#it's a girl-disguised-as-guy story but honestly that's not a huge part of it which was interesting

[libraryleopard]

Historical fantasy novella retelling of Arthurian mythology, specifically the Perceval stories

Reimagines Perceval as a woman who disguises herself as a man to become a knight

Inspired by Welsh and Irish mythology

Lyrical & mythological prose

Lesbian main character

Queer knights, disabled knights, and knights of color in Arthur’s court

[angelisverba]

come out, come out wherever you are

in which y/n agrees to do something really stupid, and harry is a bit of a shit

word count: 5k

pairing: vampire!h and y/n (different au from my other vamp!h fics, though)

warnings: drug use, mentions of drinking and alcohol, mentions of blood (duh, he’s a vampire). 

author’s note: okay so i know that i put vampire!h in the pairing, but this h is a wierd succubus x demon x vampire mix where he can feed off the emotions he wants to?? i’ll explain it in the story. enjoy your reading :)

She shouldn’t have agreed to play hide and seek in a cornfield.

At night.

During a full moon. 

On Halloween.

Y/n’s logic always disappeared when she was… under the influence. Whether that be with alcohol or other sorts of… fun substances. That was not to say that she was an alcoholic, or a drug addict, she just… hated to be a party popper. When her roommate invited her to college parties, she didn’t say no to the red solo cup because she knew that some way or another, she would end up giving in by the end of the night. Or when it was just her and her closest friends passing around  a freshly rolled joint, she didn’t say no because she didn’t want to be the odd one out.

Plus, it didn’t hurt that she enjoyed it… most of the time. 

This? This was not one of those times.

*    *    *    *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Josephine, her roommate, had barged into her room with a smile over her lips as the brightness of her phone lit up her face from the bottom up, casting spooky shadows since y/n’s room was dark and she was falling asleep. 

“Y/n, look!” She said, turning the phone so beams that felt like they came from hell illuminated y/n’s pinched face, marks from her pillow decorating the place above her lip. She mumbled something, and Josephine kept speaking, “Travis just sent me an invitation to one of the frat’s Halloween parties! Come with me, it’s gonna be so much fun!”

And to get her to leave her room, she agreed. She must have, because the next morning as she was getting ready for her 10 a.m. literature class, she was bombarded with a series of costume ideas and questions about what was considered cheesy or overdone. Josephine had made it clear that it was okay that they didn’t match, especially because of their differences in clothing choices. Jo was more risqué, and y/n liked to dress in what she felt comfortable in. 

It didn’t take her a long time to figure out what she was going to go as for Halloween. That same morning, just before she walked into class, y/n stopped to stare at a framed art print in the hallway. 

La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats was a poem that she knew by heart, and the painting was one that she could get lost in for hours. Stopping to stare at it before walking into class was not an unusual occurrence for her, but that time an idea came to her, almost like it was written in the long locks of her red hair. 

Y/n would go as a Victorian princess. The dresses had always fascinated her, with the intricate lace details and elegant rippled of muslin fabric that flounced in a puff around the hips of Countess, or trailed behind the average cottage girl as she frolicked in fields full of daisies. She could picture it in her mind, and it made her giddy to know that there was a possibility she could look as pretty as one of the poet’s muses. She spent the entirety of the class switching from writing notes to browsing the five pages worth of gowns on Amazon, looking for something pretty yet within her price range. 

By the end of the period she’d had what she wanted in her cart. A baby-blue wisp of a dress with intricate lace detailing at the neckline that curved like the top-hald of a heart to cup her breasts. The sleeves bunched around her arms mid-bicep, and scrunched again around her wrists, the transparent fabric looking as if her arms were wrapped in the sky. Built in ribbing created a corset that added an extra curve to her waist to make way for the heaps of fabric that exploded from her hips and cascaded down to the floor like the foaming spray of a waterfall. 

It fit like a dream. When it arrived a few days before the party she dropped everything she was doing to try it on. The moment Josephine patted her shoulder to tell her that she was finished zipping up the back, y/n twirled around in the limited space of their dorm room to see herself in the narrow mirror at the end of her bed. 

Every penny she had spent on it was worth it. Sure, it was snug around the bust and refrained her lungs from expanding the extra millimeter they needed, but it made her feel… nice. Pretty. She liked the way it cinched her waist, how her wrists looked dainty covered in the lacy ends of the sleeves, and the way her breasts looked… accentuated by the frilly detail. 

Jo had squealed once she had a full look at her friend, and wouldn’t stop talking about how good they were going to look walking in together. She was going as Cat-Woman, complete with the latex suit, boots, mask, and all. She looked every bit as fantastic as y/n, only on opposite ends of the Halloween costume spectrum. 

Building up to the day of the party, the pair talked make-up and hair details, both of which Josephine would be taking care of because she was better at them. At one point, y/n thinks she even dreamt about making a grand-entrance, boys and girls gawking at how amazing she looked, and the most handsome guy stepping forth to profess his undying love for her. 

Which wasn't really how it went the night of, but she attained the same satisfaction. 

The party was located a little ways away from the city, at a plantation-style frat house in-front of a huge cornfield. Carved pumpkins with candles illuminating them from the inside out lined the pathway up to the front-doors, the trees nearby created crunchy pathways of orange and yellow leaves, and the moon was out; yawning tiredly, but glowing an eerie yellow color over the scene. 

It looked like the opening scene of a horror film. 

Y/n did receive a lot of stares, though. Most of them were from guys whose beady little eyes pointed straight to her chest, and the ones she got from girls were on the nastier side of envy. She could tell. But, oddly enough, she liked the attention. 

Josephine y/n’s hand and led her through the mass of costumed-bodies. There was a variety of ‘sexy’ professions (the usual: nurses, cops, cowgirls, and school girls) and those that come from fandoms (Hogwarts’s students, Eleven from Stranger Things, Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction, multiple heroes from the Avengers) or those that came for shits and giggles (T-rex blow-up costumes with tiny hands, Joe Exotic, sumo-wrestlers, those things that sway outside car-dealerships, and even a Trojan condom packet). There was a lot to see, and honestly, it was beginning to overwhelm y/n.

Not only was it slightly disorienting to see everyone disguised, the interior itself was something to look at. Chandeliers and velvet sofas, gold lamps and fancy carpets and curtains. The epitome of privilege. She felt trampled, every once a while there was a tug on the ends of her dress. 

“How about a shot to start off the night, y/n?” Josephine asked her, hooking a latex coated arm around hers. The music was a rumble on the backs of their heads, shaking them through and through as some nameless rapper sang of drugs, sex, and money. What it always came down to. 

She agreed, and took the plastic shot cup. On normal nights, she would’ve usually required some type of coaxing, but not then. Y/n was almost looking for the hangover the next morning. She wanted fun. 

Three shots later and her fingers were dragging in front of her face. Her knees were wobbly and cheeks tinged with spirits. Everything was funny and if you asked her what two plus two was she’d tell you five. There was a new swagger in her step, and some might say that was the influenced hand-eye coordination, but to her it was newfound confidence. She felt good, she looked good, and she was having a damn good time. Laughing, making the best conversation she’d ever made, and when Jo suggested they go dance, she danced the best she’d ever had.

And sure, she was drunk out of her mind. A light weight. Everything was under a glamourized rose filter. It only made sense that the crowd parted like the Red Sea at God’s feet. 

Y/n’s lungs stopped working the moment her eyes locked with his. 

He was her counterpart. Literally. 

Dressed in a navy blue Victorian prince’s suit decked in gold trim and gold medals pinned to the breast. The tan pants that hugged his muscular thighs like they were made just for him, and his hair was slicked back. Jaw a sharp, smug line that worked as he popped a piece of pink bubblegum between his molars. A gleam of appreciation sparking in the forest of his eyes as they raked a path on her figure.  

It was like the work around them stopped, put on pause by some higher power so they could relish the moment of their discovery. What was that shit called? Divine Intervention? The millisecond before and after and between the time Eve’s teeth sunk into the taught skin of that forbidden red apple, and the snake’s tongue slithered out to see her. He was a stranger to y/n, but it seemed as if the feeling he stirred deep in the core of her being was one she’d always known, one from a past life. Besides her, Jo stopped doing whatever lucrative dance she was doing to see what had caught her friend’s attention. Y/n stood, tongue dry, feet glued to the ground as the handsome stranger approached her, a clear path in front of him. 

Then, he takes one step  forward and whatever conversation he had been involved with before was no longer of importance. Besides her, Jo stopped doing whatever lucrative dance she was doing to see what had caught her friend’s attention. Y/n stood, tongue dry, feet glued to the ground as the handsome stranger approached her, a clear path in front of him. 

“Oh,” Jo huffed in her ear, “he’s hot.”

“I-Is he?...” Y/n’s question died on her tongue.

“Coming right for you, girl. Good luck,” Jo pressed a kiss to her cheek and disappeared in the crowd. 

The stranger stops closer than she would have thought him to; a finger away from her nose, and when he spoke, she could feel the vibrations of his speech through her breasts where they nearly grazed his chest. 

“I don’t believe we’ve ever met before... princess?” His voice is deep, raspy and filled with grooves like the bark on a tree. He mocks a bow (given their costumes) and their nose touch before he straightens again. Up close, y/n can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, and she hopes her mouth doesn’t stink (it probably does, given the alcohol she’d had). A chilled palm grips her bicep, and the fabric of her sleeve sinks under his touch, “Would you like to get off this shitty dance floor and speak somewhere else?” He asks her. 

Her heart is pounding and she wonders if he can hear it because she certainly can, rushing in a taunting, roaring stream past her eardrums. Y/n nodded her agreement; yes, she did want to speak with him. A thrum of warmth comes from where he holds her, and he tugs her so that she’s standing in front of him, her back touching his chest as he pushes her through the crowd. 

Her fingers shake as she lifts the fabric of her dress to avoid tripping, and her saliva goes thick. Not because of what might happen, but because the man who ripped her bicep tenderly, like she was made of the most fragile china, was the most good-looking man she had ever seen. Her mind ran images of things to compare him to, and almost all of them were of the Greek statues put up in museums for all to admire. 

He leads her past the crowd and the kitchen where everyone was making drinks, past the wrap around stairs on the inside of the house, and even past the calmer sitting areas where couples were making out or groups of friends passed a smoking joint. He leads her right through the open back doors of the house so they faced the seemingly endless cornfield and the barn that was a speck behind it. The deck was less populated than the couches where kids smoked weed, but y/n guessed that it wasn’t to his liking because instead of turning off to the side so they could have a much less strained… conversation, he continued to walk- this time standing beside her instead of behind her. 

Grass crunched under their feet as they got closer to the stalks of corn. Confused, y/n spared a glance to what she was leaving, and then to him. He stared straight ahead, but she caught his eyes flickering in her direction, and a smirk quirking cockily on his lips before they returned to the yawning face of the moon. 

There was a short wooden fence separating the house from the cornfield that reached her hip, and he stopped there. 

“Finally,” he sighed, “Some peace and quiet.” He makes a gesture to the fence, and pops his gum. 

Dizzied, the tequila still in her head, she watches his tongue gather the gum back into his mouth, his lips shining with his own spit. Y/n doesn’t register that the movement towards the fence was his way of telling her to take a seat on the wooden bars. 

“C’mere,” he murmured. Placing his hands on her waist, he lifted her up so she could sit on the wooden fence, and her hands went to his wrists instinctively, trying to keep herself steady. 

Suddenly out of breath, her eyes shot straight up to his. There’s no way he can’t hear my heart right now, she thinks. He’s so close to her, his breath on her face. He smelled like pink bubblegum, cologne, and a liquor much more sophisticated than what she had to drink. His eyes held the same spell that she felt she was under. 

“What’s your name?” He asked, his hands still on her waist. He didn’t look like he was in a rush to step away from her, and that was okay because she didn’t want him to. 

“Y/n,” she whispered. It was physically impossible to raise her voice any louder. The stupid corset was making it harder for her to breathe, along with the added pressure of being in his presence. “You?”

“Prince Harry, at your service,” he smiled then, and y/n got a glimpse of shockingly sharp canines. They had to be fake. Longer than most in length, and she swore she saw one of those cartoonish-diamond glitter at the knife-like tips of his teeth. 

She pointed to his mouth and said, “Are you a vampire prince?”

He looked at her strangely, his brows furrowing and his tongue running along the inside of his cheeks. Then, he laughed. “Something like that.” 

“I-” She was gonna say something along the lines of ‘I think you’re a very good looking vampire prince’ until he cut her off.

“How about we play a game?” One of his hands lifted from her waist, and she let go to steady herself by grabbing onto the plant. Y/n hoped that her dress wasn’t getting dirty, but the moment that Harry brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear it flew out the window. 

Her eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned into his touch like a purring kitten. She blamed her blatant carelessness on the alcohol. “A game?”

“Yes, y/n. A game,” he muttered, watching the way her eyes twitched under her eyelids. 

“Which game?” Her eyes fluttered open again, and her breasts pushed against the corset as she took a deep breath, “I thought you wanted to talk?”

“Oh,”he glanced down, to her lips and for half a second, to the repressed mounds of her tits,  “I promise the conversation is going to be much more interesting after a game of hide and seek.” 

“Where would we even play t-that?”

“Right,” he pinched her chin with two fingers so that her lips smushed together, and gently tilted her head towards the field of corn. “There.” 

That’s how she found herself, running for her life in the middle of a corn maze, at night, on Halloween. 

What had started off as her giggling and running had soon into a panting, scared-shit-less run for no reason. Maybe it was because she just couldn’t get Harry off of her tail, or maybe it was that she was running with no direction into a cornfield she was sure was lost in. Maybe it was a combination of all those things. 

Harry yelled, “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” and it only made her want to cry. 

It was strange, really. Y/n didn’t know where this fear was coming from, it started out with them actually having fun, the tips of his fingers tugging at the fabric of the skirt before he let her run a bit, calling out how he was going to get her, how he was gonna catch the princess and she was giggling, turning to see him disappear when she turned. 

Then he went quiet. The footsteps stopped. And his tone of voice dropped to something much more… sinister. 

“Come out, little one,” he said, a clear whisper poured directly into her ear. 

Y/n turned, and she felt him getting closer so she tried to run faster. But she was getting so, so tired, and it felt like she couldn’t get any air into her lungs. All she knew then was the moon, with her tired face, and the intimidating, tall stalks of corn. 

Harry supposes that he’s doing her a favor. A lot of people wish they could run through a field wearing a dress like the one y/n has on. He was a bit of a shit, sure, setting her up for failure given he had abilities that she did not possess, but, he knew just as he knew the sky is blue- that she liked and wanted to walk into the corn field. Now, it wasn’t because Harry happens to be really good at reading people, no.

As an empath- one of the terms in the fine print of the being he was- he was able to connect into the funnel between her veins, the curved out thrum of what she was feeling. The witches he knew compared it to reading an aura, but it was much more than that. There was no need for interpretation of colors because it was like he was her, feeling what she was feeling. And she liked it.

Up until, of course, he switched up his game. 

After a few minutes of running around and playing with her like she was a mouse, Harry decided that he wanted to scare her. He wanted to give her a taste of himself. He wanted her to be scared- to not like him. Because he was something that shouldn’t be liked. It was a sick thing, really, that he happened to be so good looking when he was a literal monster. Harry fucking drank human blood. He wasn’t something that should be thought of as Greek statues. 

The part of him that remained human throughout the years felt bad for doing this to her. But, he had to. It made him feel better when he sunk his teeth into a victim’s skin. Almost like… he’d warned them, and it was their fault that they hadn’t taken the signal.

A scarecrow loomed overhead, and her lungs were running out of air, so he decided to go ahead and make his final jump on her. 

When y/n broke through the final turn to reach the very small clearing in the center of the field where a scarecrow stood in between a few bales of hay, she felt his breath at the back of her throat, and her knees buckled. 

She’d never really been much a screamer during a jump scare. Instead, she sucked her breath in, really loud and sudden, and because she was having such a hard time breathing, that instinctually breath caused black dots to litter her vision and suddenly those weak knees contributed to a faint. 

Harry caught her, and picked her up, huffing a small laugh to himself as he laid her across the piles of hay. 

She really was a sight to see. Flushed, hair a mess from all her running. Her lips were dewy and her waterline was agitated, he could see the moisture in the place where her eyelashes sprouted. 

With a few pats to the cheek, her eyes fluttered open, he was still hovering over her. Harry did not make a move to scoot back. 

“You’re awake, princess,” he said, smirking.

Y/n blinked, her eyes wide, and… gasped when Harry pressed a kiss to her cheek. His lips were cool against her heated cheek, and the curved ends of his slicked back hair tickled her chin. 

“You chased me,” she gulped, “for a long time.”

“Yes, I did. And you liked it. Didn’t you, little one?” He allowed the tip of his nose to follow the line of her jaw, testing the waters. She liked it, he could feel the shudders it sent to her heart in his bones. 

“I did.” Her eyes furrowed at her own admission. Why was she being so carefree? Why was she allowing herself to continue to stay in this cornfield? What was stopping her from questioning further what the fuck was going on? Her attraction, and his implied interest, that’s what.

Harry’s tongue slipped out of his mouth, and licked at her jaw before he placed another kiss to it, “Good. What do you say we have some more fun?” “What kind of fun?” Her head titled, and he was given direct access to what he wanted. Her neck. The column of her throat was pulsing with the beat of her heart, and the veins he could almost taste criss-crossed beneath her skin. 

“Fun is fun, pet. But if you must know, the kind of fun I’m talking about involves a lot of mouth to mouth,” He moved so his face was directly in front of hers again, and his palm gripped her waist beneath him. Unconscioslu, her legs parted and Harry had more space to slide both of his thighs between hers, one of his knees resting on the bales of hay she rested on. 

Y/n was no longer worried about the state of her dress, but rather, where his mouth would land, and where she would put her hands. Her eyes bounced between his, but they struggled to remain still under his intense hold. “O-okay. I’d like that.” 

“The prettiest princess I’ve ever seen,” he mumbled into the hollow underneath her jaw. And it was true. He’d seen a lot of royalty all throughout his wretched life, and none of them had been as pretty as she was. He felt a shiver of arousal go through her at the same time the air came fresh into his lungs, and it felt like he was going to explode from the inside out. 

“I think you’re the most handsome prince I’ve ever seen.” 

Y/n wanted to slap a hand over her mouth the moment those words left her lips, but Harry only chuckled and the vibrations felt heavenly against her skin. 

“You've been seeing other princes’, little one?” Harry teased, his mouth tracing their words against her lips. He pressed forward and kissed her; just a peck, testing. Again, she liked it. 

“No, just you,” she shivered. Her words were coming out in pants now. The fabri of her dress was too thick and too abundant to allow for any frisky actions, but his mouth was enough. One of his fingers was running over the tops of her breasts. Her mouth opened, she wanted more. Harry tasted of pink bubble gum. She wondered where it went. 

He chuckled and kissed her once more. “Then how do you know you know I’m the most handsome?” 

“I just do,” she said, arching into his touch. His finger was hooking into her sleeve, and he let it snap into her skin. 

“You do?” He licked her bottom hip, and she whined. This game, whatever it was, she wanted it to be over. It was too much for her to handle. 

“Yeah,” y/n said in a dreamy, far-off voice. “I mean, yes. Yes.”

Harry relished in what she felt, and soon enough, his cock twitched in his trousers. He never let himself become… involved in his meals emotions, but it was different with her. She was tender, and sweet. Willing and not a nuisance that he drowned out before biting. 

“Am I handsome enough... for you to let me bite you?” And that was another thing. 

Harry never asked for permission. Y/n was drunk enough that she’d wake up the next morning and think that he was just some kinky dude who’d left a sick hickey on her throat, as all of his ‘victims’ were, but still. Harry had asked for permission. 

“Bite me?” She was confused, head fuzzy with the same feeling that was heating in her groin. The lacy knickers she wore were probably soaked through. The bale on her bum was beginning to hurt. 

“Yes, princess. Bite, right,” he licked a stripe right where her pulse was the strongest to accentuate his intentions. “Here.”

“Okay, Harry.” 

He was handsome. And she was horny (with a mix of other things), she didn’t see a reason to say no. 

“Thank you, pet.” 

It was the same as it always was. Harry nuzzled into the spot, sniffing like a dog meeting a new friend, and with no preamble, he bit into her. The tips of his teeth pierced her flesh, and he allowed them to retract once the blood started to flow. When the first drop touched his tongue, he groaned. She was good, one of the best he’d ever had, and the heady flavor was just as sweet as she was. He was so caught up in his own satisfaction that he didn’t notice the moment her hands bunched the fabric of his suit from the late 1700s into fists, or her body going tense before he slowly relaxed, her heartbeat an irregular mix as she decided whether or not she should be panicking. 

But, he knew that she continued to enjoy what she was doing. 

“H-harry, I-”  She went limp in his arms, and the small squeak that left her mouth was the mermaid’s song that enchanted Harry. 

He knew this wouldn’t be the last time he’d see her again. 

*     *      *    *    *   *   *   *    *   *   *    *   *    *   *

hi! happy halloween babies! or better yet, happy harryween! i hope you enjoyed this peice, it was for sure out of my comfort zone and something new for me. if you haven’t yet, please check out my fanfic on wattpad in which harry owns a more aesthetic version of playboy mag. you can read it here.

[shhhlikeme]

Can I request hcs for Oikawa, Ushijima and Kenma reacting to when their S/O calls them "daddy" as a joke in front of their team 😂😂

ANON, ARE YOU AWARE THAT I’M A WHORE FOR USHIJIMA AND KENMA OR DID YOU JUST RANDOMLY REQ THEM? I won’t be writing Oikawa because tbh I don’t like writing for him, he just doesn’t do it for me —sorry!!! Lmao, either way, I hope you enjoy b/c this might be my favourite story so far: 

A reminder that ALL CHARACTERS ARE AGED UP!!! They’re GROWN grown, aight?

(slight NSFW)

————————————

Ushijima Wakatoshi | Kenma Kozume | Reacting to Their S/O Calling Them “Daddy” In Front Of The Team!

—————————————————————-

Ushijima

“Hey, daddy?”

Ushijima stops immediately when he hears it

You were on a team outing at a poppin nightclub and you pretended to be a wee bit more drunk than you were so you could get away with saying it

In Tendou’s private bottle service booth, the team wanted to explode when they heard you, all of them turning to their captain

especially Tendou who let out a childish ‘oooooooooooooooooooooooooo’ and wiggled his arms

Toshi, calm as ever, just looks you up and down in your skin tight club dress and says in his deep, panty-dropping voice:

“Yes, baby?”

even though it was a joke trying to get your statuesque bf to crack in public you’re the one who almost rips his clothes off

He is sooooo FINE

And not fazed at all that you’d called him that in front of his friends

It made you HOT, like you were burning up

Toshi is the type of s/o that honestly wants you to do whatever you want as long as you were safe and happy doing it, so he didn’t mind in that sense that you called him daddy in front of his team

Issa whole man girl. Fuck you thought?

The team felt and embraced Ushijima’s infectiously calm energy, just like they do on the court, subconsciously convincing themselves that what you just said wasn’t a big deal

This was Wakatoshi’s strategy and inside he was pleased when his team went back to taking shots out of the bottle and dancing

The team felt that it wasn’t a big deal because Ushijima didn’t make it a big deal. Simple math

But although your boyfriend didn’t appear like it, let it be known that to him: what you said was a very big deal.

Toshi made sure that all his teammates were back to partying and not paying attention to him when he pulled you closer and used one big hand to squeeze your ass in that dress

He knows that’s your weakness, and you squeal as quietly as you can, hiding your face in his chest

Ushi leaned down smoothly, pressing his lips to your ear as he said quietly,

“Listen. Are you listening?” His deep voice vibrated through his chest which meant it vibrated on your boobs that were pressed to his chest. When you didn’t answer fast enough Toshi squeezed your ass again, making you moan. Luckily, the music in the club drowned you out. You nodded.

“You begged me to come here when I didn’t want to, Y/N. And now I’m here. You said you want me to stay until it closes but if you call me daddy again I’m carrying you back home without a second thought.” Ushi leaned away from you to happily clink glasses with drunk Tendou who was yelling at everyone to cheers. Your man was so well disguised. If his teammates were paying attention they probably thought he was telling you his favourite tv show with how calm his demeanour was. When Wakatoshi felt that no attention was on him again, his lips suddenly returned to your ear and he moved his hand to squeeze your other ass cheek. You moaned as you could feel your panties soak. Your hubby sounded calm as ever in your ear,

“And if that happens, Y/N, I’ll unintentionally have you walking with a limp like I did on our honeymoon. I will not be able to control myself. Am I understood?”

You nod, wanting him inside you so badly. Conjuring up some liquid courage you lifted your head from his chest to look him in the eye. You two held each other’s heated gazes for a minute before you mouthed:

“Yes, Daddy,” because he never said anything about inaudibly saying it.

“Hm.” Grunted Wakatoshi, his eyes darkening in the nightclub. He tugged the bottom of your dress down a little so that no other guys could see your private parts as he roughly lifted you over his shoulder with one arm.

RIP to your limp-free walk for a week or two b....definitely two

sorry not sorry

He warned you and you tried it

wish I was you

Kenma

Your boyfriend was being anti social as usual.....at a 5-year Nekoma Volleyball Team reunion in Lev’s mansion

He was the best boy you’ve ever met, and you rarely had issues with him, but sometimes you did want him to interact with your friends instead of standing in the corner playing video games.. just a little 👌🏾

While chatting and laughing with the other girlfriends, you watched out of the corner of your eye as Kuroo talked to your boyfriend in the corner, no doubt trying to get him to join the actual event and mingle

You could see your blonde baby shake his head while staring at his game thing like he always did, and you sighed

Kuroo turned to you and pretended to hang himself, his way of telling you that his attempts didn’t work

Of course not, smh.

When Kuroo walked past you he leaned down to say that if ‘Kenma won’t go to the party then the party would go to him’

Not knowing what that meant, you just nodded before excusing yourself from your girlfriends to meet up with your boyfriend.

From behind, you wrapped your arms around his waist and rested your chin on his shoulder.

He jumped but soon relaxed knowing it was you getting into your favourite position.

The two of you didn’t say anything, having a silent conversation instead

You two just stared at the screen and Kenma upped another level, he was so into it and you could tell.

“Kenma.”

No answer.

“Kenma.”

Still no answer. You used your other nickname for him.

“Kay? Hell-o?”

Still no answer. Smirking, you tried using your ”other” nickname for your boyfriend instead. The one you used when he was anything but shy like how he’s acting now.

“Haven’t you already beat that game, daddy?”

Even if Kenma’s ears didn’t hear you, his dick definitely did. Unfortunately, at the same time that the naughty nickname exited your lips, you heard a collective gasp. You and Kenma both snapped your heads up, seeing Kuroo and the team had just walked over, and heard you.

That must have been what Kuroo meant earlier when he said he’d bring the party to Kenma.

Kenma closed his eyes, biting his lip then sighing loudly.

You laughed nervously. “Whoops. Did I say th-that?”

“You totally did.” Exclaimed Lev with a huge smile on his face.

“I heard it!” Yamamoto raised his hand like this was class time and the teacher just asked who’d like some candy.

“You’re so awesome, Kenma.” Praises Yaku. “You have a hot girlfriend, and she calls you—??” Kuroo clasped his hand over his old libero’s mouth, knowing that Kenma was sure to leave if they kept mentioning what they just heard like this.

“Hey Kenma, we are about to go inside and play some video games in there in Lev’s home theatre. Why don’t you come?”

Kenma opened his eyes, hearing immense comfort in his favourite thing to do. He could not turn down surround sound video games. You still had not released your arms around his waist. Kenma nodded to his best friend and told them to go on a ahead and that he will meet them there in a second.

Tetsuro ushered them all away like the true captain that he is, even after 5 years.

When they walked away, Kenma turned so that he was facing you. You looked at him with your cute ‘I’m sorry’ face that your boyfriend was literal putty for. He sighed when he saw you making that face, and all the anger he had toward you for saying that aloud dissipated.

“Y/N, that was really embarrassing.” He said in his normal dry tone.

It was your turn to shut your eyes in embarrassment. “I know, Kay, I’m so sorry. I promise I didn’t know they were there! I was too wrapped up in the game. I’ll never call you the d word again—“

Kenma watched you, his beautiful girlfriend, practically begging for his forgiveness. He didn’t like it. “I know you’re sorry, don’t worry about it.” He kissed your forehead. He looked around to make sure no one was listening. “And wait—you mean you’ll never call me the d-word again in public, right? Or ever?”

