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shnuggletea · 4 years

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Alright Lovelies, here's something a little dark and spooky for your Halloween cravings! As part of the Darker Oneshots: Halloween Challenge 2020 (hosted by Seiay's Kiss and NekoPantera!), I wrote this fic! Inspired by the 3 am Game: 11 Miles, I took my rules from 6 Paranormal Games That Could Ruin Your Entire Life If You Dare To Play by Jessica Calder.

Click here for the playlist!!!!

This is the fic I accidentally wrote in first (when the rules said no first person) so I have two fics. They're the same in content, just different POVs! So, you get to choose! This one is for the event! The other is for my personal enjoyment lol. You can find the first person through my Tumblr page!

This fic was lovingly and painstakingly BOOTAED (get it?) by the fabulous @fawneyedgirl, @lavendertwilight89, @eringobroke, and @egosolivagant! And the cover art by the super talented @sapphirestarxx!

This is a long one (that’s what she said) guys so you probably wanna head over to one of the sites below. The full fic is on this post but... it’s a lot! And I can’t promise I caught all the formatting Tumblr lost when I pasted it here. You have been warned!!!

For the Third Person version!

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For the First person!

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Eleven Miles (First Person)

Is there something you desire more than anything else in the world? To obtain it, you don’t have to travel across the globe but you will have to go farther than you may be prepared. Although the distance might not be great, it is a place not all can venture, as not all can meet the requirements. If your desire is great enough, perhaps you will succeed… if you dare.

At the moment, I was calm and quiet. Even with the girl in my arms that was shaking harder than a leaf in a storm. The others in the car couldn’t smell it; I was the only demon if just half. But I was sure: the air was thick with it.

And you never forget the smell of death once you’ve experienced it.

“Alright, someone wanna tell me what the fuck is going on??!!”

Six hours earlier

Walking into the tea shop, I quickly caught sight of Miroku’s black locks even amongst the many others. He stood out in his own way, ratty ponytail down the back of his finely pressed school blazer. It matched mine, save for the pressed part but I didn’t have any fucking butlers to do my laundry.

Miroku held up a hand to wave me down as if I didn’t see him. My ears pressed down to my skull on instinct, the loud and crowded store quickly pushing me to my ‘friendly’ limit. Sango sat right next to Miroku, trying and failing to keep his hand off her thigh. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was; everyone knew the two were fucking.

I liked Sango. She was one of the few in the school who didn’t act like they shit rainbows cause their daddy had money. Miroku was another tolerable person there which was why we were friends. My ‘Daddy’ had money and was why I was in the stupid, preppy, bullshit school. As much as I hated it, I had to be thankful. Otherwise, I never would have met the people in my life I considered dear.

Plopping to my seat to show annoyance, I wondered if any of them bought it? Sure, the place was loud and crowded but I wanted to be here. Needed to be. And my reason would be showing up any moment now…

“Hello, all.” She fell gracefully to the seat across from mine and let her eyes wander. I watched her, waiting for more as there always was. “What are you guys doing tonight?”

We all groaned, me the loudest, which got her attention. “What the fuck are you gonna force us into this time, Kikyo?”

She pursed her pouty red lips at me and my eyes lingered a little longer than I liked. “I never forced you to do anything, Inuyasha.”

Flicking black locks over her shoulder sent a small, but powerful, wave of perfume in my direction. I nearly gagged on it and she caught on, smirking. She couldn’t wear that shit when we dated for this reason alone so now that we were broken up, she was flaunting.

Springing to her feet, I held my breath.

“Going to the loo.” Kikyo ‘shared’ and I released my breath in a groan once she was out of earshot.

“Hey, you dated her.” Sango quibbled.

“Yeah, and it’s been almost a fucking year since she dumped me. So why the hell is she still hangin’ out with us?”

Another body fell to a seat, setting down a tray of drinks before us. “Okay, I got thirty minutes.”

Opening her mouth, Sango held up a sandwich that I had no clue where it came from. But Kagome took a huge bite and moaned, making me laugh. Taking the rest of her dinner from her friend, Kagome sat back and continued to pig out. Not that we blamed her, she had very little time to spare. Ever.

The rest of us grabbed the free drinks she had brought us, one of the few benefits afforded her working here, while Sango narrowed her eyes at the overworked tea girl. “Your cousin will be back any second now.”

Kagome just nodded, her mouth still too full to speak.

“She wants us to do something with her tonight,” Miroku added, his tone clear; he didn’t want to go.

Kagome swallowed and I swear I hadn’t taken my eyes off her since she sat down. “She won’t invite me so I have no worries!”

God, I was jealous. The way Kagome could just turn anything into a positive? Although, not being invited to one of Kikyo’s ‘outings’ could definitely be seen as a good thing in my book.

Leaning on my elbows, I moved a little closer to Kagome. Careful not to be too obvious, I breathed in her scent. She always smelled like tea leaves. The light kind like white tea and peaches. I found it intoxicating, even now, after years of knowing her.

She looked over at me and just when I thought I’d been caught, she smiled so brightly I needed sunglasses. “I’m sure it’ll be a good time though, right?”

Optimistic as always, it irked me, but only because Kagome didn’t deserve any of the shit she went through.

“That’s my seat.”

I glanced, Kikyo returned and looming over Kagome. She only had a quarter left of her sandwich, which she shoved into her mouth whole and stood. Without a word, mostly due to her full mouth, Kagome gave us a quick wave and disappeared. But she didn’t go far, getting behind the register just in my sight.

“If you want free drinks, then you can just ask me.”

At some point, Kikyo had sat down in Kagome’s seat. I had been staring, watching the practiced ease Kagome had making tea. It was fascinating, the gentle way she held the glass and strained the tea leaves? Flicking her wrist to get the last of the floating herbs and sometimes adding in chilled milk. I liked watching her make milk teas the most.

But now I had steely gray eyes glaring at me. “I ain’t here for the free tea.”

A leg over her knee, Kikyo stared at her nails instead. “So tonight? You guys coming?”

“You haven’t even told us what we are coming to?”

Miroku didn’t hide his annoyance, another thing I liked about the guy. Most were scared to death of Kikyo and her prowess within the school. Maybe that was why she hung around us so much? Either she liked that we didn’t shine her ass or she wanted us to start?

“Onigumo is taking us for a ride.”

I huffed, “why the fuck would we want to go ride around with you and your boy toy?”

Her lips slid to the side and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came out of her mouth next. “Because he just got a brand new Escalade.”

Kikyo didn’t know a damn thing about cars and I didn’t give a shit about them. It was about status and (a big expensive car like the one her new boyfriend had) spoke volumes. Like I needed another hint, she dumped me for someone richer. She didn’t care who, and Onigumo was right there with his big wallet in his pants. Cause no way in hell was that supposed to be his dick bulging in the front of his jeans.

“I couldn’t care less,” Sango said with a sigh.

Kikyo was losing us fast and for once, she looked nervous about it. “There’ll be booze?” Miroku and Sango hesitated. “And we’re going to play Eleven Miles.”

“What the hell is that?”

Kikyo rolled her eyes at me, “look it up?!”

She knew I wouldn’t. Instead, I glanced back at the register for Kagome. Who was wiping down the counter with no one in line waiting. “We’ll go… if your cousin comes too.”

Her mouth dropped but she quickly picked it back up. “She’s working tonight…”

“And with one call, you can fix that.”

Sango and Miroku both smirked, knowing I had won. Because either Kikyo failed and we got out of what sounded like the worst night of my life, or she came through and at least I’d have a good time with Kagome there.

Rolling her eyes, she pulled out her phone and I got to my feet, shuffling up to the counter. Pretty brown eyes landed on me and she smiled brightly yet again. “Can I get you something, Inuyasha?”

Smirking, I didn’t take the bait. It would be too easy to tell her ‘yeah, give me you’. Watching her blush would have been fun but I had a purpose. I pushed my palms into the counter before me and leaned into my shoulders while she watched me intently. “You’re coming out with us tonight.”

Her smile faded a little into a sad one. “I can’t, I’m working…”

“No, you’re not. I got mom to let you off.”

Kikyo appeared behind me, talking way too loud at the girl before me. With as much sass as humanly possible, Kikyo turned on her heel and swayed so her pleated uniform skirt swished with her hips. That used to drive me wild; now it just gave me a headache.

I was brought back to the present when a gentle hand landed and squeezed my clawed one. Whipping my head back, Kagome had her sweet smile on. The one that made my palms sweat. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Get me invited. I don’t like going out with Kikyo at all.”

“Neither do I.”

She squeezed my hand again before pulling away. I liked that. How she would touch me without fear or hesitation. Even with my claws accidentally cutting a few times in the past. Kagome mostly, since she touched me the most. Yet she still held my hand when I needed it or she did because she was a good friend and person. A god damn angel surrounded by demons.

“You could always say ‘no’ to her. It wouldn’t kill you?”

Her back to me, I listened to her heart and breathing to figure out her real meaning. Not that it was hard, given what I knew about her and her family already. “I could. But I didn’t. Not this time.” When she still didn’t look at me, I sighed loudly to get her attention. “You’re not going out with her, you’re going out with me, alright? You never get a night off and this was my in so I took it and I regret nothing.”

When I looked back up, staring at the different bags of kettle popped popcorn instead of her while I ranted, she had a caramel color to her eyes as she grinned. “Okay. I guess I don’t regret it either then.”

A few hours later

Miroku was grinning while we waited, standing off to the side of my building to lean on the half wall around the playground behind us. With my hands shoved in my pockets, I kept myself from punching him in the face but when he started to chuckle, I couldn’t stop myself from shoving him hard with my shoulder. It didn’t stop him from laughing and it didn’t make me feel any better, stuck waiting for my ex to show up with her new bf in a monster truck to take us all out to drink.

But I told Kagome I didn’t regret it and I didn’t want to lie to her.

The large monstrosity pulled up, rumbling as the driver revved the engine while leaving the doors locked. Gaining as much attention as possible and rubbing it in my face. It was a good thing I didn’t give a shit; otherwise, it might have worked and pissed me off. As it were, it just annoyed.

The tinted windows hid the inside but I knew what I’d find when the door finally opened. This was why I wasn’t shocked nor did I hesitate, heading straight for the tiny back seat Kagome was undoubtedly shoved into by her cousin. With Kikyo in the front seat, this was where I wanted to be regardless, as far back as I could get.

Miroku took the middle seats. He and Sango would occupy them once we picked her up. It’s not like I was gonna share the fucking middle with those two anyway. I’d probably get a high heel in my face while they made out viciously. A few drinks and it was inevitable with those two.

So why Kikyo was giving me the stink eye in her little mirror, I didn’t pretend to know or care. I had invited Kagome in the first place; of course, I would spend time with her.

Taking my attention off others, I gave all of it to Kagome, who smiled softly to me in the dark back seat. She rocked a long sweater with tights and a pair of small sneakers. Another thing I liked about Kagome, she never tried hard but still managed to look adorable every time. Even in her uniform that was a hand-me-down and a size too small. A long braid over and down her shoulder and she was easy on the heart and eyes.

“You made it.”

I grinned wide. “So did you.”

“Auntie about had a heart attack, Kikyo vouching for me and tugging me out the door with her.”

She giggled and my heart thumped hard, happily. It felt fucking amazing making Kagome happy. “That made it worth it, didn’t it?”

Kagome shrugged and blushed heavily, making me wish I could read minds.

“Kagome is going to be the DD if we get too wasted,” Kikyo called loud and clear from her throne.

Glaring back at her, Kikyo smirked before slowly turning back to her boyfriend. The heavy linebacker and team captain of the football team didn’t intimidate me in the least. But Kikyo wanted me to be and I was sure I would never understand why.

Kagome was staring, silently, out the window when I returned to ‘us’. No matter how many times I saw it, it still made my blood boil. And everyone knew about it; Kikyo had no shame in showing her disdain for her own blood.

At first, it was all smiles and words under the breath. The girl with no family and no money showing up at our school? Kagome was the talk of the ‘first years’. And Kikyo enjoyed it until it got out they were related. That was when the cruelty started. Or, at least, the public cruelty.

Sango never let Kagome’s background bother her, befriending her quickly just as she had me, another weirdo. At least I had my rich daddy to fall back on as well as a strong last name everyone knew.

Kagome had nothing.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the guilt of shunning Kagome because her cousin told me to and I was a fucking lap puppy for Kikyo. The guilt or embarrassment. And it was all too easy for Kagome to forgive and forget, never letting anything get her down. Or stop her from caring about a person. I didn’t deserve her friendship but I still took it greedily.

“I never got to tell you…” my attention was already on her and my ears perked up, finding her eyes in the reflection of the window, “I’m sorry.”

Confused, I shook my head a little to clear it. “What are you sorry for?”

Now she faced me but had her eyes on her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry for… showing up? That day, you were supposed to meet with Kikyo…”

I laughed and it caused her to jump up and look at me. “You mean the day she dumped me?” Kagome nodded slowly as if scared. “The day she dumped me and stood me up? When you came so I wasn’t alone? Are fucking shitting me? Why are you apologizing?!”

“I think…” her eyes flicked to the front but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of her, “I think she might have… gotten back with you if I hadn’t gone… but I didn’t want you to be alone, I didn’t… it wasn’t fair to you how she treated you and you deserve better…”

My hand on hers in her lap got her to stop. “You’re right, I do deserve better. And if she had offered to take me back, I might have been stupid enough to accept. So I’m glad you came.”

The softness of her face and eyes, it was palpable. “You’re sure?”

Oh god, was I. Kikyo dumping me was the best thing that ever happened to me. It woke me up, taking a long-ass nap in bitch land. I think it was sex. She was my first and I’ll never forget that. But it had me clinging to her because of some kind of made up attachment.

Kikyo felt nothing for me.

It was my last name that had attracted her. And I was attracted to her for her looks. The prettiest girl in school. Until freshman year started that is.

But none of that mattered anymore; Kagome relaxing and giggling happily. My palms were sweating again at the sound. Add in the twinkle in her eyes and my heart was fucking doing laps. Maybe sitting in the back with her bitch of a cousin at the front was a bad idea?

We came to a stop and Sango bounced in. “The party’s here!”

“Where’s the booze you promised?” Miroku asked.

Onigumo glanced at us in his rearview. “We have it all set up a few miles out of town.”

Miles outside of town? Where the fuck were we going tonight?

“Did Kikyo tell you? She says we’re playing something called Eleven Miles. Know what it is?”

I forgot about that and Kagome was already looking nervous. “No clue but I’m sure it’s fucking stupid.”

Kagome didn’t have a smartphone, so to reassure her, I got mine out and started searching. But then decided not to say anything after I got a look at what Kikyo had planned.

“Yeah. It’s stupid.”

Kagome had short nerves. Something we all learned during the senior prank last year. They thought it would be funny to turn the school into a haunted house. I thought Kagome was going to pass out. Sango got her out of there unscathed but I was close to killing Hojo with his ghost costume, chasing Kagome around for a thrill.

So no way in hell I was telling her what Eleven Miles was. Nothing was going to happen anyway; it would only freak her out to know. I still shot a glare Kikyo’s way. And she felt it, finding it and looking surprised.

Instead, I scooted a little closer to Kagome and she passed me a smile before returning to watch the world outside her window. Miroku was already squeezing Sango tight to him but he spared a moment to look back and then throw me a wink. I spared a moment to punch the shit out of his shoulder. Little brat wined all the way to the ‘set up’.

It was dark; the late fall sun setting an hour before we arrived. There was a table with drinks and a few lanterns burning. It looked like a cult ritual waiting to happen. We piled out of the car, I let Kagome go first for… my reasons and stood around awkwardly. All of this felt like it was a setup. Like there was more to this night than our ‘hosts’ were telling us.

Sango looked about as at ease as me so she didn’t shy away from the booze. Miroku either. Kagome and I hung back; neither of us were ever drinkers. The few times I did, it was by force thanks to Kikyo. Kagome never got to go out so I assumed she would drink if given the chance. This wasn’t it though, Kikyo watching her cousin like a hawk, daring her to try for a drink.

Kikyo and her boyfriend drank heavily and showed their bodies ’ resistance. Anyone else that drank as much as they did, in the short period we all stood there, would have at least struggled to walk. Kikyo had a small slur to her words but was otherwise fine. Onigumo acted like it was water.

Sneaking glances at Kagome beside me, I only gave a portion of my attention to the shit show before us. Sango started to get sloppy and Miroku got even more handsy. “You gonna drink?”

Wide and confused, Kagome’s beautiful browns crashed to me quickly. Then a flush spread on her cheeks as they wandered over my face. “I don’t think so. You?”

I had been slowly inching closer so now, taking my last inch, my shoulder touched hers. “Nah. So you’re safe if you want to.”

“Safe?”

Shrugging rubbed our shoulders together. I liked it cause she didn’t pull away. “Yeah, I’ll keep watch, keep you safe from… others.”

“And who will keep you safe?”

Her eyes were full of honesty, genuinely worried. But her pink lips twisted to the side as if implying something. This time, I took the bait. “You gonna jump me, Kagome? Cause I think I’d like that.”

Watching the blood spread across her face? Priceless. There was something truly beautiful about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I loved it. Even if it caused her to point her face towards her shoes.

A red cup, almost matching the color of Kagome’s cheeks, appeared before our faces. Kikyo had a wry look on her face. It was the one she made when she was faking a smile. “Drink up. Both of you.”

“I thought you said…”

Kikyo cut Kagome off by shoving the drink into her hand. “Oni would never let you drive his car, get your head out of your ass, Kagome.”

“Hey!” I shouted before I could think, but I would have said it anyway. “Kagome is my date so cut the shit!”

The corners of Kikyo’s mouth went down while Kagome’s went up. They were both fighting it but were failing. “I just gave her a drink, asshole…”

Gently taking Kagome’s arm, I led us away from the bitch and closer to Sango. Miroku was hanging on her so they were a packaged deal. The glare Sango was shooting Kikyo told me she heard what was said and was ready to pounce. “What is all this anyway? Why are we in the middle of nowhere drinking in the dark?!”

“We thought it would set the mood.” Onigumo sneered.

“For what?”

I caught the rolling Kikyo’s eyes did as she looked Miroku’s way. Damn bitch. “For the game.”

“About that, I don’t want any part of some stupid witch-hunting game,” Sango warned.

“It’s not a witch hunt! It’s just a drive…”

“And you get your wish granted at the end.”

Onigumo and Kikyo looked like a couple of twelve-year-old boys getting promised to see tits for the first time. They weren’t seriously dumb enough to think this shit was real, did they?

I groaned but said nothing more. If there was one thing I knew about Kikyo, it was that once her mind was set, there was no changing it. The worst part was that we were stuck in the middle of it, so to speak. It was getting harder and harder not to regret this. One glance at Kagome, a chill from her nerves going up her spine and making her dance for a second, and I was calming back down.

Her fear was permeating the air and even though I was pissed she was dragged into this, by me and Kikyo, I was more worried about her losing it.

The only good thing about it all was having an excuse for wrapping my arm around her. A hand on her hip and she was giving me a flushed and confused look. I squeezed her and chuckled at the little skip her heart did. This was far better than her fear and I felt no shame in doing it to her.

“God. Can we just get this over with then? I’d rather be in bed than doing this stupid game.” Miroku bitched.

I was inclined to agree. Except for the part where Sango was in bed with me as that was implied by Miroku’s hand on her ass as he pushed them back towards the car. I pulled Kagome as well, keeping an arm around her. Kikyo sneered at all of us as we passed. Why the hell did she want us around? She didn’t care what we wanted and didn’t seem to enjoy our company at all.

None of this felt right but with us, already out in the middle of nowhere it was keep going… or a long walk home, even for a demon, in the dark.

Mile One…

Don’t use a large car or an open one like a motorcycle. The cover of night is important, sticking out too much would be very bad….

Kagome was in the back with me again, watching out the window. I assumed it was her nerves. Either being so close to me or the weird-ass game we were about to play. Or possibly a combination of the two. I knew she was at least attracted to me but I wasn’t sure if she was into me as I was into her. My demon senses didn’t tell me the difference. I had always told myself I could work with attraction. But after months of flirting this was the first time we had gone on anything close to a date. How much of that was Kagome’s choice and how much of it was her Cousin and Aunt keeping her busy, I didn’t know. With her now close to me and still putting distance, it was hard to believe she felt anything more for me than friendly attraction.

Turning my attention to the road before us, I caught Kikyo watching us. Her eyes flicked away as soon as I caught her, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Whatever thoughts I had on that were interrupted by Sango reaching across her seat and grabbing Kagome’s shoulder.

“You alright?”

I didn’t hide my interest, watching as Kagome worked out her response. Her eyes darted between me and Sango but she offered a weak smile. “I’m a little freaked out but I’ll be alright.”

She wasn’t lying. Embarrassed but still telling the truth. And her eyes lingered on me longer and longer after her admission. The back and forth of Sango’s eyes were seen in my peripheral. Maybe she saw something? It would explain the grin that grew on her face but she did that every time Kagome and I had a moment that she was there to witness.

“You don’t need to worry. Inuyasha will protect you.”

Sango winked at me before turning back to her seat with Miroku. I turned from the two of them when Miroku took Sango back greedily, whispering things I wished I didn’t hear. Thank you demon hearing for that one.

Kagome wasn’t returning to her window, smiling sweetly at me so my palms began to sweat. “Is that true, Inuyasha? Will you protect me?”

Jesus. When she said shit like that. I knew she was just kidding around but damn it was bad for my heart. “Feh. Of course. Not that there’s anything to protect you from.”

Her smile faded, looking back out the window and I thought I had lost her again until she started whispering. “There’s something not right about this road.”

“What do you mean?”

I leaned over, looking out with her. My eyes were far better than hers, what with her a pure human. As expected, she didn’t squirm or push me away. There was no discomfort. There was also nothing but trees outside as we sped down the street. Well, not sped, Onigumo had us at a solid thirty-five MPH for some ungodly reason. This night was already going to last long enough.

A hard shiver ran through Kagome and I didn’t kid myself that it was because of me. “Cold?” She nodded and I growled at the front seats. “Hey Onigumo, what kind of piece of shit car is this? You can’t even keep the back seats warm?!”

He caught my glare in his rearview and I caught his sneer just before he leaned over and turned up the heat. Kagome’s hand found mine and she was like ice. “Thank you, Yasha.”

Oh shit, I loved it when she called me that. “Anytime, Ka-go-me.”

She smirked and I hoped it was due to the reminder. The first time we met I consistently said her name wrong. In a brazen show, she told me, “It’s KAH-GO-MAY you asshat!” I couldn’t control my attachment to her after that, having absolutely no fear or revulsion of me in the slightest. Most people took whatever I gave them and were thankful I didn’t do worse. And that had nothing to do with me and my track record, they all assumed I would do more than name call because I was a half breed.

“Alright everyone, this is it! This is the road!”

Sango shifted, sitting closer to Onigumo’s seat. “What do you mean this is the road? I thought we just drove for eleven miles or something?”

“It has to be a particular road and mileage,” Kikyo answered mockingly.

Miroku huffed, “then how the hell do you know this is it?!”

“Just a… feeling.”

She answered softly but Kikyo’s eyes flicked back and not at me. I glanced at Kagome who was stiff and trembling slightly. I took my jacket off and wrapped it around her without hesitation. Kagome smiled but it wasn’t as strong as her usual one. Whatever was going on, it was affecting Kagome somehow.

And Kikyo was exploiting whatever that was to the fullest.

Mile Two

To find the road you need to go at night when it will be the least populated. And you must do this alone. It won’t be on the map. It must be surrounded by woods and if you look for it, it will appear, as there will be hints….

“Can’t we go any faster?!!”

Now that we were ‘on the road’ Onigumo has slowed to a crawl. We were going about twenty miles per hour now. Kagome had stopped shivering but refused to look out the window now. Her arms crossed over her chest, she stared at the seat in front of us while I rubbed her knee. The fact that she didn’t blush like crazy showed me that she was too upset or messed up to care. And I was taking advantage but I didn’t care either.

“You should all be looking. That’s the point. If we don’t see anything then it didn’t work.” Onigumo yelled.

“This is bullshit.” Miroku sighed. “Just go faster so we can be done with this.”

Mile Three

Don’t use your phone….

“Does anyone else have any service?” Sango suddenly asked.

I pulled out my phone and had a few bars but not much. “Here.”

