "yeah, he died, but i was already an adult, he was an adult, he made his choices, i make my choices, it's cool" " And I’ll nitpick that we don’t know how old he was when his dad died, I always assumed it was pretty early since Chil left home when he got married, and like I’ve gone into he doesn’t seem to be the keep in touch type. It’s on the table though, and he could have learned about it through letter if nothing else and that contributes to the "meh" reaction.

And that is very Chilchuck, the whole "we made our choices, it is how it is, he died doing something he loved", and you can totally believe that that’s the crux of it, but I do think the nonchalance hints at the family overall being distant and not only the siblings, that there’s dysfunctional shenanigans going on in there more than just… Healthy coping and having moved on.

I wonder when Chil first drank… And I wonder how he came to realize he liked alcohol a lot. His father probably gave him sips… Or he stole them

No because, with how disaffected he is about his father and siblings I could definitely see him having started to kind of numb himself/dissociate with the help of alcohol in that home environment that felt so… Either devoid of feelings or too messy to get attached. I can totally see his family being one that encourages dealing with feelings by bottling them up.

Because too… We saw him have a family/community feast of some sort presumably when he was a kid, in that chapter cover, so it’s not like there’s no warmth or sense of family at all, but then like… What went wrong? If as I theorize that girl with short black hair in that panel is his future wife, since she’s his childhood friend and all, what if his family/home life was always kind of cold and distant, even when gathered and cheery or despite those occasions? So then it’s like, at the family gatherings, she’s the most important person there to him, the one he actually connects to the most, the warmest presence he has…….. Someone he jokes around with that feels on the same speed as him, that doesn’t have the same connotations as everyone else present, a bit of a haven, someone different, a breath of fresh hair and a regained sense of childhood… Spitballing of course of course

I feel like they had a pretty big family and they were poor and such so there were always chores to be done etc, so their household might have operated like a mini busiess of sorts where everyone’s too busy, always has this and that to do and the mother asks them to go do tasks. I used to think it might be more of a neglect situation, where the kids are expected to provide for themselves and so cook their own meals and whatnot, both parents distant, but I don’t think so with the feast illustration. Chil at the beginning of canon used to see eating as a practical thing more than anything, you have to eat to live but don’t eat much or your weight will make your job more dangerous, might as well skip meals and have beer instead, etc etc. So the thought that he doesn’t know how to cook all that well despite this speculated background where he cooked for himself and keeps cooking minimalistic, since he does tell Senshi he taught him about cooking, is fair, but still… There could definitely be a situation where his older siblings were pushed into a parental role too, where they helped with the food and raising the younger siblings etc etc. As mentioned, the age gap between siblings may play into the dynamic as well. But on this front I have less ideas…

So yes my general take on Chil’s family is that everyone was too busy to emotionally connect as much as is normal, the parenting leaving things to be desired with alcoholism and emotional neglect.

Fathering

And I think that’s especially interesting considering he hasn’t been keeping in touch with his daughters either. It’s "they’re independent now" and that’s kinda it. His daughters haven’t sent him letters or visited him or tried to make him talk to their mom again. It does feel like with his own parents and siblings to me, where people are almost strangers, where relationships grow apart and everyone shrugs and goes ‘that’s how things are’. Is it that everyone including all his daughters gave up on trying to keep in touch, or is it that they all went "well divorced or not he’s absent, this is our normal tbh", and which is worse?

So yes, I think his relationship with his daughters is probably similar to his relationship with his parents, sort of hands off. Chil's dad was probably not a good dad but probably not quite a bad dad. A definitive He Was There, to quote another friend heh

Imo the thing with Chil is that he was pretty absent bc of work travels to dungeon dive, right. He’s working hard to provide for his family but in the process he’s not spending much time with them, slowly making a gap grow between him and them as they drift apart and change as people. He’s a career dad who never realized spending time with his family was more important and threw his pager into the ocean— But also here’s the thing!! You want to say being his family is more important, but money is arguably more important! They’re poor, they don’t have the privilege of free time as much. Sure he’s not there, but he is providing for them what they need to keep living and growing healthily. Similarly, you want to say Chil should stop doing harsh dieting for weight management, but, he has a point, maybe starving is still preferable than dying in traps. Of course the ideal would be to change jobs, but again, life is a struggle and that’s not always an option.

^ Truly the classic "if you don’t listen to me, your parent, a cryptid is gonna kidnap you!" international experience………

He is so so so the "What? My way of parenting is kinda bad? But my father raised me like that, and look how great I turned out!" <- emotionally dysfunctional…….. "Pshhh what do you mean having an alcoholic parent negatively affects you? My father was an alcoholic too and look at me"  🤡

All of it was behavior normalized to him. And listen, I’m saying this but not as like, shirking of his part in it. This isn’t a teen or young adult, he’s middle aged, he’s become the one giving and not receiving the generational trauma. He’s chosen to never think deeper on the topic.

And like, he himself is so indifferent to his father and what their relationship was like, of course he wouldn’t notice if a parenting choice wasn’t great for his daughters. He doesn’t have a relationship with his dad, he’s not (at least not consciously) traumatized by him, so from his perspective it’s mission success! He got raised decent enough 👍⭐️ Except he doesn’t realize that like, not particularly caring if he died is sign of a problem between them in itself… And this even as he remains somewhat of an important figure in his life, especially since that’s who he sees on the other side of the life river in the ghost chapter. It’s implicitly the biggest instance of loss through death Chilchuck has in his life I think.

But despite it all he obviously does love his family a lot, right. So I do believe that like, while he has imperfect standards when it comes to parenting he still tries to be better than his dad was, that even if it’s necessary that he has a lot of long work travels, he spends time with them. And there’s sort of this dissonance that he’s both "it doesn’t matter wether i’m here or not, they’ll live, they’re tough girls. Oh they didn’t like my scolding earlier? It’s just how kids are" dismissive and "I love them so much and I want them to have a good life. I want to do my best by them" devoted and so so caring. And like that’s why he works so damn hard, he does it for them, but also that’s why the girls grew up with an absentee father and aughhhh AUGHHHH the unsolvable dilemma of it all Chilchuck in Dunmeshi truly represents like, the harshness of reality & the world and how sometimes things will just suck no matter what, and then of course balancing that with Marcille in their shared arc where she tacks on "And despite that there is beauty everywhere even in the small and menial things, despite that your flawed relationships and dreams are still worth fighting for" ie giving reconciling with his wife a shot, etc.

All that said I think the very strict "you’re gonna grow up to have a stable job by god, young miss" attitude, those strong work ethics he highly values and focuses on and no doubt tried to instill in is own kids, is something he somewhat inherited from his own upbringing and parents.

In my masterpost bit on his parenting, I said I don’t think he’d do any kind of corporeal punishment, but. I do wonder about spanking aftee all. It can be so so easy to rationalize it… Sigh

Daughter pov

Again, my general interpretations for the daughters are written in my masterpost. I think Patti knows her father the least and is the one least worried about jobs and stability and least settled down as a result. Flertom is the more social one who I imagine tended to be the one worried about her parents’ couple and their emotions the most. And Meijack… Ohh Meijack.

When your father tried his best to provide for you but he worked all the time and even when he was home he was either tired or stressed and he’s always liked to get drunk to relax and cheer up. When you know he values work ethics and respectability so you grew up to be capable and quiet. And when he says you’re like him you’re sort of puzzled, does he really know you so little, or does he know himself so little? But you like the feeling of your father ruffling your hair so you accept it and still you stand next to your mother just as quiet and just as stoic during family gatherings. He leaves again and again and when your mother leaves him nothing changes, really. You wonder if it’s more telling that you know him better than he seems to himself or that you don’t know him as much as you wish you did, or that you don’t think about him all that much these days. Out of sight out of mind

Thinking of those posts about how kids never forget and during the "draw your family!" things at school, some of the kids draw their working parents seperate from the rest of them...

Absent father and when he’s at home you get the crumbs of him that you get and you’re grateful for it and that’s that <333

She doesn’t know how much he loves them bc he hasn’t showed them in a long time </3

The horror of drunk Chil in my fics is often about what in this state he can’t do rather than what he could do, how someone who’s as proud of his skills and work ethics as he is has truly changed, not comprehending how he could become so sloppy or how he could allow himself to get like this, marred the values he preaches above all else. It’s in the way that he fumbles with doorknobs, that he could never lockpick a door if you were to lock it, and it both being your salvation and bringing you extreme distress at the thought of it all. His footsteps usually featherlight now sound heavy as stone, like a troll’s.

You know the thing that gets me so bad with alcoholism angst is when people describe the drunk person as a stranger. Often making a metaphor that they’re monsters, have some monster they shapeshift into uncontrollably once in a while, as a way to split the unreconciliable halves of the person sober and drunk in your vision of them……. It gets me soooo bad Little Puckpatti growing up on tales of trolls kidnapping disobedient kids and replacing them with doubles so no one even knows they’re gone… Coming face to face with a drunk Chilchuck that roams the halls of the house with heavy steps in the night, because she wanted to go drink a glass of water, too thirsty to sleep………..

And this is where I reveal that I wrote a fic about just that!! Trolls that thump and tiptoe through the night Mei @ Chil, You made me of stone and still every day you wear me down and chip away at me bit by bit

In the end notes I describe my takes and interpretations: With Mei I tried to give the sense of a kid who sacrifices some parts of childhood to feel closer to her parent, like not playing games to spend more time with him no matter how empty, or wanting to be worthy in his eyes. With Fler, since she was the one in canon to take in their mother and write Chil a letter explaining the situation, I feel like she’s always been the one most involved and aware of the problems in their family. The one most there to emotionally support or to understand what the vibes in a room meant. Puckpatti I think knows her father the least, since with time I think Chilchuck was more and more away from work and more and more cynical like the flashbacks of younger him dungeon diving. I think because of her not minding unstable odd jobs that she’s the most passive, that she’s the most go with the flow. I do also love when Mei is the one most aware of her parents’ flaws and most critical as the eldest, but not in this fic. Meijack grows up to never touch a drop of alcohol, what people joke is the one difference between her and her father. Flertom drinks, too much sometimes, but she considers drinking should be a social activity rather than a habit. Puckpatti only drinks on special occasions when she has the chance.

They already don’t have that much time together because of his work, I wonder how big of a percentage the amount of memories the daughters have of him are when he’s not himself truly… How they kinda reconcile it all. It’s their normal. 

And the thing that’s gutting too, is that Chil always looks so so much more open, relaxed, cheerful and happier when drunk than he usually is. He doesn't know how to get his defenses down without alcohol

"you're all that's good"

Because we do see how he truly used to not be so closed off and bitter. But distrust and fearing for betrayals from both coworkers and then his wife aka the person who’s supposed to be closest to him (he doesn’t even have close family besides his daughters. Does he even have close friends) turned him into what he is now. He was so cheerful!! Happy and trusting and optimistic.

He leaves and she left

God there’s the whole ‘wife leaving him’ trauma too is the thing… It had to have fucked him up so bad like no wonder he got paranoid and decided not to open up to ANYONE like. He never saw it coming is the scariest thing. He didn’t expect her to just up and leave. He didn’t see the warning signs. He won’t know if it’s coming this time either.

….. But then also, why he didn’t reach out to her (besides hurt) was because it was a petty silence treatment, like "oh she left without saying a word? Fine well I won’t reach out to her either" <- man who is so not fine and collected about it. It’s been FOUR YEARSSSSSSS I wonder if he always was like… "This week she’s gonna send a letter. … Ok fine, this month she’s gonna crack. … Within the year she’ll come crawling back." and it’s a bit why it was allowed to go on for this long unchecked like… Why he still considers her his wife even though functionally she’s more of an ex by that point after 4 years.

I can never stop thinking about him and his wife they’re fucking crazyyy. Him not reaching out to her started as a silent treatment from frustration. She never reached out to him either, she just up and left, didn’t even leave or send one last letter she’s just gone and has left this all behind, the house and everything in it. It’s been 4 years but he still considers her his wife and considers themselves only "estranged", "due to circumstances we haven’t seen each other in years". His face in the panel he said this is interesting too, trying to be casual but defensive and exasperated, already dreading the judgement and questions. He moved out of his house to rent a place in Kahka Brud instead. How much of him not reaching out was avoidance… Guilt, frustration, sadness, confusion, just procrastinating and dread and fear of a rejection more concrete, or something else… Maybe realizing he doesn’t miss her as much as he should, not enough to chase after her or try to get her back, just resigning himself to it… Is he a bad husband, is he a bad person? Should they reconcile?

Not seeing it coming… It’s half trust, that this person who’s so dear to you could never just up and leave and hurt you like that, half entitlement, thinking that she would never think of leaving, and third it’s blinding himself to the warning signs, not wanting to believe or acknowledge them. Because like, there WERE some, he said she "suddenly fell into a bad mood on the way back [from the outing]" and I don’t think he’s too dumb to be aware that something was off, he literally just dismissed it and then went surprised pikachu face when it turned out things were indeed off.

Part of it is definitely, how do you even react if your wife walks out on you without warning. If it happened to me I think that I wouldn’t reach out for a while either, wait for them to reach out to me first, give them space. As I put it in one of my marchil wips, "I respect your right to be rid of me too much to try and shackle you to me if you want to leave". Inaction is easier than admitting he’s scared to check and find out that the worst case scenario is true. It’s been years and he still hasn’t worked it out why she left. Do you think that’s on purpose. That he doesnt want to know for sure. It’s so so so scary to try and do anything about it

He said he didn’t reach out right away when she left because he was petty and wanted to give her the silence treatment back. Ok but is it that he blames her for their marriage falling apart or does he blame himself and he’s just misdirecting the conflicted feelings? Did he not reach out because a part of him was too scared to know why she left or if she would refuse to come back? Did he just think that she’d come back on her own, and things would get fixed while still staying unsaid and unconfronted like they always have, the first month, then the next and the next, until it was a year in and it sunk in that oh, maybe she wasn’t coming back?

He seems genuine here when he says that he was angry about it and gave her the silent treatment, but it is an habit of his to lie to make himself look worse instead of showing vulnerability, so who knows.

He is so so scared of being affected by relationships. Same thing with his compulsive habit to disguise his worry for anger. It’s why he doesn’t want people to have expectations of him, "I’m a coward I’m selfish", because then they can’t be disappointed, they can’t be surprised if he bites, they can’t leave when you lose what they’ve been staying for.

He has avoidant tendencies too. Every time there’s an interpersonal issue he just accepts it’s out of his control immediately. He’s passive when it comes to relationship problems, just like with coworkers, relationships are a ticking time bomb to him, and he just wants to be left out of it and come out unscathed. It comes back to his pessimism. He doesn’t think that like, things could be better. According to him life is tough and cruel, you accept your lot in life and make the best out of it and that’s it. If people are scummy you don’t whine about how unfair it is, you close yourself off and work to not be taken advantage of again and adapt. So then with his wife, when Marcille is like "Have you tried… Talking?" it’s such a crazy idea that it might work at all, that he could have the power to fix things… And that’s why it’s such a big deal when he goes "Alright I’ll try… I don’t know if it’ll go as well as in the stories, but I’ll try". That CRUMB of allowing himself to be hopeful is so huge

Honestly for the longest time I misread this bit, I thought she left in the night like how Marcille framed it, but no she left after he left for work. She left after he left again.

The way it’s told, it really sounds like Chilchuck just came home from work, stayed probably a couple of days in which they went to that outing together, then left for work again right away/soon after and it’s like. Was that outing the most special thing you guys did together. You came home from like a month of work, you had one outing where she ended up having a bad time, y’all didn’t talk about it further and then you left for another couple of weeks. Are you kidding me

Your married life is waiting for your husband to come home, spending mediocre time together, being shut down when you voice discontentment, and things being left unaddressed before he leaves again.

She left when he was gone for work, but did she leave the day of, or did she flip flop on it and took a while before working up the strength to leave? Was she waiting to see if he’d say anything before leaving and when he didn’t that was the last straw?

Chilchuck trying to prove a point that half-foots can make it out there, trying to rely more on himself because that’s the only person he can trust. His wife feeling like he's leaving her behind (because he does. over and over and over and over.) This guy just keeps throwing himself into work because he thinks it's what's best for everyone. Hey sir neglecting emotional needs can be kinda detrimental to everyone involved, I think you might wanna know that ^ quotes courtesy of @soappox

And to come back to alcoholism for a bit, alcoholism is alcoholism, and someone asked why I thought that a Chilchuck with depression would drink and cope through alcohol, since drinking seems to be something cheerful to him. It does puzzle me a bit but it’s worth going over, so… I don’t think him using drinking as a coping mechanism is far fetched at all. Cheerful drunks that are alcoholic still can absolutely use alcohol in ways like that. If something makes you happier, or even just more numb which translates to you feeling more free etc etc, then I definitely think it tracks that he’d keep drinking. Like personally I do think he’d drink a lot after his wife left him, and in rough patches like that. Depression -> not wanting to have to think, the days are blurring together and you either don’t want to be conscious or you want to feel something etc etc -> drinking for the alcohol. Alcoholics tend to be, well, dependent on alcohol. If something bad happens etc they’re usually more likely to go harder on it rather than stop. We can debate on when and why Chilchuck first started to drink but it’s straight up his favorite food now and it’s deeply ingrained in his life, in his favorite outings and activities and priorities and moods and meals. A CHEERFUL DRUNK IS STILL A DRUNK!!! They drink to get happy not drink because they are happy, though obviously the two can have overlap.

Chil represses sooo much. His solution to interpersonal conflict and feelings is just don’t think about it and dull your feelings & senses to everything ✨ I love him. I need to kill him with hammers Like the other day I was thinking about an AU where he might have ran away from his neglectful home or something, but then I remembered he deals with everything including his family by dulling his feelings and senses to things 🫠 He wouldn’t leave

I’d say he doesn’t look troubled by loss through death, moreso loss through mistakes. His nightmare is his daughters dying yes, but moreso them being killed, there’s an axe in the wall etc, it’s about having failed to protect them.

If he can’t fuck something up or if he’s already fucked it up there’s this pacifying sense that he can’t have the rug pulled from under him, because that’s what having connections is, having a wife isn’t an insurance it’s a rug waiting to be pulled. And his brand is sort of Flawed Mr Mistakes Man so he’s kinda been having to cope lol. I do think he throws himself into workaholism, because it’s sort of the only way to live he knows, making yourself capable and useful and spending his days working like that, less time to think, too tired to think. Senses dulled, senses that are usually too sharp, cutting with clarity that he prefers ignoring and avoiding. Work is something he doesn’t have to feel through, something that gives him pride and self-esteem, something through all the danger and life or death risk feels safer, emotionally. No one taught him how to deal with things another way, it’s always been suck it up and work.

Conclusion

Stop smoking we love you and we don’t want you to die

No drinking will not externalize your feelings no it won’t vent them out well please Chilchuck ple-ea-ease…….

</3 They should invent an alcoholism that doesn’t make you dysfunctional and hard to be around

^ Drunk, by The Living Tombstone

I’ve been thinking about enneagrams and Chil is 6w7 highkey. Becomes 3 when stressed, a little 8 but it’s more that he wants security so much that he becomes paranoid rather than having the core of an 8 y’know. I haven’t dug into it for quotes yet but this paper goes hard if you’re curious.