“Ever.” You said quickly. “I’ll embarrass you-“

“No.” Kenma said sternly. “Please keep calling me that in private. I love it, Y/N.” he told you he loved it very quietly, you could hear his voice drop with seduction. Kozume was thinking about all the times you called him that when he was having the time of his life between your legs and it turned him on. Kenma pulled you flush against him so you could feel his hard-on and you almost fainted. You loved when he was hard. It signified that pleasurable times were to come. You wanted him so bad.

But, you were at a party, and Kenma never let himself get carried away sexually in public.

Well, until today.

He pressed his boner harder against you.

“I’m telling you. I love it. So keep calling me daddy when we’re having sex. Or just whenever we are completely alone. Please.”

You gulped.

“Okay, Kenma.” You whined, wishing that you weren’t stuck at this reunion party anymore but writhing under your man at home in your shared bed.

A thought hit you and you reached in your pocket to feel for your set of keys. You remembered that you drove here, which only meant one thing: one really, great thing:

there was always the car..........

[teeth-and-tea]

ANIME & MANGA I HAVE BINGED IN THE LAST MONTH: May 2021

I've Been Hunting Slimes for the Past 300 Years and Now Ive Maxed Out My Level: incredibly long name aside, cute af slice of life that suffers Same Face Syndrome. I'm still happy to watch it because of how feel good and fluffy it is though, Im probably gonna forget about it in two or three years tho. 8/10.

Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro: I found out this was a webcomic first and suddenly all the HORNINESS made so much more sense. A Femdom, Degradation, Humiliation, Dacryphilia Bullies to Lovers story disguised as a high school rom-com which, I'm not going to lie, misses SKEEVY CITY by mere inches on a regular basis. However, I'm a Dom/Switch and this entire relationship sets off my dom brain center like New York City just shy of midnight. So if you're into that sort of scene, this anime is for you. If not, it's still fascinating but you're probably gonna be a little put off by how mean the Girl!Bully is to the guy MC. Unless you find out something about yourself, in which case, congrats! Stay safe, sane, consensual, and learn about the traffic light system on top of safe words, I promise you'll have a better life in general after that. Still Ongoing, currently 10/10.

Fruits Basket: IM GONNA CRY I LOVE THIS ANIME SO MUCH???? The original anime came out when I was in... I think middle school and my parents were really strict on what I watched so I never got to experience the first wave and I never bothered to watch the show ever after I moved out of the house years later. However, now that I'm much older I honestly can say this is one of my favorite anime to date, and all the characters are charming, lovable, with their own problems that I can connect to or sympathize with, and I love the MC which is always a treat tbh. Except Akito. Akito can suck a sandpaper dick. I'm only on S2 tho so no spoilers! Anime 11/10.

Monster Girl Doctor: went in thinking it was gonna be a monster girl who's a doctor with a homoerotic assistant (her name is SAPPHY okay sue me for thinking it) and ended up watching the entire dubbed harem series. Honestly, I've seen worse and this one has consistent follow-through on interesting characters and backstory enough for me to shove aside the blatant under-monstrousness of the female monsters and the harem-ness of everything else. Dubbing is honestly really good, which is a treat, and the monster designs are not the worst and the MC is tolerable. Honestly, I don't mind having watched it! The mix of cgi and the traditional animation together work pretty strangely though, and it often doesn't flow super well. 7.5/10

So I'm a Spider, So What: Dubbed version which honestly isn't that bad. Took me a bit to get into it, but after realizing that it's got a mismatched timeline a la The Witcher, it made so much more sense. Heavily done in cgi, and you can definitely tell between the 2D and 3D animations, but not the worst in the world. I went in not expecting much but it ended up being an Issekai I can stand and even enjoy. On god has a decent story... with the spider. I'd be a liar if I didnt say I skipped some of the human parts just to get back to the best part of the show. 8/10.

Somali and the Forest Spirit: I'm so fucking nostalgic for this thing it makes me want to go and hug my dad. About a human girl under threat of being eaten with a monster-dominated world. Very obvious "humans fear what they don't understand" message but instead of the humans learning tolerance it's what happens when they get annihilated first so like, kudos for the mangaka for having the guts to do that. I cried like a baby regularly. It's really good, I watched the dub and ID WATCH IT AGAIN!!! 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Oh my god. O h my g o d. Fell in love on the first episode, ngl. About if an immortal being learned how to be a person from scratch. I love it. HOWEVER. Keep a box of tissues on you at all times because you're gonna need them. I'm only on EP7 because that's all that's out right now but just know. I love it. Not for everyone but certainly for my "what do we define as human and the human condition" ass. 12/10.

Those Snow White Notes: A sports anime without any sports. About shamisen playing which is cool because I never realized how cool this instrument was??? Its neat af. OP1&2 are by Burnout Syndrom so know theyre fire. Gonna be real, its pretty alright, but not extraordinary. You can tell they were using the characters as archetypes rather than actually characters which kinda kills a lot of the emotional value you could've had, but I'm still gonna watch it. It doesn't make me cringe as hard as other sports anime tho so I consider it toptier in that regards but if you're a big sports anime fan you might be bummed out by it. Every single musical performance is INCREDIBLE tho. A solid 8/10.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun: THE ART OMFG IT'S SO GORGEOUS. Listen, if you took coptic markers and gave them an animation budget with some manga panel direction thrown in there, that's this anime. It's beautiful. Gorgeous. I'm in love with the aesthetic every second. Story? Really good. Characters? I love the MC and his evil little twin brother asshat. Demons? Not super imaginative but I'm carrying on happy as can be anyways. Dubbing? A bit shaky at times but I found the voices charming if a little off for some of them. I'm already waiting for the second season with popcorn at the ready. 10/10.

Prison School: I watched this directly after Hanako-kun and it was like I got slapped in the face by sweaty unwashed titties and some fedora wearing schmuck's piss kink. No character is likable or redeemable. I finished it, but at what cost? 2/10 and only because a character shit his pants and I laughed.

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: watched this right after Prison School and it was NECESSARY tbh. Its so CUTE and honestly, im not even kidding you, the fucking funniest anime I've seen in months. I watched the dub and the VAs are having the time of their lives working on this anime not just giving it their all but literally just going ham. Its great. If I read this im sure id be bored outta my mind but the VAs giving it a joyous performance make it an insta fave for me tbh. 9/10.

Sk8 the Infinity: i watched the dub with my bro and I can confirm that its a spectacular show because we both loved it and we have vastly different tastes. Incredibly SUSPENSFUL AND STRESSFUL for an anime about skateboarding but we finished it in a single sitting tbh. The last episode is not dubbed for some reason but we still loved it. Like if Free! was less obnoxious but the only fan-service here is Joe ♡ a beefcake who owns my lesbian heart. I think there's exactly one named female character tho and I legit couldn't tell you what it was if there was a gun to my head. So, over all, 9.5/10.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I'm going to be entirely honest, I went in thinking it was going to be a boring isekai of no value. I was right about the Isekai part. It was honestly pretty interesting and focused on nation building like you're playing civilization rather than the usual "Get Stronger" narrative or "Get Some Pussy" narrative most isekais take which is delightfully refreshing. Granted there are flavors of that in this which means it doesn't alienate the big isekai watchers out there, but it's not the whole dish and it doesn't make me want to cringe the same way others do. You've got a slime MC just vibing and building a nation of monsters nbd. Does lose points for making the female monsters more humanoid than their male counterparts but makes them back by only doing perfunctory fan-service and nothing that makes me want to cry... except the butt sumo episode but in fairness it was all a terrible dream. Literally, the MC refuses to dream anymore after that. solid animation, decent voice acting, decent story, made me realize how HUGE this is in the Light Novel community???? There's like 18 fucking novels and that's WILD. 8.5/10.

MANGA:

Spirit Photographer Saburo Kono: a one shot special by the mangaka of The Promised Neverland! Honestly a really delicate touch of both super creepy and really touching, and I'm not gonna lie I'm bummed that this isn't a bigger project but the single chapter makes it a good taste for their style. I've been wondering if I wanna read/watch The Promised Neverland and now I think I will. 10/10

Deranged Detective Ron Kamonohashi: from the mangaka of Hitman Reborn comes this Sherlock and Watson derivative! Not even 20 chapters out yet with a sort of spotty schedule, I honestly love it even thought it's exactly as you expect. HOWEVER. Kamonohashi the "Sherlock" character uses mental pressure to kill all confirmed murderers and it's up to Toto the "Watson" character to save all those people before Kamonohashi kills them! It's just recently introduced a "Moriarty" family of crime lords (not a big spoiler don't worry it was obvious) so the tension surrounding Ron's past is amping up rn. Personally, I think the art is GORGEOUS, the characters engaging, and the story quick enough to keep my interest. Most mysteries are solved within a chapter or two so you're not stuck 20 chapters into one locked room mystery which is just peachy tbh. RN, 10/10. If this gets an anime, I anticipate a legion of fangirls who ship the two main characters along with their many friends. I've been alive too long to believe otherwise.

Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro: Yeah I read the manga after I watched the show. A slower build than the anime, but it works for the format, if theyd done the same with the show then I don't think it wouldve done as well. Honestly? Cuter tbh but just as horny. You dont start really LEARNING about your character until like, chap 65 tho and no real "drama" happens until like 75. A good chunk of the chapters are like 8pgs so its a breeze to get through. I love these slow burn idiots of the century. 9.5/10 because you can DEFINITELY tell the mangaka does hentai too.

Yugen's All-Ghouls Homeroom: one-shot by the mangaka for Food Wars, it's no wonder there's this constant perviness from the MC, a guy who can see and exorcise spirits. Takes place at an all girl's finishing school with KICK ASS monsters tbh, kinda bummed its not longer. The MC? Blatant monsterfucker who is also a CONFRIMED monsterfucker???? Idk i vibe with that single emotion. Everything else is hit or miss. 7/10 for monsters and cool concept, lost points for the MC very pointedly being okay with admitting he'd wait for the teenagers to be adults tho. Creepy af. Could live without that.

Hell's Paradise: I finished the entire 127chps in 3 days and I was really enthusiastic about it 90% of the time thinking about how deep it was and then I actually thought about it and I ended up being very neutral about the whole thing tbh. The art is fantastic tho, but DEFINITELY deserving of the M rating. Tits. Tits everywhere. But not tits to be ecchi over, no, monster hermit tits on beautiful women-ish figures. Now generally I give that a pass but a huge theme in the story is that men and women are "no better than one or the other" but like, lady tits are what you see 99% of the time. Men tits are few and far between. I call bullshit on most of the "deep" themes is what I'm saying, so it's like the mangaka was trying for those deep thoughts but missed the margin a little too far for my preference. That being said, the MC is a married man who loves his wife which automatically makes him my favorite character so like... idk so many good things, so many misses, but overall really spectacular themes and imagery. Unique but classic all at once. It's getting an anime and I have NO IDEA how much censorship they're gonna be doing but they're going to be doing SO MUCH. Oh yeah, and one guy is a plant/human hybrid who fucks a 1000 year old plant-hermit which makes him a canon monster fucker. And one canon non-binary character who I, a nonbinary, actually like. So like... gosh I've got mixed feelings. 8.5/10.

Choujin X: From Sui Ishida, mangaka to the mega hit Tokyo Ghoul comes this brand new manga!... Of one chapter, lol. Not really binge-y because it's just the one chapter out right now but I'm already keeping my eye on it. The grasp on anatomy in the art is PHENOMENAL and you can see Ishida flexing his art skill which is great. Can't give a true rating but I'm giving it a tentative 9/10 because I'm excited to see more.

Shag&Scoob: technically not a manga, its an ongoing webcomic I binged an subscribed to in one day and I just think it deserves more attention. Starts off funny with "what if Scooby Doo had a gun" and has been led to "what if all cartoons are aliens that survive and receive their powers by the humans that love them in an epic war with Martians." On god, its good. I finished the current series in a couple hours so it's a breezy read, highly recommend it. 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Yeah I watched the anime and then finished all current 143 chapters in like 3 days. GOD IM WEAK. I don't buy physical manga unless I know I want to remember the story forever and I'm already budgeting for the current books out. Yeah, this is a good series. That being said, definitely not for the faint of heart or those who suffer under common triggers like suicide, molestation, death, etc. It's all framed as bad and necessary to the story don't get me wrong, but it's there and has lasting affects on the characters. Incredible story telling by the creator of A Silent Voice. Keep tissues nearby at all times. 12/10.

[terraxcloud]

Lovely Day to Be Alive

Luckily for the 2 and 1/2 of you guys, I’m not dead!

Also luckily for you, hardly anything has happened! I honestly don’t know why I’d keep posting here until FF7 Remake Part 2 pops. Life is hard an annoying, and I guess life is more important...

Hey, remember this?

A masterclass figure of Terra Branford! She looks a bit more like an adult here than in previous game spinoffs. This statue is huge, but why make it just because of some Pixel Remaster? The only other masterclass figures are from Neir:Automata and that game is far more popular in the short run than Terra Branford or even FF6.

Could it be that she’ll become more popular SOON? Don’t think about it too much.

How ‘bout another story? Global DFFOO will one day get Act 3, Chapter 7 Part 2. At the end of it when the crew defeats Safer Sephiroth, Cloud regains his memories (Compass of Light)...and what does he remember?

According to my shoddy translation, Cloud remembers the flower scenes with Terra and Firion in Dissidia. Of course, not one of these characters remembers this, but if this is all Cloud really remembers here, then Sephiroth wanted to destroy THIS memory.

You mean that after years of waiting for Cloud to regain his memories AND a Safer Sephiroth fight, the only thing we got out of it was Cloud remembering some scene from Dissidia (2008)!? 

After all, this connection was always Cloud’s “very personal memory”. “Very” implying that only Cloud could remember it. The use of the word “memory” is about Terra, that’s all. It makes complete sense that they would show this memory above all the others at this pivotal moment. (They’re in Gongaga’s graveyard btw).

This scene was connected with Cloud’s Dissidia story.

Speaking about Zack, I believe Zack will meet Terra instead of Aerith in FF7R. The reason why they resurrected Zack is to tell a different story without dramatically changing Cloud and Aerith’s original FF7 story. Zack and Terra can do whatever they want in whatever strange way as long as the original FF7 continues.

This idea came from finding out that a scene involving Zack meeting Serah (FF13) in a field of flowers in WoFF: Maxima is similar to a scene in FF15′s DLC of Noctis meeting Sarah (yes, the girl from ”Terra Wars”) . Both Serah and Sarah appear to have been made similar to Terra Branford...taking it seriously, this may be a very subtle hint that Zack will meet Terra in the same way that Cloud met Aerith. There is a “Sarah” orphan in FF7R that allows Cloud to play the “Whack-A-Box” minigame. She appears after all the orphanage quests are completed.

The cutscenes I’m talking about are below: WoFF - https://youtu.be/aGYZzqqp5KE?t=138 FF15 - https://youtu.be/HGRBFLDB1y0

The FF15 is more important, since they don’t use Zack in the scene and instead use Noctis (easier to hide the hints this way). Notice their awkward interactions, the aliens that look and talk like moogles, her randomly saying that she deals with kids. Note that the final boss has Sephiroth’s color scheme and has a backstory and ability similar to Jenova.

There are also hints in FF7R that say the “Angel of the Slums” is Terra, and this angel is obviously hinting at the moment Zack calls Aerith an “angel” in Crisis Core. 

Terra has magical abilities, which no one has in FF6. Locke calls Terra a “witch” at the beginning of FF6, and the orphans in Mobliz call Terra a monster when she appears in her esper form. The “monster in disguise” part is too random.

This exchange takes place very close to the orphanage, which represents Terra in FF7R Part 1.

[someguynamedstevewrites]

My Roommate is an Apparition: WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DAD - Part 2

Based on characters created by @reddpenn

————————————-

Oh man, am I late on posting this.  So many things going on.  Not to mention figuring out how to follow up the first part.

It seems people really like the first-person narration from “A-Pink-Ciation of Culture”, so I went with that again with this piece.

Almost DAILY, I get likes or re-blogs and the occasional follower despite not having posted anything since March.  I’m very curious and would like to hear from you readers about what you like about my writing and what appeals to you.  Eventually, I want to make a living off of writing, but until that time, I definitely could use any and all feedback.

Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, on with the story!

 From the Diary of Lily, March 1st, 2020:

Okay, diary, I’m coming to you because I honestly have no idea where else to go to try and sort through the evening I just had with my Dad and Tulpa.   I can’t put my finger on it, but something about tonight just... bothers me!  It’s like I’m on pins and needles and can’t stop thinking about, well, a LOT of stuff.  Just... hear me out and maybe it’ll make sense if I put this all down on paper (I.E. You).  I just spent the last twenty minutes trying to talk things through out loud, but that got me nowhere so here goes nothing:

First off, my Dad came to visit a week earlier than what I had planned, and immediately sets up shop in my living room with his NES and copy of Castlevania III.  Only problem was I hadn’t talked with Tulpa about his visit since I was expecting him until NEXT weekend.  I kept thinking that the last thing I wanted was for anything weird to happen during his visit.

Which, looking back on it, was a really stupid thing to worry about.

I mean, Dad’s a pretty open-minded guy and he’s quite weird himself.  He’s actually quite proud of his weirdness (embarrassing as it is sometimes).  He tends to under-react to all kinds of things like it’s no big deal.  I’ve even asked him why he doesn’t freak out about some of the stuff he comes across in real life or on TV, and he just tells me, “I’ve seen weirder.”   (If some of the stories he’s told me are true, then he has.  He really, REALLY has!)

For example: if Tulpa had come into the room holding a... I dunno, a plate or something, like would that really freak my Dad out?  Pfft, No!  He (maybe?) wouldn’t see her, all he’d see was a “flying saucer” (he deliberately would make that lame pun too), and then get back to his game.  Then later, he’d try and tell me about the real flying saucers he saw years ago, or something.

Since I had assumed that Dad wouldn’t have been able to see her, it eventually clicked in my head that what I was actually worrying about was, “what would Tulpa think of my Dad?”  He’s a huge Goofus that likes to make bad jokes, tell tall tales, and play video games!  And even if he did weird her out, it’s not like she could go anywhere... right?  I mean, she might avoid interacting with me because of him, but...

Oh...

Oh wow...

I just read what I just wrote and I can not believe I was being THAT irrational!  ( Man, people are stupid sometimes; me included!)

Avoid me because of my DAD!?   That’s gotta be the dumbest thing I’ve ever thought!   It’s not like he LIVES here or anything!   He’s not the one paying the rent; I am!  And... I’ve gotten to know Tulpa pretty well these past few months, but... I guess I still have a lot more to learn about her.  Case in point:

————————————-

So Tulpa tells me that she wants to meet my Dad, and after coming to my senses somewhat, I say she can sit in so long as she doesn’t touch anything (see flying saucer explanation above).  A few minutes later, she walks in looking like the tall girl from Keep Your Hands off Eizouken (I had to look the name up; I couldn’t remember it for the life of me).  By that I mean, she’s coming in as a tall, lanky, skinny, somewhat pale skinned girl looking to be about my age.  She’s wearing some modest clothes and, if I’m being honest with myself, they looked kind of cute in that outfit they had on.  It was a nice ensemble.

Then Dad says “Hi” to her.

...

Let me repeat that in case it hasn’t clicked with you yet.

My Dad GREETED her!

He! SAW! Her!

When I asked her about it later, she said to me that she thought that since he’s my Dad, then whatever it is that allows me to see her could be something my Dad has too.  So far, her theory has been proven right, but... I’m not one-hundred percent sure, because Tulpa... well... she changed.

And I’m being literal here, too!  She no longer had that transparency to her like usual.  She had a nose!  She had ears!  She had five fingers!  And she looked...

...well...

...good.

Tulpa said she had never tried doing this before, but figured that in the off-chance that her hunch was correct, she wanted to make a good impression on my Dad.  (Why do I keep thinking about that old joke in movies and TV shows about the overprotective Dad that threatens the boy about to go on a date with their daughter?)  She even went so far as to create her own “clothes”, saying she knew they’d be important.  Considering that she doesn’t wear (or need) clothes any other time, I ask her how she came to that conclusion.  I still have no idea what she meant when she suddenly bellowed out, “GOOD...!  GRIEF...!  HE’S...!  NAKED!”

[Edit:  It’s from Spongebob, because of course it was.]

So I’m not sure if Dad could see her because she purposely made herself opaque, or if he would have been able to see her if she wasn’t in her human “disguise” (and yes, I’m calling it a disguise and I’ll explain why a bit later, okay?).  But either way, she walks in and my Dad just starts chatting away like so:

————————————-

“Hi there! You must be Lily’s roommate!” says Dad.

At this point, I’m kind of frozen solid on the couch, just watching and listening as everything unfolds in front of me like it’s being burned into my retinas.  You know that saying about slow-motion train wrecks? Y’know, about how you can’t look away from them? This is probably why I remember the conversation so well.

“Heh...Hello,” she responds back nervously.

“I’m Lily’s Dad,” he says as if it wasn’t obvious, “Hope you don’t mind if we play some games out here.”

Tulpa shakes her head and stutters out, “No...N-not at all.”

“Great!” Dad responded with a smile that said, “Even if it was bothering you, I’m still going to take up the TV and play video games.  So nyeh!”  I’ve lived with him long enough to know that he’s not someone who would give up the TV without a fight.

(...gee... that kind of reminds me of someone now that I think about it...)

Tulpa then asks, “M-mind if... I watch?”

Dad gives her this big, goofy smile and responds with a, “Sure thing!” since despite him never admitting to it, he always liked having an audience around when he played games (or almost anything really) in hopes of “schooling” them. (Why he didn’t go into teaching, I will never understand.)

As soon as Dad turns back to his game and un-pauses it, Tulpa smiled, sat back, and looked content (Although it was a little weird seeing her smile with a nose to go along with it.) This snaps me out of my stupor long enough to scootch over to Tulpa and chat with her.

“You actually want to watch him play?” I ask her once more because the mere thought that she’d be interested in something outside of cartoons still hadn’t registered in my head, yet.

“Yeah...” she says as she starts to stare at the screen like she usually does during her cartoon time. “...sounded... familiar,” she said before looking up slightly while lost in thought, “...Simon... Belmont... Mega... Man... Kid... Icarus...” she said again as though that meant something. To me it just sounded almost like some kind of madness mantra, but...

“Oh! You mean Captain N: The Game Master!” my Dad chimed in out of seemingly nowhere.

“YES!” Tulpa said with excitement (worth noting that she doesn’t look excited very often, but when she does, she practically glows). “I remember...” she said before pausing to collect her thoughts and form the words she wanted to say. If I could have, I would have warned her about my Dad’s tendency to pounce on any hesitation in a conversation to take it over.

“Man, I haven’t seen Captain N in decades,” he said wistfully, “Surprised someone young as you remembers it.   I was in High School when that show came on!   When did you see it?”

“Ummm...” she hesitated, “...reruns... when I was... a kid.”

(As I’m writing this down now, I realize she was trying to hide her actual age from Dad. She looked to be in her early twenty’s like I was, but if she said she saw it when it came on the air originally, that’d make her over thirty years old at least.)

“Ahhhh! I see you have good taste in reruns!” Dad complimented.

“Th-thank you,” she stuttered back. As I listened to the awkward conversation of father-roommate bonding, I found my eyes constantly turning towards Tulpa. Not out of adoration or anything, but more like... studying her.

————————————-

On the one hand, she looked like the Tulpa that I had known ever since she became my roommate months ago.  But on the other hand, they somehow weren’t.   It’s kind of like when someone changes their looks a bit for maybe, I dunno, a night on the town, a job interview, a wedding, or something else along those lines.  Only in her case, “dressing up” meant adding additional body parts she didn’t normally have.

(To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what to think about that...)

I’ve always been a firm believer of people being themselves, and being allowed to be themselves.  I can’t stand situations where people are unable to truly express themselves or feel comfortable.  Way I see it, life is too short to be spent worrying over stupid stuff that makes people miserable just so they can come off as normal.

Sometimes it’s because of social norms and expectations; those unspoken rules of life that people are supposed to just magically “know”.  Like if someone was going to a church or temple service, social norms say they need to wear their “Sunday Best” with stiff, itchy clothes that are dry clean only.  If I was able to go to a sermon wearing a baggy college sweatshirt, sweatpants, and slippers, and NOT be judged like I’m some kind of crazy hobo, it would have definitely made something like that more appealing to me.

Now I have nothing against anyone that likes to dress up in fancy clothes and wear them out and about; I mean, everyone likes different things, right? The point is that if I’m going to do something that makes me uncomfortable, it should be because I wanted to do it for myself.   I don’t think I should bend over backwards making myself feel bad (physically or mentally) for someone else’s sake.  Sure, call me selfish if you must, but I just can’t advocate for doing something that makes you feel bad because you wanted someone else to feel good.

I’m just thankful no one in my family has ever tried to push anything on me.  Sure, they’ve suggested things to me before, and of course made sure I didn’t do something stupid that would injure me or worse when I was too young to know better.  But overall, my family has given me a lot of freedom to do what I want, dress how I want, and be who I want to be.  Now that I think about it, I’m kind of lucky that way.

(I hope I’m making sense on this. Re-reading this, I’m not entirely sure if I do.)

————————————-

Anyway, I’m looking at Tulpa and watching them carefully, trying to figure out if they were comfortable looking like that or not.  She’s just sitting there watching my Dad play Castlevania III, and he was now on the haunted pirate ship with Trevor and Sypha.  He was breezing through at a pretty good pace and sharing an anecdote about how Warren Ellis figuratively gave him the “Turd Cape of Shame” on this old message board back when the Castlevania series on Netflix was just an idea back in 2007.  (I still am not entirely sure if that story is true or not.)

“Hey Lily,” Dad asks suddenly out of the blue, “got anything to drink?”  I offer him some lemonade, he accepts, and I go to the kitchen to pour him a glass.  As I’m doing this, I hear Dad ask Tulpa, “By the way, I don’t think I caught your name.  What was it again?”

“...Tulpa...” she says back to him.

My body freezes up for a moment as I realized that “Tulpa” is not an ordinary name.  I mean the first time she told me her name, it sounded like some kind of Pokémon.  Once again, that irrational fear of my Dad being weirded out or something enters my head, but is dispelled almost immediately.

“Tulpa?” my Dad says aloud to himself, “That’s a very interesting name.”

“T-Thank you...” she says back.

I walk in with a glass of pink lemonade and set it down on a little, folding TV dinner stand that was given to me when I first moved out for college.  I slowly sit back down again as I keep an eye on Dad.  His facial expression is the same as usual: relaxed.  You could call it a poker face, but I’ve seen him play poker and he is BAD at poker.

“Anyone in your family Buddhist?” my Dad asks casually.

I step in, “Dad!  What kind of a question is that!?”  And I meant what I said too. Who even asks something like that!?

“I was just wondering,” he says before once again shutting up and focusing on his game.

This is one of the things about my Dad that bugs me to no end: he likes to be cagey sometimes.  He’ll say something vague with the sole purpose of making the other person curious, confused, or both.  It leaves, like, questions in the back of your head that just start gnawing at your brain and won’t stop chewing away at your gray matter until you finally ask him to explain what the heck he was talking about.    He does this on purpose to “bait” people into asking him questions or to continue with what he’s saying.  So annoying!

I sigh, “Why’s that, Dad?”

He gives a little smile and continues, “Oh it’s just that this isn’t the first time I’ve heard the name “Tulpa” before, that’s all.”

NOW he has my total undivided attention and Tulpa’s too as we both unconsciously lean forward.  Practically in sync, we both say, “It’s not!?”

He’s still smiling as he says, “Nope.  First time I heard that name was when I was doing some monster research for a Castlevania Wiki I had been working on a while back.”

Tulpa practically gulps, “M-M-Monster...?”

“Well not really a monster,” he says back, “more like... a supernaturally, artificially created person.” 

(There are some times when my Dad can be down right spooky and creepy.  This was one of those times.)

Full Metal Alchemist immediately pops into my head, and without even hesitating, I ask, “Like a Homunculus?”

“Nah, more like...” he says before pausing his game and turning to Tulpa and I, “...an imaginary friend.”  Tulpa and I both tilt our heads in confusion.  Dad picks up on this and by now, he is practically glowing at this opportunity to share some weird thing he just happens to know something about.

He explains, “So there’s this word in Tibetan called “Sprul-Pa” which means “Manifestation”, okay?  And in early Buddhism, this is used as the explanation for how Gautama Buddha could travel to heavenly realms and come back again.  You could say he created a clone of himself in the other realm and then transmitted his consciousness to it from his body on Earth.  Kind of like a-”

By now, Tulpa and I were clearly on the same wavelength as she asks, “a Shadow Clone!?” at the exact same time I was thinking of it. Believe it!