She took my phone without question but then didn’t make a call. I couldn’t tell what she was doing but she didn’t put it up to her ear or anything. “Ug, fucking data is being so god damn slow!!!”

“What the hell are you doing?”

I move to sit up and lean over but Kagome’s hand flew to mine. Still on top of her knee, she squeezed it so hard, if I were human, it would have hurt.

My mouth parted to speak but one look at her had me shutting my mouth tight. Her eyes were wide and still staring at the seat before us. And she was breathing hard, shuddering breaths that sounded painful, like her whole body was so tense it hurt to breathe.

“Kagome? What’s wrong?”

She said nothing. She didn’t move. Kagome was thoroughly freaked out.

Removing my hand from her clutch was no easy task. For a human, she was surprisingly strong when scared but I did it and her breathing only quickened until I wrapped an arm around her to pull her into me. Practically in my lap, I glared at the two asshats in the front seats. They were busy looking out the windows. Onigumo too and the car slowed even more from it.

And you never forget the smell of death once you’ve experienced it.

There was movement outside. I don’t know how Kagome knew it because they were hard even for me to see. But she must have seen them or something and it was the cause of her petrified state.

And with the grins on Kikyo and Onigumo’s faces, glancing back at Kagome as some kind confirmation, I knew they were holding back on some important information. “Alright, someone wanna tell me what the fuck is going on??!!”

“SHHHHH!!” My glare went to Sango but then I saw the blood drain from her face. “Do you hear that?”

Everyone was silent. I flicked my ears around, trying to hear but I heard nothing. But Kagome. She began to claw at my shirt and dig into my arms. Now hiding, I covered her as much as possible with my arms and body. If hiding helped her then that’s what I would do.

“Oh my god…”

I’d been focused on Kagome. Her heart at a dangerous speed. With Kikyo’s exclamation, all I wanted to do was throw my shoe at the back of her head. Because screaming out like that didn’t help at all. But pulling my focus caused me to notice what was around us. And what was around us, didn’t make sense.

Because the woods were completely gone.

Mile Five

Don’t turn open the windows or leave your car….

It was like we had missed the road and driven into the middle of a field, no trees around at all. Not even behind us.

I was struggling to take a good look around while holding onto Kagome. She didn’t look; she was barely breathing. And then they stopped the goddamn car.

“What the hell? Why are we stopping???!”

Onigumo already had his door open. “Gotta piss.”

The growl I released was ignored. But of course, Onigumo and Kikyo didn’t give a shit about how freaked Kagome was. Sango turned to help me with her while Miroku scooted to the door. “I gotta go too.”

Sango called after him but he ignored all her warnings. The call of nature was stronger than his fear.

The three of us were quiet. So much, I forgot all about Kikyo until she spoke, remembering there were four in the car. “She’s just being overly dramatic as usual.”

The venom in Kikyo’s voice was more than enough to push me and Sango over the edge. And Sango beat me to a response. “The only one here that is overly anything is you, Kikyo, and you know it.”

It was so quiet, I could hear the roll of Kikyo’s eyes. Sango huffed but turned back to us, Kagome still in my hold. Her hot and slow breaths were fogging up my chest but I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. At least she was starting to calm, her heart at a much safer speed than before.

Like a little bunny, Kagome slowly came out of hiding and stared out the window past Sango. “Kagome?”

The driver’s door opened and slammed shut, rocking the car. “Wooo it’s cold out there!”

At some point, Kikyo had turned on the radio, soft notes playing all around us. I wasn’t in the mood in the slightest.

“Where’s Miroku?”

Sango turned and looked to Onigumo, who shrugged. “No clue. We didn’t cross streams!”

I looked out, searching. There were no trees. Not a fucking one. And the lake looked more like a mirror, reflecting the full moon and stars above. With plenty of light and nothing obscuring our sight, it should have been easy to spot anyone. Demon or not.

But there was no one near or around the car at all.

I wasn’t paying attention to the radio but suddenly, it cut out and turned to static. Then increased in volume until deafening. The white noise was making my brain hurt, pressing my ears to my skull as hard as I could. When that didn’t work, I covered them, allowing myself to let go of Kagome to try and lessen the pain.

She held on tight to my shirt but didn’t seem to mind the overpowering sound. It had nothing to do with being a demon because everyone in the car was buckled over from the noise. But Kagome? She sat up straight and still… and listened.

“TURN IT OFF!!!”

I was too busy curling into a ball but Sango’s scream made it over the noise and Onigumo slapped his hand to the audio power button. The ringing in my ears was slow to diminish but once it did, I released my head and wrapped my arms around Kagome again. Her cheeks were red and chapped with tears and she was sobbing softly. It was hard to miss, the salt covering any other scent for me, even the smell of death that had yet to go away.

Dragging her into me, I gave her a small shake to wake her out of the shocked mentality she was stuck in. “Kagome, what’s wrong?!”

A few pounding heartbeats and sobs later, her eyes finally met mine. I could see the fear within them, it was screaming back at me. “They took him…”

Sango was listening now, turning back to us again. “Who took who?!”

“They...they took Miroku.”

“Who the fuck is they?!” Sango screamed. She didn’t wait for an answer; her hand on the handle before I could clear my head of just what Kagome was saying. “Fuck this, I’m going to look for him.”

The sound of the locks clicking into place was deafening and we all looked to the front. Kikyo still had her hand on the control when she slowly turned to us. “No one is going anywhere. We need to finish this.”

“What? You want us to keep driving are you fucking mad??”

She turned her glare to me, looking at me like I was fucking stupid. “Miroku is fine. Once we finish, we’ll go back for him.”

It wasn’t up for debate as Onigumo began to pull away. Sango’s screams were ignored and with me in the back seat, there was little I could do as we got back up to speed. Other than keeping Kagome as close as possible to me.

Her forehead touched my neck, skin on skin, and I would have been a fucking teenage virgin about it if she wasn’t ice cold. “Shit, Kagome, you’re freezing!!”

Wrapped up tight, my coat wasn’t doing a damn thing for her. My hot demon blood kept me toasty 24/7 but even pressed against my heat, she was still shivering. Sango leaned back over her seat to us, checking and feeling Kagome. It was a needed distraction; tears still rolling down her cheeks from losing Miroku. “This can’t be good for her. It’s the damn prank night all over again.”

“This is fucking worse than that!”

Sango looked over her shoulder to the front again. “We need to get Kagome to a hospital.”

“No, we need her to stay right here. She is our beacon.” Onigumo said in the creepiest voice I had ever heard come out of him.

“Your.. beacon? To what?”

Sango asked but none of us wanted the answer. We needed to know how deep this shit went but we didn’t want to know. Kikyo slapped Onigumo’s shoulder in reprimand but answered our question anyway. “Beacon to.. this! All of it! We would have had no clue what road to take if it wasn’t for her.”

“What the hell does that mean!!!” I growled.

But then the light cut away casting us into complete darkness.

Mile Six

Don’t touch the radio….

The trees had returned but it took the moon and starlight with it. As soon as we entered it, I could feel it. My demon was draining away.

We had entered a moonless night somehow and I was becoming human.

Sango’s eyes were wide at the sight of it. I had told them all about my human nights but I had never told Kikyo or Onigumo. Kikyo’s gray eyes looked at me fiercely and a smile grew on her face, making my skin crawl.

This night was darker than usual. No moon and no stars, it made it impossible to see around us with my weak human eyes. Onigumo had headlights but seeing past them was difficult at best.

The goddamn radio turned back on and no one touched it this time. Kagome rocked against me until I rocked with her. With it at a lower level, I could focus on the sounds instead of the skull piercing noise.

“Give… sss…. tooo… her….” out of nowhere, the static cut out, and it was clear, “INUYASHA, GIVE HER TO US!!!!”

Kagome pushed against me hard, her palms against my ribs. If I hadn’t been holding her so tight, she might have actually gotten free. “What the fuck?!”

“This isn’t funny, guys. Cut it out!”

Onigumo and Kikyo ignored me and Sango, continuing slowly down the road. Kagome was still pushing against my hold but I refused to let her go. “Kagome stop, I’m not letting you go.”

“You need to stay away from me, Inuyasha.”

There was nothing but sadness in her tone and I really didn’t get it. She was sad and afraid; why would she want to push any friend away? Was it because I was a demon? Kagome had never said or done anything to make me think she felt that way, like so many others, did about me.

Was it whatever was out there, messing with us? Did she think I had something to do with it? It was my name coming out of the radio, a trick that was easy to do with a Bluetooth connection and a recorder on your phone. I don’t know how they got the smell of death to fill the car but I guess they could have put a dead animal under the hood of the car. If Onigumo would allow it. With him flaunting his money all the time he probably just considered buying a new car after this trick. Especially if Kikyo talked him into all of this.

And it wouldn’t be the first time she had talked me into something either, convincing me to be cruel to Kagome when we first met.

I wasn’t sure I could blame her, thinking I was somehow involved. I did ask her here and Kikyo folded so easily. So I yanked her back the tiny distance she had gotten away from me while I considered her wishes. Her eyes went wide, a little bit of green in her honey irises that made my heart skip a beat. “Shut the fuck up. I’m exactly where I want to be. Where I need to be.”

Some of her color came back to her face for a moment, a few errant tears sliding slowly down her cheeks. “Yasha…. it’s… it’s not what you think. It’s not safe…”

I couldn’t stand it; she was terrified and yet speaking about my safety? Kissing the tip of her nose got her to shut up and a warm fever to take over my skin from it.

Damn weak human emotions.

This was all some stupid prank anyway and I was going to beat the shit out of those responsible once we got the hell out of this car.

We were still rolling on, surrounded by black woods. I couldn’t explain the lack of moon and stars. That was the only thing I couldn’t understand, how the hell they pulled it off?! How the hell did they make me human??

I was still trying to look out and see something in the darkness and felt a small tugging on my hair. Searching out the source, I found Kagome, playing with a few of my black strands. She had never seen me like this. No one had. Then she pushed back my hair until she found my ear, now on the side of my head and human. Gripping it, she checked to see if it was real I guess, before looking up at me with a small smile.

“I’m sorry, Yasha. I know you hate being like this.”

Like it was her fault? I pulled her into my side, wrapping an arm around her tight and turning us so we looked ahead. Because if she kept looking at me and speaking to me like that, I was liable to take advantage. Something told me, she wouldn’t push me away if I offered her comfort in the form of my tongue in her mouth. Even if she wasn’t that into me.

Mile Seven

Ignore the figures you see outside your car….

It hadn’t been long, Kagome and I calm in the backseat together when it all went to hell.

First, Kagome stiffened in my hold, her shoulders becoming ridged. I took my attention away from the road for a moment to calm her down and Sango screamed. Making us both jump.

“Stop! Stop the car!!”

I didn’t let go of Kagome in the slightest but I still sat up and tried to pull Sango back down to her seat. “Are you crazy?! We need to get this over with!!”

“I saw him!” She cried. “I saw Miroku; stop the car!!”

Turning, I looked behind us, keeping my arm around Kagome so I was turned into her. No longer a demon, I couldn’t hear her heart. But with my face inches from hers, I could easily feel the shallow breaths she was taking. “Kagome?”

She shook her whole body but mostly her head, at me. “That’s not Miroku.” She whispered.

A glance and I couldn’t see anything anyway. Cupping her cheek, I gently pulled Kagome’s face towards mine. “Who is it, Kagome?”

Her eyes danced around my face. The breaths that puffed across my cheeks were cold; it made my fear spike for the girl in my arms. “I don’t know. But it’s not Miroku.”

Something crawled up my back to my neck and whispered. “Let go…”

My neck popped I turned so hard and fast. But there was nothing. Kagome’s hand grabbed mine on her face and I turned back to her, already feeling her tears on my fingers. She said nothing though, silently crying.

Sango was still fighting with Onigumo, trying to get him to stop. At least he wasn’t a complete idiot. Or so I thought, feeling the car being to slow.

“What are you doing?! Don’t stop the car you fuckers!!”

Sango whipped around to glare at me and only softened a little at the sight of Kagome so broken. “We need to get Miroku…”

“That ain’t Miroku!!!!”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re stopping, like it or not.” Kikyo declared.

I was ready to wail in both of them but Onigumo turned off the car. “It’s dead. The car is dead; we have no choice but to stop.”

Mile Eight

If the car stalls, just be patient and try again in a few minutes. Don’t leave the car and whatever you do, don’t listen to the voices you hear….

“This is bullshit. Start the damn car you assholes!”

Onigumo passed me a look, then showed me his hand as he tried to crank the car. It didn’t even turn over; not making a single sound as he twisted the key in the ignition.

Sango went for her door again but Onigumo still had it locked. “Let me out; I’m going back for Miroku.”

I was shaking my head at her but soon heard the click of the locks. Kagome got up too, as soon as Sango opened her door. “We should go with her.”

My breath was caught somewhere between my chest and my throat. Kagome was a ball of anxiety but still wanted to face it all for the sake of her friends. I wanted to go look for Miroku too. And get out of this car as it slowly made its way to hell.

Taking her hand firmly in mine, we crawled over the seat and out the door. I spared Kikyo a glance. Her lips set in a hard line, she was stoic and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing considering.

Sango had a head start on us and we had lost her to the darkness. Kagome’s hand was in the death grip of mine and that brought me some comfort. While my palm was sweating, hers was ice cold. Made worse by the strange fridge temperature outside the damn car. It was late, checking my watch to see we were in the early hours of the morning now. That wasn’t the cause of the lack of stars or moon; sunrise was still hours away.

The white puffs of hot air as they expelled from our mouths nearly glowed even without light reflecting on it. It made me wonder if the moon and stars were still there but, for some reason, we couldn’t see them?

Kagome shook so hard, my arm was going numb from her shiver crawling up my shoulder. She still stepped up beside me and called out as if not terrified and freezing. “Miroku!!”

“We’re gonna have to walk a ways back for him to be in earshot, I think.”

I knew we had traveled a distance down the road but I had no clue just how far we had left Miroku behind. It was at least a mile.

“Miroku!!!” Kagome still yelled.

Sango was probably doing the same thing. Wait…. “Where’s Sango?”

Sure it was dark but she would be screaming her lungs off, looking for Miroku right now. No way in hell we wouldn’t hear her; the forest was dark and silent like a grave.

Just as I pulled Kagome into my side, a loud pop came from behind. I spun us both, putting Kagome behind me simultaneously in a manner I could only explain as instinct. My body was screaming to protect Kagome and get her the hell out of here.

Without my claws, I was left with my fists, holding them up at the ready and in defense. Crawling out of the darkness, Kikyo peered at the two of us and frowned. “You need to get back to the car. Now.”

“The car is a piece of shit! And we want to find Miroku. You know? Our friend that you and Onigumo left behind!!”

She waved a hand at me as if to wipe my words from the air. “Miroku is fine…”

“You don’t know that,” Kagome whispered.

As much as I liked her standing up to her cousin, I didn’t like the darkness in her tone. Because it wasn’t about Kikyo; it was about Miroku and whatever the hell happened to him. It had me grabbing Kagome and pulling her with me. “Fine, we’ll go back to the car.”

Kikyo stopped us, putting a hand on my chest as I tried to pass. “Not Kagome. Just you.”

“Excuse me?” I glared down at Kikyo but she kept her eyes locked on Kagome. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“She is! I want her gone!”

Shoving Kagome behind me again, I squared up to the bitch. “She has done nothing to you. You need to stop this, Kikyo. It’s just pathetic now.”

Now she tore her gaze from Kagome, tears covering her cheeks as she grimaced up at me. “Everything is her fault. She’s the one going to college and using my funds to do it!”

“What are you talking about?” Kagome whispered.

“I didn’t get in. Anywhere. So now Mom is going to take my college fund and add it to yours. All so you can go to your damn fancy as fuck university. And I’ll stay here to rot.”

This was what it had always been about. Jealousy. So I gently grabbed Kagome again and pulled her away. “That’s your own fault. Too busy parties and being a bitch when you should have been studying your ass off like Kagome. Nothing was handed to her and you know it so shut your fucking mouth and get out of our way.”

Pushing her ahead of me, I just wanted to get Kagome far away from her fucked up family. But Kikyo grabbed me and I couldn’t let Kagome walk in this dark and fucked up forest alone. “I want you back, Inuyasha.”

Ripping from her claws, I snarled at her. “You just want me because I want someone else!”

“HER??!! Why her?!! She’s nothing! A piece of shit orphan with nothing better to do than leech off me and my family. Even my boyfriend!”

“Ex! Ex-boyfriend. You dumped me, remember?”

“Because of the way you looked at HER!” My eyes went from Kikyo to Kagome and then to the leaf-covered ground. “You can’t even deny it. You’ve been into her ever since you met her. Even while you were fucking me…”

“Shut up!” I couldn’t take any more of this and I really didn’t want Kagome hearing anymore. “You don’t know shit about me and you never did.”

Kikyo sneered, her eyes dancing from me to the one behind me, Kagome tugging on my hold to get away. But I refused to let her go. “Inuyasha… we should go…”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Spinning, I pushed Kagome along and held her elbow tight to keep her off the ground when she tripped. I couldn’t see shit but she was a walking shit storm when it came to NOT tripping on things. Kikyo released a strangled cry like she was shocked we were leaving and I had to force Kagome to keep moving forward.

“Yash…”

Shit, I hated it when Kikyo called me that. It made me so pissed, I didn’t think, I just glared back. But something was wrong, the angled position of Kikyo’s head? It was as if she was being pulled back by her chin. Looking down, I saw her feet were barely touching the ground, on her tiptoes with the tips of her shoes grazing the leaves.

Her eyes were wide and on me, her mouth struggling to open. “Give them… her… now.”

My brain spun, glancing back at Kagome to find her horrified and shaking. And then she took a step.

A hand on her chest, I didn’t give a shit about the proximity to her breasts. She wasn’t going anywhere near Kikyo no matter what the hell was going on. “Fuck off!”

“Give them… Kagome… please!!!” Kikyo whined.

I had to hold Kagome back again, this time wrapping her up in my arms as she fought against me. “Stop it! This is stupid!!”

It wasn’t a scream, it was a gurgle, looking back to Kikyo as a red line appeared. It drew across her neck just below her apple. And then it grew, blood spilling from it while Kikyo sputtered.

Her body fell to the ground and she didn’t move. Kagome wanted to move, but I wouldn’t allow it. Either this was a fucked up prank or something else. Either way, Kagome didn’t need to be anywhere near it.

This time, I picked her up, lifting her into my arms kicking and screaming. At first, she screamed to go back then she just wept. God damn Kikyo was going to scar Kagome for life with this bull shit.

No one was in the car and I prayed the keys were in the ignition. With Onigumo gone, no sign of Sango, and Miroku still missing, I had to assume they were all in on it. I had Kagome tossed into the back seat when a body flew into my back. Fucking human senses, not only did I not hear Sango walk up behind but I actually jumped when she touched me.

“Goddammit, Sango!!”

She was shaking, hard, and her hands were covered in blood. “I’m sorry, I… I… I saw… that is I found… Kikyo, it was Kikyo…”

I grabbed her. In part cause, she was about to pass out but also to shut her up before she freaked Kagome out even more. “We know, we saw.” Sango tried to climb in the car but I stopped her, pushing her back. “Tell me you had nothing to do with this?!”

Her mouth cracked in a sob. “How.. how could you think that?!”

Shoving on my hold, I felt more guilt than usual. Fucking human emotions! “Miroku is conveniently missing and Kikyo is off playing fucking ghosts. I don’t even know what the fuck Onigumo is doing right now and I don’t care.” Now the tears, Sango was pissed and crying. I sighed heavily and released my hold on her. “Just tell me you have nothing to do with this and I’ll believe you.”

She released a shuddering breath right into my face. “I have nothing to do with this.” I released her and she shuddered, “how could I be. Look at yourself? How could someone make you human?!”

I shrugged, “to be honest, there’s a lot about being a half-demon that even I don’t understand yet. And maybe tonight is a new moon and I forgot…”

“We already had a new moon. Two weeks ago…”

“I remember but maybe it’s like a blue moon or something?! I don’t know! All I know is Kikyo and Onigumo are fucking around and I’m pissed!”

Sango rolled her eyes at me but then hopped in the car, going straight to Kagome. I watched for a moment as Sango wrapped herself around Kagome. I wasn’t sure if she did it to comfort herself, Kagome, or both, but Kagome looked like she wanted nothing to do with it. That was odd in itself; Kagome was always open to affection from her friends. Even from me.

Something to figure out later; Going to the driver seat so we could get the fuck out of here. “What are you doing?”

I glanced at Sango in the rearview, her eyes wild with fear. “Getting out of here.”

“We can’t leave Miroku and Onigumo.”

I could tell, even without my demon senses, Sango felt more worried about Miroku than Onigumo. And I had to agree, I really didn’t want to leave Miroku either. “Fine. Then let’s go back and look for Miroku.” My hand went to the ignition and found it empty. “Shit, fucking, asshole!!!”

“What?!!”

Now both Kagome and Sango were staring back at me in the reflection of the mirror, eyes impossibly wide with fear. “Nothing… the keys are missing.”

“Dammit, Onigumo must have them that prick.”

I started searching the darkness, looking for signs of the bastard. He was out there, I could see things moving. Looks like he brought some friends with him. Although who would be crazy enough to stand out in the cold dark woods for hours just to fuck with us, I didn’t know. Onigumo must have hired people or something. He was dumb enough to spend his money on something like that.

Whoever it was, it was more than just Onigumo. He couldn’t move that fast or be in two places at once. And I was sure I was seeing more than one person as three figures moved simultaneously in different spots.

Now, more than ever, I was sure this was a damn prank.

Which meant Miroku was being held by them somewhere. Against his will probably; Mirkou was stupid, but not crazy. He knew better than to mess with Kagome like this and he hated the woods at night.

Something slammed into my door and the girls screamed. I jumped as well (fucking human body) and turned to find hands and a face pressed against the glass, covered in blood.

“LET ME IN!!!”

It took me a second to clear my head and unlock the doors. Onigumo climbed in the back seat, panting and groaning. “What the hell man?!”

Sango was weeping and Kagome pushed her back, climbing over the seat to sit near Onigumo. She was propping him up, trying to get a look at whatever wounds he had. While Onigumo looked around wildly. “We need to go.”

“Go?! We can’t just leave… what about Kikyo? Miroku?!” Sango screamed.

“She’s dead. Miroku is probably dead too.”

Turning I glared back at him, “that’s not fucking funny.”

“I’m not kidding!!” He shoved the keys into my face, “just fucking drive asshole!!”

Onigumo was still playing the game hard. If I wanted to get all of us out of this stupid night, I would have to drive. Miroku and Kikyo would be waiting at the end of this so the sooner I got us there, the better.

The car started without issue and I caught Sango’s stare in the rearview mirror again. Some of her fear depleted, starting to see the con that was going on. Kagome was still shaking. But then again, she was currently getting her hands covered in blood.

“Just forget about him, Kagome.” I put the car in drive and hit the gas hard. “This is all bullshit anyway.”

Mile Ten

Don’t drive too fast, or you’ll miss all the fun...

I wasn’t sure but we had to be getting to the end of this soon. It was only supposed to be eleven miles! I was going fifty but we were still in the endless night of the forest. No stars, no moon, and no end.

“What the fuck, is this a loop or something?!”

We had been in a straight line the entire time, no turns at all, but it felt like we were going in circles. Kagome was still messing with Onigumo, pulling carefully at his coat and then going for his shirt, trying to find his wounds.

“I told you not to worry about the fucker, Kagome.”

The jealousy I had was unjustified but as a human, I had little to no control over it. I was pretty sure it was clear on my face and tone but Kagome ignored it. “There’s… there’s a lot of… blood. We need to… stop it and get to a… hospital.”

Even terrified to the point of witless, Kagome thought of others first. It made my heart swell and hurt a lot.

But also it had me not watching the road.

“INUYASHA WATCH OUT!!!!”

Sango was screaming from the back and I looked to the front; a person standing in the middle of the road. Braking was pointless but I tried, slamming hard into the body of the bystander. The sickening thud of them hitting the hood and then the roof as their body went over us made us all pale. It felt like a lifetime passed before the car finally stopped, not thinking about anything else as I ripped open the door and ran around the car.

But I didn’t understand, staring at the now dirt road, and trying to get my mind wrapped around what it was seeing. Sango managed to join me while I tumbled my brain around. She gasped and looked really hard too.

The road was empty, no body or blood.