Dropping my relevant Spotify playlists here bc why not: Chilchuck & his wife, marchil angst

[hacash]

some things I adore about the ‘roast at Liverpool’ scene

at a time when we still didn’t have that much focus on the players, how much of their character we got to see in each of their reactions. we got: Isaac ready to punch Nate’s lights out, Sam wilting under the first suggestion of criticism, Colin still pretty much in class-bully mode (laughing when other people get insulted but unable to take it himself), Dani just...taking the insult because it helps him get better at football, and Roy being - well, Roy.

the fact that Roy’s clearly pissed but also gets that every word Nate’s saying is true was *chef’s kiss*

I’m sorry, but ‘the only person I’ve seen lose a man more often is Carrie fucking Bradshaw’ had me dying. every last insult had me dying. this might say more about my sense of humour than anything else, but there you go.

Nate’s obvious concern for Roy stabs me in the heart every time I watch this scene.

Ted and Beard are clearly enjoying the whole thing, and seem happy with the scene’s obvious conclusion; so I struggle to buy the idea that they immediately think he’s going too harsh.

everyone says this scene says a lot about Nate’s coaching style, which is true, but they seem to forget that it says buckets about Ted’s style as well. he literally admits that the team need to hear Nate’s insults but can’t bring himself to deliver them - granted, this is probably because coming from Ted it would be too harsh, but the fact remains that Ted has clearly seen these flaws in his players for sometime and has been unwilling to point them out.

at the end of the day, the team needed to hear this criticism, and it got them the most unlikely win of the season. if Nate’s willingness to go too brutal is his achilles’ heel, Ted’s unwillingness to do so is his.

when you compare this with the ‘are you a stand-up comedian now, Colin?’ scene, it’s obvious that the team clearly love it when Nate shows his teeth a little. (before you @ me, I said a little!) as opposed to the team’s obvious disapproval at Nate’s ‘you don’t inspire anyone’ diss at Colin, in the roast they’re all clearly enjoying themselves and finding it hilarious. I do think in tight-knit friendship/teammate groups you end up taking the piss out of each other a lot and the team seem to love it when Nate joins in (a little), and you can see this positive reaction validating him through the scene.

but the more the validation grows, the more Nate doesn’t know when to stop. and you could do a whole damn meta on how when you spend a lot of time amongst friends and teammates like that you learn to read where the line is; Nate, who’s pre-Ted social life was clearly non-existent, clearly hasn’t.

(you know that scene in Arrested Development when the Bluth children are all ragging on their mother and then Buster, who’s never had the courage/freedom to do so before, joins in and just loses it? these scenes remind me a little of that.)

that little moment when Roy rips up the bench and all the footballers are pulling each other back? and Dani’s pulling Nate out the way? lovely.

[thickenmyblood]

I’ll confess my sins. When I skipped the first chapters of Capri I got stuck on Laurent’s description as spoiled and similar to overripe fruit. So i was like ah. Royal Dudley Dursley with a blonde curly wig. Sounds about right. I finally saw some fan art and was like??? Who is this anemic Victorian vampire legolas persona?? Honestly tho in an alternate universe where Auguste doesn’t die and Laurent still dislikes sports but enjoys Veres sweet meats and his metabolism is only the slightest bit slower Laurent is absolutely getting chubby. And Damen. Smh he manages to be shadiest bitch while also being appreciating. Would he insult an overweight courtier who never touched a sword? Absolutely. Would he respect a meaty sumo ringer able to throw Damen around like a rag doll? Absolutely. He seems to appreciate multiple types of bodies just fine (muscled gladiators, frail slaves, sturdy vaskian women) so I feel like he’d also appreciate curvier partners as long as they. Well know how to use their body yk. Oh and what about chubby jokaste? We don’t know enough about akielon beauty standards at all. Sure slaves are probably mostly slender and frail to add to the submissive aesthetic (tho I do remember damens fixation on his female slaves big boobs, dude is far from subtle as always). But if it’s Ancient Greek inspired beauty standards jokaste most definitely rocks some tummy rolls. Either that or she’s got super toned abs from the Pilates classes she visits with the other trophy concubines. and akielon man are properly ripped but is it king-Leonidas-washboard-abs ripped?? Or more chunky functional muscle mass ripped? Perhaps akielon noble women are even trained like Spartan women and egeria was the one with the washboard abs. Also there absolutely was a time in Vere where the chubbier the pet = the wealthier it’s owner. Im so so sorry for rambling but your post got me t h i n k i n g

This is not only hilarious but also one of the best takes I’ve ever read. There is so much to unpack here that I truly don’t know where to start.

You mentioned Dudley, whose weight and fat (derogatory) tendencies are accentuated throughout the entire Harry Potter saga. I think—and this is my personal belief, it is not something anyone else has to agree with—that part of what makes Laurent interesting and redeemable to many readers has to do with the fact that he’s beautiful*. I don’t think many people would be willing to admit that, but Laurent’s pretty privilege as a fictional character is similar to Draco Malfoy’s (in fanon) or other morally grey villains/characters’. Ugly characters are harder to forgive, for some reason.

This got me thinking that had Pacat written Laurent as canonically fat, there would be a lot of stuff going on in Damen’s head that I don’t think we’d be able to excuse as easily as we excuse other (quite horrible) thoughts of his. But also, like I mentioned above, I think Laurent would have a harder time proving to some readers that he’s not Dudley, that he’s not just a stereotype of selfishness and greed and other things fatness is associated with (like childishness or an inability to take accountability for one’s actions). This would happen not because he’s fat, but rather because we see the world through Damen’s eyes. And Damen is. . . Quite opinionated.

You mentioned Damen would be judgmental of someone’s weight based on their ability to fight. So, like you pointed out, he’d make fun of a useless in battle courtier but not of a Sumo wrestler. I think in Book 1 Damen would make fun of anything and everyone, but I do understand where you’re coming from with that statement. It makes me wonder what Damen would think of people with a mobility/physical disability. Or even with learning difficulties. Or just about anyone that, according to him, doesn’t contribute to society. If you can’t be a warrior or a bed slave, and if you’re not in a condition to be a peasant and plow fields, and if you don’t have royal blood in your veins. . . I have a hard time picturing Damen being sympathetic.

Chubby Jokaste. . . I think I’ve always thought of her as a muscled woman, given the fact that Laurent can pose as her in Book 3. There’s been a lot of discourse lately on whether Laurent is muscled or a twigly twink, which I will not get into because I. . . do not know enough about gender and/or gender expression to add anything to any argument. I am also not a gay man, so I don’t know what could be considered offensive. I am also very stupid. I also do not know what the word 'twink' means anymore.

Your ask has made me think a lot about many things I’m usually not interested in. I think it would be interesting to see a chubby Laurent who still knows how to fight, who trains, who does things other than eat and hate. Canon Laurent is slender, and yet he never manages to beat Damen in combat, so I don’t think his ability to fight would suffer much from gaining some pounds. It would be interesting to see chubby Jokaste too, even though I don’t particularly enjoy the parallels between her and Laurent in canon. It would also be interesting to see. . . different types of bodies. You mentioned the Vaskian ladies, which I like a lot, but I don’t think I’ve read or come across any fics that focus on them. I think Vannes’ pet is also described as muscular and big, but I’m afraid I don’t remember the quote and I don’t own the books, so I can’t be sure.

What I liked the most was the ending of your ask, where you went on to add little worldbuilding details. Like I said yesterday, I wish canon was more detailed so we could maybe have something to hold onto when we make certain claims. It’s hard to say which parts of Damen’s thought process are entirely his (as a prince with a lot of privilege) and which ones have to do with his culture. Pacat has pointed out some to us, like the fact that Akielons don’t enjoy certain “spectacles” of the body, like pet rings or public sex, but they do enjoy staring at bodies when they’re wrestling or performing physical activities unrelated to sex. Other things remain little mysteries, in my opinion. Do all bed slaves have the same body type? Do women wrestle? How does marriage work in Akielos? What is everyone else’s opinion on fat people? I’m sure not everyone is like Damen, who we speculate cares about having a healthy body so he can fight and. . . stuff.

I am not saying Damen is the only character who, in the historic period where Captive Prince is set, would have fatphobic thoughts. If Damen was fat, Laurent would be the first one to use that against him, especially in Book 1. I just think Damen fits the fatphobic mold better because he’s described as this hypermasculine character, very into war (I think the blurb of the book calls him a warrior prince?) and manly things. Which is not to say war is inherently manly. Which is not to say Laurent isn’t manly. Which is not to say. . . whatever.

Captive Prince is a fantasy trilogy, set in. . . the past. Concepts such as fatphobia or toxic masculinity are not exactly applicable, but I think it’s fun to explore Damen’s character through his flaws. Laurent has a lot of flaws, but Damen’s are sometimes confused with virtues. In my opinion, they’re at their best when they’re being disgustingly horrible to each other.

I’m sorry for writing you a 90 paragraph response.

* He's almost universally beautiful in the Captive Prince world. Damen finds him pretty, and Torveld, and Jord (we've read that 'cute' quote where he describes Laurent at 15 to Aimeric). Not saying fat = ugly. I'm saying it seems like the 'hegemonic' body type for pretty is Laurent's, otherwise. . . why would everyone he comes in contact with comment on his pretty looks?

[essayofthoughts]

2, 4, 6, 7, 21 :D

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

Honestly, I’m having a lot of fun with my current Critical Role (Campaign 1) fic project which has the WIP title of “Ghost Cass”. The premise of it is simple and comes out in the first chapter so I don’t feel bad about dropping that minor spoiler here:

When Cass and Percy escape the Briarwoods Cass is shot down - she dies - but death isn’t going to stop her helping the last family she has left. Cass lingers as a ghost, haunting and helping her brother.

The whole thing is a lot of fun and lets me get into some really messy thoughts while closely following canon and thus lets me work out basically ALL of my complicated thoughts and feels about Percy and the general de Rolo family tragedy and a lot of the interpersonal dynamics at play in Vox Machina and how they change. It’s gonna be FUN.

... and long. (It’s almost 300 pages already, unfinished. Help meeeee~)

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

Hnnnng. That’s a hard call. Hmm. Okay we’ll go with this:

There, descending the mountains, is a bright spark of flame.

It’s racing toward them beneath the thunderhead, seeming to almost pull the clouds along with it. It descends apace, burning the ashy grey shadegrass in its wake before the rains douse it - bright embers, black soot, bone-pale ash in a trail behind. The stormfront chases just ahead of it, the drops falling so thick and so fast that even at this distance they can see the rainfall, hear the thunder. 

“Over there!” he bellows, pointing with one hand, readying the pepperbox with the other. The building wind whips his words away and he tries again. “Over there!”

Vex’ahlia is already turning; she’s been keeping a close eye on him since they left town - wary, he supposes, just as her brother is, and he can’t blame her. 

“I see it,” she replies, unslinging the bow from her back and drawing an arrow ready. “Vax!”

The stormclouds thunder towards them, the sky as dark as the shadegrass beneath their feet and so thick they can scarcely see the rising moon. The wind cuts through Percy’s old worn coat, nipping at his skin and sending the fabric whipping around his legs. 

Then the rain hits, an icy deluge, and in it’s wake: the flames, and what follows it.

Shortly after Percy is found by VM and they’re hunting the nightmare. I just really like the description, I’m very pleased with the imagery and the way I snuck a note in about both Vex’s perceptiveness and Percy’s thoughts about that - as much as the fact that he’s noticed it. I’ve been trying to improve on subtlety and the fun of having things simply... there to be inferred by the reader is delightful.

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

In the last two stories? Percy for balance and the first two parts of RA; an as-yet-unseen original character in Arc3. In the current WIP? Cass. Sometimes it’s so nice to be able to just rag on Percy when he’s being stupid and few are as good at it as Cass has the potential to be. Sibling bonds and the fact they know each other too well to be able to hide much from each other plus the benefit that they don’t really want to hurt each other - it gives the chance to really show Percy’s flaws from the perspective of someone who is affected by those flaws (and has her own) and someone who Percy cares about enough not to be a stubborn prick over it (mostly). In canon he gets a lot of growth thanks to Keyleth and Vex; in this his little sister is going to nag him to improve even before that.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

Aaaaaangst.

Also, I just really enjoy discussing trauma and the like, but the general way people interpret this is angst. When it comes to specific style... I like imagery and trying to create an image. I like giving clear focussed visuals for specific events and recurring motifs for intangible actions - the sense of an emotion, or the way one edges around uncomfortable thoughts. I like trying to find ways to put those to words.

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

Well, if we’re talking about the current WIP... possibly a podcast? Film and the like wouldn’t work; there’s so much going on inside character’s heads that’s very very important and very much the focus (this holds true for my last two stories, the Ripley’s Assistant series and That balance may return, as well). So I think a podcast would have the best odds of working. Chapter by chapter, time to dwell in a perspective, able to switch voices to extra-emphasise some of the POV shifts... yeah I think that’d be the best alternate option.

Send me a question number about my current fic! Askbox Here.

[stillness-in-green]

Shigaraki, the League and “Redemption”

(In this post: 1700 words about how much I feel like stories/meta in which Shigaraki is rescued or redeemed miss the entire point of Shigaraki.)

It's a big open question how much of Shigaraki's backstory was engineered by All For One.  We're not even sure if AFO is the villain who killed Nana's husband, the event that kicked off the entire downward spiral of the Shimura family, much less what degree of involvement he had in Tenko's manifestation of Decay.  There's a tremendous amount of well-thought-out, interesting meta and fic about what will happen when Shigaraki finds out the truth, whether he can or should still be redeemed as he currently stands, or how Tenko might have been saved from ever becoming Shigaraki to begin with.  While I have read and enjoyed quite a lot of those theories and stories, I still find myself bothered by the prevalence of that line of thought because it ignores the fact that hero society stands condemned regardless.  

Whether or not AFO gave Tenko the Decay quirk knowing what would happen, whether he found out about Tenko the night of the accident or never lost track of Kotaro from the very beginning, in truth, none of that matters to the narrative of the League on the whole.  Nothing about Shigaraki's past has any bearing on the pasts of the other members. Trying to decide how to "save" Shigaraki avoids the fact that he is the leader of the League of Villains and their pain still stands regardless of their leader's history. 

You cannot act as though saving Shigaraki--with All Might, Inko, Izuku, Eraserhead, anyone--would redeem hero society, because Shigaraki is not hero society's only victim. He's not even its most straightforward one!  The condemnation he articulates of the world he lives in can't be addressed by him realizing he was manipulated by AFO all along or getting a good therapist in prison, because the world he lives in has failed a good many more people than just him. 

Let's break it down.  

The League Members

Twice fell through the cracks because of a lack of social support after his parents were killed in a villain attack.  He was just a teenager back then--what arrangements were made about where he was going to live?  If he was old enough that foster care/being placed in a group home wasn't a good option, did he instead have a stipend from the government?  Where was the social worker who should have been overseeing his case?  Where was his homeroom teacher when he dropped out of school?  What support should have been available when he wound up homeless on the streets?  Heroes stop villains and are rewarded both socially and monetarily for doing so, but the much more difficult and involved work of dealing with the fallout from those battles is clearly undervalued, badly so, in comparison.  Hero society, which prioritizes glamorized reaction over everyday prevention, failed Bubaigawara Jin.

Spinner had the wrong kind of face.  X-Men-style mutant discrimination left him isolated and alienated, shunned by the inhabitants of his backwater hometown because of his animal-type quirk.  To say nothing about the threat of violent hate crimes implied by the existence of a KKK analogue!  But it goes further than just the bigotry of his neighbors--Spinner's quirk was also unremarkable, meaning that, in a society that prizes flashy and offense-based quirks in its heroes, Spinner would have had few if any role models.  Given how many heroes there are, it seems strange to consider that there isn't a single straightforward heteromorph for Spinner to idolize, but given how strongly he latches onto first Stain's warped ideals and later Shigaraki's nihilistic grandeur, Spinner is clearly a young man desperate for a role model--if a hero that fit the bill existed, he wouldn't be a villain today.  So he's failed directly by his community for their bigotry and indirectly by society for the way it told him, in a thousand ways big and small, that Iguchi Shuuichi was not a person worth valuing.

Toga had the wrong kind of quirk.  It's true that, more than anyone else in the League, she feels like a character who would always have struggled with mental stability, even with the best help imaginable--but she didn't get the best help imaginable, did she?  She got parents who called her a freak, who berated a child barely into grade school about how unnatural and awful the desires she was born with were.  She was put into a quirk counselling program that apparently only caused her to feel more detached from society.  If Curious' characterization of quirk counselling is at all accurate, it seems to focus not on how to manage one's unusual or difficult quirk in healthy or productive ways, but rather on stressing what society considers "normal," on teaching its participants how to force themselves into that mold.  Hero society wants people with different needs to learn how to function like "normal" people; it is unwilling to look for ways to accommodate such people on a societal level.  Toga Himiko was failed by a society that demonized and othered her for a trait that she did not choose and innate desires that she never asked to experience.

And then, most prominently of all*, there's Dabi.  We all know where the big Dabi backstory mystery is going, and his is the most open condemnation of hero society of them all.  Dabi was raised on a heady cocktail, parental abuse mixed liberally with unquestioned acceptance of the fundamental importance of having a powerful quirk.  Whatever else can be said of Endeavor's path to redemption, the old Enji is emblematic of everything wrong with hero society: the fundamental devaluing of those without power, the fervent strain to push oneself past one's limits over and over and over again, regardless of the consequences to your health or your relationships, the practice of raising children to glorify a dangerous profession that fights the symptoms of societal ills rather than the root causes.  The ugly secrets hidden in the Todoroki house are the ugly secrets hidden within hero society's ideals, and because he embodies those ideals so thoroughly, of course Endeavor is lionized and well-paid by a society that never had to see Todoroki Touya's scars.

Mirror of Reality

All of these issues map to things in real life, and I don't only mean in a vague, universal sense--I mean they reflect on specific and observable Japanese problems. Read up on koseki family registries and consider how the dogged insistence on maintaining them impacted the Shimura family, tracked down by a monster.  Look into societal bias against orphans and imagine how it shaped peoples' reactions to teenaged Jin and his alleged 'scary face.'  Read up on how Japan approaches mental and physical disabilities, on what it regularly does to homeless camps, on what responses get trotted out when someone comes forward with a story about closeted abuse.  The League embodies these issues in indirect, sometimes fantastical ways, but they're not what I would call subtle, either; there's a reason the generally poor, disenfranchised League members are contrasted with powerful, urbane criminals like All for One, callous manipulators like Overhaul, and entrenched pillars of society like Re-Destro.  

Hero AUs are a fun thought exercise and all, but the League exists to call out and typify very real problems in heroic society and, by metaphorical extension, modern day Japanese society as well.  Hero society studiously looks away from its victims.  It doesn't want to see them and it thinks even trying to talk about them is disruptive and distasteful.  There's no indication in-universe that there's even a movement trying to change this state of affairs.  Certainly there are a great many things that could have changed to spare the BNHA world Shigaraki Tomura, but none of those quick, easy solutions would have saved Twice or Toga, Spinner or Dabi.  The League of Villains is the punishment, the overdue reckoning that their country will have to face for its myriad failures--for letting its social safety nets grow ragged, for failing to stamp out quirk-based prejudice, for allowing its heroes to operate with so little oversight.  For growing so complacent that not one person had the moral wherewithal to extend a hand to a bloodied, lost, suffering child.  