Dad’s silent for a moment as he thinks to himself before finally going, “...uhhh... I guess... you could say that. I was thinking “Dream Body” but I suppose a shadow clone could work too.”  My Dad used to watch Naruto with me on Toonami years ago, so he knew full well what a shadow clone was.

He turns to face us as he continues talking, “The thing with a Tulpa is that it’s something made from nothing. A Homunculus, using your example, Lily, requires having the materials necessary to make an artificial being on hand before you can create them. But a Tulpa is willed into existence out of nothingness. It is created from the thoughts of the creator; known as a “Thoughtform” in some cases.”

(WHEN did my Dad even learn this stuff!?)

“The difference between a Tulpa and an imaginary friend,” my Dad continued to say, “is that while an imaginary friend is just that, someone that exists in your imagination, a Tulpa is made when someone’s thoughts are so strong that they will their imaginary friend into existence.”

I look over at Tulpa, and she is totally absorbed in what my Dad’s saying.

“Now from what I’ve read...” Oh my God, Dad! What have you even been reading!? “...it’s very difficult for one person alone to have enough psychic power to will a sentient being into creation. But if you had enough people thinking the same thing, and thinking about it hard enough, then, hypothetically, a Tulpa could be created.”

“So what you’re saying is if enough people think Bigfoot is real, then they can actually make it real just by believing in them?” I snark.

“Yeah, pretty much,” my Dad replies without detecting my snark at all.

“Or like...” Tulpa chimes in, “...how Tinkerbell is saved... by believing in fairies and... clapping hands?” I was a bit surprised Tulpa knew that since I couldn’t recall Disney’s Peter Pan having that scene in it.

Dad thinks about it for a moment, and then goes, “Hmmmmm... yeah! That too, I suppose.”

Right about then, Dad gets a notification on his phone. He pulls it out, looks at it, gets a somewhat serious look on his face, and then stands up and says, “Hey, I gotta make a phone call real quick. Mind if I...” he trails off.

“Yeah, sure thing, Dad,” I say back. He heads down the hallway to the guest bedroom and closes the door as he makes his call. It’s now just Tulpa and me in the living room, and we were both feeling super awkward. I turn to Tulpa and say, “So... did you know anything about all that?”

Tulpa shook her head, “N-n-no. First time I... I ever heard of... of it.” I could tell she was feeling nervous. She had started stuttering pretty badly.

All this time, I knew Tulpa was an apparition, but I never thought about what kind of apparition she was. It never really dawned on me that an apparition could have an origin story. With Tulpa, she was just... kind of there for me, and I never really questioned it. Her being her somehow felt, I dunno... “natural”, I guess.

I never thought I really needed to learn more about Tulpa, anyway. I mean, outside of the occasional mischief, Tulpa was perfectly harmless. Worst thing she ever did was the Pinkening (still don’t know how she did that), but that was partly on me because I was being a big dummy. Overall, she’s always been friendly, kind, and fun to be around, and that‘s always been good enough for me.

“You, uh...” I start to say, “...want to talk about it later?” Tulpa looks ahead of her kind of blankly, and I immediately add, “It’s okay if you don’t want to, Tulpa, I just-“

“Talk about what?” She asks, now looking at me kind of confused.

“About...” I trail off as I try to find the right words, “...about what my Dad just said and about... I dunno... where you came from?”

Tulpa clearly hadn’t thought about it before. She leaned back against the couch and audibly sighed (I think that was the first time I ever heard them sigh!), before saying, “I... don’t know... Lily...”

“Don’t know where you came from, or don’t know if you want to talk about it?” I asked her.

She thought for a moment before saying, “Both...”

I wanted to say something more to her, maybe give them some kind of reassurance, but I just couldn’t as long as my Dad was here! The frustration of wanting to talk about something with someone, but not being able to because of other people being around, is just AGONIZING!  If only Dad would hurry up and leave, but when he says he’s going to beat a video game, he’s going to beat a video game.  Problem was he hadn’t even made it to Dracula’s Castle yet, so who knew how much longer it would be?

Then Dad comes back in and says, “Hey, sorry about this, but I need to get going.”

HAAAAAALLEJUAH!!!

“Oh sweet merciful powers that be, THANK YOU! “  I thought to myself.  I was worried things were going to get all cringy like a bad self-insert fanfic.   “Aww, that’s too bad,” I fibbed out of politeness.  I mean, he’s my Dad and I love him and all, but... y’know...

“Yeah, I got a call from work and they need me to help out with something. ‘Fraid I have to cut my visit short, Lily.” My Dad powered off the Nintendo system and began packing it up. But then he suddenly stopped, looked up, then looked back at me and said, “Hey, you want to borrow my NES for a bit!?”

Dad suddenly leaving to take care of something for work happens every now and then, so that was no big surprise. But Dad suddenly saying he has to leave to take care of something and leave his NES in MY care!? THAT scared the pants off me!

“Oh my God, Dad... you’re not dying are you!?” I ask with a half-serious tone.

“What!? No! What gave you that idea!?” He shoots back.

“Because that’s the NES you’ve had ever since you were a kid! You have NEVER let anyone else look after it! EVER!” I remind him because it is one-hundred percent true.

His lame-sauce excuse was: “Hey, both of your uncles used to look after it!”

And then I remind him, “That’s because you all lived in the same house with grandma and grandpa!  Y’know, because you were all kids and everything!”

“They still took care of it,” he pouts.

“Only after they sneaked into your room, de-hooked it, and snuck it over to their room!  You know I’ve heard the stories at the family gatherings!, right?” This is all completely true.

————————————-

My Dad is the oldest of three, and at family gatherings, like around Thanksgiving, he and my uncles used to tell as many embarrassing stories about each other as possible like they were trying to one-up each other. Like, “Hey, remember that time you stuck a LEGO tire up your nose and had to go to the Emergency Room?”

And my uncle’s all like, “I WAS FOUR!”

Good times....

...now where was I?

Oh right!  Why leaving the Nintendo was a big deal!

————————————-

“C’mon, Dad,” I plead, “The only way I can see you willingly giving away your Nintendo, even if just for a little while, would be if you were on your death bed and filling out your last will and testament. So go on, spill it, what’s up with that?”

My Dad just had this look of offense on his face like I had seriously wounded him with my words. “I am NOT that overprotective of it!”

“Yes you are.”

“Okay, I am,” he admits way too quickly, “but I just thought that you having it might be a good idea in case you finally get some free time coming up. Best way to enjoy it is to play it, after all.”

I chuckle, “Dad, the only way work is going to give me enough time off to sit on my butt and play video games is if some horrible catastrophe caused the art store to shut down. Like, I dunno, a deadly virus or something.”

[EDIT, APRIL 12th, 2020: ME AND MY BIG FAT MOUTH!

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!]

Dad chuckles and say, “Yeah... you got a point there. Still, I think between you and your roommate, you’re both responsible adults now who can get some enjoyment out of it. I’m sure I can trust you two to take good care of it,” he says before raising an eyebrow, “or is there some reason I shouldn’t leave it here!?”

“Relax! We can look after it, Dad. Nothing’s going to happen to it,” I say as I whip my head back so fast it could have made a sonic boom. Just as I suspected, there was Tulpa sitting down in front of the Nintendo about ready to poke it with her finger. “Isn’t that right, Tulpa?” I say while looking straight at her.

“Y-yes...” she mutters.

Dad smiles at the two of us and then suddenly, out of the blue, he gives me this big ole bear hug and pats me on the back!  It’s the same kind of hug he gave me on my first day at school, when I was leaving for summer camp, and when I moved into my freshman dorm for college.  It was the kind of reassuring hug that says everything is going to be fine.  “Ohhhhhhh, look at you growing up and being all responsible! I’m so proud of you, Lily!”

“Dad!  Can’t breath, Dad!” I say before he finally lets go.

“Oh yeah, tomorrow, when you get a chance, make sure to pick up a couple packages of toilet paper,” he says casually, “your bathroom’s running low and now would be a good time to stock up.”

[EDIT April 12th, 2020: HE FREAKING KNEW! 

HOW!?!?!?]

“Thanks for the tip, Dad,” I respond before saying the thing that led to my Dad saying the other thing that would make my brain do somersaults for the next few hours and ultimately come to you, dear diary, “What brought up that little nugget of wisdom? Dad-ly Intuition?”  (Yes, that pun was intentional.)

“Well I’ve always considered myself to be a little psychic here and there,” he says about twenty-three seconds before the door closes and forty-five seconds before my face faults, “and you’ve always been a little psychic too, haven’t yah?”

“Sure Dad, I’ll catch you later,” I say waving goodbye.

“Take care, Lily!  Keep in touch!  Love you, sweetie!” he calls back as he’s walking into the hallway heading out,

“Love you too, Dad” I say as I close the door and lock the deadbolt. With that family obligation out of the way, I was feeling much better not having to worry about next weekend, not having to worry about Tulpa and Dad, and could just chill and relax and-

It was right about then that my eyes shot wide open as I stared ahead of me at nothing in particular.  The gears in my head started turning faster and faster as the past few months living here started to tie together.  Tulpa looks at me, slightly concerned.  She’s still in her “disguise”, but looks genuinely concerned.  She waves her hand it front of me and my mind is working at warp speed, so it doesn’t even register.

“Are you... okay... Lily?” she asks.

I slowly turn to look her in the eye, and then ask her flat out:

“Am I Psychic!?”

[nobodyfamousposts]

BURN THE WITCH! Part 4

It took more time than it should have to lose the akuma and her followers. Partly because of the shoes and the disguise as a whole doing more to slow her down than it did to protect her. Mostly because of just how many people were currently after her—and wow, was it a lot!

But she had managed to not only escape with life and hair intact (despite the attempts of the damn hairnet), but also find a place to hide until the akuma was dealt with.

From what she had observed, the akuma’s effects were carried by hearing her speak from that scroll of hers. Almost immediately after spouting off something else from the “list”, anyone within earshot would join the increasing number of minions, even if they had just been trying to run away moments prior. It was like the akuma could incite anger in anyone…self-righteous anger, and all of it specifically targeted at Lila.

She was going to have words with Hawk Moth about this. If he had an akuma able to enthrall people like this, why hadn’t he given it to her? She could have made much better use of it than Rose, of all people. Now he had an akuma solely focused on revenge instead of the masterpiece Lila could have been. Honestly, she would have Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated by now!

As it was, Lila had to survive. And to do so, she had to make do with her own skills.

Fortunately, the akuma’s reach—while growing—was only as far as people could hear her. Which made the boat at the Seine a perfect place to hide out.

Especially since the old woman and her son living there were easily drawn in.

“It’ll be all right, lass. You’re safe here.” The woman said, reassuringly. “We’ll man the gunnery if any of those fools try anything. They can’t get to you here.”

“Thank you! I just…I just don’t know why this would happen.” Lila gave another well timed but ultimately fake sob into her hands.

“Don’t worry.” The guy—a teenager, and not a bad looking one, either—rested a hand on her shoulder. “Ladybug and Chat Noir will fix this soon enough.”

Lila forced herself to smile. “I hope they do.”

If only because this was the one akuma she didn’t want to see win. Otherwise, she would fully be cheering for their demise. Possibly with popcorn.

Assuming she wasn’t the one doing it herself, of course.

“Luka, keep an eye out in case someone followed her here.” The woman ordered.

“On it.” Luka, apparently, guided Lila to the couch to rest before he moved to another part of the room. The woman took a pair of binoculars to one of the windows, trying to peer through them to see further into the distance.

Lila sighed and was preparing to finally relax.

“Why is the akuma after you, anyway?” He asked while grabbing something from the corner.

To her credit, Lila did acknowledge that Marinette had at least tried to help her. And surely the girl who helps everyone would want to continue to be of use. Even if she wouldn’t necessarily like what Lila was currently using her for.

But in Lila’s defense, Marinette DID shove her in a closet.

“I was helping with a friend’s charity work and some money went missing. There was a huge fight over it today and one of my classmates tried to blame me for the loss.”

“That’s horrible.”

“I know!” Lila continued, hiding a smile. “Rose is kind, but she is so forgetful that she could have lost the money anywhere. Then Marinette took advantage of the opportunity to claim I did it.”

Luka paused at that. “What?”

Lila nodded, mournfully. “She’s been against me from the first day I started school.”

Technically true.

“She’s been bullying me, calling me names, trying to convince everyone I’m a liar.”

Also technically true.

“I’m sure she was happy to paint me as the villain today, and everyone believed her.” Lila proclaimed with a little sob. “Nobody would even listen to me! Then Rose got mad and became an akuma, and Marinette left me to perish!”

“That doesn’t sound like Marinette.”

Immediately, all thoughts halted as she realized her mistake.

These two knew Marinette.

Okay, no big deal. She can just spin it.

“That was what I thought, too. But she showed her true colors when I tried to make friends with her! I even offered to help her with her crush on Adrien. But she’s just so jealous.” Lila insisted, laying on the charm and tears. “She’s been telling everyone such horrible things about me.”

Luka’s frown only increased though.

“She hasn’t mentioned you to me.”

She shook her head. “Then I’m sorry, but it seems you don’t know her that well.”

“What are you talking about?” The mother demanded, confused and annoyed. “That girl comes over here all the time. She’s a wonderful girl and a wonderful friend to our daughter.”

Wait…daughter?

The boy narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion.

“Where was Juleka in all this, if what you’re saying is true?”

“She wasn’t there.” Lila said, thinking quickly. Better not to implicate their daughter or try to throw her under the bus if they were getting suspicious already. “I know if she had been, things could have worked out. She’s such a good friend, and would never think badly of me.”

But Luka only looked angrier. He held up a remote.

“Then why is she with the mob?”

Lila spun in surprise at the sudden blast of sound. It turned out that the thing he had grabbed before was the remote to the television. Which was on—if muted during Lila’s story-telling.

On the screen, the akuma was standing in front of the Eiffel Tower reading from her list. The video showed Witch Hunter and her followers in full detail. Including Juleka.

Juleka, whom Lila was now realizing had to be the daughter and sister of the two in the room with her.

“She’s been influenced by the akuma! It’s her power.” Lila explained hastily.

But Luka chose to ignore her in favor of unmuting the television, which showed the akuma speaking and reading more of Lila’s crimes from the list. The scroll almost seemed to glow momentarily before she started to read.

“This just in! The Witch just tried to turn two innocents against Marinette and even their own family member. She lied about the cause of the fight! And this is after she already tried to sacrifice Marinette to save her own skin!”

Both mother and son froze at that.

“WHAT?!”

And as if it couldn’t get worse for her, the news proceeded to play a video from earlier. One that Lila had not realized was being recorded at the time.

It showed in full detail the inopportune moment where Lila shoved Marinette out from behind their shared hiding space and attempted to direct the mob’s anger onto the clumsy girl.

Slowly. Slowly…they both turned on her, furious.

“It’s not what it looks like!” She tried to claim. “She was already part of the mob and I was trying to get away from her. I was in danger!”

The two glared at her, clearly not buying it.

It seemed Lila had made a miscalculation as to the limits of the akuma’s range of influence.

Or perhaps it was just that she hadn’t counted on her would-be rescuers being family to one of her classmates.

The woman glowered at her. Without even looking, she grabbed a sword off of the mantle and pointed it at Lila with a ferocity she hadn’t seen before. In that moment, she appeared every bit the pirate she had previously been pretending to be.

“Make her walk the plank!” She yelled.

“We don’t have a plank, mom.” Luka growled, seeming downright disappointed by the fact.

“Then throw her overboard!”

It seemed her sanctuary was short-lived.

_____________________

“Kettle corn! Ready-to-cook over a fire kettle corn!”

Marinette sighed. “Master, not you, too.”

The man cheerfully sold a container to a customer, completely disregarding the problem as well as Marinette’s presence.

“Master Fu, please! The akuma is influencing everyone! Even Tikki is affected! And if I don’t do something soon, they’re going to burn Lila at the stake!”

The man gave her a blank stare.

“And what part of that is supposed to be the problem?” He asked.

“See? He gets it!” Tikki chirped.

“Sometimes, Marinette, an infected bud must be pruned for other flowers to grow.” Fu stated calmly as he imparted his wisdom.

“But flowers aren’t people!”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“Flowers don’t scream when you prune them!” Marinette shouted.

Tikki floated up to her chosen, trying to calm her. “Marinette, sometimes an akuma can actually be a good thing! Remember Bubbler?”

Marinette just gave her a dry look. “You mean when you lectured me for stopping Chloe from kissing Adrien, said it was an abuse of my powers, and emphasized doing the right thing? Remember that? The right thing? The moral choice that involves NOT letting people die just because you don’t like them?”

“This girl has been an obstacle to you and an ally to Hawk Moth.” Fu pointed out. “Would it not be better to simply let her be removed?”

She moaned. Honestly, it annoyed her when Tikki or Fu lectured her and had to be the voice of reason and morals she was pushed to adhere to rather than the support she needed in the moment. But this wasn’t support. It was just life throwing more temptation at her by having two of the people whose moral compasses she trusted pushing her to not care!

Give her a break, life! She’s having a hard enough time as it is!

"No!” She insisted. “I need the Dragon miraculous to stop this akuma! So please, help me!" 

"Another time perhaps, now is the time for popcorn!"

Marinette glared, put off at the way Fu ignored her to sell another container of popcorn to a customer.

Might as well try to take advantage of the situation though. While Fu was distracted, Marinette attempted to reach around him for the gramophone.

Fu slapped her hand.

She grabbed her hand in surprise before looking at him with a pout.

Master Fu didn’t even react.

She growled.

“Okay, that’s it!”

Later, Marinette decided as she picked up one of the pans, she would let herself feel bad for this.

Much later.

[texastheband]

Super Shar

Interview by Simon Gage, Photography by Wayne Maser Taken from Marie Claire UK - December 2001

She's one of the most successful women in British music, but Sharleen Spiteri refuses to let fame go to her head. And she doesn't mince her words about people who do. Here, the Texas singer gives Simon Gage the lowdown on babies, relationships and having Madonna and Guy round for tea. Photographs by Wayne Maser.

'And you need white wine vinegar, which is weird, but it's the secret ingredient,' says Sharleen Spiteri as she jams another slice of toast into her mouth and peers through the steam from a mug of tea big enough to soak your feet in. She's sitting in the television room of the huge house near London's Regent's Park she shares with her boyfriend, Ashley Heath, editorial director of The Face, explaining a pavlova recipe. (She doesn't mention she is making it for Tom Ford, designer for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.) The dustbins outside are full of carrier bags from Alexander McQueen - an old mate of hers from way back - and the kitchen is big enough to drive a Jeep around, but it's a homely home, not a stupidly luxurious swank pad. Although goodness knows, it could be. The house is fairly new to Sharleen - bought with the cash she's earned since Texas's resurrection with the White On Blonde album in 1997 made her a multi-millionaire - but it already looks lived in, with books and candles everywhere, a huge Aga and comfy settees. Her mum and dad are down from Glasgow to help her redecorate. Obviously, she could afford to employ a team of painters - she is one of the wealthiest women in the UK, with recent rich lists placing her higher than Posh but she sees this as a nice way of spending more time with her parents. 'And I get a lot of satisfaction from it.' she adds. 'We've been taking thousands of books off the shelves so we can paint. It's one of those jobs where you end up going, "Why the fuck did I start this?", but they're all back now and it looks fantastic.' Sharleen, 33, may be one of the most successful women in British music -the Greatest Hits album is six times platinum and counting but she is not going to let that stop her getting on with painting her shelves and sloping into cafes for junk food. She may have no time for the Mariah Careys of this world - they fell out last year - but to the women in the second-hand clothes shop we stop off at in Camden on our way to Marks & Spencer for bread, Sharleen's probably the nicest customer they'll have all day. The thing with Sharleen is she doesn't do the superstar thing and has a great talent for not being spotted. It's not like she's in disguise or anything - her hair is tied in a makeshift knot, she's wearing 'great label, but low-impact' clothes and she keeps her head up, talking non-stop in her recognisable Glasgow drawl. She even gives me a body-popping run-through of a Missy Elliott video in the middle of a road without anyone batting an eyelid, then goes on to say how shocked she was when a paparazzo tried to take a picture of her nipping out for milk. Shocked not in a 'How dare you?' way, but in a 'Why would you?' way. But that's Shar all over. She still doesn't quite get what all the fuss is about.

So we hear you're about to take two years off. SS: So people keep telling me. I'm not rushing to do the next record. I think people need a little break and so do I. Johnny [McElhone] and I are still writing [songs], but sometimes it's difficult to know where you want to go musically so we had to take a break. Two years is ample time to have a baby. I knew you were going to say that. Even my friends are phoning up and saying, 'Do you want to come to this party?' and if I go no, they ask, 'Are you pregnant?' and I'm like, 'Piss off!' If it happens, it happens. Hell, I ain't getting any younger. You're doing alright, aren't you? Is there anything you still want and can't have? No. I don't think having something you want has got anything to do with being a millionaire [laughs], but you can say that when you're loaded. I've never been happier. I can come and go, see my mates, have them round to the house and just have a laugh. Did you always dream of being a popstar? I never dreamed of being a popstar What defines a popstar? Someone who sings for a living and everyone screams at them. What defines a musician? Someone who does that but no one screams. So, what am I? You're a popstar. Yeah, but am I the same as people like Hear'say? I don't have a group of producers and writers who are writing songs for me and getting records ready so I can walk in and do my vocal. I don't sell newspapers, I sell records. Those popstars who sell newspapers don't sell albums.

Now you've made it, do things still impress you? Like when Alan Rickman phones to say he wants to be in your video? It's funny because [since the In Demand video], women come up to me and go,'Oh, what is Alan Rickman like?' He's lovely, we're mates. There's no bullshit to him. When we were doing the video, he told me he was up for a part in Harry Potter and I was like, 'Oh, my God! I love Harry Potter' When he got it, he phoned and said, 'Do you want to come down to the set?' I was like, 'You're damn right I do.' I took my niece and two nephews. It was so cool. You were supposed to be in Moulin Rouge, weren't you? What part? The Nicole Kidman part, but it would have meant spending a year filming in Australia. Now it's released, don't you think, 'That could have been me'? No. When I say no, it's no. I didn't ever see me doing that part. I was doing The Hush [Texas's fifth album] and that was more important than doing a movie.

What about when Madonna phones to ask you to dinner, does that impress you? My first meeting was at her house, so it's different from being in a popstar environment. It's pretty funny walking in the door and she's like, 'Hi, I'm Madonna.' You're a bit like, 'Yeah, I know that.' But isn't she just like all those popstars with the producers and the writers standing by? I honestly think she takes the music thing very seriously. We played with her and that wasn't a show where you just walk on and go, 'Let's see what happens.' It was very slick. Were you scared of her? Absolutely not. She's very bright - you don't get that amount of success without being bright. And what is Guy Ritchie like? Guy's nice. He's very real. But he gets criticised for being fake. Everyone reinvents themselves. It's bullshit when people go, 'That's not your background and you can't act like that.' I couldn't care less where Guy comes from. You're either nice or you're not. I don't need your family history to be in your company. Have they been to your house yet? No. It's just a case of getting it together. How would you be able to relax? Why wouldn't you? I don't understand. 'Oh my God, Madonna's coming round, I'll have to get the house repainted.' For fuck's sake. The night we went over, it was me, Stella [McCartney], Ash [Ashley Heath], Guy, Madonna, Guy's dad and his wife, and it was dead relaxed, like any dinner.

‘I don’t do cleavage, Cleavage is overrated’ - Sharleen

Did you see Madonna in concert? No. I was really busy. Was she upset? I'm sure she couldn't have given a flying fuck. So if you're not worried about meeting Madonna, what do you worry about? I'm really worried about my niece, because she's being bullied at school. I get angry more than I worry. I'm really bad at biting my tongue. I've seen people's jaws drop in a 'I can't believe she just said that' way. So you don't dream of having a body like Geri? Everyone would like it, but I wouldn't want to do the work. I couldn't bear having to think about it every time I want to eat. That's not living. I think she looks like a very ill girl. I'm just like, 'Get over it.' Would you ever do the bikini thing for a magazine? I don't need to. Some people might find the need to have a photo of them retouched, but I can't think of anything worse than going home after your boyfriend sees you on a magazine cover with your arse up to here and tits ping, ping, and then you go in and it's reality, gravity. Don't get me wrong, I really care that it's a nice picture. If I go into a studio and there's a stylist going, 'We really think...', I'm like, 'No, this is what I'm wearing because this is the way I look.' You have a big female following, don't you? A woman liking me is the biggest compliment you can pay me. After the Elvis video, so many women said, 'Well done, you're so brave.' Why brave? Because it wasn't you in a sexy little dress. I'm so bored with tits and arse. Did you know you were above Kylie and Madonna as the act most requested at Gay Pride this year? I couldn't believe it. I was like, 'Bring it on, the queen has got her crown back.' You've got a big lesbian following. Have you ever been tempted? No. I love women, but I don't fancy them. I look at women and think, 'Man, she's gorgeous.' I'd like to look like Angelina Jolie. I think she's so sexy. I love her big lips and her kooky character, and I find her madness appealing. I don't think she acts it. How does your boyfriend cope with you being a superstar? A lot of men would find that hard. Ashley's not that type. He's a very confident person, always has been. That's what attracted me to him.

When I walk into the East London photo studio about a week later, the first voice I hear is Sharleen's. She's in the middle of telling the team of internationally celebrated photographers, stylists and make-up artists some off-colour stories. The photographer reckons he doesn't know Texas's music, so someone puts on the Greatest Hits, to which Sharleen lip-syncs like a drag queen, throwing in some comedy Mariah Carey moves. As she changes from her white T-shirt into a variety of top-drawer designer togs, most of which she's brought along herself, the only thing that stays the same is her attitude. Halfway through doing a glamorous shot laid out on the floor, she asks if we can see her balls up her skirt, then she comes out in a top with a plunging neckline, pulling the sides together because, 'I don't do cleavage. Cleavage is over-rated.' Are you still big mates with Chris Evans? SS: I haven't spoken to him since he got married, but I really believe that he and Billie are in love. I met her at a funeral with Chris. Everyone is going on about Billie and Chris and you think, 'OK, so Chris has fallen in love again,' because Chris does that. When I met him with Billie, I thought, 'Oh, this is different.' I don't know her, but she was very relaxed in his company, and he was in hers, and I don't see Chris like that very much. I thought she was a really nice girl. I was quite taken aback. But you forget how young she is. What age is she? Nineteen. I never knew she was that Young. Age makes no difference to me. At that age, I was writing I Don't Want A Lover. I still stand by the lyric. Did you go to Madonna's wedding? No. There were only 60 people invited. If Madonna had invited me to her wedding, I would have wondered why. She's only known me a year. Are you going to invite her to your wedding? Who says I'm getting married? [Laughing] That was the cheesiest way of asking me I've ever heard. So ... ? Probably... I don't know how you decide. I always find it horrible when people talk about it. You're big on monogamy, aren't you? I'm a romantic. I think I'm a realist, to be honest with you. Is monogamy a big deal to me? Fuck, yes. If it lasts a week or lasts the rest of your life. So you won't put up with any running around? No. That's like [split sound] material. It's not good. Would you end it even for a minor indiscretion? Yeah. Why would you have a boyfriend? You might as well just be shagging people. Don't you ever fancy a meaningless shag? No. A shag is the ultimate closeness you can get to me, mentally and physically. When I'm having sex, that's completely me. It has to be really special. That's the way I am. You don't think there are different sorts of sex? You're talking like a man; 'I shagged her and it didn't mean anything.' How do you know it didn't to the other person? I think there are lots of girls who kid on that they don't care, but I don't believe women are like that. But I'm not interested in other people's sex lives. I love having a laugh and a great conversation, but you've seen me with my girlfriends and we're like, 'You dirty devil' and laugh like other women. We talk about sex, but not our sex lives. It's an urban myth that women talk about what they do in bed. So what are your thoughts on Posh? Every time I've met Victoria, she's been a sweetheart. Everyone goes on about her, but you still pick up the paper to see what she's up to. She seems pretty normal. Well, not in the sense that I'm normal, but I think she's actually quite normal in her heart.

See the photoshoot: here Read the scans: here Text originally posted on texasindemand.com

[halothenthehorns]

THE DUELING CLUB

  THE DUELING CLUB

Remus was still puzzling, and knowing better than to interrupt him Sirius instead said, "I think he's thinking it's no longer a Gorgon."

"Why?" Lily asked, it was the only reasonable explanation to her.

"Something Binn's said," Remus said, going cross eyed a bit as he continued to categorize everything he knew about this situation so far. "I'm just wondering, well of course it would suite Slytherin... but how could it be..." and he trailed off into more mutterings.