There was no doubt, we had hit someone. I felt the car jerk from the hit. But there was no body! Running around, I went to the front of the car. Sure enough, there was a dent in the front that was easily body size. Something moved to my left, hidden by darkness and trees. I was tired of all this shit so I went after it. “Alright assholes. Come out here and face me!”

The pussies remained hidden and silent but I knew they were there.

“I know Onigumo put you up to this. If you come out now and cut the shit, I’ll go easy on you.”

Nothing.

That is until some screams came from behind. They were coming from where I left the car. “Kagome.”

I breathed out her name out of fear. Now I had it in spades. I had left her alone and I had promised to protect her in all of this. It might be a prank but these fuckers didn’t know when to quit. They were going to scar Kagome for life and mess her up good.

God damn Onigumo and Kikyo. I was going to tear them both to PIECES for this!!!

The car was empty when I got back to it. I’d been gone maybe five minutes; they couldn’t have gotten far. But I had no clue which way to go!

There was movement on the ground, something in the tall grass of the abandoned road. The early morning dew was freezing, seeping through my jeans. But I still rushed to the movement, finding Sango rolling and coiling in pain. She let me help her to her feet, staggering and struggling on her feet while her face began to swell. I knew what happened without a word from her, standing her up as straight as I could to look her in the eyes.

“Which way did he take her?”

She pointed then sobbed. “She was checking him over and couldn’t find a wound. Then he said, it wasn’t his blood. Who’s blood is it, Inuyasha??!!”

I knew what she was thinking and I was thinking about it too. That it was Miroku’s and that he wasn’t with us because Onigumo and Kikyo had done something very bad to him. “It’s fake, Sango. None of this is real…”

“But you’re a human?!”

I didn’t have time for this; I had to get Kagome away from these freaks. “Get in the car and don’t move. Sango? Don’t fucking leave the car for anything, understand?”

“But…”

“Nothing! I will be back with Kagome and we’ll get out of here. Try calling the cops or something.”

She pulled out her phone as she ran. I did the same and had no signal. So instead, I used the flashlight and ran towards the blackness. It was where Kagome was so I had no choice.

Mile Eleven

Don’t leave your car!!!!

I was out of breath; my lungs screaming at me. If I wasn’t a fucking human… but I couldn’t stop, I still hadn’t caught so much as a glance of Kagome yet. The flashlight of my phone wasn’t helping either. I was far too used to my demon sight; this flashlight was bull shit.

But I had nothing else so I kept using it like a dick and searching the woods. They were endless. We had to be close to a house or a town. This place wasn’t that big or remote!!!

Nearly tripping on a root, I growled and cursed as loudly as possible, “Onigumo, where are you, you fucker?! I’m going to rip you in half!!!”

“Inuy….”

I heard her. She was cut off and that made my blood boil but Kagome and called out to me. The amount of panic in her voice pained my heart. Kagome had been scared when we went through the Senior prank. Her face was ashen and she was close to tears.

This was nothing like that.

It no longer mattered that I was tired or blind, I ran, pushing my legs so hard into the dirt, it flew up behind me. I could hear it falling back to the leaf-covered ground like ice from a tree, crashing over the sound of my hard breaths. Nothing was going to keep me from Kagome, not the endless night or the cramp in my side.

I saw it just in time to know what it was, a fist aimed for my nose and hitting right on the mark. It had been a while since I’d been hit like this while human. It still stung when I was a demon but at least it didn’t break my fucking nose.

I pinched my bridge and glared up at Onigumo, Kagome weeping in his hold. “Let her go, fuck face.”

“We need her.”

No longer caring about the blood dripping down my face, I dropped my hand and stepped closer to the hostage situation. “Wrong. I need her. And I will be leaving with her now.”

“Inuyasha…”

Kagome was trying to speak but the mother fucker cut her off, squeezing her neck a little tighter with the arm around his neck. “Let her go dammit! This isn’t funny!!”

“We were supposed… we were supposed to do this together,” Onigumo muttered.

“What the fuck are you talking about?! I never wanted to do shit with you!”

“Not you!” He roared, swinging Kagome around and making my knuckles pop with how hard I clenched them. “Kikyo. We were supposed to take Kagome out here together… but she’s dead.”

“Cut the shit!!”

“I’m not lying! She’s dead Inuyasha!!”

“Then you killed her! We didn’t do anything to any of you assholes!”

Onigumo’s face slowly went slack as the truth bled through his thick skull. “You’re right… I killed her… it’s my fault.”

His hold loosened on Kagome so I lurched for her, wrenching her free and shoving him back hard. He fell on his ass and did not attempt to get up. “Kikyo said, it would work if we brought her.”

“What the hell?!” I spat, rolling Kagome up in my hold.

She grabbed onto me hard, shaking, and sobbing. I was trying to decide if I could manage to set her aside for a moment to stomp the shit out of Onigumo but I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. Kagome was far too freaked.

“Kagome… we needed her for this to work. Kikyo promised me it would work…”

Onigumo got to his feet and Kagome pushed on my hold. Hard. “Inuyasha, run.”

She was still pushing like she wanted me to let go and run without her. “What?!”

“Leave me and go. Now!!”

Kagome had stopped pushing and started hitting, going for my shoulders, arms, hands, sides, and then my face, smacking my nose gently but with the hit it took moments ago, she might as well have punched me. “FUCK!”

She choked on a sob and I managed to keep one hand on her. Even with her clawing at it. “Let go!!”

“Fuck that!!”

Suddenly, I was very aware of Onigumo, standing on his own two feet but just not quite right. “Please...please…”

We were silent, Onigumo begging us when we weren’t anywhere near him. “Dude.. what’s your problem?”

Kagome gripped my wrist with her nails and tried again to get free. I was too invested in Onigumo now, watching his every move. A tear fell down his cheek and my stomach dropped to my toes. I couldn’t smell, taste, or hear it but I knew there was someone else here. Something else.

Stiffening, Onigumo got unnaturally straight, like he was trying not to be touched. “I gave you Miroku! And you took Kikyo!!”

“What the hell does that mean?” I growled. “You gave them Miroku?!”

He ignored me and continued to whimper to the air. “She’s… she’s right there, just take her.”

“Please, don’t hurt anyone else! I’ll go with you!!” Kagome shouted and tried to step closer to Onigumo.

I shut it down, yanking her kicking and screaming back into my arms. “Stop it!”

Focused on Kagome and lifting her to carry her away, I was confused by the whimper that came from Onigumo. I ignored it until I heard a strange gurgle come from him. It was stupid, blame the human half, but I turned back to look only slap a hand over Kagome’s eyes far too late.

Just like Kikyo, a long red line was being drawn on Onigumo, starting at his belly button. I had Kagome’s sight covered tight but not my own; I was only able to sew my eyes shut just as Onigumo’s intestines hit the ground.

I forced my eyes back open, needing to know just what the fuck we were up against, only to find Onigumo still standing with his guts on the dirt. Steam rose gently from them and blood dripped out of Onigumo’s lips but he remained standing like it was any other day.

It had to be some kind of trick? Something I was less sure of when Onigumo bent over and started shoveling his inners back inside himself. His bones cracked and his muscles shook when he moved, looking forced. He got himself back together and closed up his jacket.

Then smiled.

At some point, I had dropped the ball, no longer covering Kagome’s eyes. And now those eyes were staring straight into mine, blocking all of the world out with honey-colored irises. “Inuyasha… they want me, not you.”

“Wha… what are you talking about?”

“If you go now and leave me behind, they’ll let you live.”

Anger swelled in me so fast, it made my head spin. I grabbed her hard, harder than I should have but I was losing control. “Leave you behind? For who and what, Kagome?!”

A sad smile was on her face, a tear slipping silently down her cheek. “Demons. They’ve been after me for a while now. Ever since they killed my family. I ran then but I’m not going to run this time. It’s… it’s my fate, Inuyasha.”

Pulling from her magnet eyes, I glanced at the man formerly known as Onigumo. He was a suit now; something else wearing him and smiling back at us. Then I looked back at Kagome, who was calm and resigned. She was a girl I knew, one I liked. A lot. I liked Kagome a lot and the main reason for that was shit like this. She was sacrificing herself for me and Sango. Her friends, people she cared about. We were nothing, just two kids, the same age as Kagome, and yet here she was acting beyond her years.

Accepting death.

It was what she wanted. Kagome wanted me to leave and let her face her demons alone. That was the smart thing to do. The right thing in her mind. So I would do the right thing for her. “No.” She looked surprised and I tried not to be offended by that, “I’m not fucking going anywhere. Not without you.”

We were probably going to die so what difference would it make, grabbing her face and crushing her mouth to mine. It felt right, especially when she grabbed my elbow tight and didn’t push me away. If I was a demon, I could have kissed her for a lot longer. Forever maybe. But I needed air so I pulled back, resting my forehead against hers while we caught our breath. It was the clapping that had me returning to reality, spinning Kagome so she was behind me.

The Onigumo suit was giving us a slow clap, his arms jerking apart only to slap his hands back together in a sickening show. “We are surprised by you, Inuyasha.”

“We?”

The thought that I was talking to a corpse flashed in my brain but seemed pointless to worry about now. “Yeeeessss, WE.” I was looking around and pulling Kagome closer, looking for the ‘we’ it was speaking of when it laughed. “We are right here, Inuyasha.”

The suit gestured to itself and I just had to ask. “Who the hell are you?!”

“We are many… we took this form just for her…” it pointed and Kagome whimpered, “we have many names as there are so many of us… but you may call us… Naraku.”

“Naraku? What the fuck kind of name is that?!”

I was pissed. Pissed that I was still fucking human and that Kagome was seconds from giving herself over to this creature. She kept pulling on me and trying to go around me but I wasn’t having it.

Naraku laughed, “It is just our name; take it or leave it. But you will be leaving Kagome with us.”

“Fuck off.”

“Onigumo and Kikyo thought they could control us, the fools,” it smirked and Kagome shivered hard, “even tainted, we ate them anyway just like Kagome’s mother, father, and little brother…”

“You’re a monster!” Kagome screamed.

Now I had her in my arms again, this time to keep her from… I’m not sure what she was going to do, run at the monster or fall to pieces. I never heard what happened to Kagome’s family, only that Kikyo and her mom took her in after they were gone. Shit, I didn’t even know she had a brother!

Naraku now looked pissed, Kagome in my arms instead of theirs. It only made me hold her tighter. “You can’t have her. She’s mine.”

Its head went back in a laugh, howling at the moonless sky above. “What can you do, Hanyou? You are nothing compared to us!!”

Roaring, Naraku rushed us. I spun, curling around Kagome to protect her. I felt the claws in my skin, digging in deep, and fuck did it hurt. This was by far the most damage my human body had ever received and I wasn’t used to the pain from it. I was close to passing out which wasn’t good, not at all.

Blood was trickling down my sides and pain radiated all over to the point, I wasn’t sure if my back or my ribs were what was cut. Either way, life was draining from me and I struggled to breathe.

Kagome was sobbing, clutching my face in her hands. I had my eyes clenched shut against the pain but I could hear and feel her, shaking under me. She pulled me, pressing her forehead to mine like we had moments ago and whispered. “Please… don’t die for me. Inuyasha I couldn’t take losing you too.”

I was dying. The girl beneath would die right after me. And there was a demon fucking laughing behind us while we cowered in our mortality.

Fucking pissed me the hell off.

I could feel it and I couldn’t stop it. It was for the best anyway. No part of me liked Kagome seeing this side of me but it was either this or death.

Grabbing her close, I yanked her off the ground and stood tall. I could feel my wounds slowly knitting together as my demon blood took over completely. My fangs grew, pushing against my lips and hanging out of my mouth and the tips of my fingers ached from the fast growth of my claws.

“About time you showed up,” I told the damn demon.

“Of course, like I’d let us die.” He barked back in my head.

“Listen, we need to save Kagome. So no stupid shit, alright?”

He scoffed, “I’m not going to do anything but save both your asses.”

It was weird, the demon agreeing with me, but I would take what I could get. He must like Kagome too.

“Yes, I like her too, idiot. We’re one and the same; no matter how much you refuse to believe it.”

That was a topic for another day. A day I had been pushing off for years but it wasn’t important now. Trying to relax, I let the demon take over my body completely. He would save Kagome. There was still no moon that I could see so it was a trick of some kind created by this demon. I had never heard of that being possible but it wasn’t like I knew much about demons in general.

It laughed again, dark and sinister like the piece of shit it was. “You would hurt this body? Hurt your friend?”

Now I laughed cause all of me, demon, human, and hanyou, found that funny. Kagome clawed at me in fear and I didn’t know if it was the situation in general or she didn’t want me to hurt the sack of skin that was once Onigumo. “Even if Onigumo was ever my friend, you killed him already. I’m not a fucking idiot.”

“Could have fooled us. You brought her here like a gift and yet, you won’t even share?”

“He doesn’t know anything about you. He’s not a part of this at all.” Kagome screamed, pushing on my hold yet again.

Not only was I fighting a gaggle of demons, but I was also fighting Kagome as well. I couldn’t do both so one had to be stopped. And one was easy enough, grabbing Kagome by her shoulders and holding her off the ground so we were face to face. “Get this straight, Kagome, I’m not giving you up so this is my fight. I’m the demon and you’re the human. My human. So shut up and let me handle this!”

I kissed her again, not giving a shit because I wanted her and only her. My longer fangs pressed against her lips and I didn’t dare deepen it in this form. I agreed with the Hanyou, I really liked Kagome too, and I didn’t want to hurt her. Being gentle with her as I pulled her from my mouth and set her back on the ground.

I didn’t grab her or wrap her up in my hold again. I didn’t need to; she came to me, willingly. That fight was over and so I faced the real one right before us. Naraku wasn’t happy and that made me crow, pissing him off.

“We will give you one last chance, Hanyou. We don’t want to harm another of our kind…”

“Funny didn’t stop you a minute ago…”

Naraku grimaced, “GIVE HER TO US!”

“Go to hell!”

The suit rushed us again but this time I was ready, grabbing Kagome by the waist and jumping over the bag of bones. Or a bag of demons.

I twisted in the air and ran my claws down the back of the body. It was already ripped open in the front and now I ripped open the back of what was once Onigumo’s body. Once on the ground, I shoved Kagome behind me and she grabbed tight to my shirt, ripping it more while it was already shredded and covered in blood. I ignored the small tugs to my hair she did as well, grabbing and pulling in her worry. But she no longer had anything to fear.

The body shifted, shaking and quaking in a sickening manner as the demons shed their skin. The real battle was about to begin. But there was nothing; Onigumo falling to the ground, empty, and nothing to show for it. They were still there, their stink permeating the forest air. I could smell it as they got closer, circling Kagome and me to taunt.

“We have always had her, you know.” The voice echoed around us, all of them speaking as one as they surrounded us. “Even as a child. Even before this life, she has had now.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I screamed, feeling stupid talking to air.

The air chuckled and the trees shook with a breeze. Kagome grabbed onto my shoulders as if she could hold onto me tighter. “This life. Any life. We find her and we take her. This is the first time she has had another demon stand between us. It is annoying and only delaying the inevitable.”

I glanced back at Kagome and her eyes were wide with shock and terror. She had no clue what the bastards were talking about. “She is just smarter than before.”

Her eyes darted to mine and I turned away, focusing on the task at hand instead of what Naraku was hinting at. It didn’t matter if Kagome was using me. Not right now it didn’t. I wasn’t sure I cared at all, she could use me as much as she wanted and I would use her right back.

“The fuck you will!” The Hanyou roared in my head.

I shook him out and ignored anything and everything else. Naraku was what was important right now. Sight was useless, so I relied on my other senses. Like smell. The scent of rot was strongest behind us, edging closer to Kagome. I didn’t like that, not at all.

Spinning us around, I kept Kagome behind me and faced the demon head-on. The air shifted in front of me, the shadows bending ever so slightly as the demon moved to stand right in front of me. Either Naraku was dumb, cocky, or didn’t think I could see it but I didn’t hesitate to slash him with my claws.

Naraku reared back, squealing, but I was sure I hadn’t really hurt him. He was playing me, trying to get me to lower my guard. But Kagome’s grip still slipped from my shoulders and she whimpered loudly.

It was all just a distraction.

She was already in the air, flailing her legs while trying to rip an invisible hand from her mouth. I caught a foot and yanked on her. It probably hurt but it was the only choice I had; getting a hold of her calf after that. It released her mouth then to grab onto her shoulders instead. It didn’t have a good hold and I was far stronger than it.

Claws ripped through my coat and to Kagome’s skin, deep scratches to her shoulders, but I got her free and back in my arms. Cradling her to my chest, I let my heart settle. That had been way too close.

Fear had my chest in a vice. Because I wasn’t sure how to get us out of this. They were dead set on taking Kagome and not fighting me. It made it all so much harder than if they would just fight me for her. Then I could rip them to shreds and keep their hands off her.

As it was now, she was just a distraction for me.

I couldn’t tell her to run; they would follow and catch her. So as much as it pained me, I did the only thing I could, keeping Kagome in my arms and taking off back out of the woods.

“GET BACK HERE!!!” The monster growled.

Kagome folded her face into my chest as I ran far beyond human speed. It was hard on a human, going this fast, but I had no choice. Naraku was on our heels and the car was still a good distance away. Which wasn’t right; we hadn’t walked that far from it. Onigumo and I were both human when we left it behind. Even running, a demon could make up the distance in no time. And yet, the car still sat in the ever stretching distance.

It was a trap.

When I stopped, Naraku’s laughter filled the air again, bouncing off the tall dark trees that loomed like skinny giants. It sounded like a hundred demons all laughing at once. It made Kagome shiver in my arms, despair, horror, pain, and cold making her body dance. I could smell all of it off her skin even with the rot surrounding us and nearly choking me with it.

Naraku was shifting around us in a circle and I was livid. “ENOUGH! Face me now, Naraku. Fight me like a demon instead of a scared little pup. Fight me and whoever wins gets Kagome!”

I set Kagome down but she grabbed onto me tight, pulling my attention from the swirling mass that surrounded us. “Don’t do this, Inuyasha. I’m not worth it.”

A grin pulled at the corner of my mouth and I carefully brushed her tears away with my claw. “Yes, you are.”

This time, she tipped up on her toes, grabbing my forelocks to pull me down and her up as she kissed me. A growl rumbled in my chest and I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her into me hard. The Hanyou wanted me to be gentle but when she kissed me instead of me kissed her? Yeah, fuck gentle, I squeezed her to me and pressed my tongue to her lips so she would open them. And she did, letting my tongue flick across hers a few times then she ran her tongue along my fangs. I was ready to throw her to the ground with that. But it would have to wait; pulling back to handle Naraku first. Then I would handle Kagome.

The Hanyou was silent with that, telling me he agreed with me again.

My mouth still touched hers and I knew Naraku would hear me, but I didn’t have a choice. “As soon as he’s distracted, run.”

“I won’t…”

“You’re a problem for me here. With you gone, I’ll do better. So just run. I’ll be right behind you.”

I was cursing my claws, wanting to wrap my fingers in her hair. But I didn’t want to cut so I settled for cupping her cheek, the pads on my fingers dancing on her ear. I mean it, that I would be right behind her, but Kagome’s sobs told me she didn’t believe me. “He has taken… everyone I had ever cared about… I don’t want him to take you too.”

Pushing her back a small distance, I sneered down at her. “Have a little faith in me, would ya?!”

She choked on her laugh, sounding painful as it mixed with her tears. But she still smiled softly up at me. She trusted me and that was worth more than anything else in this world to me. Naraku was growling around us like a caged tiger but I felt no fear of him towards me. Just towards Kagome. Once she left, everything would be easier.

“Your cousin was tasty. She had a little of you in her blood but not enough.”

Kagome tensed and I pushed her the rest of the way behind me. “What is it you want from Kagome anyway?”

That’s right, start monologuing. Then I can rip your throat out while you talk about yourself.

“She is a rarity. Every time she is reborn, we search her out. We found her once already as a child but she got away. Her family didn’t; her mother sacrificing herself for Kagome.” Kagome cried loudly. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. “But then her Cousin wanted something and came to us.”

I slowly moved towards the smell, gently leaving Kagome behind, but stopped at that. “Kikyo came to you? She’s not a demon worshipper!”

“No, she isn’t. Which made tricking her so much easier. So gullible. She even brought along others for us to snack on.” Miroku’s face flashed in my mind but pushed it back; the Hanyou wanted to ask but I knew better. “All she wanted was Kagome gone, to take her place in life. Kikyo wanted to become Kagome. Envy is such a nasty sin.”

“That’s not true! Kikyo would never want to be me!”

Kagome was a short distance from me now but I still didn’t like it. She was drawing attention away from me and I could get closer but I never wanted to use her as bait.

“She did! Oh did she ever. With you going off to college and the Hanyou falling in love with you, she wanted to be you so bad she risked her soul for it, dragging you all out here to play a game.” Naraku laughed, “so many people fall for that stupid ritual. None of you followed the rules though, not even Kikyo. If she had, maybe she would still be alive. But she was far too eager and naïve.”

This was going to scar Kagome for life, I needed to hurry up and cut this bastard off. I was close, I could smell it, close to vomiting from the stench. The last foot, I jumped and glowing red eyes flashed to me, telling me instantly that I was right. And that I had the upper hand, the eyes wide with agitation and I overtook them. I wasted no time slashing what was otherwise air to most. It was the host, the main demon, and the one that the others were attached to. If I killed it, the others would die or return to hell with it.

It looked like a shadow as if the tiny bits of light from an unknown source bent around the space out of coincidence. But my claws still caught on something, pulling against it as I dragged them down. It was a deep cut multiplied by four. If it was human, it would be dead in seconds. As a demon, I needed to do more.

So I windmilled my other paw around, catching what I had to guess was Naraku’s shoulder. A matching mark to the two it put on Kagome. She would already struggle to forget this night without the physical scars she was going to have.

This son of a bitch was going to fucking pay.

Naraku jumped back and I followed him, getting my claws around his neck and squeezing. “How..dare.. you...Mutt!”

I chuckled darkly in his ‘face’, imagining it turning red with anger then purple from my squeezing. “Breeding doesn’t matter in life or death. I will kill you for harming a hair on Kagome’s head.”

Just barely, I could make out his grin and craned my neck to look behind. Kagome had her hands out as if holding back someone, keeping them from getting close. She could see these fuckers better than I could somehow and, based on her body language, they had her surrounded.

“Kagome?!” She took a step back, not looking at me, and spun, keeping her hands out and the invisible force at a distance. I glared back at the bastard in my hold. “This is between you and me, asshole.”

I could feel his throat jump under my palm as he laughed. “It never had anything to do with you.”

Kagome screamed and I dropped the demon I held, racing back to Kagome. Her arms collapsed as her hands met my chest, pulling her into my arms and swiping blindly at the air around us. “Back off!! You can’t have her!!!!”

“She belongs to us!!!” One of them hissed.

I swiped in the direction of the voice but came up empty. “The FUCK she does!!!”

“Is this what you want, Kagome? Trading one demon for another?�� Another one spat and I swiped again.

“He’s not a demon! Not like you!! You’re a monster!!!” Kagome screamed.

“Inuyasha’s the monster. Half breed and disgusting monster.” The one I slashed seethed, struggling to speak from his wounds.

Kagome shook her head against my chest, still hiding. “You’re wrong!” I didn’t understand what was going on but clearly, Kagome was now fighting for me. There was no need, my ego was fine. But she persisted, pulling away to yell at them some more. “Inuyasha may only be half but that makes him a hundred times more than you’ll ever be!!!”

She was pissing them all off, getting closer until I could feel their touch stinging my skin. It was a horde of demons and something was off about them. Because their touch hurt. I had been touched by other demons before and it didn’t feel anything like this. Even my half brother, who was a dick, didn’t hurt when he just touched me.

These guys were more than demons, they were cursed.

I contained my pain as much as possible, bending over Kagome to spare her from it and groaning when it became too much. Kagome wrapped her arms around me, her hands pressing into the back of my ribs. I pressed my face into her neck to fight the overwhelming agony that was filling my body. The pain went away suddenly so I pulled away from Kagome’s skin only to be blinded by light. Kagome’s eyes were scrunched shut in concentration but as the light dissipated, she dared to look flustered. The heat of her skin was on her cheeks and in my nose, smelling her embarrassment without really knowing why.