Shigaraki, Past and Future

One of the most heartbreaking and yet awe-inspiring aspects of Shigaraki's characterization in his Deika City flashback is that he was thoughtful and compassionate enough to reach out to other kids who were being excluded and teased by the rest of his peer group.  The League is foreshadowed for him even as a child, because even back then, he was a kid suffering repression and repudiation and so had empathy for others in similar straits.  Young Tenko is the person who would have reached out a hand to the scary but obviously needy Tenko wandering the streets; Tomura, despite everything All For One did to him, still retains that core of fellow-feeling that invites other outcasts to play with him.

"Saving" Shigaraki without addressing the societal flaws that created the people gathered under his banner negates the entire point he and the League exist to raise. I think readers will be forced to confront those flaws alongside Midoriya and the rest of his classmates, who the story has made a point to keep mostly isolated and on a steady PLUS ULTRA diet of all the same rhetoric that leads to consequences like the League to begin with.  I only wish more of the fandom--hero and villain fandom alike--was on the same page and writing their fic and meta accordingly.

Footnotes and Etc.

*The only characters in the League whose backstories we don't have much window on are Mr. Compress and Magne, both of whom are framed as seeing society as repressive.  Magne openly says as much to Overhaul; Mr. C intimates it to the 1-A kids during the training camp attack.  I'm inclined to hold off on commenting on them very thoroughly, though, because in neither case do we know exactly what drove them to crime in the first place. That's not a huge problem for Sako--if anyone on that team is into flamboyant villainy for the sheer joy of it, it's him--but I would definitely want to know more specifics about Magne's personal history before I correlate her experience as a trans woman with her portrayal as a violent, even lethal, criminal.  That would get right into the problematic elements of portraying all these societal outcasts as villains, people who undoubtedly have a point, but have taken to terrorism to illustrate it.  It's very possible that, for all that the League maps to real problems in Japan, we're still going to get a very mealy-mouthed, "But it's still wrong to lash out when you could protest nonviolently and work with your oppressors to seek a peaceful solution," moral from all this.

P.S.  None of the above meta even takes into account the multiple non-League characters whose stories illustrate various failings of hero society--Gentle Criminal, Hawks, Shinsou, even Midoriya himself, as those endless reams of Villain!Deku AUs are ever hasty to expound upon.  Vigilantes touches on the idea of "hero" and "villain" categorizations as being almost entirely political in their inception, as is also hinted at with historical characters like Destro.  Seriously, the mountain of problems with hero culture just looms higher with every passing arc!  

P.P.S.  I absolutely do not mean to imply with this meta that Japan suffers uniquely from any of the problems discussed above.  Other countries obviously have their own difficulties with homelessness, accessibility of care, victim blaming, and so forth.  Horikoshi is writing in and about his own culture, though, and stripping Shigaraki of his villainous circumstances in the interest of making him happier and/or more palatable strikes me as being kind of culture-blind in a way that it’s very easy for Western fans to unthinkingly slip into.  Just some food for thought.

[smilingleoo]

Seokjin Drabble- he slaps you during an argument pt.2

Request:  Hello there~ i'm the one who request seokjin slap you! Omg omg i love it very much:🤧🤧🤧 Can you pleasee do for part 2??? I'm curious about what happened with JINN AAHHHH ily!

Author´s Note: I was waiting for someone to request this! I loved writing it too, hope you enjoy the second part as much...

-------

------

Yoongi placed the mug of coffee on your hand as he took a seat in front of you. The slight burn of the liquid´s warmth reminded you that this was all real, not some random nightmare hunting your slumber. Reluctant, you took a comforting sip of the dark beverage and stared at Yoomgi, who awaited patiently his cue to talk. You sighed before nodding, your throat remaining too sore from a previous crying session.

“ Seokjin had been really vulnerable as regards...hate”-Yoongi spoke softly, knowing more than well that these words could pierce through your now fragile heart. You contained a strangled sob from escaping and bit on your bottom lip, ushering him to continue-” You know him, he has never been anything but confident. But, lately, I don´t know what destroyed that. I recall noticing his new behaviour after an interview but I don´t remember it well enough to know if something harmful was directed to him”

Everyone loved Jin, you knew it because you watched every performance and talk shows. Interviewers were more than pleased to notice that BTS´ eldest member was an open-minded crackhead that did not shy away from what he wasn´t used to. In fact, that was how you two met. If he hadn´t approached you first, you wouldn´t have started dating in the first place. Even if that was not the case and people did hate one him often, he knew how to brush those things off.

There was something Yoongi and you were missing.

“ Out of nowhere, he started taking this fast-metabolism pills and began starving himself”-Yoongi coughed to hide his obvious sadness-” You know Jin, he adores food. I´m really worried here, Y/n”

But your mind had flown away mid-sentence. Your thoughts spiralled within a rambling tornado, trying to formulate a coherent hypothesis. Who had suffered the same problem before? Something clicked inside your head-” Yoongi do you know the show´s name?”

He nodded frowning.

You turned on his computer and googled the video. With cunning attention, you analyzed every breath and movement, When your theory was confirmed, you paused the video and grinned-” Seokjin is not doing this because of hate, he is destroying himself so other people focus on his flaws instead of his member´s.”

“Explain”

“ Okay, so you saw how the interviewer kept commenting on Jimin´s appearance and weight?”-Yoongi nodded as anger burnt in his eyes-” Everyone knows what he went through and he healthy he is now. However, some people keep on being suspicious and mean. Seokjin is sick of this bullshit and decided to focus all the rumour-thirsty people towards him”

“ It´s a really good hypothesis, Y/N. But how can you justify it, by a simple angry face?”-he huffed.

“ He isn´t being subtle about his decisions”- you mumbled-” His pills weren´t hidden and he has avoided “Eat Jin”  Vlives. People have started to notice and are talking about it. It´s all too obvious”

Without even hearing his answer, you dashed out of the dorms and towards your apartment.

()

“ Kim Seokjin!”- you called out for him. The halls were silent. Not even the faint buzzing of the television rung through your ears. Your hart began thrumming loudly, ragged breath leaving your parted lips. You were not gone for too long, he couldn´t have...

“ Where were you?”-his voice was like the softest balm on your burning wounds. He was slumped on the couch as he gazed the dull ceiling, a fuzzy blanket draped around his thin, pale body. With measured steps, you placed yourself beside him, crouching so you could asses his face. Hollow cheeks, dark-blue circles under his empty eyes and a sick pink tint on his lips told you he was reaching his limit-” Baby, you don´t need to do this to yourself”

His nose quivered, the only sign of acknowledgement you would get. He was hearing you out and that was enough-” I know why you´re doing in it. It´s really sweet but you can´t nor should damage yourself to protect others”

Seokjin´s eyes turned glossy, the dim light in the room reflecting like the tinniest sparkle of hope. He loved how you could figure him out with just some bare details-” Look at me, Jinnie. You´re nor alone...You´ll never be alone”

He was handsome even now, destroyed to his core. His thick lashes protected his vulnerable gaze as his head moved sideways, gifting you his only demonstration of weakness. He was so tired-” They were making fun of him. They don´t have a clue about the Korean entertainment industry...I-I just wanted to-”

“-I know”-you hushed him by pressing your warm palm on his icy-cold cheek. He shuddered beneath your touch but made an effort to stay put. He had missed you every damn second he had pushed you away and now that he had you near him, he couldn't express how sorry he was properly.

“ Y/n, I´m really sorry”-he sobbed. You shook your head as tears rolled down your skin, drowning in the soft carpet beneath. Your hand tangled itself between his neglected lock, combing them with so much love-” I shouldn´t have treated you like that. I´m a m-monster and I-”

“ Stop talking”-you said. Your lips kissed his forehead as you climbed on the couch behind him. Limbs circling his trembling torso, you rested your chin on his shoulder while you whispered your endless love to his ear-” I´m here with you, Jinnie”

After some minutes, Seokjin spoke-” Y/N”

“ Yes?”

“ I love you”

“ I love you too”

[mokonalikescake]

Our Love Was Foretold in the Stars! (WIP)

Shallura Week Day 7: WIP

A big thank you to @shalluraweek for organizing a successful event, and for all the wonderful writers and artists who flooded the tag! It was wonderful!

Here’s a snippet of chapter 4 from my Tanabata-inspired fic:

The air was cool in the early morning. Allura had stayed up the night before, mulling over the flaws of her quintessence battery; her device was able to hold quintessence for a full day now, but with the amount of quintessence it absorbed, what came out of it was barely a trickle.

Allura woke up on her bed, barely remembering making the trip from the lab to her bedroom. The bags under her eyes were deep and dark, belying the few hours of sleep the princess was able to muster. Her mind was filled to the brim with calculations, models, and static.

The princess begrudgingly got out of bed, mentally cursing her internal body clock for waking her up at this hour. She pulled a deep burgundy dress with golden accents over her body and sat in front of her vanity. She looked at her face in the mirror and cringed. Her dark circles could be hidden under a few swipes of makeup, but she couldn't erase the ring of pink lining her tired eyes; however, it was the best she could do right now.

Allura snuck into the kitchens, swiping a pastry. The lone baker in the room happened to catch her and bowed, a little amusement in his eyes. The princess blushed and gave a nod back. She took a bite, immediately immersed in the sugary sweetness of juniberry jam bursting out of the flaky crust. 

Allura hummed. She definitely needed the treat after the rough night she had.

“This is delicious!” she exclaimed,”Wonderful as always, Fraylen.”

The baker smiled at the princess's approval.

Allura quietly walked her empty hallways as she finished her breakfast. The first traces of sunlight started peeking through the windows, slowly growing bigger and brighter as she went to the training grounds. 

The grass squelched under her feet, dew still coating each blade. The grounds were peaceful and quiet, a rare but welcome sensation. 

The kingdom was in the midst of a week-long festival honoring the creation of the world by the goddess. King Alfor had suspended court, and he permitted many of the servants to go back home during the holiday. Even the knights had suspended their training. Very few people would be up this early.

Captain Shirogane just happened to be one of the few who were.

His shirt, a rag, and a flask of water were placed carefully on the grass. Allura picked them up and watched. The man was without his shirt, and the princess admired the view.

The man’s body was pure muscle, sculpted through years of discipline and training. He moved gracefully and deftly around the training grounds, and Allura committed every part of his body to memory, for future daydreaming.

The captain finished all of his drills, his stance wide and his sword pointing towards his sole audience member. His eyes grew wide. 

“Princess!” He quickly sheathed his sword. Allura could see him flush a deep red all the way down the column of his neck. The man stood stock still as she approached him.

“Captain, please,” she teasingly reproached him, “we are alone. I told you before that you can call me Allura.”

Those words seemed to appease the captain, who immediately relaxed and gave her a small smile.

“If that’s the case then, Allura, you can call me Shiro.”

“Shi-ro,” Allura tested the way it sounded, “Shortened from your last name, I presume?”

Shiro gave her a nod. “Everyone but my commanding officer has called me Shiro since I was training.”

The princess hummed in understanding. She was still holding the items he left on the grass, and she offered them back to him. Shiro thanked her as he took the rag. He quickly wiped the sweat off his face and neck, once more pulling Allura’s attention back to his body. 

From the moment she saw them during the drills, Allura’s attention was most captured by Shiro’s scars. They varied in size and color; some were faded scratches, while others were more angry looking, swathes of pink scar tissue on his chest from wounds that haven’t completely healed yet. Some might feel repulsed by the marks on his body, but the princess felt fascination and appreciation, twinged with a pinch of sadness. Her father said Shiro had went through a lot to become the Captain of the Black Lion Forces, but she could hardly imagine what he had to face. 

Her eyes quickly mapped the contours and ridges of his body before looking back up to his face, only to meet his onyx-colored eyes, Her face felt warm again. Allura quickly looked away while shaking her arm holding his shirt.

The captain grabbed the shirt, one again murmuring his thanks,  and put it on. Allura silently thanked the Goddess for Shiro not commenting on her ogling. 

He then took the flask out of her hands. Their fingers brushed each other for a moment. Allura felt as if someone zapped her with quintessence, and she wondered if Shiro felt the same. If he did, he had no reaction; instead, he hastily opened the flask and gulped the water down. A drop of water escaped his lips, sliding down his jaw. Allura traced the droplet with her eyes as it moved down his neck. She noticed that the scratches there were, thankfully, few and faint in color.

Quickly realizing she was ogling again, the blushing princess stared at the grass, trying to gain her composure. 

“Given how my father suspended training, I thought you would be taking a break,” Allura remarked.

“The best time for me to train is when I have no one else to teach. Besides, this is how I relieve stress from breaking up these two knights who keep bickering,” Shiro groaned at the mention of his two worst students.

Allura knew the two whom Shiro was referring to. They were skilled, and they were pretty good when paired together, but eventually one of them would turn a simple drill into a contest. 

“I can only imagine,” the princess replied, “You must have all the patience in the world.”

Shiro shrugged, “Patience yields focus. There’s a time and a place to release my frustration, and it’s never when I’m training others. How would I get my men to trust me if I yell without thinking?”

The pair lapsed into silence as Shiro wiped his brow.

“Are you finished with your training for the day?” the princess inquired. 

“I am. I’m going to take a bath and then go down to the village for the festival.”

“Perfect! I have to make an appearance there myself. Would you be my escort?” Allura asked, hope quickly morphing into horror that she brazenly asked the Captain of the Black Lion Forces to be with her on his sole day off. 

“N-not that you have to! You’re off duty today and you should enjoy it however you like -”

Shiro cut her off by giving her a bow. She noticed the small smile gracing his handsome face.

“It would be an honor.”

[crimsonbluemoon]

Working For Love: A TerrorMoo Story 7/17

Still sick, still trying to be on time with my posts. Sorry if I’m not responding to people, its just been a really busy week and the holidays are a bit of a mess. I’m hoping that when I go on vacation after Christmas I’ll answer asks and stuff. For now, please enjoy ^.^ 

Previous Part

Start from the beginning

Brock wasn’t a quitter. 

If anything had proved that over the past three months, it was his improvement in the gym. Once a nervous wreck who was too hesitant to try anything but the treadmill, Brock had started to branch out after losing more weight. The health articles and helpful advice from the guys at the gym (he’d even go as far to say his friends) had explained that doing cardio was great, but needed to be paired with healthy eating and weights. The free weights were still too daunting to approach (the men that lingered there had biceps the size of Brock’s head!), but the weight machines weren’t too intimidating. So Brock finalized a plan, and after his walk on the treadmill had finished, he set his sights on a new part of the gym to conquer. 

But it wasn’t as simple as Brock had originally thought; each machine had different weight ratios and knobs to alter the machine, and Brock was hesitant to touch any of it. The clanking of the adjustments felt loud to Brock, despite knowing that nobody around him would even take notice. They were plugged into their music and their own work-out routines, just the same as Brock was when he was in the zone. The old feelings of being watched came back full force as he tried to adjust the seat, nearly dropping a swear when the latch pinched his finger. It wasn’t a terrible pain, but more of an embarrassment for messing up something as simple as a seat adjustment. His face flushed as he stared down at the first machine, wondering if it was supposed to be a sign. Distantly, a memory sung to him like a siren, casting a wave of insecurity over his anxious soul. 

“You really can’t lift that? Your arms must just be for decoration, Brock, because they don’t have any muscle on them. We need to get you to a gym or something.”

Brock’s anger and resentment of his ex was no longer a gaping wound, but a scar he gave little thought to anymore. The longer he spent away from the rose-tinted image he had of their relationship, the more he understood their flaws. Sure, Brock had some responsibility in their discourse, something Craig never refused to acknowledge anytime the topic came up. Some of the nitpicking he did wasn’t always needed, but used as a defense mechanism when feeling bad about himself. And there was his struggle to try new things, despite his ex being willing to take risks on Brock’s tastes and hobbies. But he wasn’t a martyr, either; Brock could make peace with the fact that his ex treated him like an expectation over a gift. Like he simply thought that Brock should be there by his side until he decided he no longer needed him. Maybe until he found someone in better shape with the arm muscles he’d always ragged on Brock for not having. 

The scars were small now, but at times like this, they still whispered in ways Brock struggled to ignore. 

“God, I hate this machine.” The familiar voice didn’t cause Brock to jump as often as it used to, the warm body by his side making his toes flex pleasantly in his shoes. He glanced in confused silence to Brian, who didn’t hesitate to plop down onto the machine that Brock had been staring at for two minutes. “The calibrations are always so specific and I don’t like how hard the seat is against my ass.” 

“I thought Tyler told you to wear a hat,” Brock said, trying (and partially failing) not to think of Brian’s rear pressed up against hard objects. Craig would be proud, which wasn’t a comforting thought. 

“Tyler also tells Mini he’s not interested, yet lets him come here and sexually harass him without making him pay for his gym membership.” Brian skimmed the weight options of the machine that Brock knew his friend used on a daily basis. “Just can’t trust a man with that poor of taste. So I think one of the elliptical machines is wearing my hat right now.”

“He’s going to fire you one day.” They both knew it wasn’t true; despite his refusal to follow the dress code, Brian was Tyler’s right hand man at running the gym. It was common knowledge to most who frequented the gym often, especially with how much time Brian spent there. Brock doubted that Brian would ever really take credit where it was due, because he wasn’t helping Tyler for glory or recognition. He seemed genuinely invested in helping his friend’s business thrive, which compared to Nogla’s constant promotion of the establishment at his apartment complex. 

“And never see this beautiful face again? He’d had to close down from all the broken hearts.” Brian’s little smirk always sent Brock’s heart into a skittish flurry, though by now he’d learn to lean into the sensation over fighting it. Brian’s lovable personality was so comforting and warm that he couldn’t help it; he felt safe showing his weaknesses to Brian. From how often the other members at the gym reached out to him for questions or help, it was obvious the feeling was common. He wanted to show Brian how intricate he was to making the gym a welcoming environment. 

“What are you doing?” Brock asked instead, taking a step back when Brian finally clapped his hands and pushed off the seat of the machine. 

“Alright, this should be the right settings for you. Take a seat and tell me what you think.” The command didn’t hold any authority or sway, but Brock found himself following Brian’s request when a hand on the small of his back lead him to sit down. Guiding him each step of the way, Brian’s voice stayed eased when he wrapped his hands around Brock’s, adjusting the grip he had on the handles of the arm press. “Keep your fingers facing away from you so you have your strongest part of your grip parallel to your chest. It’ll help you get a better push when you lift up. Don’t use your feet, or you won’t get the same tension in your tricep and it’ll lesson some of your work-out. And make sure to take a good breath before starting your reps, okay? I started you small with weights, but you should be straining by the end of ten pushes. Think you can try this?” 

“Just don’t laugh when I can’t get past one.” Brock tried to make it sound like a joke, but he remembered the phantom pinches from his ex that littered the saggier part of his arm. He’d always held more power in his legs, nothing he’d been ashamed of before the break-up, so the little pokes and comments hadn’t been a passing thought for Brock back then. Now, as he stared at the arms preparing to push the handles of the machine up, Brock couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

“That’s one more than you could do yesterday.” But Brian just made it so easy to stomp out the ghosts of the past with his candid words and positive aura. “And that’s something to be proud of.” 

“Right.” The word was weak when he whispered it, fingers nervously dancing along the soft grips of the handles. His focus turned internal, flexing the muscles in his hands once and nodding. “Right, okay. Here I go.”