Harry took a leaf out of Ron's book and said, "If, in a month or so, you feel like explaining, you will let us know?" He couldn't deny how eager he felt to hear another answer, since he was so

sure the Gorgon one was wrong.

"Not going to happen Harry," James said sadly, "he's going to be like this until he works it out in his own way."

"Are we supposed to wait for him?" Lily asked as she got up and took the book from Remus herself.

Lily's actions startled Remus out of his reverie, and he looked about himself before smiling weakly and saying, "Just puzzling out some things. Nothing still makes enough sense though."

"At least tell us why you think it isn't a gorgon," Harry asked.

"Because if it was, there are several actions the teachers could take to prevent that. I'm sure they would have after Mrs. Norris, so how did this happen again?"

"But what else could petrify people, and cat's, like this?" Sirius asked.

"I'm working on that," Remus reassured, "and I will let you know, before the month's up," he finished grinning at Harry.

Harry blushed, not realizing Remus had even been listening, while his friends laughed at the pair.

Lily read on sadly, very scared and upset now. If Remus, the guy who seemed to know everything there was to know about magical creatures, didn't know right away what was running around the school, she was honestly terrified to hear the answer.

Harry woke up the next day with his arm stiff, but all bones in place. He glanced over at Colin's bed, but found some curtains had been put in place to block his view.

"That's hardly going to stop the rest of the school from figuring it out," Sirius said in disbelief.

"Appreciate the thought though," Remus said.

Madam Pomfrey came over and gave him some breakfast, telling him he could leave when he was done. Harry got dressed and left, going up to Gryffindor tower, but finding they weren't there. He began wondering where his friends could be so he could fill them in on Dobby and Colin.

"Huh?" All five of them muttered.

"Wonder where they got to?" James said in surprise.

"Surprised they weren't down there to check on Harry," Sirius corrected.

"I'm sure they, ah," Remus said, not able to come up with a good reason.

Harry frowned, trying not to feel hurt his friends didn't seem to care about whether his arm had grown back.

Lily felt bad for Harry, clearly having a good guess at what he was thinking, and knowing full well his friends would have a good reason, so decided to read.

Harry came across Percy first, asking if he'd seen his brother. Percy said he hadn't, then made the joke that he wasn't so bothered so long as he wasn't hanging around in a girl's loo again.

"He makes that seem like such a bad thing," James said, grinning brightly, "personally I'm offended none of us ever thought of that."

"Of course," Lily said, ignoring her husband, "they went to go check on the Polyjuice Potion. They might have thought you would get out later, so they went there first."

Harry smiled, looking far more relaxed now.

"What makes you think they would brew the Polyjuice Potion in there?" Sirius asked.

"They've already established it's a secluded place no one goes in," she shrugged, "as good a place as any really."

"I can think of some better ones," Remus disagreed.

"And they've already been caught in there, by Filch and Percy," James added.

"Well, let's just see then," she said.

Harry tried to laugh it off, but now went down to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Percy was right, when Harry pushed the door open he startled Hermione who asked at once how his arm was. Harry told them it was fine now and spotted the cauldron resting on a toilet.

"Okay fine," Sirius sighed, speaking for the boys, "but our points still stand."

"We hadn't explored as much as you guys seemed to," Harry said with a shrug, "so it seemed like a good idea to us."

Harry began telling them about Colin, and Ron said that they already knew, they'd heard McGonagall telling Flitwick that morning.

"Subtle," James snorted.

"Explains why they got a start on the potion all the more though," Remus said, "now students really are getting attacked, it would freak them out all the more."

"Freaks me out," Lily agreed.

Ron was insisting this framed Malfoy all the more, how he'd been so upset over his loss of the game he'd taken it out on Colin.

"Would make a good motive if Malfoy could pull it off," Sirius said sadly.

Harry also told them what Dobby had been up to, and Hermione caught on the part where he mentioned that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened before? Ron said this made sense, if Draco's father had been here before and done this.

"Again, applaud the logic he's trying," James said sadly, "but as there's never been another reported instance of a student being petrified like this, I don't see it happening."

Then he said it was a bummer Dobby had said who was doing this. He also pointed out, how was this monster getting around the school without getting caught?

"Can't even begin to figure that out," Remus agreed with a huff.

Hermione offered that it might be able to turn itself invisible.

"No," Lily said slowly, "the times Harry's heard it, he heard it going up. Invisible doesn't equal intangibility."

Then she offered it could be a Chameleon Ghoul.

"Which don't petrify," Remus sighed, "which is what I'm mostly stuck on."

Ron turned back to Harry and said that if Dobby didn't stop trying to save Harry, he was going to kill him.

"My sentiments exactly," James sighed, unable to decide which he was more annoyed by right now, Harry's 'saviour' this year or this mysterious monster.

Time passed in the school with even more worry than before, the story of Colin passing around like wildfire. The first years in particular seemed to take this fact hard, now moving around in herds and seeming to fear stragglers would be picked off.

"Those poor dears," Lily said sadly, "imagine you being a first year there, and even a muggle born to boot!"

"School never even got that bad for us," James agreed, and they had grown up in the epitome of Voldemort's reign.

Ginny had been seen looking very disturbed as well, since she sat next to Colin in one of her classes. Harry had seen her twin brothers trying to cheer her up, though in his opinion they weren't doing a very good job.

"Well this can't be good," Sirius said brightly.

The two were taking turns in covering up in disguises of fur and jumping out at her from behind corridors.

Sirius couldn't help but chuckle at those antics, it did seem like fun indeed.

"Honestly Sirius, even you never tried to scare first years," Lily snapped.

"No," he agreed, "but I would have done it to my baby brother. There's a difference."

"Why would that scare Regulus?" James asked.

"Why would that scare Ginny," Sirius countered.

"Alright you two," Remus cut in, "let Lily keep going."

They only stopped when Percy got onto them for it, telling them off for giving her nightmares.

Sirius winced slightly, he didn't think it would scare the poor kid that much.

Among the older students, illegal trades of protective amulets were going around.

Lily made a noise of scathing disgust, saying, "Probably Lockhart's fault as well. He was the one going on and telling people he made some magical amulet that protected people."

"It's ridiculous, we all agree," Remus nodded, "since I doubt a single thing those students could come up with would keep something like this away."

"You got any more ideas yet?" James asked.

"Nope," he muttered in annoyance.

Neville had been taken in by this, having bought what was told several protective charms, before being reminded that he was a pureblood. Neville argued back that Filch had been targeted, and Neville was considered almost a squib.

"That poor kid," Lily said miserably, she hated how down Neville seemed to be.

"There's no such thing as 'almost' a squib," Sirius scoffed, "you're either magical, or not. Someone ought to smack whoever convinced Neville to get that stuff."

December was starting to approach, and with it their head of house began listing names of who would be staying behind on holiday this year. Harry and his friends signed up, strangely along with Malfoy.

"Pity that," James said in disgust, knowing full well the little git would have more opportunities now to be a jerk with less people around.

"Good for us though," Harry reminded him, "since there would be less witnesses around for our Polyjuice Potion."

Lily sighed, still not happy about this. Harry had survived it without major side effects, which meant most likely his friends had to, but it still made her uncomfortable such a young student was attempting such a huge project without supervision.

Harry and his friends were pleased with the timing, as this meant they could use the Polyjuice Potion with less witnesses about. Still they were hitting the snag of how to get certain ingredients, and Harry decided he'd much rather face the monster prowling the school then steal from the Slytherin head of house.

"Thank you so much for that mental image," James said, trying to force a laugh.

Hermione pointed out that what they needed was a distraction so that someone could sneak into Snape's office.

"She makes it sound so simple," Remus scoffed.

"It can be," James offered, an old gleam appearing in his eyes again, "say they-"

"Don't," Lily said at once. "I'd be more than happy not knowing the details of how you can scam stuff away from a teacher. I'd rather see what Harry did."

James deflated but nodded his ascent, he was curious to that as well.

Then she decided she'd do the actual stealing herself, as she had never been in trouble before. So she told the boys all they had to do was cause a little problem in the next class for about five minutes or so.

"Oh is that all"? Sirius chuckled.

Harry couldn't help but laugh, as he felt causing trouble in Snape's class was about as safe as poking a sleeping dragon in the eye.

"Hey, that's the school motto," Remus chuckled.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus, which translated from Latin means never tickle a sleeping dragon," Remus said brightly.

"The things you know, honestly," James cackled.

"So Draco means Never?" Harry asked.

"No, it means Dragon," Sirius said, "Purebloods are often named after the stars, constellations, and galaxies. Sirius is the Dog, Draco is the Dragon, etcetera."

"So glad I got left out of that," James laughed.

"It's a rough translation, Latin is really hard to do properly," Remus said, trying to get back on topic.

"Can we move on?" Lily giggled at the lot of them, "before someone else comes up with a lecture worth of comments."

"Like you would if we kept going," James smirked.

Lily blushed, not willing to admit he was probably right.

There opportunity came up in the next class. It started as usual, with Malfoy flicking unknowns in Harry's direction. He knew better then to retaliate though, because if Snape caught Harry doing the same he'd be in detention before Harry could protest.

"Still a git then," James muttered, having privately enjoyed not having to deal with any of Snape's classes this year.

Hermione gave the signal, and Harry started the distraction by lighting up a firecracker,

"Oh, you're not," Lily began with trepidation.

watching it come to life,

"Oh he is," James disagreed, the opposite emotion playing across his face.

"That's dangerous," Lily moaned, "if he drops that in his own potion, we don't even know if Harry did it right, being runny could be caused-"

"Mum," Harry said quickly, "I didn't throw it in my potion."

Lily gave him a wary look, before nodding and reading, still fearful.

and chucking it across the room into Goyle's cauldron.

"That's ten times better," James cackled, "if I've noticed anything, he's an idiot who doesn't need help making his potion explode."

"It was even more dangerous that way!" Lily disagreed with annoyance, "because he could have done something really bad to his potion, and now it's going to get everywhere!"

"Good distraction though," Sirius grinned at Lily.

Lily strangled herself off, remembering her promise not to continue yelling about this. Though to be fair, she wasn't yelling about the stealing part, just the distraction part. Still, sucking in a deep breath she read.

It was certainly a good distraction. Goyle's potion went everywhere, splashing across everyone in the room who all started swelling in odd places. Malfoy got a face full himself, and his nose started swelling up.

All four boys were snickering like children now, while Lily blatantly ignored them. At least Goyle seemed to do his potion right, which was a miracle in itself.

Snape was quick to call attention, commanding everyone to the front of the room to get the problem taken care of, but not before ominously threatening he would find out who did this.

"Why does he think someone 'did it'?" Remus asked, a crazy smile still plastered on his face. "Like Prongs said, he's stupid enough to blow up his own potion."

"That's rich coming from you," James said with glee, now eyeing his friend and making Remus wince, "since I remember quite well when you-"

"Okay," Remus groaned, "sorry I mentioned it."

"What?" Harry said eagerly.

"I blew up a potion," Remus huffed, feeling it was obvious, but willing to explain for Harry. And only Harry. His friends were gits. "And they've never let me live it down."

"Well, since you did it like once a year," Lily said, "you can hardly blame them."

"Lily!" Remus yelped, looking at her in an almost betrayed way.

"That was for ratting me out about the cat," she smiled sweetly, "and it was for Harry's benefit."

Harry wasn't listening. He was too busy laughing at them. Remus trailed off into mutterings, his friends catching a few familiar excuses like 'not my fault I kept falling asleep' but Harry had

calmed down and Lily was ready to keep reading.

Harry attempted to hide his laughter as Malfoy tottered around, his nose now heavy enough he couldn't properly hold his head up. While the majority of the class went up front with all manner of expanded limbs,

"Wish I could be there to see that," Sirius said with glee.

"I love how Harry seems to come up with the best prank ideas, and he doesn't even try," James agreed.

Hermione managed to slip back into the classroom, the front of her robes now misshapen.

"Subtle," James snickered.

After the room calmed back down, Snape stalked over to the cauldron in question and dug out the remaining bits of the firework.

"Oops," Harry winced, having hoped Snape would go along with his father's line of thinking, and not investigate it too much.

"You don't get into trouble do you?" Lily asked in trepidation.

"Snape can't prove Harry did it," Sirius disagreed.

"When has that ever stopped him," James huffed.

Snape was not pleased, promising expulsion if he ever found out who had pulled this.

"That's harsh," Remus said, "it was dangerous and stupid, fine I'll agree, but that's only worth a few detentions."

"I will repeat," James said, "when has that ever stopped him from exaggerating."

As they were exiting the class, Harry was worrying that Snape knew it was him.

"That's creepy," Sirius shuddered, "I really wish you'd stop saying that kind of stuff Harry."

Harry shrugged, having a vague feeling his younger self was right, but he had no idea why.

Ron brushed it off, pointing out that Snape had no proof, and rhetorically asking what could he do about it? Harry said it would be something nasty.

"At least you'll be on your guard," James said brightly.

They dumped the ingredients into their potion, and nothing more eventful happened until a week later when they found a poster saying a Duelling Club would be started.

"That's an awful idea," Remus cackled.

"Why?" Lily said, puzzled, "I think it's a great idea. Honestly, why didn't we ever do that?"

"Think about it Lily," James said in a slow voice, "a large abundance of student's, all being encouraged to point their wands at each other, with minimal to no supervision."

Lily pursed her lips and said, "Well, when you put it like that, but I think students should understand how duelling works before they graduate at least-"

"Nah," Sirius said, still grinning with Remus at the potential for mayhem this could cause, then he put on a school teacher's voice as he said, "the students are too young to know how the real world works. Enjoy your youth while you can."

"Who was that?" Lily asked

"McGonagall," Sirius said, his face dropping slightly when she hadn't caught that right away. "We asked to start a duelling club at the end of our first year, and she said that to me."

"Personally," Remus said, still grinning, "I think she just said no to you, and anyone thereafter, because it was your idea. I told you I should have been the one to suggest it."

Sirius huffed and muttered something inarticulate.

"So why do you think it's allowed now?" James asked.

All of them shrugged, having no idea about this.

Claiming the first lesson would be that night. Ron laughed, asking if the teachers thought Slytherin's monster could duel or something, but he looked just as fascinated by the subject as anyone.

"That would be interesting," James snickered.

"No," Remus disagreed, "but the person who's supposedly Slytherin's heir, and doing this, most likely can."

"You really know how to kill the mood," Sirius grumbled.

At the designated time, most of the Hogwarts students appeared in the Great Hall, watching the setup stage eagerly.

"Oh," Lily said brightly, "perhaps it's just a demonstration purpose."

"Why would you demonstrate something, and expect them not to do it?" Remus disagreed.

The students were speculating who would be teaching the class, and one mentioned how they'd heard Flitwick was supposed to be some sort of duelling champion.

"Now that is a rumour we started," James grinned.

"We got sick of hearing people mock Flitwick behind his back, so we said that. Shut people right up." Sirius agreed.

"I'm surprised that's still circulating," Remus grinned.

Harry began to say he didn't care so long as it wasn't Lockhart, who showed up just then,

"Well we found our test dummy," Remus muttered, causing all of them to snicker.

followed by Snape.

"Now this I might actually enjoy," Sirius said, growing bright eyed.

"Most useful thing Snape's ever done, blown that idiot up," James agreed, leaning forward eagerly.

Lockhart began greeting the students, claiming that he had started this little thing to give them all a chance to learn to defend themselves as he had done on numerous occasions, then referenced a few of his books.

"Does he ever go a full hour without mentioning that?" Lily asked in disgust.

"If that's not the biggest load of rubbish," Remus sniffed.

Then he pointed out Snape as his assistant, Snape having claimed a minor bit of practice.

"Well he should," James grinned a bit, "otherwise he would have been the test dummy."

"That wasn't funny James," Lily snapped, flaring up at once.

He raised his hands in surrender, mentally thinking that wasn't the brightest thing to say in front of her.

Lockhart told the students not to worry though, he wouldn't maim Snape permanently.

"We're not," Sirius said vacantly, "I'm actually torn because I'm rooting for Snape to kill him. It's the weirdest thing ever!"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Remus said brightly.

"I'll take that," James shrugged.

Ron muttered it would be wonderful if they both just killed each other.

"We can only hope," Harry sighed, knowing he had just chuckled then when Ron said it.

Snape was not pleased at this speech, and Harry knew that if his teacher had been glaring at him like that, Harry would be running for his life.

"Aw Harry, you really do need this club," Sirius said sadly, "Snape's not that scary."

"Maybe to you four," Lily huffed "but he's how much older than Harry?"

That made the three boys fidget, while Harry smirked at his mom.

The teachers turn on each other then, beginning to demonstrate the proper way of acknowledging you were in a duel, and then saying how they would both do a spell on three, though neither would be aiming for death of course.

"Wouldn't count on that," James muttered, knowing full well Snape wasn't known for holding back.

Harry didn't buy that,

James beamed at Harry, more than pleased he had mimicked his son or vice a versa, which ever.

looking at Snape. Once the countdown was done, Snape used the spell Expelliarmus.

Harry startled a bit, he knew that spell for some reason. It meant something really important to him. Why this spell in particular though?

"Wow," Remus said in surprise, "he only tried to disarm him?"

"Nicest spell he's ever used I'm sure, " Sirius sniped.

There was a flash of red, and Lockhart was tossed off his feet, his wand flying away.

"Ha!" All five of them said with glee.

"This is one time in my life, I'm actually happy Snape cursed someone!" James crowed with glee.

Lily rolled her eyes at them again.

All of the Slytherins cheered him on for it.

"You mean you didn't join in?" Sirius asked.

"We weren't going to be cheering for Snape," Harry said, "but we were certainly clapping."

Which caused them to laugh again.

Hermione seemed the only one upset, asking if Lockhart was okay? Together, Harry and Ron voiced that no one cared.

"Agreed," the three boys also said together.

Lockhart got to his feet and brushed the whole thing off, saying he could have stopped Snape if he wanted, as it was more than obvious what he'd been about to do.

"Exactly how many times can he pretend he knows what he's doing?" Remus asked in disbelief.

"Please let Snape cut his hair off, please let Snape cut his hair off!" Sirius started chanting.

Snape still looked livid, and Lockhart decided to change focus onto the students, telling them to go into pairs.

"Bummer," they all muttered, having rather enjoyed the spectacle.

Both teachers began going through the crowd and sorting them off, Snape reaching Harry and his friends first, and deciding Harry should pair off against Malfoy.

"Now he's just starting trouble," James said in disgust.

"Harry can beat him no problem," Sirius said at once.

"I'm not doubting that," James nodded in agreement, "but Snape's just lost any points I would have given him for that Lockhart stunt."

He also paired up Hermione with another Slytherin girl named Bulstrode. Harry didn't think much of her, as she strongly reminded him of the cover of Holidays with Hags.

The three boys made choking noises to hold back their laughter, something Lily noticed, though she smiled grimly pleased they had tried to hold back at all.

Lockhart was back on stage, declaring they should ready themselves. Harry and Malfoy did just this, never taking their eyes off the other.

"Smart pup," Sirius nodded.

Lockhart instructed the students were to disarm their opponents only!

"Right," James drew the word out in disbelief.

He began counting down, but Malfoy struck out on two.

"What a little cozener," Sirius muttered.

Using a spell that made Harry stagger as if he'd just been clubbed over the head with a frying pan.

Lily winced in disgust, that horrid mental image of her sister trying to do the same thing back at once, but she pushed past the hazy read vision so she could read how Harry reacted.

Harry gathered himself up quick enough, sending back the spell Rictusempra.

"That was being kind," Remus said, still grinning at Harry's brilliant reaction timing.

"You're a natural," James beamed.

Malfoy was now doubled over and laughing. The two boys weren't the only ones at this though, the whole hall was now casting any spell they wanted at the other. Harry was still watching Malfoy, feeling it would be poor sportsmanlike to attack him while he was incapable of doing the same.

"What?" Sirius yelped, "No! Now's the time to disarm him, like Snape did to Lockhart."

Harry said, "Sorry, it just didn't occur to me."

"Well, you've got potential, we'll work on it," James said, still grinning.

Malfoy wasn't out yet though, managing to get out in between giggles Tarantallegra.

"That's the best he's got," Remus scoffed.

"Honestly, all of you," Lily said, "can't you just be happy they're not trying to kill each other?"

The boys didn't even bother to look sheepish, they were enjoying this too much. As much of a prat as Malfoy had been all year, here they were in a sanctioned opportunity to get some payback.

They only wished Harry would take a little more advantage than this.

Lockhart was trying to get control back, but Snape stepped in and used the spell Finite Incantatem.

"Thank goodness there's one grown up around," Lily muttered.

At once all the spells in the room vanished. Harry glanced around and spotted Ron apologizing to his partner Seamus for whatever his broken wand had managed to do,

"I keep forgetting about that." Sirius snickered, "Did you ever find out what his wand had done?"

"Made some kind of foul smelling gas, Seamus was about to throw up before Snape did that," Harry said.

"I really hope he gets a new one, at least over the summer," Lily sighed, "he can't keep that thing for the rest of school."

"I want to know why another teacher hasn't said something by now," Remus puzzled. "That can't be allowed, or even safe."

"It's not really the teacher's job though," James said back with a frown, "after all, what can they do? Make the Weasleys buy him a new wand?"

Remus sighed, but agreed it couldn't really be helped.

but Hermione and Millicent Bulstrode were still at it. The Slytherin had Hermione in a headlock

"Oi!" Harry hooted in indignation.

"Now how did that happen?" Remus asked.

"Dean told us later," Harry grumbled, now remembering that vividly, "Hermione did disarm Millicent, and she charged at Hermione instead. Guess Hermione didn't react in time."

"Well, props for thinking on her feet anyways," Lily said weakly, speaking about both girls.

and Hermione was so much smaller she couldn't wiggle out. Ron and Harry leapt to her defence, both boys struggling to pull the other girl off, and when they managed she did not look happy about it. Lockhart was wandering around the hall, coaching students on how to fix their injuries,

"I really wish I could have been there to see that," Sirius sighed.

and then mentioning how he should probably teach how to block spells.

"Did that just occur to you?" James scoffed.

"I'll faint if he even knows how to," Remus griped.

Lockhart decided to call a pair up to the stage to demonstrate, at first calling on Neville and Justin, but Snape cut in by saying Neville would screw up.

"Dang, why does he seem to hate Neville as much as you?" Sirius asked with a scowl in place, hatting this nearly as much as if he'd said that about Harry.

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but it was gone as soon as he had tried to start. So he shrugged and slumped back, instead saying, "guess he just hates everyone."

Pointing out how Justin would probably be sent up to the hospital wing in pieces.

Lily muttered something indistinctly, she hated how rude Sev was being to a child, in public.

Then he voiced that Harry and Malfoy should be up there.

"I'm okay with this," James nodded, "Malfoy owes a few more curses sent his way."

Harry went up to the stage, and Lockhart began to demonstrate what Harry should do.

"Whatever he just showed you, do the opposite," Remus said.

Harry nodded in agreement, not even needing to remember what Lockhart said to know Remus knew better.

He raised his wand, did a complicated zigzag motion, and dropped it.

All five of them laughed meanly, Remus loudest of all. He hadn't realized his advice would be taken so literally.

Lockhart laughed it off, saying his wand was a little overexcited,

"Your mouth is a little overused," James grumbled.

all the while Snape was whispering something in Malfoy's ear that was making the younger boy grin in a way Harry did not like. Harry asked Professor Lockhart if he'd show him that blocking spell again,

"He never showed you anything to begin with," Sirius yelped.

"Snape really creeped me out just then," Harry defended.

"Lockhart doesn't deserve that title," Remus muttered to himself. Sirius heard him and gave his friend a sympathetic look, knowing exactly why Remus would feel so angry about this.

and Lockhart just told Harry to do what he did. Harry pointed out all he'd done was drop his wand.

"Like I said," Remus nodded, "the opposite of what he did."

"I still don't know how to counter though," Harry sighed.

"Then duck," Sirius shrugged.

Lockhart began counting down again, and Malfoy got off his spell first, Serpensortia.

"What?" they all yelped in shock.

"What's that going to do?" Harry asked uneasily.

"It conjures a snake!" Lily moaned in fear.

"From nothing?" Harry asked, "I thought you said that was seventh year magic?"

"Most likely, Snape had one nearby, which is what he was whispering to Malfoy," Sirius said uneasily. "The spell doesn't actually make a snake out of nothing, it summons the nearest one."

"Why would Snape even have a snake nearby?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"You can use their venom's in certain potions," Lily muttered.

"Oh," Harry deflated, that wasn't out of normal then, for a potions teacher to be using something like that. "So, how would I even get rid of that?"

"A banishing spell," James shrugged, looking as upset as the others, "but since you might not know that yet, Snape most likely told Malfoy to do that, just so he could scare you. Then he'll get rid of it himself."

At this explanation, they all still were giving each other very weary looks. Harry didn't understand what the big deal was, so he finally asked, "Okay, so why are you all looking like something really bad is about to happen?"

"Harry, don't you remember the last time you ran into a snake?" Remus asked cautiously.

Harry grinned, looking back that memory was hilarious, and so he agreed verbally, then he faltered at once as he also remembered how upset his family had been. He thought back to how scared and worried they were, and that feeling he'd gotten that many people had once looked at him in the same way. Because he was a Parselmouth. Now, a snake had appeared in front of most of the school, and if he started talking to it again, well that would explain his memory. Harry now grimaced, looking as upset as the rest of them.

"Did anybody ever figure out why I was a Parselmouth?" Harry asked. "You said it's only passed down from the family line."

"No," James said sadly, "I've no idea why you can."

"It doesn't mean anything to us though dear," Lily said as Harry's feelings were clearly sinking even lower.

Harry sighed before waving his mother on, deciding they may as well get this over with.

Harry froze up, and Snape seemed oddly pleased at having the opportunity to be able to get rid of it for Harry

"Jerk," James said with more heat than he normally would have, now fully blaming Snape for what he knew was about to happen to his son.

"You can't blame Severus for this," Lily said at once, "he didn't know-"

"He did this to mess with Harry," Sirius snarled, "and it's going to be awful. It doesn't matter what he intended."

"He's trying to help Filch's cat!" Lily spat, finally using that trump card, "he doesn't hold grudges like you seem to."

"Oh please," Remus scoffed. "He hates Harry because of James. If that isn't holding a grudge, I don't know what is."

Lily opened her mouth to continue arguing, but Harry cut in saying, "Please, I want to know what happened. Mom, Snape does hate me, you can't deny that. Dad, he didn't cause what was about to happen on purpose. Please, can't we just get past this?"

Both parents deflated, muttering their ascent. Sirius and Remus were eyeing Harry with shock, not having believed anything could get those two to stop arguing like that. Then again, they'd never tried very hard. Always having sided with James whenever Lily began her attack.

Lockhart said he would get rid of it first though.

"Bloody hell," Sirius hissed, switching his anger from Snape to Lockhart at once. "That twat's probably just going to summon another snake!"

He waved his wand at the snake, which just soared into the air and landed again with a hiss of protest.

"Nope," James shook his head sadly, "he's just going to make it unbanishable."

"Here I thought he couldn't get dumber," Remus muttered, hating to be proven wrong.

The snake then turned its attention on one of the students, Justin, poisonous fangs exposed.

All five of them winced, knowing full well what was about to happen. Harry would never stand by and allow that to happen. Whether he recognized his ability to talk to snakes or not, they had no doubt he would act on his previous experience with the scaled beasts.

Harry reacted without thinking, jumping forward and telling the snake to back off. Much to Harry's shock as anyone, the snake did just that, going and curling up at Harry's feet.

"Guess you never mentioned that boa constrictor to Ron then," James sighed, if he had Ron would have explained to Harry about what had just happened.

"Nope," Harry said sadly, "it never occurred to me. I thought it wasn't even a big deal."

Harry looked up and around, making sure Justin was okay, only to find the boy looked at Harry with fear.

"A common reaction, learning certain things about people," Remus winced.

Justin shouted at Harry that he was crazy and ran off. Snape came forward and did make the snake disappear then, leaving black smoke in its place.

'So he killed the snake?' Lily thought, thinking that was a little harsh, but unable to think what other effect could cause a snake, that was now unbanishable, to disappear in a puff of black smoke. Still, she was far more concerned with what was about to happen to her son, so she didn't bring it up.

Ron came up on stage then, grabbing the back of Harry's robes and trying to haul the stunned boy away.

"Guess Ron decided to get him out of there," Sirius nodded.

"Probably scared the crap out of him as well though," James said sadly.