Something for later, looking around us now and sniffing the air. Only one remained, his stench the strongest because he was the one I slashed. Naraku had survived whatever the hell Kagome had done. The light had moved but hadn’t left, circling the edge of the trees and lighting up the middle where we stood. So now, Naraku stood out greatly in the now lit woods.

He was an ugly bastard; his body riddled with decay. It was why he hadn’t healed from the hits I gave him moments ago. Mine healed instantly with my demon form. He was weak and now it showed. This bastard, giving me shit about being weaker as a hanyou when he could barely keep his lungs inside his body.

“What have you done?!”

“Evened the odds.”

I was never more attracted to a person than I was Kagome right now. Her fear still scented the air, sweeter than the nasty demon before us, but she stood tall. Pushing away from me, she gave me silent permission to finish the fight. Smirking at Naraku caused him to shiver, a chuckled rumbling from my throat at his fear.

But then he stepped back and glared right at Kagome. “This isn’t over.”

He was gone but Kagome still ran, trying to catch him. “NO!!!” She fell to the ground and dug with her hands like she could pull Naraku back up from hell. Her hands were muddy and bloody when I pulled her away, cradling her again in my arms. “It will never be over.” She whimpered.

I held her tight and walked us back to the car. Kagome had seen enough demons tonight so I released mine, returning to my usual form of half and half, hoping that was enough. Not once did Kagome pull away from me tonight in fear of me. For me, sure. But she had also kissed me in my full demon form.

I would never forget that but now was not the time.

As it was, I didn’t know if there would ever be a time, Kagome wasn’t shaking and sobbing in my hold. I was in awe when she didn’t take the entire length it took to get to the car to calm down. I expected it to take months but she soon pulled her face from her hands and leaned against my chest. Where her head sat, I was sure she was listening to my heart. Whatever she was doing it helped, listening to her heart, as well, as it calmed down, finally.

“The first time I saw him… he was my grandfather.” It was slow but Kagome was going to tell me all and I needed to be patient. “None of us were prepared or understood when Grandpa slit my father’s throat in front of us. We were in shock and that’s how he got my baby brother Souta.” She stopped to sob a little at the memory and I held her a little tighter. “Mother grabbed me and we ran deeper into the house. She shoved me under a bed and told me to stay there no matter what. And I did until the cops pulled me out from under it. They told me my grandpa had lost his mind and killed everyone, himself last. No one believed me when I told them he wasn’t my Gramps.”

“Why would they? You were a scared kid and they had nothing more than a body for proof.”

“You believe me? Don’t you?”

She was watching me, looking up at me begging. “Of course I do. I just met the bastard myself!”

“Not just that,” she said, shaking her head, “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t call a demon looking for something…”

“No, that was your damn cousin.”

Kagome whimpered, “poor Kikyo.” I huffed but she didn’t say more. “Inuyasha… are you in love with me?”

I almost dropped her. Out of everything that happened tonight not only did she catch that but she wanted to talk about it so soon. “Um… yeah, I think I am.” The nod she gave me was far from satisfying. And I was ashamed. Not only was I outed by a damn demon, Kikyo had seen it as well. “This is… tonight was my fault.”

“Stop it.”

“If I hadn’t made you come…”

“You didn’t make me do anything!”

“Or if I wasn’t so fucking obvious…”

“It wasn’t obvious to me!”

“All this proves that you being with me is bad. It would only bring you pain.”

Kagome was silent with that because she knew I was right. It would never work with us.

The car was now in her sight, close enough for human eyes to see. There was no scent of rot or death anymore and she was no longer shaking so I set her down on her feet to walk the rest of the way on her own. Setting boundaries right away was what I needed with the memory of her kissing me playing over and over in my head thanks to the demon jackass.

Sango flung open the door and ran to us. She was searching us for wounds, Kagome’s shoulders still bleeding. But she was also searching us for answers, reminding me of the news we had to deliver. “Where’s Miroku? Is he not with you??”

Clearly, he wasn’t but her freaked out brain still needed answers. Kagome grabbed her tight and the words failed me. Sango sobbed and fell completely into Kagome’s hold. I broke the window to the trunk with my fist.

We were all shattered.

I had to hope we could get a signal now. What with the moon and stars back out from wherever they were hiding. It had a little, quickly putting in my address to get us the fuck out of there. The girls sat just behind me. Sango was still sobbing, laying in Kagome’s lap who looked back at me in the reflection. I offered her the best smile I could manage right now and started the car.

Breathing a sigh of relief when it rumbled with life, I had just put it into drive and began to move when something hit the side hard. “Goddammit!!”

Kagome and Sango squealed in the back as blood was smeared across the window. I was fucking done with this night. Demons, dumbasses, and pranksters. I didn’t care which one was currently outside the car, cause I was going to tear them apart regardless.

Slamming the car into park, I wrenched open the door, only to have my breath catch in my throat. “Miroku?!”

He had his hand cradled against his chest and was favoring his left side, but it was definitely Miroku, back from the dead. Sango nearly knocked him over, leaping on him and wrapping herself around him. Then she helped into the car, laying him out across the seat. Kagome had jumped up to the front to sit next to me. They barely had their door shut when I took off. I wanted no more surprises tonight.

“What happened??” Sango wailed, still half in shock.

Miroku moaned like a dying man from her lap. The smell of his blood was strong; he very well could be dying. “Onigumo. When we went to piss, he came up from behind, stabbed my right side below my ribs, and pinned my hand to a tree with the same fucking knife. He went on and on about a sacrifice, I figured he’d lost his damn mind!”

“He did,” I stated and everyone was quiet.

Kagome took my hand, the one I rested on the shifter. It was the same as any other day and she showed no fear of me as usual. It didn’t matter what I showed her, my inner demon, or my secret feelings. She didn’t fear me when she really should.

One Week Later...

We got our story straight before Miroku got all his stitches. Nothing important was hit but he would have limited feeling and use of his hand for a long time. Maybe forever.

The story was, we went for a drive, Kikyo and Onigumo left for some alone time, and never came back. A week later and the cops still hadn’t found their bodies. I was pretty sure that was because we were never on the road we told them we were on. The one we traveled didn’t exist. Not in this dimension.

The rumors were running wild around the school. Some said Kikyo ran away with Onigumo while others said they were murdered by a serial killer. A few said I killed Onigumo and Kikyo out of jealousy and a small handful thought Kagome did it. But they were small and quiet about it because it was the craziest of all the damn theories.

Kagome would never hurt a fly.

Finally, it was fucking Friday. I was tired. Tired of all the bullshit and school. Mostly I was tired from avoiding Kagome all week long. Miroku was blowing up my phone, trying to get me to go out with him when my doorbell rang. I wouldn’t put it past Miroku to just show up and force me to hang out. He’d done it before.

When I ignored the bell, they knocked. Miroku wasn’t going away. I made sure to stomp loud enough for him to hear as I went to the door and flung it open. “I’m not doing shit tonight…”

“If I’m being honest, I’m not in the mood to do anything either.”

It was Kagome, standing at my door like it was any other day. Still in her school uniform, she had a duffle in one arm and her backpack in the other. Without a thought, I grabbed them both from her. Manners aside, she hadn’t had a thing on her shoulders all week thanks to the gashes she received on them. “What are you doing here?”

She walked past me, no hesitation, entering my home. Kagome had never been to my place before, slowly taking it all in. I lived alone, wasn’t sure she knew that and had minimal furniture. A couch with a tv before it, a decently stocked kitchen, a tiny bathroom, and a bed that was all one large room. I didn’t even have a divider between my couch and my bed. So I could watch tv from it if I wanted to.

“You live alone?” I nodded. “What about your mother?”

Kagome knew about my father and that we were… estranged. I hadn’t told her about my mother and if others had, she still wanted to hear it from me. “Cancer. Five years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Somehow, Kagome managed to say it without it sounding like pity. Maybe that was in my head, knowing about her family as well? Knowing she could truly empathize and understand my pain as she had felt it herself. But she hadn’t answered my question and I had hers like a puppy. “Kagome, what are you doing here? And what’s with the bag??”

“I’m sorry, I would have called first but you wouldn’t have answered anyway….”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about….”

“You’ve been avoiding me all week.”

With no place better to sit, I flopped to the edge of my bed and grimaced back at her. “So? I have no reason to spend time with you. I thought I made that clear last week? Remember?! Demon summoned to take you all because of my feelings for you?!”

Hands on her lovely hips, she popped one out and smirked at me from my living room, “well aren’t we full of ourselves?!”

“Kikyo was jealous of you because I’m in love with you.”

Goddammit, I didn’t mean to just admit it like that. Or ever. But Kagome already knew. She still looked aghast, like I hadn’t said it to her before. I told her that night, that fucked up night that I was in love with her, why did she look so shocked?!

Shaking her head, my demon growled at me to make her submit. I let him out one time and he thought he owned the place. “No, because she kissed us.”

“Shut up,” I screamed in my head.

“I thought… I didn’t think you would just come out with it like that. Not now.” She responded, reading my mind.

“It’s not like you didn’t already know.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know, it’s different this time.”

We got quiet and it got awkward. I watched as she looked at her fingers that she twisted at her belly. This was getting us nowhere and things were only getting worse between us. “I’m sorry I avoided you. It wasn’t… I’m not mad or anything. I just think it’s for the best.”

“Why?”

“I told you… I’m no good for you. Even as a friend. Bad things happened to you because of me….”

“Bad things happened to me regardless. They have nothing to do with you,” she spat, getting angry.

“I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“Safe than sorry?!” She shook her head at the floor but I could still smell the salt of her tears from my perch. “I am sorry for putting you out with my near-death experience!”

“That’s not what I…”

Wrapping her arms around herself as best she could, I watched her fidget all the more, wincing a little from her sore shoulders. “If you don’t want to be with me then just say so, Inuyasha. I wouldn’t blame you, it’s not like my life is anything great! It’s a mess, a dangerous, mess.”

I could feel the heat on my cheeks but I still couldn’t look away from her. “I do want to be with you….”

“But don’t spin some bullshit lie about it being better for me! I would have been dead if it wasn’t for you!” Her frustrated words brought her closer to me, pacing over to me on the bed.

I shook my head but kept my eyes on her. “You also wouldn’t have been in the situation if it wasn’t for me….”

“I was in that situation because a crazy demon has a hard-on for me,” she countered.

I chuckled. “I’m a demon with a hard-on for you. What’s the difference?”

It was like she was in a trance, reaching over and picking up one of my hands. I wasn’t even sure she was aware she was doing it, playing with my fingers dangerously close to my claws and watching her work. “The difference is, I want you to have a hard-on for me.”

I was tugging her, using the hand she held to pull her closer until she stood between my knees. “I’m not the brightest guy, Kagome. You’re going to have to tell me what you mean by that.”

She was looking at me through her bangs, either trying to hide or be sneaky about it. “It means… the feelings are mutual. How could it not be?” When I cocked a brow up at her, she released a shuddering breath while her face began to glow. “I’m in love with you, Inuyasha.” She refused to look at me while I refused to look anywhere other than right at her. “What are we going to do about this?”

Her finger danced between us, showing me her ‘this’ was our relationship. “Nothing, right? We do nothing about it.”

The smile she wore was fake but she finally looked up at me to nod. “Nothing.”

She was still between my knees and yet, she was getting closer and I wasn’t sure if I was pulling or if she was leaning. “Yeah, nothing. Knowing how we feel... it’s enough, isn’t it?”

Slowly, she nodded her nose inches from mine. “Yeah, it’s enough.”

I tilted my head to the side just in time, Kagome barely missing my nose and forehead when her mouth met mine. Hard. A heartbeat later and she was on my lap, straddling me. My hands were on her bare thighs, moving upward across the soft, warm skin. It wasn’t long before I had her ass in my hands, kneading the flesh. She was still in her uniform but I wasn’t, opting for my usual ‘need to do laundry’ attire of ratty sweat pants and a stained t-shirt. I looked rough but it had her panties against my thin pants. Fuck, I didn’t even have on briefs, free-balling so I didn’t have to do laundry today.

She removed my shirt, getting her fingers around the hem at my back and pulling up hard. I didn’t stop her. I encouraged her, raising my hands towards the ceiling like a child that needed help.

Shirt gone, she fell back to my mouth and we nipped and sucked at each other like there was no tomorrow. Her fingers threaded my hair and my fingers worked on her buttons, stopping halfway to run my hands across the flat plane of her belly. It caused her to giggle against my lips and I slipped my tongue inside her mouth.

She helped me take her shirt off the rest of the way after I unbuttoned, all while keeping our mouths planted to one another. Just like when I was full demon, she ran her tongue along my fangs, daring to press it against the sharp tip of one of them. I didn’t move, afraid I’d pierce her tongue. As hot as that sounded, doing it now would definitely kill the mood and I was pretty sure Kagome didn’t want a tongue ring.

But then again, there was still so much we didn’t know about each other.

With her tongue safe and playing with mine again, I left her mouth and trailed down her chin to her neck. The hand I had on her back, holding her steady on my lap, went to the clasp of her bra. It fell on our crotches, the two of them pressed together, as soon as I flicked it open. With her shoulder wounds, she was wearing something strapless. I found myself kissing along the bandages, wishing I could heal her like I could myself.

Now I had her nipples before my eyes. No wonder she had to wear strapless; the weight of these puppies had to hurt on her sore shoulders. I had my hands wrapped around her shoulder blades, running a gentle thumb over her bandages, reminding myself to be gentle while my demon was screaming for me to take her hard and fast.

“Yeah like those delicious titties against our fangs.”

“Shut the fuck UP!” I yelled in my head.

Letting my demon out once had him all in a tizzy to get out again, but I was used to it and knew how to control him… mostly. Having Kagome naked on my lap so soon after releasing him probably wasn’t a good idea. But none of me wanted to turn back, touching my tongue to the bottom of her nipple and licking upwards. She moaned softly and I decided then and there that it wasn’t enough. I needed her to moan much louder until it hurt my sensitive hearing.

So I sucked her nipple in, shoving half of her heavy breast into my mouth and pressed my fangs gently into her flesh.

“AH!!”

The lift of her moan made it sound as if she was confused or surprised. She didn’t understand the pull she had on me or the desire she had for me in return. And no one had made her feel like this before.

And no one had made me feel like she did, little fingers stroking my ears while her hips twitched on mine. I was going to come in my pants at this rate, flicking her nipple inside my mouth with my tongue. She whined when I took her out of my mouth, but it was only so I could do the same to the other breast. That she appreciated greatly, rubbing my ears harder and fully thrusting on my lap.

We still had bottoms on when I flipped us, tossing us behind to the bed and placing Kagome under me. Her dark, beautiful browns eyes stared up at me with wide fascination. But not fear. Never fear. And we took a moment to appreciate the gravity of the situation. I was letting her catch her breath and her senses, allowing her a chance to tell me no or to stop. She was brushing her fingers through my hair, watching her fingers as they disappeared in the white.

Time was up and nothing was said. When I sat back and pulled down my sweats, she sat up and unzipped her skirt. Moving quickly, I stopped her from doing the rest. I wanted to be the one to remove her panties.

Her scent was all over them, smelling of hot spices from the tea on her skin and a sweetness that had been coming from her pussy since she straddled me. I had never smelled anyone like her; it was intoxicating, making me drunk as I licked up the inside of her thigh to the scent. Kagome made the cutest sound when I split her thighs and kept licking. Like a gasp mixed with a moan coming out like a hiccup. I looked up at her through my fringe while I lapped up her flavor, rolling my tongue around in her folds first. Her eyes were wide on me for a moment but when I found her clit, they closed and her mouth opened. She fell back to the bed when I stuck my tongue inside her, twisting it against her walls to taste her fully.

She tasted just as sweet as she smelled and fuck it tasted good. I did feel drunk, sucking and lapping at her without reserve until she came. Even then I didn’t stop, more of her sweet scent and flavor flowing out with her orgasm. Now she was being very loud and even though my ears pressed back from the sound, I loved it.

Releasing her from my tongue, I slowly crawled over her. Resting on top of her, in between her legs, I watched her return from her high. She was so fucking beautiful on a regular basis but when she was flush and panting from me making her feel good? It made her glow in a manner I wasn’t prepared for, my heart going fucking nuts in my chest. It had my ‘drunk’ ass saying things I probably should have kept to myself.

“Goddammit, I’m so in love with you.”

This time, she wasn’t shocked, her eyes and mouth didn’t widen. Instead, she fucking purred. “I love you too.”

I hoped she was ready because she was looking more beautiful than ever with the smile she wore, her eyes warm and deep. There was no stopping me now, I was going to make love to her. With my tip pressed to her entrance, she knew what was going to happen too and she showed no hesitation, leaning into me with her hips.

Her arms went around my neck and I sunk into her. It was all I could do to not think about her hot sweetness coating my cock because if I did, I was sure to come right away. Kagome was panting beneath me and I could smell a little blood. I was hurting her.

I tried to pull away but she held me tight, wrapping her legs around me to join her arms. “Please… don’t stop…”

It was all the encouragement I needed, sinking back in the rest of the way only to slowly pull out of her again. A few pulses at a quarter of my speed and Kagome had her arms wrapped around my back, her nails digging into my ass cheeks.

“Faster…” She moaned and I obliged.

Up on my arms, I hovered over her and watched her bounce from my thrusts. As a much-needed distraction, I sniffed the air and concentrated. Because half of me expected Naraku to show up when I took Kagome’s virginity. I was hoping that was all he wanted her for, a pure and powerful girl? But as my tip pressed to her womb hard the room filled with her scent alone, I knew it was more than that, more than this.

Kagome was something else, something more. But I already knew that.

When her walls began to quiver, pulsing around me, I fell back to her. My face in the crook of her neck, I smelled her, breathing her and her spicy scent in deeply. Her mouth was right next to my ears, her head pressed back into my pillows. She was loud and I didn’t care; Kagome was crying as she came again. I was busy enjoying the pooling of her sweetness around my shaft, throbbing and warming me down to my bones until I came so hard my head spun.

I rested, feeling more winded than when I was chasing after her and Onigumo. It had felt like my own life was at stake while she was in his clutches and I never wanted to feel like that again, feel that fear for her life.

Pressing my lips hard and deep into the side of her neck, I pulled out of her and her sticky sweetness clung to me tightly. It felt so damn good, almost as good as mid-coital. Almost.

There wasn’t a thought in my head to wash her off of me; rolling onto my back, happily sticky from sweat too. Kagome didn’t mind, rolling into me and resting her head on my chest. I pulled the rest of her body flush to my side and kissed the top of her head, breathing in her hair as I rested.

My hand found its way to her shoulder and grazed the bandage again, brushing it over and over in a circle of want. Because I wanted to make it go away.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Kagome whispered.

But I had seen her strain from time to time with stiffness. “Doctor said it would scar.”

“My penance for all the people that lost their lives because of me.”

The injuries to her shoulders were more than that; they were a mark from another demon and as much as it pissed me off, it was far from being Kagome’s fault. “None of that was ever your fault and I will spend the rest of our lives reminding you of that if I have to.”

I could feel a smile on her lips as they pressed against my skin. “The rest of our lives?”

It was stupid of me, talking about forever when we hadn’t even gotten out of high school yet. But together or not, I would protect her and I would love her.

“You don’t have to be with me, you know? You don’t have to feel obligated to protect me and stay by my side forever,” she said to my chest.

I dug under her chin to push her head back; brown eyes that swirled with honey looked up at me. “Are you stupid?”

She was still frowning, tears at the edge of her eyes. “I’m not using you. Not for protection or comfort.”

“Oh, so I’m the one that’s stupid?”

“Are you going to twist everything I say?”

“Only when you say something stupid!”

She giggled at that and fell deeper into me. Holding her close, I listened to the gentle beating of her heart. “He’ll come back for me. Someday.”

“And I’ll stop him then too.” I’d been wanting to talk to her about something but didn’t know where to begin. Especially with avoiding her. “That thing you did in the woods?” She tensed at that. “It was… pretty amazing.”

“You’re not scared of me?”

I was a demon; so I probably should be. “No. Not even a little bit.”

“Good. I’m not scared of you either.”

“How often have you done that?”

I wasn’t sure what she had done but I was pretty sure, what with him a no-show and Kagome good and fucked by me now, that it was why Naraku wanted her so badly. “That was… a first. I’ve never… done something… that big before.”

“But you did it in the past? Against your Gramps?”

Her heart picked up at that and I knew I had hit the mark with that one. My mother had wasted away in front of my eyes. I had to tell them to pull the plug. Thirteen and as the only family she had that gave a shit, it was up to me. I still didn’t think that measured up to Kagome having to kill her possessed grandfather. Not even close.

She let me hold her tight for a few moments, then pushed off me and the bed, finding and digging into the duffle she had brought until she had a long nightshirt over her naked body. I propped myself up on an elbow and watched her. “Oh you were so cocky, you brought a change of clothes?”

“No. I was on my way to Sango’s.”

I looked closer at the bag, the size of it catching my attention now. “You staying the whole weekend or something? That’s more than any girl needs for one night.”

Kagome froze for a second, then turned away to mess with her bag again. “My aunt kicked me out.”

“What?!” I was off the bed and pulling my sweats back on. It didn’t feel right to be naked for this conversation. “She can’t do that!!”

“Why not? I’m eighteen and she never wanted me anyway.”

“She wanted you,” I spat without thinking as I paced, “wanted you as a slave.”

“That reminds me, I’m out of a job too.”

“This is bullshit!” I roared.

Kagome sat on the floor before her bag, as if beaten and I didn’t like it one bit. “When… I came home and Kikyo didn’t… Auntie never believed me either when I told her it was a demon that killed my family. I didn’t think Kikyo believed me either until we were in those woods. She took me because she thought she could make a deal with Naraku. And with Auntie promising me Kikyo’s college money…”

“You still have that, you still have college!”

I thought that would make her come around but it only made her droop more. “I have some money saved thanks to Sango getting me a bank account my aunt knew nothing about. And I have the money my family left me that she didn’t have access to. But… Auntie never intended to give me that money. She just said that to try and motivate Kikyo. Guess it worked in a way.”

I flopped to the floor next to her, looking at her face while she stared at her bag. “It’s not right, Kagome. You deserve more. You always have.”

She shrugged; “I’m the girl whose family died because of her. I don’t think I deserve anything less. And now I have Kikyo’s and Onigumo’s death on my track record…”

“That wasn’t you!! They gave themselves to Naraku!”

“Auntie blames me and is now using all of her money to find Kikyo. So even if she had planned to pay for my college, she isn’t now for sure. And she should look for Kikyo. I wish I could tell her the truth…”

I shook my head hard and it got her eyes to mine. “No. I don’t want anyone else looking at you like that, thinking you’re responsible in any way. Naraku isn’t your fault and they went into those woods on their own. Dragging us along under false pretenses. I looked up that stupid game, they didn’t even follow any of the rules! They were never going to get what they wanted, they just wanted to kill people!”

After a few heartbeats, Kagome nodded. “You’re right. If anyone believed us, it would only make the two of them look bad. I’ve caused Auntie enough pain.”

At that, I scooped her off the floor and back into my lap. Only this time, I was cradling her to me. It wasn’t sexual in the least. It was comforting. “Stay with me.”

She nodded again against my chest. “For tonight, sure…”

“No. Move in with me. Stay with me. I’ll take care of you..”

She pushed back, already a rebuttal on her lips. “I can’t do that…”

“Yes, you can!”

“We just started… whatever! I can’t move in with you!”

I pulled her back to me, kissing her as hard and as deep as I could for the short seconds she allowed me to. “I want you here. It’ll bring me peace, knowing you’re safe. And it’ll make it easier when we bang.”

She smiled through her blush and I kissed her again. Kagome pushed me back gently before I could get my tongue in her mouth but I was sure I was weakening her resolve. “Aren’t you worried? Scared that I might use you for protection? Or for a home in general?”

I was already scoffing at her hard before she finished. “You would never do that to anyone. And you sure as shit wouldn’t do it to me.”

“I feel like…” she tapered off and I thought for a moment, that she wouldn’t finish, “like you know me. Better than anyone. Is that possible?”

It had to be because I felt the same way. That I knew her and she knew me. “Yeah. But maybe it’s the sex talking.”

She slapped me playfully on the chest. “Would you stop that?!”

“Not until you agree to live with me!”

I had her, the flush of her cheeks and the smile on her face told me so. She was fighting it hard, her smile and giving me what I wanted, but I was going to win. “Oh...okay. BUT if Naraku shows up again I’m not getting you involved. You will stay out of it!”