And surprisingly, when he pushed into the motion of the machine, it moved. It wasn’t the steadiest of movements, and his arms shook when they came down, but he didn’t fail. Brock almost forgot to hold up the weights, but a quick reminder from Brian to ‘breathe and go again’ had him right back into the swing of things. He took a slow and steady pace, trying to only focus on the motions of his arms and the little hints of help Brian provided. He didn’t get to ten the first set, eight being far too much for him before he dropped the handles down. But Brian looked over the moon at his attempt, and Brock had never felt like such a winner for something he didn’t complete.

“That was great!” Encouragement poured from Brian like a water spout, hands clapping onto Brock’s shoulders to show his excitement. “You did eight of em, Brocky. You rock.” 

“I didn’t get to ten, though.” Despite his response, Brock let himself lean into Brian’s comforting touch, which kept him from sinking into negative self-talk. 

“Seven more than you thought you could do, right?” Which was true enough to make Brock nod. The smile didn’t wipe off Brian’s face as he led Brock to another machine, using the same slow and encouraging tactic as before. The attention was appreciated but confusing to Brock, who wondered how Brian had managed to sneak the time away from his actual duties at the gym. 

But 20 minutes and six machines later, Brock got his answer. 

“Hope you enjoyed your little date.” Tyler seemed less prickly when he tossed out the words, his glare falling into an eye-roll with little heat. “Cause I’m clocking that as your break.” 

“It was worth it.” Brock doubted Tyler meant the threat because he wasn’t a bad boss. If anything, Tyler was coming up with an excuse to not write Brian up for ditching his duties. But the brightness of Brian’s eyes proved he meant his reply, even when he gave Brock a wink and moved away to argue with Tyler. Leaving the gym that day felt different, his muscles already protesting when he shifted the car into gear. He was sure he’d feel the pain tomorrow, and the pain the next day when he did the routine over again. But that was okay, because he was okay. 

Brock wasn’t a quitter, but it was nice to have Brian in his corner anyways.

Fun times at the gym for Brock and Brian! Its like a cute little first date. Hope you guys are enjoying this story, its been fun to write. As always, like, reblog, and let me know what you think! <3

[boat-dock]

“Knowing you is for the Better” chapter 7

this is a chapter I’ve been very excited to write for a long time!! Hope you guys enjoy!!

New Orleans was exactly like Hope remembered it, the perfect mixture of vibrant colorful life and a wild dangerous power that always seemed to follow the Mikaelson family wherever they went. However much she loved the Salvator school, the quarter will always be her home, even though half of its inhabitants have tried to kill her. 

Hope’s aunt Freya and her family met them at the door of their family home in a flurry of hugs and laughs before they all settled in for dinner. Nik attached himself to Hope’s side and had no plans of letting go anytime soon. He was particularly shy for a three-year-old, but he and Hope had a connection, they might not have been siblings but Hope could only imagine this was the kind of love that her father and his brothers and sisters all shared. 

It was strange, all of them in the same house again, she thought it would get better as time passed but weeks later and Hope could tell that everyone was trying to be on their best behavior, for her. They saw how vulnerable she was now after everything she’s gone through the past year and they wanted to give her a stable environment. Which somehow made it all so much worse. She missed the chaos that came with her family, she was tired of being handled with kid gloves. 

What did get better with time was the blood lust. Hope learned to safely feed on human blood, to control her urges and to restrain herself. Josie was right, it was a lot like dealing with her magic, keeping it under control every hour of every day for the rest of her life. 

Of all the things that Hope missed about home, one of them wasn’t Mardi Gras. It’s not that she hated the crowds or the party, she hated the responsibility that fell on her shoulders because of it. For the past four years, the quarter chose four girls to be princesses in a parade, one witch, one wolf, one vampire, and Hope. Every year she got dressed up in gowns and crowns, parading through the streets and attending balls; she hated every second of it. But she did it anyway because it represented the quarter as a unified people despite their differences. She could handle one day of torture if it benefited her people.

She’d expected Mardi Gras this year to be just like every other year, long and loud and boring, at least until she got the phone call. 

This wasn’t the first time Josie had snuck away to New Orleans, last time however she had a cover story and she didn’t have her twin with her. They were royally screwed when they got home from their impromptu vacation but Josie decided not to focus on that right now. She chose to be excited instead. She was excited to experience the city at its best and most importantly she was excited to see Hope again. 

Josie felt Hope’s absence like a missing piece of herself over the few weeks she’d been gone, but she’d tried her best to focus on herself and heal, the same way Hope was. It was harder than she’d anticipated but nothing worthwhile was ever easy.

She followed Lizzie off the bus and onto the street, swarming with people, who were already very drunk despite it barely being breakfast time. “So we made it,” Lizzie said, taking in the city,” but how exactly are we supposed to find Hope? They're thousands of people here and we don’t know where she lives?” Josie’s signature pout deepened as her sister pointed out the flaw in their plan. 

She yelled over the noise” we’ll figure that out later, right now I’m starving. Let’s find something to eat.” they linked arms so as not to get separated and pushed through the crowd until they found a small corner cafe. The smell coming from inside was intoxicating and they found themselves going inside without even discussing it. They seated themselves in the back corner at a table for two with a small bouquet of daisies in the middle and waited patiently to have their order taken. They were the only customers there so Lizzie started getting impatient fast when they weren’t waited on right away, but Josie used the time to take in the city. 

A minute or two later an older man with a white beard appeared at their table and placed a large plate of beignets in front of them,” We didn’t order these, sir,” Josie said sweetly, proud of herself for remembering to add sir at the end.

“Read the card little lady,” he said with a kind smile and a soft southern accent, motioning to the brown envelope sitting on the plate that Josie didn’t even notice.

Lizzie grabbed the card and ripped it open before Josie could. She scrunched her eyebrows together as she read aloud,” Welcome to the Crescent City, enjoy your meal. Love H.M” Lizzie laughed and handed the note to her sister so she could read it too,” How on earth does she know we are here? We just got here.” Josie didn’t have that answer but she could guess who did. 

“Excuse me,” she said, getting the attention of the man who brought the note,” Do you know the girl who wrote this note? Do you know Hope?” 

He returned this time with two cups of coffee, but it wasn’t him who answered, a lady with dyed red hair in a messy bun stuck her head out of a window in the wall that led to the kitchen,” everyone in the quarter knows who Hope Mikaelson is,” neither of the twins was surprised by this,” she’s the best thing to come out of that damned house in two hundred years.” 

“Do you know where we could find her?” Lizzie asked

“If you’re looking for her you should watch the parade later today,” the man said. Josie leaned closer to get a look at his name tag, it read Benny. 

Before Josie could respond the lady from the kitchen spoke up again,” but that’s not for hours and you girls look hungry, so what can I make for you,” 

After they placed their orders the twins dug into the beignets. There was no doubt that it was the best food around. They ate their breakfast in silence, more focused on the food than anything else. After they finished Josie decided to try and get more answers,” So what time is this Parade we should be going to?” 

“It starts at 10:30 but if you want a good spot you’ll need to be out there much earlier,” Benny said, clearing their plates. 

Lizzie checked the time on her phone and made a face,” we better get going then,” she said and they stood going to the register.

“Your check’s been taken care of. You girls go enjoy the parade.” Benny said, waving them off. Josie was shocked, and she and Lizzie met eyes for a moment trying to decide whether they should push this or not.” I’m serious now,” He said noticing their uneasiness,” go enjoy the city,” 

They knew they couldn’t fight good old southern hospitality so they said goodbye and once again faced the chaos of Mardi Gras. They found a spot near the road and waited, Josie got distracted for a moment and when she found Lizzie again her sister had a drink in each hand. Josie wasn’t much of a drinker but she sipped while they waited for the parade to start. Soon music flowed through the air and the crowd started to scream as the floats started to arrive. Beads, candy, and small toys flew as Josie scanned every face looking for Hope. Just as Josie was starting to lose hope in finding her friend, the parade morphed into something new. The floats were grander and each only held one person. 

On the first float was a girl with tan skin and a smattering of freckles, in a long tule green dress with flowers in her dark hair and a crown of roses on her head. She was smiling and waving at the crowd around her like a princess as the crowd surged forward lifting their hands to her. 

On the second float, was a girl considerably younger than the others, with wild black curls and silver circlet around her forehead. Her dress was brown and ragged if Josie had to guess she would say it was made out of burlap, but it was a fashion choice that she pulled off well. Despite her age, she held herself with a large amount of pride, Josie could tell by the way she raised her chin as she watched the crowd. 

The third float had a girl in a velvet red dress, with pin-straight blonde hair and a tiara dripping with black jewels. She had intense makeup that few people could pull off and a glint in her eyes that suggested trouble. She didn’t wave at the people around her and for some reason, they screamed even louder because of it.

When the fourth float appeared Josie nearly choked on her drink. Atop it stood Hope, in a stunning satin blue dress and her auburn hair was in a dramatic updo with a crown so big that it looked more like a sheet of diamonds. Hope looked regal without even trying, you could never tell that she hated every minute she was on that float. For a moment Josie could swear Hope found her in the crowd, and she might have waved it off if Hope hadn’t winked, her smile turning slightly more genuine. 

The floats moved past them, but not far before they stopped in the road and the girls climbed down one by one. Josie was too distracted watching Hope to notice where they were going until Hope disappeared from view behind a curtain that leads to a stage. Lizzie snapped her out of it by bumping her shoulder and motioning to the stage, as Marcel Gerard walked out to the center. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he bellowed grinning from ear to ear, obviously very comfortable in front of a crowd,” It is my pleasure to once again announce this year’s princesses of the quarter.” the crowd roared around them and Josie lifted slightly onto her toes in anticipation. 

The girls filed onto the stage, one after the other then turned to face the crowd. They linked hands and lifted them into the air, as if on queue the wind picked up in a way that could only be explained by magic. She didn’t know what the mass of drunk people thought was happening, but however they explained it to themselves they loved it. Everyone gasped and laughed, enthralled by the magic of the city, that was linked to these four princesses. 

The spectacle was over quicker than Josie expected and each of the girls walked off one by one disappearing off the stage and back behind the curtains, effectively ending the parade and leaving the people to go back to drinking and partying, at least until the next parade. Lizzie grabbed Josie’s hand and started pulling her toward the stage. 

Come Jo,” she said as they ducked behind the curtains following,” We found Hope we can’t lose her now,” they stopped just far enough away that they could see the group of girls huddled by the door to a bar with some men standing farther away in dark clothes, like security guards. Marcel appeared out of nowhere, the same grin on his face as he ushered everyone inside. But Hope stayed behind, her back was to the twins so they couldn’t hear what excuse she gave. Josie took this as their queue to come out of the shadows, so she nudged Lizzie and they moved forward. 

“I was wondering how long you two were going to wait there,” Hope said, turning to face them, wearing a smirk that was so much more beautiful than any crown. Then Josie was running and throwing her arms around her, she’d missed Hope so much. She was even more sure of that now that they were together again. Hope met her halfway and wrapped her arms around Josie’s waist pulling her close. 

“Did you forget about me?” Lizzie’s voice broke through.

“As if I could,” Hope laughed, releasing Josie and moving to hug Lizzie. “What are you guys doing here?” she asked 

“We decided to take a long weekend, come see the city, celebrate all that and running into you was just a happy accident,” Lizzie teased with an eye roll. 

Before they could say anything else one of the girls stepped back outside, the smile she was wearing earlier had turned into a scowl. “Come on Hope, some of us actually want to look nice at the ball tonight” She was the picture of grace and kindness during the parade, all covered in flowers but now she was completely different. 

“And you have to work so hard for that Phoebe,” Hope shot back like she was very used to dealing with this girl. Hope’s comment must have been enough because Phoebe’s face turned red, whether it was from anger or embarrassment Josie wasn’t sure, but she turned on her heel and marched back inside. 

However she was quickly replaced by another, the blonde this time.” I know she’s a bitch Hope but she’s right if we don’t get back soon your aunt will have all our heads,” 

“Yeah I know,” Hope replied then glancing at the twins she asked,” do you guys want to come?” 

It didn’t take twin telepathy for them to come up with their answer. Soon they were following Hope into the bar. Josie recognized it immediately, it was the same bar she met Freya at when she came to reverse engineer the spell to bring everyone's memory back and it hadn’t changed one bit. 

None of them talked as they followed Marcel into the back room where he moved a refrigerator revealing a hole in the wall. Josie’s eyes widened but she didn’t open her mouth. She watched in silence as all of the girls and the body guards disappeared inside without hesitation until it was just the three of them again. 

Hope must have sensed her unease because she spoke,” It’s an old bootlegger tunnel, they run all over the city, you can get anywhere with them.” she climbed inside with ease and held out her hands to help the twins in, with her new strength she basically did all the hard work for them. 

The tunnel was dark and damp and Josie remembered just how much she hated being underground, she took a deep breath to settle herself  and pushed forward, following Hope through the twisting catacombs. Josie grabbed Lizzie’s hand, she didn’t know if her sister could tell how much she hated this but she squeezed her hand and Josie felt better. After what felt like an eternity, they made it to an exit and when they resurfaced Josie found herself in a grand house that somehow looked ancient and modern (modern for New Orleans at least) all at once. The group made their way to a room in the center of the house, that was where the princesses had gotten ready for their grand debut. The walls were lined with four vanities, covered in makeup and jewelry and surrounded by people whose job it was to prepare the girls for the ball they had to attend that evening. 

The girls scattered to their respective areas and started to get ready, and the twins followed Hope to her’s. But unlike everyone else Hope didn’t get to work,” welcome to my home,” she stated motioning at everything around them. 

“You live here?” Lizzie gasped shocked. Josie shouldn’t have been surprised given everything she knew about Hope’s family, but the magnitude of the house still weighed on her. It was giant. Speaking of families, it was around that moment that they started to pour in from the outside. A young girl around 12 bolted across the room and nearly tackled one of the girls, the one sitting at the vanity next to Hope’s. 

“You look like the queen of the wolves,” she squeaked. 

The girl huffed and rolled her eyes messing with her little sisters hair,” thanks but that’s Hope’s job not mine,” 

“Very funny Ava,” Hope shot back with a grin, as the little girl came to give Hope a hug too. 

“You look really pretty too,” 

“Why thank you Charlie,” Hope replied, giving the girl a squeeze then turning back to the twins,” guys this is Charlie, that’s her sister Ava and the one being all broody behind them is their brother Logan. They’re crescent wolves from my pack.,” Josie hadn’t even noticed Logan, but Lizzie had, he was tall, dark and Handsome exactly her type, Josie could tell by the way her eyes were bulging out of her head. “ and as for the other girls, you already met Phoebe she’s a witch and that’s Cecily a vamp,” 

“One of each faction,” Josie commented, raising an eyebrow,” and you're the tribrid it’s all very symbolic.” 

Hope laughed, loud and clear,” No I’m the Mikaelson representative, but I like your reason better.” 

The rest of the Mikaelsons entered with the families of the other girls, Kol and Davina came to them first because Marcel and Rebekah were busy politicing and Freya was chasing her small son around trying to stop him from throwing beads. 

Kol held out a very ornate looking box lined with velvet and Hope removed her crown and earrings placing them in the box. “ You looked stunning out there Hope,” Davina cued. 

“Anyone looks stunning when they are wearing priceless Russian jewels,” Hope said shrugging

“Oh just take the compliment, Hope,” Davina laughed. 

Rebekah appeared behind them scarily silent, but her demeanor didn’t seem threatening,” Did you decide what dress you are going to wear tonight, darling?” she asked as she stood behind Hope at the vanity, running her fingers lightly through her hair. 

“No not yet aunt Bex,” she replied.

“You don’t have a dress for tonight,” Lizzie shrieked clearly appalled. Josie bit back a laugh at the shocked look on the tribrid’s face. 

“Don’t worry Lizzie I have plenty of options,” Hope said standing up,” come on you can help me pick,” they followed her back through the house and up the stairs till they came to a door off a side hallway that looked like it lead to a broom closet, and it was a closet but it was also so much more. 

Inside was the biggest walk-in closet that Joise had ever seen, the walls lined with dresses of every kind, from different eras and styles, there was even an entire corner dedicated entirely to wedding dresses.  Hope smirked as she saw her friends gaping, clearly amused. 

“Wow,” Lizzie muttered, running her hands through the dresses and Josie joined her, sifting through hundreds of dresses from every point in history, and of modern ones too. As much as she wanted to play with all of the historical dresses, she decided to focus on the modern dresses. 

Hope was silent as they searched, but Josie could hear Lizzie muttering to herself. After a moment Hope spoke up,” you can each pick one dress for me to try on, we are on a time limit,” 

“There’s no need,” Josie gasped as she pulled a gorgeous, sleek black dress covered in swirling god beading off the wall,” this is your dress,” Lizzie sucked in a breath as she saw the dress and Josie knew that her twin agreed with her decision. 

“You just want an excuse to see me in that dress,” Hope poked. Was that flirting? Josie couldn’t tell, but she played along.

“Guilty as charged, now go put it on,” Hope laughed, taking the dress in her arms and disappearing behind a screen to change. 

Josie was so right about the dress, anyone who saw Hope would know that. For lack of a better word, she looked hot, insanely hot, Josie had to force herself not to stare. Before she could say anything Freya appeared in the doorway with her son on her hip,” You look so much like your mother sometimes,” she said her eyes filled with emotions. Her son, Nik Josie remembered, wiggled his way out her grasp and beelined for Hope. she scooped him up with ease, her smile growing. 

It was strange, seeing Hope with her family something shifted, she wasn’t just hot she was beautiful. There was a light behind her that wasn’t normally there, it made the siphoner’s heart skip a beat. 

They spent the rest of the afternoon getting Hope ready, the twins fell into a rhythm, easy and fun, they did her hair and makeup and laughed like they were normal teenage girls getting ready for a party. They talked to the other girls too, Ava and Hope were really close, they’d practically grown up together, and Cecily was nice enough. Phoebe kept her distance but nobody complained about that. 

At some point Kol stopped by and left another box, this one considerably smaller, but probably equally expensive. All of the crowns were smaller now, Josie noticed wondering that was another strange tradition that Hope hadn’t mentioned. 

Eventually everyone made their way downstairs to the front door, it seemed they were using a visible exit this time. Hope’s entire family was dressed to impress, minus Freya’s wife Keelin who was staying home to watch Nik for the evening, it seemed that a Mardi Gras ball wasn’t an appropriate place for a toddler. Everyone made their way outside but Hope stayed behind,” sorry for leaving like this guys,” 

“Are you kidding,” Lizzie scoffed,” you’re going to to an actual ball Hope, I think we can handle ourselves for the night,” 

“Besides we’ll probably just go explore the city some,” Josie added, trying to ease the older girls' guilt. It didn’t work because Hope’s guilt seemed to turn to worry. 

Hope held out her hands and each of the twins took one without question,” stock up on some magic,” Josie started siphoning on instinct, Lizzie did too,” I’m not telling you not to go into the city but just be safe and if anything happens under no circumstances are you to tell anyone that you are siphoner witched ok?” Hope was tense, but she seemed to be willing to let the twins handle themselves for the night. 

“That’s worrying but we accept,” Lizzie said. 

It seemed that all of Hope’s family wasn’t outside yet because Davina was suddenly running down the stairs,” come on Hope if we don’t leave now we’re going to be late,” 

“You’re the one who’s late, D not me,” Hope retorted, releasing Josie’s hand but not moving away from them. 