He and Hermione dragged Harry to the nearest classroom, pushing him inside and demanding to know what had happened? Harry was still in shock himself, saying he'd just told the snake to stop. Ron was clearly surprised that's what Harry had said, which confused Harry all the more when Ron called him a parselmouth, saying it was a person who could talk to snakes. Harry admitted he knew he could, as he'd once met a boa constrictor and they had chatted,

"Well when you put it like that it sounds ridiculous," Harry said weakly, as his family was still looking rather scared. Lily sighed, she knew she wasn't going to like what was about to happen to Harry at school, but she forced herself to keep reading.

but Harry ended with what the big deal was. Ron explained that this was a very rare gift, and it was bad. Harry demanded to know what was so bad, if he hadn't told that snake not to attack Justin, and Ron cut him off in surprise that's what Harry had said.

"Can't they have heard?" Harry asked.

"No," James shook his head, "I've never heard a Parselmouth in action, but apparently all we can hear is hissing."

Harry went a little paler as he said, "I, didn't even realize, it didn't sound that way to me. I thought I was just talking to it, and it could understand me. How could I have..." he trailed off, looking even more upset than before now.

"We don't know Harry," Lily sighed, running a hand lovingly through his hair, "but I want you to remember that we don't care. Nor will your real friends. It's just, startling is all."

Harry nodded, leaning into her touch for a moment, before letting her go on. More annoyed than ever he didn't know the answer to this.

Harry said of course it was, hadn't they heard? Ron said all he'd heard was Harry speaking in the snake's language. Harry was flabbergasted now, saying how could he have spoken a language he didn't even know? Then he voiced what the big deal even was, he hadn't done anything wrong. Hermione pointed out that it was a very big deal, as Salazar Slytherin himself was a Parselmouth, that's why Slytherin's animal was a snake.

Harry did the same thing now. Great, if the whole school had been thinking it before, now they were going to be convinced he was the heir of Slytherin!

Sirius said loudly, "So why did the other symbols get picked!" Trying to distract Harry again.

Lily answered, "Lions are very proud creatures, known for their bravery. Eagles known for their sight, and Ravenclaw isn't always necessarily intelligence so much as learning to see. Badgers are homely animals, they protect their own and their home, but don't seek out fights. The fact that snakes are known as a cunning animal probably made Slytherin like the animal all the more."

Harry was distracted, listening to his mother. The others knew Harry had been thinking exactly the same thing as them, but since they all knew it was preposterous, they didn't want Harry dwelling on it too much.

Remus also offered, "I've also heard rumor that those were their patronuses as well, which is why they favored those animals."

Harry was instantly distracted now, furrowing up his brow as he tried to remember why he might know what a patronus was? He didn't ask out loud though, deciding to deal with one thing at a

time.

Now that Harry seemed a little calmer again, Lily was willing to read.

Ron agreed that now people in the school were going to think Harry was directly descended from Slytherin himself.

"He's not," James began viciously, "he's as much related as Ron! Why doesn't Ron-"

"It's okay," Lily said at once, "Ron knows that to. He's just making jokes, like you lot always do."

James deflated, looking slightly apologetic. Harry smiled and told his dad he didn't blame him, and in fact thanked him for the defence.

Harry tried to protest he wasn't, but Hermione pointed out that as he'd lived so long ago, Harry could be.

Both James and Sirius huffed and muttered some things about 'all purebloods are' but Lily didn't stop to hear this again.

Harry couldn't sleep that night as he stayed up long into the night, thinking all of this over.

James made a pitiful noise somewhere in his throat. He hated this! Hated not being there for his son, not being able to comfort him when he clearly was upset about this. Harry didn't have anyone to turn to but him! Even Hagrid, and clearly not Ron, could comfort Harry about this matter.

Harry gave him a small, encouraging smile, and James forced himself to return it, though it quickly faded away as Lily kept going.

He couldn't help but wonder if he was that closely related to Slytherin? How would he know, as he knew nothing of his father's side of the family.

"I haven't been this depressed since Christmas of your last year," Sirius groaned, looking pale as snow himself. "What is it about you and holidays? All the worst stuff happens on the best days!"

Harry shrugged, saying weakly, "It wasn't quite Christmas yet."

No one looked very comforted.

Harry tried to say something in Parseltongue again, but it didn't seem to work. Harry wondered if he could only do it when he was looking at a snake.

Remus sighed, rather puzzled, since Harry didn't recognize the difference anyways, if that was true or not, and having no way to find out just let it go.

Harry tried to make a case for himself, pointing out he was in Gryffindor, Harry wondered if the hat had seen Salazar's blood in him?

"Not necessarily true," James said weakly, "your blood really doesn't have much to do with your house. It's more to do with your potential for learning."

"Oh," Lily said briskly, forcing a teasing tone into her voice, "so you're allowed to explain how the hat works, but when I do, it's not relevant."

"No," Sirius said, brightening at once at what looked like a new topic, "we said we didn't want to hear it then, because we wanted to know what house Harry's in. Now, go right ahead, educate us on hat magic."

Lily grinned at him but said innocently, "Surely you don't need me to tell you, you seem to know plenty on your own."

"You're right," Sirius nodded, "I do know. Plus, I still don't care."

Harry let out a burst of laughter at their vain attempt at cheering him up, which had clearly worked. Though, considering the friends he had, he seemed to be used to light bickering by now.

That only reminded him how the hat had wanted to put him in Slytherin most of all.

"It wanted to put you in all the houses," Lily reminded him, "you were just brave enough to say otherwise, hence Gryffindor."

Harry nodded, feeling far better now than he had then.

He also kept thinking about the look on Justin's face, and how Harry would explain to him tomorrow the obvious. That after Harry had spoken to it, the snake had backed off, Harry hadn't been telling it to attack him.

"I agree," Remus said at once, "I wasn't even there, and I realized after Harry spoke to it, the snake backed off."

"But you saw it from my point of view," Harry pointed out in a far calmer voice than they would have guessed. "To the rest of the school, it might have looked like that."

"Why are you arguing for the school now, but not then?" Sirius asked, waving at the book.

Harry shrugged and said, "I was mad then. Now, not so much. Guess I should thank you guys for that."

All four of them beamed, Harry had just openly admitted they had made him feel better, so they felt like they had at least done their job properly now, even if they couldn't then.

The problem came the next morning when Herbology class was cancelled due to a blizzard.

"Wow, wish we got that kind of luck," James said in surprise, "it didn't matter the weather, they never cancelled classes."

"Something about the Mandrakes," Harry said with a shrug, "we were still helping Sprout with them in class, but she didn't want our help with something..."

Lily simply read.

Professor Sprout had done this because she wanted to put socks and scarves on the Mandrakes herself.

"Ah," Harry and James both nodded in understanding.

Harry was left feeling upset in the common room, and Ron finally convinced Harry to just go find Justin if it was bothering him so much.

"Why is it so important to you?" Sirius sniffed. "I don't see why you care what he thinks, since your friends believe you."

"I didn't want someone walking around thinking I wanted them dead," Harry pointed out.

Sirius shrugged, admitting this.

Harry agreed, but then wondered where Justin would be?

James nodded, remembering that constant annoyance until they had finally made the map.

He began wandering the corridors, walking past a few instances of classroom mishaps, like hearing McGonagall telling off a student for turning someone else into a badger.

"Was it on purpose?" James asked innocently.

"Don't know," Harry shrugged, "I never got the full details."

Resisting the urge to take a look,

"You've got more restraint than I do," Sirius laughed.

Harry kept going and decided to try finding Justin in the library.

"Not a bad idea," Lily agreed.

"Though you're kind of out of luck if he's in his common room," Remus added.

Harry had a very bad feeling that he did find Justin that day, and then wondered why he would have a bad feeling about it. Did they have a fight about it and not make up?

He did come across a group of Hufflepuffs, but Justin didn't seem to be among them. Harry overheard a snippet of their conversation, and he froze behind the invisibility section to listen in.

"Pause for irony," James said, which Lily ignored, knowing full well that if it caught Harry's attention like that, she wasn't going to like this.

One boy was saying that he'd warned Justin to stay in his dormitory, since Harry had obviously marked him as his next victim.

"Marked him down?" James scoffed in disgust. "You think he's making a list?"

"Malfoy would be number one, not these random kids," Sirius grumbled.

Then he pointed out it was partly Justin's own fault, having slipped up and saying how he was Muggleborn to Harry's face in their first class.

"Let slip!" Remus yelped, "he said he was going to a muggle school, well before Mrs. Norris was even petrified!"

Harry was grinning at all of them for their obvious defence of him.

Pointing out that wasn't the kind of thing that should be said with Slytherin's monster running around.

"Slytherin's heir wasn't on the lose your first class," Lily snapped, she didn't usually condone these boys odd habits of correcting who was talking in the book, but this kid was annoying her as well.

A girl tried to argue back, saying she wasn't so sure it was Harry. The first boy, Ernie, argued back that of course it was Harry, only dark wizards knew how to speak Parseltongue, there had never been a decent wizard that could.

"Stereotyping," all three boys muttered, very much aware they would have agreed before they knew their little Harry was one himself.

He then began listing the victims, about how Filch had caught Harry, and so Harry must have turned on Mrs. Norris.

"Filch is everyone's enemy!" James snarled, "Is this kid trying to pretend otherwise."

Then Colin had annoyed Harry at the Quidditch game, then Colin was attacked.

Harry sighed miserably, they were some odd coincidences that the people that had annoyed him were the victims.

"Harry, you aren't really taking this kid to heart?" Remus asked in concern.

He admitted what he was just thinking, and that caused them all pause for a moment, not having made those links from victim to Harry. Sirius said, "that's ridiculous, it was those two who were out alone at the time, you knowing who they were doesn't mean a thing."

Harry nodded, looking very much like he wanted to believe him. He also wondered why he felt an odd pang about knowing the victims?

The girl named Hannah said Harry had always seemed like a nice guy though, and he had been the one to make You-Know-Who disappear. Ernie pointed out that was another odd thing, why had You-Know-How gone after Harry? Harry should have died that night after all,

Lily stuttered a bit at that awful mental image.

"You sure this kid is a Hufflepuff?" Sirius grumbled in disgust, "Cause that was about the rudest thing ever!"

and how only a powerful dark wizard could have survived.

"Is he saying Harry was born a dark wizard?" Remus asked dangerously, "Because that is ridiculous! Dark Wizard's aren't born, they become that way through some twisted events."

Then he went on to say this was probably what had caught You- Know-Who's attention.

Lily shivered in disgust at that sentence, while James grew angrier the longer this kid talked. The thing he wanted to know above all others, why Voldemort had gone after his family, and this little jerk was implying it was his son's own fault!

He obviously didn't want another dark wizard being about.

"That's it," Sirius raged, "I'm officially slapping this kid."

Lily quirked a brow at this, but resisted pointing out that they had no idea how old this kid was right now, so that sentence was useless. It made Sirius feel better, so she just kept reading.

Then he wondered what else Harry could be hiding?

"I can run pretty fast, pretty sure most students don't know that," Harry said weakly

"There's my prongslet," James said with glee, "showing some sarcasm in the face of this jerk."

Harry chuckled as James ruffled up his hair a bit.

Harry lost his temper then, rounding the bookcase and giving all of the students a fright, Ernie worst of all as he blanched in shock.

"Good," Lily huffed, "maybe next time they'll think about gossiping in such a public place."

Harry started politely enough, asking if they'd seen Justin? Ernie tried to keep up a brave face, demanding to know why Harry wanted to know.

"To knock some sense into him," Sirius muttered, "and you."

Harry said so that he could explain himself about last night, and Ernie jumped in with there was no need, they all saw it.

"Well then clearly you need your eyes checked," Remus snapped.

Harry pointed out that after Harry had spoken, the snake had stopped. Ernie protested that it had been a near miss.

"A miss?" James demanded, "the snake never even struck out!"

"Now he's just exaggerating his own facts," Sirius agreed with a growl.

Then he followed up with saying he himself was a pureblood, in case Harry was getting any ideas.

"Why would he care!" James grumbled, "I'd attack him just for his fat mouth."

Harry snapped he didn't give a damn about anyone's blood! Demanding to know why he'd even have a reason to attack muggle-borns? Ernie reminded that Harry hated those Muggles he lived with.

"So would you," all five of them muttered, not at all appreciating that reminder at this awful time.

Harry snapped back so would anyone who had to live with the Dursleys. Then he stomped out of the library, ignoring the annoyed look on the librarians face.

"I'm rather surprised she didn't step in," Lily said distantly, "you seemed to have gotten quite loud."

"She was probably about to," Harry shrugged, deciding he must have mistaken Justin for Ernie, and this was the bad feeling he'd had.

He was storming through the hallways, not paying any attention to where he was going, so ran straight into Hagrid.

"Hagrid in the castle again," Remus said, distracted at once, "well this can't be good. Last time we saw him in the castle, he had a dragon!"

"Please don't remind me of that," Sirius sighed.

Hagrid was carrying around a dead rooster.

"Ew," James wrinkled up his nose, "why was he walking around with that?"

"Well, it's a point of conversation anyways," Sirius shrugged.

Harry asked what Hagrid was doing, and Hagrid said that this was the second dead rooster he'd found this term, and speculated it was probably either a fox or a Blood-Sucking Bugbear.

"Well the fox thing is ridiculous," James said, "I've never seen a normal animal survive long enough on the grounds to do something like that twice. The Bugbear though, I don't know. It's not in many textbooks-"

Sirius gave a glance to Remus, and when it appeared he wasn't going to he himself said what he had learned back in his Care of Magical Creatures Class, "That's because Bugbears are a species

kind of boggart, more pesky then anything, but close enough most people don't make the distinction like Hagrid did. They're not known for killing random animals though, so it's just as

unlikely."

"What would kill them then?" James asked, also noting his friend's silence.

Remus wasn't listening. In fact, he seemed absent to his entire surroundings. It all added up... but how! The only magical creature he could work out wasn't capable of petrification...he huffed in frustration and focused on Lily again, then realized they were watching him curiously. He smiled grimly and said, "Sorry, just thinking, what was that?"

"We were trying to figure out what would kill Hagrid's roosters, since we don't like his two suggestions," James said.

Lily was shaking her head at the lot of them and scolded, "Hagrid, being Gamekeeper of the whole grounds, I don't understand why you're arguing the point at all. Just because you wandered the grounds every bloody night doesn't mean you have Hagrid's experience. If Hagrid says it could be either of those, it could be." Then she too turned to Remus to see what had kept him so quite.

"Oh," he shrugged, "a basic charm will protect them from most any kind of magical creatures, but he must have already had that up, so I've no idea." This was partially a lie, he had a vague idea why someone would want to kill a rooster, but he still didn't have proof of this theory yet, so he kept it quiet to himself until he did know. Lily, still suspicious, read.

Hagrid needed permission to put up a charm to protect the rest of his coop.

"Guess Hagrid didn't have that charm up," James shrugged.

"Well, now he can," Lily said, "guess nothing's ever bothered to attack the roosters before this, so he never had."

Then Hagrid asked Harry if he was alright, since he looked quite upset. Harry didn't want to say all of the horrible things he'd just heard from Ernie,

That caused the four of them deep frowns as Harry, once again, seemed reluctant to talk to anyone about something that was bothering him. The only thing stopping them from saying anything

about it was that they were sure he would speak to Ron and Hermione about it.

Harry just excused himself and said he did have to go to another class and began walking off again, winding up in a deserted corridor, where he tripped over something on the floor. He glanced over to see something that made his blood freeze over.

"Why?" James drew the word out in trepidation.

Harry sighed, muttering, "you're not going to like the answer."

Lily felt her own mounting fear as she said.

Justin was on the floor, a look of shock stuck in place on his petrified body.

"Crap!" All five of them said at once.

"Okay, twice is coincidence, now I agree with Ernie," Sirius growled, "someone is trying to frame Harry."

"Next time start with the end of that sentence," Remus told him conversationally, "because I almost slapped you."

Harry was still sitting there, a look of shock on his face like he had been petrified himself, and Lily felt her fear continue to mount when she realized there was something else Harry must remember about this attack. Reading fearfully.

The worst part though, was what Harry had almost run into. There was someone else a foot away,

"I don't want to know. I do not want to know," Sirius muttered, quietly enough that Lily didn't even pause.

with the exact same expression, but instead of his usual translucence, Nearly Headless Nick was smoky black.

As Lily read that out, everyone in the room went very still.

James swallowed hard before whispering, "what could do that to a ghost?"

"No-nothing," Remus whispered, "I've never heard of anything like this."

"That's it, I want to pull Harry out of school now," Sirius said weakly.

"I...agree," James finally nodded.

"Well no one does pull me out," Harry sighed, finally coming out of his reverie.

Remus was turning everything possible over in his mind. He thought he knew the answer, there was only one creature that had the abilities to do this...but since these circumstances had never occurred, that he was aware of, was he right?

He hated to think that, if just one more student was petrified, he might have his answer, but he knew how awful that sounded, so he still kept his opinion to himself.

Harry got uneasily to his feet, staring in shock at the apparently dead ghost. He glanced around himself to find some spiders were crawling away.

Remus narrowed his eyes and nodded to himself, which this time James and Sirius took note of. They exchanged a loaded look, and determined they would have to ask about that.

Lily was interrupted by a cry from above, making all of them jump. Sirius was the one to get to his feet and make his way upstairs this time, coming back down with the little baby cuddled in his arms. He was talking in a goofy voice saying, "Were you playing? Huh, did Uncle Sirius come in and find you making a mess of your room. I think we need to have a talk with daddy about his play pen disappearing-"

"He did what?" James asked, getting to his own feet and grinning as he followed Sirius into the kitchen.

You could hear them talking in there, and Harry asked, "was that accidental magic then?"

Remus nodded, saying, "most likely he saw something he wanted outside the pen, like one of his toys, so he made the baby gate disappear. The room's baby proofed, so were not concerned he got

into anything."

"How young do you start doing accidental magic?" Harry asked, since the baby Sirius was now bringing back into the room was only a few months old.

"His age," Lily said, "err, your age, whatever. The point is, magic manifests at very young ages."

This was the best kind of distraction possible for the little group right now. Lily set the book aside, and all of them sat around having a nice normal conversation, avoiding the book altogether, because they didn't want to keep reading and possibly upset the baby again. Sirius even asked if

they could have lunch after the baby was done eating. Lily agreed, and left the boys to it while she got up to go do just this.

By the time the baby was done eating, and had been burped and put back upstairs for a long nap, they were all full and in a much more content mood. What they were reading about was scary, no use in denying that, but after such a nice long break they got a little bit of a reminder that it was going to be okay. Harry was here and fine and safe, which was their most important motive.

When Lily picked up the book to read again, she was almost smiling despite the grim mood of the book.

At either end of the corridor, Harry could hear classrooms in progress, and Harry felt torn. Should he call and ask for help? Would they think he'd been the one to do this?

James hesitated before saying, "I think you should have, ah dang. It's kind of awful both ways."

Sirius nodded and said, "If he stayed, it would have made him look guilty."

"If he made a run for it, and anyone even glimpsed him, it would make him look guilty," Remus agreed.

Lily sighed, hoping dearly her son wasn't going to be blamed for this as well.

Harry remained in place with indecision, as Peeves arrived.

"Well this won't be good," James muttered.

The poltergeist saw the problem at once, and began screaming at the top of his lungs what he'd found.

"Peeves yelled a lot louder than that Mum," Harry said lightly.

"I wasn't going to go shouting that," Lily disagreed.

Everyone in hearing range came running out of the rooms, and so much confusion and chaos happened for a moment that several people began walking through Nick.

Everyone shuddered in disgust at this, Nick still being the most disturbing part of this particular attack.

Harry was left standing in the middle of it all as McGonagall arrived, her class in tow, with one kid still having badger hair.

James grimaced, no longer finding that the least bit funny.

Ernie also ran into the corridor,

"Great," Sirius drolled, "this should be good."

and theatrically pointed at Harry, claiming he'd been caught in the act.

"Idiot," Remus muttered darkly, "like anyone would stand around after they'd just done something like that. How do they even think you're doing this!"

Harry shrugged, he had never stopped anyone to ask for details, he didn't want to know.

McGonagall cut him off,

"Thank Merlin for McGonagall," Lily smiled.

Peeves seemed to find this whole thing rather funny as he made up a song on the spot about how Harry was doing all of this.

"Why that little-" Lily spluttered in disgust.

James grimaced and said, "yeah, Peeves likes making songs about awful things."

"I thought you got on alright with him?" she asked.

"No," Sirius laughed, "we just know how he works. We never said we liked him."

"He loved picking on me in particular," Remus added with fond remembrance.

"Why's that?" Harry asked curiously.

"Not sure," he shrugged, "guess I was just an easy target. He called me looney loopy, probably because he found me sleeping in random places throughout the castle."

"Why did you do that?" Harry asked further, not feeling nearly as reserved around these people anymore, feeling like he could ask them anything at this point.

"Transforming is exhausting for me," Remus sighed, "and I slept a lot both before and after it happened. Sometimes I just didn't feel like making the long trek up to the dormitory, so I'd curl up somewhere and take a nap. The amount of times Peeves saw me doing that must have inspired his song."

'He was the main reason we invented the map' James thought fondly 'we got tired of looking around for him every time he did that.' He decided against mentioning this to Harry though, since

Harry still knew nothing of the map, he wanted to sit on that for a while longer until he had established what had happened to it.

Lily couldn't believe they were taking Peeves mocking Harry so lightly, but thinking back on all the things she'd seen the Poltergeist do over the years, she guessed making an awful song wasn't even the worst.

McGonagall got Peeves to stop as well, getting rid of him.

"I'm still happy she did that," Lily said.

The boys nodded, knowing that Peeves was more annoying then amusing to most people.

She began telling the rest of the students to get back to class, asked two of the other teachers to take care of Justin, and then created a fan which she gave Ernie and told him to get Nick up to the hospital wing.

"Would that even work?" Harry asked.

"I've no idea, we never tried," James said curiously.

Ernie did as told, using the air to brush Nick along.

"Guess it does," Remus said in surprise.

"At least they didn't just leave him there," Lily agreed.

"How are they even going to fix him?" Sirius asked, "For that matter, what if someone was petrified with their mouth closed? How would they fix that?"

"You poor it down their nose," Lily shrugged.

"I find it fascinating you know that," James said, grinning lovingly at his wife.

She smiled indulgently at him before continuing, "As for Nick, I've no idea honestly."

Harry sighed miserably, he had a feeling he had asked someone this at some time, but he had no clear memory of this now, so he didn't pry into it.

Finally McGonagall turned her attention on Harry, and told him to follow her.

"Where's she taking you?" James asked in trepidation.

"She doesn't think you did it?" Sirius asked with both surprise and anger.

Harry shrugged miserably, he certainly hoped his head of house didn't think that of him.

Harry tried to explain himself, but McGonagall said she curtly replied this was out of her bounds.

"Curtly?" Remus muttered, "that doesn't help."

She took him to a stone gargoyle.

"Crap." James muttered, "she took you to Dumbledore's office."

"Still doesn't answer whether they're blaming you," Sirius said, looking a little jittery. He'd really get mad if Harry was punished for this.

"I don't think he will," Lily said slowly, "after all, if he didn't think it was Harry back during these exact same circumstances with the cat, why would he now?"

This seemed to relieve the rest of them.

She gave the password, and the statue moved aside, allowing Harry to go up a flight of stairs, and only when he reached the top did he realize he was in Dumbledore's office.

"Well, look on the bright side," James said as he took the book from his wife, "Harry got sent to Dumbledore's office before we did. That's an accomplishment."

[dictionarywrites]

      Know Your Jeffs: A Guide To Goldblum’s Characters

This isn’t an exhaustive list, and I will be updating it as I watch more Goldblum movies, adding in the characters as I pick them up! Everything is below the cut so that I can just update as I take more stuff in. 

The descriptions of movies and characters are very much not impartial, but they should give you an idea of what you’re in for if you want to look the film up. I’m only including stuff I’ve already seen, plus Raines, which I feel like I’m never gonna be able to get hold of, and am heartbroken about.

Movies are listed in CHRONOLOGICAL order, but if you CTRL+F, you can search for a particular character name, date, or movie/TV title. This is very much under construction. There are currently 40 Jeffs on the list. 

1978 - Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, dir. Philip Kaufman - IMDb

Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers is a film about a kind of alien who comes to Earth and steals people’s bodies - effectively, they make up their own pod-versions of them, and then turn the original to dust.

Jack Bellicec is a poet in New York City, who owns a bathhouse with his wife, Nancy. This film is a sci-fi horror, and Jack is earnest but antsy throughout - he’s a real cutie, and every much a good guy. He’s just the sweetest, and is generally in a state of complete and utter terror, whilst still trying to keep grounded and keep thinking forward.

1980 - The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, dir. Henning Schellerup, IMDb

Okay, so, for a stupid TV movie from the 80s, this is actually really cute It loosely follows the plot of the short story, but generally with a happier ending and a lot more fun antics from Ichabod Crane, and it’s just great fun. A schoolteacher comes to the valley of Sleepy Hollow, and finds himself facing down the silly ghost stories continuously thrown forward by the locals.

Ichabod Crane is the cutest - he’s soft and sweet with the children, like he is in the short story, on top of being lanky and clumsy and a little stupid; he lacks a lot of his arrogance that he has in the short story, and instead he’s much less of a dick when he criticizes the ghost stories and stuff. He’s lovely, I adore him. 

1980 - Tenspeed and Brownshoe, TV Series - IMDb

Tenspeed and Brownshoe is a delight - it’s a detective TV series with a very light-hearted tone, and it’s very comfortable to just settle back and watch casually. 

Lionel Whitney is... a trip. A chartered accountant turned gumshoe, Lionel starts his own detective agency in L.A. after breaking up with his fiancée and meeting the charming (and duplicitous) E.L. Turner, a conman and scam artist. E.L. is his partner in the business, and the two combine strengths - Lionel with his idolisation of and knowledge of the 40s pulp fictional detective, Mark Savage, as well as his black belt in karate; E.L. with his thousands of accumulated skills, including being a master of disguise, a smooth-talker, and a winner at sleight of hand. 

Lionel is a dote: he’s just the sweetest, and he really gives off Bertie Wooster vibes, but with an air of genuine competence Mr Wooster never had. He’s truly incredible, and all the episodes of Tenspeed and Brownshoe are up on YouTube, so it’s really worth watching!

1981 - Threshold, dir. Richard Pearce - IMDb

Okay, so Threshold... Big old snooze fest. Not a very engaging movie, not an especially good movie - I forgot a good deal of the movie after I finished watching it. It was uninspiring and a bit bland. The concept is basically that a pioneer in mechanical science re: bio-engineering comes up with a heart valve to replace a little girl’s heart - the pioneer being Jeff Goldblum’s character - and a doctor puts it in the little girl, but it’s a very unpopular decision, because it’s not organic. Obviously, in the 80s, that was a much bigger deal than it is now. 

Aldo Gehring is just... Adorable. Too earnest, a little bit arrogant, and he’s just far too baby-faced for the age he’s textually said to be to be believable, but like... You know! It’s a dull movie either way, and Aldo isn’t a huge part of it. 

1983 - The Big Chill, dir. Lawrence Kasdan - IMDb

The Big Chill is a film about a group of college friends that meet up for the first time in like, a decade after one of their closest friends commits suicide. They all come for the funeral, and spend a few days together in the aftermath.

A lot of people seem to dislike Michael Gold, but like, he’s kind of one of the most tragic of the figures in the movie - a lot of their friends don’t remember him initially, and he really isn’t good at doing anything other than compartmentalising and shoving down his emotions. He’s brittle and a little sharp, and maybe a bit too honest for his own good, but I really love him, and I totally rec him if you can handle the subject matter, which is obviously very grim and very sad.

1984 - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, dir. W.D. Richter - IMDb

Buckaroo Banzai is a guy who’s basically, like, any eight-year-old’s Mary Sue - he’s a cowboy, a neurosurgeon, an expert test pilot, a rockstar, etc... And they play it completely straight. Leading his band of hypercompetent pretty boys, The Hong-Kong Cavaliers, he saves the world, if not the universe, on the regular. 

Doctor Sidney Zweibel, a.k.a. New Jersey, is a new addition to the team in The Adventures, and he’s a neurosurgeon who went to med school with Buckaroo. He’s a would-be cowboy, complete with boots, hat and chaps, and he’s just the cutest thing in the world, a sweet and pure boy. 10/10 Goldblums for Sid Zweibel.