She was dead serious and there was no way I was agreeing to that. If Naraku ever showed his ugly fucking face again I was going to rip his spine out. If he had one.

Kagome was waiting for my answer. She would split out my door if I didn’t agree, that much was clear. So I would lie to her just this once. “Alright. I’ll stay out of it.”

With that, I lifted her and took us to the bed where we celebrated our new living arrangement and relationship late into the evening.

You have reached the end. Now think of your desire, the thing you want most in this world. See it in your mind. Taste it on your tongue. Now turn back and you will find your life changed. The love of your life has appeared or even your bank account is now flush with cash. What is the price? Is your car now haunted? No, you proved your worth. The Eleven Mile, however, will stay in your mind in the form of nightmares or pleasant dreams. But this is nothing to what you’ve gained, right?

#inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha fandom #inukag #sango x miroku #darker fics #horror with romance #fluffy but dark

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gazeboarcade · 3 years

Note

Where, besides Tumblr, can people find you doing fannish things? (Obviously only mention sites and usernames you actually want to be found at. Don’t expose your secret identities on my account.)

What other names have you gone by on these platforms, including Tumblr, if any?

When did you join the IT fandom? And what got you into fandom, to begin with?

What are your favorite ships, or characters, if any, and why? What do they mean to you?

In what ways do you participate in fandom? (ex. Posting memes, reblogging/commenting on content, writing fanfic, making fanart, creating fanmixes, etc.)

Do you have any in-fandom inspirations? Other members of the community that drive you? (And if you have the time/energy, in what ways do they inspire you?)

Name and link some of your favorite works, please!

Do you have any works of your own that you feel particularly proud of, or wish more people would’ve consumed? Please provide links if possible.

Have you ever participated in a fannish event (ie. IT Week, a fic Big Bang) or applied to be a part of a fanzine? If so, which ones, and can you please link them?

Without any form of bashing or lashing out, what is something you feel this fandom is missing?

GOSH this is a lot of questions, lemme give it my best shot.

1.) I sometimes still post art on my art instagram, but I prefer not to cross the beams of that and my tumblr so much. If someone rlly wants the handle tho, feel free to ask.

2.) If this means like...nicknames, too many to count. One of my first URLs was something like “pensword,” which was a reference to Percy Jackson!

3.) I was KINDA in it in 2017 when the first movie came out, but it didn’t hold my attention too much. In September 2020, I really got into IT, tho! I got into it because I realized it was coming up on a year since I saw the second one in theaters (during a wind advisory night in the city I go to college, on Halloween). For a couple of silly reasons (my ex belittling IT a little and me being weirdly internalized homophobic abt it) I was scared to enjoy it publicly haha

4.) My favorite ship in the fandom, ofc, is Reddie! I am kinda basic so I also really think Ben and Bev are sweet. I also really liked Patty and Stan together in the book... they were so achingly sweet together that the bath chapter made me cry for a HOT MINUTE.

Richie is my all time favorite character for reasons I could probably write like 50 pages on! Some of those reasons are like super-duper personal lol so I pull punches on just dumping them on my blog haha! I just really really related to him for a lot of reasons (the humor coping mechanism and the werewolf thingy, to name a couple) so it was only natural I latched onto that boy and went full send kinnie moment!

Eddie is my second favorite bc I love him and wanted the best for him (I don’t want to start disc horse on tumblr, but my gf and I have schemed abt who should have kicked it at the end and it ain’t him). I also have a soft spot for kid Ben in the book, bc I really thought he was a sweetheart (I mean, cmon, walking around whispering Bev’s name? Adorable! Hiding away in libraries? Relatable!)

5.) I’ve done a bunch of stuff! This blog has a ton of IT content. I have made a bunch of fan art (most of which hasn’t been posted sdjbvkdsjbvk). I have written a couple fanfics (a finished oneshot and one unfinished longer one that will...probably stay that way). I have a reddie playlist on spotify, too.

6.) There’s been a few people who’ve done some IT stuff I’ve really liked! Uhh @stitchyarts wrote some fics and has done some beautiful art to go with it that I really liked!! @skelesocks did some HELLA charming art, tho is now mostly Queen blog. No shade there, I have a Queen blog, too, lol. Ask for the URL if you want it. Both of them focused on the miniseries tho.

There’s a couple artists who have done Reddie stuff I have really liked, too, which is super inspiring. here’s a few of those: @trashcanprince @mxgicdave @meowsteryyy ..... tbh fave IT blog of all time tho has to be my gf, em, @dr-kaspbrakmd , bc she got me full swing obsessing and also it was a big bonding thing for us early into the relationship *pauses for crowd to say AWWWWW*

7.) Assuming this means fanfics, like I said, a lot of Stitchy’s works, especially Tinted Windows and TV Guides (which now i rlly want to re-read lol). I kinda have a hard time with fanfic reading bc im picky and sometimes it’s better to daydream my own stories. The other Reddie fics I’ve liked will make yall get the shepherd’s hook and yoink me off stage for public indecency for sure so I’m gonna leave that to ur imagination <3

8.) I feel positively heinous and pick-me trying to get ppl to read my old reddie fics that I wrote during the crushing weight of crippling lonliness so no. they r also not rlly that good so you’re welcome <3

9.) No actually! I have thought about it. I have also schemed the idea of starting my own reddie zine and being super choosey about who gets in but that’s just me wanting to curate content I like lollll.

10.) uhhh decorum, understanding of complex relationships/emotional situations, and the common sense not to fetishize gay men <3 that sounds rlly snotty but there’s some activity tm in this fandom that yucks me out big time. Also, I wish more ppl would have seen the miniseries/read the book but that’s just me being choosy.

Anyways, I’ve been running my mouth for WAY too long but I hope this answers the questions you had good enough!! Thanks for asking!!

#I am genuinely ill while writing this so it took me SO long lmaooo But all around this was rlly fun to look back on my history in the fandom #My interests have shifted a little into some other interests #But IT holds a special place in my heart and reminds me of meeting my gf #So like obviously the simp factor is off the charts now thank u for that #Good times tho gosh I feel like I just did a real survey lol #long post

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obey-content · 4 years

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If the Boys weree Teachers

Lucifer: He's the language teacher. Any language you can think of and he has a class for that. The kids hate his class because he's very strict on his homework policy. At least one of his classes are required to graduate. "Quit complaining. You're only here for a year. If you want I could make it shorter. But you wouldn't want that."

Mammon: He would be a finance teacher. But instead of teaching the kids how to save money, he teaches them how to hoard stuff and sell it in times of need. On the first day of school, he definitely walked into Lucifer's class by mistake. "Okay kids, here's how you commit tax fraud and get away with it. Oh, hi, Lucifer." The kids love him because he plays games to win money in class and let's them help too.

Leviathan: He's the art and gaming development teacher. He teaches students how to create stories. The students adore him! He gets extremely excited when students come up with stories and make masterpieces. He helps them in anyway possible and will usually go above and beyond to make sure they succeed. "Wooo! That's so cool! But what if this happened! Lol!"

Satan: He's the Literature teacher without a doubt. The class reads and analyzes a new book every week. Most of the kids dread this class because they find it hard to pay attention when they move so fast. But Satan usually picks really interesting books to counter act this. The homework is usually easy as well. On the first day of school the room was piled high with books and the kids couldn't find their desks. "Just sit wherever you can."

Asmodeus: He's the health teacher. This is a teacher the students either love or hate with no in-between. He leaves absolutely nothing out. Fuck what the school board says, his students are getting educated. He'll teach anything from the effects of drugs to healthy sex to the best skincare products. "All that matters is you take care of yourself. Because you're beautiful. Not as beautiful as me, but that's not important."

Beelzebub: He's the gym teacher. He customizes each students work out routines so they can get the best fitness for them. The students love this because they never feel pushed too far and they don't have to worry about negative feedback from peers because they're all doing something different. Students will usually bring him food to convince him to play dodgeball. "Okay. But only for 30 minutes. Then it's back to work." They never get back to work on those days because Beel ends up having fun too.

Belphegor: He is the math teacher that everyone loves. He usually teaches a short and sweet lesson and assigns easy homework. Then he'll take a nap in the back where his full sized bed is. And if the students want to nap? There are blankets in the cupboard for that. "I don't care what you do as long as the assignment is correctly done by next class."

Simeon: He's the history teacher. This man loves telling about the events he's witnessed first-hand. Screw the history books. They're full of lies. "That's what we're supposed to say? Well that's not right. It was King Henry the Second not the fourth. Let's just get rid of the books." Students love his class because he doesn't assign homework. He just has them take notes and as long as they pass the tests they're fine. He definitely got dress-coded on the first day. But that doesn't stop him from showing up again and again in the same clothes. It's a wonder he still has his job.

Luke: He's the culinary teacher. Since hes the youngest teacher in the school, the students love him. They also love teasing him so they don't have to do assignments. He's easy to distract but not on days when they actually get to cook. "Quiet! If you don't listen you'll end up over boiling the pasta and that's not going to get you an A." Beel spends a lot of time in his classroom. Luke will use him to test out new recipes before having the students make them.

Solomon: He is the geography teacher. He's usually laidback but will absolutely destroy you with a battle of wits if you talk during his lecture. He made a kid cry once when he told them they won't succeed in life because they don't know where Italy is. Kids love his class until they're the ones crying. "Oh! I'm sorry, was Danelle's love life more important than the topography of Europe? Well then by all means tell us about how her boyfriend dumped her for the sleazy blonde senior."

Diavolo: This man would be the fun principal. Were talking assemblies every Friday and games every lunch period. He's in on all the gossip and will sit in during classes to see how the students are doing. "Lucifer really said that? I'm gonna have to sit in on his next period. It will make him nervous." He's very involved and keeps things running smoothly. But make him mad and you'll find yourself with a suspension faster than you can apologize.

Barbatos: He's the science teacher. He's a lot of fun because he will discuss topics that students find interesting. You want to know how the speed of sound actually works? Done. Want to know all about dimensional travel? Done. Alternate timelines? Done. It's a wonder that any work gets done in his class at all. He enjoys hearing the students opinions and will definitely tell Diavolo everything at the end of the day. "Carrie wanted to know if the sun could spin backwards. So we spent the entire hour messing with a fake solar system display."

#obey me #obey me memes #lucifer #solomon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me mammon #obey me lucifer #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me barbatos #obey me luke #obey me simeon #teachers #otome #devildom #celestial realm #human world

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thefloresgarden · 3 years

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Sad tales of a 20 something. -FRIENDS AND WEIRD WAYS TO FIND THEM-

Hello! Back again from a long ass time of taking a break from this site and my 2 followers who don’t even reblog my writings.

Anyway, the reason i’m back is because i actually show this blog to one of my bestestssss friends in the world and encourage me to keep going and well here i am.

So i was thinking, maybe since a friend of mine made me come back, I should write about that. So this is it, an Ode to my friends.

I have always been sort of a friendly character, at least in my mind i am. Even when i was a kid and used to cry a lot and be a bit on the side shy, I always had a lot of friends. I even dare to say I was one of the first girls in my fifth grade class yo have actual good guy friends, not only the “popular” kids that chased girls to see under their skirts. Actual good and close friends that I’m still friends with.

So, I went to the same school from elementary until high school, meaning that i had been with the same people for around 12 years, and damn i was tired of it, not from my friends, not from a lot of people to be honest, but maybe more with myself and my lack of abilities to make new friends.

That leads me to my new found weird way to make friends. It started in college when i started as a music engineer major before switching to media and film. Engineering not always equals to men, in this case i guess it did. Some may say having all guy friends is easier no drama and shit, and is true for some part, I’m still grateful of all the guys of my Music engineering program that adopted me and ate lunch with me every day, not to the rest of engineering students that are “nice guys” by mansplaining anything on the math class board before the teacher (female) started explaining, though not gonna lie i didn’t understand shit, i still didn’t want some greasy hair guy with a weird stain on his shirt,that i pray it was toothpaste, to explain me shit. I can fail this class on my own thank you very much.

My first girl friend in college was a girl on the bus that i knew my cousins was a friend with but never formally met her before and i chatted her ear off in the way home, i was so excited i forgot i could be a chatty bitch when i feel happy. When they left the bus (her and her roommate who is lovely too) I started to replay everything we talked about and was already very much regretting living because i was so cringey. I guess i wasn’t that bad, I got a Facebook friend request and became pretty close after that.

First friend I made in my new major program (who i made before switching because of mutual clases) was a girl that i always saw in my favorite class, “Signs, symbols and significances” she was funny, very friendly and clearly friends with at least three quarters of the class. I decided that was my next mission, i left my guy friends side after an exam in our common class and went literally running towards her and another girl (amazing person too) I asked them in the most awkward way how the exam was for them and even if they thought i was weird they didn’t show it and were so nice with me.

I made a mistake though, I told the girl i had a mission on (to be close to) she seemed familiar outside class and she said i did too but we couldn’t remember where from. Until I realized she was the girl that i met in my first day of school in math class and sat next to her. That, until i didn’t hear my name while checking the list and was told that wasn’t the math class, everyone laughed i stand up and trip and yell “puta madre” so hard everyone laughed again. I then found out that story was so funny to her she actually used it as an ice breaker when meeting new people and started introducing me as the “puta madre” to everyone. At least she got me a lot of new friends, and besides having passed more than 5 years, she still reminds me of it and she still is one of my closest friends.

Another story, I was an exchange student and knew nothing about the culture (only basics, didn’t want to be rude), the language or anyone in this new country. I was so lost I literally was trying hookup apps to meet friends (never works tho, at least on me). It was my second day in Seoul and saw there was a kpop concert of one of the three groups I actually knew and my baby brother was a fan of, i checked and there were some tickets left, bought them, put on a pretty dress and left. Going to a concert alone is not that bad, going to a concert alone in a country you have been for 5 minutes and also understand shit, that is a fucking nightmare.

I met some friendly girls from USA that helped me out to figure the shit out in the venue, they told me they were living in Korea for like 5 years and still couldn’t even read, which i thought wow kinda disrespectful but anyway i wasn’t going to let go of anyone friendly anytime soon. Met some other girls that came to the country only for the concert which wow commitment. And then I was left alone again when taking the seats (standing spots to be exact). The concert was cool even if I didn’t understand shit and I’m 87% sure I even caught eyes with some of the guys in the group a few times. The concert ended and I wish I could say I captivated one of the kpop guys and that is my next friend meeting story but, nope is not and honestly i wouldn’t change it for any of the hot men that were on stage.

Fast forward the first day of school, i was lost and ask a girl for a classroom, she was very nice and told me where it was but that the class was in like 30 more minutes. We made small talk and i sat on a bench in the opposite way of her. The girl next to her was saying she had this next class that sounded kinda familiar, and I realized it was my same class so I told her to go together. Once inside the classroom I saw her phone and she had a familiar face as her screensaver, it clicked, it was one of the guys of the concert! I asked her and she said it was him and that she went to the concert too and we decided to had lunch together. From that day on we became pretty much inseparables, until she got the sleaziest guy in the world as a boyfriend but we don’t talk about shit in my safe space so that is a story for another day. Besides that terrible guy and his best friend who dated me only to dumped me weeks later to play LOL 24/7, I got my baby, my mijita who i love so very much and again, wouldn’t change a bit.

Lastly in this post, not in life nor in place of my heart, is a little blessing (literally) that came to me from heaven! She didn’t even know this, but a semester before she was having her abroad year in my country I was in one my deepest holes in my life. My mind was empty but my eyes always filled with sad tears. That semester before, nothing major changed in routine, in my family, in my life as in general. But somehow it did in my brain, my heart was feeling agitated for no reason, my palms were sweaty and shaking all the time and my brain was as it was shut down. I got the big D, and not as in a big nice dick getting me fucked, but another type of fucked nonetheless. Depression, the kind of weird illness that can’t be seen but oh dude it can be felt, and felt is all i did, i felt sadness, loneliness even with a full house and a full line of friends ready to help me. Sometimes shit just happens.

Took a semester off and when I came back I decided to faked it until i made it, and it was going great. I did cry back at home a few times a week but i could hold it during classes or in front of people, great advance. I decided to focus in what made feel best, dressing in my favorite shit and letting everyone out of my arts and humanities department have a nice view of it. And then I see her, weird to say i still remember how cool she looked, tall as fuck, wearing all black, shaved head and what i got to find out were her trusty black vans. I got obsessed with her fashion style and decided my next mission, be friends with her, or at least for her to acknowledge my presence. I saw her talking to a close friend (another great meet cute story for another day) so i decided it was my moment, I said hi and was introduced to her, we chatted a few minutes and got along pretty well. Her amazing style and bad ass british accent made me feel i was in bad rom-com where we were both straight and platonically soulmates. I saw her again outside the bathroom while i was waiting some friends, we talked for an hour, she invited me to a party and we had dinner first (so romantic, I know) at dinner I thought it was going to be awkward until we both realized our mutual love for SZA and Idris Elba. We never stopped talking after that, she even went back to my hometown for 2 weeks with me, where all my family loved her and strangers treated her like a celebrity. She calls my parents tíos and we talk as much as we can now that she is back at her country.

I miss her everyday and there is not a minute I am not grateful i met her.

These are some of the stories of how I met some of my friends, my closest ones and those that are still with me in every step I take. I can tell you one million more ways of how i met friends i love so dearly, but that is for some other day my hands aren’t hurting for writing only with my thumbs in my phone.

And what I care and love most about all these, is that I would never want to change being the weird girl that catches a hunch and runs towards people that will mean the world for.

FRIENDS I LOVE YOU ALL.

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stonerbughead · 4 years

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maria watches friday night lights (#4)

season 2, pt 2!! (2x08-2x15)

ugh Matt is really having his Being A Stupid Teenage Boy season huh?

-lol love a good naked dude being chased scene — in this case, Smash on his recruiting trip being chased around by a potential future teammate. Classic.

(it’s kinda cute that Matt came to pick him up tho)

- the latest in season 2 being off the fucking rails: really? Riggins’ new digs include a meth lab on wheels??

-Landry confessing to murdering someone and then having his sheriff dad drag him out of the station to go home is the whitest shit EVER. Like, Landry is literally *trying* to be punished and they just won’t punish his white, cop-kid ass. ‘Murica. (I mean don’t get me wrong: it WAS self defense against someone literally stalking and trying to rape Tyra, but the point still stands that if Landry was a black kid he’d have been tried as an adult and convicted no doubt)

-YESSSSS a MySpace shoutout! we love to see it

“I hate you” - Santiago (and also me) @ Buddy Garrity

-omg Coach Taylor noticing that things aren’t good at home for Riggins and taking him in, my heart!

-Wow in just one scene Riggins charmed baby Grace, warned Tami’s sister not to shame women for eating a lot (“it can lead to anorexia, especially in girls”) and then offered to go out to the store to get baby formula in the pouring rain. What a man.

-and yes, Shelly, you fully grown woman, it IS a bad idea to lust after a TEENAGE BOY

-wow Riggins protecting Julie from the SUPER DRAMATIC TORNADO that made me laugh. Do we get to have a Riggins-Julie friendship??? bc I’d be down. We need more friendships.

-Thank you, Tami, saying “EW” to her sister watching Riggins work out! Someone has sense to know a fully grown woman shouldn’t be lusting after a teenager! Julie can lust if she wants tho, that’s age appropriate.

-DYING at Landry being aghast that Tyra’s never heard of West Side Story.

-oh god, Lyla — it is totally fair to assume your mom would tell your dad she’s getting remarried, especially if she knew you’d be seeing him — so I’m sorry you’re the one who accidentally set off whatever nonsense Buddy is gonna pull now that he knows his ex wife is “marrying that treehugger.”

“Who’s that?” “Some douchebag named Chip. who names their kid Chip anyway?” Same, Tyra, same.

-Landry, one of my biggest pet peeves is asking someone out while they’re on the clock. Like, come on! let Tyra work, boy.

-Jesus Christ it’s like everywhere Julie looks, she has to see Matt making out with someone. That’s rough.

-and oop Matt you busted bc Julie actually knows who Carlotta is!

-once a cheater, always a cheater, Buddy. And yes to Pam for being like “nah bye I’m happy now, it is over.” You treated her like garbage so here we are, sir!

-hilarious that Landry is the one who ends up throwing the first punch that gets the post-tornado, school-crossover tensions to finally boil over

-I like that they show both the fall formal and the party where everyone who didn’t go to the formal is. Nice.

-Aw poor Julie got drunk af to deal with all her feelings. This really is the season where they have Julie and Matt being sixteen year olds in the most painful ways. So maybe it’s good they’re not together during this tho I’m still looking forward to when the tide turns their way again.

-anyway, Tim is a good friend for getting the creep who thought he was “one beer away from getting laid” off of Julie.

-And....in true Texas dad fashion, Eric Taylor misinterprets everything! Noooo. We can’t have nice things.

-This Noelle-Smash partnership is definitely an interesting pairing. Two very ambitious football people courting all these recruiters while Smash’s mom side eyes them in the corner? Hilarious.

-omg not this Oklahoma tech recruiter harassing smash’s mom in the grocery store! GTFO here! Give her some fucking personal space. They really do such a good job of showing as much of the toxic shit about football culture as the inspiring, big moments.

-Aw and I love that Tami tried to help Mama Smash get the guy to go away. It’s such a familiar scene, women helping each other get a dude harassing them away. And then they have a heart to heart in the parking lot? Love that.

-omg what a throwback that Shelly TAPED OVER Eric’s football game to tape a NEW EPISODE of The Office! Love it. “Y’all should get a TiVo.”

-omg watching Tami and Eric work out arguments is so beautiful, they communicate very well! We stan a good marriage.

-wow seeing the other coach from tornado school lose his shit publicly after he knocked down Riggins was uh....wild???? This is the second time he put his hands on Riggins!

-awww Eric actually coming to apologize to riggins for overreacting about Julie when he hears the real story??? Love it.

-Weevil from Veronica Mars shows up as a friend of Santiago’s? Of course.

-WOW and Logan from Gilmore girls as a Christian radio host...tracks.

“Is that your way of telling her you like her?” Jason making a surprisingly astute observation about Tim. (And Lyla.)

-yo why would you invite your daughter’s boyfriend’s family over for dinner just to say they shouldn’t date? (And bc it’s an interracial relationship.) Southern culture is wild to me lol

-wow the racist coach from last season is now off spouting his mouth about how “no wife of mine would be working with a kid at home.” I love that Eric calls him out as sounding stupid and ignorant — you better!

-hearing that Lyla burned her cheerleading uniform is one of the most badass things she’s done so far tbh along with that dealership destruction

-off the rails update: 2x12 was toooo much!! Like, Jesus between Smash’s sister getting harassed at the movie theater by the racists who hate on smash and Noelle...and this plotline with Santiago and his old friends trashing Buddy’s place...it’s like, can we breathe.

-I could not be more excited for Carlotta to leave and another teenage boy with adult woman relationship to end.

-wow can’t believe the plotline where Riggins stole $3000 from a drug dealer isn’t ending well for him. And now Smash is getting arrested bc of those racist guys from the movie theater episode? One recap I read said that too many of this season’s plots feel contrived and I think that sums it up.

-is there any character who HASN’T worked at Buddy Garrity’s dealership at this point?!

-and yikes at all the other salespeople being mad that a salesperson in a wheelchair was hired...y’all mad ugly and ableist for that

-Tyra and Landry are....confusing

-Wait Logan from GG is an actual preacher and not just a Christian radio host? CREEPY. And he kissed Lyla? A lot to unpack there.

-lol Tim trying to woo Lyla is kinda funny to watch simply bc Tim is clearly so confounded by rejection

-I love how much space they give for Smash’s sister’s pain in the Noelle-Smash theater incident. A lesser show wouldn’t have centered her as much.

-is it mean of me to say Jason is boring AF most of the time

-yeah this dreads girl is seemingly way more compatible with Landry than Tyra yikes! Like she made him a power metal mix cd???

-wow this Smash storyline where mouthing off to the press is what gets him suspended....really checks out bc teenage boys are dumb

-I love Tami as a volleyball coach and getting to see another sport! Also as someone who’s been on a losing team I know that feeling of finally winning a game!!! Go Dillon volleyball!!! (Am I maybe currently writing a Bughead fic based on my underdog field hockey experiences? ;) yes yes I am)

-Oh shit now Saracen’s at the nihilistic Nothing Matters phase of teenage angst. Right on schedule!