“Go have fun,” Josie said, nudging her toward the door with a smile. 

[masterthespianduchovny]

What I hate about Ross geller discourse is that it’s usually some of the laziest dunking you can do. It doesn’t require you to be right, thoughtful, or contextualize anything, it just requires you to hate him and most will blindly agree because fuck Ross, right?

Ross is definitely a problematic character, but it’s grating to watch people pretend as if he’s the only problematic character all while ignoring the other friends’ problematic behavior. I’m not talking mere flaws, but actually problematic shit.

Because, that’s what inevitably happens right? Someone shits on Ross, and then people go on about how the show was better off without Ross, despite some of the most iconic moments involving him, and as if it was a drag being friends with him like they were forced to hang out with Ross.

People rag on Ross for being such an asshole as if his friends aren’t assholes to him unprompted. As if his friends don’t make insensitive jokes at his expense or make fun of his interests. But, yes, let’s pretend that Ross is the only asshole of the bunch because that makes it easier to dunk on him.

And hasn’t the other friends treated their partners far worse than Ross ever treated any of his ex girlfriends and ex wives, YET we only focus on him when we talk about terrible partners?

I know being woke is trendy for some, but if many of you were as aware and enlightened as you believe, your takes wouldn’t be surface level and appallingly one sided to ignore the obvious flaws in your logic.

Although I like Ross I can’t enjoy criticisms or take downs of him because someone inevitably ruins it.

[evalinkatrineberg]

Practice Prompt 1 - Part 2!

I could hardly focus the day that the Selected girls were to be announced on The Report. From the moment I had woken up that morning, the first rays of sunlight peeking through the periwinkle curtains that covered my bedroom window, the only thing on my mind had been the question of whether or not I would be Selected. I went through my normal morning routine in an almost zombie-like state, trading my bedclothes for a t-shirt and shorts, and brushing my hair back into a ponytail without even thinking. It was always kind of like a game, creeping out of my bedroom as quietly as I could. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder at Lydia, who was still sound asleep. In a few short seconds, the bedroom door was closed behind me, and I was down the stairs, grabbing my keys and tugging on my sneakers before sneaking out the front door.

Lukas and June were already waiting for me at the end of my driveway. “Sleeping in today, I see,” Lukas commented, the corners of his lips tugging upwards in a small smile.

“Sorry,” was my only reply as the three of us set off on our morning run. It had been our routine for a few years now. At first, it had only been me and June. Being next door neighbors and classmates, it had been easy for us to coordinate a time to get out and run together, seeing as we had been on almost identical schedules our entire lives. Running had been something that we had decided to take up the spring of our sophomore year of high school, and we’d continued that tradition into college, having both committed to the same university.

When I had met Lukas in my freshman physics lab my first semester of college and mentioned that I enjoyed running during an icebreaker, he had instantly asked if he might be able to join us on our morning runs. Apparently, he had run on his high school’s track team, although he never pushed me and June’s pace, despite having more experience than us. Once we found out that he was leasing a basement apartment in a house two blocks over from the street June and I lived on, it had been a no-brainer to us that he should join our group. We had expected it to be back to just June and I for the summer, but apparently Lukas was hanging around to take some extra classes.

The three of us didn’t speak as we made for the park on the edge of our neighborhood, a beautiful, scenic forest with a babbling creek and a network of well-maintained dirt paths. The only sounds were our feet pounding the ground and our heavy breathing, mixed with the early-morning chirps of the birds hidden in the trees. Already, the air was starting to get a little steamy as the humidity of the daytime began to settle in, a slight fog lifting off the creek that meandered on the left side of the trail we always began our run on.

A new sound broke through the air. The buzzing of Lukas’s watch, signalling that we had completed a mile, was accompanied with a heavy exhale from him. Shortly after, he asked, “So, is there any particular reason you’re pushing the pace today, Evalin?”

I frowned, not slowing as I cast a quick look at him over my shoulder. “What was our first mile split?”

“Six minutes, fifty-five seconds.” His words were steady, but his voice was slightly more airy than usual.

“Damn,” June panted. It sounded like just saying that one word took a monumental effort on her part.  

“Sorry,” I responded. Two apologies today already, and it wasn’t even seven in the morning yet. That had to be a new record for me. “I’m just a little lost in thought. I didn’t realize how fast we were going.”

“Are you thinking about the Report tonight?” I could practically hear June’s teasing smile in her voice. “You know, I entered the Selection, too, and you don’t see me literally running myself ragged over it.”

“You are keeping pace with us,” Lukas pointed out, “so aren’t you technically doing the same exact thing as Evalin?”

“Och,” was June’s only reply as she audibly hit Lukas with the back of her hand.

“I truly don’t understand why you two even entered anyway.” Lukas sighed as we made a turn to the left, taking us over a small wooden bridge that crossed the creek. “It’s just a glorified beauty pageant, and, no offense, neither of you are really pageant girls.”

“Are you insinuating that we’re not drop-dead gorgeous?” The offense in June’s voice may have been faked, but the edge on her words was anything but. She had never been afraid to start a fight, even when we were children. Back then, if she saw someone being pushed around on the playground, she was the first person to fight for them, often resulting in her coming home dirty and bruised. Her parents always bemoaned how unbecoming her behavior was for a Three, but I had always admired the way that June was totally unafraid to stand up for what she believed in. It was for that reason that I wasn’t entirely surprised when she told me that she was planning on pursuing nursing in college. Her love of other people, and her genuine desire to help those in need would make her a great nurse, in my opinion.

Lukas sighed again as we made another left turn, bringing us to a winding trail that would eventually lead us back to the same entry point we had used to get into the park. “It’s just that you’re both booksmart, not very people smart.”

I raised an eyebrow, despite the fact that I knew he couldn’t see it.

As if he sensed it, he continued. “June would probably get into a fight with someone within the first five minutes of being at the palace, and Evalin is too damn nice for her own good. She’d get eaten up alive by all the politicians and schemers in Angeles.”

“What’s wrong with being nice?” I frowned, the sound of my heartbeat racing in my ears. Maybe he was right. Had I been foolish to enter in the Selection? I had never been particularly politically savvy. I could certainly research more about political science and Illean history, sure. In fact, I had begun to do some research in the days after submitting my Selection application, although I hadn’t brought it up in conversation. I found political theory interesting, but applying it to what I observed on the news was more challenging than I had anticipated. There was nothing wrong with a good challenge, though. I kind of enjoyed having something new to push me out of my comfort zone.

“Nothing, normally,” Lukas answered, “but politicians don’t play nice.”

June snorted. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

“June would be perfect if she was Selected, then.” I shot her a look over my right shoulder, only to find her matching my own grin. Her dark eyes sparkled as the light hit them, complimenting her downright radiant features perfectly. June would be an ideal candidate to be Selected, truth be told. She was passionate, strong, and simply stunning in appearance. Despite her habit of getting into fights as a child, her dark skin didn’t display a single flaw now, and her curly hair seemed to just bounce with joy and enthusiasm.

“Hey, listen, I follow the golden rule!” Her footsteps were a steady beat just behind me as we hit the pavement again. “I treat others the way they treat others!”

Lukas barked out a laugh as I replied, “Mmm, I don’t quite think that’s it.”

“I know,” she answered. “I improved it!”

On the horizon, my house was beginning to come into view. Even from a distance, I could see that me father’s car was no longer in our driveway. He must have left for work early this morning, then. Usually, I was able to run, shower, and drink at least one cup of coffee before he was telling me to grab my bag and get out the door so he wasn’t late. My mom’s beige car was still in the driveway, though. It wasn’t an old car, but it was modelled after a style of classic car that my grandfather had often gushed about, according to my mother. It was originally one of the gifts my father had given my mother’s parents after he had asked them for their blessing to marry my mother. My grandfather had always insisted that the gift was excessive, and that my father shouldn’t try to buy my mother’s hand in marriage, but my grandfather had kept the car anyway. When he passed away five years ago, he left the car to my mother in his will.

“Oh, by the way,” I began, slowing as we reached the edge of June’s driveway, “my mother took the day off from work today, and is planning a big brunch. You two should definitely come over, if you can.”

“Thanks for the invite, but I desperately need to shower, thanks to someone -” she glared pointedly at me, smiling nonetheless “-setting a killer pace this morning.”

I looked down at my own shirt, which was soaked through. “I should probably do the same.” June just laughed as I added, “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Until tomorrow,” Lukas agreed with a wave, jogging off down the street before disappearing around the corner.

I was tempted to yell after him, to ask him if he really thought that I wouldn’t last if I was one of the Selected. I didn’t know why his opinion mattered so much to me. It wasn’t as if he had any experience in the palace, or was studying anything related to politics. His opinion shouldn’t mean too much, shouldn’t mean anything, and yet, I was one second away from calling out his name.

It was too late, though. Short of chasing after him, I wouldn’t be able to get his attention now. With a sigh, I began making my way up my own driveway and then on to the porch. I untied my shoes before unlocking the front door, placing my shoes on the shoe rack and following the smell of cinnamon and coffee to the kitchen. It appeared that my mother was planning a full on feast for brunch, complete with french toast, eggs, and even bacon. The hiss of the gas stove and the purr of the coffee machine was practically a symphony to my ears as I placed my keys on the counter, reaching up to pull a glass out of the cabinet above the sink.

“It’s a hot one today, isn’t it?” It was more of a statement than a question. My mother leaned against the counter opposite of the stove, arms crossed as she eyed my sweaty clothing up and down.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to shower,” I assured her, “as soon as I have a few sips of water.”

“No rush,” she replied, laughing slightly. “Are you excited for tonight?”

I bit my lip, taking a few seconds to stop and sip some water before responding. “I’m kind of excitedly nervous.” I frowned, placing my now empty glass in the sink. “Does that make sense? I feel like I shouldn’t be nervous, because there’s tons of women in Carolina who have a better shot than I do, but I also don’t want to completely count myself out.”

“That makes sense.” My mother moved over to the stove now, glancing over at me as she flipped the french toast. “I think you have a good shot, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Just like everybody else.” As she spoke the last few words, she poked the tip of my nose, smiling warmly before turning back to the food on the stove. “Now, please go shower!”

I laughed and rolled my eyes in mock exasperation. “Aye-aye, captain!”

When I had finally made my way up the stairs and into my bedroom, I found that Lydia was somehow still asleep. I didn’t understand how she could stay in bed so long. If I wasn’t up by eight in the morning, at the absolute latest, I felt like I didn’t have enough time in the day to get everything I needed to do that day done.

Even as I grabbed my outfit for the day out of my dresser - a pair of loose-fitting, light wash jeans, along with a beige button-up shirt - and made my way into the bathroom at the end of the hallway, I couldn’t help but run through all the possible outcomes of the night. More likely than not, my name would not be called, and life would continue on as normal. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, this would be a pretty upsetting outcome. I had definitely been letting myself get my hopes up. It would suck if all my daydreaming was squashed in one fell swoop tonight, but I would get over it. I’d have to. In that scenario, I’d have to be able to get myself back into my normal routine. I could not afford to put my entire life on hold for one ruined fantasy.

A slight deviation on that scenario was if they didn’t call my name, but if they did call June’s, or anybody who I knew, for that matter. I pondered that outcome further as the hot water of the shower rolled down my back and caused the bathroom to fog up around me. If that was the case, if June got called, I would likely be happier for her than I would be sad for myself. June deserved it, as did many other girls I had met throughout my life. Even being able to say that I was friends with one of the Selected girls would be pretty cool. Plus, knowing June, I was sure she would fill me in on all the inside drama without me having to be involved in it myself.

The last outcome I could conceive of, and the one I least wanted to think about, was one where my name was called. The possibility of that even happening seemed so far removed from reality that it was hard to determine how I would even feel in the event that it happened. I’d definitely be excited, that was certain, but the implications of being Selected loomed on the horizon like a dark cloud. It would be amazing to finally leave my hometown and see more of Illea, but I’d miss my family and friends dearly. Being Selected would also mean putting my education on hold, which would likely prove a challenge for me, since being into biology had been basically a quarter of my personality since I was six years old.

I wasn’t even sure what I would say or do if I ever got the opportunity to meet and speak to the prince. I mean, we practically lived in different worlds - what could we possibly talk about? I knew that he had studied political science at Angeles University, but my own knowledge of political science was still, rather embarrassingly, limited. Other than that, most of what I knew about him came from the media. I had heard about his engagement to Evie Waldia, and the subsequent breaking off of the engagement. Beyond that, the only thing I knew was that he was a pretty handsome guy. Honestly, I’d probably be able to make better conversation with Princess Safiya, since she was studying to go to medical school. At least we’d probably be able to commiserate over some science and math courses.

I need a personality outside of schoolwork. I shook my head, shutting off the water and wringing out my head before grabbing my towel off the rack that was nailed to the wall just to the right of the shower. What was I even in to, besides science? I liked looking at the stars, which was still kind of science related, but it was a start. I wondered if you could see the stars from the palace, or if the light pollution there blotted them out?

I liked to read, and to run, both of which were pretty generic hobbies, but that fact would hopefully only make it more likely that we could find some common ground around them. I had also often dreamed about being a ballerina when I was about five years old, and even now I still found watching ballets performed on stage an incredibly emotional experience, in a positive manner. If nothing else, maybe we would be able to talk about music.

It appeared I would really have to undergo a journey of self-discovery if my name was in fact called tonight. Perhaps that was for the better, though. Maybe it was time for me to branch out a little.

By the time I made it downstairs, my brothers were already seated around the table, silent save for Gabriel, who was talking about one thing or another he had heard on the news last night. Lydia had also made her way downstairs, though she was still in her pajamas.

“I’m just saying,” Gabriel proclaimed, raising his hands in the air in mock surrender. “The timing of this Selection just seems a little too quick to me! I’m having a hard time believing that this wasn’t a purely political decision.” He looked around the table at my siblings’ faces, but nobody met his gaze. Randall and Sam both looked down at the table, and Lydia just yawned and looked out the window.

“Come on,” he tried again, “I can’t be the only one that thinks this.”

“He has to know what he’s doing, in having a Selection,” I argued, taking up my usual seat next to Lydia. “I’m sure this wasn’t a decision anyone made lightly.” Though, Gabriel did have a point. The turnaround between the prince breaking off his engagement and the announcement of the Selection was rather fast. I wasn’t entirely convinced he was over Evie yet, if I was being honest. Breakups weren’t an easy thing to get over, especially when the people involved had been together for a long time. Ultimately, though, it was the prince’s decision to make.

“I just don’t get it, though,” Gabriel continued. “If I had just broken up with my girlfriend, the last thing I would want was thirty-five girls that were ready to fight over my heart coming into my home.”

“Well, it’s good that you’re not the prince, then,” I retorted. He rolled his eyes at me, and I stuck my tongue out at him in return. Typical mornings in our household always consisted of this kind of bickering. It was hard to avoid in a house with five kids.

“You’re only saying that because you want the prince to fall in love with you.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, turning his head to look at her mother, who carried an assortment of jams and butter in her arms.

As I leapt up to help her get the rest of the food from the kitchen, I snapped back at him, “So what if I do? Is it so horrible of me to want to fall in love?”

“No,” he answered, rolling his head back to look at the ceiling, “but there are so many other times and places for you to fall in love! I don’t get why you’re willing to put your whole life on hold for a man who’s probably only looking for a rebound!”

“I don’t even get why it matters to you!” I placed the serving plate of bacon I had been holding down on the table harder than I had intended, wincing at the loud sound made by the collision of the two objects. “It’s not like you’re the one who entered the Selection! Besides, the chances of my name even being called are few and far between, so there’s no need for you to go and get your knickers in a knot over the possibility of me being played!”

“If this is how you’re all behaving in the morning, I am not looking forward to seeing what you’re going to be like during the Report tonight.” Satisfied that all the food was on the table, my mother had taken her usual seat to the right of the head of the table, and was looking at all of us expectantly.

“All of you better be quiet tonight,” Lydia stated, serving herself some french toast. “I want to hear everything that’s said on the Report.”

Much of the rest of the day from that point forward was a blur. We all ate brunch, and then attempted to go about our day as usual, but, for the most part, we all failed miserably. My mother, who would have normally been at work at one of the city high schools, where she taught music theory, had taken the day off from work, and instead spent most of the day looking out the front window at the driveway and twisting her wedding ring around her finger. Lydia had started out the day by filling out job applications, but had abandoned that at some point to go bake chocolate chip cookies instead. Gabriel kept finding excuses to leave the house, citing the need to purchase random items, like soap or paperclips, claiming that he hadn’t realized he had run out of until that very moment. I was half tempted to join him, but also didn’t want to get into another argument.

Randall and Sam had warned me not to go upstairs, stating that they were getting retribution for the gnome prank Lydia had played on them a few weeks earlier. Lydia’s prank had been harmless, really. I didn’t even think she realized how easily the glitter that coated the miniature gnome statues she had purchased would rub off on the boys’ bedspreads, or that it wouldn’t come out in the wash either. Regardless, I didn’t bother arguing with the boys, and instead opted just to grab a book and head somewhere else.

I found myself sitting on the back deck, attempting to read, but really just staring at the same few pages, completely unable to focus. I was on the verge of giving up and going for another run when I heard the back door slide open behind me, and turned to find Randall sticking his head out, an impish grin plastered on his face. “Dad’s home,” he announced. Then, in a quieter voice, he added, “and my work is complete. Don’t worry, I didn’t touch your bed!” With a wink, he was gone, vanishing back inside the house.

I followed him inside, frowning at my watch. It was already seven thirty in the evening. How could time have gone by so quickly, when it felt like it was dragging? More importantly, why had my father spent nearly twelve hours at work?

My second question, at least, was answered rather quickly, by the array of desserts that now lined our kitchen table. Alongside a plate of the cookies Lydia had baked earlier were various flavors of ice cream, along with a box of lemon tarts from my favorite bakery in town. He must have left work early to pick all of this up. I blinked at the display, as if it was a mirage that would simply vanish before my eyes, as I placed my book on the very edge of the table.

“I thought it might be nice to have a special treat while we watched the Report tonight,” my father said in way of explanation, offering me a small smile.

“Thank you,” was all I managed in reply, still a little disoriented by the fact that it was somehow seven thirty, and the Report was going to begin in half an hour.

Only half an hour until I could stop obsessing over all these what-ifs. I could do this.

I grabbed a plate off the table and placed two lemon tarts on it, before wandering off into the living room, and curling up on the corner of the couch. Slowly, the rest of my family trickled in as well, my father stopping to turn on the TV before taking a seat next to my mother on the end of the u-shaped couch closest to the TV.

My mother frowned as she looked over at me. “You look a little red, Ev.”

“Sorry, I lost track of time when I was outside earlier.” With any luck, even if I was burnt, it would fade in a few days, leaving me with even more freckles than before, but otherwise unaffected.

“Make sure you rub some aloe on it before you go to bed,” she advised absently, turning back to whatever was playing on the TV.

I could hardly hear whatever was being said on the television over the beating of my own heart in my ears. This was it. These could be the final moments before my life was changed forever. Or, more likely than not, I was getting myself all worked up over absolutely nothing, and would kick myself for it later. I needed to relax. I needed this to be a normal night, where Lydia would throw popcorn at Sam when our parents weren’t looking, or where Gavin would jokingly argue with our father about how chemistry was superior to biology. Relaxing was easier said than done, though, when nobody around me was relaxed.