1985 - Silverado, dir. Lawrence Kasdan - IMDb

Mmm, Silverado is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and it has little to no plot. Even for a Western, I found it incredibly dry and disjointed, and I can’t in good fatih recommend it to anybody, even though John Cleese is inexplicably a sheriff midway through.

However. Slick (whose actual name is Calvin Stanhope) is really fucking hot, and so you should watch his scenes on YouTube, even if you don’t watch the movie (which you shouldn’t). Slick’s screentime tocks up to around 15-20 minutes, out of a movie that’s genuinely like, two and a half hours long.

Slick is like, a casino man with a knife in his boot; he wears furs; he’s terrible. He’s so great, I adore him. 

1985 - Into The Night, dir. John Landis - IMDb

Into The Night is... a little hard to describe. It’s like, a crime thriller movie with Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, and with a cameo from David Bowie, as well as about 700 other Hollywood lads who Landis knew. I think the plot is... loose, and the film itself isn’t the greatest, but the main characters are pretty great.

Ed Okin is an astrophysicist dissatisfied with his job and his life in general, who abruptly becomes plagued by this inescapable insomnia, and subsequently becomes embroiled in this whole crime plot across from Pfeiffer. I really love Ed - because of the insomnia, he tends to underreact to most of the situations around him, and he’s very likable.

1985 - Transylvania 6-5000, dir. Ruby de Luca - IMDb

Is TR 6-5000 a good movie? No, absolutely not. But should you watch it? Oh, yes. 

This is like, a comedy/absurdist horror/pastiche, lots... It’s lots of stuff. Basically, these two reporters who do a Weekly World News style thing go to Transylvania to report on Frankenstein, and also meet some Igors, a werewolf, a vampire, etc.

Jack Harrison is such a great character - he’s pretty much eternally looking after his hapless partner, Gil, but both of them are as ridiculous as the other, each of them stumbling into bizarre situations. Definitely don’t take the movie too seriously, but it really is a fun thing, and it’s certainly worth watching for the goofy trip it is. Jack is a real sweetheart, and he’s so lovable - Gil certainly thinks so. ;)

1986 - The Fly, dir. David Cronenburg - IMDb

So, fair warning, I nearly vomited like, several times watching The Fly, and was on the verge of just turning it off a few times. It’s nearly forty years old, but the body horror of the effects really stands up, and it’s very gory toward the end.  Despite its well-earned rep as such a gory film, though, The Fly is actually a heartbreaking tragedy, so definitely don’t expect it to be lacking in the feels department if you can stomach it.

Seth Brundle (yeah, poor guy, what a name) is a really impressive engineer and scientist, and he invents a machine that should enable him to teleport objects from one electronic pod to another. Unfortunately, when teleporting himself, he becomes melded with an intruder to the pod - a fly - and begins a horrifying transition into something other than human.

Seth at the start is... He’s a genius, but he’s naive, arrogant, and a little too trusting in how earnest he is. As time goes on, and he begins the change into Brundlefly, he becomes much more erratic, and his personality changes a lot. I totally rec Seth, honestly. 

1988 - Vibes, dir. Ken Kwapis - IMDB

Vibes is a fucking trip. It’s a movie about two psychics - Jeff Goldblum’s character, Nick Deezy, who can tell the history of an object by touching it, and Cyndi Lauper’s character, Sylvia Pickel, who is a medium. Yes, you read that right. Cyndi Lauper. It’s incredible.

Vibes is actually a much better movie than I expected - it’s a genuinely funny comedy, it’s ridiculous and cartoonish and stupid, but it’s fun. Cyndi Lauper and Goldblum have a tango scene at one point, and the height differential is so extreme that she’s literally wrapped around his waist and he’s just carrying her around.

Nick Deezy himself is a really interesting character - he’s kinda used to being used and pushed around because of his psychic powers, but he’s a guy with such a lot of courage and genuine empathy for others, and I just think he’s so sweet. 

1988 - Earth Girls Are Easy,  dir. Julien Temple - IMDb

So... Earth Girls Are Easy is in the same vein as Vibes for me - it’s a fun romp, and so long as you don’t take it too seriously, it’s a really enjoyable movie. It’s about these three furry aliens that drop down to Earth, and are trying to pick up the language and have a good time. It’s good banter, and it’s also a musical, because-- It was 1988, okay? 

Mac is like, probably one of the most genuinely sweet characters out of the ones on this list - he’s very caring, and he’s doing his best to do good whilst not really being able to navigate the world around him very easily. He’s wonderful, and I can’t rec Earth Girls enough.

He’s also a big, furry, blue guy in his underwear for the first part of the movie, if that helps.

1989 - The Tall Guy, dir. Mel Smith - IMDb

So, disclaimer. This film is written by Richard Curtis, so like... It’s snappy, it’s clever, but it’s also a little insufferable and kinda misogynistic the whole way through, with the classic Curtis obsession with infidelity, where characters cheat on one another whether it makes sense or not.

That aside, I really enjoyed the first two acts of this movie, and while the third one falls very flat, I still think it’s worth watching. Goldblum’s character, Dexter King, plays the straight man in Rowan Atkinson’s comedy sketch act, but goes on to have a romantic relationship with Emma Thompson, and those links are just... So cute.

I think Dexter is kind of a dick, but by no means does that make him unlikable, and I’d still rec The Tall Guy! I’m not sure how long Goldblum was in the UK for - there’s a nude sex scene with Goldblum and Thompson, and I was really thrown, because he’s super pale in this film, compared to similar nude scenes in like, The Fly. So there’s your fun tidbit for the day lmao.

1990 - Mister Frost, dir. Philippe Setbon - IMDb

This film is... Odd. As a thriller, it’s fine - you know, it’s average. It isn’t so terrible, but it’s not great either. But as like, a film, there are aspects where it’s just inexplicably terrible - some of the lines are dubbed over, for some reason, and the sound quality is so off in random moments; there are odd moments where the camera is just too close to the actors’ faces, even for a close-up; technically, this film just has some bizarre and glaring... errors.

The plot is interesting, though, and I did enjoy it for that aspect - Mister Frost is a serial killer institutionalized in an attempt to cure him of his murderous tendencies, and he then professes to be Lucifer himself. 

Mister Frost is a funny guy. He’s snide, clever, self-obsessed and sharp - I really liked him, and I totally think he’s worth a watch.

1992 - Fathers & Sons, dir. Paul Mones - IMDb

[icon to be added if I can ever get a decent fucking picture or screencap or something of this film]

This film was bad. I didn’t care for it. Fathers & Sons is, however, like... Very human, I guess. Max, Goldblum’s character, runs a bookstore on the coast and is having trouble communicating with his son, Ed; there’s a lot of tension between them based off the death of Ed’s mother and Max’s own character flaws, as well as Max’s temper. There’s fucking voiceover in the film, which is used clumsily and just comes across as terrible, but there aren’t any glaring technical issues throughout like there are with Mister Frost.

Max himself is not, in my opinion, a very likable character? He’s certainly relatively sympathetic, and you can see where he’s coming from, but he’s got a terrible temper and the tension with Ed is very much his own doing in a lot of respects - despite my personal dislikes, however, Goldblum is as ever a marvel, and you really do feel that Max is a whole, complete person.

1992 - Shooting Elizabeth, dr. Baz Taylor - IMDb

This film was a fucking trip and a half. The premise is that this guy, Howard, really hates his wife, and decides he hates her so much that he’s gonna kill her, but when she goes missing, he is arrested for her murder even though he never got around to it. It’s a generically confused movie which neither really meets its labelled genres of comedy or thriller, but wouldn’t do well under drama or romance either. It’s odd.

Howard Pigeon, as a character, is deeply unstable. A lot of the moments in the movie that I think are meant to be comedic just end up being tragic, because you can see how upset he is, how freaked out he is, and how disconnected from reality and rational thought he is. He’s also just... A really fucking bad person, but to be honest, so is his wife, so like... Hey. It is what it is, I guess. 

1992 - Deep Cover, dir. Bill Duke - IMDb

Deep Cover is fucking incredible. It’s easily one of my favourite movies now, and I just die over it, to be honest. Playing across from Laurence Fishburne (then billed as Larry), David Jason (Elias in the script, and I don’t know why they changed it, maybe to make his name less blatantly Jewish, but I assume none of them had ever heard of Only Fools and Horses) is a low-down cocaine mogul trying to break out on his own from the local boss. 

He’s a fascinating character, and I just adore him - the film itself is a very gritty noir that really considers lines of racial intersection and prejudice within both the police force and the drug trade, and David himself is constantly suffering from antisemitism and a lot of very targeted homophobic remarks, and it’s heavily implied he wants to fuck John, Laurence Fishburne’s character. David is erratic, sharp, and extremely brittle with a very short temper: he and John kinda balance each other out, because John’s a much cooler, calmer guy, and I just love their dynamic.

David’s my son. I love him. I will cry over him forever. 

1993 - Jurassic Park, dir. Steven Spielberg - IMDB        ↪1997 - Jurassic Park: The Lost World, dir. Steven Spielberg - IMDb        ↪2018 - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, dir. J.A. Bayona - IMDb

So, like, I’m sure you know the basic concept of Jurassic Park. A crazed Walt Disney parody in white linen with seemingly unlimited money decides to clone a bunch of fucking dinosaurs and put them into a theme park, and it goes horribly wrong. These films are genuinely great sci-fi, raising some wonderful philosophical questions about ownership, ethics, and our place in the universe, and the voice of that philosophy usually belongs to Doctor Ian Malcolm, a mathematician who specialises in chaos theory.

Ian Malcolm... I just adore him, I really do. You know, I’ve read the book of course, as well as the seen all the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies, and Ian is just a delight - he’s bright, he’s sarcastic, but he’s genuinely full of feeling and so eager to talk to other people, to connect with them, etc. I just find him fascinating, and even if sci-fi isn’t your thing, you’ll love Jurassic Park for him alone.

He reprises his role in the latest Jurassic World movie - I can’t, in all good conscience, really recommend the Jurassic World movies, but... He is a silver fox. 

1995 - Hideaway, dir. Brett Leonard - IMDb

Hideaway is a supernatural thriller based around the concept of demonic possession, and an antiques dealer - Hatch Harrison - finds he has visions of a local serial killer after being revived from being dead for several minutes. Using those visions to thwart the killer, he and his family realise the cause is supernatural. 

Hatch is a really cool dude, and I like him a lot - he’s got the strongest dad energies, and he’s so, so caring. Even grieving and tense, like, he’s just doing his best, and he’s such a good guy, I really adore him. 

1995 - Nine Months, dir. Chris Columbus - IMDb

Nine Months is a terrible movie thick with a deeply unsettling ideology re: the whole “everybody really wants kids and must have them”, and I honestly despised it throughout. It’s just a terrible movie, and Columbus always ranges from “this guy is a vaguely bad director” to “this guy is a fucking twat”, and there is nothing vague about the badness of this movie.

That aside, however, Goldblum’s character is kind of a delight. Sean Fletcher is a painter (of paintings, not houses) and like... Layabout? He’s a little erratic, he changes his mind about stuff constantly, but he’s a really sound guy, and he cares a lot about Hugh Grant’s character, who is the protagonist. He’s really fun in a movie that’s just garbage the way through. 

1995 - Powder, dir. Victor Salva - IMDb

Powder is a very sad movie, to be honest. It’s about this lad who’s like, an albino with telekinetic powers, and when his parents die, he ends up having to go into the public school system, where he’s bullied an awful lot. It’s extremely brutal about a lot of the bullying stuff, and it does come across very accurately; just as a general warning, there’s... an uncomfortable tone to it, although nothing directly or graphically terrible, especially re: sexuality, which I noticed even before looked Salva up and realised he was that paedophile that did Jeepers Creepers. It’s just something to be aware of.

Jeff’s character is... a delight, however. Donald Ripley is a high school teacher who’s genuinely really passionate about teaching, has no small amount of sympathy for all of his students, and is just-- He’s really sweet, and I love him. Despite the uncomfortable gaze of the film, he retains a paternal air, and I love it.  

1996 - Independence Day, dir. Roland Emmerich - IMDb          ↪2016 - Independence Day: Resurgence, dir. Roland Emmerich - IMDb

Independence Day, honestly, I expected to be like, bad sci-fi dreck, and it genuinely isn’t. While I think the premise is inherently stupid (the whole evil aliens invade thing), it’s actually executed so well, and I just love it as a flick - Judaism saves the day in many aspects, and it’s so nice to have that positive thing mixed up in it.

David Levinson is such a sweet guy - he’s arrogant and a little bit of an ass, but like, he’s so caring: he constantly worries about his dad, he’s so loyal to his ex-wife without being creepy or weird about it after like, three years; he fucking recycles and uses his bike to get around the city... Like, he’s an underachiever initially, but he’s a genuinely nice guy despite his abrasive personality at times, you know?

I just love him.  

And he reprises the role in the new movie, which isn’t as good as the first one, but is still worth a watch for Julius Levinson’s antics, picking up grandchildren as he drives across America. 

1998 - Holy Man, dir. Stephen Herek - IMDb

My full review of Holy Man is here.

Holy Man is not a good film. It’s about an exec who runs a TV shopping channel, but is like, really shit at it, and he ends up getting G., a homeless guru played by Eddie Murphy, to sell stuff for him. Nonsensical and odd although the film is, it’s actually surprisingly sweet and wholesome, and I really enjoyed a lot of the humour. 

Ricky is a pretty bad guy at the beginning, but he’s slick and fun and good-humoured - he’s mostly just selfish more than outright evil, and he actually ends up becoming a lot less selfish toward the end of the film. He’s a sweetheart, in some respects. 

2001 - Cats & Dogs, dir. Lawrence Guterman - IMDb

God, this movie is so bad, and so much more racist than I remembered? There’s this whole racist sequence with some ninja cats, complete with the chopsticks-style music playing in the background, and that’s... Awful. 

But Charles Brody is actually really funny, to be honest. Goldblum somehow makes him feel really human - earnest and work-obsessed, but still desperate to be a good father despite not being naturally inclined, and that’s... Honestly, I hate it when he does this. He takes the stupidest character in the stupidest movie and makes them feel like a real person, and I hate him for it.

Brody is cute. 

2002 - Igby Goes Down, dir. Burr Steers - IMDb

Igby Goes Down is... Hm. What best to call it? Insipid teenage horseshit. The whole film is just fucking terrible, honestly - it centres around the Culkin that isn’t Kevin in Home Alone, and he’s some unbearable little New York teenager who thinks the world revolves around him and is upset at the prospect that perhaps he should go to school and/or get a job. 

Anyway, Goldblum is at his least moral and most hot, he is revolting, and he is so sexy. There’s a weird thing where he’s the family friend of a family that’s pretty anti-semitic, but they play it straight, as if Jeff Goldblum’s face isn’t one of the most Jewish faces anybody’s ever seen, but that aside, he’s really sexy. Sociopathic, abruptly violent, and infrequently undressed, but it’s not worth watching the rest of the film for, to be honest. 

2003 - Spinning Boris, dir. Roger Spottiswoode - IMDb

Spinning Boris. What a film.

Here, listen, we just watched this, me and @annethecatdetective, and it was absolutely nothing that I expected,or could expect. It’s a heavily fictionalised “based on a true story” film about three Rpublicans who went to work on the Boris Yeltsin campaign in ‘96. We, apparently, are once again meant to believe Jeff Goldblum as a goyische Republican, which--

I mean, what can I tell you? He does it so well. George Gorton’s fictionalised counterpart is charismatic, charming and funny, but so is most of the movie - the Republican trio are all morons, but that actually lends to their likability in the end, and Gorton is the most lovable of the three, taking the foreground. This movie was like, actually really good.  

2004 - The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, dir. Wes Anderson - IMDb

I hated this film, and had to fast-forward a lot of it. I’m not a fan of Anderson at all, much as Goldblum is always singing his praises - I just don’t get it, I guess. Anderson is a master of visual spectacle, but he’s one of the worst writers out there, and pithy lines don’t make up for the complete lack of character that any of his films have.

Alistair Hennessy is no exception. He’s pithy, vaguely (comedically?) sociopathic, and is kinda DTF... And that’s about it. Even Goldblum can’t really add that much depth to this guy, because there’s no depth in other characters for him to play off. 

2006 - Man of the Year, dir. Barry Levinson - IMDb

Mmm, so, Man of the Year surprised me. 

It’s definitely quite weak, when it comes to plot and writing - the jokes aren’t at their strongest; it can’t really decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a political thriller; some of the jokes and commentary are very off-colour and have not aged well; it seeks to set out a political moral without making any particular targets. Nonetheless, I rather enjoyed it - it doesn’t pretend to be a higher art than it is, and I think it’s still enjoyable. The primary drawback is probably that the premise of a comedian being elected president of the USA is much less hilariously unbelievable in the wake of the Trump campaign, and that colours my perception a little - some of the protag’s comments about immigration or women, the way he responds to other candidates in debate, Hell, even Robin Williams’ wearing of a red baseball cap at one point... All of those elements kinda take the humour out of it a bit because of the Trump election, but hey, it was 2006 - how could they possibly know?

Goldblum’s character in this, Mr Stewart, is the lawyer and primed attack dog of a corrupt company that produces the electronic voting machines responsible for Williams’ character being elected. He isn’t at his most Goldblum-esque in this, I have to say - he’s sharp, nasty, and very business-focused, but he doesn’t get that much time on screen, and his on-screen moments don’t lean very much into his usual charm and humour. Stewart is actually a very dull, run-of-the-mill evil corporate type, and he was a pretty boring character. 

2007 - Raines, TV Series - IMDb

I will write whatever you want if you can get me a download link for this, or somewhere where I can just buy the fucking series, from Ireland. I am desperate to watch it, because it looks fucking awful. Michael Raines is a detective who hallucinates that his victims help him solve the crimes.

Doesn’t that sound so bad? I need it. 

2009-2010 - Law & Order: Criminal Intent, TV Series - IMDb

So like, you know the shtick with Law & Order. It’s a gory, stupid crime procedural that’s just really stupid. This one, Criminal Intent, is about major crimes, but honestly, I have little to no idea exactly what a major crime is, even having watched the two seasons in which Zach Nichols is a marauding force. 

Zach Nichols himself is... Fascinating. So, you know how there’s this fucking trend of just, mean detective who everyone lets be mean because he’s a ~genius~ or whatever, and everyone is always like “ugh, he fucking sucks, but we gotta let him do that”? That is not the case with Zach Nichols. Zach Nichols is nothing short of a genuine sociopath, continuously manipulative, randomly and without provocation is he cruel to victims, witnesses and criminals alike. At no point does anybody call him out for being terrible, or even admitting he’s being terrible. It’s like no one registers the cruelty of his behaviour, or cares.

Honestly, I expect it’s quite accurate as to the New York police system, and in the mean time, it’s really fucking hot. He’s my favourite of all of Goldblum’s characters, and he disgusts me on literally every level. 

2010 - Morning Glory, dir. Roger Michell - IMDb

Morning Glory is... It starts out very bland and uninspiring, but it does grow on you more as it goes on. In my opinion, it would have been better if they’d just tried to bill it genuinely, as a comedy-drama, which is what it is - instead, they tried to shoehorn in a very ugly actor I forget the name of as a love interest for Rachel McAdams, I presume in desperate hope of earning that rom-com dollar. Nonetheless, it’s a cute enough concept - TV journalist gets her dream job running a news studio, and has to get bully and asshole anchor Harrison Ford to be fun and wholesome for the morning show. It’s cute, and I do think it’s worth watching despite some of the issues with it.

Jerry is like... He’s so fucking great. Jerry is just an ass. He’s rude, he’s biting, he’s constantly telling McAdams’ character to make stuff that is impossible work, and he very much eats, breathes, and sleeps his job, while packing in time to jog and to fuck an extremely stupid girl, Lisa, he put in the newsroom, who believes in shit like past lives and angels, and is literally the best character in the movie. 

Jerry and Lisa are the fucking greatest, everyone else can go home. 

According to the IMDb credits, he has a wife who is unnamed, but like... I have no memory of her even being in the movie, honestly. It’s not the greatest of cinematic works.

2010 - The Switch, dir. Josh Gordan & Will Speck - IMDb

The Switch? Bad concept. It’s about Jason Bateman’s character stealing the sperm donation that Jennifer Aniston was going to use to get pregnant, and then replacing it with his own. So like, off the bat, the whole reproductive rape, grievious sexual assault thing, that the movie... Kinda expects you to view as romantic? Somehow? I don’t.... get it. Apparently it’s okay because their characters are “friends”.

Anyway, moving onto the important part, Leonard, Jeff’s character, is great. He’s go the BDE going on; at one point he’s walking on the treadmill while eating a candy bar, and mocks Jason Bateman for not doing the same; he’s sarcastic, eccentric, and a massive THOT that lets women handfeed him; and, inexplicably, despite being Jason Bateman’s boss, him and Bateman are best friends. 10 out of 10 Goldblums for Leonard, who they didn’t bother to give a last name to. 

2012 - Zambezia, dir. Wayne Thornley - IMDb

Egh. Like, even for a kid’s movie this one was pretty bland? The actual design and animation is pretty beautiful - I love the designs of all the wildlife, which is the main focus of it, and that’s really well-done throughout; there’s also a star-studded cast of voice actors. The story is pretty dull, and the script ain’t great, but hey. It’s a kid’s movie, and I think it does what it means to do. 

Ajax, Goldblum’s character, is pretty cute - he’s like, a busybody, like the fucking... Toucan or whatever he is in the Lion King. He’s the advisor to the bird king or whatever. That’s... I mean, that’s pretty much it. There’s very little to say here. 

2013 - Le Week-end, dir. Roger Michell - IMDb

Le Week-end is fucking adorable. It’s about this struggling middle-aged couple who go to Paris for a weekend to try to rekindle their marriage, and they run around committing shenanigans, arguing, and generally being a little bit adorable. 

They meet Morgan, who is an old schoolfriend of Jim Broadbent’s character, and is now like, a best-selling writer in economics, and he invites them for a really stupid dinner party full of really impressive people, which makes both of them feel very inadequate. Jim Broadbent spends a lot of the party with Morgan’s weird teenage son, chatting about how Morgan is kind of a dick, but honestly, Morgan is just... Not self-aware. He’s pretty much in love with Jim Broadbent the entire time, and sings everybody’s praises, then comes to rescue them both at the end.

He’s very cute, kinda selfish, kind of disconnected from reality, and I have a lot of affection for him. 

2014 - The Grand Budapest Hotel, dir. Wes Anderson - IMDb

The Grand Budapest Hotel is like... It’s a Wes Anderson film. Egh. 

Deputy Kovacs is probably the least Goldblum-y character in any Goldblum role. He doesn’t have many of the verbal tics, and to be honest, he doesn’t even move his hands in the typical Goldblum fashion - if you look at the dinner scene, you can see his fingers twitching as he tries to keep his hand still. 

Kovacs has some good lines, but like any Anderson character, doesn’t really have a character. 

2015 - Mortdecai, dir. David Koepp - IMDb

Mortdecai is a terrible fucking film, and I despised it. It was just awful, it really was, and Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow’s characters were each fucking insufferable. It’s about this posh cunt who sells art, and then lots of people try to kill him because he’s posh, and a cunt.

Jeff’s character, Milton Krampf, is the father of Olivia Munn’s character, and Olivia Munn is a nymphomaniac who wants to fuck Johnny Depp. Milton gets like, 5 minutes of screentime, and is weirdly on board with his daughter banging Johnny Depp, but that’s it. If you ask my opinion, they should have had Milton try to bang Depp, and let Olivia Munn be in charge, but like... It was a bad movie. There was no thinking outside the box. 

2017 - Thor: Ragnarok, dir. Taika Waititi - IMDb

I mean, what do I even say? 

Thor: Ragnarok is like, my least favourite Thor film, but not because it’s not great. Thor: Ragnarok is so much better than most of the other Marvel films put together - it’s fun, it’s snappy, it’s beautifully shot, it has a vision, etc. etc. Taika Waititi’s humour mostly isn’t my thing, but his comedy is so well-ranging and so well-done that like, even if it isn’t your thing, you still get laughs out of his movies. Ragnarok is a great movie - it’s not my favourite for like, Loki’s characterisation, but... Honestly, when you’re watching it, that stuff just falls away. It’s so entertaining and so well done, even if I don’t agree with some of the characterization and story choices. 

And the GM, God, he’s... Just terrible. I adore him. You know I adore him, this whole blog is just GM fanfiction. He’s an Eldritch being with unlimited power who forces people to fight in an intergalactic alien arena while shtupping Loki Laufeyson and being too lazy to properly rule a planet. What’s not to love?

2018 - Seth Rogen’s Hilarity for Charity, dir. Ryan Polito - IMDb

Hilarity for Charity was not funny, and was generally very painful to watch. I would recommend you skip through all of the “comedy” except for Tiffany Kaddish and John Mulaney. 

At the end of the special, Jeff Goldblum plays the human face of the Netflix Algorithm, and playfully talks about destroying all human life. It’s pretty cute. 

2018 - Isle of Dogs, dir. Wes Anderson - IMDb

I fell asleep during this. Like, within a half hour, I fell asleep. 

Goldblum is underutilised, but to be honest, so are a lot of the characters - Isle of Dogs is a very weird movie, and I’m a little unclear as to some of the choices Anderson made with it, but visually, it’s a very strong movie, and it’s more enjoyable than most. 

I still fell asleep. 

Goldblum’s character, Duke, is like, a husky with a cheerful attitude, and he’s constantly gossiping and making shit up. His lines are good fun.  

2018 - Hotel Artemis, dir. Drew Pearce - IMDb

Now, Hotel Artemis, not a great movie. The plot is very lacking, the characters mostly cardboard archetypes instead of developed individuals... I think the film has a lot of issues with telling the audience the stuff that could be shown much more artfully, but like, egh.

Despite those issues, Orian Franklin - Niagara - is a very interesting character. He’s in the movie for a very short amount of time (barely twenty-five minutes of screentime, if that) but he’s a really interesting enigma, and I really loved what little they bothered to do with him.

He’s one of those characters that’s much more interesting in fanfic than in the canon. 

[polar-stars]

Can I just say...? #2 - About Chapter 278

So....EU agreed on Article 13 today and I am pretty bummed. I honestly don’t know anymore, but I might not be able to produce any content for the fandom anymore. 

Again, I really don’t know how this’ll actually work and if it will have an affect on fanfiction and fan art, everyone is saying something different. But...there is possibility so to speak. I think I’ll surely not be able to make edits anymore though. 

WHATEVER, I’ll use these last seconds of freedom from the Upload Filter to talk about a topic that has been on my heart since last Thursday now. 

What am I talking about? Chapter 278 of Shokugeki no Soma. Or rather....The reactions to it. 

So let’s start off right away after all my rambling about EU-Stuff: I did not like Chapter 278 and I don’t like the current arc as a whole as it is now. 

Before you click away; may I give my explanation why? 

Warning this is going to be all over the place as usual as I am basically just rambling off a ton of thoughts that have been on my mind most recently. 

What I am going to say now is probably going to sound outrageous to many of you and I’m pretty sure I’ll not be a in a good place after the following statement, but I am just going to say it now: 

The current arc feels like designed for a certain fanbase. And here’s the thing, if you’re not part of this fanbase....there is basically nothing to enjoy about this arc. 

You have to absolutely love the couple of Soma and Erina to enjoy this arc. Their relationship has to be at least 60% of the reason why you’re even reading the manga. 

And that’s my problem: Soma’s and Erina’s relationship is not my priority in this manga. Frankly, I never truly cared all that much with who Soma is going to end up with to be honest. My preference had always been Erina and I do love these two together, but I would be fine if it would be Megumi or heck, even Mayumi. Because, simply put, I do not read Shokugeki no Soma to see Soma and Erina end up together. 

Now I know that not everyone thinks that way and by all means, I don’t want to shove my point of view down other people’s throat. If the relationship of two of the main characters has a huge impact on your enjoyment on the manga and your reasoning for reading it, then that’s fine by me honestly. I just want to offer a different viewpoint. 

Because, people who enjoy the current arc, really take a look into it and maybe try to put yourself into the position of a person that doesn’t even has to necessarily hate Sorina or something, they are just not overly excited about it perhaps or don’t care about shipping in general, and try to find anything that is enjoyable about this arc aside from Soma’s and Erina’s moments. Anything.

To go a bit further, I’d like to explain what my main issue is at the moment. 

You see, I personally read Shokugeki mostly because of it’s cast, all of their colorful personalities and their fun interactions with each other. And to people like me this arc is more than frustrating. 

I want to get two things out of the way immediately. 