-lol these two short haired blondes (white dreads Jean and Tyra) being in a love triangle with Landry is wild

-Omg jean just said, “are you a friend or are you competition?” She is not playing!

-I love Riggins dragging Saracen to practice

“I don’t want you to become at an at-risk youth” -Landry teasing Saracen while also sincerely caring about him is some of the best friendship banter on this show. The accuracy 😂

-It seems like Julie gets a lot of hate? But I think I have such a soft spot for Julie bc I was a bitchy teenager with undiagnosed mental health disorders and I just wish so much #growth for her! Also I really do miss her and Saracen’s relationship, I’m so excited I’m almost at S3 where it seems like it’s happening again?

-LOL this guy at the dmv is the first person in Dillon to be like, “no I hate football.” That tracks.

-wow Saracen is getting driven to the hospital to make sure his grandma is okay by the sex worker who was just giving him a lap dance. Amazing.

-also I hope grandma is okay!

-okay Tyra throwing her hat in the ring for Landry at the last minute? Idk I think Jean deserves the win but there’s no way it’ll happen bc she’s a guest actor?!

-awww Saracen’s abandonment issues coming out whiles he in the tub after being sobered up by Eric Taylor. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” 😭 and “your daughter left me for a better guy” - will take that crumb — first mention of Julie out of Saracen’s mouth in a minute

-hey, Landry, my friend: flirting with a girl (Jean) to get her outside then dumping her immediately is kind of a wild bait and switch. But I get it, he’s been in love with Tyra for a long time and Tyra IS right — they had a very fucked up start to their relationship so it makes sense she needed a minute to process her ~feelings~. however I definitely identified closer to a jean in my high school experience L O L (minus the unacceptable white dreads)

-these Julie and Tami driving scenes are painfully accurate, btw. Love them.

-wow the scene of Smash hyping everyone up, the adrenaline/energy of the team cheering with helmets and a classic “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” - then the whole team running out onto the field and leaving an empty locker room with just Smash breaking down into tears....#art

-alright y’all I’m gearing up for the last episode of S2! Thanks to @lockitin for reminding me this is the writers’ strike season — I was in eighth grade then and remember being pissedddd about the shortened fourth season of “the office” — so I’m fully prepared for the abruptness to come.

-I love when they parallel showing the white church and the black church

-and Tim going to church just to see Lyla makes me laugh

-ooooof Jason you cannot put on this waitress you had a one night stand with the fact that this could be your only chance to have a baby!!! Omg this poor woman who just pointed out she, too, is NINETEEN.

-wait so is Riggins doing a sports show on a Christian radio station? What?

“I think you’re really hot. Your long hair reminds me of Jesus” -Christian girls being horny for Riggins LOL

-awww Saracen being like “okay Landry you’re gonna impress Tyra right now” before that football play was a cute friendship moment for those two

-aww I love how this Smash storyline is turning out with Coach Deeks whose had his eye on him for six years my heart 😭

-also unclear to me whether Logan Huntzberger the Preacher is a fully grown adult dating a high school senior?? Biggest teen drama pet peeve once again! Stop this!

-Tami is my heroine for just leaving Eric at the restaurant fighting with her ex. “see you at home, honey!”

-I’m sorry, is Jason gonna like actually convince this girl to have a baby with her one night stand at 19??? Oh lol wait THAT ended up being the cliffhanger of the whole season? Fucking hilarious.

well I made it through season 2!!! Super psyched for Season 3, Jay has been hyping me up for it. See y’all next time! (I’ll try to post more for season 3 bc this accidentally got long af.)

#maria watches friday night lights #mine #friday night lights #friday night lights 2x08 #friday night lights 2x09 #friday night lights 2x10 #friday night lights 2x11 #friday night lights 2x12 #friday night lights 2x13 #friday night lights 2x14 #friday night lights 2x15

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pixel-cat-1 · 4 years

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I just finished The Outer Worlds

I don’t really ever use this blog for more than reblogging stuff, so this is probably coming out of left field for anyone who follows me, but as you see in the title, I beat The Outer Worlds not a couple of minutes ago. I have some thoughts I’d like to talk about while their fresh, and this is as good a place as any to do that lol

So, what did I think of it? Overall, I think The Outer Worlds is okay game that ultimately fails to meet up in many regards to not only Obsidian’s golden child, Fallout New Vegas, but in some departments even regular ass Bethesda games from years ago. And that’s honestly such a shame, because TOW had so much goddamn potential and yet I finished it and felt practically nothing for the entire last level and final ending sequence.

The main issue I think is that ultimately speaking, TOW doesn’t necessarily do anything different from any other RPG I can think of, and it doesn’t do anything like that super well.

For example, the combat’s good on a technical level. The controls and mechanics are fun to use (especially the dodge system), but the enemies tend to either range from “complete curb stomp bitch babies” to “bullet sponge that’ll kill me so fast I won’t even know what happened.” Most fights weren’t particularly engaging, and I was basically handicapping myself but not using the companion abilities for about 75% of the game (I don’t know why I never tried pressing the d-pad buttons, but yet again, when I can just shoot shit and huff an inhaler, I didn’t need to think too hard). The disparity of how difficult the game can be is often confusing, and I was more often limited because of my ammo count more so than my ability to play the game.

The RP aspects can be good at times. There are plenty of skill checks that reward you for being a smart little egg, and a part of RPG’s I like is being able to avoid combat and make people happy, and generally make myself useful, so that was fairly fun. Overall the dialogue options and the performances by most VA’s left me not feeling like I was being hindered in acting and responding to situations how I’d like, so at the very least, that didn’t let me down.

The music was overall enjoyable, although very forgettable, and sometimes a bit all over the place: there’s Western-y guitar ambient tracks, also some more techno-y ones? Elevator music that sounds like they got it from a royalty free website. This kinda wish-washyness ties into multiple issues I had with the game I’ll get into further on.

The graphics are good, which isn’t necessarily shocking anymore because every game looks good. There are some aesthetic choices I liked, that being things like the Art Deco style architecture and advertisements from the loading screens. Terra 2 is gorgeous as all hell, with the skybox being particularly amazing (I’ve often fantasized about Earth having rings, so this partially fulfills that fantasy). Monarch is overall also very well done, with making it look and feel like a hostile shithole with ravenous wildlife. The looming gas giant overheard also does a good job of making me feel dread, which is about as much of that feeling I ever got. However, the game never really maintains a distinct “style”, rather it collages a bunch of them at once. Because for all the aesthetic of the Art Deco style that they do for cities like Byzantium. there’s like 10 levels/areas that are just generic as all hell “sci-fi space shit” that you’ve seen before. And then there’s Scylla, which is so fucking boring in design I don’t know why it’s even in the game.

This creates an issue where it’s like they wanted to make the game look Bioshock, but some people wanted something out of Mass Effect. But some people played Borderlands, and wanted to go for the wacky space bandit and hostile environment feel. But they also wanted to stick it to Bethesda, so they made is vaguely look like a Fallout game as well. It’s hard to describe in text, so I’m just gonna post these and show it best I can

^ It looks like space Bioshock here

^ And here it reminds me more of Borderlands than anything else (it’s a lot easier to see if you look at it from the ground, rip)

Scylla is literally just a rock. As far as I can tell, you could probably fucking avoid the damn thing if you avoid side quests. There’s fucking nothing there. Just enemies, a few side quest things, an empty town and a giant terraformer thingy that’s interesting to look at for like 4 seconds. And despite what you’d think, no, there is no low gravity. That would’ve at least made this place have some interesting gimmick or mechanic, but no. It’s just a fucking dumping ground for side quests. God. Fucking. Damnit.

All science-y buildings just look like this for the most part across all levels. It’s not bad, just very generic and same-y.

The Groundbreaker’s fairly interesting, until you realize that all it is is essentially a giant corridor front to back. Actually, scratch that, it’s two corridors! One of which is this Back Bays area overrun with criminals. How do you get to this clearly dangerous and isolated part of the ship? Well a fucking elevator smack dab in the middle of the pavilion of course! So anyone can just go up or down into this apparent no man’s land part of the ship by literally going into it via an elevator. Dear god.

^Monarch definitely has one of the best looking environments in the game, tied with Terra 2 down below

But what absolutely fucks the game overall is despite how much effort they put into making everything look nice (regardless if you actually like it or not), the overall level design in terms of function and whatnot? Mind numbingly boring.

All levels are really small maps with (at most) a handful of major buildings or towns depending on the scale, and the rest is just a bunch of abandoned buildings with some enemies, or a crashed ship or something. There's just...nothing going on with half of these dungeons.

Also the vast majority of buildings have a “Quarantine” sign out front or is locked in some capacity, which means you could have 4-5 buildings in a random batch of them along a road, but only 2 you can explore. And since all the fucking interiors across multiple planets look the exact same, it leads to an incredible feeling of sameiness in a game that has you running around an entire solar system. How the fuck even??? I’d argue fucking Fallout 3 handled this better. At least there was more to do! More overall dungeons and levels! Did I miss something? Am I just fucking stupid and I missed the all the good shit?

Combine this with the wish-washy aesthetics and music, it leads to an incredible feeling of not really knowing what to make of things. You’ll just be sprinting around, shooting all the red things on the compass just to get it over with by Monarch. And when you realize that LMG’s are just...the best weapons in the game as far as I could tell, and there’s no real downsize to them, you’ll just fucking run around gunning everything down while some forgettable track plays in the background until some enemy with a weirdly large health bar forces you to think for a bit before you get back to running around and shooting shit again.

Despite this though? I still overall enjoyed the combat. I liked running around and becoming the 4th Horseman. Plus with the mechanics overall being fun to use, it wasn’t really that bad. But I can’t say on an objective level I think it’s good for a game to feel like that. Because despite how heavy handed I’m being right now (and will be throughout the rest of this impromptu review), I don’t hate this game.

Sound design is overall very good. Guns make satisfying shooty shooty bang bang noises, and as I said before, the VA’s are overall very good all around. Parvati stands out as the most interesting character to listen to in general. She has a lot of informal speech patterns that makes her distinct, and is generally a treat to listen talk. At worst, you get a character like Nyoka, who doesn’t sound bad by any real means, but for a lot of her dialogue, I felt they should’ve slowed it down and focused on getting her emotions down. But it certainly wasn’t bad.

Storywise? This game wasn’t particularly interesting. I’m gonna put the keep reading thing here because I want to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn’t played yet and cares about them. Long story short, I think the game was good, but very disappointing given what it could have been. I enjoyed myself for the most part, but often found the lack of anything super special to really hold it back from achieving something I think the gaming industry needed in an era of, ironically enough, hyper greedy corporations with no morals to speak of.

So, what did I think of the story? And I guess by extension, the side quests. Overall, I think the main story was...not very good. There was a lot of good stuff inbetween though, and a lot of side quests and little things definitely were enjoyable. But the plot is just not nearly as engaging as it should be. Given how short it was though, that might’ve been a mercy.

The story, as roughly as I can summarize is, is that you’re a colonist frozen on the colony ship “Hope.” It’s been adrift for 70 years, but you’re woken up by a guy named Phineas Welles (he’s basically Doc Brown, but nicer). The Board (which consists of the 10 companies who own and run the colony/solar system) try to stop him, but they fail, and you’re escape podded onto Terra 2, near a dying town called Edgewater. The pod accidentally kills the contact you were to meet, so now you’re gonna steal his ship and use it to do shit basically.

Along the way, you pick up a ragtag band of miscreants and general shitheads and kill a lot of people and wildlife in a quest to stop the corrupt Board from running the colony harder into the dirt than they already have. It’s very by the numbers, more or less. I guess.

The immediate issue is that, despite being able to join the Board and betray Phineas if you want, there’s absolutely no fucking reason to do that. Not a single goddamn reason, other than for the evulz. This creates an issue where I feel no reason to deviate from the Phineas side of the story. And I know what someone might be thinking “But Pixel! The Board is supposed to be evil!” And I am absolutely aware of that. But the thing is, so was Caesar’s Legion in Fallout New Vegas. And yet, that faction is often considered just as interesting and compelling a faction for the game as the NCR or Mr. House. People will, to this day, still argue over who had the best idea for solving the Wasteland’s issues. Because despite how evil the Legion is, they still had very valid points about the NCR and how horribly corrupt and bloated it was. And there was absolutely an argument to be made about how safe they made their lands for those under their ownership. Stuff like that that makes you actually consider and think about whether or not you're actually making the right choices for the whole of the New Vegas wasteland, and by extension the rest of the Western part of America.

Here? There’s no contest. There is no necessary evils. There is no good reason the Board does anything. No logic, no reason. All they can do is fuck shit up even more, and that makes them such a boring, vague antagonist that there was never a moment in my mind I actually considered working for them. Any potential moments they had to sway me or dashed aside by them constantly proving how they could never actually fix the problems they made. And if that was the intention? Then Obsidian fucked up.

People remember the villains that raise a point a hell of a lot more than they do villains that are just evil for the sake of it (there are obviously exceptions, for an RPG? you need a compelling villain). And that’s why no one will remember this game in a decade. It pales so hard in comparison to New Vegas, it’s not even funny. It’s on par with Fallout 3, at best. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing if the whole point of this game was to make a statement against an increasingly morally bankrupt Bethesda.

Let’s look at, per se, Skyrim. Paarthurnax was a supporting character with an interesting backstory: he’s Alduin’s brother, who is the main antagonist. He is a dragon that secludes himself on the top of the tallest mountain in Skyrim, who meditates and focuses on suppressing his inherit evil dragon nature. Despite this nature, he chooses to be good. And he asks a very compelling question.

"What is better? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?”

In a single sentence, Skyrim asked a more though provoking question than the entirely of The Outer Worlds. And if you played F:NV, then it’s probably weird to hear that, because F:NV was full of moral and philosophical quandaries. So where did it all go?

The thing is, people forget that the Obsidian that made F:NV is dead and gone. The actual people who made that game have all moved on from that company. This is the child trying to replicate the success of it’s parents, without entirely understanding exactly what the parent did to achieve what it achieved.

The biggest difference between F:NV and TOW is that F:NV really forces you to think. TOW just doesn’t require that, at all.

Phineas good, Board bad. No thinking required.

I think the real warning sign is at the beginning of the game as well. Edgewater, the first town in the game, is dying. People are leaving and the town's also dealing with a disease epidemic. The town’s leader’s answer? Cut off power to the deserters, and force them to work harder despite the fact the town’s basically dying because of the overworking and disease. Despite the fact there’s not even enough medicine to heal everyone, and they have to play favorites with who lives and who dies.

What the fuck logic is this? Why would I ever choose that?

The only other choice, unless I missed a compromise solution (which I would’ve wanted) is to route power to the deserters and finish off the town more or less. The deserters wouldn’t take in everyone though, so a lot of people would die anyways. But even then, she’s still clearly the more competent leader. There’s not a goddamn contest.

It just continues like that the whole game. I rarely had to think about who I’d side with. because the solution is obvious. The literal only reason I’d side with the corporations is if I was being evil, nothing else.

The best the story gets is when you need to make a compromise on Monarch between MSI (a corporation who got the boot from the Board) and the Iconoclasts (Religious people who are anti corporation). If you work with the second in command of the Iconoclasts, you can depose their extremist, dipshit leader and work out a truce. Which is good! It rewards the player for this too, when these factions come to help in the final level of the game (and when you see specific characters you could save helping out, that also make it feel like your decisions had an impact). You see the two factions...standing next to eachother, which isn’t much, but it’s about as much change you see in the game.

Which is also another thing that TOW fails to accomplish: a sense of longevity with my decisions leads to me feeling that, despite making the right choices, nothing really changes.

Going back to Edgewater, you’d think after a while, I’d come back and the town would be entirely gone or something, right?

Nope.

Some NPC’s stood outside the factory forever, as did some guards. There weren’t any lights on. That’s about it.

Well, certainly the Deserters must give me more quests to help out, which can lead to me establishing them and helping them help the Edgewaterers, right?

No. Very quickly you realize there’s very little do or talk about with NPC’s after you do monumental decisions. The only functional difference is an opinion slider, which is another imitation from F:NV that means fuck all. The only in game things it affects is: a) The prices of venders of that factions

b) Whether or not that faction will shoot you on site.

That’s it as far as I noticed. The best idea they had, that being that factions can love you, but also fear you just doesn’t do anything. As far as I could tell, at least.

I’d love to be wrong, because I was so excited to see what would happen to entire settlements and after I helped them. After I made important decisions that’d change the face of the colony. And I felt so disappointing when it became apparent little actually mattered.

The companion sidequests aren’t too much better. The pacing is so weird, sometimes, depending on how available certain planets are. Parvati’s was especially jarring, despite it being the best written by far.

It basically is you helping her get with an engineer chick from the Groundbreaker. It’s pretty adorable overall, and without a doubt has some of the better writing character wise, but the pacing was so fucking weird. It initially starts with you getting Parvati to talk to her about engineering stuff. They say they’ll email and stuff about engineering stuff. which is neat. So I run around, finish up all the side quests on the ship as I can, then head back to my own ship. I did not go back to my ship at all during this.

When I come back, Parvati immediately tells me that she and the engineer, Junlei, have been messaging and getting flirty and now she has a crush and it’s just like “Dude, were you texting her while we murdered all those bugs in the engine?”

It’s doubly funny as well, because Obsidian wanted to avoid the player having romanceable characters. Which makes about as much sense as you think. Once source said the reason was that they wanted you to focus on roleplay, and not trying to bang anyone you found hot (okay?). Another just said they weren’t ready for it. And I believe it. As much as I think romance would’ve been another good thing to add depth to this game, I bet you they’d have fucked it up. It’s just funny. Even Fallout 4 had pretty acceptable romances.

Granted the system was fucking basically “Kill shit together until you wanna bang” but fuck, it was something! It also doesn’t help there’s a bunch of cuties all over this game: Huxley stands out as an adorable muffin who becomes a generic NPC at the end of the MSI/Iconoclast questline, despite the fact you can even repair her journal terminal with zero indication at you can do it, which is good! Let me just do things to be nice! But she literally just sits there after you rescue her with a few dialogue options which goes away after the peace deal, and it's so fucking frustrating that I want to enjoy the characters more, but none of them seem to have more than a paragraph's worth of depth to them and it's so sad.

Even the companions are like this. At the beginning I’d try and talk with Parvati about anything, but the only dialogue options would be about getting her out of the party, and that’s it. I can’t ask her what she thinks of things, or of the current quest/situation. There’s such a weird lack of depth in a weird amount of areas, that it felt almost worse than playing a Bethesda game.

I think the penultimate disappointment of the game is, fittingly, the final level, Tartarus. Which is fitting, because it feels very hellish. Not the planet mind you, or the prison which it takes place in, but just the complete lack of anything super special. It’s just the same kind of environments you’ve already run through, but bigger and with more bullet sponge bad guys. Which is funny, because jumping around and killing an army on a purple hell planet that has perpetual lightning storms would’ve been sick as fuck, but nah, gotta run around on Scylla instead of anywhere else compelling.

In my playthrough, MSI, the Groundbreaker, and the Iconoclasts came to help me deal with all the fucking goons, which was mostly cool because I didn’t have to deal with the tediousness of killing every last one of corporate goon myself.

This is about as big of an impact your decisions come to as far as I’ve noticed. Which isn’t saying much.

You meet the Chairman of the Board here, by the way. I just shot him and kept moving. shrugs

There’s also a last minute villain in this Sophia person, who is also apparently on the Board? It’d help if there was a list of the Board people, which could’ve been on a terminal somewhere. Maybe I’m dumb and never found it, which is plausible.

The final boss fight, (I hesitate to call it that) is just somewhat large robot. It’s a bullet sponge with respawning combat drones flying everywhere and they’re very annoying. I died once after around 10 minutes of fighting, then using Parvati and Felix’s (he’s another companion, he’s also okay I guess) combat abilities I knocked it down and layed into the robot’s weak spot. He died very quickly.

So depending on how you do it, the final fucking boss is either stupidly hard or mind numbingly easy. I don’t know which is worse.

So you go past the dead robot, gun down Sophia in one shot, and save Phineas. You basically become the leader of Halcyon, there’s a F:NV-esque slideshow and commentary about your actions that somehow is worse that New Vegas’s, credits roll, and you sit there thinking “That’s it? That’s really it?”

Yeah, that’s it.

It’s such a let down, especially because this was supposed to be Fallout New Vegas’s spiritual successor. But all it does it make me want to play that game instead of this one.Which is probably what you should do regardless if you pick this game up or not.

There’s a bunch of other mechanics and stuff I never brought up. There’s technically a character customization screen, but you literally only see your character in the select menu, and there’s no third person. There’s a barber in Edgewater who’s also a doctor, and yet you can’t even get a haircut from him (again, failing to match up to even Fallout 3).

There’s these Mods you can put on armor and guns, and you find them by the bucket full so you’ll always have those. Just get an aim stabilizing one for an LMG and you’ll be fine. You can also tinker your armor and weapons, making them stronger if you spend credits on it (why not the armor and weapon parts, I’ll never fucking know). You can repair your stuff at a workbench, which is advisable. Just take all the weapons and armor you pick up, take it apart for parts, and never worry about it again. You’ll get money from quests, so buying those parts is meaningless and a waste of money

There’s also hacking and stealth and stuff. Stealth is such a non...thing in the game. There’s no silencers, but since all enemies decided to put cotton into their ears, there’ll be plenty of times I shoot someone, and a guy ten feet away heard fucking nothing. Plus there’s this disguise mechanic where you pick up ID guards and get a hologram disguise that wears out as you walk (passing speech check from suspicious guards restores it), so it’s not like sneaking around was ever a priority. Just put your points into the speech. Stealth is a dump stat more or less.

Oh yeah, Parvati’s an ace lesbian. Which is nice that they handled that way in a non-dipshit way (you can also identify as ace in certain dialogue with her in her companion questline, which is funny considering they never let you fuck anyways, so it’s weird that you even have the choice). My only complaint is that they should’ve put this representation in a better game.

What’s funny is that, despite everything, I don’t even hate this game. I feel a remarkable numbness, followed by a desire for something better. I spent about a week burning through it? If I had more free time, I could’ve finished it sooner probably. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. It was pretty fun for what it was, but knowing that this is somehow supposed to match up to what F:NV was is sad, and a sign of how bad the gaming industry had fallen.

The only difference here is that unlike the Outer Worlds, I can’t purge the rot of the gaming industry with a haelstrom of plasma bullets.

Would I recommend this game? I guess. There’s still some fun to be had, but don’t expect anything too major or interesting. Get it on sale, it;s not worth $60 right now. There’s apparently DLC coming out for it eventually? I might play it, and I might post an update to this review, or make a seperate post for that eventually. Depends on how well this one does? Or if the DLC makes me feel enough emotion to type something out like this in 2 straight hours.

#the outer worlds #fallout #obsidian #bethesda #skyrim #review #parvati holcomb #felix millstone #phineas welles #huxley #i might make a post about other miscellaenous grievances #but don't count on it

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spaceorphan18 · 5 years

Text

Finding Kurt Hummel: The Purple Piano Project

Masterpost

3x01: The Purple Piano Project

Welcome to Season 3! I’ll try not to whine too much while we’re here, lol :)

The season starts out on a relatively high note, however, making the whole thing feel a lot more promising than it ended up being. This episode is fun and quirky and there are a lot of pianos for Kurt to drape himself on top of!!

Future Plans

So – we start off the season much like season two – Ben Jacob Israel going around and harassing everyone about their summer vacations and future plans.

Do you see the set up of this shot, guys? Rachel chattering in the front while Kurt tries to be distracting in the background? Well – get used to it, because this Hummelberry dynamic is going to drag us through the next two years, guys, lol. No really – I enjoy Hummelberry in this episode, I do. But we had no idea this was a set up for (I’m sure someone will argue me on this) the worst Kurt arc on the show – Getting into NYADA. And, unfortunately, the Hummelberry dynamic (or more so the writer’s obsession with Rachel not being able to fail at anything) plays into that.

Probably going off a rush of a summer where all they talked about was going to New York, Kurt and Rachel have all their future plans figured out. They’re going to get a little apartment on the Lower West Side (yeah, sure), Rachel’s gonna be a big Broadway star, and Kurt’s gonna be married (legally!!!) by 30. Yes – think about what is said here, I know Kurt has Broadway ambitions, too, but I find it funny that his dream aspirations include getting married.