So I resigned myself to creating my own sense of normalcy. “Should I be afraid to try one of your cookies, Lydia? Am I going to bite into one and find out it’s filled with toothpaste?”

“Shhh,” she hissed, a smile spreading over her face, “that’s the secret ingredient!”

“Is that why Gabriel went to the store so many times today?” Sam must have caught on to what I was trying to do. “You traitor!”

“I didn’t buy for one second that you desperately needed paperclips at eleven o’clock in the morning!” I pointed my finger at my oldest brother, who was already rolling his eyes.

“He bought you paperclips to help you hold your life together, Evalin,” Lydia supplied, punctuating her sentence with a spoonful of rocky road ice cream.

“Harsh,” I yelled, slapping my sister gently on her arm with the back of my hand. She nudged me with her foot in return. “But for your information, my life needs binder clips to hold it together, in the very least. There’s too much going on for paperclips.”

That was an outright lie, and I was pretty sure we all knew it, too. My life was about as average and boring as they come, and would continue to be that way, when my name wasn’t announced for the Selection. What surprised me was the fact that I was kind of bothered by that. I had always thought that I was very content, happy even, with my life, and yet, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad at the thought of this little bit of excitement, the disruption of my routine, ending so soon.

“Maybe he should’ve gotten a stapler instead,” Randall interjected. “That way he could pin you down here instead.”

“Well, if he wanted to pin me down, he should’ve gone with thumbtacks,” I retorted, narrowing my eyes at my youngest brother. “Come on, this is basic office supply knowledge!”

With a shake of his head, Gavin stood up, walking back to the dining room for another scoop of ice cream. “Sorry, I failed Intro to Office Supplies my freshman year.”

“That explains how sloppy your notes are,” I called after him, twisting slightly to see if he would react in any way. Much to my disappointment, he did not.

“At least he knows a bobby-pin isn’t something you can use on a corkboard,” Lydia offered, flashing a half smile in my direction before turning her attention back to the TV. Any second now, the announcements would begin. Any moment, names and pictures would start flashing across the screen. Lydia practically pushed Gavin out of the way of the TV as he returned to the living room, not wanting to miss even one second of the broadcast.

I couldn’t blame her. For once, I felt the same way. At least we didn’t live in a province close to the end of the alphabet, like Waverly. Carolina would come to pass pretty quickly. It would all be over in a matter of seconds.

A part of me really hoped that it would be June’s name and picture that flashed across the screen. Her being Selected seemed like the perfect compromise between the nerves of actually being Selected myself, and the disappointment of not being Selected at all. The second hand accounts of palace life I would undoubtedly receive from her would be wonderful. I’d miss having her as my running buddy, sure, but she’d make a great Lady, and I’d still have Lukas. He could help me analyze her letters while we ran.

“They’re starting,” Lydia screamed, hitting my arm repeatedly.

Indeed, the first provinces were being announced. First was a girl from Allens, named Idalia. She was absolutely stunning, with dark hair and a friendly face. I swallowed. Winning the prince’s heart was definitely not going to be an easy endeavor for any of the Selected with competition like this.

The announcer continued. “From Angeles, Emily Rose White!”

“Wasn’t she in that movie,” my mother began, only to be cut off by shushing noises from Lydia.

“From Atlin, Alaina Achilles!” The name sounded familiar enough to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. I didn’t let it bother me. I was sure that Lydia would start researching information about all of the contestants as soon as they were announced, anyway.

“From Baffin, Celine Montclair! From Bankston, Sage Copeland! From Belcourt, Violet Kensington III! From Bonita, Itzel Bree Morales! From Calgary, Clemence Westley!”

More and more pictures flashed across the screen, but I barely registered them. My heart couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to beat as fast as it could, or simply stop beating all together. Time stopped and started over and over, my stomach rolling like waves in the ocean as the names continued. The next one was Carolina. The next one.

“From Carolina -”

Please say June Iscariot. Please say June Iscariot. Please say June Iscariot.

“Evalin Berg!”

I dropped the plate with my untouched lemon tarts on it. The sound of it shattering was the only sound in the room, save for the continuing voice of the announcer on the television, as a picture of me flashed on the screen. It looked like the picture was taken when I was still in my mother’s car, the day we had dropped my application off. They had taken our pictures when we were inside, but I guessed they must have had more photographers snapping shots of the potential girls outside as well.

It wasn’t a bad picture of me, but certainly not my favorite. My hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, and frizzy as all hell, thanks to the humidity. I had on makeup, at least, but I hadn’t yet taken off my glasses, as I normally would for pictures. The clunky frames took up a good portion of my face, and usually didn’t photograph well. In the photo, I was looking off to something on my right, maybe analyzing the length of the line outside of the Services Office, my eyes wide and my lips slightly parted. If anything, I looked nervous. Why would they choose me with a picture like this?

Lydia was the first to react, leaping to her feet on the couch, literally jumping as she screamed and looked down at me.

“I,” I began, not quite sure what to say. The chances of this happening had been slim to none. “I’m sorry about the plate! I’ll go get the broom, and clean it up!”

“I’ve got it.” My father stopped me in my tracks with a wave of his hand, slowly pushing himself off the couch and towards the coat closet by the front door, where we kept the cleaning supplies.

There was a frantic banging on the front door, and my dad repeated, “I’ll get it!”

I jumped up the moment I heard June’s voice echo through my house. I walked slowly at first, avoiding the mess of plate shards and lemon tart I had created on the floor, and after clearing that, practically bounded to the door. The moment she saw me, June raced through the doorway and crushed me with a hug, beaming at me once we had broken apart. Her parents lingered in the doorway, smiling politely at the two of us.

“Would you like to come in?” I gestured vaguely in the direction of the living room. “We have ice cream and lemon tarts, and cookies that might be filled with toothpaste.” My heart was still racing, and I knew that my eyes were wide and my hair absolutely wild, curls falling into my face every time I moved, but June’s parents didn’t mention it as they thanked me and made their way inside.

“So, how does it feel, Lady Evalin?” June’s eyes were alight with excitement, and her tone rife with teasing.

“Fake.” No, wrong synonym. “Unreal,” I corrected, shaking my head. “Like, I’m a bio major from Knoxville, Carolina! I’m nobody! How the hell did I get Selected alongside the likes of Emily Rose White?”

“And Ava Jones,” Lydia added, shouting from the living room.

“The pop star?” I asked as June and I made our way towards the living room.

“The very same,” Lydia confirmed. “Along with that actress, Saxon Monroe - the one who played Lydia in Pride and Prejudice.”

“How am I supposed to compete with people like that?” My mind was completely blank, even as everyone around me was a buzz of conversation. It was like I was on autopilot, like my mind had overloaded and shut down, leaving me to flounder my way through these next few hours. Or maybe days. Or weeks. Months, even.

“Don’t compete,” June stated, placing one of her hands on each of my shoulders. “Just do what you do best - be yourself.”

I wanted to ask how I could possibly be myself at a time like this, but my mouth couldn’t form the words.

“Listen, I think my parents are calling me to go back home with them, but I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?” I nodded, and June smiled before walking back towards the front door.

I turned to look back at Lydia. “I think I need to shower again. And sleep. Definitely sleep.”

“You’re a mess,” she replied with a laugh, standing up and setting her now empty bowl on the coffee table.

“Yes.” My mind was finally returning to the present, the cogs and gears slowly starting to spin again. “I just need time to process this.”

“That’s understandable.” I felt her arm around my shoulders, guiding me towards the staircase. “It’s not just every day that your childhood dream becomes a reality.”

I just nodded, trudging up the stairs, feeling like blocks of lead were tied to my feet. This was exciting news, and I was excited, but I also had no clue what to do. I had spent my entire life preparing for college, and a career - not for actually getting the chance to meet the prince of Illea, and possibly even fall in love with him. What would he think of me? Probably not much, if I was to be honest.

“Thank you,” I whispered as Lydia pulled open the door. What I saw next was almost as unexpected as hearing my name announced on the TV about an hour earlier.

Slices of bread covered our the floor of our room, our dressers, the desk, and Lydia’s bed, interlocked and connected like pieces of a puzzle. It would take forever to clean up all the crumbs left by the bread, even after we picked up the slices themselves. True to his word, however, Randall had left my bed untouched. Sleep would be unhindered by breadcrumbs, if nothing else.

This was not what I needed tonight.

“I’m going to kill them,” Lydia decided, kicking aside some of the bread with her foot.

“Just collect the ants attracted to our room by the breadcrumbs and release them in the boys’ room,” I suggested, yawning as I pushed aside more bread so I could get my bedclothes out from my dresser.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I amended, waving her off. “I’m going to shower, and then to bed.” I tossed one last look over my shoulder in her direction. “I guess you could say that this is a pretty crummy prank.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “You should’ve added bad puns to the special skills section of you application.”

“It appears that my application was just fine without that detail.”

With that, I was off, beyond ready to just clear my thoughts and collapse into bed. I could figure this all out tomorrow. Until then, I was content on living moment-to-moment, and all the current moment required was hot water and sleep.

[jack-andthestalk]

Our Son, Arc II, Wild Horses, Chapter 14.

So... The next chapter is here and there is some revealing of what has been going on at Hellwater. I worried about this chapter as these details have been in my head for months now and I wanted to make sure they were been explained properly - or that the dialogue included what it should. Thank you to my go-to gal @balfeheughlywed for reading this for me, encouraging and asking the necessary questions.  I have badgered the expert eye of @notevenjokingfic for the past few chapters and I am so grateful to have her input, the plot nearly swallowed me up and she straightens me out when I get silly! @ladyviolethummingbird is such support with this fic, thank you as always.  You’re appreciation and patience with this story has been incredible, thanks for reading.

On my return journey from Willie’s school with grocery bags clutched in hand I approached my front door step distractedly until I noticed the large body sitting on my doorstep.

 Jamie's tall frame sat crouched on the cement step outside my apartment, his forearms hung loosely over his knees, his head bowed down into his body, either asleep or staring at something on the ground. I could still make out the auburn golden curls at the nape of his neck, and I absently wondered when he had gotten it cut?

 I had anticipated that he would come, as soon as the reporter spoke the words detailing the Dunsany's arrest a few days ago, I knew Jamie would come as quickly as could be arranged. If not for me than for Willie. Now faced with the reality of the man, I had loved and hated and dreamt of since I had left Scotland. I was suddenly paralysed. Fear gripping my insides, and my heart beating painfully against my chest.

I steadied my breath for a moment before I dared to move forward. My palms were suddenly wet, and the grocery bags slipped forward losing their traction within my grasp, they made a ruffling sound causing Jamie's head to jolt up.

 His eyes widened as he scrambled to his legs quickly.

I put one foot forward to move, but Jamie was already walking down the path towards me in long even strides, I froze waiting for him. Clearing my throat in preparation to speak, I hadn't time to utter a word as he crushed me to him, and I felt a ripping sensation in my heart at the half-choked sob that framed my name in his mouth.

  "Claire –

  Jamie's hands ran down the length of my back before dipping his head into the curve of my neck as if preparing to cocoon there.

 I was so dumbfounded I hadn't even put down my grocery bags, my arms hung awkwardly at my sides, Jamie just held onto me as a child would to their favourite rag doll. My head dropped slowly, and I nestled against his cheek, feeling his jaw tremble against me. I lost the bags then and wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could.

I don't know how long we stayed like that as if holding each other up. Jamie's voice made a rustling sound low somewhere near my neck. It was definitely Gaelic , and it came in long relieved sighs.

 I pulled away, my lips curled up looking at him curiously,

 "What are you mumbling?"

 "Just saying thanks", he said eyes twinkling.

 "To who?"

 "To all the different gods I prayed to on the way here", he tilted his head against my forehead –  

 "tis only right now I can put my arms around ye." He attempted a wink which drew my eyes back to his eyes. They were watery and tired and they were trying to read something on my face.

 "Are you ok?" I asked stupidly, "I mean you weren't hurt or anything – "

He blinked rapidly and sniffed before his lips curled upwards.

 "Nay Sassenach, not physically anyway –."

I gave him a nod in understanding and rested against his forehead for a moment, taking in his scent and warmth. Just to enjoy him, no matter what would come later.

 Jamie raised a hand to push one of the errand curls behind my ear, his fingers grazed over my cheek, and his eyes darted to my lips. I couldn't go there yet.

 "I didn't expect you to be here "I dipped my head to avoid him seeing my cheeks flush –  " so soon I mean"  I was babbling, aware of his eyes on me.

 His finger found my chin bringing my gaze back up to him.

 "Wild horses couldna stopped me."

 "I tried phoning you" I stumbled over the words too preoccupied with the way his gaze held mine.

 "They took it, - evidence ." He answered while rubbing his nose along mine.

 They?

 There was so much I needed to know. So many blanks he had to fill in. The relief that he was alive and well, and unharmed had quenched the burning anxiety flowing around my body, only to realise now that his physical well-being was looked after, I still had other issues to worry about.

 My mind had reconciled itself with the fact that I would have an explanation about Hellwater, maybe not one I wanted. However, the restrained phone conversation I had with Jamie about Geneva Dunsany was not going to be the final version, some part of me had always known that.

Fear crept back into the spaces that had been soothed a few moments before at the mere sight of him.

 No matter Jamie's motive if he had done something with Geneva Dunsany to gain information, there would be no more him and me, or us. It would be a final unrepairable rip, made all the more painful because while he may not have done it in want, lust or even love, he would have done it knowing there could be no him and I after the fact. Any deal he had struck involving something like that, would have offered up our relationship on a platter.

I moved out of his embrace and looked up at him through my eyelashes. "You had better come in."

_______ ______ __________________

  I hadn't been aware that I had started to empty the contents of my shopping bags into cupboards until I felt Jamie's large hand slide over mine while I reached to place a jar in the cupboard above me.

"Leave them, Claire?"

It was laughable but I suddenly I didn't want to know.

Lowering myself cautiously into the chair opposite him, his hands clasped together as if in prayer, blue eyes watching me intently.

He knew I was off, and he knew I was scared.

 "Did ye get the book?"

 I nodded and couldn't help a small smile curve my lips. "Yes, it was quite the hit."

Shaking my head, "I still can't quite believe all that must have happened"- I paused briefly licking my lips – "to you." I finished pointedly.

 Jamie's brows rose, furrowing as he shook his head "not just me Claire, it happened to you too, and Willie – our family."

 A flash of red coloured his cheeks, our family was said more as a question than a statement. Were we still one?

  "Start from the beginning, I need to know how it all – "for want of a better word I settled on the obvious "– began."

 Jamie nodded and reached a hand out to one of mine, examining it for a moment. His finger was rubbing lightly over the space where his ring used to rest, and I felt a deep pressing pain stretching my chest as I wondered if I would ever see it there again.

"At our engagement party –" he blurted out suddenly, and I could feel my self-bristling, had he known what he was doing all this time?

 "I was in foul humour –   " he continued.

 His hand left mine to wave up in the air, his forehead creased as he frowned, remembering " ye were so heartbroken at what I had done, I was pissed at myself for being so stupid – what ye must have thought of me."

 He gave me a sorrowful look and continued.

 "I saw them all congratulating ye, and how ye shrunk away – he let out a strangled sigh "I dinna blame ye, I wouldna want to marry me either."

 My brows creased in confusion and not stopping to try and reassure him I stopped him in his tracks.

 "What has our engagement party and my apparent loathing to marry you got to do with William Dunsany and his daughter?" he wouldn't hear her name from my tongue "- getting arrested." My voice was like ice, and I didn't realise the annoyance that was burning up inside of me until I began to speak.

 Jamie's eyes flashed in understanding, and he raised a hand halting me.

"Sorry – I just meant that I went outside to calm down before I insulted every guest mam and Da had invited, and that is when I got the first inclination that there was more than just dodgy contracts at play in Hellwater."

 "Ok so tell me."

 "Geneva followed me outside –" my face must have expressed something  because Jamie waved his hand and said, "I mean- she claimed it was to say sorry how things had gone down over the contracts– she leaned into my ear and told me I should look at the positives."

 He breathed heavily through his nose. Rucking a hand through his hair as I could see him replaying what had happened over in his head.

 "I told her to go fuck herself if I recall correctly –" he sucked in his bottom lip and laughed snidely. "she isna used to people telling her no."

 I engulfed a strangled breath and released it slowly, willing myself to remain calm.

 " –  while she was walking away she threw some comment at me about "It being a pity because I would have a lot of money at my disposal for this project - I could make a name for myself." he curled his finger into air quotes ‘ with this once in a lifetime project' he corrected.

 Jamie shook his head disbelievingly – "at the time I was in such a temper, I dinna really focus on what she said – it was only later when I got to  Hellwater – I suppose I was more desperate then to find their flaws – or something that would get me out of there."

 I sat back in my chair, and Jamie grasped for my hand again.  "It was only when I started thinking of how she had worded it that I realised she had said it so underhandedly, almost looking over her shoulder" – he gave me a cynical look "I kent then whatever she meant about money at my disposal – she would be controlling it and in the hopes she could control me if I was intrested."

 I rose and grabbed a glass from the cupboard filling it from the tap and downing it in one, not even thinking to offer him any.

 "I was sae focused on legal routes to wrangle my way out of their grasp, I failed to see that if they got me to Hellwater under coercion, they had to have their hands dirty elsewhere."

 I flashed him a smile, and he shifted nervously. "Smarter than you look, Fraser."

Jamie sat forward with purpose now," I researched everything I could find out about them, and the bit of information I found was something I knew all along but dinna register."

 I smiled shyly at him, seeing the look of achievement fill his eyes.  A tender look flashed across his face, and he forgot lost his place in the story for a moment.

 He slowly allowed his finger to crawl over the back of my hand; he reached my wrist which he turned upright and brought it to his mouth.

 "it is so good to be sitting here looking at ye, being able just to reach out and feel ye Claire – it probably sounds daft but yer like a dream." I couldn't stop my face lighting up, and we stayed in that moment beaming back at each other. Eventually, a little voice inside my head told me I needed to know the rest.

 "What didn't register? " I asked after a time.

 "Gordon Dunsany was found dead in Panama."

 I crooked an enquiring eyebrow at him. "Panama" – Jamie said patiently while drumming a finger against my kitchen table " a tax heaven –  " a sly smile lightening his eyes – "probably one of the most well-known things about it."

"Oh"

 "Aye, well that and at the time Gordon was found dead, he was the financial controller for Hellwater estates."

 "Oh," I said again.

 "I had an old friend from Uni that I kent was working in some capacity at HRMC. John Grey, have I mentioned him to ye?"

 I shook my head, and Jamie stood, walking to the kitchen sink and refilling my empty glass and downing it.

 "I contacted him and pitched the idea, told him what I knew. He immediately offered to meet me, but away from Hellwater."

 He sat back down heavily on the seat opposite me. "That is when I kent, I was on to a winner."

 My phone buzzed insistently in my pocket, I glanced at it quickly and hit the silence button Jamie's eyes followed my movements.

 "Do ye need to –"

 I tilted my head indicating for him to continue.

 "As soon as I told him about Geneva mentioning money at my disposal for the equestrian centre, John was all over it. They had tried an investigation a few years before but lacked evidence linking the Dunsany's to any foreign accounts."

 He shrugged his shoulders "what they really needed was to get Geneva to move money from these accounts – and that is where I came in."