1. The saying goes around that “The side characters get no attention” is an argument used by salty SouMegu shipper who just want to disguise their real reasoning for hating this arc, which would be: “This arc is all about my NOTP”. And this is one of the problems this fandom has: You’re all so caught up in shipping that some of you fail to realize that the sidelining of the rest of the cast is a real issue. I’m going to explain why in a second. But really: Not everything has to be about ships alright. Also, I am not a hardcore SouMegu shipper. I don’t mind SouMegu, but I always preferred Sorina. So no, I am not a salty SouMegu shipper who wants to disguise her real reasoning. And believe me, some of the people you’re accusing for that are not doing it either. Again, the sidelining of the characters is a real issue. 

2. No this is also not about me being bitchy because “!! My favorite characters (The Polar Star Dormitory Students) don’t get any screentiiiiiime!! Now I am mad!!”. Believe it or not, but I am actually quite advanced in having side characters as my favorite characters and I am perfectly fine with seeing them on the side because I am aware of their role in the story. I was also able to enjoy the Autumn Election Arc and the Stagiares and the Moon Banquet Festival. While I would not mind a little bit of development at all. Also Tsukuda has dropped hints that there could happen some development with Shun Ibusaki at least but...People just forget I think. I would be fine if it didn’t happen at this point. 

The big problem is that most of the cast has barely gotten any development since Central Arc started. 

While Central was still happening within school, they were at least around but most of them didn’t do anything of much significance. 

Then half of the cast was expelled and doomed to stay in the shadows doing nothing for over a year. While the cast that was allowed to stay received garbage treatment, except for Soma and Erina. 

Now the cast is basically dead. Some of the girls are allowed to have little cameos here, but we rarely see anyone these days and we have basically no idea what’s happening in the life of the other people. 

And this is my issue. I am going to be brutally honest now, excuse me, but Soma and Erina are just simply not very interesting to me right now. Easy as that. 

Why? 

A. They’re, again, not my main reason for reading this manga. 

B. They are the ones who received a ton of screen time and a ton of development most recently. 

I do realize that they’re the main characters but is it that hard to let them take the backseat for a bit, to leave some room for the characters that really do need development right now? It’s my humble opinion that Erina’s and Soma’s romance can be saved for later. 

Let’s talk about how undeveloped most of the cast is: 

1. Alice - Back in the Autumn Elections, Alice’s problem was that she was way too focused on making the dish as spectacular as possible that she lost a little bit of sight of the actual topic. Now, normally you’d show that she had learned from that mistake and is now a better chef than back then. But did we see any of that? No. So she can still be further developed. 

2. Hisako - Could still be a lot more ambitious and actually try to fight her way to the top. 

3. Ryo - For Ryo having so much focus time during the AE, we still know very little about him. How the hell did he end up in a pub in Denmark while having a Japanese surname? What happened. 

4. Takumi - Still didn’t had a Shokugeki with Soma, despite it being the first thing he mentioned when appearing. Still no Mezzaluna. 7th Seat even though he participated in the RDC. 

5. Ikumi - Has sadly become very irrelevant in these days and is almost a carbon copy of her former self. It’s like she is only defined by her crush for Soma nowadays and is just there to make fun of. 

6. Isami - Basically still stands in the shadows of his brother. 

7. PSD + Nao and Miyoko - Nothing since the AE premlins. 

A good example of how badly the cast is treated right now is the Neo Elite Ten: We basically know nothing about how this seating even happened. Why was Subaru kicked out, despite participating in the RDC? 

Also. 

How exactly did Nene and Eizan end up there?

Nene at least showed hints of a change of heart throughout RDC (but then again, would be nice to see if she actually changed from her match with Soma and is now not as tradition-focused as back then) but Eizan?!

Like excuse me if I am missing something here, but this character was pretty much a horrible person throughout the manga. He was a major antagonist. 

Like don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with him redeeming himself (cause I actually like Eizan, believe it or not) but come on, you can’t tell that this is in any way good writing: “Yeah, I am just going to take one of the biggest assholes and just make him join the good guys out of the sudden. No one will notice!” Like, I am not asking for an immediate, detailed explanation on how in the world Eizan redeemed himself but.....some exposition would be nice??! Am I really the only person who sees the glossing over the redemption of a major antagonist as a problem?

Basically: There is so much else we could be focusing on right now (There is also this “Handpicked Jewels Thing”....Yeah remember that one?) but what are we focusing on? Introducing another villain character (even though the first one was not the most well-received one), making him eat up a ton of screen time and giving the rest of the screen time to Soma and Erina, even though we just had a year-long arc (only counting the RDC mind you) that gave them a ton of screen time and put the side characters into the shadows. And for what: A love triangle story. 

And yeah, I guess if you love Sorina to death you can look over these issues and still have a great time. I admit that their balcony moment was cute. But my problem still remains, I don’t care that much about it. 

I could be a lot more forgiving if the plot was actually good, but it’s not in my opinion. So I just can’t enjoy it. I am sorry. 

“Tsukuda is still the author he can do whatever he wants.”

Yeah. 

I know that this post is not going to change Tsukuda’s writing. But people, Tsukuda is still an author. Authors do get criticism. All the time. Just as movie directors do and artists and actors etc. etc. 

And yeah he can do whatever he wants, doesn’t mean that I have to like it. 

“Well if you don’t like it, don’t read it.”

//sighs.

Okay listen, I could have said the exact same thing to all the people who were ranting over and over back when the Hot Spring Arc was happening. They were equally as frustrated as some of us are now. 

Why didn’t they stop reading?

Maybe you should consider why we are frustrated and why we do not like this arc instead of just feeling personally attacked because we’re criticizing an arc that happens to push your OTP a lot. 

Most of us do care a lot about Shokugeki no Soma. Watching through the anime back then is still a wonderful, enchanting memory to me that I am very fond of to be honest. I support it in any way that is possible to me. I buy the German edition of the manga, I bought the German edition of the anime + it’s absolutely wonderful German dub. I bought a little bit of merchandise already and plan to buy more. 

I love this manga and it’s characters with all my heart and seeing it going so downhill is actually quite hurtful okay. And I mostly shut up about it because I hate to mess with people and I hate raining on other people’s parades. 

But seeing how many excuses are made up to defend this arc and everything is immediately linked to shipping and people who happen to not like this arc are immediately “Megumi/SouMegu”-Fans who are just bitter is getting exhausting. 

Because again. There is literally nothing in this arc except Sorina. The side characters are dead, the exam was glossed over, we don’t even know what has changed on Totsuki now that Erina is headmaster except for the fact that everyone is on a challenge-spree and I find it....almost a little bit unfair to the readership that picked up this manga for it’s food, it’s wide cast, it’s interesting battles, it’s light-heartedness...y’know the things that the manga was about back in the days. It was perfectly functioning fine without much romance. 

And yeah, romance was inevitable. But what’s currently going on is not exactly very well-written and the bitterness also comes from general tiredness from the last arc already. 

Enjoy it all you want! I am not blaming you okay. But stop acting like all criticism is invalid because it’s because of shipping bias.

Take the shipping goggles off for a second and stop seeing everything black and white. 

That’s all I have to say on that matter. 

I am sorry if I sounded a little harsh at some points and I really did not intend to attack anyone in particular. I am just tired of seeing valid, negative opinions about the current chapter being brushed off as invalid. 

In the end we all have our own opinions and the right to enjoy whatever we like.

And hey, on a positive note: Maybe Erina’s kindapping will lead to an Elite 10 Battle against Azami’s crew so maybe at least a little bit of development will happen. 

Have a good day/night and treat yourself right. 

[bicon-crange]

ok in the spirit of halloween and me hating disney im gonna shit on the terrible mex rep that is marco diaz but because i love my followers im puttin it under a readmore BUT ALSO IM TALKIN ABOUT THIS OUTFIT HOW COULD U EXPECT ME TO NOT HATE THIS OUTFIT

ITS VERY GARBAGE and under the cut ill get into it

OKAY SO FIRST THINGS FIRST THIS DUDES WEARING A KNOCKOFF MARIACHI OUTFIT??? I assume its supposed to be yano a REAL mariachi outfit like ive seen 3000 times in my life jst by going to parties and quinces nd usually theyre more like this

AND AT FIRST GLANCE IT LOOKS SIMILAR ENOUGH!! i mean this show was made by a white lady so i dont expect accuracy. but thats not even HALF of what pisses me off about his outfit. what really gets me is THESE.

do you know what these are?? i do bc my tia has a mariachi band and let me carry one of their outfits once. and not only are those outfits HEAVY on their own but those things r fckin weights. now this is important because....

MARCO DANCES IN THIS OUTFIT.

EXPLAIN TO ME,MS.DARON WHITEY HOW THE FUCK HES DANCING IN A MARIACHI OUTFIT. ITS NOT FEASIBLE.

then again if his mariachi outfit just had a DESIGN on leg of the pants,he wouldn’t have weights.

but from what i can see he’s just wearing plain black pants because we can’t even bother to look up anything or ask any actual mexicans what this should look like for accuracys sake.

also the nachos he makes in the show are super white nd should be a lot bigger but wHATEVER WHAT DO I KNOW

ALSO MARIACHI OUTFITS DON’T HAVE TIES BUT WHATEVER I GUESS ILL CHOKE

ONTO MY SECOND POINT

the fuck is this

honestly the sterotypical mustache is just adding insult to injury so im not even gonna fckin TOUCH on that shit but the thing that fucking gets me is that they’re painfully referencing dia de los muertos with a MASK???? LIKE YOU GOT THE MOST STEROTYPICAL PART OF THE OUTFIT WRONG CMON MISS NEFCY YOURE BETTER THAN THAAAAT

anyways its usually face paint not a mask?? and everyone working on this show is a certifiable idiot when it comes to mexican culture i guess

and even still the point of it was a disguise right??? it still couldve worked as face paint and thats whats so utterly baffling to me????

like here ya go star vs. crew i did you a huge favor and whipped up something SO much better in like two seconds

IT WOULDVE EVEN WORKED IN CONTEXT OF THE STORY BECAUSE THE BLOOD MOON BALL LITERALLY TAKES PLACE IN HELL BUT WHATEVER!! literally just give him a cool proper sombrero if youre sticking with the mariachi schtick and boom!!

and before you start with the buuu-bu-bu-but thats such a complex design?? h-how on earth will poor daron and her crew remember it?? they use FLASH animation,i’m sure they can suck it up and figure it out so they dont make asses of themselves and look ignorant to an entire CULTURE of people. also the sombrero they gave marco in the show is STUPID and id pay real money to see it get changed i mean look at this crap pls

THE SWEET HOLY HELL IS THIS??

and now my final point which is Marco shouldn’t be wearing a mariachi suit at all and honestly if i could change it i’d make him wear smth actually made to dance in!! like,fr a random example.. a folklorico outfit! now for those of you who don’t know what THAT is,its that fancy wancy mexican dancing you see sometimes where the ladies wear the big dresses like this

there are a LOTTA different variations all throughout mex nd even in other countries that AREN’T mex but googles free and if you really wanted to you could look this crap up so i digress

i actually learned how to dance folklorico with my brothers a couple years ago?? so thats how i know the guy accompanying outfits are a lot less flashy than the girls and typically look like THIS

like no matter what theyre usually p basic bc theyre MADE for dancing. and also bc typically in folklorico,all the guys dance moves consist of doin a lotta stepping and not waving their arms and dresses in different ways so they usually get special shoes and not much else.so my fixed version of marcos outfit,taking folklorico into account and NOT making him dance in a mariachi outfit would be something like this

it would be much better and since its star vs with the writing level of star VS we could get a joke like this

[leftlovetragedy]

Why BBC Sherlock was ruined by bad writing - Part 1

This post is a part of a long summary of some of the problems with BBC Sherlock which in my opinion ultimately caused the show damage which seems practically irreparable now. One of the related problems actually is that it seems Moffat and Gatiss didn’t get why S4 was met with disdain by fanbase, why reviewers picked it apart, why ratings dropped. It means they don’t want to learn from their mistakes or simply can’t. In fact Gatiss outright refused to believe ratings dropped and that does speak about very huge denial as ratings are facts, not opinions. Both Moffat and Gatiss also suddenly lost enthusiasm about ACD, Sherlock Holmes, although they were gushing  about it just not so long ago.

But let’s get back to the problems of the writing I wanted to talk about:

1)     The problem with Moriarty

Looking back at first two seasons after clusterfuck of S4, sadly, I could now notice some problems which were already planted in earlier seasons. While S1-2 were the best out of the show some decisions which were made by the writers indicated their true approach to the material even back then. But these problems would only grow like a snow ball and in the end would contribute to the undoing of the show in many ways. Mofftiss were overusing Moriarty from the start. In ACD’s canon he appears in one story (and is mentioned several times) like the nemesis to take down Sherlock once and for all. Since it’s TV series it was perfectly understandable and fair  to expand the role of Moriarty, however it was way overexpanded. Moriarty was connected with the cabby, was behind Chinese mafia, then arranged the whole Great Game with Sherlock and then meeting with him in person took place-all in the scope of all 3 episodes of S1. Had the S1 been longer perhaps it wouldn’t have looked so  jam-packed with Moriarty and would have been more subtle, but since the S1 is only 3 episodes long it did. S1 also told us that Moriarty killed the school boy, the only case which young Sherlock was not able to solve then, thus setting up Moriarty as this ultimate enemy of Sherlock literally for decades.  Then in Ep1S2 we find out that Irene Adler was also working for Moriarty and that he consulted her. Ep2S2 has Sherlock having hallucinations about Moriarty and Ep3S3 have the grand finale where Moriarty tries to destroy Sherlock and kills himself on the roof, and then Sherlock jumps from the roof, faking his suicide.

Honestly by the end of S2 Moriarty was made by the Mofftiss as this be-all and the end-all guy and that already looked over the top. But it still could have been ok, if the Mofftiss could stop there with Moriarty. And that’s exactly what they couldn’t do. They didn’t know how to stop and so they ran this character into the ground.  S3 teased us if Moriarty really died or not, with “shocking cliffhanger” final,  adding more hallucinations and flashbacks and fake flashbacks with Jim along the way.  But the result was that by the end of S3 Moriarty no longer looked liked some threatening dangerous villain, but rather as a self-caricature. S3 also told us that Moriarty had in fact a death wish and that he would have killed himself anyway, making his whole suicide on the roof pretty  weak.  Instead of some diabolically clever villain with diabolically bold clever calculated plan, we got the guy who just was crazy and wanted to off himself. Big whoop.  It got only worse when TAB special was literally dedicated to Sherlock trying to understand that Moriarty, who shot himself standing right in front of Sherlock in broad daylight, was actually really dead. No shit, Sherlock. Moriarty was again present in Sherlock’s Mind Palace,  grimacing all the way, which probably was supposed to look cool and edgy, but didn’t, and looked like a tired rehash. Then S4 finally completely killed any coolness or sense which Moriarty still had in the show (and there wasn’t much left by the time). S4 told us how Moriarty met with secret super powerful sister Eurus, spent 5 minutes talking with her or smh and even teamed with her, recording some dumb edgy videos for Eurus, which she used when Moriarty himself was already dead. Since Eurus is capable to hypnotize people after talking with them the question was left open if Moriarty was really compromised by Eurus and was just her puppet since then. Either way Moriarty was pretty much destroyed as interesting and effective villain in the show, because a) he either was hypnotized by Eurus, made into her puppet and lost any personal agenda or free will since then; or  b) he wasn’t hypnotized by Eurus, remained himself but was just really unhinged, mad dude, whose unpredictability didn’t seem like a result of his great intellect or scheming or an act, but rather a result of him being a psycho, who wanted badly to kill himself, also hoping that Sherlock would ~ probably~ kill himself as well—and if Sherlock doesn’t kill himself, hey, no biggie,  he got those great choo-choo videos for Eurus which she could  use against Sherlock, though Moriarty wouldn’t be able to see this anyway, because he will be dead by then. But surely choo-choo videos will work! Surely the world's only consulting criminal could always count on choo-choo videos! Great plan! 2)     The problem with women

I already talked once about how Mofftiss treat female characters on the shows and the short answer is: they treat them pretty awful as they pretend to write “strong female characters” while basically doing “Feminism for Dummies: The Male Edition”. 

According to Mofftiss strong female characters mean mostly villainous, dubious, criminal, weaponized psychopaths.

---Irene Adler – twisted rewritten version of ACD’s Irene Adler, here villainized cruel sex worker and blackmailer, who is told what to do by male villain, because she can’t figure it out on her own, loses  to Sherlock because she fell for him and later is saved by him. Moffat literally described Irene as psychopath, in fact he describes Sherlock as one as well, saying: ”He's a psychopath, so is she”. 

Moffat also considers ACD’s Irene boring, saying: “In the original, Irene Adler's victory over Sherlock Holmes was to move house and run away with her husband. That's not a feminist victory." Moffat is a very big fan of ACD’s stories according to Moffat. No comments here.  ---Eurus “Ebony Dark'ness Dementia” Holmes – OC, secret sister genius with super powers, who killed a child while she herself was a child, tortured her brother Sherlock and has been put to medical facility- prison for life (where she continued to torture and kill people, and even rape them-well, there was one case at least. She also was able to  leave prison at her will and kill people outside). A total psycopath, who fixed her multi-talents on playing some evil games with Sherlock. Turned out to be so, so very  needy, that the only thing she really wants is a hug from Sherlock, cause she loses the minute he hugs her. Obviously Mofftiss tried to build her as this greatest villain on the show who ever villain, but it didn’t work out.  --Mary Watson – practically an OC, since Mofftiss so heavily rewrote her, that she doesn’t resemble Mary Morstan from ACD’s canon. Even her real name is not really Mary Morstan here, she borrowed it from the grave slab of another person. She is ex-assassin who was murdering people for cash, but  retired now, who  lies and hides her past from everybody, then she shoots Sherlock almost killing him for good, in order to cover up the fact that she came to kill her blackmailer and Sherlock discovered her. Then Mofftiss make a big point that her main agenda in show is really a new life with a husband she loves and their baby (Mary shoots Sherlock while already being pregnant). Then Mary leaves her husband and little baby girl (the girl given to Mary by Mofftiss in the show, she doesn’t exist in ACD’s canon) when somebody hunts her ex-fellow assassins (yep, they still out there or some of them).  Then she is tracked down and returns, but then she is killed off because she jumped in front of the bullet meant for Sherlock leaving her baby girl without the mother and her husband as widower. Bye bye Mary’s agenda, it has been destroyed. (Also what an insult to professional  mercenary  getting killed by some institutional secretary, honestly).  Then it turns out Mary recorded some weird ass DVDs which are now regularly sent to Sherlock and John, and while she makes some kitch speeches there she barely remembers about existence of her baby daughter, if at all. In the process  we find out that John, while Mary was still alive, was already heavily flirting with another woman (it was Eurus “Ebony Dark'ness” in disguise)  and really wanted to cheat on Mary. Oh, and Amanda Abbington herself described Mary as psychopath.  --A small shout out to those Victorian ladies from TAB’s Mind Palace - they formed a secret sect in order to kill men, had creepy secret meetings and basically were an underground murder club on the loose,  even were referred to as “league of furies” at one point. Oh look, women are again portrayed as vile, criminal and agressive entities, with attached  aesthetic of KKK.  Straw feminism is strong with these ones. --Ok, let’s remember Molly Hooper, she is not a psychopath, she is not villainous, she is not a criminal, she is a nice, smart, normal, kind young working woman. At long last something different, right? Real potential?  Ehm, nope, Mofftiss still ruined it. Because she is kept in the show as a female character with a deep desperate unrequired crush on Sherlock who is ready to do a lot  for him, but repeatedly mistreated by the object of her affections. Sherlock humiliates, manipulates and abuses her emotionally several times during the show, when it gets better between them, but  Mofftiss make sure that poor Molly still can’t have personal life outside of Sherlock, her new BF/fiance Tom ins S3 is a poor copy of Sherlock, he even dresses like him (probably it was done for laughs in the show “ha ha, poor Molly, got replacement goldfish, can’t really move on” only it wasn’t really funny), but they broke up by the end of S3. Then Molly is pushed aside for most of S4, and then there is that famous “I love you” scene, which deeply hurts Molly and makes her cry.....the scene, which according to Mofftiss was a last-minute addition to the script and was not about Molly or her relationships with Sherlock at all, but only about Sherlock and his emotional development and how he is more human now. Molly was simply used by Mofftiss as show-case of Sherlock’s manpain. There was no resolution to this scene and Moffat simply said that  Molly would get over it, by having a drink and shagging someone. That’s...deep. Not.

It really makes you wonder what’s Mofftiss’s problem with women and why writing for female characters on the show is such a trainwreck?  Well, according to Moffat: --“The original [Sir Arthur Conan Doyle] stories had a huge female following, which I'd never forgotten, and that's because the Victorian ladies liked the way Sherlock looked. (Laughs.) So I thought, use this massively exciting, rather handsome man who could see right through your heart and have no interest ... of course, he's going to be a sex god! I think we pitched that character right. I think our female fan base all believe that they'll be the one to melt that glacier. They're all wrong -- nothing will melt that glacier.”  --"Women are needy. Women are out there hunting for husbands."  Also his understanding of pregnancy and motherhood “Your wife turns into a boat, and shortly after that, you never sleep again and you clean shit off someone. It doesn’t seem like a very appealing prospect”.     Also the infamous “There’s a huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male.” I guess all of it sort of explains why Mofftiss write women that way. To be continued...

[goose1229]

One day this will all be over...

At the risk of receiving comments and possibly backlash from family and friends on facebook, I have decided to write this here. Where I can speak my truth and not feel judged or on the spot among people I actually know. 

Anyway, in this crazy time when the world is dealing with a pandemic that feels like it’s getting closer and closer to home every day, I am the least depressed I have been since I was a child. Besides a little stress and anxiety with still having to work in this crisis and risk my health and the health of others every day, I am actually in a great place mentally. 

For the first time in several years, I feel that I am in the job I am supposed to be at this time. Even though I am 27 years old and work in a retail job. I am learning my value in society at this time of crisis. I work at PetSmart, which many may not think of as “essential”, but with grocery stores not being able to focus on pet foods, we are still open to help feed people’s furry, feathered and scaly little friends. I am actually very proud to be a part of the team that I am. We are all working so hard to keep each other safe, as well as keeping pets and pet parents safe and happy. It is a treat (pun intended) to still have a full time job and help the world get through a time like this. 

Besides work sometimes getting hectic and stressful, I do not take it home most of the time. My stress stays at work, which is an incredible feeling. Other than work, I am quarantined with my father and brother, which I wouldn’t have any other way. I am so grateful that I still live at home in my late twenties. I appreciate not being stressed about finances at a time like this, which would likely be an issue if I lived on my own. My dad is also so gracious to do most of the grocery shopping and cooking. I am one lucky girl. I wish I showed him more appreciation sometimes. I try my best, but I still feel like I am mooching a bit. 

Anyway, being quarantined to me is a blessing in disguise, except for the fact that I can’t go to the movies and concerts (my favorite things to do). It is a blessing because, to be honest, a lot of my anxiety and depression stems from interactions and obligations to my extended family. (I just realized there is no way I could have posted this for people I know after rereading this.) One side of my family are very dramatic and pick fights with one another constantly, whereas the other is just very judgmental and toxic. The toxic side is especially detrimental to my mental health, especially because they host more family functions on a regular basis. The other side just mostly keeps to themselves except for big events, and despite our issues, I still connect with them. Honestly, I am happy not to be seeing my family for Easter and possibly Memorial Day. I know, that is really sad. But in the last few years, I tend to have panic attacks and severe anxiety whenever I have to see those people. It is nice that the holiday obligations that I would normally have are not able to be held at this time. It’s kind of fucking great. There are a select few people I miss, but I’m trying to connect with them in other ways, and they are the ones that tend to stay away from the functions because they are over the bullshit too.

Speaking of connections, I have finally detached myself emotionally from a guy I was talking to online that stood me up a few times. I have actually deleted my account and the app after a few other guys ghosted me in the last few months. Getting so emotionally caught up on a guy at the end of last year left me pretty depressed in the beginning of this year since I saw so much potential in our impending relationship. It was a huge letdown when he stood me up and never wanted to reschedule a third time and then ignored me after I tried to reach out again. I am 27 as I mentioned before, and I have never had a boyfriend, sex or even a real first kiss (the one I had was a dare and traumatizing, so I don’t count it). Until this quarantine started, I was depressed that I would never meet someone to kiss, date, or fuck lol. 

But now that I have deleted my dating app and profile and have been forced to only go to work and home, I am feeling more content with myself. Although I still want to lose weight at some point, meet someone someday, and not work at PetSmart for the rest of my life, I am grateful for what I do have at this time in my life. I have a steady full time job, to which I got promoted a few months ago with a raise and benefits. I still have the financial luxury of living at home. I am quarantined with my two favorite people on this planet, even if they piss me off sometimes. I am away from all the people that make me anxious and depressed. I am comfortable being by myself and finding things to do with my time alone. I have several pets that I love dearly and still have the means to feed and care for at this time. I get to be my authentic self right now and stay home, listen to my music, play with my pets, watch my shows and movies, and bake my favorite treats.

I have also discovered my new favorite show (thanks to the last guy that ghosted me haha). Although I do not have someone special in my life, I am living vicariously through David Rose and Patrick Brewer on Schitt’s Creek. Their love story is amazing and inspiring, and they make me so happy to watch, over and over again. I also love the show because it is about a rich, then not so, family that is stuck in a small town they own as a joke, only to connect more to one another and the people in the town, that they used to look down upon. It is also a great atmosphere that the show creates. This small town in a rural area is a very accepting and open-minded community to the point that they embrace David and Patrick’s relationship, no questions asked. They even have a black, lesbian woman on their town council. It is such a progressive show when dealing with issues of sexuality, gender identity, race, social status, religion, relationships, and family connection. Despite being stuck up rich people that only cared about their individual selves, the Roses have all grown to know and love each other and their neighbors more deeply. It is such a great show that is unfortunately coming to an end in three days, but I am grateful to have been introduced to it just in time to watch the finale special and at a time when I can dedicate as much time to it as I want. 

Speaking of how my time is being spent in this quarantine, I am also grateful to have dropped out of graduate school after last semester and not be trying to figure myself out right now. Again, I am grateful to have a full time job that came at the perfect time. I am happy with myself and my place in the world right now. I may not be in love or be as thin as I would like, but I am pretty good with my current situation. I am content. I don’t think I have felt this content in my entire life. Even when I was a child because I was bratty kid, then my parents had a messy divorce, then my stepdad was a dick, then my mom had a drug problem, then I was isolated in high school, then I fell in love with a friend and had my heart broken in college, and finally I have felt lost in my adult life post-college. But now I am found. I know who I am, what I like, who loves me, what I need, and what I want. I am happy. 

Another reason I wanted to put this here and not on facebook was because this blog is meant to be inspiring. I wanted to celebrate my happiness and not rub it in the faces of those that are struggling through this time right now. I know that many people who are stuck at home with anxiety and depression, family and homeschooling responsibilities, sickness, and financial burdens are really hurting right now. I am one of the lucky people not in the medical field that gets to still go to work and to be living most of my normal life and be lucky enough to basically still be taken care of by my father. I feel for everyone struggling right now and have been doing my part to donate scrubs and money to relief funds. I really hope this all ends very soon and that as many people as possible are safe and healthy and make it through these trying times alright. I just wanted to celebrate the fact that I am thriving in the coronapocalypse a little bit.

P.S. I am also grateful to have a boss that is so awesome to the point that he sends me gifs haha.

[yuniesan]

A Moment in Time [Rucas Adult AU] - Chapter Five

A Moment in Time

Synopsis: Riley Matthews needs to get out of New York, after her parents advised her to go to her great grandmother’s house in Texas she’s on the first plane to the Lone Star State. Lucas Friar is a single father trying to live up to his family’s legacy but he knows he’s overworking himself to please his mother. The moment the two of them meet they realize what they had been missing all along, but family and their past will threaten their relationship.

[Previous Chapters]

A/N: Well this took a different turn than I expected. I’ve been working on this chapter on the side since I finished the last chapter.

Chapter Five

Riley sat there as Lucas took their dinner out of the take out bag, she felt lighter than she had been for a long time.

“Lucas,” she said as he sat down. “Thank you for listening to me, I’ve never told anyone about the baby.”

“Can I ask why? You don’t have to tell me but I think that would have been a huge part of all of this,” he said looking at her, before he took her hand.

Riley could only sigh because two years later she still couldn’t figure it all out herself. “I didn’t tell anyone because I felt as though it was my punishment for picking him, I learned recently that it wasn’t but at the time that’s what I felt. The reason I haven’t told anyone now is that in the end I just wanted to move on, I was hurt for so long that I worked even when I shouldn’t have… I should have taken time off, but in the end I just wanted something to distract me. I think now I just want to live and not dwell on it.”