There are two key things I’d like to point about the whole marriage thing. Kurt says by 30. As we find in this season – not before 30 cause that is Too. Young. But also. Yes. Kurt Hummel wants to get married. And I’m pretty sure he already knows who his groom is going to be.

But anyway, thinking about season 2, and how that started in such a dark place for Kurt, here we have the opposite – bright and shining optimism. Oh, kiddo. This really can only go down, can’t it.

Purple Pianos

Kurt: Why’s the T-Rex eating the Jew?

It’s exposition dump time! As we get filled in that the Glee Club remains uncool after the Nationals debacle from last year. Kurt gets his share of funny lines as we get filled in.

Meanwhile – the glee club is three men down; Quinn pissed off the writers again, Lauren was fired, and Sam just couldn’t work out a contract deal. So – Will gets the idea that placing purple pianos everywhere would inspire new people to join the club. I’m not entirely sure how purple pianos are inspiring, but like Kurt, I’m totally on board with the whole thing.

As seen in the background, the moment he can, he gets himself up and draped over one of the pianos.

See – look how adorable he is on that piano!!!

Anyway – Will bores us with another inspiration speech that means mostly nothing since no one joins glee club anyway….

NYADA – School for Witches

Lol – oh Kurt, you’re making the best faces in this episode so far….

First of all, let’s talk about the fact that Emma thought he and Rachel were dating (omg!), and the fact that he actually takes the pamphlet about ‘Me and My Hag’ (Lol). Secondly, let’s talk about these sillies not doing their research on how Julliard is not a musical theater school. At least Emma is doing the job she’s supposed to be doing in this episode!

And then she steers them in the direction of New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. Oh NYADA and my distaste for you begins, lol…. So, this particular school only takes 20 students a year. Hmmm… Looks a lot bigger than that in season 4 but whatever. And the chances that two people from the same school and graduating year getting in? Doubtful. But this is Glee, so here we go!

Competitive Spirit

It’s the first day of school, and Blaine is still a Warbler, but his resolve is crumbling because Kurt is very persistent (and flirty and adorable) in this scene. You know there’s some interesting meta floating around about this scene recently – about their competitive nature and about how Blaine really isn’t /that/ competitive, but Kurt totally is. He doesn’t mind it at all, really, which means, in a way, that they’re on equal footing. Ah, how that is all about to change.

But what Kurt really wants is for Blaine to be around all the time so they can spend every minute of every day together. Oh, Kurt. Be careful what you wish for. But also – interestingly – they spent all the time together back when Kurt was at Dalton, and Kurt wants that little fairy tale to continue by bringing Blaine over to McKinley. It’s obvious they talked about this at length over the summer, but I wonder what Kurt’s (more serious) arguments were for getting Blaine to come to public school.

But anyway – the fun stuff – just how adorable and flirty these two are here! Hands might not have wandered south of the equator, but they were definitely up to stuff over the summer!

We Got the Beat

I’ve always thought Kurt was very pretty in this scene.

I should probably have more profound analysis.

Well, there’s not much to say, other than Kurt’s used to being bullied by the school, and he’s not about to make himself a target by getting up and singing on the lunch tables, no matter how pretty the pianos are.

Year 3 and Kurt’s still an awkward little dancer. <3

This song is nice and fun and energetic. Not really a favorite of mine, but man, what does it take to get this school into anything? Geez!

You know, for someone who is so particular about their clothes – I’m sure this is like the zombie apocalypse. Poor Kurt. I love the food ray shield.

You know, never once in all my schooling did I witness a food fight.

Kurt is just not having it.

Kurtcedes lives! If only to pass along exposition. And to exchange bewildered looks as Sugar sings her god-awful song.

You know it’s funny – I never noticed how seasons 2 and 3 (and 4 actually) openers have plotlines of – let’s open up glee club for everyone! Except not really because we’re a seclusive little bunch.

Velma and Roxy

Small town is small after you’ve been to the big city. But Kurt has a plan, that they’re gonna out preform all the other Ohio hopefuls so they can get a shot at their dreams. I think, for the first time, I kinda get the purpose of this song (other than the blatant relation to Wicked and connection to season 2), but that they’re already counting in their victory against all the other hopefuls. They’re putting their cart before the horse.

Say what you will about Gay Hogwarts, NYADA does attract the witches….

The song itself is a little ridiculous but the performance is wonderful. I love the choreography of this one. And as always sound fantastic together, and this performance is no exception. Say what you will about how Hummelberry was written – and I will say a lot over the next two seasons – Lea and Chris’s voices suit each other wonderful, and the show seems to latch on to that pretty well.

Transfer

Not exactly a pic of Kurt, I know, but Blaine’s so frickin’ gorgeous in this scene. And Kurt thinks so, too!! Look at that grin!

But I’m kinda fascinated by this, now that I think of it, how Blaine’s all – check me out Kurt – in this kind of suave way. And, oh Kurt, kind of caught up in his own drama to even notice that his boyfriend’s one outfit has changed.

But, just, the excitement Kurt has when Blaine’s decided to transfer. OMG! the boy is so happy.

I love that Kurt has concerns – and they are so totally valid. Blaine did transfer to be with Kurt, and that’s going to play a part in some of their bigger issues. But for now, they can reveal in their happiness and not think at all about nasty, nasty break ups.

And – getting Blaine into New Directions. But since the only competition is Sugar, there really isn’t an issue here.

Oh Kurt – so giddy that he’s once again getting sung to in the courtyard. Can this year get any better?!?!

Everything’s great util you light the piano on fire.

Velma and Roxy II

Kurt and Rachel are so ready for this NYADA mixer! Only to find out that while at McKinley they might be special snowflakes, in the real world, they’re a dime a dozen. I like the reality of this scene, tbh. That you can give your 1 in a Billion speeches all you want, there’s always going to be someone else who seems like they’re more talented than you. There are a lot of things Glee misses the mark on when it comes to college. Or theater. And this scene is a bit over the top. But it does show that, hey, there are a ton of people trying to make it the same as you – and so you do have to ask yourself – do you have what it takes to compete? Or do you just walk away.

I think now’s a good time to bring up the Glee Project. I never watched it, tbh, so I can’t judge what kind of a show it was. But I’m not a fan of the results of the Glee Project. And I don’t mean who won and who didn’t (Damien McGinty? Really?). I mean that I have lots of problems with season 3. But I think one of my biggest is that a show with a cast already overflowing now has to shoehorn these winners into the plot. (I mean, think about how much space the show would have had without Rory) Outside of Unique, I’m not really a fan of the characters that grew out of the Glee Project.

That said, Lindsey Pierce was one of the winners, and her little moment to shine here seems perfect enough. She’s a great vocalist, and I’m incredibly impressed by what she does here. This performance is excellent.

Anyway – going back to Kurt’s story. It’s kinda hilarious how perfect a song choice this is – this group of kids basically stating that anything you guys can do Kurt and Rachel, we can do better. Oh Glee with all its subtleties.

So. Kurt and Rachel make it back to the car and break down crying because that’s what happens when your optimistic view point gets smashed. Poor kiddos.

And then we get Kurt gives Rachel a pep talk v.2.0 (yes, i’ll be numbering these). And it’s similar to the Born This Way talk – that Rachel is good enough to get in because she’s still special. The thing, though, as much as I joke around, is that I do honestly like this scene. Because Rachel is in Kurt’s corner, too, supporting him even though he’s down on himself for lack of extracurriculars. The scene is a balanced one, where they both pull each other out of this dark place, and I can really do Hummelberry when this kind of thing happens.

Gay High-five!!

You Can’t Stop the Beat

Oh, I have waited so long to screencap this. There’s a gif out there that’s even funnier though.

Anyway – there’s a ton crammed into this little scene. Blaine joins glee club, which is yay!! But c’mon, Finn, you’re seriously having issues with Blaine possibly taking the spotlight when you and Rachel get all the solos? And Santana’s out for the week. Why is she only out for one week? Who knows. And then, finally, Kurt’s feeling ambitious and running for Student Body President, and Blaine’s super proud of him. Can’t you tell by the still above?

But the moral of the story is you can pull all of the strings out of the purple piano but you can’t pull out it’s music. Or, er, something like that.

Kurt’s feeling light and airy after that handjob. Oh, wait, nope.

It’s funny, I think this episode still holds up. It’s crammed full of things, almost to a fault, but is still funny and endearing and services all the storylines it’s going to be presenting during the first third of the season. I still really enjoy this episode even if season 3 goes mostly downward for me from here.

It’s Season 3 people. Bam!

#finding kh #for some reason this post was tagged and taken down #who knows #but it's back now!

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duhragonball · 5 years

Text

Dragon Ball Z 174

This is the one where Goku solves ring puzzles, but it starts with Trunks turning Super Saiyan and kicking at the air for a minute while he waits for Vegeta to come out of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Not sure why they put this in. I’m also not sure why Trunks has been on the Lookout for the past two days straight. I understood Vegeta waiting right here at the door, because he’s that kind of guy, but Trunks knows he can crash at Capsule Corp., and he also knows exactly when his turn will be, so why hang around?

Meanwhile, Gohan and Krillin are hanging out with Dende, and they both whip out their homework. They’re like “You have homework on Namek?” and he’s all like “Yeah lol.” Then Krillin feels left out because he doesn’t have any homework. Wait, did Krillin ever go to school? He was pretty smart as a kid, but he also was a 14-year-old who just ran over to Roshi’s island one day and never came back. And before that he was some sort of Shaolin monk? Maybe those guys taught him how to read?

Never mind that shit, here comes JIMMY FIRECRACKER. I’m pretty sure the name was given to him by Funimation when they dubbed this episode back in 2000. In researching this, I ran across some bitter sub purists who despised this, but come on. If he had an original name and Funi changed it, I could see cause for concern, but he didn’t have a name, so Funimation gave him one, and it was awesome. This guy rocks. He’s got such an excited and apoplectic voice and he’s a total mark for the WORLD CHAMPION OF MARTIAL ARTS, MISTER SATAN. I’m pleased to see his Japanese voice actor is just as energized. Not sure what happened to him in Dragon Ball Kai, though. He sounds much more subdued there.

So this is some sort of rally for Mr. Satan before the Cell Games. With Jimmy hosting the thing, I have a hard time telling if he’s a legitimate reporter or just some guy in Satan’s entourage. Anyway, Satan comes out pulling FOUR BUSES! Holy shit!

Aw, this is that good animation. When you see those big teeth, you know you’re in for a good time. So the animation supervisor here is Keisuke Masunaga of Studio Cockpit. This is his first episode, which kind of feels like a waste, because it’s all filler. It’s a shame they didn’t get this guy on board earlier than they did, but hey, this is a beautiful filler episode.

Speaking of that, the previous episode looked pretty good too, even though all that happened was Dende turning the Dragon Balls back on, but hot damn did that look good. I wanted to make a gif of the energy bolts shooting out to one of the Dragon Balls, but it was just too many frames, which tells you something. I looked him up and he’s Tadayoshi Yamamuro, who’s also the guy they got to supervise the latter half of the movies. I think it’s fair to say these two guys are among the best DBZ animators.

But back to this episode, Keisuke Masunaga rocks. He goes “off-model”, exaggerating the character’s features, but in a really dynamic and expressive way. Look at this shot of Mr. Satan holding a stack of West City phone books. This could have easily been the dullest shot of this series, but it looks friggin’ epic.

Did Mr. Satan have a bunch of phone calls to make? Is he so popular that fans will cheer for him even if he reads the phone book? Hell no, Mr. Satan brought these phone books so he could RIP THEM IN HALF. YEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH.

And this right here is Keisuke Masunaga’s signature. This clenched teeth, gums-exposed expression. You see this expression and you know the character is putting in work. I don’t think Masunaga has a nickname in the fandom, the way Yukio Ebisawa is not-so-affectionately called “Triangle Guy.” I’m kind of thinking he needs one though. I’m thinking of calling him “Teeth Guy”, because that’s how I recognize his stuff.

Anyway, fuck all those phone books! Seriously, I wish they’d stop making these things, no one needs them anymore.

Then a girl in a swimsuit just walks up and hands him a microphone. I don’t quite get that, but okay. This is one of those moments when I’m reminded that this show is Japanese. Same thing happens whenever I notice a mountain in the background of an outdoor shot. That shouldn’t surprise me, but I live in the Midwest, so I never expect to see one, and then I do and I’m like “Oh, yeah, they have a lot more mountains in Japan. They’re used to having them in the background everywhere.” So Swimsuit Microphone Girl seems out of place to me, but I feel like I’ve seen this sort of thing somewhere before, maybe from a clip of a NJPW show. I may be thinking of the girls who hand out flower bouqets to the wrestlers sometimes, although I think they wear sexy dresses instead.

Anyway, Satan takes the mike and cuts a scathing promo about how he’s gonna do to Cell what he’s about to do to this bus he’s standing next to. What, is he going to drag Cell around by a chain? Is he going to blow off having Cell’s tires rotated?

THEN HE PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE BUS. RIP BUS YOU SHALL BE MISSED. This is what I’m talking about. The joke is that Mr. Satan is a weakling compared to the main characters, and that he has no idea what he’s getting into, but he’s still jacked as hell. Yeah, he can’t beat Cell, and he probably can’t beat Master Roshi, but could he kick Batman’s ass? You bet. How many buses has Batman beat up?

Then again, I guess Batman could lure him into punching a bus and then Mr. Satan would have his arm stuck, leaving him vulnerable to some Batarangs. Tough call.

This is an example of why the dub rules. In Japanese, these guys are watching Mr. Satan’s show on TV, and Chi-Chi just deadpan goes “There sure are some interesting people out there.” Not a terrible line, but not quite funny enough to pay off this setup. In the dub, Roshi remarks that Satan’s performance is “just sad”, and Chi-Chi goes “It sure is. Somebody could have used that bus.” And it’s beautiful, because it’s not only funnier, but it’s just such a Chi-Chi thing to say.

Also, what the hell is up with Roshi’s legs in this shot? Everyone dumps on Triangle Guy and praises Teeth Guy, but this is a Teeth Guy episode and someone really blew off drawing Roshi’s legs. They didn’t even move in this shot, so how hard could it have been?

Hey, Vegeta’s done with the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Piccolo notes that he’s a lot stronger, but not enough to do any good. Also he’s got a lazy eye thing going on.

Meanwhile, Tao Pai Pai is back, and he’s found another criminal to work for. This time it’s a guy named Vodka. and Tao is selling him Dragon Balls. Vodka has some sort of fortess of his own, and I think his plan is to ride out Cell, wait for the dust to settle, and use the Dragon Balls to wish for... well, I’m not sure exactly, but presumably, he’d rebuild society with himself at the top of the pecking order.

I never thought about this before, but it really doesn’t make sense for Tao to have these Dragon Balls, since they were ordinary stones until Dende reactivated them only a short time ago. Also, it’s not like Tao has been off the radar for a long time. He just appeared in another filler episode set only a few days earlier. So it’s not like we can say that he’s been hunting Dragon Balls for years and that’s how he has two of them.

But the episode at least attempts to acknowledge this by having him think about how he found these two Balls by pure chance. Even that seems kind of odd, but maybe he found them during the past year, before Kami and Piccolo merged, and he hung onto them, then they turned to stone, and now they’re active again. And he just got home from his gig with Bourbon, and he noticed they were active again, and he figured he could score some quick cash by selling them.

Honestly, I’m not sure what Tao’s game is here. Is he just after money? I never understood why he needed money in the first place, and he sure doesn’t need it now. The whole world has become a looter’s paradise, and he’s strong enough to take what he wants. Besides, a stack of bills won’t mean squat if Cell kills everyone.

Is he just looking for a place to ride out the Cell crisis? Bourbon and Vodka both have shelters of some sort, so maybe Tao wants to get in with one of them when things go bad. Only they don’t need anyone assassinated at the moment, so he’s had to find other ways to make himself useful.

Or maybe Tao is just living his life right up to the end, like the old store-owner in Episode 170 said. The difference is that that guy was just minding his store, while Tao’s business is shady crap like what he’s doing now. But in the back of his mind, he’s wondering if this will all just end in the blink of an eye.

But Goku is looking for the Dragon Balls, and he has a Dragon Radar, so it doesn’t take long for him to show up. Tao notices that Goku has brought Dragon Balls of his own, so he remarks that a pigeon has come to their doorstep, and they can just go ahead and pluck it. The gag here is that Vodka doesn’t get the metaphor and thinks there’s a literal pigeon somewhere.

So they just let Goku in, thinking the booby traps will kill him, but then he makes it into Vodka’s office, and Goku recognizes Tao and tells him who he is. That takes the fight out of Tao real quick.

Goku feels kind of bad about all of this, because he has to take the Dragon Balls they have, and he has nothing to offer in exchange. What a nice guy.

This gives Tao an idea, so he spits three ring puzzles out of his left robot arm. Since they can’t trade the Dragon Balls for anything, Tao offers Goku a wager instead: If Goku can solve all three puzzles by daybreak, he’ll win Vodka’s two balls. If not, Vodka will win Goku’s four.

Goku accepts and gets started, while Tao and the others excuse themselves and take all six balls with them. This is so Goku won’t be distracted, you see.

The they just pile in the car and drive very far away.

My favorite part of this episode is that they left a guy behind, and he gets so wrapped up in what Goku’s doing that he tries to help him, but Goku’s all “shush, I’m doing this on my own.” The thing is, I don’t see how that guy wouldn’t be screwed if Goku got mad over the others ditching them. They just sort of abandoned this goon. Maybe they would call him later?

But it’s all good, because Goku finally solves the last puzzle, and the goon applauds. You know, I was about to say he needs a name, but I distinctly remember Tao addressing him as “Henchman A”. Fair enough.

For some reason, Vodka and Tao pull over to wash their feet in a stream, and Goku just teleports over to them to collect his winnings. And they’re like “Yeah, okay, take ‘em.” I mean, what else can they do? He solved the ring puzzles, he found them, it’s awesome.

Meanwhile, Bulma and Dr. Brief seem to have 16 fully repaired. You know, that is pretty impressive, considering how they didn’t even have the right plans when they started on the guy.

And Goku just found the seventh Dragon Ball, so we’re all set there. So what’s left to cover?

I guess nothing. We flash forward to “M 17th”, the date of the Cell Games. I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be May 17, but that makes no sense, because the android battle was supposed to be on May 12, right? I’m gonna look this up.

Yeah, I think someone caught the error at some point, because Daizenshuu 7 established the Cell Games to be announced on May 17, then taking place on May 26. At least, that’s what the Dragon Ball Wiki shows.

Shoot, I may as well lay out that part of the chronology for reference. All dates are Age 767.

May 12: Episodes 126-145 (Androids Saga to the destruction of Gero’s sub-basement.)

May 13-14: Episode 146 (Piccolo hunts for Cell)

May 15: Episodes 146-147 (Goku wakes up and shows Vegeta the Time Chamber)

May 16: Episodes 148-166 (Cell absorbs the androids and defeats Piccolo, 16, Tien, Krillin, Vegeta, and Trunks)

May 17: Episodes 167-169 (Cell announces Cell Games, Goku and Gohan exit the Hyperbolic Time Chamber)

May 18: Episodes 170-171 (The episode with Lime and Tao, and Gohan’s 11th Birthday party)

May 19: Episode s 172-174 (Goku installs Dende as Kami and gathers the Dragon Balls. Vegeta and Trunks use the Time Chamber again)

May 20-25: Not actually shown, but referenced in Episode 174

May 26: Episodes 175-193 (Cell Games)

But right now, there’s only one hour left until the Cell Games begins. Jimmy Firecracker and his cameraman are the only civilians in attendance, and they’re still waiting to see who shows up to fight. Ooooh, this gonna be gooood.

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punkscowardschampions · 4 years