 My ears were buzzing, and my stomach churned over, the water seemed to be more than my system could handle, and the more I heard Geneva's name from Jamie's lips, the more I wanted to gag."

 My gaze flicked away from his, and I looked down at my hands. Wanting to badly ask him, what his role had been with Geneva, pride sticking in my throat as he narrowed his eyes, a concerned expression etched on his face.

"Claire – "

 "Just tell it as it happened" I managed to stammer out.

 Jamie nodded slowly, I could see his adam's apple bobbing up and down, and he shifted in his chair before he started to speak again.

 "It was clear that Geneva was vera keen to impress me –" he paused and deliberately met my eye I thought for a moment he wanted to drop the story of the case and just speak about him and me, what all this meant, but I glanced away.

 He took the hint and continued.

 "John and his team wanted me to push her with the project, make her believe that costs had gone over what had been predicted, demand changes that would require more funds, place urgency on having money drawn down."

 He paused and slid his hands across the table, they were less than an inch from my clenched hands, but I didn't move to touch him.

 "We went down that route – "

 I was done listening to the legal plotting of this investigation.

 "I would imagine you had to be on good enough terms with her then?”, feeling the flush of red fill my cheeks.

 Jamie's nodded, and he pressed his lips into a thin line, his face impassive.

 "Aye at first", he agreed " I had to keep her talk'n and such, the night ye called – "

 I straightened my back and leaned over the table, willing myself to hide any hint of emotion from my face.

 "Jamie, did you sleep with her or – ?"

 His eyes went wide as stalks and he shook his head vehemently.

 "NO!"

 "Claire – "

 I put my hand up to stop him, "Look there was pressure on you, you may not have wanted to but – "

 "Claire- " he banged his fist of the table. "I did no sleep with her. Ye must believe me."

 I didn't answer, but I locked my gaze with his, I could see tears welling up behind his eyes, from frustration or hurt at my accusation I couldn't tell.

He looked down at his hands scrutinising his palms. He said nothing for several minutes, and I thought he was done explaining himself.

 "That night ye rang – was the game changer." He said it in a whisper, not wanting to relive what had happened between then and now.

 "Why?"

 "I – well up until that I think I carried some guilt about her, I kept thinking she is a young lass probably knows no better, her father had ran his business this way, then moulded her brother and when he died he molded Geneva – that is what I thought anyway." His shoulders slackened defensively and he let out a long sigh. I could see exhaustion creep into his body and I wondered when he had last slept.

  "I suppose I was so desperate to get out of there I dinna care who I hurt – but as the days wore on and I realised if I managed to pull this off" – he looked up and met my eye – " Geneva would go away for a long time, and it would be because of me." His eyes looked at mine pleading, hoping I understood.

 "What happened the night she answered your phone?"

 "She had been at a fundraiser –" he pinched his eyes between thumb and forefinger – " she came by the studio I was staying at blind drunk."

 My fingernails were digging into the palms of my hands, and I willed him to hurry up or better again stop talking. Either one would do.

 "The surveillance guys had seen her coming, rang ahead to tell me to wire up."

 He snorted incredulously. "I had barely opened the door when I knew I had made a major mistake, she was really drunk, messy drunk – almost threw herself into my arms straight away, calling me James and tell'n me she loved me."

 Jamie's head shook from side to side. "I told her she was drunk – to sort herself out."

 "Then she started taking her clothes off – I flipped, told her to get out – then the tears started."

 He swallowed "I was ashamed – I had pretended to befriend her to get information that would finish her family – she had taken it to heart thinking I had feelings for her – I told her it was ok and that I would bring her home – it was while I went to get a robe or something to wrap around her–she must have taken the phone."

 Jamie narrowed his eyes "Claire look at me?" I raised my head and met his eye. "I brought her home, straight away – its all on tape – I have nothing to hide."

 I managed a nod.

 "I dinna realise until the next day – she couldna unlock it – only answer calls." He finished unnecessarily  

"Why was that a game changer?"

 My voice trembled slightly and I inwardly rolled my eyes, wanting to appear as strong as possible so Jamie wouldn't hold back.

 "Well –" he raised his eyes, recalling what had unfolded. "Up until then I was sorry for her – after I rang Jenny and I kent what she had done, what she got Dougal to do –what she had done to you. "

His eyes lit up , his lip jutting out slightly as he laughed, his voice was venomous and proud "She could have lost me what I love most in this worId Claire- so I dinna hold back,."

  He paused and I could see his mind working, trying to find away to express what had motivated him on.

  "I was so fucking angry – I rang john Grey and told him I wanted off the case they could get someone else to flush her out, I was so caught up with wanting to get to you – to explain – it was only then I realised how trapped I was – John told me straight if I left – she would get away with it all – and those tapes would never see the light of day –"

 Jamie laughed bitterly "those tapes were the only things that could clear my name Claire – if I came to you with some farfetched excuse telling ye I was a mole for a huge tax evasion case – ye wouldha thought I was gone mad."

 "I wouldn't." I interjected.

 "Aye ye would have, ye believed Geneva and ye believed Dougal – I dinna blame ye, god knows I have tested ye enough in our short time together, I have a lot to prove – if I finished what I went there to do – I had some hope of restoring yer faith."

 I reached out and touched the tops of his fingers, pressing gently. My show of Faith.

He took a long shaky breath " Geneva Dunsany doesna care about anyone but herself – she didna care if she ruined my family and suddenly I dinna care much if I ruined hers I went to the site the next day and I demanded more money from her for the project, told her I wanted it as soon as possible, that she was unprofessional and incompetent."

  His chin tilted up defiantly, his tone clearer and not without a hint of pride he continued, "I told her she had costed everything wrong and she was in jeopardy of shutting the whole thing down – from then on I took risks in how I handled her, I dinna care how I came across – I just went for it – it was much easy to bring her down when I hated her."

 "So what happened?"

 "Well, it turns out Geneva Dunsany likes men mean" – he snorted –  "ye could say she gets off on it – cause the more of a bastard I was to her – the more she jumped".

 A wide triumphant smile spread across his face. " A week later – she had exhausted all available funds in their British accounts –  so she made contact with a financial institution to get the rest of what I said she needed and all the HRMC had to do was wait and watch."

 "Jesus"

 "Aye, within another week she had moved a couple of million out of a Panama account and then they had her."

 I exhaled in an almost whistle.

 "So what happens now?"

 "There will be a trial – in a few months – the charges are significant – the Dunsany's have a long history in Panama – big money."

 I stood walking around to where he sat, leaning against the table my arms folded.

 "You came straight here?"

 "as soon as I had given my statement, I went straight to Gatwick – have been on standby until I got the flight last night."

 I ran a hand down his face, and he leaned into it, eyes closed.

 "I had to see ye – god ye have no idea how much I missed ye Claire  – and Willie - ye were on my mind day and night."

 I felt him tremble slightly, one tear slid down caught by the side of my finger,

 “I feel like I have been without ye for much longer than a few months – “

 I leaned towards him to cup his other cheek, something happened. He looked up and met my eye, seeing the tears stain my own cheeks, and the next moment he had grabbed me, pulling me into his lap and kissing me with all he had. Teeth sinking, tongues touching lightly, questioningly until we both started to fight for dominance, out of the need to push the pain of the past months away. Without conscious thought, I found myself straddling him, grinding my body against his, and he squirmed trying to meet my hips, my hands lost in his too short hair cut and the other balling a fist in the front of his t-shirt. I felt one hand tangled in my curls while the other traveled from my thighs up to my arse, settling on my waist to pull me closer still.

 We pulled away allowing our mouth to hover over the other, our breaths were short and fast.

  "I am not leaving you and Willie again Claire – I am here to stay."

 He pressed his head into the crook of my neck, breathing deeply.

 “What about Lallybroch  - what about Brian and –“

“You and Willie come first – everything else can be arranged – I mean if its what ye want too?”

 I tugged his hair slightly bringing his gaze back to mine.

 “I have to do some talking too –“ I bent and touched his lips lightly “but I am so glad you are here.”

[crystalsexarch]

the little-death - crystal exarch - e

The Warrior blinks her eyes open, though she’s still but half awake. The light of the First dances through her window onto bits of dust, and she makes of it a certain haze, a mist, like the Pendants exist somewhere outside of time and place. Everything is blue. Everything is so, so quiet.

Twenty-nine - free day

Crystal Exarch. This became explicit, but it's really about pain and character growth. Ambiguous female WoL wakes to find her partner already up and troubled by the nature of his own survival.

More writing and sinning available here.

Don’t forget to submit your own request...bb

It must be early. She can already tell her lover has risen, but she suspects he hasn’t traveled far. She considers going back to sleep - rolling over into G’raha’s space and enjoying the ghost-warmth he’d left behind - but when she finds the spot cold, she lowers her brow.

At first she doesn’t catch him in the far corner of the room, standing robeless before the mirror. Likewise, he is oblivious to her awakening. His own body occupies him well enough; his own body and its flaws. No dream or disturbance brought him from the Warrior’s embrace. There had come a point in the early morning where his eyes simply opened, and in his head he found thoughts of G’raha Tia of the Source, of young muscle and mismatched eyes.

Gazing at his naked flesh, he tries to decide whether he is proud of having been that man or ashamed to have become somebody else.

The Warrior eyes him through her sleep-haze. If she cocks her head just right she catches his face reflected back at her, ignorant still of her gaze. He looks instead into his own eyes and drags his fingers down his cheeks, lets his left hand catch at the cut of crystal carved into him. And as it catches, his lips tremble.

She shuffles at his pain, not meaning to attract his attention - but his eyes shift to her reflection nonetheless. Before she can speak, he chokes a gasp and collapses to his knees.

“Raha - “

She’s out of bed soon enough, her own legs awake enough to bring her to him.

He hides his face in his hands and grits his teeth. The sudden rush of her body at his back, of the warmth of her arms around his neck only reinforce the idea that she comforts him more than he could ever comfort her. He and his body of crystal. He and his plague of guilt. He and his falsehoods, misfortunes, and fronts. For all his years, he has grown only better at wasting time.

“I...meant not to wake you,” he says.

“You didn’t.” Her voice floats to his ears.

Even in angst, he leans into her, cranes his neck to her embrace. “There is poison in my thinking. Poisoning me.”

“Let me take it from you.”

He sobs once and holds his elbows to keep his arms from shaking. “I would not have you likewise afflicted…”

“Then let me help.” She starts to rub his shoulders, but he twists his crystal arm away and buckles forward until his forehead is mere ilms from the wooden panels of the floor. Surprised, she lets her hands fall away. The muscles of his back surge with his heavy breaths. Only when he has breathed several cycles, does she set her fingers on his shoulder blade. “You are...hurting.”

There’s little he thinks he can do to keep himself from whipping the pace of his breaths to a frenzy. Between gasps, he exclaims something he hadn’t put into words before speaking them aloud:

“I’m so afraid!”

The room, nay the world is quiet, but for the Exarch’s ragged breaths. Not even the Warrior has words for him in those moments.

But she is yet thinking. She has been this same coil of pain and grief and burden. She has bled air onto the floor and gasped. She has rocked herself into exhaustion and sought comfort from the cold earth. She has needed as he needs, but - the cure eludes her.

Getting it out - whatever it was supposed to be - gives him a reprieve. He is able to keep his eyes open and process the wooden knots of the floor before him for a moment. Too soon, the lines warp with the return of his tears. His arms come forward in impulse, and he knows his body wants to hide itself, but she’s got him - she’s got him for better or for worse - she’s got her fingers wrapped around his forearms -

And she kisses the back of his neck thinking it is what she would have wished for in her darker moments - for affection and companionship.

But he thinks of fear. My life is ruled by fear even as I lie with the greatest force known to any reflection.

A reflection, as it happens, sits before him.

He raises his head and looks mirroward with eyes now tinged red. Though the Warrior’s eyes are closed, he sees somehow that their faces are not so dissimilar as he once may have thought. Tears have trailed down her cheeks as well, and stress has knit her eyebrows high.

She feels him raise his head and opens one eye. Her lover stares at her through the mirror, and she stares back at him until blush paints her cheeks instead of pain. “Look at us,” she laughs through her tears.

His own laugh dies in his throat. “I…”

“It is far too early to have shed so many tears.”

He swallows and uses the mirror to find her fingers with his own. “I am…”

“Don’t you say you’re sorry.” She presses her face into his back, unapologetically serious. He can feel it on his skin. “The only time you’ll be sorry is if you try to keep your suffering from me again.”

A chill runs through him. “My love...I just...Iam loathe to burden you with anything more than I already have.”

She shakes her head. “No. No burden.”

“I - “

“You are allowed to be afraid. You are allowed to need.” She pulls away and forces him to look at her true face instead of her reflection. “So tell me what you need.”

The whole of his body, the strength of the Tower even, can do nothing to stop the surge of emotion that flushes from his chest throughout the rest of his body. He can barely relay his next found truth. “I confess,” he says. “I know not what I need...but what I want is…”

Lips part. Hearts beat. The Warrior looks to the side in prescient bliss. “Take it…”

When he presses his mouth upon hers, he leaves little room for escalation. They twist until he has found his way on top of her. If lust hadn’t riddled his mind, he may have felt ridiculous for crying in one moment and straddling her the next, but his arousal was greater than his inhibition. As they had woken, they lie already naked on the floor, with no robes, armor, or smallclothes to remove. Already they had locked together in one space - now longing for an additional connection.

“Is this all right?” he hisses, drawing his hand to her slit. “The floor?”

She bites back a moan to answer. “Anywhere. Here, now.” She winces as he pushes a finger inside. “Take me. Take me all.”

The idea was to warm her up, but as her hands find his member he grows increasingly impatient - increasingly willing to be as impolite as she - but he holds back until he can slot another finger in her heat and press at an angle he knows will weaken her vitality.

“Ah! Raha!”

He fingers her and leans so he can feel her nipples on his chest. She loves the kiss of crystal on her, inside her. What he curses, she relishes and craves. She arches her back to get more of it, and more of him.

When he withholds a few motions longer, she bites his tongue, and he pulls away gasping and red hot. “Very well,” he says. “If...if you insist.”

“I do.” She’s melting beneath him, begging him to bring her back together. “I do, Raha.”

He feels his lower lip tremble. There is so much power in fear. So much ambiguity. So much that drives and resists, propels and prevents. Fear wages and wins wars, makes martyrs and cowards alike.

G’raha sets his forehead upon her neck and pushes himself inside, inhaling sharply. When he can go no farther, he breathes out into her hair.

“Gods…”

“My...Warrior…”

And when he starts to move, she twitches her hips up. It’s always that first push that frenzies. From now on, she knows she will fight only for pleasure: her own and his. She can see his tail lashing and stiffening with his thrusts. Though she can’t quite reach its base, she knows she can please him just as well by rubbing either of his ears.

He groans when she reaches the tip and pauses so he doesn’t embarrass himself. “Do you want me to - to touch you?” he says.

“Should it...please you…”

“It would…” He raises himself on his right arm and sets his left at her clit, but she pushes it away.

“The other is not lesser.”

He looks to the side, face as red as his hair, and readjusts so his clumsy crystal fingers can rub at her center.

“Just...like that…”

The words…excite him...

Deeply he moves, hoping he can survive another wave each time. When she squirms at his touch, he feels release building, and each time it grows too strong, he looks away so the sight of her lustful form beneath him begets not an early climax.

Soon, she gets tired of him trying to delay the inevitable. As long as she’d like to have him inside her, she is ravenous and knows he’s holding back. She wraps one arm and one leg around him, forcing him down onto one elbow. Knowing he wants to mark her, she shifts her head to press against her shoulder.

The idea that she wants his teeth on her skin makes his eyes water. The last of his courtesy is gone. Muscle memory propels his crystal fingers to work, but he can no longer focus on anything but chasing the thrust that will send him over the edge.

She’s pulsing by the time he clamps down on her neck, hoping the rhythm of her orgasm will intensify his. He holds and holds and holds her with his teeth until his tongue lolls onto her skin to the tune of a savage groan. Even after she’s certain he’s pumped as much seed into her as either of them can manage, he continues thrusting until his grunts become whimpers and he lets fall his body onto her chest.

Time has passed since the blue morning that brought them together, awakened.

The sun shines into the room and hits the mirror so it half-lights their connected, sweat-covered bodies. But neither of them sees. They have closed their eyes. Anything they could think of saying has already been said - or is instead already known through the heat they share. The sun they make between themselves.

But eventually, he is the one to rise, only to kiss her forehead and brush the wet hairs from her face. He smiles, for he knows through her he can become someone new, not quite G’raha nor Exarch. Something better. Something that can follow her forever, or as long as she’d have him. This is the weight he will bear, the one to keep him burning himself away. From burning her away. From burning.

He closes his eyes.

“I love you.”

[lovelykhaleesiii]

Just Us

Pairing: Michael Langdon x fem!Reader 

Words: 1.9k 

Summary: Before the apocalypse, you were one of the few people Michael had come to befriend, trust and love... 

Warnings: Jealous!Michael, S M U T, fingering, some profanity, mentions of fluff, short time jump (***), does include the name of the person who requested! 

REQUESTED BY - @hxdesworld

A/N - Hope you love this! So sorry for the wait, and sorry if this is shit smut!!! 

Michael Langdon, the outcast of the school, was also your dearest friend. He wasn’t the typical high school student, nor was he popular: more so he was much reserved to himself, and that was simpy how he chose to be. Although, it was different between you two. You were his exception. You’d first met Michael in class: it wasn’t exactly deliberate, as neither one of you approached the other willingly, although it was for a class assignment. To your luck, the teacher had assigned you two together, which instantly meant spending time outside of class with each other. Overtime, you’d come to realise that the lies and gossip revolving around Michael, all of which concluded to him being a ‘freak’ were all incredibly wrong. He was genuine, kind hearted and charming. Undoubtedly, Michael’s true self threw you off, typically due to his appearance. The ragged black clothing, leather boots and unkempt hair: yet you too couldn’t have been ever more wrong. You should have realised better than to assume...You’d also come to realise that Michael was all you’d ever wanted. He loved you like no other, protected you like no one else had, and most of all he seemed to be the only person who ever knew how to make you smile. He loved it. Even during the roughest of days, when you were either exhausted or bugged out, he knew exactly what to do to make you laugh. And he loved it...You’d never felt more assured in your life, that you had met the love of your life. It was just a matter of time, until you’d confront Michael about it. You felt he needed to hear it from you: your emotions throughout the months had grown profoundly, that the simple fact that you’d been hiding them, was devouring you alive. You’d never felt this way about a person and Michael was simply doing wonders. He just needed to know…

***

“Michael!” You yell from across the hall, still to this day, people gave you side eyes and looks of disgust, but you didn’t mind...Surely, they weren’t aware of what they’d been missing out on, bonus, more Michael to yourself!

The bell had just rung for the 4th Period of the day, and both Michael and you were due for a study period. Much to your relief, both Michael and you shared majority of your classes: it was most depressing when either one of you were absent, seeing as how classes felt slower and weren’t as exciting.

From the distance you caught Michael’s attention turning to your direction, only for you to be met with that familiar smile of his, that you grew to love. Yet you caught yourself being stopped from walking anymore, a hand gripping your arm, causing your body to instantly divert to the stranger.

“David” You whisper.