He squeezed her hand before lifting it to his lips and placing a soft kiss on it. “Well I guess we have to move forward together.”

“Now that we have the heavy out of the way… there’s one more thing I want to tell you,” she said reminding herself that it’s her choice, but in the end she wants him to know the truth. “And honestly I don’t know how you’ll react and you have to promise not to tell anyone about it either because only a few people know this.”

“Okay now you’re scaring me,” he said to her with a worried look in his eyes.

Riley stood up and walked around the table. “Give me a minute,” she said as she went to her office and took the pages of her latest novel and printed them out. Once she walked back to the porch her heart was beating faster than she thought possible. “Don’t freak out, but this is from my new book… and well it’s not what people know Riley Matthews to write.”

Lucas took the pages from her hand smiling, she knew that he was probably feeling honored at having the chance to read something of hers that wasn’t published yet. “It’s from my pen name, my agent and editor, and even my publicist all told me that if I wanted to write something different and not have it attached to my name that I should use a pseudonym. So I write romance novels under a different name, and when I do tours I wear a disguise of sorts.”

He looked at her confused before saying anything, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’ve been using our encounters to write, which I don’t normally do but my editor told me that I should stop doing vanilla and work on steamier things, and I realize that my knowledge in that area is a little lax.”

Lucas couldn’t believe what he was hearing, so instead of saying anything he started reading some of the pages that she handed him, and right there in front of him was their first meeting, he flipped further and found the pages that were about the night he had gone down on her, where he thought she was drunk.

“Um… I don’t know what to say…” he stood up and walked towards his car in shock before walking further down the drive way. He needed to think, they had just finished having a really heavy conversation and now she gave him this. Riley who looked innocent enough was a romance writer looking for something to add to her books, and that something was having sex with him. He could see her sitting on the porch watching him as he paced in front of the house, as he walked up and down the driveway.

The woman was going to really be the end of him, it was up and down with her and he didn’t know where it would end.

Maybe I should read one of her books, he thought to himself. He wanted to think with his head, but for some reason the thought of having Riley’s lips on his and then her writing about it made him a little twitchy, in both a good way and a bad way and he didn’t know which side of himself to listen to.

“Lucas,” she called out to him but he just kept pacing while thinking about everything they had talked about. Her ex was a piece of work, but apparently he didn’t inspire her to write about their sex life in her books, unless the guy hadn’t known that she wrote romance novels.

Her hand touched him and he lost his nerve the minute his name left her lips, instead of saying anything he pulled her in and kissed her.

“Okay,” she said when he pulled away.

“Can I read some of your books?” he asked knowing that he needed to know all of the variables before he agreed to anything.

“So you’re okay with this, or at least the possibility of it?” she said to him.

“I’m not agreeing yet, although I think it’s sexy as hell, but I want to get to know you better, and at least take you out on another date.”

“I can agree to that,” she said before she pulled him back to where their food waited. “Give me a sec, okay.”

She walked into the house leaving Lucas to think that maybe this was a good idea, for the both of them. Riley needed to move forward as much as he did and if she wanted to use that time for plot devices for her books, he was fine with that too. From what he’s learned so far from knowing her, even for such a short time, is that she’s fun, but she still has a little part of herself that has trust issues. She’s giving him a chance because she wants to even though she doesn’t have to. For him she’s stronger than anyone he’s ever met.

“Okay,” she said as she walked back with a handful of books. “I usually have copies of them with me, but you have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone that I write these.”

She placed all the books in front of him and the first thing he noticed was the name Jexica, he thought it was cute for some reason, even more so when he saw the picture of her on the back with a wig of blue hair on her head.

“This is so cute,” he said to her smiling. “And I understand that you’re trusting me with this so I’m going to make sure no one knows.”

“Thank you,” she said smiling at him. “Now let’s eat, you can ask me questions after you’ve read at least one of them.”

“I only have one right now.”

“What?” she said as she picked up a nacho and bit into it her eyes closing as the cheese melted, which only caused him to shift his full attention to her lips before he remembered that he was talking to her.

He cleared his throat to remind himself that he needed to focus for a moment. “Why didn’t you use your real name?” his voice sounded a bit hoarse because his thoughts were elsewhere.

“Ah, it’s because well, the big books I write, the ones that I’m doing the signing for at the end of the summer, they are the big money makers, both of them have been shortlisted for a number of writing prizes, remember how I told you that my agent told me that I shouldn’t think of writing anything else under my name,” she sighed for a moment. “For some reason once you’re attached to a certain genre, they’re leave you there, all of your books will be stuck there even if you write the next big thing no one will take you seriously.”

“Is that really true?” he asked needing to understand the writing world for her sake.

“Yes in a way it is, some authors don’t find success in other markets because of a stigma they can’t really cross over. They’ll make money from their first cross over but they will always be attached to the type of stories they write.”

“That sounds a bit cutthroat if you ask me.”

“You’re telling me,” she said before digging into her food. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure since this has become a get to know you better dinner.”

“Well it’s more like a real date if anything,” she smiled at him giving him the full force of her brown eyes. “Can you tell me more about your daughter?”

It had caught him by surprise, but it was also the first time he had gone on a date and the woman had expressed interest in his daughter. Mostly the women were more interested in the bottom lining of his wallet.

“Okay, here’s a recent one,” he said smiling as he thought about his little girl. “Liliana wants a dog, not one of those cute little ones like all of the girls have in her school, she wants a golden retriever or a black lab, so anyway we’ve been going around to shelters hoping that one day one of them will show up. She’s always excited about it, but when I told my mother she absolutely freaked out, my mother is all about proper etiquette and being the best at everything. She’s one of those old fashion southern women, anyway it was the first time I had ever seen Lili freak out in front of my mother and also the reason why they ended up going to the ballet in the city this weekend.”

“What exactly did she say to your mother?”

“She told my mother that she didn’t have a say in what she and I did at home, and then she threw a temper tantrum and ran to her room slamming the door three or four times before locking herself away. Usually she’s a nice little girl towards my mother, but this was the one time she cracked because she really wants that dog.”

“You spoiler her rotten don’t you?”

“No I don’t, she has to eat her vegetables and I make her keep her room clean, she’s a good kid, I think she just wants someone to be there for her when I can’t, it’s one of the reasons she wants a dog. I can’t fault her for that, she needs her mother but she doesn’t have her so she’s settling for a pet.”

Riley sighed thinking about the fact that Lucas was a good father, and although their relationship wasn’t defined just yet, she wanted the chance to meet the little girl in the future.

“My brother has a black lab in New York, he got him before he met his wife, she’s got a lab too, it’s how they met, anyway,” she said smiling at Lucas as she thought about her brother and his wife Ava. “They just had a couple of pups a few months ago, Auggie, that’s my brother, anyway he’s been training them because he wanted them to be service dogs, but I can ask him for one if you want… well if you want to give one to your daughter.”

“Wow Riley that would be wonderful, Lili would love it,” he said taking her hand and squeezing it. “What exactly does your brother do with the police?”

“Because I told you about the dogs?” she asked and he smiled at her nodding. “He’s the trainer for the police dogs, he goes on patrol and everything but his regular job is as the trainer for the pups. When you started talking about the dogs my brother was the first person I thought of.”

She was amazed at how easy it was to talk to Lucas, about anything even the hard stuff, it was so simple she hadn’t realized that she was missing this part of her life until now. All it took was two weeks, but she also knew that she needed to tread carefully because of her past experience. The only thought of how to make sure Lucas wasn’t anything like Evan was to meet his daughter, the best judge of character for someone is their own family. She had never met Evan’s parents, even though they were still alive, in the entire time they were together.

“I have to ask him how do you ship a dog though, so it might take a while,” she said trying to steer her brain back from her warring thoughts.

“That’s fine with me, I have some reading to do this week, but I would like to take you on another date sometime, or we could just have a movie night or something.”

“I have a better idea,” she said smiling. “How good are you with installing central air?” Lucas laughed at her, and Riley could help but feel happy about it. “I’m serious Lucas, this house is a freaking sauna and it’s killing me.”

“Well I have time today so let’s go check out the units and see which one you want,” he said still smiling. “Sadly I can’t install it but because they have to work on somethings but we can shop for it together.”

“That’s fine with me,” she said standing up. “Let me get my shoes and we can go.”

Shopping for the unit only took about two hours, but Riley was so happy the entire time, but now she was worried. It had been four days since she talked with Lucas about the whole novel thing and what it meant for a part of their relationship. The central air had been installed and Riley decided to work on another part of the house only to keep herself from worrying about. She wondered if the house would make a cute bed and breakfast, but as she worked on the weeds in the front of the porch she realized how much she actually liked the house.

It had four bedrooms, but could use a master bathroom instead of the single one it had on the top floor. The attic looked like it could be a really nice office for her and her millions of books back in New York. The lighting and heating needed to be updated, and the outside could use a paint job but once it was finished it would be a cute little house. She could afford a remodel to the house, she made enough money for it.

“Whatcha doing?” a little voice said from behind her, making Riley turn around to come face to face with a bright blonde haired little girl.

“I’m pulling the weeds out,” Riley said before looking around to see if there was anyone with the little girl. “Who are you?”

The little girl got quiet for a moment before sitting down next to Riley, “My grandma kept talking about how you’re going to ruin my daddy, so I just wanted to check you out myself.”

Riley couldn’t help but look at the little blonde and wonder what was happening, but then she realized who the girl’s father was. “Liliana?”

“That’s me, Liliana Marie Friar,” she said “Are you going to ruin my daddy?”

“Not really, we’re dating but that’s about it… but I’m shouldn’t be the one answering questions here young lady,” Riley said thinking about how her mother reacted the one time she had gotten lost inside of Macy’s during Christmas. “How did you get over here? And shouldn’t you be with your daddy or your grandmother?”

“My neighbor was babysitting me,” Liliana shrugged her shoulders. “She’s old and fell asleep so I decided to take a walk over here.”

Riley couldn’t help but wonder at how Lucas would react to his kid just wandering around, but knowing the people who lived in the area, they all knew who the little girl was and didn’t mind.

“Grandma told me to stay at Mrs. Miller’s house because she wanted to have words with daddy, and since daddy was at work well… she needed to go there and talk to him.”

“I bet your grandmother wouldn’t like the fact that you left your babysitter’s house now would she?”

“I do it all the time, Mrs. Miller isn’t the best babysitter,” Liliana said making Riley laugh.

“Well how about we have lunch and I’ll walk you back over there when we’re finished. You can ask me anything you want, and then you can judge if I’m good enough to be with your dad.”

The little girl bounced up off the ground and made her way to the door, as Riley slowly stood up and stretched her legs. As she made her way up the stairs a delivery truck drove into her driveway and stopped causing Riley to stand there and wait. When the driver got out she realized what the delivery was, the puppy, her brother had said that he would send the puppy in a few days.

“Riley Matthews,” the driver said. “I’m with the AirPup travels agency, I’m here to deliver Daisy.”

“Yes,” Riley said walking to meet the driver. He handed her a paper to sign before grabbing a bag full of supplies and toys and handing it to her, before a little black lab was brought out of the back seat. Liliana squealed from the porch and ran down to meet the little dog making Riley smile.

Lucas had discussed with her how they would bring the dog to his house, the only problem was that the little girl had met her dog without her father knowing. The driver thanked her before leaving and Riley decided to pull out her phone and take a few pictures just so Lucas could see them.

“Liliana, do you want to pose with Daisy?” Riley said knowing that the Lili wouldn’t be able to resist. “I need to send a picture to my brother to tell him she’s here.”

She was right the moment the two of them posed for a photo together, even when Daisy started licking Lili up and down and jumping on top of her Riley continued to take pictures. She could feel her heart swell at the thought of telling Lili that the dog was actually for her, but instead decided that Lucas should do it.

“Okay, Lunch for the both of you,” Riley said after taking a million pictures. “And then we can walk back to Mrs. Millers house, all three of us.”

Liliana smiled and nodded as the three of them walked up the stairs and into the house. Riley made them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and sliced up some bananas for them to share, before serving water and food to Daisy. They ate outside so that Daisy could get comfortable with her surroundings. The moment felt comfortable, and normal, it was what Riley had always wanted when she became a mother. She could feel a small pang in her heart from the loss of her own baby but decided to live in the moment and savor the feeling of happiness.

They were almost done eating when a familiar car drove up the driveway and Lucas stepped out smiling, before stopping at the sight of his daughter.

“Lili?” he said as he walked up towards them.

“Daddy,” Liliana replied with a stern sounding voice. Riley knew this kid was trouble, she couldn’t stop the laugh that had bubbled up.

“Riley I’m so sorry,” he said but she put her hand up to stop him.

“Don’t be, it was nice meeting her and letting her judge whether I’m a good influence for you,” Riley said to him. “Now she can decide if she likes me or not.”

“I like her daddy,” Liliana said smiling through her sandwich. “Grandma was wrong.”

“Okay but young lady when we get home we’re going to have to have a talk about you sneaking off when you’re supposed to stay put. I’m pretty sure your grandmother is having a conniption fit right now.”

“Fine,” the little girl said before turning to Riley. “Can I come back and play with Daisy?”

“Anytime you want to,” Riley said smiling before Liliana hugged her. When she was in the car waiting for her father, Riley turned to Lucas smiling. “She just showed up, and so did the dog… I hope it didn’t ruin the surprise.”

“It didn’t, I tried talking to my mother about it and she kept saying no,” Lucas sighed as he reached out to grab Riley’s hand. “She also kept yelling at me for being with you which is normal when it comes to my mother. She doesn’t trust outsiders much, blame my ex-wife for that one. But I like you so that’s all that matters, and from the looks of it so does Lili.”

“Well I had food, and a dog so of course she likes me,” Riley said shrugging. “But all that matters is that this doesn’t stop you from coming over every once and a while… cause I kinda missed you the last couple of days.”

“You can call me you know, maybe one day we could have lunch at my office and live out one of my fantasies,” he said as he leaned down for a quick kiss. “That’s a discussion for another day.”

Riley felt her heart speed up at the thought of Lucas doing anything with her, even in a remotely public setting. She liked what his voice did to her, and now that she met Lili she knew he was a really kind and genuine person.

“If you need a babysitter during the mornings or afternoons I’m here for you, because it seems that your regulars are a little lax,” she said trying to sound like he didn’t affect her the way he did. “Maybe one day, but first I need to take care of my kid, and make sure she doesn’t go blabbing to her grandmother about being here.”

“Are you afraid of your mother?”

“Yes, she’s scary,” he said before walking towards the car and driving off with a final wave, as Liliana waved from the backseat.

“Come on Daisy, we need to go on Amazon and order you some stuff,” Riley said walking back towards the house. Her brother had sent enough supplies for a few days but Riley knew she needed more if Lucas couldn’t take Daisy right away.

When Lucas walked into his house he knew that his mother was there, Lili ran to her room and he felt jealous because he wouldn’t be able to run from his mother like his daughter had. When his mother had shown up at his job earlier to yell at him Lucas had brushed her off, he had had a client with him so they couldn’t have a conversation. His mother left telling him that she would be back so he did the only thing he could do to and that was work. His mother returned and started berating him about dating outsiders, and how Riley couldn’t live up to the Friar name, and Lucas just took it. Now it seemed as though she was preparing for round two.

“Lucas Friar,” she said her voice stern and full of determination. “Don’t tell me you took your daughter to meet that woman. Liliana would get attached and what would happen when she left? I’ve never thought that you were that reckless.”

“Mother stop,” he said looking at the woman who had raised him and had been there for him all of his life. She had only become overprotective after his father had died, and of course after his ex-wife had ran off. “Listen, I am old enough to make my own decisions. Riley is a good woman, and I like getting to know her. I don’t know where this relationship is going. It’s new, but I do know that for once in your life can you please just butt out of my life.”

“Lucas I care about you, I don’t want you to make a mistake like last time.”

“Last time wasn’t a mistake mother, I took a chance and got burned, it happens, it’s a part of life, people make mistakes. But do you know what wasn’t a mistake?” He said staring his mother down. “That little girl wasn’t a mistake, she’s everything to me. Yes, I needed to get hurt but I still got the best part of that relationship and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”

Lucas sighed as he walked deeper into the house and towards the kitchen, Riley wasn’t a mistake and he knew that but he couldn’t get too attached to her just yet. He felt something every time she smiled, every time she told him something or even talked about the weather and how it drove her crazy. It was still new, and he liked how it felt, but it was also something he couldn’t explain to his mother at all because he was starting to believe that the legacy was more important than his happiness.

“Mom, I love you but for once just let me live my life the way I want to,” he said his voice low but he knew she would hear him.

“Fine, but I don’t want Liliana being involved with that woman,” his mother said which only made him feel angry. He knew that Riley had formed some kind of connection to Lili and he wasn’t going to take that away.

“No,” he said to his mother before slamming his hands on the counter. “Lili wants to get to know Riley, and I’m not going to stop that. You can’t keep making decisions for your grown son’s life or the life of his child and you need to understand that.”

His mother didn’t say a word instead she walked out of the kitchen, it wasn’t until the front door slammed shut that he felt the tension in his shoulders seep out.

Liliana walked into the kitchen and looked up at him. “I can see Riley and Daisy right?” she said her voice low, and he knew that she had heard everything.

“Lili, baby girl, you can still see them, but you’re going to have to be extra good for your grandmother okay,” he said as he pulled his daughter into a hug.

“Okay,” she said holding on to him.

Riley was finishing up a chapter of her story, with Daisy curled up at her feet under the desk when she heard the doorbell ring. She knew it wasn’t Lucas because he usually just walked in without question so she walked over to the door and saw an older woman standing there. Her hair was tied into a tight bun, and she was dressed in a button up shirt and a pencil skirt. It was out of place in the small Texas town for some reason, especially with the hot weather but it seemed as though it didn’t faze the woman.

“Can I help you?” Riley asked as she opened the door.

“Yes I would like it if you would stop seeing my son,” the woman said and Riley let go of the door as if it burned her.

The woman in front of her was Lucas’ mother, and Riley knew that she had to steel herself up for the conversation she was about to have, even though she knew that her private life should be hers and no one else’s.

“I don’t think that my relationship with your son is any of your business, and I understand that you just want to look out for what’s best for him, but feel free to yell at someone you don’t even know just because I’m an outsider in your little corner of the world.”

The woman looked her up and down before she spoke through the screen door. “What my son does is my business, I’ve seen him get his heartbroken before and I refuse to let it happen again. You don’t belong here, in this town, you’re not one of us.”

“That shouldn’t matter, you can’t scare me off just because you don’t like who your son is having a relationship with,” Riley could feel her heart speed up as the thought of Lucas’s mother acting as if she’s superior would make Riley leave. “You don’t know a thing about me and you’re judging me, why don’t you stop and think of your actions before they cost you your son.”

Riley slammed the door in the woman’s face, and tried to calm her breathing down before she had a panic attack from the confrontation. She couldn’t believe that his mother would have the audacity of trying to run her out of town, as if she could control every aspect of her son’s life, or a small part of Riley’s.

She walked to the office and closed the door before sliding down to the floor, Daisy curled up in front of her and laid her head on Riley’s lap. Somehow it soothed her mind after the brief confrontation and she realized that Daisy was comforting her. Riley pet the small dog wondering just how good her brother was at his job if Daisy knew when someone needed her. Riley didn’t cry, instead she calmed herself before pulling out her phone and calling her mother to thank her for being who she was. All of a sudden she felt bad for Lucas, because his mother might have been controlling his relationships since his ex-wife, meaning that the reasons why they didn’t work was because of his mother’s involvement, and he probably didn’t know about it.

“Having family involved in your life is hard Daisy,” she said before standing up and going back to work. She knew she needed to talk to Lucas about it, but instead she decided to work instead and worry about it the next time she saw him.

[thefragileglass]

Valerian and why you shouldn’t watch it.

This is full of spoilers, so if you don’t take my advice and actually go see it, don’t read this, I guess.

I don't want people to think I hated #valerian bc it's a dumb space movie. I LOVE dumb space movies- that is why I went to see it, that is what I wanted. I want people to know that I hated it for SO MANY other reasons.

So, the first...4 minutes (?) are pretty interesting. Cool aliens. Timelapse of progress, etc.

Then we travel to 400 years in the future on a paradise island. Very pretty. I was immediately apprehensive when the obviously female alien that was a completely different species and culture untouched by humanity- had titties (but still slightly covered them up) and wore a skirt. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with these things, but i just find it pretty suspicious that a completely different species and culture would 1. have the same parts and 2. have the same hangups about who can display them.  If you have such a limited imagination about anatomy, at least have some creativity about the culture, I mean, c’mon. Not to mention the fact that the titties were covered but still enticingly uncovered and it was all obviously done to tantalize male viewers. It was like being punched in the face by the male gaze. Like obviously, if we don’t want to at least subconsciously fuck her, there’s no way we can possibly care about her! And I’m deliberately calling them titties bc she was naive and childlike- so pure in her uncorrupted state of innocence (eye roll). Ugh- it just makes it all so much more icky. Then there was the very thinly veiled reference to some “primitive” culture (side-eye) where everyone is, again, so naive and peaceful and just live in blissful ignorance. It is then Very Important to the plot that she dies so that the Main Character can save this poor, primitive species. This is like, the 6th minute of the movie.

Then, we meet the Main Character.

Oh man, where to start? We’re introduced to him being a total asshole to Secondary Character, who is introduced walking towards us in a bikini. Phew, another woman to look at, I was getting worried, it had been like, a whole 10 seconds since I had one. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a woman in a bikini- it's the way the scene is shot and who the scene is for. So then we start off with some weird sexual wrestling- which it didn’t seem that SC was into- and then we find out he’s her superior officer. In the space military. And he’s actively trying to convince her to have sex with him, but obvs she doesn’t want to bc he’s a ~*~ playboy ~*~ and won’t commit to her by forgetting everyone on his “playlist”. When I say actively, I mean he’s literally following her down a hallway. And when I say convince, I mean he’s literally just bragging about how great he is by listing awards and commendations he’s gotten. Who acts like this?! I have no explanation about MC’s behavior, but to paraphrase Allison, SC acts like how men think women act, with the reasoning men imagine women use. Regardless of the fact that I don’t think her reasoning makes much sense, no matter what it was, we’re supposed to believe that she’s just playing hard to get. Like, you know they’re going to get together at the end and so the audience is just supposed to assume that she secretly likes him and thinks he’s endearingly oh so silly and that she’ll change her mind eventually, as women are wont to do. It’s obvious that MC thinks SC is just playing hard to get too, which is why he acts the way he does- acting as if their relationship is a matter of “when” and not “if” and so its ok for him to act as if he has the right to talk and act like that bc they’re basically already in a relationship. It’s also obvious that the writer/director/producer thinks the same thing, which is why MC never gets called out for what this is- sexual harassment. This is so terrible for people to see and internalize.

Then they talk to a superior who scolds SC about dressing appropriately on a mission. Then MC asks SC to marry him, even though she’s still been very clear that she’s not into it at all. But of course, everyone thinks she’s just playing hard to get, so obviously she’ll want to get married. And then they go on a mission, which, to be fair, I think was a pretty cool concept of another dimension and such. Like, if it wasn’t steeped in all this other shit and this movie was the fun space romp I wanted, I probs would’ve thoroughly enjoyed. That is, except for the fact that SC goes on this mission in a DIFFERENT fucking bikini! She gets scolded about wearing a bikini and then CHANGES HER CLOTHES TO A DIFFERENT BIKINI and a little scrap of a coverup. “To blend in with the tourists.” IN THE DESERT. We see the other tourists- I’m pretty sure no one else was in a bikini- I cannot imagine a flimsier excuse. It is just so obvious to me that the director or producer or whatever man made these costuming decisions just wanted to have SC in the least amount of clothing for the longest amount of time. She’s in the military on a mission for god’s sake! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character so blatantly disrespected by a movie before or I’m just too angry to remember if I have. Also on this mission, they basically leave their people to die and then all they comment on is how SC’s “dress” got ripped. And then they’re going to meet up with the commander, so they finally dress in their military uniforms, and her’s is a mini skirt! Like, at this point, I’m just glad it wasn’t a green bikini, I guess.

So then some action happens they mouth off to the commander and MC is off being an expert pilot chasing some things while SC roots for him and tells him to be careful and he crashes and she’s worried, yadda yadda. And then to find him she has to talk to birds to hire a submarine captain to steal a jellyfish from a big whale thing so that she can put it on her head and it can give her visions of where he landed. It also gives her visions of the past hour that we literally just saw so that she can realize that she really does care about MC and so she can finally catch up to the men and understand that she WAS playing hard to get this whole time. I honestly think this whole plot sequence was specifically so that she could wear her hair down for a little bit. Also, somewhere in here, she straight up says “oh, you think humans are predictable? Then you obviously haven’t met a woman before” before she shoots something. Haha, woman are so mysterious and hard to understand. She finds him, and then argue about how he wouldn’t even thank her for finding him and some other stuff that is totally out of character for SC up to this point. And then he rebukes her while sexually harassing her some more and it's all terrible. Then she gets captured- bc obvs it's been awhile since MC’s been the hero- so we def need to give him the chance to save her.

Sigh. Ok- so, in order to save her, MC has to go to the red light district to get an alien who can change shape, named Bubble, to disguise him into where she’s being kept. OBVIOUSLY  the way to introduce this character is to have her (obviously a female) perform a strip show changing into all of the different male fantasies we haven’t gotten to see yet- including some super fun cultural fetishization! It has been 4 minutes since a woman was scantily clad on screen, so they have to make up for it somehow. <allison>I think it’s worth noting that despite the MC declining an actual lapdance/sex, it is made perfectly clear that he is enjoying the show for the MUCH-LONGER-THAN-IT-NEEDED-TO-BE DANCE. *Shot of female character spinning in a lace cat-suit followed by shot of MCs drooling* </allison> After the show, which the entirely straight male audience of the movie (bc ugh who else would be watching this movie) is extremely glad to have seen, she comes up to speak with MC. Its pretty clear to me that this is some kind of human trafficking situation bc “she’s been practising since she was 4.” And she comes up searching for validation from this asshole who’s been objectifying her and if he didn’t need her for his mission of saving his damsel would probably not care about the situation at all. Overall, it's a pretty horrifying exchange- not just bc of its inherent awfulness but also bc the movie treats it as if it's not a huge deal. MC offers to help “free her” after the mission if she’ll help him, and she agrees. <allison> OH SHIT DON’T FORGET WHEN BUBBLE BECOMES BABY-MC and MC SAYS “GO BACK TO YOUR NORMAL FORM” AND SHE GOES BACK TO HER NATURAL FORM AND HE LOOKS DISGUSTED AND SAYS “YOUR OTHER NORMAL” AND SHE GOES BACK TO SEXY-LADY. </allison>

While this has been happening, SC has been interacting with her captors who are trying to make her put on a dress. She’s been in pants for WAY too long- like, 7 whole minutes of screen time. Next we see her, she’s in a pretty white dress, walking down a long aisle to present herself as a meal for the big, fat evil king guy. And just as she’s about to be eaten, her ONLY plan, despite being a military officer, is to scream for MC. We’re all so lucky he was actually in the room to save her! She certainly didn’t know he was there, so if he hadn’t been there, I guess she would’ve just been eaten. Oh no, what’s a girl to do?

Fighting, running, quips. Bubble dies in the rescue. Of course she does! She served her purpose, so screw her. Who cares about the tragedy that was her life and the promises that MC made- he saved the damsel, so everything else is cannon fodder. There was literally NO REASON for her to die, if they didn’t want to try to deal with her story any more, they could’ve just had her leave or something. Idk, I guess I forgot female characters don’t exist when not in proximity to the MC.  

So then we get back to the white savior plot where we find out the commander was the bad guy who killed this whole race of primitive people...just because? I think he crashed an enemy spaceship into the planet just to kill the enemy and it exploded the whole planet? Not too sure. There are a couple of neat transphobic remarks bc the life force of the alien lady that died at the beginning has been possessing him bc she chose him to save their people. MC and SC have the pearl MC stole and the little creature indigenous to their planet, which the aliens need. MC has this whole crisis about not giving them the creature bc “that was our mission and I’m a soldier and I follow the rules” when he’s literally been breaking rules and challenging authority since the BEGINNING of this godforsaken movie. And then SC convinces him that loooove is the answer and why she’s been resisting him this whole time bc he’s never been in love. And then the boring, average white guy saves the poor, helpless primitive people. And then, of course MC and SC get together bc we all knew she was just playing hard to get the whole time, anyway.