Text

Grace & Janis

Grace: OMG you and the new boy! 💘🙌 Grace: love that for you babes Janis: lol thanks Grace: 😂😂 k yeah you're busy Grace: I will need that goss tho Janis: dumb and dumber will make up their own to fill in the blanks, I know Grace: LOL Grace: obvs but like Janis: you want the actual truth to spread, yeah Janis: you're alright, soz you won't get that cred Grace: UM rude I want the truth to know Grace: You're MY sister, hello Janis: 👌👌 Janis: hey Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Grace: ugh just say he's boring whatever Grace: I know the feeling Janis: leave the games to your mates, and the jumping to the wrong conclusions, yeah, we ain't playing that shit Janis: why would I bother if he was, like every other cunt here Grace: Duh I'm only here cos of Leon Grace: so unbothered too Janis: 'course you are Grace: I unbae-d him hun, obvs am Janis: yeah, so you're here just for the fun Janis: cool Grace: I'm here to show him what he's missing so yeah Janis: 'cos you 'unbae-d' him Janis: defs the actions of someone very unbothered and not a girl who got dumped and is seeing how fast he gets a new bitch, and who Janis: count me as not it, yeah 👍 Grace: not even! I know he's seeing Kaya and like I said, idc Janis: well then, not showing him nothing then, he don't miss you Grace: OMG this is so yesterday Grace: here for your 😍 not my 🙄 Janis: are we? Janis: I'm here to pass PE Grace: not what the new boy's here for tho Janis: yeah, not in my class Grace: I know Grace: he takes art Janis: lol why do you know that Janis: you don't Grace: why DON'T you know that? Grace: 🔎👀 Janis: not out here doing a survey Grace: I hope not Grace: keep it sexy honey Janis: sexy Janis: you sound like a nan Janis: a weird one, at that Grace: 🤞 you don't look like one Grace: what ARE you even wearing rn OMG Janis: yeah, 'cos I'm the one that thinks a cardigan is stylish Janis: my pjs? Grace: 😱😱😱😱 Grace: YOU'RE JOKING Janis: it's not particularly funny but Janis: knee slap away Grace: I literally can't help you Grace: 🙏 bitch Janis: everyone's ready for bed, what are you chatting Janis: I wasn't getting dressed again Grace: not everyone's ready to bed a hot boy tho Grace: I can't even with you Janis: if we were gonna fuck he'd see even less so Janis: don't think he's any more bothered than I am Grace: That's SO not the point Janis: are you gonna tell me Janis: cba to guess, like Grace: we do not have time for a masterclass! Grace: 🙏 you're right babes Janis: considering I'm here, I clearly am Grace: unless he's literally inside you rn in which case EW don't chat to me Grace: you don't know that for sure Janis: why would you even say that Janis: you're twisted Grace: Oh please Grace: I'm a nan, UM okay Janis: yeah, and I'm not interested in the incest you're peddling, thanks Grace: why would YOU even say that Grace: so gross Janis: you brought it up Janis: you think you'd be better at gaslighting by now Janis: tell your boyfriends to up their game Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Grace: tell your boyfriend you don't always do 0 effort, he might be new enough to fall for it Janis: you get one that stays longer than the 3 minutes it takes him to pump and dump, I'll listen to your 'advice' Grace: you get one EVER & maybe I'll take it Janis: yeah, egg on my face for not letting every lad that wants to inside Janis: lmao 🥴🥴🥴 queen of romance as if you've ever had that either Grace: I've turned down so many lads THANK YOU Janis: 😂😂😂 Grace: 👌👌👌 👋 Janis: k yeah you're busy Janis: turning away all those elligible bacherlors will take all of two minutes of you staring at yourself delusional in the mirror, like Janis: nighttime routine! Grace: You're such a bitch Janis: Yeah, you too Grace: Literally where?? Janis: we do not have time to go through all those receipts! Janis: honey Grace: You don't Janis: 💔 Grace: sure Janis: Go talk to Holly and Jessica, they'll make you feel better Grace: I'm doing my night time routine, babes Grace: duh Janis: besties who cry together, no Janis: that's your whole schtick, they'll be inconsolable by now Grace: I'm not crying off a £35 mask Grace: you'll all have to get over it Janis: how effective it is on you, you may as well use it on them instead Janis: revenge acne, very cute Grace: I'm so sorry that my skin needs like a £100 one, okay? OMG Janis: yeah well, I appreciate you realise how tough it is on me Janis: tah babes Grace: leave me alone Janis: I have Janis: 💔 remember Grace: fine, go away Janis: find a spare room and make that feasible Grace: don't even bring him here Grace: I s2g Janis: it's alright, he don't fancy you Janis: the mask won't shatter the illusion, like Grace: Exactly, so just don't, okay? Janis: I'm not going to, Christ Grace: 👌 Janis: Really, Grace, what the fuck Grace: ???!! Janis: like I'm gonna fuck anyone when you're in the room Grace: like that's what I said or meant Janis: yeah, so as per, you can have your friends in whenever Janis: gotcha Grace: that's different Grace: my friends aren't boys Janis: wouldn't make a difference to you Grace: OMG I'm literally saying it does Janis: and it's bullshit Grace: sure Janis: you know it is Grace: no I don't Janis: you want an example of how much of a bitch you are, case in point Janis: my friends were never good enough, male or female Janis: yet we all have to put up with yours every weekend Grace: You don't have friends for me to judge Grace: if I was even bothered which I'm obvs not Janis: Convincing as it was first time 'round Grace: UGH Grace: I'm happy for you but I don't need to extend that to a welcome party in our room like Janis: Whatever Janis: later then Grace: Bye Grace: Are you back in for good? Janis: Probably Grace: I'll get the light then Janis: 👍 Janis: I would've found my way alright, like Grace: sure but I'm not breaking my neck thanks Janis: from the bottom bunk? Janis: impressive Grace: the amount I overpacked is Grace: cannot move Janis: note the 'over' there is negative, not positive Grace: oh great 💘😘 hasn't put you in a better mood Janis: you're the one here copping an attitude 'cos I won't enable your problem, but go off Grace: if you wanna invent problems for me to have, you go off hun Janis: the 'you've got enough' comes too easy Janis: make me work for it Grace: & you're never too busy, yeah? Grace: poor boy 💔 Janis: you see him here Janis: specifically not, on your orders 'cos you out here looking like shrek Grace: he just left you, give him at least one sec of thought like Grace: so rude Janis: capable of having more than one at a time, sweetheart Janis: god bless Grace: LOL Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Janis: no use, won't be able to spot your brain like that Grace: Thanks for the advice Grace: I was gonna say it for actually doing what I asked but you're right back to being a bitch again so 🤷 Janis: 'cos the definition is famously 'do everything I say or you're a cunt' Janis: you'll never be Mia, babes Janis: not got that kinda clout over them, let alone me Grace: OMG stop Janis: 'cos you know it's true Janis: no bigger bitch than your bestie Grace: You can take the title if you want it babes Janis: your bestie? Janis: no tah Grace: the biggest bitch Janis: same difference Janis: keep up Grace: You don't even know her Janis: we ALL know her 🙄 Grace: She can be a lot, UM HELLO, so can I Janis: 😱 NO Janis: fucking hell Janis: what a revelation, call the press Grace: The rumor mill is focused elsewhere rn Grace: 💔 obvs Janis: I know Janis: get a nude 'leaked' like your fat friend Janis: worked for all of ten seconds Grace: if you want me to kms sure Janis: 🤷 Grace: won't call the press on that revelation hun Janis: I wouldn't Janis: bit embarrassing Janis: not all publicity is good publicity Grace: you'd know I guess Janis: 😂 you're actually jealous Janis: that's funny Grace: of what? Grace: you losing your virginity finally Janis: there's nothing sadder than sounding like a rode hard put away wet slag full of regret at 15, for starters Janis: we get it, you've never had an orgasm or a 'man' that weren't a piece of shit, get a vibrator and put down the cigs, Shirley Janis: and secondly, not got time for the list when you know perfectly well what Grace: & there's nothing more tragically desperate than getting with that boy cos he doesn't know anything about you Grace: he'll find out Janis: and everyone knows everything about you Janis: rather, they could, if they were interested to ever look Janis: it's gotta be hard being 10th most interesting, even Junior had some closeted appeal Janis: 💔 Grace: okay Jan, you're so mysterious Grace: good luck working that angle for another 15 years babes Janis: good luck being a bleeding heart for that long Janis: interest in the sob story ran dry long before your eyes have ever Janis: how infuriating, I don't want it, actively try to get rid of it, and I still get more than you Janis: gutted for you, truly Grace: sure Janis: I know, sympathy ain't what you want Janis: but it's all that's on offer for you so chow down, babe Grace: 😂😂 you think you know me like that Janis: everyone does, remember Janis: you think you get it both ways Janis: take that whilst you can 'cos it's coming up for 5 years and truly, the dead sister bit is dead Janis: Kiera O' Malley's dad died so it's #overparty sweetie Grace: You're twisted Janis: no shit Janis: get them to get you a therapist, all the 👂👀 you can buy Grace: Why would I go when I can send you in with all the issues you've invented for me Grace: hmu with the highlights hun Janis: Christ, don't pretend you don't know Janis: you want that angle Janis: to be this pathetic AND unaware of it Janis: self-awareness is your only shot at some dignity at this point Grace: I know all my angles thanks Janis: it's super funny when you pretend to be a full-time bimbo Janis: not tired at all Grace: IKR 🙌 Janis: kinda sad Janis: do you ACTUALLY think they'd rather be friend with the OTT 'happy' bitch, genuinely? Like you HAVE to know all your 'friends' are waiting for is the inevitable meltdown when you fall apart so they can see what earrings they can scavenge from your carcass Janis: livetweeting how #problematic you are and finally saying how little they fucked with you, anyways, but all the best in life, nothing but love, girl 😘 Grace: Oh honey, I'm 100% not that bitch EVER Grace: can't you spy the dynamic from your moral high ground? awks Janis: oh honey, just 'cos they're keeping the runt around to fatten up, does not mean you're not next on the spit Janis: sadder than I thought Janis: you'll actually be sad when it happens, fuck me Grace: flattered to be called out as that thin tbh Janis: ha, eating disorder gang got jokes Janis: burns calories Janis: not AS much as crying though so crack on Grace: Mhm so does hooking up, so you'll have a way into the squad now hooray Janis: not the way y'all do it, pillow princess Grace: you've never seen the way I do it Grace: my tapes are yet to be leaked Janis: as if they're filming Janis: darling if you were any good, you'd get callbacks, not pied off before a camping trip Janis: but god bless with that #metoo spirit Grace: everyone's ALWAYS filming, check your socials Grace: & I dumped him so 👏 for bringing that fake news back Janis: nah, you didn't Janis: you should get dumpee tatted right under your doormat forehead tat Janis: let 'em know just how much they can get away with Janis: so hot Grace: were you there lurking or are you finally over that now? Janis: lol i'm the one with the obsessive personality Janis: now you're just being silly Janis: check your socials Janis: you've not copped that totally 'anon' post with all the tea only a REAL bestie SHOULD know? 🤔 Grace: I came here so obvs I am ridiculous yeah Janis: no shit Janis: you should be home, smacking her in the face Janis: but you've chased after a lad who was 3 fingers deep in another silly bitch at brekkie Janis: that's fun for you, yeah? Grace: 🥊 is more of a look you like to wear Grace: but sure Janis: sort it out Janis: it's not bad enough you let anyone with a dick in this town make a mug of you, you have to let her as well Grace: I didn't come here for Leon Grace: he wishes Janis: This is why I can't do this with you Janis: he doesn't and you did Janis: crying otherwise helps your case none Janis: actually do something about it if you don't like the narrative Grace: That is literally what I'm doing Grace: if I stayed home it would look like I was crying over him Janis: well right now you just look like you're stalking him Janis: maybe if you tried with the activities, like Grace: ugh that's easy for you to say Grace: it'd look really good when I tried & still can't do it Grace: Get a clue OMG Janis: I ain't saying become Bear Grylls Janis: just have a laugh, with the other girls on this trip that ain't too scared to look anything less than their knock-off idea of 'perfect' Grace: as if Grace: the other girls on this trip don't wanna be my besties Grace: 🔪 are out Janis: 🙄 Janis: yeah and that helps the lads fuck all of you over Janis: just build a fucking raft together, don't need to braid each other's pubes and make friendship bracelets on the last day Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Janis: no bitch fucks with me, I ain't getting pushed into the lake Grace: I'm not you Grace: 💔 obvs Janis: yeah, use some of that scathing attitude on the people who need to hear it Janis: why can you be a total bitch to me but you'll 😢 and hold back on every other cunt who actually wants to see you fail Grace: you're my sister Janis: don't remind us, yeah Grace: never Grace: it's bad enough we're sharing a room rn what am I 9? Janis: not my fault your bestie can't fart without breaking a bone Janis: if I could share with anyone else, obvs 💔 Grace: it's not my fault either Grace: anything she does Janis: wasn't about to say you were the instigator of the starvation army Grace: Duh Grace: not looking like this I'm not Janis: 🙄🙄🙄 Janis: her dedication to ending up in the ground with all her #thinspiration goals is not aspirational Grace: & neither is this Janis: soz, you wanna truffle shuffle louder, I didn't catch the scope of your GINORMOUS wobbling jelly rolls from here Janis: shut up Grace: you've literally said worse to me Janis: and? Grace: don't tell me to shut up Grace: so rude Janis: you know I ain't here to listen to you chat utter shite Grace: I just said, it isn't & so have you before Janis: That's your problem Janis: getting your esteem from people who hate you Janis: yourself included, naturally Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Grace: if that were true Leon wouldn't be my ex Grace: go tell him to shut up if you're so concerned Janis: if it weren't true, you wouldn't have fucked with him in the first place Janis: or include him on the list, he's a prime twat Grace: We get new boys literally never & you 💍 him when we did Janis: don't be dramatic Janis: you go for the wrong ones to begin with Janis: correction, they go for you and you don't tell 'em to fuck off Grace: Oh okay yeah I'll date the 🤓 Janis: Probably better than getting piped n pied by the fuckboys Janis: seriously, how many have you lot got in common, it's grim Grace: not if I don't understand half the words they say Grace: I've got you to make me feel stupid Grace: & the others, 10th most interesting, right? 🏆 Janis: you want to be stupid Janis: or at least be seen as, pretend you are like that makes all this shit okay somehow Janis: who am I to deny you that, bimbo? Grace: 😂😂 you don't know what I want Janis: neither do you, chuckles Janis: it's a shit show Grace: Exactly Grace: but I know what I don't want & it's 🤓 thanks Janis: like there's two choices Janis: you don't live in an american teen drama, much as you make-believe it Grace: like I'm spoilt for any Janis: stop being so judgemental Janis: not gonna do you any favours Janis: if I need to tell you that, when I go out of my way to do it, you've got a problem Grace: neither is running some kind of virgin training school Grace: but sure Janis: 🙄🙄🙄 alright Grace Janis: continue to cry about how shit your friends are, how shit the boys who fuck you are, whilst only letting the worst people into your life Grace: OMG I'm just saying everyone already thinks I'm gonna take my clothes off every time I upload Grace: I don't need predatory status against 🤓 Janis: because I'm saying fuck every nerd in school without prejudice Janis: I'm saying there's plenty of alright lads who would like you that you won't give the time of day right now Grace: bitch where?? Grace: an alright lad likes YOU not me Janis: so all boys are shit Janis: like all friends bitch behind each other's backs Janis: YOU'RE settling because you don't reckon you could do any better, that no one decent would fuck with you, admit that 'cos blaming the world ain't gonna change the world you're surrounding yourself with Grace: SO DRAMATIC Grace: I know I can't, I've been sat down here saying it literally the length of this convo Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Grace: I've said it, you have, Leon has, the boy before him has Janis: Nah, you won't try Janis: you're scared everyone's right Janis: get some fucking ambition and get out of this town or you're gonna end up like the rest of them Janis: knocked up by some prick from 'round here and that's all you've got Grace: cos this town is the problem Grace: as if Janis: death tolls high for a reason, baby Janis: Carly, Eds, they were trying to escape too fucking late and they only way they could Janis: at least they got out, everyone sensible has Janis: Ma, Rio, they're fucking stuck for life Grace: they were trying to escape people, things, whatever Grace: she was no happier anywhere else we lived Janis: we were babies, you don't remember that Janis: that's the bullshit they've fed you 'cos it's all that keeps them from doing themselves in with the guilt Grace: okay Janis: anyway, semantics, if you want it that way, girl Janis: it's this family we all want out of Grace: but we can't Janis: yeah, we can Janis: where's Billie, where's Junior, Nancy Janis: like I said, anyone with sense jumped ship there and then Grace: that's away not out, nobody gets to be out Janis: they're not coming back Janis: they're as out as she is Grace: no they're not Janis: get a clue and check out 'til we can actually go too Grace: check their socials then check hers Grace: she's the only one who died Janis: worse than dead Janis: least you can all pretend she didn't wanna go, yeah Janis: she was coming back Janis: they're actively choosing to stay the fuck away, every day, and they're right Grace: She was, Janis Grace: cope with that Janis: she's dead anyway, cope with that Janis: all the family love in the world ain't saved none of us, her included Grace: It's not me hiding behind her Janis: it's not hiding when you don't want to be found Janis: and you can babble on about what an open book you are but you're the biggest fake of them all Janis: at least da flaked all those times he couldn't hack it, at least ma's a cheat who's fucked over everyone she 'loves', at least Rio is a whore who's fucking her own family to boot Janis: they talk a big game on the happy family, but their actions say otherwise Janis: you're just, here Janis: hoping we all get it back, like it was ever good Grace: #fakeittilyoumakeit babes Grace: I'm 15 where do you want me to go? In Billie's footsteps cos LOL that modelling career is a no Janis: you miss the part where I said check out 'til it's over Janis: let it go, Grace, let everyone go, because they're gone Grace: I'm still waiting for you to tell me how Janis: It ain't hard Janis: they might not be as forthcoming giving you reasons to hate them as I am Janis: but it's not taxing to find 'em Janis: bubbling under the surface, barely Grace: I hate you but we're still having this chat Janis: it's all perfunctory Grace: like I know what that means Janis: Truer words Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 okay Janis: Night Grace: 👋 Janis: [Assault death drop] Janis: 💀 yet? Grace: about to kms Janis: 🙌 Janis: you really took our little talk to heart Grace: literally nothing to do with you but 👌 Janis: sure it is Janis: you think you're getting solo interest rn? Janis: I'll tell 'em it's gone from a sickbed to a deathbed, see if they go for it Grace: UM I don't want it thanks Grace: I can die of shame away from the 👀🍿 Janis: Bollocks 😂 Janis: it's the most fun you've had all trip Grace: You said do activities! This is so your fault Janis: See, you took multiple chats to heart, awh Janis: you're not even hurt, just your ego Grace: OMG I am not in the mood Grace: go away Janis: damn, lanky and large not fluff your pillow just right Janis: can't get the staff, babe Grace: 😱😱😱 Grace: you know what's wrong you were LITERALLY there Janis: yeah, you eat shit, the boy laughed Janis: an amusing scene but not one you need to hide in the sickbay for Grace: STOP Janis: you're so self-involved, take a look around, baby, plenty people making mugs of themselves, it's half the point Janis: Kerri-Ann gave herself the biggest wedgie on the aerial course Janis: probably picking that out still today Grace: okay that was funny Grace: but just Janis: I get it, it's not funny when it's you, yeah Janis: better to laugh it off though than be a primadonna or that'll be your camp moniker by the end of this and your ladies in waiting will have to kms too Grace: I can't now Janis: well, I'll tell you when it's safe to come out Janis: when the fat lad takes a tumble or whatever else is the laugh of the minute Grace: I picked him to be my partner so this wouldn't happen! 😠😠😠 Grace: boys are so unreliable like Janis: they're not famed for their use of words, give you that Janis: it was an accident, like Janis: no wink wink nudge nudge let's let the bitch fall was happening Janis: the teachers aren't that useless, quite Grace: thank god Grace: I'd have to kill him before myself & my wrist hurts so like no Janis: you started slicing already Janis: hit up the samaritans this ain't my scene Grace: 🙄🙄 Janis: come on, that was funny too Grace: no Janis: spoilsport Grace: You still won, get over it Janis: Obviously Janis: who else would Grace: not Leon that's for sure Grace: that girl makes me look athletic Janis: 😂 Grace: she's not even the one he's telling people he dumped me for Grace: but I'm a slag, okay Janis: ladies, ladies Janis: you're BOTH slags Grace: LOL Grace: I'm gonna get dad to pick me up Grace: give it my best 💜 por favor, venha me resgatar, pai 💜 Janis: don't be dumb Janis: you'll look like more of a baby than you already do Grace: &? Janis: you're supposed dying of shame in there Janis: it's counterproductive Janis: get up and get over it, minimal damage Grace: like you care Janis: Obviously not Janis: but you apparently do, so much Janis: so think on Grace: to what? I shouldn't even be here anyway Janis: you want the lasting impression to be the girl that showed up, threw a paddy and then ran away Grace: focus on the fact you'll have your own room babes Janis: exactly Janis: why you tryna do me any favours Grace: not about you hun Grace: embrace the concept Grace: & new boy's 😍😍💘😘 Janis: yet I win again Janis: alright Grace: it's not me v you Grace: it was me v Leon & there was a glimmer of hope in one quite fit lad but 💔 obvs Grace: not gonna get with him if he can't handle a blindfold, am I Janis: that was your master plan Janis: jesus Grace: Duh Janis: Ooh Leon, lemme prove what a slag I ain't and a total catch and fling myself at a random boy Janis: showed him Janis: lucky it didn't work if that was your idea of a point to you Grace: No, let me show you how much I don't care that you think I'm a slag & neither does anyone else Grace: that boy included Janis: he definitely cares Janis: banking on it Janis: honestly, get a clue Grace: whatever it's not about to happen Janis: good Janis: 'cos that's the stupidest thing you've said all holiday and that's saying something Grace: such a bitch Janis: such a stupid slag Janis: we've all got our cross to bear Grace: Yeah Janis: 🙄 fucking hell Janis: anyway, they've stopped talking about you and da has a job so don't be a dick Grace: like that'd stop him or you're concerned about anything he does Janis: like you are Janis: least I don't pretend to care so he'll drive me places Grace: 🙄 let it go, he's not answering Janis: probably on the phone to his actual favourite Janis: 💔 bummer Grace: Mhmm Janis: wouldn't say you're 10th on that one but definitely not 🥇 Grace: you're 10th, I'm 9th Janis: Nah, idiot Janis: the white kid was 10th, it's pretty obvious Janis: Junior's 9th 'cos he literally hated him so much from birth he had to bounce Janis: Billie is 2nd 'cos came back for her, Pablo's 3rd, Iggy's 4th, rest you lot can duke it out for 5,6,7 and I'll take 8th Grace: not now she's dead, she isn't 🙏✞💕 Grace: & Junior has to be higher up now so he can repent honey Janis: kid yourself he weren't relieved Janis: ain't no one but black grandma believe in that shit Janis: and that's just as a handy-dandy rule book for him #sparetherodspoilthechild #obviously Grace: he's kidding himself, doesn't matter what I think Janis: nah Janis: he's happy being cucked, clearly Janis: plus competition got lower once Carly pegged it Grace: 🤷 Janis: n'awh Grace: worry about yourself and getting Ollie out of the way now I'm stuck here Janis: why would I Grace: cos you're 😍💍💘 Janis: so? Janis: you can do one, idc where you are Grace: UM NO Grace: you can Janis: nah Janis: you've got no use for a bed rn Janis: piss off to your friend's room Grace: being a bitch isn't gonna help you here babes Janis: then stay Janis: see how much that helps you Grace: so twisted Janis: you're the one refusing to leave, apparently Janis: been warned Janis: 🤷 Grace: EW Janis: don't worry, maybe your fwightened lil virgin theory will finally pay off for you and you can feel better about your own sexual history at my expense Janis: 🤞 for you babes Grace: OMG stop being gross Grace: I don't wanna see what's all over my feed thank you Grace: I definitely don't need IRL access Janis: 😂 Janis: OK nan 👌👌 Janis: you've always been the definition of can dish it out but not take it Janis: poor boy(s) 💔 Grace: I've never fucked a boy in front of you Janis: there's a lot you ain't done but I've heard plenty about Janis: difference between us is I ain't all talk Janis: you'll have to fuck off then, won't you Grace: cos everything you've heard is the truth Grace: oh please Janis: I mean from YOUR mouth Janis: it's empowerment and ownership when you do it, and Rio can get it all out for everyone at the right price Janis: but nah, not me Janis: you wish I was half the virgin you reckon, then you'd have ONE thing over me, yeah? get a grip Grace: I repeat, I'm not doing it in front of your face, bitch Janis: I repeat, you try to tell EVERYONE how good you are in the sack 'cos you know there are 3 hotter sisters to choose from Grace: No I don't! Janis: it's pathetic, stop it Grace: You're being extra & if you need ME to tell you, stop it Janis: What's your edge then? Janis: go on Grace: why is everything a competition with you OMG Janis: because it is, always has been Janis: come on, this is your thing, what's your target demo, babe, who are YOU catering to? Janis: you wanna be a 2nd rate Ri forever, yeah, cool Grace: SHUT UP Janis: Exactly Grace: You want me to hate you, I do Grace: Let it go Janis: not how hate works Janis: you really got to thinking Edie might care 'cos she let up, gave it some time and space Janis: no chance Janis: you ain't gonna forget Grace: I'm not doing this with you rn Janis: nah, you ain't Janis: put your face on Grace: it's always on hun Janis: You look a state Janis: and he's coming over Janis: get over it Grace: He's not coming to see me Janis: Who is Janis: Never stopped you before Grace: freak out about him all you want Grace: directing it at me tho Grace: really Janis: why would I Janis: I know who I am, who I'm catering to Janis: I'm the effortless one Grace: sure Jan Janis: maybe you'll think of a better selling point one day Grace: maybe you'll stop being so closed off one day Janis: don't count on it, babe Janis: especially not tonight, yeah Grace: 🤞 he isn't Grace: easy to fake being a person for a few days, yeah? Janis: said as if you'd know Janis: doormat's easier to maintain, right Grace: 😂😂😂 Janis: Yep Janis: thought so Grace: You think about me too much babes Grace: it's getting lowkey weird Janis: these convos might set your world alight but remember that big word I taught you Janis: yeah, that Grace: 👌 Janis: 👋 Grace: 🙌 Janis: forgetting you got no place to be? Grace: you've got somewhere, go Janis: I've told you, I'm not leaving Janis: very injured, like Grace: 💔 Grace: tragic tbh Janis: his thoughts exactly Grace: awks if they are Janis: only for you Grace: you too that he's figured you out that quick sweetie Janis: and you're sat there wasting your whole life? Janis: we knew you weren't the brightest but bless Grace: you're really seizing the day babes, how could I compete Janis: you couldn't Janis: maybe you'll win the genetic lottery in your next life Janis: be the best dungbeetle ever Grace: how #motivational Grace: love that Janis: it's too late to be optimistic about this life Janis: but I got faith in you there Grace: ILYSM obvs Janis: ew don't even pretend Janis: put me off, obvs Grace: obvs not Janis: 😂 you're precious Janis: if I knew all it'd take to get you to shut up was telling you about my exploits, I'd have started ages ago Grace: If you had any ages ago, sure Janis: oh babe Janis: really still going with that bit Janis: can't let it go, can you Grace: can't tell the truth, can you Janis: what would you know about that Janis: #fakeittilyoumakeit right babes? Grace: I mean, obvs don't tell him unless he's into that #duh Grace: some boys get lowkey weirder than you're being about it so Janis: again, what would you know Janis: no one's buying that for you Janis: can't have it both ways 💔 Janis: or either, if you're you 💔💔 Grace: I was once thank you Grace: that's how it works Janis: NO! 😱😱 Janis: you mean you didn't come out the womb so sexually empowered, colour me #shook Janis: it's so natural, you wear it so well Grace: IKR Janis: Oh God 😂 Grace: Ew don't give me a preview of your sex chat Janis: yeah, you would imitate bad porn Janis: you know boys mute that shit, yeah? Janis: as per, too fucking loud, Gracie Grace: 😂😂😂 Janis: no one fucks with that fake shit Grace: thanks so much for your expert advice Janis: welcome, welcome Grace: obvs not Janis: all very obvs with you, obvs Grace: LOL Grace: fun chat babes Janis: as always Grace: g2g relearn all my bedroom techniques so like Janis: bit gross to do that with your pals Janis: can't say I'm surprised Janis: another porn-like trope Grace: literally so gross Janis: I said it first, darling Grace: 👏👏 Janis: have fun, ladies Grace: duh Janis: 🤢🤢🤢 Grace: 🙄🙄🙄 Janis: soz, they ain't my type, like Janis: shouldn't come as a surprise Grace: It doesn't Janis: 👍 Grace: 👌

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