“Angela-” He retorted, tearing his focus from you, to Michael, who now had grown angered that you’d been taken.

“Angela can you stop this” He retorted, his tone filled with frustration. David had been on of your closest friends growing up. You knew each other since childhood, yet you both had grown apart. It was just how it was: neither of you took the blame, and sometime you found yourselves reminiscing the past, yet now he simply felt like a stranger... You had Michael now.

“Stop what?” You aggitated: trying to shrug your arm away from his tight grip.

“Stop with this whole Michael thing! It’s ridiculous” He insisted. The name of Michael, caused you to divert your focus from David to him. And he was mad... Michael never really enjoyed you talking with the other students. He knew most of the time it was about him, and their concerns for you about being with him. Much to their knowledge, had they known that Michael was your security, they wouldn’t waste your time in telling you lies.

“David-“

“I’m serious Angela” He yelled, gis hand instinctively tightening, causing you to let out a small “ow.” You didn’t think anyone had heard, past the bustling movements of the students, who seemed oblivious to your situation, yet you felt a towering figure stand before you.

“Let her go.” You recognised Michael’s firm voice, yet its tone was unfamiliar...

“And if I don’t?” David had retaliated: a smug look growing in his face, as he tried to square up with Michael. Within a split second, his attitude had changed. His face had fallen from pride, only to become cowarded in fright. Something inside of David must have triggered him into realising his mistake of even wanting ti attempt to fight Michael. There was one thing for sure you knew about Michael that frigtened you most... And that was his temper: his ability to become angered in an instant: seeing the serious, piercing look on his face, his body oozing with rage, it was such a rare sight. Seeing him like this, you felt no need to intervene: Michael had both you and himself covered. Yet you’d also come to realise that Michael was never like this with you, he was always happy, and content. You simply believed it to be a small flaw, a sort of defence mechanism he probably habited due to his experiences of bullying. Surely David would realise his slim chances of competing against Michael...

“You’re making a mistake” He whispered to you, before turning away from the chaos.

Moving your attention unti Michael, you saw how he still remained focused on David. Those blue eyes, so vibrant, that you’d become infatuated with now blazed with anger.

“Oh-I uh, I thought-“

“Mine-“ He snapped, interferring with your sentence. Catching you by surprise. “I don’t want him talking like that to you ever again. Promise me, that you won’t” He persisted.

“Of course-“ You obliged, shocked to hear the word ‘mine.’ Withdrawing yourself from the sudden scenario, you remembered the real reason you’d wanted Michael for. The truth...

“Uh- I, I was wondering if, uhm, we could walk together?” You anxiously stutter, trying to interfere with his thoughts, before anything more unexpected could progress. The sound of your voice, its familiarity, its tenderness. instantly caused him to react, just the way you wanted. He’d become calm, smiling down at you as though the last few minutes before had never unfolded. The pure sight before you, Michael’s genuine smile, his mesmirising eyes, triggered you to recall your thoughts: some of which were most impure: thinking about exposing your full body for Michael to behold, his touch against your bare skin. Often, your thoughts would explore beyond that...Envisioning sex with Michael: his manhood grinding inside you, causing you a painful satisfaction as you moaned his name against his lips. Yet, you hadn’t the slightest of clue as to whether Michael had the same mutual feelings or thoughts. Like you said...He was always so reserved. Nor had he ever opened up to you about his feelings for anyone.

“Yeah of course” He persisted, just as he was about to lead the way, you immediately reached for his arm, causing him to halt, his face growing concerned.

“What’s wrong, Angela? Did he do anything to you? Did he cause you pain?” He insisted, as his hands reached for your shoulder: having to bend over so he was now eye to eye. Only to tear his eyes away from you, looking down at the arm he gripped, his hands gently stroking your forearm, as he scanned to find any injury.

“No, no, Michael. He didn’t cause any harm. I’m alright-“ You smile, only for it to fade in an instance: your nerves beginning to take their toll. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something. And this has been on my mind for some time now, just eating me up from inside.”

“Angela, what is it?” He snapped, his tone stressed yet assertive.

“I-I love you Michael… I always have-” you stutter, your eyes fixated onto Michael, as his widened.

“And I know, you aren’t the type to-“

“The type of what, Angela?” He retorted, his voice firm. You felt you now you’d completely ruined your relationship, that you triggered Michael into realising this was all a mistake.

“Well you never talk about ‘love’ and all… Let alone sex.” You blabbed, unaware of how much you had already disclosed. You felt your self-control disappeared, and your voice had a mind of its own…

“Sex, huh?” He uttered, straightening his posture, as his eyes devoured your body in its entirety. Fuck his stares killed you.

“I honestly don’t know why I said tha-”

Before you had a split second more to finish,  Michael instantly crashed his lips against yours. The overdue thought of this moment, was too unexpected yet worth it. Without a second of doubt, without any hesitation, you couldn’t resist but remain where you were. Exchanging the favour also, by giving yourself into Michael.

Soon you felt his hands gripping your waist, as he leant forward, leading your body forwards. It was only a couple steps before he released himself from you, his eyes still fixated unto you.

“In here” He growled.

Without even the thought of questioning him, you immediately opened the door, to you luck, to an empty classroom. Michael following you behind, before scanning the hallways one last time, before locking the door shut, closing the blind instantly.

“Take off your clothes” he demanded, sensing that his tone was eager for your touch. The tease that he’d known you to become, you began to slowly strip. Unbuttoning your shirt, revealing your lace bra, as you slid your pants down, to show off yet a matching pair of panties. Staring intently at Michael, you notices how his eyes consumed your for : every detail, every feature, every imperfection you’d grown to love, he took you all in and by the look on his face...He was yearning for you.

“You like what you see?” You instigated, a cheeky smirk brewing on your face, uncertain of Michael’s thoughts nor his next move.

Immediately, he stepped towards you, his large hands snaking their way to your ass, as he gripped the cheeks tightly, causing you to raise yourself on your toes. Yet again, you both presumed to the kissing, as he sat you down on the desk behind you. His hands began to smoothly travel up your spine, reaching the clip of your bra. With an instant, yet effortless motion, your breasts sprang from the restriction, pressing against his broad chest.

His hands gliding themselves unto your breasts: the kiss ceasing once more, he diverted his focus onto your breasts, admiring their shape and form.

“Incredible” he uttered, as he continued what he last left off, unaware that his hand soon entered your panties, his finger beginning to caress your vagina.

This was were the fun was just getting started. You could already feel yourself moisten up for him, slight moans escaping your mouth as his fingers began to enter, deepening themselves between your walls.

“You’re going to have to stay quiet for me, beautiful. Or else we’ll be facing a suspension” he chuckled, finding it most amusing seeing your head tilted back, squirming under his touch.

Without warning, his fingers instantly shoved themselves deeper, causing you to instinctively shout his name. Your wetness began to drench themselves all around his fingers, some you felt spilling through the gaps of your entry, trickling down your thighs.

“Don’t cum for me just yet, Angela...You haven’t felt the real thing” he snapped, before he removed his fingers from your wet self, as he pulled his pants down. Re-focusing your attention from Michael down to his manhood, you were astounded by how large he’d grown, your thighs instinctively parted from one another, trying to make as great an entry as possible: wondering how exactly he’d fit himself through your tight walls. You could see its bulged outlined tightly against his boxers, unable to be contained anymore.

“Eyes on me...I want you all to myself, you understand.” He growled, as his hand grasped your chin, forcing your head to look up at him, as his other hand remained below, removing his boxers.

“Let’s see how long you can last without screaming for me...I bet you won’t last a minute” He intrigued, chuckling against his words, in an attempt to distract you from the sight below, as he edged closer towards you, aligning himself parallel to you.

“Try me” You slyly smirked, cocking an eyebrow, as your hands gripped his shoulders, preparing for the ride.

Without wasting time, Michael instantly thrust himself inside you. You felt your walls expand like never before, most likely beyond their limits. You let out a painful moan, yet felt ecstatic to do so...It was all part of the process. His pace began to quicken, as you felt his dick protruding within you, throbbing against your tight walls stretching you out as wide as they could go, testing your boundaries.

“Come on, Angela-” He grunted, “say it.”

Your voice hitched against the sensation, unable to respond with a simple no, you simply shook your head in disapproval. Your right hand still gripped his shoulder, your nails clawing his skin, as you tried steadying yourself against his ravishing thrusts, the other gripping the table for support.

“Say it...God your so-so fucking tight” he deeply moaned, as the table beneath you began to nudge backwards, against his forceful movements.

No thought nor consideration ran through your mind. It was just pure instinct...Michael had now pushed you beyond your boundaries, as you felt your juices gushing over his dick. You’d finally felt the climax, and Michael knew.

You screamed for him, wanting more of him deeper inside you. You felt that for sure you guys would have been caught, yet it seemed no one had ye barged into the room.

“Fuck Michael!” you yelled, as your cum painted over him, yet still has his pace began to lessen he remained inside.

“Atta girl” he growled, before he soon tilted his head back, one hand gripping the table from screeching against the floor, the other held your hip. Finally, he’d released. His cum drowned your walls with warmth and relief. You’d never felt a sensation like this before...It was extraordinary.

“Fuck” he breathlessly whispered, before removing himself from you. As he began to dress himself again, you remained seated on the desk, gasping for air before in turn, dressing yourself once more.

“I guess that answered your question” He retorted, smirking up at you as he handed you over your pants.

“What? Oh yes...I hope so, Michael. I really did mean it” You shyly reply, uncertain of whether Michael was kidding nor if he was serious.

“Of course, Angela...There’s no one I want more than you by my side. Always” He insisted, as he walked closer to you, his hands gently clasping your face in his, giving you one final kiss of reassurance. A smile instantly brew on your face, as he gestured you to lead the way out, before you both got caught.

You’d never felt more secure in your life, never felt more content. The others who thought wrong of you, who thought you could’ve done better, surely didn’t know who Michael Langdon was… And that was just it, as it always had been for sometime, was Michael by your side against the bitterness of the world.

[pokimoko]

STEVEN UNIVERSE: THE MOVIE - Personal Commentary

I wrote this to send to a friend, but I decided I might as well post it on here. I did a large portion of this while I was watching the movie, but I did go back and improve on some parts after I was finished, so forgive the inconsistent tenses. I apologise for the length as well, which is a result of me getting completely carried away and analysing a lot of the movie (I bet my English teachers are cheering). Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy my personal thoughts on the Steven Universe movie. (Also, spoilers if you haven’t already watched it.)

- The opening....wow. Not only is it pretty but it's just so dramatic. It reminds me quite a bit of old fashioned Disney musicals (I’m guessing that was their intention). Even the layout of the credits are giving me that vibe. But especially the music. Very fairytale-esque.

- 16 year old Steven, yeah booiii! Now he’s only a few years younger than me. I do like his older voice and design. Bet Zach Callison is relieved that he doesn't have to pitch his voice up high anymore. And I personally really love the pan flag colour scheme of his new outfit. I wonder if they’ll keep it for the season(s) following the movie.

- Aww, the Diamonds are learning. Sort of. They’re maybe just a tad clingy, but that's still improvement. I really love how Steven Universe never makes the 'villians' completely evil, only misguided, and that everyone is capable of changing their ways. Such a great message. (Edit: Ooohh, I unintentionally called what I'd say is the moral of the movie. Noice.)

- Naaww, Steven and Connie are so cute. Steven's happy little grin after the kiss was just adorable.

- Oooh, I like the 'Here We Are in the Future' (Edit: 'Happily Ever After') song. It just shows how much they've all grown over the course of the series. And it’s a great way to recap the journeys of each of the original Crystal Gems to the audience.

- "PEW PEW" Yeesss. I love their handshake. And oh my god, he really is so tall compared to Amethyst now.

- Oh my god, they're reenacting the running sequence from the opening. Love me a parallel. Just shows how far they’ve all come.

-Okay, why do the 'bad' guys in musicals always get such cool songs? Spinel's song was so catchy. Now I'm super curious about her relation to Pink Diamond. Oh cool! A scythe. That's awesome.....AH! Okay, nevermind. Nooo.

- 'Losing your powers' angst. I love it (yes, I know, I'm terrible).

- Greg: "Holy shhhhhheee really got everybody" Me: 😏 I see what you did there.

- Steven: "I have no idea what's going on." Greg: "Well now you know how I feel most of the time." Greg is so relatable sometimes. Kindly stop being my spirit animal, sir.

- AHHH! They've all been reset. Craaappp! And I was just going on about growth and everything! But I'm excited to see what happens because I love angst, god damn it. It always helps to make the happy ending all the more satisfying. (And...admittedly, the amnesia narrative device has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. I’ve always enjoyed how it allows you to so clearly see how a character has evolved over time and how much their experiences have defined their identity.)

- "Something is clearly wrong," Pearl sings happily and bug-eyed. Excellent and relatable. That's how I react to most things in life, honestly.

- "I could have lost all of my character development." Ha! Never subtle, are you Peridot? But also nooooo, not Peridot. Don't you dare touch her. She's grown so much and I love her dearly (and also Lapis' top notch dark humour. Perfect.)

- Sad song reprise is sad. I totally understand what Steven is feeling too. Things you’ve gotten so used to (hell, maybe even become dependent on for your emotional welbeing) can disappear so quickly that it can be quite a whiplash to have it gone, so it's completely normal to struggle to accept it, and to yearn for what you had not so long ago.

- Bismuth saying “We are the Crystal Gems” has watered my crops and cleared my skin. And I love her singing voice; the roughness in some parts suits her character so well.

- Rupphire Rupphire RUPPHIRE GAAAARRRNNNEEETTT, yiissss! Wow the fusion animation is really awesome. It's like a behind-the-scenes on how it works from their perspective. But I love how the two of them fusing together doesn't fix Garnet's memories or make her exactly how she was before losing them. Garnet isn't just an experience; she's also a product of her experiences.

- Lil' trumpet salute! Naww, Pearl, that's adorable.

- ....is Onion....immortal? He still looks exactly the same. 😟 I'm unnerved by that child and whatever power he had.

- Oooh, tap dancing. I love tap dancing! Even if Steven is wearing sandals while doing it. Oh boy, I love the friendship between Amethyst and Steven. It's always been one of my favourite things in the show. It's kind of like the sibling interaction I've always wished to have myself: supportive and wholesome. And I also love how their fusion shows that platonic and familial love is just as powerful as romantic love. Oh, YAY Amethyst is back! Like I said, friendship is a powerful thing.

- Oh my god, Steven and Greg are going to fuse. Ahhhh! Oh wow, it's basically Elvis with a six pack! Hehehe, so weird. But not bad either. And, oh wow, what a great song! Individuality is my kink.

- The ANGST is making me feel emotions. Steven looks so ragged, and the high pitched whining in his ears definitely added to that. And having felt that terrible myself a few times, I know how much it frigging sucks. And just like him I brushed other people's concerns off, so I'd be a hypocrite to tell him to take care of himself. (But I am a hypocrite. Take care of yourself, Steven!)

- Yep, here's the tragic backstory to make me sad about Spinel. Hit me where it hurts why don't you. Gosh, Pink Diamond really did some messed up things when she was younger (but thankfully she evolved from that and changed to become Steven). Leaving someone behind without giving them closure or even a reason would mess someone up for sure. You'd feel completely worthless. And unfortunately, being noticed for any reason⁠—good or bad⁠—is generally a way to cope with that feeling. Spinel is doing what she can to deal with what Pink did to her, and that unfortunately involves lashing out and hurting others.

- The 'True Kinda Love' song! Knew it'd turn up at one point. Knowing the context makes it so much better too. And hell yeah, Garnet is back!

- Blood? On this Christian Server? It's more likely than you think.

- “This is the story of my life.” Ahh! Steven's just a kid, and he's gone through so much. But, I gotta say, he is absolute proof that having a rough childhood and being a flawed person in the past (*cough* Pink Diamond *cough*) doesn't condemn you to being a wicked person forever. Anyone, regardless of their circumstances and experiences, can be a good person. Your early years don't define your identity or what will become of your future.

- Spinel: “When you change, you change for the better. When I change, I change for the worse. I used to be just not good, just not good enough for Pink. Now I'm not good at all!” Damn. That's powerful. Trauma can be such a difficult thing to overcome, and some people lose their way in their attempt to leave it behind. Sometimes, though, growing doesn't mean changing yourself and erasing the past; sometimes it means accepting the parts of your past that made you who you are now. Showing the importance of past experiences through the Crystal Gem's recovery of their identities is such a smart way of showing this concept to the audience. Such a great analogy. Now, let's hope Spinel can accept that though she has been changed as a result of her trauma, that doesn't make her ‘bad’ or unworthy of love (because that’s just not true!)

- “There's no such thing as happily ever after”. Sad but true. And also turning the whole Disney vibe the movie began with in on its head. Very smart.

- Steven: “I'll always have more work to do”. Then, Spinel: “I've got work to do. Friendship isn't going to be easy for me. I'm gonna have to work at it”. Exactly. That's how it is. ‘Happily ever after’ is a stagnant concept, and staying the same person for the rest of your life isn't healthy. And deciding to work towards improving yourself can sometimes be the hardest step to take when it comes to overcoming trauma. But change can be good; you should always keep working on improving yourself, no matter how comfortable you are with who you are and where you're at. Evolution is a part of living.

- Ooooh, White Diamond got sassy. She even has the hand gestures down. She’s making up for all the years she spent T-posing.Good for her.

- Oh my gosh, the focus on the Diamond's hands! Instead of destroying, their holding a hand out in a gesture of friendship. Seriously, that's frigging growth. That's such a cool parallel too. Rebecca Sugar and her crew are just brilliant.

- I'm so glad the Diamonds got someone to love and help them through their grief, and Spinel got someone to love her unconditionally, regardless of the flaws she thinks she has. They all got someone to help them heal. That’s wonderful.

- “I can make a change.” 👏Yes👏you👏can! That's your superpower.

Damn, that was so wonderful! I've always loved the message of personal growth, and the movie did it so well. In my opinion, Steven Universe has always been great at analogies to explain real life things (ie. Malachite being a metaphor for toxic relationships) so I really like how they used to amnesia narrative device to show not only how much someone can change and grow over time, but also to show it's our experiences, good and bad, that shape us as a person. Lots of people have traumatic experiences in their life that can inadvertantly shape a lot of their personality, and it can be hard to leave that behind, especially if so much of your identity is dependent on those experiences. Sometimes they can lead us to becoming ‘bad’ people, but they can also help make us good people too. Just look at Steven! He was able to accept his past traumas and use them so as to help others heal their own. 

Trauma isn't something you can erase without erasing a large part of your identity. It can be tough to live with, nonetheless. Sometimes, like Spinel, you just need a helping hand in accepting the scars life has given you; to help you grow beyond it and maybe even eventually be able to help others who are going/have gone through similar experiences.

And there's no shame in trying to be better and failing over and over again. At least you are trying. Because trying to be good against all odds, against the whole world doing its best to destroy you, shows just how strong you really are.

-----------

Sorry for getting flowery (and maybe just a tad projective). As you can see I just really like the moral of the movie, as well as pretty much every other aspect. I'm sure there's a lot of little intricacies I missed, but this is what I took from my first viewing of it. And these are just my opinions; you might have got a whole different vibe from the movie. You are completely welcome to add you own thoughts and improve upon mine (because I am by no means an expert).

So, to summarise my own thoughts on the movie, I’m just going to say: Personal growth for the win!